I RECEIVED A CALL ON MY WAY BACK FROM CHURCH TODAY

The voice apparently belonged to a female, or I should say, specifically, a girl. It sounded like a girl's voice.

Even now, I still do not know who that caller was, but she didn't sound stilted. She wasn't formal. No, no, no, she wasn't formal at all. She rather spoke to me with very relaxed cadences, with the license of one who has a close or very close relationship with me.

She said, "Eee-kayy, e don happen o..." The way she started, the way she pronounced my name, Eee-kayy, her voice cracking with emotion, I could sense traces of badnews. It was only after she had finished speaking the next one hundred words or more, paying very close attention to details, that I understood the gist. Then, the sun's bright circle in the sky had moved half way and it was burning terribly hot; but after she hung up, a freezing shiver descended on me. I just stood there tongue-tied, unable to say a word.

Godforbid bad thing!

There's a young bachelor in my compound called Donatus, but we call him 'Uncle Dona'. Uncle Dona is a very lovely man with an engaging simplicity of character. Everyone loves him: men, women, boys, girls and children; especially children. Every evening when he drives into the compound from work, children cram into him like ants on a cube of sugar — they love him exceedingly. And he never fails to bring something from work for them. However, something rather strange happened two weeks ago. A particular child, Chidinma, a girl, was with her mother, and it was as if she saw a ghost when she saw Uncle Dona approaching their home. She held her mom tightly and started crying loudly. The nearer he came, the louder she cried, until he was finally there and made to carry her, the way he usually carried children, in his characteristic fashion: very tenderly, very affably, very avuncularly... But Chidinma strangely left her mother who, I think she felt didn't want to protect her, and started running around, screaming, to the utter astonishment of everyone in that compound.

Although I, too, didn't understand the incipient strangeness she had put up, although I was also confused and unable to read all the hidden corners of her heart, as someone who has taught children for years, I watched very closely at this girl and I could see oodles of disappointments edged on her face, towards her mother. Chidinma was only six or seven years old, and looking at her closely, I could see that there was something she couldn't say, something she would have loved to say... I could see that even in the cocoons of her mother she was feeling helpless.

When she would not stop crying, her mother who had become enraged, picked up a cane and flogged her mercilessly, calling her an OGBANJE, a witch. What was wrong with her? Why was she crying anyhow?

That was two weeks ago before I left Port-Harcourt. Today, when that girl called me after church, what she told me on phone was that Uncle Dona was caught with little Chidinma in his house, and that it was a very pitiful sight to behold. Is it PUSSY they call it? I mean a girl's private part, yes. She also said that blood was rushing out of that part of Chidinma. Uncle Dona has been handed to the police.

I think Chidinma wasn't acting strangely for nothing two weeks ago. I wept for her today. I really wept for her.

It is not enough as a mother to listen to your children when they speak. It is also very important to listen to their souls, too. Oblivious to us, children, female children especially, go through a lot: from those in the compound—those you trust so much–, from their friends, from their uncles, even from their teachers. Listen to them especially when they cannot speak!

Fiction!