Читать книгу Blessing - Florence Ndiyah - Страница 9

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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,’ Nkem said stiffly, ‘Fatti has not been baptized.’

‘Yes, but you bring her with you for Mass sometimes. She knows about Jesus Christ,’ he stated firmly and then continued very quickly, ‘As followers of Christ we need to always trust in God. We should trust Him at all times and praise Him in all situations for He is our sovereign Lord. He is the Creator of heaven and earth. He created you and me and all people and the animals and all the nice things that we have here on earth. He is the only true God who sent His child to come and live with us and die for our sins. We should not offer animal sacrifices since Jesus already offered His life for us. Jesus died and resurrected after three days. Fatti could not have died and resurrected as the whole village claims. She was probably just asleep or maybe in a coma. She—’

Fr. Max’s nervous rattling ended as the catechist unexpectedly stepped into the office. ‘Father, sorry for interrupting but I have an important message for you.’

The two men discussed for a few minutes.

‘I have heard what you have said, Father –’ Nkem said once the catechist walked out ‘– and I accept that your words have wisdom.’ She moved forward in her seat and raised her head slightly. It was as though she had been waiting for this moment from the time she got the invitation. ‘Your words have much wisdom, Father. But you know that our ancestors lived long before you came with your God. The fact is that Fatti’s great-grandfather, who has gone ahead, sent her back from the land of the ancestors.’ With those words, Nkem put a full stop to the conversation. Her face was blank.

Fr. Max bade them goodbye, his countenance a clear expression of his disappointment.

Fatti, who understood little of what had transpired between the two adults, was simply happy to be out again in the open country. ‘Mama, can I walk around. I have not gone out of the compound for two weeks.’

‘Yes, you can go for a walk, but you have to be home before dark. You know your father does not like it when you stay out in the dark, especially as you have not completely regained your health.’

After reassuring her mother that she was going to return home early enough, Fatti wandered off into greenery. Masses of earth heaped into mounds, the hills rose one above the other with valleys twirling in-between as though following the course of a winding river. The hills were always green. Even in the dry season, when drops of water seeping into the earth were rare and the sun high and hot, green leaves and crops still dominated the scenery. Plantains, bananas, pears, tomatoes, paw-paws, mangoes, guavas – they often were so innocently green it appeared they had sworn fidelity to the colour. While some of Fatti’s brothers ploughed the fertile soils of Kombou in the French Cameroon, others ran after cows on ranches in Santa village in British Southern Cameroons. Still others stayed home in the boundary village of Nchumuluh, where the two neighbouring territories had spilled part of their herds and fertility.

After walking for a few minutes, Fatti found a seat on a cool spot under the shade of a plum tree on the comb of a hill. Over treetops and rooftops, her eyes drifted through the valley and settled on one particular area: her father’s homestead. So much had changed in her life since that eventful day. The farm and stream had become out of bounds to her. The boys now washed her clothes and they washed the pans and pots. They did a good job at washing the pots, revealing the aluminium beneath the soot better than she had ever done. She loved to hang around the pots washed by her stepbrother Totso, for they gave a vague reflection of her.

Since that day, she no longer brought food to the men; they served her. Her other stepbrother Tamu always made sure that she ate to her satisfaction. Mosa, her younger brother, took his concern to the point of providing her with her favourite fruits daily. He was ready to run up and down a guava tree for her at any moment. Mefo was the best of all. She cooked pounded potatoes and beans for her and served her more than one slice of meat. Fatti had even moved out of her mother’s hut and now slept permanently with Mefo. Though she missed her mother, she loved Mefo’s cotton mattress and was in no rush to return to her mother’s hay bed.

Fatti could not help but agree that her return from the land of the ancestors had exposed a side of life she never thought possible in her father’s lifetime. But what about Saha Tpune? Why had Mefo’s father sent her with a coded message to a dead man? Why had he picked her? What did a dead man want with her?

The questions were still plaguing her mind when sleep crept in and took control over her body. She dreamed she was playing hide and seek with a dead man.

What was intended to be a nap ended up as more than an hour of sound sleep. When she stirred it was to realise that the sun had started losing control over the sky. She quivered.

‘Fatti, oh. Fatti, oh,’ someone was hailing.

‘Ouuuuuuuuu!’ She threw back into the air as she struggled to her feet and hurriedly dusted the grass from her dress. ‘Ouuuuuuuuu! I am on the way, oh.’

She scampered down the hill, ignoring the adults she passed on the way and ignoring her favourite guava fruits offered by one of her friends. She only slowed when her soles acknowledged the slight elevation of earth at the entrance to their compound. Totso was waiting for her. His advice was grim: ‘Go to Papa’s hut before he comes for you.’

Without uttering a word, Fatti walked through the yard towards their father’s hut. The door was ajar. She could hear voices coming from inside. She crawled in to find that Mefo and her father were engaged in their favourite past time of hurling invectives at each other. If they noticed her presence, they did not make it obvious. Fatti wished she could escape unseen; after all, she would have reported to see him. Yet she dare not look at the door. Once a child had shared the same space with adults, their permission was the first key to open any door. That meant she could not walk out and neither could she walk into the quarrelling pair. She had been scared to face her father, but as she looked at him and Mefo swinging fingers in each other’s faces like two delinquent children, she became restless. She was simply eager to get the matter settled and to get out. To make the waiting bearable, she decided to close her eyes. But just then all went still. The crackling fire, only seconds ago muffled by heavy voices, now sounded like a trumpet in the heart of night. As though fearing what she might see but having no choice but to look, Fatti slowly opened her eyes.

When her gaze merged with her father’s, she knew that her liberty was over. Something in his eyes told her that all the leisure was over. She wanted to look away but she could not. She was no longer looking at her father but at herself in his eyes. The reflection she saw was not that of the girl she was but the one she used to be, the girl with twelve brothers: the one who swept the compound while the boys swept their classrooms; the one who bent over the grinding stone three times for three mothers in three huts, everyday; the one who walked long distances with short messages; the one who went to bed weak as a girl but woke up strong as a boy.

‘Do you have holes in your ears? When I push a word so it comes out through my mouth, I expect that you do the same,’ her father was yelling at her.

‘Has night come, Papa?’ Fatti said, unsure of what she had missed.

‘Did that long journey to the other world take away some of your senses? How can you come in front of adults and close your eyes? Do not tell me that you are still sick. If you are strong enough to be walking about at this hour, then you are strong enough to go to the farm. No more lying about pretending to be sick. As from tomorrow you go back to all your duties.’

‘Yes, Papa.’

‘A child cannot wake up in the morning and become an adult,’ Mefo intervened.

‘Has night come, Mefo?’ Fatti greeted.

‘Was the day good, my child?’ Without waiting for an answer Mefo continued, ‘Let us go to my hut. I have something for you.’

Temkeu’s yells 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.