Blessing

Chapter 2

21 2 ike a flame fighting against the wind, Fatti had fought against death and triumphed. Her flame was now burning brightly. She had become the star of the village. Everyone wanted to talk to her. Everyone wanted to hear her story. Everyone wanted a firsthand account of what had transpired during those three hours when she had been lost to them. The Fon and his entourage had heard her story. Her family and friends had heard her story. The village had heard her story and in a unified voice had declared that Fatti had come back to life after a brief visit to the land of the ancestors. There was someone who lived in the village but who was not of the village. He had heard what the village said about Fatti’s experience but he did not share their views. That did not surprise anyone; in fact, it would have surprised them had he nodded with them. However, he had not yet voiced his opinion on the matter. He had not broached the issue with Nkem though he saw her almost daily. All that was attributed to him was through inference – the village simply did not expect him to believe what they believed. Two weeks after the events of that infamous morning, they were finally going to have him confirm their opinion – he had invited Nkem and Fatti to his home for a discussion. That afternoon Fatti Ashi stepped out of her grandmother’s hut en route to the Catholic Mission. Ashi! That was a name she endeavoured to keep on her tongue as a way of keeping it in her head. Mefo had given her the name after her return to life. She had said Ashi meant ‘gift of the gods.’ That was what the village said: that the gods’ decision to switch her back on was a gift to her family. As she walked from her father’s compound, Fatti took the bend that separated it from Angu Matamo’s estate. Angu Matamo was not just a close neighbour. He was her father’s best friend and the father of her close friend Susannah. He was also her worst enemy. Whenever she heard his voice, she made sure to disappear before he appeared. She could not say what it was about him that made her L 22 look in the opposite direction: his deep eyes and inquisitive stares or his compulsive manner; his stout hands or their desire to touch and own whatever they wanted. All she was certain of was that he repulsed her. Though Fatti did not like the man, she loved the fruits he grew. As she walked by Angu’s property, she stepped under the canopy of mango trees and emerged with some windfalls. She bit into one of the mangoes and was about to take another hungry bite when she noticed that some juice had landed on her dress. She frowned. The knee-length flowery dress hanging over her plump frame remained her favourite. How could she resist loving a dress that had travelled the privileged journey from Yaoundé, where her stepbrother Makam resided, that had arrived inside his travelling bag and landed in her open hands as a gift? The answer was even more obvious since the dress had come to add only to two others. After two years of continuous wearing and washing, the colour of the once-black collar was now only visible enough to perfectly reflect her complexion: dark but faded. Beneath the patchy glaze of palm oil, her skin appeared clearly parched. Her rough palms provided testimony to the life of an only girl in a family of thirteen. The dried blisters and wide cuts on her soles gave an estimate of the number of kilometres she covered day after day, from the stream to the farm, from the market to a neighbouring quarter or village. Yet her wide and innocent eyes never seemed to lose their gaiety. Unlike her drained body, they were a true reflection of the soul of a nine-year-old. After about thirty minutes of walking, Fatti arrived at the Catholic Church, the only symbol of Christianity in Nchumuluh. St. John Bosco Parish Nchumuluh was under the Diocese of Buea, the first in the territories, erected in 1950. The large, square building roofed with corrugated metal sheets was an imposing structure in a village of small, circular thatched huts. The white stones and cement blocks used to raise the walls also...