Who Fears Death

Chapter 10 Ndiichie

IF THE MAD PHOTOGRAPHER HADN’T ARRIVED, I’d have stayed in bed that whole day, too afraid to go outside. My mother came home that afternoon talking about him. She couldn’t seem to sit down. “He was all dirty and windblown,” she said. “He came to the market straight from the desert. Didn’t even try to clean up first!”

She said he might have been in his twenties, but it was hard to tell because of all the matted hair on his face. Most of his teeth had fallen out, his eyes were yellow, and his sun-blackened skin was ashy from malnutrition and dirt. Who knows how he was able to survive traveling so far in his state of mind.

But what he bore was enough to cause all of Jwahir to panic. His digital photo album. He’d lost his camera long ago but he’d stored his photos on the palm-sized gadget. Photos from the West of dead, charred, mutilated Okeke people. Okeke women being raped. Okeke children with missing limbs and bloated bellies. Okeke men hanging from buildings or rotted to near-dust in the desert. Smashed-in babies’ heads. Slashed bellies. Castrated men. Women whose breasts had been cut off.

“He’s coming,” the photographer had ranted, spittle flying from his cracked lips, as he let people look at his album. “He’ll bring ten thousand men. None of you are safe. Pack your bags, flee, fly, fly you fools!”

One by one, group by group, he allowed people to click through his album. My mother went through the photos twice. She’d wept the entire time. People vomited, cried, screamed; nobody disputed what they saw. Eventually he was arrested. From what I heard, after giving him a large meal, a bath and haircut and supplies, he was politely asked to leave Jwahir. In any event, people were talking, news was spreading. He’d caused so much distress that a Ndiichie, Jwahir’s most urgent type of public meeting, was called for that evening.

As soon Papa came home, the three of us left together.

“Are you okay?” he asked, kissing my mother and taking her hand.

“I’ll live,” she said.

“Ok. Let’s go. Quickly,” he said, picking up his pace. “Ndiichis rarely last more than five minutes.”

The town square was already packed. A stage was set up and there were four seats on it. Minutes later, four people ascended the stairs. The crowd quieted. Only the babies in the audience continued conversing. I stood on my toes, excited to finally get a look at the Osugbo Elders I’d heard so much about. When I saw them, I realized I’d already met two of them. One wore a blue rapa with a matching top.

“That’s Nana the Wise,” Papa said into my ear. I just nodded. I didn’t want to bring up my Eleventh Year Rite.

She slowly walked onstage and took her seat. After her came an old blind man using a wooden cane. He had to be helped up the stairs. Once seated, he looked over the crowd as if he could see us all for what we really were. Papa told me he was Dika the Seer. Then came Aro the Worker. I frowned deeply. How I disliked this man who denied me so much, who denied me. Apparently few knew he was a sorcerer because Papa described him as the one who structured the government.

“That man has created the fairest system Jwahir has ever had,” he whispered.

The fourth was Oyo the Ponderer. He was short and thin with white puffs of hair on the sides of his head. His mustache was bushy and his salt-and-pepper beard long. Papa said he was known for his skepticism. If an idea got past Oyo, then it would work.

“Jwahir, kwenu!” all of the elders said, punching their fists in the air.

“Yah!” the crowd responded. Papa elbowed my mother and me to do the same.

“Jwahir, kwenu!”

“Yah!”

“Jwahir, kwenu!”

“Yah!”

“Good evening, Jwahir,” Nana the Wise said standing up. “The photographer’s name is Ababuo. He came from Gadi, one of the Seven Rivers cities. He has worked and traveled far to bring us news. We welcome and commend him.”

She sat down. Oyo the Ponderer stood up and spoke. “I have considered probability, margin of error, unlikeness. Though the plight of our people in the West is tragic, it is unlikely that this hardship will affect us. Pray to Ani for better things. But there is no need to pack your things.” He sat down. I looked across the crowd. People seemed persuaded by his words. I wasn’t sure what I felt. Is our safety really the point? I wondered. Aro stood to speak. He was the only Osugbo elder who was not ancient. Still, I wondered about his age and his appearance. Maybe he was older than he looked.

“Abadou brings reality. Take it in, but don’t panic. Are we all women here?” he asked. I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

“Panic won’t do you any good,” he continued. “If you want to learn how to wield a knife, Obi here will teach you.” He motioned to a beefy man standing near the stage. “He can also train you to run long distances without getting tired. But we’re a strong people. Fear is for the weak. Buck up. Live your lives.”

He sat down. Dika the Seer slowly stood, using his cane. I had to strain to hear him speak. “What I see … yes, the journalist shows the truth, though his mind is unhinged by it,” the seer said. “But faith! We must all have faith!”

He sat down. There was silence for a moment.

“That is all,” Nana the Wise said.

Once the elders left the stage and the square, everyone began to speak at once. Discussions and agreements broke out about the photographer and his state of mind, his photos, and his journey. However, the Ndiichie had worked—people weren’t panicked anymore. They were energetically pensive. My father joined in the discussion, my mother quietly listening.

“I’ll meet you at home,” I told them.

“Go ahead,” my mother said, softly patting my cheek.

I had to work hard to get out of the square. I hated crowded places. I’d just emerged from the crowd when I spotted Mwita. He’d seen me first.

“Hi,” I said.

“Good evening, Onyesonwu,” he said.

And just like that the connection was made. We’d been friends, fighting, learning, laughing with each other, but in this moment, we realized we were in love. The realization was like flipping the power on. But my anger with him hadn’t left me. I shifted from one foot to the other, mildly caring that a few people were looking at us. I started walking home and was relieved when he walked with me.

“How have you been?” he asked tentatively.

“How could you do that?” I asked.

“I told you not to go.”

“Just because you tell me to do something doesn’t mean I’ll listen!”

“I should have made it so that you couldn’t pass his cactuses,” he mumbled.

“I’d have found a way through,” I said. “It was my choice and you should have respected it. Instead you stood there telling Aro how it wasn’t your fault that I’d come, trying to cover your own backside. I could have killed you.”

“Precisely why he won’t teach you! You act like a woman. You run on emotions. You’re dangerous.”

I had to work not to further prove Mwita’s point. “You believe that?” I asked.

He looked away.

I wiped a tear from my eye, “Then we can’t be …”

“No, I don’t believe that,” Mwita said. “You’re irrational at times, more irrational than any woman or man. But it’s not because of what’s between your legs.” He smiled and sarcastically said, “Besides, haven’t you gone through your Eleventh Rite? Even the Nuru know that going through it will align a woman’s intelligence with her emotions.”

“I’m not joking,” I said.

“You’re different. Your passion is more than most,” he said after a brief pause.

“Then why …”

“Aro needed to know that you came on your own volition. People who are driven by others … trust me, he’ll never accept them. Come, we need to talk.”

Once at my house, we sat on the back steps in front of my mother’s garden.

“Does my papa know who Aro really is?”

“To an extent,” he said. “Enough people know of him, those who want to know.”

“Just not most.”

“Right.”

“Mostly men, I assume,” I said.

“And some older boys.”

“He teaches others, doesn’t he?” I said, annoyed. “Other than you.”

“He tries. There’s a test you have to pass to learn the Mystic Points. You can only take it once. Failure is awful. The closer you get to passing, the more painful it is. The boys you overheard, they’d been tried. They all return home bruised and beaten. Their fathers think they’ve passed initiation as Aro’s apprentice. In reality, they’ve failed. Aro teaches the boys some small things so the boys have skill at something.”

“What are the Mystic Points anyway?”

He moved closer to me, close enough that I could hear his soft whisper. “I don’t know.” He smiled. “I know that one must be destined to learn them. Someone must ask for it to be so, for you to BE so.”

“Mwita, I have to learn them,” I said. “It’s my father! I don’t know how I …”

And that was when he leaned forward and kissed me. I forgot about my biological father. I forgot about the desert. I forgot about all my questions. It wasn’t an innocent kiss. It was deep and wet. I was almost fourteen, he was maybe seventeen. We’d both lost our innocence years ago. I didn’t think of my mother and the man who raped her as I always thought I would if I were ever intimate with a boy.

There was no hesitation in his hands working their way inside my shirt. I didn’t stop him kneading my breasts. He didn’t stop me from kissing his neck and unbuttoning his shirt. I ached between my legs, a sharp desperate ache. So sharp that my body jumped. Mwita pulled away. He quickly stood up. “I’ll go,” he said.

“No!” I said getting up. The pain was spreading all over my body now and I couldn’t quite straighten myself.

“If I don’t leave …” He reached forward and touched my belly chain that had come out as he’d fumbled with my top. Aro’s words flew through my head. “That is for your husband to see,” he’d said. I shivered. Mwita reached into his mouth and handed me my diamond. I smiled weakly as I took it and put it back under my tongue.

“I’ve unknowingly betrothed myself to you,” I said.

“Who believes that myth?” he asked. “Too easy. I’ll come see you in two days.”

“Mwita,” I breathed.

“It’s best that you remain untouched … for now.”

I sighed.

“Your parents will be home soon,” he said. He lifted my shirt up and tenderly kissed my nipple. I shivered, the pain between my legs flaring. I squeezed them together. He looked at me, sadly, his hand still cupping my breast.

“It hurts,” he said apologetically.

I nodded, my lips pressed together. It hurt so badly that areas of my vision were going dark. Tears ran down my face.

“You’ll recover in a few minutes. I wish I had known you before you had it done,” he said. “The scalpel that they use is treated by Aro. There’s juju on it that makes it so that a woman feels pain whenever she is too aroused … until she’s married.”