The missionary came in first, as he was a guest in the palace. The man bowed to the King. Obi wanted to use his hands to tell him to rise, but he realized he had no control of his hands, so he told him to have a seat.
“Michael, tell me why do you feel we live?” the King asked.
“To grow in the ways of God.”
“I like that. A world belonging to the gods that men play in.”
“I believe in only one God and I dance only to his tune.”
“We believe in a lot of gods and for a funny reason—they are always at war with each other.”
“Are you all right, Your Majesty? Your voice sounds croaky.”
“I will be up and jumping soon. So what do you believe about death?”
“Eternity.”
“We believe in reincarnation. If you lived a worthy life on earth, you come back a greater man. But if your life was spent poorly, you come back a lesser man, animal, or even a plant.”
The King at this time could no longer see, although his eyes were still open, he could only hear.
“It is general opinion that a good man is not afraid to die. Supposing, I mean hypothetically, if I was about to die and I want to meet with your God you’ve been talking about all these years, what do I do?”
“Take him as your only God and believe in his son.”
“That’s easy. My gods are a little bit impotent.” He attempted to laugh, but he felt too much pain. “So I take it that when I die, I will see your God…But if he has a son, then he should have a wife.”
“No Sire, he doesn’t have a wife. Actually he—”
At that time the Ifa priest and Gbangba busted in. The Ifa priest rushed to his King and the Head-of-Government gave the missionary a polite nod for Michael to leave the room.
Michael then said to the King, who was drifting further from reality, “Goodbye, Your Majesty.”
The King did not hear him with the Ifa priest’s examination on him, but he meant the words deeply. He was not a specialist, but he could see the man was fighting to live. He wanted to go to his friend and hug him, but any attempt and the Ifa priest would have killed him instantly; you never touch a King unless he touches you.
The Ifa priest was giving the King a thorough check up. Gbangba was getting impatient so he asked, “Is he going to be okay?”
In an unconvincing tone the Ifa priest turned to the Head-of-Government and said, “He is going to be okay.”
In a slow, broken voice the King said, “If you believe that, then you will believe the sun touches my head. You are talking with a dead man.”
Gbangba did not realize he was in tears. Watching his friend helpless on the seat, skin discolored, burnt his soul. Even before he asked the Ifa priest, he knew his friend was flowing on death’s path. He was no longer seeing a King, but instead the boy he wrestled. He remembered the day as though it was part of him.
The Head-of-Government did not have anything to say to his friend, he just looked as he tried to pretend he was painless. In his heart he cursed life for making him meet his only friend, just to watch him die and vengeance burnt inside him. Someone or people were going to be punished for the atrocity that was before his eyes. He didn’t care how long, but the owners of the crime would pay for it. The day before, they were laughing like children. Now he knew he too was old.
“I feel like a roasted cock,” the King said.
“Nonsense, you are okay. You will be up and running in no time. Right, Gbangba?” The Ifa priest addressed the Head-of-Government, who was not ready to hear or say anything to anyone.
“I was poisoned. Or do you want to tell me nature wants my life?” Obi asked with a grin on his dying face.
“You were poisoned, my Liege, and it’s a miracle you are still alive,” the Ifa priest said.
“Can you hear it?” Obi raised his head to the molded roof. “Death is calling.”
“There is something I have wanted to tell you for years,” the Ifa priest said.
“Talk quickly. As you can see, I am a dying man.”
“About your two sons, I found out late that they belonged to another, but by that time you had grown deeply in love with both of them. I intended confronting you with my observation when a true heir was born, but considering the circumstances, I have to address the issue now.”
“It doesn’t make any difference now,” the dying King said.
“I am sorry, my Liege, but it makes all the difference now. Death is their destiny along with their philandering mothers. There is no place for an unclean blood on the throne of this kingdom.”
“I don’t want any of them touched.”
“I am sorry, Your Majesty, but that is one order I cannot carry out,” the Ifa priest replied.
“Ifa priest, do you think me a fool? Weruche told me her husband was impotent. She thought I was a fool. Onyela told me she had never been touched by a man. She rubbed alum on her vagina to tighten her walls. She thought I was a fool. Do you take me as a fool, Ifa priest?”
“No, Your Majesty,” the Ifa priest said, his eyes locked on the dying man’s feet.
“The Oracle gave my grandfather, King Burobee, a proverb that seemed very complex, yet elementary. The answer stared at us like the heavens. That was why it required my father, King Nwosa, killing his only son, me. I believe you men know what the message from the Oracle was. I am too weak to recite it again…But it meant that the generations of all the kings that have stepped forth into this great kingdom will end with me. That was why my life was required to change the prophecy. So no matter what happens, my heir can never rule.”
“If that’s the way it has to be, so be it, but as long as I am high chief, those two frauds and their mothers will die,” the Ifa priest said with his head still low.
“Listen to me. I prefer that one of those two frauds—let me emphasize frauds—who could bring joy to my heart, be my heir rather than anyone else.”
“With all due respect, my Liege, I cannot concur.” The Ifa priest kept firm to his decision. The Head-of-Government stood speechless.
The King tried to move as he was talking to the Ifa priest, but every part of him was no longer moving except his mouth and he fought for every breath.
“Ifa priest, when I first laid eyes on those boys, they disgusted me. I didn’t see my eyes in any of them, but I grew to feel for them like children, then eventually like sons. I trained them like Omees, taught them how to walk, talk and think like a King. I am asking both of you…those are the wrong words…I am begging both of you, as your King, but more especially as my friends, to let them be treated as my heirs when I die.”
The Head-of-Government replied first. “Your wish is my command.”
The Ifa priest reluctantly followed. “As you desire, Your Majesty.”
“Thank you,” the King said then sighed. “Can you hear her voice?”
“What voice?” the Ifa priest asked.
“That sweet voice. She is coming back to me.”
The two men looked around, but saw nobody.
“I can see her. Are you men too blind to see beauty?”
Both comrades just stood watching him.
“You are not going to run away from me this time, Amina.”
The two men were unable to hear what he was saying.
Obi saw his first wife in front of him, smiling, and he heard her calling him. He chased her and this time he caught her. He said, “Forever.”
EPILOGUE
Gbanga stood outside the church, looking at the wooden house with shaded leaves and he began to lose himself in the wonderment of the essence around him.
“You can walk in if you want to; nobody is in.”
Gbanga turned to Michael.
“So fragile your building is, yet so strong.”
“The congregation put their hearts into attaining perfection.”
“I see.”
“So what happens now you’re no longer high chief?’
“Return to my shell and wait.”
�
�Wait for what?”
“Life’s most predictable destiny…Disaster.”
“What makes you so sure?” Michael asked Gbanga, who had his eyes hooked to the church.
“There are questions that already have answers. When asked, one then has the power to look at the other as a fool.”
Michael said nothing; he just stood watching him.
“Do you know why I put so much energy into trying to hate you?”
“Why?”
“Because you speak from the heart. You think the best in everything, which was what Obi feared about you. The only difference between Obi and me is, I know you are but one. I know there are lots of others like you, but not you.”
“What I offer is a belief, a pure free belief.”
“But what comes with that belief? Our culture is based on our belief, a belief we have studied for centuries, a belief that has built the peace of mind we gather till now. What you offer might be free and pure as you say, but it comes with its own culture. The more you initiate people into this, the more people will lose what they have. And even if they do accept your dogma, they will be decades behind you. And when they finally get to where they are supposed to be, another level will be attained, making them slaves to the past.”
“But the generations after them would catch up.”
“Catch up to what, your way of life?” Gbanga sighed. “Kings fight wars with their sons by their side, killing men looking into their eyes, showing their soldiers and their enemies why they rule. Your people kill without even facing their enemies. Everyone has enough food to eat, and palm wine to drink. The harder you work, the bigger your land. We tell tales to the young ones by moonlight, tales they themselves will tell to their children. We dance to celebrate the seasons of harvest. Your wife looks upon it as barbaric, but it’s our joy.”
“My wife?”
“Her expression tells everything. The sickness from our land, we know the cure, but that foreign to us, that which comes from lands lighter than our skin, we can’t understand, and your people laugh at our ignorance.”
“But the things you do, in kingdoms other than this…they kill children because they are twins, female circumcision—even in this kingdom, polygamy”
“And who made you a god to judge?”
“I’m not a judge.”
“You do not judge, but others do. The death of twins is a practice confined to a tribe, which believes that is the way to purify their land. A practice cursed by most kingdoms, but like most of you preaching your beliefs, you look for the most negative thing in our land and shout it out continually amongst the people in your land, announcing why you think your people are better. Tell me now that your land has no secrets. Tell me now that your land bears no wickedness. Tell me now that your land is not ready to crush everything that stands in its way just to grow bigger.”
“But we are ready to accept what we believe is wrong and make it better.”
“The death of twins is one of a tribe. You condemn the act. Condemn the tribe, but not the kingdom.”
“But is the tribe not part of the kingdom?”
“Understand why they do the things they do and then tell them why they are wrong.”
“But they are your people.”
“No they are not, Michael. They are of another kingdom. The advantage you missionaries have is, everything you say is accepted as selfless and it gives room for understanding. If I walked to that kingdom saying that, they’d think it a catalyst for war.”
“And the female circumcision?”
“Are you not circumcised?”
“Yes but...”
“Why?”
“It’s the norm.”
“That is the point, my friend. Over here it’s also the same for females. I see the way your wife walks when you walk, talks when you talk and picks the meat in the pot before you. That is your way in your culture. We let the woman be the woman. She is there to serve her man and her man is there to protect her and provide all her wants. You let a woman grow a penis like a man. She cannot be a woman anymore. She desires the things a man desires.”
“Does she not live, eat and breathe like a man? Why should she be treated as inferior?”
“My dear man, you need to understand life. Only a fool believes a woman is inferior to him. A woman is more cunning than a fox. They know the things to do or say to get what they want. Why do you think they hate themselves? Because they see through each other. Ask yourself this: Why is it that royal women remain uncircumcised, yet they force every other woman to be circumcised?”
“I don’t know.”
“I will tell you why, because sex is power. A woman of royalty married to an inferior man can do what she likes and he can do nothing about it. But that power she possesses, she would rather lose her left eye than let every woman have it, unless everyone else is doing it. Obi as King.” He chuckled. “Who do you think planned everything? Obi—you believe that, you believe stars grow in my yard. Ifrareta ruled this kingdom during every breath he took on that throne. The only power a man can have over a woman, beyond strength, is sex. Once that is lost, the only thing stopping them from ruling the world is themselves.”
“That’s why you engage in polygamy.”
“Polygamy is our way. Unlike your kingdom, we don’t divorce, so even when a woman begins to shrivel away, her breasts falling down like over-ripe paw-paw, we keep her in the authority of the position she held: the first wife. Put only one woman in the house and she would twirl you with her wrapper and you won’t even know it.”
“I don’t think that’s the right way.”
“You people come here claiming disgust for our ways, yet your men come in here sharing diseases we have no cure for, blind our women with things they haven’t seen. And as you preach, we have all the diseases. Tell me if I lie. Do your people not preach us as sexual beasts who sleep with everything, including animals, because we are like beast?”
“Some say.”
“Have you seen this, or heard it from any kingdom with men the color of my skin?”
“No. How do you know these things?”
“To be Head-of-Government you have to know things. Women they slept with heard their words when drunk, heard the excuses and the riposted versions of their wives’ defense of their infidelity.”
“But sex is…more open here.”
“And in your kingdom, it’s more hypocritical. When next you see a woman, an African woman, if she is married, she is married. Not even the flashiest beads or stones can caress her out of her fidelity. That is what matters. Tell a man his wife is in bed with the King and he would laugh at you. That was how it is…” He stopped to think. “How it was, before you people came.”
“What would you do if you ruled?”
“Kill every one of you, those who come in peace and those with wicked hearts.”
“Why would you want to kill me?”
“Because your intentions are good, but even you don’t understand, that for men to feel good about themselves they have to make others feel worse. Obi was a great King; the reason the oracle wanted him dead was because of you, because you would open us to your world, to your religion. Your religion would only set us back to a place where we would have to start—”
He stopped as Michael’s wife called out for him from the hut next to the church.
“Would you like to—”
“No. But I would like you to know, Michael, if I saw the hearts of a hundred men like yours, then I might consider changing my stance. For now, be glad I am no longer in power.”
“No disrespect, but I am glad you are no longer in power.”
“For now,” Gbanga added with a smile and walked into the veriscent shades of Africa.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
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Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 1 7
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
EPILOGUE
When Gods Bleed Page 25
