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

on their children. It does not affect me, but as long as Yefon is my daughter, she will do it. As the rest of us have.” Ma concluded, her lips bundling into a thin line.
    I was never asked, and even though I was afraid of the seemingly hurtful process, I succumbed. Mine was done by one Ta Shemlon, a large man who lived on an isolated hill several hundred yards away from the rest of the hamlet.
    His hut smelled predominantly of
meyanga
and was marked with several symbols. An assortment of well-sharpened knives lay gently on the wall initiating my fear once we arrived.
    A sheep was brought and Ta Shemlon slit its throat as he mumbled several incantations. A giant thunder roared and I screamed when a thick amount of blood gushed out fiercely and splattered all over his face. And on my feet.
    “Am I going to die?” I cried, every part of me shivering.
    He was very silent and had an intense look on his contoured face. With a hot knife from the fiery furnace in front of him, he branded pictures into my skin. I literally thought I would perish when the blade first touched me. I began to cry and I could hear my father causing a ruckus outside. He worried that if it hurt too much then I shouldn’t do it.
    Ma held him back. She told him one day I would love my body. It burned as Ta Shemlon etched his old knife into my skin over and over again. I almost collapsed by the time he was done, but I had to stay conscious to show off my new scars—for they truly looked spectacular.
    They fully healed almost a year later. They formed uniform keloid marks all around my breasts and on my back. With the excitement that comes with any new possession, and just like everyone else in the village, I proudly showed off my upper body by wearing only a small woven cloth from Northern Nigeria over my privates. But after a thousand bug bites, I slouched comfortably back into my clean cotton dress.
    Even though time had passed, Uncle Lavran and Pa stillconversed in the same pattern. First they argued about who should pour the wine.
    “I am a guest, you should honor me,” Uncle Lavran explained cordially, occasionally distracted by the sharp sound from my brother’s tools that were being used to weed grass from the nearby lawn.
    “I am a titled man,” Pa replied, and after a thirty minute playful back and forth debate, Pa finally said he would pour, and he would hold the bottom of the gourd to pour the wine.
    Uncle Lavran brought up the new school that was being built, and I eavesdropped as Yenla and I dutifully cracked groundnuts at Pa’s feet.
    “You should contribute to that school, you know,” he began, speaking hesitantly as if he didn’t know how to bring it up.
    I looked up to see what Pa would say. The sharp “
crcr
” sound of dry hard groundnut shells filled the air as Pa took a moment to think on what he had just heard.
    “St..stop lis..lis...,” Yenla wobbled.
    “Listening?” I said innocently.
    Yenla looked as frustrated as a fish on a bicycle. I knew she really hated it when someone tried to complete her sentences for her, but it was hard not to. A conversation would literally drag on for hours if allowed.
    “Lavran, you know I am a Nso man to the core!” Pa declared. “I am not contributing, not even one
shilling
. For what? No way!”
    I looked back to Uncle Lavran who was now laughing hysterically then he immediately got serious.
    “I sympathize with your sentiments, but I’m afraid one must consider the importance of education to survive in contemporary times.”
    I didn’t hear all of it since Ma sent Kadoh and me to her friend’s house to collect a pot.
    “Ya Mbilam lives on the way to the Catholic mission. You just take the first turning point on the left, just after Pa Rime’s house. Go there, take the pot and come back.” Ma said.
    ‘There are four houses around Pa Rime’s house. Which one’?
    ‘The one with the tallest mango tree’ she spat back.
    It was rather unfortunate because I really wanted to