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“I did it for you, Mama!” I shouted.
She tried to snatch her hands from Papa so she could slap me again. “Don’t you blame me! Stupid idiot girl!” she said, when she couldn’t pull her hands from him.
“I’m not blaming …” I could feel blood seeping from me, faster now. “Mama, Papa, I bring shame to you,” I said, beginning to cry. “My existence is shame! Mama, I’m pain to you … since the day I was conceived.”
“No, no,” my mother said, shaking her head vigorously. “This was not why I told you.” She looked at Papa. “See, Fadil! See why I didn’t tell her all this time?”
Papa still held her hands, but now he looked as if he did it to hold himself up.
“Every girl here has it done,” I said. “Papa, you’re a well-loved blacksmith. Mama, you’re his wife. You both have respect. I’m Ewu.” I paused. “To not do it would bring more shame.”
“Onyesonwu!” Papa said. “I don’tcare what people think! Haven’t you learned that by now? Eh? You should have come to us. Insecurity is no reason to have it done!”
My heart ached but I still believed I’d made the right choice. He may have accepted my mother and me for what we were, but we didn’t live in a vacuum.
“In my village, no woman was expected to be cut like that,” my mother hissed. “What kind of barbaric …” She turned away from me. It was already done. She clapped her hands together and said. “My own daughter!” She rubbed her forehead as if doing so would smooth out her frown. She took my arm, “Get up.”
I didn’t go to school that day. Instead my mother helped me clean and pack my wound with fresh gauze. She made me a pain-relieving tea with willow leaves and sweet cactus pulp. All day, I lay in bed, reading. My mother took the day off to sit beside my bed, which made me a little uncomfortable. I didn’t want her to see what I was reading. The day after my mother told me the story of my conception, I’d gone to the book house. Surprisingly, I found what I was looking for, a book on the Nuru language, the language of my biological father. I was teaching myself the basics. This would have seriously enraged my mother. So as she sat beside my bed, I hid the book inside another book as I read it.
All day, she stayed in that chair, unmoving, only getting up for brief meals or to relieve herself. Once, she went into her garden to Hold Conversation with Ani. I wondered what she told the Almighty and All-knowing Goddess. After all that had happened to her, I wondered what kind of relationship my mother could possibly have with Ani.
When my mother returned, as I read my Nuru language book and rolled my stone in my mouth, I wondered what she thought about as she sat there staring at the wall.
Chapter 5 (#ulink_55c3068d-c1be-5772-81db-8ad7978b5c4c)
The One Who is Calling (#ulink_55c3068d-c1be-5772-81db-8ad7978b5c4c)
NONE OF THEM TOLD ANYONE. That was the first sign that our Eleventh Rite bond was true. And thus when I returned to school a week later, no one harassed me. All people knew was that I was now both adult and child. I was ana m-bobi. They had to at least give me that respect. Of course, we didn’t say a word about Binta’s sexual abuse, either. She later told us that the day after our rite, her father had to meet with the Osugbo elders.
“When he came home, afterwards, he looked … broken,” Binta said. “I think they whipped him.” They should have done more than that. Even back then I thought so. Binta’s mother was also brought before the elders. Both of her parents were ordered to receive counseling from the Ada for three years, as were Binta and her siblings.
As my friendship with Binta, Luyu, and Diti bloomed, something else started. It began indirectly my second day back at school. I leaned against the school building as students around me played soccer and socialized. I was still sore but healing fast.
“Onyesonwu!” someone called. I jumped and nervously turned around, images of that red eye popping into my head. Luyu laughed as she and Binta slowly walked over to me. For a brief moment, we stared at each other. There was so much in that moment: judgment, fear, uncertainty.
“Good morning,” I finally said.
“Good morning,” Binta said, stepping forward to shake and release my hand with a snap between our fingers. “You just back today? We are.”
“No,” I said. “I came back yesterday.”
“You look well,” Luyu said, also giving me the friendship handshake.
“You too,” I said.
There was an awkward pause. Then Binta said, “Everyone knows.”
“Eh?” I said too loudly. “Knows? Knows what?”
“That we’re ana m-bobi,” Luyu said proudly. “And that none of us screamed.”
“Oh,” I said, relieved. “Where’s Diti?”
“Hasn’t left bed since that night,” Luyu said with a laugh. “She’s such a weakling.”
“No, she’s just taking advantage of missing school,” Binta said. “Diti knows she’s too pretty to need school, anyway.”
“Must be nice,” I grumbled, though I didn’t like missing school.
“Oh!” Luyu said, her eyes growing wide. “Did you hear about the new student?”
I shook my head. Luyu and Diti looked at each other and laughed.
“What?” I said. “Didn’t you two just get back today?”
“News travels fast,” Diti said.
“For some of us, at least,” Luyu said, smugly.
“Just tell me whatever you’re going to tell me,” I said, irritated.
“His name is Mwita,” Luyu said, excitedly. “He arrived here while we were gone. No one knows where he’s living or if he even has parents. Apparently he’s really smart, but refuses to come to school. Four days ago, he came for one day and scoffed at the teachers, saying he could teach them! Not a great way to make a good first impression.”
I shrugged. “Why should I care?”
Luyu smirked and cocked her head and said, “Because I hear he’s Ewu!”
The rest of that day was a blur. In class, I searched for a face the color of a camel’s hide with freckles like brown pepper, with eyes that weren’t Noah. During midday break, I searched for him in the schoolyard. After school, while walking home with Binta and Luyu, I still looked around. I wanted to tell my mother about him when I got home but I decided not to. Would she really have wanted to know of another result of violence?
The next day was the same. I couldn’t stop looking for him. Two days later, Diti returned to school. “My mother finally pushed me out of bed,” Diti admitted. She made her voice severe. “‘You aren’t the first to go through this!’ Plus she knew you all were back in school.” Her eyes flicked toward me, then away, and I instantly understood that her parents didn’t like me being in their daughter’s rite group. As if I cared what her parents thought.
Regardless, it was now definitely the four of us. Any friends Luyu, Binta, and Diti had before were no longer important. I had no friends to drop. Most girls who went through their Eleventh Rite together, though they were “bound,” didn’t remain so afterward. But the change was natural for us. We already had secrets. And those were just the beginning.
None of us was the “leader,” but Luyu was the one who liked to lead. She was fast and brazen. It turned out that there had been two other boys she’d had intercourse with. “Who is the Ada?” Luyu had spat. “I didn’t have to tell her everything.”
Binta always had her eyes downcast and spoke little when around others. Her father’s abuse cut deep. But when she was with just us, she talked and smiled plenty. If Binta weren’t born so full of life, I doubt she’d have survived her father’s sickness.
Diti was the princess, the one who liked to lie around in bed all day while her servants brought her meals. She was plump and pretty and things typically fell right into her lap. When she was around, good things happened. A merchant selling bread would sell it to us at half price because he was in a hurry to get home. Or we’d be walking and a coconut tree would drop a coconut at Diti’s feet. The Goddess Ani loved Diti. To be loved by Ani, what must that be like? I’m yet to know.
After school, we’d study at the iroko tree. At first, I was nervous about this. I was afraid the red and white creature I’d seen was linked to the iroko tree incident. Sitting under the tree felt like practically inviting the eye to come at me again. In time, as nothing happened, I relaxed a little. Sometimes I even went there alone, just to think.
I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Let me back up a bit.
It was eleven days after my Eleventh Rite, four days after I returned to school, three days after I realized I was bound to three girls my age, and a day after Diti returned to school that the other thing happened. I was slowly walking home. My wound was throbbing. The deep unprovoked pain seemed to happen twice a day.
“They’ll still think you’re evil,” someone behind me said.
“Eh? What?” I said, slowly turning around. I froze.
It was like looking into a mirror when you’ve never seen your reflection. For the first time, I understood why people stopped, dropped things, and stared when they saw me. He was my skin tone, had my freckles, and his rough golden hair was shaved so close that it looked like a coat of sand. He might have been a little taller, maybe a few years older than me. Where my eyes were gold-brown like a desert cat’s, his were a gray like a coyote’s.
I instantly knew who he was, though I’d only seen him for a moment when I was in a disheveled state. Contrary to what Luyu told me, he’d been in Jwahir longer than the few days. He was the boy who saw me naked in the iroko tree. He’d told me to jump. It had been raining hard and he’d been holding a basket over his head but I knew it was him.
“You’re …”
“So are you,” he said.
“Yeah. I’ve never … I mean, I’ve heard of others.”
“I’ve seen others,” he said offhandedly.
“Where are you from?” we both asked at the same time.
We both said, “The West.” Then we nodded. All Ewu were from the West.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Eh?”
“You’re walking oddly,” he said. I felt my face grow hot. He smiled again and shook his head. “I shouldn’t be so bold.” He paused. “But trust me, they will always see us as evil. Even if you have yourself … cut.”
I frowned.
“Why would you have that done?” he asked. “You’re not from here.”
“But I live here,” I said, defensively.
“So?”
“Who are you?” I said, irritated.
“Your name is Onyesonwu Ubaid-Ogundimu. You’re the blacksmith’s daughter.”
I bit my lip, trying to remain irritated. But he’d referred to me as the blacksmith’s daughter, not stepdaughter, and I wanted to smile at this. He smirked. “And you’re the one who ends up naked in trees.”
“Who are you?” I asked again. How strange we must have looked standing there on the side of the road.
“Mwita,” he said.
“What’s your last name?”
“I have no last name,” he said, his voice growing cold.
“Oh … okay.” I looked at his clothing. He wore typical boy attire, faded blue pants and a green shirt. His sandals were worn but made of leather. He carried a satchel of old schoolbooks. “Well … where do you live?” I asked.
The coolness thawed from his voice. “Don’t worry about it.”
“How come you don’t come to school?”
“I’m in school,” he said. “A better one than yours.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. “This is for your father. I was going to your home but you can take it to him.” It was a palm fiber envelope stamped with the insignia of the Osugbo, a lizard in midstride. Each of its legs represented one of the elders.
“You live up the road past the ebony tree, right?” he asked, looking past me.
I nodded absentmindedly, still looking at the envelope.
“Okay,” he said. Then he left. I stood there watching him walk away, barely aware of the fact that the throbbing between my legs had grown worse.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_b30b3343-b82e-5f44-916e-30b54c238777)
Eshu (#ulink_b30b3343-b82e-5f44-916e-30b54c238777)
AFTER THAT DAY, it seemed I saw Mwita everywhere. He often came to our house with messages. And a few times I ran into him on his way to Papa’s shop.
“How come you didn’t tell me about him before?” I asked my parents one night during dinner. Papa was shoveling spiced rice into his mouth with his right hand. He sat back, chewing, his right hand resting over his food. My mother put another piece of goat meat on his plate.
“I thought you knew,” he said at the same time that my mother said, “I didn’t want to upset you.” My parents knew so much back then. They should have also known that they couldn’t shelter me forever. What was coming would come.
Mwita and I talked whenever we saw each other. Briefly. He was always in a hurry. “Where’re you going?” I asked after he delivered yet another envelope from the elders to Papa. Papa was making a great table for the House of the Osugbo, and the engraved symbols on it had to be perfect. The envelope Mwita brought contained more drawings of the symbols.
“Somewhere else,” Mwita said, smirking.
“Why’re you always hurrying?” I said. “Come on. Just one thing?”
He turned to leave and then he turned back. “All right,” he said. We sat on the steps to the house. After a minute he said, “If you spend enough time in the desert, you will hear it speak.”
“Of course,” I said. “It speaks loudest in wind.”
“Right,” Mwita said. “Butterflies understand the desert well. That’s why they move this way and that. They’re always Holding Conversation with the land. They talk as much as they listen. It’s in the desert’s language that you call the butterflies.”
He lifted his chin, took a deep breath and breathed out. I knew the song. The desert sang it when all was well. In our nomad days, my mother and I would catch scarab beetles slowly flying by on days when the desert sang this song. Remove the hard shells and wings, dry the flesh in the sun, add spices—delicious. Mwita’s song brought three butterflies—a tiny white one and two big black and yellow ones.
“Let me try,” I said, excitedly. I thought about my first home. Then I opened my mouth and sang the desert’s song of peace. I drew two hummingbirds who zipped around our heads before flying off. Mwita leaned away from me, shocked.
“You sing like … your voice is lovely,” he said.
I looked away, pressing my lips together. My voice was a gift from an evil man.
“Some more,” he said. “Sing some more.”
I sang him a song I’d made up when I was happy and free and five years old. My memory of those times was fuzzy, but I clearly remembered the songs I sang.
It was like that each time with Mwita. He’d teach me a bit of simple sorcery and then be shocked by the ease with which I picked it up. He was the third to see it in me (my mother and Papa being the first and second), probably because he had it in him too. I wondered where he learned what he knew. Who were his parents? Where did he live? Mwita was so mysterious … and very handsome.
Binta, Diti, and Luyu first met him at school. He was waiting for me in the yard, something he’d never done. He wasn’t surprised to see me come out of school with Binta, Diti, and Luyu. I’d told him much about them. Everyone was staring. I’m sure many stories were told that day about Mwita and me.
“Good afternoon,” he said, politely nodding.
Luyu was grinning too widely.
