Yet Another Birth

Ndukwo's second birth came on the third morning of November, in the other year. Nobody knew that the baby girl who died in the previous years had come back. That time, he was born a baby boy, with his face wriggled like that of an old man. More people in Okwo came and rejoiced in his birth. His grandmothers rejoiced more and they were pouring some powder on everyone everywhere. In every Igbo society, when a baby is born, grandmothers or happy relations go around neighbourhoods pouring powder on people's palms - an act of telling people that a child is born. 

Ndukwo's grandmothers even poured more powder on people than they did in the first birth. But after three weeks, the baby died. People who came and rejoiced with his parents and his grandparents came another time and consoled them for another death. The mother of his mother was much unhappier than anybody. She knew what was going on; she had not forgotten the abomination of the father of her son-in-law, who died some years back. She knew that the baby was a comeback child sent to torment its parents for an unforgotten abomination done against Aziza Iyi. She carried the baby's body into her inner room. She dug a hole at the centre of the room, chopped off the little finger of the left hand and buried it there. The following day, she threw the body into the Udennamokai.

"There're some children", Grandma, the mother of Ndukwos mother, was saying to her daughter and her son-in-law, "they are evil spirit messengers from the Ogbanje world. These children are born many times but do not want to stay alive. The only way to keep them alive is by cutting off one of their fingers or a part of the body. Your dead baby was one of them. I cut his little finger so that he would not be accepted in the spirit world until the little finger is brought back." She said and paused, thinking. 

"To bring back the little finger," Grandma continued, "it means the baby would come back to life another time. That means he will come back with a half-little finger. If it happens this way, permit the baby to be called Ndukwo, which means a 'befitting life'," she added.

Ndukwo's parents paid rapt attention to Grandma but could not believe her. They were a young couple, too young to believe such a story. His father was a reverend pastor, Rev. Ugwa was his name; he was dark and tall. As a man of God, he did not succeed in his own father's church - the church died out with his father. Rev. Ugwa was in charge of one Apostolic Church along Aja Road. He married his wife a year after she finished her NCE course. Her name was Ogbonne, meaning 'mother's namesake'. When she was married to her husband, she changed her name to Mrs Ugwa Ogbonne. They had lived strictly under Christian principles and doctrines; so they refused to accept everything that grandma had told them. 

The old woman told her daughter and her son-in-law that the dead baby, who came the second time, would come again the third time. But they did not believe her story. Meanwhile, she did not blame them. She knew they were still a young couple. Young married people, especially Christians, hardly believed that kind of true story thought the old woman.

When Ogbonne gave birth the third time, it was a baby boy. The little finger of the newborn remained chopped off. It was the little finger on the left hand that the old woman cut off and buried. Seeing the half-little finger, people believed the old woman's story of Ndukwo's births, especially her daughter and her son-in-law. Those who heard the story of Ndukwo's birth believed it and said that he was Ogbanje, because he was born, and died many times.

That was people's belief about Ndukwo's births, that he was Ogbanje. It was often told as a story some years back. Back then, he was in JSS 2 and, at that time, he was twelve years old. Now that he was sixteen years old, his parents enrolled him newly for Senior Secondary School two. He did not like to see or hear his grandma or anyone else narrating that demeaning story to him. The last time he heard about it was Grandma's last visit. He was too impatient to listen till the end. He simply frowned and left her presence. That happened three months before schooling resumed.

Ndukwo had grown up with that ugly story about his birth, about his entire life. He was mending his coop when the thought about that story cropped his mind and he became unhappy. He had a small hammer in his right hand and some three-inch nails in his left hand. He raised his left hand to examine his half-little finger. He looked at it for a long time and waved his head in regret. Shame drove its way into his head with some feeling of hate. He then dropped the hand, wearing a stern frown. He was somewhat unhappier seeing the half-little finger. 

That time, he needed to get rid of that ugly feeling; he must, at least, purge it out of his head. So he tried forgetting that thought by singing a song but to little avail. The ugly story of his birth kept holding roots in his mind, in his head and his whole being. The depth in which the feeling had taken root in his entire being had caused a different version of him to manifest a copy of hate and fury for the society in which he was forced to live. He then stopped hitting a hammer on a nail, dropped the hammer and the nails and left whatever thing he was doing with the coop.

He stood up, and then he heard his mother call his name: "Ndukwo!" But He did not answer immediately. Grandma had once told him a story before she died. She said that evil spirits sometimes call people at night and that one should not always ignore the first call until the second call at night. That was the reason Ndukwo did not answer his mother's first call. But when his mother called the second time, he ran and answered: "Yes, ma!"

While he ran towards their frontage, he stopped shortly to check his wristwatch, to know what time it was. The wristwatch said it was 6:45 p.m. His mother stood in front of their house, waiting. Seeing him around, she ordered him to help his chicks cross over a big log which was in their way. The chicks hardly crossed over the log so their mother left them there and went into their coop. "Stupid hen!" He mumbled and spat out Spittles disapprovingly. He bent down, picking the chicks one after the other. When he had collected them, he returned them to the coop.

"Make sure the coop is locked very well," his mother shouted. "Or expect wild animal as your guest tonight."

Ndukwo hardly replied a word that evening. His countenance was unfriendly. He quietly and carefully shot the door of the coop and went straight to his room.