Mefo remained in his thoughts as he continued the journey home. If only she would acknowledge that the gods are always men, never women! If only she would accept that the eyes of the gods are always men, that Fons are always men, that elders are always men, that nchindas are always men. ‘She may be older,’ Temkeu blurted out, ‘but I am the man. She may be a Mefo, but I am the head of a compound. People will talk of Mefo’s hut but never Mefo’s compound!’
As if in defiance of his words on the subordinate role of women, a woman’s squeal greeted him as he came in view of his compound. Temkeu dashed forward, following the sound until he stood face to face with the source. Nkem. She was clinging to the mango tree in the middle of the compound as though eager to be one with it. Temkeu just stood and watched as she released the mango tree and transferred her aggression to the earth, tormenting it with her buttock’s back and forth movements. Asking her to keep her hands still would have been tantamount to preventing her from discharging her pain, for the more she wailed, the more active her hands became – carrying her jaws, holding her waist, tapping her laps – they just seemed unable to remain still. Her headscarf which had been attacked by her roving hands lay under the tree not far from where she sat. Such a display could have been the climax of a traditional dance but it was the expression of a woman’s distress. ‘Come and help me! Oh, people of Mumba, come!’
And they had come – the nearest neighbours, family, friends, onlookers. Inhabitants of Mumba quarter had taken their usual place around Temkeu’s stage of a compound – the cry of a woman in distress was as good as the village crier’s gong. The villagers had still not gotten over Fatti’s unprecedented return from the land of the ancestor. They talked about it on the farm, the market, the stream, the road, at funerals and death celebrations and in their huts at night. They had again converged in the Fopou compound, and they did not just talk about Fatti, but also about Nkem, the white man’s faithful disciple. Was her agony linked to the white man who had brought his God to compete with theirs?
‘People of Mumba come and help me!’ Nkem again cried out from the ground.
Temkeu did not step forward to help his wife. He took one last glance at her and asked, ‘Where is Fatti?’ He rushed from one hut to the other, starting with Achile’s and ending in Nkem’s from where he pulled out his daughter. ‘Are you okay?’ He stooped to her height and began a rapid physical examination of her body, stretching bones here and flexing joints there. Satisfied, he stretched out and looked about. Nkem was still rocking on the ground. She seemed even more disconsolate.
Mefo was conspicuously absent. Temkeu started hurrying towards her hut but then changed direction and moved towards the five women trying to console Nkem. ‘Come good, my mother-in-law. What trouble is worrying your child? Why is she crying like a child?’
Tangue Pualine gave a thunderous clap, folded her arms above her breasts and clumped her lips. ‘hm!’
‘Hm, what?’ Temkeu barked. ‘Speak woman.’
‘Trouble oh! The gods have spoken.’
‘The gods?’ Temkeu shuddered.
‘Yes, the gods have spoken, and they have not spoken for us.’
‘Tell me, what did they say? When?’
‘You know Samboa, our diviner far away in Nchusa village, the— ’
‘Yes, yes, I know him. What?’
‘I went to see him to ask him to look into the future and tell me if my harvest would be good. You know that problems have been following me these past years –’ At the intense look in Temkeu’s face, she returned to the story. ‘Yes, I went to see him to ask if my harvest would be good. Hm! The kind of thing that he told me made me to start running from Nchusa right to Mumba. Hm!’
‘Hm what? Talk! What did he tell you?’
‘He told me about my grandchild whom the gods sent back to life. He said that death might again steal her soon. He said that …’
Temkeu turned around, fished Fatti out, grasped her wrist and pulled her all the way back to Tchafo’s shrine. Thrusting her forward and watching as she rubbed her sore wrist, he voiced his desire: ‘I do not know what the gods want from this child, but all I ask is that you protect her. Keep her in this world.’
‘A one-year-old spotless white duck,’ Tchafo, who was sitting with his legs folded in, said without looking up. It seemed he had not moved from where Temkeu had last seen him. ‘What I need to appease the gods and call on their protection is a one-year-old spotless white duck.’
When Temkeu returned an hour later with the token, Tchafo pulled Fatti forward and asked her to revert to her birth attire. One clothing-piece over her head and nudity appeared. Tchafo took his place in front of her. Using a blade dug out from one of his many clay pots, he branded her chaste skin with three small lacerations on the outer parts of her wrists, her elbows, the sides of her ribs, the back of her neck, the split of her buttocks, the outer sides of her knees and her ankles. Then, while chanting an incantation, he massaged some black herbal mélange into the cuts. Fatti’s flinching and slight groans went unnoticed as he continued to send the mélange home with all his force. As if to justify the application of pressure, he explained that the medicine had to merge with her blood in order to form the scars which were to protect her from any evil spirits on her trail.
‘You shall not bathe for three days.’ That was the only effort Fatti had to contribute towards the success of the operation. ‘Take this and swallow.’ Tchafo handed her a bowl of gloop. ‘It tastes like Aloe Vera and earwax combined, but it is accurate like the predictions of the gods and efficient like Tchafo.’
‘Since you are not to bathe for three days –’ Temkeu said to Fatti on their way home ‘– you can stay away from the farm for three days.’
‘Thank you, Papa.’
As soon as he walked into his hut, Temkeu approached his skulls, words of supplication tumbling from his mouth: ‘This matter now lies in your hands. I have done what is in my power to appease the gods to act in my favour. I count on you to do the rest. You know that I need this child here with me in the land of the living – that is why you sent her back to me. Please do not take her again before … before … Please just give me more time with her.’
That night Temkeu retired over a jug of palm wine and later on Achile’s body. The night was not so good for Nkem who got out of bed with the puffy eyes of one who had not seen sleep at all. It had taken a brawl for Mefo to allow Fatti to spend the night with her. Standing by the bed, she looked down at Fatti lying on the hay mattress. The cuts on Fatti’s bare torso looked up at her. She sighed and walked outside.
Just as the bells alerting Christians that they had thirty more minutes before the start of 6 00 a.m Mass rang, Nkem rushed back into her hut and to the bed. ‘Fatti, wake up. Fatti.’ She shook the child out of slumber. ‘Wake up, Fatti.’
‘Mama?’
‘Yes, wake up and let us go for Mass.’
Rubbing her eyes and scratching her stomach, Fatti got up and aimed for the door, but before she had taken two steps, she tripped over a gourd and kicked the mortar.
‘Come, I will help you. Where is your chewing stick?’
Five minutes later, as they wiped off the dew from the grass with their bare feet, Fatti asked, ‘Is something happening in church, Mama?’
‘I just want Father to pray for you.’
‘Okay, Mama.’
The fierce cold made them billow steam with each word. It turned their skins to a bed of taut goose pimples and increased the hardness of the calluses on their soles and palms. Nevertheless,