Speak No Evil

by Uzodinma Iweala

  The idea of church doesn’t appeal to me. Not that I don’t believe—I do, I think—but since sophomore year, Sunday morning services have become inconvenient. Sometimes there’s homework, sometimes there’s sleep. I was baptized in that church and we’ve been going ever since the beginning when Reverend Olumide decided that the old banking hall on Sixteenth Street would become his new temple because God had seen fit to give a young Nigerian preacher the vision and fortitude to turn this space into a bastion of the Word. Reverend Olumide and my father have known each other since before they came to the States in the eighties. My father went to New York and Reverend Olumide went to Texas. They were reunited by chance in Washington, D.C. Reverend Olumide has a daughter OJ’s age, an actress in Los Angeles but she grew up with her mom in Oakland, California. That’s why you don’t marry these white girls, my father always says to OJ, they don’t have staying power, they will take your children and then your kids end up all over the place. It’s probably better that the Reverend isn’t married, or maybe it’s why he isn’t married anymore, because all his energy goes into the church. The photos from when I was baptized show my mother carrying me in all white, standing with OJ and my father before two massive, peeling wood entrance doors. There were large dust-covered windows with cracked panes on either side and chipped concrete lions at the top of the steps. It’s different now. The front windows are two stories of stained-glass crosses that cast rainbow colors onto manicured grass and shrubs, and the large entry doors have been replaced with carved mahogany from Nigeria. There’s a white marble slab above them that says All Are Welcome. The basement used to be a maze of concrete walls and exposed pipes that we would run through while our parents tried to focus on gospels and sermons in the sanctuary above. Now it has brightly lit, carpeted spaces with rooms for day care and community group meetings. There’s a library and a music room. It sometimes seems that every African living in the D.C. area goes to this church, Nigerians, Ghanians, Cameroonians, Congolese. Some work for embassies. Some are taxi drivers. Some are illegal, but they are all truly welcome. Reverend Olumide has even learned Spanish and now holds a smaller service in the afternoons for the Salvadorians and Guatemalans in search of something less exclusionary than Catholicism. We must grow or perish, he says at the pulpit from time to time.

  Church is always packed on Sundays. This Sunday is no different. I look around the sanctuary at pews jammed into the space between rows of concrete pillars. They are full of dark-skinned faces turned up towards the reverend and his Plexiglas lectern. Reverend Olumide paces across the dais and dabs his forehead with a soiled white handkerchief. He hardly needs a microphone, but his sermons are recorded for his podcast so we suffer the fuzzy distortion that fills the room when he gets animated. I sit behind my mother and reach for a Bible and hymnal. I can sneak at least fifteen minutes of napping if I keep a Bible open on my lap and put my chin to my chest. My father hates this, but he isn’t here.

  You’ll never guess what the kingdom of God has in store for you, Reverend Olumide shouts. You can never imagine what awaits you when you open that door and embrace fully the light of life. “But Reverend, Pastor, how do I open that door,” some of you will ask me. “You say if I believe then all will be revealed.” My brothers and my sisters, declaring Jesus Christ of Nazareth as your Lord and Savior is just one step of a continuous and lifelong process. Listen to me very well now cause what I’m about to say is really important. Yes sir, the congregation mumbles. I’m not going to tell you something that you aren’t trying to hear, that’s me wasting my breath, Reverend Olumide says. So do you want to know? Yes, tell us, the congregation shouts. My mother shouts too. If you want to know say Amen. Amen! If you want to know, say Hallelujah. Hallelujah, Jesus is Lord! Reverend Olumide stops behind his lectern. His hands circle the microphone and he exhales loudly. My brothers and my sisters, I want to tell you that I am a sinner. The congregation gasps. I am a sinner and I’m probably going to sin again. Lord forgive me. I have sinned against Jesus in my actions and my thoughts. Every day I sin, I sin like a champion. You know how Michael Phelps won the Olympic gold for swimming. Well I would have won the Olympics in sinning. Everybody laughs. So does my mother even if she shakes her head. But even with that, even with my championship ways, my Lord and Savior Jesus has seen fit to show me the key to God’s kingdom. Can I get an Amen? The older women clutch the pews. A young mother cradles her baby in one arm and the Bible in the other. Repentance, my brothers and my sisters, repentance is the key, Reverend Olumide shouts. Amen. Look yourself in the eye, acknowledge that you are a champion sinner, and then with all of your heart and humility tell Jesus that you are unworthy but you beg His pardon. Say it with me, repentance is the key. Repentance is the key, they shout. One more time now, repentance is the key. Repentance is the key. I mumble to myself, repentance is not for me, before I stand up and slink out from the pew towards the entrance. My mother turns to look at me, her mouth open. I catch her eye, lower my head and step outside.

  The clouds nuzzle up against one another in a bright blue sky while the sun struggles to warm everything below. I sit down on the steps that push their cold through my corduroy slacks and I pull my blazer tighter around my chest. The street stretches into the distance in either direction, its silence occasionally interrupted by a jogger puffing heavily behind condensing breath. I should have run this weekend, especially since Coach Erickson pulled me aside after the first practice to give me a lengthy speech about the possibilities for the season. You have potential, real potential, he said as his hands stroked the salt and pepper of his smartly groomed beard. Meredith watched us from across the field. That’s how we’re going to run you and how we’re going to train you, I think you’ve got a conference championship and record if you want it. He paused for a moment to scratch beneath the waves of dark brown hair that flow down his neck. He finished college as a distance runner with Olympic prospects, getting as far as the trials for the fifteen hundred meters in Athens. He knew how to run, but he also knew what makes molecules stick together. He taught Honors Chemistry and liked to take what he called a scientific approach to running. That meant practice, practice and more practice. Ten thousand hours Niru, he said to me. You ready?

  I know I am supposed to want it. So much of me does want it, does want to have something that’s entirely mine, that OJ for all his effort and charm can’t have. He was a middling sprinter at best, even if he was still a team captain. This is supposed to be my season to carve my own space if I play my cards right. That means focus, Saturday conditioning, Sunday conditioning. Meredith and I have drawn up a schedule and this weekend was supposed to be our five-mile run on the gravel paths beneath the bare oak and maple branches along the C&O Canal, but it didn’t happen—for obvious reasons—and that has jeopardized everything. Do I want it? I want so many things, so many competing things. I want to run to win, to run away from myself, to run away from home. That would break my mother. She still keeps a tiny picture of my sister in her wallet. I know because I saw it once when she emptied her handbag on the table as she searched for her car keys. She quickly snatched it up from under a pile of credit cards and lipstick tubes when my hand reached towards it. I’ve heard her say, it can’t happen to me again, when she stands outside my room. Lightning cannot strike twice.

  Aren’t you cold, my mother asks. Her shadow falls across my body and I shiver. You should have brought your jacket. You boys. If someone doesn’t remind you, you’d forget to wear your clothes. Then she sits down beside me. She folds her hands in her lap and breathes in deeply each time she wants to say something. She does this with contractors and delivery people, anyone she feels might not listen—a deep breath in, her eyes closed, and then her words coming out on the next breath before she can think again. She says, I remember when we brought you for your baptism. I look at her. The sunlight flickers on her face as fast-moving clouds slide across the sky. You wouldn’t stop crying, you kept fussing in your little white agbada. I tried to feed you b
ut you wouldn’t eat, you wouldn’t take the pacifier, you wouldn’t even suck your own thumb. I was worried that you’d disturb the whole service. It was embarrassing. You this boy can really make noise. Your father, he was worried too. That I’d already rejected Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior? My mother places her hand on the back of my neck. Her fingers are cold. He was afraid that you’d gotten sick on the way from the car to the church. He was blaming himself for not dressing you up properly, he felt so bad. I hug my arms tighter across my chest. Your father should be here any moment now, she says. I look up. I thought it would be best if we all talked with Reverend Olumide, as a family. You didn’t tell me, I say. I stand up but she grabs my hand and pulls me back down to the steps. I try to stand again but she won’t let go. She loops her arm in mine and slides closer. I told you I didn’t know he was coming, and I didn’t know, he just texted me now. You said you hadn’t spoken to him. You people treat me like I’m stupid. Watch yourself young man, I can only take so much of this. For the last few days I’ve said nothing, just tried to make sure you’re okay, but do you consider if I’m okay? Do you think I even know what to think? Every day I pray, I pray to God to keep you and your brother safe, to keep your father safe and then this happens. I don’t even know what to think. My son, have some pity for your mother abeg. Me, I’m trying okay. I’m really really trying for you. But you have to help me, biko, you have to help us. The door opens behind us and the sound of the congregation singing the closing hymn spills out into the street. My mother and I stand up and separate before we turn around. Reverend Olumide stands in his suit with his Lenten purple stole flapping in the breeze.

  Ify, Niru, he says, with a quick nod. Obi is here now. He’s in my office. You can come up when you’re ready. He steps back and the door shuts. My mother steps forward and then slips inside. I won’t force you Niru, she says, but please.

  Obi please, can you just take a deep breath and sit down, Reverend Olumide says, pointing at the armchair on the opposite side of the coffee table. His office is large with windows overlooking Sixteenth Street and the park beyond it. I have only been inside a few times before, but this space has also changed over the years, growing more lavish with upgraded furniture, a massive glass and chrome table, modern chrome-frame armchairs and a long puffy leather couch that squeaks when we sit down. The walls behind his desk are plastered with books from floor to ceiling, each section carefully labeled according to some particular aspect of faith or theology. Reverend Olumide meets once with each confirmation class in his office for pizza, sodas and a discussion about the importance of faith. Then he meets each student individually before Confirmation Sunday just to make sure we’re ready. That’s how I know times are better now than they were five years ago when I was confirmed. Five years ago his furniture looked like it came from a garage sale.

  Reverend Olumide perches at the edge of his desk while my mother and I sit on the couch and my father continues to pace. This is not about judgment, Reverend Olumide says—we know exactly what the scripture says—this is about a path toward forgiveness. My mother moves to the edge of the couch and places her hands in her lap. My father’s feet pound the floor with each step. The Bible says, Reverend Olumide begins—I’m not interested in what the Bible says Paul, my father snaps. I’m interested in what we are doing to undo this psychological and spiritual corruption in my son’s brain. That’s what I want to know. Can the Bible tell me that? Obi, my mother says. Her jaw clenches. I’m serious Ify, I didn’t come here to pontificate on scripture. I came to save my son. Reverend Olumide says, it’s through scripture that your son will be saved. Remember we leave to the Lord what the Lord alone can fix. This is not a man-made thing. His salvation is something of the spirit and to deal with spiritual things we need a combined psychological and spiritual approach. I have reached out to my close friend who has real experience with disturbances of this nature and he has agreed to help.

  What if I don’t need help, I say. Excuse me, my father says. My mother shifts closer to me and Reverend Olumide steps forward from his desk. Obi, for God’s sake sit down, he says, but my father ignores him. Reverend Olumide sits down in the chair facing me. Young man, what do you mean by this, this is a serious thing to say, we all need to be saved. Reverend Olumide holds a deep furrow between his eyebrows. He puckers his lips up to his nostrils as if struck by a terrible smell. Niru, this is a very serious matter you know, your parents, myself, we are all here because we are concerned. Well maybe you shouldn’t be. Maybe you should just let me be. I’ve done everything right. I get good grades. I come to church, I believe in God, I’m going to Harvard. You make it seem like it would be better if I murdered someone. Maybe it would, my father says. What is your problem, I say as I stand up. Easy my friend. Easy, Reverend Olumide says, this is your father. You are talking to your father. We don’t speak like that to our elders no matter what. This is not our way. My father says, you see what this place is doing to this boy. Well what does he want me to do then. I can commit murder. It’s not that hard, I say, staring directly at my father.

  My father won’t look at me, but I can see his scowl growing. My mother searches her bag for a tissue. Her loose change clinks as her handbag shakes on her knees. You people are losing focus here, she says. Reverend, please, we’ve discussed this. Discussed what, I ask. I look at each person in the room. And nobody asked me? Niru, can you please take your seat, Reverend Olumide says. My father says, nobody asked you because you’re still a child and you don’t know what you are doing to your life. I’m not a child. I’m eighteen. This is my life. You clearly don’t have the judgment to make the right decisions. This is not a decision, I shout. So I am making them for you, as your father, under the guidance of the pastor here. My father slaps an open palm against his chest as he stares me down. My brothers, can we both just take our seats, Reverend Olumide shouts. I’m perfectly capable of deciding for myself. You can’t do anything without me, my father says. Just look at this mess you’ve gotten us into now. Look at the shame on us now because you are deciding for yourself. Enough is enough already. I’ve had enough of your foolishness for one morning. Reverend Olumide shouts, everyone sit down. My father says, there is a time for niceties and there is a time we just have to be responsible as parents, and that’s just it. All this talk is just a waste of precious air. Your mother and I talked to Reverend here and we are taking you home for some serious spiritual counseling and deliverance. Reverend has already recommended us someone who can clear this abomination from you.

  I sink backwards to the couch. I look at my mother who seems so small now, like she wants to hide behind her crumpled tissue or slip into the cracks between the leather cushions. Mommy, you’re part of this? She says, it’s for your own good, Niru. Then she is quiet. Reverend Olumide places both his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth from his heels to his toes. The street below is awake now and buzzes with families headed to the park. The clouds above have slowed their pace and cluster in large patches, blocking the sun and casting darkness over the room. I blink.

  4

  The airplane rumbles to a full stop, shaking the luggage in the bins overhead and the seat backs in front. I watch my father relax his grip on the armrest, cross himself and mutter a silent prayer of thanks before he opens his eyes to cast sideways glances at the passengers already standing in the aisle. See our people, my father says, but I press my forehead against the window and look out at the carcasses of scrapped airplanes rusting in the tall grass by the tarmac. The terminal looms into view with its powerful lights trained on airplanes waiting to unload passengers and cargo before quickly loading up again for return journeys to America, Europe, and the Middle East, maybe even China. I watch men and women in reflective yellow jackets scramble around the luggage crates and large-wheeled utility trucks and tugs. I’m too far away to see the sweat on their faces, but I can feel the heat and humidity already. My father inhales deeply as he struggles to remove his sweater and roll up his shirtsleeves. He c
hecks for his passport and asks me to double-check for mine. The thin green book sits safely in the backpack pocket that should hold my smart-phone. But I don’t have a smart-phone anymore. I pull it out and hand it to him. He caresses the cover and then slips it into his shirt pocket. When the seatbelt sign blinks off, he springs up from his seat. Come on, he says, be fast now, let’s go.

  My father becomes an entirely different man when we come to Nigeria. OJ came up with a term for the condition during a trip we took the summer after his first year in medical school. He said Daddy had a bad case of Nigeriatoma, an acute swelling of ego and pride that affects diaspora Nigerian men, rendering them unable to accept the idea that a true home might exist outside of their birth country. Symptoms may vary but are exceptionally pronounced upon return to native soil and include hyperactivity, elevated mood, grandiose thinking and increased aggression. The differential includes bipolar disorder and indeed those afflicted have much in common with patients observed in the thrall of a manic episode. The duration of symptoms may vary, but poor electricity, bad roads and exposure to extreme heat have proven effective as treatment. My mother laughed at that, my father too, but only because OJ said it.

  My father’s transformation is swift. His chest puffs out and his arms swing into action. He forces his way through the airport meeting each official who dares to slow his entry into the promised land with a “try me” stare-down and where appropriate, a cajoling mix of pidgin and Igbo. He seems taller as he leans toward these officials, forcing them to shrink back in the face of his momentum. Mr. Jacob, the driver my father always uses when he comes home, stands waiting for us by his black Toyota Camry when we finally step out from the arrivals terminal into the shouting mass of men with dust-reddened, irritated and sleep-deprived eyes, each asking if we need a taxi. It is hot and there is a vague smell of decay and burning as if the whole world smolders. It surrounds me and seeps into me. I blink at these figures in long-sleeve shirts unbuttoned at the collar, with their dress slacks or jeans and wonder how they can possibly survive wearing such heavy clothes. They have wet patches beneath their arms. They wipe their faces with handkerchiefs every other minute. Looking at them makes me feel hot and tired.