‘I like him,’ my mother said after he left. She’d invited him for Sunday rice that weekend. ‘He’s calm and mature for his age.’
I grinned, relieved.
‘So that thing you said about never marrying, I hope you’ve told him,’ she teased.
‘Mummy please, we’re just friends.’
‘Okay o.’
Emeka visited on weekdays after that, and we spent hours playing chess, even though I lost to him all the time, and talking about books we’d read and the films we liked to see. We argued often over what films to watch.
‘You’re a snob,’ I told him.
He puffed air from his lips. ‘Because I don’t like Nigerian movies? Please. They’re too dramatic and are always trying to teach a lesson that shouldn’t be taught.’
‘Not all of them. There are some really good ones, you know. Films are meant to be a reflection of society; I think they reflect our society fairly well. Our people believe in witchcraft and blood covenants, and men still throw their wives out of their homes.’
‘Well, our society isn’t ideal,’ he conceded.
I loved sports and he didn’t, unable to keep track of the names and scoring techniques – except basketball, he loved basketball – but he tolerated the screaming football matches and tension-filled tennis rallies for me. We kissed for the first time the day Serena Williams won her first Grand Slam, in a studio room at the back of the church; it was a room people rarely used but I’d wanted to watch the match and he’d collected the keys so we could use the television kept there. The ball from Hingis’ racquet went long and I jumped on him, screaming with unbridled joy, and he fell back, taken by surprise. Then in a moment of heady excitement, I kissed him, losing myself in the moment as his arms tightened around my waist.
‘We can’t waste all our days indoors because the government has decided to be stupid,’ he announced the next day, dragging me along to Apapa Amusement Park.
‘We’re too old for these things,’ I complained.
‘No one’s ever too old for enjoyment,’ he said.
At the counter, he paid for tickets and sugared popcorn. On the rollercoaster, I clung to him as I screamed into the wind, thinking what a relief it was to have my own person.
Then there was Pastor Kamsi. Pastor Kamsi with the voice of authority, who brought down fire and brimstone when he prayed, whose tongues could shift the atmosphere. Pastor Kamsi the youth president. He’d earned his position dedicating most of his adolescent life to the church, and now that he was an adult, it was only right to appoint someone who could relate to the experiences of youthfulness and lusting for the things of the world.
‘Bloody stiff-necked hypocrite,’ Emeka mouthed beside me during a youth meeting and I covered my face with my palms to hide my mirth.
‘I hear you’re new here,’ Pastor Kamsi said to me the first time we interacted, refusing to let my hand go. It was after a midweek service and attendees milled around him, vying for his attention but he’d called to me and Emeka as we walked by.
Pastor Kamsi lived for the veneration: the sister who had felt the spirit move like a current of worms through her body when he prayed, the mother whose son had turned his life around thanks to his teachings.
At the prayer conferences he organised, he took centre stage, speaking in tongues and laying hands, convincing sinners to turn to God. Following the services, he was inundated with requests for guidance and prayers.
The church sisters discussed his unwedded status with vested interest. ‘He’s so in the spirit! Whoever marries him will be so lucky. God will always be with them.’ And I wondered if God was only ever with Pastor Kamsi.
On the Saturday he stopped me and Emeka on our way out of the hall. Holding my hand longer than necessary, he made small talk about the service and the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit, waiting to be gifted the adulation he was accustomed to. Then he asked, ‘Sister Ego, do you know God’s purpose for your life?’
I looked at Emeka, taken aback by the question. He shrugged.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said.
‘Well, that is terrible. You should want to know, or you’ll end up living a meaningless life. Perhaps you need some counselling and prayers.’
‘Thank you,’ I said with a stifled smile, pulling my hand from his.
He wilted at my rejection. I could tell from his expression that he thought I had a bad spirit.
‘What was that about?’ I asked Emeka as we walked away.
He smirked. ‘You’re probably the first person to reject such an offer. He doesn’t usually make them you know.’
It had never occurred to me how busy the life of a pastor and their family was until I met Emeka: the Tuesday midweek services, Wednesday leadership meetings, Thursday deliverance services, Friday prayer meetings and Saturday evangelism walks. And Emeka attended them all.
‘You don’t have to be here all the time, you know,’ he told me.
‘Then I’d never see you.’ He smiled. ‘You know, sometimes I wonder if you really believe in what you’re doing, it seems like you’re going through the motions, like a civil servant,’ I said.
He paused to give my words some thought. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe per se. I mean, I believe in Jesus and what he taught but I’ve seen behind all of this. Kamsi can shout on that pulpit all he wants but he can only rise to a certain level within this ministry, do you know why? The general overseer at the very top is Yoruba and Kamsi is not. Yes, tribe matters even though we’re supposed to be one body in Christ. My father sacrificed everything for the church, and how do they pay him back? They owe his salary every other month while some pastors live large at the headquarters. So, forgive me if I’m not impressed.’
He always referred to Pastor Kamsi as Kamsi and I knew this indifference to authority was his own act of rebellion.
‘What would make you stop believing?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know.’
He’d never thought of not believing, and I realised that, like me, he feared falling into that abyss bereft of hope.
Just before the turn of the century, ASUU and the government reached a compromise, and my mother was in love again. She would never admit it, but it was clear in the way her eyes twinkled when his name came up and how she ran around the living room on the days he visited, propping up the weathered sofa pillows.
A strange man with deeply chiselled cheekbones and curly hair had visited one day when my mother was out; he left a note, saying she would know who it was from. She’d wept as she read it, holding the note to her chest and we’d stared in awkward silence, perplexed.
‘I’m so sorry, I realise I didn’t introduce myself the last time I was here. I’m Akintunde Ajayi but you can call me Akin,’ he said the next time he visited, and I stared at him wondering where I’d heard the name before.
