Room Number 5

About one year ago my post-mate, Eriika, and I left our town to visit our closest volunteer neighbor, Richard, who lived in a small village called Bamena, not to be mistaken for Bamenda the regional capitol of the North-West.  Another volunteer, Lindsay, was in his village that same day so we decided to make a nice little night of it.  We were going to make some chili, drink a little wine and maybe play some board games. 

Seeing that this was the first time any of us had ever been to Richard’s house, he was obliged to give us a tour.  His house was very simple but also quite large, there was a long hallway that ran along the back of the house with doors to several rooms.  He opened each door showing us the mess of stuff he had accumulated over his two years here.  For some strange reason all of the doors in Richard’s house were numbered, we finally got to door number 5 - but it was locked.  Richard explained to us that the house was vacant when he moved in but a Cameroonian couple had lived there some time before that.  The husband of this couple passed away in his sleep one night in room number 5 and the room has still to this day not been cleaned out. I asked Richard if he had ever been inside room number 5 and he pensively responded “yes”, when he first visited the house before he moved in the landlord opened the door for him and told Richard to never open it again.  He was confused but obediently obliged.  Richard told us to not think too hard on this but to get back to what we came there for, making chili. 

Eriika and I didn’t exactly heed Richard’s advice, while the others were finishing preparing the meal we were nosily trying to pick the lock to room number 5.  Just as they finished setting the table to eat we got it, the door swung open.  I had anticipated a certain level of creepiness before opening the door but for some reason I felt a much eerier feeling than I thought I would.  There was a large unmade bed with blankets positioned as if someone just woke up, several pictures framed on a desk, a book on the bedside table and even a giant life-sized portrait of the man propped against the wall.  The whole nine yards when it comes to creepy dead guy rooms.  Lindsay quickly skipped over to the door to see what we were awing at but Richard called us back to the table to eat. 

As you could imagine, our dinner conversation was dominated by the contents of room number 5.  We talked about how strange it was that the landlord never cleaned it out and we came up with crazy ideas of our own to answer this question.  Just as the conversation began to evolve and we started thinking about other things we heard the creaking of a door coming from the long hallway, we fell silent.  No more than 15 seconds later the candle on the table blew out and the dim overhead light began to flicker.  Our senses were heightened as we sat there silently for what seemed like an hour trying to detect whatever was around us.  Richard eventually tried to ease our tenses by saying “it sometimes gets a little drafty in here”.  He re-lit the candle and we got back to eating our chili. 

The meal was done but scrabble was just getting started.  If I remember correctly Eriika gave Richard the easy lay-up for the first win by pointing out “a good spot for anyone that has a Q”, I was livid. We played a couple more games and then decided to figure out the sleeping arrangements.  Richard only had one bed so we set up some nice looking makeshift sleeping piles on the floor.  We were all sitting around on the floor talking before bed when we first heard it. 

The harsh sound of metal meeting rock and the incomprehensible mumblings of an old Cameroonian woman are rare even in village, especially at this time of night.  Richard rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders, a real what-now kind of expression.  He quietly walked to one of the windows and opened the shade; these windows had bars by the way.  Thank God.  We peered out the window and saw a middle-aged woman attempting to dig in Richard’s front yard with a shovel that was nothing more than a wooden stick with a couple worn down blunt inches of metal on the end.  It looked like she was upset and had been in tears.  I was a little nervous at this point but couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of this situation.  The Cameroonian woman failed to see the same humor I saw, she heard my laugh and wide-eyed limped towards our window with a face now empty of all expression. 

“What the…”

“Shhh!”

She inched closer and closer at a pace that would have made a snail look like a torpedo, her back was bent from what looked like years of hard work, her body seemed to be asking a question.  She got to the window and we retreated to the middle of the living room huddled together bound by fear.  She started yelling through the window “Macat, Macat” in a high-pitched shriek.  We immediately recognized what she was saying, “Macat” translates to “White Man” in our local dialect and is a word we hear each day while walking down the street.  

This Woman was persistent, she proceeded to approach each window and peer inside while whaling the name “Macat” her voice sounded troubled and desperate.  After several minutes of this Richard finally called his neighbor, he arrived in seconds and aggressively forced the woman to leave the yard and not come back.  Before he left he asked us one question, “Why did you open door number 5?”  We tried to talk to him further but he insisted that we go to sleep and he would explain everything in the morning.  

Seven O’clock could not have come any sooner, the knock on the front door that we had waited all night for jolted us up from our half-sleeps.  Richard quickly opened the door and invited his neighbor inside.  His neighbor sat down on the couch, not comfortably, and prepared to tell a story.  Judging his body language, slow talking and deep exhales you would have thought he was going to tell a group of children that Santa Clause did not exist.  Over the course of the next 15 minutes he told us this:

Some years ago a married couple had been living in Richard’s house, they had been eagerly trying to have children for many years but were unsuccessful.  Just when it seemed impossible, the wife became pregnant.  She went through a full 9 months of pregnancy and fell into labor.  To her husband’s grave disappointment on a day he had been awaiting for many years, his wife delivered a still berth.  This was too much for the wife to bear; she just couldn’t allow herself to believe this truth.  The following days the new mother cared for her dead child, nursing it, singing it to sleep, tying it to her back as she confidently walked through the market.  The other women in the village who knew the truth about the baby began calling it “Macat” because of its pale lifeless complexion.  The husband, not knowing what to do, went along with this for several days for to not break the heart of the woman he loved.  After nearly a week he had had enough.  In the middle of the night one evening he woke up, grabbed the baby, a shovel and headed outside.  He gave the baby a proper burial and returned home.  When he walked in the door his wife was waiting for him, she too had awoke in the middle of the night.  She demanded for her baby and the husband realized he had no choice but to explain to his love the grim reality.  He told her that he buried the dead child but would not reveal to her where.  Weeks went by and the wife would not leave her house, she spoke no words to her husband and cried herself to sleep.  She could not find it in her heart to forgive him.  One night while her husband was asleep in room number 5, the wife quietly entered the room and killed him.  She fled the house taking only with her the shovel that her husband had used that dreadful night.  It is believed that she spends each day and night searching for her lost infant, digging holes along the mountainside.  She has been seen as far West as Bafang and as far North as Bafoussam, digging holes and muttering “Macat” over and over again.   As for room number 5, it is kept shut and locked to contain the spirit of her husband who leaves the room each time the door is opened to find his wife and bring her back to the spot of the burial.  His guilt for burying the one thing his wife loved more than he stayed with him to the grave.