(cover photograph direction: Victor Akhere)
When Edati’s husband rises from his grave, Edati welcomes him with a sullen face. She is displeased that he rises late. From the information Iya Benji, her close neighbour and friend, gave her, the dead are to rise as early as dawn. But Bako rises when the sun is already full and warm. She found him standing near the banana grove next to his grave in the backyard. Her husband saunters into the house. He is draped in an orange robe. His face is clean, devoid of streaks of mud. After entering the house, he walks to his favourite sitting spot when he was still alive — an angle between the edge of the bed and the wall, marked by the deep redness of a rose flower on the blue carpet flooring. His rocking chair sits on that spot.
“I have been expecting you since dawn,” Edati tells him.
“I know,” he answers her as he sits inside the chair. His sternness surprises her.
“What kept you late?” she asks him.
His face contorts. “I got into a fight with one of the dead from Buke.”
She wonders if there is violence in the world of the dead.
“Imagine the goat trying to bribe me, telling me that unless I pay a fine of money, I would not be allowed to channel my soul to earth.”
Edati shakes her head and gives careful thought to Bako’s words. He talks to her as if she knows everything about the world of the dead.
“Did you finally give him?”
“It was a woman.”
“Oh.” She swallows spittle. “Did you finally bribe her?”
“Me? You knew me well when I was still in this world. I don’t give out bribes.”
“Yes, I remember.”
She leaves him to sleep. What she observed when he returned was his stern aspect and gait, just as they were before he died on an electric pole. His voice does not lose its sharpness. He looks healthy.
He wakes up in the early afternoon. The sun is sinking behind the mango grove some kilometres away from the house. Earlier, Edati had a short chat with Iya Benji in the backyard. Iya Benji told her about her own dead husband’s return, that her husband showed no sign of senility, that her husband looked clean.
“But I have not asked him anything. He is still sleeping in the house,” Iya Benji revealed.
“Bako is still sleeping, too. I also have a lot to ask him when he wakes up,” Edati said, happy. Now that he is awake, Edati plans to ask Bako questions about the world of the dead. She sits on the bed and stares at him.
*
NdaKpa is a small village hidden on the outskirts of the Kuchita community, on the fringes of a wild forest. NdaKpa has always been a quiet village surrounded by thick belts of trees. It is the Year of Ndakpongboya, when masquerades jet out of the earth and hold two nights to themselves, celebrating their immortality and granting peace and health to the villagers. It is the year when dead souls are summoned from the world of the dead to visit their people on the earth. It is the year when the masquerades gather in the ndazhitsu’s yard and fill everywhere with their bodies. The Year of Ndakpongboya comes up every ten years. But this is the first time Edati is experiencing it. She was married into NdaKpa only seven years ago. The people of the returned dead offer the richest meals they can afford to the ndakpongboyas, the masquerades, because their appearance ferried their dead souls. Now, Edati and Iya Benji make their way to the ndazhitsu’s compound. Edati balances a tray of rich meals on her head while Iya Benji holds in her hand a basket filled with fruits. They walk down a narrow road that leads to the ndazhitsu’s house where the rituals take place.
The ndazhitsu’s yard is expansive. When Edati approaches it, she notices the banana plantation that borders it on the right. Then, as she goes further, a variety of plantations unfurl — a colony of stumpy pawpaw trees, a wild patch of elephant grasses and bulrushes, and an aggregate of lush vegetable marrows. All these enclose the yard on either side like hedges.
The masquerades are wider than Edati expects. Their robes are adorned with red beads clipped along the fibrous selvedge. They are unmoving as she and Iya Benji put down the tray and basket of food at the spot designated for meals. After this, the two women leave the compound and walk back home.
The dead disappear at midnight after the first ndakpongboyas night party. They return the following day, and finally disappear after the party of the second night.
“For how long has your husband been dead?” Edati asks Iya Benji as they both march back home.
“More than twenty years now. This is his second revival.”
There is silence, then comes the question from Edati: “Did he tell you who killed him?”
Iya Benji walks carefully, amused by the question.
“There was something strange about his death. He was found lying naked inside the village river. A deep wound stood out on his back.”
“Did your husband mention who killed him when he first came back?”
“Yes, he did. It was a fellow old man who killed him in a fight and threw him into the river. But he did not explain the reason for the fight.”
“What did you do to the killer, then?” Edati’s voice is low.
“The old man is now dead, too, after all.” Iya Benji smiles.
For seconds, they both walk in silence.
“How did he describe the other world?” Edati asks again.
Iya Benji looks at her and forces a rictus. She tells Edati to ask her husband when she reaches home. Edati resolves to do so.
When she gets home and enters the room, she notices that the atmosphere has changed. The air is stale. The mud walls are dark. The carpet is dusty.
She settles into the rocking chair and faces Bako who sits on the bed.
“Should I serve you food?” she asks him.
“We don’t eat there.”
“I know. Will you not eat now that you are on earth?”
“We no longer eat food,” he roars.
Her desire heightens. “Please, I want you to answer me. What does the other world look like?”
The silence of contemplation sets in. Bako lunges forward in fright. He rolls his eyes around the room and gazes at the mud walls.
“I wonder why you still put on that apologetic voice,” he finally says, letting out a laugh. “The other world is as large as the earth. But there is nothing like left, right, back and front. Just an incredible, pointless vastness.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” A mild pause. “And, oh, it is not as evil as the earth.”
She sits up on the chair. Her burgundy wrapper parts sideways and exposes her thighs.
“Of course, I can say that there are immoral practices there. Yes. Things like bribery, corruption, and the rest. But there is nothing like enmity. Our souls are cleansed by the administrators.”
She studies him closely. He is now dressed in the PHCN dungarees his electrocuted body lay in six years ago.
“The other world has nothing like social conventions— there is nothing like asali. It is much more beautiful and peaceful than this world, Eda. Indeed, this earth is a battlefield on which we must challenge ourselves and suffer. Over there, in the land of the dead, there is nothing like that.”
She thinks about asking him who killed him. Who was it that switched on the power meter when he was on top of the electric pole, fiddling with electric wires? Who killed him on duty? But the question swells and bursts inside her. She resolves, upon second thought, to ask him when he returns the next day.
“Why do ghosts exist?” she asks him instead.
He shakes his head. “One thing you need to know is that we are immortals. We can strip and wear our souls. And, yes, the other world is like a blanket over this earth, like kpasa.”
He pauses and fixes his gaze again on the wall opposite him. Stripes of green dirt stretch across the wall.
“Most of the time, when we barge upon the invisible portals during outings, we accidentally slip into the earth as ghosts,” Bako adds.
Edati listens as he talks but begins to feel sleepy when it is nearly midnight. Her heart is filled with pain. The strength with which she quenches the pressing question disturbs her. Nevertheless, she promises herself that she must not fail to ask him who killed him when he returns the following day. At least, he is plain in his revelations, she thinks.
*
The ndakpongboyas night party is replete with the macabre tune of spirits. The ndazhitsu’s compound is open to everyone. Edati does not visit the festival grounds. She stays at home, anxious that Bako will leave her soon.
The following morning, Edati sweeps the compound, hoes the weed patches in the yard and cleans the room. She arranges her clothes on the rafter and spreads a new bed sheet on the mattress. She wants to welcome her husband in grand style.
On his second return, Bako rises early. From his grave in the backyard, he walks straight into the hut. Everything about him is strange: the smell of smog from his body, his heavy gait, and his deep voice as he greets Edati good morning before slinking into his rocking chair.
There is no time to dilly-dally today, Edati thinks. She walks towards the lone stool she placed at the mouth of the bed, to ensure smooth communication with Bako.
How is the other world? is her first greeting. Bako frowns.
“I want to ask you a question,” she adds.
Bako, a short, dark-skinned man with a mop of hair on his small head, sweeps his gaze across the room, his lips clenched.
“Go on,” he roars.
“Bako, I want you to answer me well. Please answer me properly.”
He grunts, but his face is friendly. When he was still alive, she called him by name when they had difficult conversations.
“Alright, I am all ears.”
“Who killed you?”
He remains silent. The question does not budge him as she expects.
“Please, Bako, please—” she kneels, “I want you to answer me.”
His lips pucker, the upper one curling as though preparing closure. His only response is arghh as if the question strikes him a blow.
“Answer me,” she begs again.
She gives him time. Maybe that is how it happens. Maybe the dead needed time to process questions like that.
She leaves him alone until the ndakpongboyas night party is drawing to an end. The village air is poisoned with dust. Scary susurrations rent the air, deafening everywhere. She walks into the room and sits on the lone stool. Bako sits straight-backed inside the rocking chair.
“Please, Bako, please, answer me. I want to know the miscreant who killed you.” She starts to cry. Bako remains silent. He does not look at her.
“Answer me.” Her voice is low.
From outside, the sounds of the night party waft into the room, accompanied by the high cries of the masquerades. The night party is over. Bako stands up from the chair and walks to the door. He opens it and steps into the darkness.
He is going.
Edati follows him as he rounds the hut towards the backyard. A distant girdle of trees looms out like hunched mountains in the darkness. The grasses around the banana trunks thrust out in tangles.
Answer me, please is her goodbye to Bako, a deafening farewell, as the dead man dips towards the heap of sand that is his grave. She watches him meld with the earth.
She lies in bed afterwards, thinking about the past moments with Bako. Her vision is unclear under the dim halo of a lantern. She cries as the ndakpongboyas night party ends and throws the village into utter silence.