Under the Udala Trees (11 page)

Kneel!

Pray!

Sinful!

Terrible disrespect!

Only God can save you!

It took me a while to register it when I was no longer hearing her voice. Only then did I open my eyes. Mama was nowhere to be seen.

I stayed kneeling for some time. I expected that she would soon return, but minutes passed, and when something like half an hour passed, I stood up, walked out the front door, across the veranda, around the house, and back into the kitchen through the back door. No sign of Mama.

I walked the path that led to the shop. The gate of the store was fastened with a metal chain. I knew that Mama could not be there.

I returned to the bungalow. I sat back on the floor where she had left me and waited.

Something like an hour went by.

The rattling came from the direction of the front door. The jingling of keys, the turning of the knob, smacks and whacks, objects bumping into the wall.

Mama entered with a decanter made of clay in her hand. It was a reddish flask with a dull finish, hand-painted in such a way that the red coloring appeared to drip in spots, something like trickling blood.

She approached until she towered above me. She got down on her knees. A scent of incense floated out of her. Her voice was weak, even a little apologetic, as she said: “I've been thinking. It's not you.”

My head snapped up in her direction.

She continued. “No, it's not you at all. There's nothing wrong with you. It's the devil causing you to be this way.”

She placed the items in her hand on the floor by the table.

“
Ngwa
, get down on your knees,” she said in a far more composed manner than earlier.

I got down on my knees.

“Lower your head and close your eyes,” she said, still calmly.

I lowered my head, and I closed my eyes.

She placed her open hands on my head.

“In the name of God the Almighty, I order you to come out of her,” she said. Her voice was progressively louder each time she repeated it, but still controlled: “In the name of the Almighty God, I order you to leave my child alone.”

I felt droplets of liquid on my neck and a little on my face.

Her voice came out piercing, almost like a wail, causing shivers down my back. “
Lagha chi azu! Lagha chi azu!
” she cried.

The droplets continued to wet the skin on my neck and face and even my arms. I felt lightheaded, as if the blood had drained out of me. She was speaking to the devil, crying for him to turn back and leave me alone. “I order you to leave. I order you to leave her alone.
Lagha chi azu! Lagha chi azu! Asi m gi, Lagha chi azu!
”

Finally she let out a lengthy sigh of exhaustion. Everything grew quiet. I no longer felt the droplets on me. I opened my eyes slowly. Mama was sitting on the floor by my side, her face tear-stained. Her hands dangled aimlessly at her sides. The decanter lay nearby, in the little space between her one hand and the couch.

“It's my fault,” she said, weakly now. Her throat was hoarse.

I moved closer to her, leaned my head against her shoulder. “It's not your fault, Mama.”

We stayed quiet.

“It's my fault,” she repeated in a thin voice.

“No, Mama. It's not anybody's fault.”

“Yes,” she said. “Of course it's my fault.” She went on to recount that day out on the veranda when I begged to follow her to Aba. Maybe she should have allowed me to go with her, she said. What kind of mother sent her daughter off to be a housegirl for someone else, and for all that time? And beyond that, to send off a child who had just seen her father's corpse lying in all that blood. To send off a child under those circumstances when she should have done anything to keep her close.

Up to this moment, I had still been holding a grudge against Mama for abandoning me at the grammar school teacher's. But now, hearing how much she herself had been thinking about it, how much she was still tormenting herself over it, all my grudge melted away. “Mama,” I said, “you're not the only person who sent your daughter out to be a housegirl.” I knew of other families who had also kept housegirls. The girls' parents must have been the ones who sent them to work in that way. I said, “You're not the only one. There are many others too.”

She nodded. “It was for your own good,” she said softly.

I nodded.

“For your safety, for your well-being.”

I nodded again.

“He and his wife were kind to you the entire time?”

“Yes, Mama. They were nothing but kind to me.”

“You know, some people leave just to have the benefit of coming back home.”

“Yes, Mama,” I said.

She placed her palms on my cheeks, held my face tightly. Her hands were wet. The air was stuffy, thick. “Don't you worry,” she said. “There's no sin so bad that it can't be forgiven, no wrongdoing so terrible that it can't be repented of. You will repent and you will be forgiven by the glory and the power of God.”

There was silence.

She said, “You will be cured by the glory and power of God.”

I remained silent.

“Say it!”

“I will be cured by the glory and power of God.”

She took the decanter from where it was sitting, tilted it until more water poured into her cupped hand. She sprinkled the water over my head.

“Amen,” she said.

“Amen,” I replied.

We moved on to the New Testament and made our way quickly to Revelation. Six months had passed since our studies began. It was approaching the time for me to start secondary school.

The last day of our Bible study, Mama called me to the parlor, and I appeared to find her holding a list, handwritten by her on posterboard. It was a summary—and a reminder—of what she decided were the important points, the highlights from the Old and the New Testaments. She stood in the front area of the parlor and asked me to sit on the couch. She began to read like a schoolteacher lecturing a class:

LEVITICUS
18:22

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

LEVITICUS
19:19

Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee.

LEVITICUS
20:13

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

MARK
10:6–9

But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

ROMANS
1:26–32

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implac­able, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

1
CORINTHIANS
6:9–11

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

1
CORINTHIANS
7:2

Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

1
TIMOTHY
1:10–11

For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men-stealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

JUDE
1:7

Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

REVELATION
21:8

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

(Here, she double-underlined the words “the abominable” for me.)

After reading aloud the contents of the posterboard, Mama said, “You really must understand that that kind of behavior between you and that girl is the influence of demonic spirits.
I ne ghe nti?
Are you listening?”

I nodded.

“Satan finds a way to influence us all the way from hell,” she said. “But I will continue to pray for you, and you must continue to pray for yourself. There's nothing that can't be conquered when we receive Jesus as our Lord and our Savior.”

By the end of all those lessons, all that praying, if anyone had asked how I felt, I would have told them that I was exhausted. Not angry, not confused, not even penitent. Just exhausted.

A week before I was to leave to board at the secondary school, two or three days after that last Bible study session, Mama turned to me again and asked, “Do you still think of her in that way?”

I looked into her eyes, knowing better than to tell the truth, but I could not get myself to speak the lie. I shook my head. I forced myself to shake it with authority, making sure not to blink. It was the first time that I had lied to Mama. I comforted myself with the thought that at least I had not
spoken
the lie.

Mama smiled, patted me on the shoulder. “Very good, my child. Very, very good.” She sighed, then she said, “The power of God! The wonderful power of our glorious and Almighty God!”

 

I
T TURNS OUT
that I became the businesswoman Mama thought I might, seeing that I wound up taking over the business end of things for her. Of course, I didn't go to any special schooling for it beyond secondary school, so maybe it also turns out that all that talk by Mama about eating protein and using my brain actually was valid, schooling or not.

In any case, sometimes as I'm going about my life outside of working with Mama at the store, my eyes land on something that causes me to think back to those days at the grammar school teacher's. A heap of sand, for instance. Or the deep brown seeds of an udala fruit. Sometimes just seeing a pail of dirty laundry reminds me of those days. Doesn't matter the kind of clothes in the pail. Doesn't matter that they are nothing like the grammar school teacher's or his wife's. Suddenly my mind is back there, and I can't help recalling all those years ago: the rat-tap-tapping of the grammar school teacher's knocks on my hovel's door, the flame of the kerosene lantern flickering on the desk. Amina and I cowering from fear.

The day I met Amina, it was still my first month at the grammar school teacher's, and we had run out of kerosene. A heavy rain had fallen that morning. The sky was gray. Then morning turned to afternoon and the sun came out. I finished my morning chores and set off to fetch the kerosene just as the sun was starting to shine.

That whole first month at the grammar school teacher's place, it was as if we were always running in and out of the bunker. Even on my way back from the market, I would hear the bombers appear above and would have to run and hide in the bushes. There was usually no way to tell if they were enemy planes or not, so we all hid in the bushes to be safe. We stayed there until we could no longer hear the bombers up above.

Once, I had been so turned around after hiding in the bushes that the sun was beginning to set by the time I got back to the grammar school teacher's. This was the latest that I had ever returned. He and his wife had been so upset that he threatened to flog me, thirteen strokes to my backside—because I was almost thirteen years old—to teach me a lesson on not ever coming back late again.

When I went to fetch the kerosene that day, I ran at first, not wanting to risk being late. The roads were muddy from the morning rain, with puddles like creeks accumulating intermittently throughout. Even so, I ran. I could not have been running very long when I got winded. I stopped to catch my breath.