When Kalu the medicine man lay cocooned in his mother’s belly, many, many years ago, his preferred view of her womb was from the side. This inclination had not changed; it was the way he liked to look at the world. When giving readings, he would stare dramatically from the side, intensely scrutinizing the pile of useless bones, nuts, leaves and haphazardly gathered debris that meant absolutely nothing before declaring, “This is serious!” to his latest victim. He would pause, let his remark sink into their chest like a tingly ointment, all the while inwardly contemplating the delicious meals he would eat from the plump fowl and fat lambs that they were to bring him in payment. He would allow his bottom lip to tremble, and even managed to break into sweat now and again, before whispering in an otherworldly voice, “to resolve this, we will have to do another reading, this is what you must bring…” Then he would proceed to chant loudly in a made up tongue, widening his eyes till they appeared to pop out of his head and frighten any doubts out of his customer’s mind. Finally, he would throw spiritual liquid (water) sparingly over the stash of nothingness that separated him and his visitor, to slow down whatever doom was cutting a path towards them.
Kalu did not see himself as a trickster; he was a counsellor, a sage. As a boy, he had realised quickly that he did not want to toil the land as a farmer, nor learn a craft. It was too much hard work. His true calling revealed itself to him when he happened upon a travelling medicine man with a tongue easily loosened by wine. The man had revealed that his gift was an act, a deception that had served him well for many years. Kalu, ever the inquisitive child, asked him about guilt. But the man shrugged it off. Most people, he said, just needed you to confirm what they wanted to hear. They agreed of course that there were real, truly blessed medicine men. Men who could read the heart of another man from looking at his face and could sniff out the intentions of a customer hearing a single word. Kalu and this medicine man were not naturally gifted in that way. Kalu had lived in the same place all his adult life. He liked his familiar mottled terracotta hut with its sloping, patchy roof top of long palm leaves and the eroding, not quite square make-shift window, where he could keep an eye out for arrivals. Kalu preferred living reclusively and of course, it added to his aura of mystery. This hut he’d built with his own hands, was hidden inside the forest away from the gaze of outsiders. At night, he usually lit a fire and it would guide his visitors to him, the gangly brown man with the head full of lengthy locks like twisted grey snakes fighting to flee his scalp.
Very early in his career, a prediction he had plucked out of thin air came true and shook the eerily calm Kalu to the core. A boy had come to see him, moody and with determination etched in his face. He had looked Kalu in the eye and said, “I want my father dead, what can you do to make this happen?” Kalu had unfolded his feet from their position resting against the firm, rounded walls of his backside and cracked his dry lips open. “Are you mad? Have your friends dared you to come and say such a thing? Go away and don’t waste my time again. I can turn you into a snail if I like.” The boy grabbed Kalu’s wrist firmly and dug his fingers in, “I’m not joking, if you don’t help me, I will go to someone else.” Then he added slyly, “or are you not powerful enough?
“Why would you want to kill your father?” Only stoic silence met him. So Kalu entertained the boy, instructing him but expecting it to amount to nothing. But the boy took Kalu’s advice and turned his wish into a song. That evening, Kalu the fake medicine man became the keeper of a terrible secret and won himself his most powerful and loyal customer
Omotole decided that smashing stones never hurt anyone. Not like the desire to break the bones of someone you once loved, to quench the thirst of hot, dry earth with their blood. She sat at the mouth of the Ijoye River, watching the water lap at her scarred feet, only temporarily cooling the ardour of the other thing inside her, this thing she tried to contain each day that wanted to jump out of her and wreak havoc on Benin, the kingdom that had taken away so much from her.
During times like this when she had risen bathed in an unrepentant, molten rage that led her by the hand to the water’s edge, she could not ignore it. The rage gathering within her heated her blood and shot through her veins, wailing inside her mind as though it were being whipped. It had not always been like that. Once upon a time she had been a wide-eyed girl and Benin the bountiful land of prosperity, where the impossible happened and the possible watched from the outskirts gulping its envy.
She stood, straightened her shoulders and cackled, convinced her laughter flirted with the rushing, rippling river. She stretched her arms behind her and rocked on the balls of her feet as if she would shoot off the ground. But she was dancing, and spinning, tamping the dry ground till the disturbed dust settled onto her body and lay there protectively, a third, fickle skin that she would sweat off in the hours to come. She reached her arms up to the sky and cried out, pleading to the Gods in anguish, the way a desperate woman with two faces would.
It was forbidden to enter the old, abandoned Ikere wing in the palace. It stood west of the building, like a forgotten thought. This rule had been in place since the days of Oba Anuje’s reign and for the most part, the inhabitants obeyed it. But on rare occasions, encouraged by a mixture of curiosity and boldness, someone would cross the empty entranceway with its intricately woven spiders’ webs listing in crooks and corners, like small, translucent nets bobbing in an airy sea.
Adesua was there because of a story with no ending. As she wandered through a broad, dry communal room, past another room with old garments gathering films of dirt and resentment, into a circular chamber with steep steps leading in, she remembered the beginning of the tale. According to the gossipers and story spinners, during Oba Anuje’s time, a woman had stayed there for a short period. She was not a potential wife or relative of the Oba’s so nobody knew why she was residing in the palace. But one day she disappeared, in the same way she had arrived, without announcement. Only the blood-soaked wrapper that she wore on her last sighting remained and was buried immediately upon instruction. As Adesua traced with her eyes the bed mat and sombre throw cloth covering a high, imposing chair, she realised that one visit to this wing would never solve the mystery of the missing woman. She watched as a yellow ladybird with its dotted, bulbous back scurried across the floor, stopping now and again to flex its tiny black legs. She wondered if Oba Odion knew anything about this woman’s disappearance. And would he tell her if he did. There were so many things she did not know. Among them she did not know that death tasted like sweet, sugarcane kisses. She returned to the main palace to discover more news. Omotole, the Oba’s favourite wife was pregnant and Filo, the wife convinced her dead babies wandered the palace grounds, had lost her voice.
Drawing Tables
In the days to come my intruder like a defiant squatter made more appearances in my house. I was secretly impressed; I’d never have the balls to do it. Only I wasn’t resigning myself to being ambushed, despite feeling as though we knew each other. Maybe this woman, this mysterious entity that stole flowers and slipped into background scenes of photographs used to be a nurse. Maybe she had held my mother’s hand while she gave birth to me. Maybe hers was one of the first faces I’d seen when I squealed into this world covered in gunk. And like a thumbprint on the brain her face had imprinted itself into my memory. Perhaps she’d fallen through a wormhole from the past. Maybe she’d come to collect something that would reveal itself on the expanses of my skin. Maybe, maybe, maybe…