The Madhouse

by TJ Benson

  In her last moments she begged to be buried in water. The Torajans who found her in the wreck of DOR 227 were shocked because:

  1.She, African foreigner, passenger of a destroyed plane, had made her last request in their native Torajan-Sa’dan tongue.

  2.She knew there was water close by.

  She knew because she had been there before.

  When she was twenty-seven, she gathered up every last kobo she had and fled from home. Home was the two-bedroom flat in the Ahmado Bello University staff quarters where she and her parents and elder sisters lived. She arrived ten years after her preceding sister, perhaps a last attempt at having a male child by her parents, perhaps an afterthought, perhaps a mistake that could not be aborted because of her parent’s religious prestige.

  Either way, she was alone most of her life. She tried to be a perfect child to her parents since she wasn’t a boy, and a perfect child to her sisters since she wasn’t close to their age. To her sisters she was more of an inconvenience really; now they had no spare time to sneak into laboratories after dark with the much older university students. They had to babysit her while their parents went on evangelism assignments. She ate lots of beans so she could grow fast and unburden them. They were so grown up, with real breasts and full lips and brown skins – no wonder those university boys loved them. She was dark skinned, even then. They were so beautiful. She grew used to the hand-me-down African wax gowns that had almost faded to the colour of water, and panties that had become threadbare by the time they got to her.

  She fled because of all of this and because she had found the president of her youth fellowship, her betrothed, in her father’s office. She found him ripping up a choir member’s skirt for better access. She fled because he had immediately abandoned the choir girl’s legs and announced without pausing, as if he had half-expected her to walk in, that it was the work of the devil, that the devil was taking advantage of her delay in moving in with him. She fled because when she went to report what she had seen to her father, when she had cried at his feet where he had been marking scripts late into the night, he had peered from under his glasses and told her to be strong, that the gates of hell would not prevail over her divine marriage to the young prayerful man to whom she was a destiny helper, that she should take it all to God in prayer and fast. He had even given her Proverbs 31 to read. She left because it had occurred to her as she got up from her father’s feet, stunned, that her whole life was a cliché.

  She had grown up admiring the serenity of the green lawns and majesty of high trees and wild blossoms of the staff quarters on evening walks. Forgotten by parents consumed with the work of God, she spent several afternoons in the university library and, so emboldened by the plants and the stories from all time, both real and fictional, she began to dream up a life different from that of her sisters. She never displayed this possibility for anyone to see, lest they snuff it out; she nurtured her dreams in the dark.

  Already by sixteen it was obvious that she would look nothing like her sisters, with her uncomplicated infant face, flat chest and small, gangly body. She didn’t interfere with her father’s plans either; she allowed him to choose public administration for her to study at ABU. None of her sisters had had this chance. She had faith that the same providence that had sent her instead of a male child that late in her parents’ lives would spirit her to some grand future far from them. She maintained good scores, never missed a church service, and sang with all her heart until after one evening EXCO meeting in her final year, the president of their student fellowship, a stocky dark-skinned chemical engineering student with white teeth and a permanently low cut walked up to her and informed her that he had seen her wearing a wedding dress in his dream.

  She had been delighted because she knew he was set to take over from his father’s ministry once he turned thirty. His father was the general overseer of the Pentecost Commission, one of the largest missionary churches with branches all over the country in those days. She could see herself in the brown Volvo he drove to school, travelling through Nigeria, leaving Zaria, which she had never left – not for Christmas to visit grandparents or for secondary school – behind. Nothing her sisters would ever experience. Her father, who admired the minister-to-be’s future and respected his father’s ministry, was deeply pleased.

  However, her faith was to be tested: in the same dream he had been instructed to do ministry work for seven years after meeting her without marrying her. This would put a spiritual seal on the marriage. Then, in the seventh year, they could marry, just as on the seventh day God rested.

  She had reservations about this dream-prophecy because her esoteric meanderings in the university library were making her wonder about the exact measurement of the days of creation, but her father assured her it had the workings of the Holy Spirit. Days or not, seven was what the Bible said, and seven was a holy number, for God worked wonders in sevens …

  And so she sat at home with her degree for seven years, watching her mother grow mute and heavy with age and neglect as her father dedicated his time to the new flock of fresher students that flooded the university chapel and the policing of her elder sisters. When she mentioned getting a job so that her degree wouldn’t go to waste, her father employed her as the church secretary and a clerk in the finance department. It was this business of monitoring numbers that kept her late in the church building one night in the seventh year of waiting, and she had gone to return the treasury book to her father’s office when she saw her fiancé between the legs of the choir girl on the desk. There was a moment of confusion because she knew he was an honourable man – he had not visited her unsupervised or made any lewd advances in any of the seven years of waiting – but here he was, telling her it was the devil’s work.

  ‘But when?’ she gasped as the choir girl leapt from the desk. ‘When did you tell me to move in with you and I said no?’ Her head suddenly felt hot so she loosened her headtie. The choir girl fled out of the room before the headtie fell on the ground.

  ‘You see, it is the devil making you forget,’ he said, reaching out his hands to hold her, eyes kind with forgiveness. ‘Let us see Pastor Ismaila now for counselling and deliverance,’ he said, wiping her eyes. ‘The devil shall not prevail over this marriage. We can pull through.’

  Something unknotted in her. With all the rage of waiting for seven years, she stepped back and shoved him to the ground. Without waiting to see how he fell, without picking up her Bible or shoes, she left as he called out to her, ‘You are the rib of my rib, the flesh of my flesh!’

  It took the encounter with her father to realise it didn’t matter how different she believed she was from her sisters, for she had ended up being treated like them. She was not a male child. And so she gathered her things that night and fled.

  A former coursemate knew someone who knew of empty houses for rent in Sabon Geri, so she begged her to meet her in one of the popular hotel restaurants the following day. She slept in the coursemate’s hostel room that night. Then she spent the first day out of home in a cheap hotel which had the ambience of a mortuary with its sparse windows, heavy expired air and flickering florescent tubes. In this single act she had descended several rungs of chastity, for what sort of girl slept in a hotel? Even the receptionist asked her for ‘Oga’s name so that I can show him your room when he comes.’ She cried in her bed all afternoon at the receptionist’s presumption.

  As noon gave way to evening and shadows grew and slanted from the sun she turned the idea in her head, thinking that an oga whom she could confide in wouldn’t be that bad. What if she was the oga? Why weren’t there any male prostitutes? She wouldn’t do the deed – actual sex was something she relegated to a most distant future, having lived so long without it – but she would pay him to listen to her. Nancy Audu in her class told the girls in between course periods about her adventures as an escort. Nancy had said some of those big men didn’t even want sex; they just needed someone to talk to about their wives, about the coun
try, anything. She had been involuntarily eavesdropping on the conversation in class that day and had found it ridiculous that anyone would pay real naira just to be listened to. Sprawled now on the pink flower-print bedspread, she could relate. When she put her hand behind her head she could hear the gurgle of a faraway sea within her, the commotion of blood. The gentle throb of pulse. A heartbeat.

  She fell into a light sleep with the words ‘We are the answer to our parents’ prayers’ recurring in her mind for no reason.

  By seven she was at the hotel restaurant, waiting for the estate agent as planned. The agent was a scrawny man in an oversized ash coat and goggles. ‘Call me Mista Vincent,’ he said with a big toothy smile. ‘Now who is this angel before me?’

  She was surprised at his compliment because her father had only talked about angels during Sunday service, and he only mentioned their protective assignments, messenger duties and acts of God wrought on man. Her father’s church, as with any Pentecostal church in the Seventies, was only interested in demons, principalities and powers. Even though little could be inferred about them in the Bible, various seminars and workshops on demonology where their names and classification by ranking were listed, were organised, especially for pastors to avoid embarrassing situations during deliverance sessions. There had been cases of anointed men who tried to expel demons from attractive, scantily dressed women but ended up being possessed themselves, stripping naked on the altar and dancing out of the church. There had been a pastor who successfully healed a mad man and instantly ran mad himself. Such incidents were sufficient to end a ministry if not contained. Church members were instructed to close their eyes during deliverance sessions, lest some demon jumped into you.

  So she knew a lot about demons and not much about angels. The extra-biblical information she had gathered about them was from fantasy books in the university library and eventually books on the occult in the house. These books mentioned that the fallen ones had taught man to make fire and forge weapons, and that it was this race of celestial beings who had taught man the custom of a groom giving his bride a ring to wear on her left hand, for, having been there at creation, they knew before modern science that only the ring finger on the left hand had a vein that ran straight to the heart.

  ‘I need a house for rent,’ she said. She didn’t know how long she would stay but she needed three months first. The agent gave her a good deal. If she could pay five months upfront he would give her a lease of two years. She said she didn’t know what two years would look like but he said she should think about it. That night she thought about it: The possibility of her own home. Not states away from her father but this was a good start. The next morning, when the agent walked into the restaurant, she said yes.

  On the way to the old staff quarters where the house was, he confided that the house was actually his but he had just got the opportunity to lecture in Hawaii so he was travelling with his family the next day. He needed to rush home once he had dropped her to go and make the arrangements. She dreamt of Hawaii in his Beetle as he talked, wondered what being in a plane was like.

  ‘I will come back to Nigeria in December for Christmas so I will come and see how you are doing,’ he said, writing her a receipt. ‘Take care of the house for me o, you hear?’

  He collected her money, dropped the keys and receipt in her hand, reversed and sped off. She would never see him again but she didn’t know it then.

  Her thoughts were with her family in Zaria, her father who would commission prayer bands and put an ear to the lecturer grapevine he despised for news about her. She knew she was his last chance at a model child and so she wouldn’t give in to him.

  All three sisters had married sinners and her father had been determined from the moment she finished school to make sure the same didn’t happen to her. The first girl, Hadassah, sneaked off to the Kaduna high court to marry a man who was at the time an undergraduate of chemistry. He was Catholic, which was in her father’s books worse than marrying a Muslim. He saw no need for the tertiary education of his daughters since they were supposed to be helpers of their future husbands but somehow he could never protect them from university boys who lured them to gmelina trees with sweet nothings. His restrictions heightened their distress and consequently their secret victories with each successfully executed conquest. Hadassah lived those days in some sort of fantasy painted by the Catholic man and by the time she had a grip on the relationship she was on an abortion table in Rigasa. Yes, they were married according to law, but he was still an undergraduate and he persuaded her that they couldn’t have kids till he finished school and got a job. Their father had been spited by her secret wedding and when news of her abortion reached him, he sent a message warning her never to return. But when in the years to come she couldn’t conceive, she was sent back home to her shame and her father welcomed her, satisfied with the punishment God had meted out to her. He made sure she never missed a service so that she could endure the stares and whispers and spent more time at home to ensure the protection of his other two unsoiled girls.

  But Hephzibah, the second eldest, was more ambitious than all three sisters. She got pregnant by the only other professor in her father’s department at the time, a stern academic who was her father’s professional rival and who already had two wives. Her father was so incensed that he sobbed on his bed in anger; finally, he understood how God could regret creating human beings. His grief didn’t last long: Hephzibah couldn’t stand the professor’s other wives, and within a month she was rolling on the ground in front of their father’s house begging for forgiveness. As for her pregnancy, well, she woke up one morning and realised it wasn’t there. Her father welcomed her with a stern embrace, gladdened once more that he had been vindicated.

  Havillah, the third daughter, who had a soft heart, managed to fulfil their father’s worst fears. She ran away with a Muslim man and to the alarm of his family, his colleagues in the department (three more professors had joined him and his rival) and the elders’ council of the university chapel, their father abandoned everything and chased them for almost a year, down to the other end of the country with the aid of scanty information he managed to gather from the strong network of Nigerian missionaries. On the verge of giving up in Port Harcourt, he had a hunch, based on his daughters’ penchant for using procreation to escape him. He went to the cheapest hospital, which was the general hospital, but he was too late. ‘We named the baby after you,’ said the young man, unfazed by this bull of a man barrelling down towards him. With dignity the young man accepted the slap. ‘Of course,’ he continued calmly, ‘the baby has an Islamic name too.’

  The father warned Havillah never to return, taking refuge in the fact that he had a last child, a last chance to be a good father. She was just fifteen at the time and he vowed on his hotel bed that night to make sure she didn’t end up like her sisters.

  Havillah returned without her child one year later. The matriarch of her husband’s family could not condone her rejection of the family’s religion. As usual, their father welcomed her home with a smile.

  The house before her was not the one-bedroomer she had imagined. It was big and the white paint had washed off. She used the key to unlock the padlock that held the wire-mesh gate together and walked past the twin palm trees to the doorstep. This wasn’t the time for a young woman to be living alone – she was aware that she would be easy game to inebriated officers – but she inserted the key and turned the lock. The door was pulled out of her hands, inwards and before she could recover from the shock a man was before her, naked but for the yellow square-print wrapper tied round his waist. She swallowed and turned back to the street but Mr Vincent was gone. A long silence ensued, during which the man chewed whatever was in his mouth, looking her up and down as if she was the half-naked one, and swallowing.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  With his build and facial hair, she had expected a deep mighty bass but his voice was soft, almost kind.

  ‘Excuse me?’


  ‘I just finished boiling yam and maize. If you are hungry I get yam and maize.’

  ‘This is my house!’

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smiled. ‘You are not the first person to come and claim this house. Go and bring your agent or landlord.’

  She fished in her bag for her receipt to show him.

  He stooped low and squinted to read and said, ‘That is a small amount of money to buy a house.’

  She bit her lower lip so that she wouldn’t cry. Mr Vincent’s phone number was on the receipt but you don’t carry telephones out of your house; you don’t put them in your car or fly with their cords trailing after you to Hawaii.

  She backed away from the door. ‘I will come back with the police.’

  ‘At least come in and sit down. Even if you don’t want to eat my yam, there is drinking water. The sun is too hot; at least come and rest a bit.’ He turned and walked back into the house, leaving the door ajar, and after a moment of surprise and confusion she allowed herself to walk in after him, wiping her eyes. The house was a mess: white walls coated with dust, brown cushioned chairs and a ceiling-high bookshelf at the far end of the living room, which looked as if masses of people had taken refuge here in a war. There were books on a stool beside the chair she sat on, and when she looked closely at the titles she was confused.