It was Sunday morning and the Presbyterian Church in Molyko was filled to capacity with worshippers. Even the loft erected above the main entrance at the back of the church building was filled with Christians. Not a single seat was empty.
From the start of the first service, the Rev Maliba John Bosco - dressed in his ceremonial attire and seated on the presidential seat on the sanctuary behind the altar - looked sickly pale with dark circles under his eyes as a result of lack of sleep.
He had spent the last three days dreading that vey Sunday morning like a plague. He had still not told his wife anything about the photos were mysteriously delivered to his doorstep during the week, and was painfully enduring the guilt gnawing at his conscience.
With every tick of the clock, he grew paler, sensing the inevitability of the task he had been assigned to perform by his anonymous assailant.
The altogether stupefying task was to be performed that same morning during that same service. With weary bloodshot eyes he scanned the entire Christian faithful in the church who he thought should be bracing themselves for the biggest surprise of the year. Not even the wonderful animation by the UB Pres Singers could alter his sullen mood.
The most dreaded moment finally came when he mounted the pulpit to read the Gospel reading of the day, and deliver his sermon. After reading the Gospel according to St. John, he adjusted his spectacles on the bridge of his nose as his eyes swept across the church once more. He nearly passed out as he remembered with painful vividness what he had been asked to say during the sermon. Taking a deep breath, he willed himself to begin.
‘Brothers and sisters in Christ,’ he began, ‘we are very much aware of the evolution of Christianity since the time of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know that Christ founded the Roman Catholic Church when he gave Simon Peter the authority and responsibility to be the physical head of his church on earth in Matthew chapter 16, verses 18 and 19.’ He paused to register the attentive silence in the church as the Christians wondered where he was headed with his introduction.
He went on, ‘Over the centuries, man has defied God’s divine will for the Church to be one by cutting away from the one, true Church of Christ and forming their own churches under the pretext that they found the teachings of the Catholic church… unacceptable.’
The church suddenly broke into a frenzy, whispering and screaming their disapproval at the Parish Pastor whom they thought was going nuts. ‘Can you believe what the pastor just uttered?’ someone asked his neighbour who was just as irritated as he.
‘I cannot believe this,’ the neighbour replied. ‘He must certainly be under a spell!’
The Parish Pastor cleared his throat again and continued with his utterance even amidst the commotion. ‘The bitter truth is that the one, true Church of Christ is the Catholic Church. Therefore, anything outside the Church cannot assure salvation.’
That did it! The entire church rose to their feet, shouting in mad protest at the pastor they no longer seemed to understand.
‘Did he just say we are not of Christ?’ a fat lady swelling with rage asked her equally aggravated husband. ‘He must be mad!’
‘This is outrageous,’ he concurred. ‘He must be drunk. We cannot…’
Everyone stopped dead when they heard the unmistakable sound of gunshot and before anyone could make out what had just happened, they watched their Parish Pastor fall onto the ground with a deadly wound drilled into his forehead. It was like watching an action serial at the cinema.
It was only after the initial shock lost its grip that the whole church burst into commotion as everyone scrambled to the doors like mad cows out of control. Many slipped, fell and were trampled upon mercilessly by others running for safety. Bodies were thrown against the hard mahogany benches as the commotion intensified.
Some of those sitting on the upstairs loft jumped down on the mass of people struggling to squeeze their way through the maindoor at the back while the others cramped themselves like canned sardines down the narrow staircase.
Amidst the entire upheaval, no one knew who it was that had killed their Parish Pastor who now lay face up next to the pulpit with a pool of blood round his head and his eyes wide open in raw shock as though he could not come to terms with his own death.
***
The headlines of the Monday morning edition of every newspaper, radio and television station in Buea and environs captured the gruesome murder of a man of God just after insulting his own church to the credit of the Roman Catholic Church. In addition to the newscasts, the newspapers also published the incriminating photos which featured the now dead clergyman making love with a strange woman in bed. How they had laid hands on the photos remained a mystery to the public.
The Eden - a daily newspaper published in Buea – raised the question of whether the pastor’s killer was one of his own Christians who was fed up with the nonsense the pastor had been uttering there in church and decided to off him. But the possibility that a Christian could come to church with a gun on the odd chance that his pastor might make such an appalling confession was absurd.
Of course, even before the media got hold of the news, it had already spread like wild fire across the entire Fako division and beyond that Sunday. The matter was only made worse on Monday morning with the equally appalling discovery of the photos. The news was the talk of the day.
There were rumors everywhere that the late pastor had definitely been a clandestine faithful of the Catholic Church. But for him to confess it out loud to his own church - in such extreme language –, coupled with the discovery of his extramarital affair and his mysterious death, was altogether mind-blowing.
As Samuel walked to school that Monday morning and even when he was on campus, the death of the Rev. Maliba John Bosco was the topic of discussion everywhere.
He spotted Sylvia from afar discussing with three younger girls in front of Amphi 600. As he approached, he saw that she was dismissing the girls and – to his surprise – before the girls left, they said in unison, ‘Yes, Sister.’
‘“Sister”?’ he asked when he met Sylvia. ‘Why do they call you that?’
‘Oh, Sam,’ she said, casting him an exasperated look. ‘Well, it’s complicated.’
‘How so?’ he asked as they walked toward a nearby ice cream vending machine under the cool shade of a tree where a soft breeze was passing. Just behind the vending machine was a man selling popcorn from a machine that fried it instantly. Sylvia bought two cups of ice cream for them both even when he protested, saying he would pay for it. They found an empty bench there and sat down.
‘The thing is, I was in a convent for a time before enrolling into UB,’ she said.
Samuel looked surprised. ‘Huh? I thought the convent was meant for Catholic nuns. My roommate, Beltus is a Catholic and he told me that among other things. Why would you go there?’
After a brief hesitation, she said, ‘Because for a time I had wanted to become a nun. Then I realized it was not my calling and decided to come here and study management.’
‘And it appears many people knew you were at the convent.’
‘I guess that is what happens when your father is the Governor,’ she said with a weak smile.
Samuel was taken off guard. ‘Wow! Now I’m speechless. Who would have thought I am friends with the Governor’s daughter!’
She gave him a hard scowl before saying, ‘Like I said, I like to keep a low profile. So what’s this news I hear about the Presbyterian Church pastor?’
‘The way I hear it,’ Samuel said, ‘he announced to his Christian faithful yesterday that the Catholic Church is the one, true Church of Christ.’ He paused as he considered the coincidence that Sylvia was a Catholic. ‘Then before the Christians could get to him, an unknown gunman shot him right there in church. And now it is said that he was sexually involved with an unknown woman.’
‘Wow,’ she said, licking ice cream from her small plastic spoon. ‘Sounds like you have read the newspapers.’
‘No.’ He chuckled. ‘My next door neighbour’s a Presbyterian Church Christian. He narrated to us what he himself had seen firsthand in church yesterday. Besides, it is what everyone’s been talking about since yesterday. Pretty strange, don’t you think?’
She licked another spoonful of ice cream and said, ‘Inasmuch as I’m glad these people for once admit the legitimacy of my Church, I do find the entire matter’— she paused, searching for the most appropriate description ‘—unnatural.’
‘Indeed,’ he concurred.
‘Oh Sam, I wish you were a Catholic, so you could understand the kind of insults heaped at us by…’ — another pause ‘—by them.’
Samuel was well aware of the rift between the Catholic Church and the Pentecostal churches, and so did not want to dwell on the matter, knowing it would only end up with him and Sylvia in disagreement – which was the last thing he wanted now. So he changed the topic.
‘So how is your dad?’
‘Don’t even go there,’ she said with obvious apathy. ‘He is still in Yaoundé, and I am not going to play childish and phone him, asking why he had walked out on me without even telling me himself!’
‘Now that is unnatural,’ he said.
She smiled at his use of the word “unnatural,” suspecting he imitated her just to cheer her up. ‘It’s just family business, Sam.’
‘Oh,’ he said, looking away as though reminded of his still-fresh emotional wounds.
Sensing his distress, she laid a gentle hand on his knee, and said, ‘Sam? Did I say something…?’
‘It’s nothing,’ he cut her in midsentence.
‘O…k,’ she stressed the word, her mouth seemingly frozen in an ‘o’.
After a short silence, he said, ‘I just recently lost my mum.’
‘Oh.’ She put her right hand to her mouth, feeling his pain. ‘Take it as from one emotionally-wounded child to another: I am very sorry for your loss.’ When he remained silent, she said, ‘Well, Roland and I are the only children of our parents, and my mum died in childbirth… that’s for me, of course.’
Samuel turned from his personal thoughts and said, ‘I’m sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it…’
‘No. I might just as well tell someone. My dad despises me, saying it was I who killed my own mother.’
He put his left arm over her shoulders and whispered to her, ‘You did not.’
But she went on: ‘My own father treats me like an alien. He would not look me in the eye and cannot stand being in my presence! It seems he hates me as much as he had loved my mother…’ Her voice trailed off as she started crying. She then got an immaculate white handkerchief from her bag with which she dabbed her eyes.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he said. ‘No father should have to treat his child that way. Don’t let yourself be deceived by whatever he says. You are a very wonderful person, and you have a very bright future ahead.’
Silence, then she said, ‘I must leave now,’ getting to her feet.
He, too, stood and hugged her tight, saying, ‘I want you to always remember this: you had no hand in your mother’s death.’
She nodded. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she said before heading for her car parked on the gravel driveway in front of Amphi 600.
Just as Samuel was about to leave, he was joined by three young men. The one in the middle was of good body build, and Samuel guessed he usually worked out at the gym. He was dark in complexion and there was an amiable smile on his lips with a toothpick sticking out at one end of his mouth.
The one to the left was fair, taller and slimmer with an all-business look on his stony face.
The one to the right seemed short, compared to the others; yet he was good looking in the way short people do.
‘Howdy, friend?’ the one with the toothpick said with an even broader smile.
‘Hello,’ Samuel said, wondering why a stranger would address him so casually as though they were childhood friends. ‘Do I know you?’
He examined their outfit which, he guessed, was the kind rascals wore: T-shirts and polo shirts over jean trousers torn at the knees and such big shoes that he wondered how anyone could walk in them.
‘No,’ the all-business one said without the trace of a smile, ‘but we know you. Talk about a gold fish in an ocean and all.’
‘What my friend here means,’ the one with the toothpick chimed in, ‘is that you don’t hang around with Sylvia without getting noticed. No offense, mate; we mean you no harm.’
Then the short, handsome one said, ‘You see, we are Sylvia’s friends, and we hope we could be your friends, too.’
‘Sylvia has never mentioned you three to me,’ Samuel said.
‘No,’ the one with the toothpick said; ‘she hardly mentions anyone to anybody. By the way, I’m Ndong Elvis Muh. Here’s Mbong Nelson Che,’ he gestured to the business-like one, ‘and here’s Tata Karl Mugong,’ he gestured to the short, handsome one. ‘So how are you doing?’
From the names, Samuel figured Elvis was fromBafmeng, Nelson a Bum boy from Boyo Division, and Karl a Meta boy from Momo Division; and that they all hailed from the grassfields of the North West Region of Cameroon.
‘I’m fine,’ Samuel said, shaking hands with them. ‘My name is Bekindaka Samuel, by the way.’
As they walked on and discussed, Samuel came to know that Elvis and Karl were third-year mechanicalengineering students while Nelson was a third-year Journalism and Mass Communication student. In just a short while he came to like them: Elvis the most and Nelson the least.
When Elvis suggested that they should go get some beer to celebrate their new friendship, Samuel found himself agreeing despite the fact that he never drank beer. He was so carried away by the spur of the moment.
They got to an eatery at the University of Buea market (otherwise called UB market) and ordered a beer each.
Samuel endured the bitter taste of the beer he had ordered, twisting his face into such a frown that made him look twice his age and so ugly.
‘What’s wrong, man?’ Nelson regarded him quizzically. ‘Don’t tell us you have never drunk beer before.’
‘Never,’ Samuel said, ‘but I’ll adapt.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Elvis interjected with his usual smile, ‘You have to stop thinking like a kid and become a man. Real men drink beer without twisting their faces like that.’
And so with those words getting him going, Samuel finished his bottle of beer, his face getting even more contorted than before into a deep frown. When Karl urged him to take another bottle, he declined. ‘I think I’m good with the first bottle.’
‘At least have a glassful,’ Karl said as he poured some Castel beer into his glass to the brim and passed it on to Samuel without waiting for his response.
Not wanting to be called a kid and not a man, Samuel took the glass and drained it in two long sips before slamming it hard on the table, his face contorted into a deeper frown as he felt the bitter liquid go down his throat with an intense throbbing of his head. It felt like an entire band crew was playing at full gear inside his head.
‘That’s my man,’ Elvis said and the three of them started clapping for Samuel.
Samuel then raised his right hand and said, ‘I’m done. That’s my limit.’
‘It is a good start,’ Nelson said. ‘At this rate, you should be able to drink any kind of beer without disgracing yourself in public with that… that face you made.’ He and the other two burst into peals of laughter; they laughed even more when Samuel belched.
‘I have to get going now,’ Samuel said as he struggled to his feet, feeling his throbbing head whirl like a merry-go-round at full speed.
‘Take it easy, man,’ Elvis cautioned. ‘Can you walk?’ He and the others laughed again.
‘I think so,’ Samuel said, ignoring the laughter. He then shook each one’s hand before leaving.
It was a miracle that he was able to find his way out as his head kept whirling faster with every passing minute. He moved like a chronic drunk, muttering to himself and almost stumbling even when the road before him was smoothly tarred.
His course mates who saw him going home in that state were shocked. Those who were jealous of him finally found the outlet through which to vent their veiled malice.
‘Is that not Samuel?’ one of his course mates – a girl called Nofondo Maureen – asked her two girlfriends who were walking with her. ‘Who would have thought he is such a drunk? I always knew he was not as pure as everyone made him out to be.’
Now, Maureen had once been laughed at in class one day after misinterpreting a question posed by one of their lecturers and given an altogether off-topic answer, only for Samuel to stand up, give the right answer and take all the glory. From that moment on, she had hatched a strong dislike for him and had been looking for way to pay him back, until then.
‘It is indeed Samuel,’ one of the girlfriends said. They laughed hysterically as they watched Samuel staggering along the road that stretched from the Faculty of Arts building to Central Administration.
As he staggered home, he kept stumbling several times, the last time being when he was about to climb the verandah to his door.
He flung his school bag onto the verandah and leaned against the door so as to keep himself from falling as he put the key into the keyhole and took eternity to turn it open. He then staggered back to open the door, and had he not been holding the door as it swung open, he would have fallen on the ground.
He charged head-first into the room like an enraged warrior charging against an enemy and collapsed on the bed without even taking off his shoes. In no time he fell asleep, snoring like a pig.
When Beltus returned from school later that day, he was surprised to find the door open with Samuel’s school bag thrown on the verandah. Wondering what was going on, he then entered the room only to find Samuel snoring in bed, fast asleep, with the stench of alcohol oozing from his breath and his shoes still on his feet!
It was such a pathetic sight that left Beltus frozen where he was, wondering what on planet earth could have made Samuel drink beer - which he vowed never to do - to the extent of getting so drunk! It then occurred to Beltus that maybe Samuel was having a hard time dealing with his mother’s demise and had started drinking beer to help ease the pain.
It was, therefore, out of compassion that Beltus got Samuel’s school bag and kept it where it ought to be, before proceeding to untie his shoes from his feet and making him lie straight on the bed so he would not fall when he rolled over.
It was not until late that evening that Samuel finally woke from sleep, feeling a severe pain in his head as he tried to reconstruct his thoughts.
Beltus was reading at their study table when Samuel woke, but did not question him about his recent peculiar behaviour, respecting the fact that his reasons must be personal.
After getting his jumbled thoughts straight, Samuel realized what Beltus had done while he was asleep. He felt guilt gnaw at him at the thought that he had made such a fool of himself that Beltus had had to treat him like a kid.
Burying his flushed face into the pillow, he cursed the fact that he had let himself be coaxed by the trio – Elvis, Nelson and Karl - into breaking one of his most fundamental rules which was never to drink beer.
The fact that Beltushad still not asked what made him break that fundamental rule, and was behaving as though it never happened, made Samuel feel even more guilt. He then interpreted Beltus’ silence as a wordless censure of his gross irresponsibility.
He, thus, decided that if Beltus did not ask what happened, he would not tell him. He considered walking up to Beltus and explaining himself without having being asked to do so as childish.
Accordingly, they both went about the evening, and finally to bed, without either one bringing up the issue.
Beltus slept that night with a heavy heart full of concern and pity for Samuel, wondering what kind of personal hell he had chosen to endure all by himself by not sharing his problems even with his own roommate.
Samuel, on the other hand, had difficulty sleeping – which was exceptional for him since he could always find sleep as soon as his head touched the pillow –and, tormented by his conscience, he rolled uneasily in bed even long after Beltus himself had finally dozed off, for he could only imagine what vile thoughts Beltus must now be hatching about him.
***
The church committee of the Presbyterian Church Molyko converged in the church hall the following Tuesday evening at four o’clock for an impromptu meeting to address the mysterious death of their Parish Pastor and the strange happenings that surrounded it.
Seated behind the mahogany table were the president, the secretary general, the financial secretary, the treasurer and the Associate Pastor. The other members, along with the late pastor’s wife who was clad in a black gown with bloodshot eyes swollen from excessive crying, were seated on wooden benches lined in front of the table.
After the opening prayer, the president - Mr. Taku Josiah, a tall, lanky man in his mid-fifties with a balding head - stood and delivered the welcome address.
‘Thank you all, brethren in the Lord, for making it for this meeting at such short notice. You will agree with me that the things we have seen and heard concerning our late Parish Pastor’s mystifying death are indeed appalling and confusing. This meeting was, therefore, called for so wecould all sort through this mess find out what was really going on up until when he was killed. I hope we make remarkable progress and get to the bottom of this matter as soon as possible.’
He took his seat just before the Associate Pastor - Miss Munteh Cynthia Nono - rose to her feet.
She was a short, stocky woman clad in a pink dress and elevated by a pair of high-heeled shoes, with a bespectacled face now turned pale with grief and heartache, for she had considered the late Parish Pastor as a father.
Clearing her throat, she drew everyone’s attention. ‘Disaster has indeed struck us a terrible blow when we least expected it. In my opinion, I believe our beloved Parish Pastor in loving memory – the Lord rest his soul - was coaxed into making that weird confession during last Sunday’s service, because the Parish Pastor I have always known since I was a child would never say such nonsense in our church.
‘Moreover, I sensed his unrest during the service that morning. He looked pale, and his eyes were those of a man whose head had not touched a pillow for days. If he was indeed coaxed into doing that, then something important must have been at stake.
‘I was in his office yesterday in search of anything that could give us a clue in figuring this whole thing out, when I made an awful finding. In the bottom left drawer of his desk was an envelope containing photos of him and a strange woman making love in bed - the very same photos the media has been publishing since yesterday!’
She reached inside her shoulder bag and fished out a brown envelope which she opened before everyone present and brandished the photos for all to see. She registered the members’ shock upon hearing her testimony and seeing the photos for themselves.
‘Hard as it may be to believe,’ she proceeded with an unwavering tone, ‘ourParish Pastor had lain with another woman who took these photos – as you yourselves can see – which were somehow used as leverage to get him to make that stupid show of himself in church just before being murdered.
‘I personally called the police that Sunday after everyone else had run away and an Inspectorof Police came with two Police Constables from the Second District Police Station, Molyko, to see into the matter.
‘They asked me how it happened and I explained everything to them. The Inspector then made a phone call and, after some time, the ambulance of the Buea District Hospital arrived and took the body to the lab for further investigation. Before leaving, the Inspector assured me the police would get to the root of the matter.’ That said, she took her seat.
In the short silence that prevailed, the secretary general – Josephine Abangma, who was a member of the UB Pres Choir, and the youngest member of the church council - carefully jotted down the deliberations of the meeting into an exercise book opened before her on the table.
The late pastor’s wife was now crying after hearing all what the Associate Pastor had said. The two women seated on either side of her consoled her and dried her eyes with handkerchiefs.
The next speaker rose from among those seated on the benches. It was Mr. Achiri Clinton, a man a little younger than the president, with a more solid body build and a brown complexion.
He said, ‘The new evidence just presented to us by the Associate Pastor – however appalling it may be – does clarify some of our doubts and gives us a better understanding of what took place in our church two days ago. From our late Parish Pastor’s confession, I cannot help but suspect that the Roman Catholic Church had a hand in his death. The question that stands now is: Who exactly did this dreadful thing to him, and how do we find that person?’ He sat down amidst murmurs as everyone now pondered what he had just said.
The next speaker - a slim, dark woman in her late forties - rose from her seat on the bench and said, ‘If the police say they will take care of the matter, I suggest we let them do just that.’
The treasurer - Mr. Nebare Victor – shot to his feet and countered, ‘I don’t think the police know what we have just pieced together here and now: that the Roman Catholic Church set our late Parish Pastor up with a strange woman and used the evidence derived therein to coax him into insulting his own congregation all in the name of spelling out the fact that it was Christ who had founded their Church and not Christ but man who had founded ours. Tell me, brethren: is there really any relevance in that? What does it matter who started the church so long as we all worship the same God?
‘So I suggest we write a formal letter of complaint to the Commissioner of Police, telling him what we think actually happened to our late shepherd, and pressure him to act fast to bring the perpetrators to justice. We should write a similar letter to the press to clear our late shepherd’s name which has been soiled, and place the blame where it rightly belongs – on the Roman Catholic Church!’
The deliberations continued as more speakers rose to make their own contributions.
In the end, it was decided that two formal letters would be written: one addressed to the Commissioner of Police for the Second District Police Station Molyko, and the other to the press - just as the treasurer had suggested. The letter to the police was to be delivered by hand the following morning by the Associate Pastor, while the one to the press was to be photocopied and sent by post to the major newspapers’ postal addresses as well as to that of the CRTV Buea radio station effective the following day.
In his closing remarks, the president thanked everyone for their contributions to the success of the meeting, saying he hoped their efforts would yield good fruits in the near future, and stressing the fact that they would not rest until their late shepherd’s killer was brought to justice.
The Associate Pastor then led the closing prayer after which everyone departed
YOU ARE READING
The Moment of Truth
Mystery / ThrillerWhen the Presbyterian Church pastor dropped dead after making a mind-blowing confession, everyone thought he was crazy. But when other Pentecostal Pastors start dying under mysterious circumstances, the situation becomes alarming as the media emphas...
