by E. C. Osondu
DEDICATION
In loving memory of my dearly beloved sister,
Felicia Maria Ezediuno Nwanze
CONTENTS
Dedication
How the House Came to Be
Ndozo
Ibe
Gramophone
Uncle Aya
Abule
Tata
Julius
Baby
Oluka
Gabriel
Currency
Soja
Fuebi
Trudy
Akwete
Ibe
How the House Came to Be No More
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by E. C. Osondu
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
HOW THE HOUSE CAME TO BE
When we asked Grandpa how the house we all called the Family House came into existence, this was the story he told us.
A long, long time ago, before anybody alive today was born, a brave ancestor of ours who was also a respected and feared juju man woke up one day and told his family, friends, and neighbors that he had a dream. In the dream he saw a crown being placed on his head. He interpreted this dream as signifying that he was going to be crowned a king soon.
As was the custom in those days, a new king had to be crowned by a reigning king who would also hand him a scepter of office. This should not have been a problem but for a minor incident that had occurred in the palace many, many years ago, before even those who were telling this story were born. You see, our ancestors had a bit of history with the palace.
We were told that my people once lived under the hegemony of an oppressive king in the distant past. Because they spoke a different language, and had two diagonal scarifications on each cheek, not much respect was accorded them. Not much was expected from them, either, other than the occasional payment of tributes to the king. They lived on the fringes of the society. They were neither full citizens nor bondsmen.
When a hunter among these ancestors of the family killed a wild boar he was expected to send the choicest part of the kill to the king.
When a girl child was born to them and it was seen by all eyes that she was indeed fair on the eyes and pretty, everyone began to refer to her as the king’s prospective wife. When she grew up she would be taken to the palace so that the king would peek at her through a peephole. If she caught his fancy and he liked what he saw, she became one of his wives. If he didn’t like her, she could then be married to someone else. It was said that some women who were pregnant in those days would eat bitter leaves, chew bitter kola nuts, and drink bitter fluids, putting themselves through all kinds of painful and bitter ordeals in order to ensure that their female offspring were born ugly.
The king had also mandated that the menfolk of the family should take part in the building of a large moat that was conceived to go round the kingdom like the Great Wall of China. This was going to be the king’s landmark achievement. It was in the nature of kings to build something that they would be remembered by. In later years court oral historians could then intone that during the reign of so and so king a great wall was erected around the kingdom to protect his subjects from invasion. To build a moat, mud was needed, and this mud had to be kneaded. This was a hard task. The digging out of the mud from a wide and deep hole and the fetching of water to knead it and the ferrying of the mud on baskets on the head. A rebellious ancestor complained about this humiliating task of mud kneading and moat building and had suggested they knead the mud with palm oil instead. This was done.
The next morning, the king’s palace was overrun by soldier ants.
It was important that a king should be feared by his subjects as such, any form of or hint of rebellion must be punished and crushed. This king was no different, he knew this rule of kingship and decided to teach these ancestors a lesson that they will never forget.
The king was determined to kill my ancestors. They fled on foot and would have settled in a town close to where they eventually settled but they were repulsed by the sight of pregnant men. This mystery would be later explained. The men were not really pregnant. Their large protruding bellies were a result of consuming lots of palm wine.
It was to this palace that this ancestor wanted to return in order to be crowned king and to be handed a scepter of office. When this ancestor was getting ready to go on the trip he invited some of his brothers and neighbors to come along with him, but they refused. They all knew that the unleashing of the soldier ants incident had not been forgiven or forgotten. Palaces tend to have a long memory. Yet this ancestor insisted that some people should come along with him. He knew that he needed to be crowned in the presence of witnesses. He eventually persuaded two of his friends to go with him after he had promised them official positions when he became king.
As expected, immediately they announced their presence, they were arrested and detained. The next morning one of them was brought out to the king’s courtyard. In the words of the king it was important to teach those who thought they could question royal authority a lesson they would never forget. The king was incensed for two reasons. He could tell from the diagonal tribal scarifications on the faces of these men, one of whom wanted to be crowned king, that they were the same people who had refused to build the moat and had unleashed the soldier ants that overran the palace. And now they also wanted to be crowned king. Unless this was dealt with ruthlessly, who knew what other form of rebellion they could incite his loyal subjects into committing? All the men, women, and children in the kingdom were assembled to witness this interesting spectacle. The king gave an order for the two men to be tied up. The king ordered that the first man be beheaded. It was done.
The next day the second man also had his head cut off. It was now my ancestor’s turn. He had spent the entire period of his detention red eyed and head bowed in sorrow over the loss of his friends. His own safety did not concern him that much. He was the one who had persuaded his late friends to come along with him on the journey. It was for this fact alone that he felt some regret.
As he was tied up and the sword unsheathed from the scabbard to chop off his head as the king had ordered, a millipede crawled out from his thick mane of hair and emerged from the center of his head. It was dark brown.
“Halt,” the king ordered his executioner.
He was a king, he had seen many things, but he also knew and respected strong juju. This was no mere mortal. The millipede was a sign that this man was a strong juju man. The king’s attitude changed.
“Untie the man,” the king commanded.
“Prepare him good food. Dress him in the best clothes and bring him into my presence tomorrow.”
It was done.
When the ancestor was brought to the king’s presence the next day, the king sent all his courtiers away and sat alone with my ancestor. My ancestor looked the king in the eye and said to him, “I know what keeps you awake at night. You are worried that you will die young like your father and your great-grandfather and all your ancestors who have been kings before you.”
The king looked at my ancestor and nodded humbly.
“I will make you an amulet that will make you live to a ripe old age. You must go into the forest yourself and gather me some wild vines,” my ancestor said to the king.
“I have thousands of slaves and servants that can do it, I will send one of them or even a dozen of them to pluck you this vine,” the king said.
“Yes, I know, but you must pick the wild vine yourself. It is important that you do this yourself because only you can extend your own life. No other hand can extend your life for you.”
So the king went into the fore
st and came back with the wild vine. My ancestor plucked the leaves off the vine and twisted the vine into a twine and hung it to dry on a rafter by the fireplace. Three days later he summoned the king and asked the king to bring down the now-dry twisted vine. The king did.
“Twist it and see if you can break it in two.”
The king twisted it, and the vine broke in two without much effort on the king’s part.
“You must go into the forest once again and bring me the same vine,” he told the king. Once again, the king complained but went to the forest and got the vines. This time, my ancestor ordered that the vine was to be hung up in the rafters and the fires must be kept burning at low heat for seven days. After seven days the vine was given to the king to break in two, but no matter how much he tried he could not break it in two. My ancestor now pounded the dry creeping vine in a mortar and used it to prepare a longevity talisman for the king that was to be worn around the neck. He also told the king.
“From now going forward, decree that when you or any of your descendants dies, they be buried in an upright position while seated on their royal stool. Only commoners deserve to be buried on their backs, lying down. When you get to the world beyond, you’ll discover there are also hierarchies as we have here on earth, there are levels in the next world, you know. Over there, you’ll also be counted among the royalty and accorded the deference and respect you deserve.” The king was delighted by this idea of reigning among the living and the dead and decreed that this would be the manner in which all kings, including him, would be buried from then on.
“How do I repay you?” the king asked.
“You should grant me my original request. Crown me king.”
“There cannot be two kings in the land,” the king said. “Here’s what I’ll do. I will give you a large parcel of land somewhere in the outskirts, and money and men to start life afresh. I will also build you a mansion where you will live. A mansion that befits a strong juju man like you.”
And that was how we acquired the land on which the Family House was built. The king also built this ancestor a mansion, but it was built out of mud. Many years later the son of the king was sent to visit the king of Portugal. When he came back, he described the kind of houses he saw in Portugal. As a final gift the king, who had now lived to a ripe old age, decided to build the Family House in the Portuguese architectural style for my ancestor. What my ancestor did not know was that the king had built him the house in order to keep an eye on him. He had instructed his soldiers to kill my ancestor if for any reason the king did not live to a ripe old age. This was how the Family House came to be.
NDOZO
We were all woken up one morning by shouts of thief! thief! We were summoned to the large sitting room, the parlor. One of the women who lived in the house was kneeling down on the floor and was crying. Her name was Ndozo. She was one among the many women that sold for Grandpa in the market. She also had a little son whose nose was always snotty and who wore three aluminum crucifixes tied on a string around his neck and a talisman around the waist. They said she had been stealing from the money made from sales. She was one of the trusted ones. She was one of those that counted the money at the end of each day. She was accused of helping herself to some of the money.
“How long have you been stealing from the sales money?” one of the older men living in the house asked her.
Her interrogator’s name was Sibe-Sibe. He had lived in the house for so long that no one remembered what he was exactly. He occupied that unclear borderland between servant and freeborn. All the servants feared him. Grandpa respected and trusted him.
“Not for such a long time,” she said.
“One month? One year? Three months? Just tell us how long?”
“I don’t remember how long,” she said. “It is the devil. I promise never to do it again.”
“We will show how we deal with thieves in the Family House.”
Someone grabbed a Tiger razor blade from its packet and began to scrape off her hair. There was no pretense or attempt at giving her a proper haircut, the shoddier the job, the better, this haircut was intended to humiliate, not beautify. Soon most of her hair was on the floor though there were still small tufts of hair on some parts of her scalp. Some parts of her scalp were bleeding where the blade had nicked her skin.
They stripped her of her clothes, leaving only her underskirt made of different-colored cotton fabric. They made a necklace out of snail shells and strung it around her neck. She was given two empty milk cans and told to start clapping them together like cymbals. We were told to follow her as she was forced to walk out of the house half-naked.
“I will never steal again. It was the devil. I don’t know why I did. This is my family. I have no other family. Please, I promise not to steal again.”
But Grandpa wanted to use her to set an example. He said that it was important that we saw how thieves were treated so that we would never be tempted to steal in our lives.
As she was led down the steps out into the streets the men told her to sing. One of the men was holding a long koboko horse whip and would mockingly act as if he were going to whip her, at which she’d jump and the snail shells would make a mild rattling sound. She clapped the empty milk cans together and began to walk down the street as we followed her. We were told to make booing noises and jeer at her as we walked behind her. As soon as we left the house because it was still early morning, we passed by people bringing out their wares and women frying akara. They would pause in their morning activity and turn to us and she would be made to stand before them as she clapped the empty milk tins together and sing and we ululated behind her.
“What did you do?” they’d ask, even though they already knew from seeing her shaved head and the snail shell mock necklace around her neck.
“I stole.”
“And what did you steal?”
“I stole money from the sales box.”
“And what did you do with the money?”
“It was the devil that made me do it.”
“Will you ever steal again?” they’d ask her.
“No, I will never steal again,” she would say.
“Now do your song and dance for us again. It is a good song, we like hearing it.”
She would dance and clap her empty milk cans together as she sang:
Thief, thief, jankoriko
Ajibole ole
We moved from the Family House through different streets and warrens and side streets. At some point she said she was thirsty because the sun was out and burning but she was immediately told to shut her mouth. She said she wanted to urinate but she was told to pee on herself. She said her throat was hurting and that she was losing her voice, but they asked if she would have stopped stealing if she hadn’t been caught.
“It was the devil that made me do it,” she said.
We were getting tired too, but still we walked and walked a bit more and she stopped and sang and stopped and sang and people asked her what she had done.
When we got back home she was told to go and kneel in the same corner where she had been kneeling when we woke up. She was not allowed to touch her son.
“You see how thieves are treated in the Family House?” we were asked.
“That is exactly what will happen to anyone who steals in this house, including my own children and grandchildren.”
The next morning when we woke up, Ndozo had vanished, leaving her infant son behind.
There were lots of stories about her disappearance. Some said she had been so consumed by shame, she had gone and thrown herself into the lagoon. Others said she had run back to her parents. Nobody could recall who her parents were. She was one of those that had come to live in the house in exchange for some money owed Grandpa until the money was paid back, then she could return to her family. But it was said that whoever borrowed from Grandpa was never in a position to repay because he jinxed them and many of them remained in the house and had children who also became a part of
the Family House, helping around the house until they became old enough to go and start selling in the store.
It was said that before Ndozo left the house she had placed a curse on the house, saying that just as she had been put to shame that the house and its inhabitants would eventually be humiliated and come to shame.
Someone said that Grandpa had whispered that she was not going to be missed and that she had done a good thing by leaving her son behind.
Years later, a car parked in front of the Family House and a plump woman stepped out. She was dressed expensively. She shielded her eyes as she looked at the house, as if she needed to reassure herself that this was indeed her destination. She walked through the gate and entered the compound. It was Ndozo. She greeted and asked for Grandpa. She excused herself and went back to the car. The driver began to carry things into the house. Plastic containers and clothes. She said she had come to take her son back with her. She was now a big trader in plastics in the neighboring country. She said she had been blessed with everything, good fortune and riches; her business had prospered. She had started out as an apprentice, selling plastics to a big trader over there, and because she was good in business, knew how to attract customers, and sell at a profit, all of them skills she had acquired from living in the Family House, she had made the business of her boss grow. She said that all she was today she owed to her time selling for Grandpa. Her boss soon opened a shop of her own for her and the shop had really grown in size. She was now a big distributor of plastics. She even had people selling for her. She was sorry for that theft of a long time ago but she was also happy that something good had come out of it. Here she was today, prosperous and independent. She had people selling for her and she would be disappointed if they stole from her. She was here to make restitution. She had found love, she had met a man who loved her and they were married, but she had been unable to conceive. People said that a woman must choose between the kind of wealth that can be counted, such as money and landed property and cars, and the type that cannot be counted, for you can count the number of cattle that you have but you do not count your children. Where was her son? she asked. She wanted to see him and touch him with her hands. In all the years that had gone by there had not been a day that his face and thoughts of him had left her mind.
