Thread by @Chi_deera

My grandmother’s stories are one of the reasons I love to go travel the village for Christmas. Sitting next to her in her outdoor kitchen and listening to her tell her favorite story of all time. The story of Chinua her son. My father.

I have heard this particular story several times but every time she told it there was always something different about it. She always started it the same way with a toothless smile she would say

“Ikem thought I was mad. At some point I started to think the same but every mad person always has a few moments of clarity”.
Then she would begin to narrate
“Woman, are you mad? What did you just say?”

“I said our child is an obanje!”
I had finally found my voice. My tongue no longer felt tied to the floor of my mouth and the voices in my head were silent for a moment. I knew he was probably thinking the devil had gotten to me but I knew this was no devil. I had met the devil

I knew this wasn’t him.
Five years before that I was Udoka, the virgin bride of Ikemafuna, the parish catechist. Firm in my faith, baptized and dedicated to the church at birth. Always armed with my bible and rosary beads ready to battle the devil.

But here I was talking with a strong conviction about spirits and forces besides the power of Jesus. I immediately shook off my feeling to cling to my bible and rosary as I had always done and I continued to speak.

“Ikem, this child is going to die. He is an obanje. We have to go and see the woman my father told me about. Nwanyi affa”
I was half blabbering at this point, my words made no sense to me these days.

Five years down the line and I was no longer the woman I used to be. I had become Udoka the mother of two dead children and one who was about to breathe his last. I had become Udoka the woman whose breasts had succumbed to gravity and heard voices in her head.

I had become Udoka the woman who believed in spirits. I was mad but I had to be mad. My husband was staring at me in bewilderment. My Ikem. My beautiful husband. I was always in awe of his beauty. Even as his lips came together to say the very words I knew he would say I still

he was the most beautiful man in the world.
“Over my dead body will you bring a heathen into my home. Look , the Rev fr. Just gave me this holy water from the River Jordan. You know he just came back from the pilgrimage”

His eyes were beaming with hope. He truly did believe in the magic of salt and water and it angered me.
“ Ikemafuna Nwamadi, get ready to die right now because I am going to call the woman. Stay here and drown yourself in holy water”

With those words still dangling from my lips like a person being pursued by a tiger, I ran. Never stopping to check if he followed because I was sure he wouldn’t. I didn’t stop until I got t my father’s house. The only place that seemed familiar to me these days.

. The one place I wasn’t hunted by the cry of babies. The cry that was driving me mad. My strength failed me when I sighted my father sitting in his chair overlooking his household, listening to his radio, the only thing he returned from Burma with.

He was in this same spot the last time I was here. I remember him bending to inhale his snuff and coming up for air while he said to me.
“ Yes we are Christians. We believe that Jesus died and resurrected on the third day for our salvation but there are some things our bible

have no answers to maybe because it was written by a white man but our people have answers to them so we should consult them in times like this. Udoka nwam ,nwa gi bu obanje “
I felt the weight of those words. Someone had finally confirmed my deepest fear.

The only thing I could mutter was
“My child is dying. Papa please help me”