Who Fears Death (7 page)

The four of us lay there side by side in pain for a half hour. We were each given a belly chain made of thin delicate gold that we would wear forever. The elders raised their shirts above their bellies to show us theirs. “They’ve been blessed in the seventh of the Seven Rivers,” the Ada said. “They’ll live long after we’ve died.”

We were also each given a stone to place underneath our tongues. This was called
talembe etanou
. My mother approved of this tradition, though its purpose had also long been forgotten. Hers was a very small, smooth orange stone. The stones vary with each Okeke group. Our stones were diamonds, a stone I’d never heard of. They looked like smooth ovals of ice. I held mine easily under my tongue. One was only to take it out when eating or sleeping. And one had to be careful at first not to swallow it. To do so was bad luck. Briefly I wondered how my mother hadn’t swallowed hers when I was conceived.

“Eventually your mouth will make friends with it,” Nana the Wise said.

The four of us dressed, putting on underwear with gauze pressed against our flesh and wrapping the white veils over our heads. We left together.

“We did well,” Binta said, as we walked. She slurred her words a bit, because of her swollen mangled lower lip. We moved slowly, each step met with pain.

“Yes. None of us screamed,” Luyu said. I frowned. I certainly had. “My mother said that in her group, five of the eight girls screamed.”

“Onyesonwu thought it felt so good that she went to sleep,” Diti said smiling.

“I-I thought I screamed,” I said. I rubbed my forehead.

“No, you fainted dead away,” Diti said. “Then you . . .”

“Diti, shut up. We don’t talk about things like that!” Luyu hissed.

We were quiet for a moment, our walk to the road slowing even more. An owl hooted from nearby and a man on camelback trotted past us.

“We’ll never tell, right?” Luyu said, looking at Binta and Diti. They both nodded. She turned to me with interested eyes. “So . . . what happened?”

I didn’t really know any of them. But I could tell Diti liked to gossip. Luyu, too, though she tried to act as if she didn’t. Binta was quiet but I wondered about her. I didn’t trust them. “It was like I went to sleep,” I lied. “What . . . what did you see?”

“You
did
go to sleep,” Luyu said.

“You were like glass,” Diti said with wide eyes. “I could see right through you.”

“It only happened for a few seconds. Everyone was shocked but they didn’t let go of you,” Binta said. She touched her lip and winced.

I pulled my veil closer to my face.

“Has someone cursed you?” Luyu asked. “Maybe because you’re . . .”

“I don’t know,” I quickly said.

We went our separate ways when we got to the road. Sneaking back into my room was easy enough. As I settled into my bed, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still watching me.

 

The next morning, I pushed the covers off my legs and found that I’d bled through the gauze onto my bed. I’d started my monthly cycle a year ago, so the sight didn’t bother me much. But the blood loss left me light-headed. I wrapped myself in my rapa and slowly walked into the kitchen. My parents were laughing at something Papa had said.

“Good morning, Onyesonwu,” Papa said, still chuckling.

My mother’s smile melted when she saw my face. “What’s wrong?” she asked in her whispery voice.

“I-I’m all right,” I said, not wanting to move from where I stood. “I just . . .”

I could feel the blood running down my leg. I needed fresh gauze. And some willow leaf tea for the pain.
And something for the nausea
, I thought just before I threw up all over the floor. My parents rushed over and helped me into a chair. They saw the blood when I sat down. My mother quietly left the room. Papa wiped the vomit on my lips with his hand. My mother returned with a towel.

“Onyesonwu, is it your monthly?” she asked, wiping my leg. I stopped her hand when she got to my upper thigh.

“No, Mama,” I said, looking into her eyes. “It’s not that.”

Papa frowned. My mother was looking intensely at me. I braced myself. She slowly stood up. I didn’t dare move when she slapped me hard across the face, my diamond stone almost flying from my mouth.

“Ah ah, wife!” Papa exclaimed, grabbing her hand. “Stop it! The child is hurt.”

“Why?” she asked me. Then she looked at Papa, who still held her hands from striking me again. “She did it last night. She went and got circumcised,” she said.

Papa looked at me shocked, but I also saw awe. The same look he’d given me when he saw me up in that tree.

“I did it for you, Mama!” I shouted.

She tried to snatch her hands from Papa so she could slap me again. “Don’t you blame me! Stupid idiot girl!” she said, when she couldn’t pull her hands from him.

“I’m not blaming . . .” I could feel blood seeping from me, faster now. “Mama, Papa, I bring shame to you,” I said, beginning to cry. “My existence is shame! Mama, I’m pain to you . . . since the day I was conceived.”

“No, no,” my mother said, shaking her head vigorously. “This was
not
why I told you.” She looked at Papa. “See, Fadil! See why I didn’t tell her all this time?”

Papa still held her hands, but now he looked as if he did it to hold himself up.

“
Every
girl here has it done,” I said. “Papa, you’re a well-loved blacksmith. Mama, you’re his wife. You both have respect. I’m
Ewu
.” I paused. “To not do it would bring
more
shame.”

“Onyesonwu!” Papa said. “I
don’t care
what people think! Haven’t you learned that by now? Eh? You should have come to us. Insecurity is
no
reason to have it done!”

My heart ached but I still believed I’d made the right choice. He may have accepted my mother and me for what we were, but we didn’t live in a vacuum.

“In my village,
no
woman was expected to be cut like that,” my mother hissed. “What kind of barbaric . . .” She turned away from me. It was already done. She clapped her hands together and said. “My own daughter!” She rubbed her forehead as if doing so would smooth out her frown. She took my arm, “Get up.”

I didn’t go to school that day. Instead my mother helped me clean and pack my wound with fresh gauze. She made me a pain-relieving tea with willow leaves and sweet cactus pulp. All day, I lay in bed, reading. My mother took the day off to sit beside my bed, which made me a little uncomfortable. I didn’t want her to see what I was reading. The day after my mother told me the story of my conception, I’d gone to the book house. Surprisingly, I found what I was looking for, a book on the Nuru language, the language of my biological father. I was teaching myself the basics. This would have seriously enraged my mother. So as she sat beside my bed, I hid the book inside another book as I read it.

All day, she stayed in that chair, unmoving, only getting up for brief meals or to relieve herself. Once, she went into her garden to Hold Conversation with Ani. I wondered what she told the Almighty and All-knowing Goddess. After all that had happened to her, I wondered what kind of relationship my mother could possibly have with Ani.

When my mother returned, as I read my Nuru language book and rolled my stone in my mouth, I wondered what she thought about as she sat there staring at the wall.

NONE OF THEM TOLD ANYONE. That was the first sign that our Eleventh Rite bond was true. And thus when I returned to school a week later, no one harassed me. All people knew was that I was now both adult and child. I was
ana m-bobi
. They had to at least give me that respect. Of course, we didn’t say a word about Binta’s sexual abuse, either. She later told us that the day after our rite, her father had to meet with the Osugbo elders.

“When he came home, afterwards, he looked . . . broken,” Binta said. “I think they whipped him.” They should have done more than that. Even back then I thought so. Binta’s mother was also brought before the elders. Both of her parents were ordered to receive counseling from the Ada for three years, as were Binta and her siblings.

As my friendship with Binta, Luyu, and Diti bloomed, something else started. It began indirectly my second day back at school. I leaned against the school building as students around me played soccer and socialized. I was still sore but healing fast.

“Onyesonwu!” someone called. I jumped and nervously turned around, images of that red eye popping into my head. Luyu laughed as she and Binta slowly walked over to me. For a brief moment, we stared at each other. There was so much in that moment: judgment, fear, uncertainty.

“Good morning,” I finally said.

“Good morning,” Binta said, stepping forward to shake and release my hand with a snap between our fingers. “You just back today? We are.”

“No,” I said. “I came back yesterday.”

“You look well,” Luyu said, also giving me the friendship handshake.

“You too,” I said.

There was an awkward pause. Then Binta said, “Everyone knows.”

“Eh?” I said too loudly. “Knows? Knows what?”

“That we’re
ana m-bobi
,” Luyu said proudly. “
And
that none of us screamed.”

“Oh,” I said, relieved. “Where’s Diti?”

“Hasn’t left bed since that night,” Luyu said with a laugh. “She’s such a weakling.”

“No, she’s just taking advantage of missing school,” Binta said. “Diti knows she’s too pretty to need school, anyway.”

“Must be nice,” I grumbled, though I didn’t like missing school.

“Oh!” Luyu said, her eyes growing wide. “Did you hear about the new student?”

I shook my head. Luyu and Diti looked at each other and laughed.

“What?” I said. “Didn’t you two just get back today?”

“News travels fast,” Diti said.

“For some of us, at least,” Luyu said, smugly.

“Just tell me whatever you’re going to tell me,” I said, irritated.

“His name is Mwita,” Luyu said, excitedly. “He arrived here while we were gone. No one knows where he’s living or if he even
has
parents. Apparently he’s really smart, but refuses to come to school. Four days ago, he came for one day and scoffed at the teachers, saying
he
could teach
them!
Not a great way to make a good first impression.”

I shrugged. “Why should I care?”

Luyu smirked and cocked her head and said, “Because I hear he’s
Ewu!
”

The rest of that day was a blur. In class, I searched for a face the color of a camel’s hide with freckles like brown pepper, with eyes that weren’t Noah. During midday break, I searched for him in the schoolyard. After school, while walking home with Binta and Luyu, I still looked around. I wanted to tell my mother about him when I got home but I decided not to. Would she really have wanted to know of another result of violence?

The next day was the same. I couldn’t stop looking for him. Two days later, Diti returned to school. “My mother finally pushed me out of bed,” Diti admitted. She made her voice severe. “ ‘ You aren’t the first to go through this!’ Plus she knew you all were back in school.” Her eyes flicked toward me, then away, and I instantly understood that her parents didn’t like me being in their daughter’s rite group. As if I cared what her parents thought.

Regardless, it was now definitely the four of us. Any friends Luyu, Binta, and Diti had before were no longer important. I had no friends to drop. Most girls who went through their Eleventh Rite together, though they were “bound,” didn’t remain so afterward. But the change was natural for us. We already had secrets. And those were just the beginning.

None of us was the “leader,” but Luyu was the one who liked to lead. She was fast and brazen. It turned out that there had been two other boys she’d had intercourse with. “Who is
the Ada?
” Luyu had spat. “I didn’t have to tell her
everything
.”

Binta always had her eyes downcast and spoke little when around others. Her father’s abuse cut deep. But when she was with just us, she talked and smiled plenty. If Binta weren’t born so full of life, I doubt she’d have survived her father’s sickness.

Diti was the princess, the one who liked to lie around in bed all day while her servants brought her meals. She was plump and pretty and things typically fell right into her lap. When she was around, good things happened. A merchant selling bread would sell it to us at half price because he was in a hurry to get home. Or we’d be walking and a coconut tree would drop a coconut at Diti’s feet. The Goddess Ani loved Diti. To be loved by Ani, what must that be like? I’m yet to know.

After school, we’d study at the iroko tree. At first, I was nervous about this. I was afraid the red and white creature I’d seen was linked to the iroko tree incident. Sitting under the tree felt like practically inviting the eye to come at me again. In time, as nothing happened, I relaxed a little. Sometimes I even went there alone, just to think.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Let me back up a bit.

It was eleven days after my Eleventh Rite, four days after I returned to school, three days after I realized I was bound to three girls my age, and a day after Diti returned to school that the other thing happened. I was slowly walking home. My wound was throbbing. The deep unprovoked pain seemed to happen twice a day.

“They’ll still think you’re evil,” someone behind me said.

“Eh? What?” I said, slowly turning around. I froze.

It was like looking into a mirror when you’ve never seen your reflection. For the first time, I understood why people stopped, dropped things, and stared when they saw me. He was my skin tone, had my freckles, and his rough golden hair was shaved so close that it looked like a coat of sand. He might have been a little taller, maybe a few years older than me. Where my eyes were gold-brown like a desert cat’s, his were a gray like a coyote’s.