Ogadinma visited Ejiro one morning. ‘I want your mother to help me do something about Tobe,’ and then added quickly, ‘but I don’t want him to die. Can she help me?’
Ejiro did not ask questions, perhaps because she had been waiting for this day. Perhaps, too, because she saw the tired lines around Ogadinma’s eyes, the thinness of her neck, how edgy she had become. She went over to the telephone to call her mother. She called Ogadinma her ‘best friend’ and said, ‘Mama, do quick o before dat man go kill am for me.’
It warmed Ogadinma’s heart that Ejiro was her succour. She even smiled when Ejiro rubbed her belly, when she brought out the bottles of Maltina and bowls of hot jollof rice, and they sat on the floor of the room and ate and chatted. Ogadinma felt something lifting off her chest, off her shoulders, a dead weight that had refused to let her breathe well for so long. She was grateful that Ejiro did not ask what happened this time, that they talked instead about the new proud neighbour, the happenings in Lagos and Ejiro’s sister’s latest trip to London.
After that visit, she became less edgy and did not shiver when Tobe glared at her. And the following week, when Ejiro visited and handed her a black vial and said she should pour the contents into Tobe’s soup, she hugged Ejiro and suppressed the urge to dissolve into a fit of joyful tears.
‘It will not kill him, abi? I just want him to be kind to me,’ Ogadinma said.
‘It will not kill him, and it will not make him sick. Trust me,’ Ejiro said.
‘So what will it do to him?’
‘It will humble him by force.’
Ogadinma stuffed the vial into her pocket without looking too long at it. Perhaps it was one of those potions she had heard about which turned violent men into submissive husbands. She certainly wanted Tobe to be less violent, to be humbled. The thought amused her, the idea of Tobe washing her clothes and underwear and mopping the floors. She smiled a small sardonic smile. She would finally breathe well and no longer cower under Tobe’s gaze. She might not let him cook her meals, because she wasn’t so sure about his cooking skills, but she would make him do all other domestic chores.
When Tobe came home that evening, her hand shook a little as she emptied the contents into his bowl of onugbu soup. It did not smell, which was comforting, and when she served him the food, he barely looked at her before he pulled the bowl for hand-washing close and began to wash his hands.
She returned to the kitchen. She was suddenly unsure. She had made a big mistake. She was so sure that Tobe would fall down and die, and so she wanted to run out of the flat before that happened, but her feet had stayed glued to the floor. Blood thudded in her ears, drowning out all sounds, so that she did not hear when he called her name later until he bounded into the kitchen, his face contorted in anger.
‘Have you gone deaf, or did you not hear me calling?’
She was sweating. She swiped at her face and looked at him. Nothing seemed to have changed, not his manner. Not his anger. ‘I am sorry, my husband,’ she said. ‘I do not feel very well.’
He stared at her, his brow crumpled with worry, before he said, ‘Go and clear the table. I have finished eating.’
As she removed the plates, her mind was slowed with confusion. Had the potion worked at all? Tobe returned to watch the TV. He leaned back on the sofa, his legs stretched out on the table before him. This was not the demeanour of a man who had been humbled; a submissive husband would not ask his wife to clear the table. He was still very much in control, and as though to emphasize this, he turned around and told her, ‘Get me a toothpick,’ his voice bristling with familiar authority.
Ogadinma’s heart sank; the power balance would never be skewed in her favour. She would never breathe well. She would never stand straight. After she returned to her room, she curled against her pillow and began to cry.
She was drifting to sleep, when Tobe came to her door and told her to come to his room. She knew he wanted sex; that had become the routine for them ever since Ifeanyi fled with his money. When she got to his room, he was already undressed. He reached for her body, he pulled himself on top of her. She lay so still, so tensed. She closed her eyes and began to count. She had only counted to ten when Tobe grunted. She opened her eyes and saw that he was holding his limp penis in confusion. Even she was confused. This had never happened before. In ten seconds, he would only just be beginning. But he was done in ten seconds and both of them were so stunned by this that they stared at each other, their mouths gaping in shock, before he rolled off her body and told her to return to her room.
Ejiro called her the following morning. ‘Did you do it?’ she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘I thought you were going to tell me how it all went down yesterday.’
Ogadinma told her about the ten-second incident, how flustered he had been, that he lowered his head when he told her to return to her room. The ten-second incident happened again this morning and he couldn’t even look her in the face. Later, he had sat in the parlour, shrunken like a defeathered cock, staring dolefully at the TV. ‘Him don humble by force,’ Ogadinma said.
And for the first time since things fell apart, she found in that experience a stirring wicked pleasure.
Uncle Ugonna and Aunty Ngozi came the following week, when she was cooking. She could hear them clearly because the passage door was open and because they did not keep their voices low.
‘This thing is getting out of hand,’ Uncle Ugonna was saying. ‘An elder cannot sit by and watch a tethered goat go into labour. That’s why we have come, because this situation is getting out of hand, and it is time we did something about it.’
Tobe grunted and said, ‘But, do you all think I have done nothing about my situation? Do you think it gives me joy that I have lost everything?’
‘We are not saying you are happy with it. We are only saying we have not done everything we are supposed to do, that’s why we have come,’ Aunty Ngozi said. She spoke like she had water in her nose. ‘My friend Nkiruka knows this powerful preacher called Onye Ekpere who performs wondrous miracles. Nkiruka wants us to go to him.’
Tobe muttered something. Ogadinma inched closer to the door so she could hear them clearly. She did not like the idea of going to Onye Ekpere because the miracle workers in Kano always blamed family members for the misfortunes that befell a miracle seeker.
Aunty Ngozi said Nkiruka’s husband would have been deported from Italy had Onye Ekpere not unearthed the rusty padlocks and pieces of red cloth buried in their village home.
‘We have to meet this man because this thing that is happening to you is spiritual attack,’ Uncle Ugonna said.
Tobe mumbled in agreement. Feet shuffled and Ogadinma hurried back into the kitchen. Aunty Ngozi entered later, smiling.
‘Nne, kedụ? How are you and our baby?’ She caressed Ogadinma’s belly, making slow circular motions.
‘We are well, Aunty.’
‘We are taking Tobe to a preacher. My friend Nkiruka tells me that the man, Onye Ekpere, can haunt Ifeanyi with prayers and force him to return what he stole.’
Ogadinma had never been bothered about going to miracle workers because her father never allowed such nonsense in his house, but now it was about to happen in her house. Uncle Ugonna blamed Tobe’s misfortunes on ‘spiritual attack’, and Ogadinma’s heart sank. She knew things could quickly escalate with the matter of the spirits. As a child in Kano, she heard about preachers who blamed women for the misfortunes that befell their men, how they put these women through series of rigorous cleansing ceremonies. She could never imagine going through such emotional and physical turmoil. The thought worried her, but she shook the feeling away and told Aunty Ngozi that it was a good idea. She was not sure why she said that. Maybe it was because of the seriousness with which Aunty Ngozi had delivered the message, or because she knew that everyone would frown if she protested against the idea.
And Aunty Ngozi was pleased that she was okay with it, because she smiled and rubbed Ogadinma’s belly again, before saying, ‘I’ll give Nkiruka a call. She will book the appointment on our behalf.’
But when Aunty Ngozi came the following morning, a Bible tucked under her arm and a black scarf knotted tightly over her head, she said Ogadinma must join them to see Onye Ekpere, that the preacher had demanded so.
‘Why is that necessary?’ Tobe looked about to change his mind. ‘I thought it was only to pray for me?’
‘Nkiruka said it is even a good idea because any spiritual attack against you can also easily affect your wife. And we don’t want that.’
Ogadinma took her time pulling on her dress. She was no longer sure about this. She thought about calling her father, but that would mean speaking with him with Tobe and Aunty Ngozi watching and listening to their conversation.
Tying her scarf at the base of her neck, she joined them in the parlour and they all filed out to the front of the yard where Tobe’s car was parked. The car sputtered a few times, shuddered and died. He gripped the wheel with one hand and turned the key again, his back arched, tense. The engine cranked, coughed, before it started. He leaned back and sighed. Even Aunty Ngozi exhaled as he revved the engine.
‘Ị makwa, people come all the way from Uyo and Calabar and Onitsha to see Onye Ekpere,’ Aunty Ngozi continued after they eased onto the road. ‘If not for Nkiruka, we would not have been able to meet with him so soon. I hear people book him months in advance. Did you bring the three bottles of Goya Olive Oil with you?’
‘Yes, I have them in my bag,’ Tobe said.
‘And the two bags of salt and two packets of Lux soap?’
Tobe gripped the wheel tight. ‘What does he do with these things anyway? I thought he is praying to God? What does he need soap and salt for?’
‘Because that’s how he does his prayers. He will use the salt to prepare Holy Water for you. He uses the Lux to wash his hands before and after praying for you.’
‘Why would he need to wash his hands, and why this particular brand of soap?’
‘You are asking too many questions, and this shows you have too many doubts,’ Aunty Ngozi snapped. ‘That is not good at all. It means you don’t have faith in what we are going to do today, and if you don’t have faith, how then will your miracle manifest, eh, I ask you? How can your prayers cross the ceiling and travel to God in heaven if you are so doubtful?’
‘So, it’s now a crime to ask questions?’
They drove in silence the rest of the trip. Thirty minutes later, they pulled up in front of an unpainted bungalow at the end of a cramped market street. The banner plastered on the wall of the house said, breakout miracle ministry international. operation kill your enemies! Aunty Ngozi led them inside the large hall packed with dusty camp chairs. Two women in loose-fitting dresses sat at one side of the hall, their faces set in sad lines of piety. Aunty Ngozi waved, and they waved back, before she sat. Ogadinma sat between Tobe and Aunty Ngozi.
Ogadinma glanced at the hall. The place did not look like a church at all; except for the same garish banner pinned to the wall of a raised platform she assumed was the altar, there was nothing indicating that it was a place of worship. Not the cracked floor filled with sand, nor the bare walls that had yet to be plastered. A wrinkled old man came in later, and for a moment, Ogadinma thought he was also a miracle seeker, until the women stood to greet him, their heads bowed slightly in reverence. He moved from chair to chair, shaking hands, exchanging greetings, hugging the women. When he got to their side, Aunty Ngozi dramatically bent on one knee to greet him, gripping his hand with both of hers. ‘Good morning, Man of God!’ she said in a loud voice. ‘God bless you, sir!’
‘Please don’t kneel for me,’ Onye Ekpere said, helping her to her feet. ‘You only kneel for God.’ He pointed a shaky finger at the ceiling. ‘All praises should go to him. I am just his servant.’ There was a hint of a smile by the side of his lips, but it quickly disappeared when he turned to Ogadinma.
She was startled. ‘Good morning, sir,’ she said, slowly.
But Onye Ekpere did not respond to the greeting. Instead he asked for her name, and when she told him, he said, ‘And this is your husband?’ He did not look at Tobe when he said this.
Ogadinma cast a quick glance at Tobe’s face, before bobbing her head.
‘But I was not talking about him.’ He pointed a finger in Tobe’s direction. ‘I am talking to this other man standing by your right side. He said he is your husband and I ask you to confirm: is this man your husband?’
Ogadinma looked around them, felt her stomach lurch upwards to her chest, painfully. She had been so engrossed with the state of the church, with observing Onye Ekpere, that she pushed her initial worry about preachers away from her mind. Now, it had crept back; she had been targeted. She looked at Tobe and then Aunty Ngozi; they both were visibly unsettled. They both believed Onye Ekpere. ‘Which man, sir?’ she asked him, her voice choked with fear.
‘He has been with you all your life. He is the reason for your troubles because he is very jealous and wants you all to himself.’
Aunty Ngozi shouted, ‘O Chukwu, O Chukwu!’
Tobe stood back, as though he was suddenly afraid of Ogadinma.
Ogadinma had begun to shiver, and when she spoke, she hardly heard herself. ‘I don’t know who you are talking about, sir.’ She looked at Tobe and begged him with her eyes not to desert her. But he stood well away from her, shifting so far, as if she was suddenly infected with a strange disease.
Onye Ekpere broke into an Igbo song, his voice rumbling, ‘Ike o, ike niie bụ nke ya. Ike o, ike niile bụ nke Chukwu.’ He danced, clapped, his thin frame swaying to the rhythm of the song. Aunty Ngozi and Tobe joined in, and even the other women on the other side.
He ended the song abruptly and invited them into an inner room by the side of the altar, which was bare, the floor cracked and dusty, the walls riddled with holes. Tobe still stood well away from Ogadinma. Aunty Ngozi, too. Onye Ekpere poured some water into a blue basin, tore open one of the soaps, and began to wash his hands. For a long time, he scrubbed, muttering, before he rinsed off the lather and wiped his hands dry with a kerchief he retrieved from his pocket.
‘Bịa ebe a,’ he told Ogadinma, pointing at the centre of the room. ‘Come here.’
She went to him. She felt like she was caught in a bad dream, that this strange drama playing out before her was a nightmare. As she stood before him, she thought of her father and his aversion to organized religion, how he would have sneered at this bizarre spectacle. ‘I do not have any spiritual husband,’ she protested.
But Onye Ekpere burst out in another song, his hands stretched out to the ceiling as he invited the Holy Spirit. ‘Yes, Father, I hear you, Father! Jesus, send us your Holy Spirit!’ He trembled, flailed, like a drunk stumbling his way in the dark. He broke into a sputter of tongues, incoherent jabber that would have been funny to Ogadinma on any other day. Aunty Ngozi was calling on Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Tobe sang slowly.
Onye Ekpere laid a bony hand on her head, pressing down with so much force. ‘What is your name?’ he asked her.
She tried to shake off his hand but he pressed tightly, and she fleetingly wondered why he couldn’t magically sniff out her name as he had done with her supposed spiritual husband. ‘Ogadinma Okafo,’ she said.
And the man jerked forward and backward, spasmodic movements as though he was zapped with electric shocks, his hand still gripping her head. ‘Abba Father! I apply the axe of fire upon any chain binding Ogadinma Okafo in the name of Jesus!’
‘Amen!’ Tobe and Aunty Ngozi chorused.
‘You satanic manipulation going on in her life, destroying everything she touches, destroying the life and businesses of the people close to her, I command you to cease now in the name of Jesus!’
Tobe’s ‘Amen!’ reached for the ceiling.
‘You forces of witchcraft assigned to manipulate Ogadinma Okafo out of her destiny, come out now in the name of Jesus!’
‘Amen!’
He shoved her forward and backward, as he chanted, ‘I command you to come out now in the name of Jesus!’
‘Amen!’
‘I break you, satanic forces! I command you to come out now!’
‘Amen!’
‘Come out! Come out!’
‘Amen!’
Ogadinma willed herself to stay still, but Onye Ekpere clenched her face with one hand, and grabbed the back of her head with the other. She could not escape him. She could not breathe well. And so, she fought him, and he fought back: shoving her, dragging her. She feared her neck would snap. She feared for her baby.
‘Please, let me go,’ she begged.
Aunty Ngozi and Tobe were chanting and thumping their hands, their voices fevered and loud. Onye Ekpere tightened his grip on her face. She folded her arms around her stomach, as strength left her knees, and she crumpled to the floor.
When she opened her eyes later, she was lying on the dusty floor. She hastily rubbed a hand over her belly. Something fluttered in her stomach, and she clamped her hands around it, relieved. Onye Ekpere stood at one corner of the room, speaking with Aunty Ngozi and Tobe. He talked in a low voice, his words measured, cutting and swift. Marine spirit. Spiritual husband. Prayer and fasting. That she was the reason for Tobe’s misfortunes. But there was a solution. She must stay in the church for seven days for intensive prayer and fasting, to sever her relationship with the marine world.
‘She doesn’t like swimming,’ Tobe blurted. He looked at her, his gaze filled with rage. ‘I remember she told me that, before we married, that she hates water. I asked her why and she said she feared she would drown each time she looked into large bodies of water.’
Onye Ekpere shut his eyes and smiled, shaking his head from side to side, as though he was communicating with otherworldly voices. ‘That is the spirit husband’s influence on her. She knows he would take her away if she so much as swims.’
Ogadinma wanted to speak up, but what was the point? Tobe was watching her with eyes that said she was the reason for his misfortunes, and Aunty Ngozi was swiping at her tears, her gaze full of contempt.
‘I want my father.’ She began to cry. ‘Take me back to my father, please.’
‘Don’t listen to her, it is the divisive spirit husband speaking through her,’ Onye Ekpere told them.
‘When do you want to begin the prayers?’ Tobe asked.
‘We can begin tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Can we leave her here?’ Aunty Ngozi said. ‘There is no need taking her home with us now that we know where our troubles are coming from.’ Tobe was frowning. ‘Please, let us leave her here,’ she continued. ‘We will provide everything she needs and come for her when the deliverance is done.’
Ogadinma stood up. She wanted to insist that they should take her back to her father, but then she remembered that he expected her to endure whatever came out of this marriage. He was the reason for her suffering, because if he had taken her back the first time, there would not have been any need for this. ‘I want to go home. There is nothing wrong with me. Take me home with you, please,’ she begged Tobe.
But Onye Ekpere approached her. ‘There is everything wrong with you. Shut up! I felt it immediately I saw you. I see the forces manipulating you. Mana, n’aha Jesus, that spirit will be cast out! Because there is no other power greater than His name. You must be set free of this evil spirit, so your husband can be free.’
‘Amen!’ Aunty Ngozi said, her voice thundering down the hall.
Onye Ekpere placed his bony hands on Ogadinma’s head. His skin was ashy and cracked, as though he had never applied pomade on his body all his life. Ogadinma looked at Tobe; he was looking at her, too, and conveying all the hatred his mouth could never speak. And she knew then that nothing she said would ever change their minds about her.
And so, when Onye Ekpere said, ‘We will break the chains of darkness in your life and you will be set free. Say Amen!’ she swiped at her tears, stared at the floor and mumbled, ‘Amen.’
Tobe and Aunty Ngozi left and returned hours later with a change of clothes and underwear. Afterwards Onye Ekpere showed her to a small room at the back of the compound. The bed was thin and short, and there was a small table and chair beside the door. The window was a hole in the wall covered with a dirty brown curtain. She stared at the bed, at the stained sheet and the dusty floor, and wondered how many people had slept on it, if they were all women like her brought here for deliverance. She kept her bag on the table, wiped the chair with a hand and swiped the dust against her dress. Then she sat and bowed her head over the table and fell into a blank, grateful sleep.