African Quilt : 24 Modern African Stories (9781101617441) (32 page)

“Did she get wind of the sale of the church and had stayed home in protest?” others started to ask.

It was common knowledge that Magdalene Ogbe had been a favorite of Evangelist Peter. At thirty-seven, she was much younger than her husband in his late fifties. She had had no child in their ten years of marriage and looked very much in her prime in beauty. She was the leader of the women's group and reported to the evangelist their discussions and resolutions. She had traveled many times with Evangelist Peter on church duties out of town, and to conventions out of state that lasted many days.

Evangelist Peter had complimented her service publicly in the church. He always embraced and hugged her on Sunday mornings before worship, when he came to her; he shook hands with most other women.

Magdalene, the name that the evangelist had given to her, stuck. She had been Agnes, which the evangelist said was not as Christian as Magdalene. Unknown to Elder James Ogbe, his wife and Evangelist Peter had been having a secret relationship and she had received numerous favors from the evangelist—always in the delegation traveling on behalf of the church. Rumors had started, but none wanted to imagine that the evangelist could do such an immoral thing as sleeping with his church member's wife.

Magdalene went often to see Evangelist Peter to pray for her at different times of the day. Church members noticed her frequenting the pastor's office and home but their minds did not wander beyond her not conceiving all the years of marriage. They pitied her and her husband—such a gentle and godly couple!

There were rumors too that Elder James Ogbe was either impotent or weak as a man, but again, nobody wanted to imagine such a beautiful woman married to a eunuch.

“How could that beautiful woman have married such a mature man without a taste of the thing first?” They asked many questions.

When such rumors first came, the bearers were seen as agents of Satan.

“Don't defame a man of God,” one member of the church had said.

“The good ones will always be smeared by the rumormongers of this world,” another had added.

“Those who perjure the evangelist will roast in hell,” another swore.

 

* * *

Magdalene Ogbe had conceived. It was a miracle that only she and Evangelist Peter knew about. They did not expect it, but it happened. They accepted the crop whose seed they had been planting.

The two secret lovers went underground for a few days. Only Pastor Emmanuel and his Magdalene knew that Evangelist Peter and Magdalene Ogbe had migrated to the United States to start a new life. As part of the contract that included the sale of the Church of the New Dawn, Pastor Emmanuel had secretly married Evangelist Peter and Magdalene before they took off. That was after they confessed their sins to Pastor Emmanuel who forgave them. That also was part of the contract. Only his wife, the namesake of the new bride, was witness to the ceremony that took place in Pastor Emmanuel's house after midnight.

“We are entering a new dawn,” Evangelist Peter quipped.

“God bless both of you!” the pastor pronounced.

“And God also bless you with the Church of the New Dawn that I hand over to you,” Peter told the pastor and his wife, as he handed to them the keys of the church.

That night Evangelist Peter and Magdalene headed into darkness not to spend a conjugal night in bed but to travel fast to catch their plane taking off from Lagos later that morning. Their minds were focused on where they were going and the new life as husband and wife they were going to live in God's own country.

No member of the Church of the New Dawn, including Elder James Ogbe, knew where they had emigrated that night. Magdalene had told her husband that she was going for a retreat in Lagos and would be away for a week. He did not ask her any questions about her travels for religious events, including this one for which she had filled a big trunk with clothes, shoes, and jewelry.

To the congregation of the Church of the New Dawn, Evangelist Peter and Magdalene might as well have died or gone to heaven. Or hell, if members of the church knew what had really transpired between them in the many years they had been under the pastoral leadership of Evangelist Peter! As for Magdalene, the women would say, “She was looking for more than conception or a baby from God under cover of prayers—a new and virile man!”

I
FEOMA
O
KOYE

Ifeoma Okoye earned a BA in English at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and an MSC in Teaching English for Specific Purposes at Aston University in Birmingham, England. She has authored numerous well-known children's books beginning with
The Village Boy
(1978), which won the Macmillan Children's Literature Prize. Among her other children's books are
The Adventures of Tulu the Monkey
(1980),
Only Bread for Eze
(1980),
No School for Eze
(1980),
Neka Goes to Market
(1995),
Ayo and His Pencil
(1995), and
Chika's House
(1995). Among her adult novels are
Behind the Clouds
(1983),
Men Without Ears
(1984), which won the Association of Nigerian Authors' Best Fiction of the Year Award,
Chimere
(1992), and
No Where to Hide
(2000). Many of her stories are collected in
The Trial and Other Stories
(2005). She was married to the late civil rights activist Mokwugo Okoye and has five children.

The Power of a Plate of Rice

(1999)

I
walked hurriedly to Mr. Aziza's office, breathing heavily in steadily rising anger. The January sun was blazing in fury, taking undue advantage of the temporary withdrawal of the seasonal harmattan. As I arrived at the office which was at the end of the administration block, I remembered one of my mother's precepts: “Do nothing in anger. Wait till your anger melts like thick palm oil placed under the sun.” Mother was a philosopher of sorts. Poor woman. She died before I could reward her for all the sacrifices she made on my behalf, forgoing many comforts just so that I could get some education, and for carrying the financial burden of the family during my father's protracted illness and even after his premature death. In deference to Mother, I stood by Mr. Aziza's door for a few seconds, trying to stifle my anger, but failing woefully. Only an angel or an idiot would remain calm in my situation.

At last I knocked at the mottled green door.

“Come in.”

Mr. Aziza's authoritative voice hit me like a blow, startling me. I opened the door and walked in, my anger still smouldering . . .

Mr. Aziza, the principal of the secondary school where I was teaching, was seated behind a medium-sized desk made of cheap white wood and thickly coated with varnish. Books, files, letter trays and loose sheets of paper jostled for a place on the desk. He raised his coconut-shaped head, closed the file he was reading, removed his plastic-framed spectacles and peered at me.

“Yes, Mrs. Cheta Adu. What do you want?” His voice was on the defensive and the look on his ridged face was intimidating.

I took a deep breath. “The bursar has just told me, Sir, that you told him to withhold my salary.”

We were paid irregularly. Although it was the end of January, the salary in question was for October of the previous year. Four months without any salary and yet we went to work regularly.

“Yes, I did, Mrs. Cheta Adu.” Mr. Aziza's small, narrow eyes pierced me like a lethal weapon. As one teacher had put it, he paralysed his prey with his eyes before dealing a death blow to them.

“What have I done, Sir?” I asked, trying to load the word
Sir
with as much sarcasm as I could to indicate how I felt inside.

Mr. Aziza fingered his bulbous nose, a part of his body which had been the butt of many a teacher's joke. He was known to love food more than anything else, and one female teacher had once said that most of what he ate went into his nose.

“You were away from school without permission for four days last week,” Mr. Aziza finally declared.

My anger, which a few minutes ago had reduced to a simmer, suddenly began to bubble like a pot of
ogbono
soup when the fire under it is poked.

I said as calmly as I could, “In those four days, Sir, I almost lost my baby. I had already explained the circumstances to you. My baby became very ill suddenly. I had to rush him to hospital. For those four days, Sir, he battled for his life.”

“And so?” Mr. Aziza intoned.

Someone knocked at the door and I turned to see the Second Vice-Principal's bearded face appear as he opened it. “I'll be back,” a thin-lipped, hair-fringed mouth said and disappeared. The appearance of the bearded face was like a comic scene in a Shakespearean tragedy.

I turned to Mr. Aziza and, in answer to his question, I reminded him that I had sent someone to tell him that my baby was in hospital.

“After you've been away from school for days,” Mr. Aziza complained.

“Yes, Sir, but my baby was in real danger and I was too upset to write. I had thought you would understand.”

“And did you bother to find out whether your friend gave your message to me or not?”

“She told me she delivered it a day after I sent her to you. You were not in the office when she first called, and then she forgot all about it till the next day. I've already apologized for all the delay, Sir.”

Mr. Aziza opened another file and began to flip through it. “You will receive your salary at the end of February,” he said.

I gasped, “Do you mean I'll have to wait till the end of February before I receive my salary?”

“Exactly.”

“That would make it five whole months without a salary!”

“I'm not interested in your calculations.”

Mr. Aziza was known for punishing his teachers by withholding their salaries. But I had not known him to withhold any teacher's salary for more than two weeks at the most. He had always felt, and had said so in words and in action, that he was doing his teachers a favour by paying them even though the school belonged to, and was funded by, the state government.

“How am I going to feed my two sons, Sir?” I asked.

“That's your problem, not mine,” Mr. Aziza replied.

I refused to think about this problem. January, as every low- and medium-salaried worker in my country knows from experience, was the longest month of the year. After the enormous compulsive and often senseless spending during Christmas and the New Year, a salaried worker was left with little money for the rest of January. And for those who had children in school, paying school fees and buying books and school uniforms for the new school year often became a nightmare. This year was worse for me because I and all the other teachers in the school were last paid in September of the year before.

“I am a widow, Sir,” I pleaded with Mr. Aziza. “I am the sole breadwinner for my family. Times are hard. My children cannot survive till the end of February without my next salary.”

Mr. Aziza said, “I don't want to know, Mrs. Cheta Adu. My decision is final.”

He stood up, hitched his trousers up with his elbows, and walked to a window on his right and peered out of it. He was a small, wiry man, the type my mother often told me to beware of.

Helpless, I stood watching him, a man known for his inflexibility. I knew from my colleagues' experiences that taking my case to the State Schools Management Board would be futile as Mr. Aziza had ingratiated himself with the powerful and high-ranking officers of the Board. As the principal of one of the elite schools in the state, he had helped them to get their children admitted into his school even when the spoilt ones amongst them did not pass the entrance examination. I also knew that taking Mr. Aziza to court was out of the question. Where would I get the money for a lawyer? Besides, civil cases had been known to last for months or even years because of unnecessary and often deliberate court adjournments.

Mr. Aziza walked back to his chair and sat down.

I looked hard at him and, without saying anything more, left his office. In a taxi taking me home, I thought about nothing else but Mr. Aziza. This was the second time I had found myself at his mercy. The first time was when, five years before, I was transferred to his school from a secondary school in Onitsha where I was teaching before my marriage. On reading the letter posting me to his school—I had delivered it to him personally—he had flung it at me and had declared, “I don't want any more female teachers in my school, especially married ones.”

“What have we done?” I had wanted to know.

“You're a lazy lot,” he had said. “You always find excuses to be away from school. Today it's this child of yours becoming ill who must be taken to hospital, and tomorrow it's the funeral of one relation or another.”

When he officially refused to give me a place in his school, I resorted to a tactic I had used successfully before. I kept calling at his office every day, often without uttering a word, until I broke his resistance and made him accept me. This time, however, I had the feeling that he would not budge, no matter what I did.

When I arrived home after five in the evening, my mother-in-law was walking up and down in front of my flat with my two-year-old son, Rapulu, tied on her back, and four-year-old Dulue trailing behind her.

“You're late, Cheta,” my mother-in-law said. “I was beginning to think you were not going to come home.” She looked weary and worried.

“Sorry, Mama, I have some problems at school.” I walked to her after hugging Dulue, who had trotted to me. “And how is Rap?” I asked.

“He's ill.”

I placed the back of my hand on my younger son's forehead. It was piping hot.

“You're not going to be ill again, Rapulu?” I said under my breath. Aloud I asked, “How long has he been running a temperature, Mama?”

“A short while after you left for school in the morning,” my mother-in-law replied.

I helped her untie Rapulu from her back and took him in, Dulue trotting behind me. I stripped Rapulu of his clothes, put him on the settee, fetched a bowl of cold water and a towel and began to sponge him down. He yelled and kicked, but I ignored him. Dulue, with his thumb in his mouth, kept on mumbling that he was hungry, while my mother-in-law stood speechless, watching me.

Presently, I remembered that I should have given Rapulu some fever medicine. I ran into the only bedroom in the flat and dashed out with a small bottle. Taking Rapulu in my arms, I gave him a teaspoonful of the bittersweet medicine and began to sponge him again.

My mother-in-law soon dozed off. Poor woman, she must have had a trying day. She was a widow too and I had brought her to help me look after my children. Bless her, for what could I have done if she had refused my offer? Another reason why I brought her to live with me was to save costs. I used to send her money every month to supplement the meagre proceeds from her farms.

We had a late lunch of yam and raw palm oil. It was the last piece of yam in the house. I skipped supper because I wanted to make sure that the
garri
and
egusi
soup which I had left would last for two nights.

The night was a long one. First I lay awake for fear that Rapulu might become worse, but fortunately the fever did not persist. Then I reviewed all that I had gone through since I lost Afam, my husband, who was an only child, in a ghastly motor accident a little more than a year before. He was a brilliant banker. We were at the university together, he studying banking and I mathematics. As luck would have it, we were posted to the same state for our National Youth Service. We became engaged at the end of our service and married shortly after. He died a fortnight after our fifth wedding anniversary and, ever since, my life had become an endless journey into the land of hardship and frustration. I had, under great pressure, spent all our savings to give my husband what my people and his had called a befitting burial, and what I saw as a senseless waste of hard-earned money.

For the better part of the night, I worried over how I was going to pay the January rent, how I was going to feed my two sons and my mother-in-law, and what I was going to do if Rapulu became so ill that he had to be hospitalized again. I already owed two of my friends some money and could not see myself summoning up the courage to go to them again.

I borrowed money again and for two long weeks I managed to feed my family, sometimes going without meals myself. I became irritable, and students complained that I was being too hard on them. My good-natured mother-in-law became equally touchy and nagged me incessantly. My two sons threw tantrums, spending a great deal of time crying. Soon I had no money left and no one to lend me more. I had reached a point when I had to do something drastic or allow my sons to die of hunger.

On the 23rd of February, after school hours, I went to Mr. Aziza's office and once again pleaded with him to pay me.

“You're wasting your time, Mrs. Cheta Adu,” he said. “I never change my mind. You will receive your salary on the twenty-eighth of February and not even one day earlier.”

I left his office and waited for him in the outer room. At four o'clock he left his office. I followed him to his house, which was situated near the school main gate, and he turned and asked me why I was following him. I remained silent. He opened the door and walked in. Quietly, I followed him into his sitting room and sat down without any invitation to do so. The room was sparsely furnished. A black-and-white television stood on top of the shelf next to a small transistor radio. Near the bookshelf was a small dining table and a steel-back chair.

Mr. Aziza lived alone. His wife and six children lived at Onitsha about one hundred and twenty kilometres away.

Mr. Aziza turned and faced me. “Look, Mrs. Adu, you'll achieve nothing by following me like a dog. You may stay here forever, but you'll not make me change my mind.” He disappeared through a door on the right.

Presently, his houseboy walked into the room and began to lay the table. The smell of
jollof
rice
wafted around my nostrils, reactivating in me the hunger which had been suppressed by anger, depression, and desperation. The houseboy finished laying the table and left.

On impulse I left my chair, walked to the dining table and sat down on the chair beside it. Removing the lid on the plate, I stared at the appetizing mound of
jollof
rice. Then I grabbed the spoon beside the plate and began to eat. I ate quickly, and not only with relish, but also with vengeance and animosity.