Seeds of Plenty
Jennifer Juo
Prologue
On the night Sylvia went to the hospital, the baobab blossoms were in full bloom. These flowers that open at dusk and die by dawn were said to be spirits.
Sylvia followed the Nigerian policeman through the crowded hospital. The hallway was a living obstacle course, and she had to concentrate on every step. Patients paced up and down, their rubber slippers slapping the tile impatiently. Bare-shouldered women in batik wrappers lay sleeping on the terrazzo tile floor. A gloveless man shoved used bandages and syringes into loose, plastic bags. She knew they would end up in the mound of burning garbage and ash that lined the road. A hospital in this state, how could her husband survive? She tried to focus on the dueling paint on the walls, light green above and forest below, but the color could not hide the dark stains.
Sylvia stumbled as she entered Winston’s room. He lay on a bed, connected to an IV, a plastic respirator covering his face. His body seemed so small, deceptively calm, no sign of the chaotic struggle occurring within. The only clue was the IV piercing his skin. Seeing the needle, she panicked. Sylvia scanned the room in vain, searching for discarded packaging, any evidence of a sterile needle. Her eyes stopped at Winston’s things in the corner—his worn leather satchel, vials containing soil in various shades of ochre and brown, his clothes lying in a rust-stained heap on the floor. She felt her legs turn soft, and she sat down, breathing heavily.
She should have been prepared. She had been warned. The juju man with yellowed eyes had told her this would happen. Years ago, he had stood under the dying baobab tree in the center of the Ibadan market and shouted to her— I go give him spell,I go kill him. Why Winston, she had wondered then and still wondered now? Why when her husband was helping his people?
The Nigerian doctor came into the room and sat down next to her, as if sitting would somehow soften the blow.
“Mrs. Soong,” he said quietly. “Your husband was shot in the chest.”
“Shot?” Her voice faltered.
“The bullet punctured his lung, and I performed emergency surgery.” He let a little time pass to be sure she understood.
“Was the needle sterile?” Sylvia asked in a small voice, even though she knew it was insignificant now. There were the operating instruments to worry about as well.
The doctor ignored her question. “He’s lost a lot of blood and we’ve run out of Type O. I need you to go back to your compound and round up some donors. Can you do this?”
There wasn’t enough blood, she thought, when so much of his blood was everywhere. She tried not to look at his blood-stained clothes in the corner of the room.
“Can you do this?” the doctor repeated.
“Yes, doctor,” she said. “Yes.”
“Go then. There isn’t much time.”
Sylvia ran outside into the dark, tropical night. She wanted more than anything to save her husband’s life. She wanted to make amends, to right the wrong she had done to him, to be a good woman, at least in her own eyes.
SYLVIA
Chapter 1
1973
Many years ago, Sylvia had given birth at this same hospital. The labor had not been easy, and during the seventeenth hour, the spirit children tried to take her baby. They wrapped the umbilical cord around her daughter’s neck. But the American missionary doctor realized this, and she cut Sylvia open to save her. A Yoruba nurse swaddled the baby in white cloth—to protect her from the spirits. But white was the Chinese color of funerals, and when Sylvia saw this, she ripped the cloth off. The baby screamed, flailing her arms and legs. This was the first time they tried to take her child, but it would not be the last.
