A Transaction
She sits facing the door with her head bent over a notebook; dressed in all white with lipstick to match. Her straightened hair, dry with split ends, flays about her face in the hot air blowing from the rusted standing fan directed at her. She seems to be writing something but this task is so frequently interrupted with orders at someone or the other, singing and excited nodding to a radio pastor’s exhortations that it is quite certain it would be another hour before she journeys across one ruled line in her notebook. Her desk is cluttered with files. Two chairs and a bench are positioned across from her. The people who have managed to squeeze onto the seats including those who are leaning against the walls are chattering in low tones and looking on helplessly at the intense activity of gum chewing at the desk.
The radio is at full blast even though it is not visible. A man in blue overalls is manipulating the radio from behind a curtain that divides the room into a waiting/ consulting area and an examination area. We have so far travelled all the local language stations where either some politician is receiving a backlash from commentators or a man of God is delivering miracles. After hanging about the spirit world for a bit, she asks the man in blue overalls to search for BBC- much to my relief. Unfortunately we never manage to catch the BBC because Blue Overalls keeps skipping it! I want to tell him, “that’s it, that’s it” every time he gets to the station but for some reason I cannot find my voice. Without raising her head, she has so far silenced anyone who tried to attract her attention through various innovative pretentions. She carries on with all the activity afore mentioned as if oblivious to the people in the room and yet all to the benefit of her audience.
I resign myself to the wait and instead take out my note book to jot down matters of interest about the environment to keep me from losing it – my head I mean. I have been standing adjacent the bespectacled Sister for 40 minutes and I figure something must come out of all this in the end.
A few minutes after airing my note book, Sister takes a sudden interest in me. “You are writing about us?” she asks. “Off course not”! I respond with a sly smile. There’s no gain blowing my chance of getting my hands on the gun. It has been two weeks since the good doctor prescribed a procedure which required the use of what they called a biopsy gun and only the timely intervention of another whose knowledge of the dark and mysterious ways of Sister’s world has unearthed this one. Officials at Sister’s big hospital had said it was not available, even to buy. So when the call came from the insider that one was available at the same place in the same hospital, I just knew it was coming at admirable cost.
Sister reaches into a drawer under her desk and reveals a black polythene bag. For the first time, she smiles to acknowledge the good lady that brought me here, hands the polythene over to her and says, (..) Ghana Cedis. I quickly dig into my purse.The theatrics is over and the deal is done.
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