Dear Levi

Dear Levi,

Four weeks ago, I buried my bracelet, my ring, and my baby.

She was three days old.

I don’t remember now what the doctor said was wrong with her. But you can’t blame me. Nwokeoma was clawing at my face incessantly as the doctor started speaking, pulling my hair and threatening to pluck my eyes out. He would have done it if not for the doctor and the nurses. I still have layered bruises on my left eye.

Before I got home, I tried calling my father. I didn’t want Nwokeoma to reach him before me. But he didn’t answer the phone, and I was reminded again that America is not Nigeria; it was 3 am in Nigeria, so he had to be fast asleep. I know you’d have advised me against what I was about to do, but it felt necessary. I needed him to hear it from my mouth, and not another's, that I had eaten my fourth child. I wished to save him the pain of hearing it from Nwokeoma.

Okay, I just lied, Levi. I wasn’t trying to save him from any pain. In fact, I wanted to be the bearer. I wanted to pause quietly on the phone in bated breath as he listened to me, and then hear his hoarse scream. I wanted my short three minutes of glee and gloating, the type only a devious woman would enjoy.

But he denied me all that privilege when he didn’t answer his phone. I tried my mother’s. Switched off. Maybe there was no light at home. Three years ago, Nwokeoma had gotten them a very big generator. Do you remember this, Levi? You called it ‘a beastly offering’. That was so funny.

That day, Nwokeoma drove off after speaking with the doctor, and I carried the lifeless body of my child in my arms. She wasn’t dressed in any of the cotton onesies I’d bought on Amazon, nor was she wrapped in the beautifully knitted shawls I’d used for her sister and brothers before her. The nurses were flustering about and whispering awkwardly to themselves. They weren’t sure where I was taking her to and, perhaps, why I was taking her anyway. But here in Vermont, home burials are legal.

Eventually, one of them, a white woman about my age, asked me to wait a while as the clouds looked like a heavy downpour was brewing. Her eyes were so kind. But I smiled and told her, to the hearing of the other nurses, that I’d prefer to be on my way. The pity in their eyes burdened me.

I hadn’t named her. I had been too afraid to do that. Naming her made me fear that she’d become real to me, become a tangible part of me. And yet, as I held her cold, lifeless body in my arms, the ache in my heart was no less than it had been with the previous ones.

Ah! I’ve run afoul of your advice again, Levi. Yes, Jachimma, Kambiri, and Ozoemena were complete humans, not merely previous ones, but still, you get what I mean.

Speaking of Ozoemena, did I tell you that we named him just two days before he walked that journey? Yes. We had held a beautiful ceremony for him five months after we first returned with him from the hospital, and it was that day we officially chose a name for him. All the while, we'd referred to him as Baby.

“I hadn’t named her. I had been too afraid to do that. Naming her made me fear that she’d become real to me, become a tangible part of me.”

I can’t forget the day Ozo said goodbye to me, Levi. I was cuddling him, running my fingers through his beautiful hair, and talking baby talk with him. He took my hair. Thick, full, and coarse. Do you remember you used to call me Diana Ross? Aha! Ozo’s hair was just like mine. He stayed the longest, and so when Nwokeoma eventually said we’d name him, I agreed.

It was supposed to be a small party. But Nwokeoma ended up inviting all the Nigerians who lived within a 30-minute distance from our home. I think he couldn’t contain his excitement. That day made Ozo exactly five months, and his ceremony was the closest thing to the naming ceremonies I was used to back home in Nigeria. As you’d expect, I cried that day.

But I didn’t cry because of Ozo. It all started when one of our Yoruba friends, Bolanle, and her husband, Uncle Femi, started a conversation about Nigerian Christmas and how Christmas in Nigeria was unlike Christmas anywhere else in the world. Our other Nigerian friends chipped in. Everyone was talking about what happened differently in Nigeria. And then, Ozo began to cry. The wife of one of Nwokeoma’s friends walked up to the cot where Ozo lay and rocked him gently.

Then she began to sing: Onye tili nwa na-ebe akwa, weta uziza, weta ose.

Ozo stopped crying and began to stare at her the way he stared at me whenever I breastfed him. I mean, with interest and in awe. Levi, that’s when I became weak. I rushed to the kitchen and wept. Perhaps, I was hormonal since I was still lactating. But I don’t think it was just that. I had missed home, and hearing that woman sing that song stirred a flood of nostalgia within me, leaving me with the same urgent, lower belly sensations as when I had been in labour.

Oh, Levi! Do you even understand what I’m talking about? You’ve never had to be away from home for this long, and you’ll never know what it is to be in labour. But the closest analogy I can give you is this: You know how you feel when you are pressed? Like there is a tumultuous boiling somewhere in your groin? Oh well, that’s how I felt that day as she sang. Wait, I was talking about Ozo’s hair earlier, not so?

I’m sorry. I go up and down in conversations these days. I don’t seem to have a direction for anything, neither my speeches nor my life. So back to the story of his naming ceremony. It turned out to be beautiful. And we eventually named him Ozoemena because he’d outlived his predecessors, and we were earnestly trusting that God would let him stay.

So that day, as I ran my hands through his hair, enjoying the warmth of my son’s tiny body on my bosom, he rewarded me with a gummy smile. It was the most sublime feeling in the world. Similar to what you felt the day you walked into the National Theatre and saw your painting at the entrance, I suppose. I don’t know, maybe Nwokeoma is right, maybe I’m insane, but I did feel for a second that he was now a grown man, as though I wasn’t holding my five-month-old toddler, as though he was a grown adult acknowledging me, as though he would understand anything I told him at that moment.

So, I did something strange. I stopped cooing at him, and I stopped the baby talk. I began to tell him all the things I’d buried in my mind, in my heart. I told him about the last four years of my life and how his presence in the world both validated and imprisoned me. If he stayed, I was worth something finally. But also, if he stayed, I had to stay.

When I was done talking, Ozo clutched at my finger. I tell you, Levi, within those few seconds, my son was a man. Not a man in the way people call a male child a man. I mean, he grew into an adult. A knowing, sensing adult. I’m out of my mind, maybe, or perhaps, these are the babbles of a grieving woman, but believe me, he felt different.

As I was saying, he clutched at my finger, and his grip was firm, just like his gaze on me was steadfast. He was trying to say something to me, but I didn't understand it then. I think I do now. Next, I heard the honk of Nwokeoma’s car, and I rushed downstairs to open the door. It was a good day, so ear whispers, buttocks squeezes, and short kisses caused some delay at the door. By the time we walked back upstairs and Nwokeoma lifted his son to give him his own share of kisses, he was gone. Just like that, Levi. He was gone. I called him by his name for only two days.

That’s why I didn’t name her. That day, as I cradled her in my arms and walked away from the hospital, I had no idea where I was headed. With the previous ones, Nwokeoma either allowed the hospital to handle it or called a funeral director. But this time, Nwokeoma left us at the hospital, and I had no idea where he went.

So, I stopped a cab and took her home. I placed her dead body on the porch and walked to the garden behind and got a shovel. I was going to bury my child quietly in my backyard like a precious family dog. But even when people lose their family dogs, the entire family is present to comfort each other. At least, that’s how it’s done here in the States. But there was no one standing beside me through this. I had no one. Nwokeoma was either outside or somewhere upstairs, soaking his belt in a bucket of water and sipping what would make his eyes red later. I wanted to trade places with her. I envied her peace. I envied her capacity to choose to exit this world without fear of judgment.

I didn’t want the condolence of a funeral director or a funeral parlour. I didn’t want to have the stilted conversation with them over caskets, the sympathy visits by friends at the funeral parlour, or the regurgitated words of consolation by people who neither knew her nor watched her in her last minutes struggle with breath. I was with her alone when her soul left. I wanted to be with her alone as her body got buried.

I was still digging when I realised it was the 14th of July. I was burying my daughter three days to the day I was born. Every swing of the shovel after this was punctuated with a tear. I had not meant to cry. I swear to you. I had meant for this to be seamless. I had started as dead-set and as cold as the body of my daughter lying on the front porch. At some point, one has to have become a master at losing her children and carrying her engorged breasts up and down town, you know. But after four, it seemed I was still a slow learner. I was wiping my eyes, then my nose, and then I wasn’t sure anymore if it was the drizzle or if it was tears wetting my face.

It was the most morbid entrance into twenty-five. But just like that, Levi, I was twenty-five. So, it was just four years ago I was dragged across lands and seas to this land that I was promised flowed with milk and honey. Alas, it has fed me nothing but stale bread and soured milk.

My breasts were heavy, engorged with breast milk that no baby would suck, and each time I hacked the earth with my shovel, they dangled and made me wince in pain. As I continued thrusting into the earth, moist, red sand emerged. That colour triggered me. It was the same colour as the ichafu I had worn on my traditional wedding day. You wrote that you saw my wedding pictures on Facebook. Well, I was both glad and sad to read that. I was glad you cared enough to know how that day went, but I was sad knowing how every photo must have distressed you.

You always had an eye for detail, Levi. Isn’t that how you’ve gotten to where you are today? So, I don’t know if you’d looked enough and seen the sullen look in my eyes that day. Few minutes before I was ushered out to meet my in-laws, my mother dragged me to a corner and scolded me. She said I looked like death, and she couldn’t understand my countenance. She needed me to match her energy. She had invited about forty women: some from the church, some from our community, some from her office, and even some that she’d always referred to as her enemies. I wondered why she invited them to my wedding.

These were people she mentioned in her prayers whenever she prayed aloud against the enemies of her success. Women she called by their names in our devotions and asked my brothers and me to pray against. And yet, there they were at my wedding, all dressed in the yellow damask she had distributed to her clique. I wasn’t curious for long. When it was time for me to change, she dragged me to a corner again and asked me to smile like I had the sides of my mouth permanently stitched apart. God had shamed her enemies and elevated us above our fellow men by giving her a son-in-law who had money, who lived in Obodo Oyibo and came to our compound with a new car each time he visited.

“My breasts were heavy, engorged with breast milk that no baby would suck, and each time I hacked the earth with my shovel, they dangled and made me wince in pain.”

She told me that if I didn’t wipe that sunken look off my face, her enemies would get the wrong signal and would go home gloating. They needed to be plagued by the memories of my big wedding, and only my excited face could rub it in. None of their daughters had married into wealth as I had done.

Even on that day, Levi, I wanted you. It was your face I wanted leaning into mine when the minister asked that I be unveiled. And at night, when Nwokeoma plunged at my body with wild hunger, it was your face I had hoped I’d find when I looked up. At the wedding, I had wanted to call you to tell you that you were wrong about what you said, that I wasn’t a coward. That I wasn’t spineless.

But by 2 a.m. that night, I'd been robbed. I’d lain motionless beneath his weight, watching passively as I was plundered. By the next morning, when I looked into the mirror, I saw a coward. I saw a spineless woman, and it shamed me that you were right.

But I had thought that sacrifice for love was courage, and it became nobler when it was love for one’s own family. My father was certain that he would die if I didn’t marry Nwokeoma. So, hadn’t I done something noble by yielding like a lamb led to the slaughterhouse? I must confess, though, that I’d never really understood what my father meant, whether he meant that his emotions would fail him or that Nwokeoma would withdraw the funds for my father’s treatment at the heart centre. But each time he said this, he would hold his heart, and his voice would break as though he was about to cry, and I didn’t want to be responsible for his death.

So, the one time I wanted to stand up for myself was the day I buried my fourth child. Perhaps the reason I’d hastened away from the hospital was that I wanted her to hurry and meet her siblings before her. They’ll be four children dancing, holding hands and swinging themselves about, not understanding my grief. I didn’t let my tears stop me. That was supposed to be the day I reclaimed my life, my youth, my body.

After digging the grave, I went to the front porch and scooped her. I walked back to the grave–the first expression of my strength–and I waited calmly before I lowered her. Her skin was chalky now, and yet staring at her brought me joy.

There was no morbidity about this. She was still my child, even in death. She’d suckled my breasts, even if for only three days. She’d nestled in my bosom when she felt sleepy, and I could draw the shape of her nose with my eyes closed because I’d stared at them for hours when there was breath in them. I held her close to my body. She likely would be the last offspring to come from this body. I wanted to memorise the feeling and save it somewhere in my heart that I could always go back to. It was then I decided to name her. I drew out my ring, and for some strange reason, I thought to let it go with her. And my silver bracelet, too–the gift Nwokeoma gave me that made my mother nickname him Nwokeoma, a good man. It was as I lowered to put her in that I heard the sounds of emerging chaos.

The first sound was the sound of thunder heralding a downpour that was fast on its heels. The sky had already darkened into a deep hue. The other sound was the backyard gate being opened. Nwokeoma stormed into us, his eyes a flaming red, just as I’d known it would be.

He charged at me wildly, Kosisochi lying limply in my arms. I stopped thinking straight. I did the first thing that came to my mind. I ducked my head into the hole to miss his blow. He must have mistaken that for me wanting to be buried, for he began to push my head into the grave, pressing my neck firmly down as though compelling me to taste the red earth. Kosi was dead already, and yet, I worried that he was stifling her as her body laid pressed beneath mine. The clouds had finally decided to empty themselves on the earth, and the rain poured on us in torrents.

I heard him swear, curse, and call me the names he’d called me every day of our lives together these past four years. But hearing his loud voice against the backdrop of the heavy rain gave his words an epic quality, as though he was calling out the revered titles of a legend. Was it legendary now to be a fucking bitch, a witch, a useless woman, a street urchin, a poor bastard, and a child-eater?

At first, just like in other times, I allowed him to do with my body as he pleased: toss it up and down, hit it here and there like dough being beaten into pizza. I didn’t mind that I was under the rain, that my body was wet and freezing, that the steady patter of the rain reminded me of his belt, or that my head was being pushed into the hole I’d dug to bury my child. I didn’t mind at all that clumps of clay were latching onto my face and that my vision was blurring. All I was bothered about was shielding the body of my daughter. She wasn’t supposed to see any assault. She was supposed to go to the land of peace unscathed. But the longer I tried to protect her beneath me, the more impossible it became.

And so, for the first time in my life, Levi, I fought back. I forced my face back up, pulled his foot close to me and dug my teeth into his thigh with all the strength I had. He kicked so hard at my stomach with his other foot that I staggered back.

Am I telling you too much, Levi? I’m sorry. You asked to know what has been up with me since you last wrote, and I tried several times to come up with a light response. But I've realised that, whether in person or a letter, it is sorely difficult to lie to you. Your voice compels the truth out of me when we’re together, and your memories do the same when we’re apart.

Anyway, after he kicked me, it took a few minutes until I passed out. Within those minutes, he stomped at me, my face and my stomach, and smeared me with spittle. This is a favourite of his, either in times of love or in times of war. In times of love, he dribbled it slowly all over my body and licked it out softly. In times of war, he spat them at me. That day, he spat and reeled out names, his favourite words for me. I don’t want to go over them again. I already told you some earlier.

I saw dimly the outline of his figure towering above me. He was drenched, too, and the amber blotch on his shirt had gone faint because of the rain. I saw the satisfied pout of his lips and the incensed rage in his eyes as he stared down at me, lying motionless at his feet. I struggled to speak. I wanted to ask him where our daughter’s body was. I wanted to ask him to take it away from under the rain and onto the porch. I wanted to tell him to please make her exit back to her creator a dignified one. I didn’t want my baby appearing in the spirit land maimed, drenched, and soiled. But I couldn’t speak. Spurts of blood ran from my nose and made me dizzy. I closed my eyes to rest. And then I could neither see nor hear anything anymore. I even stopped feeling the rain on my body.

I woke up many hours later in our bedroom. I don’t know now how long I was unconscious because I didn’t check. The first thing I noticed was that I was clean—even had new clothes on and was on our bed. The next thing I noticed was that I had a terrible headache. I stayed in the same position for a few seconds until the sound of soft music playing somewhere quickened me. That eerie sound was familiar. It reminded me of a time and a place, but the headache couldn’t allow me think. I struggled to stand, but several locations in my body warned me at the same time. The fiercest was the one in my stomach. There was a weight there as if I had been sawn apart at my midriff and left with the two parts of my body snugly fit together. But the music wouldn’t stop, and I needed to know what was happening.

I crawled my way to the door. Remember how we used to crawl as kids on your father’s farm, our eyes covered with socks, looking for tubers of potato Amanda littered around? I remember how you always managed to find all the potato tubers, and I’d wonder whether you won because it was your father’s farm or because you were older. I’m drifting again. I'm sorry. So somehow, Levi, I crawled to the door and turned the knob. At the door a new strength found me, and I managed to lift myself. Perhaps it was the strange world going on downstairs that gave me strength. From the door of our room, I saw where the music emanated from: it was our living room downstairs. Taped to the ceiling were helium-filled balloons of different colours, and in different corners of the room laid floor bouquets of chrysanthemums, white lilies, and orchids. Three of our friends stood on the left and right sides of Nwokeoma, their faces solemn. There was another unfamiliar face among them holding a heavy book from which he read. Our centre table had been moved to the side. In its place was a steel, white 10-inch casket, and on top of it laid a rose and lily casket spray.

Nwokeoma was holding a living room funeral for our dead child in my absence, along with three of our friends, or more correctly, his friends, and a funeral director. That song was still playing softly in the background. And then I remembered it. It was the same song Nwokeoma left on replay days after each of our children died. It was Celtic, and I’ve never known the meaning, but Nwokeoma had once said that it soothed him.

It was then I went raving mad, Levi. This man had robbed me of everything sunny in my life and wanted to rob me of the gift of saying goodbye to my daughter. He’d pummeled me into darkness and had set up a funeral for my daughter in my absence. I screamed so loud that they all looked up at me in shock. I began making my way downstairs hurriedly, but Nwokeoma had left their circle and was making his way toward me. He met me at the stairs, grabbed me by the arms, and began to whisper hastily to me, words I didn’t understand. Why was he consoling me that way, why was he asking me about my drugs, and what did he mean by causing a scene and embarrassment at our daughter’s home funeral?

I struggled to wrest my arms off his grip, certain that in the presence of the others, people we called friends, he would not possibly exert any force on me.

I recognised the familiar face. He was the same funeral director who conducted the burials of our three dead children. Nwokeoma had never carried me along in the planning of the burials of any of our children.

That day, as he carried me back upstairs and locked me inside our bedroom, it was my turn to curse. I banged at the door violently, yelling that he opened the door. I cursed his soul. I cursed the day he gave my father and me that lift from University Junction; I cursed my parents for talking me into this marriage in exchange for bags of rice, a new generator, wads of cash, and a deadbeat Volvo that my father was spending his pension repairing every day. I cursed the day I entered that flight to America to join him. And Levi, forgive me now, but I cursed you too for not outdoing yourself in fighting for me.

Yes, I knew you’d never come to see me again at my parents’ house after that day, the day my father said you had nothing, and what you did for a living was splatter watercolour across surfaces, creating images that looked like our village masquerades. Mmanwu, as he put it. But I had thought when you left that you would still reach out to me from wherever you were. I had no idea that my silence that day had wounded you. Again, even though you say you truly have, I ask that you forgive me, Levi. Perhaps the creator denied me a spine at birth, but I tell you, I finally have one now.

I hear that among our Nigerian friends here, I am now a mad woman. I ran mad sometime after the death of my fourth child, Kosi, and I had to be prevented from attending her home funeral because I am now violent. Rumour has it that I didn’t try to register the death of my child and that he caught me trying to hack the head of our daughter right in our backyard.

I hear that I’m aware of the reason none of my children lived, that there is a flaw in my bloodline. I hear he’s looking for me, the bereaved husband and grieving father, because his love for me compels him to at least take me to a mental home. I hear that during my pregnancies, I often mutilated myself and tried to harm my husband, too. I hear he weeps a lot these days when he talks about me. All he’d done was go back home, pick an innocent-looking young woman, and try to help her family, not knowing he had picked a thorn.

I hear a lot of stories these days about me that make me curious about what I did next and make me want to meet myself. If only I were half as courageous in real life as I am in the stories about me.

My flight back to Nigeria is in exactly eight days. The thought of this keeps me awake at night, smiling to myself. Finally, after four years, without having to beg, grovel or make requests that would not be granted, I’ll be coming back home. My only sadness is that I will no longer be in this land where my children are buried. I can no longer walk to the local cemetery and drop flowers or wipe the dust off their headstones. Perhaps I shouldn’t let that bother me much. For now, I’m safe with Madam Dorcas and The Sisters of the Help.

Had you not written me first, Levi, I would not have written you. Because I am now empty, with nothing to give you, neither my young love nor the untainted idealism about life we both shared. I also don’t know if any child of my womb is destined to live, so what good can I be to you? All I have is gratitude that I am in one piece, a renewed will to live, and a trail of vile legends about me that the good man has incited in this place.

As for my body, I bear all the signs of a woman who has recently journeyed to the labour room—weak gums, falling hair, a rounder waist, swollen feet—only that I do not have the proof of my labour with me.

But if you insist that all of these are okay with you, then I’ll contact you with the number you gave me immediately after I touch down in Nigeria.

Twenty years loving you,

Zikora.