Читать книгу Blessing - Florence Ndiyah - Страница 11

4

February sailed along gracefully with life for the Fopous being as normal as it could be. Day after day, the boys ran after knowledge or cattle, while the women bent over farms, deracinate shrubs and stumps, gathering and burning, and then tilling and waiting. By mid month each nose full carried the scent of dust stirred out of slumber by the first rains, heralds of the approaching season. March came along with the beginning of the rainy season. The Fopou women, along with others in the village, returned to their farms, this time planting and weeding.

Life for Temkeu Fopou was also as normal as it could be. A typical morning for him started with a heavy meal, which digested as he took the short walk to his pottery and carpentry workshop, where he spent most of the day. Before returning home in the evening, he often stopped in the village square to make some noise and share some palm wine or corn beer with his friends. He was making for the village square, one evening, when it suddenly started raining. He rushed into a nearby compound but not fast enough to avoid the first few drops of rain, which ran down his torso to be trapped in the folds of his loincloth. He sighed and sighed. His problem was neither his wet skin, which will dry in a few seconds, nor his wet loincloth, which will dry in a few minutes. Superstition held that anyone who was soaked by the first rain would be caught in the rain throughout that rainy season.

By August, the flurry of raindrops had become the most faithful companion wherever anyone went. September stepped in with the start of another school year. After primary education, which was all Temkeu could offer his sons, the first two had moved to Yaoundé, the capital of the French Cameroons, with promises of getting more education and returning home to sow its benefits. Five years had gone by since he had last heard from the second. Though Makam, the first, rarely made the one-day journey home, material evidence and remittances showed he carried his family in his thoughts. Achum, Temkeu’s fourth son, had decided to try his hand at trade by moving to Douala, the economic city. The twenty-seven-year-old gave Temkeu reason to walk about with raised shoulders. Apart from his frequent trips home, he was changing the face of the compound with the brick house he was building nearby. The pampering lavished on Temkeu by his daughter-in-law also added to Achum’s list of achievements.

Whenever Temkeu talked about Makam and Achum, his tongue rolled with the ease of one comfortable with a subject. When the discussion stirred towards the likes of his third son, Bacham, his tongue grew heavy with shame. A failed trip to acquire employment in banana and tea plantations in the coastal region, drunkenness and women – these were all he had to show for his twenty-nine years on earth. To increase the weight of Temkeu’s shame, his three middle sons had taken Bacham’s example a step further. Everything they did said they were just waiting for him to close his eyes so that they start competing with his wives for his property. As concerns the five youngest sons who still lived under their mothers’ roofs, Temkeu let go no opportunity to make it known that he had only one favourite. Though just eight years old, Mosa showed signs of conquering where his other brothers had failed. Unlike the other young boys, Mosa went to the farm every day, either accompanying his grandmother, mother, two stepmothers or at times his sister, Fatti. In the evening, he moved from one hut to the other doing whatever there was to do – fetching water, gathering wood, lighting the fire. His was the first name that dropped from every mouth in need.

It was the first day of the school year, and the day had dawned with a huge smile carved on Temkeu’s mouth. He walked out of his hut wearing one of his pair of jumpers, his raffia bag and the pair of leather slippers which Makam had brought for him – Makam had shown up unexpectedly the previous evening. By 7.00 a.m., Temkeu was walking out of his compound, dragging along a new Mosa clad in the Catholic school uniform – a sky blue shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. ‘I am sending you to school today,’ he said to Mosa as they walked down the road, ‘because I want you to grow up and be like Makam. Have you heard?’

‘Yes, Papa.’

‘You take the white man’s book seriously and you become like Makam!’

‘Yes, Papa, I have heard.’ On this bright Monday morning, Mosa had two exercise books clutched in his armpit and a sharpened pencil trapped in his fist. His friends ran out of nearby compounds and hailed him. It was easy to tell they would have loved to be the ones wearing the Catholic School (CS) Nchumuluh uniform and heading for the school premises.

Temkeu and Mosa walked on without talking for a while, except greeting and acknowledging greetings from passers-by. As they neared the school Temkeu said, ‘The white man has done a good thing by opening a school at my nose. Last year it took only a short walk to register Totso, and I am doing it again with you. I remember the days when I used to walk right to Santa to register your elder brothers in the Council School.’ He paused in reflection. ‘Yes, if not for the white man, you would have followed the school to live in Santa with relatives who sing welcome songs but sigh the moment I turn my back.’

The duo covered the thirty-minute walk from their compound through the village square to the mission premises and were now standing in the administrative office of CS Nchumuluh. After a few casual words with the Headmaster, Temkeu dipped his hand into his raffia bag, brought out the fee of one pound three pence and was about to hand it over when the office owner asked Mosa to step forward. The headmaster, popularly known as Teacher Alfred but fondly called HM by his colleagues, was one of the few educated indigenes of Nchumuluh. He was a secondary school dropout from Saint Joseph’s College, Sasse, in Buea.

‘Mosa,’ Teacher Alfred called out, ‘you think you are ready for school?’ He squinted as if to scare the boy.

‘Yes, Sar,’ Mosa replied, failing in his attempt to sound brave.

Teacher Alfred got up from his seat behind the small wooden desk. His bulk rose to occupy two meters of air space. When he took one step forward, Mosa took two steps backward. ‘If you fear me, a mere man,’ Teacher Alfred said, ‘what will you do with the alphabet which you have never before set eyes on?’

Mosa was speechless. He could not take his eyes off the headmaster.

Teacher Alfred moved closer, flaunting his muscular torso clad in a blue shirt partially covered by a black velour coat so tight his biceps barked with each swing of his arm. The red pair of trousers went only as far as his mid shin while his feet were covered in a pair of washed-out blue socks and tucked into a pair of white sandals. ‘I hate to have to beat knowledge into pupils, you know.’ As he spoke, he tapped a yellow, wooden ruler on the palm of his right hand. ‘School is not made for every person. Do you agree with me, Mosa?’ His thick lips formed a queer smile.

Unable to open his mouth Mosa simply nodded.

‘Come here, Mosa.’

Temkeu urged the reluctant child forward.

‘Take up your right hand.’

Mosa’s eyes flitted left and right but his hands did not move.

‘History has shown that pupils who require me to repeat myself are those who go on to repeat classes.’ Teacher Alfred grinned. ‘I will repeat my request only because this is your first day here; but I hope it does not happen again, that is, if at all you would have the privilege of talking with me again.’ He took a deliberate pause, cleared his throat and said, ‘I repeat: Take up your right hand, Mosa.’

Mosa started lifting his left hand but before it was midway above his head, he brought it down and lifted the right, then the left, as though he were learning how to move his arms for a march. He again took up his right hand and was about to put it down when his father answered his silent plea for assistance. ‘That is your right hand. So leave it up.’

Teacher Alfred, who had been staring at Mosa with amusement said, ‘Now, place it over your head towards the direction of your left ear.’

Mosa did.

One eyeful and Teacher Alfred declared, ‘He will have to come back next year.’

‘But he touched his ear,’ Temkeu objected.

‘I am the judge here. I am the one representing the white man, and I say that this child is not yet ripe for school.’

Temkeu was about to fuel the fight that was brewing when Fr. Max strolled into the office, casually dressed in a short-sleeve white shirt and knee-length khaki trouser. Both men immediately dropped the fingers they pointing in each other’s faces. Teacher Alfred took off his twine cap, greeted the priest, turned towards his desk and started fumbling with some sheets of paper; Temkeu tapped the ntamp cap on his head and folded his arms over his chest.

‘Has day come, Pa Fopou?’

‘Yes, Mr. Father.’

‘I see the head of the compound has decided to bring another child to school. What is your name?’ Fr. Max asked the prospective pupil.

‘Mosa Fopou,’ Temkeu answered.

‘Mosa, how old are you?’

Temkeu seized one of the exercise books from Mosa’s hand, pulled out a piece of paper and stepped forward with the determination of one eager to prove a point. He held the paper in front of his eyes as though to read out the answer, but all he succeeded in doing was turning the paper several times in different directions.

‘Let me help you,’ Fr. Max offered, taking the piece of paper with little effort. ‘A birth certificate and the name is actually Mozart’ ‘Mosa,’ Temkeu corrected.

‘The name is Mozart but since the villagers have difficulties pronouncing the Z sound, the name has been transformed to Mosa. But you are correct, Father, –’ Teacher Alfred smiled ‘– the name is Mozart.’

‘Well, Mosa, I hope that one day you will be a famous person,’ Fr. Max joked. ‘Do you know the person after whom you carry this name?’

‘My uncle gave him that name after a German who lived here before people from your country ever came. The German went back to his country after it lost that first big war.’

‘Now that we are here,’ Fr. Max said with a smile, ‘I hope you will name some children after us.’

‘You mean you the British and the French who now rule over us?’ ‘You have plenty of sense, Pa Fopou. Let me just finish here with Mosa and we will go to my office to add more time to that talk.’ As he spoke, he ran his eyes over the birth certificate. ‘Eight years old! Why did you not bring him to school last year?’

‘I brought him this year because I, Pa Fopou, need to have another son in school. I am sure you know my Totso. He is in class three. I removed him from the Council School in Santa to bring him here to your school. I am a real man in this Mumba!’ Temkeu nodded. ‘Yes, only a man like me who knows the taste of sweat can have two children in school. Only a man who carries the future in his head can send five out of twelve sons to school. And you know what?’ he tapped his foot, ‘This is not the end of my story because some of my boys are still too young to try their luck with the paper and pen.’

‘Well done, Pa Fopou. You are a real man, and I am happy that you decided to bring Mosa to school. Anyway, how do you people say it again? If the wind does not blow ...’

‘If the wind does not blow, no man will see the anus of a fowl.’ Temkeu completed, eyeing Fr. Max askance. ‘You have learnt a little but you still have a long way to go. And do not even try to think that you can learn all our culture.’

Fr. Max smiled. ‘Let us allow Teacher Alfred to register Mosa since he is already late. Come and let us go to my office, Pa Fopou?’

‘No, Mr. Father, I have to go to my workshop now.’

‘I know that your time is very special, Pa Fopou, but I want us to talk about your children registered here …’ Fr. Max hesitated and then quickly added ‘and your other children. I will not take much of your time.’

Temkeu reluctantly, Fr. Max eagerly, both men walked out into the schoolyard of CS Nchumuluh. One rectangular block of earth bricks plastered with cement and roofed with metal sheets– that was the school. The block was divided into five classrooms. Four teachers bore the responsibility of imparting knowledge to the pupils spread across classes one to eight, most of whom were former pupils or dropouts from other schools in neighbouring villages. Unlike the other classes, only the pupils of classes seven and eight had the privilege of having a teacher and room to themselves. Not only were the pupils of class eight the most educated of the school, but they were also its torch – the better their performance at the Primary School Leaving Certificate Examination, the brighter the school colours shone. The examination was also the first and last public examination three-quarters of the class of four was likely to ever take.

That morning the pupils had assembled and were chewing their tongues, dropping out undecipherable sounds as they sang to the unadorned tricolour – green, red, yellow – flag dangling on the flagstaff at the entrance to the school compound. It was a country with one flag, two people with two languages from two colonial masters, the French and the British. In fact, on the 1st of January that very year, 1960, French Cameroons had gained independence from the French to become The Republic of Cameroon. British Southern Cameroons was still a United Kingdom trustee territory. Situated on the border between the North West Province in British Southern Cameroons and the West Province in The Republic of Cameroon, the inhabitants of Nchumuluh were torn between two languages and two cultures: English and French and the Graffi and Bamileke cultures respectively. Officially, they were part of British Southern Cameroons.

As the British National anthem died down, the pupils listened to announcements while waiting for the bell. Though it spoke only one language, it gave out different messages at different times of the day. At 7.30 in the morning, the voice of the bell commanded the less than sixty pupils to march to their classrooms. Bare feet for the most part, sky blue dresses and shirts hanging on their bodies, one or two exercise books clasped in their armpits, finger-length broken pens and pencil stumps clutched in their hands, the future of Nchumuluh headed after knowledge.

‘Good morning, children,’ Fr. Max acknowledging greetings from some pupils and then turned to Temkeu: ‘How is your girl doing?’

‘Ah, you mean my Fatti? She is doing fine.’ Temkeu gave a wide, brown smile. ‘I have many children but Fatti is my only daughter. She has gone to the farm with her mother.’

‘Why did you not bring her to school?’

‘School? For her to do what here? I already have Totso and Mosa in school. And again if I send my only daughter to school, whom I am going to send to marriage?’

‘Nobody says a woman who goes to school is not fit for marriage.’

‘Nobody will marry a woman who has gone to school to have big sense!’ Temkeu stated. ‘I have only one daughter and she will go to marriage. All that she needs to learn before marriage, she will learn at home and on the farm, not in any school.’

‘God will give you other daughters if you pray and if He judges that you really need them.’

‘Hm, that your God! You turn left – God. You go right – God. A child is sick – God. Harvest is bad – God. You do not think He gets tired?’

Fr. Max smiled. ‘He is an Almighty God who is everywhere at the same time and hears the prayers of all people at the same time. He is with you in your workshop and with me in my office and with your wives on their farms, listening to all of us. But you say we ask our God too much? What about your gods? I am sure you also ask many things from them.’

‘I have not gone to your school but we have plurals even in my vernacular. So you yourself have answered your question. Our “gods” are many. It means we can ask them whatever we want any time. They join their heads and their powers to look into our problems. My son from Yaoundé always says something like: “Many heads join together to make the work easy.”’

‘Many heads do light work.’

‘Yes, something like that,’ Temkeu said with a wave of the hand. ‘But even if our gods give me twelve daughters, I will not send any of them to school.’

Fr. Max started saying something but Temkeu did not let him finish.

‘You see that young and strong man coming this way?’ Temkeu asked, pointing towards the road. ‘That is my son, the one I was just talking about. I sent him to school and he followed school right to Yaoundé. Now he is in the army. He knocked on my door yesterday night.’

Short-sleeve shirt tucked into matching army khaki trousers, the trousers in turn tucked into military boots, a white bowler dancing on his head – everything about Makam said he was an indigene only in blood. He looked and sounded like one from another culture. ‘Good morning, Father. Papa, I came to check if all was going well with Mosa’s registration.’

‘Everything went well, Makam.’ Temkeu’s pride shone on his smile.

‘Good morning, Makam. Your father was just talking about you.’

‘Oh, yes, my daddy is a very hard working man who went via a lot of hard work to establish me in the world. I am very happy seeing him again after years of absolute separation; yes, I am happy being here among my people whom I greatly missed. Well, let us put aside the customs of rural dwellings and expand upon this unintended encounter. May I be opportuned to be granted temporal possession of your nomenclature?’ Makam smiled at Fr. Max.

‘I am Fr. Max, parish priest here.’ His voice was subtle, his gaze baffled.

‘Yes, that much I know,’ Makam carried on. ‘What I want is more lip action from you. I want to know which part of the galaxy hosted your body and soul before you landed on this patriotic soil of ours.’

Fr. Max looked lost.

‘Apparently, you seem to have problems deciphering my humble intercession. Allow me to assist you with a verbal illustration: I am Makam Fopou, corporal in the Republic of Cameroon army. You have educated knowledge of the Cameroon army, do you?’

Fr. Max apparently had an invisible muzzle over his mouth.

Temkeu just kept nodding.

Makam took advantage of the silence: ‘So how are your activities within your domain of definition? I hope everything is going on smoothly without any entropy. Oh, my ears have just grasped penetration of my former friend’s voice down the road. Let me give velocity control over my body and leave you two to continue gallivanting your tongues. Gaining your acquaintance brought me much gratification.’

Makam walked away.

Fr. Maxworth nodded after him.

Temkeu’s smile stretched.

‘Is Makam your first son?’ Fr. Maxworth asked.

‘What?

‘I asked if Makam is your first son?’

‘Yes, my first born from all my women. Achile, my number one wife, is his mother.’

‘I see. How old is Fatti?’

‘Fatti? By this time next year, she would have cut eleven branches from her age tree – that tree which we named after her when she came into this world. Every time she adds one year, we go to her tree and cut off one branch. This leaves a wound on the tree stem. This way we will never forget or argue over her age.’

‘So she is ten years old now. But why can you not make a birth certificate for her?

‘What is she going to do with it when her life starts in her mother’s hut and ends in a man’s compound? We make birth certificates only for boys.’

‘So you say that school is not good for Fatti? You say that she died and resurrected?’

‘Look, Mr. Father, I came here to put my son in school. If you do not want him, tell me and I will take him back with me to my compound.’ Temkeu lifted his finger to the priest’s face. ‘My wife told me a long time ago that you were saying things to her that Fatti did not die. Our gods sent Fatti back from the land of the ancestors, and you come to tell me that Fatti did not die? Look, Mr. Father, I came here to put my son in school and not to talk about my family. If you do not want my son in your school tell me and I will take him back to Santa.’

‘No, Pa Fopou I ...’ Fr. Max started but never finished.

Temkeu walked on right into his compound without having looked back once. His wives, some of the boys, Fatti and a few neighbours formed the crowd gathered under the mango tree in the middle of his compound.

‘Neighbours in my compound again? What is the problem this time? And why is Fatti not on the farm? What are her mothers still doing in the compound?’ The questions gushed out of his mouth. He took a few agitated steps towards the crowd and found Makam at the hub of the activity. Bread here, matches there, dress here, milk there, sugar here, exercise books there, Makam was dishing out manna from his shop of a polyester carrier bag.

The women showered him with good wishes to supplement their ‘thank you’: ‘Makam, may your shadow never grow less; may the gods fill that bag which you have emptied into our hands; may…’ ‘So that is what it is all about! If only every crowd gathered in my compound could be made up of such cheerful faces. But where is Mefo?’

That night the crowd carried its cheerful face into Mefo’s hut for a rare evening at the Fopou compound. In the presence of one father, one grandmother, three mothers, some children and grandchildren, the Fopou family bonded like it had not in a long time. Some on stools others on the bed, their strewn figures painted overlying silhouettes on the walls of Mefo’s lit hut. The family formed two groups: those who opened their mouths and those who opened their ears – Mefo and the men against the mothers and children. Contrary to expectation, Temkeu kept his lips glued and his eyes on Fatti. Makam thus became the main orator, his travels supplementing his manhood. Between mouthfuls of roasted corn, he talked about life in a military uniform, about round tubes which had the light of the sun in them and made the night shine like day and about cars which moved on water. The audience laughed and taunted and disagreed. Reliving fond memories and creating new ones to sustain them in times of separation – that is what the Fopou family was doing.

When the pot of fresh groundnuts came down from the fire, the humans became rats. Cracking and chewing, swallowing and reaching for more, they ate as though their stomachs had been deprived of food for days. The children were the only ones who ate like people accustomed to eating groundnuts, and the reason was simple: Mefo had declared that their last swallow was to coincide with their departure to bed. Unlike most days, when they retired by 8.00 p.m. to be up and running by 6.00 a.m., the adults chatted on unconscious of the passage of time. It was only when Makam switched on his pocket radio to catch up on the ten o’clock news that they realised they had drifted further into the night than intended. The looks on the faces of the three Fopou wives said, ‘We wished we could remain seated’. But mindful of the duties that awaited them at dawn, they got up, relit their lamps – which they had put out to save kerosene – and walked past the door. They parted with their husband’s name on their lips, one praising the fact that he had for once allowed others to speak, another condemning his failure to share useful experiences with his children, still another claiming that all his attention had been on Fatti. All three turned to stare at Fatti who was carrying one of the little children to his mother’s hut.

When the rest of the group finally left, Fatti picked up the broom to gather the groundnut shells strewn all about. After two strokes, she immediately dropped the broom but not fast enough to have escaped Mefo’s vigilant eyes.

She pulled out her pipe from her mouth and yelled, ‘How many times will I tell you not to sweep at night? Do you want to wake up devils? I have told you many times that the night is time for devils. If you hear your name at night when you do not know who is calling, do not answer because it is the devil. If you want to talk to someone, go near the person. Do not shout out any person’s name at night because the devil will hear and come and repeat it. Have you heard?’

‘Yes, Mefo.’ Fatti could not sweep but she could glean groundnuts on the floor and give her teeth the satisfaction of the action denied her hands.

Morning came and with it the departure of the august guest. But when Makam took off for Yaoundé, he left something behind, something which Fatti discovered and which she hid under Mefo’s mattress.