Nnedi Okorafor - Who Fears Death

The room was warm and outside was like any other night. My parents were sleeping, as if it were any other night. But Binta was lying on a red cloth, her legs held apart by the healer and the architect. The Ada disinfected the scalpel and then heated it over a flame. She let it cool. Healers usually use a laserknife for surgery. They make the cleanest cuts and can instantly cauterize when necessary. I briefly wondered why the Ada was using a primitive scalpel instead.

“Hold your breath,” the Ada said. “Don’t scream.”

Before Binta could finish taking in her breath, the Ada took the scalpel to her. She went for a small perturbing bit of dark rosy flesh near to top of Binta’s yeye . When the scalpel sliced it, blood spurted. My stomach lurched. Binta didn’t scream but she bit down on her lip so hard that blood dribbled from the side of her mouth. Her body jerked but the women held her.

The healer stanched the wound with ice wrapped in gauze. For a few moments everyone froze except Binta, who was breathing heavily. Then one of the other women helped her stand and move to the other side of the room. Binta sat down, her legs apart, holding the gauze in place, a stunned look on her face. It was Luyu’s turn.

“I can’t do this,” Luyu started babbling. “I can’t do this!” Still, she allowed herself to be held down by the healer and the architect. The seamstress and my great-aunt held her arms for good measure as the Ada took another scalpel and disinfected it. Luyu didn’t scream but she made a sharp, “ peep ” Tears dribbled from her eyes as she fought with the pain. It was Diti’s turn.

Diti lay down slowly and took a deep breath. Then she said something too quiet for me to hear. The minute the Ada brought the fresh scalpel to her flesh, Diti jumped up, blood oozing down her thighs. Her face was a mask of terror, as she tried to wordlessly scramble away. The women must have seen this reaction often because without a word, they grabbed her and quickly held her down. The Ada finished the cut, fast and clean.

It was my turn. I could barely keep my eyes open. The other girls’ pain was swarming around me like wasps and biting flies. Tearing at me like cactus thorns.

“Come, Onyesonwu,” the Ada said.

I was a trapped animal. Not trapped by the women, the house, or tradition. I was trapped by life. Like I had been a free spirit for millennia and then one day something snatched me up, something violent and angry and vengeful, and I was pulled into the body that I now resided in. Held at its mercy, by its rules. Then I thought of my mother. She’d stayed sane for me. She lived for me. I could do this for her.

I lay on the cloth trying to ignore the three other girls’ eyes as they stared at my Ewu body. I could have slapped all three of them. I didn’t deserve to suffer those scrutinizing stares during such a chilling moment. The healer and architect took my legs. The seamstress and my great-aunt held my arms. The Ada picked up the scalpel.

“Be calm,” Nana the Wise said into my ear.

I felt the Ada part my yeye ’s lips. “Hold your breath,” she said. “Don’t scream.”

Halfway through my breath, she cut. The pain was an explosion. I felt it in every part of my body and I almost blacked out. Then I was screaming. I didn’t know that I was capable of such noise. Faintly, I felt other women holding me down. I was shocked that they hadn’t let go and run off. I was still screaming when I realized that everything had fallen away. That I was in a place of periwinkle and yellow and mostly green.

I would have gasped with terror if I had a mouth to gasp with. I would have screamed some more, thrashed, scratched, spit. All I could think was that I had died… yet again. When I remained as I was, I calmed. I looked at myself. I was only a blue mist, like the fog that lingers after a fast, hard rainstorm. Around me I could see others now. Some were red, some green, some gold. Things focused and I could see the room, too. The girls and women. Each had her own colored mist. I didn’t want to look at my body lying there.

Then I noticed it. Red and oval-shaped with a white oval in the center, like the giant eye of a jinni. It sizzled and hissed, the white part expanding, moving closer. It horrified me to my very core. Must get out of here! I thought. Now! It sees me! But I didn’t know how to move. Move with what? I had no body. The red was bitter venom. The white was like the sun’s worst heat. I started screaming and crying again. Then I was opening my eyes to a cup of water. Everyone’s face broke into a smile.

“Oh, praise Ani,” the Ada said.

I felt the pain and jumped, about to get up and run. I had to run. From that eye. I was so mixed up that for a moment, I was sure that what I’d just seen was causing the pain.

“Don’t move,” the healer said. She was pressing a piece of gauze-wrapped ice between my legs and I wasn’t sure which hurt more, the pain from the cut or the ice’s cold. My eyes shot around the room, searching. When my gaze fell on anything white or red my heart skipped a beat and my hands twitched.

After a few minutes, I began to relax. I told myself it was all just a pain-induced nightmare. I let my mouth fall open. The air dried my lower lip. I was now ana m-bobi . No more shame would befall my parents. Not because I was eleven and uncircumcised, at least. My relief lasted about one minute. It wasn’t a nightmare at all. I knew this. And though I didn’t know exactly what, I knew something terribly bad had just happened.

“When she cut you, you just went to sleep,” Luyu said, as she lay on her back. She was looking at me with great respect. I frowned.

“Yeah, and you went all transparent!” Diti quickly said. She seemed to have recovered from her own shock.

“W-what?!” I said.

“Shhhh!” Luyu angrily hissed at Diti.

“She did!” Diti whispered.

I wanted to drag my nails across the floor. What was all this? I wondered. I could smell the stress on my skin. And I realized that I could smell that other smell, too. The one that I’d smelled for the first time during the tree incident.

“She should speak with Aro,” the Ada told to Nana the Wise.

Nana the Wise only grunted, frowning at her. The Ada fearfully averted her eyes.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

No one responded. None of the other women would look at me.

“Who’s ‘R O’?” I asked, turning to Diti, Luyu, and Binta.

The three of them shrugged. “Dunno,” Luyu said.

When none of the women would elaborate on this R O, I dismissed their words. I had other things to worry about. Like that place of light and colors. Like the oval eye. Like the bleeding and stinging between my legs. Like telling my parents what I’d done.

The four of us lay there side by side in pain for a half hour. We were each given a belly chain made of thin delicate gold that we would wear forever. The elders raised their shirts above their bellies to show us theirs. “They’ve been blessed in the seventh of the Seven Rivers,” the Ada said. “They’ll live long after we’ve died.”

We were also each given a stone to place underneath our tongues. This was called talembe etanou . My mother approved of this tradition, though its purpose had also long been forgotten. Hers was a very small, smooth orange stone. The stones vary with each Okeke group. Our stones were diamonds, a stone I’d never heard of. They looked like smooth ovals of ice. I held mine easily under my tongue. One was only to take it out when eating or sleeping. And one had to be careful at first not to swallow it. To do so was bad luck. Briefly I wondered how my mother hadn’t swallowed hers when I was conceived.