Stars of the Long Night

Tanure Ojaide

Description

Set in the Niger Delta this novel tells the tale of a women's struggle for equality in a traditional patriachal society. Set against the once-in-a-generation festival at which the one chosen by the gods performs the dance of "the mother mask", Ojaide weaves a tale of suspense while displaying the traditions and religious beliefs that define the Niger Delta.

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Malthouse Press
• Date de parution: 30 mai 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9789788422792
• Langue: English

Extrait

Stars of the Long Night
Malthouse African Fiction
Dele Afolabi, Molara s Revenge Zaynab Alkali, The Cowebs and other stories Chukwuemeka Ike To My Husband from Iowa Festus Iyayi Awaiting Court Martial Kris Obodumu Die a Little Tanure Ojaide, God s Medicinemen and other stories Wale Okediran Dreams Die at Twilight Femi Olugbile Batolica!
Stars Of The Long Night
a novel
by
Tanure Ojaide
Malthouse Press Limited
43 Onitana Street, Off Stadium Hotel Road,
Surulere, Lagos, Lagos State
E-mail: malthouse press vahoo.com
malthouse_lagos yahoo.co.uk
Tel:[phone]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system or translated into any language or computer language, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, chemical, thermal, manual or otherwise, without the prior consent in writing of Malthouse Press Limited, Lagos, Nigeria.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade, or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher s prior consent in writing, in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Tanure Ojaide 2012
First Published 2012
ISBN 978-978-8422-49-5
Distributors:
African Books Collective, Oxford, UK
Contents
The Heritage of Tales
PART ONE Dynasties of Men
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
PART II The Moons Between
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
PART III Seven Days
25
26
27
28
29
30
PART IV Festival Moon
31
32
33 The Moon
34
35 The Call
36
37
38
39
40 The Day After and Afterwards
In memory of my Grandmother, Amreghe, the Mother Hen
The elephant does not die of one broken rib.
( Urhobo proverb )
The Heritage of Tales
How many people are sharp-eyed enough to see through the thick clouds covering the distant past? How many others can tell what brought about the big scars they now carry as a badge? Many have even forgotten the wounds that gave rise to their scars. Maybe they had sustained them by accident; or, it could be that someone more powerful than them had inflicted the wounds upon them. How many still know the way they had taken to where they are now settled? Many believe they had been thrust into where they are now by some deity who actively patterned people s lives according to their respective desires. It does not matter to such people whether their forebears had travelled through a perilous road to their current refuge. It does not matter to them what the past did to them. They only want to look ahead. But let such people beware. Where do you go, if you do not know where you are coming from; more so if you are fleeing from somewhere? How much of the present is not conditioned by the past? And what future is not the sum of the past and the present?
Remembrance is a god that is worshiped every moment of the day. The god of memory is a jealous god that asks to be remembered with sacrifices and, in return, makes you remember whatever you have experienced. As the god of memory s favourite, what you saw would never leave you; you would recount every detail of your dreams as if the events were still unfolding before you. Series of events spread before you to see in bright light. The faces you come across once are pictured before you for all times. You keep a mental canvas on which everything you experience is boldly impressed. Once Aridon, the memory god, accepts you as a devotee, you will be blessed with memories. The echo and the sound become one, just as the shadow and the body are one figure.
Remembrance is an experienced guide. It tells you what happened in a particular place at a specific time. Be on your guard! Better be on guard than be taken by surprise. Who is armed with experience of the past will not be ambushed by surprises of the future. Who has been taught lessons knows the virtues of knowledge. How will the earth not know if somebody dies and has to be buried? The storyteller must serve the memory god.
Without memory an endowed people run the risk of losing their virtues and wealth and slipping into vulgarity and poverty. Without memory the child would burn itself a second time, a third time, and on and on till it could be fatally hurt. Without memory the wild animal that had struggled out of a trap once would likely walk into and be killed by another trap. Without memory a people who had given up kingship because of its tyranny could place one of them in a high chair again and chant names that would turn his head to declare himself king of his praise-singers. Certainly, without memory those who believed that whatever men could not achieve would be impossible to accomplish would be stuck with the problems that arrested them.
Aridon will guide me to tell my story, my people s story.
PART ONE Dynasties of Men
1
From the very day Amraibure and his father returned from Orhokpor, where they had gone to consult the famed diviner, however weirdly things had turned out, the young man became a sniffing he-goat in town, looking for girls, as if he had not been seeing them playing around all the time.
Not used to interacting with girls, he became clumsy in his manners whenever he played with them. He smiled too broadly, his lower and upper rows of teeth clenched, as if he could endear himself to girls by doing so. He put in so much seriousness into what should be play that he took the fun out of it. There was a measure of brusqueness in his behaviour that he could not shed despite every effort on the playground to be a normal boy. He had been too long in the company of his seniors that he could not just be normal among his own age-mates again. He had been so praised for being so responsible for his young age by older people that he now realized he had to lose some of that praise to be like his fellow boys and girls. He was being driven by his feelings to seize what he wanted and, at the same time, held back by the awkwardness and roughness of not being used to the normal ways of playing.
He had heard of big boys like him dragging smaller girls into plantain plantations and pawing about them. He had learned from bigger boys that the girls giggled when boys touched their breasts. He had also learned from the same big boys that girls liked boys paying special attention to them. The practice of luring or pulling girls into lonely corners to play with intimately happened in the dark or on moonlit nights when the adults were inside or engaged in some other ways and not paying attention to the young ones playing and having fun. Most times the girls submitted to the intimate play as long as nobody saw them. Such girls were called Don t-let-my-mother-know. Out of curiosity, a few boys and girls had tasted hurriedly for the first time on the soft moist bed of plantain leaves what they were still forbidden from enjoying.
Of the girls playing in Amraibure s street, Kena s body had the most alluring features to him. Young ones from neighbouring streets often played together now in one street and then in another; they had no street boundaries at playtime. The spirit of play possessed them and they followed the flow it evoked. Kena was tall for her age and had a body more on the thin side than on the plump side. Her large eyes shone beneath a swath of lashes. Her oval face was unique among the girls of the wide dusty streets. She tied a wrapper over her chest, but that cover did not hide the big breasts that settled on her chest like twin hillocks on a narrow plain. Amraibure, in his imagination, looked through her wrapper and saw breasts that would be warm to touch. Kena distinguished herself in many ways. She had a good smile, which came out naturally, and she was as energetic as a young woman could possibly be. She danced and sang and carried herself as the leader of her age-mates. One could easily single her out of her group for her spritely nature and the natural poise with which she moved about.
Amraibure was enthralled by her luscious body and liveliness and felt he did not need to go farther than his immediate streets to look for someone to be his girlfriend. Go where, he asked himself, when she of the big breasts and the smooth skin, the rice teeth and warm smile, the leader of the girls, was close by for him to choose? Why go into the forest and be subjected to briars and thorns, he also asked himself, when he could find in his backyard what he wanted? But he did not really know what he wanted to do with her. Coming together in the playground would start the process of intimacy, he hoped.
The chance he wanted and anxiously waited for soon came. The spirit of play created the opportunity he waited for: a moonlit night. On such nights, boys and girls played together, unlike on dark nights when boys played with boys and girls with girls. The moon freed boys and girls from their gender compartments into the open space it burnished with its brilliance. The moon created a boundless arena for young boys and girls to tease their fancy and cross lines that it blurred with light. On the moonlit night, playing hide-and-seek, Amraibure entered the game with the sole purpose of pursuing Kena into the dark plantain plantation. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to pay special attention to her and wanted her to know that.
It came to his turn to seek her, as she ran to hide, and his heart beat a fast but strang