Take a Priest Like You
Her name was Eugenia. How she got that name I will never know, but it suited her. She was a small, beautiful twelve-year-old schoolgirl with a disarming smile. Unlike most of her people, she was very light-skinned.
I first met her in class when I was visiting the local grade school, and I’d commented about her intricate braids. A few days after our first meeting, she came over to the mission house on her way home. It was set back about fifty yards from the narrow path leading to the main village. Frequently, when I was in my office, people would wave as they passed, or shout a greeting.
I could see Eugenia approaching, singing to herself, swinging her books tied together with a string and clutching a small bag which contained her writing materials. She sat down on the verandah floor outside of my open office door, watching me work. The larger of my two dogs, Roco, sauntered over, flopped down beside her, allowing her to play with his ears. He was not usually that friendly.
“Hi, Eugenia, how are you today? Is there something I can do for you?”
“No thank you, Barrington,” she replied, her focus remaining on the dog.
I continued working for a few minutes, engrossed in trying to balance my accounts when she broke the silence.
“Barrington, excuse me please, but do you have a book I can read? I want to learn more things and I have finished all my schoolbooks.”
“Well, that’s a great request, Eugenia,” I said, pushing my chair back and walking towards her. “I do have some books, but I wonder if they are the kind that you would want. Come in and we can take a look at them together.”
I had quite a collection of books in the office, but none for kids, including a selection from the African Writers Series that I found fascinating. I pulled out Things Fall Apart by Chinu Achebe, a Nigerian writer, recounting the story of a village “big man” who gets his comeuppance.
“Do you want to give this one a try? You might like the story.”
“If you liked it, Barrington, then perhaps I will,” she answered trustingly.
“Then you can borrow it. If you don’t like it, we will try something else. In any case, you can always come here and ask me for help.”
From that first day Eugenia would frequently come to the house with a couple of friends after classes, just to sit and visit or ask me for another book to read. She had an impish sense of humor and a quick inquisitive mind. She also had a somewhat deformed right foot that forced her to walk with a slight limp.
I learned from the headmaster that this young girl was industrious, determined, and responsible, well beyond her years. One of only two people in her village who could read — the other was her elder brother — she had started evening classes in her father’s compound twice a week, teaching adults. In every class, she asked each person for a penny that she put towards buying her own uniform and class materials.
“Barrington,” she called to me one day after school as she was sitting with her best friend Teresa, dangling their legs over the edge of the verandah shaded by a huge mango tree, “Will you take me to England, so I can go to a big school? I would like to become a doctor.” It was siesta time, and the heat was so oppressive I couldn’t work. I was sitting at my desk with the doors and windows wide open, trying to catch what little movement of air there was, and she must have seen I was not really concentrating.
“Well, it’s far, far away, and you would miss your own people,” I replied, walking out and squatting down between them. It felt a little cooler outside, even though the cement was warm to the touch. Roco loped over from the shade under my truck where he had been sleeping, flopped down between us, and nuzzled up to the two girls. Then she coyly turned her head, looking at me with that disarming smile, something between impishness and genuine curiosity.
“But you are a rich man,” she continued. “You can bring all of my family, too.”
“What do you mean, rich?” I laughed.
“Well, you have a big stone house, a truck, and if you get a bad sickness, you can go home to find a doctor.”
For a moment, I was not sure just how to respond; she had taken me completely unawares.
“You’re right,” I replied, searching for an appropriate response. “I do have a nice house, but it doesn’t belong to me. I’m only using it as long as I work here. And yes, sick priests do get sent to England, but that’s because they are not as strong as you and your people.”
“But Barrington, we want you to stay for a long, long time,” she declared. “Our people like you. I do not want you to get sick, but if it comes, you must stay, and I will help take care of you.”
Her childlike simplicity and obvious affection touched me. I wanted to reply with something witty, but I was too slow.
“Barrington, why don’t you have a wife?” Eugenia ventured. “She could take care of you.”
“Eugenia, you know priests don’t marry. You learned that in school. None of the other priests that lived here have been married.”
“Yes, but they were all old, and you are young. There are many women here who would be a good wife for you. If you married one, you would stay here, and our people would be very happy.” She fidgeted with some loose threads on the frayed edge of her dress, not looking me in the eye for once. “Do you not want to be married? Don’t you not want children of your own?”
I was taken aback, and becoming more uncomfortable by the moment. This was not the typical, playful Eugenia. Her questions were not only prying; they were tapping into something deep within me. How could I explain that at one level, I was very satisfied with my life as a celibate priest, and that marriage had never been an option for me? Or how could I tell her that sometimes I ached to have a wife and children? Not knowing which was the greater truth, silenced me. I was a young priest with the highest of ideals. I could not afford to have these kinds of thoughts, I told myself. There was no room in my life for any ambiguity in this regard. In my silence, I suddenly became acutely aware of the loud twittering of the weaver birds in the tree close by.
Finally, I resorted to a convenient answer. “Priests don’t marry so they can give all their attention to God’s work and everybody in the parish.”
“But a good wife would help you do that,” Eugenia quickly retorted. “That’s what wives do. They support their husbands.”
“It’s very hot out here,” I sighed, eager to change the subject. “Would you like a cold fruit juice?”
“Yes, please,” the girls responded in unison.
“Then let’s see what we can find.”
It took just a couple of minutes to fix the drinks. As we walked back to the shade of the verandah, Eugenia took her friend’s hand, and said brightly, “Barrington, you are learning our language well, and there are many women in our father’s compound who would be good for you.” With that mischievous twinkle in her eye I knew so well, she added, “Should we talk to him for you?”
I chuckled, to cover my embarrassment. “No, don’t do that. It would cost me too much money in a dowry,” and sipped my drink, wondering what was coming next. But while Eugenia was silent, I decided to turn the tables. “And what about you? Will you get married soon?”
“Oh no,” she responded immediately, “I have already told you. I want to be a doctor. I want to go to college. My father wanted to give me to his cousin, but I told him I must finish school first. He now understands I will be worth much more money once I am educated.”
There she goes again. This kid amazes me. A doctor indeed! So far, no girl has moved outside of this tribe, not even for those who had graduated from high school. It is simply not an option. Will she be the first? She certainly has great potential, and I would love to be able to support her. I’d have to, since her parents had nothing, even if I could get them to agree to it.
“We must go now,” Eugenia said abruptly, as if she’d had enough of my distracted reverie. “My mother will need help in preparing the evening meal. I will come back tomorrow so you can give me another book to read. Thank you for the drink, Barrington. Shall we take the cups back into your house?”
“No, It’s ok,” I replied, gathering them up. “I can manage.”
With that, the girls picked up their bags and walked off, hand in hand, along a narrow bush path towards the hills. I stood watching them until they looked back once to wave, and I waved back, just before the tall elephant grass that lined both sides of the narrow path hid them from view. And then my worries about Eugenia became more personal.
Outside my own family, I’d never spent any time with a young and gifted girl. My seminary training virtually ignored the existence of women; we were an enclosed society, created by men, for men, and controlled by men. In my seven years of training, I never once heard a lecture or experienced a class discussion about sexual issues. It was a taboo subject. Marriage, was simply a theoretical topic of theology and pastoral ministry. We had no personal interest since it was not an option in our lives.
Prior to the seminary, I had spent all my middle school and high school years in a British, all male boarding school. Now twenty-nine years old, I had never experienced any kind of emotional involvement with a woman outside my own family. I had no idea what it was like to fall in or out of love, or experience the joys and the angst of the special relationships my sisters had told me about.
I was bothered by more than Eugenia’s cultural identity. I was living on my own and in a very busy parish, yet, I was lonely. I enjoyed her company, that much I could admit. She reminded me of myself as a child: always asking questions, articulate, a voracious reader, acting very adult. But Eugenia had a gift for stirring so many things in me at once I had difficulty sorting them out.
A couple of weeks later, while relaxing on the patio one evening, I suddenly realized she hadn’t visited me for a while. I called Alfred, my houseboy, and asked if he had seen her. He came from the hamlet next to hers, located on a very steep hillside about a half mile away, directly opposite our compound. As the crow flies, it was much closer and would have been quite visible from my house except for the density of the jungle. Okigwe, Eugenia’s father, was the headman there, and we were good friends.
“Didn’t you know she is in her father’s compound?” he asked in amazement. “Everybody knows she is very sick.”
“No,” I responded with concern. I was irritated that my catechist, Christopher Okwoche, whom I paid to be my eyes and ears in the villages, had reported nothing to me. “Please go and find Christopher Okwoche, and ask him to come here immediately.”
Since it was late afternoon on the day of the open-air market where people from the surrounding area brought and sold their produce, including native beer and palm wine, I suspected Okwoche might be there. He spent most market days meeting Christians from remote outstations, people who often brought him a calabash of palm wine, his favorite tipple. I soon saw him, however, wobbling his way up our long driveway on his old bicycle, his white riga billowing out in the breeze and the unmistakable red fez-like hat stuck on his head. Once he got close, there was no questioning where he had been. Oozing perspiration, the smell of palm wine on him was almost overpowering. Dispensing with our usual greetings, I asked, “Okwoche, why did you not tell me about Eugenia? I hear she is quite sick.”
Looking distinctly uncomfortable, in true Nigerian fashion, he avoided confrontation. “I will take the Father to her compound immediately,”
Eugenia looked very fragile, lying on her native bamboo bed, little more than a pallet, with a multi-colored sheet covering her body. Her mother squatted at her side, gently wafting away the constant swarms of flies with a palm frond. It was stifling hot in the small room, with not a wisp of a breeze. Heavy beads of sweat on Eugenia’s forehead created small rivulets which trickled down the sides of her face and neck. A smelly black paste covered her shoulders and the top of her breasts.
“She has been very ill for more than a week,” her mother said to Okwoche, who translated for me. “Nobody here can explain what it is. Her father has insisted she be treated by the village medicine man.”
“What the heck are they doing with her?” I whispered to Okwoche.
“The people of this hamlet have a powerful medicine man. You know who I am talking about. He is very influential, and the family will not go against anything he says. This is one way he makes a lot of money.” He pointed to a corner of the room where there was a heap of what looked like burned rubbish and feathers stuffed into a red clay pot. “Look, he has sacrificed several hens and created an expensive ‘Juju’ to drive away Eugenia’s sickness.”
I knew that real and effective medicine men did exist; I had once met a native bone setter and watched him work brilliantly on a broken leg. At the college in Keffi, I knew the boys’ cook successfully treated students who had malaria fever. He was a true herbalist. But this “Juju” man was a charlatan. I had met him on a couple of occasions, and it was clear that he feared me. Each time I saw him, he tried to hide, and once when I walked close to his house, he dropped a load of firewood he was carrying and ran off into a field of tall corn.
Though Eugenia clearly had a fever, she smiled at me. Speaking slowly, she said, “So you have come to my home again, Barrington. I am sorry I cannot prepare food for you. When I am better, I will kill a chicken for you.” Her once mischievous and lustrous eyes were now bloodshot and a dirty shade of yellow. Her normally glowing face looked pale, and even through the perspiration, her skin lacked luster.
Crouching at the side of her cot, I ignored the discomfort of my bare knees pressing against the hard mud floor. All I wanted to do was to take care of this wonderful little girl, to make her well again. We were able to chat a little, and I anointed her with holy oil and gave her the sacrament of the sick. The tiny mud hut had slowly filled with villagers, waiting with curious expectation to see what I would do. When I was finished, I leaned over and gave her a final blessing. As I was about to leave, she turned her head toward me. “Remember, Barrington, if you become sick, I will come and help take care of you.”
“Then you must first get well yourself and become strong,” I replied, forcing myself to smile.
After that brief exchange, I blessed everyone in the house and went outside, thankful for the fresh air but very disturbed by Eugenia’s condition. The crowd followed me out, and Eugenia’s mother begged me to stay so she could cook for me. But food was the last thing on my mind. The nearest hospital was fifty miles away across the bush; I suggested I take Eugenia there, but her parents were adamant. Her father insisted that the local medicine man would make her well. I drew Okwoche to one side and quietly asked, “Christopher, did the medicine man make the black sludge on Eugenia’s body?”
“Yes,” he said. “The medicine man is in control here. But that stuff will not do anything for her. I think she has yellow fever.”
“Is there something else I should do?”
“No, Father,” he said. “She is very, very sick, but the parents will not release her. In any case,” he continued, “we cannot take her to the hospital in Otrukpo since they are only admitting soldiers who are wounded. She is better off here.”
“You’re probably right,” I replied, although I was reluctant to leave her. Should I persuade the parents to allow me to take her to the hospital and then try to get the military to admit her? But then the difficult journey over almost impassible bush roads would probably weaken her further. And if the military turned us away, which was their normal practice, then we would have to repeat the painful journey back.
Two days later, while I was coaching the school soccer team, I heard blood-chilling cries coming from the hamlet up on the hillside. Intuitively, I knew what had happened. I didn’t even bother to change from my dirty, sweat-soaked clothes. I ran as fast as I could, scrambling, slipping, and sliding on the narrow path winding its way up the steep hillside to Okigwe’s compound. Outside Eugenia’s hut was an apocalyptic scene of women who had bared their breasts and were throwing white ash over themselves. They were screaming in a chilling and eerie way that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Okigwe, Eugenia’s father, was sitting on a tiny stool under a makeshift awning of woven palm fronds at the side of the house, surrounded by his kindred and elders from neighboring compounds. I squatted next to him as we exchanged the traditional greetings, and I offered my condolences. His oldest son, Akuso, helped translate for me. Holding on to my wrist, the old man surprised me by saying, “She is yours now, Barrington. You can have her. She told us you were her father.”
I was taken aback, unsure of what he meant. “What would you like me to do, Okigwe?”
He seemed to frown at first, as if he did not understand my question, so I repeated it. As he replied, the look on his face was clearly that of a father explaining to his ignorant son what his obligations were. “She is yours, Barrington. She belongs to you. You must take her to your compound.”
I was surprised, but also flooded with guilt. If Okigwe was this willing to let me bury Eugenia, then perhaps I should have applied more pressure earlier and insisted on taking her to the mission compound, away from the medicine man. There at least she would have rested better, and there I had some means to help control her temperature. Why hadn’t I been more assertive? How could he be handing over his dead daughter to me? By all rights she should be alive, teasing me, asking me for another book, her bubbly personality making people happy with her laughter.
“Of course,” I answered, finally comprehending. “I will take her early in the morning. We will bury her next to the church, if that will please you.”
“Do it,” he said with great sadness in his eyes. “She will rest well there. She is yours.”
I was choking with emotion, struggling to hold back my tears. My sense of loss was almost overpowering. What was happening to me? Why did I feel this way? It was not rational, but somehow, I knew that I needed to listen carefully to the voice within me crying to be heard. Through the jumbled, turbulent cacophony in my head, came a gentle whisper that riveted me, piercing me to the core as it repeated: She was your daughter, she was your daughter.
I made the trek down the steep and narrow hillside path, lost in my own thoughts, speaking to no one. But once in the quiet of my room, I cried a lot that night. A person that young, so vivacious and with so much potential, should not die. I was angry that there was no modern medicine available for Eugenia, and frustrated that her parents had turned to the local medicine man. Why hadn’t Okwoche or Alfred told me earlier about Eugenia’s illness? The fatalism of the Igedde people regarding sickness and death, their lack of urgency borne out of being dirt poor with almost no resources, made me both sad and angry. I was also frustrated with my helplessness.
It was my first funeral in Igedde, and in fact, the first child’s funeral service I had ever performed. I had never even seen a dead child before, let alone one with whom I had talked and played and shared her dreams.
We buried her in the soft light and coolness of the early morning. I had spent time with Okwoche planning the actual ceremony, making it as relevant as I could. We brought in native drummers, the school kids sang, and the women danced in a slow, rhythmic fashion as we processed to the hastily dug grave, just a short distance from the church. As the first shovel of dirt landed on the simple white wooden coffin, the women simultaneously began to wail, to ululate. It was a spine-chilling, primordial sound of unrestricted despair.
Afterward I walked for hours up and down the tree-lined driveway between the mission house and the church where Eugenia was now buried, trying to pray. But it was in vain. I could not stop my mind from bringing back vivid memories of her smile, voice, and the precious moments we had together. I paused occasionally in my stride to try to recapture some of the details, as if standing still would bring them back. I lost all track of time.
I realized from the outset that our relationship had been very special, but it was Eugenia who had seen right through me and made me understand what it was really all about. Everything in my seminary training railed against it, but now I had to admit that I really loved this little girl as a daughter. I’d wanted to be a real father to her, to take care of her, to nurture her and provide for her well-being. I wanted the best of everything for her. But in her time of greatest crisis, the little girl who wanted to become a doctor, didn’t really need a priest; she needed a skilled physician. And now she was gone.
Before my time in Nigeria was over, I would minister at many more funerals of children, and each time, it would reopen the wound. After all these years, the memories and emotions come flooding back at full force, even as I write. I moved on with my life and eventually left the priesthood. I am now happily married. And yet, I still feel guilty that somehow, I did not do enough, that somehow, I could have saved Eugenia, the little girl who loved me.//
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Barrington lives near San Francisco and writes mainly historical fiction: Let the Peacock Sing, The Ethiopian Affair, Becoming Anya, The Baron of Bengal Street, No Room for Heroes. Passage to Murder is a thriller set in San Francisco. Magic at Stonehenge is a collection of short stories. Take a Priest Like You is a memoir. He has published more than 60 short stories and also blogs on his website: www.mbwriter.net.
About the Author
