Tag: CVC Ozoaniamalu

By C.V.C Ozoaniamalu

Enugu. 042. Ugwuonyeama. New Haven. Abakpa. Names that resurrect the events of yesterday, of the things that would not be anymore. Indelible thoughts, pronunciations that are still stiff, inelegant yet appreciating. Writing this makes me feel stupidly emotional and happy at the same time.

I remember when I first came here. In the early Christmas season of 2019. I was in my early twenties and Obeleagu was in his early thirties. We were a fresh couple, fresh in many ways, green in the best possible sense, and secured that the future would remain as we imagined it. Our traditional wedding had just been concluded in my hometown in Boki Local Government of Cross River State. It was love at first hearing, not at sight, a phrase I had coined myself to explain that I first fell for his name and not the person; even without knowing the meaning, the name sounded so funny. When he told me that it meant, “The Little Lion”, I was some kind of confused: why did his parents, after beholding such a huge, broad shouldered, tall and aesthetically-carved face of a man choose to name him a “Small Lion”? Perhaps , he had none of these features when he was born.

Months later I met his father, now my father in-law (Papa).

Papa indeed was the bigger lion. He was everything my husband was and more. At his age of almost 69, he was standing the same height as my husband. He spoke rapidly, with a hoarse voice and had the same quick temper as Obeleagu. One could hardly differentiate when he was ranting or when he was talking calmly—the cadences are all the same. To crown it all, his name is Agu. This made my husband’s name “Obele-Agu, Agu” and now his only friend had shortened it to ‘O.B.A’. But teasingly, I would call him “Nnukwu-Agu”, especially when money was involved, and then Obeleagu when he annoyed me.

Becoming Mrs Obeleagu-Agu came with its uncertainties. Unlike the many stories I had heard of the risk of marrying outside my ancestral home, the fear of adaptation to a new culture, a new people, and the uncertainties of acceptance into a new family, made mine seem like an exception. That is not to say that my marriage to Obeleagu was one without difficulties, a rose without thorns. Of course, it was not. I would be the flagbearer of any eerie little cult of patented young liars if I even think so, not even talk about it.

We had our moments of doubt, our moments of despair and anger, but like a child in love with hiking, we waited for the harmattan on rolling hills.

Obeleagu and I did not agree on many things. I was the gregarious one while he was the quiet one. He never went to parties and had fewer friends. He kept his emotions in check and was always expressionless. He was interested only in his work, his family and me. He played West Life when in his elements and insisted we play Osadebe when we made love instead of blues. He had a fatalism for flying and would escort me to the airport while he drove back to meet me in Lagos. There was an old-fashioned quality about him that I loved and hated at the same time. He loved to wear natives to every event, but only had to wear jeans because I insisted.

In the political sphere, he believed classism could only be curtailed by the government’s ownership of all properties, while Papa and I always advocated that private ownership follows nature. In one of those our heated arguments during Christmas reunions at Mgbagbu-Owa, Papa would no longer take to sitting but would stand, his voice filling the room and his hands gesticulating in support of his argument. He would lecture, “Man not only should possess the fruits of the earth, but also the very soil, since from the produce of the earth he has to lay by provision for the future. Man’s needs do not die out, but forever recur; although satisfied today, they demand fresh supplies for tomorrow. Nature accordingly must have given to a man a source that is stable and remaining with him always, from which he might draw continual supplies.”

Then I would chip in, supporting Papa, “Needless to say that man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance of his body”.

My mother-in-law, who always joined the supposed winning team, would scream “Oh yes, ride on” from her bedroom, and a deep ineffable pride would engulf me, knowing fully well that Obeleagu would hold that against me later. Such that when I asked him for something afterwards, he would half-jokingly tell me to go ask my father-in-law and mother-in-law.

As an only child of my parents who had come to embrace the Agu’s as my home and siblings, I noticed that there was also a kind of subtle uniqueness of each of my husband’s siblings, a custom peculiar to every home, and as my husband would always describe it, though of the same blood, but not of the same Chi, a phrase I may not strongly agree with. Because I had come to the belief that all siblings do not have the same parents. Allow me to explain.

Let us start with my husband and Omalinze, his brother, the first two of their kind who Papa and Mama had when they were almost our age, I guess. Both inexperienced in child upbringing, like many young parents, were placing their hands on a lot of options. As I gathered from Obeleagu, Mama and Papa were very strict parents. There were a lot of rules, and breaking any came with severe punishment. My husband always told stories of how he had gotten the beating of his life after a neighbour had visited them at night to report to his father that he was amongst the boys who had broken the windscreen of his Volkswagen while playing football in the street; of how Omalinze had bought eggs with the money given to them by a relative and how Papa who would rant and rant that it was an act of greed and would trigger stealing, and had beaten him instead of Omalinze on the ground that he should have guided him better as an older person.

These stories and a lot more were, in a way, building two different people. My husband, who, as a child, had assumed the role of a second parent, had become the man who looked out for his siblings and their well-being, the one who, though emotionally, screamed when things were not done the right way. That rigid, stick-to-the-rule, and non-philandering teetotaler.

Omalinze, on the other hand, had grown to become the carefree spender-uncle everyone would like to visit. He obeyed his own rules and fears no one. He was a man who only thought of today, as he believed tomorrow would speak for itself. Papa called him “The wolf amongst lambs,” while Mama would always stick to his side while reassuring Papa that he would change.

Then came Amalu, the last of their kind. who was born fourteen years after Omalinze, that is to say, that he met a different version of their parents, unlike his brothers. A different version, both in physical appearance and emotions. This explains why he insisted that the older pictures of their parents be used for their 25th Wedding Anniversary celebration rather than the younger pictures of them, as required by my husband and Omalinze, as those were the parents he could relate to. My husband mentioned how surprising it was to see that the things which were a big issue to Papa and Mama became not so much an issue during the early days of Amalu. “He was not police maned like the rest of us. He got the love, and that is why he had so much love to give. They allowed him to cry in situations where they confronted us with “Be a man”. He had the best relationship with our parents as he stayed longer with them than us all. He is the one who remembers everyone’s birthday, even those of our grandparents. He cries at every discomfort of my parents or ours. He never buys his clothes even when he has the money to, because he knows the ones before him would get it for him. He got a pattern of treatment different from everyone else because Mama and Papa now know better than they knew years back.”

That explained why he had mourned so much after the accident at Milikien Hills, which took the lives of Papa, Mama, Omalinze and my husband. The tragedies of yesterday.

Having had no child with Obeleagu, I left Nigeria six months later to cure myself of grief. It is six years now, and Amalu and I still extend our littlest pleasantries and kindness. Coming to Nigeria, on his invitation, to stand in as his parents and siblings at his convocation, resurrects the events of yesterday.

Amalu is family and will forever be.

To the loved ones who went before us, cheers.

There is something about today that is yet to settle in with you. Something that felt like someone invisible yet very near was watching you.

The first time you had this feeling was at your boarding school at Ikot-Ekpene when a JSS 2 boy who stayed a bunk away from yours died. You’ve kept awake all night as rumours continued to spread of his visit to Akubue Paschal, a classmate of yours who had fallen sick shortly afterwards and who was said to have punished him some weeks before his death. But you’ve never punished anyone. Would he attack you for being there without saving him, for being a coward in the face of injustice? You felt the pain that followed the belt on the boy’s body and his eyes meeting yours calling for help, but you had looked away and went another direction just to avoid making enemies with Paschal.

“You have no enemies, you say. Alas, the boast is poor. He who has mingled in the frail of duty must indeed have made foes. If you have none, little is the work you have done. You hit no traitor on the hip…you poured no cup from perjured lips, You’ve been a COWARD”

This poem, whose author you have forgotten tormented you. After some days the feeling disappeared.

The feeling came again in 2020 at Umusiome Hospital, towards the end of the days of COVID-19. You had thought the feeling came with the unfamiliar smell of the hospital…, ‘No, that’s not the word’, it was not an unfamiliar smell as you know this smell comes with some hospitals and that was not the first time you slept over or looked after someone in a hospital that smelled that way. Debunked, you began to think it was the incense burnt by the other patient, a short unpleasant man, with hands so short that it looked like they were pegged to his arms. This incense does not have the familiar scent of the one burnt by the Priest at SS. John & Paul (Iba Pope, Awada, Onitsha) during the Sunday benedictions or Holy Mass. When your brother was moved to another ward weeks later after your complaint, the feeling never went away, but you woke up one day feeling like it was never there, it’s gone.

But these were years back. You’ve become an adult now, with malnourished strands of beards gathering at your lower jaw. You thought of going to Kachi’s place to spend the night. How much you’ve missed him, you told yourself – a ritual to emasculate your ego, but in actual sense, you were looking for a means to run away from your fears. It was not the weekend yet, it was still Wednesday and you would have Jurisprudence class the next day. The plan was out of the box.

You live off campus, in a hostel called Woodland without the woods, just a stone’s throw from the school gate. The hostel was so quiet that you could hear the jiggling sounds of the onions being splashed fiercely by Obinna into the sizzling oils from his kitchen at the far end. You could have gone to knock at his place to start up a discussion but you dread talking to the fellow housemates as you are keen on the thing “Privacy”. His name you’ve learnt from other boys when they scream at him to pass the ball in their monkey-post football marches downstairs. He always looked at you in a certain way, the way that suggests that he wants to be your friend, or rather, that says “I know what you are”, so you avoided him more.

“Let me go to night class”, you said out loud. At least it is the only place that registers little human interaction during the night. In the bathroom, baring your shy nakedness to the midnight blackness, you felt a hand run across the line of your spine. You jolted up almost immediately, the soap falling at a distance, you looked back in shock to see who it was, but saw no one. You ran your hands through your body, cold rashes hit the softness of your palm.

“A mam na onye nche m no nso (I know that my redeemer liveth)”, your voice rang, a song you have learned to sing over the years to assure yourself of the presence of God. You quickly checked your phone, it reads 8:00 pm. It was time. Time to speak with Okenna, a friend who has been fighting cancer for the past few months. 8:00 pm has become a ritual you both have formed over the months. The past week, he has always been the first to call, and with each day, his voice became weaker, he laughed less and only listened to you talk and talk. Each call leaves you with tears, each call breaks you. You wondered why he had not called this evening and decided to clean up and call him.

Opening the bathroom, there he sat, on your bed. “Jesus!”, you screamed, cleaning your eyes to clear off your hallucination but he did not vanish. You pinched yourself and you felt the pain. It’s no child’s play.

“Onye?”, your voice asked, shaking, trembling, and panting audibly. He turned, smiled at you and vanished.

Hours later, you woke up at the Health Center at Umueze, a pack of injections stuffed into your veins, with Obinna your neighbor seated beside you.

“I know you saw something, I heard you ask ‘Onye’ before the loud scr..ea..m” He stuttered and stopped as if he realized it was not the best time. “You have got some missed calls from different people, but the name Kachi recurs and I have told…”

“Help me dial Kachi?”, You said, cutting him short.

The number at the other end rang for a while and then a familiar voice came up “Nnam ndo, I guess you’ve heard….”

“Tell me nothing has happened to Okenna”

“He passed…”

You went quiet for some minutes before letting out a loud shout and falling from the bed, you opened your eyes, it was your room at Ikoyi, Lagos. It was 2025 and you are late to CDS thumb printing. Just a dream.

Christmas seems to come with different feelings for different people, and these feelings change at each stage of life. I hated Christmas and anything that reminded me of it.

“Felix navidad, Felix navidad 🎶🎶”, Onwudinjo sang, but kept mute and shrank at the sight of me. I had warned him about singing of Christmas rhymes in the house or attending Christmas parties. Its Fifteen years now, yet the trauma never left me. I had once beaten Onwudinjo severely for leading a troop of children around on Christmas carols.

“I wouldn’t work all day long to get you mess up on ephemeral joys of Christmas, you should be studying “ , I would rant and rant, basing my anger on the need for him to study ahead during Christmas breaks, rather than accepting that I don’t like the idea of Christmas.

At childhood, Christmas was a source of extravagant joy, but things have changed in recent times, and now Christmas became for me, the harbinger of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (that was what Dr. Ifee said I should call it). I still remember what childhood felt like those days in the little yet populated suburbs of Onitsha, in Anambra. The large long compound, highly fenced as though there were reasonable valuables buried therein, with reddish sands, referred in Igbo as “Aja upa”, which held the foundation of the old faintly painted eight rooms that housed the big eight families that migrated from different Biafran states. The circumstantial communal sharing of things was both hilarious and annoying. Hilarious, when it came to the absence of boredom, of exchanging the biggest gist of a tenant’s public secret, or of extending littlest but meaningful kindness: like the borrowing of certain cooking utensils or condiments. Annoyance only came, richly dressed, where issues of the failure of a particular tenant to clean the toilet arose, or where he or she cleaned without so much attention, or where the toilet was not properly flushed, or where a particular tenant had refused to pay light bills, or had beaten another’s child for an alleged disrespect. These and lots more became a source of joy and distraction.

Unfortunately, my sweet beautiful ideas of Christmas changed in 2007. It was a revered ritual for the male head of each of the eight families that lived in our red earthed compound to break kola two days before the eve of Christmas. This kola breaking was followed by a party which lasted through the night.

The breaking of the kola was always done at the center of the compound. Miss Olaedo, a single lady who occupied the first room was excluded from the kola activity.

During this morning ritual of breaking kola, Papa Udenya, the tall, full-haired Enugwu Ukwu man, who wore black dye to hide his aging grey hair, always arrived first. His room smelled of different things at different days: sometimes, it smelled of old dusty newspapers which had not been opened for years, or of a rusty old radio placed on top of a TV set that had not been played for years, or of snuff or his hair dye. A great comedian who would always tease Mr. Enyi of his timidity.

Mr. Enyi, a brief happy man from Ebonyi State, who stayed with his son, Anene, at the fourth room, had never sat on a chair during such gathering, for he rather preferred folding his legs and balancing his body weight on his legs, as the Muslims would do. Rumors had it that he was converted to Islam during his stay at the North but had denounced his faith during the war, when Sabon Gari massacre in Kano claimed the lives of his wife and other four children leaving only Anene.

There was Mr Igwe who stayed in the last room, who always arrived from the village to spend the last six months with his second family in Onitsha, making it a cycle for the year, having spent the other six months with the first wife in the Village.

Then, Ikeokwu, the occupier of third room had this air of impatience, even in showing his emotions. He was very huge and carried sarcasm everywhere he went, and always in search of whom to spit it on. His Ihiala dialect was very significantly different from those of other Anambrarians I know. A normal Njikoka or Dunukofia man would translate “I don’t know” as “Amaro m”, this however, is different from what Ikeokwu would say. He would always argue that “Amania m” sounds better than “Amaro m”. Everyone feared his spoken words because it came out always well garnished with sarcasm.

There was also the Imo state man, nicknamed “Super Dede”, who enjoyed playing the tracks of Osita Osadebe and Emeka Morocco Nwammaduka in the wee hours of Sunday mornings. His room was the most decorated with a lot of old and new date calendars that hung on every corner. There were also calendars of boxing men and footballers with their names and achievement written below each picture. It was where everyone went to check which day was Eke, Orie, Afo or Nkwo.

The man who occupied the fifth room was an Issele-Uku man, an Igbo tribe whose geographical location had placed them with the Deltans, whose name I know not but who was referred by all as “Oga Delta”. Aloof he was from the others probably because he was disabled and couldn’t walk well, but this disability never limited his generosity to myself and Udoka. There was this certain kind of likeness he had towards us. He had always expressed his happy emotions during the Kola ceremony. He would drink and talk and laugh to the amusement of all.

So that year’s Christmas was just like every other that had come before it. The kola ceremony which initiated the end of the year’s party had started. I could remember it was Osita Osadebe’s song that was been played by Okezie, a boy whom had been invited from Delta by “Oga Delta” to give us the latest jams.

People danced and jubilated. There were numerous foods and drinks. I had gone to lay my younger brother, Udoka, who had fallen asleep near Mama who was at that time pregnant with her last child and the Doctor had given her an expectancy date of 18th December, which had passed by.

I remembered coming out and joining my age mates to dance and dance and dance. We danced and jubilated till it got darker. As soon as the elders began to move into their rooms, Okezie changed the genre of the song from those traditional classicals to hip hop. I had removed my foot wears to give my dance steps an energetic turnaround when the fierce sound came. Much people didn’t notice the sound because of the volume of the music. I touched Odira, the boy who stayed at the next compound, to confirm if he heard the sound.

“It’s just a banger”, he assured me, as we continued in our mini night party.

A faint voice was shouting from what seemed to be a distant place, it was the voice of a woman, the words were incoherent and fear gripped me. Maybe my mom had gone into labour, I thought. I ran inside and saw Udoka playing with Papa inside the room, while Mama lay on the bed enjoying their drama. Satisfied, I ran back to continue with the other children in the party.

The voice came again, it was no longer faint, but this time, it was not the voice of a woman, it was the voice of a legion, their feet matching fast like those of foot soldiers, a battalion of them. They seemed to be running away from danger, the kind of sound I heard while watching American movies of zombies taking over a city and people running as fast as possible, trying to save their lives.

“Chim ohhh” Okezie shouted, pulling the speaker to make way as he ran out of the compound. The voices shouted “Fire, fire, fire”. I could now feel the smokes. The fire was near already. Everybody was running out of the compound. I stood still, unsure of what to do. We had heard stories about fire explosions in certain other places but never in the suburbs. Papa was the first to come out carrying Udoka, then followed by my mom. The whole compound was already deserted. As we were about to leave, the fire had blocked the gate and the only option was to jump through the fence to the backyard. The fence was very high; I still can’t fathom where Papa got his strength that day. Papa helped me climb through. It was difficult to carry mum over but we tried till it worked, Udoka came last as I helped him down. I looked through the opening of the fence, the fire had taken down the first room and ours, it was heading for the third. The harmattan helped it grow faster and faster. Dad was about to jump when he heard a noise coming from the fifth room. I already knew it was Oga Delta, oh poor soul, he can’t even walk. He had crawled out of his room and was shouting my Dad’s name to help him.

Dad had ran back immediately and carried Oga Delta, placed him on the fence so I could help him down. I was about to extend my hands to him when mother shouted “The baby, the baby is here”.

Confusion and fear gripped me. Why now? I cried. I perceived something like fuel and a certain kind of heat from a burning furnace ripping off my shirt and the voice of Oga Delta in agony. Someone pulled me into the huge gutter and I hit my head on a metal. That was the last thing I remembered.

Six months after, I had woken up from a coma only to learn that Papa and Udoka were dead, Oga Delta and many others didn’t survive the explosion; God bless their souls.

Mama had some life in her and in her pain, she saved all her energy to give life to her new child but passed away after giving birth and naming her new son “Onwudinjo”, she would always be my hero.

Now, I feel bad that I had stopped Onwudinjo from having a beautiful taste of Christmas. I know I shouldn’t do this, for God had kept us flourishing these years and our story need not follow the traditional ark. I would make this Christmas an amazing one.

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imaginations” – Mary Oliver.

Merry Christmas, my gorgeous audience.

In the sweet tastes of my days at Nsude, the freshman year didn’t really count, merely because the freshman year was a kind of puzzle. You really can’t tell what’s happening next until it starts happening. Information was gathered from all sources, and the brain did the work of retaining these information and producing it at the time required, and none could tell when these information would be needed of you. There were so many information to be gathered from the class, at the chapel, trash”. at the refectory, at the bathroom, at labour, at the sound of the bell, from the whispering voices of two gossips, even in your dreams, and I know the last mentioned may seem funny to you but it’s not, at some point I just had to accept that we were being trained to be very good eavesdroppers.

Speaking about information, the class had a bucket list of them. We were introduced to a certain kind of educational system that had a slight difference from the one we had before, the kind that makes it seem as if we’ve all played away our time in our former schools. There were subjects in the list that made it look quite funny to me, these were things like Latin, Vatican II Council, Liturgy and Catechism of the Catholic Church.

At first, I believed so much that these subjects would be easy with the exception of Vatican II Council, probably because I had never heard of it in my life, and the Catechism, just because I hated Mr. Titus who presided over my childhood Catechism in my hometown. Everyone believed Latin would be easier because 95 percent of the class were altar servers before the admission into Nsude. I still remember vividly the words of Ifekandu on seeing the list that day.

“I have learned how to recite the credo, Gloria, Agnus Dei and a lot more at six, I had joined the altar servers at seven after my first holy communion, learning the sacred linens and vessels and the liturgical calendars at best…these courses are mine to trash”. 

When the first Latin class came, myself and Ifekandu had had our rehearsal of the Latin responses we knew, including the chants. The bespectacled priest who took the subject had a slightly bow leg, a desert skull that had not grown hair for years, and the balance of a man who kept himself in good working out condition. He had this air of presumption that his students went to Rome with him, so he did his teachings in a manner that could be understood only by advanced students.

We waited in anticipation for the priest to tell us to recite Credo or Gloria or any other Latin chants but the class came with a disappointed surprise of two hours of intense declension of Latin words: Mensa (table), Nauta (sailor), Agricola (farmer) and long translations of English sentences to Latin. The drill was mind blowing and I remember fighting sleep all through.

Speaking about the chapel, the chapel had a certain kind of information, one that is spiritual, just like a sponge, soaking us up in goodness. There were four prayers each day: The lauds, the afternoon prayer, the vespers and the nunc dimitimis. All these came with a list of new things you are to learn. I sincerely did not like any of it.

The lauds starts by 5:00 am in the morning, when half of the world are still asleep, the other half are either awake or consumed in sin. I hated the lauds because it comes at a time when sleep seems to be sweeter than it had been.

The afternoon prayers were said immediately at the end of class work just before Lunch. It came with a litany of psalms and I really do not know if it was the traditional method to rush this prayer because it came faster than others.

The vespers is said after the 6pm Angelus. It comes with a calmness of the day, a time the world is ceasing from labour. The vespers however have a greater record of non attendance by many in one way or the other.

While the Nunc is said after the night erasing our sins and soaking us up in meals and before the start of night prep. The nunc sets in a magna silencia, a wholesome silence that ushered us into the quietness of the night and protected us while we slept.

The information at the refectory was the worst for me. There were three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. In-between meals were forbidden. So, each meal was looked up to by the students as a promised feast for such fierce hunger. We never complained about quality, all that was desired was quantity.

I hated in particular the fact that we had to follow the revered ritual of pausing at the middle of the fierce hunger to watch our meals as we listen to the person appointed to read either a passage from the Bible or a novel or a poem or a magazine, and be attentive enough as to not miss the last word of the reader, or the last sentence or the theme or the message the writer had, as that may come as a question to anyone from the moderator.

All these information kept us loaded with work that I didn’t even have the chance to notice that the bond between Ifekandu and I was gradually fading, new interests were found, new friends were made and we had soon become “Hello” friends. It was this fading of friendship that made it difficult for me not to have any idea of what was happening to my good friend.

It all happened on the 3rd of December, barely two weeks to the Christmas break. The joy of getting back home had taken the air, the first term examination had come to an end and students had nothing to do if not labour and more labour. Each student in my class had made a list of what he or she would do during the holiday. I was feeling kind of dizzy that morning, that feeling of waking up with a bad mood which you can’t even tell the cause. I had brought out my little calendar book with which I kept track of time and with my reddish ink pen, I shaded across 2nd of December as a day that had finished, a ritual I started since the beginning of November, this I believed made the day pass faster. The thought of Ifekandu flashed to memory, that strong feeling to go check up on someone.

“I will check on him tomorrow, I’m just too tired”, I mumbled as I dozed off.

Three hours later, two of my classmates dashed into my corner waking me up from sleep, they were panting audibly.

“Fr Micheal is calling you, run!”, one of them said and they started running back from the direction they came from. I stood up immediately, not knowing what to do, the information said ‘run’, I started running after them.

Fr Michael’s car, a reddish Volvo, was packed at the school roundabout. Two senior students were stuffing someone into the back of the car while more than a dozen other students stood, waiting and watching.

“You’re Arinze right?”, Said Fr Michael. “Yes Fr”

“Enter the car”

As I tried entering the front, I pepped into the back to see the person laid in by those students. The thick glasses of Ifekandu was the first thing I saw, and my heart skipped. I sat in the front, turned back again just to get a clearer view. He lay motionless at the back, streams of blood gushing from his head and mouth, his eyes fixed on me, he wore his sky blue shirt, the one he had worn on the day I did my first opera. I whispered his name gently “Ifee” but no response came. I felt cold, my brain was processing a lot of information.

“Calm down, He fell from the school’s ultra modern site. I called you because your classmates said you are closer to him….I pray your presence brings him back” The priest said while we drove to the hospital.

A sense of guilt flushed down my throat. ‘We have not spoken in months as we used to, and yet people believed we were still close.’ I fumbled in my pocket for my rosary, I started picking the beads, trying to pray, trying to be hopeful but my mouth only muttered “Godabeg, save him”.

The parents of Ifekandu were already seated at the hospital waiting when we arrived. The nurses rushed him to the emergency ward. Ifekandu’s mom came with a set of three other women whom I believed were her friends from the Legion of Mary society. They held hands at a corner saying their prayers while Ifekandu’s mom cried.

Ifekandu’s Dad was everything Ifekandu said of him. He had this look of authority, the type that wouldn’t want his children to associate with others. He was not wailing like the woman, he only tapped his leg incessantly and then touched his bald hair at intervals.

“Can we all say a little prayer together?” the priest announced. The seven of us held our hands as the priest tuned in the “Memorare” prayer. At the middle of the prayer, the doctor signaled for the priest and the boy’s father. Everybody stood and watched them disappear into an office with the doctor. Minutes later, the priest came out first, his cheeks seemed to be smiling but his eyes weren’t happy.

Ifekandu’s mother stood from her seat and moved towards the priest.

“We need to pray more, The doctor said he’s in a very critical condition, He’s in coma and there are slight chances of him making it”, He said out aloud bluntly, adding not even a bit of euphemism to his words.

Everywhere dropped dead. I remembered immediately how Mr. Okoro, my dad’s best friend, died after two weeks of being in a coma. Immediately I let out a loud shout, it was then that everyone noticed my presence at the hospital.

By C.V.C Ozoaniamalu

30^th May, 1979, Charles Ilodiegwu’s Premises

The night was cold and windy. Darkness was thickening in on earth, embellished with unfriendly knocks of thunder and accompanied by dazzling flashes of lightning, seemingly voicing out the anger of God and leaving His glories in the consciousness of men. The raindrops in contact with the roof produced incessant harsh sounds of two tambourine struck against each other in painful revolt. The force of the wind making the window shutters squeak.

She was alone in her room upstairs, terrified. There seemed to be a naked vulnerability about her. She laid on the bed, neatly folded in the duvet. Her mind carefully replaying all that had happened in the past month. The more she thought about those, the more horrified she became.

“Charles’ death was not an accident,” she thought.  She had had terrible nightmares, and in each of these nightmares, Charles had appeared to her. His face swollen, skin sallow and with a sober voice he would plead for immediate vengeance. She had tried asking him, in one of those nightmares, whom it was that killed him. But before he could speak up, she would be awoken back to reality. After that night, she had waited patiently for another nightmare, just like the watchman waits for dawn. Her waiting had the patience of a hunter. She would intentionally miss work and appointments to wait for Charles’ appearance but he never came. She had suddenly started suffering from insomnia. However, tonight she had made up her mind that Charles must come, if not, she would have no reason to wait anymore.

Having swallowed three pills of benzodiazepine sedative hypnotic sleeping pills (Triazolam (Halcion), she was good to go. Prior to taking the drugs, she had performed some sort of stupid ritual which she strongly believed would summon the hallowed though broken spirit of Charles. She had placed his best suit, the blazers Charles had worn on their first date and spread it on the bed, his Emporio Armani designers shoes she also dropped beside the suit. Lastly, she sprayed the room with incense and Charles’ best perfume which she thought would quicken his arrival. With all these done, she slipped in beside the glorious idol of Charles she had made while she held in her hands the note he dropped for her on that doomsday; which read, “See you soon, my doppelganger.” Those words were resonating in her, bringing back old-buried memories. She became nostalgic.

“I’m still waiting here for you, dear,” she cried, “make haste.” Closing her eyes, ready to meet Charles and have the secret which had been bottled for months open up. The drugs started taking effect, she suddenly became dizzy, her eyes too heavy to control. She heard footsteps climbing the stairs, moving towards her room.

“It will sure be Charles,” she thought. She suddenly felt hungry but she dared not stand. His coming was a promised feast for the hunger that burnt within her.

The door flew open by a hard push, she attempted opening her eyes but her eyes were too heavy. As the footsteps came nearer and nearer, she became curious and more curious. Suddenly, everything became quiet like a graveyard; no sound of the footsteps, no thunder, no window nor door squeaky sounds.

“Eunice, say your last prayer,” a masculine voice whispered, breaking the silence. Recognizing the voice, she forced her eyes open. The picture of the man was blur with an iron rod in his left hand, she knew him very well by his voice.

“So it had been you all these while,” she was barely heard. She gathered the remaining strength she had trying to stand and run but it was too late. The man struck her with the iron rod straight to her temple, the excruciating pain sent some pangs up her brain.

The striking continued. He only stopped when she stiffened. He mounted her motionless body without conscience, his male hardness forced deep inside her, tearing her like a lion. He pounced and pounced on her dead body until he achieved orgasm.

In a gentle weird voice, he whispered, “FORTY SHEKELS OF SILVER.”

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GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER FRONT PAGE READS: “Wife of Late Chief Charles Arinze Ilodiegwu gone missing with no trace of her whereabouts, barely two months after her husband’s mutilated body was found lying helpless in front of their house.”

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18th August, 2006, CISTERCIAN MONASTERY, MOUNT SAINT MARY’S ABBEY, OWERRI

At the end of the Novitiate years, Sr. Anastasia and Sr. Mary-Cynthia were ready for their solemn profession and monastic consecration into the order of St. Benedict. After a significant number of years of living, praying and working in the community, growing in self-knowledge of God and others, being in continual prayer, service and understanding of God and fidelity to their vocation. The women were ready to throw their lot with this community and way of life as a means to Union with God.

“By monastic profession, a sister is consecrated to God and joined with the monastic community that receives her. At this time, the consecration received in the sacraments of baptism and confirmation is renewed and given vitality. The sister binds herself in faithful stability to a sincere conversion of life through ready obedience until death.” OCSO Constitution 8.

The evening before the final profession, Sr. Anastasia and Sr. Mary-Cynthia, the sisters to be professed and their abbess prostrate themselves before the Blessed Sacrament after Vespers as they make profession of the three Benedictine vows.

First, the vow of stability of place, obliging themselves to make constant use of the means of the spiritual crafts in the community, and trusting in God’s Providence. Second was the vow of conversatio morum, that which binds a sister to follow the gospel and binding herself to the practice of Cistercian discipline. They were to retain nothing to themselves, not even authority over their own bodies, for their bodies are the temple of the most high. Vow of obedience seals the profession as final, by this vow they desire to live under a rule and an abbess promises to fulfil all that lawful superior’s command in accordance with these constitutions. The next day, they were professed and were clothed with the habit of Christ.

The next day Sr. Anastasia was assigned to take care of the sick while Sr. Mary-cynthia was assigned to take care of the children with down syndrome. The sick were kept at Block B building while Block A housed the special children. The Block B was an old yet clean two storey building, with faded yellowish paintings, whistling pine trees and flowers which gave it a nice view. At the right side of the building was the statue of pieta and a large crucifix, an epitome of holy land. There’s a bold inscription on the front of the building which reads, “Jesus, the name that heals our diseases”.

Sr. Anastasia was following an older Sister who was showing her around. There were 6 of them who were terribly sick. Almost every one of them, as she was told were picked up from where their families abandoned them. Out of all she saw that day, she had taken fancy to one, she was an old woman introduced by the older Sister as Mary.

Mary was on her sick bed in room 69 of the monastery building for the sick. Her eyes were dull, body pale and sallow, her face still bore that remnants of beauty. On the foot of her bed was a chart which gave some details about her. Sr. Anastasia, whose new function was to replace the older sister started by reading out Mary’s chart, her face tightened as she read:

Name: Mary

Admitted:  4^th June, 1980

Location: Nil

Family: Nil

She stopped abruptly when her eyes caught the last words. She had not spoken since admitted, guessed to be deaf and dumb.

“SHE’S CHRIST IMAGE, TREAT HER LIKE YOU WOULD TREAT CHRIST.”

Sr. Anastasia was shocked by those words. She cast an eye of pity on her. “The book which keeps the detailed account of every Patient admitted into this place, has her as the oldest patient,” said the oldest sister. “Where can I get the book?” “At the Monastery library, shelf 18.” The next day she was at the Library reading Mary’s record. She felt bad for her. She made up her mind to care and pray for her, hoping she would recover soon.

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1978, VENICE LAW FIRM, VICTORIA ISLAND, LAGOS

Rex O.A Esq., owner of Venice Law Firm, a short, stern and undemonstrative man with an aristocratic face was heading a meeting at the third floor of the law firm house in Victoria Island. Gathered for the meeting also were three strong-headed men, each with his complex nature, tribe and background forced into an irretrievable brotherhood by a mere adoption by Victoria Robinsons.

Rex, the company lawyer was about reading out the agreement of the company head in Britain to whom Victoria sent the name of her successor. Seated at Rex’s right hand was Charles Arinze Ilodiegwu, the swarthy dapper Igbo man, whose intelligence had gotten him into the family of Victoria and James Robinson, the pleasant British couple, who were the Managers of Shell D’archy, a British owned multi-billion oil dynasty that girded the globe. Charles had every sense of undercurrent that flows beneath the deceptively calmed surface. He knew the operations of the colonial rulers, how they drill out oils from his motherland, sent them back home and brought it back to be sold to them at a higher cost. He was waiting for the perfect time to debunk all those and the time had come.

Seated after Charles was the famous Femi Ade. The handsome Yoruba man, with his full hair, charming eyes and an engaging smile that made women want to wear him like a badge. Someone had sometime said that he looked like a god. To add it up, he had become part of the Robinsons by mere adoption and the combination of all those was irresistible.

The last man seated at the left side of Rex was Ahmed Musa Bello. The most concrete Hausa man, with gruff impatient manner and a temper that could melt an iron. He was always aloof from the other adopted children of the Robinsons. In fact, if there were any eerie little cult of young weirdos, Ahmed would definitely be made their leader.

So many years ago, these three men had their mothers working at the Robinsons’ residence as cleaners. Bitterly enough, a gas explosion at the Robinsons took over their mothers’ lives at their tender age together with that of James Robinson. Leaving Victoria Robinson with no option than to adopt those three sons of her cleaners and raise them as hers. She loved them, and gave each of them the attention they needed. She was intelligent and a perfect mother. She knew the faintest details of any of them. Starting from their tribes and religions and running down to their favorite dishes and birthdays.  The three children were different in all things except in the color of their skin. Even though she had housed their bodies to unite them, the blood in them triggered behaviors which shouted loudly their differences. She was controlling three super minded nations.

To Victoria, Charles was that child who asked a lot of questions. The questions came deeply rooted; questions which sometimes got Victoria wondering if he was a man in a child’s body. He was too curious for his age. In his innocence, he would ask; “Since you’re English, why are you here?” “Why are there so much whites at the company than blacks?” Thus, she began picking interest in him more than the other two. When he came of age after graduation, she made him her personal secretary, attending the company’s board meetings and events, writing minutes at meetings, drafting documents for customers, making out researches for new areas where oil may be found at commercial quantity, navigating midnight calls, and fixing schedules for their mothers to meet with partners. With time, Charles learned so well and faster too. His productivity was second to none. By the time Femi and Ahmed were through with schools and ready to join the company, Charles had chewed and diluted every bit of the company. And when the company was printing her success on the sands of time, Victoria Robinson died.

Rex tore the parcel which contained the conclusion of the company on who takes after Victoria. “The company had deemed it fit to select as a replacement of Victoria…Eu-“ the name choked him “Eunice Ilodiegwu.” The mention of the name surprised everyone except Charles. Eunice was Charles’ wife, who had never been to any of the company’s meetings but knew more than anyone who sat on the board meetings. She was an enigma. Most of the brilliant works Charles had done for the company were all prompted by Eunice. At Victoria’s death bed months before, she was congratulating Charles for an agreement he reached with a Chinese company but Charles had told her that Eunice was the person to be thanked, not him. And he innocently told Victoria about Eunice’s creativity, and the details got Eunice the work. When the news got to Eunice, she was shocked, she became happy and afraid at the same time. Charles promised to be at her side.

After One month, she was inaugurated into the board. Chairing a meeting of ten powerful men. They were all surprised at her intelligence, the way she tackled difficult situations. She was larger than life. Charles was proud of his wife, same as his brother Femi Adesina, but to Ahmed, she was a threat which had to be removed.

Barely two months after the inauguration, Charles was leaving to catch a flight heading for Britain, he had woken earlier than normal at the wee hours of the morning. He surreptitiously dropped a note for her wife avoiding waking her up, then drove off. He noticed a car coming after him, the car was speeding up to catch with him. He sped up too but it was too late. He was double crossed by another car. The man in front fired five bullets into his skull. He was dead. The next three days, the mutilated body of Charles was seen lying in front of his residence. Charles’ funeral took place at his premises. Eunice was looking at the faces of all that came. She focused more on Ahmed who was weeping bitterly.  “He’s the wolf in a lamb’s clothing,” she thought. She was flanked by Femi Adesina and his wife, Ella Adesina. They were all she had. She was ready to avenge Charles’ death. After the funeral, the police headquarters in Ikeja had started an investigation into Charles’ death. After three weeks, the police reported that nothing was found. Eunice encouraged them to search deeper even if it meant increasing their pay.

On 30^th May the next year, she got a call from a stranger who asked her to meet him at 28 Omani Crescent, G.R.A, Lagos. On arriving that morning, people were gathered in front of the address the man had given her. She asked one of the persons standing what was happening, he told her the man was murdered and his corpse was found this morning in front of his house. She felt bad, “maybe if I had arrived earlier, I would have met him” she regretted. The next morning, Eunice was declared missing.

 

CISTERCIAN MONASTERY

1^ST OCTOBER, 2007

It was the first Sunday of the month of October, a day complacent with no promise of surprises. The Sisters of the Cistercian Monastery were having their recollection, a day graciously preserved for examination of one’s conscience. Not much work was done on such days, except prayers and wholesome recollection.

As contemplatives, the Sisters gave themselves faithfully to Liturgy, prayers, vigils, sacred readings, fasting, solitude and silence according to the rule of St. Benedict and the constitutions of the order. The community lived by the labour of its hands. The 48^th chapter of the rule of St. Benedict states, “For then, they are Nuns in truth, if they live by the works of their hands.” The main source of income was the making of Alter bread which is supplemented by a large yam and rice farm and garden palm and fruit tree plantations and some candle making. The community also maintains a spirit of generosity, care of sick and hospitality.

The environment was serene and quiet until a scream was heard from Block B building which housed the sick.  It was terrifying. Sr. Anastasia and Sr. Mary-cynthia had to rush to the place the scream was coming from. Lo and behold, it was Mary shouting! She was saying things Sr. Anastasia couldn’t comprehend.

“This is a miracle!” shouted Sr. Anastacia. It didn’t matter whether her words are incoherent, at least she talked after so many years. Within an hour, all the sisters were at the foot of Mary’s bed. Each wore on her face, a look of glory.

“Where am I?” she asked, “And how many years have I been here?”

“Mary, you’re at the Cistercian Monastery in Owerri,” the Mother Superior answered.

“Who is Mary?” she asked in confusion. “Me?”

“Yes, some of our Sisters picked…. sorry….” she paused, to search for the right word, “found you helpless in your pool of blood near our gate in 1979, we thought you were dead but at a close examination, we found out you were still breathing. After one week of care, you opened your eyes. We waited for you to speak but you didn’t, we thought maybe it would take some weeks, not knowing it will take years. So, we needed a name for you, Mother Superior gave you the name Mary, believing that the mother of Jesus would intercede for you and she sure did,” she said.

“I’m Eunice Ilodiegwu,” she cried.

She went down memory lane sharing her story with the sisters gathered around her. At the end of it, they were all crying. The next morning, an aged woman and a Nun were driving into the magnificent Robinsons residence.  “We have a very helpful information for your Boss,” said the Nun to the man at the entrance. “A nun and an aged woman said they have some information for you, should I allow them?” the man spoke through the phone. Minutes later, they were led into the hallway. They were ushered into the man’s office but only the Nun entered. Femi Adesina and Ahmed were seated waiting to hear from the religious woman who appeared from nowhere.

“I have a privileged information for your company but I would like to address this to all the board of directors,” she politely said. The next minute, the board members were seated at the conference room. The Nun entered with the old woman. Seeing her, they recognized her. All stood on their feet in shock. “I’m alive and I’ve come to avenge my husband’s death,” she said. The room was in a frenzy. She looked at the direction where Ahmed was sitting. She nodded her head and said, “Appearances are deceptive, I’m sorry Ahmed for thinking you killed Charles, but I was wrong. It has always been the closest person to him. Femi Adesina can you tell the board how you did it or…”

All face looked towards Femi Adesina. “They offered me forty shekels of silver,” he cried. “What’s forty shekels and who?” asked Ahmed furiously. He opened his mouth to talk but collapsed.

Author’s note: All names are fictitious