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.
Nchumuluh was a small village. Mumba was an even smaller quarter in the village, a quiet place where people worried mostly about the welfare of their families and community. It was a place where the people all spoke one language and with one voice. However, the arrival of the Church had changed all that. The people no longer walked as one but went about in factions. While one group worshipped at the Catholic Church, others carried out their religious activities in Tchafo’s shrine. Temkeu was among the latter. He often visited the shrine either to consult the gods or to offer sacrifices in supplication or thanksgiving. It was a Tuesday morning. He was off to the shrine to seek the wisdom of the gods. His step was heavy step, as though the burden on his mind had transferred its weight to his feet. To arrive and handover his burden – that was what gave him the strength to keep moving.
He had been walking for sometime. Tchafo’s shrine was only a few meters away. He could make out the outline through the branches of the trees that flanked the footpath. However, just before he came within full sight of the shrine, Tchafo called out from inside, ‘Temkeu, go back to your compound.’
Temkeu suspended his step in midair. He credited the diviner to have foreknowledge of his arrival but as to asking him to return, he was not prepared to give in without a fight. Lips curved in a fury, he dared, ‘What do you mean, Tchafo?’
‘I mean that you should go back to your compound!’
Temkeu took several steps forward. ‘How can you ask me to go back when you have not even heard what I came to tell you?’ he asked boldly. ‘How can you ask me to carry my problem back to my compound?’ At the mouth of the shrine, he took off his ntamp cap, folded it under his armpit, took a deep breath and stepped inside.
‘Temkeu,’ Tchafo said without lifting his head from the bowls into which he was extracting juice from crushed leaves, ‘I have told you to go back.’
‘Go back to where?’ Temkeu asked defiantly. ‘If I cannot get comfort and answers here, where am I going to get them? This is the place where the wisdom of the gods dwell. How can you send me away from the shrine? This shrine is big enough to carry all our problems.’
The shrine! The walls of palm fronds woven between bamboo pillars, the feathers of rainbow colours planted into the fronds, the animal skins sprawled across the earth floor, the raffia bag from which dangled dry snake skins and monkey tails, the gourds and clay pots of various sizes filled with concoctions of leaves, barks and roots of almost every plant species around, the skulls displayed at the four angles of the rectangular structure – such was Tchafo’s shrine. Such was the place where he performed the divine duties of invocation, purification, protection, solicitation, libation and every act related to the gods that had ‘tion’ as suffix.
‘Temkeu,’ Tchafo repeated, ‘The gods have nothing to tell you today except that you should go back to your compound. Your compound is shaking with trouble.’
‘But I am just coming from my compound’ Temkeu barged in. ‘It was very well when I left. There was no trouble around it.’
‘I tell you now that trouble has visited it. Go, Temkeu. You know that the rain has no pity for the man who decides not to cut a leaf to protect himself. I tell you that you should leave my shrine and go back to your compound.’
Temkeu looked over his shoulders at the door. That was as far as his effort went.
‘If you really take me for the eye of the gods, then go back to your compound now.’
Temkeu made as if to keep arguing but then marched out of the shrine. He was used to dishing out orders, not receiving them. He was accustomed to talking down to women. He usually had the last word, even with Mefo. What was Tchafo trying to prove? He swung around and started walking right back. At the entrance he removed his cap, stomped inside, folded his hands over his chest and waited.
Tchafo did not lift an eye in his direction. He went about his business as though in the company of one of his spirit visitors.
‘Why did the ancestors send Fatti back with a message for a dead man?’ Temkeu finally spat out. ‘Why did the ancestors send my child to a dead man? And what is the message which she carries for Saha Tpune?’
‘If you believe in the gods’ Tchafo said, ‘then do what they tell you. The answers you seek will come to you when the time is right. Go, Temkeu. Thunder is striking in your compound.’
This time Temkeu walked out and did not return. The seriousness of Tchafo’s tone had finally sent home the message that something was amiss in his compound. He had strolled to the shrine; he was almost running back to his compound. His body was dripping, beads of sweat trapped in the hairs that had invaded his chest. Despite the searing sun, he marched on, his soles beating the earth.
What good did it do to run ahead of the future? If Tchafo had not told him that trouble was wrecking havoc in his compound, he would have lived the present according to plans of the past. He would have enjoyed the present while poising to tackle whatever lay ahead, but only when it became the present. Here he was breathing like a horse as he rushed to address trouble. What kind of trouble could it be even?
He accidentally hit his left foot against a rock and squealed, ‘I