Page 78 of Death of the Author

“Bear witness,” he said.

She understood. She could protect herself from the despair that had been about to consume her. Not forever, but at least for this terrible day. It would get her through, even while she felt it all. After a few minutes, she said, “Okay. I’m ready.”

He nodded. “Good. Let’s go, then.”

When she entered the viewing room the second time, she walked in as the writer she was. She would bear witness to it all, with open eyes, an open heart, knowing her role in it. And in this way, she faced one of the worst days of her life. She stood there with her mother and siblings, greeting and listening to the well-wishers. Hugging and shaking hands.

The viewing room was so full of people, so many different types of people. Engineers, professors, neighbors, surgeons, teachers, dentists, lawyers,even a group of workers from the McDonald’s he liked to frequent. Her father knew so many people.

Zelu felt the most for her mother, whom she hadn’t seen sit down in over two hours. Auntie Constance seemed to be pushing her to host. “Try and smile,” Zelu heard her auntie tell her mother during a lull. “Be here for these people. You are the wife.”

Zelu made eye contact with Amarachi and Chinyere, and they caught on to what she was about to do. Chinyere quickly stepped in Zelu’s way. “Don’t.”

“Why?” Zelu snapped. “The person most hurt here is Mom!”

“Yeah, fuck this stiff-upper-lip shit,” Amarachi added. “It’s not Mom’s job to makeother peoplefeel better!”

“Just shut up and stay out of it!” Chinyere turned around, a smile quickly appearing on her face as Frank Johns, a lawyer their father had been friends with, stepped up. “Uncle Frank,” she said. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said.

Zelu and Amarachi stood down, reluctantly following their sister’s order. But Zelu still worried about her mother. It was never good to keep your emotions bottled up, or to let them be bottled up by others. She knew that better than most. From the moment her father had passed, her mother had put her own emotions aside to deal with familial obligations and the roles imposed on her. And when he was buried in Nigeria—something they’d finally decided to allow—Zelu knew the suffering would only go deeper for her. Not only were Igbo burial traditions unkind to women (Zelu kind of believed that, traditionally, the whole point of them was to send the widowed wife into the grave with her husband), but Zelu’s mother wasn’t even Igbo. Zelu suspected that the women in the village would be harder on her mother because she was Yoruba.But what can I do?she thought.

Chinyere and her husband had hung an African mask on each side of the room. They kept incense burning. And soft highlife music played the entire time. The atmosphere was somber but simultaneously festive, andthat festive feeling only grew as time passed. People paid their respects, but they didn’t leave. They stayed to chat with one another. Zelu noticed that people were talking about her father. People who didn’t know each other shared the experience of knowing her father. She left the line of well-wishers for a bit just to walk around and listen. To witness. She took it all in, and it nourished her.

She was standing alone in the back of the room when a loud drum sounded.Gbam!Every hair on her body stood on end. But she felt excitement, too. Was this what she thought it was? Another drumbeat sounded.Gbam!Now the drumbeats were continuous, coming from the lobby. Everyone in the viewing room looked around.

One of the men from the Igbo organization Mbaise Unity shouted something in Igbo. Then he said, “Make way! Everyone! Get out of the way!”

Slowly, people moved away from the double doors. Zelu noticed that the Nigerian women, including her sisters, all ran to the far side of the room. Some grabbed the other women and pulled them with them. Zelu was far enough away that she could stay where she was. A man wearing a white kaftan, a colorful blue-and-white wrapper, and a red-and-white Igbo cap entered carrying a talking drum, playing an aggressive beat that was so loud it hurt Zelu’s ears. He was followed by a flute player wearing the same outfit. Then a man carrying a metal staff with a cowbell attached to the top, who stabbed the staff at the floor, clanging the bell with every other step. The music was haunting, and Zelu felt it stir her spirit.

“Make way!” someone shouted from the lobby. “It has come to pay its respects to Chief Secret Wednesday Onyenezi! To see him off to the world of the spirits! Get out of the way!”

It was so tall that it nearly touched the high ceiling. It was wide as a carwash brush and looked like one, being made of stacked raffia and draped with an ornate red cloth. It danced into the viewing room, bouncing and swaying to the beat of the drums and the sound of the flute. Zelu grinned, tears in her eyes. A procession of men dressed in the same outfit as the firstthree followed. They were solemn and focused only on the masquerade making its way to the casket. When it reached the front, the nine-foot-tall masquerade suddenly slapped its entire body flat on the floor as if prostrating. The drumming, fluting, and bell clanging stopped. All the men stepped back, leaving the open space empty except for the masquerade.

One of the men shouted again and the drummer began drumming a slow, deep beat. Several of the men shouted, as if to egg on the masquerade. It got up and began to dance again. It was a beautiful, powerful moment. They weren’t in her father’s Imo State village, where Zelu was sure her father would prefer to be lying, but the spirits and ancestors were here. In the United States. And so many of her father’s friends, loved ones, and acquaintances were here, too. Her father was a man of multiple worlds, and in this moment, he was celebrated in one of them.

“Yaaaaaaaah!”

Zelu gasped at the sound of her mother’s voice. She’d never heard her scream like this. If her mother ever shouted, it was to give orders, make someone feel small, get someone out of her way. Never in this primal, untethered way. Never in public, in the presence of the community. So loud that her voice cracked. Then Zelu’s mother screamed again, “Aaaaaaaaaagh!” The sound made Zelu want to flee from the viewing room. She met Chinyere’s eyes from across the room. Her sister looked just as terrified.

Her mother was standing with the other Igbo women on the other side of the room. She opened her mouth wide and screamed again, clutching herself. Then she bellowed, “My husband, oooo! My Secret, oooo!” The drummer did not miss a beat. He changed it up and the beats sounded deeper, slower, beckoning. Zelu’s mother was making her way to the dancing masquerade. She kicked off her shoes and lifted the hem of her heavy black dress so she could rush faster. She looked like a mad queen. “Secret!Secret!My Secret, ooooo!”

She started dancing wildly in front of the masquerade. “Kai!” she screamed, doing a turn. CLANG! She bucked her hips and screamed again. She raised her hands as the drumbeats led her in a circle about the dancingmasquerade. Zelu put her hands over her mouth, grinning. Her mother was releasing. This was a catharsis. A woman dancing with a masquerade was unheard of. A Yoruba princess dancing with an Igbo masquerade in America at the wake-keeping of her highly respected Igbo husband was something right out of the future. “Let it out, Mom,” Zelu whispered. “Let it through. Let itgo!”

She looked around. All attention was on her mother. Every single person in the room was absolutely riveted. Some of the Igbo men looked confused. Even the funeral director and his assistant were in the doorway gawking. Her mother held her dress to her knees, did a wild kick, and screamed again. Suddenly, her auntie screamed and began to dance her way there, too. More of the women joined in, and soon a group of older women were dancing around the masquerade and her mother. Chinyere ran to join in. Then Amarachi, Bola, and even Uzo, who was still nakedly crying.

“Come on, Mom!” Tolu shouted. “Dance! Ha ha, Dad would love this!”

Zelu stood back and witnessed it all.

34

Not Yet

When she got home, she threw her coat on the couch. She didn’t care if she got snow all over it. Let it melt and leave the couch wet. Msizi grabbed it and shook it out in the hallway as she went to stand at the window. It was past midnight, but it was so bright outside with falling snowflakes that it looked like twilight over the frozen Lake Michigan.

“Oblivion,” she said as she stared at it. Her father’s face flashed in her mind, and she gulped, the tears welling again. She couldn’t believe she had any more left. “You’re just expected to keep going. Watching people you love drop off, one by one. Then you keep going until it’s your turn to drop off and be gone and then people weep over you. Sometimes I feel like I’d rather be a fucking robot. No pain. No death. No finality. And no need to fear life. Yeah.”

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