This House Is Not for Sale

by E. C. Osondu

  It hadn’t been easy for her to conceive either. Most of the female herbalists she went to said she had a hot womb that was too hot for a baby to grow in and had given her herbal medications to cool the womb.

  She carried the dead child to the shrine of the river goddess. She cried to the river goddess. The priestess of the river goddess told her to wait with the body in the shrine. She waited. Later that day the priestess told her to remove her clothes and change into white clothes. She did. She told her to wrap the dead child in a white sheet. She did. She told her to wait by the riverbank. When it was getting to late evening, the river goddess asked her to wade into the water with the dead child. When she got into the middle of the water she saw a figure rising out of the water toward her. She was very fair skinned, a little plump, her face glowed silvery like a fluorescent light, she told Tata to give her the dead baby. Tata handed the baby to her.

  —In place of the baby I’ll give you something that’ll take you places and make you better known than even your husband and all the men. The only thing is that you must promise to venerate my name. Before you start anything you must give honor to my name. And from today you must dress only in white. Everything in your life has to be white. She was requested to drop the dead child into the river. She did. As the child sank, a medium-size mirror floated to the top of the water. Pick up the mirror—she was commanded.

  She did.

  —This mirror will help you catch soul stealers and wizards. It will help catch thieves. It will help identify any person who commits any crime and denies it. This mirror works better than any detective. All you need to do when people come to you is get a set of drummers to drum and sing my praises, let them sing the praises of the river goddess. As the singing and drumming heighten, bring out the mirror and begin to chant my praises. I will show you who has committed the crime. In fact the perpetrator of the crime will appear in the mirror and all eyes will see them. This mirror will give you wealth. It will make your name known all over the world—

  “And will it give me children?” Tata asked.

  —No, it will not give you children. Every woman comes to this world with a certain number of children in her womb. You were destined to have three. They are gone—

  “What about one, just one child?”

  —You will have no children of your own but the noise of children, and people will never depart from your compound—

  That was how Tata Mirror got the name Tata Mirror. She returned to the family house and told Grandpa what she was told. Grandpa knew that this was a great business opportunity. He carved out a consultation room from one of the rooms facing the street downstairs. He donated two of the boys in the house to her as drummers. He made a signboard and put it in front of the house. The signboard said: WHATEVER YOU ARE SEARCHING FOR MY MIRROR WILL FIND IT. WITCHES AND WIZARDS, CHILDREN, LOST ITEMS, ETC.

  We would later learn to beat those same drums ourselves.

  Those who were there when it happened said the first case that was brought to Tata was the young man who died down the street. He was from a polygamous home. He always took the first position in school. He was both senior prefect and sanitation prefect in his secondary school. When he finished secondary school he wanted to go to the university to study medicine but was offered a place to study pharmacy, but medicine was his first love so he decided to wait for a year and then reapply. He got a job as a cashier with a bank. Because he was a levelheaded boy he still lived with his mother. On his way to the bus stop to take a bus to work in the morning people would marvel at the sparkling white shirt he wore.

  —That boy’s brain is faster than a calculator, I hear—

  —Look at the white shirt dazzling like an angel—

  —I hear he is going to the university next year to become a doctor—

  —He will make a good doctor he is so kind and caring—

  —With the kind of money he is earning from the bank some of his mates would go to rent their own apartments so they can drink, smoke, and bring girlfriends home. But just look at him he still lives at home, helping his mother—

  —Other kids should learn from him. Nowadays as soon as they are in form two they stop greeting older people. They start flying the collar of their shirts—

  One day at work the young man turned to the cashier sitting next to him and said, “I want to take off my tie. It is getting very hot in here.”

  “Are you sure you don’t have a fever?” the other cashier replied. “The air-conditioning is on.”

  “I really, really, need to take this tie off.”

  “Go ahead, if you want to, you can, but if the supervisor sees you without a tie you’ll be in trouble.”

  He removed the tie and dropped it on the floor.

  “I am still feeling quite hot,” he said after a few minutes.

  “I think you should go to the first-aid box and take some paracetamol. Or do you want me to call the supervisor so he can excuse you to go and see a doctor?”

  “I am not sick. I just feel hot,” he said and took off his shirt.

  When his colleague noticed that he had pulled off his shirt he rushed to the outer office to call the supervisor. When he came out of the outer office with the supervisor, the cashier was out of his cubicle. He was stark naked. He was fanning himself with his shirt. “I still feel very hot,” he kept muttering. All the bank’s customers fled the banking hall.

  He turned out to be Tata’s first major client. His family was called to the bank. He was bundled to the hospital, but the doctor took one look at him and diagnosed his condition as home trouble. He said it was not the kind of illness that should be brought to the hospital. The young man was still complaining of heat even though only a blue bedsheet covered him. Someone must have mentioned Tata, because the young man was soon brought to Tata’s room in the Family House. His mother was there, so were his father and his father’s second wife. The drummers began to pound their drums. We could only peep through the green mosquito netting into the room. In a small earthenware pot on the fire a mixture of water and white loam was boiling angrily.

  Tata was clad in a white woven cloth, on her right hand she held a mirror and on the left a fan decorated with chicken feathers. She began to dance and hop about. First on one leg, then on the other one. She spread out both hands the way a bird would spread out its wings and moved around the room in speedy spurts, as if propelled by a force inside of her that eyes couldn’t see. Finally she stopped in front of the two wives. The young man was sitting quietly now. He was rocking back and forth. His eyes were glazed, but he had at least stopped screaming about his body being on fire.

  “You know yourself, you know who you are. Say what you did to him,” Tata said, glaring angrily at both women. They were both sitting on carved wooden chairs.

  “If the river goddess reveals you, you’ll die. Reveal yourself now or the repercussion will be dire.”

  Both women shrank back. Tata began to dance once again as the drums picked up a beat and increased its tempo. The music of the drums was heady, it did something to the spirit, first it was mournful, then it turned stirring and hypnotic, even.

  Tata began to peer into her mirror. She looked into the mirror and covered her eyes, as if frightened by what she saw. She looked into the mirror again. She laughed, but there was no joy in her laughter.

  Two aluminum cups were dipped into the boiling pot of clay and given to the women to drink from. The younger wife drank first. As she drank she was urged on by Tata. Drink everything. Those who have nothing to hide find this to be a refreshing drink. Those who have something to hide think it poison. Drink and drain the cup. It was now the turn of the boy’s mother. She was reluctant to drink.

  “Why do I need to drink? I am not on trial. It is my own son they are trying to kill.”

  “Yes, which is the more reason for you to drink and show the whole world that you have clean hands.”

  “I have nothing to hide. I bore him. The world knows that I can never harm
a child that came out of my own womb. I carried him for nine months.”

  “Are you afraid to drink?”

  “No, I have nothing to be afraid of. I have not done anything.”

  “Then drink it.”

  “I don’t want to drink on an empty stomach. I have not eaten since I heard of my son’s troubles.”

  “It is like food. Consider this milk from the river goddess.”

  By this time the drums had become silent. Tata looked into her mirror and shook her head. The boy’s mother drank. She was urged to drain the cup. She drank and drained the cup and then she began to talk.

  “It was me who did it. I cooked my son. I boiled him. They said I had to do it. They said I had taken part in the killing of other people’s children and that it was now my turn. They said I should bring them the son I loved most. I refused; I told them he was my life my future, my retirement hope. They said I would get a big title. They said I would be promoted. They told me I would be cruising around in a pleasure car in our world. I was reluctant to do it but I was persuaded.”

  “Can he be cured? Can he still return?” the father of the boy asked.

  “He has been cooked and eaten. All that while he was screaming about being hot he was being boiled in a cauldron.”

  The boy’s father spoke again, he was pleading.

  “You must be able to do something. Beg the goddess for us, we will sacrifice whatever she wants to save my son.”

  “It is too late,” Tata said. “Your son is gone. They have taken his spirit. This is a mere husk you are looking at.”

  Before his burial a mob gathered and said they wanted to lynch his mother. She was not lynched. One of her brothers, a pastor in a white garment church, would take her away for deliverance from the spirit of witchcraft. This same brother of hers would one day spit at the Family House while walking past it and refer to the house as a demonic and fetish house. Her husband would accuse Tata of putting strange liquids in a cup and forcing his wife to drink it.

  Tata’s fame as a witch catcher grew. Every day, there was drumming in the house. And soon enough a new group of people began living in the house. These were people who had confessed their witchcraft but were left behind out of shame by their families.

  How can they follow us back home after the evil they have done? their families asked. Grandpa had not envisaged this fallout from Tata’s new line of business, but he was happy about it. New hands meant more working hands, and more money. These men and women became his washermen. They washed, starched, and ironed neighborhood laundry for a pittance. Initially a few people on the street were reluctant to bring their laundry to the Family House but the price was too good and whites came back sparkling, smelling clean and well ironed. Yet people talked.

  —It is even stated in the holy books that a witch should not live but die—

  —These are not witches anymore. Once a witch has confessed, all her power is gone—

  —How do you know? Have you been a witch before?—

  —No, but one knows things. Witchcraft is like a secret society. Once you reveal their secrets, they expel you—

  —Yes, they expel you but you still have their secrets with you—

  —You can tell that these people who live in that house still have supernatural powers—

  —Why do you say that?—

  —They wash clothes and do all kinds of domestic work but they never get tired. And look at the clothes they launder for people, always clean and sparkling. They have sent the other washermen out of business—

  —They act strange. They don’t make eye contact, always staring at the ground. They never speak. They are always working—

  —I think they are just grateful to have a place to stay. They are grateful to be alive—

  —After all the lives they took and all the evil they have committed in their coven they should just let them die—

  —Well, you know how they are in that house. Anything that’ll make them money they are for it—

  —Money, money, that is all they know—

  Tata’s business continued to boom. Communities would invite her to come and consult her mirror as to the reason why their sons and daughters were not getting ahead, why were they not growing like other communities. Sometimes she would ask them to cut down a large iroko tree in the center of the town and name the top of the tree the meeting place for soul stealers and wizards. Some would want to know why their market was not big or did not attract people like other markets. She would tell them that soul stealers bought and sold there at night and did not want people to trample on their space in the daytime. Her drummers would beat their drums, she would dance, she would prance around and then she would command one of her boys to start digging somewhere in the market. They would unearth a large pot covered with moss and cowrie shells. She would tell them that this pot was buried by soul stealers. And soon thereafter the market began to boom.

  Tata would come back home with gifts of money and drinks. Once she came back with two cows. Grandpa said he didn’t know anything about rearing cows and called a passing cattle herder from the cattle-rearing tribe to come and take the cows away. This honest cattle herder would return many years later with over a hundred cows for Grandpa.

  Yet tongues wagged. People were angry at Tata’s fame and Grandpa’s growing wealth.

  —She must be a witch herself, otherwise where does she get all her powers from?—

  —She might be a witch; it is just that her witchcraft power is bigger than that of the people she was making to confess—

  —Nothing lasts forever. Witchcraft has been existing since the beginning of time—

  —Even the white man has his own witchcraft, only theirs is white witchcraft and they use it to invent great things like airplanes and ships—

  —Our people use theirs to pull other people down, that is the problem—

  As Tata’s fame grew, so did the whispering and gossip. By this time the mirror looked worn and aged. One day a young woman came to the Family House with the dead body of her young child. The child must have been about two years old. She said she was on her way back from spending some time with her mother-in-law when she was stopped by an older woman whom she didn’t know so well. She was carrying her baby on her back. The older woman told her to wait, that she needed to adjust the neck of her sleeping baby. The older woman helped her adjust the baby’s neck and then touched the baby on the neck and remarked that the baby was one chubby child. She thanked the old woman and began to walk home. A few minutes later, the baby began to cry, he was sweating profusely. By the time she got home the baby was crying even harder and was gasping for breath. She gave the baby a cold bath and without toweling him dry brought him into her room and laid him under the fan. She stepped out of the room to get a little something to eat. When she stepped back in, the baby had stopped breathing. She picked the baby up and began to wail. Neighbors told her to bring the baby to Tata to find out who it was that killed the baby, because this was apparently not a natural death.

  When Tata told her that it was the older woman who had touched her sleeping child that day, she took the dead baby home and told everyone she met on the way what had happened. A mob followed her to the house of the older woman. The older woman escaped, but the crowd set the house on fire. The older woman ran to the army barracks to alert her son, who had built her the house. Her son sent a detachment of soldiers to the family house. The soldiers came and took Tata away.

  People began to talk on the street. Some of them were happy over the detention of Tata in the Army Cantonment by the soldiers.

  —About time this came to an end. Witch this, witch that, everyone has become a witch since she brought her accursed mirror—

  —The mirror has done more harm than good, brothers and sisters and family now view each other with suspicion. Even children view their parents with suspicion—

  —When you give a child akara these days he’ll tell you let me run home first and show it to my parents
—

  The soldiers who detained Tata said that at night they heard the sound of dashing waves pounding against the walls of her detention room, they said the place seemed to be floating. They eventually released her.

  A few years later Tata became the founder of a church. Her followers wore white, flowing garments and each church had to be built near a flowing stream or river.

  JULIUS

  The Family House was in a festive mood. Brother Julius was returning home after many years abroad. If you asked any of us the name of the country he was returning from, we would have said to you that he was returning from a place called Abroad. Till today we do not know for sure what country he had lived in abroad, whether the United States, U.K., or in Germany or even Russia.

  His return was marked by his anecdotes from almost every country in the Western hemisphere. According to Brother Julius, in Russia everything belongs to everybody, everyone shares. What is mine is yours. There was no private ownership of property. You entered the unlocked Lada car parked down the street with keys in the ignition, you do your errands; you leave the car keys in the car, and the next man who needs it picks it up. Share and share alike, everyone is happy. Everybody, including their president who was not called President but Comrade, lived in the same-size flat with the same type furnishings, he told us.

  According to another of his stories, while we are waking up, the Australians are going to bed. Australia is the end of the world and the end of the earth. If you walk too far out on the Australian desert you’ll walk off the edge of the earth and fall into another planet.

  The British love tea and will drink tea when they are happy and drink tea when they are sad. They’ll drink tea when they are hungry and when they are full. They love their cats and their dogs and all their pets. They have a society for the protection of animals and none for the protection of their fellow humans. They’ll hug a tree to prevent it from being cut down but their ancestors sent debtors and their children to prison and would go to watch a prisoner being hanged and sit down for a picnic of sandwiches after the execution.