Yefon: The Red Necklace (4 page)

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“Why are you seated all alone in the dark?” Pa asked, as he joined me outside, sitting on the cold red soil. The tightness in my jaw immediately relaxed as I saw his long legs stretched out next to me. His presence always enveloped me with a feeling of security.

Even though the air was filled with the fragrance of kola nuts, Pa’s pine smell could not be missed. I have always associated the clean smell of pine with Pa. I shook my head, arms crossed, looking straight ahead. I was not going to answer him.

After smiling at my silence, he responded gently, “I will sit with you then until your mouth decides to speak.”

He lit his pipe. A heavy smell of tobacco infiltrated the air but didn’t completely cover the freshness of the pine. I studied Pa’s face as he looked into the horizon. It wasn’t round like mine. Rather it was square with a strong jaw and bushy eyebrows. He knew I was watching him, but he neither flinched nor moved. He just sat there, as relaxed as a baby.

After an extended angry silence, my act cracked, and I looked at Pa again.

“Everyone says I look like a frog,” I confessed and began to cry, feeling suddenly heavy as if the weight of the whole world was on my shoulders.

“Do you?” he asked casually.

“I don’t know,” I confessed, shaking miserably like an old hag.

Pa let me cry for a few minutes, and then he said to me gently, “Did you know that some frogs can jump up to twenty times their own body length in a single leap?”

“Really?” I asked. My frog-eyes widened so large that even Pa laughed. I grinned too, a slow smile forming on my chapped lips.

“One day,” he said, and then stopped to smoke snuff from his pipe before continuing. He had an air for the dramatic. I waited patiently.

“One day, you will leap so far and do something special for the Nso people,” he reassured me in a soothing voice that reverberated with wisdom. He looked at me with deep-set eyes,
which reminded me of a cassava peel, and I grinned widely.

Whether it was just a white lie to appease a struggling child or it was the truth, I couldn’t say, but he ofttimes bragged about this concept to his drinking buddies at the local overcrowded
mbu
house down the street where about fifty people sat in a room that should only have held ten.

I frankly think most of Pa’s buddies were fond of his company because of the numerous free rounds of palm wine that a man could receive by virtue of being in Pa’s entourage at any given time. Pa loved his palm wine. He wasn’t a drunkard, or an irresponsible man, but he loved to be merry and had a strong empathy for fools and drunks—one that Ma could never understand.

”How can a man of your stature be drinking with those he-goats?” she criticized angrily, her once-beautiful face twisting into a heavy knot. She had been a gorgeous woman once, but it was hard to tell as her face was always bundled in a nasty frown.

“The gods have been amiable to me!” he would announce cheerfully, after a gulp or two. “Drink to your fill!”

The drunkards would raise their cow horns and the bar stewardess, a busty woman with love handles, filled them to the brim with sour palm wine which they would down and burp musically, a sign that the wine was resting peacefully in their overgrown bellies. The men all watched carefully as the bare-breasted woman wandered from man to man, refilling drinks; their eyes swinging obediently, like a pendulum focused on her watermelon-shaped mounds that bounced merrily as she walked.

I don’t know if that was why Pa went there so often upon his return, but I do know now that he was a ladies’ man. I had heard gossip from Kadoh about one or two children outside our compound that Pa was rumored to have fathered, and he was very handsome for his age.

Pa got me when no one else could and he always knew the right thing to say. Even when I was out of line, he could correct me without even saying a word, and whenever he was away, I would feel the impact like a woman feels the impact of her miscarried child. My life always seemed so miserable.

Sola always wanted to get me in trouble, and she worked in tandem with my overbearing mother, who always seemed to find one reason or another to have me beaten. I wish I could
boast that I had an older sister who protected me, but Yenla was always too timid to be on my side, even if she agreed with me. She was very sickly when we were children, and always hid behind her old blanket—even when the sun overhead was hot like an oven.

Since her skin color was considered a curse, my parents had gone to all types of traditional doctors to seek help for her case. All to no avail, so she seldom spoke. So as not to hurt her feelings, they lied to her by stating that she was receiving treatment for stammering, but I knew that was only a façade, and I am sure that Yenla secretly knew it too. Even when I prompted her to play, she always seemed too tired or reluctant and that pissed me off.

To add insult to injury, my polygamous family was just a hot mess and I really hated being part of it. The only thing that could appease me in Pa’s absence was the stories told by my almost obese sister, Kadoh.

If she was still around, I suspect she would have been a filmmaker. Unfortunately, she was one of the sacrifices that came with the dream I wanted so badly to accomplish.

-3-

VILLAGE LIFE

Ya wo Mbiame’s
kiyuu
woke everyone up in the mornings. Its crows were so loud and dry that I felt like sending a spinning blade from my ant-infested mat to do away with its cracked throat. Then what would wake me up?

I still shared a room with Yenla and she still grumbled at me every morning when she woke, not minding that the sharp stench from her mouth would hit my nose causing it to cringe in self-defense. The smell was so strong that I could perceive the
kiban ke saar
she had for supper the night before.
Kiban
is a starchy pudding made from millet that formed the staple food of Nso and was often eaten with greens.

Yenla usually ordered me to go to the Kimbo stream with her, but my
^*
herpan
was already full because I always carried water the night before. Why wake up so early when I could give myself a few extra minutes of shuteye every morning? Besides, at night, I also had a chance to steal a few pieces of sugarcane from the neighbor’s farm. I could also shoot people with stones or hunt something exciting. The night was just a better time!

Yenla would then go on to rant about how irresponsible and lazy I was for going at night. Nocturnal travels were dangerous, and she worried that a wild animal would attack me. Blah, Blah, Blah.

Yenla was afraid of everything, even her shadow, and so while she stuttered on and on listing how many things could have gone wrong, I shut my mind off. I think I was used to it since I heard the same stumbling banter every morning of my life.

What difference did it make if I went yesterday or today? The end result was that I had water.

“N…n..no,” Yenla stammered. “A good woman wakes up at the crow of the
kiyuu
to start her day.”

I generally dismissed the whole euphemism of a “good woman”. The entire doctrine itself was wrong and contradictory in my humble opinion, and I refused to be bothered by any of its irony.

Eventually, I dragged myself out of bed and carried my herpan outside. The clink-clink of the herpan and the morning Tiymenkan breeze had a beautiful way of clearing away any remnants of sleep from my face, and I seemed to see clearer once I was outside my mother’s
taav
.

All my father’s daughters, and female cousins from our compound, bathed together in the same place. The boys would usually bathe together on the other side of the bank. Sometimes, we caught them peeping in between the sugarcane and we would splash dirty water into their eyes and laugh as we heard them screaming in pain.

“Wohoo shame! Wohoo shame!” we would singsong to them, giggling amongst ourselves and covering our breasts. It seems strange that we walked around bare-chested but were offended when someone tried to watch us bathe.

The voluptuous Kadoh once prompted me to come with her to go spy on the boys, but I was terrified.

“What do their privates look like?” I asked her. Looking

around, making sure no one could hear us, she said with a lot of gestures, “They are ugly, hairy monsters made of skin.”

It was hard to tell if she was joking, since her face was hidden behind a hilarious clay mask. Kadoh and her masks!

The thought of a hairy monster alone was creepy, and I had to see it for myself. So one day, when Yenla had gone to the stream to carry water, I set off with Kadoh to spy on some boys at the west wing of the bank. We crawled like little crickets through the lemon grass, and when I looked up, I saw a giant black hairy sack dangling in my face.

In a leaping fright, I hit my leg on a stone and fell with a whooping splash into the mossy water! Before they came to see what the noise was, we sped off as fast as possible, breasts racing with us, as we made our way to the back of a kola nut tree, out of breath and laughing hysterically. That was a typical day in the life of Kadoh, and officially, that alone would be enough to scare me for many years of my life. I ran away and never looked back.

During shower time, my cousins and siblings yapped away, talking, splashing, and playing. Some even sang local songs. The best one was our family pride song, about the quality of the women of my compound.

“Oh oh! lah yer o oo, lah yer sia mbam-mbam!

A dze la marrir ver lah, bo a sawiy marrir a dze fe o?”
The rhythm of the song usually matched that of the cold water splashing on the grass, and some of us would drum on our herpans as we crooned loudly.

While we showered, I always found my eyes stuck to my Aunt Suiven’s breasts. They were flat and long, almost touching her navel. I shuddered, and would self-consciously touch mine and thank
Nyuy
for my small perky ones. How do one’s breasts grow so long? After ten children suckling on them, I would suppose, but she had no children. She was barely a few years older than Yenla.

I had heard that it was a curse placed on her mother by her maid who had witchcraft. Suiven’s mother, Navti was very wicked and her child had been cursed. I also heard that no medicine man in the whole of Nso could help her.

“Yefon, I will beat you!” she threatened, splashing foamy water in my eyes. Suiven always caught me staring, no matter how smart I thought I was by spying from the side.

I cannot explain how much I hated baths! I was terrified of the freezing cold water and I usually counted to three in my head, took a deep breath, and just splashed really fast, mostly with my feet, screaming all the way.

This fast shower is called cutting
seba
. Yenla always caught me, and of course, it wouldn’t really be Yenla if she didn’t humiliate me by washing me forcefully with
nsaabulu
, a black soap made from palm oil, and castor oil or
shinjaang
^*
. It smelled like fermented coconut or palm nut, and felt as if a bottle of hard whisky was poured on your open wound.

However, since it also smelled like fermented kola nut oil, some people melted it and used it to cook huckleberry, or
nyoosji
,
when they ran short of palm oil. The local drunk men always said if you wanted to know where your pores are open, invite
nsaabulu
. I used to hate it as a child. It made me cry, and as an adolescent, it made me whimper so loud that Kadoh would laugh at me for weeks after from behind her mask.

I disliked Yenla for this, and I would usually distract myself by watching my other cousins with their chewing sticks, or
chisong
^*
, in their mouths. The sticks were mostly made from Eucalyptus bark known as
forir
and they used it to wash out kola nuts and food from their mouths. As they washed their mouths, they giggled and talked about engagements and marriages.

Sola was always in a corner acting like she was too good to converse with anyone. In her delusional mind, she was already the queen of Nso. Her mother carried her water from the stream and heated it up so that her milky skin could be bathed with warm water to maintain its softness.

From what I gathered, all my cousins were preparing to be chosen as the prince’s bride someday. In a few years, the heir would be ready to pick a wife, and they all wanted to be her.

“How can all of you marry one man?” I asked Kadoh, smiling. Somebody was cooking nearby and my stomach rumbled.

She giggled, rubbing her big belly. “I don’t want the prince o! I only want the cook,” she joked.

Or was it even a joke? With Kadoh it was hard to tell. Today, she was not wearing a mask, and I got the chance to admire her deep dimples. Could I put a cowry in there, I wondered, but she splashed water on me, ruining my train of thoughts.

“Fatty bom-bom,” I insulted her jokingly, pulling her fat jaws playfully.

“Froggie,” she teased, and we laughed at each other’s impediments. Kadoh was the only one who could insult my big eyes without me being offended. I returned the favor by calling her fatty. She knew I didn’t mean it offensively, but if any other person called her fat, they would be beaten up.

My cousin, Sakah, was brushing her teeth when she was asked what she thought of the royal children, generally referred to
as
wonnto’
. She spat out a thick bloody glob of spit, and said, “They are so handsome. I can’t wait to bear their children.”

Many of us bled from our gums when we washed our teeth. People said that it was the punishment of the gods for stealing from a farm. I often wondered whether Yenla had the capacity to steal from any one even though her spit was bloody just like the rest of the sinful lot.

“No, I will bear their children,” Suiven would contest. “Look at my breasts. They are enough to feed ten children.”

Secretly, I had to agree with her. Those breasts looked like a flat milk store.

“
Abai wan ven
, how can you marry the prince with those flat breasts of yours?” another of my cousins once asked mockingly. First of all it was rude to refer to Suiven as
wan
or
wanle
because only adults referred to children like that. I watched excitedly to see the outcome, my insides bubbling at the possibility of a catfight.