Branches and leaves would slap her legs because she was too clumsy to maneuver around them. She could stay in the sky only for a few moments, then she would sink. But in those moments, she could feel him.
When her husband was out fishing and the throb of her menses kept her from spending much time in the garden, she filled a bowl with rainwater and sat on the floor, her eyes wide, staring into it as through a window to another world. Once in a while, she’d dip a finger in, creating expanding circles. She saw the blue sky, the trees waving back and forth with the breeze. It didn’t take long to find what she was looking for. He was far away, flying just above the tallest trees, his purple pants and caftan fluttering as he flew.
Afterwards, she took the bowl of water with her to the river and poured it over her head with a sigh. The water always tasted sweet and felt like the sun on her skin. Then she dove into the river and swam deep, imagining the water to be the sky and the sky to be the water.
Some nights she was so restless that she went to her garden and picked a blue passionflower. She ate it and when she slept, she dreamt of him. Though she could see him clearly, he was always too far for her to touch. She had started to call him the purple one. Aside from his purple attire, he wore cowry shells dangling from his ears and around his wrists and had a gold hoop in his wide nose. Her urge to go to him was almost unbearable.
As her mind became consumed with the purple one, her body was less and less interested in Okon. Their relationship quickly changed. Okon became a terrible beast fed by his own jealousy. He desperately appealed to Asuquo’s mother who, in turn, yelled at Asuquo’s distracted face.
Okon would angrily snatch the broom from Asuquo and sweep out the dry leaves that kept blowing into their home, sneezing as he did so. He tore through her garden with stamping feet and clenched fists, scratching himself on thorns and getting leaves stuck in his toenails. And his hands became heavy as bronze to her skin. He forbade her to fly, especially in the forest. Out of fear for her sons, she complied. But it did not stop there.
The rumors, mixed with jealousy, fear, and suspicion spiraled into a raging storm, with Asuquo at the center. Her smile turned to a sad gaze as her mind continued to dwell on her chi that flew somewhere in the same skies she could no longer explore. Each night, her husband tied her to the bed where he made what he considered love to her body; for he still loved her. Each time, he fell asleep on top of her, not moving till morning when he sneezed himself awake.
Even her sons seemed to be growing allergic to Asuquo. She had to frequently wipe their noses when they sneezed. Sometimes they cried when she got too close. And they played outside more and more, preferring to help their father dry the fish he brought home, than their mother in the garden. Asuquo often cried about this in the garden when no one was around. Her sons were all she had.
One day, Okon fell sick. His forehead was hot but yet he shivered. He was weak and at times he yelled at phantoms he saw floating about the hut.
“Please, Asuquo, fly up to the ceiling,” he begged, grabbing her arm as he lay in bed, sweat beading his brow. “Tell them to leave!”
He pleaded with her to speak with the plants and mix a concoction foul-smelling enough to drive the apparitions away.
Asuquo looked at the sky, then at Okon, then at the sky. He’d die if she left him. She thought of her sons. The sound of their feet as they played outside soothed her soul. She looked at the sky again. She stood very still for several minutes. Then she turned from the door and went to Okon. When Okon gets well, she thought. I will take my sons with me, even if I cannot fly so well.
When he was too weak to chew his food, she chewed it first and then fed it to him. She plucked particular leaves and pounded bitter-smelling bark. She collected rainwater to wash him with. And she frequently laid her hands on his chest and forehead. She often sent the boys out to prune her plants when she was with Okon in the bedroom. The care they took with the plants during this time made her want to kiss them over and over. But she did not because they would sneeze.
For this short time, she was happy. Okon was not able to tie her up and she was able to soothe his pain. She was also able to slip away once in a while and practice flying. The moment Okon was able to stand up straight with no pain in his chest or dizziness, however, after five years of marriage, he went and brought several of his friends to the hut and pointed his finger at Asuquo.
“This woman tried to kill me,” he said, looking at Asuquo with disgust. He grabbed her wrists. “She is a witch! Ubio!”
“Ah,” one of his friends said, smiling. “You’ve finally woke up and seen your wife for what she really is.”
The others grunted in agreement, looking at Asuquo with a mixture of fear and hatred. Asuquo stared in complete shock at her husband whose life she had saved, her ears following her sons around the yard as they laughed and sculpted shapes from mud.
She wasn’t sure if she was seeing Okon for what he really was or what he had become. What she was sure of was that in that moment, something burst deep inside her; something that held the realization of her mistake at bay. She should have listened to the old woman; she should have listened to herself. If it weren’t for her sons, she’d have shot through the ceiling, into the sky, never to be seen again.
“Why . . . ?” was all she said.
Okon slapped her then, slapped her hard. Then he slapped her again. Only her chi could save her now.
Okon brought her before the Ekpo society. He tightly held the thick rope that he’d tied around her left wrist. Her shoulders were slumped and her eyes were cast down. Villagers came out of their huts and gathered around the four old men sitting in chairs and the woman kneeling before them in the dirt.
Her sons, now only three and four years old, were taken to their aunt’s hut. Asuquo’s hair had grown several feet in length over the years. Now there were a few coils of grey around her forehead from the stress. The people stared at her locks with pinched faces as if they had never seen them before.
The Ekpo society’s job was to protect the village from thieves, murderers, cheats, and witchcraft. Nevertheless, even these old men had forgotten that once upon a long time ago, the sky was peopled with women and men just like Asuquo.
Centuries ago, the Ekpo society was close to the deities of the forest, exchanging words of wisdom, ideas, and wishes with these benevolent beings who had a passing interest in the humans of the forest. But these days, the elders of the Ekpo society were in closer contact with the white men, choosing which wrongdoers to sell to them and bartering for the price.
Her husband stood behind her, his angry eyes cast to the ground. All this time he had let her go in and out of the house whenever she liked, he never asked where exactly she was going. He never asked who she was going to see. It couldn’t have just been the forest. He had asked many of the women who they thought the man or men she was being unfaithful with was. They all gave different names. Father warned me that she was unclean, he kept thinking.
The four old men sat on chairs, wearing matching blue and red lapas. Their feet close together, scowls on their faces. One of them raised his chin and spoke.
“You are accused of witchcraft,” he said, his voice shaky with age. “One woman said you gave her a drink for her husband’s sore tooth and all his teeth fell out. One man saw you turn into a bat. Many people in this village can attest to this. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Asuquo looked up at the men and for the first time, her ears ringing, her nostrils flaring, she felt rage, though not because of the accusations. It made her face ugly. The purple one was so close and these people were not listening to her. They were in her way, blocking out the cool dusty wind with their noise.
Her hands clenched. Many of the people gathered looked away out of guilt. They knew their part in all of this. The chief’s wives, their arms around their chests, looked on, waiting and hoping to be rid of this woman who many said had bedded their husband numerous times.
“You
see whatever you want to see,” she said through dry lips. “I’ve had enough. You can’t keep me from him.”
She heard her husband gasp behind her. If they had been at home, he’d have beaten her. Nevertheless, his blows no longer bothered her as much. These days her essence sought the sky. It was September. The Harmattan winds would be upon the village soon, spraying dust onto the tree leaves and into their homes. She’d hold out her arms and let the dust devils twirl her around. Soon.
But she still couldn’t fly that well yet, especially with her shoulders weighed down by sadness. If only these people would get out of the way. Then she would take her sons where they would be safe, and the caretakers she chose would not tell them lies about her.
“Let the chop nut decide,” the fourth elder said, his eyes falling on Asuquo like charred pieces of wood. “In three days.”
She almost laughed despite herself. Asuquo knew the plant from which the chop nut grew. In the forest, the doomsday plant thrived during rainy season. Many times she’d stopped to admire it. Its purplish bean-like flower was beautiful. When the flower fell off, a brown kidney-shaped pod replaced it. She could smell the six highly poisonous chop nuts inside the pod from meters away. Even the bush rats with their weak senses of smell and tough stomachs died minutes after eating it.
Asuquo looked up at the elders, one by one. She curled her lip and pointed at the elder who had spoken. She opened her mouth wide as if to curse them but no sound came out. Then her eyes went blank again and her face relaxed. She mentally left her people and let her mind seek out the sky. Still a tear of deep sadness fell down her face.
The four of elders stood up and walked into the forest where they said they would “consort with the old ones.”
Those three days were hazy and cold as the inside of a cloud. Okon tied Asuquo to the bed as before. He slept next to her, his arm around her waist. He bathed her, fed her and enjoyed her. In the mornings, he went to the garden and quietly cried for her. Then he cried for himself, for he could not pinpoint who his wife’s lover was. Every man in the village looked suspect.
Asuquo’s eyes remained distant. She no longer spoke to him, she did not even look at him, and she did not notice that her babies were not with her. Instead, she unfocused her eyes and let her mind float into the sky, coming back occasionally to command her body to inhale and exhale air.
Her chi joined her here, several hundred miles away from the village, a thousand feet into the sky. Now he was close enough that for the first time, a part of them could be in the same place. Asuquo leaned against him as he took her locks into his hands and brought them to his face, inhaling her scent. He smelled like dry leaves and when he kissed her ears, Asuquo cried.
She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest until it was time to go. She knew he would continue making his way to her, though she told him it was too late. She’d underestimated the ugliness that had dug its roots underneath her village.
The elders came to Okon and Asuquo’s home, a procession of slapping sandals, much of the village following. People looked through windows and doorways, many milling about outside, talking quietly, sucking their teeth, and shaking their heads. Above, a storm pulled its clouds in to cover the sky. The elders came and her husband brought chairs for them.
“We have spoken with those of the bush,” one of them said. Then he turned around and a young man brought in the chop nut. Her husband and three men held her down as she struggled. Her eyes never met her husband’s. One man with jagged nails placed the chop nut in her mouth and a man smelling of palm oil roughly held her nose, forcing her to swallow. Then they let go, and stepped back.
She wiped her nose and eyes, her lips pressed together. She got up and went to the window to look at the sky. The three young women and two young men watching through the window wordlessly stepped back with guilty looks, clearing her view of the gathering clouds. She braced her legs, willing her body to leave the ground. If she could get out the window into the clouds, she would be fine. She’d return for her sons once she had vomited up the chop nut.
But no matter how hard she tried, her body would only lift a centimeter off the ground. She was too tired. And she was growing more tired. All around her were quiet, waiting for the verdict.
The rumble of thunder came from close by. She stood for as long as she could, a whole half hour. Until her insides began to burn. The fading light flowing through the window began to hurt her eyes. Then it dimmed. Then it hurt her eyes again. She could not tell if it was due to the chop nut or the approaching storm. The walls wavered and she could hear her heartbeat in her ears. It was slowing. She lay back on the bed, on top of the rope Okon had used to tie her down.
Soon she did not feel her legs and her arms hung at her sides. The room was silent, all eyes on her. Her bare breasts heaved; sweat trickling between them. Her mind passed her garden to her boys and landed on her chi. Her mind’s eye saw him floating in the sky, immobile, a frown on his face.
As the room dimmed and she left her body, he dropped from the sky only thirty miles south of Asuquo’s village of Old Calabar. As he dropped he swore to the clouds that they would not see him for many many years. The wind outside wailed through the trees but within an hour it quickly died. The storm passed, without sending down a single drop of rain to nurture the forest. No Harmattan winds shook the trees that year. They had turned around, returning to the Sahara in disgust.
A year later, on the anniversary of Asuquo’s death, the winds returned, though not so strong. Reluctant. They have since resumed their normal pattern. Her husband Okon went on to marry three wives and have many children. Asuquo’s young boys were raised calling his first wife “mother” and they didn’t remember the strange roots and fruits their real mother had brought from the forest that had made them strong.
As the years passed, when storytellers told of Asuquo’s tale, they changed her name to the male name of Ekong. They felt their audience responded better to male characters. And Ekong became a man who roamed the skies searching for men’s wives to snatch because he had died a lonely man and his soul was not at rest.
“There he is!” a boy would yell at the river, as the Harmattan winds blew dry leaves about. All the girls would go splashing out of the water, screaming and laughing and hiding behind trees. Nobody wanted to get snatched by the “man who moved with the breeze.”
Nevertheless it was well over a century before the winds blew with true fervor again. But that is another story.
Long Juju Man
In my village, everyone knows that there are ghosts.
We treat them like anyone or anything else; nothing new. But that day I walked down the path to my auntie’s house to deliver a basketful of eggs was different. I was only nine years old.
My auntie lived a few minutes away, if I took the shortcut through the forest. I always chose to go this way because I liked the feeling of being alone with all the tall trees, chirping and cackling birds, and buzzing insects. Oftentimes if I walked quietly, I’d glimpse a curious monkey high in the trees.
This particular day was warm and there was a breeze in the treetops that went shhhhhhh as it passed through the leaves. I was in a wonderful mood. I didn’t have a care in the world. I should have known something was off when I heard the owl hoot three times and saw a blue butterfly flutter by. Owls only hoot at night, and if a blue butterfly crosses your path it means something’s about to happen—at least that’s what my mother always says.
I’m a tiny woman. Back then I was an even tinier girl. However, my legs could move me fast as a terrified gazelle. And where I was short, I was tall in words. But still when I came across the wild mango tree heavy with rotting mangos, I was shocked into silence.
Right there, under the tree, picking the most rotten mangos was a ghost. And not just any ghost, either. It was the infamous Long Juju Man, himself! How frightening he was with long black beard, tall lanky body, and skin so brown it was the color of midnight. I stood there in sho
ck. He hadn’t seen me yet. When the wind blew, he would lose his shape, becoming solid again when it stopped.
Everything about him was blue like the ocean on a clear day. He wore a blue caftan that reached his knobby ankles and he was encircled by a soft blue aura. Wherever he stepped, he left a blue footprint that quickly melted away. He was stooping down, gathering the most rotted mangos. Everyone in my village knows that ghosts like to eat rotten fruit, for rotten fruits are beautifully sweet to the deceased.
He smelled strongly of red pepper. Even from where I stood, frozen with fear, I could smell him. My grandfather always said that Long Juju Man was a spicy man when he was alive. On moonlit nights, grandfather used to gather all the children. We would sit outside on the ground at his feet, my grandfather in his favorite chair. He would tell us stories that took us into the past and sometimes into the future. We loved to hear the story of Long Juju Man.
“Fifty years ago,” my grandfather said, “Long Juju Man was the most talented sorcerer in the village. He could turn lead to gold, goat feces to blue butterflies; he loved blue butterflies. He could cure even the nastiest diseases. And he would do it all free of charge. But he also had a weakness for pranks. He’d make it rain on wedding days. Turn palm wine sour. Once he even used his juju to cast a spell on a chicken he was selling that filled it with air, making it appear plump.
“When he saw you, depending on how you behaved, he would decide to teach you something or play a prank on you. His snickering was most annoying. When you heard it, you knew he’d decided you weren’t worthy of being taught and that something embarrassing would soon happen to you. No one knows why he was named after the famous Arochukwu shrine, Long Juju. Maybe because he was powerful as he was deceitful. Some like to say it was because ‘his juju went a long long way.’
Kabu Kabu Page 14