Chidebelụ was creating space for the cake on the overwhelmed dining table when she received a call informing her that her husband had been rushed to the hospital. It was Arinze’s thirty-fifth birthday, a day so hot one feared that balls of fire would rain from the sky. As she hurried out, she accidentally smashed her feet into the ice cream cake on the floor. The red “H” of the cake’s wording rested right on the top of her cake-splodged foot as if in jest that the day was supposed to be “happy.” While barrelling to the hospital, she wished she and Arinze had listened to her mother’s advice and just stayed home. But somewhere in the loom of her brain lingered Aladiobiọmathe slave, may he rot in hell, of the Kingdom of the Great Living and Greater Dead and of all other Realms unknown,First son, Head of the Obi, Defender of his lineage.

She knew that the first sons in Arinze’s kindred did not live past thirty-five years. Her mother adjured her not to join that cursed family except she wanted to be a young widow. But Chidebelụ’s reasoning drowned in the pool of her love. Arinze’s monolid eyes, and his square-shaped head as large as two pumpkins put together, kept her glued to him. Nothing else mattered to her, not even his bold smile like Morris Chestnut’s or his stature like Burna boy’s. She was that child in school who always endured mockery for her small head. Adulthood saw her wearing big, wavy wigs, to conceal her small head. So Arinze’s great head plus her small head would produce children with medium-sized heads. Her family suggested that Ikem, Arinze’s younger brother, was most unlikely to die at thirty-five; and the top of his broader head resembled a ploughed field, giving him an added advantage over Arinze; and wouldn’t Chidebelụ consider marrying Ikem since she found Aso-rock-heads sexy? Their pleas fell on ears stuffed with wax. Chidebelụ told everyone who cared to listen that she served a living God, and that generational curses would never have any hold on her husband.

Until thirty-five-year-old Edozie, the first son of Arinze’s eldest uncle, turned to ashes in a plane crash. Chidebelụ endured her crying mother’s polemics as she reiterating her warning, and couldn’t Chidebelụ see it manifesting? Chidebelụ had unshakable faith in Christ Jesus. It was a plane crash. It could have been anybody for goodness sake. Chidebelụ’s mother howled loudest at Edozie’s burial as if she was Edozie’s soulmate. But she knew, Chidebelụ knew, that her tears were for her son-in-law.

The next year, Izu, Arinze’s cousin, a first son too, resident in Utah, surrendered to a four-year-breast-cancer battle: aged thirty-five. Chidebelụ’s mother called her again, crying. Chidebelụ imagined her mother seated on her favourite brown suede cushion, her phone on speaker, wiping her tears with the edge of her lappa. Chidebelụ did her best to explain to her mother that Izu’s cancer was bull-headed; it licked mastectomy. But her mother was adamant. What business did a man have with breast cancer, for goodness sake, her mother cried.

Akirika: aged thirty-four years ten months. Chidebelụ witnessed his final hours. She was in his house for a casual visit when Akirika went to ease himself. Next thing, yowls. Chidebelụ and Akirika’s wife traced the screams to the toilet. Chidebelụ stood outside the door. She didn’t want to see Akirika in such state. Akirika’s wife called out for her help. Chidebelụ was hesitant, but she went in. And standing there was Akirika, his mouth wide opened, tears streaming down his face, his scrotum neatly coiled in his trouser coil zipper all the way up as if it was part of the zipper. Some of his skin hung out as though the zipper passed through his scrotum like a train in a tunnel. His penis, as endowed as their great heads, hung there like a tree’s breaking branch. His wife, now in utter confusion, cried with her husband. She stretched her hand close to Akirika’s penis, but he screamed. She withdrew. Encouraged by the women, Akirika counted his steps, wince by wince, deep breath by deep breath, his legs spread apart, as if he had scrotal elephantiasis. His legs wobbled like a house shaken by earthquake by the time they got to the sitting room. He asked to lie down. Confusion frothed in the room: to zip down or not. Finally, they decided to zip down so that he could at least walk to the car. When his wife touched it, Akirika screamed so loud one would think droplets of molten magma landed on his chest. Chidebelụ fanned Akirika, patting his chest. His wife, her hands shaking like someone with hypothermia, counted one, two, three, go, and zip! The zipper came down, splashed with bits of scrotum, and coloured in blood. Would she keep the open wound as clean as possible, Chidebelụ suggested. So Akirika’s wife got methylated spirit and cotton wool and dabbed the rail on the scrotum. Akirika, by this time, whimpered like a dying dog. His laboured veins plastered on his skin, so visible, so thick, as if the pain made his skin as transparent as wet silk. The women covered him with a lappa and got some men to help lift him to the car. During his surgery, Chidebelụ held Akirika’s wife in her bosom, who in turn held the blood-stained lappa they had used in covering him. Akirika was wheeled out of the theatre, asleep, alive. Would he be okay, they asked the doctor. The doctor gave his affirmation. It was only then that Chidebelụ went home. Akirika never opened his eyes.

Chidebelụ’s mother called Arinze this time, as though she did not want to waste her wisdom on her daughter. Arinze and Chidebelụ were in their sitting room, resting on each other, wordlessly staring at a turned-off TV. Arinze answered the call and placed it on speakerphone. Would Arinze study Akirika’s body during the funeral, she asked, because, in two years, he would be the one in the coffin with his nose and ears stuffed with blazing white cotton wool. Before Chidebelụ could respond, Arinze hung up. She, however, observed a harangue of how dare her mother say that to Arinze, gbogbotigbo.

It might or might not have been his mother-in-law’s words, but after Akirika’s burial, Arinze gathered his cousins, who gathered their fathers, and they went visiting a diviner. He asked them to go home, that he would consult his deity, and come see them in five days. On the said they, they gathered on three benches, arranged in a U-shape, under a mango tree that was as old as, maybe, Jesus. Chidebelụ, as curious as a scientist, hid in their car that Arinze had parked behind the mango tree, and listened. If not for her rechargeable hand fan, she would have melted and poured out of the car. The seven men waited until the diviner’s voice and bell-staff pierced through their noiselessness. He sat on the blue plastic chair they reserved for him in their midst, between the eldest men, right under the tree behind whose trunk Arinze’s tinted SUV sat. They asked if Abiankata would be so kind to receive their kola nut. The diviner told them that this was not a matter of kola nut, and did he tell them that he came all the way from his house to beg for kola nut? Apologies rendered, the eldest man rolled out the reason for their invitation. He was a second son whose elder brother died at thirty-five. Their first sons died at their prime, and would Abiankata please tell them what was going on? Abiankata listened as though he was hearing the tale for the first time, chewing his teeth. It sounded as though he was chewing chin chin or kuli-kuli. He laughed, scratched his white goatee, and mocked them that ha ajụka n’oge. He pointed at the speaker and asked him his age. Ninety-two. And it took him ninety-two years to realise that something was wrong? Silence. Abiankata went ahead to tell a tale, in his shaky voice, but with the ebullience of a storyteller.

Over two-hundred years ago, your forefathers allowed jealousy to get the best of them. Aladiobiọma was a man born with greatness at the tip of his tongue. The placenta that accompanied him is under this very kola nut tree where we sit. And as he grew, the gods favoured him. He was handsome beyond measure. His eyes were as white as Amadiọha’s ram and his pupils as brown as Ala’s skin. The gods were partial towards him. Ala treated him as a favourite child. She blessed his farms with juicy crops. Because his harvests were so healthy, nobody bought elsewhere until he sold all his crops. His brothers got jealous. Things got out of hand when the king gave his only daughter to Aladiobiọma. Her refusal meant nothing. Nobody even understood why she would not want to marry Aladiobiọma. But her heart rested with Aladiobiọma’s immediate younger brother, Njọku, a secret only both of them shared. Njọku poisoned his brothers’ hearts against Aladiobiọma. So that when the white men came looking for slaves, Njọku and his three remaining brothers ganged up against Aladiobiọma, hit his head to hibernation, and sold him into slavery. The villagers combed their lands and rivers searching for clues of Aladiobiọma’s whereabouts or at least how such a hefty man vanished. The gods stayed silent. To compensate the family, the king offered his daughter to Aladiobiọma’s immediate younger brother, Njọku. Their father cried to his grave. Before his death, he ordered that the kola nut tree should never be cut down. At least his useless sons adhered to that one.

Aladiobiọma suffered tremendously: first, from the inhumanities of slavery, and second from the hurt that his beloved brothers set him up for such indignity. Like his father, he cried to his grave. He died an unhappy, unmarried slave. His body was chopped like wood, poured into a hole, and covered up. His lineage was wiped off because he left no seed. In fact, his birth was a waste. Aladiobiọma still hovers, dead, living, unable to, at the very least, join ndị ichie. His blood cries for blood. He is responsible for the deaths of your first sons and will not stop until he is appeased.

The compound stayed mute. Even the air stood still, as though drawn to the story. They asked the diviner what they may do to appease the angry spirit. He told them two things, and, according to Aladiobiọma’s instructions, they must occur in that order. First, they would marry Aladiobiọma a wife to bear him sons who would carry on his name. Second, they had to give Aladiobiọma a befitting funeral so that he could join his ancestors. The second one was not an issue, but for goodness sake… for goodness sake, but would Abiankata be so kind as to tell them how to go about the first request? An erected penis, the diviner responded, would find the vagina, even in the darkest pit. He began to sing. He had a nice voice for a man his age, but the words made no sense to Chidebelụ. The sound of his bell-staff faded away. It sounded like something coming from a far distance when the men’s vocal cords returned from vacation. The big question was which family would marry out their daughter to a dead man. They decided to sleep on it and reconvene the next day. Chidebelụ found herself drenched in sweat by the time she emerged from the car.

That night, Chidebelụ and her husband had a discussion so intense it almost started a fight. He opined that they did exactly as the diviner instructed. He accused Chidebelụ of insensitivity because it was not her head on the chopping board. She insisted that she served a living God so they should call a pastor who would use his anointing to break the yoke. Which yolk, Arinze wanted to know. Was it the yolk of akwa ọgazi, or the yolk of akwa ọkụkọ, ordid she mean the yolk of akwa eke? Chidebelụ was still explaining that she meant yoke, not yolk, when he banged the door behind him. A crying Chidebelụ called her mother. Her mother only hummed and hemmed while Chidebelụ ranted. Why would Arinze, her husband, wear the rosary and the scapular on this neck when he lacked faith in their efficacy? Her mother chuckled. Chidebelụ steamed. Would her mother mind telling her what in the world was funny? What was funny, her mother responded, was that Chidebelụ had a small head because she forgot to fill it up with sense while she was in the womb. Chidebelụ threatened to ring off, but her mother apologised, three quick ndo that sounded like mockery. Then she went on to explain to Chidebelụ that should Aladiobiọma’s spirit come for Arinze, it would first borrow the rosary and scapular on Arinze’s neck and wear them to show Arinze na we-we. Then he would hold Arinze’s hand and take him to where his cousins were chilling. Then, oh, Chidebelụ should not worry, Arinze would get a… Chidebelụ hung up.

Aladiobiọma’s conditions were met in one year. The marriage took place in the dead of the night, under the kola nut tree. The bride—the only female in attendance, dressed in black as a widow that she had become—held Abiankata’s ikenga and vowed to take Aladiobiọma to be her husband. She pledged her love and loyalty and faithfulness to the dead man. The bride, Azụka, was a twenty-five-year-old tailor from a family that had been flogged to humility by poverty. Her skin was dry and looked like an overused black shirt. Her blind father was a professional beggar. Her mother was a maize seller who only sold during the maize season. Azụka was the breadwinner of the family with the meagre sum she made from patching clothes. It was not surprising that she and her family would jump at the offer to become a member of such a very wealthy family who promised to take care of Azụka’s parents and train her and her nine siblings in school. All Azụka needed to do was pledge her loyalty to Aladiobiọma and bear children for him. Nobody cared who the biological father(s) of the children would be. Before the marriage ceremony, they knocked down her parents’ bunk and built a small cosy house in its stead. During Aladiobiọma’s funeral, Azụka’s sat under the “Widow” canopy, receiving sympathisers’ condolences.

Only a year after, Chidebelụ, whose brown face was smeared with mascara-tinted tears and feet sticky with cake, ran into the hospital asking doctors and nurses and cleaners and patients where her husband was. An elderly nurse took her to Arinze’s ward. Plaster lumped at the left side of his head. He wore a blue hospital gown. He was asleep. The zigzag lines on the heart rate monitor, the nurse explained, showed that his heart was beating just fine. No problem at all. He sustained only a minor cut in his head which had been stitched. He was sedated so that he could rest. All Chidebelụ could think of was Akirika. As if the nurse read the worry in Chidebelụ furrowed brows and her sulky pouted lips, she placed a hand around Chidebelụ’s shoulder and assured her that her husband would be awake in three hours. Her guarantee? She’s been a nurse for thirty-five years, and she could tell a bad case from a good one, and she’s never been wrong, ask anybody.

Chidebelụ sat on the visitor’s chair, held Arinze’s hand, and said her rosary while she waited for the said three hours.

“Slave of the Living Dead“ was first published in Brigids Gate Press Anthology (02/2022)