Rose of Numen

by Olatunde, Biola;

  “I thought of all people, you would know that. My child has finished primary school, he needs help with his homework and Lucas says he is busy with his cocoa farm to have time for me and the child. It is a miracle he is allowing her to have secondary education. I have you to thank for that.”

  “Hmm. I see now. It wasn’t to get an education for yourself. You can cope with the bits you have learned so far.”

  “I want to come to Lagos,” Tinu blurted.

  Ife stared at her in shock. “Run that by me again will you? Did I hear you say Lagos?”

  “At least I know you are not deaf whatever else you are now.”

  Ife looked for the traditional stool and sat on it, giving her friend a long stare. After a while, she sighed. “Why?”

  Tinu shrugged, took another stool and sat close to Ife then hugged her knees as she looked out. “It is time to start a trade, find out what else I can be good at apart from making babies and being a wife.”

  “You can be a woman,” Ife said softly.

  “Are you mad? I am a woman.”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Ife replied.

  “You bet I don’t, what kind of argument is that?”

  “Who is going to be looking after the children?”

  “I did not say I was going to live in Lagos. It is to give me a time to look around and see what I can do when I return here.”

  Ife gave her friend a slow look then narrowed her eyes as she sighed. “Tinu, I know Jare lives in Lagos.”

  There was silence as the girls stared at each other. Tinu swallowed then went to the back of the house to the kitchen and became very busy making fire. Ife walked up and touched her friend gently on the arm. Tinu was in tears. Ife drew Tinu gently into an embrace but said nothing.

  After a while Tinu dried her tears and sniffed. “I really don’t know much about my feelings but suddenly this is no longer enough, Ife.”

  “I know, Tinu. That is why I wanted you to be a woman first. You never gave yourself a chance to find out what you really should be doing. Marriage is not automatic for every woman.”

  “I see, that is why you have refused to marry Babatunde, right?”

  “Now where did you pick that codswallop from?”

  “Speak proper English, Ife, and answer that question.”

  “I don’t have to.”

  “You should be married, every woman gets married.”

  “Blast! Why? I did not come to terra firma for the express purpose of marrying anybody,” Ife said in real frustration. They stared at each other.

  “You are not planning on marrying him are you? After you chose him? He has been waiting, Ife.”

  “Will you shut up?” Ife ground out.

  “Playing hard to get?”

  “Idiot, I chose him remember? Or so you reminded me just now.”

  “Babatunde is nice, you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “Very loyal.”

  “Yes.”

  “He has been very understanding when you insisted you must finish medical school. He is not getting any younger. He is older you know.”

  “I have an idea, Tinu.” Ife was very irritated now.

  “Yes?”

  “Why don’t you marry him instead? He can take you to Lagos and you can do all the trading you ever want!”

  Tinu gave Ife a long look and quietly went to her room and clicked the door shut. Ife sighed, regretting her outburst and walked out straight into Lucas who was just coming in from an early inspection of his palm trees. He had some gourds of fresh palm wine. He gave Ife a wide smile of welcome. Ife chatted with him and left. However, the day had been spoiled. Things she had kept under almost iron control were slipping out.

  A lot had happened after that festival when she climbed the hill and according to everybody she had asked, she had chosen a groom. Presumably she had chosen Babatunde. The joke was the next morning, Babatunde had left town and so did she after three days. Nobody knew what was to happen next. She had gone straight to school to collect her results and a few weeks later was in medical school.

  Chapter Two

  The heat seemed to have settled in and it stuck clammy fingers on his spine. Weaving his tired frame between the parked cars Babatunde slid into the car with a sigh. He also rubbed his temples as the dull throbbing headache settled across his brow. Absently he lifted his hands and tried massaging the pain out of his head. He leaned back and closed his eyes, and did not notice the lady when she walked up. The waft of perfume made him open his eyes and he smiled at Ngozi, his colleague at the department.

  “Headache again?” she asked.

  He sighed and nodded slouching more into the seat.

  Ngozi opened the passenger door and sat down, watching him. He saw the sympathy in her eyes. These headaches always laid him low. He knew he should be going home, somehow he just did not feel like sitting alone in front of the television staring at nothing.

  Ngozi laid a gentle arm on his shoulder, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Will it kill you if you come to the staff cafeteria for some cold drinks? I could help keep the headache at bay. No talking just…”

  Babatunde smiled and winced almost immediately. The headache was like a vice clamped on his head that had tightened with the effort to smile. He saw the worry in her eyes when she saw his pain.

  She opened her bag rummaged in it for some tablets and handed him some pain relieving analgesic. He held them in the palm of his hand as he silently willed the headache away. Babatunde softly muttered to himself. The tablets dropped from his hand. Then still muttering softly, Ngozi watched as sweat broke out from Babatunde’s forehead and he tiredly wiped his head getting sweat on his hands.

  It was done, and Babatunde opened his eyes. Ngozi watched him. “You did not tell me you had taken some sort of medication before.”

  He shrugged. “I have not taken anything. I just appealed to the headache to leave me alone for a while. I just needed to boost my radiation level, that was all.”

  Ngozi stared at him. “Radiation level? Have you been exposed to something?”

  Babatunde gave a thin smile. “If I tried to explain that, the headache might simply come back. Thank you for the offer of help anyway.” Babatunde kept his thoughts under tight leash as Ngozi watched him. He did not want her picking his thoughts and finding he was irritated and wanted to be left alone.

  “Thank you, friend,” he replied in a mollifying tone, and tried a smile.

  Ngozi sighed and he picked up her disappointed thoughts. He knew she wanted to be regarded as more than a friend. It was the same as Iyabo as well as Yinka. These three women watched each other and competed with each other. He felt like a stud on the block to be sold to any one of them. He quickly pushed down a rising irritation and flexed his aching muscles. He was bone-tired and really now wish to be home in bed so he could sleep.

  Ngozi sighed and opened the side door, stepped out and leaned over to place a gentle hand on his cheek. “Someday, one girl is going to be lucky.”

  Babatunde smiled. “I hope I will be lucky too, Ngozi.”

  “Go home and to your bed,” she laughed.

  “Yes, Mother,” he replied, and she threw an imaginary punch at him as she walked away.

  Babatunde let in the clutch of his car and drove out of the hospital. Suddenly he felt a need for some fresh food so he drove to the neighborhood market and picked some fruits, vegetables and bottled water.

  When he got home, he dropped his purchases onto the dining table and walked into the kitchen. He whistled as he prepared his dinner and did not hear the front door open. The thumping heavy feet of Tope walking into the kitchen startled him and he whirled round. Tope had a scowl on his face as he surveyed what Babatunde was preparing.

  “Still eating snakes or worms I see.”

  Babatunde laughed. “I did not hear you knock, you have never learned have you?”

  “How to eat worms? No I am not interested. Called at the buka round t
he corner and gave myself dinner. I like the girls that serve there. Big butts and heavy breasts, which they seem to push in your face as they serve you abula.”

  Babatunde gave his half-brother a shove to the sitting room and requested him to drop his slippers by the door. “What I mean by you never having learned anything is simple. When you come, you do two things as you enter town. Call me. That thing I gave you that you never seem to use is called a cell phone. It can reach me, and when you ignore that, and come unannounced like you have just done, do me another favor, drop your slippers by the door, uh?”

  “Finished?”

  Babatunde shook his head in frustration and walked back to the kitchen to fetch his dinner, which he placed, on the dining table. Tope trailed his every step to take bottled water from the fridge, cutlery and a glass. Babatunde finally laughed and gave his brother a punch knowing if he did not smile Tope was going to continue his silly game of following him around the house.

  While he ate, Tope rummaged in the sack he brought with him and brought out yams, corn, locust beans wrapped in big green leaves and smoked game. Babatunde frowned at the locust beans.

  “You know I don’t—”

  “If you give a woman that quantity of locust beans and she eats it regularly she will not have pregnancy high blood pressure. I also brought some ripe plantain leaves for that patient of yours you suspected of having asthma,” Tope said, sitting back with a self-satisfied grin.

  Babatunde smiled, touched by the gesture. “Thanks, but you know it is a hospital and I can’t give any one of them any of these concoctions.”

  “You are the hospital’s chief medicine man aren’t you?”

  “Not exactly, I give them what the doctors says. Besides, I am not the chief medicine man, I am a pharmacist.” Babatunde tried hard to correct Tope’s assumption.

  “You mean you do not advise the doctor?”

  “It depends if the doctor wants to know what the pharmacy has in stock and if it is close to the prescription he wants to make.”

  “Hmmm, no wonder your patients don’t get well quickly, what you give them has no medicine in it—just shells. Remind me never to come to your hospital for treatment.”

  Babatunde gave his brother a sigh. “Why do you talk as if you did not go to school?”

  “I did not study like you but I am happy about the state of affairs. Anyway, I brought those things because you once asked me to bring them and it really was difficult getting them. You forget too easy…Papa wants to know when he is to expect you at home. I hear—”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay what? I have not finished speaking,” Tope said, objecting to the interruption.

  “I am sorry.”

  There was silence as they stared at each other. They were half-brothers but had remained friends because Babatunde acknowledged he was six months younger in age and that had pleased Tope. When Babatunde graduated, there had been slight tension as Tope had expected that his younger sibling might put on some airs as the educated one, but both their mothers had genuinely acted like he was the senior and congratulated him on becoming a graduate in the family. Papa had been nice too, always recognizing Tope as the older and head of the house after him. Any rising jealousy had thus been nipped in the bud.

  Babatunde asked him if he would like a beer and Tope shook his head negatively saying he had taken care to drink some really nice palm wine at the local canteen.

  Babatunde took the items to the kitchen and returned to find Tope staring in awe at the full life-size photograph of Ife. The photograph took a whole side of the east wall of Babatunde’s living room. It was obviously taken as she stood by the hill amongst flowers and stream. Babatunde watched his brother and had a small smile on his face as Tope turned round. However there was real alarm in Tope’s eyes as he pointed to the photo and looked at Babatunde.

  “Why do you have that here?”

  “Why not here? It is mine and I happen to live here.”

  Tope stared for some long seconds, shook his head and went back to the couch. He seemed irritated all of a sudden and that puzzled Babatunde. He knew the issue of Ife had always bothered his brother and Babatunde was at a loss how to handle it.

  In a quiet voice he spoke to his brother. “Look it is my problem and not yours, so why don’t you simply accept it?”

  “Papa wants to know if you have any plans of marrying. Even Joseph got married.”

  “Is that why he sent you, or has he chosen another bride again?” Babatunde asked, searching his brother’s eyes. His hands were clenched by his sides but his voice was even and steady.

  Babatunde saw a strange look come in to the eyes of his half-brother. He tried to make light of the almost heavy silence. “Why are you worrying about me? I have been busy with school but you are even older and should have been married by now anyway so what is holding you back?”

  “Papa says that you are wanted back in the town as Ifa is to decide the new king and you are to report to the elders,” Tope announced abruptly. He gave his brother a look that Babatunde recognized as reluctant respect.

  Babatunde had a small frown conveyed in his eyes. ”I hope I can get time off from work, my boss is not around now and the one acting on his behalf could be tricky about giving permission.”

  Tope shrugged and announced he would like to turn in for the night as he had had a long drive, was tired and gave a big yawn to prove his point. He said his goodnight and hurried off to the guest bedroom.

  Babatunde sat back in the living room contemplating his impossible dream. Would Ife ever love him like he loved her? He wondered how he was going to learn to live with it if she did not. He did not know what he was going to tell his father who was getting on in years. He had tried to shake himself into the reality of his impossible longing and go on with his life. Now a pharmacist and employed, he still had been unable to date. Not for lack of offers he reminded himself. He threw himself fully into his work and that was some relief. The hair on the back of his head prickled and he knew Sasa was around. He sighed and invited his friend in.

  Sasa now moved closer to him in the physical plane. He could almost always see Sasa in the misty form. Sasa had identifiable features—a tall, distinguished but youthful old. He still teased him by calling him Fancy Pants particularly if they were having an argument.

  Sasa was looking at the Blue Mountains. No, there were no mountains near his home but each time Sasa visited, he showed him things. Babatunde learnt that it was Sasa’s inner thoughts that beamed to him and when they connected he could experience and see one of Sasa’s homes.

  Sasa gave him a wry smile and a look from deep blue eyes. “When you have finished, maybe we can have a decent conversation.”

  Babatunde smiled. “Has a king being decided?”

  “You tell me, young Lion.”

  “The town has been without a king for a while.”

  “Just a few years, and they still don’t have a viable king the way I see it.”

  “Hmm, but like all human beings they need a leader.”

  “Leaders emerge and you fellows are going about it the wrong way.”

  Babatunde raised his brows. “I will have you know, it is the tradition and it is the custom to have a king to keep up with the traditional ways.”

  “Who chose the very first king, do you know?”

  “Uh?”

  Sasa chuckled and held a small object in his hand. It was a small stone and it gleamed sending forth different rays like the colors of a rainbow. Babatunde watched, intrigued and then all the colors merged into one single white flame that burned but was not irritating even in its sheer brilliance.

  “What is it?” Babatunde asked.

  “All colors dissolve into that luminance when they achieve harmony. Your tribe is in so many splintered shades of one dull-yellow color and you are yet to improve on all the other colors to achieve a harmony that can bring about a merging. You are not yet ready for the king for he will come but cannot be chosen because t
he king must recognize his mission first then he will receive this stone and the town will accept him. It can no longer be done in the old way anymore.”

  Babatunde knitted his brows. “I suppose you are now speaking in parables, eh?”

  “Have that in your consciousness when the crab comes asking for the crown from you and—”

  “Crab?”

  There was silence and Sasa seemed to be lost in some picture as the connection thinned out. Suddenly it was suffused with light again and Sasa turned and gave him a startled stare, so much so that Babatunde asked him what the matter was. Sasa stretched out his hand and Babatunde saw the petals of a deep pink rose etched out in Sasa’s palms.

  “That is the symbol of your real king.” And then Sasa was gone.

  Babatunde spent the rest of the evening and night pondering the meaning of the symbol.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning Babatunde and Tope chatted over bowls of hot pap and akara. Babatunde had prepared the corn pap watched by an amused Tope who made caustic remarks about his brother’s culinary efforts.

  The atmosphere was friendly and convivial as Babatunde asked news of home and events. Tope sighed when Babatunde asked questions about the candidates for the kingship.

  “One of them does not look like he is going to get past the first round,” Tope said, looking at his akara cake with a frown.

  “Why?” Babatunde asked, startled by the comment.

  Tope was still frowning at his cake. “I guess I just don’t feel he looks like a king material.”

  “Ifa will decide anyway,” Babatunde consoled his brother.

  “Hmmm. I don’t always buy into this Ifa thing these days, you know. There has been many a king that Ifa has no business approving as kings as they turned out to be unmitigated disasters.” Tope spoke with feeling.

  Babatunde raised his eyebrows. “It is not per chance you have a particular candidate in mind do you?”

  Tope pushed his plate away and walked to the window looking out into the morning traffic. He turned around and gave his brother a slow smile. “You are not paying attention to me, are you? Will you be able to drive me into town? I need to pick up a few things to take home, particularly pesticides for my cocoa.”