Then a masquerade stomped in with a fairly old woman carrying sheets of white lace. The old woman mentioned the names of the children of Grandma, and the lace was received by one of the palace chiefs and laid across the body. The small gong was taken, wrapped in a white cloth and handed over to one of the white clad chiefs. There was sudden silence as the masquerade stood at attention, saluted Grandma’s body and in one swift movement carried Grandma’s body and placed it in the bland coffin that had been brought in.
All the white-clad chiefs stood up silently as the masquerade nailed the coffin and with the same swift movement carried it, raising it high as they made a terrifying roar rushing out of the room. Ife was stunned and rushed out to see the masquerade disappearing in the distance just as the room and compound was suddenly full of other masqueraders as well. The old women went into a fever of drumming, some cried while others bade Grandma farewell in their songs. It was very moving and Ife started shedding tears as the import of what had just taken place came to her. Her mother was very upset and just sobbed. Ife suddenly understood that they had just missed Grandma’s simple giving love.
Ife could not explain to her mother how she understood so she simply nodded. Everybody took it as strange that Ife did not fall apart wailing as others did and she did not bother to explain to anyone that death was just a passage.
~~~
She shared her thoughts later with Yeye at the grove when she went to visit a few days after the funeral. “You know, Yeye, it is strange that we announce the transition properly in whatever language we use—transition, ascend into higher realms, passing on—and still we are afraid of it. That was why I told her that we are all confused by death. I said it in Latin, ‘Timor Mortis contubart me’. Sounded nice saying it that way. At the hospital I see this passing in so many different ways but the actual passage is always a silence before the approaching light.”
Yeye was part of the officiating priests gathering at Grandma’s passing and she had been quiet throughout the ceremonies. She looked sad and Ife accepted the reason for the sadness. Yeye had always attended all the ceremonies of Yeye Agba. It suddenly struck her that maybe Yeye would now be elevated to the rank of Yeye Agba and she voiced her thoughts. Yeye looked very alarmed at the idea.
‘I hope not, Princess!” Yeye said.
“But why not? You will be next in line I suppose.”
“I don’t think that is the hierarchy. I think Yeye Agba would have left instructions for the other priests, besides, I do not attend their meetings as I am simply an officer of the goddess,” Yeye said, simply.
That made Ife curious and she probed further. Yeye explained that since they had a living goddess with them, her position as priestess was just as a serving officer of Numen Yeye, who would give her instructions. In fact Yeye disclosed to a stunned Ife that Numen Yeye was the official chief priestess and head of the village priesthood.
“Essentially therefore, you are now Yeye Agba, Princess,” Yeye concluded with a smile and curtsied.
Ife went into peals of laughter shaking her head. “You fellows are determined to make a fetish woman of me no matter what I say or do, right? First it was one naked dance up the hill, then there was the joke of having chosen a groom and not done with your bag of intrigues now I am Yeye Agba. By the way, I am a medical doctor now. I’m not likely to have time to set up an alternative practice here in the back of nowhere.”
As was usual with such conversations, Yeye simply ignored her and went on with her chores. Ife sighed, her bout of irritation vanishing. She dipped a bowl of calabash into the earthen pot in front of Yeye’s house and drank her fill of the cold water. She was transported without warning to her old room in the Blue Mountains.
Everything around shone with soft light and she was entranced. Her room was alive with different ribbons of light in all shades and it swirled about her in living welcome. She heard music around and within and touched the walls feeling ease and happiness settle within her core. Dawn Rose came over and Numen smiled a happy greeting as they moved up the familiar stairs to the upper wing in the eastern castle. The sun glowed really low as if she could reach out and touch it. The mountains were bluer than she knew them and Numen marveled at the clarity of the water. Now she could look into them and see the little ones that lived within it.
You haven’t visited in a while, Dawn Rose said.
Mae sent me to school, remember? Numen answered.
You have been doing very well I hear.
Numen simply laughed.
So why are you home now?
Came to check if Raingirl might have left a message for me here. She said she might.
Not yet, Numen, we left your gift in her room but she is still in recovery section, you know. She got in last night, kind of tired.
Numen smiled. I am happy she made it back, it was a pleasure getting to know her. I liked her sense of humor, you know. Hope her memories will be good ones and her next journey will be higher.
I suppose we all wish her the best. She might be asked to be a helper now as I understand her journey this time may have given her the opportunity to carry its consciousness back with her.
Yes, we learn to have the consciousness to live at higher levels so that we incarnate to a higher plane as we work our way into the lighter kingdoms.
Dawn Rose shook her very deep pink hair and smiled. Exactly, she said.
Her reply was so heartfelt that it clinked and flashed making Numen laugh.
Her laugh brought her back to the present and she blinked. The sun had come out, and she really smiled knowing that Raingirl had opened her eyes elsewhere. She sent greetings and looked around.
Yeye was staring. Ife patted the mystified woman gently on the shoulder. “What is wrong with you? I just wandered in my thoughts for a while and you look like you had seen a ghost!”
“Yes, Princess, sorry for staring.”
“Could you stop with the ‘Princess’ stuff? Tolerated it for a while but now I am feeling embarrassed by you calling me that. It is a love name from my father, you know.”
Yeye swallowed but stayed silent. Ife knew that Yeye was stubbornly going to keep calling her that and she shrugged, not particularly in the mood to argue.
When she got home, her mother asked her if she would be staying for the seven days bean cake festival. Ife knew she had no intention of eating those bitter beans Grandma was fond of and she gave an emphatic comment that she would be on duty and in fact should be leaving within the hour.
Chapter Five
Tinu was visiting and Ife decided to treat her cousin and friend to lunch at the cafeteria. They chatted amicably as Tinu told Ife about her shopping experiences in the town. Ife was smiling when a tall young man in a blue suit walked up to their table. Tinu frowned and looked up then her eyes widened in surprise. “Yomi? It is you, right?”
The gentleman bowed and smiled. “I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me until I walked up close.”
Tinu turned to her friend Ife and made introductions. Yomi was invited to sit at the table with them. He ordered orange juice and said he had eaten but would use the excuse of a drink to chat with the girls. Tinu giggled at being called a girl and asked after Yomi’s job. She turned to Ife still smiling. “Yomi is like our president in waiting, Ife. I knew him from secondary school, he was not from our town but came to school because for a time his father taught at the secondary school as our games master.”
“I see,” Ife said, smiling.
Yomi couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Ife. Tinu noticed that and was amused as Ife was oblivious to Yomi’s interest.
The lunch soon came to an end and Yomi sighed and stood up reluctantly but appeared to have come to a decision. He gave Ife a keen look and asked permission to call on Ife at the hospital the following week. Ife answered that while that may seem a good idea, her work schedule was crazy and she could not be sure of keeping dates. Yomi said he would take a chance, gave Tinu a pat on the back and hurried off. Tinu was
amused.
“He likes you,” she told Ife, who smiled and shrugged.
“Do you like him?” Tinu probed further, and Ife laughed out loud. “Did you see me panting?”
Tinu looked around puzzled. “I didn’t mean it that way, at least you saw that he was keen to make a friend of you.”
Ife smiled and gave her cousin an amused look. “He looks nice, and seems well mannered. He only asked to call on me. Quaint turn of phrase from a modern male.”
Tinu laughed. “He was always like that, it is those literature books he kept reading while in school. He said he was going to be a lawyer someday.”
“Hmm.”
Tinu tugged at Ife’s white coat. “You are not saying much.”
“Mind your business, will you? There is nothing to say.”
Tinu giggled. “Oh you like him?”
“Mind your business, Tinu.” Ife was emphatic.
Tinu was not fazed. “Oh come on Miss Chaste and Mighty! He is male, handsome and unattached. Last I recall, you have never seemed to go on a date. Other human beings live on this planet you know.”
Ife gave her friend a shocked look. “What did you call me just now?”
Tinu was suddenly determined to get something off her chest and took a deep breath. “I said, ‘Miss Chaste and Mighty’. You didn’t flunk the virgin dance, you are a goddess with ice in your veins, always right and always living somewhere other than here. You are a doctor mending broken bones but can’t mend a heart, go around with your eyes closed to the realities of falling in love and never knowing whether you took the right decisions. I am not sure you are human. Never made mistakes, bah! You are boring.”
The next minute she stared at Ife in shock and clapped her hands to her mouth. Ife had stared shocked, then burst out laughing. Ife gave her friend a close look.
“You have the classic symptoms of a frustrated female on heat, my dear. What is the matter? Lucas not doing his male marital job right now?”
Tinu was silent. Ife was not finished. “Okay, first it was Jare and I am still wondering where to place that and now you bend over backwards to know if I am interested in that fellow I met five minutes ago? Is it me or you that really is interested in him? Did you have a crush on him while you went to that school? You obviously learnt nothing.”
Tinu flinched as if she had been struck and Ife was immediately sorry she had been that vicious. She groaned and explained to her friend that there was no need to hold daggers at each other.
“Besides all I saw was some gorilla towering over me,” Ife finished, and was gratified when Tinu suppressed a giggle.
They continued on their walk back to the doctors’ quarters in some semblance of amity.
~~~
Two days later, Yomi came over to the hospital and Ife was stunned that he had filled a visitor’s form and when the secretary told him that visiting hours would be after consultations he had agreed to wait. Ife stared at him and he quickly sat down.
“I am kind of tall and girls don’t like to have to look up to talk,” he explained with a smile, which made Ife smile. Yomi wondered if he could take her out for a drink or a drive round the town to wind down. He had seen the number of pregnant women that had attended ante-natal that day. Ife laughed in appreciation of his concern and said she would not mind a drive.
In the air-conditioned car, they made tentative steps at knowing each other. Ife learned he was from a neighboring state and had studied to be a lawyer. He had opted to come settle in another state because he liked the unhurried pace of life and he confessed to being a country boy at heart.
“You don’t want to beat the record of being the first SAN from your family right?” Ife teased.
Yomi laughed outright. “My brother has beaten me to that and I didn’t fancy being stuck in his chambers, hence I am here.”
“Oh it is a family of lawyers?”
“Er, no, just the two of us. Mom is a caterer and Dad was into sports. Played tennis at national level as a matter of fact”
“Interesting.”
“What about you? Does the medical profession run in your family too?” Yomi asked.
Ife laughed and explained that she was the only medical person and added casually that her father retired as a policeman.
They drove round town and Ife pointed out interesting places adding small anecdotes of the history and tradition. Yomi was entranced. He was very relaxed, did not make any physical overtures and that relaxed Ife. So much that by the end of the drive, Ife easily agreed to a lunch date. A courtship began between the two, with Yomi sometimes bringing in packed lunches to Ife’s office each time she was too occupied to come out for lunch. Ife would also drive to the courts to wait for him if he had a case.
Ife decided to probe Tinu about Yomi’s background and invited Tinu over to her flat and offered to cook lunch. Tinu was suspicious. “What do you want? You are a lousy cook and I have no intention of eating half-cooked things. Is your girl there?”
“Who? Banke? No she is off today. I can cook rice,” Ife offered, laughing as Tinu made a face. Tinu said no emphatically and explained that Ife’s portions were usually too small to be filling for her big appetite. They laughed.
“For a glutton, you are still tiny,” Ife said.
“Lucas complains that he can’t see any sign of his hard work on me.” Tinu giggled.
“He is right, where do you put all the food?” Ife dodged a punch to her head.
They sat later to Ife’s offer of rice and chatted amicably. Ife asked why Yomi had never been married.
Tinu shrugged. “Yomi is nice but not the very confiding type. He hardly tells anybody things. He was not into group friendships either. All the time he was with us he was quite close to Yinka but that was it.”
“Hmm.”
They started packing the plates to the kitchen and as they washed them up, Ife had a contemplative look on her face and that made Tinu curious.
“You are beginning to like him, that is the first time you have made an enquiry about a male person—don’t tell me to mind my business,” she said.
“I am not interested in him, Tinu, just care enough to know how to handle what I sense about him. It is not in his best interest to fall in love with me.” Ife said the words so quietly that Tinu stared at her mystified.
“What do you mean?”
Ife sighed and gave her friend a sincerely worried look. “I am not as dumb as I look, Tinu. I know Yomi wants to be more than friends. That will be dangerous for him and could be deadly. I like him but not in the way he is going.”
Tinu stared and slowly shook her head as she backed to the living room. “You are not making sense. What is dangerous for a man liking a girl?”
Ife was frustrated. “You are kind of obtuse! Don’t you see why it is not in Yomi’s interest to have feelings for me? Are you not forgetting something?”
“What?”
“I don’t get to fall in love as I choose, you idiot, hasn’t that sunk into your tiny brain yet?” There was pain, fear and longing in Ife’s voice.
Tinu simply shook her head and collapsed into the chair seemingly to shrink into it. She looked up at Ife and there were tears in her eyes. “Do you like him?”
Ife was firm. “No.”
That brought Tinu right up in the chair. “Why ever not?”
Ife had to laugh. “I have no emotion of that nature towards him, just want to find how to help him. I thought I was allowed to have simple friends.”
“What do you mean allowed?”
Ife snapped, “I think we should drop the subject. I assumed I could talk to you and get answers that will help me learn how I might be helpful to Yomi but you have a one-track mind as it is. By the way, how is your affair with Jare progressing and is Lucas aware now?”
Tinu gasped and Ife was sorry for being so blunt. She saw the acute pain in Tinu’s eyes and quickly took her friend into her arms as Tinu broke down in tears. She allowed her friend to sob for a few more minutes
and then fetched water to help her wash her face. There was silence for a few more minutes.
Tinu sniffed. “You do have a way of changing the subject.”
“Tell me about Jare. One minute he came to the festival and the next minute you started having sleepless nights and hurried to meet him in Lagos.”
Tinu said in a small voice, “Jare is the heaven I cannot enter or even discuss.”
Ife sighed. “I know, Tinu. I know you are suffering silently over Jare.”
Tinu interrupted, “Please let’s drop the subject.”
“You know he is going to vie for the vacant stool like other princes and he will marry another woman that can be his queen. He cannot have a divorced woman as his first wife if he is chosen, I am telling you so I can help you. Lucas is not going to divorce you so you can marry Jare. It is an impossible situation. I want you to think about it. I will try to find a way to help you by finding out for you what can really be done. On another level, you will have to prepare to accept a young wife for Lucas. It is the only way you can have peace.”
Tinu stood up enraged at the last piece of news, demanding to know the details of the plans of Lucas. Ife asked her to calm down and told her that she would soon know when the parents come to visit them as soon as she returned to the village.
Ife went on, “Lucas is a man from his tribe and traditions. He was going to be true to his roots and have a second wife. He is still the same simple trusting person, Tinu. He likes you and would do everything to make you happy in his fashion. He likes the idea that you will be the senior wife and he will always respect you. It is better for him this way, rather than have an affair in secret. He is not in love in the sense of human binding love for one single person. Look into your heart and you will find that for the rest of your existence this time on earth, you will have space only for Jare. There was nobody there before.”
“What kind of tradition forces a man to abandon his heart and marry to please his people?” Tinu demanded.
Rose of Numen Page 4
