She looks just like Dr. Ken with no mustache to the jaw, and with a short black wig on her head. She is wearing a costly-looking red lace dress with stones on it, and when I greet her, she just sniffs up something in her teapot nose.
Ms. Tia climbs into the car, sits beside the woman, and me, I sit in front with the driver.
“Moscow,” the doctor mama say, talking to the driver. “We are going to the Miracle Center in Ikeja. The one by the Shoprite roundabout. Remember it?”
Moscow, a man with head that looks like it is full of dry cement, too heavy for his neck, says yes, he can remember the place, and begins to drive. He put on the radio, and I sit there, feeling cold from the air-con and hearing the radio woman talking like she is from the America about new Buhari president and how Nigeria will be better because of it.
Ms. Tia and the doctor mama, they don’t talk in the back. The only noise inside the car is from the America-talking woman in the radio. She is speaking so fast, the only word I am hearing from all she’s been saying in one hour of driving is “Obama.”
The go-slow is the worst I ever seen in my life. Outside, the other cars in the road are pressing horn like mad people, the drivers cursing. After about three hours, the driver turns into one gate, stops the car, and puts off the engine.
The doctor mama say to Ms. Tia, “We are here. Here is a scarf for you to cover your head with. This is a holy ground. You could give this newspaper to that one in front. She also needs to cover her hair. Why you’d bring a stranger, your neighbor’s housemaid, along to something so sacred, so personal, is completely beyond me. I cannot understand it at all.”
“She has to come with me,” Ms. Tia says. “That is what we agreed. If she cannot come with us, I will leave. She can have the scarf; I’ll use the newspaper.”
“And go in looking like what? A destitute? Tia, please, behave yourself.” The woman is talking like she is just tired of Ms. Tia and her many troubles.
“I invited her,” Ms. Tia says. “It is unfair for her to use a newspaper to cover her hair when she didn’t ask to come here.”
“You will not go in there with a newspaper on your head,” the doctor mama say.
“No, I won’t,” Ms. Tia say, folding her hands across her chest and pushing out her top lip like a vexed, small child. “I am not moving an inch from here unless Adunni wears the scarf.”
The doctor mama whispers something in Yoruba. I know Ms. Tia is not understanding it, but the woman just asked if Ms. Tia is having brain problem, where the doctor find this kind of crazy Port Harcourt woman from the Abroad to marry.
I don’t want them to be fighting because of me, so I face the back seat. “I can take the newspaper,” I say. “I can even wear it like a dress if you want. Where is it?”
I give Ms. Tia a look, begging with my eyes for her to give me the paper.
Ms. Tia nods, picks up the newspaper from the seat, and gives me. I wrap the thing around my head, fold it here and there. It tears many times, but last, last, it resembles one kind mash-up cap.
“See? It looks very good,” I say, giving them a wide smile with all my teeth.
The doctor mama hiss, open the car door, and climb out. “Meet me inside,” she say, slamming the door and walking away.
Me and Ms. Tia, we look at each other and burst into laughter.
* * *
The prophet of this Miracle Center is one short man with bowlegs like two letter Cs facing each other. It make him look like he is bouncing around instead of walking.
He has a sleeping eye, so even when he is awake, you will want to tap him to wake up. He is wearing a long red dress with a white belt around his stomach. A white cap with a slanting purple cross sits on his head, a small gold bell in his hand. When me and Ms. Tia enter the church, he bounces up, rings the bell, gran, gran, says to us, “Welcome to the zone. Sit down.”
The place is having about thirty wood benches, just like my classroom in Ikati. The doctor mama is sitting on the end of one bench, so me and Ms. Tia, we slide to that same bench. At the front of the church, behind the wooden altar with long brown cross in the middle of it, is a picture of one man. I think it is Jesus, but this Jesus looks hungry, with vex face too. He look a bit like Katie in the London too, with long brown hair.
Why is Jesus looking like somebody in the Abroad? Maybe Jesus is from the Abroad?
There is a sharp smell in the air, and my nose follows it to the three green mosquito coils on the floor, bringing out gray, waving smoke. There are red candles on the floor too, I count fifteen of it around the leg of the altar.
“Alafia,” the prophet says.
“He says peace to you,” I whisper to Ms. Tia. “‘Alafia’ means ‘peace’ in Yoruba.”
Ms. Tia says “Alafia” back to the prophet.
Me, I greet the man good afternoon.
“Alafia,” he says to me, and rings the bell one time.
The doctor mama, she begins to talk to prophet in smooth Yoruba. She says Ms. Tia marry her son and was not having a baby in over one whole year since the marriage. That she is tired of praying and shouting for a baby, and she thinks maybe Ms. Tia has one evil spirit that is swallowing the baby. That Ms. Tia bring the spirit when she was coming and the evil spirit needs chasing off to go back to the Abroad. She cut her eye to me when she says this because she knows I am understanding her.
Me, I keep my eyes on the prophet’s feet. He doesn’t have shoes on. Toenails look burned.
“So, you brought her for the powerful bath,” the prophet says in English. “This is the land of solution, amen? The land of miracle. Twenty-four-hour miracle.” He coughs. “Did she bring cloth to change into? Because she will throw away the cloth she came here with. She has come with a garment of sorrow and barrenness; she will return with a garment of twins. Amen?”
“Just one baby,” I whisper.
“Twins,” the doctor mama says, eyeing me. “Amen. Two boys.”
“I have a pair of jeans and a fresh t-shirt in the boot,” Ms. Tia say.
“Good,” the prophet says. “Young woman, kneel here so I can pray for you first.”
Ms. Tia slides off the bench and kneels. Me and the doctor mama too, both of us we kneel. The prophet bounce to his feet, begins to go around Ms. Tia. He will go around one time, ring bell one time, his dress spreading up around him like the wings of an eagle. He will go around her two times, ring the bell two times. He does this like seven times, until he begins to look like he daze. I keep hearing the bell inside my head for like two minutes after he stopped ringing it.
When he begins to jump, up and down, clapping his two hands, saying, “Eli . . . jah . . . baby . . .” The doctor mama nods her head yes, yes, yes, and says: “Baby boys, baby boys.”