Who Fears Death

I brought dishonor to my mother by existing. I brought scandal to Papa by entering his life. Where before he had been a respected and eligible widower, now people laughingly said he was bewitched by an Okeke woman from the bloody West, a woman who’d been used by a Nuru man. My parents carried enough shame.

On top of all this, at eleven, I still had hopes. I believed that I could be normal. That I could be made normal. The Eleventh Rite was old and it was respected. It was powerful. The rite would put a stop to the strangeness happening to me. The next day, before school, I went to the home of the Ada, the priestess who would perform the Eleventh Rite.

“Good morning, Ada-m,” I respectfully said when she opened the door.

She met my eyes with a frown. She might have been a decade older than my mother, maybe two. I stood almost her height. Her long green dress was elegant and her short Afro was perfectly shaped. She smelled of incense. “What is it, Ewu?”

I winced at the word. “I’m sorry,” I said, stepping back. “Am I disturbing you?”

“I’ll decide that,” she said, crossing her arms over her small chest. “Come in.”

I stepped in, briefly noting that I’d be late for school. I’m really going to do this, I thought.

On the outside, her house was a small sand brick dwelling and inside it remained small. Yet somehow it was able to harbor a work of art that was gigantic in visual power. The mural that splashed over the walls was unfinished, but the room already looked as if it were submerged in one of the Seven Rivers. Painted near the door was a human-sized fish-man with a strikingly lifelike face. His ancient eyes were full of primordial wisdom.

Books told of huge bodies of water. But I’d never seen a drawing of one, let alone a giant colorful painting. This can’t really exist, I thought.So much water. And in it were silvery insects, turtles with green flat legs and shells, water plants, gold, black, and red … fish. I stared around and around. The room smelled of wet paint. The Ada’s hands were stained with it, too. I had interrupted her.

“You like it?” she asked.

“Never seen anything like it,” I said quietly, staring.

“My favorite kind of reaction,” she said, looking genuinely pleased.

I sat down and she sat across from me, waiting. “I … I’d like to put my name on the list, Ada-m,” I said. I bit my lip. To speak this request made it true, especially when spoken to this woman.

She nodded. “I wondered when you would come.”

The Ada knew what was happening with everyone in Jwahir. She was the one who made sure the proper traditions were performed for deaths, births, menstrual celebrations, the party thrown when a boy’s voice drops, the Eleventh Year Rite, the Thirteenth Year Rite, all of life’s markers. She’d planned my parents’ wedding and I’d hidden from her whenever she came by. I hoped she didn’t remember me.

“I’ll add your name. The list will be submitted to the Osugbo,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Be here at two a.m. a week from today. Wear old clothes. Come alone.” She looked me over. “Your hair—unbraid it, brush it out and rebraid it loosely.”

A week later, I snuck out of my bedroom window at twenty minutes to two in the morning.

The door to the Ada’s house was open when I arrived. I slowly stepped inside. The living room was decorated with candles, all the furniture cleared away. The Ada’s mural, mostly finished, looked more alive than ever in the candlelight.

The three other girls were already there. I quickly joined them. They looked at me with surprise, and some relief. I was one more person to share their fear. We didn’t speak, not even a greeting, but we stood close together.

Besides the Ada, there were five other women present. One of them was my great-aunt, Abeo Ogundimu. She’d never liked me. If she realized I was here without the consent of Papa, her nephew, I’d be in real trouble. I didn’t know the other four women, but one of them was very old and her presence demanded respect. I shivered with guilt, suddenly unsure of whether I should be there.

I glanced at a small table in the center of the room. Set on it were gauze, bottles of alcohol, iodine, four scalpels, and other items I didn’t recognize. My stomach rolled with nausea. A minute later, the Ada began. They must have been waiting for me.

“We are the women of the Eleventh Rite,” the Ada said. “We six guard the crossroads between womanhood and girlhood. Only through us can you move freely between the two. I am the Ada.”

“I am Lady Abadie, the town healer,” the short woman next to her said. Her hands were pressed closely to her flowing yellow dress.

“I am Ochi Naka,” another said. She was very dark skinned and had a voluptuous figure that she showed off with her stylish purple dress. “Market seamstress.”

“I am Zuni Whan,” the other said. Under her loose blue midlevel dress, she wore pants, something women rarely wore in Jwahir. “Architect.”

“I am Abeo Ogundimu,” my great-aunt said with a smirk. “Mother of fifteen.”

The women laughed. We all did. A mother to fifteen was a busy career indeed.

“And I am Nana the Wise,” the imposing old old woman said, looking at each of us through her one good eye, her hunched back forever pushing her forward. My great-aunt was old, but she was young compared to this woman. Nana the Wise’s voice was clear and dry. She held my eyes longer than she did the other girls’. “Now what are your names, so that we are well met?” she said.

“Luyu Chiki,” the girl next to me said.

“Diti Goitsemedime.”

“Binta Keita.”

“Onyesonwu Ubaid-Ogundimu.”

“This one,” Nana the Wise said, pointing at me. I held my breath.

“Step forward,” the Ada said.

I’d spent too much time mentally preparing for this day. All week, I’d had trouble eating, sleeping, fearing the pain and blood. By this point, I’d finally come to terms with it all. Now the old woman would bar my way.

Nana the Wise looked me up and down. Slowly she stepped around me, peering up with her one eye, like a tortoise from its shell. She grunted. “Unbraid that hair,” she said. I was the only one with hair long enough to braid. Jwahir women wore their hair stylishly short, another difference between my mother’s village and Jwahir. “This is her day. She must be unhindered.”

I was flush with relief. As I undid my loose braid, the Ada spoke. “Who comes here untouched?”

Only I raised my hand. I heard the one named Luyu snicker. She quickly shut up when the Ada spoke again. “Who, Diti?”

Diti let out a tiny uncomfortable laugh. “A … schoolmate,” she said quietly.

“His name?”

“Fanasi.”

“Did you have intercourse?”

I quietly gasped. I couldn’t imagine it. We were so young.

Diti shook her head and said, “No.” The Ada moved on.

“Who, Luyu?” she asked.

When Luyu only stared back with defiant eyes, the Ada strode forward so quickly that I was sure she was going to slap Luyu across the face. Luyu didn’t budge. She held her chin higher, daring the Ada. I was impressed. I noticed Luyu’s clothes. They were made from the finest textiles. They were bright; they’d never been washed. Luyu came from money and she obviously didn’t feel that she had to answer to even the Ada.

“I don’t know his name,” Luyu finally said.

“Nothing leaves this place,” the Ada said. But I sensed a threat in her voice. Luyu must have, too.