cut through with such intensity it distracted all but Temkeu. Towards the door, they all flocked. When their curious glances found Mefo lying on the ground, they briefly forgot about the child.
‘You people come and see.’ At the sound of Temkeu’s declaration, the two men who had been helping Mefo to her feet let her drop like a leaf and swarmed into the hut with the others – the sight of a child come back to life was plainly more alluring than that of an unstable old woman. However, once in the hut they realised the child was immobile. The only person blinking and unblinking was Temkeu, not the child as he had asserted. Attempts to justify his claim only increased the hostility of the stares punching him. Even with the entire village against him, Temkeu did not back down ‘Do not try to tell me I am building a house up in my head. With my two feet on the ground, I tell you that this child has life in her,’ he reiterated.
‘Yes, the tiger ate the man who took pity on it.’ It was Mefo who had risen from the ground to walk tall. ‘If you had died at her age I would have put you deep inside the earth without blinking.’ Her face beamed with pride at being the only one capable of hammering square words into Temkeu’s square head. But the satisfaction faded fast, replaced by anger at the humiliation in which he had soaked her. Dishing out commands like a man, Mefo ordered the child’s body to be wrapped up and carried outside. ‘You there –’ she turned to a young man by the bed ‘– cut up the rest of the cloth into bands. I do not want to see any wrist without the white band in five minutes. That body should be covered with earth in five minutes!’
‘Anyone who wants to see his teeth in his hands should be the first to come near this bed. Everybody should leave my hut. Now!’
The sympathizers-turned-spectators looked at Mefo and then at Temkeu. A few left but most simply rubbed their feet on the ground.
‘Where is that cutlass?’ As Temkeu dashed for the farming tool, the villagers ran for their lives. Only Mefo remain unmoved. Just then Nkem dashed into the hut. Trembling, she requested that her husband deny or confirm what the grapevine had carried faster and further than the village crier had the initial news of the death.
‘Nkem,’ Temkeu said, ‘I married you many many years ago.’ He paused as if to allow the message to sink. ‘Today’ he continued ‘I tell you that this child has life in her. I tell you that she is not dead. I saw her with these my two eyes. She shook three times. Three times!’
Nkem opened her mouth but closed it without letting out a single word.
‘Follow your mother-in-law if you like, but I am the head of this compound, and I have made my decision. This child has life in her. I will stay with her until life fully takes control of her body.’
‘Maybe I should,’ Nkem ventured shyly. ‘Maybe I should go to the Mission and call Father?’ God can—’
‘Shut up, woman. The day you call that your God again inside my hut will be the day you carry your things back to your father’s compound. You hear me?’
‘Yes, Mbeh.’ Nkem sealed her surrender with a bow.
‘When you keep your head in the sky how can you know what is happening on the ground?’ Mefo sighed at her son and turned and ordered his speechless wife to meet her in the yard. There, she told Nkem to dispatch one message with news to the palace and another to fetch the diviner. ‘Even if the cock forgets to crow, we will still get out of bed.’
‘Mefo, I know you are a woman who bathes with wisdom,’ Nkem said. ‘But I have already lost my daughter; I do not want to lose my husband’s mind too.’
‘Speak like a person who has something to say.’
‘What I mean to say is that I am sure truth has a place in what my husband is saying.’
‘Get out of my sight, you stupid woman. I could not stand that man as a child. Now I understand why you can stand him as the head of your compound.’ Mefo turned to two young men and repeated the same commands in the same authoritative voice: ‘You, go fetch Tchafo. You, go straight to the palace and send a nchinda to inform the Fon of the abomination living here.’
From inside the hut Temkeu whispered, ‘Either you women talk like respectful children visiting a palace or you carry your noise with you elsewhere,’ He was tiptoeing back to the bed when he stopped and rushed back to the window, shouting, ‘Shout! Kill the deep sleep chaining my treasure to that bed. Call all the women in Mumba to come here and start shouting. Shout!’ He walked back to the bamboo bed still repeating the word. Face to face with his daughter, he bid her to open her eyes. ‘Wake up so that we prove to them that your father is the one talking sense in this place.’
Ten minutes later Temkeu was again shouting out claims to no one in particular. ‘Believe me when I tell you that her heart moved like this—’ Temkeu exhaled and inhaled, his hand rising and falling in rhythm with his throbbing chest.
Nkem, who was walking aimlessly around the compound, rushed in to catch her husband rambling about how the child had again stirred. ‘Nkem, Nkem’ Temkeu stressed, ‘I tell you that this child moved.’
Nkem took one glance at the immobile child and then settled her raised brows on her husband.
‘Am I the only normal person in this village? This child is alive! Do not move. Just stand here and soon you will see for yourself.’
Nkem remained glued to the spot. The minutes moved past. All was still but for the sound of their drumming hearts.
‘Look, Nkem, you see that? Do not move your eyes from her heart. You see what I see? You see?’
‘Hm,’ Nkem mumbled.
‘Yes, my daughter, make the effort. Take a deep one. Try!’ Temkeu lifted his hand and wiped the child’s brow. ‘See! See! Did you see that?’ He looked up at his wife to make sure she was watching the child but found her questioning eyes resting on him. ‘I tell you to look at the child but you keep your eyes on me? You women are all the same. Get out of my sight. Go! And let me not catch you rejoicing when this child finally defeats death.’
Nkem wept.
Temkeu reassumed vigilance.
Mefo paced the yard, waiting for the arrival of elderly wisdom and the embodiment of the gods.
The cowry necklace as long as his neck to his stomach, the ntamp cap stuffing in his wisdom, the ndop cloth embroidered and sewn to the form of a long, overflowing garment – everyone usually gave way when such traditional regalia appeared on one person. To denote his rank, the Elder embellished his cap with a single sickle red feather.
When he stepped out of his sacred dwelling, men bowed and women stepped indoors. When he thundered his opinion, all others clung to the safety of their bearers’ minds. He was the diviner, hardly ever without his raffia bag slung over his shoulder, never without the leopard spots of the gods dotted over his face and chest.
One dined with the Fon and the other anointed skulls and invoked spirits. The pair arrived at the Fopou compound with an inquisitive mob trailing them from a distance.
‘Where is the head of this compound?’ the Elder called out.
A baffled Temkeu stepped out into the yard towards
