In those days a young Jehovah’s Witness did not read newspapers or listen to the radio, and, had there been television, would not have been allowed to watch it. He would have been spared from the latter temptation, however, by the president of the republic who couldn’t stand seeing himself on the screen. They said that when he was in the so-called developed countries and saw his face on the screen there, he would fly into an uncontrollable fury, and they’d be forced to keep a close watch on him to make sure he didn’t smash any TV sets to smithereens. A young Jehovah’s Witness would only go out within the perimeter of his preaching terrain and would know nothing else about the city. So what he knew about the world and current events was merely what he read in Awake! or the Watchtower, the only officially authorized publications, which definitely truncated global events.
That was the life I led throughout the time I lived with my mother and her husband, Njokè Number Two! It was so limited that I no longer even remembered the direction from which my older sister and I had come fourteen months earlier.
So when I decide to leave the perimeter of my preaching area, I have a moment of true panic. It is my impression that the world beyond will be a battlefield, an Armageddon! I roam around for a long time, going in circles, afraid to take the plunge, and aware that if I step across the threshold it will be for good.
How will I manage without any material or intellectual baggage? What assets do I have? A quick overview nearly dissuades me from leaving, but my refusal to turn back is stronger. So I review everything I can do to survive with dignity, and draw up a kind of curriculum vitae with an eye to my future job search.
• “Housekeeper, all-around maid”: housework, laundry, cooking, child care (superior level, great experience).
• “Nurse’s aide” in clinics and rural hospitals: dressing wounds, giving intravenous injections (medium level).
• “High-level agricultural worker” both in privately owned fields and industrial cocoa, coffee, and palm oil plantations.
• “Agent” capable of serving where a good level of reasoning and discussion is needed. Expresses herself articulately and knows how to present convincing arguments.
I’m tempted to put “Jehovah’s Witness preaching experience” between parentheses, but I’m afraid I’ll run into someone like myself whose reasons for not yielding would be too personal and who would use them to make me “pay for the sins of my fathers” well beyond the number of generations required by Jehovah himself! I come to the conclusion that from now on I’d do better to present myself under my own label and learn to convince others with my own words. First I need to know what it is that I have to say, and to whom. And I won’t know this by going around in circles in my usual shackles. First I have to cross the Rubicon!
As soon as I’ve passed the “street of two churches,” I stop looking back and thinking about the past. Fear melts away, as do feelings of sadness and fatigue. I walk with a light step, humming, “Take my life, oh, Lord God, and let it be in thy honor. . . .”
I’m not looking for a destination; I just walk, and that’s enough for now. I take streets because they’re clean and attractive—the color of the houses, their light, their architecture. Time is completely expunged from my memory, and I don’t recognize that the day has come to an end.
On my right a train whistles. I look up and read “Harbor Station.” There’s great excitement; people are running in every direction, some with suitcases or bags in hand, on their back, or on their head. Children are rushing forward with baskets of peanuts, sticks of manioc, coconuts, hard-boiled eggs, and all sorts of other things. I’m caught up in and carried off by the whirlwind all the way to one of the gates.
“Your ticket!”
“What ticket?”
“Aren’t you traveling?”
“No! I’m picking someone up.”
“Well, where is your platform ticket?”
“Where do I get that, and how much is it?”
“Over there at the window, ten francs!”
I go to the ticket window and without a word put down my ten francs for the agent. Just as silently he hands me the platform ticket. When I finally get to the platform there’s a train about to depart. I barely make it in, and don’t know its destination.