The floor of the General hospital main building is cracked; the walls are faded yellow and dirty. The air around the corridor of the Accident and Emergency Unit smells of drug, of illness and of pain. We nudge our way through the throng of patients along the corridor to the Outpatient Department reception area.
        There is usually a very long queue on Mondays because everybody wants to see Dr. Hassoun, the Lebanese doctor. He is a visiting doctor from the University of Nigeria Teaching hospital. Nigerians believe the white and elderly make the best doctors. They say they are naturally more experienced because they attended good schools abroad where they come from and because they prescribe tiny drugs that are good and cure illnesses quickly, unlike the black resident doctors.
        At the Outpatient Department reception, a plump nurse is sitting beside a dusty reception table. She wears a sad smile on a tired and an unfriendly face. I greet her with a smile. She turns away. I call her attention. She turns around and shouts at us. She is angry that we jumped the queue. She demands rudely that we go back outside the corridor and join the line.
        Only one reason would make me jump the queue: My mother is very sick and she needs immediate attention. I plead with her, but my plea seems to have provoked her.
        - Do you know who I am? She asks angrily.

        Of course, I know who she is. She is an ancillary nurse in a green uniform. But I won't say that. Nigerians are very proud people. No matter how low their position may be in the society they want to be feared and respected.

        - We are Matron Felicia's relatives. I say very politely.
        - Our own Senior Matron Felicia! The plump nurse exclaims.
        It's with a grin at first, then a loud laugh. Then profuse apologies follow: apologies for ever being rude to us at first; apologies for not even noticing that mother looks very sick and needs to be on emergency of the emergency list; apologies for the pain we have taken to force our way through the crowd to her reception desk.
        - My name is Onyinye, she introduces herself.
        Surely, that I may know the name of this good nurse and remember to tell Matron Felicia.
        - I'm Nonso. I respond.
        Plump nurse with a sad face now wears a smiley face. She checks mother's temperature and blood pressure, with a broad smile. She records her readings in mother's medical file, with a broaden smile. She whispers that mother's blood pressure and temperature are slightly high, but assures that seeing the Lebanese doctor will take care of all that.
        - He is the best we have around here, if not in the whole country. She quips with a guffaw.
        Thereafter our plump smiley nurse leads us to a large waiting room at the corner. She makes sure we are comfortably seated in the front row. Then disappears into the door facing us, looking crunched in her tight worn-out green uniform.
        She reappears after a few minutes and assures me it'd be mother's turn next. She says she has shuffled the files while inside the doctor's office and mother's is now at the very top of other files. She fastens mother's scarf properly on her head and compliments what she finds to be my striking resemblance with my mother and Matron Felicia.

        No, I'm not related to any Matron Felicia that works in this General Hospital--I don't even know any Felicia. In Nigeria, the main devious route to open sesame is name-dropping. I've dropped a name I overheard a few minutes ago. A man on the queue--who isn't as smart as I am--had voiced angrily that his aunty, Matron Felicia had gone on transfer to Benin and he was forced to be be struggling in the queue.

        - Thank you for the compliment. I manage a smile.
        - You're welcome. She fakes an American accent.

* * *         The Lebanese doctor is a small man, with a bulbous nose. He has a scar on the right cheek and a silvery hair. The stethoscope hangs round his neck on an impeccable white uniform. He holds mother by the head, draws her lower eyelid down and checks the eyes. He reads mother's medical file that the plump smiley nurse has passed to him, tucks the stethoscope into both his ears and examines

        I know the chemist on Umejei Road. Everyone in this city knows that the Health Commissioner owns the chemist on Umejei Road--the politicians own all the big things in Nigeria--and that their drugs are very expensive and that they'd not sell without a doctor's prescription. Unlike the chemist on Ozoma Street--It was popular with the people. We didn't need a prescription from a doctor to buy drugs across their counter and their drugs were sold very cheap. But last week, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) took anti-riot policemen to carry a massive raid on the chemist on Ozoma Street and closed it down. They claimed they were selling fake and expired drugs that endangered the lives of many Nigerians. Most people still think the government did it out of envy.

* * *         It is chaotic at the general hospital this Wednesday morning. Cars. Buses. Motorcycles. Ambulances. There are movements--disorderly movements of people that I find highly disturbing. I've returned to the Outpatient Department lab to collect mother's test result, to take it to the plump nurse with a smiley face who'd attach the result in mother's medical file, take readings of mother's blood pressure and temperature and then pass the file on to the Lebanese doctor with a bulbous nose who'll interpret mother's tests result and give appropriate prescription or admit her if there was an available bed space--if someone was now either dead or discharged.
        Somehow, in the midst of this chaos I run into the plump smiley nurse who tells me that the medical staff began an indefinite strike action today. They are protesting the non-payment of nineteen months arrears on salary and the gradual decay of infrastructure at the hospital.
        - This disorderly movement, she says, are as a result of people taking away their sick relatives on admission. Those who can afford it would relocate them to private clinics. The dead have to be carted away for an unplanned burial because mortuary attendants are among the striking medical staff. Moreover, the generator that supplies light to the general hospital buildings would be grounded indefinitely and unattended dead bodies would be left to face rot and decay.
        I tell her that I worry about Nigeria, the spineless giant of Africa. That I also worry about my mother's health that is deteriorating fast. She needs urgent medical attention. She needs to commence appropriate treatment, which she can't do without the test result. And I can't afford a private clinic.
        - There is an alternative place across the bank of the river, the plump smiley nurse says. People go there from time to time; when the hospital has failed them; when the church falls short of their expectations. The thing is that no one likes to own up to these things in public lest one be taken to be the devil himself. She hasn't been to that place across the riverbank herself, she swears. But there are people she knows who have been there and they confirm that they always get a result. She wants me to give it a thought.

        There are just two places that offer hope and happiness to the sick and the impoverished Nigerians: the Main place and the Alternative place. The main place is where we Nigerians go every Sunday in our beautiful clothes to seek for open doors: Zoë Ministry. Deeper life. Household of God. Christ Embassy. Latter Rain Assembly. Faith Tabernacle. House on the Rock. Charismatic Movement. God's Kingdom Society. Fountain of Life. Winners Chapel. Synagogue Church of All Nations. Sovereign Word Church. Redeem Christian Church of God--They say besides America, Nigeria ranks the highest in Pentecostal activities worldwide.
        The Alternative place is where the Chief Priests inhabit: Herbalist. Dibia. Sorcerer. Babalawo. Sangoma. Soothsayer. We Nigerians believe that many of our problems are not "ordinary hand." Meaning: we're often hexed. So some tiptoe to this alternative place for Native Insurance. In between the Main and the Alternative places, you will still find Nigerians who are a little to the left and a little to the right: go to church at sunrise for open doors and sneak across the riverbank at sunset for Native Insurance. Something like wanting to give to Caesar what's to Caesar and to give to God what's to God. Perhaps that's why Nigeria is officially ranked the happiest country in the world. Nigeria: the world's sixth Largest Oil Exporter; has the world's eleventh Largest Oil Reserves; and has the world's tenth Largest Natural Gas Reserves; but classified as the twenty-first poorest country in the world--a poverty that arises from official corruption and mismanagement…

        - My dear nurse, I say, the alternative place across the river isn't the way for me. Because my father was a catechist before he died and went to heaven. Because my mother was a deaconess in St. Augustine Catholic Church before she fell ill. Because in my teenage years I was a mass server in St. Augustine Catholic Church and now in my adult life I'm a strong believer. Because I come from a respectable Christian family and we are highly respected in the church and in my community…

* * *         A powerful man of God has descended upon our city this Thursday, a man with anointing and the immense power of a hurricane. Pastor Weaver will heal the sick, they say. He will give sight to the blind, make the lame to walk and raise the dead. Through him God is about to perform miracles that were last seen two thousand years ago.
        With mother barely clinging to life on my back, we move with the flow towards Lekki Beach, the miracle crusade ground. We have abandoned the taxi because the human traffic is very heavy--we just have to make it.
        So full of expectations!
        Such a mammoth crowd!
        I lay mother on the wooden pulpit. I still can't understand how we managed to waggle our way through to the front pew. She looks grey and shingled and spindly. Beside her is a not-so-old man who sits, morose and hunched up. He is crippled. On her left hand side is a boy, not more than ten years old. He is blind from birth. Everywhere: the sick and the not so sick; the blind and the not so blind; and the poor and the hungry.
        - Hallelu… Pastor Weaver hollered.
        - Hallelujah!
        We chortle; we jump, waving in the air hysterically.
        - The Lord is good!
        - All the time!
        - God's ways, the bible tells us, are not our ways. Pastor Weaver says. He looks on the heart; we men look on the outward appearance. When God sent Samuel to Jesse, the Bethlehemite, to choose among his sons a successor to the throne of Israel, Samuel was looking at the beauty and the height of Eliab. But God was looking at the youth and the noble heart of David, the youngest of Eliab eight sons. He was ruddy and withal of a beautiful countenance, the Bible tells us, but he was the chosen one. I pray your ugliness turns to beauty in the sight of God.
        - Amen.
        - As you tend your sheep like David, your blessings will not elude you.
        - Ame o o.
        - Give Jesus a big hand and make joyful noise unto the lord.
        A thunderous applause, then chortle, snigger, holler and ho, ho!
        - And it comes to pass, Pastor Weaver exhorts, that the apostles so moved the children of Israel that they sold their possessions and gave to the lord. Among them was a certain man called Joses, renamed Barnabas by the apostles. He too sold his land and gave all to the church. But in spite of our strong faith and our willingness to obey God, the devil would always find a way with God's children. So he did with Ananias and Sapphira, his wife. They sold all they had with the intention to give all to the church, but on the advise of the devil sinfully kept aside a part. And our God is a jealous God. I pray that our fate will never be that of Ananias and Sapphira.
        - Amee!
        - That the ephemeral riches of this world won't rob us of our eternal riches in heaven.
        - Amee o o!
        Pastor Weaver says that the story of Ananias and Sapphira reminds him of the two Irish men he encountered in one of his overseas' crusades. He has preached in all four corners of the globe, but has never seen God manifests Himself in such a miraculous way, he says. He had just finished a very wonderful and fulfilling and record-breaking crusade in Dublin Phoenix Park. As he was about to enter his car to the hotel he was lodged, two men had approached him and asked to be healed. One was rich and had prostrate cancer. The other was poor and had leukaemia. Both had narrowly missed the crusade and all the signs and wonders God had wrought through him. He tested their faith: he asked them to go and sell whatever they had and bring the proceeds to the lord within one week. In four days the poor man came back with one hundred thousand Euros, a mortgage taken out from his house. He was healed of his leukaemia in two days. The rich man did not come back. He died of prostrate cancer after one week.
        He cackles. We guffaw.
        - May we always remember that that which we posses is not ours, but the lord's.
        - Amee o!
        Altar call:
        - Offering time!
        - Blessing time!
        Now Pastor Weaver asks that we give our best offerings: for financial breakthrough; for that long-over-due promotion in our work places; for the sick and the terminally ill. I double my previous seeds--if it was what it would take to heal my mother.
        Then another round of offering. Pastor Weaver calls this one sowing seed: Seed for the barren that they may give birth; Seed for the single that they may meet their Mrs rights and Prince Charmings; Seed for sin, for we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of the lord.
        No, we aren't done yet, one more seed to go, Pastor Weaver says. He wants those who haven't got any more money to raise their hands. Many hands are up in the air. I was waving mine frantically. I have sown my last seed with the Mrs rights and the Prince Charmings.
        - Now the owners of the hands that are down, he says, divide all that you have into two parts, put one part in the raised-hand beside you and as you do so prophesy: I'm a millionaire.
        The sleights-of-hand in the air, as the hungry and the sick are proclaiming: I'm a Millionaire!
        - Now the seed of all seeds, Pastor Weaver says. This one is called the Bulldozer! It will bulldoze all the bad head (problems) that other offerings could not bulldoze.
        All--we the owners of hands that are raised and the owners of hands that stay down--line up in a single file. Some walk with a swagger, others do the shakara dance, as we all flow toward the pulpit and empty the contents of our hands on the feet of Pastor Weaver.
        Then he breaks into a melodious song:
        Today, today
        The lord will answer me,
        Today, today...
He lets us take the song from there:
        Today, today
        Our lord will answer us,
        Today, today...
        As we sing, Pastor Weaver prays:
        - The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give good smell…I'm the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys. I release those in bondage, says the covenant-keeping God. The earth is the lord's and its fullness thereof…wherever we tread our feet upon this earth we possess. Be in America, Britain, Germany, Ireland, wherever…borders are man made not of the lord's...possess your possession now…possess...possess…for the lord enlarges your territory and pockets, and the hands of the lord are upon you now…Ayayaya…oyoyoyo…kproo…patapata…I can see the lame walking now, the blind seeing, and the deaf hearing. Close your eyes everybody and receive your healing now. Wherever you are receive, receive, receive…

        Miracle is a will-o' the-wisp?
        My advice: if you wish to measure your mind against an eternal reality, all you need is an axiom of faith. When you have faith, you can feel things that can't be explained, things that may really not be there.

        Now the ground upon which we are standing is visibly shaken and many are filled with the Holy Ghost. Some are falling under the anointing. Signs. Wonders. Testimonies. Hallelujahs. The not-so-old man beside my mother stands and walks. The blind ten-year old boy by her right hand side regains his sight. A dead woman on the other end rises. A wild scream, it is from a man with cancer. He too has just been healed.
        But…but what about my mother?

* * *         At night, mother says her body is burning like a wild harmattan fire, that she is having a severe headache, that her head is swinging like a whirlwind and as heavy as lead. She is sure there is a big stone inside her head, and that her enemy is cooking her inside a pot on fire.
        It is very late at night and the shops are closed. At home we have run out of the analgesics prescribed by the Lebanese doctor. So mother has to manage what is available. And what is available is Blood of Jesus--the beach water that Pastor Weaver has turned into holy water.
        After the prayer and healing session, Pastor Weaver suddenly remembered that some sicknesses could actually defy the bulldozer. He then turned towards the beach water behind him. He blessed the water and prayed over it. By a shifting analogy with Jesus turning a keg of water into wine, Pastor Weaver proclaimed the beach water the Blood of Jesus. He said the blood of Jesus had double-barrel effect: it could heal the most stubborn sicknesses and cast out all kinds of demons. Is there any of you that are still afflicted, let him drink from the Blood of Jesus and he would be well, he proclaimed. And those demons wandering around, seeking for whom to devour, they shall see the houses sprinkled with Blood of Jesus and pass over them. So he asked that we found a container, fetched from the beach water and took it home. I managed to find an empty bottle of Ragolis water and filled it to the brim with what used to be beach water, but is now the Blood of Jesus.
        I measure out some blood of Jesus into a cup and hold it to mother's mouth. Nkwa, nkwa, I urge her to drink from it. Mother looks contemplatively at the cup, contorts her face, heaves a heavy sigh and sips from it. As she sips, I pray: Blood of Jesus; have mercy on us. Sacred blood of Jesus; have mercy on us. Then I sprinkle the Blood of Jesus round. Inside the house: sprinkling, binding and praying. Outside the house: sprinkling, binding and praying…I bind and bind and bind…

* * *         Since yesterday, two ideas have been nibbling my mind, two ideas making great impression on me: One, a care worker to assist me look after mother: someone who would have to come in the morning and go in the evening. I reason that with such an arrangement there would be plenty of time for me to run around.
        The other...I remember I said I wouldn't give a thought to the alternative place across the bank of the river. Because my father was a catechist before he died. Because my mother was a deaconess in St. Augustine Catholic Church before she fell ill. Because I was a mass server in St. Augustine Catholic Church in my teenage years and in this my adult life I am a believer--but desperate condition calls for desperate measures. And this is a desperate condition…
        I'm ashamed to admit that this Friday night, I find myself thinking very seriously of the alternative place across the bank of the river.

* * *         In the morning the next day strange things begin to happen. Mother's illness has taken a dramatic new turn: anxious, agitated, aggressive and hallucinating of death.
        - When night falls death will speak to me, mother says.
        I stand, walk towards the window and look out. Through the window I see the dry tree that is a few meters away from our house. The shrubs beneath the tree are dry grass, with a dark cloud and a red dust hovering over them. The tree is spindly and bare and its naked branches swing in the wind like weak limbs.
        -Branches that are naked speak to me of death, mother says behind me.
        Now I remember when this mango tree was lush and green and of its branches of green leaves and mango fruits. I remember those nights when the rain fell with fierce breeze. Then I used to be lured to sleep by the sound of falling mangoes and the splinters of rain on the zinc-roof, sedated by their harmonious blend like a well-orchestrated music. How mother and I would wake up very early in the morning, kicking through the green shrubs under the tree to pick ripe mangoes, fruits that would later put food on our table and paid my school fees after mother had sold them at the Eke market.
        - If death didn't speak to me tonight, perhaps tomorrow night. Mother says.
        Now the weight of my worries weighs me down. The heavy shadow that hovers at the edge of my heart since afternoon unsettles me. Then I remember Pastor Weaver. Have we been caught in a web of sleaze, a circus of staged managed testimonies, healings, signs and wonders? Or that the weight of the seeds I sow is very light? Or that God is simply choosy of who to heal and when to heal? Or that He has to by-pass my mother to attend to other needs that He deems more pressing?
        Miracle is a will-o' the-wisp? Now you see it, now you don't?
        Is the blood of Jesus mere beach water with a salty taste? Or is it that our faith--mother's and mine put together--isn't strong enough? Or one of those eerie days when things happen because they have to happen and you don't have any means to make them not to happen?
        Murmurs. Hisses. Sighs.
        Now I worry more than before that my mother's world stands on the cliff of a mountain, titling towards the valley, staring death in the face.

* * *         In my beautiful Sunday clothes, I join the early morning ebb and flow of hurrying feet. But while this sea of pilgrims is flowing to the Main places for the Sunday sermon, I'm ebbing towards the alternative place, going to give

* * *         Backwards: a croaky voice shouts from within. I prostrate by the entrance--the doorframe too low to take me at full stretch. I enter the hut backing the wall. The man across the river is seated on the floor, a red cloth spread in front of him and a bowl of water place on top of it. He is looking into the bowl of water in front of him. No, he is not looking into the bowl of water. I observe that his eyes are not closed per se; they are mangled. The blind seer is seeing into the water with mangled eyes.
        He says he sees a mango tree. The tree is dry with naked branches. The tree is a coven. On the naked branches there are people; no they are not ordinary people, he says, they are witches and wizards holding a meeting. On the thinnest of the naked branches hangs a woman. The witches and wizards are eating the inside of the old woman. He looks up to me.
        - You've come with a woman's problem? He asks.
        - Yes, my mother.
        - What about your mother?
        - She is sick. She talks of trees with naked branches.
        - The sickness is not an ordinary hand. She is bewitched.
        He breaks into a song. It is a popular Ibo elegy that we sing when someone passes away. He looks again into the bowl of water. He is chanting incantations. Now he starts a conversation with someone he sees inside the bowl of the water:
        - You say you will do it…that she will not die… Ekwueme! He who does what he says he would do…what? I did not hear you clearly…sacrifice…the tongue of a white python…the pouch of a kangaroo…finish? There is still more… the tooth of a dinosaur… just these and she will not die…I know you will do what you say you will do…Ekwueme!
        He turns to me and he says:
        - The gods tell me to tell you that you've come well. They say that your journey today would be a fruitful one. Some people have all the money, so they crawl here on their knees, begging with all their money, but sometimes the gods refuse to solve their problems. And I do not ask the gods why. Because if the gods say it is a hopeless case, then it is a hopeless case--money or no money. But the gods say I should tell you that your case is not a hopeless case; and that you have come well. They say that those witches feasting on your mother's heart will come to a bitter end. And the gods will do what they say they will do.
        I smile. He laughs. A loud, rounded and significant laughter. Nigerians call it the big man (rich man) laugh. He nudges me on the shoulder and gives me a knowing look with his mangled eyes. Then he clears his throat and he says, counting on his fingers: The tongue of a white python, the pouch of a kangaroo and the tooth of a dinosaur…the gods want a sacrifice.
        - But all these things are out of reach. Where do I get them? I protest.
        He chuckles. He says something about the possibility of the devil being able to see God with special arrangement. Meaning: the items can be arranged immediately, but they'd cost me money. How much?
        He makes quick calculations: For the tooth of a dinosaur: 20, 000 Naira. He explains that the reason for such a high price is that Dinosaurs are extinct and he gets his supplies from an American archaeologist. For the pouch of a kangaroo: another 10, 000 Naira. He insists he won't sell it for less because his Australian supplier is a greedy man. For the tongue of a white python: 5, 000 Naira. It's the least he can go. His supplier, a Hausa snake charmer, always insists on a tip even after getting the purchasing price. Finally, 3,000 Naira is for transport and miscellaneous.
        I count out the money. He grabs it. His mangled eyes twitch, his tongue darts in and out of his mouth and he whistles a song in Yoruba, which I don't understand. But I can sense that mood, the Oh, Happy Day mood of the hunter who happens on a big game.

* * *         I did all you said that I should do, man across the river…
        Before I left your hut with a raffia palm roof, you gave me a black substance in a jar. It is a ready-made of a heady mixture of the tongue of a white python, the pouch of a kangaroo and the tooth of a dinosaur. That's what you said it was. You called it afurukwe, whatever that means. You also gave me a small charm wrapped in a red cloth. Native insurance, you called that one. Then you asked that I go home without delay. That I speak to no one on my way and the rest of the day. That I should not look back all through my journey or the charm and the black substance would lose their potency or I'd turn into a pillar of salt like Lot's wife.
        I obeyed your every rule.
        You'd warned that the black substance didn't have a pleasant odour. So I prepared myself for it. But to be honest with you, I didn't anticipate the shock that would follow. When I got home, mother still lay on the mat, grey, shingled and spindly and the Care worker was hunched up in a couch at the corner, morose. I told her to take a break for two days and paid her what was due to her for the rest of the week. I felt mortified acting like a dumb before her that evening:
        - I hope you are all right? Care worker asks.
        - Yes. Why?
        - You're acting strange, not really talking.
        - I've got a toothache and inside my mouth is sore.
        Perhaps she saw through my lie. Perhaps she didn't. But Care worker probed no further. She collected her pay and went home… I did all you said that I should do, man across the river… You said I should speak to no one. So I spoke to no one. My conversation with her was in utter silence. It was an exchange of words in a piece of paper…
        Deliberate farting is a creative struggle to control the innards. Because fart travels through the same anal channel, I had to ensure that what let out was not faeces. First I secured the locks to the house properly, then placed the black substance very close to my arse and broke wind ten times…ten, because you insisted it must not be more than and it must not be less than that number. It seemed ludicrous that I'd to fart on the black substance before use. But it was your instruction and I'd to obey to the letter.
        Even though it sounded gibberish to me, I intoned the incantation. I made sure I got every of those magic words right, exactly as you'd made me repeat them after you the hundredth time. Thereafter I hung the charm wrapped on a red cloth up the doorframe. It would drive away these witches that meet on the dry tree behind our house, you said. It'd send demons the wrong way. Then I added the black substance to her favourite: jollof rice and stirred, and stirred and stirred; exactly what you said I should do. The black substance would cure my mother's illness, you said. It'd be a proof against any invisible missile. I spoon-fed her… the jollof rice mixed with the black substance… It was what you said I should do.

* * *         A few minutes after she ate the jollof rice mixed with the black substance, Mother lets out a wild scream.
        I rush and hold her by the hand. She is staring at me with vacant and distant eyes. I can see the flush on mother's cheek, the pale on her ashen face. Mother is hallucinating: she speaks of a distant place, full of infinite riches, full of unimaginable beauty; a place where peace of mind can be found; where her ancestors inhabit. She says her ancestors are pulling her by the hand; they are dragging her away and calling her to return home.
        - I'll go with you. Mother says.
        - Please don't go. I cry.
        She opens her mouth to speak again, but her voice fades into a gasp. She takes a deep breath, sighs and twirls and gently closes her eyes. Her mouth is still wide open and her face wears a frown.
        Mother dies frowning at me!