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Chapter 4: Chapter 4

Six weeks after the Homecoming dance at Osborne Hall and the aftermaths, fate brought the girls together once again at Rita’s apartment. This time around, it was not a matter of funfair or razzmatazz, rather a matter of life and death. Two days ago, Rita placed a distressed call to her father complaining of tiredness, nausea and shortness of breath, but could not complete the call before the phone dropped dead. She collapsed and finally woke up at the Emergency Unit of Montreux General Hospital, where she was admitted. She was only discharged last night and had been staying indoors convalescing since. The other girls: Warly-Warly, Bridgette and Allison had converged at her apartment to wish her well.

Bridgette carried a glassful of water on a tray and offered it to Rita. She picked the glassful of water and removed one tablet Folic Acid plus two tablets of Acetaminophen to drink. Afterwards she dropped her head onto the pillow and stretched her legs to help alleviate the muscle pains and headaches she is experiencing. With these drugs, all the girls knew what was wrong with Rita. They were matured enough to understand developments. She did not need to narrate any long story to them. It was only a stranger in Dodowa Forest, who will dare to ask whether there were snakes there. Everybody knew that Dodowa Forest is full of snakes bitten themselves; killing themselves and only the strongest survived in that densely eco-diverse environment.

Yet Bridgette wanted to make fun of her as she carried the tray away. “But Rita, what happened?” Faintly, Rita replied that she was taken by events. She even changed the dialect to Latin to defend herself. “Se grapha de grapha! What is written is written! After all I did not know what happened on that fateful Homecoming night.” Warly quickly joined the conversation. “That is the more reason why, you should have taken precautions after we realised the incident: Precautions like Emergency Contraceptive Pills and even taken HIV test to be double sure of any complications was our surest bet.” “Did you do all these, Warly,” Allison snapped in, trying to know more. “Yes,” replied Warly. “That very Sunday afternoon after I left the basement, I took Plan-B; Levonorgestrel tablets.” Allison turned one hundred and eighty degrees to look at Warly and said, “Smart girl. Warly, you acted smartly. In fact, I did the same.” The last statement did not sound well with Bridgette. “Allison, are you suggesting that those of us who did not take Morning-After Pills or went for an HIV test are not smart?” “Not really, Bridgette, my dear. What l am saying is that it was the smartest way to stay healthy after one hell of adventure.” Bridgette continued. “As for me, when I missed my flow at the end of last month, I quickly visited the hospital and had it flushed out. How would l have explained myself to Steve, whom I have not seen for the past six months? Nothing would have convinced that long nosed bloke to accept responsibility.” All along Rita had been listening to her friends quietly. She slowly and faintly said. “It is good for you all, girls. If you have not tasted another person’s soup, you will be tempted to say that your mother’s soup is the best in the whole wild world. I took Plan-B five days after the ill-fated encounter and yet I missed my period. I tried other means, but the stubborn fetus will not go away. What do I do then?”

Yes, you could not do anything about a pregnancy that was determined to stay. However, if the worse came, she would have to forgo one: education or obstetric. She could not forgo the pregnancy due to the complications, but for the course she was offering at the University, she could defer and that was exactly what she would have to do, if confronted with such dilemma.

Forty weeks hence, Rita would have to endure the pregnancy alongside with her studies. This was a very hazardous journey, but as a woman she has to drink this cup. In the community she came from, people cared less about others private matters. Giving birth was not a do or die affair. Everyone knew that life styles, coupled with monthly menstruation were some of the causes of losing female eggs; and if a woman was not lucky, she could lose all her potentially fertilised eggs which will inure to her barrenness going forward. Nonetheless, this has happened already and she stood at the crossroad of life and death. For obvious reasons, aborting the fetus was not part of the plan. Quitting school was also not necessary, since she was about to graduate.

For now, she had gone through the first phase with the absence of her menstrual period. In fact, Rita's general body physiology has started undergoing changes: enlarging breasts, swelling of cheeks, tiredness, nausea, mood swings, vomiting and collapsing, which landed her at the hospital. At least, by the grace of God, she has scaled through these symptoms with nonchalant ease. What she was worrying about was the next thirteen to twenty-eight weeks where these first symptoms would began to go away and other noticeable changes to the body begun to show up: expanded abdomen, the movements of the baby inside, body aches, stretched marks on the abdomen; groin or buttocks and darkening nipples were all there for all to see. “No, no, noooo, I cannot stand the sight of people looking at me and asking me silly questions. Rather I will prefer keeping indoors or better still travelling and coming back after delivery to staying in Vevey, the land of my birth.” Rita surmised. Whichever decision she took was entirely hers. In life, time and tides wait for no man and to every action; there is equal and opposite reaction. In the end, she opted to stay indoors in Vevey. After all she became pregnant performing indoor acts; she must as well go through ante-natal indoors. But whether after delivery, she will do outdooring or not was a matter of time and destiny.

Time flew! Twenty-nine weeks came to pass until the fortieth week when Rita began to experience difficulties in breathing. This is when she realised that her time was up. Whatever feelings and electricity passing through her systems were signs of labour. The eve to January twenty-fifth, Rita was rushed to the hospital once again when she started complaining of severe backache and cramps in her lower abdomen by her mother and father. Within a twinkle of an eye after reporting at the hospital, plug of mucus came away indicating that her cervix was starting to open. There was a rupture of the membrane for the water to break. She began to feel pressure down there, as the baby’s head moves into the pelvis. She felt like going to the loo, but was restricted by the hospital staff, who encouraged her to push hard to help the baby move through the birth canal with each contractions and dilation. At exactly twelfth zero five, a bouncing baby boy, dark hair, brown eyes, weighing three point one eight kilograms and standing at zero point five zero eight metres tall pissed out from Rita’s under canal. Mother and baby were doing very well, when the womb contracted and caused the placenta to come out.

Jobson Martinson was born on the twenty fifth day of January Nineteen ninety-three in Vevey, a village near Montreux, the Jazz capital of the world in Switzerland to a Swiss mother. Nonetheless, he grew up in a single motherly home, with no idea about his biological father. The only close relations young Jobson could call family were his maternal grannies and his mother. Unfortunate-ly at birth his grandfather and grandmother were very cold towards his mother and his very self for the reasons he is still struggling to understand. Grandpa Von and Grandma Jacobs refused to hold little Jobson at the hos-pital and even at home. This made Rita Martinson took her little boy and moved away from home. For close to a score and five years Rita has not contacted her parents let alone called them.

There were two issues that broke senior Martinsons’ back and brought about the separation. Firstly, the Martinsons are proud and respected family in Vevey, Montreux and even up to the Canton of Vaud and Geneva. They had been in leadership positions from 1213, when Olivier Martinson, a cobbler and later turned cattle farmer settled down in Vevey from Neuchatel. Olivier was an entrepreneur par excellence. He and his wife established the first Eatery at the present day Vevey, where they served roasted and grilled cow meat as well as milk and cheese: his wife sewn travellers’ torn clothes and dresses, Olivier also mended their shoes. In the end, they built an Inn, where people travelling up North to Berne and Zurich as well as those going down south to Geneva and other cities and towns spent the night before continuing their journeys. The place became so popular that sojourners started calling the place ‘Vier, Vier,” which later became the name of the area and finally the corrupted word Vevey for the whole town. Subsequent family members took over the running of the business, which has continued up till now. Von Martinson did not want anything to tarnish the good reputation or image of the family. Therefore, he was very shocked to the bone when he first learnt about Rita’s pregnancy out of wedlock.

“For close to seven hundred years in our family’s history, nobody, I mean no family member has disrespected us so much than my own flesh, my blood, Rita has done to us.” Von Martinson told Rev. Fr. Darren Fonseca, the Parish Priest of Vevey Catholic Church. Rev. Fr. Fonseca replied him. “Voilla, Von. I understand your feelings. But remember that God knows why He allowed all these things to happen to Rita and the entire family. You are concerned about the family honour. But God is concerned with the unknown future. Indeed, let us give time a chance and see what the baby will become.” Von Martinson was still adamant and would not kowtow. “Well Reverend, I have heard you. It is not about me or any individual. It is about the family; the tradition. In the meantime, I will not forget to tell the family your version of the story. Good day.” Von Martinson left the Parish still bent on pursuing his agenda to the latter. The respected Vicar of the Catholic Church had summoned Von Martinson on a beautiful bright Mittwoch (Wednesday) to see whether father and his estranged daughter could be patched together one more time, but later events turned out to widen the relationship even the more.

Whilst trying to resolve this matter, a second issue reared its ugly head, which was more devastating than the first one, thus, enlarging the bond between father and daughter. Rita gave birth to a dark coloured baby. What was so special about dark skinned people that whites skinned folks do not have? Even if you had had an affair out of wedlock, why won’t you take your own specie? In effect, a white skinned-blue eyes bloke to continue the family tradition was the way to go. Now you have adulterated our bloodline. These and many thoughts ran through Von Martinson’s mind when he reluctantly accompanied Rita to the hospital on that fateful 25th January 1993. Immediately he heard that his only daughter has delivered a bouncing baby boy, together with his wife, Von rushed in to see Rita and the new arrival to the family. He was flabbergasted at what he saw, but kept it to himself. He held the hand of his wife and together they left the hospital unceremoniously to the dismay of all the people present. From thereon father and daughter never saw eye to eye. Neither Von Martinson nor his wife ever stepped the hospital. How Rita’s hospital bills were paid and how she was discharged from the hospital became the back case of Senior Martinson and his spouse?

Truly, the situation was unbearably disturbing when Rita and her new born baby were delayed for another week for non-payment of bills. It was at that juncture that Allison, Warly-Warly and Bridgette pooled resources together and solicited some more funds from other well-meaning people from campus and in the community to raise five thousand Swiss Francs (CHF 5000), which was quite substantial enough to discharge Rita from the hospital and to see to the welfare of mother and son for the next six months.

Two weeks after Rita was discharged from the hospi-tal, she called some few friends to her apartments for the naming ceremony of the boy. She invited the Parish Priest of Vevey, Rev. Darren Fonseca, but her parents refused to attend the function. Rev. Fonseca took a bowlful of water, dipped his right hand into it and fetched some and poured onto the head of the baby mentioning his name as given to him by Rita thrice. The baby’s name was Jobson Martinson. He was named Jobson because he was a struggling or suffering son and the family name Martinson was added to complete the equation. The ceremony was short and colourful. Afterwards, wine was served to the congregants, before they departed to their separate ways.

Jobson grew up in a simple home in Vevey. He had a very dramatic childhood. The only people he knew were her mother’s close associates at work, friends from school and the community. He had a fair idea, who his maternal relatives were by virtue of his surname and yet, they had vowed not to have anything to do with him or his mother. To add injury to insults, his mother seemed not to have any clue about the whereabouts of his biological father. From all these formative years through his teens, Jobson dreamt about the day he will find his father, so that all these misery, loneliness and lack of father would cease once and for all. After all, he was not different from any other child of his generation. Even in his class at ‘Peter and John Elementary School’, there were students who were dark-skinned; some darker than himself and yet they were happy go gay kids. Why was his so different; so much so that none of his relatives wanted to come close; Jobson would questioned his gumption many a time and yet could not find any mean-ing to such life complexities? Was this the only reason or there was more to it than he had anticipated? He believed that if he was able to trace his father, maybe, just maybe he could convince him to marry his mother so that the family will be bonded in order to win the respect of society. Wherefore he shall grow up happily like any other child of his age to develop his God given talents. The questions were where will he starts from, how will he starts and when will he starts this arduous task of looking for his father?

One bright Tuesday afternoon in February, Rita re-ceived a called from her office at the Department of Social Welfare, where she worked as Principal Superintendent in Charge of Gender Issues to come to his son’s school, Peter and John Elementary. “What might this be? Has my boy done something terribly wrong?” She soliloquised as she sat in her blue BMW estate car and drove away to meet the school authorities. Twelve minutes later she was ushered into Sister Ms. Brisk’s office at the extreme right corner of the first floor of the two-storey administration block of the school. Every student who has attended this Catholic institution or any Parent whose child has passed through the school knew Sister Brisk as smart and strict old nun, who did not tolerate nonsense. She exuded fairness and justice in all her dealings with people. In effect, Sister Brisk was God fearing and righteous individual. Rita found a chair opposite Sister Brisk. The latter placed a two-page document in front of Rita and said. “Mrs. Martinson.” Rita quickly retorted, “No, not Mrs., but Ms. Martinson. Indeed, my name is Rita Martinson.” Sister Brisk crowed. “Alright Ms. Rita Martin-son! Could you please go through these documents and filled in the blank spaces. Afterwards you might append your signature.” Rita picked the documents and began to read through them. She eventually started filling the doc-uments until she reached the place where it required information on parents and guardians. Rita began to quiz Sister Brisk. “Madam... Eeh, Sister, I am a single parent. Can I leave that portion blank?” “Why, Ms. Martinson. ls Jobson’s father dead? In fact, all along I thought Mr. Von Martinson is his father.” “No.” Replied Rita. “Von is my father and Jobson’s granddad.” Sister Brisk continued to nod in agreement. “Oh I see…..” Sister Brisk momentarily continued to repeat the phrase unknowingly and ignored the presence of Rita. Contrarily, Rita’s eyes were glued onto the documents and fell into trance.

Rita’s mind wandered about until it focused on the event that took place some fifteen years ago at the basement of the twenty storey flats at the 14th Fontainebleau Avenue. One by one, pictures of the events that took place on that day years back raced through her mind’s eye clearly and vividly. She began to question her id as she battled her innate with thoughts such as the motive behind Allison stopping Charlie White’s Mercedes Benz car for the girls to board. Why did they end up at the basement of the flats? What happened between the girls and the boys? Even if there was sexual intercourse, who had who? Was it an all-night orgy? Why did she conceive a black child? Does it meant that the only black boy amongst the white boys did that to her? Anyway, she knew that black African student only by his first name, Greg, since that was how people used to call him on cam-pus. He was senior to all of them, as he was completing his Master of Arts degree in International Business. All that Rita knew about that Greg guy was that he left the shores of Switzerland three days after the Homecoming dance to Africa. Where to in Africa, she had no idea?

In a society of records, however, that one is not a problem, since she can trace it from the International Of-fice of the University or the Ministry of Interior or the Department of migration or even the Police Service of the country. It was just that she had preoccupied herself with the bread and butter issues of working and raising Jobson singlehandedly to the neglect of many begging concerns equally crying for her attention.

“Ms. Martinson.” These words echoed from far away to Rita. She was startled and quickly composed herself. “Yes, Sister Brisk! Eemmm……” Tears begun to streak down her cheeks. She struggled to find her voice. Instantaneously, Sister Brisk got up and leaned over the desk to placate Rita’s right shoulder. “Je suis d’accord. Just sign the form and leave the rest for me.” Rita felt very embarrassed as she completed the form and handed it over to Sister Brisk. She was ashamed as to what Sister Brisk and her team would think about her: cheap sloth, recklessly naughty, ill-mannered, or indiscipline, irrespective of her family's pedigree in the community. Upon all these thoughts sprinting through her mind, she kept her cool to listen to Sister Brisk on the purpose of the documents. “Now, Ms. Martinson, Jobson is among the graduating class who will be promoted into High School this summer. The document you just filled is to assess his eligibility for the Canton Assistance. I mean scholarship. However, based upon the information you had provided, it is evident that you are the sole provider of the family’s income, which further enhanced your son’s chance of securing full scholarship to further his education through High school and even to the University.” Sister Brisk offered her right hand to Rita, who returned hers for a departing shake. “Ms. Martinson, I am glad you came. You will hear from us.” “Thank you very much, Sister Brisk.” Rita replied and rushed out of the office without paying attention to anything around her. She jumped into her car and sped off.

For now, she had gone through the first phase with the absence of her menstrual period. In fact, Rita's gen-eral body physiology has started undergoing changes: enlarging breasts, swelling of cheeks, tiredness, nausea, mood swings, vomiting and collapsing, which landed her at the hospital. At least, by the grace of God, she has scaled through these symptoms with nonchalant ease. What she was worrying about was the next thirteen to twenty-eight weeks where these first symptoms would began to go away and other noticeable changes to the body begun to show up: expanded abdomen, the movements of the baby inside, body aches, stretched marks on the abdomen; groin or buttocks and darkening nipples were all there for all to see. “No, no, noooo, I cannot stand the sight of people looking at me and asking me silly questions. Rather I will prefer keeping indoors or better still travelling and coming back after delivery to staying in Vevey, the land of my birth.” Rita surmised. Whichever decision she took was entirely hers. In life, time and tides wait for no man and to every action; there is equal and opposite reaction. In the end, she opted to stay indoors in Vevey. After all she became pregnant performing indoor acts; she must as well go through ante-natal indoors. But whether after delivery, she will do outdooring or not was a matter of time and destiny.

Time flew! Twenty-nine weeks came to pass until the fortieth week when Rita began to experience difficulties in breathing. This is when she realised that her time was up. Whatever feelings and electricity passing through her systems were signs of labour. The eve to January twenty-fifth, Rita was rushed to the hospital once again when she started complaining of severe backache and cramps in her lower abdomen by her mother and father. Within a twinkle of an eye after reporting at the hospital, plug of mucus came away indicating that her cervix was starting to open. There was a rupture of the membrane for the water to break. She began to feel pressure down there, as the baby’s head moves into the pelvis. She felt like going to the loo, but was restricted by the hospital staff, who encouraged her to push hard to help the baby move through the birth canal with each contractions and dilations. At exactly twelfth zero five, a bouncing baby boy, dark hair, brown eyes, weighing three point one eight kilograms and standing at zero point five zero eight metres tall pissed out from Rita’s under canal. Mother and baby were doing very well, when the womb contracted and caused the placenta to come out.

There were two issues that broke senior Martinsons’ back and brought about the separation. Firstly, the Mar-tinsons are proud and respected family in Vevey, Montreux and even up to the Canton of Vaud and Geneva. They had been in leadership positions from 1213, when Olivier Martinson, a cobbler and later turned cattle farmer settled down in Vevey from Neuchatel. Olivier was an entrepreneur par excellence. He and his wife established the first Eatery at the present day Vevey, where they served roasted and grilled cow meat as well as milk and cheese: his wife sewn travellers’ torn clothes and dresses, Olivier also mended their shoes. In the end, they built an Inn, where people travelling up North to Berne and Zurich as well as those going down south to Geneva and other cities and towns spent the night before continuing their journeys. The place became so popular that sojourners started calling the place ‘Vier, Vier,” which later became the name of the area and finally the corrupted word Vevey for the whole town. Subsequent family members took over the running of the business, which has continued up till now. Von Martinson did not want anything to tarnish the good reputation or image of the family. Therefore, he was very shocked to the bone when he first learnt about Rita’s pregnancy out of wedlock.

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