Yefon: The Red Necklace (14 page)

My
sha
η
g
was no longer glowing, but I still wanted to understand what had happened down there. Was it witchcraft? It had to be, that was clear because what else could it be? My hands rummaged through my hair, my head bursting wild with ideas.

“It only means one thing,” Kadoh said, pensively, her eyes squinting intensely as she spoke.

I hoped she wasn’t playing around with me. This was not the time.

“What?” I didn’t look at her when I asked.

“Ngonnso’s
red
sha
η
g
,” she said, slowly as if only realizing it at that minute. ”You are wearing
Ngonnso’s
secret
sha
η
g
that was lost hundreds of years ago.”

“Who or what is Ngonnso’s red
sha
η
g
?” I asked, totally confused by where she was going with this. I hoped it wasn’t a joke. No, maybe this time I wanted it to be a joke!

“The
sha
η
g
on your neck,” Kadoh said, her eyes studying me, jumping from eye to eye.

“I know, but how do you mean?” I asked again, eager as a jigger. Kadoh packed up her belongings, and left. I tried to stop her, running after her until I cornered her by at an old cashew tree that now bore nothing but dried fruits.

“Please tell me what you mean.”

She exhaled deeply. I had never seen her look this frazzled. I studied her eyes. They showed the flux of emotions that we were both feeling, and as much I hated to see her uncomfortable, I had to know.

“I am not sure, but they say whoever the
sha
η
g
chooses, holds the power of change.”

“Chooses? How do you mean choose? This is my gift
from Pa, remember?” I tried to reason with her.

“You should talk to him.” Was all she said before walking away.

“Wait for me!” I ran after her.

Millions of questions throbbed through my mind as I walked back home with Kadoh. She couldn’t tell me any more until I spoke to Pa. I was making for Pa’s taav, when a covered up Sola told me Ma was looking for me.

I followed her sheepishly; trying to cover my
sha
η
g
that had began to glow. It was warm against my wet fingers.

“You will not kill me, Yefon!” Ma said when I arrived by the small fireside where she was drying meat. Even the stifling smell of the meat wasn’t strong enough to distract me from the strange things I had experienced today.

After a few minutes, I caught the gist of what happened. A strange boy had been caught in our compound, and when asked, Sola said he was my little boyfriend. She had seen me talking to the boy at the junction a few days back.

Ironically, I had seen her, not only talking to the boy, but he was also feeling her up, and she seemed to enjoy it very much. Now, what he was doing in our house I couldn’t tell, but it must have something to do with Sola. I decided to tell what I had seen Sola doing with the boy.

“That is a lie from the pit of the devil’s stomach!” Sola shouted nervously, her eyes darting nervously across the room from face to face as she lied.

“I am sure Yefon knows this boy in question,” Ma said, shaking her head. “She likes rough play with boys.”

“But, Ma, you didn’t even ask me what happened,” I blurted out, extremely offended since I was literally still dripping from my swim. There is no way I was at the junction, dripping wet like this!

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Your father will deal with this when he gets back. You will see pepper.”

I sighed loudly and walked away. I did not turn back when they called my name. These people just had a problem with me looking happy! Sola could have just said she didn’t know who the boy was. After all, he had escaped. Why wrap my name inside this whole mess?

“Your daughter was talking to a boy,” Ma greeted Pa as soon as he opened the door to his
taav
.

“And so?” he asked. I think Pa was tired of all these fights between Ma and me, frankly so was I.

“Okay! You will carry the baby when it comes,” Ma said at the top of her voice.

In a twist of events, Pa called for my older brothers and asked them to go call the boy. I could see Sola shaking like a leaf on a windy day, and my brothers found him shortly after.

“How do you know my daughter?” Pa asked him, when he arrived. He looked at me, and I wondered what Sola found attractive in this boy with the huge nose.

”I have never seen her before today,” he said humbly. “This is the one I know,” he said, pointing at Sola, and I couldn’t help but smile. Now, that was funny! I could see Sola trying to signal the boy in the back not to make any confessions.

“Both of you are warned, Sola,” Pa said.

“
Kifah ke bi ki
,” Ya Buri argued, as usual. “You people are accusing my child o! Mami Fonlon stop tarnishing my child’s image.”

Pa dismissed them all, and asked me to stay.
“I am sorry they pick on you all the time,” he said when we were alone. “It’s because you are different.
Don’t hate them though,” he said, this time in a very apologetic voice, and I wondered what he was sorry for.

“But I do!” I spat back, feeling the hate shaking in my muscles. The sky was clear, and the evening life was coming alive, evident by sounds of crickets humming.

“You have a great path in front of you; one larger than most of the women in this village. These things are only training you to be strong.”

We both watched as a voluptuous woman passed by with a giant log of firewood on her head. She curtsied in front of Pa and I noticed how much he stared at her as she walked away.

“Who is
Ngonnso?
” I asked.

Now it was Pa’s turn to be surprised. “How do you know about that?”

I pointed at the
sha
η
g
, hoping that would tell him how
much I knew. “It glows sometimes.”

He smiled, “Yes. You are the one.” It was a clear-cut sentence.

“The one to do what?”

He lifted me up in the air. “The one to make your daddy happy,” he said, tickling me and I laughed long and hard.

Pa never explained further, but I found out over time that my
sha
η
g
only glowed when I was happy. When something bad was about to happen, it glowed too, but the glow was so hot that it burned my chest and I couldn’t breathe. That was all I knew about it. I wondered if it had more power that we thought, but other than Pa and Kadoh, no one else knew about it and I was going to keep it that way.

I cleaned it everyday with a dry cloth and fondled it until I fell asleep.
Ngonnso
! I didn’t know who she was, but I liked her
sha
η
g

It was mine now!

-7-

FOMO WOO MBVE’

Pa wasn’t around for my seventeenth birthday, and Ma did not celebrate it. I was very positive that this would be a bad year. I don’t remember what I had done this time to deserve it but it had sort of become the norm that Ma and I enjoyed a dry relationship, void of affection. I was hoping she would soften up a little bit and at least do something for me, but she never did, neither did I ask. Kadoh’s mother boiled me an egg, though, and I was very happy.

Sola’s birthday was two days later, and her mother bought her a new wrapper, which she wore to spite me, bragging loudly as she paraded around.

“Some of us can’t help it, o! New wrapper, o! My enemies should kill themselves, o.”

I watched her from the side of the house, touching my slingshot and wondering how much of a rush I would feel if I let one of my stones fly at her skull.

Our house was flooded with several suitors from near and far. Everyone wanted to marry Sola. But she turned them down. She was fit only for the prince.

Ma spoke in parables to us. “I am living with men in this house; men don’t marry men do they? Maybe that is why you people have not married.”

I rolled my eyes. I dreamed of another world where all people did was sit and stare at the sky. That night, I went hunting. I had shot a little rabbit and was roasting it when Kadoh joined me. She liked her meat so bloody that it was still mooing, and so I made some especially for her.

As we tore through the muscles of the animal, I saw Sola lurking around then she escaped behind our
taav
. My
sha
η
g
began to feel hot around my neck, and I instinctively knew that I had to follow her so I tiptoed behind her. She was eating something.

“Do you want some meat?” I asked.

She shrieked, her face looking pale like a corpse.

“What are you doing?” I asked, seeing a large chalky looking pestle, and a mortar filled with a white substance that looked like ground chalk.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” she begged, and I noticed how
much she looked like Pa when she was vulnerable. I had never noticed that before.

“I am hungry,” she confessed.

She was eating chalk and cotton so as not to put on weight, and for the first time in my life, I felt sorry for her. She refused to eat any of the rabbit, and she was too proud to thank me for talking to her, but I knew she felt grateful. I smiled, thinking to myself how we always build walls that look strong, just like my older brother Ndze, but inside all of us wanted love.

Pa returned two weeks later. He had bought my sisters gifts from Yola. I was the only one without a gift and my sisters laughed at me. I did notice that Sola didn’t laugh as much as she usually did. Had Pa begun hating me too? I was crying at the corner of the house when he found me.

“I am not crying,” I said wiping my eyes

“Tears don’t come out of happy people’s eyes,” he said.

“They do if they are really happy,” I said, wiping my nose and we both smiled.

“Smart mouth,” Pa said, ruffling my hair.

“You don’t love me anymore!”

“Why would you say that?” he asked, his voice reflecting genuine concern that only he could muster.

“Because you didn’t bring me a gift.”

“From Yola, no. But I have a gift for you.”

“Really?”

“Yes we are going hunting.” he said, and my heart smiled.

This was going to be amazing! I would scrub my catapult and make new sandals, I calculated in my head.

”I will be taking her hunting,” he said casually to Ma as we walked past her. I didn’t even look at her.

“Hunting?” we both asked simultaneously, and I turned sharply at the announcement. My fake shock was perfect.

“But,
Ba wom
, you can’t take her hunting. Why don’t you go with one of your sons? Fonlon and Ndze will be well rested by midday. Today is planting day, and we will need as many extra hands as we can get,” Ma whispered through clenched teeth, even though I could hear it all.

I watched her as she spoke. I could feel the ambience in the room metamorphosis into an unhealthy tension. The whole time I was wondering when she would wish me a happy birthday
in arrears. It never came.

“It was her birthday two weeks ago,
Ya wom
. Can you please just let this go?” my father said, frustrated that they were having this semi-argument in front of me.

In my head I was saying, yes, you heard the man. Ma seemed like she had a lot to say. After an intense moment filled with many an unsure look shot in my direction, she walked up to me.

I took a step back for fear that she was going to scold or beat me up but she lifted me up and caressed my face gently. I didn’t know how to react to it. I seldom got affection from Ma, and when it came, I welcomed it like an addict welcomes free narcotics.

A few hours later, I was playing with Dini and Kadoh in the fields. Today Dini was more compliant and she seemed to want to play. Only I didn’t feel like it. She nudged against my shin.

“
Abai
, play with the
bvey
, na,” Kadoh urged, and I only laughed.

“Yefon!” Pa called out loudly

“I am coming o,” I replied, and I ran to the front of his
taav
where he was sharpening tools with my brother Ndze, who bore the most resemblance to Pa.

I wasn’t close to my brothers and it seems like when I combine all the words spoken to them in my entire lifetime, they cannot be more than fifty. Pa said that we ought to leave now since the sun was overhead. Ndze offered to come with us.

“You should rest,” Pa said. “The journey from Yola was a long one.”

Ndze tried to insist, but Pa refused. Pa adjusted his local rifle, or η
gar
^*
, which he’d probably owned since the Stone Age, and pointed towards the entrance. Gladly, I obliged. A pool of unsettled facial expressions greeted us outside, especially from Ndze.

He couldn’t seem to swallow the fact that Pa had just chosen me over him for gaming. I could understand it though, and, my lazy behind rejoiced over the prospect that I would not be blistering my palms out in the farms today. Alleluia!

I hopped gleefully after him, acknowledging the eyes piercing through my skull as we exited the compound. Some even stopped sweeping to gape at us. I caught a glimpse of Kpulajey’s glassy stare from the corner of my left eye. She clapped her hands a little too loudly.

“Wonders shall never end!” she exclaimed.

Pa seemed oblivious to all of this. His handsome face stared far ahead. It seemed like this was the journey of a lifetime, and I would later realize that it literally was the gateway to my future.

The hills were a lively green after the showers in March, and I admired them, as they merged with the heavens, birthing soft fluffy clouds, that looked like they would taste good.

As we walked past a flock of farmers, their backs bent tilling the fertile Nso soil to plant
saar
for next season, I felt proud as my
sha
η
g
glowed on my chest.

Only first-born sons in my village had this sort of privilege, and I knew then, just like I know now, that I would never be one of those farm women. I was different. But how? I didn’t know at the time.

I wondered if Yenla or my other siblings felt devastated? I would, if I was in their shoes, but they had their own mindset—one programmed in a manner that any type of change seemed like an unbearable burden.