On The Road Back

Anyi watched the healer apply the last of the balm to his father’s wound with a flat stick. The older man winced for only a second, then returned to his stoic expression.
‘Do you have many healers where you come from?’ she asked, speaking to neither of them in particular.
‘There is always room for more if that is what you are asking, and it seems this war is already at our doorstep. As the Great Ape Men say, what touches the nose will eventually touch the mouth.’
The healer paused, a vacant stare replacing her focused gaze as if she were tunnelling through a memory that displaced her entire being.
‘I am afraid I would be of little use in a war. I might even be a liability.’ The healer came back to herself.
‘Why do you say so? Do you not trust our armies to defend our lands? Surely there are more of us than there are of them. I do not understand the cowardice that forces us to arch our backs and bend our knees to these men. You will do much by healing the wounded. That is enough.’
The healer was quiet for a breath or two, her mouth moving as if in search of the right words.
‘A healer like me can only mend life; only Amadioha gives it through Ala. You speak of armies and numbers, but you have not seen the pig-man’s weapons—not those slow spitters of fire, no, but the ones that rain a thousand flames, the ones that can fell a tree, how much more a man. Warrior of Eke, you do not know the enemy you face. Believe it or not, even our Obi is no coward. He only did what he had to do. I hate it, but I also understand.’
Now it was Nnanyi’s turn to pause in contemplation. He sighed in resignation.
‘When resistance is futile, we are left with the choice of death or surrender.’
The healer did not bother to ask Nnanyi which he would choose, and Anyi, knowing his father, had already made the choice for him. For pride alone, death was nothing to the older man. For tribe and kingdom, Anyi would not have been surprised if his father sacrificed even him on the altar of continuity.
After some time, three guards arrived to escort the trio to the city gates leading to Eke. One handed Nnanyi a piece of paper.
‘This document states that you are not welcome in Onicha anymore. Do you understand that?’
Nnanyi looked at the paper, puzzled.
‘I do not understand. Am I to bear the marking of my punishment on this paper I cannot read? And save it for inspection—or what?’
Anyi knew it was common to mark the skin of the banished to prevent them from re-entering the place from which they had been exiled. The marks also let outsiders know they were abominators. Naturally, this meant they were treated as lower-class citizens in their new places of settlement. But at least it gave them a chance to rebuild where details of their crimes didn’t constantly hang over their heads.
‘The pig-man’s law is literate. We are a people of words, law, and books.’
‘We? You think you are now like them? Wake up already!’ Nnanyi was weary of preaching to natives whose eyes had turned blue. It was as though their minds now lived in blank spaces, unable even to consider his words. How could a truth so clear to him remain so hidden from his own kin? He seized the brown paper with its scribbles of unintelligible alphabets, his mind flashing to the stone library being excavated and demolished.
‘Strange, isn’t it? The same pig-man who calls himself a man of law has no issue destroying the laws of a people who have existed long before he came along. Perhaps this is how it happens—how ages of light give way to darkness, just as the rising sun must set for the moon to shine. I only pray we do not lose too many generations to the shadow, for I fear the pig-man’s spell is far stronger than I imagined.’
‘We will keep that in mind.’ The guard’s tone was as dismissive as it was condescending. Anyi’s blood boiled and his fists clenched, but he resisted the urge to act foolishly—and that only made his heart thump harder.
‘You should count yourself lucky, old warrior. There is no provision for banishment in Anglon law, but you are a man of political interest. Your sudden death would only have sparked needless unrest.’
Nnanyi spat on the ground. It was the only reply they would get from him. The guards ignored him and led the way to the gates. When they arrived, the blue-eyed native spoke. ‘See you never, Ogbu’agu. Do not return to this place!’
Anyi watched the guards retreat as the open walk-path stretched ahead, meandering into a bamboo bush. He ran his fingers over his arrows to reassure himself he wasn’t entirely without protection. His father wounded and slower, it was now fell to him to ensure dinners did not pass without a rabbit or grasscutter for meat. The question of his readiness stirred doubt and anger, but he steadied himself with memories of his many practice shots, his hand lingering on the bow as if seeking its cooperation. You are one with the bow. He didn’t know whether he spoke to himself, to the bow, or to neither; only that it had to be said, if only for his ears.
The journey began as most did: a light march into the bushes, then a slower trudging through weeds that blocked the path, sometimes needing to be cut back with a cutlass. Anyi felt a flicker of excitement as he took the lead, his injured father following with the healer by his side. Perhaps this too was part of being a man. It felt powerful to be useful, to protect—even if not against wild prey or imminent war. He slashed another stalk and shivers rippled through his body, the hair on his arms rising in goosebumps.
‘Look at you, Anyi. You are the man now.’
Anyi had to stop himself from beaming with pride.
‘It is what we must do, Nnanyi.’ The words slipped out before he could think them through, but as they did, he realised they were for him as much as they were for his father. Perhaps this was what the ancestors meant when they said the living become their eyes after they leave this world. The phrase was inochi anya—to take the place of one’s eye. As a boy, he had thought it meant one body simply taking the place of another, just as trees bore fruit with seeds that birthed more trees. Now that his knowing had moved beyond perception, he found in participation what no explanation could ever teach.
‘I can’t believe this is happening!’ Nnanyi sounded defeated—desperate, almost.
‘These pig-men come here to belittle our ways and elevate theirs,’ he fumed. ‘Amadioha curse the day they set foot on our lands! Amadioha curse the day they stepped into my house!’
Anyi and the healer remained silent.
‘They make a boy barely circumcised act as Nze? Because he manages to speak and read their language? What has he seen of life to know the difference between oil and water—and which is heavier?’
‘It is the way of the pig-man,’ the healer interrupted, more to share Nnanyi’s anger than to make her own point. ‘The pig-man is born blue in the eye. He sees himself as subject, and the world with everything in it, as objects. The brown-eyed make no such distinction—we know even stones pulse with life. I have studied their people, and their medicine too is unlike ours. They measure all things in lines and refine them into unnatural forms. They are indeed a very different people.’
Nnanyi listened intently, nodding without realising, a slow bob.
‘You know, becoming Nze or Ozo in my place is no easy feat. The rules and rites disqualify so many. First of all, you must be married.’
The healer laughed—a sudden burst she tried and failed to hold back.
‘What can someone who knows nothing of marriage beyond what they’ve been told say to me, who has poured my whole being into it for years? How can the shallow knowing of perception outweigh the lived knowing of participation? How could one possibly describe the colour of blood to the blind?’
‘Many of our boys have been learning their language and taking their tests. Most fail, but a few succeed—those are the ones they turn into pawns.’ She turned and met Nnanyi’s intent gaze. Anyi, watching the road for predators, managed only a passing glance. ‘And if you resist or rebel too loudly, they kill you.’ She paused. ‘You are lucky to be alive, Nnanyi.’
‘I am not lucky. I am only as Amadioha has willed me to be.’
The party of three continued in silence for some hours, Anyi’s ears alert to the rattles of tails and the occasional growl from creatures he was grateful to hear rather than see. For dinner, he made do with some bush rabbits, firing at a range that neither showed off his marksmanship nor relegated him to a novice. The healer was quick to make a fire, herbs and spices spilling from her goat-skin pouch. Anyi and his father ate slowly, while the healer declined, saying she was fasting. When they were done, they huddled in a grove, where burning twigs and leaves kept them warm as Nnanyi taught his growing son more about the Nze and Ozo orders.
‘You see, son, we Ogbis are a people of memory. That is why there is so much veneration for the ancestors. In fact, becoming an ancestor is the highest rank of existence there is—even higher than all the spirits.’
The fire crackled as it ate into the wood and leaves. Anyi sat still, the orange light soothing his face in the cold breeze. The healer busied herself with her herbs, grind something in a small mortar with a stone.
‘It is my hope that, perhaps in this life or the next, I may transition to become an ancestor—I am afraid I grow tired of this place daily. In this lifetime alone, I have seen enough abominations to wake every sleeping ancestor for a return.’
Anyi’s face changed before he finished the thought. ‘Are you saying ancestors can reincarnate to join us?’
Nnanyi rubbed his son’s head. ‘You might even be an ancestor and not know it yet.’
Anyi had never even imagined such a thing. Like every other child of Eke, he was aware of the seven-rung ladder said to be given to all beings. Each rung represented a single lifetime, and each person had seven chances to ascend into the ancestral realm or lose their chi to the infinite blackness.
‘An Nze is a person who, while still living, attains the status of Ancestor. That is why it isn’t just any title. It is reserved only for those who carry the full memory of who we are through the ages—the best of our best, fit to dine with the greatest.’
Anyi’s face shifted from puzzlement to deeper confusion. ‘I am not understanding.’
‘It is our people’s core belief that the highest value of life is to exist in service to other lives—the sacrifice of life for more life. After all, life itself is nothing but a war against death, a war that has raged since before time and will continue long after time ends. What we call chi is really just lifeforce—conscious lifeforce. Son, you are not the only one in your body. It is a home you share with your chi.’
Anyi often wondered where some thoughts sprang from, why certain dreams he had not sought found him, and why sometimes it felt as though he was powerless against his own self. He tried to picture a second person within his small body. The thought left him deeply unsettled; losing ownership and control did not sit well with him.
‘But how do we know that these things are true? Will I be able to commune with my chi when I raise a shrine for it in my obi? Is that the next step?’
Nnanyi chuckled.
‘You are very funny, Anyi,’ he said, shifting closer to the fire. ‘Your chi is much older than you—it has been here since the great Chi was planted in Nne Eke by Amadioha to bring forth this universe. It doesn’t speak any language we can understand; instead, it shows us things in our dreams.’
‘The boy is too young for such knowledge,’ the healer finally interrupted, taking a break from her herbs.
‘Yes, he is. And these lessons are things he would have learned in his advanced Ekpe years, but times are not as they once were. We stand in today, unsure of tomorrow. Even if he doesn’t understand them now, the information is enough. In time, wisdom will reveal all to him. His chi is still only waking up at thirteen rains.’
‘Fourteen, Nnanyi,’ Anyi interjected.
His father smiled at him fondly, and the healer laughed.
‘What is the difference?’ she teased, careful not to rattle his growing ego.
‘Well, I have been initiated into the basic level of Ekpe as a man. I have been cut too.’
‘We cut you as a suckling, Anyi. Surely you don’t remember that.’ Nnanyi stroked his son’s tight curls, ‘Nwoke to’sia, o’chelu ibe ya—when a man is done growing, he waits for other men to grow. You don’t need to push your age. Some who are nearer to the ancestors hope the healer has an elixir to halt the process.’
‘But there is something in the saying I do not understand.’ Anyi’s eyes shone with curiosity.
‘Tell me, son.’
‘When you are done growing, will you wait for me? Will time stand still for you?’
‘Sometimes, Anyi, you sound like these blue-eyed men, always seeing things as they appear, not as they are.’ Nnanyi shifted, lowering himself onto the ground. He did not need to tell Anyi that tiredness had found him and sleep was drawing near.
‘I don’t understand. Are things not as they appear?’
‘Nothing is as it appears—not the moon that gives light it does not own, nor the earth you stand on with two flat feet. Matters of the spirit will not make sense to you now, just as certain things you know today will make no sense to small Ozi or Akpi. When the time is right, these truths will be revealed to you, if it is in you to know them. That is why the Ape Men say the truth in proverbs lies in the ear that listens, not the tongue that speaks.’
The fire had sunk low, its faint crackles giving way to the sounds of a sleeping forest. Owls hooted in the silence, and bats stirred in the branches, rustling leaves before shrieking into the night. The healer had finally finished her concoction, but her eyes were far from weary.
‘You should sleep, Nnanyi. Healing works best when the body is resting. That way, your chi can focus its energies on repair.’
‘The chi will not sleep when he is asleep?’ Anyi asked.
‘How else will he dream?’ the healer’s voice was calm, almost amused.
Anyi felt a flush of embarrassment but chose not to dwell on it. He watched as the healer poured the brew into a clay cup that barely held half a mouthful. She handed it to him and asked him to feed his father, while she lifted his back so he would not choke.
‘What is this for?’
‘It is to clean the wound from the inside as well, or he will not heal properly. Many soldiers have died from cuts weeks after returning from war because they failed to understand that poison runs deeper than the wound itself.’
Anyi moved to do as he was told, but even in his weakness Nnanyi found the strength to take the cup and feed himself.
‘Dalu,’ he thanked the healer, the taste of bitterness wrinkling his face.
‘Sorry, Nnanyi. But you see, Ala knows that if medicine were sweet, we would put it in egusi soup. So she made it bitter, so we wouldn’t take too much.’
Nnanyi managed a smile, then coughed before lying back down on the ground. Before long, his chest was heaving and the faintest snore rose from his nostrils.
‘Great, now it’s just me and you. Would you like to hear a story?’ The healer turned to face Anyi.
‘Sure, why not? I love stories.’ Anyi paused, glanced over to be sure his father was asleep, and then whispered, ‘Before you start, what does it mean when a girl kills a chicken?’
The d’bia threw her head back in laughter.
‘Well, it means she is now a woman and can bear children. But she must wait until she has breasts to be married, because that is how she will feed her child.’
Anyi gave his sleeping father a quiet, scolding look.
‘He can feel your stare, you know. Keep watching and you’ll end up waking him. Now, story time. Ready?’