The old man gave her one keen look and nodded gracefully. “I never knew what would happen when the gods decided the fate of my son and his marital future, but I think I am learning a few things. The white man is a good witch and I sense that somehow, like you did so many years ago when you saved the village, you are about to do the same. The people will resist you with all they have and would not see the road but I pray for you now that I understand a bit what you are about. May the peace of Numen be your staff and strength.”
Sudden tears came into her eyes and she knew she could relax her inner guard. It was such a relief that she instinctively dropped on her knees to him in silent respect. The old man understood and put a tentative hand on her shoulder in silent comfort. Ife felt she had just received the blessing of her father-in-law. She was startled at the thought but also uplifted.
~~~
It was a very cheerful Ife that returned to town the next morning. There was a purpose and a lift to her steps when she met with Yomi in his office. Yomi noticed the change and he raised his eyebrows in inquiry but Ife only smiled at him and asked him to go over the review with her. She wanted to know if Babatunde would be granted bail that day and Yomi grinned even as a glint of determination came into his eyes.
Ife saw his silent lines of pain as she remembered about his son and that he was under strain about the blood disease.
“Okay, let’s take a break from me and my troubles. What is the problem with Kunle?”
Yomi, who was slipping papers into his briefcase, went still and slowly let out a sigh. “I think somehow the picture I had of happiness is threatened. The doctors are all puzzled trying to determine what kind of ailment it is. I went to Babatunde for help. I discussed it with Wura and I guess she was nervous enough with her father who promptly made an issue of it to the pharmaceutical society. Wura’s father was not thinking of making trouble, so he says. But like all stupid rich men he wanted to cut corners and was going to use his, quote ‘office’, to ensure the society would give him the name of a qualified pharmacist not a ‘bush medicine man’ as he puts it. Naturally, the fellows at the pharmacy frowned at that and before I knew what was happening letters had been sent to Babatunde, queries, and a whole bunch of nonsense. I have never been so embarrassed. I think Wura’s father is going to refuse us marrying. He never felt I was good for his daughter anyway. Damn him. Wura seems to think we are jinxed anyway.”
Ife was sad as she listened and murmured it was a bad thing to have happened to him.
“I am trying to rationalize everything and all I feel is still foggy to me.”
“Give yourself time, but I am sincerely sorry you had to go through that experience.”
The door opened and someone walked in. He identified himself as an officer from the pharmaceutical house and gave Yomi a letter, explaining he was told Yomi could be found at Ife’s place. Yomi opened the letter and read slowly frowning, then smiling.
“I think we can cancel out any issues with the medicine men. They just wrote to inform me that they were withdrawing all charges against Babatunde and would be sending him a letter absolving him of any wrongdoing. Congratulations, lady, we are making progress.”
Ife raised her eyes giving silent thanks.
Ndana suddenly materialised very close to Yomi, pointing to Yomi’s heart. He bowed low and said to Ife, “Princess, he was going to be used and they wanted to exchange his heart so I asked permission to spoil it. I am not dead, Princess. Remember that palace we went to when I was coming and we saw your friend Ezanthen? I have just being kidnapped from my mother and taken there now but I am held down. If he hurries I can do something about it.”
Ife turned horrified eyes to Yomi and asked him to take her now to his town. Yomi’s jaw dropped in total surprise at the urgency in Ife’s voice, and obeyed.
~~~
The town was two hours drive away from the capital. Ife asked rapid questions from Yomi and he answered them mystified.
On the outskirts of the town, Ife asked Yomi to veer off into the farm road and then asked him to drive faster. The dirt road was bumpy. Yomi went grim when Ife disclosed that he might still be able to pick his son if he swears to keep quiet and not make a case out of it. Ife told him that they were going to steal his son back. Yomi almost crashed the vehicle into a tree as he swerved violently in shock at hearing that piece of information.
“What the hell is going on? My son is supposed to be in school.”
“Your son was kidnapped a few hours ago from his school with somebody claiming to have a message from you to the school principal. Please don’t ask me dumb questions. Your son just sent me the message and we really don’t have time to waste. Those that kidnapped him plan to kill him when his buyer comes tonight because they want to use his blood to save a dying king. A young life in exchange so to speak.”
Yomi stared at her and then changed gears as they crashed through the forest. He swore constantly and he held the steering with white-knuckled fierceness. Minutes later Ife asked him to stop. They got out of the car and the pair made silent progress to a grove. The walk lasted some minutes and Ife stopped suddenly when they got to a shrine with palm fronds blocking their entrance.
Ife made a piercing sound by cupping her mouth. Yomi stood transfixed as the palm fronds parted and a young man appeared carrying a very limp Kunle dripping with blood from the side of his head. Ife saw that Yomi was almost ready to faint but he kept quiet as Ife received the Kunle’s limp form from the young man as Ife and he spoke in a language that Yomi could not comprehend. Ife tugged on Yomi’s sleeve and they carried Kunle back to the car.
The next few minutes was a flurry of activity as Ife kept asking Yomi to drive more sedately. She understood his anxiety and could see he had a thousand questions he wanted to ask but she had signaled silence as she bent over Kunle, talking to his silent form. Kunle finally stirred. Ife asked to stop and abruptly went into a nearby brush emerging with a few plants. She squeezed their juice into the lips of Kunle and persuaded him to lick them. He did that feebly and drifted off to sleep. Yomi resumed swearing.
Yomi burst into helpless tears and parked the car by the side of the road as he gave way to his emotions. Ife was silent and said she understood but that she could not allow him the luxury of release. “You have to move now. We have to drive to Ibadan first and then you will have to make arrangements to take your son away for at least three months. The king has only three months. When he hears that Kunle has left he will understand the meaning of that and would know his time was up. The mark on Kunle was what had saved Kunle and made the attempted sacrifice unviable. Certain humans cannot be sacrificed.”
Yomi drove quietly until they got to the express road. Ife asked him to stop as she had to return and she gave Yomi the name of the person who was to look after Kunle. Yomi was exhausted but there was a determined expression in his face as he listened patiently to Ife’s instructions.
Yomi quietly stared ahead for a while and then he thanked Ife. “I am not leaving you by the side of the road to find your way back to the hospital after you gave me life and hope. It does not matter if I have to drive all night and all day around all of this country. I am taking you back to your place then I will make the drive to Ibadan, spend the night there after ensuring that Kunle has been taken to where you have specified. I will be in court tomorrow for Babatunde and then I will need to talk with you, is that okay?”
Ife agreed.
The drive back was a bit more relaxed but both mutually avoided talking about Kunle. Just as they were about to enter the hospital, Ife placed a gentle hand on Yomi stating that she did not want anybody seeing him drive her into the hospital. He nodded and she climbed out of the car, looked in the back to see that Kunle was sleeping, and gave Yomi the leaves she had gotten earlier. She told Yomi to just squeeze the juice for Kunle to taste. “He will not need to eat until you get him to Sasa who will be waiting for him. I have already informed him to be on standby. Sasa does not talk much but he k
nows what to give your son. Just drive carefully and safely down.”
Chapter Twenty
Yeye was shelling melon seeds as usual when Ife came over to visit. Yeye laughed. “As a matter of interest, do you ever do anything else?”
Yeye gave a happy curtsey and made a place on the bench for Ife to sit. “Idle hands could become dangerous hands, Princess,” Yeye replied.
Ife dipped her hands into the calabash full of melon seeds and started shelling as well. “I have some questions.”
“Hmmm…”
“What will happen if I announce to the old men here that I don’t want to be their Numen?”
“You cannot help being who you are, Princess. You are worried about the mysticism we have attached to traditional practices, right?”
“I am horrified by the bloodiness of your faith.”
“They murdered their own savior and turned round to accuse him of dying for their sins in order to excuse their own guilt,” Yeye said with sudden heat
Ife laughed. “Which of the books have you been reading, Yeye?”
Yeye went shy and mumbled an apology.
Ife wrinkled her brows but still smiled. “I must be some form of bad influence. That used to be my complaint while mother was here. She never liked it, was scared to tell me I was blaspheming, but I think secretly kept doing the penance for bringing such a heathen into this world.”
“I don’t think so, Princess, she just didn’t know what to make of you, that was all.”
“You can stop the constant vigil now. They have granted bail to the Lion and he can now go back to work. He wants me to thank you for your prayers.”
Yeye chuckled as she gave thanks to the gods, then gave Ife a happy smile. “See what you have done? Thanks for sending our prayers to Mother.”
“Don’t be so sure it was me. I never knew what to make of me most times but I am happy too.”
There was some silence. Ife spoke again in a slow meditative tone as if she was talking to herself.
“You know one evening I sat under the stars and watched them. I wondered if somewhere, somehow I could come across another being from another milky way, and that there might be just such a person who will wonder like I do. I would like to ask such a person, is there a need for faith? Can man just live his life and not wonder about a god somewhere? Did things just happen? I am kind of uneasy to think there could be no order in the world as we know it. You know in school we learn all types of things. But even after I left school, I still find a million other things I do not understand.
“I listened to a friend of mine the other day and she was talking about her understanding of the world. She said something about the single most important factor of life…love…and I asked why she could still think of love. She answered that it was the only thing that made sense to her. I really don’t know. Why would killing another human being be pleasing to a Creator somewhere? He is the owner of life so why ask someone to take a life in order to be pleasing? Who started the sacrifice thing? Did we sense our unworthiness and thus felt insulting him with this unworthiness will be pleasing to Him? Does he know me? Is he aware that I exist?
“My mentor said, ‘The Lord of lights does not know me but sees my threads if I glow enough as to be homogenous with universal light’. When you sit and look into the sky and you see the millions of stars that may be suns to another galaxy and you are told there are myriads of other galaxies you wonder if the sky you are looking at is your own sky.
“Why would man thus make murder right to excuse their own individual deficiencies? I have so many questions, Yeye,” Ife said.
“It is because you have become educated and you allow too many questions to cloud your heart, Princess. I think of the Creator as Olodumare, the one who holds the final justice over all things. I think we live in an unjust world. We came to the world as in a market and must buy all that we need to purchase. We must choose the things we want to buy that will be useful to us when we return home. I feel home is the last point of our journey. Olodumare gave each of us a time and a choice and enough coins to make our purchases. We must do our buying before high noon as the traders will pack their wares by the end of that time when the sun goes to the house of Olodumare to drop her wares too.
“Numen Yeye does not ask for blood in her worship and in her grove, and you must find peace, strength and kindness in your heart for she is the queen of the Earth and teaches women how to keep the heat of the home steady and burning.”
Ife smiled. “Okay I learned that too, priestess, that women need to understand how to keep the home fires burning but you are yet to answer my question—is the shedding of blood part of worship? I am not sure I want to be part of a religion that kills in order to worship.”
Yeye sadly shook her head and dipped her hand into the bowl of melon seeds. Ife sensed that Yeye did not wish to continue the conversation and she sighed. She had grown up with the notion of sacrifice as some hazy web dangling over her head, now she felt the hazy web was taking a definite shape and it was depressing. The spirituality of a religion that had neither meaning nor logic to her sense of justice. It was becoming an issue she felt she must come to terms with.
How could one be comfortable with blood sacrifice? She knew her village had grown away from it but she felt that was just surface dressing. Ife sensed that the kind of fate that had been almost that of Kunle had been visited on some hapless person somewhere else. She remembered that she had been unable to sleep the first day she came across one person who had been used for ritual. Her dad had tried then to shield her from seeing the headless human but she had and had wept for days for the unknown victim.
It was easy while growing up to put that incident behind her. But now she had been brought physically close to a near victim. The relief had been that the victim had lived on a higher level of consciousness and so could resist the attempt.
Kunle was well and had been taken abroad by his father who registered him in a school. But the question had nagged her and she wondered about her native faith.
Babatunde had stared at her when she asked him the same question. It was obvious that he had not given it much thought.
If we are the next generation, isn’t there a way we can stop the bloodshed?
Joining in the festivities for the Airegbe festival, Ife had felt peaceful but she had been shocked when she learnt that a woman had been found on the way to the farm murdered by seeming ritualists. She knew the husband of the woman had been inconsolable and so had the children the woman left behind. According to the story, she had gone to the farm and was returning home late when she was caught.
Ife paid a visit to the family and discovered that the woman had a sixteen-year-old girl who did not even cry. Ife saw the girl had been writing something on a piece of paper. Ife was shocked when she saw the paper.
xxx
Ritual
She wore red
midriff across her breast
she took the path
that led to her nest
The crickets sang
a melody to the breeze
Jasmine scented night
Moonlit kissed sky
They stood hidden
amongst the brambles
machetes gleaming
She sang along the path
thoughts of loved faces quickened her steps
they moved one pace closer too
the owl screamed a warning
lady you are led
to a fiery slaughter
by the field of your dreams
The moon dipped
they jumped out
incantations galore
faces smeared with terror
one pinched scream
then a whimpered silence
the march to the grove
of the ancestral spirits
Now her red is spattered
with the red of her blood
it is the ritual of ignorance
danced by dead and living
&
nbsp; In the eerie market square.
~~~
She had kept the paper and each time she read it, she felt like she was stabbed herself—she felt accused and squirmed as the words were like knifepoints to her. Ife was very confused. Would being a Christian help her? She remembered her mother and the endless fasts and knew something was not completely right with that faith either.
The savior of her mother’s faith was presented as a willing victim to a concept that told her she could negotiate with the Creator. She remembered the ignorance of the prophets and how they had a habit of pointing fingers at people and would pray for some kind of holy fire to descend on their perceived enemies.
Something in her always rejected that. She felt that living at the simple level in which she was, and by visiting the Blue Mountains consciously, only brought her peace and happiness. Nobody on the Blue Mountain carried conscious hatred towards anyone. They lived naturally and had assignments to speak to and awaken the consciences of men. She was aware of her loyalty to a higher being and her longing to always be helpful and caring. Mae said that was how she had earned the pinions of light attached to her. Submission was a natural happy thing.
It took a while before Ife was aware that Yeye was staring at her. She raised her eyebrows questioningly and Yeye murmured if she should prepare anything for her. The sun had gone down and it was time to get dinner.
Rose of Numen Page 15
