I entered the sitting room, hard on Ibe’s heels, to see two strangers, both men, seated on the whitewashed wooden benches that circled our sitting room. Each of the strangers, including Papa, cradled a ceramic mug of palm-wine in their hands, while a brimming cup of the brew was placed atop my grandfather’s raised grave positioned in the centre of the parlour. Papa never drank palm wine without offering some to my grandfather. I did a small curtesy to the seated strangers and a deeper one to my grandfather’s grave.
“Aahh! Desee, come sit down my daughter,” Papa patted the chair of honour, the seat next to his own and nearest to the elevated rectangular grave, Ibe’s special chair! Papa’s face beamed with a benevolence I’d only ever witnessed when he addressed Ibe. More worryingly, he had called me Desee, instead of his habitual “Agbogho”— girl. Something was clearly wrong. My heart was thudding as I took the proffered seat, ignoring Ibe’s displeased frown as he settled for the little stool by the snuff table.
“These gentlemen are from Ukari,” Papa said, with a nod at the strangers. I glanced up quickly and lowered my eyelids just as rapidly, to preserve my modesty. “They’ve come a long way indeed to see us, or should I say, to see you, my daughter. ” Papa chuckled in a manner that could have been interpreted as coy had he been a woman. I wanted to hide my face beneath the thin fabric of my yellow cotton dress; such was my discomfiture.
“Yes indeed. We have travelled a six-hour journey to come and view your famed beauty,” I heard one of the men say, the old grey one. The oily quality to his voice repelled me. I felt the heat of embarrassment on my face, at the same time feeling a sudden prick of apprehension at the back of my neck.
“Our son here is Agu, son of Onori of the Onori clan,” the old man continued. His hair was sprinkled with ash, as were his bushy brows and thick beard, giving him the look of a grey-dappled hyena. “Agu is a prosperous trader and travels as far as Ugwu-Hausa, the Muslim northern territories, to buy and sell various foodstuff,” continued grey hyena, nodding at the young man next to him. “In fact, Agu owns the only storey building in our village and a Mercedes Benz, which you can see parked outside your father’s compound,” his voice was oiled with pride.
Instinctively, I glanced out of the open curtain-less window, as did Ibe, to see a white car—a large silver-wheeled car—getting washed by the pouring rain outside our compound. Papa feigned disinterest though I could read a gleam in his eyes that indicated otherwise to me. But he was a proud man and I guess he deserved his dignity. A bicycle, even an almost new British Raleigh that had cost him a handsome sum, could never compete with a Benz.
“As we were telling your good father before you came in, we’d heard of the famed beauty of the white chicken he housed beneath his roof. So, we decided to rush in and express our interest in purchasing that white chicken before others, less worthy, beat us to the market.” The grey one smiled at me, a front tooth missing.
I quickly averted my gaze and glued my eyes to my hands, which had suddenly started trembling as if I’d been struck down with malaria.
“Your father has been very kind in indicating his willingness to sell us his precious chicken. So, we thought it was a good time for you to meet your future husband, Agu, before we begin formal negotiations for the marriage rites. After all, a girl must be allowed some choice in these matters even though the ultimate decision rests with her esteemed father—and rightly so.” Grey Hyena gave a small chuckle, which was echoed by Papa and even the little idiot, Ibe.
I felt the racing of my heart. Some choice indeed! I felt the sting of tears in my eyes as my palms broke out in hot sweat. I wanted to get up and run out of that crowded room with the stuffy odour of strange bodies and palm-wine. But fear of Papa’s wrath and a cramp of embarrassment kept me glued onto Ibe’s special seat. I forced my eyes up and took my first proper look at my future husband, Agu.
What I saw was a man, short of stature and lacking in bulk. Age-wise, he was at the peak of his manhood, somewhere between thirty and forty years. It was difficult to tell his exact age because of his small size. He was dressed in an Agbada, a loose native garb covered in an assortment of animal prints. His hair was trimmed close to his skull, giving him an almost bald look. Sat next to his older relative on our wooden bench, his head barely reached Grey Hyena’s shoulders. Yet, there was a carriage to his head, an arrogance of bearing that marked him as the leader despite his puny size. He was dark, very black-skinned, like the Enugu coal miners at the end of their work shift beneath the bowels of the earth. His eyes were small, closely set. There was an expression in them that reminded me of the eyes of the frozen fish heads we used in cooking Papa’s chilli pepper-soup. Their black depths betrayed little emotion as they settled on my person; just the detached assessment of a trader inspecting some ware before making final purchase. Even when he smiled at me as our eyes briefly met for the first time, there was no gentling in his pupils or his lips—thin, fleshless lips— unusual in a native of our country. Something about him frightened me, placed a cold hand over my heart, a silent terror that didn’t subside even after I got up and noticed how I towered over him by at least three fingers’ length.
Instinctively, I hunched my shoulders, feeling ashamed of my tall slenderness, emphasised into giant proportions by his small stature. I caught the strangers’ nod of satisfaction as I returned to Papa’s side and knew with a tight feeling in my stomach that my fate was sealed.
Despite knowing—always having known—that my duty as a daughter was to reward Papa’s sacrifices with a good bride price, it still rankled that I was denied the choice of deciding who should pay the price on my head. I had no doubt that I would fetch a handsome bride price as a result of my light skin and secondary school education. I was after all, the reincarnation of my great-grandmother, who had been famed in her lifetime for her amazing fairness and beauty.
My sister, Gono, on the other hand, with skin as dark as our father’s, even if smoother to the touch and glossier to the sight, was not burdened with any such great expectations. Papa said that Gono’s only hope of bagging a respectable bride price lay in acquiring an exceptional education, but only if her stubbornness allowed her to complete secondary school without getting expelled. But we knew we would be lucky if Gono deigned to give any man her hand in marriage for a bride price, respectable or otherwise. I pitied my sister because I feared she might never know the joys of marriage, as was the right of every woman as nature intended, a situation I suddenly found myself now facing without any feeling of joy.
Later that night, after our guests had gone, I cried as I had never cried in my seventeen years of growing up in Iburu village. I cried for the impending loss of my home, my family, my freedom, my career, my burgeoning affection for my fellow apprentice teacher, Chudi. In particular, I cried for the man, Agu, that cold stranger, who was soon to become my husband and my master.
✦✦✦
UKARI FOREST – 11:45 PM
The cold night wears on in the dreadful forest, as I feel the bile rise in my mouth for the umpteenth time. I turn away from my husband’s corpse and retch into the wet grass, already stinking with my urine and vomit. The pain in my stomach is unbearable. It feels as if the imps of Satan have taken residence in my belly, wrenching my innards for their sport. The thirst burns my throat and my body shivers and trembles with cold and hunger. I cast my eyes, made blurry by tears and bruises, at the water jug that stands on the mat next to my husband’s body. I stretch out a trembling hand in its direction. Then I stop, pull back my hand as if stung by a scorpion, as remembrance floods my memory, dulled by four days of starvation and sleep deprivation.
The water in the jug is corpse water, the water used in bathing the decomposing body of my husband; the water I had been forced to drink in the presence of all the clan as punishment for my crime. In the aftermath of Agu’s death, I was held down by cruel hands, my nose squeezed shut, as endless cups of corpse water were forced into my open mouth in relentless success
ion.
I cannot begin to describe the taste of that hideous fluid, the sour salty tang, the cloying milkiness of pus, the lingering bitterness of decayed flesh. The more I retched the more I was fed the cloudy corpse water, with punches, slaps and curses to compound my humiliation. And now, even as I crouch beside my late husband’s corpse, I can still feel the swelling on my face from the beatings. My ears still ring with the invectives heaped on—Murderer! Husband killer! Child murderer! Mermaid witch! Evil stranger! Wicked sorceress! Ogbanje! Man-woman!
And much more…much worse. And all because of my desperation, my bad Chi my foolishness, a desperate need that has now brought me to this wretched state.
As I listen to the painful growling of my stomach, I draw in my knees to keep within the salt-lined boundary set by the three witchdoctors on the hard soil of the forest, and turn my eyes to the dry-barked trunk of The Tree of Truth. The tree hulks over us, its branches stretching into black infinity. Its massive trunk is scarred with ridges of dry gum, flaky barks and aborted stumps of unborn branches…and blood; a red-wash of blood. There is an ancient power within its unfathomable depths that shrouds it with wisdom and terror. Within its all-knowing roots lies my salvation.
I bare my body and my soul to the towering guardian of justice. I plead for its vindication, its protection, its forgiveness. And when finally my wailing voice grows hoarse, whimpers into a whisper, I bury my head in my hands as I allow my mind to travel back into the terrible events that have led to my present sorry predicament and could yet lead to my ultimate demise.
✦✦✦
From the day I entered Agu’s house as his bride, I ceased expecting anything good, and as the weeks merged into months and the swollen moon brought in numerous years, I gradually became immune to the bad things that befell me in my matrimonial hell. As I observed the birth of each new moon, my heart felt like a bare bottom sat on a heaving anthill. Queen Ill-fortune rides the full moon as every child and adult knows. Together, they invoke evil, awake the dead and spread devastation along their route as they journey through mankind’s lands and lives. Everyone cursed with a bad chi knows to dread the arrival of the full moon.
Married life had never been a life of songs and dances for me because I was a learned wife from a different village. However, things took a turn for the worse when four years went by and I failed to produce the desired heir for my husband. Despite Father O’Keefe’s novenas on my behalf, nothing stirred in my womb. It remained as fruitless as a man’s stomach.
One day, Agu’s eldest and fattest sister, Uzo, took matters into her hands and dragged me to their witchdoctor to find a solution to my barrenness. The man was seated crossed-legged on a hard, cement floor with strange drawings and herbs strewn around him. Blood still dripped from the neck of a freshly butchered chicken hung above his head. The red fluid soaked his unshaven head, crawling around his face and neck like bloated worms. The sight caused my empty gut to heave. I forced my eyes to study the thin veins on my folded hands instead. I felt his eyes on me, burning, probing. My shoulders folded in, rolled forward in a hunched pose of shame, and my hands began to tremble. What sinful thoughts would he read in my mind? Holy Mary! Please help me! What will he read in my future?
Suddenly, the decrepit man-demon screamed, pointing a gnarled finger in my direction.
“Ogbanje! Water sorceress! Be gone!” he shrieked. Turning glaring eyes at my sister-in-law, he shouted, ‘Why have you brought me this accursed daughter of the river Niger?” Still pointing that filthy forefinger at me, his thin arm weighted by multiple charmed amulets, he demanded, “Why do you bring upon my old head the wrath of the powerful mermaid? Go! Take her away! No one can help her. She belongs to the water, to Mamiwata. She’s not your brother’s wife. She’s no mortal man’s wife. Her womb will never yield fruit to your brother. Go! Depart from my presence and never return! Go!”
We scurried away, my heart pounding in terror. My sister-in-law abandoned me at the dust road, leaving me to make my own way back to the house. Within hours of Uzo’s return, the entire village had heard of my stigma and my shame.
“We should have known she’s an Ogbanje mermaid,” the fat sisters snapped out the demon over their heads with outstretched arms as I walked past them. “Have you ever seen anyone so light-skinned unless they’re albinos? Or with hair so long it stretches like a mermaid’s? But this one is clearly not albino, just water-bleached by her real mother, the evil Mamiwata mermaid. Agu should have listened to us when we warned him of the perils of marrying an outsider. One can never tell the curses that follow such people. Oh! Our poor brother!”
By the time Agu returned to the house, a great crowd of relatives had gathered inside his parlour, waiting to fill his ears with the news of my curse. I was standing by my bed when he crashed into my room, the whites of his eyes red-streaked, his pupils as coal, burning with a hate that had hitherto been absent in the four years of our marriage. I barely had the time to mutter the obligatory “onye-ishi,” master, when he grabbed my hair, forcing my knees to the floor and dragging me into his room with a strength that defied his puny size and my considerable height. Once inside his room, he descended on my body with every arsenal at his disposal, venting his fury with his fists, his belt, his birch whips, his walking stick and even the twisted metal clothes-hanger that harboured his array of clothing.
My screams fell on deaf consciences. Everyone in that over-populated household heard my howls of pain but no one dared or even wanted to venture into the master’s bedroom to halt my thrashing. I pled for mercy, seeking his forgiveness for my barrenness, for the bride-price money he had wasted on the defective good I had now become.
Agu’s hands continued to descend on my head, pulling clumps off my scalp. His feet shot home countless goals on my body. Soon, my screams turned to whimpers and my voice grew hoarse in my throat. When eventually his arms grew weary and his breathing laboured from exhaustion, Agu dropped his belt on the floor and marched out of the room in the same death-silence with which he had carried out the prolonged attack on my person.
As for myself, I was at the gates of mental darkness and mortal hell, my vision hazy from dizziness and pain. Choking back the countless hiccups that threatened to kill my breathing, I crawled my way back to my room, bright blood stains marking the white linoleum floor of the corridor. I stumbled my way to the wall mirror, fearful, yet desperate to see the damage to my person.
The scream that escaped my lips at the image the mirror returned to me was louder than any I had made while the damage was wreaked on it. I shut my eyes tight, fighting to blank out the swellings, the open cuts, the blood dripping from every opening in my face. But I couldn’t shut out the agonising throbbing in my body, the shame and the fury. Most of all, I couldn’t shut out the sudden hate that burnt in my heart like a bush fire gone wild.
That night, and many more nights over the course of several months, Agu vented his fury and frustration on my body with his fists and everything he could lay his stumpy hands on. On numerous occasions, I was kept locked up in my room, guarded by the mammoth sisters and numerous house-helps. The only times they were let off their guard duty were on the nights my husband came to claim his conjugal rights on my body, a brutal ritual carried out in silence and darkness, leaving me with a feeling of defilement and shame.
Eventually, I could bear the abuse no longer. One day when Agu left for his monthly trade trips to the Muslim north, I made my escape back to my father’s village. Just wait till I tell Papa, I thought over and over as the Mami-wagon rumbled its bumpy way to my village. Just wait till I tell Papa.
✦✦✦
I arrived at my father’s village a few hours later and walked the short distance to his compound. As I walked through the low metal gate of our compound, my feet grew sudden wings as I raced the last few yards to our front door. I pulled my scarf from my head, wincing in pain as the cloth connected with my bruises, dislodging fresh scabs. I heard the sound of approachi
ng footsteps and felt the sudden tears spill down my cheeks, tears of self-pity, relief, pain and anger all mixed into one loud bawl.
My sister, Gono, opened the door. She took one look at my battered, tear-streaked face and started howling. She just stood at the open door, her hands pressed tightly against her ears, staring at me with wide streaming eyes, her bare feet stamping on the floor like the frenzied dance of the Adamma masquerade. Except her dance wasn’t one of joy or excitement, but rage and pain, a pain I knew was as biting as mine because of the great love she bore for me. Behind her, I saw my brother, Ibe, craning his neck and trying to see what the ruckus was all about. His eyes widened as he took in my bruises before hurrying away without a word to me. Mama rushed out, Ibe fast on her heels, his eyes gleaming with sly excitement.
“What’s all this foolishness about? Don’t you know your father is having his afternoon siesta?” Mama scolded, pushing Gono away from me. Then, just like Gono, her eyes widened as she too took in my battered face. She threw her arms wide into the air, her eyes raised to the low ceiling in an attitude of supplication. “Jesu!” she shouted, making a quick sign of the cross before leading me by the arm into Papa’s presence, her breathing hard and fast.
“Papa Ibe! Papa Ibe, wake up,” she shook Papa’s shoulder with urgent hands. I felt the slight irritation of old stir in my heart at the usurpation of my right. I was the first born and prior to Ibe’s arrival, Papa had been known as “Papa Desee” by everyone. But with Ibe’s birth, him being a son and all, that coveted status was taken from me and given to the wretched sod.
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