We Are Able

Episode 22

I knelt before my aunt to say I was sorry for her burnt
house. She pulled me close to herself and said she
didn’t have any grudge against me. I kept feeling guilty,
even after she had incessantly assured me that there
was no cause for alarm.

When it was time for the court case at the court of
appeal, we didn’t have enough cash to pursue it. Our
lawyer was demanding too much. My aunty was more
than bankrupt, having lost all to the fire accident and my
classteacher had too much on her neck already, being
the one to cater for both my aunt and I.
Aunty Rachael began to get sick; I knew she was
thinking too much about her lost property. She didn’t
even come out from there with a pin. She would lean
against the wall and shed tears all the time.
Mrs Oyin had tried consoling her to no avail. Something
that baffled me was that she didn’t weep when the
house just got burnt. Instead, she was speechless for
two to three days; now after a week she began to
weep.
“Stop weeping Rachael,” my classteacher would say
over and over again. “Tears cannot bring back what is
lost; only God can do that. Do you want to cry away
your eyes on this same issue? Listen and listen good
Rachael, what you should be doing right now is to get a
drum and dance, because some people had fire accident
like this and got burnt in the process. Look at you still
breathing. Don’t you know that there is hope when
there is life?”
Aunty told us a short story amidst tears:
“There was this young lady who knew no God at all.

She lived her life in the normal moral way, truthful,
gentle, kind and meek and got everything she wanted–
a good husband and a good home. Just then, she began
to know God and spoke about God to his husband who
also received him…”
I shook my head and waited for my aunty to continue
the story. She was sniffing, but that wasn’t affecting her
speech since it was a voiceless one–the sign
language.
“Shortly after this woman and her husband knew God,
bad things began to happen to them; the husband had a
plane crash while travelling from Lagos to Abuja. As if
that wasn’t all, the woman lost her job because she
was bent at holding on to her God at the expense of
joining a multitude to do evil in her workplace; she
refused to change receipt with them, so they set her
up.”

My aunty was coughing. I was weeping for the woman
in her story because it sounded like herself. She was
telling us her true life story.
“Her faith towards her God waxed stronger despite all
these storms of life,” my aunty continued. “Somebody
advised her to insure her building, fire accident
insurance policy she called it, but the woman would not
listen to her friend. She said God is in charge of the
house. It turned to a great argument and in the end she
lost her friend. Eventually, the only thing left–her
husband’s house–got burnt. She has nothing right now
as we speak…”
My aunt began to weep aloud. My classteacher tried all
she could to console her: she wouldn’t listen.
“Is there God?” she asked. I was stunned. Was it not
my aunty who added ‘God’ to my poem few days back?
Was she not the same woman who was running from
church services to miracle crusades some months
back? How come she was doubting God now?
“I think there is God,” I answered back.
“What is the proof that there is God?” my aunty
challenged me.

“The proof?” I asked. Suddenly, I thought of the piece
of paper my poem was done into. Though crumpled, yet
powerful because God was in it.
I placed the poem on a table and began to demonstrate
the last three stanzas with my hands:
Oh! my idle hands
Speaking idle words
Brain befuddled,
Like a mouldy cake
God isn’t an idol
And he is for real
He will forever heal
Taller than the heavens
Brighter than the sun
His ways are glaring
Though to us blurry
‘Cos we are human
Seeing a bit afar

Through the twilight
The stars bowed
The rainbow cowed
The gaoler turned the gates
Leading my mother out
Freedom at last!
“Aunty, if there was no God I wouldn’t have won the
award. You added God to my poem and I won. So I
believe there is God.”

My aunty looked incredibly at me for sometimes. She
couldn’t believe it. She was in tears. My classteacher
went close to her and gave her a tight hug; I joined
them. We were all weeping.
My aunty and my classteacher suddenly loosened their
grip on each other. My teacher made for the door while
my aunty quickly wiped off the tears on her face and sat
up. Definitely there was a knock at the door but I
couldn’t hear the sound.
My teacher’s mouth went wide when a woman stared
into her face at the door. A cruel look was glommed to
her face. She had her arms akimbo like a beauty
pageant. The eyelashes on her face were mere marks
made with eye pencils, having scraped off her real
eyelashes. She was blinking her eyes intermittently in a
belligerent manner.

She was Toyosi, my stepmother, or would I say my
father’s concubine? What was her mission here?
Now I knew I would have to wait for twenty minutes
or thereabout in silence because the house was hot in
voice language already. Nobody had the time to
interprete. They were in war of words with Toyosi.
Toyosi left after her rantings and shoutings. Now I
await the interpretation of all the rancour unfolded
before my face.
“Why was she here?” I asked.