MARIA'S CRY

We drove toward Ketu, took the bridge and turned toward Apapa expressway. We drove in silence, everyone, I was sure, was thinking about what we were about to do. The road was half empty by this time and Tolu stepped on the gas pedal and the car blasted toward Maryland. We took a left turn from the expressway and went over the Oshodi Bridge and zoomed toward the airport. 

We reached Murtala Mohammed International Airport gates by 12:04 noon. Eric paid the toll and we drove in. We drove into the parking space and cruised around the lines of parked cars until we found a space at the extreme end of the park and Tolu brought the car to rest between the two white lines drawn on the floor. We sat for another minute in silence, hearing the humming and shrill of plane engines and the intermittent muffled loudspeaker sounds associated with airports. 

Maria rummaged through the big bag on her lap and brought out a powder case, opened it and dapped at the surface with the brown handkerchief in her hand. She began to pad her nose and her cheeks, singing in a low tune. I looked at her in admiration, wondering how she could think about the care of her face considering the weight of the situation we were getting ourselves into. 

'This is it, gentlemen,' Eric said, turning from the front to look at Maria and I seating at the back. Maria stopped humming. 'This is the step we take to change our future,' Eric went on. 'Once we pull this off, we won't have to do it again. There wouldn't be a need to.' He paused and his eyes went round our faces. 'It's a risk, I know, but this risk has been forced upon us and we have to take it. We have to take it because it's better than the risk of waking up every morning and not knowing where to go to or what to do.' 

He looked at Maria and me. 'None of us should feel any guilt or remorse for what we are about to do. We went to school, got the necessary certificates, and did everything we were told to do to become good citizens. We have done all that and yet we are forced to remain at the bottom of the society.' He paused again and again his eyes went round our faces. 'We are dead men walking, aimless, useless and without purpose to—

'And women,' Maria said.

Eric paused and his face brewed a storm. 'What?'

Maria rolled her eyes. 'I said, "And women," because you said "we are dead men walking. So, I said "and women". It's not only the men that are without jobs.'

Eric looked at her with the eyes of a teacher who was interrupted by the naughtiest pupil in the class.

'Leaders should create jobs for their citizenry,' he went on. 'Growing the economy and providing jobs for the citizenry is one of their main responsibilities. Their failure to do that has brought us to the bottom of the society—to the level of kidnapping a foreigner.' He paused and looked into our faces again, going from one to the next, his face intent as if he was reading our minds. 'So, this should be on their conscience, not on ours. They failed to provide jobs for us, and we have to find a way to survive because we are animals of survival. That's why we are doing this—because we have to survive.'

I felt a stir in my heart and my inside turned warm like the inside of a man who just finished a cup of cocoa. If Eric had given me a gun to shoot off one of my toes at that moment, I believe I would have done so. 

'Let's do this,' Tolu said. 'I don't care what happens. We are taking our destiny into our hands. Let's do it.'

My eyes settled on Maria. She was looking into the mirror held away from her face with her left hand while her right hand drew a red line across her upper lip. She smacked the lips together, spreading the red cream on the lower lip. She looked content and happy, like a wife who had killed and buried an abusive husband. 

She smacked her lips together again. 'What time is the flight coming?'

'Four P.M,' Tolu said and checked his wrist. 'Three hours from now.'

'What flight?' she inquired. 

'British Airways,' Tolu said.

'Oh, B.A,' she said. 'That's a good sign. The guy must have money to spend. That's a good sign.'

Eric turned and looked at her. She ignored him by placing the mirror between them, blocking his face away. Eric looked at her for a couple of seconds before he returned his eyes to the front of the car.

A plane landed with a roar at that moment and Maria packed her makeup kits and returned them into the bag.

'What are we eating?' Maria asked. 'I am hungry.'

The three of us looked at her. 

'What?' she said. 'I am starving. There is nothing wrong in sharing my mind.'

'Keep your damned mind to yourself,' Eric snarled. 'That's why I said you should stay back. You haven't done a thing to earn your worth in this gang and you are already hungry. God, I wish you were far from here.'

'I am hungry,' she yelped. 'I didn't eat much this morning. Let's eat now; who knows when we will eat again?'

Eric did not grace her statement with another reply. We sat in the hot car, waiting for the plane that must be preparing to leave London in about two hours' time or so. It will convey the target into our hands and the target will help bring us out of penury and pain, out of despair and hopelessness. 

'I am hungry,' Maria cried again, and in spite of myself, I knew we had to do something, or she will keep telling us the state of her stomach until we run out of our minds.