Black Sunday

by Tola Rotimi Abraham

  Even though I am trying to hide it, I feel guilty. I feel lots of guilt. I used to believe that I was helping people here. I used to tell myself I was making a difference and improving lives. These days, I am more accepting of the fact that I became a Christian to help myself. I am a Christian because I believe I am God’s most important project. This is the foundation of Christianity, it seems to me; to believe that Jesus died to save my soul is to believe that I am important enough, that I am deserving of the highest kind of love and the sacrifice of an innocent.

  This is my personal revolution. All my life, I never dared to think of myself as anything special. I think often of something my twin sister said once, about what happens to you when you grow up as deprived as we did. She said we got our brains locked in survival mode and we will be spending our whole adulthood dealing with that. I think she was right. Even with all this money and influence, I am still as self-serving and needy as I was when I hawked water on busy Lagos streets. But I am a Christian, so this makes it okay, God understands me and gives me His grace.

  Alex is crying hard. I watch her cry. She reaches into her baby bag, grabs another wet wipe, cleans her face with it. Her cheeks are wet and shiny. She tells me she is so ashamed of the choices she has made. She realizes the fault is mostly hers. She says she just needs help, she did not create this baby alone.

  The compiler of Proverbs, chapter 30, says the way of men with maidens is beyond comprehension. Is it really? It is easy to understand the appeal of youth like Alex’s, all that innocence and beauty. The arrogance of power is easily explained as well. If there is any confusion, it lies in why young girls grow into women legitimizing the very systems that shame and vilify our femininity.

  When Alex is done, I sit by her. I hold her hand. It is warm and dry. I tell her how sorry I am she is going through this. I tell her all mothers and babies deserve a solid system of support regardless. I apologize for not saying so earlier. I promise that the church will help even if the governor does not. She agrees to come to church for the service tomorrow, acknowledges there is a special opportunity here, its Mother’s Day Sunday, we can raise a special offering for her baby’s medical bills.

  I am surprised that she understands. She smiles a little. It is possible, after all, that she is more interested in getting care for her son than scandalizing the church.

  When she leaves my counseling lounge, I wait a few minutes. I pray to the Lord for help. I am not sure He is listening. I walk to the auditorium; I need to see Rosetta as soon as possible. I will tell her everything I just learned. I will try to prepare her for what is coming. As I walk away from my office, toward the direction of the disconcerting sound of multiple instruments being mishandled, it occurs to me that there is something very odd about Alex’s baby, Pamilerin. That baby did not move or whimper the entire time we were in the office. He just slept peacefully in his carrier like he was at home. I think about his unusual stillness for a few seconds with a deep inexplicable dread, but I toss those feelings aside to speak with Rosetta.

  My friend Rosetta is as always wearing a long dress with a single-button blazer. She is dressed a little too warmly for the Lagos heat, but her ensemble gives her a cultured put-togetherness. I have always suspected that she wears jackets and blazers all the time to hide her arms. I do not think she has anything to hide.

  “You look amazing, my love, have I said that already today?” I hug her as I speak.

  “Keke. You are too nice to me. What do you think of us?” she asks, gesturing toward the women.

  “Beautiful,” I say. “Absolutely beautiful.”

  Rosetta gathers the women together. It takes a full five minutes but soon they are together like a real choir. Then the choir begins singing a classic Yoruba hymn, “Enikan Be To Fe Ran Wa.” It is a cappella, so the rowdiness is gone. It is pleasant. Their next song, the main song, is Kim Burrell’s arrangement of “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.” It is a somber song, and I wish they would do away with the drums and triangles, but I say nothing. I know it is more important, for the feeling of community, to give every woman a precise responsibility.

  “I need to talk with you, let’s go to my office,” I whisper to Rosetta as the choir sings.

  She cocks her head to the side, with a puzzled, amused look, her eyes rolling like she knows what this is about, and she has already had enough of it.

  The choir is singing for fun now. One of the women is playing the role of an exuberant conductor. She stands with her leg bent in a near-perfect K. She is swinging her arms back and forth as the choir sings.

  I AM DREADING this conversation with Rosetta. We have talked before about her husband’s philandering, and she has always been understandably protective of him. He is a man with his weaknesses like any other, all villages have their idiots, he is a brilliant and kind man who just strays. Now that I think of it, I was not really surprised to hear Alex talk about her relationship with the governor. I was neither surprised nor disappointed about my husband’s role in it. What does that say of me as a woman and church leader? What type of men do we let lead God’s children?

  IN CHURCH, WE have many sayings to excuse our poor stewardship. For example, we say God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called. We also say the church is not a place for perfect people but for perfecting people. We repeat this often enough because we hope our members can decipher the caution encoded: Be careful around your brethren, they can be injurious.

  Beyond issuing thinly veiled warnings, there is little I can do. As the pastor’s wife, I am rarely at the center of anything outside my women’s ministry domain. I am invited only after the deals are signed, the guests invited, and the meeting schedule drawn. I am here for the photo opportunity and the celebratory dinner. I have become very good at invisibility, even basking in it, enjoying the protection it affords. There is, however, a dangerous dark side to this silence and the things we hide beneath it. Our Lord has promised to shine his light on every dark thing.

  This is how I begin my talk with Rosetta as we sit behind closed doors in my office. I pick up my Bible and begin reading from Luke, chapter 8.

  “For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.”

  “What I have learned from the Word is that Jesus did not say these words as a threat but as a promise. And it is a good promise. The promise is that God is ridding the dark of its ability to deceive His children. The promise of light is a good promise, do you understand what I am saying?”

  Rosetta looks up at me puzzled, like my entering into spiritual counselor mode is something too strange for her to comprehend.

  “My dear Pastor Mrs.,” Rosetta says, her tone condescending, “I am listening, but I am not sure I understand you.”

  I GET TO the point quickly. I tell her Alex’s story. I deemphasize the solicitation to abort and the claim that their meeting in this church was orchestrated by my husband. Instead, I focus on the story’s most important parts: the heartbroken, terrified mother and her unnaturally quiet little baby.

  “I cannot believe that crazy girl is back in Lagos,” Rosetta says. “I cannot believe she got you involved with this nonsense.”

  Rosetta speaks without any real emotion. I am puzzled by this. She would certainly have reacted with more fear if I had told her she had a housefly sitting on her shoulder. My friend Rosetta is short and lean. She is the kind of woman regularly mistaken for someone much younger. Her body is deceptively fragile. I know from playing tennis with her that she is strong and agile. She tells me her own version of the story. Alex as seductress, a one-night stand that results in a pregnancy.

  “Teddy tries to convince her to have an abortion. He pleads, he bribes her. Do you know he bought her a car? You should know that no one told me anything at the beginning,” she says.

  “How long have you known about her?” I ask, interrupting her.

  “Since last Christmas,” she says. “S
o, Teddy has no choice but to arrange the abortion himself. He invites her to the guest house for what she thinks is a birthday dinner. But his assistants take her to a hospital, she is knocked out, the abortion is performed.” She is speaking so casually about it. She is showing neither sadness nor remorse.

  “Of course, when she comes out of it, she goes crazy,” Rosetta says. “God warned her not to kill her baby, she keeps screaming, crying. They have to restrain her. She is sedated and left in the hospital for a few days.”

  “Is this when you learned about it? After the forced abortion?” I ask.

  “Of course not,” Rosetta replies with sharpness. She is impatient with me now. “You know these men, they only tell us when the whole thing explodes in their faces. I learned much later, when my friend, editor at Weekly Trust, told me Alex contacted the newspaper to say she had birthed the governor’s child. The story did not run, of course, because she was clearly crazy with no baby.”

  “So what did you do then?” I ask.

  “I confronted Teddy, and he told me all that had happened. I told him to get the girl some help, and as far as I know, he did.”

  It is almost unbearable watching the casualness with which she speaks about it all. I wonder how I missed it, this callousness. It is possible it has always been there, but I can only recognize it now because of what is happening, because Alex reminds me of the girl I used to be.

  “Don’t worry about her, I will tell Teddy that she is back again. This time I will make sure she gets the help she needs,” she says.

  I rise from my chair and give her a quick hug.

  “Don’t worry about that, since we have established it’s mental illness. I will get her help, you have done your best, dear. These young girls and their wahala, may God deliver us,” I say.

  We walk out of the office, toward the underground garages. We are talking about service tomorrow. The dress code is red or gold. We joke about all the tacky outfits we expect to see, we agree that Lagos Christian women try too hard to appear classy. Someone needs to teach them that style is effortless, we say.

  LATER THAT EVENING at home, I sit in the large nursery Pastor David and I designed the first time I got pregnant. I have been falling asleep in here for months now, and if my husband has noticed I’d rather be here, he says nothing about it. I take off my shoes and sit on the floor. The carpeting is imported, several inches thick. If you accidentally dropped a baby in this room, the only real risk would be carpet burn.

  I am praying to God for a sign, for His wisdom in this situation. Do I talk to Pastor David or do I go straight to the governor with this? Who will protect Alex if her governor is angry with her? I want to focus on her recovery, on therapy and treatment. But what about justice? What about all the other girls?

  I am not one of those Christians who hears a clear, distinct voice leading them. What I have experienced over and over is indescribable peace during a chaotic situation or inexplicable insight in the middle of confusion. That is how the Lord leads me. Today, I really wish He would talk plainly to me. I’d give anything for a burning bush, or even a still, small voice.

  When I told my departed grandmother that I was going to be Pastor David’s wife, she was quiet for a long time.

  “Taiwo, ile-oko ile ogun, marriage is a battleground,” she said. “Are you sure about this man?”

  I was not sure, but I was determined.

  “Yes, I am sure,” I said.

  “The goat and the family whose religion requires a sacrifice of goats cannot be serving the same God, do you understand me?” my grandmother asked.

  “Yes, I do,” I said. I was lying.

  It is easy now, because she is dead, especially because of the manner of her death, to think of my grandmother with fondness, but she was really just a cantankerous, talkative old woman. Nothing was ever good enough for her. Nothing ever made her happy except nagging her grandchildren. She was tolerable only when she was telling us stories.

  She told some weird stories. Most of the nightmares I had as a teenager were because of the stories she told of Olokun, goddess of the vast oceans. Olokun was believed to be the most powerful being on earth. It is said that Olokun covered the entire earth with water, trying to prevent Oludumare from creating earth’s people. Oludumare had to trick her into giving permission. Grandmother’s stories were her way to capture our attention and our imaginations. All those stories, all those proverbs, all they did was ingrain her in our minds. She wanted us to think regularly of her words and her wisdom.

  It is three a.m. when Pastor David comes home. I am lying on the carpet, showered and shaven and pretending to be asleep. Everything he likes. He comes into the nursery fifteen minutes after I hear him unlock our front doors. He smells like okra soup and palm oil.

  The women who worshipped Olokun used to be the richest, most beautiful women in Grandmother’s village in Ondo. Not just Ondo, but all the villages along the Atlantic Ocean had Olokun priestesses. She gave them beauty, wealth, and honor. They were covenant protectors of her waters and life-forms. They did not eat anything from the ocean. They protected her waters from pollution, they did not bury their dead in the sea, they did not allow villagers to eat baby fish.

  “Are you ovulating?” Pastor David asks, lying next to me on the carpet.

  “No,” I say, “I checked.”

  “Well, is there a difference, really?” Pastor David says. He is leaning into my knees and its hurts.

  According to my grandmother, Olokun worship declined because of transatlantic slavery. Women were afraid to worship the ocean because she punished her daughters severely for desecrating her. All the mothers in the villages by the ocean wanted to be free to tell their children, “Run into the ocean if you see the white men coming. If they catch you, jump into the sea.” But if you worshipped Olokun, you could not dare do that.

  I had many nightmares that I was captive on a slave ship and that people were jumping to my right and left but I would not, I could not. I did not want to offend my mother’s goddess.

  Pastor David’s breath is like steam on my neck. I wipe the invisible vapor. He does not notice. He is carrying on. I repent for all the times I wished Pastor David had a girlfriend. I repent for all the times I wished he came home every day spent, and with no interest in me.

  “Pass me that little pillow, Mommy,” he says to me. He calls me Mommy in faith. Someday soon, when the Lord wills it, I will get pregnant and carry it to term. I reach out to the cot and pull a little pillow that has HELLO HERO written across in it. He places it under my hips for lift.

  It is easy to dismiss the truth contained in stories due to the limits of point of view. How can I accept the stories my grandmother handed down to me? None of my grandmother’s ancestors could tell why captured Yoruba children jumped or didn’t jump. Those stories were lost to them as they are to me, trapped on the other side of the ocean, in the stomachs of their stolen children.

  I have read about it, and I have several guesses about the captives who did not jump into the ocean. It is more likely that their chains were heavy and shackled to the ship itself. It is also likely that the ships’ nets were too tall to jump over.

  THIS IS WHAT I did when I was younger—approached her stories with logic, inspected them for improbabilities and inaccuracies. It was important for me to be able to logically dismiss them to stop being so afraid.

  It is a common mistake, to hear a story about tragedy and disbelieve it because the telling is off. We think to ourselves, how does the storyteller know this? We are asking the wrong question. The right question is, why is the storyteller telling me this story? Because I was a child, I heard this story about a village full of mothers and the great loss they suffered and assumed it was a story about the pain of a child. Now, as a woman, I know the story is not about lost children. Children move from this plane to the next every day. It is a story about unquantifiable loss. It is a story about a lost goddess. What they lost was a god who looked like them. What they lost wa
s the belief in an omniscient, omnipotent female spirit. Now look at this: all of us are condemned to serving these male gods and their rapacious servants.

  PASTOR DAVID HAS passion. Of course, he is a minister, an evangelist. Passion is contagious, endearing. Passion does not replace integrity or courage. Passion is not a substitute for compassion.

  “Mommy, did you say something?” Pastor David asks me. I must have mumbled.

  “Yes,” I say, “I asked if you were finished.”

  “Soon. I’d be faster if you keep quiet and just let me focus,” he says.

  It is a little funny how a man who can preach stadiums full of people into a screaming frenzy would be, in his home, as tense as a clenched fist. People tell me they leave our Sunday services fired up, excited to take on the week. I wish there was someone I could tell that he leaves me hollow, desperate, angry, and raw.

  “Have you finished outlining your sermon for tomorrow, Mommy?” Pastor David asks me. He is finished and sitting up next to me.

  “A member of the choir came to see me today. Her name is Alex, she needs our help,” I say instead.

  “What does this have to do with the sermon?” he asks.

  “Is her story true?” I ask.

  “Are you going to tell me what you have prepared for God’s people? Will I have to preach the women’s message myself?” he asks.

  “I am teaching about light and darkness, Pastor, the words of Jesus. Everything hidden will be manifested, every secret will come to light,” I say, even though it is not true. I planned to teach on the faith of Ruth, who is a favorite here at the New Church.

  “And what do you expect to happen after this message?” my husband asks.

  “The Holy Spirit will correct, convict, cleanse,” I say.

  “You are just like your father, do you know that?” He gets up off the floor, standing over me like a tree. “When things get rough, you forget you are part of the church. You are looking for a scandal when there is none. You think you can bring me down? This is the church of God. This is going to last forever, do you understand that?”