Onye Ekpere knocked on her door at night, when her skin had become clammy and large mosquitoes buzzed against her ears. She had splayed a wrapper on the bed and covered the pillow with her blouse, and was teetering between sleep and wakefulness, when he came. At first, when she opened her eyes, she panicked at how low the ceiling hung, the walls that were too narrow, and the small window that barely let in air and light.
Onye Ekpere came with two women. The porch light was dim, so she could not make out the expression on their faces. ‘Come with us. It is time to begin your cleansing,’ he said, and turned and left. The women followed meekly behind him, their backs slightly bowed, their long gowns flapping against their legs in the light wind.
The sky was starless on that night and even the moon did not come out to play, and so Ogadinma squinted as she picked the path that led to the church. Her grandmother once told her that spirits, both good and bad, came out on nights like this, that they whistled in the wind and rustled with the leaves and you could tell they were close when you felt your head swell and your skin prickle and fill out with goosebumps. She hastened down the short path, and almost sighed in relief when she walked inside the church lit by bright fluorescent lamps.
Onye Ekpere was standing by the pulpit with the two women who were now singing and thumping their hands. ‘Ogadinma Okafo, come forward,’ said the man, pointing to a spot on the floor. And she went there and stood. He got down from the platform and as he approached her, he spoke, his words measured. ‘We are going to war,’ he said, ‘and to win this battle, you will present yourself to the Lord as the day you came into this world.’ He paused. ‘Take off your clothes.’
She drew a sharp breath. ‘Sir?’
‘Asị m, yipụ akwa gị.’ He approached her, his gaze piercing. ‘Pull off your clothes. Or do you not know that God answers the prayers of naked people faster? That He then sees you have stripped yourself of your pride and arrogance, and are standing before Him, naked and true, like the day you were born, when you knew not your left from your right?’
His hair was a mess of uncombed tufts that had locked themselves into unruly kinks. He cared little about his physical appearance: his skin was flaky, his nose stubby with grey tufts, and his lips were chapped and peeling when it was not even harmattan yet. And as he began to wag a finger in her face, flashing browned teeth as he spoke to her, she saw the clump of dirt under his nails. He was the most unattractive man she had ever seen. And anyone who could go to these lengths to make himself repulsive should never be meddled with.
She pulled off her dress and her underwear. She began to cup her breasts, to cover her nakedness with her small arms, but then she left her hands at her sides.
Onye Ekpere began to pray and the women joined him, chanting songs and ‘Amens’. Ogadinma stared at the round clock perching on the wall of the altar; it was a few minutes past midnight. The night was cold, swift winds came in from the windows, biting and chilling. Minutes stretched into hours. Onye Ekpere and the women circled her like hunters with prey, shouting words and songs, stomping their feet. She sang in a small voice. Perhaps if she sang along they would realize that nothing was wrong with her. She sang for a long time, until her voice was hoarse.
When Onye Ekpere laid a hand on her head, and said, ‘I command you to get out!’ she imagined her chest shattering and a full human being, maybe a man as big as Tobe, jumping out of her body. She sank on her knees and began to cry again.
The women helped her to her feet later and pulled on her dress and underwear. It was past four in the morning and Onye Ekpere still looked alert, as though he was ready for another prayer marathon. ‘We will continue again tomorrow,’ he said.
Back in her room, Ogadinma crumpled on the bed. She was too tired to cry, too exhausted to think. She curled on her side, but just as she shut her eyes, a knock came to her door. When she opened it, she found Onye Ekpere standing before it.
‘Kedụ,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
He walked in.
‘Please shut the door and come,’ he said. ‘I have come to perfect today’s prayers else all we have done will be a waste. Do you understand me?’
She pondered his words for some seconds, searched his face for signs of what was coming. But the fixed smile on his face did not change, and so she could not read him. ‘What do you mean by “perfecting” the prayers?’
‘You see, this spiritual husband needs more than just prayers to scare him out.’
‘I don’t understand.’
He shut his eyes, swung his head from side to side; he had entered another spiritual realm. When he opened his eyes again, they looked milky and wet. ‘You have to take off your clothes and I will pray for you, again, just the two of us, to perfect today’s prayer.’
She took a step back. ‘I can’t do that, sir.’
‘That is what the Spirit of God says I must do. And if we don’t accomplish it, if I don’t confirm that it has been accomplished, your husband will not come for you.’
‘I can’t do it, sir,’ she whispered.
‘But you must. You cannot say no to the Spirit. You are not even worthy to speak to the Spirit.’ He let the words sink in. ‘Your husband will not take you back until I have confirmed to him that everything is all right with you. Do you understand what I am saying?’
Ogadinma nodded and pulled off her dress.
‘Lie on the bed,’ Onye Ekpere said.
She stretched out on the bed and shut her eyes. She did not think about how odd it was that she was naked and alone in a room with Onye Ekpere, her body splayed out before him like a sacrifice, her stomach queasy with dread. She took a deep breath and waited for the prayers to begin, but then she heard the rustling of clothing, opened her eyes and saw him taking off his clothes. She sat up.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Shhhh!’
‘No, sir. I will not let you do this!’
‘The Spirit of the Lord is here and you must not spoil this moment for the Lord!’
‘Please, leave me alone.’
‘Shut your mouth!’ his voice thundered, shaking the room. He stood before her, old and wrinkled, his entire body rough like the bark of a dogonyaro tree. ‘You will not spoil the Lord’s work. How dare you challenge the Spirit? How dare you?’
The rumples in his navel quivered as he approached her, and his penis stuck out like a thumb from the folds of shrunken skin. Tears, stinging and hot, trickled down the sides of her eyes as he climbed the bed and half-stretched atop her, so he would not press too hard on her protruding belly. She averted her face when he looked down at her. His curdled breath was harsh against her neck as he muttered prayers.
‘Jesus, as my body touches hers, may the yoke of the marine husband in her be broken! I say, may the yoke be broken!’ he chanted.
She did not say ‘Amen’. Instead, she let her mind rake over her past, before Tobe came into the picture, when all she ever wanted was to go to school.
She did everything Onye Ekpere asked her to. She went for the midnight prayers and stripped naked before the women. She sang with them, and at the end of prayers, the women helped her with her dress. And back in her room, she dutifully stripped off again for Onye Ekpere to perfect his prayers.
She did not think of Tobe. She did not let her mind wander too far into her past. Deep hollows soon appeared under her eyes. She did not ask for food when none was left at her door, and when she ate, she took too long to chew, as though it hurt to eat. Morning melded into afternoon, and noon bled into night, bringing her horrors, horrors she resigned her body to.
And it was why on that last morning, when Onye Ekpere lifted her legs, stroked himself and thrust into her, she did not resist him. She had feared that this would happen on the first day, even in the following days when he left streaks of wetness on her thigh. She shut her eyes. She imagined her body slipping out from under him and fleeing from this place, to somewhere so far away from here, somewhere safe. She returned to her room and Kano, locked herself in her small room that looked into the compound, until the horror was over, before she came back to this room. Afterwards, he wiped the stickiness from her body with a white cloth and dropped it on her lap.
‘I will shave your head, your armpit and your pubic hair. When you leave here, you will make sure to bury the hair and this cloth in a bush around your house, are you hearing me? It is the final process of severing your relationship with your spirit husband.’ A pause. ‘Are you even listening to me?’
She did not respond, and he did not prod her. She sat there, her eyes lingering on the door, as he shaved her hair.
Tobe and Aunty Ngozi came later in the morning, after Ogadinma had showered and changed into a new dress. She was sitting on the only chair in Onye Ekpere’s private meeting room when they walked in. Tobe stopped in his stride. Aunty Ngozi’s mouth drooped open.
‘He says I am fine now,’ she told them, looking from Tobe to Aunty Ngozi. ‘He shaved my head, too,’ she said, as though they had not seen that already.
Onye Ekpere entered later. ‘Everything you touch now will be going smoothly, like driving on a well-paved road,’ he said.
And Tobe and Aunty Ngozi shouted, ‘Amen!’
‘Kneel before the Lord,’ he said, and to Ogadinma, he said, ‘Kneel beside your husband and hold his hand.’
And she went and knelt. When Tobe held her hand, she felt how soft the palm was, like he had never had to do any hard work with his hands, like he had people who did things for him and took the blame for his failures.
As Onye Ekpere began to sing, Tobe’s eyes were shut tight in concentration. He had not changed at all; the sleeves of his shirt were rolled to the elbows and revealed the muscles which rippled under the fitting fabric and his cheeks bulged as he sang along with Onye Ekpere. He had not missed a meal. He had carried on like nothing had happened, while she suffered.
She gazed out of the window as they drove home, half-listening to their conversation.
‘He really is a powerful Man of God,’ Tobe said. ‘He sees things.’
‘I told you,’ Aunty Ngozi beamed. ‘People come from all over to see him.’ She turned around to look at Ogadinma. ‘I know everything went well?’
‘Yes.’ Ogadinma briefly held her gaze, and searched for signs that Aunty Ngozi knew what Onye Ekpere did to women. She ought to know about the rape; her friend must have told her what the man did to women. But Aunty Ngozi had already turned her attention to Tobe, her manner brusque. ‘Ah, did I tell you what happened at Papa Ugonna’s office the other day?’ she said to him in a hurried voice that suggested she did not want to dwell on the matter concerning the preacher.
Ogadinma should ask her about it. The tension in the car was tilted in her favour; they were all nervous around her, neither holding her gaze for too long, as if they were hounded by the fear of the guilty, especially Aunty Ngozi. She should confront Aunty Ngozi, ask what she knew about the preacher, if she knew what he did to women. But she sank back, sighed. What was the point, though? This would only make matters worse. As a girl, she saw what happened to girls who spoke up about their rape, how their parents punished and blamed them and everyone isolated and treated them like things cursed by the gods. Her initial bravado deserted her, left her feeling hollow.
Later, she brought out the white cloth from her pocket and unwrapped it. A musty smell rose from it. She ran a finger over the clump of hair.
‘What is that?’ Aunty Ngozi wore a puzzled look.
Ogadinma folded the cloth and returned it to her pocket. ‘My hair. Onye Ekpere said I must bury it in a bush.’ And she turned away.
She was certain Aunty Ngozi was still watching her, that Tobe’s eyes darted to her in the rear-view mirror, but she didn’t look at them.