I nodded, not saying anything, not committing.
‘And tell that your husband to come and see me. When it’s time to campaign for votes, he’ll be everywhere like a tsetse fly.’
In the car, Adelola leaned towards me and asked, her eyes clouded with a new sadness of awareness, ‘Is Nigeria that hard?’
37
Consequences
‘New Year! New Decade! New Things!’ Kamsi proclaimed from the altar of his new auditorium, an altar fashioned from pure flamed marble. ‘God is about to transform your life beyond your wildest dreams,’ he shouted into the microphone and the packed auditorium surged to its feet screaming ‘Amen!’
Soye was amongst them, raising his arms to the high ceiling, the wings of his agbada falling to his shoulders in loose folds.
Outside the new building, protesters formed a gathering of their own, raising placards and screaming epithets that could be overheard when the din of voices and musical instruments died down; a line of young male ushers had formed a protective border to keep them from rushing in to disrupt the service.
Kamsi had taken to trotting his wife about as a heraldic shield. In the past, she’d been a silent appendage, taking to the stage once in a while and never appearing in flyers. Now she was plastered on billboards across the city – her name, then his, followed by other popular pastors whose names were meant to whitewash his. I thought it a compromise in exchange for her silence. Occasionally, he brought in prominent American evangelists and splashed pictures of them in chauffeured Rolls-Royces across the internet.
Onomavwe decided Kamsi needed more conspicuous and prominent support from the political class, and as he wasn’t always in Lagos, he instructed Soye to take up the duty.
‘I’m not going. You can do it alone,’ I told him.
Soye’s face fell. ‘Why are you being like this? This isn’t the oath we took o. It’s for better or worse,’ he pleaded.
‘This was not the “worse” I had in mind when we exchanged our vows,’ I retorted. ‘Are you not tired of being that man’s lackey? At what age? You can go alone,’ I said.
‘If I go alone people will start asking questions. We go everywhere together. Next thing you know, divorce rumours will start surfacing and people will start digging around for what is not there.’
I spotted the jib crane camera moving towards where we were seated and stretched my fan wider, pulling it closer to cover my face. Zina was right; my mother would have been ashamed of me.
Midway through the service, Soye was invited to the altar to share a few words of exaltation. In his introduction, Kamsi quoted a special scripture: ‘When the righteous rule, the people rejoice.’
Aunty Ada wasn’t expecting me; her bemused expression said as much, but it also said she’d heard about everything else. I studied her face as I stood outside the door to her home – she was still beautiful; it was impossible to take that away from her. But a gauntness had crept into the structure of her cheekbones and the flatness of the scarf on her head told me she’d lost her lustrous thick hair.
Like Zina, Aunty Ada was unpredictable, and I waited with hitched breath as she decided what to do with me. On the way, I’d bought baskets of oranges and apples because my mother always took fruit along when she visited the sick.
‘Come in,’ Aunty Ada said finally and pushed the door open wider.
I walked the familiar path through the narrow corridor to their living room, remembering all the times I’d come there with my mother as a girl.
‘Sit down,’ Aunty Ada said, waving towards the settee.
I extended the bags in my hands. ‘These are for you, aunty.’
She eyed the packages in my hands, then took them. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured. Aunty Ada was never rude to visitors. ‘Do you want anything to drink?’ she asked, moving towards the kitchen. ‘There’s juice and cold water but I can ask someone to buy Coke for you.’
‘Water is fine, aunty,’ I said, balancing my weight on the edge of a settee.
Aunty Ada returned minutes later with a bottle of cold water – the surface radiating a chilly steam – and a tumbler. She placed them on a wooden stool and took a seat at the other end of the room.
‘To what do I owe this honour?’ she asked. Her tone was intentionally sardonic, her eyebrows arched with scepticism. In no way did it sound like she considered it an honour and I wondered if I’d made a mistake in visiting.
‘I heard about your health and wanted to check on you,’ I said.
She hissed, dismissive. ‘These blogs that never mind their business, always invading people’s privacy and the law protects them in the name of freedom of speech. I wonder how they found out I’m Zinachukwu’s mother in the first place. Uju has already called me from America to cry and cry. She says she’s booking a flight to come down next week. Ego came the other day with her husband and gift baskets. My own children visit me almost every day. How am I supposed to get better when everyone is acting like I’m dying ehn? Even if I’m dying, it’s not like I don’t have people waiting for me on the other side.’
I cleared my throat to rid myself of the sudden thickness that gathered there. ‘We don’t think you’re dying, aunty,’ I said. ‘We’re just concerned.’
‘You should all be more concerned for yourselves.’ She tapped her chest emphatically with both hands. ‘Well, as you can see, my breasts are gone. But I’m alive and well. I can’t die easily.’
‘How’s the treatment going?’
She sighed. ‘I should be done with chemotherapy in a few weeks. We started late because of my stubbornness.’ She chuckled to herself. ‘I didn’t want to lose my breasts. But look at me now. Hopefully my hair will eventually grow back.’
‘I’m sorry, aunty.’
‘No need to be sorry; it’s not your fault.’ Aunty Ada shifted so she could relax her back against the sofa. She folded her arms across her planed chest, and for several seconds, she stared at me, not saying anything. It felt like being observed under a microscope.
‘Your mother is the only reason I opened my door for you today,’ she said eventually. ‘If not…’ She let the ‘if not’ hang like a shadowed threat. ‘Does Zinachukwu know you’re here?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said.
She laughed, a loud hearty laugh. ‘Is this how you plan to live the rest of your life?’
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that or what exactly she meant, and so I remained silent.
Aunty Ada rubbed a hand across her chest, like she was still getting used to the loss of her breasts. ‘Akwaugo,’ she called suddenly, startling me. Only my mother had ever referred to me by that name. ‘That is the Igbo name your mother gave you, right?’
I stared at my hands ashamedly. ‘Yes.’
