Yefon: The Red Necklace (5 page)

“What did you say?” Suiven asked coldly, her set gaze determined and ready.

Next thing we knew, a fight would break out over a prince we had never seen; one that ended with an intense flogging on both parts by the elder, or
bikiy
^*
, of the compound.

“Women from the Labam family don’t fight” was the lesson they would have to repeat a hundred times. They also had to miss dinner as if the painful lashes were not enough.

I wondered what the prince looked like. He must be all that for this fight to continue for almost three years until Suiven was married off to a Fai from another compound in
Vekovi
. I heard that he had lots of cattle and children and she would be his sixth wife. I thought it was good for her because her breasts would finally be put to good use.

After bathing, we ate a miserable cold breakfast of
mbu’lam
, which was roasted three days in advance. Sola’s mother fried her eggs with palm oil, and we watched hungrily, the enchanting smell being our closest taste of the delicacy. It made me wish that I were Ma’s only child. Maybe she would spoil me with eggs too. She
seldom made eggs, and if she did, Yenla and I had to share one. Only my brothers ate full eggs. Ma believed that since they were men, they deserved it.

The only time we ate a full egg each was when Pa was around. He barked at Ma to feed his children properly and quit all this nonsense talk about men and women. I wish I could give Pa a medal for how correct he was.

Sometimes, our days were spent on the farm, grazing
bveys
and planting or harvesting millet, and the evenings ended with stories around the fireside, picking huckleberry vegetables. We called this chore
tangrii nyoosji
, and I really despised it. It could eat about five hours of your day, and one’s hands would be black and bitter, stained from the residue of huckleberry.

We roasted
saar
, plums, and plantains if it was the right season and listened to our grandmother, Ya Ayeni, tell stories. The village would be silent but for the occasional cluster of noise and fire in every other quarter. We had assembled to hear and share folktales and life lessons. Most of us didn’t go to school, so storytelling was the main way by which the wise ones disseminated knowledge to the young.

Even though I despised being from a polygamous family, it wasn’t all that bad, honestly. Truth is, polygamy had its upside as well. Mainly that, at night, just like most families, we sat in big round circles around the fire telling stories and eating groundnuts.

Our neighbors from other compounds joined us partly because they wanted to eat groundnuts, which not everyone could afford, and also because they wanted to be friends with us so we would give them gifts like linen, which Pa brought from Yola.

What else could one do at night without electricity? The stories were simply phenomenal! People might think an illiterate person was stupid because they hadn’t gone to the white man’s school, but our imagination and life experience were as crucial as thread in a needle when sewing. We survived the hectic farming schedules because we looked forward to nightfall. It was the one time when no one was more important than the other. We were all equals.

The storyteller, mainly Ya Ayeni, called out in her high-pitched grandmotherly voice, “
Ma’ Nganndo
!” and we chanted after her
“Ndzengon
.” Then she asked a rhetorical question, “the longest rope on earth is?” to which we responded “the road” and
everyone burst out laughing, even Kpulajey. I smiled at her, but I didn’t taste the groundnuts from her plate when she offered. It wasn’t often that we shared a connection. Such moments were as nonexistent as a pregnant man.

With wandering eyes, I listened to these tales, and I was always forced to examine Ma Ayeni’s blind eye closely
^*
. I wondered if tears came out from that eye when she cried.

“Tell us about
Naa’
,” Sola requested gleefully.

“No. I want to hear of
Wanyeeto and Bah
,” my oldest brother Fonlon cut in. I hardly ever saw him, so his voice was somewhat unfamiliar. I was intrigued at the way his intense, small eyes seemed sad, but his smile told a happy story at the same time.

A rowdy squabble over which folktale we wanted to hear ensued, and after eventually picking one, we sat under the starry skies, listening to tales about lands that existed in other universes far far away.

Among the phenomenal storytellers was the legendary Kadoh. Nobody could tell a story better than her! She was as lively as a
grig
and her tales had soundtracks, sounds, and pauses. Leave it to Kadoh to bulge her eyes out from behind one of her droll clay masks and talk in several voices and tones. It was not uncommon for her to say something like, “they walked in, chip, chip, chip, chip, and then the boy slapped the girl,
pam!
The girl held her jawwwwwwwww, then she slapped him back.” While she said this, Kadoh would stagger three steps back, then, look around angrily before she continued. It was just like a reality show, only better!

My favorite story was “
wanyeeto and Bah
” which was about animals who spoke and behaved like humans.

One night, Kadoh’s story was different. She told us the folktale of
Naa’
and the frog. It is the Nso version of the Princess and the Frog I suppose, and it was in the form of a song.

Kadoh began to clap her hands and we joined in, beaming as we clapped, the fire warming our cold feet. I was wearing a cotton dress, and I pulled the hem to my toes so that my feet were bundled under my skirt like a fetus in its mother’s womb. Sola looked at me, and I smiled back. If smiles had voices, mine would
say “hello there, how is the cold?” This is because I was the only one of my siblings who owned a cotton dress. But that’s a story for later.

Kadoh was now walking around the circle, looking each of us in the face, her giant thighs walloping as she stepped.

“Hebbei Naa’ hebbei,”
Kadoh called out, opening her eyes wide.

“Rimtii
,” we responded, singing the chorus.

“Hebbei Naa’, wom,”
Kadoh called out again.

We responded musically,
“Rimti.”

“Naa’ki boti mo!.”

“Rimtii.”

“Boti mo’ wiy nkang!”

“Rimtii.”

“Noh nkang ku’y I nkang ku’y I nkang!.”

“Rimtii.”

“Ki’ bete’ rim kibete’.”

“Rimtii.”

The story telling took turns after that. Being a dutiful audience member at the time meant one had to be an actor, a poet, a singer, and a dancer. The older women used this opportunity to reminisce about their youth, and they always lied to us about how perfect they were as children. Even Ma was agile and friendly during storytelling.

“I was the most beautiful girl in my village back in my day,” she bragged. “And I never disobeyed my mother.”

“That was why I married her,” Pa boasted one night when he was around, and we covered our wide giggles shyly for the whole man-woman conversation was a no-go area in my culture.

I was the only one who had white people clothes in our house. I used to feel like a one eyed man in the country of the blind. My little shiny calico dresses kept me warm when the cold harsh wind blew early on Sunday mornings. The other local children would tremble as they walked to the water point to get water, but I walked with a colorful feeling of warmness, admiring the envious stares that I perceived from my peers.

It was the only time that Sola felt inferior to me. She
would look at me grudgingly since her mother forbade her to wear clothes like mine. According to Ya Buri, it was unbecoming of a future palace wife like Sola, and wearing clothes would cause Sola to hide her figure, thus reducing the amount of attention that the pair got from suitors. It felt good to see Sola long for something I had, even if it was only for one second.

Somewhere inside, I was resentful because not only was she beautiful but also because her mother spoiled her and excused her from chores.

While some of us had to labor hard on the farm, women like her sat down and waited for a large bride price from a rich suitor. Sola’s mother treated her to all types of expensive beauty treatments, and her hair wasn’t braided with thread like the other girls. It was curled with short logs and so her mane was long and curly.

Sola and I had never gotten along and she started this enmity. It all began when she called me
mbav
in front of all the girls at the stream when we were five. I could never forgive her for that.
Mbav's
are the ugliest black rats found in the bushes, and she never apologized for it.

Also, she always reported me to Ma if I broke something, knowing that my being a tomboy would make me open to any such accusation. My worst memory was the time when she caught me stealing a gizzard from my mother’s pot. After accepting a bribe from me, she still reported me to my mother. Ma tied my hands together and whipped the living daylights out of me until she was sure that I understood that gizzard was only for menfolk.

When I tried to confront Sola after, she stared at me, her eyes the amber hue of fine cognac. “I don’t know what you are speaking about” was all she said, even though I am sure she remembered how we had torn the pieces of gizzard apart behind the barn.

As if that wasn’t enough, Sola always had an eye on the plate with the meat that I was planning to take. In a polygamous setting as ours, one of the wives would cook each day for all the children. You always liked it when it was your mother’s turn to cook since she would call for you and give you an extra piece of meat when no one was looking.

Unfortunately, Ma was an impartial wife and so we never got such favors. Her fat
nyash
^*
I would think angrily in my oversized head.

We would return from the farm to see about thirteen silver plates laid down by the fireside in the middle of the compound. Sometimes, the round black pot would still be sizzling on the three-stone fireside, and we would sit down on the straw mat next to it and wait, tongues wagging like
ngong
dogs. Those were the good times!

I had recently learnt how to focus my attention on another plate, so that Sola would pick the wrong plate, thinking she was getting at me.
Bvey
! Foolish cockroach!

A long time ago, I used to walk around naked just like the rest of my family. Since I was very young, a black thread in my earlobe served as the only clothing on my skin.

One morning, when I was almost six, I saw a little Christian girl by the Shisong clinic. She was wearing a beautiful cream white wrap dress and white shoes. It looked so beautiful on her that I suddenly felt an urge to dress like her. I came home and asked Pa to buy me clothes when he returned from his next trip to Yola. Even though he was a rigid traditionalist who only wore a loincloth around his waist, the only thing he asked me was if I was sure I wanted them and I said yes. One of the things about him that I loved was that he always let me have a say in what concerned me. I was Pa’s favorite, and he really understood me in a way that no one else could.

“If my daughter wants a dress, let me buy her a dress,” he defended me to a very furious Ma, who warned him that encouraging my behavior was the beginning of problems in this family.

“You are a titled man o!” she screamed holding her ears. “Do you want your peers to say you are weak?”

“But
Yee’ won
^†
, how exactly would I look weak?” he said,
his square jaw tightening as he spoke.

“You are the one spoiling these children!” she accused, baring her teeth, so that her very wide gap tooth was prominent. “And now you are making me look like a demon! Continue!”

He tolerated her shouting for a few minutes and then dismissed her from his sight.

“Yefon, see what you have done,” Ma called out threateningly before leaving. I prayed to the gods that I should never turn out like my mother. Sometimes, I doubted that she gave birth to me. We were like guavas and sugarcanes—different in every aspect.