Only one thing could give Temkeu the fame he desired and only one thing could help him keep his head up: the Elders decision. Was he going to give the child more time or was he going to order her seemingly lifeless body to be buried?
‘I do not plan to send this child back to the land of the ancestors,’ the Elder stated after the diviner’s words to his ears about the child’s health. ‘I will not send back a child who decides to stay with us. But let us remember that if she chose to go in the first place, it was because she did not like it here in the land of the living. Let us not forget that he who tries the patience of the ancestors calls the anger of the gods.’
This remark was greeted with chilling silence. Everyone was waiting for what was still to follow. Looking directly at Temkeu the Elder declared, ‘Thirty minutes. If the ancestors want to convey a message to us through this incident, I am sure they will do it in the next thirty minutes. If she has not fully returned by then, we will bury her.
‘Thirty minutes,’ Temkeu said under his breath. ‘Thirty minutes.’ As if to take his mind off the child and the drama surrounding her, he took to attending to his august guests. ‘Bring a stool for our Elder,’ he said but then leaped to a corner of his hut from where he pulled out a special wooden stool carved in repeated patterns of a spider, the symbol of wisdom. ‘Bring some palm wine too.’
While the Elder accepted the cow horn transformed into a drinking vessel, Temkeu’s best, the diviner plunged his hand into his raffia bag and brought it back with a similar horn. Stooping in front of his guests, a gourd of palm wine in his hands, Temkeu filled both horns. The Elder lifted it to his mouth, wrapped his lips around it and gulped. He nodded several times.
As they drank and waited, Temkeu swerved the conversation to the activities to follow. Once a hole had been dug with the intention of feeding it with a body, it could not be refilled without the promised meal. His voice louder than permitted, he singled out the self-declared corpse bearer to dig out a plantain stalk and bury it as a symbolic gift to the crater. Temkeu continued preaching until it hit him that he had spoken too fast on two accounts: his daughter had not been officially welcomed among the living and he was no longer head of a compound but host to an Elder and a diviner. What saved him from any repercussion was his daughter.
‘Water,’ a feeble voice said. ‘I want water,’ Fatti moaned from the bed.
‘Bring water. Fatti wants water.’ Gourds changed hands and soon the diviner stood over Fatti, supporting her head and urging her to drink.
Outside, the decision had been made: Fatti had returned and returned to stay.
‘No more cry die. Let us celebrate life,’ one of the women intoned.
‘No more cry die,’ the crowd repeated the incantation, obviously happy for a child sent back to life and happier that instead of gathering in the evening to eat in remembrance of the ‘ancestrally departed’, they would be communing to celebrate life.
‘Let us thank the ancestors for the gift of life,’ the woman again intoned and the women, joined by others on the way back from their farms, transformed the compound into a festive ground as they clapped and gyrated in a circle around the mango tree in the middle of the compound. They danced to the admiration of the men, who had just snuffed out life from a goat – compensation to the ancestors for Fatti’s life – and were chopping off and cleaning out the head, feet and entrails. In a couple of hours, their palms would all be stained with palm oil as the meat was shared around.
At that moment the compound had two faces. While those outside were thinking, talking and acting in the light, those inside Temkeu’s hut were still battling with the night. It had shown its face again. However, its coming out in the daylight could either brighten the light or deepen the imminent darkness. Fatti had regained full consciousness and recounted what she remembered of the past three hours. Her statement was simple: her great-grandfather had sent her back to life with a message for Saha Tpune.
An ancestor had sent the child back from the land of the ancestors after three hours. Those in the hut did not try to understand how that could be possible. Humans did not understand the power or actions of the gods. An ancestor had sent the child to Saha Tpune. Who was Saha Tpune? That was the preoccupation of the men.
‘I do not know of any person in the Fopou clan with that name,’ Temkeu declared.
‘For my part,’ Tchafo said ‘I was born here and grew up here.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I have lived in this village all my life. I know the names of almost all children in all compounds in Mumba quarter, and I know almost every family in the entire Nchumuluh village.’ Tchafo stressed. ‘But this man, who is he? Where is he from?’ Tchafo, even with his umbilical cord tied to the gods, could not put a face to the name. ‘Are you sure you do not know him, Temkeu? Your father never mentioned any man by that name?’
‘Saha Tpune. Saha Tpune’ Temkeu repeated the names. ‘Saha Tpune. Wait, I think I remember something.’ The Elder and diviner tilted towards him. ‘It seems my father had a friend who often visited from neighbouring Kombou village. I was a small boy and so I cannot remember much, but I remember a name like Saha.’
‘You are right. Saha is a Kombou name,’ Tchafo stated.
‘So that should be it.’ The decision maker had been quiet for too long. ‘I will inform the Fon and first thing tomorrow morning, some nchindas will be wiping the dew off the grass on the way to Kombou.’
‘See, I told you people.’ Typical of his profession Tchafo boasted. ‘I see far, very far. I saw it and I told you that the man could not be of this village. By the way, Temkeu, I hope you have not forgotten that you need to give thanks to your ancestors for sending the child back to life.’ As he spoke, his eyes roamed over the skulls on Temkeu’s slab. ‘I will be waiting for the hen and palm oil to perform the sacrifices. I—’
Temkeu cut off Tchafo’s words and smile with a little piece of news: ‘That man, Saha Tpune, died before I was old enough to run after a goat.’
The Elder shook his head and voiced his concern: ‘What can a man who died when you, Temkeu, were still a child have in common with a child like Fatti? Again, why would your grandfather send Fatti from the land of the ancestors to deliver a message to someone who dwells with him in that land? Does it mean that your grandfather has sent the child to a dead man? Hm! If we do not put out the fire consuming one house, the whole village might become part of the fire.’
All three turned and stared at Fatti, elegant in her mother’s best loincloth. Her eyes closed, her breath soft, she seemed so peaceful.
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