by Okezie Nwoka
And when the morning came, she lifted her head from the dark brown rappa and adjusted the blue one wrapped around her body. She had awoken to hunger. And the hunger had joined with the biting disbelief of still being behind the iron door. The union had quieted her mind, slowing it to the pace of a crawling infant, but she opened again a hopeful thought and prayer as she heard an attendant in the corridor ringing the morning bell, and heard, too, the locks of other cell doors opening, and the screams of many children as they were flogged and beaten as she was smelling the odor of their defecation buckets moving along the main corridor. She stood along the cell wall—believing that the iron door would soon open—then hearing the attendant approaching the cell push a water pouch between the bars while saying, “Why give pure water to a witch?” And Ijeọma rushed to the floor, taking the pouch of pure water and breaking the plastic bag with her teeth; she thought of rationing the water, not knowing if another bag would come, as she thought that more water would be given in the afternoon, but not truly knowing, as she drank the water slowly, feeling the warm liquid flowing through her tumid lips, then through her throat, and through her chest, and into her stomach; and although the water quelled her hunger for a little while, the void in her belly returned—even as she unwrapped her blue rappa and removed the diary to read her words through the light rays entering the plastered cell.
DIARY ENTRY #930 DATE UNKNOWN
Chukwu I’m writing to you again. They’ve called me a witch and put me into the prisons again. Why? I’m thinking of many things, and keeping them, but I know that you will provide for me. You will quickly remove me from this place.
Chukwu send my love to Ikemba. I know I insulted him, but please forgive me. Let him know that I am sorry, and that I love him. I didn’t tell him that you were still pulling me upward. I was a coward, and didn’t tell him because I didn’t want him to call me a witch like the others. Perhaps if I told him, he would have believed me. I know he would have believed me. The fault is mine. If my insults and lies are why I have been put into this cell, forgive me Chukwu. I love him Chukwu. I love you most Chukwu. Surely you will protect my life.
SHE CLOSED HER DIARY AND counted the passing day with a tick, knowing that it was past noon because the bell for afternoon prayers had been rung. She heard the metal clanging from the other cells being opened, and the silence of hers remaining closed; and she sat with little tolerance for patience, before being given water and being called a witch, drinking some of what came forth from the pouch, and saving what remained for the next moment of hunger. And as she laid herself on the floor, feeling its rough cement, provoked by the memory of the clanging metal, she thought of memories within a time moving slowly, and saw the face of Ikemba suddenly unveiled, recalling her reasons for loving him: the way he spoke, a way she had heard from the mouth of Ichulu’s dịbịa, one without the fear of being right or wrong, his strength, his voice, his black skin, the other thing blacker being her nighttime-colored eyes: so she began tapping them, her lidded eyes, over and again, sending a message to the one whom she said she loved, hoping somehow that he had received it, believing that the message was flying through the iron door.
And she saw the sun again—a little part of it—and waited for the world to move, waiting for all to leap from their holds, and accelerate wondrously toward the sky; and when they had not, she began writing to Chukwu to show her those things she saw while in the air; writing as steadily as her hands would allow; forgetting her dreams of a levitating world; writing as legibly as her hands would allow; until her fingers ached; until her palms were sore; and she laid there waiting; feeling her chest heaving up and up; hearing her rumbling bowels as she closed her eyes; and saw the sun’s red turn yellow then blue as her daze grew colder and her thoughts felt the world unmoved, stuck in the place where yesterday had bruised it.
And she rested her head until the evening came, along with more water; and she drank what she could drink, as the hunger was taking her, as her want to see Ikemba seemed less and less vital than her hope for eating bread. Still, she thought of him, and prayed for him, and waited for his message to be delivered through her eyes, praying for Chukwu’s forgiveness as the water became settled and streams of vitality began growing. And when she believed that Chukwu’s touch was raising the hairs on her neck, she asked for strength, and asked the Most Supreme to bless the one whom she said she loved; and when the water had passed from inside her body, her prayer began slowing, and her strength began slowing; and her thoughts wandered to the food which she could not have: the yam covered in seasoned palm oil, the pounded yam dipped in ọgbọnọ soup, the roasted corn, yellow and black, spiced with salt and smoke.
DIARY ENTRY #941 DATE UNKNOWN
Chukwu how are you? I know you are well. I know Ikemba is well, because you are watching us. Chukwu my hunger is growing. How will you feed me? There are rats running in the prison. Am I supposed to eat them? Should I pray for these pure water plastics to become oranges? My stomach is empty. I would like food. There are so many things I would like. Chukwu provide for me. You haven’t lifted me up above the ground since I have been in this place. What again have I done wrong?
I am stronger than this prison Chukwu. I will stay strong in you. It is because you are Most Supreme. What else?
SHE PUT DOWN HER WRITING pen and stopped thinking of food, believing that her hunger was not allowing her to sleep; and she used the metal bucket away from the dark rappa, thinking of those things which lay past the metal bars, knowing that they would never come as she battled with reasoning which said the children snoring meant Ụzọdị and Chinwe were coming; or that since she had once fed them, she was entitled to be released; or that because they had not been beaten by her hands, the iron door would be unlocked; as such reasoning was just, and such reasoning was sensible. Yet the defecation bucket had been filled with her waste, and the iron door had not been unlocked; and Ijeọma quickly removed from her heart the false hopes and vain fantasies that came shackling her further in the prison of Precious Word.
And so it was: with no dreams came no comforts; with no dreams came no deception that things were better than they truly were, and when she opened her eyes she knew she would have the very same things, and be in the very same place as when her eyes were closed. Though no comfort or no deception, she did not know which one harmed her more as she spent many nights without sleep, thinking of Ọfọdile, blaming him for her being in the cell, not seeking the gull to curse his name, but stopping her heart each time it sought to pray for his destruction, for rejecting what Chukwu had given him—parting her lips to breathe—outwardly, outwardly—releasing any hate which had emerged.
And she would not say if Ikemba still loved her, or ever loved her at all—a man foolish enough to love a flying mute; an ugly mute; a voiceless dog—every thought made before strictly professing that such a man could never exist; and she did not want to think of Ikemba any longer—even as thoughts continued coming deeply, deeply, until she was hearing him say things she believed he had said before, calling her witch, reporting her to the pastor—he was the one who sent the attendant to open the bedroom door; Ikemba deceives; Ikemba corrupts—and she rushed to her diary, opening its pages, hating Ikemba—praying for Amadiọha to strike him dead.
DIARY ENTRY #945 DATE UNKNOWN
I hate Ikemba! Chukwu what has become of my life? I don’t even know if you can hear me. Am I not a fool for believing that the flights were good? They gave me joy. But what good is that joy when all I am left with now is growing bitterness.
I have prayed Chukwu. I have prayed for you to give me peace. I am unconcerned if that peace is in Amalike or elsewhere, I simply want it now.
Who do I have? I have lost everything; when have I created trouble? Now people have called me witch, and have treated me like an animal because of what you have done.
I have prayed Chukwu for you to please answer me. Where have you gone? But you are the Most Supreme, and I’ve asked for you to hear me and
I am praying to you Chukwu. You are the one who takes care of me. Give me peace. Please, that is what I am asking.
A DAY HAD COME. ANOTHER had passed. And Ijeọma lay on the cell floor counting the number of water pouches around her, reading their fading labels, then crumpling them and shoving them into her mouth—remembering old sensations of chewing as she spit them out, bits of plastic lodged deep inside her mouth as she saw the rats scurrying around her head, one then two, running about her, four then six running through the cell wall as she watched their gray bodies squeeze past a hole and knew that the hole was too wide to warrant any squeezing, because they had eaten, and had eaten well, she thought, as she began making new observations of their food being nearby: inside the hole, behind the plastered cell wall.
But she left the thought to itself and turned to her diary, writing through each slow-moving day, etching each letter softly to disallow hunger from overpowering her, writing to Chukwu and asking to be free, and asking what else she could do to have her prayers answered; not calling Chukwu a fool, not calling the Most Supreme a fool, but reminding Chukwu of her charity; praying for her isolation to flee; asking for a friend and for a sister and doubting that she truly had one; wondering why Ụzọdị and Chinwe had not visited, and wondering, too, if she had loved them too generously; then hating them all, condemning them all, the pastor and his church, the feeble-minded attendants; the one called her father: the evil one who had abandoned her.
And as days passed, she grew too tired to write, and lay in the cell, no longer counting the ticks or drinking the pure water but remaining still and quiet, blinking her eyes and breathing light breaths as days passed without her praying a prayer. And days passed, and she had forgotten whom or that which she loved. No songs, or words, or memories of sprightly things as she laid quietly in the cell, not moving to pass her urine or to resist within herself any craving to die, blaming herself for it all, that if she had not gone to the Evil Forest, or worked as an attendant, Chukwu would not have punished her, that if she had obeyed every tradition honored by Ọfọdile, and treated the osu as osu, she would have been honored, welcomed, it was you who disobeyed Ichulu, born mute so that Ụzọdị could be exiled, and now while in this prison cell you must be ashamed since you are more shameful than the one whom you said you loved, the one whom you foolishly pranced about, saying he loved you, and now look at the blood and shit piling high inside your cell, you stupid bitch, every stroke that the pastor gave you is one that you deserved, you should have been beaten to a pulp as evil as you are, as wicked as you are, who can say that they truly love you after you imprisoned all those children and worked for the pastor, who will ever say that they will hold you and remain with you until you grow older and uglier than you already are, oh my god, oh my god, you stupid witch, more stupid than Ọfọdile could have ever believed, it is no wonder that Nnenna never came and Ụzọdị never came and Chinwe preferred the other girls to your dumb and rejected voice, you ugly bitch, why not rid the world of your ugly self, why not fall to pieces and die, why not die and stop inconveniencing us, you dumb and wasteful shit—
And she believed that those words were good words; and despised herself, while weeping for herself; and noticed the rats again—seeing them moving slower than rats should move; and knew each one of them was eating—that their food lay within the dark hole. So she thrust into it; fingering the hole; pounding the concrete wall to break it open; hitting the wall over and again; against a cement that was too thick to break, beating the wall until the overfed rats began fearing and flooding out from behind the wall, flooding into the cell, dozens and dozens, bringing no food as they went, as she slipped her hands through the passing stampede with the rats all slipping through her fingers, their wet feet, their thick tails giving nothing except the itchiness running through her mind’s skin: a million caterpillars were squirming as she heard the ringing of the bell, and the cell doors unlocking, and the children walking through the quarters’ halls, as she began pulling strands from her plaited hair and putting them into her mouth, pulling strands from her arms and from her waist and putting them into her mouth, hearing quick footsteps as a water pouch was falling, and “witch, bitch, witch” was being sung by an attendant near the door, as she took the pure water and threw it into her defecation bucket, then the metal bucket, then the metal bars, then her old rappa covering a dozen pouches among a dark green lying on the stony cell floor.
Look at what you did to me. YOU LIED. CHUKWU LIES. All that I gave you. I loved you and look at what you did, Chukwu. All those people eating, rejoicing, who don’t say a word to you and look at what you did to me. ME! Even those rats, but ME! Never come near me again. Stay where you are and never put your hands on me. Never call my name. Never send me any gifts or blessings. Never lift me up again! Stay where you are and never harass me or I will curse you and tear you down.
She pushed her diary against the cell wall and thought of nothing; no ideas or memories or insights were what she could hold: an unignited mind. And the rest of her, those parts unconcerned with thinking, lost every hopeful expectation.
The days moved stubbornly across her sunken eyes. Her body was thinning; her defecation bucket was not emptied in a cell bearing the odor of her waste; her lips were cracking; her thighs were growing damp and moist at their crevices; her limbs were barely moving as her head kept spinning and spinning and spinning until she vomited bile; she had become cold, silent and cold, with few thoughts among those which convinced her to die, as she lay with her chi believing them, then not believing them; in the deadly silence of her isolation, as she watched the sun and heard her breath and saw her diary, she reconsidered it all now that there was very little left, now that she was dying, and understood it to be so—now that she had seen those things buried within her, with tears trembling in her eyes—as she opened her diary, silenced by what she could believe—preparing facts in her spirit, truthful facts and belief—i’m sorry chi. chi forgive me chi. i lied, moving through this world believing i was most innocent, most holy; and yet in your justice, i have failed. for i thought i was better than those who’ve sought to kill me; truly we are each within the same. for my wrong was done at my level of responsibility; my wrong was done through ME. where was i when i was to remove those little children from prison? and now that i have returned, how dare i ask any soul to come, and rescue me. can it be the ones whom i hated within the walls of this prison? uzodi forgive me! chinwe forgive me! because if it is as i wrote, that a person who does wrong should receive immediate consequence, chineke must strike me down, and whisper my life away, today or many years ago or when i saw that little boy being forced into the Jeep, knowing that his life was in peril, but shamelessly denying that it was so. and so i am preserved, preserve also the pastor whose heart is broken and beating in broken ways. and if i am preserved, preserve also the king, who kills from the hated illness he has yet to overcome. and phyllipa, are we both not in the same? making false concessions, distorting the truth out of our loneliness and failing esteem. was i not to stay longer to feed Mgbeke, because I knew within me that I was? preserve us Chukwu; and even still, with what audacity do i write this? after cursing you, and dishonoring you, and telling audacious lies. because if you chose to wipe away the world with a whisper, who could arrest you, the Most Supreme. is such in my control? is it in the control of my words, or the words that any human being can utter? for you are the one who carries the world; you are the one who possesses us: Olisa. and it is by your gracious providence that i have come to see.
She turned to Chukwu, rolling herself on the cement floor like cowrie shells, giving her sufferings to the Most Supreme in prayers with no antipathy—not against the attendants, not against Ọfọdile—but for essential things like patience and pure water. And when it was that neither came as she had imagined—no prickly dots against her tired skin, no pouches pushed between the iron bars—she began doubting; doubting after many days of waiting; doubting if she had ever flown; despite her chi whis
pering, over and again, doubting is deadly, doubt is deadly; but still doubting whether she had ever written, or had known the wisdom she had come to understand as she believed that a mute could never know any of anything; and so she no longer wrote, but lay on the cell’s ground blinking her eyes; not lifting her arms to get the tepid pure water; not encouraging herself to pray as she lay on the ground and acknowledged that she was dying; that what was now true, was that she was now dying; as she counted the ticks, counting an imprisonment of three weeks; counting the thought that she would never be released from the cells; knowing within herself that she would die a prisoner, with no witness to her final sigh, not even among those whom she had come to love again; so she gave them permission to forget, impassively, assuredly. She gave it to Ikemba and Ụzọdị; she gave it to Nnamdị and Chelụchi, and gave it to Nnenna, and Nnenna’s words and hugs and understanding, giving it to Ọfọdile, and the love he had or had not, the love she truly wanted, whispering it to the mango-shaped birthmark resting behind Chinwe’s ear, giving it to Ngọzi and Nwabụeze and the elderly Mgbeke, to the girls who had sniggered, to the girls who had laughed, from Nwagụ’s stare to the six osu who died, giving it to them all, letting the home she called Ichulu thoroughly dissolve, and praying that Ichulu would forget she ever was.
She closed her eyes and stopped her breath, preparing to surrender herself, waiting for it to come; waiting for the darkness of that night to take her home as she opened her mouth then quickly closed it shut, sealing her face with trembling hands—gasping then sealing her face again, covering her nose and mouth—waiting, waiting, trembling as the waiting failed; and she tried over and again: sealing her face and stopping her breath—sealing her face and stopping her breathing as the waiting failed and she felt the dark brown rappa—thinking of another way—laughing, chuckling—while unwrapping herself from the rappa’s hold—coiling it around her neck—pulling at both ends without hesitation—with all her strength—feeling the air inside her throat escaping—and the popping in her ears and neck growing louder—pulling at the rappa until her oval eyes began fluttering and the room began spinning—and the rats on the floor began scurrying from a new light in the prison cell as she chuckled from the glee in taking her books—going to wherever it is the ancestors go
