Yefon: The Red Necklace (20 page)

My
sha
η
g
was the strongest physical link between Pa and myself, and I treated it with the utmost care and respect. Not only had I been wearing it since my sixteenth birthday, but I took it off every night before bed, wiped the beads carefully and hung it on the wall.

Lying down, I would admire its shine and think about Pa.

“Come back to me,” I would cry sadly into the winds praying that the leaves would record my voice and carry the message across the path into the lands where the dead were alive.

-11-

THE CITY GIRL

The wind of development blew over Nso in the late 1950s, and new buildings were being erected in every corner. We experienced better food and better jobs in the village. The white population had almost doubled since I was a child. More schools were being built, and the Christian population thrived immensely. Everyone was talking about Jesus and how he had saved humanity from this reddish, horned devil-creature called Satan.

A reasonable number of black people were now training to become catechists at the parish. The job was stable, they got to live around the prestigious neighborhood of the parish, and they got to hang out with white people.

I never really cared for all that. Pa had hated the British, and his opinion affected my mind. I don’t think I hated them, but I was afraid of them, very much so. Their long pointy noses and very pale skin frightened me, but nothing was as fascinating as the fact that they spoke through their nostrils.

I couldn’t stop staring and I watched closely to see if it was really coming from there, or if it was just an illusion. But yes, the sounds really were coming from their nostrils.

I held my nostrils together and tried to speak, but my voice came out more like a bleat so I stopped it. Other village children were equally as perturbed as I, for they formed a new song, which they sang when a white nun or priest was passing by.

“White man, white man, white man,

White man with the long nose.”

They would sing it in small groups and run off if an old nun tried to follow them. It was always such a hilarious sight—a rickety old Caucasian nun with a shaky umbrella in hand running after three or four naked black children way more agile than she was. It was very funny to watch when Kadoh and I carried our baskets for sale at
Waynama
on market days.

What I didn’t tell you was that Kadoh learnt the trade of weaving from one of her man friends from another village. Kadoh was only into boys from other villages.

“I would never marry a Banso man,” she would profess passionately. “I don’t want a husband who calls a stone a stun,”
she would say slowly, mocking the Nso accent. The nature of our dialect caused some of the Nso people to encounter difficulties when pronouncing certain vowel sounds in English, and Kadoh hated that.

“You call it stun, though.” I joked with her, as I leaned against her mother’s hut waiting for her to get ready so we could leave.

“But Japer says it different, and I love the sound of it.” She poked her head out of her room. The thatched room adorned her head like a beach hat.

She had a peculiar eye for detail. “How do I look?”

I thought she looked pretty much the same, other than the fact that she had tied her hair in a clumsy bun. Instead, I said, “You look beautiful.”

She giggled, and jumped out in nothing but her
te’
, her folds visible for the whole world and breasts begging to be touched. That is how it was in those days. We walked off shouting trade slogans that attracted customers.

“
Nka
!
Nka
! Buy your
Nka
!” we shouted, our throats vibrating so much that I thought they would tear.

Whenever a white person called me to check out the baskets, I hastened my steps and ran off, just as the nun had done to me when I was younger. I would notice their surprise, but I didn’t care much about it. Kadoh was different. She would sell to the white men and flaunt her tips in my face.

“Fear, fear,” she insulted me, but I had no problem with that at all.

It was 1958! A special year indeed! I can never forget it because of four major things. We heard on the radio that Ahmadou Ahidjo would become the first prime minister of Cameroon. That didn’t make much difference to the village except men had a bigger excuse to get drunk at the bar. After all, a black man would lead this country towards independence. Others were skeptical. They weren’t sure a black man would be any different than a white man and feared that tribalism would become an issue since there were so many tribes.

1958 was also special because, all of a sudden, independence was the talk of the day even though most people had no idea what it meant. I was now eighteen and my once
skinny body had developed into a lot more. I had developed a curvy backside and full bouncy breasts.

The most remarkable thing about 1958 however, was that after countless
ghan-kidzem
treatments, basically the lungs of a cow boiled together with palm wine, Yenla’s diction became clearer. She had even become more confident about herself, and talks of her prospective marriage to a gentleman were in the air.

Yenla was undoubtedly Ma’s favorite child, and so Ma was very elated by the possibility of such news. I was happy for her. I loved Yenla, even though I didn’t agree with her on anything. She always seemed so helpless, fragile, and afraid. I guess that is what men liked.

I heard from the best storyteller in the world, Kadoh, over a hot bowl of pepper soup at the nightly story telling ordeal, that the suitor in question was young. That alone, made me feel better, until I actually met the man in person early the next morning. It turned out Kadoh’s version of young was a forty-five-year-old, squirrel-faced man with a gray patch on his left eye that matched his hair and moustache. I had no words for him or his companions who all wore similar patches. Was it a cult? What was this about? Yenla seemed unmoved by her suitor. I could tell by the fact that she stared down at the floor the whole time and didn’t give him a moment of eye contact.

I thought that was odd, but if I opened my mouth to suggest anything, Ma would remind me of my place.
Abai veni
, I was not going to be involved. Sabo, he was called, and Kadoh said he was a pirate who had amassed unimaginable amounts of gold and silver from the white people he had killed on the Atlantic. I told Ma about what I had heard and Ma said my sister Kadoh and I were birds of the same feather and could keep our loony tales to ourselves.

“Thank you so much for your beautiful gifts,” Ma cooed to the one-eyed men upon their visit. I was even forced to serve them water to wash their hands, and watch them eat my mother’s food. I didn’t like them, and I wasn’t trying to hide my feelings either. This Sabo character was no good for my sister, and I could feel it in my bones. He gave me a scary look as if he was lusting after me when I served him water, and I was completely disgusted.

When they left, I picked a fight with Ma over the whole affair. Yenla sat there quietly as if it wasn’t her fate we were
discussing. Why did I even care so much?

With a vicious fire in her eyes, Ma snapped back, “You stay out of this, Yefon!”

“Alright! Do you like him, Yenla?” I asked her.

“He is a gentleman, Yeh,” she said softly. “He will be able to take care of all of us. We don’t have to suffer any more, Yefon. We don’t.”

We don’t have to suffer anymore? Is that what marriage was about? Convenience? I wanted to marry because I was hopelessly in love with a man and not because we wouldn’t suffer anymore.

I wasn’t convinced even though some people considered it rather sweet or touching. Kadoh thought it was sweet, but I knew where Yenla’s heart was. It lay with the butcher’s boy, Vernso. I had seen them more than once, like two munchkins in heat in the dryness of the forest. Even Yenla could feel when she wanted to.

“What about Vernso?” I asked Yenla. “Who is he going to marry?”

The glow in Yenla’s eyes immediately faded at the sound of his name. It was as though a giant hammer had bludgeoned a baby animal in her presence. Ma quickly ran to her assistance.

“Leave her alone with your questions, Yefon,” and so I did.

In February of that year, Yenla married the one- eyed man. Was it because we needed money or because she was in love? I doubted the second. I didn’t attend the wedding. I refused to be a part of such prostitution. I went into the preparation room where Yenla was being adorned with glorious flowers and ornaments. We didn’t exchange words, but she saw me. It was a very emotional moment for us both, and with one last look, I stepped into our
taav
, grabbed my baskets, and walked away from home towards the market.

I didn’t see her for almost a year after that, and I missed her terribly, but if she was happy, that was all that mattered.

The one-eyed man lavished Ma with gifts for months after they were married. He seemed to be smitten with my sister, and I began to let my guard down. Maybe all marriages weren’t that bad, and maybe they really loved each other.

A woman I saw on my way to
Waynama
to sell my artwork was the last major thing that happened to me in 1958. That morning, Ma told me I had to sieve a good portion of millet flour before I left her house to go anywhere. I didn’t feel like exchanging words with her, and so I chose not to argue.

I dragged out a sack of ground millet and a sieve, and sat on a compact bamboo stool in the middle of the compound. It was a fairly cold morning, and the compound smelled of
nkang
. I suppose Ya Sero was brewing some in her hut, as that had become her new profession after Pa passed.

The British called it furmity. It was an alcoholic milky-looking beverage made from soaking millet and letting it stay in a barrel for a while until it began to ferment. At that point it was boiled. I really hated how it tasted.

As I sieved the flour, the smooth, finer flour escaped through the small spaces of my wooden
chekere
into the pan beneath leaving a crusty chaffy residue, which I emptied, into another bucket. I heard Ya Sero’s voice and our eyes met. She was drinking
nkang
and enjoying a pipe in the courtyard next to her hut.

We stared at each other momentarily. I wanted to tell her to stop drinking because it wouldn’t bring Pa back, but I didn’t. I couldn’t, so I dropped everything I was doing and walked away. Soon, I found myself on the road as usual, in the company of a few early risers heading to
Waynama
or to their farms.

A few Christian children holding bibles bypassed me rushing for mass. I admired their cleanly shaved hair and spotless European garments and reminisced over the ones I used to have. The base of my baskets stuck on my nappy hair brought me back to reality as I continued on my way.

It was a pleasant day, not too cold, and certainly not hot. Green hills traced a clear line against the skies, but the shallow valleys and rising ground, presented an alternating view of woodland and meadow. Over those meadows lay my destination. Self consciously fondling my
sha
η
g
, which had become more of a good luck charm these days, I trekked towards my destination, wondering why it was heating up. It always seemed to heat my chest when something really good or bad was about to happen.

I spotted Ta Mbu in a distance. He was riding towards my
direction on an old, rickety bicycle. No one knew where he got it from. Some said he stole it from white people in another village, and others said he earned it. I don’t know the real version.
Aya!
Not today.
Kiwo
, I pleaded to my higher self, begging that he would not identify me and stop. Not today, please don’t see me, don’t see me, I secretly prayed, and then he saw me!

“Beauty queen!” he shouted, tailing after me. ”Come for a ride on my new bicycle.”

I rolled my eyes, walking faster. He tailed me, singing about the movement of my backside.

“
Seventeen eighteen nineteen pogolo
.”

“Go to your wife, and stop following women as if you are a rhinoceros!” I ordered, but it was Ta Mbu. He just won’t back down.

“Rye-no-ce-roes. See how your mouth is just saying it. So sweet.”

I rolled my eyes, doubling my steps.

“You know you have a rude behind. It is just sticking out, begging to be touched.”

“I am half your age!” I shouted back. “You are disgusting.”

“But your breasts. They are like ripe oranges. I just want to suck,” he began making loud obnoxious sucking sounds and I wanted to hit him with a stone.

“Go and suck your wife’s breasts!”

“They are like fried eggs.”

I burst out laughing and he tried to touch my butt but I pushed him away.

I considered spitting in his face, but he really had nothing to lose even if you did your worst. Word on the street was that he had gotten mad smoking one of these new cigarettes that the white man was bringing in.

Kadoh said it was actually worse than tobacco. This one had a knack for making madmen of decent ones, and it came from green leaves called
kaya
, which were being grown right here in the village. She had tried it once, and she said it felt like she was in the air swimming with birds.