about how Mefo was teaching Fatti a bad example by shielding her from reproach even in the face of misconduct rebounded into his ears. Fatti and Mefo had walked past his door.
Fatti looked forward to one last nice night before adopting her old life. Did Mefo really have something for her or had she said so only to get her out of her father’s hut. If someone were to ask her what she wanted from Mefo on a last evening of freedom, she would have asked her to complete the story of why she never got married. Too many times Mefo has started the story, the last being only the previous evening, but too many times something or someone had prevented Mefo from completing it.
When they arrived at Mefo’s hut, one of the five in the compound, the first thing Fatti did was to light the bush lamp. After bringing the fireside to life with glowing flames, she placed a pot of water on it. As she waited for the water intended for bathing to get warm, she started washing the cocoyams for the evening meal.
Finally, the two women sat warming themselves by the fire. They had taken their daily baths and were waiting for the food to get ready. Mefo asked, ‘We are in which year?’
‘1959’
‘I do not want to hear anything about the white man.’ Mefo sighed. ‘That white man has brought nothing but division. We used to have the annual dance at the end of each year. The village used to come out as one to rejoice and offer thanksgiving sacrifices to our ancestors. The white man came and had to put his own big feast at the same time as our own. Then he said those who choose to follow him should not come to the village dance because we do evil things there. Do not mention that white man near me.’ She paused and asked again, ‘In which year are we?’
‘We are in the year after the Church came to our land.’
‘Are you not still talking about the white man?’
‘Sorry, Mefo. The year ... the year ... ’
‘Beauty used to have a home in me,’ Mefo said slowly.
Fatti smiled. That was the typical start of the story she wanted to hear.
‘Beauty was mine in the days when my breasts were hard like unripe pears and my skin smooth like the back of a calabash.’ The wrinkles around Mefo’s eyes formed thicker folds as they bore the effect of the smile that shaped on her lips. Most of her face was twisted, layers of tradition trapped in the folds. ‘My beauty was a fact.’ As she spoke, she pushed the firewood deeper into the fire to fuel the dying flame. She then dove into a narration about the years when she shone as intensely as the flame. ‘With each step I took, more and more eyes followed me.’ The small penetrating eyes, the pointed nose, the heart-shaped lips – these features transferred to a trimmer and firmer body would indeed produce a sight worth pursuing.
‘You are still beautiful, Mefo,’ Fatti confirmed and then bent beneath the pot of cocoyams to fan the smouldering coals. She had to blow several times to reawaken the flames.
Mefo watched on, inhaling and exhaling tobacco-scented air from her pipe. From beauty queen to Queen Mother, she continued the narrative of her glorious days. ‘I am sure you know that the beauty living in you comes from me and not from that stupid man the gods punished you with for a father.’ This brought a turn in the story. It was now about Mefo’s father. A period of prolonged silence soon followed.
Fatti looked about the hut lazily. The upper layers of the wall had lost their original earth colour and were now painted black with several coats of soot and so were the layers of bamboo shelves at one corner of the hut. She glanced at Mefo. Her gaze was still fixed on the glowing flames. Just as she started drumming her fingers on her lap, Mefo shook her head several times and then lifted the cover of the hot pot with her bare fingers.
Fatti flinched. A woman’s palms were always going to be as hard as wood. If a woman was not rocking a mortar pestle, she was rocking a hoe handle. Mefo had proved that a woman’s palms were not only going to be as hard as wood but also as metal. A woman opened hot pots with her unprotected hands. A woman’s palms were destined to be as hard as the grinding stone.
‘When I was your age,’ Mefo said, bringing Fatti back to the present, ‘a man came to ask if he could take me to his compound so I stay there and pound achu for him; yes, that was just after I started pounding achu.’ Mefo paused as she again drifted into her thoughts. ‘But that marriage was not for me,’ she eventually continued. ‘I hated the idea to the point that I offered my body to illness each time they set a date for the traditional marriage. After it failed three times, the man threw his manhood.’
‘What does it mean to throw his manhood?’ Fatti asked.
‘My child, you will soon become a woman, and to take your place in society, you need to understand the language of the people. A man, as the head of a compound, has to always stand by any word which comes out of his mouth. Once he has decided to marry a woman, he has to remain true to his words until the gods invite one of them to the land of the ancestors. He does not have to return to change his words, especially if he has already offered kola nuts to a woman’s father.’
‘So the man came back to take the kola nuts which he had given to your father?’
‘My father got very angry, but I did not care because I knew I was beautiful and was going to have many other men.’ Mefo put down her pipe for the first time that evening. ‘The day the gods decided that I was to become a Mefo,’ she said sadly ‘was the day my life changed. A Mefo can marry but my father had always said that a Mefo from his compound will never marry.’
‘But Mama said that Mefo was a special title for special people?’
‘Yes, my child, that is why I want you to be my successor. I want to make you a Mefo. I …’ The sudden rapping at the door caused her to swallow the rest of her words.
‘Has night come, Mefo?’
‘Welcome. Come inside.’
‘I was on the way back to my compound and said I should just stop and greet you. I cannot come inside since the children are waiting for me.’
‘The man who has looked into the house and seen the inside must enter. Fatti, get up and give way for Suum’s mother. Also bring my headache medicine.’
Twisting her face, she did as Mefo had requested and then retired to the bed at the corner of the hut. She may have to wait another month or year to get to the true end of that story.
Nchumuluh was a small village. Mumba was an even smaller quarter in the village, a quiet place where people worried mostly about the welfare of their families and community. It was a place where the people all spoke one language and with one voice. However, the arrival of the Church had changed all that. The people no longer walked as one but went about in factions. While one group worshipped at the Catholic Church, others carried out their religious activities in Tchafo’s shrine. Temkeu was among the latter. He often visited the shrine either to consult the gods or to offer sacrifices in supplication or thanksgiving. It was a Tuesday morning. He was off to the shrine to seek the wisdom of the gods. His step was heavy step, as though the burden on his mind had transferred its weight to his feet. To arrive and handover his burden – that was what gave him the strength to keep moving.
He had been walking for sometime. Tchafo’s shrine was only a few meters away. He could make out the outline through the branches of the trees that flanked the footpath. However,
