'A man's dying is more the survivors' affair than his own.'
Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955)
*
Aunty Labake thought the funeral was
a success.
'Your Father was a good man,' she said
opening a wrap of iru and shoving a handful into her mouth.
'He was a good man O! You just look at the number of people who
came for the burial. The governor! Committee of friends from London,
London O! He was a good man … '
I walked past her into the house where
Apostle Iye was sprinkling holy water on everyone. Mummy and my
brother, Tuyi, were on their knees. Apostle shouted words that sounded
like the ones he had been chanting when Mummy and I visited him
for the first time some months before.
*
We had visited the Apostle at his Holy Cathedral of Jesus’
Saints. On that day as we knelt for prayer, I could not resist a
peek as he shouted words that sounded suspiciously like Yamaha
Suzuki Yamaha Suzuki. I watched with one eye half open as he
danced to his own energetic clapping, he pranced about, dribbling
saliva into the holy water, which he sprinkled on Mummy and I at
intervals. He nearly tripped over his white cassock. I closed my
eyes as he staggered, and smothered my laugh with a cough.
'Sit', he barked suddenly breaking
out of his trance.
Mummy dragged herself up into the
wooden pew behind her. I stood up and tried to steady myself, the
strong smell of the incense that pervaded the room made me dizzy.
I flopped into the pew beside Mummy. 'I have prayed, and God has
answered,' the Apostle said.
'Amin Amin' Mummy interjected
fervently.
'But there are more things for us to
do … Yamaha Sadrekum!'
The Apostle’s body jerked as
he began to chant strange words again. Mummy pinched me and I began
to say amen, not caring whether the man was cursing us.
For the next few minutes, Mummy and I chanted amen, then
the Apostle stopped shuddering and began to speak English again.
' … madam yes the Lord said to me that this sickness of husband
is an attack from his family.'
'I said so, I said so,' said Mummy,
shaking her legs so hard that her iro slid open.
'But there is nothing our God cannot
do. Nothing. We must have a prayer vigil for him. We must have the
vigil as soon as possible. Other men of God and prayer warriors
will be there to join us in prayer. We will need seven red candles,
seven blue candles and seven yellow candles. We will also need seven
yards of white linen and seven thousand naira for Holy Ghost appeal.
If we do not make the Holy Ghost appeal there shall be no breakthrough.'
Apostle Iye’s gaze made a sure descent from the ceiling to
the black thigh that Mummy’s iro had revealed.
'I will bring all that tomorrow. When
will the vigil be?' Mummy asked rubbing a finger on her bare thigh.
'Today is Thursday. We shall have the
vigil tomorrow night.' The Apostle replied , standing to his feet,
a signal that it was time for us to leave. More people waited in
the back pew desperate to see him.
'Thank you Apostle, we will see you
tomorrow,' Mummy said. She knelt down and gave some money to the
Apostle.
'Oh Lord bless your child who has blessed
me,' The apostle began to jerk in his white cassock. The prayers
continued for some time, while the Apostle sprinkled holy water
on us with palm fronds.
*
We met Aunty Labake in our house. She hugged me and I held my breath.
She always smelled of iru. 'How is he?' She asked.
Mummy sighed, sinking into a chair.
'No change at all, no change.'
'I brought some black soap for him,
I went to Oyo to get it, there is a baba there, people
say that the man is very strong. If your husband bathes with the
soap …'
I left them in the sitting room and
went to the room my parents shared. His illness had confined him
there, keeping him from his endless travels. I entered the room
and sat down gently on the bed beside Daddy. Above the blanket that
covered him from waist down, his body was bare and his collar bones
jutted upward.
He was still sleeping when Mummy joined
me in the room. She stood at the foot of the bed with her hands
folded above her bosom. I watched as her eyes roved over his body,
her eyebrows slightly raised.
'Is this not my great husband?' She
said rubbing her palms together. 'So it is possible to see him everyday
like this? I did not know that the world economy would not collapse
without his business trips.'
'Maybe he is not asleep,' I said glaring
at her.
'Get me the soap from Labake,' she
hissed.
Mummy took Daddy into the bathroom
to bath him with the black soap. After I took the water in for her,
I sat on the bed. My armpits felt wet despite the air-conditioning
and I wished I was back at school. The splashing stopped and I knew
Mummy was towelling him dry.
'Monisola, come and help me,' she called
after a while.
I went into the bathroom; she had dressed
him in a pair of boxers. We helped him back to the room slowly,
his arms round our shoulders. He was about to lie on the bed when
the boxers slid down his legs. His coughing subsided and I tried
not to look at what lay beneath his shrunken stomach. He tried to
retrieve the boxers, but Mummy snatched it first, pulling it back
to his waist while he was still bent over, trying to reach for them.
He began to cough again, this time
the trickle of blood that dribbled from his mouth was mingled with
tears. He clutched his boxers at the waist, shrugged off our hands
and collapsed into bed. A drop of sweat rolled from my armpit down
the insides of my arm. I had never seen my father cry, I had never
imagined that he had ever cried, even as a child.
Silently, Mummy lay beside him on
the bed and wrapped her arms around him. She held him close to her,
gently. Mummy raised her head above his shoulder and mouthed to
me 'Start boiling rice for dinner.'
*
The next day, I went with Mummy to
the vigil. There were seven other white-robed people, five women
and two men. When we arrived they were singing soft hymns and swaying
gently like palms in the breeze.
Onisegun wa nihin
Jesu abanidaro
Everyone except the Apostle stopped
singing when we arrived. One of the women handed us white robes;
we were to change into them. I stared suspiciously at my robe and
wondered how many had worn it before me. 'Monisola! Put it on!'
Mummy said.
I pulled the gown over my head. It
smelled faintly of fish.
We settled into the business of the
night. We prayed for four hours: no songs, just prayers. By the
time we finished around two am, I was sweating. At a point during
the prayer session, feeling particularly energised, I launched into
a strange speech of my own, Yamaha! Yamaha! Yamaha! Suuuzuuuki!
I screamed, till my throat was dry.
I believed the Apostle when he said
Daddy would walk to the door to open it for us when we got home.
I even nodded when he said to Mummy, 'Your daughter is a prayer
giant.' This time when the Apostle gave instructions on how many
candles to light and what time to sprinkle the incense, I listened.
*
That morning, Mummy was away visiting
an Imam for prayers as we ate breakfast on the dining table. Tuyi
blurted suddenly, 'Daddy is going to die, abi?'
I checked my hand in midair as I made
to slap him. 'What silliness is this? What sort of talk is that?'
He stood up from the dinning table
and pushed back his chair. It toppled over with a loud crash. 'You
are both liars, you and Mummy, deceiving yourselves. Can’t
you see? He is dying. Daddy is dying.' he whispered, jabbing the
dining table with a knife.
I stood up and went to Daddy’s
room. He was sitting up in bed, he looked better. I opened the windows
and drew the curtains aside. 'How are you today?' I asked, sitting
on a chair beside the bed.
'Fine, what do you expect?' He rasped,
'I plan to be around when you get married, so don’t start
getting strange ideas. I want to hear your husband’s words
of gratitude to me for raising a daughter who remained a virgin
until she got married. I plan to be around for a long time. '
'Of course Daddy' I smiled and held
his bony hand.
I had decided I didn’t like sex
after my first and only sexual encounter with my first boyfriend
in part one. Then I met Tale, my next boyfriend and decided I liked
it too much. Yet, for a fleeting moment in that room, I wished was
a virgin. He went on and on about girls of nowadays who had
no respect for their bodies, while my mind wandered to Tale’s
body. I left the room convinced that Tuyi was wrong. Daddy was getting
better, he was going to live.
*
His health declined again in a few
days. Mummy brought Apostle Iye home and we held a prayer meeting
in their room. Apostle, Mummy, Tuyi and I. One hour of shouting
ourselves hoarse at the witches and wizards tormenting him. I didn’t
close my eyes this time. I focused on Daddy’s shrivelled body
and screamed louder than I had screamed at the church. A smile played
on Daddy’s face as his eyes darted from Mummy to the Apostle.
After the prayers, Mummy saw the Apostle off to the door telling
me and Tuyi to wait in the room.
When she came back, she sat on the
bed near Daddy’s feet. 'Your father wants to speak to us,'
she said sliding her hand over the lightly sheathed bones that were
his feet. I glanced at her for some clue of what was to come, but
found nothing. Tuyi shifted uncomfortably beside me and he sat on
the rug. I followed suit, feeling queasy.
'I want to thank you, especially you…you
have been my wife, my pillar. I thank you particularly for bringing
your Apostle here to … er, pray for me,' Daddy wheezed, smiling.
Mummy removed her hand from his leg. He went on and on, giving this
vote of thanks. He even said thank you to his dead mother for bringing
him into the world. I was starting to scratch my back when I heard
him say, 'this sickness of mine is AIDS, I have AIDS.'
I sat there staring at him, waiting
for him to continue, then his words finally penetrated. I almost
laughed; I looked at him and took in the sunken eyes, the bony arms
and the shrunken body, ‘Of course it is AIDS,’ a part
of me said. Yet I felt as though I had just woken up from sleep.
I went to my room, bolted the door and slept.
When I woke up, I returned to their
room. Tuyi was sitting on a chair beside the bed. I stood there
quietly for sometime.
'How is he?' I asked.
'Mummy has gone.'
I glanced at the open wardrobe across
the room, it was half-empty, and the dressing table was empty: no
powders, no lipsticks, no perfumes… empty.
'Why?' I asked staring at Tuyi, he
was chewing his nails.
'He knew he had AIDS since he was admitted,
the doctors tested him and gave him the results, he never told her
until now, so she left… because she feels……I don’t
know,'
AIDS, that word again. 'It could still
be HIV,' I said, scratching my head.
'This is AIDS.' Tuyi hissed, looking
at me for the first time since I entered the room. My brother loved
reality too much and I was beginning to hate him for it.
I sat on the rug and lay my head on
the bedside cabinet. It was dark outside. I couldn’t think;
definitely not about AIDS. It was something that happened to people
in warring countries where hunger would have killed them anyway.
Not to Daddy, not to Daddy. He woke up at some point in
the night and Tuyi gave him a little water. He slept again. We sat
there silently, watching as he drew each laboured breath, dreading
that each was his last. I slept. I woke to the sound of the door
opening. Sunlight filtered into the room from an open window. Mummy
walked in.
'Go and bring my things from my car,'
She said quietly. We left to do her bidding, too tired for questions.
*
The following week was another frantic
time of running around for help, this time to the hospitals. I became
Mummy’s driver after she drove into a ditch two days after
Daddy's announcement. Tuyi stopped school to stay at home with Daddy.
We went from hospitals to doctors, from doctors to clinics, explaining
Daddy's condition and summoning the doctors home to examine him
for a fee; he was now too sick to be moved.
The doctors showed up at our home in
the evenings. They would look at him — the pack of bones that
was left of him. The verdict was always the same. A shake of the
head and I am sorry, it is too late, this is why we
tell people to test early … ', or a deep sigh and Madam,
you have to be strong. Or, It is too far gone, let the
family be careful, madam, and please take the HIV test as soon as
possible. Okay?'
The ASUU strike was called off. I
packed my things and headed back to school in my Starlet. When I
went to say goodbye to him, all he said was my name, my oriki,
'Agbeke,'
'I will see you when I come back,'
I said to him.
He began to shake his head, I grabbed
his hand in a tight grip. I could feel the bones in his hands.
'I will see you when I get back,' I repeated, again and again. My
grip tightened on his hand until he nodded.
Mummy called me a month later, 'Monisola,
the burial is in a week.'
I asked Tale to drive me back home.
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