The Godmother

Episode 37

By five a.m., he was in the guest room with the mat,

torchlight, his phone and a bottle of water. He calculated
that he would be sitting for nothing less than twenty-two
hours. Twenty-two solid hours! It was not going to be easy
but he must stay alive.
He put the mat in a way that his back would rest against
the wall. The bottle of water and other things he had
brought were all within his arm reach. He would be
switching the phone of for now, but later when it was dark,
he would be switching it on to monitor the time. He made
one last visit to the toilet and then sat on the mat.

It was his longest ever sitting position. His back ached and
he felt stiffness over his bones, but he must remain seated.

He must remain alive.
Rita was not completely rest assured by her husband. She
felt she just had to do something about his predicament,
but what could she do? Her mind hovered between going
to see her pastor and going to see the old man Aunty
Wunmi had taken her to. At the end, she decided to see the
old man. After all, he appeared to be powerful too.

She got to the old man’s house about noon.
‘Thank God, I meet you in the house,’ she said.

‘Welcome, my daughter,’ he replied. ‘Hope all is well.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think all is well. It’s about my
husband again.’

‘What about him? Don’t tell me he’s still saying he will go
ahead and marry the other woman?’
‘Oh, no. it’s not that. This is an entirely different problem
altogether.’ She went on to tell her the old man how her
husband had said a danger was looming over his life, but he
had taken some precaution.

‘In addition to what he’s doing, is there no way I can help
him? Is there no way you can protect him and shield him
from danger and doom?’

The old man sighed deeply. He was silent for several
moments as if he was communing with certain invisible
powers. Finally, he looked up and grinned.
‘Let us leave him with the protection he has sought. I think
at the end of the day, all will be well with him.’

‘Baba, are you sure all will be alright with him?’

The man emphatically nodded. ‘Don’t you trust me again?

All will be alright with him.’

Rita smiled and hoped the man was right. She peeled off
handsome sum of money, handed it to the man, and left the
place. The baba must be right, she told herself. He was
powerful and he must be right.

In the room where he had sequestered himself, he
intermittently dozed off and on, but his butt0ckz remained
on the mat. When it got dark, he remained wide awake. At a
time he switched on the phone, it was quarter past nine. He
grinned to himself. He had less than three hours more to
remain on the mat. Time ticked on. He checked the time on
the phone again. It was twenty-five minutes past eleven.

Less than an hour to go. Even as he was there, he could not
help thinking about Rita (Iye) and how his chanced meeting
with her had changed his life. In reminiscence, he realized
that he had acted so selfishly and covetously. If he had
obeyed the simple directive that he should be faithful to
his wife, all these troubles would not have arisen.

Then he wondered, what exactly would happen if Iye had
her way. The alfa had said she was waiting for him. Waiting
for him where?

Time ticked on.

When it was a couple of minutes to twelve mid-night,
everywhere suddenly became pitch dark. He became
immobile. Then, there were glints of light and he saw three
women clad in red clothes that were tied from their chest
to their knees. They were the same women he saw years
ago when he was going through his third ‘test’ with Iye.
The one in the middle spoke. She called his name three
times. ‘Get up from that mat you’re sitting on,’ she
commanded.

He did not want to answer her. He knew he was just a
minute away from life. He would have loved to ignore her,
but he could not. A force pulled him off to his feet and
away from the mat.

‘That’s good,’ the same woman spoke. ‘She’s waiting for
you. You can now be together.’

The three women disappeared while he fell into a deep
sleep.