NOT DEAD YET

Death has its underbelly, the subtle finality, gone to be no more. Die and end our miseries. I mentally wave off the unscrupulous thought. He languished on his mother’s bed, pale as a ghost and as cold as one. I sat by his bed, my face scrubbed of all emotions.

His sister’s wail constantly provides background noise to the scene. Today, she is slamming her body incessantly on the brick wall, her friends struggling to hold her still. Tomorrow, she will lie face down on the bare floor and cry her heart out. I watched the older women watch me. They wailed quieter. I watched the men move into swift action, making plans and preparation for the final rites. I watched everything.

I had made my peace with his death, for my mourning began a long time ago when they decided that rites and rituals will cure a white man’s illness. I had bathed in the market centre, eaten of the flesh of frogs, cats and lizards. I had carried sacrifices in the wee of the night, appealing to the gods that I know not their names to save my husband, who refused to use the white man’s medicine.

I had gone to the mountains, fasted for weeks with only water to keep me afloat. I had recited prayers for unending hours. I had done everything they asked of me. So yes, I had made my peace with his death and mourned him while he withered away.

“Witch,” she whispered so quietly I almost missed it in all the wailing, “You have killed my son.”

She stood at the ingress, murdering me with her bloodshot eyes. She idolized her son; he could do no wrong in her eyes. The older women had now gravitated towards her. Mama Dunni, the 'real' witch, hissed at me, ushering everyone out of the room.

"Come, my daughter," her tone oozed with sarcasm, "let us begin the rituals."

***

It is impossible to believe how much can be done within an hour of a person’s passing. I moved slowly from the room, wondering if I would see them – the departed – hovering over him to decide his fate. I wondered if he would be punished for his crimes against himself. I wondered if there was a special punishment for his obstinacy.

“Knock three-time before you enter o,” the “real” witch shut the door, leaving him alone to his

fate. “If you disrupt their meeting, the departed will take you along.”

You probably think me mad for believing all her gibberish, but Mama Dunni knows everything. She knows Delekes’ new child is a mermaid. She knows the child living with the mama Abeni is

‘Ogbanje.’ She knows I am killing my husband.

"Cleanse her," she instructed no one in specific.

I groaned. It was inevitable what is to come next. I know, for I have prepared for it. I spread out my hands like an eagle, my eyes shut, and my imagination took me to freedom. I heard the clinging sound of the scissors, and fury rose to my now bared chest. They are women like me, with daughters and sisters. They have now stripped me of all my clothing. I stood in the foyer, naked as the day I was born. The women watched without compassion. The men watched with lust-filled eyes.

"Sit," the chubbier woman said, crudely pushing at my shoulder. I wonder if she had experienced

Widowhood before, or maybe, she would experience it soon. I sat on the murky floor, my bare ass touching a cold and coarse surface. I covered not my bosom, nor did I protect my woman part. I sat shamelessly, and it irked them that they could not break me. They pulled at my hair so hard; I thought it would reap from my scalp. They wanted me to scream, cry, shout, or beg. Anything to show that they are superior in the game I play, not with them. Then the assault continued. I’m now hairless, my scalp smooth as a baby’s buttocks.

They have now marked my back; it stung from the darken powder. As a newly widowed woman, they tell you the dos and don'ts of the tradition. You must wear black clothing, they said, to signify your mourning. You mustn't walk under the sun because the genies play underneath it. You mustn’t escort anyone, for the dead will take their parents. And so the instructions piled up. And all I could do was watch everything and envision my freedom, from the shackles of marital servitude, from the dominance of a man without gumption and from a family filled with abundant cruelty and hatred.

“Drink” she was back again, the “real” witch, with a calabash.

I looked into the calabash and immediately knew what it was. It was his bathwater, soiled with his dirt and reeked of his stench. But I took it with glee, for I knew it was the last ritual, and my freedom awaited me on the other side. It tasted as bitter as it smelled, like what it was, the washing of the dead.

He must now be foot underground, I thought, with the termites and the worms – scared and powerless. The wailing had subsided as if their memories of him had faded away like a puff of smoke. Now, they shared everything of his, and I watched everything. His sister was to take his old worn-out beetle; his mother was to take all our savings. His aunty was to take his clothing and her husband to take his farm. So they went on.

“You can take his wife,” his mother said to the beaming elderly uncle, “with two goats and seven

chickens.”

My head snapped up, for my long awaiting freedom was threatened, and I was no man’s property. I watched everything with eyes filled with hatred.

“NO!” I screamed, “Your son’s life ended, not mine.”

I walked out, like a madwoman, without a stitch of clothing, never to look back.

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