Weevil (Kòkòrò n’ti’n je’fò)

Weevil (Kòkòrò n’ti’n je’fò)

Abi Idowu

As the truth entered his mind calmly, his knees hit the floor and Olusegun looked up at Derinola with abject grief on his face, reaching out to her with one arm outstretched while his daughter, who was by his side, was trying to haul him back to his feet - but he knew that he had to stay on his knees and beg with all of his soul. “Derinola, please I beg you! You know my children are my life, please take care of them for me.”

Derinola looked down at the man she called husband, scorn painted plainly on her face but she knew to hide it from her daughter. That one adored her father like he was a god to her and her mind worked quickly. “Get up!” She yelled, managing to put a twinge of panic in her voice. “Don’t say that, they are our children, we’ll take care of them together.”

Hope died in Olusegun when he looked into her eyes as he heard her words, for he could see the truth behind her words and he knew she had no love in her soul and he wondered how he could have been so blind.

His daughter managed to pull him to his feet and Derinola came to his side and grabbed him roughly and started to drag him out of the bedroom door. He knew with certainty that he was never coming back to that room and he started to tremble.

With a few steps they got to the living room and he sought to beg for his children again. He stopped moving and turned to Derinola, who was struggling to keep her irritation hidden. “Derinola, I beg you with everything we shared, please, you know my children are my life, please take care of them for me.” He was trying to remain calm for his daughter’s sake but she had started to whimper with fear. “Baba, please don’t talk like this! You will come back home and take care of us”.

Derinola looked over at her child and she didn’t know whether to laugh or shout. This child who never looked at her with affection, who could barely tolerate to be in the same room as her. This reflection child was the reason all of this was happening. She did this for her but her child barely gave her a glance. All her eyes and heart were concentrated on her father.

Well, her salvation would also be her pain, her everlasting pain. For Derinola knew her child would never recover from that which was to come. Shaking off the thought, she jerked Olusegun upwards again. “You heard your daughter! Stop your babbling and let’s get you to the hospital!” She winched him up and pulled him again, her daughter following her lead and they led him out, stumbling out of the living room he knew he would never live in again.

Olusegun started to panic because he could see there would be no mercy from she who he had loved blindly all these years. He had fought family and friends for her, poured his soul out for her, everything he owned, she owned too, her word was law to him, and her wish, his command and her desires, his commitment to fulfil and yet here she was, dragging him to certain death and like a living collage, he could see that she had plans over everything he had worked so hard for, and he wasn’t sure the children he worked for were included in them.

In his naïveté, he had thought they would work together to turn the little they had into a great amount. Derinola had a certain knack with increasing the value of things and he had imagined a small empire, a rising from the ashes, where he could return his family back to the life of plenty they had had and deserved. However, he could clearly see now that that was not her plan.

It had hit him like a blow in his chest with such ferocity that he had stumbled and fallen backwards as he prayed. Stunned, he saw concerned faces surround him as his brethren hovered over him and he could faintly hear, as if from afar, people running for water, both to splash on his face and for him to drink. There was a great gust of wind buffeting him and as he focused, he realised that it was the lady he had been standing near to. She had taken off her scarf, which was a rather wide sheet of cloth, her woven hair glistening in the sun, sprinkled generously with white hair, and was flapping it in front of him generating a big gust of wind to cool him down with each flap.

They managed to get him seated, faces crinkled with worry, while he had another burst of clarity, hitting him hard and making him breathless. His life force was being attacked and he needed to get home. “Home” he whispered and this was echoed until he was carried out to a fellow brother’s car and driven home.

After the panic of seeing him in such an unfamiliar, uncharacteristic weakened state had subsided, falling in and out of sleep with his head on his daughter’s lap, she had refused to budge from his side after he was brought home. And as he drifted in and out of sleep, the revelation became clearer and he discovered that the woman he had loved with all of his heart had sacrificed him, hoping that he was the one she loved most completely.

The revelation was clear that she didn’t, it was his daughter, the one who couldn’t stand her, she loved.

Olusegun pushed with all of his will and made his blood insist on being enough covering for her and her siblings. For he was unsure for how long Derinola ‘s love could withstand her daughter’s rejection. He had already witnessed many cruel moments between them and, to his shame, he didn’t stop them. He barely even said a word in protest. All because he trusted her. He loved her completely, even to the detriment of his beloved children’s lives. They were angry, the womenkind because they wanted she whom Derinola loved the most, but he insisted through his mind and his blood which was already dripping from their mouths and they had no choice but to accept and he prepared to die.

The only thing left was to beg for his children’s comfort, especially his beloved child.

They had pulled him to the door that led outside the house and his daughter, unwitting in her part in leading him to his death said “Baba, the sooner we can get you to the hospital, the faster you can return home”. He looked at her with tears glistening in his eyes. Seeing the bewildered fear on her face, Olusegun turned to Derinola again and clasped her hand, forcing her to stop and look at him. He gently pushed his daughter aside and went on his knees before Derinola, determined to beg one last time for his children. “Derinola, I am begging you with my soul and being, begging you with your creator, your Eleda, please, you know how much my children mean to me. I beg you, please take care of them for me Don’t let them suffer.”

Derinola had had enough at this point and just wanted 27

him out of the house and her way. She yanked him roughly to his feet, yelling as she did so. “Enough of this nonsense, stop begging me! Enough and let’s go! “ His daughter, angry in his defence as always, snapped at her mother, “Be careful! You can see that he’s weak and distressed, don’t shout at him.”

Turning to him and going back to his side, her voice returning to gentle and coaxing “Baba, don’t worry, you’ll be fine and you’ll come home and take care of us. You’ll tell us your jokes and stories and we’ll laugh till we fall on the floor. We have so many things we’re going to do together. Don’t worry, you’ll come back.” And as her voice started to crack with the deep sense of impending doom, she whispered to him “I promise you.”

Olusegun’s shoulders slumped and he surrendered himself to his beloved child. He could never deny her anything. He knew he had lost this particular battle all round but the only one fight he won was for their lives. His children would live but he wasn’t too sure what kind of life it would be. He could only hope that Derinola would show her own children, birthed from her own womb, mercy.

He stepped over the threshold of the door, knowing he would never step over it again and he let himself be led away and to the car.

For a week his child fought for his life, calling every doctor she knew, talking to him constantly and reminding him of all the wonderful things they had done and planned to do. She told him how much she loved him and how much he meant to her over and over until it grieved him beyond his soul and he retreated into himself, willing the pain to end. Her anguish was too great for him and he knew that of everything that had broken his child, his death would cause the greatest rift. She would never recover from it. She would never heal.

Derinola came to stay on the one night she got their daughter to leave his side and go home to her siblings. She said to her “After all, he’s my husband. You can’t love him more than me! I will take care of him tonight. Go home, your siblings miss you.” Her daughter was going to refuse but Derinola saw the almost imperceptible squeeze Olusegun gave her hand and she looked down at him in the bed, gave a tiny nod and sighed. Her daughter bent down and said the words she had never heard uttered towards her to her father before kissing his forehead: “I love you.” And with a warning look to Derinola, she said, “take care of him. I’ve arranged all his medication and make sure you remind the nurses to come turn him.” Derinola nodded and waved her away. Then she settled in for the night.

“Good that you made her leave because you don’t have long for this world. It’s almost seven days, then you will breathe your last.” Olusegun could hear the glee in her voice and when his eyes grew too heavy, she forcefully pushed his eyelids open, just so he could see the contemptuous sneer on her face. She told him the plans the womenkind had made. Since his blood had insisted, the children’s lives would be spared, however, they would be denied. Denied every form of happiness anyone could desire. They wouldn’t find love and, if they did, they wouldn’t keep it. They wouldn’t have children, every child conceived would be miscarried and every child born would die. Ambition would be crushed. Will taken and they would live and die, empty.

She told him all; of the grandchild already denied, her body wrapped in plastic, buried in some fetid form as he whimpered in his bed, wondering if he should have just let them be killed than live such futile lives.

Derinola laughed softly as she watched him whimper, then she leaned in, looking steadily into his own horrified face and smiled. She told him his beloved child would be spared death but her life would be a series of little deaths, plagued with pain and misery, her glorious life stunted. The children would live like they were dead and she would bask in it all, stripping his name and legacy layer by layer while she would multiply his wealth, build her name and live in comfort. She shrugged her shoulders as she told him that whatever came to her mind to help the children with, she would give them.... or not. The light of the dawning morning broke gently into the room and Derinola smiled again, rubbed a corner of his face and placed a cold gentle kiss there, then stood up. “You were a very good husband, fantastic in fact. Taking care of me, letting me do whatever I wanted, building so much money for me to take away from your children.”

As he whimpered louder, she shushed him like a little child. “Tuttuttuttuttut! Your only fault was you were incredibly naive and so stupidly gullible!” She turned around abruptly and walked out of the private hospital room with a parting retort. “Just die already, you’re costing me money!”

His beloved child returned but his heart was crushed, and he couldn’t bear to look at her anymore, knowing he had failed her. All he knew he could do was to commit her and her siblings to their Creator. Warn her through dreams and fight for her through his presence in intercession with their Maker. The calm presence of Spirit in the corner of his room affirmed this belief to him.

The next day she came back, the seventh day. His daughter wrapped her arms around him and rocked him as she sang songs to him, pausing to kiss his face and her voice wobbled with worry. She tried to keep it strong and Olusegun sighed with pain for his poor strong child. She would have to dig deep soon to find more strength. For soon, that morning, her very soul would rend. In the midst of all the little papercuts of pain she had received in life, many through the hands of Derinola, he, Olusegun was going to cause the most intense tear in the fabric of her soul, the one she would never recover from even if she survived the rest.

Tears started to seep from his eyes. Sensing a change in the air, his child looked at his face with growing panic and called out for help, her face pressed close to his. “Olusegun, don’t do this to me! This is not how we planned it! You’re supposed to give me away in marriage, play with my kids!”

He wanted to tell her how sorry he was but he couldn’t speak so he looked at her hoping his eyes would say what his lips couldn’t. The nurses came in and tried to prise him from her hands but she clung on, realising that these was their last moments together.

One of the nurses said, “it’s time to let him go” and then she signalled to the others and they left them alone, Olusegun still cradled in her arms. He looked at her again and tried to smile. She gave him a wobbly smile in return. Looking at his face as he was fading out, she kissed his forehead and whispered into his ear “I love you so much daddy. I don’t know how I’m going to live without you but I will try to make you proud.”

With a very quick nod and sharp sigh as the full realisation of the moment hit them both, she sat still cradling him to herself, stunned as Olusegun ‘s last breath left his body and touched his daughter’s face like a gentle kiss as life left his body and dissolved into the air.

***

Years later, Derinola came back from Womenkind and met her daughter at the edge. They had not spoken in a while but her reflection child’s words loomed large in the universe. Her daughter looked at her without fear, with a strength she had never seen, a strength she didn’t think possible. “How did you know?” Derinola asked her who was her child. “I work with words and words are prophetic. They can make one a seer. The words were revealed to me, to begin the end of your reign.”

Her daughter turned away from the edge of Womenkind, the only place where there was a sliver of light, her reflection foggier to Derinola with each receding step. As she walked away, never looking back, her final words bounced solemnly in the void in which Derinola still stood.

“It’s started.”