WHAT IF YOUR MOTHER WERE A LESBIAN?

By Martin-Hassan Eze

His entire being rose in protest. His body was at war with itself. The ears were willing and did their job well, but his legs were weak and revolting.

Kpon! Kpon!! Kpon!!! the sound of the gong filtered into his ear unhindered.  Mmbadiwe wondered why the town crier should refuse him the privilege of an early morning sleep. He yawned, turned from one side of his mat to another, but realized he was not in full control of his body, after he splashed open his eye like the light of molue bus in the dark street of Ajegunle.

Mmbadiwe’s legs were rebelling against the thankless job he did the previous day. He had trekked five kilometers to Masuga to buy a cup of garri at a cheaper rate at the village market. He had to save cost to afford a two hundred naira that he will split into four smaller denominations in order to escape the wrath of his new Parish Priest, Father Kudi, whose only sermon since he came to the Parish was, “God loves a cheerful giver.” He took over the Parish from the old Irish Father Kean who had retired from duties and returned to Europe.

Father Kudi’s only innovation was the introduction of four different offerings in one SundayMass, as if God cared only about the purse.

Mmbadiwe begged his legs to carry him to the village square as he stood up reluctantly from his mat and moved towards the bathroom to clean and dress up. As for his morning prayers, the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary was enough. He had lived with the two since he learnt to say stand up oh country-man. When he got to the major road, his legs seemed to have forgiven his sins of the other day, and he found himself walking thoughtlessly at first, and then, in a haste like a student in a hurry to school to beat the time and escape the wrath of bully senior students who manned the school gate as if their salvation depended on it.

And soon, he found himself glancing neither to the right nor left. He passed through the sea of people who had gathered at the village square as if it was the Obollo Eke market day. In the process, he ran into a woman who was wailing and rolling on the ground. She was under the clutches of two men who were huge like an Iroko tree and were
preventing her from harming herself.

“Please Mama Sandra, take it easy God knows the best,” a woman consoled her with a sorrowful voice as if she was composing a dirge.

God knows the best indeed but for all Mmbadiwe cared, he was also interested in knowing why the town crier denied him his morning sleep. He was already sweating like a hunter carrying an elephant on his head as he struggled to push through to the main square to catch a glimpse of what was happening. Alas! The wind blew and he saw the anus of the fowl.

What he saw hit him in-between the eye, and his eyes nearly fell off their sockets. The girl was as she came into the world, nothing to cover her body. Even in her dehumanizing condition, she was as bright as a lone star in the firmament. Her beauty could force a monk to have an erection. No man born of a woman could pass her on the street without turning back to get a better look except if he had a stiff neck.

And his world melted away like a heap of salt under the rain as he heard the elder pronounce his verdict.

“For your atrocity against the land and our ancestors you will dance round the town naked,” ruled the elder as the crowd went wild in riotous jubilation. As the hailing mad crowd led the wailing girl with a note of song and dance, a feeling of rebellion swept over Mmbadiwe, but he could not muster enough courage to rescue the girl from the clutches of the viper. It is only a foolish dog that barks at what the lion saw and ran away from.

Mmbadiwe heard that Sandra, Jumoke and Fatima had gone out to catch some fresh air outside the campus. And, after a sweet hangout with Aristos – old men who ran after young university girls like a deer runs for a running stream and, who spend cash on girls as if it was plucked from the tree, while their family suffer from hunger at home. They chose to pass a night with Isioma their classmate who moved out of the university hostel and rented a posh apartment off campus even when her poor parents in the village can’t afford three square meals a day. Isioma welcomed them but soon realised that the birds of a feather were soon to bite more than they could chew.

Some other students were having a night vigil outside the compound. They were clapping their hands, singing in loud voices and inviting the Holy Spirit to arrest all sinners like Saul of Tarsus was arrested on his way to Damascus. Sandra and her friends approached the students to ask them to stop disturbing, but they were to realise that they had only stepped on a lion’s tail.

“How dare you daughters of the world challenge our divine mandate from God,” the leader of the students queried angrily, and before one could say Holy Moses, a fight ensued. Hell was let lose when one of the soldiers of God accused the girls of being lesbians out to destroy their mission. And soon the shouts of lesbian! Lesbians!! Lesbian!!! filled the air.

The neighborhood was awoken and a crowd descended on them with sticks, stones and whatever the hand could carry. They were stripped naked, tortured and dragged through the crowd like a goat for a slaughter slab.

And so, good fortune smiled at her, the man who was holding Sandra had knocked his feet on a stone and as he struggled for balance in the dark, she freed herself from his grip and made a good negotiation with her legs and fled for her dear life as tyre filled with petrol was wrapped round the neck of her friends to be burnt to ashes for a crime she did not commit. Not even the screams of innocence, the tears flowing like a running stream could appease the soldiers of God.

Sandra had scurried for safety at the dark of the night and fled to her village few kilometers away. But, like a cockroach in a tribunal presided over by a fowl, woe betide anyone suspected to have committed a taboo against the land and the ancestors even if his enemies choose to hang such accusation on his neck like a huge wooden cross on the neck of a Sabbath pastor.

The news had spread like harmattan fire that a lesbian had sought for refuge at home and Sandra had jumped from frying pan to fire. How can home be safe in Sahara where the spokesman of the gods and ancestors carry such an enormous power that even Mubutu could be jealous of?

The predators had gone with their prey and Mmbadiwe was left alone. He turned in silent protest and began walking back to his lodge counting his steps like a monk could count his rosary bead. It was his darkest Friday.

He loved Sahara his father land, but patriotism does not make a fart of a tortoise more fragrant than the rose flower.  As he begged sleep to take him away, he was convinced that if what he saw was not a dream, then, Sahara was still in the dark.

The cock crow had woken Mmbadiwe up. It was a cold Saturday morning so he had no business being in the school. He went out to join his friends in flexing. Their discussions had neither agenda nor topic. It flowed from one end to the other depending on the subject raised by a particular speaker.Mmbadike had arrived the small town few months ago to assume duties as the secretary of girl’s boarding school. Though he was new, he had made a couple of friends and every Saturdaymorning, he goes out to join them. They were sitting round a bowl of “Akamu” eating and waiting for the old woman frying the “Akara” to fill their empty plates.

Had they not made mention of the name of the school he was working, he wouldn’t have given any notice to the market women gossip who had gathered to buy Akara on their way to the weekly Orie Agu market .

“I never imagined a young girl could be so humiliated like this by the elders as if a woman is a heap of cow dung,” complained the taller women who was talking and throwing the ball of Akara into her mouth.

“My sister, while other women are becoming Presidents in other countries, our daughters are treated like slaves. I never believed Mazi Obi the spokesman of the elder’s council could be so wicked to ask a girl to dance round the town naked as if it was not a woman that gave birth to him.”

“His only daughter is in college and I know the gods will soon take their pound of flesh,” complimented the other women.

After the breakfast  with his friends,  Mmbadiwe boarded a taxi back to his  residential quarter carrying the name of the daughter of the village spokesman whom he realized from the information he got, was in senior secondary school two.

Electricity was scarce as the elephant tusk in the town.  Denied power supply for no fault of his, Mmadiwe chose to do with the available when the desirable was not within his reach. With the penny he was paid, he could not afford to buy the ‘I-better-pass-my-neighbor’ generating set for his personal use. So, after his usual evening meal, he returned to his office to cool off the stress of the day seeing movies from the desk top computer since the generator was always on for the students to observe their night prep.

That day’s event went on smoothly and at 9:30 PM he was already begging his legs to quickly carry me to his bed.

It was when he reached his door that he realized he was like the proverbial wise man who went to the stream to fetch water with a basket. He was not with his key. This was one moment Mmbadiwe wished he had wings to fly or could appear, or disappear like the magical beings he had seen in African magic movies.

He started another lonely walk back to the Chapel where he had earlier observed his night prayers with students to fetch his keys which he left inside the chapel. It was already light-out and the entire school compound was dark, the darkness was staring at him as he counted his steps. He thought of nothing in particular. He was not really happy
with his key for not reminding him to pick it up in the first place.

Mmbadiwe saw his key and as he took it away from where it was laying quietly, something whispered to him to go and look into the classroom opposite the Chapel. He rebelled immediately, “Why should I go into an empty classroom when all the students had returned to their hostels for their night rest,” he questioned whatever and whoever had dug up the idea and poured into his head.

On the other hand, he thought otherwise, a few minute walk to the classroom to feed his curiosity will do no harm. And so, he began the journey that will shock him to his bone marrow.

Mmbadiwe heard that sound of people moaning and echoing in pleasure. He thought it should be something rare in girl’s boarding school, but as he got closer to the classroom it became obvious and clear. For sure, his senses were not deceiving him. His unexpected intrusion had brought to an abrupt end their erotic romance and all the pleasure that comes with it.

Dieu Merci! Mmadiwe finally got his voice. He did not boil in rage. He welcomed the drama playing before him with stoic and philosophical calmness. He didn’t know, he couldn’t tell but maybe, he stood watching as they dressed and he accompanied them back to their hostel gate. After wishing them good night, he immediately retired back to his room without waiting for them to respond or acknowledge his dreamful wishes. Who cares? At this point it was needless.

Mmbadiwe knew that the girls did not sleep well that night. No doubt, they were expecting expulsion letter the next Monday. He did the unexpected. He should have made a big case out of it and it should have become a headline for the school press club and a topic for the P. T. A. meeting but he left the skeleton inside the cupboard. Everybody has one.Anyway, it was an encounter that changed his perception about certain things and people. It pushed him to realize that certain things were not happening in the moon. No, they did and do happen before our very eye, not at the backyard, but at the corridor. Yet many Saharans still think they are western or American stuff very far away from Sahara in lands without taboo.

As he laid on his bed that night, sleep became a scarce commodity as his thought ran to and fro. So, all this while, he had been eating from the same pots and drinking from the same cups with lesbians. His memory kept racing back and forth; their nakedness, their moaning, the sad episode of the previous day.

And so, Chigaemezu, the daughter of Mazi Obi the spokesman of the village is a lesbian?

The next day was Sunday. As he left my lodge for the church where the school community worshipped, he asked the school messenger to drop a note for Mazi Obi.

“You should be glad if you see me first thing tomorrow morning for an urgent discussion concerning your daughter Chigaemezu,” he wrote. Mmbadiwe’s mind was still occupied with the episode of the previous night. His mind was praying, prying and probing. He had still not come to terms with the fact that some of the beautiful faces he saw matching to their classes after every morning assembly were lesbians yet in their neatly ironed outing dressings they all looked like Malaiku; angels.

From the window of his office, Mmbadiwe could see it written all over his face. A thousand and one thoughts were rioting in Mazi Obi’s mind as he walked towards his office. Mazi Obi, dressed in a traditional Isiagu robe, a red cap and a horse tail to signify his traditional authority, beamed a smile that failed to cover up his anxiety the moment he stepped into the office. Mmbadiwe received him, offering generous salutation as tradition demanded before spilling the bean.

“Mazi Obi, from the incident that happened on Saturdays night, I have evidence and I am convinced that your only daughter Chigaemezu is a lesbian,” Mmbadiwe declared.

Mazi Obi was shocked to his bones.

“You mean my only daughter is a lesbian?” He kept repeating to himself after the milk had been spilt. And, soon the elder was on his knee with both hands up like a student under punishment.

“My enemies will make my life miserable if they get to hear of this abomination against our ancestors and land,” he pleaded in tears.

“My son,” he further appealed to Mmbadiwe, “it is only the foolish fowl that forgets the person that plucked some of her feather during the rainy season. If you save me from this evil spell my enemies have cast on my daughter, in the name of my ancestors, I will remain ever grateful to you,” he promised like a man trying to woo a young lady.

Mmbadiwe who was silent all this while remembered the words of his late father, “When you dig a hole for your enemy, don’t make it so deep because your only son may fall inside.” He never imagined that an elder who ordered someone else’s daughter to dance round the entire village naked was pleading for mercy.

When Mazi Obi was the hunter he had shown no mercy and now that he has become the hunted he was begging not to be administered the same concoction he gave to others.

“My son, if I knew that my daughter was a lesbian, I could not have allowed the baby to be thrown away with the
bath water,” he said remorsefully before continuing his wailing. ‘Madre Mia! Life is a twist’Mmbadiwe said to him. He never imagined that the same man who was looming and roaring like mighty waves from an angry ocean at the village square a day ago could be appealing for compassion. One could really not tell until a fly does a dirty job; flies into ones ointment and you found yourself holding the short end of the stick.

Only yesterday Mmbadiwe could not dare step on the feet of the dragon but this has fallen apart and he could no longer run away from the spokesman like a scared hound with its tail between its hind quarters.

Mmadiwe was now a judge and the Mazi Obi waited patiently for his verdict. He was convinced that if Eke Njaba; the sacred python must be revered even by people who seat in the front pew in churches, then, every woman is a deity and must be deitified not minding if she chooses Gabriel or Gabriella to pull off her itching pants. Mmbadiwe
thought deeply. Lesbianism was neither a Bia, Zo nor Wa languages spoken in Sahara and he could not see reasons he should hound a girl out like a leper because she was a lesbian.

It was not sermon time and Mmbadiwe was not a pastor or a chief priest. He went straight to business as the Mazi Obi was holding his heart in his palms.

‘Mazi,” he began, “chukwu created your daughter and for me to deny her the love, respect and tolerance required of me and send her to Golgotha to be crucified because she is a lesbian is to challenge my Chi to a wrestling bout, to question his wisdom, why he had allowed her to be alive,’ he said, adjusting the collar of his shirt and looking at a sheet of paper on his desk like a jury reading his verdict.

Mmadiwe could hear the heart beat of the man like the noise emanating from an old lorry.
“A dead man derives no comfort that his murderers was in sack cloth and ashes,” he continued, “The young girl you humiliated a day ago may not be appeased by your remorse, but two wrong don’t make a right. My father used to tell me that one doesn’t kill somebody he will partake in his burial. Your child is our daughter from where I came from, the child belongs to the people. Our daughter is a lesbian and one does not cut off his head when he has headache. So, I will behave like a tsunami that snatches a tree from the forest and cast it into the surging sea.”The Mazi Obi leaped with joy and hugged Mmadiwe, you could feel the same kind of joys that emanates from frustrated youth who emerge out of the embassy with a visa to a land whose street are paved with gold because their leaders have not behaved themselves like their gods. A land, seven forests and seven oceans away from Sahara where lesbians have a say and nobody plays god.

As Mmbadiwe stood up to search for something to appease his stomach that was threatening to tear off his intestine, he gave the whole episode a second thought. Could his Parish Priest deny him communion on Sundaywhen the news of his judgment crawls into the town? He dangled his head from pillar to post as if he meant to say who cares?
He could not, is he supposed to keep quiet and let a lesbian suffer any indignity that no one else should? The lesbian could be the midwife that will help bring the first female President in Sahara to the world.

Case closed he has spoken and have put his thinking beads in his pocket. And as he closed the door to his office, it seemed Mmbadiwe was telling the man next door, “you know what, the woman you call your mother could be a lesbian? You never can tell. What if ………..it happens? Just think!”