Mr. and Mrs. Doctor Read online

  “Eh?” Gladys turned a startled gaze in Job’s direction that sank into deeper and deeper levels of disgust.

  “Yes, Job,” Emeka said. He spoke evenly, like Brokaw reporting the news. “Tell my wife about how you took the whore behind a car.”

  It was as if Gladys was staring into a pot of urine and feces. Job withered under her glare. He could not call Emeka a liar in front of his own wife, yet he had no words for himself. What could he say in his defense?

  “Gladys,” Job said, “abeg, don’t listen to your husband’s foolish jokes.”

  Emeka chuckled and nuzzled into Gladys’s chin, gracing her with a kiss. “Don’t mind him, my dear. It is because he is alone. One day, my friend, you will find a jewel like this one. One day. And then you will not waste your time with whores.”

  Imbecile. Only in America could a man like Emeka rise to something. In Nigeria, he was nothing more than a pauper’s son, unlike Job. Most of all, he hated the imaginary American woman, the tall-legged model, and the red-haired Cheryl, with her small boy’s face.

  Nineteen years later, it was the fall of 2001, the year the United States was attacked. Just days before Ifi was to arrive in America, it was the small boy’s face, the mouth full of teeth, and the red hair that Job remembered when he heard the voice on the other end of the phone. He went cold and set down the paintbrush in his hand.

  “Job, it’s Cheryl,” she said. And then, as if it was an afterthought, she added, “your wife.”

  Remembering the paint on his hands, Job stopped the fingers that ran through his hair. It was under his fingernails and even on his bare feet, this eggshell white that the fools at the hardware store had lied about to him and said was as white as the notebook paper he had brought in for them to sample for the walls of his apartment.

  “You are not my wife. You are a liar,” Job said. His voice choked with emotion. The marriage was done with, he told himself. He had been a citizen for nearly nineteen years. There was nothing more to say about it now.

  “Don’t hang up. Please, Job,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was a stupid kid. And well, it was Luther. It wasn’t even my idea. The whole idea was Luther’s. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it, but he made me. I’m an honest woman. I keep to myself and go to work and file my taxes. That’s what I do. And I bet you don’t even pay taxes. But me, I always pay mine. And I never cheat or lie on them like most people.” Her voice was liquid with tears and snot.

  “I am hanging up the phone now,” Job said.

  “Wait! You can’t hang up,” she said. “Please. There’s something you gotta know.”

  Job waited.

  “After we got married, I needed more money. You didn’t give me enough for the house.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t be mad at me,” she said. As if they were old friends. As if this was just a small disagreement. “There’re some things I applied for using your name and mine.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Anyway, we were married. It’s totally legal. I didn’t break any laws.”

  “That’s fraud,” Job said, heat rising to his face. “Won-der-ful. I have met Satan.”

  “No, no, no!” Her voice rose like a siren. “I never stole any of it from you. I paid it all. You probably got better credit because of me.”

  “Tell me, what is this?” His volume met hers.

  “I couldn’t open a line all by myself after Danny—my ex, the first one. That’s it. Anyway, Luther, that bastard, he says he’ll turn me in to the police, knowing full well it was his idea to use your name. Job, you can thank me,” she said. “You have good credit because of me. I paid the bills every month. I did what I had to do to pay them.”

  “Luther.”

  “Your brother-in-law. My bastard brother.” She gulped, and the wail started again. “He says we should take the loss and sell the house. He calls it dead weight. But I won’t, Job. I can’t. My daddy built this house for my mother. He had nothing, put everything in it. And me too. I don’t have a single good thing. All I got is the house. I got nothing, and the house has everything. And Luther never did anything to help, even though he’s getting those disability checks.”

  “What do you want?” Job asked. “Again, you ask for money.”

  “No, no money. I wouldn’t ask for a dime, I promise.”

  “You want a cigarette lighter?” The laugh began deep in Job’s chest and spilled out sideways.

  Cheryl joined in his laughter, an uncertain, nonsensical laugh that built in pitch. “No, no, of course not,” she said. “I’m just a little behind right now, you know? I been paying the bills real good all this time. I work in a florist shop. I wait tables. I do landscaping. I walk dogs. I wash dishes. I do it all to make those payments. Only now . . .”

  “You are asking for money. Like last time.”

  “This time is different. I’ll pay you back. It’s a loan.”

  “No,” he said. How simple.

  “It’s not like that, Job,” she said. Her voice floundered between mean and desperate. She hadn’t decided. “We’re together. We’re in this together, whether you like it or not. We were married. I’m within my legal rights.”

  Together. The first time she said the word, it sounded foreign to Job. Imagine, the ugly, redheaded American with a small boy’s face. The second time, it filled him with rage. Thinking of Ifi, thinking of her smile on the night of their arranged honeymoon as he danced for her, he said, “Cheryl, there is no together.” The dissolution of marriage papers had been signed years before, submitted to the county clerk with no contestation from her. In fact, she hadn’t even bothered to show up to the hearing. On the line labeled Reason, he had written Irreconcilable differences. What an understatement. She was ugly, crude, a liar, way-o.

  Now he was a citizen. An American. He had no need to even hear her voice. He would return to painting this room for his wife, his real wife. “There is Job. There is Cheryl,” he said calmly. “No together business. I will help this Luther send you to jail. And you will never call this number again.” He left room for one final word before he pounded the phone into the receiver. “Thief.”

  CHAPTER 3

  AT THE AIRPORT, IFI WAS SUDDENLY AFRAID. WITHOUT THE YELLOW DRESS and lopsided bra, Job was unfamiliar to her. He wore a white lab coat over a flat black suit. Protruding from his right pocket was a stethoscope.

  They did the dance: their eyes met, separated, reconnected, and separated a final time before Job collected her bags. “Kedu?” he asked.

  “Ọ dị mma.” Fine, Ifi said.

  “Welcome.”

  She gazed curiously at his stethoscope. “You have just come from hospital.”

  “Yes,” and he added importantly, “a patient, a most troubling one. This man’s dementia has left him nearly crippled. He needs extra care. Many nights, I’ll be away.” He paused and continued carefully. “He was an important man once. All the nurses—my nurses—call him Captain.”

  Ifi nodded. “Captain. He is important. Will I meet him?”

  “No.” And suddenly, he laughed. “Of course not. No need to worry yourself over patients. This is my business.” He paused, and she felt him drawing his eyes over her coat. “You are wearing it. Good. You will need it this winter.”

  Carrying the fur coat from Port Harcourt, to Lagos, to London, to Minneapolis, and finally to Omaha, Nebraska, had been a struggle. It was much heavier than she had expected. But each time Ifi removed the coat—to slide it through conveyor belts for each security screening—she reminded herself that she was a big woman now, a doctor’s wife, Mrs. Doctor, no longer the skinny housegirl in Aunty’s home. So she held her head up high. Even when a customs agent asked if she was on her way to Russia. A joke. Ifi had laughed with the poor woman and turned up her nose. Somewhere better, she thought to herself. “America,” she had said.

  “How is everyone?” Job asked.

  “Ọ dị mma,” she said.

  “Speak in Eng
lish. The ones who do well in America learn to adapt.” Ifi nodded and he suddenly clapped, a broad grin filling his face. “Now then, Florence and Jenny, they have taken care of you?”

  “Yes,” Ifi said carefully, smoothing her face into a smile. Florence and Jenny had taken care of her, if it could be called that. After the honeymoon, Ifi had been summoned to stay with Job’s family, at least until the immigration papers were processed. Ifi had known no brothers or sisters while growing up, though she had tended to her young cousins since she had been sent to live with her aunt, so the thought of her in-laws becoming her sisters had filled her with joy—until she arrived. Florence and Jenny had regarded her with impassive politeness, nothing more. When Ifi entered a room, their laughter stilled, and they took on cold airs. Once she even tried to help the housegirls prepare a meal, and the next day, when she returned, they barred her from entering the kitchen, shakily insisting that the sisters didn’t approve.

  Still, gazing into Job’s expectant face, Ifi took a deep breath and reminded herself that perhaps his sisters had meant well. She was not lying when she replied, “They watched me very carefully.”

  “Good.” He beamed. “Have you eaten?”

  “No.”

  “Come now. We’ll drop your baggage at the house, and then we will meet other Nigerians at a restaurant. Emeka and Gladys. You’ll like them.” He paused for a moment, as if choosing his words with care. “You will like Gladys immediately. She is a classical lady. But Emeka, you must become acquainted with him before you can understand his foolish humor.”

  A pale-blue skyline rimmed with ash gray guided the Audi along the interstate. Job drove in silence until they reached a junction and turned off onto a two-lane road. Zonta, the town that would be Ifi’s new home, was twenty or thirty miles south of the Red Cloud reservation, and south of Zonta was Omaha, where Job said he went to medical school. They would meet Gladys and Emeka in Omaha for dinner. This was also where Job commuted to for work each night. Zonta, Nebraska, was a town whose name meant “trusted flat waters.” The Indians had named it that. Job told her this as they sped over concrete roads surrounded by flats ankle deep in snow. One year, he said, in the middle of winter, there were several hot days, and it all melted. “River drained into street,” Job said, thrusting one finger along the skyline. He had finally understood what the name meant.

  All the way to town they passed trees, skinny, brown, and gnarled like old hands. Snow wetted the fingers. Overnight, there would be such a freeze that from a distance the trees would look silver. Later, this was the feature that pleased Ifi most when she stared out the window at night while Job was away at the hospital.

  Dusk melted into a chalk white that floated and exploded into the sky. Job clicked the wipers, and they flipped back and forth at a frenetic pace, splitting the flakes. In defiance, they grew fatter and rimmed the windshield with dust that scattered on the wind.

  “Snow,” Ifi said as it slowly dawned on her. She had only read of it in books. This was snow, flaking on the car, the same as the blanket laid on the grass. This is America, she said to herself. She would scoop it into an envelope and mail it to Aunty. No, she would not do that. She laughed. Instead, she would take a picture for her little cousins. Without thinking, Ifi reached for the door handle.

  Job swerved the car. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

  Save for a pickup truck that had passed many miles before, there was no one else on the road. “Let’s stop. I would like to touch it.”

  He gave her a strange look. “We cannot be late to dinner.”

  “Darling,” Ifi said, settling on the word she had heard Aunty and Uncle use in the middle of quarrels.

  “Okie, okie,” he said. “We will stop. We are not far from home.”

  They pulled off the road and parked in a clearing surrounded by twisted metal piping for a fence. Clapboard sheds were spread across the fields. These were the county fairgrounds, where twice a year, during the fair and on Independence Day, everything was lit up. Farther still was just the outline of a string of corrugated-iron warehouses.

  Ifi opened her palms and let snow fall into them. She scooped it into her hands, pressed them together. She placed it in her mouth and tasted. It was cold and wet, like rain. That was all. She felt foolish.

  At first he sat in the car, wiping away the fog on the inside of the windshield. Then he came out, his back against the car, as she rose from the snow. She looked to him like he imagined himself at nineteen, walking the curious, ginger walk of feet unfamiliar with snow. She shivered. When her eyes met his, he said softly, “I did that as well.”

  Snow was in her hands. It melted and ran along her palms and evaporated into the white at her feet. Again she looked at him, and it suddenly occurred to her. “I can do anything here,” she said, her eyes large and bright. When he looked at her again with a queer expression, she elaborated. “I can be anything. Like you,” she said. “I can be a doctor in America if I like.”

  Job watched her face. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “You can be a nurse. I am the doctor.”

  She thought it over. “Yes. And we will build a hospital here and in Nigeria. Together.” An infection took her mother, even though it supposedly had a simple cure. It didn’t even cost a lot of money. Her father had had the money, but she died anyway. All they’d needed was a clinic, a good one, equipped with the right medicines and a real doctor. Her mother would have survived. Ifi was sure of it. After a moment, Ifi added, “Jesus brings people together for good reason. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes,” he said absently, a nod.

  “That’s why I am here with you. Is that not it?”

  Job said nothing.

  She looked away. “My mother could have lived, if she had been in a real hospital. And if she had lived, my father would surely live.”

  “Allow me time,” he said. “You will be trained as a nurse, and we will build a clinic in Nigeria. I promise.”

  She believed him.

  And he believed himself. It was all very simple. The tuition money was there in the savings bond, two thousand for every semester his father sent him money. Job hadn’t touched a cent. He would reapply, take the proper classes, and go back to school—all this without her knowing. Even at his age, he could do it. Americans did it all the time.

  He pointed out the warehouses in the distance. “The house is on the other side,” he said. They lived on the fringes of a town where industry came and went. What were left were the meatpackers, and with them came the Somalis, the Mexicans, the Ethiopians, and everyone else. They couldn’t even wear proper clothes. They couldn’t even wash off the smell. It was a job for those with nothing, not even shame, he explained. “Can you smell it?” he asked.

  Ifi sniffed deeply and was startled by the taste of meat in the back of her throat.

  “In summer,” he said as they walked to the car, “the scent will be raw and angry.” At noon, the workers would trudge home bloody with flesh and lard up their arms where the gloves pulled away from their elbows. “You will get used to it,” he said. “What you will not get used to are the young men.” They camped out on the fairgrounds and drank in shifts. They bayed at the moon like wild dogs. They stank of blood and guts, and they were hungry for trouble. “You must avoid them. They are useless men,” Job added. As if to prove his point, he thrust a finger at the twisted metal fence surrounding the fairgrounds, where a row of broken beer bottles and squished cans rested along it.

  Huber Lane was a cavalcade of faded brick apartments alongside fall-apart houses, their faces a study in patchwork—shattered windows patched over with tape, peeling siding, missing tiles on the roof, and cracked concrete for steps. Of the houses, most of the porches were empty, except for one, populated only by a mossy living room couch. Job stopped before this one.

  This was the fourth of the residences Job had occupied since his arrival in the United States at nineteen years of age. Before this, a basement apartment with a separate entra
nce. At every month’s end, the old man had cornered Job to make sure he paid the rent on time: We’re all living under the foot of the Man, right, man? He’d also lived in a closet of a room in a dormitory-style men’s residence hall, complete with communal showers. It was a place where walls were so thin that he was troubled by the most intimate of sounds: tears, passionless sex, and yes, farts. One of his homes had been on the topmost floor of a building scarred by the scents of mingled garlic, curry, and stockfish, regarded with collective disgust by guests of this nation, international students like himself, unlucky in their ability to smell American.

  All of these places had been available to Job then. When he found the advertisements tacked to bulletin boards in campus buildings or in the American Classifieds, he needed only to tell them that he was a medical student who commuted to UNMC three times per week for his studies. The thin voice on the other end of the telephone would dismiss the accent. He needed only to arrive for the interview in scrubs, and the eyes would forgive the dark skin. But that was long ago.

  He took Ifi’s two bags from the trunk. Snow so high it reached her ankles filled Ifi’s sandals with dampness. Neighbors did not welcome Ifi as she had expected. When she stopped to look over her new home, Job, with her bags in each hand, nudged her forward.

  Only the light that filtered through the cracked door windows led the way. Spirals of dust flaked down and around. On Job, the potbelly, Ifi discovered, was merely a disguise. After three flights of narrow stairs, Ifi was winded while Job fumbled through his pockets for the keys.

  The phone was ringing as they entered. Almost immediately he dumped her bags on the floor and disappeared into a bedroom, leaving Ifi undisturbed in her assessment of her new home.

  “Hello?” she could hear him asking. “Who is this?”

  Well, it was not exactly The Cosby Show. One small room with a kitchen to one side and a doorway leading to the bathroom. One more door could lead to a closet or a bedroom; from the size of the room, one could not be sure. Warped laminate floors creaked underfoot. Grayish walls were riddled with holes and splatters of paint. From the scent alone, it was obvious that someone—perhaps Job—had attempted to paint the room before Ifi’s arrival. Along the walls was a line of overfilled boxes of newspapers, a bicycle even. A couple of plants hung from the center of the ceiling.