people say that the people who planted did so under the rain, but those who came to harvest did so when the sun was up and shining brightly. I will tell you only one thing and I will say it only one time: The day you give Fatti to marriage will be the day you forget that I am your mother.’ With those words, she strode out. She did not bang the door as she usually did under such circumstances. She left it ajar.
That night Temkeu slept little. However, dawn brought some brightness as some neighbours got him out of bed with congratulatory messages. Though the controversy surrounding the bargain was not lost to them, the villagers revelled in pleasant thoughts of another feast in the making. A forthcoming betrothal did not just formally announce the bonding of two families and the tying of a girl’s hands, but it was also an occasion to consume exaggerated quantities of meat and palm wine and even rare commodities like whisky. By the time the sun gilded the sky, Temkeu’s mood had lightened further. When the sun started going down, he returned home from his workshop to adopt a position in front of his hut, making himself available to any passer-by who had not yet dropped by to acclaim his achievement.
A woman with a daughter in marriage always had something to brag about. Having Angu Matamo for a son-in-law had to automatically take a mother’s joy to a higher height. With his wealth measured in farms, land and five wives, his fertility in thirty-one children and his nobility in a title, Angu’s illustriousness was never disputed.
‘Has night come, Mbeh?’ Nkem greeted as she walked into the compound with a cainja on her back. She unloaded the pods of beans to the ground, placed the cainja and the hoe at a corner outside her hut, adjusted her loincloth, and then crawled back up to her husband. She opened her mouth as if to say something but closed it as though already aware that whatever was hanging on her lips would make no difference.
‘Have you come back from the farm?’
‘Yes, Mbeh.’ Looking everywhere but in her husband’s eyes, Nkem ventured, ‘Mbeh, do you not think you are rushing the child to go to a place where she will spend the night? Our people say that it is not good for a man to rush to go to a place where he will spend the night.’
‘It is better if nightfall meets her when she has already arrived at her destination, not when she is still on the way. Do not worry; Fatti will marry only after she has cut thirteen branches. And Angu is my friend; he will take good care of her.’
Following a plebiscite on the 1st of October 1961, British Southern Cameroons had opted for independence by joining the Republic of Cameroon. Hence, British Southern Cameroons was known as West Cameroon and the Republic of Cameroon as East Cameroon, both forming the Federal Republic of Cameroon. Amongst other changes, West Cameroonians had adopted the National Anthem of East Cameroon: ‘Oh Cameroon thou cradle of our fathers...’ The political situation had changed but the change remained mainly at the top and in the cities. Life in Nchumuluh and in the Fopou compound was still the same, especially for the women. Up hills, down valleys and across streams, Fatti and her mother would follow fertile land, returning home with cainjas full of cocoyams, corn, potatoes, cassava, cabbage and other seasonal crops. These staple crops were often supplemented by unexpected sources of insect proteins: grasshoppers which fell from the gods’ sky and crickets which burrowed out from the ancestors’ earth. Once in the compound, Fatti would return to Mefo’s hut and assist in preparing the main meal of the day, usually served as supper. Breakfast, the only other meal, existed thanks to leftovers of supper. In-between her major chores came minor ones like bathing her youngest brother and cleaning her father’s hut. At eleven and a half, Fatti’s tasks had tripled to include the duties of a wife-in-the-making.
On market days, when inhabitants from other quarters and villages came to sell and buy local produce, Fatti would try to earn some money by marketing seasonal fruits. Pears, guavas, mangoes, plums, carrots – she would carry them about in a tray on her head. Though the profit could at times be as small as five pence, it was enough to enable her mother pay the corn mill and buy washing soap.
On this Wednesday like the previous Tuesday, each denoting the weekly, rotating Country Sunday and market day, Fatti set out early in the morning just as Mosa and Totso were taking off for school. Her father had taken some of his carvings to the stall he rented on such market days when he possessed enough stock to display, and her mother had set off to sell the vegetables she had harvested the previous day. Wearing a cloth around her breast – no longer around her waist since she was now engaged – Fatti embarked on the journey to harvest from the abundance of nature. Visiting the guava orchard just three compounds away was not considered as farming, an activity usually forbidden on Country Sundays. The time spent in the activity also had a role in determining whether it qualified as farm work. Twenty minutes up and down a tree could not be compared with hours invested in tilling or planting or harvesting.
Standing under the umbrella of a guava tree, Fatti pulled out the pair of folded trousers hidden under her cloth. As a betrothed woman, she was no longer supposed to climb trees. She had to keep her legs together until her intended decided she could start spreading them. Since the appearance of such restrictions, she had come up with a ready answer to back the source of the fruits she sold: ‘Totso went up the tree for me.’ This day she did not have Totso, but she had a pair of his trousers. She donned them and cast aside her cloth.
She looked up into the tree and traced her itinerary to the branch which abounded in the ready guavas she had come for. She had gone past the first bough and was about to head for the next when she heard a hissing sound coming from somewhere above her head. She did not look about curiously but instead closed her eyes slowly in resignation. Mosa had often warned her about snakes. He had told her that snakes, like that in the story of Creation, were attracted to women. He had warned her that she would one day encounter a snake on a tree, but she had always retorted that a snake would never recognise her as a woman since she climbed trees in trousers.
‘Ssssss! Ssssss!’ The sleek, black creature emerged from the cover of the leaves and dangled over Fatti’s head as though its intention were to dive through it and emerge somewhere in the bottom where her legs parted. ‘Ssssss! Ssssss!’ It wriggled ever closer, rapidly flitting its tongue east, west, back, forth.
Fatti was still plastered to the same spot on the tree. All she had succeeded in doing was to open her eyes and merge her gaze with the snake’s. Eyeball to eyeball, they stared at each other. At that moment she was sure of just one thing: that she would die before she felt the snake’s fangs against her skin. She again closed her eyes, took a deep breath and then, composed as one who knew what she was doing, simply relinquished her grip on the branches she had been holding. The feeble bough under her feet, unable to bear her entire weight, gave way, releasing her into emptiness. The lower branches that had acted as foothold only minutes ago yielded as her feet came at them with increasing speed. Wading through the air, dropping to her death, Fatti opened her eyes and looked up one last time. The snake was right above her head, following her, its mouth wide open, a clear view of the deep darkness beneath.
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