Abiku

Deep in the belly of the night, anything can be disguised as anything. Even resentment can be garmented in grand colours of love.

It was a small room. And a middle-aged man stood opposite a couple, and an infant lay in their midst.

The walls of the room were covered in white clothings, with cowries & tiny gourds fashioned into them in a way that held significance. Wooden artefacts hung like bats from the ceiling. A section of the room was set up to house a huge figurine. It sat on a platform made from dried clay.

A tongue of fire burned gently on a lamp hanging above it, bright enough to expose its expression—solemn—as if aware of the attention given to it. And the people in the room, except the infant, seemed to be touched by its mien.

The middle-aged man, his expression severe and majestic, was fully clothed in white. White buba, white kembe, white cap, white chunky bracelets, a white shawl sitting on his shoulders, and a white short staff in his right hand. He stood in stark contrast to the couple.

The husband was a young man in the prime of his youth. He, like his wife, was dressed in fabric dyed in a mash of colours, albeit in a pleasant way. His face, set with youthful vigour, held a shade of determination that verged on madness. His wife, a head shorter than him, was even more animated. Her eyes sparkled behind a film of tears. Slight tremors ran across her body from time to time. And she swelled and shrunk in her iro and buba like a shadow.

The woman’s gaze was set on the infant lying on a stool in their midst. Her eyes held a tired affection that dulled the glint of tears . In her hand was a knife glistening coldly in the poorly lit room. Her other hand held her husband.

Breaking the silence, a voice, impersonal in its tone, rang out.

“Everything is ready. Now, to the final act.”

A violent jolt ran across the woman’s body. Her husband held her from behind to support her.
Seeing his wife’s struggle, he spoke.

“Baba, why can’t I do it?”

The cold voice rang out yet again.

“No. The oracle of the gods cannot be altered. He was nurtured in her womb. She was the portal for his arrival here. Only her can end his connection with the world beyond.”

The husband gave his wife a gentle pat on the back and said, “Go ahead, my dear. It’s for his own good. And if we don’t do it, we will continue to suffer. Remember what he did to us in his last life.”

The woman, in reluctant steps, drew close to the baby. Now, standing over him, she saw his face—pleasant, full of flesh and innocence. His eyes sparkled with purity, unaware of the severe air that arrested the room. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her pain was evident.

She took his left hand and held out his fourth finger. She took deep, calming breaths and brought the knife to it. Then, her visage changed slowly, as if it were shapeshifting, as if it was being influenced by an overpowering force. Her face steeled with a fractured love, with motherly resentment.

Blade went through flesh and soft bone. A cry shattered the coldness in the air. Blood poured out from the infant’s hand, which now held four fingers. He was inconsolable.

The woman, his mother, looked at him, with pity and affection, and said, “Durojaiye, in your past lives, all you offered me was pain. But I have sworn to reject it this time. I won’t take it. For this time, you, Durojaiye, must stay.”

•••

They say I’m abiku, that I was born to die, that I enjoy dying. They say I’m the punishment the heavens have imposed on my mother. This life, I’m Durojaiye. I have lost a finger to my mother’s desire to make me stay. The last time I came here, I wounded her affection.

In my past life and my third time coming into this family, I was Malomo. At first, everyone loved me. Then everyone avoided me. And my mother resented. I was a healthy boy before I was eight. I grew like the other kids. I ate, slept, played, and ran like them. I had bright eyes, jet hair, brown skin, and a sharp wit.

I was my parents’ treasure, the only child. They had had two children before me, but they died in infancy. I was the answer to their prayers, the proof of God’s clemency towards them.

Every morning, my dad came to my room and mouthed “Malomo mi” with autistic persistence.

Then he would carry me on his shoulders and spin me about, as if to offer thanks to God. My tiny hands would smack his balding head, and I would giggle with joy. He, too, would laugh.
He got me toys of different kinds. They filled my room. I made worlds my young mind could imagine with them.

My mum ensured I was treated like a prince. No demand of mine was declined. All my tantrums were met with genuine benevolence. She would prepare me yam porridge and with utmost care, would watch me eat, as if every spoonful I took filled her. She gave me head rubs to put me to sleep.

I was growing up a happy boy, full of life, full of verve. Neighbours recognised how well my parents treated me and did likewise, even though some acts of kindness were sheer pretense. The kids in the neighborhood wanted to be my friends. They knew Malomo always had plenty of candies and biscuits to go round.

I was eight when things began to change. My body began to change. And people began to change with it. I started to take ill. My hands would swell and hurt badly. My eyes would take on a tinge of yellow that scared away other kids. My stomach and forehead grew bigger, but I shrunk in size. My palms were always pale. I broke down in cold weather. I suffered in hot weather.

Rumours started flying about that I was a spirit child. They said I was in so much pain because I had overstayed my welcome here, and my mates in the spirit world were tormenting me. Some said I had yellow eyes because yellow was the eye colour in the spirit world. They said I couldn’t stand the weather because I wasn’t from here.

The other kids would no longer play with me. Their parents kept them away. Tola, who would always hang around for my candies, now ran at the sight of me. Shogo was always too terrified to look at my eyes. In the eyes of neighbours, I saw fear, pity, repugnance, and mockery. I wonder where it all came from. After all, wasn’t I Malomo, the boy everyone loved? I remembered my English teacher would say, “Take away the honey; watch the ants scatter.”
Only Mummy Ronke, my mother’s closest friend, stayed. I was shaken by the impermanence of life and the frailty of human admiration.

In spite of this, the love of my parents remained. In fact, I could swear it grew. Or I felt it more. For the touch of warm hands is better felt by a cold skin. My parents would hardly sleep as I battled bouts of severe pain at night. I would howl like a wounded beast, like a demon resisting exorcism. And as I howled, my mum would hold me in her arms, and weep, and apply balm where it hurt. My dad would sit in silence, observing my misery. For he mustn’t break as his wife broke. He must pretend to see hope where there wasn’t. As days broke, the bags beneath their eyes got bigger.

They would pray to God for my healing. They sought to end my suffering.

At the start of my ordeal, Mummy Ronke prepared herbal concoctions. She said it would take away the pain and clear the yellowness of my eyes and skin. It tasted strong and bitter, as if bile had been dissolved in water and given to me to drink. I would throw up moments after drinking it. I was washed morning and night in herbs. I wouldn’t stop turning yellow. My nights were filled with more agony. My mum’s sobs became more frequent and louder. My dad’s face got darker and darker.

When healing wouldn’t find me at home, Mummy Ronke took us to a healer. He had shifty eyes, moved in a flowing white robe, and walked barefoot.
As we entered his church, I was assaulted by a strong scent of perfume. Its cloying pervasiveness made me sicker. Now my face was bloodless, almost ghastly. And vivid yellow eyes sat in it in a way that was too sinister for the sight. But when the priest looked at me, I saw confidence that came from mastery. He looked like a man who had the answer to my suffering.

However, I started to doubt the confidence he exuded when he said some incomprehensible words and staggered like a drunk. He shifted his body from left to right, back to front, threw his backside in the face of the altar, rang the bell in his hand with baffling enthusiasm. The cloak of man of God was lifted; he took on the costume of a thespian.

He stopped his theatrics suddenly, as if he was arrested by some unseen force. Then, he looked at me with certainty and declared I was possessed with demon spirits and needed exorcism. He said I would spend seven days within the church premises till the angels of God rid my body of the demons it possessed. My mum had to fast those days. She was tired, worry-worn, stress-torn, but she had to do it for her son.

My days became longer. My nights felt like eternity. I was fed scented water morning, afternoon, and night. I puked and soiled my mother’s clothes every time I took it. The pain in her eyes deepened.

A group of people in flowing white garments would gather around to pray over me in the middle of the night. They prayed so loud that my body trembled with every amen. With every hallelujah, my suffering increased. More pain, more yellowness, more loss of body size.

But they said night time prayers were the best, that the demons were extra vulnerable in the dark. But if there were demons that tormented me at all, they were the mosquitoes that feasted on me at night. I could feel each bite buried in my skin. I could feel the parasite vomited into my blood and carried round my ailing body. I could feel it multiply and turn on the heat in my body. For I began to spike a fever.

The days were somewhat better. People were always moving about. Barefoot, flowing white garments, women in white turbans. Loud prayers were always offered, and that took away my peace. Songs were always sung. Disruptive as they were, they were one of the happiest moments of my life. I had never heard songs so melodious and spiritual.

You’d think you were in the company of angels and cherubs were pouring out praises from their lips. You’d think God was in the neighborhood and his seraphs were singing his eulogy. Those were moments the pain I felt was tolerable. I would lose myself to the melody of their songs and would feel my soul ascend to a realm of peace I didn’t think possible. I would feel my soul removed from my misery, from this world, and transported to a place unknown. Those were the times I believed I came from a world beyond this world, that I might have a clique in the spirit world.

Everything else added to my misery. The sight of my mum getting thinner, the anguish pouring out of her eyes, her words getting fewer, and her sobs turning into deep sighs.

My dad came around one of those days. He was always working on his cocoa farm. When he saw his once healthy son looked like a sack of dry bones, he knelt down, held me in his hands, and groaned.

This time, when he mouthed “Malomo mi,” he choked mid sentence with whimpers. His grief burst through the shell of stoicism he always had with him.

And the prophet would ring his bell over my head that it buzzed and ached badly. I would wonder why the promisers of healing added fire to the inferno that burned me.

Then I would watch members of the church dance. These people knew how to do joy. They ran, hopped, swayed left and right, laughed like they had no care in this world. They looked like people with true redemption.

I envied them. In my envy, I hated their joy. In hating their joy, I hated everything. I hated the world.

And I would lay flat on the ground, my face set towards the ceiling, my mind roaming the void between life and death, and all the rumours about me would pour in like a river.

And I hoped they were true. I hoped I was truly an Abiku and had people I could call friends in the world beyond. For they wouldn’t be as selfish as the ones I called friends here. I hoped that I belonged to a world different from here. For this world was too cold, too brutal for my existence. The people over there would be warm, they would be kind to me in my ordeal.

I hoped I was possessed by spirits. I needed an entourage when I journeyed back to the place I came from. I had to make a grand comeback.
And as these thoughts filled my mind, I realised death began to fill my body. This world was losing me, as I was losing it.

And hours segued into hours. It was my fourth day in the church when I left this world and wounded the greatest love I had here.

Although my body had begun to surrender to decay, my mind was more active than ever. Those thoughts became more vivid and true. I started to believe in my destiny as an Abiku.

It was midday that day. I lay on my back in front of the altar. My mother, who was now a shadow of herself, knelt beside me. I felt her warmth. More importantly, I saw anguish written over her face. And I was overwhelmed by a sense of guilt.

Then, my breath began to grow weak, so I started gasping for air.

In my mind, a huge gate took form. And I felt something on the other side of it calling to me. I was convinced it was my world of origin.

My mum, alerted by my state, took me in her arms and screamed. It tore through the air with such bitterness that the entire church was alarmed.

She shook me. I had become so light, so delicate that my bones jiggled within my flesh. Her lips, dry and thin, parted mid sobs to say, “Malomo mi, jo duro ti mi. Ma fi mi si le. Jo, s’aanu mi.”

Every word rocked my being. They felt like missiles discharged with clinical precision. But I knew I couldn’t continue here, I couldn’t repay her love and trust. She would have to deal with this betrayal.

As she shook me, my mind strengthened its grip on what it saw. The outline of the gate was now real, and I drew closer. And everything started to fade. The strong scent that pervaded the church, the people in white garments, their songs, their dance, and my mother.

And as my thoughts edged towards what called me, I took one final look of my mother.
Now, her image was blurry. I could only make out her face, especially her eyes.

In there, I saw affection that had been sundered in the middle. And I was reminded of the Red Sea and how it had to part for the redemption of the Israelites.

My mother’s love, too, had to part for my emancipation.

In my next life, when I come to her again, this wounded affection, this resentment of a loving mother would be my salvation.

And like that, I stepped into the world beyond.