BECOMING SUPRA

Chapter 15: Nigeria: Yinka

"How far would you go if you were told you had six months to live?"

Yinka was in a car travelling with her aunt Subin, they were on their way to see a healer living on the fringes of the Sahel desert, in Nigeria. Her aunt was diagnosed with cancer the same week she met the love of her life - she was in no mood to die.

Yinka considered her question.

"Would you eat goat eyeballs or drink the blood of bats?"

"Probably," said Yinka, meaning it.

"What about walking in a pit of venomous snakes?"

"Is that what she's going to make you do?"

"I've heard stories," said her aunt. "So, where would you draw the line?"

"You might as well try everything," said Yinka.

That's what Subin wanted to hear, she settled into her seat like a homing pigeon and exhaled.

A trail of dust billowing behind them as they turned the road leading to a lone hut. They parked the car and made their way to the entrance, tentatively peering through the macramé door curtains. A woman, adorned with colourful beads was hunched beside a black cauldron. She stood up and beckoned them inside. The woman's eyes flitted from Subin, then settled on Yinka. She took in the length of Yinka's frame then approaching her she bent forward and gently touched Yinka's forehead with hers, as though trying to get a reading on her. Yinka stiffened, her eyes searching for her aunt.

"I'm the patient," said Subin promptly. "I'm the one who needs healing."

The woman broke away from Yinka.

Subin scoured the hut in search of snake pits and dried carcasses but found none. She sniffed the air, it was odourless. The woman gestured to the floor and said, "Sit".

Subin was beginning to dread her decision of meeting the desert healer, but it was too late now.

The woman sat opposite them, her legs crossed, her spine straight, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and let out a musical sound. The note travelled and hit Subin in the gut, gentle like a water piston. The woman's voice was textured, though all she did was hold the same note. It seemed as though the woman was drawing the sound not from her diaphragm but from her heart.

Seconds, minutes, tens of minutes passed. The sound lulled them into a kind of daze. Then from the periphery of her vision, Yinka saw something, like colors snaking, she blinked, but what she saw was clear in her vision. She saw a stream of energy, like a river flowing, from the woman's chest to Subin's tumor in her gut. The current of energy entered Subin and superimposed its vibrational imprint inside her till Subin was inundated with it. Yinka blinked, she could distinctly see Subin's tumor suffused with a rainbow tint, she looked away and back again but the vision persisted. Yinka was seeing beyond the human scope of perception. Yinka's clairvoyant abilities had suddenly come to the fore as though the note emanating from the healer's heart had nudged her into a higher state of perception.

Then suddenly, Subin started to shake, so much so that she was bouncing off the floor. Through her clothes and flesh, Yinka saw Subin's damaged organ. The grey cluster of cells gathered around her abdomen began to explode like dynamite, malignant cells were being blasted one by one. The juddering continued, Subin was now drenched in sweat. Yinka reached out to contain her aunt but the woman gestured to Yinka with her eyes to leave her alone, all the while continuing with the same textured note.

Minutes later, the shaking stopped, then so did the song. Subin exhaled, tidying her hair, wiping the sweat off her brow. Then she looked at the cauldron and asked what was remaining for her to do.

The woman said, "Go to your doctor. He will tell you what to do next."

"We're done?" asked Subin, unconvinced.

"We're done," said the woman.

"What's in the cauldron?"

"Salt water."

When Subin offered the woman money, the woman said, "I have little use for money here. Next time, bring with you some food."

Subin and Yinka went to the car to gather all the fruits and knickknacks left from their road-trip and handed it to the woman as politely as they could.

"I will not be seeing you again," she told Subin. "But you," she said looking at Yinka, "I will meet. Next time you come, bring with you some salt from the sea."

It was a song for a song.

Subin did not feel better, not till weeks later. When she and her lover went to the hospital for a check-up, the doctors told her that her tumour had miraculously shrunk.

Yinka had no intentions of meeting the beaded healer again, years later, however, meet her she did.