The Fire that Killed Aman

A lone tear trickled down Amandu's face as he watched their house burn. He tried to get close to the house in a desperate attempt to see if he could salvage some of his dearest belongings, but the heat wave that came off the fire doused his desperation as soon as he got as close as one hundred feet to the house. He ran to the right part of the house to see if he could circle to the back of the building but the fire was just too hot. Finally, he slumped to the wet ground and wept as the neighbours came out of their houses and tried to bring down the fire while waiting for the fire service department, waiting for any help, hoping for a solution that never came.

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It was Friday, the only day he reserved for drinks and relaxation before heading home. Amandu worked as cash teller at a commercial bank in the small town of Talata, right outside Yahama city. He lived with his mother, Sarah who worked as a nurse at Queen Elizabeth's Hospital in the same town. How was he to break the news to his hardworking mother that their most priced possession had gone up in smokes? He ought to have been grateful that his mother was not in the house when the fire consumed it, but he was in no mood for rationalisation.

Amandu was a broken man. As he counted all the things that were in the house at the time of the fire, he remembered his academic credentials. Now he would have to start jumping through the bureaucratic hoops of the country's educational institutions to get other copies of the lost documents. Suddenly he did not feel that the few drinks he had at Chez Nous with his colleagues were worth anything. If anything, he thought that he should never have been there: he should have been home to fight, to keep their home safe. But the documents he lost and the whole house itself was not worth the major loss he suffered that night: of that, he had neither the strength nor the willingness to think.

He gathered himself and stood on shaky legs. Ignoring the attempts of the amateur fire-fighters, he strolled to his old Mitsubishi Lancer, dropped on the driver's seat, turned the ignition and drove off in the direction of Queen Elizabeth's Hospital. The road was devoid of traffic except for few vehicles driving a little too fast. He assumed the drivers were all drunk and he was extremely wary of them. As he made his way through the light traffic, he remembered that he ought to call his mother and let her know that he was coming. It was 01:23 am on the dashboard of the car. He wondered what his mother would be doing at that time of the night in the hospital. With shaky hands, he picked up his cell phone and dialled Sarah's number by the speed dial key. She answered on the first ring, and her voice was apprehensive.

"Smacko," she said. "Is everything alright?" His mother had always insisted on calling him the nickname he adopted from his favourite cartoon character as a child. When she was especially pleased with him, she would call him, "Smacko Amando", which he really liked because it had a ring to it. But this night, the name held no meaning for him.

Oh, no everything would never be alright, he thought. We have lost everything, and we are all that we have got. He thought about their dog and what was left of it as he made the first attempt at a recovery as soon as he came home and saw the fire.

"Yes, mom. Everything is alright," he lied. "But there has been an emergency at home and I am on my way to the hospital. Could you take the remaining time off and meet me in the lobby?"

"Emergency? At home? What happened?" she asked.

"Don't worry. I am outside. I will explain it all when I see you."

He pulled up in front of the emergency ward and came down from the car. His mother was already standing there in her work clothes, shivering a little. When she saw him, she rushed and held his face in her hands, peering into his face, searching for some sign of what could have gone wrong. She saw nothing but anguish.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Our home is gone. Everything burned to the ground."

"No! No. No. Where is Aman?" she asked, walking briskly to the car. Amandu did not attempt to follow her. She reached the car and peered into it, but it was too dark to see anything.

"Where is Aman?" she asked again.

"He is in the back seat," he replied.

"What?" she exclaimed and rushed to open the back door of the driver's side, then stopped and wept uncontrollably.

"Mummy, stop! He is gone, but we must leave now. I will tell you everything as on our way."

He bundled her into the passenger seat as he continued to scream and look at the lump in the back seat of the car. Amandu pulled out onto the road and drove slowly towards the highway. He headed South East towards Avu, their hometown.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"We have no home here anymore. I think we should go to the village for a few days."

She said nothing. They drove in silence for another four hours before they saw a few lights on the horizon in the general location of their hometown.

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Amandu and Sarah stayed in the village for two days and returned to Talata. Before then, their only close family friend and Sarah's colleague, Angie had been calling and asking them to return to town and live with her. Angie recently got married to her long-term boyfriend who was a medical doctor in the United States of America. Amandu and Sarah soon learned that she was relocating to go and live with her new husband before the end of the month.
"We should go, mom," Amandu suggested.

"How about the body?" she replied.

"We are not ready now. Let Uncle take care of it," he said.

The mother and son were grateful for the help they received from Angie. Amandu and Sarah returned to work three days after the fire, and gradually they tried to pick up pieces of their lives. Before then, Sarah filled out claims and submitted to Nasco Insurance Limited, the insurance company that covered their burned home against fire. It was her husband that took up the policy. She had always hated insurance because of the way they operated in the country. It was her view that they were fraudulent; always looking for reasons not to pay.

In less than a week, an investigator came by to ask some questions concerning the events that took place and the circumstances in which they occurred. Then a few days after that, they received a letter from the insurance company which stated that they were not qualified to be compensated and their claim was declined based on technicalities which rendered the policy void. Amandu was beside himself in anger but he controlled his temper for mother's sake.

He decided that he would rebuild the old house. All his mother's plea to let the place lay to waste fell on deaf ears. She did not want to be reminded of what they had lost so she would rather stay at Angie's until they could both get back on their feet. Amandu, however, had other plans. He took out a loan at the bank where he worked and started the clean-up that was followed by renovations. It took about two months before the house was partially restored to its original glory. He came home after inspecting the progress made on the house and informed his mother, but she had no interest in living there, and she told him that much. She was surprised to learn that he was not disappointed by her decision.

"I understand," he said, "In fact, I think that you need a holiday. You work too hard, and you deserve it. I still have money left from the loan I took. Perhaps you would like to visit Angie and your sister in the US. I hear that they live just a couple of hundred miles apart over there." She shook her head, declining the offer.

"I could not do that. You should pay back the money to the bank," she said. He did not respond but walked into his room. Two days later he came home with a round trip ticket to the US. He dropped it on the table in front of his mother while she watched a television show. She paid no attention to it until she was done with the TV program. When she realised what he had done, she knew it would be a waste not to go and knowing how obstinate her boy could be, she decided, perhaps it would be better if she went since her visa was still valid. One week later, she had completed the necessary arrangements at work to enable her travel. Meanwhile, Amandu had been living in their old house. That morning, he came over to drive her to the Deji Alabi International Airport from where she would first arrive at Amstadam before taking a flight to JFK Airport. He was excited, and she couldn't help but wonder how he recovered from the trials of the past two months so quickly.

As soon as they said their goodbyes, he turned the Toyota SUV that belonged to his mother and headed for the highway that led to his hometown. There he went to his favourite Uncle Alaribe. Alaribe was his maternal uncle. It was his home that he and his mother slept the night of the unfortunate fire. Amandu and Alaribe were very fond of each other since Amandu was just a little boy, but Alaribe was deaf and mute. Amandu had to learn to communicate with him very early in life, and that made them very close. Alaribe was the undertaker that served the village and the environs, so he lived away from the centre of the village where his family resided.

Amandu spent the whole day walking around the home of his uncle where he showed him some of the bodies he was working on. Amandu did not like that part of the excursion but he went round with his uncle before it was time to say goodbye. He said his goodbyes and drove back to town.

He drove straight home, and Amandu was shocked to find the house he just rebuilt so wholly burned down. He covered himself with a blanket and ran into the portion of the house that still burned, dragging a big bag behind him. Then, he called the police to report the fire, but it seemed someone else had already done that. Shortly after Amandu arrived home, a couple of law enforcement officers arrived. The police asked almost the same questions that the insurance investigator, Mr Sam Ade asked had asked after the previous fire. Amandu answered patiently.

"What was the name of the person that died in the fire?" the investigator asked.

"His name was Aman, my twin" Amandu responded, wiping his eyes.

"Any idea why he couldn't run out?" he asked.

"He was disabled. Wait, what're all these questions for?" he asked angrily.

"Is he the one with a life insurance policy?" the man continued.

"No, it is the three of us; my mom, Aman and I. We took the life policy after the first fire in which we lost our dog. It occurred to us just how tenuous life can be," Amandu said.

Mr Ade asked many other questions which Amandu suspected were designed to find a way for the insurance company to wriggle out of compensation but the policy seemed tailor-made for the damages they had suffered: death and destruction of property by fire. The investigator suspected there was something about the case that did not quite meet the eye but all efforts to prove foul play failed.

Insurance paid. The amount was about ten times the initial claims Sarah filled after the first fire due to the large amount for which Aman was insured. Now he was ready to bury his brother as soon his mother came home. The investigation never unearthed what really happened.