Wednesday 22nd October 1992
For Leke:
Where did I leave off?
Soon after my grandmother visited the babalawo and followed his instructions her belly grew and, on the day, when the doctor said to her, ‘Obinrin’, she wept and wept for days. My father joked that his sister was fed milk and tears for the first week of her life.
Ayo was her name but the joy did not last. When she was three, the babalawo came to Mama Wole and Oga's house. In this dream I am my grandmother. I greet him. There is nothing to be afraid of until he explains his visit and then there is much.
‘You said at any cost,’ he reminded me.
He wanted Ayo – that was the cost. I could have her for three years and he would have her for the rest, rear her as his own child with dignity and train her in his medicinal ways.
I refused. The babalawo did not insist and he did not force me to give up the baby, instead he bowed and walked away.
Three days later Ayo died in my arms. I ran to the babalawo's compound but he was gone. That was the beginning of the darkness.
One by one my sons died, the sons their wives had borne and their wives too. No more girls were born into the family and I knew that no more will ever be born.
A few years would pass between each death but it never abated. One quiet day, after burying four children, I took my own life and my husband followed me.
I hate this nightmare. This one I wake up panting as if I have been running. My feet ache.
Thursday 23rd October
So that was the darkness. My grandparents made a deal with the babalawo (at any cost) and then they broke it. When you break a deal, especially with a babalawo, you pay. That was the darkness. This is it here, now. And wherever you are Leke when you read this – that's it there too.
After my mother died I saved enough money and returned to Nigeria. I was a Nigerian, after all. I went home and stayed. It was a lonely place, Leke. I was following my father's instructions – the only way he could think of to keep me alive – which was to live alone and starve the curse of the lives it needed to feed on in order to thrive. My father was very clear, I was not to invite love because even the smallest spark would incite the curse into another spate of deaths.
One day, after drinking too much, I stumbled into a babalawo's parlour. Why not? I thought. Why couldn't I reverse it and really live?
I did not take her seriously at first. I completed my university degree, masters and PhD. I was, am, a well-learned man, Leke.
I ignored the babalawo's instructions for how to reverse the curse and returned to Cape Town to teach. I only remembered the instructions when Elaine told me about Malcolm Feathers.
‘Find an evil man and kill him,’ the babalawo had chanted.
What could I do? I had fallen in love and become greedy for life.
My lawyer says the courts will struggle to prove that it was premeditated. But I did plan it. I started planning the day Elaine told me you were coming.
I had fallen in love with her, gone against my father's warnings. I was bringing a child – I knew you would be a boy – into the world. Another life to suffer. I was prepared to do anything so that we could be a normal family. No darkness.