Chigozie Obioma - The Fishermen

“Then stand and refute that prophecy in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The rows lifted as the people jumped to their feet and became caught up in a rapturous session of fierce prayers.

Mother’s efforts to heal her son, Ikenna, were wasted on him. For the prophecy, like an angered beast, had gone berserk and was destroying his mind with the ferocity of madness, pulling down paintings, breaking walls, emptying cupboards, turning tables until all that he knew, all that was him, all that had become him was left in disarray. To my brother, Ikenna, the fear of death as prophesied by Abulu had become palpable, a caged world within which he was irretrievably trapped, and beyond which nothing else existed.

I once heard that when fear takes possession of the heart of a person, it diminishes them. This could be said of my brother, for when the fear took possession of his heart, it robbed him of many things — his peace, his well-being, his relationships, his health, and even his faith.

Ikenna began walking alone to the school he and Boja attended. He’d wake up as early as 7 a.m., skipping breakfast, to avoid going with Boja. He began skipping lunches and dinners when they were either eba or pounded yam, meals that were eaten together from the same bowl as his brothers. As a result, he started to emaciate until deep incurvatures were carved between his collarbones and his neck, and his cheekbones became visible. Then, in time, the whites of his eyes turned pale yellow.

Mother took notice. She protested, pleaded and threatened, but all to no avail. One morning towards the end of the school term in the first week of July, she locked the door and insisted Ikenna have breakfast before going to school. Ikenna was devastated because he was to have an exam that day. He pleaded with Mother to let him leave—“Is it not my body? What do you care if I eat or not? Leave me, why not let me be?”—he broke down and sobbed. But Mother held on until he finally resigned to eat. As he ate the bread and an omelette, he railed against her and all of us. He said everyone in our family hated him and vowed to leave the house someday soon, never to be seen again.

“You will see,” he threatened, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “All of this will soon end and all of you will be free from me; you will see.”

“But you know this is not true, Ikenna,” Mother replied. “No one hates you; not me, not one of your brothers. You are doing all this to yourself because of your fear, a fear you have tilled and cultivated with your own hands, Ikenna. Ikenna, you have chosen to believe the visions of a madman, a useless fellow, who is not even fit to be called a human being. Not even greater than — what should I compare him to? — the fish, no, the tadpoles you picked from that river? Tadpoles. A man who, just the other day, people in the market were talking about how he found a mallam’s herd grazing in a field and calves suckling their mothers’ udders, joined the cows and started sucking the udder of one of the cows!” Mother made a spitting sound to show disgust at the troubling image of a man sucking a cow. “How can you believe what a man who sucks cows’ breasts says? No Ikenna, you have done this to yourself, eh? You have no one to blame. We’ve prayed for you even if you refused to pray for yourself. Don’t blame anyone for continuing to live in useless fear.”

Ikenna seemed to have listened to Mother, staring blankly at the wall before him. For a second, it appeared as if he’d realized his folly; that Mother’s words had incised his tortured heart, causing the black blood of fear to leak it out. He ate his meal at the dining table for the first time in a long time in silence. And when he was finished, he murmured “Thank you” to Mother, the customary thanks we gave to our parents after every meal, which Ikenna had not said in weeks. He took the utensils to the kitchen and washed them as Mother had taught us to do rather than leave them on the table or in his room as he’d been doing for weeks. Then he left for school.

When he was gone, Boja, who’d just brushed his teeth and was waiting for Obembe to finish using the bathroom, came into the sitting room swaddled in the bath towel he shared with Ikenna.

“I’m afraid he will make good his threat and leave,” he said to Mother.

Mother shook her head, her eyes focused on the fridge, which she’d begun cleaning with a rag. Then bending so that nothing but her legs alone became visible under the door of the refrigerator, she said: “He won’t; where will he go?”

“I don’t know,” Boja replied, “but I fear.”

“He won’t; this fear will not last, it will leave him,” Mother said in a voice that was assured, and I could tell at the time that she’d believed it.

Mother continued to strive to heal him and to protect him. I recall one Sunday afternoon when Iya Iyabo came in while we were eating black-eyed peas marinated in palm-oil sauce. I’d seen the commotion around the compound, but we’d been trained not to go out to watch such gatherings as other children of the town did. Someone could be armed, Father always warned, there could be gunshots, and you could be hit. So we stayed back in our rooms because Mother was at home and would have punished or reported an offender to Father. Boja had two tests the next day — on Social Science and History — two subjects he detested, and had grown prickly, cursing all the historical figures (“dead idiots”) in the book. Not wanting to disturb him or be around him while in such a state of frustration, Obembe and I were in the sitting room with Mother when the woman knocked on the door.

“Ah, Iya Iyabo,” Mother called, rising swiftly from her seat once the woman came in.

“Mama Ike,” the woman, whom I still hated for telling on us, said.

“Come chop, we dey chop,” Mother said.

Nkem threw her hands up from the table and reached for the woman who lifted her off her chair at once.

“What happened?” Mother said.

“Aderonke,” the woman said. “Aderonke killed her husband today.”

“ E-woh! ” Mother screamed.

“ Wo, bi o se, shele ni, ” the woman began. She often spoke Yoruba to Mother, who perfectly understood the language, although she never believed herself proficient in it and almost never spoke it otherwise, but would always have us talk with people on her behalf. “Biyi drunk again last night and came home naked,” Iya Iyabo said, switching to Pidgin English. She put her hands on her head and began to squirm plaintively.

“Please, Iya Iyabo, calm and tell me.”

“Her pikin, Onyiladun, dey sick. As her husband come inside, she tell am make im give medicine money, but im start to beat-beat am and im pikin.”

“ Chi-neke! ” Mother gasped, and covered her mouth with her hands.

“ Bee ni —it is so,” Iya Iyabo said. “Aderonke vex say im dey beat the sick pikin, and fear say because of im alcohol, say im go kill am, so she hit im husband with a chair.”

“Eh, eh,” Mother stammered.

“The man die,” Iya Iyabo said. “Im die just like that.”

The woman had sat on the floor, her head resting on the door, rocking and shaking her legs. Mother stood still with shock; seeming frightened, she hugged herself. The food I’d just scooped into my mouth was instantly forgotten at this news of Oga Biyi’s death, for I knew the wasted man. He was like a goat. Although he was not mad, he snarled and plodded when in his usual state of drunkenness. In the mornings, we often saw him on the way to school, walking home, sober, but by evening you’d see him staggering about, drunk again.

“But you know,” Mama Iyabo said, wiping her eyes, “I no think say she do am with clear eyes.”

“Eh, how do you mean?” Mother said.