Emeka shrugged. ‘I have no idea. I try not to pay too much attention to Kamsi. I see him as a sort of necessary evil at this point, nothing either of us says will change anything.’
‘Evil should never be necessary,’ I said.
I stood to take the microphone at the next youth meeting. Emeka glanced up at me with surprised eyes. I never spoke at these meetings.
‘I’ve noticed a disturbing pattern that has developed, and I think it is necessary to speak up,’ I announced into the mic. ‘We must not always agree with one another or with everything our leaders say or do. We are not sheep, and this is not a cult, there is no reason why one of us should be ostracised or pushed aside because of unsubstantiated rumours or fallouts. We cannot progre—’
The microphone was cut off.
‘Thank you, Sister Ego,’ Pastor Kamsi said into his. ‘That isn’t the subject of today’s gathering. Please let us endeavour to stick to the purpose of this gathering.’
Later, he called me aside. His tone laden with concern, he said, ‘You’re rebellious. It is demonic. I was hoping working closely with me would break this spirit but nothing has changed. I’ll keep praying for you because I see something in you that you cannot see in yourself.’
It was when the rumours formed a halo around a young face that Pastor Kamsi announced to the congregation that he was ‘courting’. Courting, the old-fashioned term denoting seriousness, a declaration of his plans to marry.
A woman surfaced from nowhere, pumiced of all personality and charm, a tabula rasa for his use. On Sundays, they wore clothes sewn to match, colours and patterns blending and beginning together. She walked five paces behind, carrying his bags and bible, she did not speak except when called upon, and when she did speak, it was in deference to what he had said already – the ideal spouse.
‘She’s like his secretary,’ Zina interjected as I described them.
Eriife laughed. ‘Isn’t Ego his part-time secretary or whatever already?’
‘I honestly don’t know why you still go there,’ Zina said.
The halo of gossip had revolved around an orphaned teenager from a troubled home whose grown-up sisters had brought her to Pastor Kamsi for counselling and guidance. Something had happened, something bad enough that her sisters had pulled out of the church and threatened to involve the police, something so terrible the church council of elders had pulled Pastor Kamsi aside and issued an ultimatum on his marital status. I’d known the girl, seen her cherub-like face as she wandered into the waiting room asking to see Pastor Kamsi, watched her appearance and clothing transform over time, like the others before her.
‘My father won’t say anything, my mother won’t either,’ Emeka said when I pressed him for answers.
‘Are you sure it’s not…’ I said.
‘What you’re suggesting is sinister,’ Emeka said. ‘Don’t think too much about it or your mind will travel too far.’
Unlike before, there were no salacious vapours to whet the appetite, only silence that soon morphed into paramnesia. Was she really a teenager? Had anything even happened? What was her name again?
I was sent to purchase suya for Pastor Kamsi and his soon-to-be wife, my final errand for the weekend; I barely had time to study as it was. Waiting for the meat drenched in yaji to cook, I watched sparks fly from the hot coal under the grill, the only source of light around us. My mind wandered, focusing on the teenager’s face I seemed unable to forget.
When I returned, they were waiting, plates of rice in front of them. I opened the paper bags and oily newspaper and stood in a corner, lingering in case of further instruction before going home.
Cynthia – for that was her name – selected the largest pieces from the bags and placed them on Pastor Kamsi’s plate, her fingers moving mechanically.
‘Are you mad? Make sure you clean the stain,’ Pastor Kamsi shouted suddenly. An oil stain was spreading through his trouser leg. Cynthia desperately wiped at it.
Her eyes turned in my direction, nervous and ashamed, reminding him of my presence.
‘What are you still doing here?’ he demanded. ‘Get out!’
The whispers died away after that and soon no one spoke of the cherub-faced girl, only of Pastor Kamsi and his soon-to-be wife.
During the six-month-long strike of 2003, the campus photography studio shut down; Mr Silas, the personable proprietor of Studio Da Best, was leaving the country. Students were his market and the incessant strikes meant the hostels were often empty and no one had anything to celebrate. When we heard the news, a group of us assembled, refusing to allow this to happen in the same year as our graduation; we handed out fliers by roadsides and promised to stop by with our families and friends.
Studio Da Best was where we held time as a frozen object in our hands: birthdays and special events marked with poses and balloons and cakes; the last day of exams, our faces transforming every year, losing the dewiness of youth. Mr Silas, now middle-aged, had opened its doors on his return many years prior from the United States.
‘They chased me away with their racism. Such bullshit. I’d rather be a pauper here mehn.’ He said the ‘mehn’ like he said ‘bullshit’, in a twisted American accent, to denote his foreignness, his choice of return that placed him in a slightly higher echelon, because they were not words average Nigerians used.
Emeka had begun his compulsory year of national youth service and I convinced him to stop by for a snap in his khaki uniform; his posting to a primary school meant he had less time on his hands. I returned to Zina who had a new boyfriend whose name I didn’t always recall. Eriife was still in school – back then, the College of Medicine didn’t always go on strike when others did.
In the evenings, Zina and I watched TV soaps, voraciously tailing the characters’ lives, caught up in their romances and betrayals.
‘I should probably get pregnant,’ Zina said flippantly one such evening.
I turned to stare at her. ‘Pardon?’
She looked at me then laughed. ‘You should see your face. Oh my God.’
‘Repeat what you just said.’
‘I’m joking.’
‘You sounded serious.’
She sighed. ‘Well only partly. We’ll soon graduate, whenever these people finally decide to call off their strike. I’ve begged and begged my father. He’s still insisting I get married; he might delay it till we’re done with law school, but only just.’
‘You think getting pregnant for what’s his name would help? You’d be making your father’s point for him.’
Zina sat up straight, her smile gone. ‘You’re so judgemental, do you know that? You’ve never even given him a chance. You’re lucky your father barely pays attention to you. Do you know what it feels like to have mine breathing down my neck every day?’
We didn’t speak for days after that.
‘Nothing,’ I told my mother when she asked what was wrong.
