Make The Devil Disappear

Photo: Stefano Pollio

1.     The devil has a face

Mama is sitting on her favourite armchair in the parlour, her enormous body almost taking up the entire space on the large couch, like she’s the female version of Eddie Murphy in Nutty Professor. A thick concave lens, whose rim she occasionally pushes upwards, perches above her nose on her wrinkled face. She has a classic Nigerian mother’s face with bulgy, brown eyes which bore holes in your skin when she’s not in the mood to speak, and she’s rarely in the mood to speak unless there’s something to be said about the devil and their infinite combat. Mama doesn’t stare or glare when she wants to pass across an instruction; she shoots brown beams at you from her eyes, and if you’re too daft to decipher the code, your body go hear am. She will deal with you in ways that the devil himself will clap his hands and hail her for being so wickedly creative. For doing things he would not even imagine himself doing in a million years.

I remember the day Aunty Chisom, omalicha nwanyi with beautiful black eyes framed by the longest and darkest lashes I’d ever seen, moved into our street. Rumour had it that her husband lived in Dubai, and she’d soon join him there. So I was excited when Mama said we should visit her to welcome her into the neighbourhood; I had many questions about Dubai and couldn’t wait to satisfy my curiosity. For a moment I forgot I was in Aunty Chisom’s living room with Mama, and the excitement of being in the same room with the wife of a Dubai resident made me accept the plate of jollof rice she offered without looking at Mama first, for approval. Three spoons into the food, my gaze met hers, and I knew I was finished. ‘Since you’ve decided to allow the devil use you, better stay here, eat here forever and never come home,’ the look on her face screamed. I could hear my heart banging on the door of my chest. As if someone poured a cold bucket of fear all over me, I started shivering, not knowing how to escape Mama’s evil claws. I knew I was already in the soup; I just prayed to make it out alive. Terror took the plate of jollof rice from me and smashed it on the floor.

I jerked at the sound and, without looking at Mama’s face or muttering an apology or even making an effort to clear the mess I made in a neighbour’s house, sprinted out of the room, running all the way home. As if running away from my mother would save me from the hell I dragged myself into. Mama didn’t speak to me when she came home or complain to Papa about my stupid behaviour. She waited till midnight. Midnight is the time for corrections, the time to speak or spank sense into any erring child, the time for spiritual battles, when the agents of Satan wake up like vampires to attack sleeping, feeble-minded Christians. Mama never sleeps for more than three hours every night, because why sleep when the devil is roaming the face of the earth like a roaring lion looking for whom to devour? Midnight was the moment of retribution, and that was when she stormed into my bedroom.

 “Kenechi bia,” she said, and I felt my heart sliding down to my stomach like the muse in Chris Brown’s “fallen angel”. She quietly roused me from sleep because Amara was snoring peacefully beside me, and she did not want to wake my kid sister up. Like a kite running for dear life after stealing a chick, sleep flew away from my eyes as I followed her to the living room. She asked me to kneel, raise my hands, and recite Psalm 51. “It is for cleansing,” she said. I’d eaten from the pot of an evil woman. Aunty Chisom was an ajo nwanyi who chased her husband to faraway Dubai, so she could frolic with lustful men, and I lacked the spirit of discernment to tell the forbidden fruit from the bread of life. Was I that desperate to let the devil in? Didn’t I know the devil would stop at nothing till he destroyed our family? Was I so ravenous that I couldn’t contain my hunger and wait till we got back home, or was it sheer longer throat? Tears were streaming down my face like a torrential downpour, and catarrh raced down from my nose, forming a confluence at my mouth.

“I’m sorry, Mama, bikonu forgive me,” I pled.

“Mechie onu,” she shushed me. “If I hear pim, you’ll smell your ass.”

Have I forgotten that Proverbs 13:24 says to not spare the rod? So she wouldn’t allow her first daughter “spoil” under her nose. She stood and walked towards me in the unsteady gait of a frail grandma, picked up the nail cutter beside the TV and clipped my arm with it, daring me to scream.

***

I don’t know Mama’s age, but I can tell she is ageing from all the unattractive tufts of grey in her dark hair and the wrinkles on her face. Or maybe she’s not ageing naturally, simply showing signs of old age because of her extreme wickedness. She is reading the bible aloud to herself, the greatest book ever written, according to her. She’s reading the book of James, I can’t quite remember the verse now, but it says something about resisting the devil, and he will flee from you. She doesn’t look up when Papa walks into the room, doesn’t respond to his greeting.

I am crouched on the floor knitting a purse for Amara, my younger sister, and praying for the afternoon to pass without drama. But knowing the type of family I have, I am wasting a prayer. Papa seems in a good mood today because he’s humming an Igbo song and ambling about the room. I love when he is happy. He is a small, dapper man with a cheery face that does a great job hiding his misery and the laidback disposition of someone who has seen it all. In my home, Papa might be the head of the family, but his position is ceremonial. Mama is in fact the controller of the home, the captain of the ship. When she finishes her bible study, she drops the bible on the table, removes her glasses, puts them back in place, and wipes her eyes.

“Oginizi? Why are you humming and disturbing my time with God?”

Throughout my ten years of existence, I’ve never heard Mama call Papa by any endearing title, not even “daddy”, like other Igbo women do their husbands. If she wants to talk to him about anything and they are in the room together, she goes straight to the point without addressing him by any name. And if she wants to send us to him, she says, “Go and tell your father that I said so and so.” But Papa is different. He calls her “mummy” or “nwunye m” and still tries to peck her from time to time, although Mama always resists all attempts to be affectionate and slaps off his hands whenever he makes to touch or kiss her. Sometimes, she would call him the devil’s tool and warn him not to desecrate our home with his evil lust.

So when she asks him that question, and Papa sits down and begins to talk, she stares at me, and I’d be damned not to decrypt the code and flee to my bedroom.

2. When the battle becomes fierce, the devil becomes ferocious

I am in my room, but my spirit is still in the parlour, crouched on the floor, anticipating what could happen next. In my head, a panel beater is smashing something, and I don’t know for how long I’ll be able to hold out. My nerves are sizzling as I pray to God for it not to happen today. But I’m not sure if my prayers ever penetrate the ceiling and ascend the heavens.

I am sitting on my bed, an ugly jumble of colours, full of nearly every property I own, clothes, torchlight, and even the shoes I wore to church yesterday. Amara is spending the holidays with Aunty Onyinye in Awka, so I have the room all to myself. I want to continue knitting the purse, but my hands are not cooperating, so I stop and crack my knuckles instead.

 Koko, my teddy bear, is lying on my bed, somewhere between the dirty plates I used for dinner last night and the dirty skirt Mama warned me to wash the day before yesterday. Mama despises Koko and has threatened to chop my head off if she sees that demonic object in her house again, even though it was Papa who bought it. “O ife eji araba umuaka n’otu,” she said. A demonic item used to possess kids. Since then, I’ve hidden Koko in one of my boxes and only brought it out last night to cuddle because of a recurring nightmare. I can hear the sound of the wall clock from the living room, and with every tik-tok I repeat silently, “God, please don’t let them fight today.”

They are talking in low tones now, Mama sounding uninterested, Papa’s excitement morphing into frustration.

“What!” Mama yells, and I jolt from the door where I’m eavesdropping, hot sweat journeying down my spine. “You are a very foolish man for saying that. Asi m uchu gbaa gi! God will punish you for me!” She continues cussing Papa out in Igbo while I close my eyes to prevent the tears from escaping. I do not hear what Papa is saying, but I’m sure he’s begging her to calm down. But never in the history of Papa begging Mama to “calm down, let us sort it out” has she ever calmed down. If anything, the words madden her and make her want to push down the building like Samson.

 I am still trying to figure out what today’s fight is about when I hear the sound of palm to flesh, wham! I peep through the keyhole and see Papa rubbing his cheek; Mama slapped him. She charges towards him like an infuriated bull and headbutts him. I clutch Koko tightly and pray to God to please make this stop, to please make the devil disappear. But God doesn’t care for me or my prayers. In church and everywhere else, they say God is powerful and can defeat the devil, so why does he still allow the devil to roam the earth and wreak havoc? Why does Mama have to be in an endless battle with the devil, leaving Papa and us at the receiving end of her aggression?

Mama is on top of Papa now, clobbering him like he’s the devil she prays against, and she’s determined to finally end the ill-fated relationship between them. With each blow Papa receives, he grunts and does nothing more. He does not scream for help. But who will help him even if he screams? How will he explain to people that his wife is pounding him like fufu? How will he explain to people that his scars are not mere work hazards? Who will listen to his pathetic story without laughing till they have laughed their wits off and blame him for being a woman wrapper? Will they even understand he’s just doing this for peace to reign? I bet they won’t.

3. The devil dwells in her

The devil is an ugly, evil creature with horns and wings, fighting and defeating powerless Christians. I know this description, not because that is what Mama always says or because I read it from a book. No. I’ve actually seen him. He lives in Mama, and that is why she has been struggling to get rid of him. The first time I saw the devil, I was four and didn’t quite make sense of what I saw. The second time I saw him, I was a year older and more articulate, but it was only for a fleeting second. It was the day Mama poured hot water on Amara. She was just three. She had refused to sleep when Mama told her to: she was still too young to understand that Mama was the captain of the house and nobody disrespected her.

That day, Amara was building a sand castle, and Mama was bothered about something. I don’t know what it was, but frustration was written all over her face. She even yanked me off the sofa and threatened to break my bones if I didn’t leave her presence, so I fled to my bedroom because I understood she meant every word she said. But Amara was too little to do so. And Mama doesn’t care for age when it comes to the battle with the devil. She said Amara was possessed; the devil asked her not to obey her own mother. And every disobedient child must be punished.

But the devil was not in Amara; it was in Mama. For a fleeting second, I saw Mama’s head expand, and a creature crept out from her ears, bobbed its ugly head, and slipped back inside her body through her nose. That was when I knew the devil was alive and took the shape of Mama’s body. Mama went towards Amara and her sand castle but, on second thought, went into the kitchen to boil water for tea, quoting the scripture. “Resist the devil, and it will flee from you. Train up a child in the way he should go. If your hand leads you to sin, chop it off and fling it into the fire.”

I wanted to drag Amara out of that sand, to warn her of the impending doom, but when I opened my mouth, no sound came out. I just stood, praying for the devil to disappear. When Amara saw Mama approaching with a bowl, she didn’t smell a rat. Instead, she squealed in pure delight and ran to Mama. But Mama’s face was expressionless, like a stoic witch in a trance. She simply asked Amara to dip her hand in the bowl. Amara did, innocently, and screamed out in pain. Mama said it was for purification, to deliver my kid sister from the devil.

“Now she’s free,” Mama said, pouring some on her tender feet. “The devil can no longer torment my child.”

4.     Devil, be gone

I have been reading Papa’s Oxford dictionary a lot these days. And I’ve learned new words like anticipation, exhilaration and hypothesis. My favourite is hypothesis. It means something that hasn’t been verified to be true. And now, I am testing some hypotheses on how to make the devil disappear. Esomchi, the secondary school student who lives upstairs and lends me her novels to read, says the devil is like fluid, shapeless. It takes up the shape of whatever container that houses it, be it a human, pig or teddy bear. That is why it’s impossible to know if the devil is inside someone by merely looking at them.

The devil hides from the carnal-minded; you have to attain a level of spirituality to be able to discern a possessed human from an ordinary mortal. You have to focus on their eyes, like glare into them without blinking. And then you notice that even though their regular pair of eyes stare back at you, there is another pair within.

 I know the day the devil possessed Mama. It was through that ugly man who looked deader than death itself. I was four at the time, and Papa had travelled to the village for the weekend. The man entered my parents’ bedroom and did something to Mama, in my presence. I was pretending to be asleep on my father’s favourite couch in the room, and they didn’t even have the decency to carry me out or do it elsewhere. That day, I had an unrehearsed, face-to-face encounter with the devil, but I was too young to capture his face.

The man climbed on top of Mama and asked her to spread her legs. She did. I saw the devil creep out of that man’s trousers. It was long and hard, like a rod. He inserted it into her private part. Mama was screaming, asking him not to stop. I watched the devil take shape in Mama’s body. When she splayed her hands, the devil inserted his into hers, becoming one with her. And that is why Mama is in this endless battle with the devil; he forces her to do the things she does not feel like doing.

So here are my hypotheses on how to make the devil go away:

1.     Pray to God to send one of his archangels to defeat the devil on the day of battle once more.

2.     Sing this Igbo song fervently:

Ekwensu aga emeri unu n’agha

Si mba oo, Si mba nwa Chukwu, si mba oo.

3.     Find a way to lure the devil out of Mama’s body.

***

My hypotheses are silly. I know. But I think the third one is the most plausible. Now, all I have to do is find a way to lure the devil out of Mama’s body and make him disappear forever.

I am curled on the sofa in the living room, reading “The Magic Leaf” by Adaeze Atuegwu and hoping Esomchi doesn’t come for it till tomorrow. The smoke from the fire Mama starts in the backyard seeps into the parlour, and I cough twice, cursing Mama under my breath. Why must she choose today to burn her rubbish?

Mama calls me from my bedroom, and my heart somersaults like an atiliogwu dancer. Amara is in the bedroom, so why call me when she can easily send her on any errand? I am still searching my mind for what I must have done wrong when she storms inside the parlour holding Koko by its long ear.

 “So Kenechi, you still have this demonic object from the pit of hell? Shebi I told you to put it in that fire I made that day?” Mama says, an evil smirk dancing on her face.

I go on my knees immediately, rub my hands together, and beg her. “Mama bikonu, I’m so sorry. I’ll throw it away now.”

“So if I didn’t come inside your room to take my picking comb, I wouldn’t know you’re allowing the devil use you?”

“Mama, please forgive me.” The tears are streaming down my eyes now.

“Imachakwa, you already know how much I hate the devil and everything he stands for, yet you allow him use you? I will teach you a lesson you will never forget.” Then she zooms off to the kitchen, brings a container of Cameroon pepper, mixes it in water and drags Amara from the room to the parlour, forcing her to kneel down, raise her hands, open her eyes and stick out her tongue.

Mama says she won’t punish me. But she will make me watch my little sister suffer in anguish. I beg and cry, but she won’t listen. Slowly but steadily, she drops the mixture in Amara’s eyes, leaving my sister to wail like a woman in labour. Mama threatens to stab Amara with the scissors on the centre table if she resists, and I’m afraid she might do it. My heart tugs so much that my face darkens with anger. Enough is enough, I swear. Mama has taken this her madness too far. My chest tightens as soldiers march nzogbu nzogbu somewhere inside my heart. Today is definitely the day I’ll make the devil go away, if not for my sake, then for Amara’s. I’ve tested hypotheses one and two, and since they are not working, it’s time to try the final one.

So I dart to the kitchen, take a knife from the cabinet and barrel towards Mama. She senses a movement behind her and turns, but not in time to avoid the thrust. I stab her in the neck and pull out the knife immediately. I know I have stabbed the devil also, and I know he will finally leave Mama in peace. I watch as her neck becomes a tiny red stream. The devil is gone.

About the author

Ezioma Kalu is a Nigerian writer and book blogger. Her works have appeared on some online literary platforms, including Kalahari Review, Writers Space Africa - Nigeria, Terror House Magazine, and elsewhere. She runs a book blog, Bookish Pixie, where she writes amazing book reviews. Kalu writes from Enugu, Nigeria, and she finished as the first runner-up in the May 2022 edition of Challenging the Writer's Writing contest. She is a flash fiction editor and mentor at Writers Space Africa, and the assistant coordinator of Writers Space Africa (Nigerian chapter). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and her website.