The Tale of the Cow Tail & Other Stories from the African Diaspora

by Lanre Ogundimu

  He has been a teetotaler for the past 30 years and only comes to the palm wine shed to enjoy the company of friends and hear their tall tales. He has found out that the best dreams are not made when a man is asleep, but when drunk.

  Oreke goes round and slowly stirs the gourd, shaking the content to mix well. The patrons burst into a song, rendering it with deep modulation, as they sway from side to side.

  Mba ti laya keregbe ni o je o he

  Ojo toro, emu ni

  Ojo sisi, ogogoro

  Ojo mo ti’memu, o ni gbese o ya ile mi

  I would have married but for the gourd

  When I have three pence, I spend on palm wine

  And when I have six pence, it’s for the local gin

  However, since I have been drinking a creditor has never visited me

  Balu burps, drawing wild laughter from everyone.

  “Since I have been drinking, Oreke has never visited me,” Balu interjects, smiling mischievously.

  Another uproar from the patrons. Oreke hisses and goes back into the hut.

  “You’ve diluted this palm with water and added saccharine to sweeten it,” Balu says. “I will not pay the full amount today, oh.”

  The moon is now full, and the men have spent about two hours at the pub. The effect of the palm wine is soon apparent in their manners. Their moods start to shift from jovial to verbose. Their true conduct and inner thoughts begin to unfold. Oreke returns to serve more palm wine. Balu continues to render Ayinla Omowura’s song, Omuti ki s’apa (beer drinkers are not prodigal).

  Fati ni e o gbodo ma binu mo

  Esuru yin sohun lo towo yin bo epo

  E o gbodo ma binu mo

  Esuru yin sohun lo towo yin bo epo

  Eni to ri’ko ikun nile to lo gbin epa

  Ko to ki a wi fun

  O ti mo pe ikun a je ti e nibe

  K’oloko to de

  Chorus

  Maigida oh, Maigida oh

  Iyawo t’aba fi si’po aye jije e je o ja’ye

  It’s a fact, so you need not be angry

  It’s your potato that dipped your hands into the palm oil

  So you need not be angry

  It’s your potato that dipped your hands into the palm oil

  A person who sees a farm inhabited by squirrels

  But goes ahead to plant groundnuts

  Needs no further advice

  He should have known that the squirrels would have their full

  Before the farmer comes along

  Chorus

  Master of the house, master of the house

  A wife whom you placed in the midst of pleasure

  Should be allowed to indulge herself

  “You know, I’ll go to the end of this world to get the black charm to seduce you,” Balu says drowsily. His steamy eyes linger solicitously on Oreke’s face. “I, I, swear, that is the last wish and my prayer from Yemoja, the goddess before I die, I dream about it every day, every day.”

  “That’s a dream from which you will never wake up, and which will never come true,” Oreke says in a vivacious voice. There’s a spark in her eyes and her arms are akimbo as she sways her body in a circle.

  “Okay, make sure, sure, you don’t walk alone in the shadow of the night in this village again, I mean again, or I will bundle you into my house,” Balu says. “And then I’ll tell my most senior wife, what’s her name again ooh, to lock you, eh, inside for three days. You will enjoy what I will give you that you will forget Lugo forever, I mean forever.”

  “If one says that a masquerader will pursue a man from the corn farm, then it can never be a scarecrow,” Oreke says. “If I’m locked in the same room with you for just one minute you will never come out alive.”

  Everybody roars with laughter because Balu has met more than his match.

  “Ehn, magun woman. I have forgotten,” Balu says as he shakes his head. “The Englishman’s dog is pretty but not good for hunting. Oreke is beautiful but lacks good manners. She has a viper’s tongue. Very strong-headed like a he-goat.”

  “With a woman like Oreke, I don’t mind manners,” Obojo says, his eyelids round and lively. “All I want is to take her out, to flaunt.”

  “That’s where you are deadly wrong. Beauty alone is not what makes a woman,” says Balu.

  “Don’t be fooled,” Obojo says. “Beauty is all that counts. If a woman is beautiful outside and lacks manners, what men see on her face will always cloud what she lacks inside.”

  “I think the palm wine has started to eemm, cloud your thoughts,” Balu says. “You must never marry a woman because of outward beauty only. Both inner and outward beauty are important, character counts.”

  “Give me a beautiful woman who lacks character like Oreke first, and I will hammer the manners into her head later,” Obojo says. “And what is needed is patience.”

  “And if she refuses to be molded?” Balu responds.

  “Aha, I will nail manners into her thick, fat head every day, until she gets the message,” Obojo replies.

  “Now I know why no woman ever stays long under your roof,” Balu says.

  “And what about you whose stable is full of them?” Obojo replies dryly. “We can see how you have put your house in order.”

  “Oh, oh, you have started again. You spineless pimp,” Balu says, his mouth twitched with anger.

  “Ah, Ah,” Ashafa interjects, “Can’t you two give peace a room?”

  “It’s not me. It’s this fellow whose manhood has withered,” Obojo says.

  “What do you call me?” Balu asks, as he looks at Obojo with a half sneer.

  Obojo hesitates for a second, then answers in quick indignation. “I’m not a broken record that keeps on repeating itself.”

  “Then you want to hear a tale from an angry man today. You will hear it since you’ve pulled a wild animal by the tail,” Balu says. He stands up with a clenched fist as veins of anger swell on his forehead. “Ashafa, tell him what happened many years ago when we went hunting, and you pulled a wild animal’s tail.”

  Ashafa remains calm and doesn’t react. Balu persists. And then, Ashafa notices the mischievous smile and wink of Balu’s right eye and realizes that his friend is not angry but in a jovial mood. Ashafa gleefully narrates the story.

  “We were about 15 years old then. Balu and I went to the farm. It was my father’s farm, and we set fire to the bush to smoke out grasscutters from their hideouts. Not long after, the grasscutters started to scamper about. Then I noticed a very big one as it entered into a small hole, or so I thought. I approached it. Something protruded and swayed to the right and left at the mouth of a hole. I bent down and tried to pull it out. I pulled and pulled, but the more I pulled, the longer it took to come out. I knew something was wrong.”

  Lugo comes out and Oreke takes a seat on Ashafa’s right hand side.

  Ashafa continues. “I yelled at Balu to come over to help pull. He came. We pulled together. I guessed he saw what I didn’t see, or he sensed something was wrong. Balu let go of the object and started to scream as he ran away. I thought he was possessed by the devil. I looked at the long, scaly tail in my hand. I gazed at it again. I dropped it. I yelled as I started to run to the village. I’d never run like that in my life. I swear, my heels were touching the nape of my neck as I ran.”

  Ashafa pauses as everyone waits earnestly to hear what happened next. He tells Oreke to give him some water to drink. Oreke leaves and comes back in a jiffy with a cup of water, eager to hear the rest of the story.

  “Tell them what it was,” Balu says teasingly with a devious smile on his face.

  “Maybe not today,” Ashafa says. “I’ll continue the story another day.” He stands up and faces the path to his house.

  “Ashafaaaa,” Balu says, “Tell them now.”

  “It wasn’t a grasscutter. It was, it was, a viper, a snake,” Ashafa says in a fit of laughter.

  Everybody laughs heartily, Lugo tumbles onto the ground, and others slap one ano
ther merrily. The laughter fills the square in the bright night. Not far way, the soft voices of children float around as they enjoy their own tales by moonlight.

  When Two Snakes Fight

  When there is no mediator, two fighters battle to death – Yoruba proverb

  Mersee sits gloomily in a corner of the hot, dank cell #20 at the women’s prison at Kirikiri, Lagos. Her eyes are misty and red with grief. She has been weeping with intermittent sobs ever since she arrived at the cell early that morning. She’s unable to clearly observe the other cell mates in the poorly lit room. There is a power failure in the prison. The main source of light comes from the sunlight that peeps through the thick five iron bars close to the concrete ceilings. The cell reeks of the putrid smell of urine and stink from the pit latrine five rooms away. As she sobs, Mersee tries to remember the incidents that took place in September.

  “What are you here for?” a deep voice from the opposite corner of the cell fills the 10-by-10-foot room.

  At that instance, Mersee looks in the direction of the huge woman who shares her cell. Mersee squints. The woman is a towering presence with an aggressive demeanor.

  “Hello. I just asked what brought you here,” the deep-voiced woman asks again with authority.

  “Murder,” Mersee replies curtly. She glances at her cellmate, looks around the cramped quarters and catches her breath. There are six other people in the room—eight occupants in all.

  The woman stands up, struts forward, and tenderly grabs Mersee’s cold hands.

  “The same cruel fate has brought us here together then,” the woman says huskily. “By the way, my name is Defia. And here has been my home for the past 10 years. And here is where my soul will be until I die.”

  The other occupants in the cell approach Mersee and shake her hands to welcome her into the fold. As silence fills the space, Mersee bursts into chattering sobs.

  “Who was that fortunate person whom you dispatched to the great beyond and why?” Defia asks. Mersee continues sobbing and gasping spasmodically. Then, she swallows hard and breaks down again. Defia wraps her arms around Mersee and tells her to stop crying. Tenderly, she takes the tips of her fingers and wipes the tears from Mersee’s cheeks. Mersee gradually regains her calm, and recounts what happened on a dismal Friday night that she will never forget.

  She and Jeri had been married for a year. September 30 was their wedding anniversary, and Mersee had expected Jeri to return home early after the close of business so that they could go out to the restaurant to celebrate. However, Jeri came in around 10 p.m. with stray hairs on the shoulders of a rumpled shirt. He reeked of the perfume of a strange woman. After kissing Jeri passionately on the lips, Mersee asked him why he hadn’t returned earlier or picked up her numerous calls. She said she was worried something was wrong.

  Jeri replied that all was well, and that he had a backlog of work at the office. Mersee knew this was a lie. Even when Jeri was busy, he accepted her calls. A whiff of the strange perfume hit her again. She decided to keep calm as Jeri went into the bedroom.

  Still in a caring and loving mood, Mersee followed him inside. She was surprised when Jeri kicked off his shoes, and laid down on the bed.

  Patiently, she sat down by the bed and asked about the special outing they had planned for that night. He answered curtly that it was cancelled and he wanted to rest. Mersee couldn’t believe it. She demanded to know why? Jeri took this as an affront and slapped her on the face. The impact flung Mersee to the floor. She tried to get up. She was not ready to be a punching bag that night. It had happened before, often after she had queried her husband about his whereabouts, and she was afraid of it happening again.

  As she tried to pull herself together, another slap from Jeri’s big palm snapped her from her thoughts. Mersee staggered. Her eyes traveled to the half-filled wine bottle close to the bed lamp. She had drunk some early in the night. She went straight for it and grabbed it. Mersee smashed it furiously on Jeri’s forehead. It shattered into pieces as the liquid splashed into the air and drenched Jeri’s white shirt. The impact dazed him for some moments. Mersee, still consumed with ire, held on to the stump of the bottle. With a heavy heave, she stabbed Jeri on the left chest. He staggered like a drunken monkey. Mersee still held firmly to the bottle stump and stabbed him in anger as he landed on the rug.

  Mersee couldn’t believe what had happened. She tried to scoop Jeri up. But he was limp. She wrapped her hands around him and tenderly called him. He didn’t respond. She shook him vigorously. Mersee ran to the door and shouted for help to the neighbors who rushed to her house and saw her hapless husband slumped on the floor. They lifted Jeri’s body and drove to the hospital. He died on the way. The police later interrogated Mersee, booked her and charged her with murder. At the first hearing, the judge decided she should be remanded in prison while awaiting trial.

  “My daughter, you have done so much, and you couldn’t have done anything else,” Defia says after Mersee had recounted the story.

  Mersee doesn’t utter another word. Finally, after a long silence, one of the cell mates, a soft-spoken woman named Rubi, offers sympathy. “When a pleasure is shared, the enjoyment is diminished,” she says.

  “But I didn’t mean to kill him,” Mersee protests.

  “Yes, we know. You only fought for your dignity,” Rubi says.

  “I can’t pass judgment on you. We leave you to your conscience to decide. I can’t say what you did was wrong. But I’m sure you were right. After you have listened to my story, you can judge if I’m also right or wrong,” Defia says.

  “Here’s my own tale,” Defia starts. “I’ve told it countless times to my fellow travelers in this cell. Many have come and gone, and some have gone to the beyond. But I’ll give you the gist.”

  Mersee stands up from the bare concrete floor and moves toward Defia, who sits on a blanket spread on the floor. It is the only blanket in the cell, and as the “chairman” of the room, only Defia is entitled to such luxury.

  “I married my husband when I was 23 years old. I had just graduated from the university with a first-class honor degree,” Defia recounts. “I knew he was a lecher, after all we attended the same university. Truly, he was my first boyfriend because I attended an all-girls’ secondary school. I never knew any man before I went to the university. Anyway, we married though I knew he was promiscuous. The mistake I made, and which many women make is this. When we marry wayward and unfaithful men, we think we can change them or time or old age will change them. Whereas the men strongly believe that we have taken them for what they were; that we are comfortable with their philandering as long as they still come home every night.

  “Two months after our marriage, rumors began to filter to me that he was still keeping many of his old girlfriends. I was insecure then. I didn’t want to lose him. I was not prepared for a divorce. Not that soon. Then we had our first child ─ a boy. The second child came three years later ─ a girl. We continued to live a cat-and-dog life, although to the rest of the world everything looked blissful.

  “I never thought I’d lose my mind because of a man. He kept late nights, drank a lot. As he aged, he became more adulterous than a he-goat. But the day I heard he was having an affair with my best friend, my chief bridesmaid, I lost my head.

  “It was a Friday, and he told me he had an official trip to Abuja; that he would be back on Sunday. So he left. I didn’t doubt him much because he had made such trips in the past, whether true or false. Some of those trips turned out to be true because I checked them out with his boss at his office. However, this particular trip was a lie, a big fat lie. Later in the day, one of my friends called me and said that she saw my husband sauntering, hand in hand, into a hotel in Ikoyi with my best friend.

  “I left for the hotel. I knew my husband would sleep there overnight with the shameless woman. So, I decided to stake out. After about three hours at the hotel lobby, my nerves became very frail, and I couldn’t take it any longer. So, I approached the re
ceptionist, a charming and dashing young man. I gave him my name, a wrong name. I told him Mr. Rawbadsin was expecting me and asked whether he had checked in. You wouldn’t believe it. My husband was foolish enough to check in using his real name.