Chapter 59

Eight Months Later...

Ever since Vincent left, Nduka had been skeptical that his son had been responsible for infecting him the first time, because he still kept treating one STD or the other, and to avoid a river of tears, he decided against asking Njideka, instead, he continued to treat himself. His suspicions of her faithfulness had also heightened after she had told him just the previous week that she was four weeks pregnant. 

After traveling to the city, Nduka had gone for a medical check-up in the city in a trusted hospital. When he was about to do his normal blood-pressure check-up, he had asked the doctor to also run a fertility test. When his results came out, the doctor had told him that he had a low sperm count and this had not only made Nduka know that his late wife, Oluchi, was never at fault, but had also pushed him to return home three days earlier than before in a bid to go question his wife about her pregnancy. 

When he walked into his compound after parking his car a few houses away. He noticed that Father Thomas' car was parked right outside his fence. Sneaking to the living room window, Nduka peeked into the house but saw nothing. Moving towards the door, he quietly opened the door and stealthily crept into the house. Once he was inside the house, he could hear Njideka moaning as the bed creaked rhythmically. 

When he moved to the bedroom and moved the curtain aside, what he saw almost gave him a heart attack- Njideka was riding Father Thomas in a cowgirl position in such an aggressive way that the head of the bed kept slamming against the wall behind it.

"Jesus Christ of Nazareth!!! Njideka!!!" He suddenly exclaimed, his hand placed on his chest as if to calm his racing heart, as he fully stepped into the bedroom. "Father Thomas!!!"

Startled, the two flinched then quickly scrambled off the bed. Njideka grabbed a wrapper and tied it around her body while father Thomas quickly grabbed his hammock and slipped it on without bothering to put on his trousers.

"ON MY BED?!! So, this is what you two have been doing behind my back! And to think that I trusted you so much, Father Thomas!" Nduka said, dismayed.

"Brother Nduka, it's not the way you see it! Sit down so that we can discuss this like men." Father sheepishly Thomas said in a trembling voice. "We...w..we were just-"

"Men okwia! People have been warning me that the suspicious relationship between two of you was disturbingly too close to be platonic, but I didn't listen because I trusted you! Little did I know that you are a wolf in sheep's clothing! A devil in white! Ha! God has finally exposed you and the whole town must hear this today! They must hear how the Reverend father whom I trusted so much has been coming to sleep with my wife in my own house! On my own bed!" Nduka said, turned and rushed out of the house into the compound then began to yell. "Ummuna (refers to the community) eh!!! Ummuna ehhh! Everybody come o! Come and see the abomination going on under my roof! Ummuna, come and see!"

Njideka who had run out after her husband with the priest following behind her, tried to stop Nduka. "Baby, baby, please don't scream nau! Do you want to disgrace me?! Do you want them to strip me naked and flog me? You know what they do to adulterous women in this town! Biko Nduka!" She begged, rubbing her palms together and bending her knees repeatedly. "Just quietly send me away; I'll go but don't do this to me, Nduka, don't put my father's name to shame! Biko!"

"Leave me alone!" Nduka shoved her away. "Now I understand where you have been getting all the infections from! It was from him, right?!" He pointed at the terrified priest who kept throwing wary glances towards the gate. "That pregnancy is even his, not mine, eh? And yet, you were going to pin another man's pregnancy on me! Njideka, you are a snake! You are the definition of Jezebel herself and today, you shall pay for all your atrocities!" Then he continued to scream. "Ummuna Eh! Come o! Come and see the abomination happening in my house! Come!"

Desperate to shut him up, Njideka glanced around, sighted a heavy log of wood which had two long nails on its end, lying by the water tank outside. After rushing to grab it, she snuck up behind her husband and heavily struck him on the back of the head with it. 

When Nduka screamed out in pain, his hands flying to the back of his head, she hit him again, and this time, she forcefully pulled the stick away since two of the nails had lodged into his skull. Nduka fell to his knees as blood spurted out of the gash and the holes in his head, running over his hand, down his back, while the priest stared at him in horror, too shocked to speak.

Nduka tried to say something but couldn't, then he collapsed on his face on the ground with the blood pouring out of his head and pooling around him. Njideka glanced towards the gate and panicked as she heard the noise of neighbors rushing towards the house now.

 Suddenly, she threw the log of wood at Father Thomas, and out of impulse, the priest caught it in his hands, wondering what she wanted him to do with it, but much to his confusion, Njideka grabbed the hem of her wrapper and tore it up towards her thigh, and just as the neighbors burst through the gate and poured into the compound, Njideka let out a loud wail of horror as she threw herself upon her lifeless husband's body and wailed even more, pulling at her hair and pointing at the dumbfounded priest.

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"He has killed my husband o!" Njideka cried out in tears as she pointed up at the shocked Priest and tried to shake Nduka awake. "Father Thomas has killed my husband o!"

More people poured into the compound now, especially youths. Father Thomas could only gape in shock as he stared at Njideka. The people began to ask her what had happened and she narrated thus: "I was sleeping inside the house after taking bath, then father Thomas snuck into my house and tried to rape me while I was taking a nap in the bedroom! As I was struggling with him and also trying to prevent him from forcing me, my husband walked in at that moment and caught him red-handed. As my husband ran outside, screaming to get people's attention, father Thomas grabbed a log of wood and hit him on the head!"

"Chaiii! Eh! Alu!" The small crowd exclaimed; the women placing their hands on their heads and the men folding their arms above their chests, shoulders hunched as they stared at the helpless priest who was still wielding the obvious murder weapon in his trembling hands. One of the youths bent down and felt for Nduka's pulse then announced. 

"He's not breathing! He's dead!"

"Dead kwa?!" Njideka scrambled to her knees now. "No o, he cannot be dead!" She panicked. "Nduka cannot be dead! My husband cannot be dead! Nduka!" She called as she grabbed the front of her husband's shirt and began to shake him as she wept. "Nduka! Wake up! Wake up, Nduka! You can't die now o! You can't die! I'm too young to be a widow! So. you won't even wait to see your unborn child! Mba o! Mba! (No o, no) Nduka, wake up now!" She cried out hysterically.

A few women surrounded Njideka and tried to pull her away from Nduka's body but she struggled with them and clung to her husband's body, placing her head on his chest and weeping around uncontrollably. The angry youths turned on the priest, grabbed him, roughly turned him around towards the gate, and began to shove him towards the gate and out of the compound while they rained insults on him. Many threw sentences at him like,

"Your cup is finally full!"

He-goat! Instead of serving God, he's sleeping around!"

"Shameless man!"

"Murderer!"

"You'll perish in hell!"

"You'll rot in prison for this!"

"You killed an innocent man because he refused to let you rape his wife!"

"Woman wrapper!"

"Fake priest!"

 "Animal!"

"Don't let him drop that stick o! In fact, we should tie it around his neck so that everybody will know what he has done!"

"Useless man! Ewu (goat)!"

"Man of God, my foot!"

All attempts by the priest to plead his innocence only fell on deaf ears and earned him more rough-handling and shoves! Somehow, no one dared hit, slap or beat him up probably because they were scared that God might descend on them for touching his anointed. 

They continued to shove him down the street without even letting him fetch his trousers or his shoes from the house, so he had no choice but to remain completely naked under his cassock and also walk the mud-colored ground, barefooted. 

Some of the angry youths fetched leaves and crawling plants and wrapped it around him to ridicule and held branches which they either shook in the air or occasionally dragged across the ground just to display their anger. 

While this was going on, a few youths remained behind in front of Nduka's compound. They grabbed any log of wood, thick branch and stones that they could find and descended on Father Thomas' car. When they were done vandalizing his car, they doused it with petrol and set his car ablaze. 

As the priest was shoved towards the church, the crowd thickened and many children began to dance and sing ridiculing songs with his name in Igbo language. Far behind, in the midst of other women who were trying to console her, Njideka had been allowed to dress up properly so that they could follow the angry mob to the church where she could explain to the bishop what the priest had done to her husband. As the woman led and escorted her to the church, Njideka continued to wail about her husband's demise and weep.

Sometimes, she would cry out loud, scream like a madwoman, throw herself on the ground and roll around while wailing continuously, and the women would quickly hold her and cajole her back to her feet. Njideka even sat down on the road for five minutes, crying and refusing to be comforted as she shook her head, tearing her scarf off to reveal her disheveled hair and continuously slapped her chest in sorrow as she vigorously shook her head. 

As she placed her forearm on her head and repeatedly shook her legs in grief, it was starting to be a difficult and exhausting task for the women to finally get her to the church where the other priests and the bishop who had been attracted by the noise of chanting youths and singing children from afar, were now waiting outside the church to receive them.

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Four Weeks Later...

Father Thomas who was now in the police cell and was only clad in his boxers was led into the dank visitors' room by an officer. After he sat down, the cranky officer glanced at Njideka who had come visiting and said,

"Fifteen minutes." He told both of them and left.

Father Thomas turned to look at Njideka half-surprised and half-hopeful. "You came." He said in a tired tone. He looked haggard as if he had not had a bath for days. His hair had grown so rough and his beard was beginning to spring out which showed that he was in dire need of a shave; not to mention the languid look in his eyes.

"Yes, I'm... It's good to see my beautiful face again after so many weeks, right?" Njideka answered, placing her folded arms on the table that was set between them. "It seems being here is already taking its toll on you..." She chuckled in a mocking away as she scrutinized him. "You look really depressed, father."

"I won't be in this mess right now if not for you." He said solemnly.

"Oh well...then you'll just have to get used to it." She said remorselessly then locked her fingers on the table in front of her. "So, tell me, how are your fellow cellmates treating you? Has anyone harassed you yet?" She smirked. "You should really feel lucky that we have few gay men in Nigeria...over there, abroad, most men who go to prison do not return the same way."

"But why, Njideka?" He despairingly asked now. "Why did you do this to me? What did I do to deserve this from you? Why did you frame me for what I did not commit? Why don't you just tell the police that you were the one who murdered your husband and not me?"

"So many whys... Which am I to answer first?" She asked, pretending to think as she continuously tapped at her chin with her index finger. "Apparently, none!" She finally said with a wide smile.

"Stop messing around, Njideka! This is getting out of hand! Simply just tell everybody the truth! Tell them the truth!" He cried out in frustration.

"And rot in jail? No way!" Njideka said. "I'm not cut out for prison life, Thomas, I'm a woman and I've got a beautiful life in front of me which I intend to live to the fullest."

"Then why frame me? I thought we were in love. I thought you and I had something great going together? I thought we had our future all figured out! You are even pregnant with my baby." He gestured with both hands at her belly.

"In love?" Njideka scoffed. "My love for you died months ago, Thomas... I was only playing along by leading you on to see what I could get out of the relationship before I finally ditched your cheating ass!"

"But why? I thought we agreed to wait four years. A year is almost even gone! And I gave you my word that I'd cut off the other women that I was seeing, which I did."

"Four years?! Four years?! You think that I'll waste four good years of my life waiting for you to man up and do the right thing?! What do you think I'm, a fool?!" She flared. "Thomas, I knew that you were not going to keep to any of the promises you made to me! I knew that all you wanted to do was to use me to your satisfaction and ditch me at the end! Just in case you are wondering where all these are coming from, I found out that you have not been sleeping with Mama Ebele after all, instead, you have been sleeping with her eighteen-year-old daughter- Ebele... I heard that she's even two months pregnant for you already and you intend to take care of her and the baby which after you'll secretly marry her four years later, the same time you had planned with me. I found out that I was just nothing but a pawn to you and when the opportunity came to teach you a lesson, I jumped at it! And now... See who's behind bars!"