The Women who Ate Python and Other Stories

2. Death of the Dead Man

17 2 Death of the Dead Man kwomen rose from a gutter just as the sun was getting on its marks. He belched, yawned, and then through his anus, he noisily released some gas that had been fighting its way out of his bowels. This adulterated the freshness of the morning air. His surroundings immediately acquired the putrid pungency of a decaying carcass, which did not bother him at all. Instead he chuckled, then gargled and cleared his throat, releasing a loud cough which rattled his chest and even his rib bones. He spat the mucus on his left palm and then examined it with the shrewdness of a medical laboratory analyst. He saw some crimson stains on it. Gently, he wiped the mucus off his hand, on no where else but the pair of baggy trousers he was wearing. Later, he took off his jacket, examined it meticulously and put it on again. He heaved a sigh and asked himself a question which the people of Saloko had come to identify him with: “Abeh yi eh?” Without expecting an answer from anyone, he gave the response himself: “Abveh mbakenem Ooo!” Again he sighed, walked a short distance and repeated the same question, this time in Pidgin English: “Wuskayn pikin she born eh?” N 18 He did not hesitate to provide the answer himself: “she born na man pikin Ooo!” As he was about to make his way home, he realised that he had pains all over his body. Besides, a feeling of nausea had started pestering him. He looked around and found the trunk of a long dead tree lying invitingly at the road side. He walked to it and slumped on it. He lowered his head and gave vent to smelly swill that came out through his mouth. When the swill stopped flowing out, he felt some relief. He then placed his head in his cupped palms and turned unusually pensive. He thought about his past and imagined the mood in which his mother might have been on that glorious day – the day of his birth. How she might have felt very relieved after an obviously turbulent experience of parturition. And when his father had learnt that the baby, his own baby had been born and was a male, he might have jumped for joy and performed some agile and waist-twisting movement that could have easily spelt him out as an unequalled dancer of ‘enook’, ‘bikutsi” or “mapuka”. “Yes,” Nkwomen continued thinking, “everybody in Saloko, might have been happy, really happy that a male had been born, the more cherished of babies, the more sought after. Carefully, he thought about his present, then his past, and attempted contemplating the future, which he could not exactly figure out. It was rather very confusing. Finally, he shook his head, took it out of his cupped palms, looked blankly at 19 the far away horizon and concluded that he was likely an epitome of a wasted generation. The sun rays were getting warmer and warmer when he got up from the tree trunk. He rubbed some dirt off his trousers and slowly walked home. On his way, both men and women hailed him as he passed by. “Nkwomen neyi eh!” they would greet. “Ooo ma” or “Ooo ta,” he responded, depending on whether the response was directed to a woman or a man. As he went along, tongues wagged, making both sympathetic and derisive comments, like on the occasion where, a man after observing Nkwomen walk past, clapped his hands in desperation and exclaimed: waow, the womb can produce oo!” “Produce eh-what?” asked a woman who was standing by him. “Look at that … eh … what can I call it? Is a product of the womb eh”, said the man mischievously. “So you think it’s only the womb to blame for the production of people like that in this community. What about the loins of a man?” questioned the woman. Do you mean to say that he came out of man’s loins?” asked the man. “Not exactly but the loins caused it into the womb,” replied the woman. “My sister” said the man, “causing something into a womb doesn’t compel that womb to produce it.” “In the same way, producing something does not always compel the producer to ensure its 20 safety. I agree that the womb produced that drunkard of a Nkwomen, but ever...