Read Online Yefon: The Red Necklace by Sahndra Dufe - Free Book Online Page A

the shackles of colonial rule and your answer is palm wine?” Uncle Lavran asked, raising his voice slightly.
    I shared a look with Kadoh. I knew we both thought that his nose opened too wide as he shouted furiously. But Pa was very collected when he asked effortlessly what Uncle Lavran thought the solution was.
    “Self government,” Uncle Lavran replied, lighting up a cigarette and inhaling deeply. Pa nodded his head, but said nothing.
    I had just turned fifteen when Uncle Lavran visited again and he gushed about how big I was, and how soon they will start collecting my bride price. I smiled shyly, playing with my right foot as he spoke. This time, he had brought us biscuits, and we received them gratefully.
    It had been almost eight years since his return from the war and all shapes and sizes of women flocked to our house with gifts to visit him during his short stay. Pa’s wives grumbled loudly about his whoring tendencies, and Pa warned him about them and advised him to take a wife. Uncle Lavran eventually married Kinyuy, one of the young ladies in the area, and resettled in the
Mbiame
region.
    His visits decreased dramatically after his move, and Pa always sat in the front door reminiscing about their childhood. He told me stories of how they had gone hunting as children and caught a fat bird. They fought over whose bird it would be untilthe bird escaped, and then they fought each other until one of them bled.
    “Ha ha ha!” Pa laughed deeply, adjusting his loincloth between his legs as he chopped some pieces of beef on the chopping board. “It goes to tell you that a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.”
    I didn’t know what that meant and my quizzical expression gave me away.
    “I mean that my brother is all I have, and I have to hold on to him now that he is still here, just like you and your siblings.”
    “I don’t ever want you to die, Pa,” I acknowledged.
    He looked at me for a moment then smiled and returned his attention to the sloppy beef that he was chopping for dinner. Beef was scarce at that time, and I was still getting used to its rancid smell.
    “As sure as the sun rises each morning, we will all go someday,” Pa explained then he looked at me. “You must remember that you are special and don’t be afraid to be yourself because everyone else in this village is taken.”
    Those words made me smile, and I became surer of myself, no matter how anyone else saw me. I felt alive, and proud of the fact that I was different from everyone else. “Everyone is taken,” I sang happily to myself, basking over the newly found joy that came with this realization. It almost felt as if I had only been existing rather than living for the beginning portion of my life.
    Uncle Lavran and his wife, Kinyuy, came around before the day of my scarification. It was the pride of a Nso woman to show off her beautiful perky breasts and her scarification tattoos on her back and stomach. Only wealthier people could afford it since scarification was a costly practice. All of my siblings had theirs done before the age of eighteen, and I was no different.
    “I find this process rather archaic and primitive,” Uncle Lavran explained to Pa over a cup of tea that his wife had brewed for them. None of Pa’s wives knew how to make tea and they gossiped about her as she bent over the fire, squinting to deal with the smoke that was heading for her eyes.
    I liked her. She was a loveable character, and I went up to her and introduced myself while my sisters watched from a distance. She smiled at me and offered me some tea. It was the first time I ever drank tea. I tasted a little bitter, and I recoiled assoon as my tongue touched the hot liquid.
    “Can you make it clear to me the importance of this unnecessarily arduous process?” Uncle Lavran asked, causing Pa to reflect but Pa had no answer. I think he tried to discuss the option of them dropping the process but Ma would have none of it.
    “Let them not do it