One
“Mr. Jackal was tired of always losing his lunch to Mr. Hyena, so he says to Mr. Leopard, ‘Mr. Leopard-o, how is it you are able to keep Mr. Hyena from getting your lunch?’ ‘I haul it up a branch and leave it there for the gods,’ Mr. Leopard says, ‘and they reward me for my sacrifice by making sure Mr. Hyena is never there when I hunt.’
“‘So I have to leave a sacrifice for the gods?’ Mr. Jackal asks. ‘You have to haul it up a tall tree and leave it there,’ Mr. Leopard says. Mr. Jackal’s face falls. He has the stamina to chase his lunch and exhaust it, but he hasn’t the strength to haul it up a tree, much less a tall tree. So he asks Mr. Leopard if he could do it for him, haul his lunch up a branch, and Mr. Leopard says, ‘No problem. From now on, you can do the hunting while I do the hauling.’
“Their hunting-and-hauling partnership works; Mr. Hyena is still the local bully, but he never catches Mr. Jackal with his lunch again. Things take a turn when Mr. Leopard starts giving Mr. Jackal smaller rations. Whenever Mr. Jackal asks for more food, Mr. Leopard would shout from the treetops, ‘You are beloved, my friend. The gods are planning a big reward for you. Be patient. This is why it’s called a sacrifice.’
“Mr. Hyena observes how lean Mr. Jackal has gotten over time and asks if he is sick. ‘No,’ Mr. Jackal says, ‘It is Mr. Leopard-o. He told me that if I offered the gods part of my lunch, I would never again lose it all to you.’ ‘Really?’ Mr. Hyena says, wondering what Mr. Leopard could mean by that. Surely, Mr. Leopard knows he isn’t one to pass up on food, even the ones set aside for the gods. ‘He says he has a shrine up in the branches,’ Mr. Jackal says and Mr. Hyena laughs in his face. ’You fool,” Mr. Hyena says, ‘the god you are sacrificing to is his stomach.’ He takes Mr. Jackal to a hill with a good view of the treetops and shows him Mr. Leopard lying on a branch, eating Mr. Jackal’s sacrifice. Mr. Jackal is devastated. He feels betrayed. So there is no reward after all? he thinks.
“To summarize the rest, Mr. Hyena succeeded in turning the two friends against each other. Things returned to normal after this, and Mr. Hyena was the happiest of the three. He had the last laugh.”
The message in Tinu’s story had been the importance of teamwork in overcoming obstacles, but I had seen another lesson: the importance of hope, how the uncovering of a lie can lead to the loss of hope, and how that can be used to turn people against each other.
Her name was Atinuke, ‘Tinu’, for short. She was a penitent. From what she told me, she had been at the cloister longer than most. It was why she knew many songs. She taught the other penitents songs of worship and songs of mourning. Being the oldest penitent by length of stay, she helped the Araba prepare the others for the Owaro Ajodun, the sacred festival of the dead, a time when people fasted and prayed and made sacrifices to appease the dead relatives they may have offended.
Her striking appearance was the reason I suspected she could be one of the fabled lagoon women, a tribe of only females who lived south of the Kingdom, in a lagoon near the banks of the ocean. Nomads carried stories about them, about their beauty and their voices, which they said calmed seas. The women assisted canoers by driving away the spirits that caused bad weather. As it was not safe to cross to the island without calling on them, especially during the rainy season, travellers had to part with their cowries for their service, but it was money well spent. Their aged members collected the toll, and after confirming it was not a cowrie short, a choir of sirens scrambled up large slates of rock and sang the ocean to sleep, her waves falling and rising no higher than ripples. Like a trick of weather, the women were gone by the time the nomads opened their eyes and realized it was morning and that they had had the most refreshing sleep of their lives. Quickly, hastily, they gathered their belongings, paid the boatman, and he ferried them across.
None of my friends had ever seen Tinu, and it was not for a lack of trying. After class, instead of napping, we searched for her at the Grounds of Atonement. Penitents were segregated all the time, not just where they slept, so we were not allowed in the area meant for women and girls. From the male area you could catch sight of the women when they came to dry their clothes. So we went there, pretending we were running an errand, hoping we would spot her near the washing line. We couldn’t go up to those doing their laundry and ask her whereabouts: scholars were not to speak with penitents, whether male or female, unless permitted by their olukos: it could interfere with their roads to repentance, they said. I don’t know anyone who knows Tinu, never heard any gossip about her; everything I know about her, she told me. What I would like to know, but lacked the courage to ask, was, what crime had she committed to deserve such a long stay? Had the Araba decided to keep her because she was a big help? People said there were no permanent workers at the cloister; everyone was passing through.
Tinu was the girl I saw weeping in the pantheon, the night she almost broke my arm for shadowing her. And I had shadowed her because she had looked so mesmeric, like something out of a pleasant dream. And because I thought she was the legendary Mantis Bride of Modekun, believed to still tenant the cloister, a woman so beautiful a man could see his death in her eyes and be aroused by it.
Since our first encounter, it had become a tradition for us to meet in secret. We had a favourite spot: the region of the orchard north of the pantheon, underneath the cedar tree with a bark someone had chipped for prayer incense. We would sit and talk and share stories until she decided it was time to leave.
She was there tonight, a lone figure on the grass, legs crossed, back rounded, the wind riffling her garments, threatening to throw off her cowl, which I assume she gathered into a knuckle she held under her chin. The air was windy and fresh, typical of most tree-shades at this time of night. I snuck up behind her and slumped down next to her with an abruptness I hoped would startle her. But she didn’t flinch. Didn’t even turn to look at me. Had she seen me with eyes in the back of her head? That’s what it felt like. The saucy grin I wore, certain she would shriek or at least straighten her spine, girded a laugh that never came. Deflated, I went from excited to comely. We sat in silence. We sat like this for the next sixteen heartbeats.
“Do you miss your home?” she asked.
“Sometimes.” I had not been at the cloister long enough to feel homesick. “What about you? Do you miss yours?”
She nodded.
“What do you miss?”
“I miss my mother. Miss my hamlet. Miss the stories my father and my uncles used to tell. Miss going for swims. I miss many things.”
“Swims? Like in a lagoon?” She didn’t like me prying so I learned, over time, to avoid certain questions.
“A creek, actually. It’s a ravine in the dry season and a river in the wet.”
“Where?”
“Do you have the answer to my riddle?”
She liked to ask me riddles. She didn’t ask like a querent looking for answers; she asked like an oluko testing my knowledge. Honestly, I don’t think we would be having these meetings if I hadn’t answered her riddles correctly. I haven’t failed a riddle yet, but that might soon change. She asked me a tough one, last night. She repeated the riddle:
“If irunmoles exist to frustrate Aja-Bara, what exists to frustrate Ejo-Elegba?”
“Aja-Bara and Ejo-Elegba are both avatars for spirits. Aja Bara is the avatar for the unrepentant; Ejo-Elegba is the same for the unforgiving. Aja-Bara perverts. But he can’t pervert irunmoles because they are holy.”
“Go on. What about Ejo-Elegba?”
“He avenges. He preys on those who have slain others and have not repented. So that means anything designed to frustrate him would have to be both a killer and remorseful. Mortals are like that. But no, it’s not mortals. Because… Because Ejo Elegba kills mortals.”
" So what is it then?”
“Ajoguns.”
She glanced up at me, a hint of surprise in her eyes. “Why?”
“Because ajoguns don’t mean to jinx us. Yes, their havoc might kill us, but they’re not even aware they’re causing it. So, they have nothing to repent of. That’s why Ejo-Elegba doesn’t touch them. He shouldn’t.”
“Right again.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Did you know that every creature has a foil, a nemesis, something that frustrates them? Take a lion for example. When it attacks prey, it goes for the neck, but when it sees a giraffe...”
“It makes sense. I wonder what my foil is. Hmmm...”
“Your weakness is your foil. It doesn’t have to be a person.”
“I know.”
“What?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I don’t think about girls much. I don’t spend my time like that. I’m the bookish type. But ever since I met you, I find myself thinking about you. I think about you a lot.”
She sprang to her feet and turned to face me. “Come with me.”
“What? Where?”
“Somewhere. I want to show you a place. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere.”
“I’m not supposed to leave the cloister without my oluko’s permission. I could get in big trouble. I could be kicked out.”
“You won’t, trust me. No one will even know you were gone.”
“I want to... but...”
“Tobi, you’re one of the smartest people I know. But sometimes, I think you need to let go of that head of yours and listen to your heart. Follow your impulse for once and don’t think.”
Did she say ‘listen to your heart’? “Are you listening to yours now?”
“Yes. My gut feeling tells me this is the right thing to do.”
Her smile broadened when I smiled back. The hint of a laugh creased her slightly parted lips and the skin around her eyes. I’m giddy with emotion, like a little child. I could stay in this moment forever. Hard to believe, she was giving me signals. It was rare for someone like her: she was tough, mysterious, and solitary, as far as I know. This was probably the closest she would ever come to admitting she liked a boy.
“Well,” I said, looking away. “I’m not supposed to speak with penitents unless my oluko instructs me, but here I am, talking to you. Since I’ve already broken that rule, I guess it won’t matter if I break another.”
“That’s the spirit.”
