turned around to face her husband but made no further effort to prove she had heard him.
‘I have said that you should take her!’ Temkeu barked. ‘Take her from my eyes since that is what you want.’
While the two women rushed out to the yard to spread the news, Nkem walked towards the bed where her husband was still sitting. She stopped in front of it and looked down at her child. As she lifted her hand to touch her daughter’s face one last time, Temkeu caught her wrist and spat out, ‘You can take her from my eyes but you will never take her from my heart.’
Temkeu got up from the bed and surged past the door as though stung out of the hut. In the yard, he welcomed a soothing pat on his back and a few kind words from Angu Matamo, who assured him that the gods knew better.
‘My calabash shattered before I was even able to drink from it,’ was all Temkeu said.
‘Our land is fertile but our women are more fertile, Angu said. ‘If it means that we hack our way through, we will uncover that road which leads to a compound of fertile women, and we will pluck another ripe fruit for you. You will have another daughter, Temkeu. I will not sleep until it happens.’
Temkeu gave Angu a slight nod and dashed off before his friend could say more. He had hardly reached the middle of the square compound fenced with five circular earth huts when people began thronging in from every shortcut. Elderly men limped in on staffs and women dashed in from nearby farms with heaps of earth on their hoes. Everyone had only one desire: to witness the longest burial ever. Some followed the corpse bearer into the hut, while others squashed around the gravediggers and the rectangular hole behind Temkeu’s hut. A child, like any other woman who left the world without taking on a new surname or multiplying the village wealth in people, was always buried behind the compound, behind her father’s hut. The sight of people eager to see his daughter lowered into the earth seemed unbearable to Temkeu. He held his heart as though it were a battlefield of two equally ferocious opponents – manhood taking it out on fatherhood. His feet changed direction. They were no longer facing the path out of his compound. They were looking towards the door of his hut. Temkeu slowly edged towards the crowd gathered at the door of his hut. He moved about on the fringe of the crowd for a while, and before anyone knew what he was up to, he was diving into the crowd.
‘Wait! Wait,’ he cried. Wading through the sea of people, he got into the hut to find the body already wrapped in white cloth and bound for the grave. ‘Just one last time,’ he pleaded. ‘I beg to see her just one last time.’ As he pushed forward those around the bed stepped aside, evidently too shocked to be upset. Even the corpse bearer made way for Temkeu, who responded by elevating his plea to another level: ‘I need some minutes alone with my daughter.’
Everyone looked at him but no one complied.
‘Well, it is just that I am a father, and I beg you to give me this last chance to pin my daughter’s face on my heart. It will take just the same time it takes for you to walk out and close the door.’
His imploring eyes sent the crowd streaming outside. The corpse bearer, who had just given in to yet another request to free the child’s face and torso from the confining burial cloth, trailed the queue.
Once silence took control over the hut, Temkeu pulled a stool and placed it near the head of the bamboo bed. He sat on the stool and stared at his daughter’s still body. ‘I waited forty-three long years to have you,’ he said. ‘By the time you arrived I was already an old man. I came here before you. Why are you going away before me?’ He sighed. ‘I had plans for you. I thought that through you I was going to taste things that have already become like water to my friends. I thought that through you I was going to become a father-in-law to a man. So why have you gone and left me here, alone and hungry?’
Temkeu was silent for a few minutes, but it seemed the silence only reminded him of the reality. ‘One woman, then a second woman and finally a third woman. I had to get three women before I could have you. I had to get three women and eight sons before I could walk about with the pride of a man who raises hens behind his compound. Each time I went out, I was happy because I knew I would come back and find you here. And as you grew I waited. I waited eagerly for the day when men would start marching in and out of my compound. Popular hunters, productive farmers, successors and princes – I waited for them! But now you have gone.’ He paused for a while. ‘Now you have gone. That means I will not even know that satisfaction which comes from chasing away silent cocks who think they can measure up to my hen. I was already dreaming of the techniques to use to chase away such cocks which cannot even crow!’ His mouth twisted in a cynical smile, a short-lived smile. ‘Now that you have gone, I have been reduced to a spectator. I will be forced to sit and watch the noisy cocks pass my compound to go to the next. No man is going to come here to ask for the hand of my daughter! No man is going to turn me into a father-in-law to a man!’
After another long pause, Temkeu let out a heavy sigh. ‘I was a fool, a very big fool. I should have accepted the bride price offered to tie your hand when you were five years old. I should not have tried to play big. At least, I would have had something to show I fathered a girl, that a girl had lived in this compound.’
At the sound of fidgeting behind the closed door, Temkeu slowly closed his eyes. His time was up. He knew the next time he looked at the world would be the last time he saw his precious daughter. There was no rushing that final view. He captured in a good quantity of air, imprisoned it for a while and then let it out reluctantly, as a man forced to part with a treasured item. As the air escaped from his lung, his chest sank, his heart shrunk. Beaten, he finally opened his eyes to acknowledge the victory of his invisible opponent.
‘Hey!’ he exclaimed. He swung his head towards the slab bearing the skulls of his ancestors and then back to the child’s body lying on his bed. The bewildered old man of a few moments ago had been replaced by a strong, active man, one with eyes fixed on the child’s body like a hungry man staring at a woman. He spread his lips as wide apart as possible. One word dropped out, two times: ‘Mefo! Mefo!’
Limbs almost came apart as people rushed into the hut. Mefo was not among them, but that did not stop Temkeu from rambling on about how the body, rather the child, had stirred.
The compound had again become a meeting spot. Those who could not find space inside the hut poked their heads through the window and door. The Fopou compound was renowned for making a public show of its problems. Several times those who had dared to talk peace had proposed that a village council be convoked so that Mefo and Temkeu exchange the peace plant, but several times the idea had died under suspicious circumstances – those who loved a spectacle knew where to get one.
‘Mefo, she is not dead,’ Temkeu again cried out.
‘Yes, Mbeh, we have heard you.’ It was a female voice but not Mefo’s. ‘You know that the only time a child belongs to one mother is when it is still in the womb.’ Achile Fopou, Temkeu’s first wife, edged closer to her husband and the bed. ‘It means that this child is also my own. My pain is as deep as the pain that you and Nkem carry. But please, Mbeh, also see reason. A child who died three hours ago cannot move. Just look at how stiff she is. I beg you, my husband, because if you do not wake up, our worry would be for you instead.’
‘Shut up, woman,’ Temkeu lashed out. ‘I know what my eyes saw. I saw this child move.’ As he spoke he tore away the burial cloth still covering the lower part of the child’s body. ‘If you had given me just one daughter then ...’ He hesitated and said instead, ‘Just stand here. I am sure she will move again soon. Stand here and you will see for yourself.’
The command intended for Achile Fopou transcended the boundaries of marital authority. Silence fell on the hut as all eyes turned to the child’s body, some
