‘Where is that cutlass?’ As Temkeu dashed for the farming tool, the villagers ran for their lives. Only Mefo remain unmoved. Just then Nkem dashed into the hut. Trembling, she requested that her husband deny or confirm what the grapevine had carried faster and further than the village crier had the initial news of the death.
‘Nkem,’ Temkeu said, ‘I married you many many years ago.’ He paused as if to allow the message to sink. ‘Today’ he continued ‘I tell you that this child has life in her. I tell you that she is not dead. I saw her with these my two eyes. She shook three times. Three times!’
Nkem opened her mouth but closed it without letting out a single word.
‘Follow your mother-in-law if you like, but I am the head of this compound, and I have made my decision. This child has life in her. I will stay with her until life fully takes control of her body.’
‘Maybe I should,’ Nkem ventured shyly. ‘Maybe I should go to the Mission and call Father?’ God can—’
‘Shut up, woman. The day you call that your God again inside my hut will be the day you carry your things back to your father’s compound. You hear me?’
‘Yes, Mbeh.’ Nkem sealed her surrender with a bow.
‘When you keep your head in the sky how can you know what is happening on the ground?’ Mefo sighed at her son and turned and ordered his speechless wife to meet her in the yard. There, she told Nkem to dispatch one message with news to the palace and another to fetch the diviner. ‘Even if the cock forgets to crow, we will still get out of bed.’
‘Mefo, I know you are a woman who bathes with wisdom,’ Nkem said. ‘But I have already lost my daughter; I do not want to lose my husband’s mind too.’
‘Speak like a person who has something to say.’
‘What I mean to say is that I am sure truth has a place in what my husband is saying.’
‘Get out of my sight, you stupid woman. I could not stand that man as a child. Now I understand why you can stand him as the head of your compound.’ Mefo turned to two young men and repeated the same commands in the same authoritative voice: ‘You, go fetch Tchafo. You, go straight to the palace and send a nchinda to inform the Fon of the abomination living here.’
From inside the hut Temkeu whispered, ‘Either you women talk like respectful children visiting a palace or you carry your noise with you elsewhere,’ He was tiptoeing back to the bed when he stopped and rushed back to the window, shouting, ‘Shout! Kill the deep sleep chaining my treasure to that bed. Call all the women in Mumba to come here and start shouting. Shout!’ He walked back to the bamboo bed still repeating the word. Face to face with his daughter, he bid her to open her eyes. ‘Wake up so that we prove to them that your father is the one talking sense in this place.’
Ten minutes later Temkeu was again shouting out claims to no one in particular. ‘Believe me when I tell you that her heart moved like this—’ Temkeu exhaled and inhaled, his hand rising and falling in rhythm with his throbbing chest.
Nkem, who was walking aimlessly around the compound, rushed in to catch her husband rambling about how the child had again stirred. ‘Nkem, Nkem’ Temkeu stressed, ‘I tell you that this child moved.’
Nkem took one glance at the immobile child and then settled her raised brows on her husband.
‘Am I the only normal person in this village? This child is alive! Do not move. Just stand here and soon you will see for yourself.’
Nkem remained glued to the spot. The minutes moved past. All was still but for the sound of their drumming hearts.
‘Look, Nkem, you see that? Do not move your eyes from her heart. You see what I see? You see?’
‘Hm,’ Nkem mumbled.
‘Yes, my daughter, make the effort. Take a deep one. Try!’ Temkeu lifted his hand and wiped the child’s brow. ‘See! See! Did you see that?’ He looked up at his wife to make sure she was watching the child but found her questioning eyes resting on him. ‘I tell you to look at the child but you keep your eyes on me? You women are all the same. Get out of my sight. Go! And let me not catch you rejoicing when this child finally defeats death.’
Nkem wept.
Temkeu reassumed vigilance.
Mefo paced the yard, waiting for the arrival of elderly wisdom and the embodiment of the gods.
The cowry necklace as long as his neck to his stomach, the ntamp cap stuffing in his wisdom, the ndop cloth embroidered and sewn to the form of a long, overflowing garment – everyone usually gave way when such traditional regalia appeared on one person. To denote his rank, the Elder embellished his cap with a single sickle red feather.
When he stepped out of his sacred dwelling, men bowed and women stepped indoors. When he thundered his opinion, all others clung to the safety of their bearers’ minds. He was the diviner, hardly ever without his raffia bag slung over his shoulder, never without the leopard spots of the gods dotted over his face and chest.
One dined with the Fon and the other anointed skulls and invoked spirits. The pair arrived at the Fopou compound with an inquisitive mob trailing them from a distance.
‘Where is the head of this compound?’ the Elder called out.
A baffled Temkeu stepped out into the yard towards the direction of the inquiring voice. As soon as his eyes met the red plume and the leopard stokes, he scuttled forward. Hand contact forbidden, he clapped three times and prostrated. ‘Come good, elder of our land; come good, eye of the gods.’ Pre-empting the question and apologising all the while, Temkeu dove into a narration of how the child was just some minutes away from full consciousness.
‘Where is the body?’ Without waiting for an answer, the Elder and his silent companion stomped into Temkeu’s hut. Temkeu hesitated at the door. The village crammed into every nook and cranny in the Fopou homestead.
‘There is just one child here,’ the diviner said after examining the body, ‘and she dwells with the living. I can feel her heartbeat. Did anyone check for a heartbeat after Temkeu started claiming the child was alive?’
‘No!’ Temkeu exclaimed. ‘No. It was easier for them to conclude that I was crazy.’
‘You people have all heard,’ the Elder declared after a few moments ‘that the child is alive.’
The Elder had proclaimed that Fatti Fopou was alive. Fatti Fopou was alive. Had the family indeed succeeded in stealing back from the night what it had stolen from them? Perhaps the night had not stolen her after all. Perhaps it had just taken her for a short visit to the place. Perhaps she had escaped from its grip and somehow managed to find her way back. Or perhaps the night had taken pity on the family and decided to shed some light on their faces. Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. The fact was that Fatti Fopou was alive! Those at the window exclaimed it to those further out. Those in the yard shouted it to those in neighbouring compounds. So the news travelled to the village, with bits and pieces added and subtracted along the way.
Back in the hut Temkeu, who had sprinted inside at the Elder’s confirmation, lowered himself onto the hay mattress. He enfolded Fatti’s feeble hand in his. ‘Fatti, it is your father.’ He shook the words into the child, who had again closed her eyes to the world. ‘Fatti. Fatti.’ He nudged her but she was as immobile as she had been all morning.
The diviner shoved Temkeu aside, bent over Fatti and ran his hands over her body. Temkeu tapped his feet. In a matter of seconds, his status had changed from dreamer to victor. The Elder’s declaration had proved to the village that he was not insane. Yet, if Fatti did not keep cooperating,