Red Beast

The adults ogled me over like I was a strange commodity that had appeared in the market for the first time.

No, I was not a strange thing that had fallen from heaven. I was the everyday Nnenna, but I was different now because he had chosen me. 

 Whenever the adults were together outside receiving visitors in this manner, we had been taught to respect them and not infringe on their elderly conversations with our overtly annoying childlike presence. 

So we knew better than to run outside in excitement when we heard the roving sound of the Montero jeep arriving into the compound. It was the second time I had heard and seen a jeep around in the village. The first time I had seen one, the jeep belonged to the village chief’s son who had come back from the city for a visit.

The second time, most of us in the village would see a jeep, was today, with the arrival of the stranger. 

I could smell the excitement in the air, not only was this very important guest arriving at our village with a huge beast that moved very fast, the man had brought the beast and driven it straight into our compound. To visit us. 

We felt like important people and knew that the news would travel far before the vehicle finally moved away. 

I was anxious to see this man who had come visiting suddenly without prior notification, that too, with a powerful beast. 

So we all sat and listened to the loud sounds of laughter that echoed over the building like something grossly exaggerated. 

The adults were laughing and I could hear the stranger’s voice again and again. He was full of so much exaggerated laughter. It made me wonder if rich people laughed like this all the time, that too, in a manner that sounded like it was coming from a treacherous corner in their throats.

Inside the small room that occupied us all, I looked around in boredom as I waited for the call that would usher me out to see the beast. 

I wondered what color it would be.

Blue like the sky or black like soil? Or white like fufu?

I seriously could not get my mind to get over how such things were made. 

I remember the teacher in the small thatched makeshift building that made for a school would always tell us that something called technology made all these innovations like a Car, a blender, and an airplane possible. 

I seriously have never seen an airplane before. Neither have I seen one fly over our small village.

But with the teachers’ description, I pictured it like a big eagle that had seats strapped around its waist. 

 I wondered what it would be like to be up there in the sky. Did these people ever consider what would happen if the bird had a panic attack and flipped everything—including people with flesh and blood— strapped to its waist? 

I wondered how people learned to trust such things that put them at a height where they could not seek help. Take, for instance, the car. If an accident were to happen, it would be easier to find people around to help you get to the medicine man’s place for a cure no matter how terminal. The flying bird on the other hand was another matter entirely.

I was pretty certain that people did not live up in the sky. How did they get in? If I wanted to get off to take a pee during the trip, how would such a thing be possible? I seriously couldn’t imagine taking a pee in the sky, wouldn’t that be rainfall to people that were down below? And the bus stops… Did they have plane stops up there in the sky as well? All of these were things that I thought about all the more, every time I had the chance to.

Certainly, this giant bird was nothing like the giant native bird we often learned about under the moonlight in the village square in the fable stories. 

“Uhmmm…children…” I heard their voices call out to us for the first time since the new hour started and I couldn’t be more delighted with enthusiasm. “Come out quickly. Our visitor wants to see you”.

Finally, this was a chance to meet the beast. To see it, and maybe sneakily touch it when the adults were not looking with a stern look of disapproval. 

I looked at the others and nodded as they all filled out. 

I followed suit behind them. I was amongst the youngest after all. I couldn’t jump out in front of them, even if I badly wanted to do just that. 

We were taught against such things and I knew better to avoid it. 

They were older, second only to the adults in constituted authority, and our culture demanded that I respect the age gap before anything else.

The beast was red. A deep red color that looked like clay earth. I was a bit disappointed. I expected a color more intriguing than that. Sincerely.

The beast stood there red and imposingly threatening and I locked eyes with it. Staring on in awe like I could communicate it into a fierce battle like a bull.

I saw the beast before I noticed the stranger.

His loud throaty laughter drew my attention again. This time it was too loud due to proximity. 

We stood in a single file according to our age differences on the platform as the adults looked upon us. Mother winked at me to stand upright and quit slouching with her stern gaze, and I understood what that cold unprecedented stare was trying to communicate to me immediately.

They wanted us all to look like well-behaved educated children with prospects before the stranger.

“Children” Papa cleared his throat as he motioned towards him, “this is Mr. Williams, a good friend of mine. He brought that red car with him to visit us”. Papa continued, beaming enthusiastically as if someone had just told him the beast belonged to him.

“Good afternoon sir” We all chorused. 

I stood there, quiet and bemused as Mr. Williams smiled down at us.

“Mista Willyaamss” I pronounced out very quietly, trying to get the pronunciation the way Papa had just done. 

Mr. Williams was an odd name., for a man who did not look anything like a white man. 

He was middle-aged, a bit older than our father, and had a rotund belly that looked like the size of two haphazardly locally made  footballs.

His skin was as dark as the soil beneath his feet, a deep contrast to his red beast. 

And his teeth were browning from eating too much kola. 

He did not look anything like his name. But that was what the elders called him, so who was I to object to the name that had been given to a person.

You don’t argue a person’s name with them, no matter what you think about it. 

I had learned this at a young age from the adults. They said these were some of the things they were meant to teach us. Because they didn’t teach such things in the thatched school behind the community. 

“Girls and boys, meet Mr. Williams.”

I suddenly stopped to wonder why Papa was suddenly referring to us as “girls and boys” and not the usual “Crazy children” he loved to call us whenever he was having a bad day. My eyes were still fixated on the red beast while he spoke to us. “We went to school together. He is my very good old, long-lost friend. Say hello to him properly.”

He concluded as he chuckled loudly. 

We looked at Mr Williams and curtsied again to show our respect. I hated these formalities but this was something we had to do to avoid getting into unprecedented trouble with the adults. 

I caught the impressed nod of the woman who had birthed us amongst the elders. 

She smiled with too much joy. I couldn’t understand why they all looked so happy. 

“Why is your Beast painted in red? Mother tells me that red is a foreboding color. Simply because it is a color of pain. You should change it.”  I blurted out in apprehension, quickly realizing I had spoken my thoughts out loud to Mr. Williams before I had been asked to.

“Shut your mouth, Nnenna. You’re fond of always speaking out of place.” The man who birthed us, the man who was soon to betray me spoke quickly intending to reprimand me harshly in front of the stranger. He was always like this whenever I asked a question that troubled my mind. Always telling me not to think about or say things that he couldn’t reply to or give an answer to.

I expected the same level of reprimand from the stranger but his reply was shockingly different. 

“You have got such a beautiful daughter,” he added. Looking at me strangely in a way that made my skin cringe. “I like her feisty spirit.” He continued laughing again in that grossly exaggerated manner. 

Before long the other elders joined again. The mother who had birthed us, beamed even further and stared at me with a joy that seemed pained. It was hard to explain it but I saw it in her eyes. Like I had been chosen because I had opened my mouth.

The next day, I understood what that look meant when the mother came into the small room that we all shared and asked me to sit for a conversation.

I was only 15 but I knew when something was about to go wrong.

She started it quickly without mincing words. 

“Your father had decided yesterday to get you married off to the Stranger, Mr. William.”

“But isn’t he too old?”

“He’s old enough to be both a father and a husband to you. Shouldn’t you feel privileged, Nnenna?”

I couldn’t understand what sort of privilege that was supposed to be. I was going to lose my freedom to the man with the red beast and I was supposed to feel elated?

“But why? Why mother?” I asked my voice, shivering with fear at the thought of going away from everything I knew with a stranger to a faraway city. 

“I am sorry, my child. Your father thinks this is the best offer you might get. Not every day a suitor this rich comes calling at your door in search of your most beautiful daughter. Is it?”

I ignored her like I did not understand that what she meant was this;

His proposal was too good, we couldn’t resist the urge to sell you off being that all the other bigger children were male and they would not be of any value to our prospective predator masquerading as a suitor.

“And his wife? Surely he is married, isn’t he?”

“She’s dead. He says she died during childbirth.”

“Would he play Mama and Papa game with me?”

I looked at Mother and watched her lips twitch in response to my question.

“He told your father he would wait until you’re well-ripened, matured, and 18 years old.”

As she spoke these things, I knew that  she knew that I knew that she was lying, and I was expected to swallow the lie.

I thought of the Jeep and suddenly realized in fear why the beast had to be covered in a foreboding color.

Blood was coming. Bad terrible disastrous doom loomed up ahead for me. And the only light in the dark tunnel was red. 

God save me. I was being sold off for the first and last time at the age of 15 to a man who was old enough to be four times my age. 

All images are sourced from unsplash.com