A Memory Captured on Paper | Bernice Ihesiaba

A Memory Captured on Paper.

 

When I saw my mother scream, with her hands on her head, in different frequencies of ‘Obara Jesus!’ and ‘Jesus nwa David have mercy on me’, I knew a lot had gone wrong but I didn’t know how to handle the emotions I felt. I ran to the room and poured out all of the laughter that my belly held while covering my mouth to muffle the sound.

 

It was the strange thing about me, the way I laughed like a psychiatric patient in the face of bad situations. It was good that I grew up in a safe environment. In more ‘spiritual’ homes, I would have been called a witch and taken to the nearest church for premium deliverance sessions. The kinds that would leave you without a smile for the rest of your life.

 

‘Since you're laughing like the witch you are, you will no longer laugh. Ngwa! Holy ghost fire, holy ghost fire!’

 

I would imagine them around me, in white garments, just like in the stories I read, flogging my bare back while sending down fire and a shiver would run down my spine. I was not a witch, something was just not right with my head.

 

I think my brain was usually confused about what to feel in bad situations. It would shake all of the emotions together — anger, fear, pain and all — press them down and let them run over in gales of hysterical laughter.

 

So even when I heard my mother shouting my father’s name and calling on God to save her, I still laughed. My world was turning upside down, nothing was funny, so why was I laughing?

 

***

 

Ogadi couldn't feel his limbs, all he felt was panic. Something was wrong. The looks on his captors' faces said it.

 

One of them, the leader, walked forward into the small clearing where the captives were usually kept and hard blow landed on Ogadi’s right cheek. For what seemed like three decades, he lay flat on the muddy ground, stunned and trying to figure out how he got here in the first place.

 

It was like every other Monday morning. Ifediora had just prepared him a scrumptious breakfast of Eba and correct vegetable soup with plenty of obstacles. He happily descended on the kpanla, okporoko and goat meat that were part of the delicious obstructions to the balls of Eba.

 

Tochi and Ugo were still asleep. He would make sure to buy them the plantain chips that they always enjoyed. When he was done eating, Ifediora woke the children up so that they would all pray.

 

‘Daddy daddy, buy plantain chips when you're coming back,' Ugo said excitedly after the prayers were concluded.

 

‘And bread. And-’

 

‘Oya, it's okay. Nwa a na nri, ehn, this child and food.’ Ifediora said just before laughter erupted from her throat.

 

‘Ugo, don't mind your mummy, I will buy plenty plenty things for you and your sister,' Ogadi told the little girl, beaming.

 

‘Take care of the children,' Those were his last words before he walked out the door.

 

***

 

'Where are we going?' Ogadi asked, his hands trembling. They had been walking for what seemed like hours now. His back was raw with pain and his legs felt like they had just been used to beat drums.

 

'You're going home,' the man finally responded. His face was masked with black and red scarves that went around his head. All of them were usually dressed that way.

 

On his waist were belts of bullets that would be used to refill the deadly gun in his hands.

 

Foreboding caressed Ogadi's limbs. What was going on? Did kidnappers now forgive easily?

 

***

 

He groaned with delight when he finally saw it — home. Home sweet home. He could no longer feel the dreadful pain that travelled from the bullet holes in the lower part of his chest to the rest of his body.

Neither was he swimming in his blood on the forest floor of a strange land.

 

The people who welcomed him were not Ifediora, his wife, neither were they his daughters, Tochi and Ugo. They were instead his ancestors, some he didn't recognize but knew by blood.

 

He felt a little bad. Ugo had asked for plantain chips, how would she get them now? And Tochi. That one liked being by herself, a young can of mystery. He didn't want to leave those small girls behind. Tochi was in her second year in Junior Secondary School. Ugo was in Primary two.

 

This home felt peaceful, without chaos or problems. He would miss his family but this home felt too welcoming to run from.

 

Indeed, his captor had sent him home. The one in the great beyond.

 

***

 

When I heard the kidnapper threatening thunder and brimstone over the phone, my brain still thought everything was comedy.

 

'Madam, you will never see your husband again! You carry mind bring police! You will not see him again!' he had said.

 

Father was in the distance pleading for mercy. That was the last we heard from him.

 

Uncle Joe had gone to rescue my father with a bunch of roadside policemen.

 

I saw mama wailing, calling Uncle a murderer, and a wicked man. Who in his right senses, invites the police to a den of kidnappers when a loved one is still there?

She wished she had gone by herself but 'you are a woman,' uncle had said. 'Stay and take care of your children,' he had instructed.

 

When mother went to see the Inspector General of Police, he made a few calls and announced that no police officer had been released for that job.

 

'It is not possible, madam. Even the police will tell you to drop the ransom first before involving the law,' he had said.

 

So where did Uncle hire his policemen from?

 

***

 

'Tochi, pray,' mama would say every morning after the incident that still seemed to me like comedy.

 

'In Jesus' name!'

 

I would receive a resounding 'Amen!'.

 

'Father, we thank you for today, we thank you for your goodness and mercy upon our lives, we say may your name be highly exalted, in Jesus' name.'

 

After more prayer lines, punctuated with either 'Amen' or 'dah blood of Jesus', I would go to my main point:

 

'Lord Jesus, please wherever daddy is, protect him, bring him back safely, in Jesus' name!'

 

In the first few weeks, the amen to that was strong and faith-filled. The next few months and it became an empty sound punctuated with sighs and heaves, forced and filled with resentment.

 

'Stop praying for him! Stop it!' mother yelled one morning and I never uttered my main prayer point again. Not even to myself.

 

It was then that my brain began to see that this comedy was devoid of humour.

 

I went to my mother's room in the evening of that day and took one of my father's pictures.

 

I sat on my bed and stared long at the picture in my hands until the first tear dropped, then another and another.

 

That was all that was left of father — a memory captured on paper.

 

 Author: Bernice Ihesiaba