Love is long-suffering and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, does not get puffed up, does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests, does not become provoked. It does not keep account of the injury. It does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.
- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
If you live in Nigeria, you always need an electrician. To be more accurate you need at least two of them. One, a basic one whose proficiency is limited to such common tasks as the subversion of the electric grid (commonly known as "changing your phase”, an illegal operation where your dark home would be switched to one of the lines that had electricity), changing a socket, illegally tapping electricity from a neighbour, or illegally reconnecting your electricity when the power authority disconnects it for non payment. This basic electrician would often cajole you into paying him “anything you want,” and then after persistent pleading and menacing, would stipulate an amount slightly exceeding your budget. You would be fooled, and ultimately yield to his swindle. Then you need a skilled one, the one you call for more complex tasks like wiring a new house, rewiring an old one, or fixing problems caused by the basic one. It is prudent to have both a Muslim and a Christian electrician, the former to attend to Christian holidays' exigencies and the latter for Muslim festivities.
Brother M presented himself as a skilled electrician. But after a few mishaps your family redesignated him a basic electrician. He was a reticent man, speaking only when spoken to. He responded to your parents in low tones, hardly looking them in the eye. You liked him because you knew that once he arrived, the chances of the bad socket working or electricity returning after changing your phase was greatly increased.
One day, it was announced from the platform at the Kingdom Hall that Brother M was disfellowshipped. The once tranquil and amiable brother suddenly appeared pallid and wan to your eyes. You never spoke to him again. None of you did. Ultimately he fell ill and died. But to you, it was as if he died the second he was disfellowshipped. You never found out why he was disfellowshipped. No one you knew attended his funeral. All you know is one day you were happy to see him. And the next day he was dead to you. He never did a bad thing or said a bad word to you or anyone in your family.
***
You sit in a quaint cafe that transforms into a bustling bar at night, located just a stone's throw away from your residence in a charming neighborhood in East Berlin. You are done with work for the day, and are nursing a primitivo of questionable quality, but for 5 euros, you get what you pay for. You watch people walk in, mostly as couples, a few that arrive alone, clearly anticipating the arrival of others. When the third couple saunters in, arms interlocked, a yearning sluices over you - a yearning for the tender grip of another's arm, a yearning for love. It is not the companionship of a committed relationship that eludes you, but the steadfastness of an unwavering love. A love whose shape and size and texture you are sure of. Two sentiments present themselves: the first being that your yearning is not accompanied by sadness, it is merely a longing for something you have known, and the second being that you have, after long internal battles, come to love yourself, as well as the very concept of love.
Once you quit being a Jehovah's Witness, once you truly left, physically and mentally, or perhaps, once it left you, you found yourself suspended in a limbo of emotion, uncertain what anyone meant when they spoke about love. It did not immediately occur to you after you left, how much recalibration you would need; a retooling of your mind for a different purpose because everything you ever knew was no longer valid for use in the new world you now inhabited. The headiness of uncertainty made you unstable. You were no longer certain about the meaning of words, the dizzying range of possibilities often left you winded, too paralysed to make any decision. But today, now that you have become sure of at least as many things as it requires to keep you grounded, you know just what you would like to feel. Even though you do not feel it in this moment, it fills you with joy that this is possible for you. And you look forward to growing into it with a person you find compatible. There have been many near misses but these days you say to yourself: Life is too short to love in muffled tones, to love tentatively. Love loud. Love boldly. And when it ends, love again..
As a baptised member of Jehovahs Witnesses, you knew exactly what it meant, when you talked about love. Love was uncomplicated. The rules were clear. Love meant doing the right things. Love for god meant doing everything he said, like following Jesus, like following the faithful and discreet slave whom the master had appointed over his domestics. Love for one’s neighbour meant trying to convert them from whatever religion was going to get them killed to yours which was going to grant them everlasting life. Love for your brothers meant choosing them over worldly people, socialising with them. But love also meant lovingly snitching on them when they had broken the rules, but only after you had encouraged them to snitch on themselves first and they had refused. Then it was your duty to approach the elders with proof of the sin being committed. Proof that you wanted them to get clean. That you loved gods organisation and wanted to keep it clean. That you loved Jehovah and wanted to keep his standards of holiness. That you loved them.
Love meant only marrying in the lord. For those in the world, you could perhaps help them out with tasks, and of course try to sneak in a sermon. Love did not mean getting romantically involved with worldly people. Because your god of love had commanded that you must not be unevenly yoked with unbelievers.
***
Often you think of Ib. She used to make and sell dry peppered chicken in Kaduna, where you grew up. She only used local chickens. None of that fatty, oversized, medicated thing people call chicken nowadays. She would slow-grill it so that the meat would lose most of its moisture. You think of often Ib in her family home in Kabala, Kaduna, a dim light from the oven in the kitchen, and a golden brown chicken getting warmed up. Her voice would ring loud, bouncing off glass and zinc and concrete. She was an even dark tone, svelte, athletic and switched between Hausa, Yoruba, English and Nigerian Pidgin. There were not many people who could out-talk your mother. Ib could. The last time you saw her, she seemed to your teenage mind, sickly, like death on two legs. She had committed a sin that had become known to your entire religious community. She, an unmarried woman, had sex with a man. It was discovered and she was expelled from the congregation.
During the period she was expelled, no one was allowed to speak to her. Not even to say a greeting. And especially not to eat her delicious grilled chicken. And that was love. To completely shun a person who did you no wrong. Who hurt you in no way apart from putting a stain on the name of your god of love.
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