The Stigma of Fatima

Prologue

Kingdom of Katanga

Friday night, 2355

I t was one stormy night. But as of that instance in time, the envelope of darkness had begun to fall, and the melodious voices of birds had stopped to call. Torrents of rain poured with millimeter measurements that had never been before witnessed. Thunder cracked deadly across the sky with decibel measurements that had never been before assessed. Lightning flickered rather eerily from the east end of Katanga to the west, with speed measurements that had never been before easily dismissed. Dogs barked from many households, about a dozen of them at the same time, and a fewer number variously. A twenty-two-year-old pregnant woman trudged wearily along the narrow path leading from the Katanga River, the water basin on her head dangling, perilously. She was Mama Magma. Three days earlier, her husband, Chiluba Cuba, was declared redundant at the local bakery a nd his body was found a day later, dangling from a tree; it looked like suicide. As she walked along the narrow path, her throaty moans could be heard resonating across the vicinity and rivulets of sweat streamed down her pale cheeks. Intermittently, she stopped, and each time she did, she placed her palm on her waist and moaned, her tone throaty and guttural. Mosquitoes and other predatory insects stung bitterly at her legs as she walked along. She felt a painful churning in her womb and stopped. The delivery hour was nigh.

An owl hooted thrice on end, signifying the imminent arrival of the unborn.

She looked back but saw no one.

She looked either side of her, left and right.

She saw no one too.

The churning in her womb stiffened further and her abdomen knotted in pain. From a distance, she heard a baby cry from one of the distant households and her own inbound baby shifted, the upper part of her stomach protruding into a triangular swell. Twenty seconds later, her legs became numb and a sharp pain rose from her womb and travelled up to her torso. She dropped the basin and knelt down, her fingers entwined and held against the lower part of her abdomen. She moaned severely and shouted for help. But nobody responded. Her anxiety grew. She parted her fingers and lay back.

She moaned. She wriggled. She wept. She shrieked.

But no one responded.

Sweat beads gushed from her pores and formed tiny streamlines flowing down her face and temples.

Oh! What a a stigma!

But the unborn baby had become impatient to remain womb-held; it kicked and turned as though it was unfairly incarcerated. Beads of sweat collected in acute quantities behind her ears and trickled down miserably along her nape, the collar of her blouse getting soaked and dripping.

And as the unborn baby descended down to her abdomen, she felt a seeping pain and shrieked. A minute later, the tiny head of the unborn baby shot out from her birth exit and, within seconds, she was relieved of her live burden−A baby girl was born. But she had never lived to any knowledge of who her mother had been; the body of Mama Magma could not hold on to her soul due to the uncontrollably pervasive agony of birth.

But she was born with a stigma she could not be held accountable for. In the kingdom of Katanga, a girl whose mother died at birth became a GAGA—an evil offspring who could bring misfortune to the kingdom—and therefore had to be sacrificed to the gods to keep the king alive.

Oh! What a stigma!

Chapter One

Kingdom of Katanga

Sunday midnight with full moonlight

‘I se ek all permission to visit your presence at a time that is oft comforting,’ King Gariba said, approaching the shrine. ‘ I seek all permission to smile at, and drink from, your countenance at a time that is oft comporting.’ The shrine of Witch Bazarima was the only shrine recognised by tradition and authorised by convention to sit by fact and hit by act in the famous kingdom of Katanga. The shrine was built three decades before King Gariba was enthroned and had been used, over the course of passing time, as the sole sit-and-hit rendezvous for Katangese kings since the royal tenure of King Yoriba, the tragic father of King Gariba.

As King Gariba approached, a black dog, lying in guard of the shrine at the door, barked and howled just as quickly. Unbridled silence then descended and lasted within twenty heartbeats. The black dog rose and howled again and, turning, she bobbed her head and wagged her tail concurrently and dashed into the shrine. Three minutes later, a feminine but shrilly voice toned incomprehensibly from within the shrine. The king bowed and smiled.

The black dog emerged from the shrine and, wagging her tail incessantly, bobbed her head thrice and stood still. And in a minute, a dwarfish old lady emerged from the shrine, carrying twelve short arrows in her left hand and seven sets of rosary beads in the right. She paced forward and stood still behind the black dog. The dog growled and offered permission of entry, singing, her tail wagging consonantly:

Oh! Mama!

All squirm at our royal dilemma

Tread well to lethal Bazarima

Trash out every regal trauma

Treat all portrayal of stigma

Trim off every call for dogma

Track withal all glory of charisma

Tread aloft to fateful Bazarima

All squirm at our royal dilemma

Oh! Mama

When she had stopped singing, a white cat meowed shrilly from within the shrine and a masculine voice could be heard very with a loud laughter. The dwarf old lady then bobbed at the king and spat at the black dog and turned to the door. King Gariba smiled and started towards the door too.

‘What is it of the matter that brings you to my presence and countenance at this ungodly hour?’ Witch Bazarima said, her eyes wildly riveted on the king.

King Gariba was silent. The Katangese were very a conservative race and held on taut to all hereditary practices bequeathed them by their forebears.

King Yoriba had ruled for four decades in an exceptional tenure of royalty that expansively saw kingdom of Katanga in a long generation of prosperity—royal women multiplied to a two−digit count, inter−kingdom trade expanded and agricultural activity boomed, royal standard of living rose, and businesses blossomed. In the fifth decade of King Yoriba’s rule, tragedy struck at the royalty. The king had been returning from a royal durbar from the kingdom of Santagatanga when the vehicle in which he had been travelling in crashed into an on-coming articulated truck and overturned. And the king and his eight-member entourage all perished. But Prince Gariba was only eighteen. At that time, Katanga royal tradition sanctioned an heir to the throne only after turning twenty-seven. However, a provision made had been that any under-aged prince could only be enthroned only if he offered a virgin for sacrifice. And offer king Gariba did.

‘You will have to sacrifice a virgin! Her age must not exceed eighteen! That is the only non-negotiable option for you made available to redeem your right to the throne!’ Witch Bazarima had said a month ago.

Chapter Two

T he eighteen-year-old virgin girl, Yumma, had left home on her regular purpose to offer her daily alms of charity to the eye- and leg-disabled orphan at the outskirts of the kingdom of Katanga. It was April 30. The distance between her home and the orphan’s recluse was about two miles. But little did she know that it was the last journey she was destined to make in her life. As of this while, the envelope of darkness drew closer as the sun had already set and stars had begun to emerge. Prince Gariba, his head covered with a black mask, lay in ambush at about four kilometers to the recluse of the disabled orphan.

As soon as Yumma approached, Prince Gariba jumped out from behind the bush thicket he had been hiding in. Yumma cawed and shrieked. You will have to sacrifice a virgin! Prince Gariba reflected and had verged on changing his mind to kill. That is the only non-negotiable option for you made available to redeem your right to the throne. The prince reflected again and decided against his former consideration. He pounced on the poor and gagged her and tied up her hands and legs with a rope woven with an evil intention to kill.

‘Who are you? Please do not harm me… please… please… No wrong have I ever done nor any harm have I ever condone,’ Yumma said, her voice croaky and with tears running down her cheeks.

‘Shh! You must stay quiet and I will let you live, Prince Gariba said, his two eyes bulging from the two-eye cut-outs on the mask. ‘I am your savior! I have been sent to make you an offer, a fortune that has never been seen since the birth of this kingdom.’ Yumma struggled to scream for help but her voice was muffled by the rope gag. The prince dragged her to, her body wriggling, a ditch he had dug himself with a burning ambition to achieve his diabolical agenda. He glanced around him and, seeing no one, threw Yumma into the ditch. A bush reptile, ostensibly either a rat or a lizard, scuttled across from his left and caused a temporary rustle. He cawed but became confident just as quickly as the rustle died out in a few seconds. Prince Gariba lowered himself into the ditch, smiling and reminiscing in an imminent potential to reverse a traditional rule and make him become king. As the prince was descending down into the ditch, the gag over Yumma’s mouth shifted a bit away from her mouth.

She felt a bit of a twinge of relief and shouted, ‘Who is out there to help?! Who is out there to save my life?! Oh, my Greatest Architect, I look to none but Your Merciful intervention. I beseech You, My Lord. Come to my—’

‘Shut up! The more noise you make, the more dangerous I become,’ Prince Gariba said, his right palm cupping the mouth of Yumma. ‘Shh! Your death will give birth to my life. Very soon, I will rip your life off you and my life will begin as the indisputable king of Katanga.’

‘Please… please… my life on this earth is still short… please… allow me to live a bit more longer and do not destroy, for nothing, that which the Greatest Architect has constructed for a purpose,’ Yumma said, sobbing, her eyes turning wetter.

Prince Gariba frowned. ‘What purpose did the Greatest Architect made you, girl?’

‘My right to live notwithstanding—’

‘Pile of shit! You do not have right to live. What is the purpose thought out by the Greatest Architect for making you?’ Prince Gariba said, his anger growing stronger.

‘I have been privileged to look after a disabled orphan.’

Prince Gariba frowned and flung out a nylon string and wound it around her neck. ‘Privileged for nothing as useless as that disabled outcast! I have been privileged to end your life to make mine,’ he said and pulled harder at both ends of the nylon string. Yumma moaned and her eyes bulged out.

‘Ah… I pl- plead. I… ah—’ The words choked on her throat as the vile prince pulled harder on either ends of the string. Throaty groans surged out as her larynx contracted. Her tongue began to stick out and her eyes began to loll. Prince Gariba shouted in joy and his eyes bulged from relish for power; he made a final pull at the string and Yumma grunted deeply. Her tongue stuck all out and her eyes turned still.

Yumma had been ritually killed. But her ghost would continue to haunt as life continued to hunt.

Oh! What a stigma!

Chapter Three

B ut soon after Prince Gariba had become king of Katanga, famine struck the kingdom and crops and animals perished. The Katanga River dried up. Business folded up. And the kingdom had become vulnerable. Children died before reaching three, women divorced from their husbands, and social mischief spread across the kingdom.

‘Speak, Your Royal Highness!’ the witch shouted, her eyes bulging.

‘I have no reason to say that which you know already,’ King Gariba said, sweat collecting on his forehead.

‘My knowing of that which your mind holds does not preclude saying it. Say it!’

‘My Bazarima, it is held in both memory and library that the toad does not run in the afternoon for nothing. And it is also held by our cultural connoisseurs that when the toad runs in the middle of the night, the indication is that there has been in the afternoon a business unfinished. My Bazarima, here I come with a problem which, if not solved, holds a daring potential of wreaking a gory calamity on the neck of this great kingdom.’

Outside, storm instantly scum over and soon it began to rain.

The witch frowned. With sweat collecting on her forehead, she said, ‘Say it! My senses are yearning for the voice of that which your mind holds!’

‘My Bazarima, the fact, as you well know, is that my kingdom is under threat. My hegemony is waning and a royal disgrace is gradually turning imminent. I need, and as every king would need, a quick reversal of fortune. I need absolute power and authority. I need fame and charisma. Otherwise, I will join my ancestors with dirty sprouts and faulty spirits.’

Witch Bazarima laughed hysterically and spat out a cola-stained phlegm. ‘Yes. I knew it. Yes, I did. You had been the only son of tragic King Gariba but the sacred rule, which should never have been, was relaxed. A virgin was sacrificed and you became king’—witch Bazarima laughed again—‘and, yes, you are now a king. But a rule was broken to bend another one. That was the genesis of your predicament.’ The witch paused and, spinning quickly, shouted at the king. ‘Our heritage, although not known by many, had been that all royal firstborn siblings are not sanctioned by tradition to sacrifice virgins. But you had been made to sacrifice one. Didn’t you!? You had been misled. What an aberration!’

King Gariba wept, his face buried in his palms. ‘Eeeh! Eeeh! I am finished. My royal identity will be vilified. What should I do? Aaah! Aaah!’

Outside, the black dog howled as thunder cracked across the kingdom.

For a few seconds, silence eerily descended and then quickly broken by a faint squawk of a bird.

The witch looked up, her eyes riveted at the thatch roof for about five minutes and turned to the king and said, ‘I can call and pacify your ancestors and make your kingdom shine once more. But whatever your ancestors will remit, they will do with the permit of the Greatest Architect. Listen and listen well.’

King Gariba’s eyes flickered with joy. ‘Yes, my Bazarima, I’m all ears.’

Witch Bazarima looked up once more at the thatched hut and blew black spittle onto the floor and said, ‘Well, well. Your ancestors have spoken. And I’ll speak what they have spoken. You will now henceforth rule with hands of prosperity but on one condition.’

King Gariba jerked, his right ear turning to the witch. ‘What is it?’

‘No GAGA should ever be made to survive in your kingdom! No one can defeat your royal power except a GAGA whose umbilical cord was untimely cut! Ergo, any GAGA found henceforth in this kingdom should be made to serve at your palace for fifty-two weeks and thenceforth put to death!’

‘What?!’ King Gariba said, scrambling up.

‘Yes,’ Bazarima shouted. ‘An annual GAGA ritual henceforth shall be performed! And every GAGA identified at the ritual ceremony shall be the culprit who shall be caged at the palace as a maid and put to death in fifty-two weeks’

Thunder cracked eerily in tandem with a quick flash of lightning from outside.

‘My Bazarima, I have heard you through my ancestors. My ancestors had worked for this kingdom to stand. I can’t hold myself to think of or watch this kingdom fall.’

Within and for about a decade, the power and authority of King Gariba grew and spread. But the kingdom of Katanga had been reduced to a perpetual state of anxiety as it was feared on every pregnant woman that they could end up losing their newly born babies to GAGA ritual murders. Many young girls lost their precious lives because they had been deliveries out of maternal deaths. But pregnant women were disallowed to migrate too. And the gory sight and hearing of death lurked over the once-happy and prosperous kingdom. But King Gariba was not bothered.

Oh! What a stigma!

*  r   *     *

Papa Daliba had gotten back home and his wife, Mama Salma, was fast asleep. He had been tired and confused. And the baby, he had found and brought home, was asleep too. He removed her from the cloth wrapping and placed her on the straw bed. Running more confused, he dashed out and fetched a collection of locally mixed anesthetic herbs, ground them, and mixed them with water. He then dashed back to the room where the baby lay. He uncovered part of the cloth wrapping around the navel and administered a little potion of the local antibiotic on her navel. She kicked her legs and yawned and then calmed down, falling back asleep. Papa Daliba smiled and heaved a seated sigh of relief—The baby was alive.

As the bright thread of dawn began to emerge from the dark thread of the previous night, Mama Salma awakened to shocking cries of a newly delivered baby. She rose gradually and sat on the bed, her mind uneasily probing. Twenty years earlier, she had been diagnosed with a chronic form of fibrosis, a condition that spoke against her ability to conceive. She and her husband had visited several prayer camps for divine deliverance but none of all came to fruition. She and her husband had been to several fertility camps but none of all came to culmination. And she had been the perpetual subject of social discourse on matters that had bordered on infertility and feminine sterility.

Oh! What a stigma!

‘Beloved Daliba! Beloved Daliba!’ She had shouted. ‘What has gone awry?’

Papa Daliba had dashed out from the sitting room. ‘No, my beloved Salma, nothing it is that has gone awry.’ Soon after the baby girl had been born, she had been spotted, still clinging to her umbilical cord, by a papa who had been returning from a frustrated hunting expedition. The hunter, Daliba Fasiba, had never had an issue because his warren had been since they got married. The instant he saw the kicking and crying baby, he cawed but instantly he fought back against his emerging awe and examined the wrist of the tragic Mama Magma. There was no pulse. His awe bounced back but he did a quick summon of courage and took out a penknife and, closing his eyes, he cut the umbilical cord of the baby—She cried shrilly and Papa Daliba quickly wrapped her in her bag and trotted away.

‘Have you not heard the cry? The cry of the baby?’

‘Yes, it was a baby,’ Papa Daliba said, smiling heartily.

‘Have men begun delivering babies? Or have I fallen back to my nagging hallucination?’

‘No, my beloved Salma, men haven’t and you haven’t either.’

Mama Salma had jerked up, her eyes obviously probing. ‘Where is the baby from?!’

‘I found her by the roadside.’

‘Where is its mother?’ Mama Salma asked, her curiosity growing.

‘She’s dead!’ Papa Daliba said and grunted miserably.

‘What?!’

Papa Daliba had turned his head away and grunted again. ‘Yes. She died after delivery, I think.’

‘She was delivered a—’

‘Yes, she was delivered a GAGA!’ Daliba said, the frown on his face building up.

‘A GAGA?!’ Mama Salma said, becoming more concerned.

‘Yes, a GAGA—delivered with her mother dying in the process.’

Mama Salma turned sad, and her head resting on her palm, she said. ‘Poor we! You have wrought a woeful calamity to come on us. You have brought a harmful tragedy home. She will not only be killed by King Gariba but our association with her can get us killed too.’

‘My beloved, I could not have left her beside her dead mother any more than I can make a camel pass through the eye of a needle.’

Mama Salma had sobbed. ‘My beloved, what shall we do? I am scared! What can we do?!’

‘We shall hide her under the cover of our humble shelter,’ Papa Daliba said. ‘And feed her and clothe like one from our own.’

‘What if we get caught?’

Papa Daliba began to weep; droplets of tears trickled down his cheeks. ‘We must assume we will not get caught and consume any fear that our minds bring.’

‘Our dear lives could be imperiled!’ Mama Salma said, sniffling.

‘And our rewards could be unparalleled. We are a couple naturally denied of causing the biological effect. Ours could be a