I had first met Pastor David six months after Father sold the car. It happened in my school principal’s office. I was there that day because Mrs. Modele the math teacher had reported me for copying my test answers from Bibike. I was walking up the stairs past the courtyard when I saw him approaching. He was smiling directly at my face. I pretended not to notice him looking, but I walked even more slowly, waiting to see where he was headed.
When I got to the principal’s office, after stopping to drink water in the teachers’ lounge, he was already there. Before the principal could say anything, he was sitting and saying, “Please attend to your student, sir. I can wait.”
Then the principal, determined to embarrass me, started bringing up unrelated stuff, eye makeup, short skirts, and the pack of Benson & Hedges from months ago.
Pastor David seemed to fight back an amused, puzzled look, and when the principal was done, he said: “If you don’t mind, can I pray for this little girl?”
Then the principal said, “Of course, she needs it. I don’t think it will help. This one is already a lost cause.”
Then Pastor David held my right hand gently and said, “Loving God Abba Father, reveal Your love to her,” and then I felt like my brain was expanding and my heart heating up at the same time.
I later learned he had come to ask to use the assembly grounds for midweek church services, and so I started to attend his services. I was hoping to be friends, but joining the church made me see how big he was, and how small I am. Whenever he caught my eye from the pulpit during services each Sunday, I wondered if he could tell how much I loved him.
We exchanged gifts. Just before Christmas, it was the annual love feast, and Pastor David picked my name out of the Christmas partner names bucket, right in the middle of service, and everyone cheered. He gave me a bracelet and a note that was just a long list of Bible verses selected “For the Godly Woman You Are Becoming, My Darling.”
We exchanged even more notes after that. Mine were my meditations on the Bible verses I studied each day. I was trying to read the entire Bible in a year. His notes were more mercurial. Once, he wrote several lines describing the hills in Jos when he’d visited for an evangelical outreach. Other times, it was lyrics to worship songs, in full, name of songwriter included. At the bottom of one note he wrote:
Everything softens when I worship.
HE LOVES TO sing. He cannot sing. Singing, he sounds like a bush baby crying for his lamp and lantern. He says that people who are not broken by God will be broken by life. I do not know what that means but I think it means tears. Cry when you sing worship songs.
He loves Lagos. He once said that people who haven’t visited Lagos have yet to meet their country. He said that Lagos is a mini–Nigeria, only much better. I thought then that maybe he was talking to me alone, trying to make me feel not so bad for knowing only Lagos. Someday soon, I will travel. I want to see the Mambila Plateau.
My sister, Bibike, is less yielded than I am. She comes with me to church sometimes, especially Thanksgiving Sunday, when rice is served. First time she came, Pastor David didn’t know it wasn’t me; I was folding prayer clothes behind the altar curtain, she was talking to someone from the choir. They were standing in front of the altar. He said, “Madam dancer, I saw you digging it during praise and worship, keep it up.” She laughed her laugh and said thank you. I was angry at her for smiling at him, so I walked into their midst and said, “Pastor, hi, this is my twin, Bibike, the One Who Doesn’t Believe in Jesus.”
And so that day, the day Mother was speaking to us about comportment, abstaining from all that sex music, the importance of respect, self-respect, and respecting others—I was crying and pretending to listen. I was really wondering, wondering whether maybe this house, Lagos, maybe even the world, was melting away and I was the only one who could remember how things used to be.
I wanted to answer her with the thoughts I was thinking, but I could not form a complete sentence. My thoughts were choking me, draining me. I wanted to ask how she could have no faith in Father. But I could not say what I wanted to say. She was stern and angry, pitiful. She looked old to me, like one of those women who sold tomatoes at Sabo night market.
Yet, after that occasion, whenever Father’s friends came by she was well dressed, commanding, funny. Mother was funny when she wanted to be, she would speak in the military president’s voice, making solemn announcements: Fellow Nigerians, I Am Announcing the Suspension of Milk Subsidy with Immediate Effect.
I saw that Father enjoyed her new attitude. He stayed home longer, started going out only in the evenings. He was talking about starting a business of his own, being an entrepreneur. One of his friends had recently been deported from Germany. It was this friend, Mr. Gary, who had all these big ideas about what they could do for money. They were becoming motivational speakers for hire. Gary had the interesting accent, my father had the looks, together they booked deals in colleges and universities, speaking to graduating students about the job market. But their partnership lasted less than a year, ending things quickly. They argued about splitting profits and separated. Then Father became a recruitment consultant. After that failed to work out, he started a business magazine with some other friends.
“What’s this?” Mother asked him when he brought home the galley copy.
“What does it look like?”
“Like another stupid way you’re wasting my money.”
“I am a businessman. This is what I do,” he said.
“You are a lazy man,” she replied. “Get a job.”
When Business Insights magazine failed—they kept at it far longer than they should have—Father’s group of friends disbanded. They had run out of courage and enthusiasm, each person moving on to independent pursuits. Father was keen to start something new. He wanted to convert the lower part of our home into a business-services support center. With a couple of computers and printers, some old photocopiers, the business would provide services to other businesses in the neighborhood, ones still dependent on traditional typewriters.
“I would rather convert it to a flat and rent it out,” Mother replied when he told her his idea. “The Soweres next door paid two years’ rent in advance; how much can a business center bring in?”
We were sitting at dinner while they argued. Peter was making a mess: okra soup spilled from his plate, forming a tiny puddle on the table. He was putting his fingers in it, handwriting shit fuck on the walls. They did not notice.
Bibike and I had visited the Soweres the day before. Their daughter, Titi, was a year older than we were. Her parents were home early from work. I was impressed by how basic and transactional their conversation that afternoon was.
“Did you put on the water-pumping machine?” Titi’s mother had asked.
“Do we still have yellow garri?” Titi’s father asked.
“What time will you be back tomorrow?” Titi asked.
It was nothing like our house. In our home, everything was at stake. Nothing was inconsequential. Even the way you said good morning could set them off. The house we lived in was a wedding gift from Mother’s father. Whenever they argued about Father’s idea, Mother said, “I will do what I like with my father’s house,” and Father said, “Do what you like, endanger our children because of your being stubborn.”
After a few months, the arguments were no longer as loud as they had been. Father was resigned, quiet. Mother was eating less and less, drinking schnapps and agbo, laughing even when nothing was funny. We entertained ourselves by dressing up with Mother’s makeup and hanging out in filling station tuck shops. I am great at meeting new people; Bibike just went everywhere I did. We made plans