Authors: Njedeh Anthony
EPILOGUE
Gbanga stood outside the church, looking at the wooden house with shaded leaves and he began to lose himself in the wonderment of the essence around him.
“You can walk in if you want to; nobody is in.”
Gbanga turned to Michael.
“So fragile your building is, yet so strong.”
“The congregation put their hearts into attaining perfection.”
“I see.”
“So what happens now you’re no longer high chief?’
“Return to my shell and wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“Life’s most predictable destiny…Disaster.”
“What makes you so sure?” Michael asked Gbanga, who had his eyes hooked to the church.
“There are questions that already have answers. When asked, one then has the power to look at the other as a fool.”
Michael said nothing; he just stood watching him.
“Do you know why I put so much energy into trying to hate you?”
“Why?”
“Because you speak from the heart. You think the best in everything, which was what Obi feared about you. The only difference between Obi and me is, I know you are but one. I know there are lots of others like you, but not you.”
“What I offer is a belief, a pure free belief.”
“But what comes with that belief? Our culture is based on our belief, a belief we have studied for centuries, a belief that has built the peace of mind we gather till now. What you offer might be free and pure as you say, but it comes with its own culture. The more you initiate people into this, the more people will lose what they have. And even if they do accept your dogma, they will be decades behind you. And when they finally get to where they are supposed to be, another level will be attained, making them slaves to the past.”
“But the generations after them would catch up.”
“Catch up to what, your way of life?” Gbanga sighed. “Kings fight wars with their sons by their side, killing men looking into their eyes, showing their soldiers and their enemies why they rule. Your people kill without even facing their enemies. Everyone has enough food to eat, and palm wine to drink. The harder you work, the bigger your land. We tell tales to the young ones by moonlight, tales they themselves will tell to their children. We dance to celebrate the seasons of harvest. Your wife looks upon it as barbaric, but it’s our joy.”
“My wife?”
“Her expression tells everything. The sickness from our land, we know the cure, but that foreign to us, that which comes from lands lighter than our skin, we can’t understand, and your people laugh at our ignorance.”
“But the things you do, in kingdoms other than this…they kill children because they are twins, female circumcision—even in this kingdom, polygamy”
“And who made you a god to judge?”
“I’m not a judge.”
“You do not judge, but others do. The death of twins is a practice confined to a tribe, which believes that is the way to purify their land. A practice cursed by most kingdoms, but like most of you preaching your beliefs, you look for the most negative thing in our land and shout it out continually amongst the people in your land, announcing why you think your people are better. Tell me now that your land has no secrets. Tell me now that your land bears no wickedness. Tell me now that your land is not ready to crush everything that stands in its way just to grow bigger.”
“But we are ready to accept what we believe is wrong and make it better.”
“The death of twins is one of a tribe. You condemn the act. Condemn the tribe, but not the kingdom.”
“But is the tribe not part of the kingdom?”
“Understand why they do the things they do and then tell them why they are wrong.”
“But they are your people.”
“No they are not, Michael. They are of another kingdom. The advantage you missionaries have is, everything you say is accepted as selfless and it gives room for understanding. If I walked to that kingdom saying that, they’d think it a catalyst for war.”
“And the female circumcision?”
“Are you not circumcised?”
“Yes but...”
“Why?”
“It’s the norm.”
“That is the point, my friend. Over here it’s also the same for females. I see the way your wife walks when you walk, talks when you talk and picks the meat in the pot before you. That is your way in your culture. We let the woman be the woman. She is there to serve her man and her man is there to protect her and provide all her wants. You let a woman grow a penis like a man. She cannot be a woman anymore. She desires the things a man desires.”
“Does she not live, eat and breathe like a man? Why should she be treated as inferior?”
“My dear man, you need to understand life. Only a fool believes a woman is inferior to him. A woman is more cunning than a fox. They know the things to do or say to get what they want. Why do you think they hate themselves? Because they see through each other. Ask yourself this: Why is it that royal women remain uncircumcised, yet they force every other woman to be circumcised?”
“I don’t know.”
“I will tell you why, because sex is power. A woman of royalty married to an inferior man can do what she likes and he can do nothing about it. But that power she possesses, she would rather lose her left eye than let every woman have it, unless everyone else is doing it. Obi as King.” He chuckled. “Who do you think planned everything? Obi—you believe that, you believe stars grow in my yard. Ifrareta ruled this kingdom during every breath he took on that throne. The only power a man can have over a woman, beyond strength, is sex. Once that is lost, the only thing stopping them from ruling the world is themselves.”
“That’s why you engage in polygamy.”
“Polygamy is our way. Unlike your kingdom, we don’t divorce, so even when a woman begins to shrivel away, her breasts falling down like over-ripe paw-paw, we keep her in the authority of the position she held: the first wife. Put only one woman in the house and she would twirl you with her wrapper and you won’t even know it.”
“I don’t think that’s the right way.”
“You people come here claiming disgust for our ways, yet your men come in here sharing diseases we have no cure for, blind our women with things they haven’t seen. And as you preach, we have all the diseases. Tell me if I lie. Do your people not preach us as sexual beasts who sleep with everything, including animals, because we are like beast?”
“Some say.”
“Have you seen this, or heard it from any kingdom with men the color of my skin?”
“No. How do you know these things?”
“To be Head
-of-Government you have to know things. Women they slept with heard their words when drunk, heard the excuses and the riposted versions of their wives’ defense of their infidelity.”
“But sex is…more open here.”
“And in your kingdom, it’s more hypocritical. When next you see a woman, an African woman, if she is married, she is married. Not even the flashiest beads or stones can caress her out of her fidelity. That is what matters. Tell a man his wife is in bed with the King and he would laugh at you. That was how it is…” He stopped to think. “How it was, before you people came.”
“What would you do if you ruled?”
“Kill every one of you, those who come in peace and those with wicked hearts.”
“Why would you want to kill me?”
“Because your intentions are good, but even you don’t understand, that for men to feel good about themselves they have to make others feel worse. Obi was a great King; the reason the oracle wanted him dead was because of you, because you would open us to your world, to your religion. Your religion would only set us back to a place where we would have to start—”
He stopped as Michael’s wife called out for him from the hut next to the church.
“Would you like to—”
“No. But I would like you to know, Michael, if I saw the hearts of a hundred men like yours, then I might consider changing my stance. For now, be glad I am no longer in power.”
“No disrespect, but I am glad you are no longer in power.”
“For now,” Gbanga added with a smile and walked into the veriscent shades of Africa.