After you buried your third child, your father, fed up with the deaths, summoned you. You were not surprised, no. You had expected his summons earlier, especially because the deaths of your first two children were exactly the same. Nine days after her birth, your first child went to bed healthy. The following morning, she was as stiff as the frozen chicken you buy from Mama Chigozie’s shop. A year later, you welcomed a baby boy, who, on his tenth day, never woke up.
Arriving at your parents’ house at dawn, you found them seated on white plastic chairs, arms folded over their chests, lips turned downward, eyes staring at nothing. On the ground beside your father’s outstretched legs was a gourd of palm wine, its mouth stuffed with ọmụ nkwu leaves. Your father’s walking stick was between his legs. His raffia hand fan sat on his lap. Three tumblers and a thick, green, glass plate with two kola nuts on it were on the stool before your mother.
“Ahn-ahn, why are your faces like rain-battered shit. Ọgịnị?”
“Sit down, my son,” your father said.
You dusted the spare chair and sat. “You two look moody.”
Your father proceeded with the kola nut ritual. He was in no hurry to thank his gods and ancestors for a new day and for everything else. You kept stealing glances at your wristwatch. When he offered you a lobe of the split kola nut, you declined.
“Agụnna, kedụ?” your father asked.
“I am fine, Nnam,” you responded.
“You will have to stop looking at that clock of yours. A man whose house is on fire does not pursue rats.”
You rubbed your beardless jaw. “Nnam, you know that I am the only doctor in the hospital. I have to be there on time.”
Your father took a bite from his kola nut. “I have called you this morning for two reasons. First,” he said, raising his forefinger, “you must get interested in this family’s arọbịnagụ and learn the yearly ritual in its honor. I am an old man with limited time in this space. Our arọbịnagụ have faithfully provided us with riches from which you have benefited. Do not let the spirits scrape your mouth on the ground before you start sacrificing to them.”
“Nnam, at the risk of repeating myself, I am an assistant pastor and cannot participate in such fetish practices.”
Your father looked at your mother.
“It is our tradition,” she said. “What is fetish about offering the oracle a white fowl and three kola nuts yearly? It does not stop you from going to church.”
You shook your head and looked at your watch. You’d had this argument several times and could spare no patience for it that morning. The loud sound of your father’s gulps pulled your eyes away from your wrist. Tiny froths of palm wine seeped from the tumbler. For a brief moment, you felt pity. Your father used to be huge and agile. Now he was all wrinkles and bones. Your mother, once a feared teacher, also had not been spared from the aging process.
“Secondly, Agụ,” your father said, now with two raised fingers, “it is about your childlessness. This issue chases sleep away from my eyes. How can I join my ancestors knowing that my only child is childless? Agụ, agwọ nọ n’akịrịka.”
“There is no snake anywhere, Nnam. We have had all these discussions before. My wife and I are just going through…”
“Through what?” Your mother snapped. “We have had this discussion before.” She mimicked you. “Can you not see that whatever is eating your children is above Western medicine?”
You sighed. Some distance away a cock crowed and the sun rose at a snail’s pace. You glanced at your father’s feet. His toenails were black, thick and curled down.
“It is not above Western medicine, Nnem. My first son died of pneumonia. My first daughter died of diarrhea. My second daughter…”
“Died of gonorrhea, or is it syphilis?”
“Nnem, my children did not die of gonorrhea.”
“I guess it was simple chance that their gonorrhea and syphilis took each of them on their ninth nights on earth.”
You snorted in disgust, falling back on your seat and breathing heavily. Your mother clucked her tongue to deride you. You ignored her. It had become bright. The bleating of hungry goats and sheep and sounds of sweeping replaced the howling of dogs. The sounds of praying, singing, and quarreling rose above the rest. You heard a woman scream at a child to get ready for school. You looked at your watch and gasped.
“Nnam…”
“I have told you to stop looking at that clock.”
You sighed in resignation. “Nnam, don’t worry. I will have a child. My wife will give birth to the one that will stay. We are taking adequate medical precautions now.”
Your father smiled lopsidedly. Old age did not hide his dimples. “It is beyond the white man medicine, nwam. A person pressed with watery feces does not walk. I have taken the pains to go and consult a diviner. He confirmed my fears.” He cleared his throat and spat out the thick, yellow sputum. “Agụ, you are having ọgbanje children.”
You jumped up. “Dear Jesus! God forbid!”
You circled your hand around your head and snapped your fingers. Your mother shifted her legs as if to dodge the ill you pushed away.
You sat again. “Nnam, please, I am a Christian. I do not believe in all these things. What business have I got with ọgbanje children, for goodness sake?”
“Those wicked and mysterious spirits choose whomever they want.”
“But I have had a boy and two girls.”
“Who all died the same way, and, I am certain, at the same hour,” your father said. “You do not even need a diviner to tell you that you are dealing with ọgbanje spirits here.”
Your mother hissed. “We warned you not to marry that thing that you got from God-knows-where. It must have come from her.”
Two deep lines appeared on her forehead. But you were not prepared to go down that road with her. No, no, not today!
“My son, a man who removes a woman’s clothes does not just stand and stare,” your father said. “You must join me to go see Abiankita. He can put an end to this.”
“Me?” You struck your chest. “In a shrine? Are you joking? Is this no longer 1994? Or have we gone back to 1915?”
Your mother pulled her ear. “Use your tongue to count your teeth, gị bụ nwa!”
“Nnam, please I have to go. Thank you for your concern, but I cannot do as you have asked. I am an England-trained medical doctor, and I am telling you that my children’s problems are purely medical. Our next child will stay. Watch and see.”
You knew everybody in the village watched and listened as soon as your wife’s fourth pregnancy became news. You made sure that your wife took every medical precaution. Amalachi did not miss a day of her routine pregnancy drugs. She ate fruits and fed well. You insisted on that. Even your pastor did not bat an eye when you told him you were going to his rival church to seek a miracle. This pastor prayed over a white handkerchief and gave it to you. His instructions were clear. At midnight, spread the handkerchief on Amalachi’s stomach and read Psalms 91 and 23. The handkerchief would become a spiritual ultrasound machine, he said. Place your lips very close to Amalachi’s belly and speak life to the child. After this, drop the handkerchief in a white basin — he emphasized the white color — and pour hot water on it. Then hold hands with your wife and pray until the water is warm enough to drink. Both of you should drink it. Do this every day until the baby is born.
You also visited a Catholic priest who gave you a rosary after making the sign of the cross above it. He asked you to recite the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy every day. You had to buy books about Catholicism to learn how to say these prayers. You even went the extra mile of placing the rosary on Amalachi’s stomach while she slept.
You were always falling asleep in the office. Your body went from chubby to gaunt. Though your wife gained weight, the strain was not lost in her eyes.
The baby arrived. She was so fat that she tore Amalachi’s vagina to make more room for herself to pass. Her skin was as smooth as cream. Her eyes were the brightest brown eyes you’d ever seen. She had your full nose and heart-shaped lips. She looked nothing like your wife.
You were certain that this child would stay. She sucked breasts more than her siblings. She smiled often, gave no troubles, and grew fatter each day. These were good signs but you did not let your guard down. You prayed and recited your rosary every morning and night.
While Amalachi slept on the ninth night of the baby’s birth, you kept watch. You had to eat kola nut, something you find very bitter, to stay awake. A part of you was afraid that your father was right. The other part of you continued to wallow in denial. You never took your eyes off that baby, not for one second. You said the Divine Mercy Chaplet with your eyes on her. Your ears were attentive to her soft snores. Not too long after that prayer, an eddy of cold air crept through the windows, swirled the curtains. The air whooshed by and you felt slightly scared when a chill on your skin made all your body hair stand.
The truth is, there was a presence in that room. The spirit stood close to you, looking at you as if trying to divert your attention from the baby. It had a neck as long as a giraffe. Its body, covered with white hair, was as muscular as a chimpanzee. Its legs were as pink and as soft as a tongue, and its fingers nested together like a sleeping bat’s wings. Then, it started shrinking, turning to a human form. Its spider-face turned to that of a very handsome person with bright red eyes and black pupils. Its hair looked like long strands of algae. It had a muscular torso but no sex between its legs. It walked away from you and stood close to the bed. It lifted your daughter’s spirit and rocked it tenderly. Then it jumped out of the window with your baby’s spirit and turned into a bat.
When you no longer heard your baby’s soft snores, you placed your index finger under her nose: no breath. You raised her hand, and it surrendered to the force of gravity. You pulled down her lower eyelid and flashed your torch. Her fixated brown pupils stared right back. You stumbled back to your chair. Your head spun like a sewing machine’s wheel. When you got a hold of yourself, you looked at the time, 4:00 a.m., about the time your other babies died. Everywhere became still. The curtains stopped waving, the wind stopped howling, and the chill vanished. You stared at the lifeless body of your baby, squeezing the handle of the chair as if to crush it. Taking it in your stride, one deep breath at a time, you returned to your room. You lay on your bed and put a pillow on your head but sleep did not save you. Even when your wife started screaming at dawn, you stayed the same.
Five months later, you came back from work one night to find your wife crying in the sitting room. You went to the kitchen to look for food but were only met by pots so sparkling, they almost blinded you. You settled for bread and roasted groundnuts.
“Nonye, what is it?” you asked your wife when you went and sat across from her with your dinner.
You were the only one who did not call her by her nickname, Amalachi, a name she got because she loved to eat amala.
“Your mother came here today.”
You sighed, knowing what was next.
“It was worse than her former visits. She called me Mamiwater. She said I came to use you to produce children for my spirit husband. She cursed me. She said I will die during my next childbirth.”
“What!” You accidentally knocked down the plate of groundnuts, scattering them across the floor. “My mother said that to you?”
Amalachi blew her nose. “Nobody sells to me in the market. Nobody speaks to me. They squeeze their faces and hide their children’s faces when I pass by. They call me names, spit on me, call me ugly.”
You went to her and hugged her. She buried her face in your chest and bawled. Tears dropped from your eyes.
“You are not ugly. Don’t mind them.”
But you were lying. She’s ugly. Let’s not go into her orange complexion. Not chocolate, not fair, not bleached, orange! She was the only orange person in the entire village. Her ugliness was as acrid as a mixture of chloroquine and bitter leaf juice. Imagine someone drinking this. What would the person do to their face? Squeeze the hell out of it, is that not so? And even spit? Good.
“I cannot continue like this, Agụ.”
“Don’t worry. The next baby will stay.”
She raised her head from your chest, shaking her head. “Go and see Abiankita.”
“What!” You pushed her away. “Have you joined them? Have you forgotten that I am an assistant pastor?”
“There are many ways of serving God.” She cleaned her face with the flat of her hands. “Christianity is not the only religion. Look at me.” She jumped up. “I am a skeleton. Look at my breasts.” She raised her shirt and drooped her chest to your face. Each breast was as thin as half a slice of bread and dangled like feather earrings. “They are flat but no child to show for it. I almost died during the last labor. You know how much blood I lost.”
“Don’t be melodramatic. I will never turn my back on God,” you said, dismissing her with the wave of a hand.
Deep lines appeared on her forehead. Her orangeness shone. “Melodrama, is it? Melo… Fine. If you will not consult Abiankata, you either take me back to my parents or I will kill myself.” She stormed out.
You took it as a flippant statement. But, two weeks later, when a sachet of rat poison surfaced in your rat-free house, you agreed to consult Abiankita.
The next day, before dawn, you went to see your father and narrated your ordeal.
Your father smiled. “You are ready to be my son. I have been trying to tell you this long ago, Agụ. A child dances to the sweet melody of Surugede without knowing that Surugede is the dance of the spirits.”
That same morning, you and your father strolled to the house of Dikeọgụ, the abiankita. His sandy compound was decorated with marks from a traditional broom. A teenage girl carrying a pail of water on her head curtsied as she greeted the two of you.
“Thank you, my daughter,” your father responded, smiling from molar to molar. “Nwa a ga-alụ alụ! Please tell your father that I am here with my son.”
You felt embarrassed for the little girl when your father called her “marriageable.”
Your father pulled you closer. “That is the girl you will take for a second wife if this option does not work.”
“God forbid, Nnam,” you whispered back. “I am not a pedophile.”
Your father scrunched up his face and hissed.
“Nweze!” a very deep voice rang out from inside the house. “Welcome. The door is open.”
Your father raised his raffia hand fan. “Dikeọgụ! Ekenem gị.”
You gave your father a hand as he climbed the steep steps. You parted the worn-out curtain for him and waited for him to enter first.
The deep voice rang again. “Welcome. There is seat o!”
You looked around you. There was a wooden altar lighted by a tiny bulb. It shocked and relaxed you to see the crucifix between the portraits of Jesus and Mary. A huge rosary hung on a nail to the left of the altar.
You nudged your father, your mouth almost entering his ears. “Had you told me that this man is a prophet, I should have come with you long ago.”
Your father chuckled and whispered, “He is both a Christian and a native diviner.”
You did not believe him. You looked at the brown sofas and wooden table. The floor was covered in a sparkling blue carpet. Nothing suggested that this man was a local diviner. Three curtains at different parts of the house suggested that there were three rooms. Along came a woman with a big stomach, whom you assumed was his wife, carrying a tray. She was all smiles as she asked after your mother and your wife. She dropped her tray bearing a saucer of garden eggs, ose ọji, and two cans of soft drinks. A tall man, who could not be more than forty-four, dressed in a neat police uniform emerged from one of the curtains. He wore eyeglasses and a neat moustache. Even when you heard his deep voice, you still did not believe that he was Dikeọgụ. He shook your hand firmly as your father introduced you to each other.
“You have not touched your kola?” Dikeọgụ said.
“Kola is in the hand of the king,” your father said.
Dikeọgụ laughed. “Go ahead. It belongs to you.”
You were still quiet. Both of them spoke as though you were absent. You heard him tell your father that he had eaten kola already. You stopped listening. You did not understand what was happening. How did this young man end up as a diviner? You heard them laughing about something you must have missed.
“Why is your daughter at home?”
“That one,” Dikeọgụ said, waving his hand, “she got suspended for fighting in school.”
“Ewoo.”
“And let me warn you, my daughter will go to the university and become a doctor like your son. She is not to get married yet.”
Goosebumps ran down your arm. You were very certain that this was what your father whispered to you when you were outside. How then did this man repeat what you two discussed?
Your father laughed. “Of what use is a woman if not marriage?”
“Anyway,” he said, hitting the back of his palms on his lap, “my own daughter will be the best woman she can be. When she is educated and successful, you will see how men will fall over each other for a chance to bear the honorable title of ‘her husband’.”
Your head nodded on its own.
“So let us get into what brought you people here. I am about to go to work.”
“Work?” you blurted out.
He laughed, pointing at himself. “Can you not see that I am a police officer?”
You could no longer hold back your questions. “You are not the dibia, are you?”
He shook his head. “I am not the dibia.”
You held your chest and sighed in relief. A dog barked some distance away.
“I am Abiankita,” he said.
“Are they not the same thing?”
Dikeọgụ laughed. “They are the same thing but slightly different functions or gifts. Agwudibia, the one you have in mind, is a native physician, an expert in herbs. I am a diviner. So if you are sick, this is not the best place to be. Go to Okafor’s house.”
You pointed at the altar. “You are a Christian, are you not?”
He shrugged. “I cannot boldly go by that title, but my wife and children are Christians. It is the same God but different methods of worship. I go to church occasionally though.”
As if he could still read the confused look on your face, he added, “Stop by another day and I shall clear all your doubts. For now,” he glanced at his watch, “let us get to business. I am running late.”
You rubbed your jaw and nodded. Your father relaxed on the sofa, shaking his legs and chewing his teeth.
Dikeọgụ drew closer to the edge of his chair. “Agụ, I have consulted Agwu, the Holy Spirit, on your behalf. You are having ọgbanje children.”
You shuddered. You looked at your father who tilted his head slightly as if to say he told you so. You began to think that you were watching a drama unfold. Had your father secretly convinced this educated man to pretend to be a diviner and convince you of the ọgbanje thing?
“Your wife is pregnant, is she not?”
Your stomach turned. You only found out yesterday after you tested her urine yourself. No one except the two of you knew. How then did this man know?
“She will give birth to that baby, a girl. However, I’m afraid she will die like the rest of your children.”
Dikeọgụ looked at his watch again. Your father lowered his head and rubbed his forehead. You clutched your stomach, feeling as if you might vomit.
“It is too late to save this one. We will use her to set an example. After her death, I will give you a charm to bury by your house and give your wife a concoction to drink. But, and listen very carefully, when the baby dies, neither you nor your wife should touch the corpse until I come.”
You could no longer hold back. You rushed outside.
Amalachi tried to keep watch with you this time, but she dozed off on the chair beside you. When you confirmed your fifth baby dead, you staggered back to your chair, shaking. You waited until you gained composure before you tapped her softly.
“She’s dead. Don’t shout and don’t touch her.”
She still tried to shout but you covered her mouth and clenched your fist. “I said don’t shout. Do you want more trouble?”
Her tears ran over your hand. Your wife cried until a few minutes later when Dikeọgụ’s voice and bell-staff tolled in your compound. You unlocked the door and went outside. It was no longer the educated policeman that approached your house. The voice, however, was unmistakably Dikeọgụ’s. His gait was a tiger’s. He was barefooted. His anklets were made of bold white beads. He wore an ankle-length, white, cotton skirt and a white, one-shoulder, baggy shirt. He had a big goat-skin bag slung over his shoulder and he did not wear eyeglasses. A living turtle was fastened to his neck by a black rope. He neither greeted you nor responded to your greeting. He entered the house walking backward and straight to the room where the baby lay as if he had been there before. Still reciting his incantations, he scooped up the corpse and walked outside. You held your sobbing wife as both of you followed him. The eerie howling of the harmattan wind threatened to push down the trees and cover everything. Amalachi hugged herself.
Dikeọgụ dropped the corpse on the sand and sat about ten feet away. “Undress her.” He started to sing praises to his gods.
You left Amalachi standing alone and carried out Dikeọgụ’s order even though you felt as though you were exposing your dead baby to the cold. Her body was still as soft as cotton.
Dikeọgụ brought out a dagger from his bag and pointed it at you. “Lacerate her.”
Your legs felt stiff and heavy. You wondered how you could stab your dead baby. Your wife clutched your feet, pleading with you to allow the child to die well at least. You shook your legs free, mistakenly kicking her in the jaw, and took the dagger from Dikeọgụ. Consumed in the helpless rage from watching your children die, you dug the knife into her chest. Blood sputtered out, splashing on your wife and you. You stabbed all parts of the baby’s body except her face. You could not bear touching her cute face. Her organs were visible. Tears streamed down your eyes. You could not even bear looking at your wife who kneeled beside your baby, wailing.
“It can hear. Speak,” said Dikeọgụ.
You looked around as if trying to figure out where the malign spirit stood. “You evil spirit, you better not come back here! When you go back, tell them that I, Agụ, the tiger, said that if I catch you here again, I will rip you piece by piece. I will gouge out your eyes and chew them raw. I will use your brains for ngwọ-ngwọ.”
Dikeọgụ laughed. He produced three bundled ọmụ leaves from his bag, which he gave to you. “Cover her.”
You spread the leaves all over the bloodied corpse.
“Set her on fire.”
You dashed inside, got a box of matches and a cup of kerosene. As you doused her with the kerosene, you saw Amalachi holding her chest as though she was preventing it from falling apart. You flung the cup, struck a match, and threw it on the corpse. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. You hugged the wailing Amalachi. Suddenly, Dikeọgụ guffawed, his oily face made visible by the fire, and pointing at nothing you could see.
“See them running away. Can you not see them over there?”
One year later, after obediently adhering to Dikeọgụ’s instructions, Amalachi gave birth to a son. You peeped through the window, observing the procedure. It irked you that as soon as Amalachi pushed out your baby, the nurse screamed and fell off her stool. The terror on her face was mixed with utter disgust as if she was staring at a plate crawling with maggots. She rushed to the sink and scrubbed her hands.
You rushed in and looked closely at your crying baby, who was still attached to his mother through the umbilical cord. You recognized the long scars all over the baby’s body and even on his scrotum. The longest and deepest scar ran from his chest to his stomach. He had pink patches all over, like someone with vitiligo. You did not understand any of it. He wailed, kicking his legs, reaching out to you.
You clamped the umbilical cord, cut it, and carried your son.
Ọgbanje is an excerpt from ALL SHADES OF IBERIBE coming soon, 02 November 2021, by Sandorf Passage Publishers.
Preorder Kasimma’s ALL SHADES OF IBERIBE here.
Image by Longxian Qian via Prexels
Ọgbanje first appeared on The Book Smuggler’s Den.
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