"...And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain…"
That was the last thing Sarah heard from the Reverend Father before everything became a blur. In that palling silence, punctuated only by the Priest's funereal montones, a thick darkness descended on the her, swallowing up every light, every oxygen, every trace of life around her. The darkness, unrelenting in its predatory mission, increased in density and pitch, and with that it penetrated Sarah's heart, sealing off the flow of blood in her body. She looked about the place in shock, trying to come to terms with this nightmare, unwilling to believe that she was dying. She pinched herself and felt nothing. She yelled and heard nothing. Frantically, she swayed her hand in mid-air in desperate grope for something or someone. All her family and quite a few of her friends were in the church auditorium a minute ago. Where had they gone to? What in the world was happening? The more she tried to think, the more the darkness seeped into soul and clouded her brain, and as the moments passed, her mind stopped. For one brief moment, the fact of Geoffrey's death came like flashes of lightning, filing her mind— which was now a gaping void— for a second with such strange luminescence that only succeeded in showing the swollen, lifeless face of Geoffrey lying in the casket. Shorn of all strength, her wobbly feet gave way under her and she crumpled up and lay still on the ground.
***
"How are you feeling, Sarah?"
Sarah's eyes had been wide open for more than 30 minutes since she was revived at the hospital, but she wasn't seeing anything even though the was looking up at the white ceiling of the hospital room. Her eyes were bulging, glassy and unseeing as she stared upwards unblinkingly as though she had lost her mind.
"How are you feeling, Sarah?"
She heard the voice this time and turned her head to the right. She stared into the face of her mother. "He can't be dead, Mum," she said.
"Oh, my darling," her mother said, wiping the tears from her eyes. "He has been dead three weeks now. I thought you had come to terms with it. What happened today?"
"Did you hate him that much, Mum?" Sarah whimpered.
Her mum did a double take, stunned by what she had just heard.
"My God," her mum gasped, "Sarah, what has come over you? I loved Geoffrey like a son!"
Sarah turned her face away from her mother and began to gaze at the ceiling again.
"Baby, are you all right?" her mum snuffled, tears streaking down her eyes. "Please don't do this to me, Sarah. You're my only child, the only thing I have in this world. Please don't do this to me."
Sarah kept looking upwards. At a point she giggled like a small child and said, "Where's the love of my life?"
"Oh, no!" her mother cried, moving her wheelchair and making her way out of the room, calling for the doctor. It was clear to her now that her daughter had lost her mind.
Moments later, the doctor came to ward and said, "She's still very much in tbe first stage of grief. Denial."
***
Later that day, around 11 P.M., Sarah's mother, Nkechi, sat on her wheelchair close the bed where her daughter slept, and she wept and prayed.
"God, please give me daughter the intestinal fortitude to bear this loss. Don't let this grief break her, Oh Lord."
Nkechi began to reflect on the previous years, long ago when she and her daughter lived in crushing privation. And it broke her heart that this tragedy had happened when things had begun to go smoothly for them, when God had finally answered their prayers and made them rise above poverty. How could this happen now that they were supposed to be happy and enjoy all the thins that had eluded them in the past. How could this disaster happen now that they were wealthy and had the best things that money could buy? Why had fate dealt with them this way?
Staring at the face of her daughter, Nkechi began to reminisce about the suffering she and her daughter had endured years ago.
Nkechi's troubles in life increased when she was raped many years ago in the heart of Shibiri, Lagos state, when she was coming back from the chemist shop. She had been trotting along the dark street when someone pounced on her and made his way with her. She had never imagined anything like that would happen to her since she ran away from Chief Uzodika in Abia State, in 1997. She ran because she had no life there; she was married off to the rich business mogul— who has large shops that sold spare parts of vehicles across Eastern Nigeria and even beyond— when she was just sixteen, and Chief Uzodika treated like a piece of trash when James and John— her twins— died of the flu in quick succession. Those were her only children, and when they died everyone called her a witch, including her husband. The other wives— all seven of them, laughed behind her back, feeling that God had vindicated them after years of being ignored by their husband because of her. Ezinne, the first wife, couldn't contain her joy when she learned that James had died. She was heard chanting, "Ekene dili Chukwu! (God be praised!)" ceaselessly as though she had just received the best news of her life. They all thought she had got her comeuppance after using juju on their husband for so long. Yes, they all believed that Nkechi had bewitched their husband so she could have him to herself only.
When the second son died, Chief Uzodika was enraged, for he loved the boy dearly. He couldn't, for the life of him, understand how he would lose two sons in a matter of days, and so he bought his other wives' idea of witchcraft: Nkechi had to be a witch for such a thing to happen.
"Kick her out!" they told him, but he didn't do that. Instead, he beat her almost daily, demanding that she spoke the truth. Nkechi knew she had nowhere to run to. An orphan sold to a man four times her age, she simply had nowhere to go, but she knew that if she stayed one more day she would be killed, either by her husband or the other gloating and bitter wives. So she ran, far away from Abia, from everything familiar, from her past, her history. She didn't know where the truck was headed, but she pleaded with the driver to allow her get in. The man told her he was travelling to Yorubaland and, admist tears, she said she didn't care. She just wanted to get far away. She just didn't want to die. And after what seemed like a day, the kind driver offloaded her at a bridge in Shibiri, Lagos State. That same town that a man attacked her one night and had his way with her with such brute force. And nine months later, she gave birth to a girl. In that bridge. And she named her Sarah.
A beggar's life was all Sarah knew from the moment she could say "mama". She was Aisha's trophy, her means of extracting compassion from people as she held her tight with both hands every day under the bridge, holding a long stick, with very dark sunglasses across her deep-set eyes, feigning blindness for a living. She would pinch Sarah and asked her to shout, "Help me! My mother is blind and I don't have food to eat."
Many people didn't look in their direction but a few compassionate people dropped 10 naira and 20 naira notes in their begging bowl. Some recoiled whenever Sarah so much as touched them, giving her a menacing stare as if to slam their knuckles across her jawline. And then they would frantically wipe the place she had touched them with a handkerchief and stomp angrily away, as though she had a disease. Sarah would look at them and wonder why they acted that way. Whenever she complained to her mother, she would pinch her harder and ask her to shout louder or there would be no food for you. Galvanized by this threat, Sarah would clear your throat and shout, "I said help us! My mother is blind and I have no food to eat!"
Some days, they were lucky. People would drop money without looking at their faces. Before evening, Sarah would have emptied the bowl five times in her mother's pocket. That meant good food for that day. Her mother would buy you zobo and kunnu and cabin biscuits for all her troubles. Those were your favorites, and Nkechi always rewarded her with them when she did a good begging job. And both of them would happily eat everything that was bought, including the jollof rice that some kind people distributed to all the beggars. Nkechi would have removed her glasses and kept her prized stick in a secure corner. And then both mother and daughter would eat and eat late into the night because the food wouldn't last till the next day. "You must eat everything," she would tell Sarah, "because maggot will start swimming in them by tomorrow."
Other days, they were unlucky. They would walk about about the road, the sun beating down on them with the force of a battering ram, and all you would realized wouldn't be more than 30 naira. No one seemed to care. They all moved on as if they never heard Sarah's tiny, shrill voice crying for help. Tired and frustrated, Sarah would begin to cry and your mother would pinch her again and say,
"My daughter, some days are like this. Please don't be discouraged."
And then she would add her own voice. "Please help us! My daughter and I are hungry!"
At 11, Sarah did not know of any other life apart from the life under the bridge. She was malnourished, emaciated, and too small for her age. Her teeth were as yellow as anything anyone could think of, and her skin was so black it looked like darkness. She were getting thinner and thinner by the day but neither she nor her mother realised this, until she broke down one day.
It was a day of successful begging. They had begged like never before, with such gusto and aplomb that people kept dropping cash after cash. 10 naira. 20 naira. 100 naira. 200 naira. Wow! It was easily their best day in Lagos. Never had she and her mum realized that amount of money. Nkechi was so happy but she tried so hard not to show it at the roadside. Instead of pinching her daughter, she stroked the small of her neck appreciatingly, feeling so proud of the day's achievement.
She did not know that tragedy was looming.