Slave of the Living Dead - Kasimma

Slave of the Living Dead

Chidebelụ had just created space on the overwhelmed dining table and was about to lift the ice cream cake off the floor when she received a call, informing her of her husband’s tenancy at the emergency unit. It was Arinze’s thirty-fifth birthday, a day so hot one feared that balls of fire would rain from the sky. As she hurried out, she accidentally smashed her feet into the cake. The red “H” of the cake’s wording rested right on the top of her big toe as if in jest that the day was supposed to be “happy.” If only Arinze and she had just stayed home as her mother advised. But somewhere in her brain lingered Aladiobiọma the slave, may he rot in hell, of the Kingdom of the Great Living and Greater Dead and of all other Realms unknown, First son, Head of the Obi, Defender of his lineage. 

It’s no news that the first sons in Arinze’s kindred did not live past thirty-five. Chidebelụ’s mother adjured her that unless she looked forward to being a young widow, she had better steer clear of that accursed family. But Chidebelụ’s reasoning was drowned in the pool of her love. Arinze’s small eyes, and his square-shaped head as large as two pumpkins put together, attracted her to him out of her very senses. Nothing else mattered to her, not even his bold smile like Morris Chestnut’s or his physique like Burna Boy’s. She was that child in school who endured mockery for her small head. Adulthood saw her wearing big, wavy wigs to conceal her head. She figured that Arinze’s great head plus her small head would produce children with medium-sized heads. Her family recommended Ikem, Arinze’s younger brother, to her. He was most unlikely to die at thirty-five; the top of his even broader head resembled a ploughed field; and wouldn’t Chidebelụ consider marrying Ikem since she found Aso-rock-heads sexy? All pleas fell on wax-stuffed ears. Chidebelụ told everyone who cared to listen that she served a living God; generational curses had no hold on her husband.

Until thirty-five-year-old Edozie, the first son of Arinze’s eldest uncle, turned to ashes in a plane crash. Chidebelụ endured her crying mother’s polemics, reiterating her warning, and couldn’t Chidebelụ see the stronghold of their generational curse? Chidebelụ had unshakable faith in Christ Jesus. It was a plane crash. It could have been anybody for goodness’ sake. Chidebelụ’s mother howled loudest at Edozie’s burial as if she were Edozie’s soulmate. But she knew, Chidebelụ knew, that her tears were for her son-in-law.

The next year, Izu, Arinze’s cousin, a first son too, resident in Utah, surrendered to a four-year breast cancer battle: aged thirty-five. Chidebelụ’s mother called her again, crying. Chidebelụ imagined her mother’s hips spread out on her favourite brown suede couch, her phone on speaker, her palm employed in the service of wiping her tears with the edge of her lappa. Chidebelụ did her best to explain to her mother that Izu’s cancer was bull-headed; it licked mastectomy. But her mother was adamant. What business did a man have with breast cancer, for goodness’ sake? And why did it not kill him since? Why did it wait until he hit thirty-five, on his very birthday, before it took him? Was Chidebelụ raving mad or blind to fate? What Chidebelụ had was faith.

Akirika: aged thirty-four years ten months. Chidebelụ witnessed his final moments. She was in his house for a casual visit when Akirika excused himself. Next thing, yowls! Chidebelụ and Akirika’s wife followed the screams to the toilet. Chidebelụ stood outside the door. She didn’t want to see Akirika in such a state. Akirika’s wife called out for her help. Chidebelụ was hesitant, but she went in. And standing there was Akirika, his mouth wide-opened, tears streaming down his face, his scrotum neatly coiled in his trouser coil zipper all the way up as if it was part of the zipper. Some of his skin stuck out as though the zipper passed through his scrotum like a train in a tunnel. His penis, as endowed as their great heads, hung there like a tree’s breaking branch. His wife, now in utter confusion, cried with her husband. She stretched her hand close to Akirika’s penis, but he screamed. She withdrew. Encouraged by the women, Akirika counted his steps, wince by wince, deep breath by deep breath, his legs spread apart, as if he had scrotal elephantiasis. He asked to lie down when they reached the parlour. Confusion frothed in the room: to zip down or not. Finally, they decided to so that he could at least walk to the car! When his wife touched it, Akirika screeched! One would think droplets of molten magma landed on his chest. Chidebelụ fanned Akirika, patting his chest. His wife, her hands shaking like someone with hypothermia, counted one, two, three, aaaaaaaaand zip! The zipper came down, splashed with bits of flesh and reddened with blood. She might want to keep the open wound as clean as possible, Chidebelụ suggested. So Akirika’s wife got methylated spirit and cotton wool and dabbed the rail on the scrotum. Akirika, by this time, whimpered like a dying dog. His laboured veins plastered on his body, so visible, so thick, as if the pain made his skin as transparent as wet silk. The women covered him and got some men to help lift him to the car. During his surgery, Chidebelụ held Akirika’s wife in her bosom, who in turn held the blood-stained quilt they had used to cover him. Akirika was wheeled out of the theatre, asleep, alive. Would he be okay? The doctor gave his affirmation.

Akirika never opened his eyes.

Chidebelụ’s mother called Arinze this time, as though she did not want to waste her wisdom on her daughter. Arinze and Chidebelụ were in their sitting room, resting on each other, wordlessly staring at a turned-off TV. Arinze answered the call and placed it on speakerphone. Would Arinze study Akirika’s body during the funeral, she said, because, in two years, he would be the one in the coffin with his nose and ears stuffed with blazing white cotton wool. Before Chidebelụ could respond, Arinze hung up. She, however, observed a harangue of how dare her mother say that to Arinze, gbogbotigbo! 

It might or might not have been his mother-in-law’s words, but after Akirika’s burial, Arinze gathered his cousins, who gathered their fathers, and they went to visit a diviner. He asked them to go home, that he would consult his deity, and come see them in five days. On the said day, they gathered on three benches, arranged in a U-shape, under a kola nut tree that was as old as, maybe, Moses. The seven men waited until the diviner’s voice and rattling staff pierced through their noiselessness. He sat on the blue plastic chair they reserved for him in their midst, between the eldest men, right under the tree behind whose trunk Arinze’s tinted SUV stood, in whose backseat Chidebelụ, as curious as a scientist, hid, listening. If not for her rechargeable hand fan, she would have melted and poured out of the car. They offered Abiankata kola nut. This was not a matter of kola nut, he said, and did he tell them that he came all the way from his house to eat kola nut? Apologies. The eldest man rolled out their worry. He was a second son whose elder brother died at thirty-five. Their first sons died precisely at thirty-five, and would Abiankata please tell them what was going on? Abiankata listened as though he was hearing the tale for the first time, chewing his teeth. It sounded like chomping chin chin or kuli-kuli. He scratched his white goatee and mocked them: ha ajụka n’oge. He pointed at the speaker and asked his age. Ninety-two. And it took him ninety-two years to realise that something was wrong? Silence. Abiankata told them a tale, in his shaky voice, with the ebullience of a storyteller:

Aladiobiọma was born with greatness at the tip of his tongue. The placenta that accompanied him here is under this very kola nut tree where we sit. And as he grew, the gods favoured him. He was handsome beyond measure. His eyes were as white as Amadiọha’s ram, and his pupils as brown as Ala’s skin. The gods were partial towards him. Ala treated him as a favourite child. She blessed his farms with juicy yields. Because his harvests were so healthy, nobody bought elsewhere until he sold all his crops. His brothers allowed jealousy to get the best of them. Things got out of hand when the king gave his only daughter to Aladiobiọma. Her refusal meant nothing. Nobody even understood why she would not want to marry Aladiobiọma. But her heart rested with Aladiobiọma’s immediate younger brother, Njọkụ, a secret only both of them shared. Njọkụ poisoned his brothers’ minds against Aladiobiọma. So that when the white men came looking for slaves, Njọkụ and his three remaining brothers ganged up against Aladiobiọma, hit his head to hibernation, and sold him into slavery. The villagers combed their lands and rivers searching for clues of Aladiobiọma’s whereabouts or at least how such a hefty man vanished. The gods stayed silent. To compensate the family, the king offered his daughter to Aladiobiọma’s immediate younger brother, Njọkụ. Their father cried to his grave. Before his death, he ordered that the kola nut tree should never be cut down. At least his useless sons adhered to that one.

Aladiobiọma suffered tremendously: first, from the cruelties of slavery, and second, from the hurt that his beloved brothers set him up for such indignity. Like his father, he cried to his grave. He died an unhappy, unmarried slave. His body was chopped like wood, poured into a hole, and covered up. His lineage was erased because he left no seed. In fact, his birth was a waste. Aladiobiọma still hovers, dead, living, unable to, at the very least, join ndị ichie. His blood cries for blood. Unless he is appeased, your first sons will remain slaves of a living dead. 

The compound stayed mute. Even the air stood still, as though drawn to the story. They asked the diviner what they might do to appease the angry spirit. He told them two things, and, according to Aladiobiọma’s instructions, they must occur in that order. First, they would marry Aladiobiọma a wife to bear him sons who would carry on his name. Second, they must give Aladiobiọma a befitting funeral so that he can join his ancestors. The second one was not an issue, but for goodness’ sake… for goodness’ sake, would Abiankata be so kind and tell them how to go about the first request? An erect penis, the diviner responded, needs no light to find the vagina. He got up and sang out of there. He had a nice voice for a man his age, but the words made no sense to anyone. The fading calls of his rattling staff sounded like something coming from a far distance when the men’s vocal cords returned from vacation. The big question was which family would marry out their daughter to a cacodemon. They decided to sleep on it and reconvene the next day. 

That night, Chidebelụ and her husband had an intense debate. He opined that they did exactly as the diviner instructed. He accused Chidebelụ of insensitivity because it was not her head on the chopping board. Her rejoinder? She served a living God. They should call a pastor who would use his anointing to break the yoke. Which yolk, Arinze wanted to know. Was it the yolk of akwa ọgazi, or the yolk of akwa ọkụkọ, or did she mean the yolk of akwa eke? She meant yoke, not yolk; the demonic yoke of… he banged the door behind him. A crying Chidebelụ called her mother. Her mother only hummed and hemmed while Chidebelụ jeremiad. Why would Arinze wear the rosary and the scapular on his neck when he lacked faith in their efficacy? Her mother chuckled. Chidebelụ steamed. Would her mother mind telling her what in the world was funny? What was funny, her mother responded, was that Chidebelụ had a small head because she forgot to fill it up with sense while she was in the womb. Chidebelụ threatened to ring off, but her mother apologised, three quick ndo that sounded like mockery. Then she went on to explain to Chidebelụ that should Aladiobiọma come for Arinze, he would first borrow the rosary and scapular on Arinze’s neck and wear them to show Arinze na we-we. Then he would clutch Arinze’s great head and airlift him to where his cousins were chilling. Then, oh, Chidebelụ should not worry, Arinze would get a… Chidebelụ hung up.

Aladiobiọma’s conditions were met in one year. His wife, Azụka, twenty-five, was from a family flogged to humility by poverty. Her blind father begged for a living. Her mother sold maize only during its season. Azụka was the family’s breadwinner with the meagre sum from her obioma, cloth patcher, business. Since her job description rhymed with Aladiobiọma’s name, it was a sign, wasn’t it? How did she like the idea of marrying Aladiobiọma in absentia and bearing children for him with any man or men of her choosing? What she liked, what her family liked, was the poverty alleviation that came with the marriage package: a promise to cater for Azụka’s parents and see their ten children, Azụka included, through school. The marriage took place in the dead of the night, under the kola nut tree. The bride—the only female in attendance, dressed in black as a widow that she had become—held Abiankata’s ọfọ and vowed to take Aladiobiọma to be her husband. The morning after Aladiobiọma's marriage was his funeral, during which Azụka sat under the “Widow” canopy, receiving sympathisers’ condolences. 

Only a year after, Chidebelụ, mascara-tinted tears streaming her cheeks, feet sticky with cake, ran into the hospital asking doctors and nurses and cleaners and patients where her husband was. An elderly nurse took her to Arinze’s ward. Plaster lumped at the left side of his head. His torso was nude. He was covered up to his chest, asleep. The zigzag lines on the heart rate monitor, the nurse explained, showed that his heart was beating just fine. No problem at all. He sustained only a minor cut on his head, which had been stitched. He was sedated so that his brain could rest and recuperate. All Chidebelụ thought of was Akirika. As if the nurse read the worry in Chidebelụ furrowed brows and her sulky pouted lips, she placed a hand around Chidebelụ’s shoulder and assured her that her husband would be awake in three hours. Her guarantee? She’s been a nurse for thirty-five years, and she could tell a bad case from a good one, and she’s never been wrong, ask anybody.

Chidebelụ sat on the visitor’s chair, held Arinze’s hand, and said her rosary, waiting… 

Originally published by Brigids Gate Press Anthology, 2022

Kasimma is from Igboland—obodo ndi dike. “Slave of the Living Dead" was first published in Brigids Gate Press Anthology (02/2022)