What a Next of Kin!

Chapter Two

7 Chapter Two N di left Fai Nchotu with a throbbing headache. Time and again he mumbled that all divinations go cripple. He wondered why a divination that was going on so well got an unexpected twist – a faulty and sour turn towards the end. He put two and two together and at last concluded that if his first wife were truly queen Beelzebub, it meant she could eavesdrop on conversations no matter where. As queen of the second most powerful spirit, distance and obstacles did not exist. So, she might have overheard the revelations Fai Nchotu was making against her and counteracted by infusing false images in his divining apparatus. But then, he thought again, Fai might have simply misinterpreted genuine images. “What if he meant that I shall have a son? Haven’t I heard that sometimes images get blurred and are badly interpreted by the seers? For sure, Fai will get it right the next time,” Ndi concluded and thought of returning to him in the near future. And though his last daughter was only three months old, he thought it would be good to wean her and start looking for the envisaged boy. Ndi returned home distraught with the way he had to approach his dilemma. If he manifested any overt hostility against his first wife that could create an unfavourable atmosphere in his attempt to woo his third wife into accepting to wean the three-months-old daughter that night. He remembered how resistant she had been in the last two untimely weaning. She had to be; because in the two last pregnancies, she was virtually ostracized by women groups 8 Charles Alobwed’Epie in Likumba. They criticized her in her face and composed derogatory songs against her. In the last pregnancy, she could not bear it. So, she moved town. She went to Mundemba shortly after realizing that she was pregnant again and stayed there till she gave birth. Ndi knew it would be a tough fight that would require the intervention of his first wife; so he played down his anger against her. He got home and for the first time, pampered his daughters to the admiration of their mother. “Joe,” his third wife called admiringly. “I believe something is either very seriously wrong today, or very seriously right. For the first time I see the glow of fatherly love shrouding my children. I believe the children are seeing a different father in you today. Whenever you return from work frowning you scare them away and make them lose the paternal touch they need to grow up well.” “It is fantastic today. How I wish it remained like that! But Joe was not like that. It may be the pressure of work. I believe we are now moving into a new era,” the first wife interjected.” “I don’t think I frown for nothing. The two of you treat me badly. When I am away, you connive to maltreat me. When I go to you, my first wife, you send me off with the flick of the finger to my third wife who always has an excuse for not wanting me. And who can be happy with people who are not happy with him?” Ndi feigned an angry response while curdling his daughters. “Who drives you away? If you are advised and restrained from being a fowl, you say you are driven away? Tell me; in the whole of Tiko especially here in Likumba, Mutengene, Victoria, Buea where else have you seen a woman laying children as I lay? Isn’t it shameful that wherever I go I carry the mark and ruin of regular childbirth?” the third wife asked with a voice irked with anger. 9 What a Next of Kin! “Don’t lose your bearings. Your remarks have led to all this. And once more, I believe I have to marry another woman who can want me. The two of you have spited me and I need not pretend that I have a wife in either of you. If you play, I shall abandon this house to the two of you,” Ndi said emphatically. “Yes, I predicted it. That is how you start. That is your snare, pretext to pamper children. This time you will not have your way. You can abandon the house or go and marry another hen. Look at me, which of my age mates has...