Chapter 19: Chapter 19
Six days later, the search team returned with someone who knew the way to the Local Authority. The Igwe and his priest followed the lead of the man. There was optimism when the news of the journey broke into the community. At least the people knew the lockout from the facet of the world will soon end. One does not sit in his court and assume every fluttering mumble is drunken talk.
More days passed, and no one heard from the Igwe and the priest. There was no news whatsoever about their homecoming.
Weak hearts started to ask questions which only the brave could answer.
“Is the Local Authority as far as several days journey?”
“Have they lost their way?”
“Do you sit and assume the world ends here? You do not know the world stretches thousands of miles.”
“We do not know,” was the response to this untold fact. One must consent to his benightment to keep hope alive.
Ten days down, the fear which they despised began to play real. Foreign men came in their numbers as the day they came to collect thumbprints. This time, there were more armed men scattered all over. The news of the takeover of the Igwe’s inn stunned the community. Even, there was a heavy presence of armed men in the shrine of Ogwu. They whipped anyone whose head sprouted out from their yard to see the new face of the town. What they learned after was disheartening. The Chairman has appointed an Administrator to the community.
These were the least they ever expected, their terrors has caught them unawares. But they still had one iota of optimism, at least they knew this will not be the end of their lives. Their thumbprints will not take anything from them. Everyone is so willing to offer their thumbs and live in peace.
In the night, someone entered Nwosu’s court unannounced. He noticed the presence of the stranger at once. He kept vigil all night as the fear of the unknown loomed.
“Who is that in the dark? Are you a man or a spirit?” Nwosu asked with a firm voice. He did not expect anyone made his way into another man’s yard with the grim-faced warriors stationed all over.
“I will blow off your head if you do not announce yourself. Let me inform you my gun is thirsty for blood,” he threatened.
“I will not say I am a man, neither will I say I am a spirit. It is you who will say what I am when you see me,” a woman’s voice responded. The response shook him, but he braced himself the minute his thought read out to him.
“What harm can a feeble hand which cannot squash an ant in protest to its bite bring me?”
He waited until Obiageli whom he saw coming with the light approached.
“Come, but beware, I have my gun,” he warned. When Obiageli’s lantern revealed the person’s face, he marveled.
“Nwanyikwelena’alusi,” he spelled out the woman’s name.
People have forgotten her birth name and baptized her the most soothing name for her caliber. She is a woman from two generations past who has refused the ultimate call into the world beyond. She loved the world but never lived on a physical plane. One could only see her when she wanted. There was never a time one goes to find her sitting like every normal person in her court. The community defined her in short terms as a half-man and half spirit. People see her as a spirit because she was never there for any man to see at will. But the fact she comes out whenever she willed, ate, and drank from the same calabash as men, they say she is human.
“What brings you to my court this night?”
“I have a revelation for you.”
“Why have the gods allowed us into the hands of our enemies?”
“The community suffer the atrocities of a man who said the eyes of the gods are weak to oversee the world from above. He thought he has worn blindfolds across their eyes, so he did whatever he pleased. Did you not know the diviner has a long throat for sacrificial feasts? He ate his cut, and deprive the gods of theirs. Did you not know the Igwe was not the choice of the gods? Some clowns thought the leadership has lingered for ages with the Ogbuefi lineage. All these happened, and no one knew, because men are blind. Until people grow pairs of eyes on their forehead, they will continue to swim into their terror’s net.”
“What are the whereabouts of the Igwe and the priest?”
“I have not come in the name of the Igwe or the priest. Let everyman suffer the weight of his deeds. I come in the name of Ijeoma, your daughter.”
“What about Ijeoma? What has happened to my daughter?” Nwosu and Obiageli asked in colliding voices. Obiageli’s voice was almost on the verge of breaking. Her lips were in the perfect shape to let out the heartiest wailing of her lifetime.
“No evil has befallen her. I have only seen vision on her head,” Nwanyikwele responded, and the risen hearts went calm.
“What did you see?”
“In my dream, Ijeoma’s husband took his first wife with him to the farm, but she left her children. I saw Ijeoma serve food, and called only her children who came and surrounded the food at once. Her mate’s children sat around them, hungry and caught in an unending gaze at the hands going from plate to mouth. Ijeoma has lost her glory with her husband, and she is not on good terms with her kitchen mate. Bring whatever you have, let me rebuke this vice, so everything will fare on well for her.”
Nwosu smiled as he listened to Nwanyikwele.
“Do not bother yourself old bone. I have settled this long time ago.”
Nwanyikwele said no more, she turned and took her to leave. But Obiageli was not comfortable with Nwosu’s stance, and she did not waste time to voice it.
“When did you take care of Ijeoma’s trouble?”
“Did you not remember the items I took away the other day?”
“Of course, I have not forgotten.”
“Those were for the appeasement.”
“But there is no harm if we allow Nwanyikwele to add her own prayers?”
“You think so?”
“Let me call her back before she goes far,” Obiageli said as she went. She could not see Nwanyikwele, even as Nwosu joined her, and they looked all over. They called her name, but their calls returned unanswered.
“A youthful bone could not have gone past this entrance,” Nwosu said.
“Have you forgotten she is a spirit?”
In the morning, a team of the Local Authority set to work. These were the familiar faces. They went from one yard to another collecting thumbprints.
When they got to any court, they ordered the people on a cue. They called the nearest armed men on a person who proves stouthearted. A couple of whips was enough to restore a man’s sanity and have him on his knees begging for mercy.
One person went into the booth at a time. The process was as the first time they came for this purpose. They showed the picture of items marked on the sheet of paper, and ask a person to make his choice. When a person identifies his preference, they ask him to mark his thumb with ink, and print on the item of his choice. After this, they assured him they have registered his order, and they will deliver to him in due cause of time. One distinct addon was the two strokes of whips before fresh sheet to anyone who printed on the wrong edges.
The people already knew the words of the Local Authority were deceit. So, they did not browse through the list of items with the same enthusiasm as they had done before. This also constituted a telling distinction between now and their first encounter. They only did to escape armed men whipping them like little children.
At the heart of this tension, Ijeoma escaped from her husband’s court. She was more determined to reclaim her father’s name regardless of what her action will cause.
She dashed into the compound like someone running from a battle scene. Nwosu and Obiageli looked behind her, but found no one coming after her.
“Is all well with you?” Obiageli asked.
“Why have you come like one escaping a night terror?” Nwosu toppled.
“I can no longer bear the heat in Ukpaka’s hands.”
“I know Ukpaka is a peaceful man. Tell me, what have you done?”
Obiageli stood dumb, only the flies reminded her she has left her mouth open.
“He enslaved me to his first wife.”
Nwosu wondered so little. He felt so disappointed in Ukpaka, after repaying him a good chunk of his stake, he could not conceal his shame.
“Who in his right senses prefer a sagging breast to that of a young maiden, firm and untapped?”
“The world can reject all you have to offer, but one does not reject her own.” She reached for Ijeoma’s hand, “come and rest your head.”
Nwosu thought about the shame of one whose daughter has had a failed marriage but gave it up. He resolved to return the rest of Ukpaka’s stake. He was going to tell him his daughter is too beautiful for slave marriage.
“The king’s daughter does not suffer in her husband’s court.”
The strangers who entered woke him from his absenteeism. One of the grim-faced warriors accompanied a woman into his yard, and her face was unfamiliar. The woman spoke in an unfamiliar tongue which Nwosu only knew from her gestures was a question. She spoke with a calmness which bulged him to want to respond, but he did not know how to say.
The armed man stood between him and the woman as a translator. They could at least understand themselves to some extent. If not for their evils, he was a personality one could call a brother in a foreign land.
“Where is the girl who ran into this yard?” The interpreter asked.
“She is my daughter,” Nwosu responded.
“Where is she?” He yelled.
The sternness of the interpreter’s voice caused him an instant fever. Even the woman noticed his uneasiness and requested the armed man to flow with meekness. Nwosu could read the woman’s gesticulations, but the interpreter’s fierceness told otherwise. He ran to his wife’s inn to fetch Ijeoma, and Obiageli followed as well.
“This is the girl,” the woman affirmed.
“What is your name?”
“Ijeoma.”
The woman saw from Ijeoma’s face all the atrocities of the Local Authority. The people were like children whipped on their bareback, and has their necks roped to stop them from crying. She could see robs of Ijeoma’s beauty, even though sadness had overwhelmed her greater person.
“Untrustworthy lips cannot interpret the story encased in this heart,” the woman thought.
“I am taking Ijeoma with me,” she said.
“What have we done that you have come to take our daughter?”
“Do not trouble yourself. I have not come to cause you harm.”
“Where are you taking my daughter?”
“I am taking her to teach her English.”
“What has my ears not heard?”
“We do not know English!”
“One with the Ofor is not safe. Goats have eaten corn off my head!” Nwosu wailed, “my eyes have seen the farthest ends of my ears!”
The woman brought out some portraits and showed them the place she is taking Ijeoma. She showed them other happy children, and with little conviction, they let her take Ijeoma. Every worse can happen now, Nwosu has seen it all.