much, but I remember a name like Saha.’
‘You are right. Saha is a Kombou name,’ Tchafo stated.
‘So that should be it.’ The decision maker had been quiet for too long. ‘I will inform the Fon and first thing tomorrow morning, some nchindas will be wiping the dew off the grass on the way to Kombou.’
‘See, I told you people.’ Typical of his profession Tchafo boasted. ‘I see far, very far. I saw it and I told you that the man could not be of this village. By the way, Temkeu, I hope you have not forgotten that you need to give thanks to your ancestors for sending the child back to life.’ As he spoke, his eyes roamed over the skulls on Temkeu’s slab. ‘I will be waiting for the hen and palm oil to perform the sacrifices. I—’
Temkeu cut off Tchafo’s words and smile with a little piece of news: ‘That man, Saha Tpune, died before I was old enough to run after a goat.’
The Elder shook his head and voiced his concern: ‘What can a man who died when you, Temkeu, were still a child have in common with a child like Fatti? Again, why would your grandfather send Fatti from the land of the ancestors to deliver a message to someone who dwells with him in that land? Does it mean that your grandfather has sent the child to a dead man? Hm! If we do not put out the fire consuming one house, the whole village might become part of the fire.’
All three turned and stared at Fatti, elegant in her mother’s best loincloth. Her eyes closed, her breath soft, she seemed so peaceful.
Like a flame fighting against the wind, Fatti had fought against death and triumphed. Her flame was now burning brightly. She had become the star of the village. Everyone wanted to talk to her. Everyone wanted to hear her story. Everyone wanted a firsthand account of what had transpired during those three hours when she had been lost to them. The Fon and his entourage had heard her story. Her family and friends had heard her story. The village had heard her story and in a unified voice had declared that Fatti had come back to life after a brief visit to the land of the ancestors.
There was someone who lived in the village but who was not of the village. He had heard what the village said about Fatti’s experience but he did not share their views. That did not surprise anyone; in fact, it would have surprised them had he nodded with them. However, he had not yet voiced his opinion on the matter. He had not broached the issue with Nkem though he saw her almost daily. All that was attributed to him was through inference – the village simply did not expect him to believe what they believed. Two weeks after the events of that infamous morning, they were finally going to have him confirm their opinion – he had invited Nkem and Fatti to his home for a discussion.
That afternoon Fatti Ashi stepped out of her grandmother’s hut en route to the Catholic Mission. Ashi! That was a name she endeavoured to keep on her tongue as a way of keeping it in her head. Mefo had given her the name after her return to life. She had said Ashi meant ‘gift of the gods.’ That was what the village said: that the gods’ decision to switch her back on was a gift to her family.
As she walked from her father’s compound, Fatti took the bend that separated it from Angu Matamo’s estate. Angu Matamo was not just a close neighbour. He was her father’s best friend and the father of her close friend Susannah. He was also her worst enemy. Whenever she heard his voice, she made sure to disappear before he appeared. She could not say what it was about him that made her look in the opposite direction: his deep eyes and inquisitive stares or his compulsive manner; his stout hands or their desire to touch and own whatever they wanted. All she was certain of was that he repulsed her.
Though Fatti did not like the man, she loved the fruits he grew. As she walked by Angu’s property, she stepped under the canopy of mango trees and emerged with some windfalls. She bit into one of the mangoes and was about to take another hungry bite when she noticed that some juice had landed on her dress. She frowned. The knee-length flowery dress hanging over her plump frame remained her favourite. How could she resist loving a dress that had travelled the privileged journey from Yaoundé, where her stepbrother Makam resided, that had arrived inside his travelling bag and landed in her open hands as a gift? The answer was even more obvious since the dress had come to add only to two others. After two years of continuous wearing and washing, the colour of the once-black collar was now only visible enough to perfectly reflect her complexion: dark but faded. Beneath the patchy glaze of palm oil, her skin appeared clearly parched. Her rough palms provided testimony to the life of an only girl in a family of thirteen. The dried blisters and wide cuts on her soles gave an estimate of the number of kilometres she covered day after day, from the stream to the farm, from the market to a neighbouring quarter or village. Yet her wide and innocent eyes never seemed to lose their gaiety. Unlike her drained body, they were a true reflection of the soul of a nine-year-old.
After about thirty minutes of walking, Fatti arrived at the Catholic Church, the only symbol of Christianity in Nchumuluh. St. John Bosco Parish Nchumuluh was under the Diocese of Buea, the first in the territories, erected in 1950. The large, square building roofed with corrugated metal sheets was an imposing structure in a village of small, circular thatched huts. The white stones and cement blocks used to raise the walls also stood a world apart from the earth bricks of which the huts of the natives were built. The church was a place where the people were still learning to feel at home.
Fatti stepped inside the church, genuflected, crossed herself, ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ and stepped out. At the presbytery, she caught up with her mother who was waiting for her. Together they walked towards the parish office, and extension of the presbytery, for the appointment with the parish priest Reverend Father Maxworth Cain, known better as Fr. Max, a missionary from Ireland.
‘Nkem,’ Fr. Max said from behind the wooden desk, the most prominent piece of furniture in his office. Fatti and her mother were sitting on a bench across the table. ‘Nkem,’ he repeated, ‘Thank you for coming to see me. You know that I wanted to come to your compound but the head of your compound refused to hear anything of it.’
‘Do not worry, Father. That is how he is.’ Nkem did not feel as comfortable as she would in her compound but neither did she feel as though in the presence of a stranger. When Fr. Max had first come to the village about a year back, it was unheard of for him to have an open dialogue with a villager. It was even rarer to have a woman discussing with the white priest in the absence of a tribesman. Now Fr. Max was not simply the person who stood on the altar to say the daily Masses Nkem attended; he was also the one who sat next to her in the confessional.
‘Nkem,’ Fr. Max said after a few seconds of contemplation, ‘you have received baptism and that means you believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came and died to wash away our sins. Is there wisdom in my words? Do you agree with what I have said?’
‘Yes, Father, I agree because that is what the catechist taught us during doctrine.’ Nkem kept her head to the ground as she spoke. He was not her husband but he was a man, one who had authority over her.
Fr. Max raised his eyes from Nkem’s figure to stare at the stony wall above the two heads. ‘Fatti –’ he lowered his gaze to her face ‘– do you believe in Jesus Christ, in God who has answers to all problems? He inched forward, smiling.
Fatti looked him in the eye but offered not a word.
Fr. Max returned his attention to Nkem. ‘I know that we have not been in your village for a very long time and that many people still do not understand our teaching. Do you tell Fatti about Jesus?
Does she believe in Jesus Christ?’
‘Father,’
