Who Fears Death

The three of us crouched around her. Luyu stared at me with wide hollow eyes. “You … you might know,” she said to me. “Something’s wrong with me. I think I’m cursed.”

“What do you …?”

“I was with Calculus.” She paused. “… at the tree with the bushes around it.”

We all nodded. It was where students went for privacy.

Luyu smiled despite herself. “I’m not like you three. Well, maybe Diti will understand.” Binta reached into her satchel and handed Luyu a bottle of water. Luyu took a sip. Then she spoke with a rage I didn’t know she was capable of. “I tried, but I enjoy it,” she said. “I’ve always enjoyed it! Why shouldn’t I?”

“Luyu what …” Diti began to say.

“Kissing, touching, intercourse,” Luyu said, looking at Diti. “You know it. It’s good. We learned that early.” She looked at Binta. “It’s good when it’s right. I know that no man is to touch us now, and I tried!” I took her hand. She snatched it away.

“I’ve tried for three years. Then Gwan came one day and I let him kiss me. It was good but then it was bad. It … made me hurt! Who did this to me? No one can just …” she was breathing too heavily. “Soon we’ll be eighteen, fully fledged adults! Why wait until marriage to enjoy what Ani gave me! Whatever the curse, I wanted to break it. I’ve been trying … Today it felt like I was going to die. Calculus refused to continue …” She looked beyond me, and screamed, “Look at him!”

We all turned to see Calculus standing behind the schoolyard fence. He quickly started walking away. “I’m not going to be the one who kills you!” he shouted.

“Ani will make your penis curl!” Luyu shouted.

“Luyu!” Diti screeched.

“I don’t care,” Luyu said, looking away.

“It’ll pass,” I said. “You’ll feel better in a few minutes.” It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her like this. That day she walked right past me looking sick, I thought.

“I’ll never feel better,” she said.

“Is it a curse?” Binta asked me.

“I don’t think so,” I said, annoyed that they thought I knew all about curses.

“It is,” Diti said. “Two years ago, I let Fanasi … touch me. We were kissing and … I hurt so badly that I started crying. He took offense and still won’t speak to me.”

“It’s not a curse,” Binta suddenly said. “It’s Ani protecting us.”

“From what?” Luyu snapped. “From enjoying boys? I don’t want that kind of protection!”

“I do!” Binta retorted. “You don’t know what’s good for you. You’re lucky that you aren’t pregnant! Ani protected you. She protects me. My father …” She slapped her hand over her mouth.

“You father what?” Luyu asked, frowning.

I growled low in my throat. “Binta, speak,” I said. “Ah, ah, Binta, what is this?”

“Did he try again?” Diti asked when Binta refused to speak. “He did, didn’t he?”

“He couldn’t do it because you were writhing in pain?” I asked.

“Ani protects me,” Binta insisted, tears falling down her cheeks.

We were all silent.

“He-he understands now,” Binta said. “He won’t touch me anymore.”

“I don’t care,” Luyu said. “He should be castrated like the other rapists.”

“Shhh, don’t say that,” Binta whispered.

“I will say and do what I want!” Luyu shouted.

“No, you won’t,” I said, putting my arm around Binta. I chose my words carefully. “I think juju was worked on us at our Eleventh Rite. It’s … probably broken with marriage.” I looked hard at Luyu. “I think if you force intercourse, you’ll die.”

“It is broken with marriage,” Diti said nodding. “My cousin always talks about how only a pure woman attracts a man pure enough to bring pleasure to the marriage bed. She says her husband is the purest man around … probably because he was the first who didn’t bring her pain.”

“Ugh,” Luyu said, angrily. “We’re tricked into thinking our husbands are gods.”

On my way home, I ran into Mwita. He was reading at the iroko tree. I sat beside him and sighed loudly. He shut his book.

“Did you know that the Ada and Aro once loved each other?” he asked.

I raised my eyebrows. “What happened?”

Mwita leaned back. “When he first came here years ago, the Osugbo Society immediately called him to a meeting. The Seer must have seen that Aro was a sorcerer. Not long after, he was invited to work with Osugbo Elders. After he peacefully dealt with a disagreement between two of Jwahir’s biggest traders, they asked him to become a full member. He’s Jwahir’s first not so elderly elder. Aro didn’t look a day over forty. No one minded because Jwahir benefited from him. Do you know the House of Osugbo?”

I nodded.

“It was built with juju,” Mwita said. “It was here before Jwahir was. Anyway, it has a way of making things … happen. One day, Nana the Wise asked Yere—that was the Ada’s name when she was a young woman—to meet her there. Aro also happened to be there that day. They both took a wrong turn and came face-to-face. From the moment they met, they didn’t like each other.

“Love is often mistaken for hate. But sometimes, people learn their mistake, as these two quickly did. Nana the Wise had set her eye on Yere as the next Ada. So Yere was asked often to come to the house for one reason or another. Aro spent almost all his time there. The House of Osugbo kept bringing them together, you see.

“Aro would ask, and then Yere would accept. He would speak, she would listen. She would wait and then he would come to her. They felt that they understood how things should always be. Yere was eventually appointed the Ada when the previous Ada passed away. Aro had established himself as the Worker. They complemented each other perfectly.”

Mwita paused. “It was Aro who came up with the idea to put juju on the scalpel but it was the Ada who accepted. They felt they were doing something good for the girls.”

I laughed bitterly and shook my head. “Does Nana the Wise know?”

“She knows. To her, it makes sense, too. She’s old.”

“Why didn’t Aro and the Ada marry?”

Mwita smiled. “Did I say that they didn’t?”

Chapter 12 (#ulink_88f81dd8-d395-5308-bbb8-d62406ce8068)

A Vulture’s Arrogance (#ulink_88f81dd8-d395-5308-bbb8-d62406ce8068)

THE SUN HAD JUST RISEN. I was perched in the tree, hunched forward.

I’d woken up fifteen minutes ago to see it before my bed. Staring at me. An insubstantial red sheet with an oval of white steam in the center. The eye hissed with anger and disappeared.