When the Heart Weeps (2)

                                             

                                                   
It was dark, very dark as she walked down the untarred path to the wooden shack at the end of the road. The Prophet had told her to meet him in the ‘church’ building that belonged to a friend of his, another fellow prophet that was said to be able to predict the future. He had paid some money to ‘rent’ it for the night, in order to perform the cleansing ritual for Tope. Munirat held her baby close as she shuffled up the path, it went uphill and she was out of breath by the time she got to the entrance of the ‘church’.

She looked inside and saw the outline of the prophet’s silhouette at the far end of the room. The only window had been covered with a black cloth, and red candles arranged in a semi-circle on the floor gave the room an eerie glow, in addition to the faint light from the kerosene lamps placed at both ends of the room. For a second she was afraid, and was tempted to turn around and run straight home. But then she remembered what brought her to this point, she took a deep breath and walked into the room.



“Ehen, you have come” The Prophet said, “Where is the child?’. She untied her wrapper and removed her baby from her back, where she had firmly tied her and brought her before him.



“I hope you brought the things I asked you to?” he asked her. She nodded and opened the black nylon bag she had placed at her feet moments earlier. She began to arrange the items on the floor. Two live white chickens, a bottle of Palm Oil, a bag of Kola Nut, two yards of white cloth and a large tin of milk. She also placed a bundle of five hundred Naira notes on top of the cloth, it totaled 17,500 in all. The fee he had demanded for his ‘services’. “Good” he said “Now put her in the middle of the candles, and let us begin”



She did as she was told and placed her baby gently on the white cloth beside the semi circle of red candles. As she turned to shut the door, the Prophet moved closer to the baby and began to murmur some words over her sleeping form. She turned around and watched him; his dreadlocks began to shake vigorously as he increased the intensity with which he recited the incantations. Then he turned to her, ‘bring me one of the chickens’ he said. “She picked it up and moved closer to him, closer to her child, and closer she hoped to the solution to her baby’s problem.

*

It had been nearly a week since she had taken Tope for her cleansing session. Since then, her situation had worsened with the dawn of each new day. She had now developed a raging fever and Munirat was beside herself with worry and fear. She had spent all she had, and borrowed what she hadn’t and still her child was sick. She picked her up and tried to ease her fever by applying a damp cloth to her chest and back when the child began to cough.

Munirat patted her on the back to ease her discomfort when she noticed that the floor beneath her had been stained with a crimson liquid. She took a closer look at it and was horrified to realize that her baby was coughing up copious amounts of blood. At that moment, the door to their one room apartment sprang open. Baba Tope had returned early from his workshop. She stared at him in horror.

 “Why are you standing there looking at me like a fool?” He growled. Then he stopped short as he noticed the blood on the floor. His face darkened “I have had enough of that child!” He yelled “Since you have refused to do the right thing I will do it for you! Give her to me!” Munirat crouched back “No!” she said “What do you want to do with her?” Her husband snarled “I’m going to throw her away, so that I can finally have peace. Now bring her”

“No!” Munirat screamed again. In a burst of desperation, she pushed past her husband, knocking him over to his surprise and made a beeline for the door. As she ran down the stairs and out of the building, she heard him yell after her “Better make sure you don’t come back to this house with that child!”



She ran, out of the gate and down the road past the surprised shoe repairer who made a living in front of the gate to their compound. She kept running, blindly turning down one corner after the other with no sense of where she was headed. Finally, she came to a stop by the side of a road and took refuge under the shade of a leafy tree. She saw that someone had carefully arranged some planks of wood underneath it. Beside them was a table, with a saw and some other tools, She realized that this must be a carpenters workshop. As she stood there trying to gather her thoughts, the carpenter returned.



He look slightly puzzled to see her “Madam, can I help you he asked?”. Munirat, sighed, she was weary and didn’t have the strength to go on with her journey. “No, Please Oga, just let me rest here for some time. I promise I won’t disturb you” She pleaded. “Madam, there is no problem, should I get you some water? You look tired” He asked her. She gave a tired shrug. “No Sir, I’m fine don’t worry, thank you.” He nodded, and then pulled a stool from under the table for her to sit on. “I hope you don’t mind” he said “but I am going to turn on my radio now. It is time for my favorite program” . Munirat shrugged again, she really didn’t care if he wanted to listen to the radio or not, she had much bigger problems to worry about. The man switched on the portable battery operated radio on his table and began to work.



As she sat there, her mind pulled in a million different directions, she suddenly became aware of the clear, calm voice of the speaker of the radio program. He spoke in her traditional dialect and talked about being saved by a man called Jesus. She had never really heard much about this man before, according to the voice from the radio; the man had died many years ago but had risen from the dead after three days. He was referred to as the son of a God who wanted to have a relationship with her, to help her through with her life’s struggles. It was unlike anything she had ever heard before; it sounded like this God cared about her, cared about her baby and offered her help and a way out of her hopelessness. She listened intently as the voice went on to invite people listening to accept the man called Jesus as their Lord and Savior.


She began to weep silently, as she repeated the words of prayer the man on the radio recited for people who wanted to turn their lives over to the most high God. As the prayer ended, the host of the program talked about the importance of attending what he called a bible believing church and gave descriptions to the church he was a minister in for anyone who was interested in finding it. She knew the place he spoke of; it was close to the high school she had attended as teenager when she lived with her parents in one of the suburbs close to the capital of the Lagos metropolis. She would have to take three busses to get there. She had just enough money to get her there and back. The man on the radio had said that a mid- week service would hold at the church later that evening, she didn’t mind arriving a few hours early. She would wait. She wanted to experience what she had felt this after noon sitting under the shade of the tree. That feeling she couldn’t quite describe. She stood up with a renewed sense of purpose.


“Madam, are you okay?” the carpenter asked. She looked at him, and noticed that he had a gentle look in his eyes, a look that seemed to say ‘I understand you, don’t worry, everything will be all right’. She had no idea how he managed to pass this message across to her simply by looking at her, but somehow he did. “Yes. I’m fine” she said “Thank You”. She began to walk towards the bus stop to board the first bus that would take her to her destination.

*

An hour later, she walked up to the façade of the church. It had a bright red logo on it, with the silhouette of what looked like a person with their arms stretched up toward the skies. It appeared to her like an act of worship. Opposite the building was the entrance to her old high school. It wasn’t long after her SSCE exams that she had gotten married. It felt like her life had come full circle.



As she looked up at the building, she felt a sense of peace and calm wash over her; she held her baby close to her chest and slowly began to walk toward the entrance. As she stepped inside, she heard the faintest whisper of a voice, soft but clear, “welcome daughter” it said, and finally she knew she was home.