Yefon: The Red Necklace (18 page)

One girl screamed at the top of her voice. A chilling fright overcame me. This fright felt like adrenaline, thrill, and fear at the same time. Every one surrounding him looked petrified. Was he dead? I didn’t know.

I immediately took off. My shaky feet carried me home into the darkest corner of the
lum
—the second floor where
saar
was stored. I pulled up the portable ladder and hid behind a stack of
saar
, barely dodging a small mouse that ran across the bamboo floor. There I shivered for minutes. Had I just murdered someone? But he was a bad person! He bullied my sick sister! Should I have just given him the water?
Souba
! I began to see dark shadows lingering around me. Their windy chilling presence reminded me that I was now one of them. I was a dark spirit who had killed a man.

I must have fallen asleep because when I woke, I heard
very angry voices screaming outside. With my heart inside my mouth, I crawled to the window to spy on what was going on. Everyone was there, even the Fai of our compound. This was serious.

Boi’s mother and uncles were outside fighting and arguing while my parents tried to defuse the situation.
Even in my fear, I could see where Boi got his terrible looks. His whole family looked like a bunch of ugly, frowning bobcats.

“Where is Yefon?” I heard Pa ask Yenla.

“I… don’t know, she…shee ran away.”

Ma, as usual, was worked up, tapping her feet nervously. This time, for a change, Pa looked worried. Fai was able to make everyone calm down.

“Let us do this the right way. Everybody calm down and let us solve this problem as kinsmen,” Fai said.

Fai’s soothing voice and long white beard gave him a wise look, and as a result, he was often respected. All parties pulled a chair up and sat up attentively.

Fai’s bald head shone now as the sun was beginning to take its place overhead. When he was satisfied that all was calm, he asked, “Ba and Mami Boi, what is bothering you today?”

Mami Boi, a fat hen herself, stood up agitatedly. She looked like she was ready to kill someone, probably me. “Our son is a good boy. Their animal daughter has wounded him, and they should pay his hospital bills and discipline their daughter in front of us.”

“Yes!” Boi’s family members chipped in after her. A noisy chatter ensued.

“We hear you,” Fai said slowly then he asked again, “Were you there at the scene?”

Mami Boi shook her head.

“Let us bring Yenla to say what happened,” Fai suggested.

“No!” Pa Boi responded loudly. “Her sister will only support her! I want someone else!”

I looked around. Even though all the bully’s friends were there, as well as all the girls who watched the whole thing, no one stepped forward, and as Fai was about to conclude, a frail voice spoke up from behind.

“I was there,” the voice said.

As the crowd parted, I craned my neck to see who it was,
and to my utter disbelief, the skinny kind-eyed boy walked up looking unsure as mean looks and comments were spat out.

All the fear within me melted away softly as his skinny chest appeared within their midst. Now that I could watch him up close, I studied the scars on his face and stomach. He had been scarified too. Mechanically, I touched mine.

The skinny boy stood up for me, even though he was going to take a serious beating from the bullies, and that’s all I could think about.

“What is your name, young man?” Fai asked.

“Kome, son of Linus Kidze, the wine tapper. I am from
Mbingiy
behind the palace, near Tankum compound,” Kome said.

KOME. That was his name. I smiled to myself. He had a skinny chest and long legs, and wore nothing but a small
te’
made from big leaves around his waist.

“Go on,”
Fai
urged him.

He hesitated for a little while then eventually cleared his throat and spoke. “I was there. I saw the whole thing happen.”

Kome explained the whole story. I saw the crowd’s perception changing as the story unfolded. Some nodded their heads bitterly, especially when they heard he made fun of Yenla. Who was this bony knight in shining armor who had saved my life from these angry savages? And there he was, my first crush!

“Your son bullied my sick daughter?” Pa began softly, almost as a question to himself. Then, quickly, he rose in a giant fury and kicked the chair from under Boi’s father’s buttocks, Pa was breathing so loud and fast that he almost seemed to grow three feet taller in that moment. Boi’s bobcat-looking family looked frightened, especially Ma Boi. She was sweating, like a
bvey
at Christmas.

I have never seen my Pa that infuriated, and quite honestly, his fury surprised all of us. I even thought I would get a beating after the guests were gone. Pa repeated himself, this time slower but the firmness in his voice could not be mistaken.

“Your son bullied my sick daughter, and you have the guts to come to my house and demand that I pay bills?”

The rest of the people shared frightened looks, and the bobcat-looking lot shuddered into silence. Standing up, he came into the circle.

“You should be ashamed of your son. Bullying innocent
girls young enough to be his junior sister. My daughter is a heroine not an animal! She did what was right to protect her sister.”

My heavy heart calmed down with those words. Someone defended me. Someone thought I was right. Pa had called me a heroine, just like
Ngonnso
. I would never forget those words, for as long as I lived. Heroine.

“I am going to step inside now and may the gods be merciful to any of you that will still be here when I get back,” Pa barked walking quickly into his hut. Pa returned almost instantly with a rifle in hand.

“
Ayo! Aie
!” The disgruntled bobcats almost fell off the bamboo bench, skittering away as they quickly hopped up and began to run away, fear and disgrace spelled all over their faces. Fai patted Yenla’s back and with his walking stick in hand, started for his hut.

When everyone had left, Pa looked at Kome. “Thank you, my son,” he said. “You did the right thing. Let me offer you some
re’
to give your mother.”

“My mother is dead,” Kome answered shyly.

Pa, embarrassed, quickly changed the reward. “I’m sorry to hear that. Here is a pound. Please take good care of yourself.”

Smiling, Kome received his gift, and I couldn’t help thinking how cute his dangling teeth were. He ran off. I watched him until he was out of sight.

The heavy aura of bad luck hung around our house like the headless horseman around haunted grounds. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t eat my supper or speak to anyone that night. My heart was heavy and I had a very bad feeling in my gut. Pa looked very upset, and immediately dashed into Ma’s room where they argued for hours.

I couldn’t sleep. I was always the topic of my parent’s fights and I overheard them as I shed tears on my mat. There was little distraction but for the occasional buzz of the mosquito or Yenla’s heavy snoring.

“You are raising a rebel, ba!” Ma spoke out, almost crying.

“Would you rather I let them get away with harming my children? Our children, Mami Fonlon!”

“You’re always gone,
ba woni
, and we are the ones who stay in this village! Allow me to tell you what goes on around these parts! What if they try to hurt her? This is not over.”

“They will not try to hurt her, and if they do, we will take them to the palace. That boy is a tyrant, and you know it!” Pa said, pacing back and forth.

“After all that happened today,” Ma protested, “word will spread. No one will want to marry her. The stigma will follow her, her whole life.” She whined.

Pa responded, “How did marriage enter this conversation? What that’s supposed to mean?”

“That she’s a woman, ba, and she has a place in society.”

I looked at Yenla. She was now awake. She offered me her hand, and I took it, inhaling deeply as my hands shivered. I had a very bad feeling about this fight, but I didn’t know how to stop it. My heart felt like it was gripped in a fist, and I had to hold my chest for fear that my heart would fall out. What was my
sha
η
g
trying to say?

“She is special. I know it, and one day she will do something big for this village. You will see!” Pa insisted, pacing about.

“You need to stop filling her head with all those stupid ideas!” Ma fired back.

“Leave my daughter alone!” Pa howled, hitting the wall. Ma jerked back in fear. He regretted it immediately.

“I’m going to take a walk,” he said.

“You are going to whore around with other women!”

Those last words, though quietly said, were as cold as glass. A pin-drop silence ensued. The heaviness in the room was obvious. I’m not sure whether Pa responded but if he did, I didn’t hear it. All I heard was my angry father pushing open her door with all his might and storming off into the night.

Pa always went for night walks whenever he and Ma had a heated argument during one of their adult conversations, but somehow when I heard him say that he was going for a walk that night, I didn’t feel right. My
sha
η
g
was so hot that I began sweating, and I tried to walk towards their room to stop him from going.

Ma tried to call out after him in order to apologize for standing up for herself for once, but he was too angry or too hurt to listen. I felt terrible, and guilty, and so I began to cry. It was my fault. They were fighting again because of me.

Yenla sat up in her bed and looked at me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, wiping away my tears, and then we heard a loud male growl. It wasn’t only me who heard it. Everyone jumped out of their beds and ran out into the night. The adults pushed the young ones behind, but I fought through the crowd to see what was going on. Long faces surrounded me as I pushed on to see what they were so sad about. Even Kpulajey had a long face.

I had the sickest feeling in my gut. I pushed, shoved, and fought until I finally arrived at the middle of the crowd only to see Pa’s lifeless body bleeding; a poisoned spear still in his side. My heart was tied in a knot, my body constricted. My eyes dilated! Every part of my body was ringing. Goosebumps appeared on my arms. How could this be? Tears flowed freely from my eyes. Heaviness lingered through my chest as I watched some men carry Pa on a mat to the back of his
taav
.

I had never lost anyone dear to me, and I had absolutely no idea of how to deal with this. Ma was screaming over the corpse. I looked around, trying to find something to help hold myself together. Ya Sero had her hands on her head jumping around and wailing. Ya Buri was rolling over the floor, while Kpulajey just stared, a blank expression on her face. My brothers were shaking their heads and folding their arms, gnashing and grinding their teeth. The loud sound of wailing filled our compound, and the sour taste of misery was in my mouth for a long time after that.

About two hours later, our house was packed with a thick crowd that seemed like all the villagers in Nso were standing in our compound. Pa was a much loved and respected man. People cried, gnashed their teeth, and screamed out to the gods.

An old man’s voice shouted, “Why have the gods turned their faces on us? A man of substance, a strong one who walked amongst us, who will take care of his wives and children?”

Another cried, “
Maabu
! The abomination!”

I sat in my room awash with guilt. It is bad enough to lose a loved one, but when someone else takes their life, it is unforgivable. Was it my fault, Ma’s fault, or both? If I had just let that ugly boy harass us, none of this would have happened. To hell with
Ngonnso
, forget trying to be brave. Away with this whole thing called life.
Nyuy
! I was so anguished!

Now that I look back, I wonder how a seventeen-year-old
could contain so much hate in her heart. The last memory I have of my father was that he was killed outside his own compound like a damn
ngwv
∂
v
. You don’t know what that does to you until you find yourself in a dark, airtight room at midnight invoking spells to sinister immortals. You see, the culprits were never physically caught. People speculated that it was either one of Boi’s family members, one of his jealous rivals, or Kpulajey’s witchcraft.

I had my own opinion. It was Boi’s family, and after finding out about a spell from Kadoh, I plucked three feathers from one of our hens, and dug out some earth from the spot where Pa died. At about three a.m. that night, I woke up carefully; watching to make sure Yenla didn’t wake. I sat down with my legs crossed, back to the moon and poked the feathers into the earth. My
sha
η
g
was burning so much that I was sweating and a heavy anger formed inside my chest. I was bent on revenge and I began to breathe in and out.

Whispering so as not to wake Yenla up, I prayed to the goddess of the night. “I am only a child and have no money to buy a
bvey
or
ngwv
∂
v
for this sacrifice, so I brought you some feathers as a sign that I will repay you when I am older,” I begged. Yenla moved in her bed, so I stopped and watched her until she groaned and rolled over.

“Please kill anyone who had anything to do with Pa’s death. Do that for me and I will pay you back.” With my devilish plot completed, I crawled into bed next to Yenla and watched the ceiling, unable to sleep. Only tears came out.

Later on, it turned out I was right because after Pa’s funeral, the
Mfu
cast a similar a spell, and Boi’s older brothers and father died a few days later. No one went to their funeral.

Boi till this day is a village fool, unable to speak or hear. He sits in front of his compound with his tongue wagging like a n
gong
dog, watching passersby. May he never recover!

-10-

A DARK AGE

Pa’s death left an immeasurable hole of pain in my heart that I would carry for the rest of my life. The only remnants I had of him were my
sha
η
g
, my beautiful clothes, and my
mbve’
. Now I had to continue my adventure all alone. In spite of his illustrious legacy, Pa couldn’t be given a burial befitting of his stature because he was murdered. Even though his killers had received justice, it was still an abomination that he had been called to the other side to dance in the circle of the ancestors when it was not his time.