Yefon: The Red Necklace (7 page)

I preferred to take Dini to the grasslands to enjoy some grass with its fellow
bvey
brethren owned by the Muslims.

“
Djam na
,” they would often greet me.

“
Djam
,” I responded kindly, sitting next to Dini and feeding her salt from our barn. They looked different from most of us—taller, leaner with curlier hair. I thought they were attractive and odd, but interesting.

At the beginning, we smiled at each other shyly, but over time, the children would run towards me and touch me and scream Awa then run off playfully. It was the African version of tag. I played with them and their beautiful mothers would offer me some milk on my way back home.

They had a form of condensed sweetened milk drink called
kossam
, and I always drank it fast so that none of my siblings at home would beg. It was the most delicious thing I have ever tasted, and even when Dini didn’t feel like walking all the way there, I would force him, anticipating a cold cup of
kossam
.

When Ma found out, from Sola of course, she had me well beaten.

“What have I told you about eating food from strangers?”
she screamed. The guava stem stripped my back of its beauty, and I tried to explain myself to Ma but she wouldn’t stop. The cane felt hot like a cooking pot of palm oil, and I cried desperately as she whipped me.

“But they are my friends,” I pleaded, anxiously, protecting my face from the cane as much as I could.

“What friends? Tell me, what friends? Let me hear that nonsense again!
Mschew!
Friends, my foot! Yefon, you will not kill me! I have told you.”

It was countless events such as these that drove me onto the lonely path of solitude. I always seemed to be doing something wrong, and Ma always wanted to beat me up for this or that. She hardly ever beat Sola, but I was the object of her fixations and beatings came with it.

Sola would get me in trouble and Yenla would never defend me even though she knew that her testimony could save me a beating, and so I despised them all even more.

Whenever we went to my relatives’ farms, all the girls would flock to the kitchen to impress the Fai of the compound with how tasty their cooking was, how good of a wife they would turn out to be, and how high their bride price should be. How ironic that I would turn out to be the one.

Looking back now, I can tell you that, as far back as I can remember, I see myself on the edge of the crowd, the only little girl among a group of dirty boys climbing the guava trees, scraping my knees, and yelping from pain.

I remember my Aunt Suiven telling me I would hate my legs when I grew up because of all the scars I had accrued as a result of rough play and she was right. I can still feel the smooth scarred skin on the shin of my left leg. I had gotten that scar from playing around a boy who was clearing grass. The machete sunk deep into my six-year-old flesh like a Muslim knife into roasted soya. I was in shock for a minute before feeling the intense throbbing pain that would maim me for days. Those were the good times!

Yes, I was only seven but I already had a mindset of my own. My mind was always on the prowl, always questioning things, and in spite of all the backlash and beatings I had received, my favorite thing to say was still why.

One of my most beloved memories of 1947 was of sitting
in the corner of Pa’s
taav
on Sundays cracking kernels on a grinding stone with Yenla and Kadoh while observing the love between my father and his elitist twin brother, Uncle Lavran. Uncle Lavran’s influence in my life was fundamental because his stay with us opened new doors in our lives.

He and Pa would go at it like two schoolboys, and their nickname for each other was “
wirotavin
’.

“But you are the real
wirotavin
. You have amassed so many animals and wives like a real man,” Uncle Lavran said, his glowing eyes hiding some sort of amusement.

“But no, you are the real man. Look at your big big English that you are throwing at me,” Pa would respond as if he didn’t mean what he was saying. They stared at each other for a while, their long noses similar, and then Uncle Lavran would shake his head.

“You are so stupid. My ego can’t take it.”

“And you are like a hunter without a gun.”

Then they would burst out laughing and down their horns of palm wine. It was a very odd sort of conversational pattern, and I wished Yenla and I could have this sort of rapport, but I guess not.

Uncle Lavran used to be called Lainjo but his name was changed to Lawrence when he went to fight in the Second World War with the British. I don’t remember much about him because he left when I was still a baby.

“Yefon, you should come and greet your uncle,” Pa said the first time he came back. It was a hot afternoon and we were weeding grass around the compound. Pa supervised and weeded with us before he was called to the front door because he had a visitor.

We all flocked to the veranda like flies on meat observing him shyly. It was like a maiden on her wedding night. He brought us chocolates and we beamed relishing the taste of the sweets in those brown shiny wrappers. Ma tried to take the bag on our behalf, but Uncle Lavran held the bag firmly and insisted that we have one in our palms. A gesture well appreciated with a lady-like curtsy on our parts.

“What do you people say?” Uncle Lavran asked after giving us the candy.

“Thank you, Uncle Lavran!” we chorused in a gleeful
singsong. Pa watched us with pride. Sola was not among us. Her mother had taken her for a beauty treatment. I couldn’t wait to gloat in her face when she returned.

“Let me go to the kitchen and prepare something for you,
ba
,”
Ma
said cheerfully, and then she gave us a look which was synonymous with behave-yourselves-or-else.

Watching Pa and his brother was a unique experience that I couldn’t leave out of this book. They were so identical! The only difference was that Pa’s hairy chest and semi-bulging stomach was evident over the earth-toned loincloth he tied across his waist, while Uncle Lavran looked proper in a crisp white shirt and black slacks. He was very fit, and one could tell from his well-built muscles that he worked out often. I returned shyly to my corner where I broke the bonbon into half, and threw one piece into my mouth. The other would be to mock Sola. I twisted the wrap around my finger like a ring.

“See my ring.” I showed Yenla.

“You…you…you….” She tried to form the words, but they didn’t come out, and so she offered me a smile and stayed quiet.

I felt bad for her. We were only three years apart, but she acted much older. I wanted to be close to her, to have fun with her like I did with Kadoh, but those were wasted hopes. You could put an elephant through the eye of the needle easier than have Yenla play with you, so I gave up.

It was only three days later that I finally did greet Uncle Lavran properly, and he pulled me close and bounced me on his lap.

“
Yo yo yo
,” Pa chanted as I bounced. I started to feel more comfortable, laughing my lungs out. Pa watched fondly.

“This one will eat with kings,” Pa professed, patting me on the head then he sent me to bring kola nuts from his hut.

The first thing I learnt about Uncle Lavran was how he spoke. He used big words unnecessarily to express himself; hence, everything he said always came out sounding far more important than necessary. So something as simple as “I am thirsty” would translate to something like “my esophagus has been deprived of nourishing liquid.” How dramatic he was!

From hanging around them, I learnt that he had travelled to places like Burma, India, and the Middle East to fight for the
British with the Nigerian forces. He also spoke Hausa fluently.

My father and uncle had a very peculiar pattern of conversation. It would start from a harmless competition of words to politics.

Ma always tried to snatch me away, but Pa insisted that I stay.

“Come and stay with the women in the kitchen and allow the men to discuss business,” Ma suggested tactfully as she brought a steamy hot meal of
kiban
and
nyoosji
.

Yenla and Kadoh instantly dropped the nut cracking and followed Ma, but I stayed put and Pa eventually said it was okay if I stayed. Ma gave me a look—one that said, you-better-not-come-behind-at-some-point-or-I-will-lynch-you.

“I can’t wait for you to die, so I can inherit this fine one,” Uncle Lavran joked, referring to Ma. “Look at how gracious the gods were to her backside.”

“Idiot!” Pa replied playfully. “Go and find your own wife and leave mine alone.”

Pa washed his hands in the hot bowl of water and cut a loaf of
fufu
, molding it into his palms until it was round then used it to take a little vegetable and put it in his mouth. Pa ate so fast it was as if he was racing someone, sweating and panting as he ingested. Every time he swallowed a gulp of
fufu
, the sound was so loud that a passerby could hear it. Gulp! Even my throat hurt from the hardness of it.

“I came to your dwelling and you offer me cheap wine.” Uncle Lawrence joked.

”Ah! Is it not you? Lainjo of yesterday? Nobody is here for you to impress. You can speak like a Nso man now.” Pa responded in mouthfuls.

Uncle Lavran smiled, rolling up his sleeves to wash his hands. “You have caught me o!” he responded, with a strong African accent, and they burst out laughing.

Pa’s deep baritone reverberated around the entire compound, and he offered me some meat, but I was afraid to eat it. If Ma smelled meat on my breath, she would beat me because according to her I must have begged for it as if she did not feed me well. I shrugged shyly and looked at the ground.

”Eat what your father is offering you, child,” Pa urged, and put the meat in my mouth.

I couldn’t say no. It was hot, peppery, and sweet! Just the way I liked it. I chewed it savagely, filling all the gaps in my teeth with meat fiber as the flavor exploded all over my tongue.

They tore through the gizzard as Ma returned with a jug of drinking water. She did not take her eyes off me, and I tried to hide the meat, but Pa said “
Abai, wanle
, eat your meat
na
,” and so I chewed it slowly, and it went down painfully like a laterite mud brick.

“Yefon, help me carry some of the dirty dishes to the kitchen”

I planned my will in my mind as I followed Ma. Dini will go to Kadoh, my clothes to Yenla. The men were oblivious to the small scene happening and Ma didn’t wait for me to completely reach the back of the house before she covered my face with a hard slap. Unexpected slaps were the worst. They were as painful as childbirth. Not that I knew what childbirth was like.

“Stubborn child! What have I told you?” She pulled my ear, dragging me all the way to the kitchen where she attacked me, spanks flying in my face left, right, center. I wailed louder than necessary to get Pa’s attention, and as expected, he soon ran towards us.

“Can a man not have peace in his own house?
Koi, kah
? What is going on?”

I forced tears from my eyes, shouting at the top of my lungs. My sisters just watched as if it were an action film.

“What is it?” Pa demanded as Ma tapped her legs, looking the other way.

“Your daughter is very stubborn!” she declared.

“Is she not your daughter too?” Pa asked as some of the other wives and relatives came out of their
taav
s. Pa asked everyone to return to his or her
taav
and dragged Ma to his hut. All I heard were raised voices. I couldn’t catch much of the conversation other than Pa telling Ma to stop treating his children like strangers in their own father’s house. He didn’t know it, but this was digging my own grave.

My sisters looked at me. Their faces told me that they were not on my side. Sola looked at me up and down in a very nasty way. African women do this mean look, referred to as “picking” someone and I looked away. My eyes fell on Kadoh, who stared at me with compassion from behind a clay mask that
had bananas tied to it.

“I don’t like that woman.” I explained to Pa when he summoned me to his hut moments later.

“If you don’t like me, go and hang yourself! Stupid child! Frog!” Ma insulted me at the top of her shrill voice. I rolled my eyes angrily.

“If you touch me next time, I will hit back!” I fired back.

“Yefon!” Pa’s stern voice brought a moment of clarity in the room. “This woman is your mother,
wanle
, and the next time you speak back to her like this, I will have you well beaten.”

As defeating as that was, that settled things. I shamefully apologized to Ma but even that didn’t satisfy her.

“I am not speaking to you,” she said, and true to her word, she didn’t speak to me for a week after and cut my rations at dinner.

When Pa left for Yola, I had a tantrum. I cried for a long time because I knew what my fate would be while he was gone.

“Don’t worry, I will bring you a special gift,” he promised before he left. I was isolated for a week after Pa left and sent to bed without supper or the privilege of joining the story telling in an effort to teach me a lesson about respect. I heard Ma bragging to Ya Sero that she knew how to discipline her children.

I cried, as I lay alone in my room listening to the bubbly stories outside my window. Ma must hate me so much I thought to myself. She could not possibly have given birth to me.

“Women should not meddle in the affairs of men.” I heard Ma telling the people outside, her voice clear and crisp. “Women are women, and men are men”, and everyone agreed with her except me, but I didn’t say anything.