Yefon: The Red Necklace (11 page)

I did, and immediately, a big potato formed in my throat, and I took to tears.

In my father’s hands was the most beautiful, deep red, beaded
sha
η
g
or necklace, I had ever seen in my short lifetime. All of a sudden, the mud brick walls around me seemed to be ivory, and my Pa seemed to be a god. It is still the best gift I have ever received in my life.

“This is what the girls in Yola wear. I thought you would like it. Happy birthday,
Yento
,” my father said.

I felt so special, and this was one of those moments that
reassured me that I was my Pa’s favorite.

“
Beri wo ba
.” I screamed, hugging his neck tightly, my dumpy feet dangling in the air.

He laughed from his diaphragm, his adam’s apple bubbling up and down each time. Placing me down gently, he went on one knee and helped me put on the
sha
η
g
.

I felt as tall as a giant, even though I was only a little over five feet, and adrenaline pumped in my veins as the cool beads touched my skin. A vague aroma of kola nut hit my nose, and I smiled thinking to myself how many of Pa’s goods were mingled with kola nuts in the course of his arduous travels.

In those days, there were no mirrors. My dainty fingers stroked the roundness of the beads quickly, and for a minute, all I could feel was gratitude. There was a lingering warmness in my heart and an excessive smile that never seemed to wear off. I wanted to feel this way always.

“Hide it so that your sisters will not see it,” he joked.

“No!” I protested in a squeal like a toddler with some sweets. “I will wear this
sha
η
g
everyday for the rest of my life!”

“That’s my girl.” He patted my back. I could see why some people thought I looked like my Pa. I think it was our protruding foreheads that glistened all the time.

My fatigued brothers dragged themselves in, feet swollen and shoulders hunched. They waved at us weakly as they retired into their rooms.

“Rest well, my sons. You did well.” Pa called after them, nodding proudly as he watched them. It is incredible that as young as they were, they would be so tired, and Pa still had so much energy. Well, Pa had done this for many years.

“I have a bigger surprise for you after I rest,” he said.

“What, Pa? Tell me! Tell me!” I screeched.

“You have to wait for this one,
wanle
,” he replied with a big smile, rotating my head with his palm so that my head was wobbly and I was spinning. He had the palms of a basket ballplayer and my massive head seemed small in comparison.

Overjoyed, I cocked my head to the side to hear more about this surprise. When Pa was involved, I loved surprises. His gifts were always the most thoughtful.

I was still trying hopelessly to change Pa’s mind when
Ma’s voice purred softly in the back ground causing our heads to turn in her direction.

“Where is my own surprise?” She lowered her eyes shyly, and Pa was love-struck. His eyes shone like how I imagine Moses’s did when he saw the burning bush. It was such a unique moment. Ma’s radiance shone so rarely since she seemed perpetually stressed out. Today, she looked young like a soft hibiscus flower waiting to be plucked. Her hair had been freshly braided into five neat outward
bakala
cornrows, a little baby hair caressing her face softly. If I didn’t know better, I would actually call her beautiful myself.

She tied a beautiful Ankara wrapper with rose petals around her waist and her upper body had never looked riper. She had definitely been planning for Pa’s return.

“Aye, mother of my children! My first wife! How I have missed you,” he said, as he approached her, arms widely spread to embrace her.

Ma shyly enjoyed his embrace as he towered over her completely. Pa was a very tall, imposing man, and Ma was more on the petite, fragile side.

I covered my face as they hugged, watching through my fingers, which were spread wider than necessary so I could watch. All children, and even adults, know this trick. It’s a timeless classic.

“Yefon, why don’t you go back to sleep so that your Pa and I can talk,” she asked softly.

“But he has to tell me the surprise!”

“Yefon!” Ma snapped.

She didn’t need to finish what she was saying and I began to walk away, arms crossed.

The sun was beginning to rise, glaring against the blade of Ma’s new hoe as we stood. I protected my eyes with my hand.

“That’s alright, Mami Fonlon,” Pa chipped in, paying respect to her by calling her the mother of his first son. ”It is your daughter’s birthday,” he added.

Ma looked ashamed, but the emotion was quickly replaced with a soft smile in my direction.

She started singing! Ma’s vocal prowess was smooth as silk. I melted inside.

“A yin o oo! Ver yen lim ye a limo Tatah!

A yin o oo! Ver yen limo Beriwo!

Pa hugged her from behind as he harmonized the song. I was fascinated by how deep his baritone went with his lips looking so relaxed. Whenever I tried to imitate Pa, as I did many a time, my mouth would be forced into a tense o shape, and I would have to bow my head to achieve even a caricature of Pa’s bass. It was futile each time, but it made Yenla smile, and I liked that.

My parents looked at each other lovingly, then at me. “Happy birthday, Yento,” they said.

Yento is an affectionate synonym for Yefon, which means mother of the king.

I grinned gently. “
Beri wo ba, Beri wo mami,”
I said. I couldn’t think of another moment when I was so happy. All the strain in me died a natural death whenever my mother smiled, which was once in a blue moon.

Looking at Pa again, perhaps for inspiration, Ma asked me, “What do you want me to prepare for you?”

Flashing a smile, I said what I had said since I was old enough to speak
tu’kuni
, and
nyan’guv
. My parents laughed as Ma ran her fingers loosely through my hair. She searched my eyes lovingly, probably wondering how many times I had asked for the mashed potato and beans mixture pudding.

The Germans had just introduced potatoes into our food system as recently as ten years ago, so they were relatively expensive, thus a delicacy, and I really loved the cloying taste of it.

Nyan’guv
is a jelly-like meal made from the roots of the
re’
plant, or
konnyaku
. This perennial plant tastes like meat when properly spiced, so you can imagine how popular it was in my village where meat and vegetables were scarce and expensive.

Ma laughed for a long time. She looked very striking when she was happy. My Auntie Suiven once told me that Ma was the prettiest girl in the whole village back in the day. Kadoh also told me that Pa had wooed her for three whole years before she ever let him see her family. I wondered if an ugly duckling like myself would ever transform into a beautiful swan like Ma.

“I will make sure your food is ready,” Ma said.

“Thank you!” I squeezed myself against her lush bosom. It was so warm and soft. Her skin was also very smooth, and I hoped mine would be as smooth when I became a woman.

Pa took her hand, affectionately. “Okay,
wanle
, see you soon.”

I waved at them, as they walked into Ma’s room. Pa, just like any other man with a polygamous home, had his own chambers. He only came into any of his wives’ rooms when they wanted to “talk” as they always told me. Months later, the woman showed up pregnant. I recurrently wondered what kind of talking that was.

I returned to our room to find a sleepy Yenla taking her medication made from an old snail shell. This was alleged to help her with her problem.

“Morning!” she greeted, stretching herself and yawning so wide that her mouth could swallow a whale.

I carefully dusted the thatched mat, which served as my bed in those days and lay down, exhaling as I fondled my new
sha
η
g
. I could hear the chi chit chi sounds of morning brooms from outside. Music to my ears!

“Wh..Wher... Where is Papa?” Yenla stuttered excitedly.

“He heee... hee... Is wwiiiith Mama in the...their r...rroom.” I joked back.

Yenla ran after me and I leaped from my mat, ran out the door, and burst into the compound, Yenla close at my heels. I couldn’t let her catch me. She would bite me, or something like that.

Some of my family members were beginning to come out from the huts, and several cousins swept away dead leaves from the front of the compound. I also saw the new
bvey
s Pa had brought tethered to the tree by his hut. Nearby, my half brothers and cousins cleared grass. The chit chit of their machetes pierced my ears as I widened the gap between Yenla and myself.

I had heard from listening to Ya Ayeni and some old women gossip that Yenla was actually bewitched by Kpulajey out of jealousy for Ma. We are the original people, which meant Yenla, as the first daughter, had a fair chance of marrying into the palace, but no royalty would ever marry a stuttering albino wife. It was a curse! Being a stutterer was one thing, but being a stutterer who was an albino was as impossible as a chair developing legs and running.

“So why didn’t she curse me too?” I had asked Kadoh one day, while we were selling water to the Fulani herdsmen who walked about aimlessly with their cattle.

“You can never marry into royalty. You are not a lady” was her fair and truthful response, and I believed that.

My parents had taken Yenla to all types of traditional doctors. They were desperate. She had been prescribed salty seawater, snail shells and all types of solutions to no avail, and as mentioned before, she hardly spoke. That was why I liked to make fun of her so she would at least talk or play with me.

She finally caught up with me by the neighbor’s house and gave me a hard knock on my head. My skull was vibrating, and I held the spot, squinting each time I touched the spot.

“Thi…this shou…should ti...teach you how… to be respectful to your elders,” she managed to say.

Massaging the area, I grumbled miserably, disliking her even more. May her stuttering never end I wished secretly. Suddenly, something caught her attention. In a moment, her anger faded away like a ghost in the night.

Pointing at my
sha
η
g
, she cooed, eyes wide with awe. “Wh…who. Where di... di... did youuuuuu geeeeettt thiiis?”

I was tempted to imitate her, but the burning sting from the knock on my head reminded me not to.

“Pa bought it for me,” I said, proudly.

“It is ve…. ry b…b…beautiful.”

I smiled back at her. “Thank you, sis.”

Looking down, disappointedly, almost as if she was going to cry, she commented dryly, “Pa only brings one for you. He doesn’t like me because I…”

Quickly, I stopped the sentence with a firm hug. “Pa loves you, very much,” I reassured her. He would do anything for any of us. He also paid for all of Yenla’s treatments and didn’t tolerate anyone who called her names. If I told him that she felt that way, he would be very hurt.

“It is my birthday today, you know,” I tried to explain.

She dropped her gaze to the floor, a shameful look in her eyes. ”Ha . . .ha . . .ppy birthday, Yento.”

“Beriwo.”
I smiled at her, thanking the gods that this was over.

My own mother or sister didn’t know it was my birthday because we didn’t have calendars at that time. Besides, most of my
family members’ consciousness was far less active outside of farm-related things. They were sharp when it came to farm tools and harvest periods but other simple details, like peoples’ birthday or respect, wasn’t really their strong point, so it never really surprised me when they forgot my birthday every year.

Anyone who has a sister would tell you that a simple hug hashes out all the differences and the next thing we knew, we were walking towards our house, arm in arm, hopping and singing gleefully. The entire compound was awake now.

“I rany’a
,” they called out, cheerfully.

”Eh’no,”
we greeted back, in our high pitch sing song voice.

“Ven dze le?”
one of them asked. This was basically a polite way to find out how we were faring.

“Kijung fayii,”
we responded, indicating that all was well. We finally reached the entrance of our compound. What I would see upon my return will never stop shocking me till this day.

Pa’s third wife, Ya Buri, a fat woman with eyes bulging out of her head, was outside causing a ruckus. I am not sure why she opened her mouth so much when she talked considering her lips were as thick as cow skin, or
ncanda
. Sola did not inherit her mother’s unfavorable lips.

“It is not fair o!” she wailed overdramatically. From everyone’s facial expressions, they thought she was overreacting as well. Her reaction was so over the top that it seemed as if she had lost a child.

“Our husband has clearly shown us that he prefers his first wife. After his long journey, he only went to her chambers!”

My eyes immediately shot to Kadoh. She had a priceless look on her face. I couldn’t wait to see her reenacting the whole scene later. How I loved that girl!

Pa tried to calm Ya Buri down but to no avail. Her turkey thigh arms wobbled as she tried to express herself. Sola eyed me hatefully, especially after seeing the glowing
sha
η
g
on my neck. How she would love to own one, I calculated vainly. Well this one was mine! My special
sha
η
g
from Pa! Eat that!

Jealousy is one of the many downsides of polygamy, and Pa was a reasonable man so I think he regretted marrying so many women, especially THAT one. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to escape.

I can’t really tell you all that transpired because, at the time, I was in another world. I envisioned myself travelling from land to land, trading kola nuts.

In my dream world, I was tall and beautiful, married to one man, a man whom I really loved. He was NOT a
wir Nso
! We had two children, maybe three, and I slept in the same room as my husband. My
sha
η
g
was with me everywhere I went, and so was Pa. We ate, hunted, and did everything else together. In that world, Ma did not exist.