ABOUT THE SCARLET ROPE[]
By Daniel Gbemi-Akinlolu[]
Published in StoryStar 2013
One morning some officers came from the court to visit mum. I didn’t go to school that day because there was a public holiday. Mum was a nurse and she was off duty. Dad was off to the local gallery. He works as curator, earning a meager income. My younger adopted brother, Mickey, was sorting out his math assignments. He was four, I was six. I didn’t like math so I took my time watching cartoons on the screen. The men knocked on the front door to our apartment. Mum looked up from the couch and saw the men and asked them to come through the kitchen door. By then I was distracted and watched as mum rose up to meet them at the dinning room.
Mum offered them coffee but they refused. They sat down with some files and added some forms for mum to fill.
“Can you tell us exactly what the situation is?” one of the men asked. He was the tallest of the three. He had earlier introduced himself as a lawyer. Mum claimed dad was always drunk and smoked his money away in the local pub till late in the night.
“For how long?”
“Two years” mum retorted. She looked sad.
“What exactly do you want us to do?”
“I want… a divorce” mum whispered.
There was silence for some minutes. One of the men looked up and saw me standing by the gas cooker. He stared at me as if I was a kind of cross breed. Actually I was. Mum was Hispanic; dad was black, somewhere in Africa. Mickey was different. He was a full white breed because he was adopted. He was really lucky. I kind of look like the breed of stuff that cannot work even in the marriage.
“Who is that? Your kid?” he asked mum
“My first born” she replied and asked me to go back to the living room. Instead I decided to visit my old friend in the neighborhood. I took permission from mum; walked to the garage, fixed my bicycle.
Our street was a little lively. Lots of kids hanging on the street and playing games, and blasting rap music to catch others fancy at the playground. I drove through them down to Berkley Street. I was going to suite 41, Cavendish Manor Building. It was the oldest dilapidated building on Berkley Street. Though the apartments were cheap, no tenant really liked the place because the building was peeling off while some gangsters are using the place as hideout and for drugs. The government was yet to decide what to do with it. Khan lives there. He was an old friend who was a guard at the gallery were dad works. He was a middle-aged man from Asia. His name was Shongi khan.
Khan was weird. No one liked talking to him and I wasn’t sure he had any friend except me. Everyone thought he was into drugs. He was a freak but a good storyteller. He told me lots of Asian folktales and I liked them. Khan had lots of rats and cockroaches in his apartment. It was a wide-open space with just tattered couch, cobwebs and empty cans. He had no wife, no kids, no one to help him. I brought him some medicine I stole from mum’s First Aid kit because he was sick and couldn’t go to his work.
“Khan, how do you hope to survive this?” I asked. There was wrinkle all over his face.
“You are smarter than your age you know?” he replied with his eyebrow arched then smiled.
“I have seen hard life, but man must run the race of fate” he looked at me and put his hand on my shoulder. That was his sign for appreciation.
“Tell me the story of the ancient dragon that swallowed the king’s daughter”
“No…no…” khan shook his head and drank his can coke.“No story today. Come tomorrow. I have a secret for you about the Scarlet Rope. You alone!” he said and waved me off.
I told you he was weird.
I was thinking about the Scarlet Rope and what it was that khan wanted to talk about. Dad also mentioned it once as the most expensive painting in the gallery. When I got home, it was almost dark, there was a fight. The usual fight between dad and mum. Mum was screaming off her head and throwing all sort at dad. Mum broke lots of ceramic plates in the kitchen and Mickey, out of fear, was sobbing and whimpering like a dog. All I did was to stand by the gas cooker and stare at the two yelling at each other as they walked about the living room and back to the dining room; explaining to one another why they needed a divorce. And dad warned us to keep dangerous things away from mum because she could be tempted to use them. I didn’t know why they always fought but mum breaks lots of framed pictures, especially the wedding picture that was framed and hung on the Sony television. I always look at it; Dad and mum in wedding gown, smiling at each other. In that picture dad carried mum in his two hands acting as if he would kiss her on the lips.
Mum demanded a huge payment for compensation or she would divorce dad and keep his immigration documents with her lawyer and dad would be deported to Africa. Dad was afraid, he begged mum for a long time that he wouldn’t want to go back to Africa and couldn’t afford that amount. Mum insisted.
Dad said,“Compensation? Compensation for what?”
“Compensation for domestic violence, assault and child abuse!”
“Do you want me to steal?”
“That’s your business… I don’t care! Just get it!” mum screamed, marched to the bedroom and slammed the door loudly, leaving dad on his knees. Dad watched helplessly and heaved. There was silence. Dad glanced at me,
“What are you looking at!” he yelled. I was scared; I shook my head and quickly asked Mickey to come along to our bedroom.
Three day’s later, we were having breakfast. Dad and mum seemed to have settled their dispute I didn’t know if dad paid any compensation but dad was going through the day’s paper. Mickey was making a mess of his meal but mum cautioned him that it wasn’t good to waste food. I saw khan’s picture on the news headline and I asked why they put his picture there
“He is a wanted man. The police are looking for him.”
“Why? What for?” I asked curiously, I didn’t want dad to know that he was my friend and that I ‘ve being to his place many times.
“Khan is a suspect. He stole the most expensive painting in the gallery”
“The Scarlet Rope?” mum asked and dad nodded.
I was confused. How could khan steal the Scarlet Rope? That wasn’t the secret he told me about the Scarlet Rope. Khan told me he caught dad making a special arrangement with some strangers, could dad have stolen to pay the compensation and lied at Khan? Dad looked at me,
“Are you okay?”
I nodded. Dad knew I was fidgeting.
“Are you sure?” dad asked again. I still nodded.
“There is big price for anyone who finds khan. I bet I will win the bounty.”
“But khan is a good man!” I defended him.
“Khan isn’t a good man. A good man doesn’t steal expensive things. So eat your food and go to school. It is getting late” mum finalized.
I left the table more confused and left for school. On my way I decided to go Beckley Street and see khan first. His apartment was empty. No one was there. I thought the police had come to take him away but there was a strange smell. A very terrible one that I had to cover my nose.
“Khan!” I called, it was only an echo around the empty dusty room. In a corner I saw khan. I was shocked. He was hanging from the roof with a scarlet rope around his neck and his eyes bulging out and rotten, his legs dangled emptily in the mid air. I fell backward and vomited. My body was shaking. I had to run away. I was really scared and sick so that my class teacher called mum on the phone to tell her that I was sick. So mum had to take me back home with her car.I sat alone at the back while she drove,
“Mum?”
“Hmmm?”
“Did dad pay the compensation?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“How did he get the money?”
“That’s not your business!” mum yelled and drove on in silence. I could understand everything. I think khan hung himself to save dad’s marriage. I really miss him. Such a good dear friend.