Tears And Blood

TEARS AND BLOOD - Seun Touch® The sun woke as usual that market morning from its mattress of clouds, flogging the villagers on the way to the King’s market, as if in punishment for their lateness to their stalls. Màmá Àdùnní started about her business, cleaning the tray on which she would later display her tomatoes. Hardly had she finished with the tray than she spotted the figure from afar. Adjusting her eyeballs to be sure what she perceived was actually what she thought it was, jerked from the stool behind her tomato stall like a newly initiated maniac. She did not notice; or choose not to notice her wrapper, which in defiance clung to the stool as if in solidarity with the object of pursuit, the part of her back that still managed to remain protected from the madness shook vigorously in undefined directions as she charged towards her prey. Nothing better could get the market fully awake. In a matter of seconds, all legs started scampering in the direction of the aperture into which the object had disappeared. The only other thing that allowed of sane translation amidst the throng and their noise was the screaming of Màmá Àdùnní, bludgeoning itself through the market noise like a desperate robber through the human forests of Oshòdì. Seconds flew by, and so did tomatoes of all sorts as humans and animals, sane, semi-insane, and the raving mad made their way towards the object of pursuit. ‘E bá mi múu, e bá mi múu, ìwo omo àlè yìí1’ was the only meaningful noise in the midst of the turmoil.

1

Help me catch her, please help me catch the bastard.

At last a woman almost as rotund as a hut came forth, dragging in her trail a defiant figure which eventually took the shape of a young girl; it was Àdùnní. Suddenly the screaming metamorphosed into gasps and curses and heaves and hisses. E seun O, tiyín náà ò ni bàjé o2, Iya Àdùnní gasped, the people hissed in reply. Then to her daughter: Iwo abani lójú jé yìí, ta ni o fé fi tìre jo?3, to which the daughter replied, defiantly, like her mother’s wrapper, “I said I am not doing. Mo ní mi ò ko’là4” ************************* Few weeks before then, Àdùnní had come to my shack very late at night, that night I had known she did not want to see the Oníkolà, that night I had known nothing would make her do it; I had seen it in her eyes the moment I opened the door, I had seen it in her eyes when she looked at me. There was nothing I could however have done to help her, I had merely stared blankly, albeit confusedly, at her worried face while she confessed her sin to me like I was a newly ordained priest. “I have left them” she said “What?!” I exclaimed, owing more to want of anything to say than to surprise. “I have run from them before they kill me” she gasped back I had always till then understood Àdùnní, having being her friend since our childhood days, however that night I wondered what would happen to her wedding which was slated to come up about a moon from then. Àdùnní had gone to the same school in the city as I had. She did not however return to the village when I did; she waited to learn to be a teacher before coming back. When Àdùnní came back, she was a different person from the village girl we all used to know; I saw that Àdùnní was a changed person, she had learnt in the city how to be strong as a lady; she had learnt to speak in the face of pain and discomfort. Everyone in the village saw it in her; they commented on her òyìnbó5’ manners which they said she learnt at her teacher training school and her refusal to observe the ‘rituals’ of old like 2

Thank you so much, may you never be afflicted too.

3

You this prodigal child, after whom do you take these traits?

4

I said I refuse to be circumcised.

5

Native term used to refer to white men or ways

kneeling to greet every elder she met; Àdùnní then stretched her hands to greet everyone. That was why she lost many of her village friends- but me; that was why the throng at the market hissed at her when they discovered she was the object of pursuit. “I sincerely hope you understand the implication of what you are doing Àdùnní,” I queried her. I could not for any reason have thought Àdùnní could run away from home. “Of course you know I do.” She retorted, a drop or two of tears had then fought their way down her smooth cheeks. “I cannot stand the pain, Adio” she looked me in the eyes, her eyes pleading to find understanding in me. “I will surely die” she predicted, rather as a matter of faith, than fact. She wept. I remember that night she wept like a baby, laying her head on my chest like I was some ‘Father Abraham’. “I am just bothered about what will happen if the Baálè 6 hears that you have absconded from home a couple of days to your ìkolà 7.” I had told her, she merely sniffed her nose in response, “He would definitely send his guards to get you and they would take you to the Oníkolà after which you will be publicly flogged.” I warned her. At this she rose and made for the door, I went after her and caught her before she made her way through. I looked in her eyes and confessed to her; “Àdùnní, you know how so much I love you, I am just concerned about the humiliation this might cause you. You possibly cannot run away from the village, and if you do, I am sure you cannot at least run from your fiancé.” She merely fell again on my chest and wept like a baby. “Or are you going to call off your wedding?” I asked. “I am going to my Aunt Jíbík’s place in Ìwárò, I will be there till I know what next to do.” She pulled away from me and made to go. “Just be careful.” was all I could say.

6

The village head

7

circumcision

For the next couple of days the whole of Etídò had gone berserk with the news of Àdùnní’s absconding. Of course they had asked me, but my love for her had not let me tell them I knew anything about her whereabouts, moreover, I could not have assisted in causing her harm. ************************* The statement from Àdùnní’s mouth perhaps was what saved her head from the young men of the village, who, now gradually gathering, had already started hunting for bits of twigs and broken firewood to flog the prey whom they all along though was another thief. Then from one mouth to another, like a commercial jingle in blather modulation, flew echoes of “do what? What is it that she does not want to do?” “Maami, I will never allow you to give me over to that ritualist to be circumcised, I’d rather die.” “What is actually the problem here?” the voice of Oyèkúnlé pierced through like the shrill of the cricket. Immediately, every excited person made way for the only man in Etídò who had the effrontery to challenge even the king whenever the king does anything he (Oyèkúnlé) felt the king had done anything wrong. Oyèkúnlé was, like every other kingmaker in the village, an Ògbóni, he however had immense powers and a fierce reputation that made him not only feared but also revered amongst the villagers. Oyèkúnlé’s word, next to the King’s was law, his five foot-two and mercilessly bald forehead attests to it. He wore, as usual the white overall and saki always worn by people of his cult. His face was a combination of rustic dignity and determination, authority and fearlessness. A couple of the villagers thought they saw fire in his eyes. Every mouth present rushed themselves to a reluctant retirement; not even a fly buzzed anymore, even the morning breeze now stood still. In a matter of minutes, Oyèkúnlé listened to Àdùnní’s mother and conducted the summary trial of Àdùnní right in the market square without her being even allowed to say a word; it was enough that she ran from home to avoid being circumcised as was customary to be done a month to the wedding of every grown lady in the village; running from your parent’s home in Etídò was an offence for which you were deemed guilty even without your side being heard; it was the belief in Etídò that everything that transpired in the home between parents and their child was training.

Later that evening, Àdùnní was dragged to the house of Màmá, the village surgeon and was circumcised like every other married woman in the village was, in the presence of Oládìtí, her father. The following morning she breathed her last; she did not even wait to be flogged.