DOLLARS FROM LIBERIA (3)

 

With his new friend, the tout, Tom had torn open a side of the leather suitcase and found the jewels and money. They took out the first five thousand dollars for the bus terminal tout to go exchange and know what it would amount to in naira. The tout did change the dollars and brought back eighty thousand naira which Tom split equally between them. He took another five thousand dollars and gave to the tout to go exchange – it was safe they exchanged the money in bits. While waiting for the tout to return, Tom bought himself new clothes and shoes and was running around with the village girls. The percipient stepfather noticing Tom’s sudden transformation, looked into the synthetic bag, saw the strange-looking bills but seeing what was happening, decided to pilfer some, remembering a popular saying of his people: ‘When God helps you; help yourself.’ When the police came, the alert stepfather stole out of the house and it was he who saw the tout coming around at the same moment the police were around and tipped him off that the area wasn’t safe. The tout zoomed away and never returned.

When the police case file closed, Tom’s master went away with the suitcase – the money in circulation now in the village was the dollar bills Tom’s stepfather secretly took from the bag. An unlettered man, he had approached some younger literate extended family members, gave them the dollars to exchange and then they would tell him the worth in naira and use the money as loans. A few became greedy. Of course, amongst the people is the wisecrack: ‘When a thief steals from a thief, God only laughs.’

The extended family members connived and deceived the elderly man that soon the Central Bank would change the present form of the money in his possession. If the money with him was not changed within a month, the entire cash would become useless. Tom’s stepfather had rushed into his backyard and dug up the entire dollars remaining from the spot he buried them in a well-sealed plastic container. The dollars were exchanged but the relations said they bought a ‘Belgium’ bus (that is, a second-hand bus) with the money but left it with another relation in Port Harcourt to ply the roads and the proceeds Tom’s stepfather would receive at the end of every month.

In the exercise book Tom was waving were the names and the amount of money each individual received while the young man who brought the wealth was without a dime. An emissary was sent for the recipients of the ill-gotten cash to return a bit of what they owed for the poor fellow to use in helping himself too. But all pleas fell on deaf ears. Tom later left his mother’s place in anger.

All these happened in 1996 when long-distance communication was done using snail mail and telephone, as a federal minister once said, wasn’t for the poor. In 2016, Mma Tom asked her youngest son to dial a number she had just collected from a relative who visited her. When a voice answered at the other end, she took the phone while sitting on the dilapidated floor of her veranda and spoke, with a voice wearied with grief than age, into it: ‘Bro Ukut, I’m your sister, Eka Tom, speaking to you …’ she halted, listening, as the brother said something at the other end.

‘It’s been quite long,’ Bro Ukut responded. ‘How is your family?’ the speaker of the handset echoed.

‘Hmm, my brother, my family is in God’s hands. Since the last time we met, when you came with my son’s master and the police, we have been hit with one problem after the other. It is a long story, Bro Ukut!’

‘Long story how? What are the problems? I thought everything was settled before we left,’ Bro Ukut said.

‘It is not a talk with a phone. It is a conversation I should carry sitting beside you. But first, I must apologize for the embarrassment Tom caused you …’

‘It is okay,’ Bro Ukut interrupted. ‘How is he faring?’

‘For years now, we haven’t seen or heard from him. He left home in anger and since then, nobody knows where he is,’ Mma Tom said.

‘What got him angry?’ Bro Ukut asked.

‘Hmm, like I said, it’s a long story. Bro Ukut, I’d been hit with a string of tragedies. Tom brought a jinxed suitcase into our home!’

Long seconds of silence reigned, then Bro Ukut spoke: ‘What are you saying, Mma Tom?’

‘It’s only you’d stopped coming to us since after the incident whenever you visited home and I don’t know if our relatives had not told you anything. It’s the reason I said let me call you and say we’re sorry for what Tom did and we also. Please, forgive us.’

‘My sister, Tom did that nonsense because of youthful exuberance. I did forget and forgive since his master got back what he wanted. If I had not forgiven you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Now, what exactly had happened?’

‘So many things, my brother, so many things. Did you hear I lost my husband?’

‘When was that?’ Bro Ukut said. ‘No one told me – I never heard.’

‘Then, when you visited our village, our relations had been hiding things from you. I lost my husband shortly after the police with Tom’s master visited us. He became ill for a long time and then died. Everyone he gave the money …’

‘Which money?’ Bro Ukut asked, surprised. ‘I thought Tom’s master with the police recovered everything.’

‘The police took what they saw. Even I didn’t know my husband had taken something from that suitcase. It was when we returned from police custody I realized while the suitcase was in the house, he was taking money from it. That money he later loaned out to his relations and everyone who took that money is either sick or dead!’

‘Abasi mbok!’ Bro Ukut exclaimed, begging God in their mother tongue.

‘I wanted to know, my brother, if you’re still seeing Tom’s master – how is his health?’

‘I lost contact with them shortly after as I left the area we stayed then.’

‘I was wondering how we could contact him to know if the problem is from him and to seek a solution or if the problem,’ Mma Tom was now sobbing, ‘is from where he got the suitcase … I don’t know how to put it: I lost my husband, I haven’t seen Tom for years and my daughters, the two eldest … are very sick …’

Bro Ukut could only hear a garbled utterance and his thoughts became confused. What exactly was his sister driving at?

‘Hello,’ Bro Ukut spoke into the handset.

‘Bro Ukut, I’m doomed – my son brought home a cursed suitcase. Everyone who took the money is either very sick or dead!’

The phone at the other end went dead.

~*~*~*~

(READ 'DOLLARS FROM LIBERIA {1}')

(READ 'DOLLARS FROM LIBERIA {2}')

POSTSCRIPT: THIS STORY IS TAKEN FROM MY COLLECTION, 'GAMBLERS MAKE BETTER LOVERS'.