What the heck is “hovering over your head?” you wonder, and I in turn ask, what actually was hovering over my head? Mama was a proud unlicensed ‘seer’, a.k.a undercelebrated prophet cum low-budget clairvoyant, she was everything she wished a prophet could be, that’s pretty much all I could approximate to her paranoia. Here’s the thing: I was an early-bloomer, and that in itself was the crime I was not permitted to commit. Considering the conservative structure of my home, and crediting the fact that Papa and his wife, were as Religion fundamentalist as they were African culture extremist, I was born already guilty being a female, no? okay, here you.
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Papa never quite got over the trauma of being the first to witness my menstruation debut till he passed. He remained enslaved by his mental insecurities over the fact that I was a bit of an early-bloomer, and must have wondered how I could wade off possible sexual overtures from the opposite sex at that young age, which was quite understandable. At age eleven, I was ready to wear a cup size 32 brassiere, my body was filling out rapidly and some “gadgets” were already jutting out and jingling away, to my chagrin. And as if such “unacceptable” bloom wasn’t enough torture to his psyche, my very first menstruation chose to appear on our way to a function one sunny Sunday afternoon, right in his car! The horror on his face on seeing the blood stain on the back of my white gown, left me totally confused, and up until this minute I haven’t found the exact description of how I felt that fateful day asides an induced feeling of guilt for daring to allow my period start. Howbeit, I had a fair idea of what were to be expected between the puberty ages of thirteen and seventeen, thanks to Miss Eunice my biology teacher, but mine came at age eleven, a little too early for me to afford the luxury of its absorption, no thanks to my biological catalogue.
The drive to the house was riddled with ominous silence; Apparently Papa had a lot going through his mind, he literally drove like a robot. His bald mango-shaped head appeared firmly screwed to his neck, he looked pathetic, and I looked…well, distraught, period. That one day I had looked forward to, came along with bizarre feelings. The manner in which it came, and the circumstance in which it was received by Papa, mired my excitement. Truth is, I wasn’t expecting to be treated to a chicken barbecue party to herald it, but I definitely didn’t have to be made to feel guilty. Heck , those were nature’s humorous twists.
As soon as we got home, Papa like a ritual priest, held my hand and led me like a lamb being taken to the ritual ground, to Mama’s bedroom and literally joined our hands, then like a cadet officer, he turned around and marched out of the room. That awkward silence persisted and engulfed the entire house as Mama in turn, like a ritual priestess, sat me gently on the bed, placed my two hands on my thighs, stared into my eyes for seconds that lasted for eternity, then tightened the wrapper on her waist while examining my flushed face like a doctor would on his patient, except that she didn’t have a stethoscope. She stared briefly into space, as if she was consulting the gods on the authenticity of the soon-to-be-performed rituals. In a micro second she whipped out her bible from under her pillow, and began to read from the passage that condemned Fornication. After lapsing into another episode of protracted silence, she jerked up and closed the window blinds, but for the tiny stream of the day light’s reflection, the room would have been in pitch darkness. She cleared her throat and started the real sermon; I’ve never seen her in such a sombre mood.
“I hope you realize the import of this new phase of your life” she started, staring unblinkingly into my eyes.
“You mean apart from always having my monthly sanitary pad ready?” I muttered, shifting uneasily under her intense gaze.
“That’s not the most important part Ogoh, you are now a woman, a fertile one at that” she let drop, and paused briefly to let her statement sink.
I never knew that Mama with her legendry brave and fearless persona, could be so humbled, merely by her ‘under-aged’ lastborn’s menstruation debut; she looked pathetic, I honestly felt a part of me in sympathy with her, but Papa looked worse, trust me.
“Okay” I mumbled. Miss Eunice our Biology mistress had already taught us puberty, with a little less drama though.
“Do you know the significance?” she continued.
“Of what?” I asked.
“Of today” she answered.
“That I’m now a woman, a fertile one at that” I intoned.
“And?” she asked.
“And I should always keep my monthly sanitary pad ready” I answered.
“Far from that Ogoh” she sighed in frustration, her sermon has yet to hit the core.
“the significance of today is that, pregnancy is already hovering over your head!” she said.
“Chineke” I gasped. Pregnancy? Just like that? I wondered. At this point, the alarm in my head had gone on an overdrive.
“From today onwards, you must never be caught playing with the boys, including Kalu” Mama continued. I could swear she must have popped some painkillers after that session, going by the fact that she buttressed every single word she had to say with a nod. The Kalu in question is my cousin, he was just nine year old, was I also at risk of this “hovering pregnancy” with him?. It was a way too much menstruation-debut-theatrics for me to swallow in one fell swoop, so I merely nodded along with her, like an automaton, I didn’t want any ‘hovering pregnancy’ for sure.
“One touch from any boy is an instant pregnancy for you”, her voice trailed off in a whisper as she lowered her gaze to my stomach region, in a bid to reiterate the position of pregnancies, I assume.
“Huh? Pregnancy? Just by a touch?” I asked, I was blown out of the waters.
“Exactly, just a finger touch fiam, pregnancy will happen and your world will pack up because no man will marry a non-virgin, talk less of a single mother, you might even die from the shame and end up in hell fire with the devil and his demons.” she reeled, in a solemn tone.
And like a robot I nodded yet again, that was the least I could do at the moment. I was being read the ‘holy commandments’ which I must not flout, else I’ll face the consequences of eternal damnation. If Mama’s sermon was to be taken in the practical sense of it, then it’s safe to say that Miss Eunice had done little or no justice to her profession as a biology teacher; someone should please find her (wherever the hell she might be) and press charges.
Sex education was a taboo in the house, matter of fact, sex talks were not permitted within and around the house, it wasn’t in our culture at all. Mama in turn never grew tired of her endless ‘hovering pregnancy’ campaign, but never bothered to take the same pain to run me through the rudiment of how such miraculous ‘touch’ from the opposite sex could transform to pregnancy, wasn’t she being clever by half? How does one break a rule that doesn’t even exist? In a literal sense, her sermons flew over my head, and in a metaphorical sense, I would probably have needed to be a clairvoyant to make the right meaning out of them. I lived through my teenage hood in morbid fear of the ‘stray pregnancy’ that I didn’t even know how exactly it could hit me.
So, with my cousin and I in its line of fire, and true to Mama’s prophecy, the “pregnancy’’ eventually hit!
TO BE CONTD.
