Passport to Hope

It must have been sometime past midnight when Fanwi heard him approaching their mud-thatch hut. She knew it was him because she heard the familiar “Thump-Shhh-Thump-Shhh” sounds his feet made as he walked; the thump from his over-compensating right leg and the shhh from his limp left leg as he dragged the foot along. Word around the village was that when he was a child, Pa Nkem had stolen mangoes from Ma Ngwe’s compound and as he descended the tree to run away with his loot, had stepped on the talisman she had made specifically for the children who stole her mangoes before she ever got to them. That night, he awoke with sharp, shooting pains in his left leg and even his mother’s special herb brew did not relieve the pain. He was in agony for three days until the village elders went to plead with Ma Ngwe to reverse her juju. She agreed, after the children promised to leave her tree alone. The next day, Nkem’s pain was gone but when he stood up to walk, his left leg was shriveled up and limp. He could barely lift it off the floor and walked with great effort.

            Fanwi quickly wrapped her loincloth tightly across her chest and tucked the excess material between her legs. She curled her legs up under her as she lay facing the wall and splayed her arms to mimic the reckless abandon of a deep sleep. She tried not to gasp when Pa Nkem opened the bamboo door and the cold dry harmattan winds rushed in. Almost instantly, the pungent cloud of palm wine that always hovered over Pa Nkem moved to envelop Fanwi as if to assure her that yes indeed, her husband was home.

He thump-shhhed his way towards their bed and tapped her on the back “Fanwi! Fanwi!” She stirred ever so slightly, murmured a tired “Hmm?” but showed no signs of getting up. He reached over her shoulder to find the knot where she tied her loincloth across her chest but she slowly rolled over, like a sleeping person would, and came to rest on her belly. He moved to the foot of the bed and tried tugging at the ends of her cloth she had tucked between her legs. Fanwi again did her slow and deliberate sleep-like roll back to her left side, crossed one leg over the other, then snorted and exhaled loudly for good measure. Pa Nkem heaved a heavy sigh, resignedly threw himself onto the other side of the bed and within five minutes was snoring like a bull.

Fanwi sighed a deep sigh relief, thankful to have dodged another one of his advances. It wasn’t that she did not like being intimate; she did. Just not with Pa Nkem. He smelled like stale palm wine and a thin red film of Kola nut juice always lined his teeth. When he attempted to kiss her, he slobbered all over her face and he never made any attempts to actually please her.

She thought back to the day when Pa Nkem and his entourage had shown up at her uncle’s hut with a 50-gallon container of palm oil, several bags of dried corn and beans, 5 plantain bunches, 3 chickens and a live goat. She knew what those gifts meant; someone from Pa Nkem’s family had come to “pluck a flower” as her people said. Being the only girl in that household, she knew they were there for her. She was excited; it was a big honor to have a man come to ask for her hand in marriage. She hoped it was Pa Nkem’s nephew, Jato. She had seen him around the market square and often swished her hips a little harder when walking past him. He would smile back at her, as if in appreciation for the gesture so she was hoping he had come to show quantitative gratitude and claim what was his.

Her uncle’s wife had called her into the small kitchen behind the main hut and sat her down. She did not like the long, drawn look of her face. Since her parents died a few years ago, her uncle had grudgingly taken her into his care but his wife had been nothing short of a second mother to her.

“Fanwi”, Aunty Bih said, reaching out to hold her hand, “I have begged your uncle for the past three days to leave you alone but he has been adamant. I want you to know that I did everything I could to dissuade him. But he insists you are a woman now, and he can no longer afford to feed one additional mouth. Our friend Nkem has been kind to us and now that he needs a wife, your uncle says we cannot turn our backs on him”.

Fanwi’s mouth dropped open; she could not believe her aunt was saying those words to her. She quickly pulled her hand out of her aunt’s, like it had suddenly sprouted thorns and spat “WHAT?!” She had run out of the kitchen in tears straight to her friend Nangah’s place, where she remained for one week. After much pleading, cajoling and a few mocking chants from every one in the village, Fanwi eventually decided to accept her fate and move in with her husband.

She tasted the bile in her mouth as she now thought of that word – husband. It had been two months and it still did not sit well with her. She hissed and looked over at the sleeping pile on the other side of the bed. Beads of sweat trickled down his face and his belly galloped and gurgled with every snore. This was certainly not the husband for her.

She quietly flipped first one leg, then the other over the edge of the bed, careful to keep it from squeaking as it so often did with any movement. She moved swiftly to grab the small bag she had packed the night before from under the bed. As she got dressed, she heard three very faint raps on her side of the hut – Jato’s signal.

She looked over once again at Pa Nkem passed out on the bed and for a split second she felt sorry for him. She thought, “Maybe if I stay long enough, I can learn to love him. Maybe if he freshens his mouth with those lemon-grass leaves I set out for him…RAP RAP RAP!” Her thoughts were interrupted by Jato’s signal again, this time louder and even more urgent.

The noise caused Pa Nkem to stir in his sleep and as he did, his loincloth came undone to reveal his ashen genitalia. Fanwi was immediately taken back to the three times he had forced himself on her. She had cried and begged him to be patient with her but he was intent on having his way. She remembered how he laughed like a hyena afterwards and called her a good wife. She thought about his crooked fingernails scratching her back in his pitiful attempt at romance and the anger began to rise from that dark place in her stomach. She had a mind to slice off his “precious parts” and let him bleed to death as she made her escape.

But the loud whisper of her name from just outside the hut reminded her of the opportunity she now had to escape this hellhole. She dabbed at the tears that had begun to well up in her eyes, cracked the door open and quietly slid out and around back.

There he was, waiting with his own little bag and a kerosene lamp needed to guide their trek in those wee hours of the morning. They would walk 10 kilometers to a nearby village where motorcycle taxis came by once a week. They would journey 50 kilometers on the bike over muddy roads carved into hillsides to a small town where they would catch a clando, the overloaded minibuses that would take them to the heart of the big city. Jato had a distant relative there who was willing to take them in until they got to their feet.

He smiled at her as he took her hand and ushered her onto the path in front of him. She was unsure of what lay beyond the green hills sprawled out in front of them, but was certain and hopeful that it would be better than what she was leaving behind.

   Bonglack, M.                             Cincinnati, OH                               January 2015