More than once during our one-month holiday in Nigeria, my husband, Derin, had called Prophet Gbemi, his mother’s pastor, a thoroughbred charlatan. And it pained me that he had sworn never to step foot inside a church in this ultra-religious country. But unlike him, my mind walked another path. Often, he would complain that running through my veins was the disease to please, which he had categorised as an illness of the poor, the undereducated, and the perfect wife. Whenever I heard his refrain, I would press my lips together to restrain my tongue and swallow my thoughts like they were eba and ewedu. And not once did I challenge my husband since he was my head, and I was his neck.
On my last Sunday in Lekki, the sun was bitterly ferocious. I wanted to remain in the shower under the cold water, which always felt warm. But I knew my duty was to follow my mother-in-law, Nigella, to her church, Heavenly Abundance and Miracles Chapel. Even though we were late, we still sat in the front row, where people of high society had reserved seats inside the enormous orange auditorium.
That disease Derin had diagnosed me with, the one without a vaccine, possibly explained that even though I felt my bones as heavy as a body, because the previous day I had arranged Nigella’s wardrobe for five hours, I still moved with the same energy as a sisi who had a five-year history of menstruation. I was stepping side-to-side, clapping with obe-ata-red palms, and singing my lungs out to an elongated version of Fred Hammond’s ‘We’re Blessed.’ It did not matter that I thought the mounted speakers–sufficient for ten churches– would leave me deaf. What mattered was how often Nigella, sporting her high and wide orange-brown wig, would smile at me, as if showcasing inner celestial satisfaction. Her perfect mouth, made for an advertisement for dental veneers, encouraged me to expend more energy dancing and singing like someone performing on a puerile television talent show, desperate for a nod and a wink from an obnoxious judge.
After two hours of clapping, singing, dancing, jumping, spinning, and swaying on my sore feet–along with the eight-hundred-strong congregation–Prophet Gbemi approached the pulpit on the vast stage. Sporting a beige Gucci monogram suit, he was a broad and stubby figure. He did not smile, and he did not welcome us. When he looked up quickly, his square forehead began furrowing, and to my surprise, he kept his mouth shut for ten minutes. I knew his silence had lasted that long since I had checked my watch without Nigella noticing.
‘Do you think you can rob God and be blessed?’ Prophet Gbemi said into the microphone. His voice, gravelly and thick with judgement, echoed. ‘God, your people, oh, they are stiff-necked.’
‘Baba God, forgive us,’ Deaconess Koyinsola said.
She was caterwauling and throwing her hands in the air from her seat among the gaggle of other deaconesses on the left side of the stage. Nobody thought to calm her down because all eyes were fixed on the prophet. ‘The Bible says, God cannot be mocked.
Whatsoever a man sows, he will reap.’
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply into his microphone, producing a hoarse sound that filled the air-conditioned room with a constant ticking tension.
Over the past three weeks, Prophet Gbemi had preached on tithing and nothing else. Not even the story of Pentecost when it was Pentecost Sunday. Somewhere nearby, cursed with an adenoidal voice, a woman muttered, ‘Daddy, forgive us. Daddy, forgive us, oh.’
The sheer volume of the woman’s rough noise and the wailing trapped at the back of her throat was a challenge to ignore. My mouth started tightening with moderate annoyance, but I tried to focus on Prophet Gbemi, who wiped and wiped his shiny double chin with a black hand towel. After breathing deeply, he said God gave him a remarkable prophecy around 2am. This message was, he said, for about twelve to fifteen people whose destinies were on the verge of conception.
Effusive shouts of hallelujahs whirled above like dust carried by the harshest harmattan winds. For me, nothing about such interruptions was church-as-usual. This was not what I was used to at St. Jude’s in Maidwell Park, where the sound of the congregation was as quiet as the formation of clouds.
After I was lost in thought, I suddenly became aware of Prophet Gbemi’s gaze upon me. My facial muscles moved on their own, causing the corners of my mouth to turn downwards. I peered at my black Manolo Blahnik mules and rubbed my arm solely to check the time on my watch.
I was not blind; Christianity in Nigeria had become a profitable and influential industry. My father, Reverend Martin Awofeso, established his church in Bodija, Ibadan, in 1983. At the time, his was the only church on Ogundipe Road, but nine years later, there were six, two of which were inside the same defunct tyre factory. My mother often complained to me– and never to my two brothers–that my father could have made more money if he had remained a chartered accountant. She also lamented the missed opportunity of having a husband who could have sent my siblings and me to a private school in Lagos, which back then was the most trusted and certified route to financial success. But thankfully, I did not need an elite education to become wealthy. All it took was my fashion-model figure in a red silk cocktail dress and a mild interest in playing Scrabble at a friend’s dinner. That was how I secured Derin, the second son of multi-millionaire Chief Oladimeji Bassey. Possessing a geology degree pleased Derin’s parents greatly; it signified that I was not a gold digger and could make my own money if I wanted to. I used to joke that when Derin first clasped his eyes on me, he was looking for solid rock, and my in-laws would chuckle heartily, showering me with praise for studying what they called a man’s degree. I also covered myself with modesty and patience whenever I spent hours with them or visited Liberty London and Harrods on behalf of my mother-in-law for linen napkins, candles and her favourite Londoner bath sets by Quiet London. My service to my in-laws, if anything, was a visual declaration of my benevolence and humility.
Now, Prophet Gbemi was descending the short, carpeted staircase off the stage. I noticed his shiny black loafers with tassels in the vamps, which I had spotted two months ago on sale for £579.00 at Harrods. As I patted the side of my beaded purple head wrap that was squeezing my brain and began lamenting my decision to tie it tightly, I heard Prophet Gbemi saying, ‘Sister Yewande, Sister Berechi, Sister Lynda–’
He was pointing to the young women, the co-founders of Arewa Beauty. The women, sartorially refined and stunningly pretty, hurried to stand at the altar decorated with plastic roses and lilies pinned around the edge. I saw a burgeoning intrigue in Prophet Gbemi’s steady squint. Defiant. Unrestrained. He resumed bellowing the names of other women, including those who had knelt on the ground to greet Nigella. They hurried to join the other women at the altar with bowed heads and open arms.
I wondered if Nigella was next on Prophet Gbemi’s list. She was not. After the prophet called five more women forward, I touched my left eyebrow long enough to glimpse the dial of my watch. I had been at the service for one hour and forty-nine minutes. I knew it was not my place to think it, but what was stopping this man of God from opening his Bible? Only heaven knew. Fortunately, my husband was not present. He would have told me that Prophet-Slow-To-Preach was preaching a personal gospel. And in less than two seconds, my private thoughts mattered as much as passing wind.
Prophet Gbemi was approaching me fast with an incomprehensible smile, bopping his head like my sons when they listened to rap music. Then he stopped to stand five or six inches away from my heels. Like a bothersome fly, I felt his eyes crawling over my softly made-up face. I felt smaller than my dress size ten, and I wished he had taken five steps backwards. Shortly after, my nose discerned it, that pungent reek of menthol. What kind of pastor, I wondered, sucked on Tom Tom during their sermon? To distract myself, I rubbed my thumb over the face of my watch, but then, during that frozen silence, I was gripped by an unfamiliar panic.
‘Chieftess Nigella, your daughter-in-law, Ireti Bassey,’ Prophet Gbemi said buoyantly.
‘Hallelujah,’ Nigella said, ‘Baba God, you are good, oh!’
I imagined my husband’s stern voice telling me to act like I was deaf. Then, I imagined Nigella using her overly sweet voice to explain to her son after the service that it was a blessing that her pastor had a message from God for me. But I knew my husband believed that God could speak to anyone, anywhere, and he did not believe in having blind faith in pastors. In fact, he often assumed that by doing so, one could lose their common sense and life savings to a never-ending church-building fund. But unlike Derin, I was not accustomed to scrutinising men of God. Derin’s father had introduced him to wealthy friends who were famous pastors. Such men clutched Bibles, collected Rolexes, waited for tithes, and offerings to buy Gulfstream jets, and warned critical congregants to honour their pastors to avoid God’s wrath. Derin occasionally mentioned Pastor Samuel Okeowo. The man was a friend of his father and was infamous for his 59th birthday party, which included fake paparazzi outside an elegant glass building in Victoria Island, a red brocade Ozwald Boateng suit paired with a Jacob & Co. watch and a bracelet. And whenever Nigella encouraged her son to go to church, he would sneer and say: To Pastor Okeowo’s church?
Right then, my mind raced in a strange direction. I felt delighted to do what was right in Nigella’s sight but also tied down. By joining the line at the altar, I felt like I was giving Derin a dirty slap and spitting glutinous phlegm directly in his eyes. I watched Prophet Gbemi return to stand behind the pulpit, and the keyboardist began to play a poignant, mellow tune. A boundless throbbing ache was clustering inside my chest.
‘Listen, the Lord told me to tell all of you to sow a seed of $1000,’ Prophet Gbemi said, pointing at me.
He turned around to look at the deaconesses. Feeling sweat moisten my dress, I started imagining Derin’s reaction. All my senses told me that he would have insulted the man of God, grabbed my hand, and raced through the wooden double doors at the back of the room. When I glimpsed Prophet Gbemi resting one hand on his black Bible on the pulpit, in that split second, I felt like I was facing something sinister without a name, something as intimidatingly unpredictable as Armageddon. And my breakfast of three akaras and ogi began sloshing inside my stomach.
After Prophet Gbemi wiped his face for several moments and chewed on his bottom lip, he thundered into the microphone that my blessing would be greater than those around me. Eyeballs, seemingly plump with intrigue, grabbed me and did not let me go.
I slowly mouthed the word more and felt my prominent forehead creasing. The word tasted almost as rotten as the jackfruit I had chewed in Naivasha, Kenya, in 2003. Just then, Nigella jolted up out of her chair. I was sure that a pin from a gele had pricked her ikebe-super bottom. She touched my lower back with one warm hand and started clapping, saying, ‘Hallelujah. Glory be to God in the highest. More, more, more.’
I knew why she kept repeating the word more. Despite already having three grandsons, Nigella persistently asked Carolina and me, her two daughters-in-law, to give her one more grandson. She had reasoned that her husband–whose empire originated from petrol stations, venture capital, food delivery service and bakeries–required four grandsons, disregarding her three intelligent granddaughters. No doubt, because in our culture, boys were considered more precious, like double cream rather than skimmed milk. After all, Nigella knew, but never said, that our culture had waged domestic and sadistic battles against girls. Then again, her husband had run successful businesses for over 45 years, under military dictatorships and governments with a semblance of democracy. No Naija woman could boast of having an identical record of achievement. And each time she voiced her desire for another grandson, she promised to provide Carolina or me with two of her six house girls. Now, Prophet Gbemi, it seemed, would finally speak the words Nigella eagerly longed to hear.
Wagging his finger at me, Prophet Gbemi said, ‘God says, he wants to give you more. But to get it, you will have to sow more.’
‘She’s ready, oh,’ Nigella shouted. ‘Baba God, we want more.’
I was still processing how my mother-in-law had morphed into my publicist when Prophet Gbemi hopped down from the stage. His face, beaming broadly, revealed a year’s worth of jubilation. Denied of solace, I shivered as he was inching closer to me, far closer than 30 centimetres. Then, with one long, plump finger, he started tapping the dial of my watch.
‘This timepiece is the more God wants,’ Prophet Gbemi said, ‘before he gives you more.’
I looked at the man of God sternly. His expression brimmed with the earnestness I expected from a doctor telling a patient that they have stage 4 liver cancer. I pressed my thumb over the warm diamond-encrusted bezel. Then, breathing in that menthol scent, I grinned. And just like that, giggles from my heart, uncontrollable and unexplainable, erupted inside my mouth. I was content to continue laughing, glancing around at the multiple blurred faces that looked at me in astonishment. But out of nowhere, Nigella grabbed my wrist and held it up to Prophet Gbemi. Before he could take my watch, I surprised not only Nigella and the prophet but also myself.
Was it a reflex? Who can tell? I snatched my hand and shoved it in between my sweaty breasts. Crashing into my ears was the terror of the crowd; a plenitude of shrill gasps exploded, clogging my ears and mind. It seemed to silence the keyboardist’s plaintive melody. All this was surprising. As a flush of adrenaline tingled through my body, I peered at the polished concrete floor, and I knew not to reveal what was now on my mind. It was unmistakable: I did not want to part with my watch. Maybe God, I thought, would settle for my navy Chanel handbag. I had fifteen of them, and my husband could always buy me another. ‘My shoes are Prada,’ I blurted mistakenly. ‘You can have them instead.’
How immense was the cacophony of judgment in that place! It was inhaling and exhaling, like a living creature with blood, bones, and sinews. ‘Daughter-in-law of Chieftess Nigella Bassey…Ireti,’ Prophet Gbemi started, pausing to bite the tip of his forefinger, ‘so, you want to turn your back on God?’
If not handing over a watch signified rejecting God, I began wondering what that would mean for all the watch-less people in the world.
Not even five seconds unfolded before Prophet Gbemi’s flared nostrils and raspy, short breaths broadcasted sounds of unfathomable hostility. I was considering pleading with him when distilled madness erupted.
‘Deliver her, Baba God,’ Deaconess Koyinsola shouted, snapping her fingers.
Others began chanting her words and stretching out their hands in my direction. With my hand still snuggled against my damp chest, I heard screeching feedback from a microphone. It was cochlea-splitting, yet it was not piercing enough to lower the volume of Prophet Gbemi’s order: Nobody, and I mean nobody, is leaving until Chieftess Nigella Bassey’s daughter-in-law obeys God’s word.
A drumming of murmurs commingling with calcified shock triggered my mouth to open. Suddenly, I was speaking fast, my tongue tangling up at times, informing Prophet Gbemi that my watch was a special gift from my husband. But that substantial explanation entered his ears and made him shrug with indifference. The ushers, donning white shirts and bright marigold Ankara trousers, were already on the move. Obeying their leader, they were scrambling towards the double doors at the back and feeding the already restless air their clamorous footfalls.
For a while, Prophet Gbemi was wiping his shiny forehead, bristling. I stared at him, and it was as if he were duelling with one thousand invisible demons. I stepped backwards and realised I was in the enemy’s camp and did not know how to escape. Narrowing his eyes, Prophet Gbemi shook his head at me and said, ‘If you leave this church without offering God your watch, you will surely have a car accident.’
I could not explain it, but after hearing his spiteful threat, something must have burst inside my brain. Whatever it was, it compelled me to look blankly into Prophet Gbemi’s indignant face and shrug.
My watch was more than money, more than tithing. It was a sorry-I-got-caught-cheating- again watch. Seven months ago, Derin had not objected to buying me the elegant beauty worth nearly £50,000. He knew that his category of cheating had crossed many lines. After all, it was with Apostle Segun Bakinde, a high-society jet-setting pastor.
Standing up from the brown armchair in front of the deaconesses was First Lady Virginia. Top-heavy and wearing five-inch silver pumps and a long fuchsia dress, she soon waddled over to her husband. ‘Daddy, please don’t lock the church,’ the First Lady whispered too loudly into her husband’s ear. ‘Let there be order and decency.’
Prophet Gbemi, very slowly, turned to face his short wife, who was rubbing her heavy chin blighted with pockmarks. He squinted at her and then crossed his arms. ‘That’s rich,’ he said, cackling to himself, ‘so you want to talk of order and decency, ehn?’ The microphone amplified every word, thick with piquant sarcasm. The First Lady appeared embarrassed. She turned her back to the congregation and clasped her hands entreatingly. ‘Were you not the one whose body was full of the spirit of seduction, which scattered my first marriage to Olapeju?’
The rigid scowl on the First Lady’s face seemed to telegraph bubbling rage. I was grateful to no longer be the centre of attention, and I watched the First Lady take seven steps away from her husband. Time passed as slowly as January shifted to December. And before I could digest the silence with underlying hostility, the First Lady opened her mouth and ignited a conflagration.
‘Listen up, Heavenly Abundance and Miracles Chapel,’ she shouted. ‘This our prophet, this man of God, has been messing up, oh.’ Absolute silence, formidable enough to pulverise mountainous rock, hung in the air. ‘Until nine weeks ago, his secretary and Sunday school teacher, Esther Maria Coker, was carrying his baby.’
The quietness in the room belonged to the grave.
Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.
Prophet Gbemi smirked as he approached his wife and pointed a finger in her face. ‘So, even after all the Italian belts, French handbags, and shoes that I’ve lavished on you,’ he said, ‘you still can’t shed your unholy envy of Esther?’
The First Lady dropped her arms to her side. It was a matter of seconds when Prophet Gbemi moved closer to his wife and shook the room.
Baam!
I had witnessed hostility personified. As though instinctively, the prophet’s cruel hand had whacked his wife across her face. She bent over and cupped her left cheek. At once, her mouth began dropping until it was wide open, and her brown eyes were expanding with terror. Again, that vicious, predatory hand met her head, but only this time it yanked her long copper wig, revealing her biscuit-hued wig cap. Not looking at the congregation, Prophet Gbemi shoved her, and instantly, she buckled over. I observed her right foot slipping out of her shoe as her husband was shedding one of his. Swinging his loafer in the air like a club, he transformed into the embodiment of cave-man-gone-wèrè. Nothing in my mind, body or soul provoked me to ponder on intervening. But before I knew anything, it happened.
My heels were already advancing in the direction of the First Lady. On reaching her, I raised my hands over her mushroom-flat head. And just like that, one second later, everything went black.
***
I had lost consciousness.
When I came to my senses, I was sitting on a bed with a hard mattress in a bland room inside Abraham Medical Hospital. Nigella was perching on a white plastic chair beside me. Her supple hand was gently stroking my forearm. With my head wrap in her lap, my three- week-old shoulder-length Afro kinky braids were exposed. I watched her concentrate on the white ceiling while she told me that Prophet Gbemi had struck me on the head, causing me to slip into unconsciousness. As soon as that had happened, she thought she was seeing a vision. But after understanding that her eyes were bearing witness to her daughter-in-law on the ground–perhaps pregnant with her fourth grandson–she cried out in shock.
Feeling a pulsating headache and wanting to sleep, I looked at Dr. Olaremi Silva, who stood at the end of the bed. Showing all the gaps between each tooth, she told me that my CAT scan had shown no signs of injury. She kept staring at me, and after shaking her head, she asked, ‘What’s happening to the pastors in our country?’
***
At sunset, Nigella and I arrived at the Basseys’ sand-coloured neo-classical mansion. When Tayo, the slow-slow driver, had left us inside the silver Range Rover, we sat for a long moment in unruly silence. According to my watch, it took Nigella seven minutes to muster enough humility to face me and another two to whisper that she was sorry. Even though she had apologised while staring at the dashboard, I still smiled at her profile. I was indescribably delighted, far gladder than when a child spots a double rainbow. Out of respect for her, I apologised for not hearing Prophet Gbemi’s prophecy. Would I have believed it? I thought. No, not after the charlatan had knocked a moderate amount of sense into my head.
Around the time I was feeling hunger pangs, Nigella examined her red nails decorated with horizontal gold stripes. ‘I was just so excited,’ she blurted. ‘You know, I’m always praying for another grandson. But in my heart of hearts, I knew you wouldn’t offer up your Panthére De Cartier.’ She rubbed her thumb over the yellow-gold bracelet of her watch while making her characteristic woodpecker-drilling sounds in her throat. ‘I still remember the first time Chief gave me mine. He said, “Time spent with a wife cannot compare to time wasted with asewos.”‘