I didn’t regret the decision; I never had. Though for years, I thought it made me devoid of good. But the child and its murky waters hadn’t visited in many weeks; Zino said it was because I was finally confronting my repressed demons. I went to see a gynaecologist about the possibility of having a child sometime in the future and she’d run the tests and returned with a verdict: yes, it was possible, but the likelihood dwindled with each moment that passed.
The children joined hands in a line when the three wise men arrived, directed by a star that dropped from the ceiling. They sang traditional tuneful Christmas carols and the choir and congregation joined in, reading from the hymnals arranged on the pews. Cassandra was still knelt at the front, taking pictures, a glittering Christmas hat tied on her head.
The priest shared a brief sermon afterwards. He hadn’t intended to, or so he said. But it had been a difficult year for many, with the floundering economy and collapse of many businesses, and he felt it necessary to instil hope in the doubting. ‘The hymnist Horatio Spafford suffered many losses when he wrote “It is Well”. He had lost his businesses, his children had died at sea, with only his wife saved, yet like Job, he remained faithful. And so, I’d like the choir to offer a rendition of this hymn to remind us all that it is well.’ Robed men and women rose to their feet and their seraphic voices soon filled the auditorium.
When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul
I hunched over the pew and shed uncontrollable tears.
My mother was raised to never misbehave in front of visitors, and it was why I took Zino with me to the hospital to see her. Ego had travelled to America to visit her mother; I hadn’t told either of them about her illness. My mother spoke to Aunty Uju often enough to tell her herself if she wanted to.
It was the day of her surgery and my father was seated in the hospital hallway, his head bowed over like a man who was about to lose his most valued possession. He lifted his head in the barest acknowledgement when I called him – Daddy – then returned his stare to his hands. In them a rosary was tightly clutched and his lips moved with sullen desperation.
At first, my mother had refused treatment, and the single lump discovered in her breast during a routine checkup had remained unchecked. She couldn’t be sick; she’d always been in perfect health, and by some miracle her body would return to its normal perfect self. But months later, the doctors warned that the tumour had spread to the second breast and she would need to undergo a double mastectomy. It was then we’d discovered the true reason for my mother’s denial.
‘She said Daddy will leave her for a younger woman if she has no breasts, that it’s what makes her a woman,’ Nulia explained to me. The doctors offered implants but she turned them down. No, she will not carry ‘plastics’ in her body.
Faced with the stark reality of death, she eventually accepted treatment, but only after my father swore he wouldn’t marry another woman even if she died. Aunty Chinelo’s husband had married another woman several years after her passing and my mother never forgave him. If there was one thing Adaugo Okafor née Omimi knew how to do, it was hold a grudge.
Nulia called again, ‘The doctor said it’s a routine surgery, afterwards they will start chemotherapy. But nothing is ever guaranteed, there have been a few cases of women not waking up from routine surgeries.’
I decided then that I was going to see my mother, even if she cursed me on her deathbed.
My sisters and their husbands were present in the ward, and I tried to recall their husbands’ names as I greeted them. The men looked varying degrees of preoccupied and troubled as they glanced up to acknowledge my greeting and nod at Zino. My sisters turned their heads with unconcealed disdain. Except Nulia. ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ she greeted Zino, bobbing her head. And I burst into a shrill inappropriate laughter that made the others glare at me.
‘What?’ Nulia asked, her eyes squinched in innocent confusion. ‘He’s older than you, meaning he’s older than me.’
‘Not that old,’ Zino drolled, sending me a side-eye.
I made the introductions.
‘She asked us to wait outside, that we’re making her sad,’ Nulia whispered to us. Yes, that sounded like my mother. ‘I didn’t tell her you were coming; the doctor said they should start in an hour.’
I knocked before I turned the doorknob then observed as my mother’s eyes lit up with unremitting hostility and dimmed as she saw Zino walk through the door behind me. She adjusted her hospital gown. I knew her well.
‘Good morning, Mummy,’ I said. I hadn’t called her that in a long while.
Zino greeted her respectfully, adding ‘ma’ at the end, a salutation I’d never heard him make use of. ‘Good morning, young man! Hope you’re well. What’s your name?’ she responded with overt enthusiasm.
Zino responded and my mother hung on his surname. ‘Ah, that sounds very familiar. I might know your family!’ Eventually, he excused himself so we could talk but made sure to emphasise that he was waiting just outside the door, a signal to my mother that her words would be heard by a visitor.
We stared at each other in strained and prolonged silence, then my mother said, ‘Why are you looking like that? I’m not dying. I already chased your father out of here for almost crying, you better not behave like him.’
I laughed, realising for the first time just how alike we were; I would never let anyone cry, even at my deathbed. Somewhere along the line, my mother joined me, cautiously at first, then the years melted away and we were both sharing a laugh at something only we understood.
‘It’s the same way he cried at my father’s funeral,’ my mother said, still chuckling. ‘My brothers’ and sisters’ spouses were comforting them; I was the only one comforting my husband. Who does that?’ We howled with laughter.
‘Who is that? Is he your fiancé?’ my mother asked later, gesturing with her head towards the door.
I smiled. Of course, she would think that. ‘No, he’s my friend.’
She tilted her head to the side. ‘Well, it’s a start,’ she said. ‘That his surname, I think I know his family, their village is not too far from ours. They’re very popular and rich. Grab your copy now!’ She winked. We laughed.
Then she told me she’d seen a movie of mine.
‘It was showing in the shopping mall I went to buy household items at. It was very good. I asked Nulia to buy DVDs of the old ones for me. You’re doing well.’ She said this like she’d surprised herself by her own admission.
They were words I’d never expected – or dared to hope – to hear from my mother. I took in her expression, her eyes glazed with childlike uncertainty, her lips upturned in a wobbly smile, the way in which she’d mouthed the words. I committed them all to memory, wanting to always recall, even in my dying moment, the time in a blazing moment of shared laughter, my mother had thought good of me.
‘Power retained by oppression is illegitimate,’ Zino said.
‘It’s still power,’ I replied. ‘Power is power.’
After several months of propaganda and a tendentious rewriting of the last few years in lieu of a dignified campaign, elections were finally underway. Tribal tensions had been stoked to a frenzy and it was clear despite the tireless declarations of ‘One Nigeria’ that we were anything but one.
‘These guys are united in robbing the country of its future but they stoke these tensions and draw the lines to deceive us into their agenda,’ Zino said. It was the first time I’d ever known him to implement a sit-at-home policy during an election, but he’d declared that he wouldn’t participate in such a farce.
The people had declared they would kick out an incompetent government and the machinery had clicked into gear. Scattered ballot boxes, disappearing electoral officers, fractured heads, broken spirits. Just another election.
‘The origin always determines the outcome,’ Zino said. ‘The police force hasn’t progressed beyond the colonial construct of intimidation it was intended to be, its masters have only changed.’
The results were evident before they were announced. The ruling party was declared victor. At Eagle Square, they gathered for a charade of a swearing-in ceremony, garbed in party colours, waving party flags and brandishing sunglasses and hand signals. Eriife flashed briefly across the screen, seated in the VIP box, chatting animatedly with a senator’s wife.
