What a Next of Kin!

Chapter Three

11 Chapter Three H is first daughter had been married for three years. She had begotten a son and was expecting another child. It may be another son. Ndi remembered he had urged Mma not to marry. If she were not married her son would be his chop chair. But as the saying goes, breasts cover the heart of the woman and prevent the sun’s rays from reaching it and so she does not reason. “What pleasure did Mma find in a husband that she would not have found in a boyfriend? Aren’t there thousands of boys, poor boys ready to impregnate wealthy girls for free?” Ndi asked himself and sighed. “Let her go on begetting male children in her husband’s house. After all, even if she remained here to have the sons, they would not have been my blood. They would have been some other persons’ blood, and that would not have been different from the reality before me, namely, that this wealth shall be inherited by a person who is not of my first degree blood.” Ndi grumbled, screwed his face, spat and tried to think of something else – some other distraction. But what else? What else in the face of the amassed property? What else could Ndi think of? There was a Bamenda Prime Minister, there were Bamenda Secretaries of State but none was as rich as he was. What else could he be thinking about but a next of kin? Was he to become a dog that huts for its master? For whom was he hunting? As these sordid thoughts gnawed at his heart he remembered what Fai Nchotu had told him. Fai had told him that his married daughters would beget sons and daughters but the unmarried ones would beget only 12 Charles Alobwed’Epie daughters. So even if Mma had accepted to remain unmarried and beget him children, they would not have been sons. That meant that there was the working of the devil in relation to having sons in his family. So it was necessary for him to return to Fai Nchotu and discuss about the son he was talking about. One Saturday evening, he went to consult him. Fai saw him and laughed. “A dog does not shun a bone,” he said as he offered Ndi a chair. “Welcome. Sit down and tell me if you have come to terms with yourself. Have you now accepted that a son is amongst your children?” Fai asked smiling. “It may be the one to come. I have combed the universe but don’t see where I have, would have had or may have. My childbearing wife has refused weaning the child so how do I have…?” Ndi asked. “OK, if you say you don’t have, I need not belabour the point. ‘A good turn does not miss its way’, if it is yours, you will get it,” Fai said. “Yes, but a good turn can be misdirected. I am very confused with my situation. You say my first wife is responsible for my undoing. Though I have no cause to reproach her, I feel eh, eh, eh…” “Your first wife, as I have said is a queen in the spirit world. She took human form as a sort of holiday – a transitional period within her life cycle. That is what great spirits do. They change forms; they take on new forms to enjoy the different opportunities offered by a desired form. Your first wife is the queen of wealth. She brought you all the wealth you have. Look at it this way, in the whole of Southern Cameroon, you are the richest person. How comes that whatever you touch turns into wealth? That wealth is mystical and cannot be made to be inherited by a permanent figure – a son. It must dissipate upon the death of your first wife. She will return with it and you will die a wretch as you 13 What a Next of Kin! were before the KNDP victory at the elections. She influenced the evolution of Southern Cameroon to suit her qualms. And when she is fed up and decides to return to her royalty, all of you who are enjoying power and glory now, will sink into the abyss of infirmity, you will lose fame and be derided by the people you now look low upon. Verily, verily, I tell you, the...