Chapter 10

"Doctor what is wrong with my daughter," Asanga asked trying to be as calm as possible. A lump had formed in her throat which she tried hard to swallow.

She was at the Mother and Child Pavilion Hospital. She had rushed Emily there when she screamed in the night. When she reached Emily's room, Emily was on the floor and Jessica stood over her looking with a blank expression on her face.

"What is wrong with her" Asanga had asked

Jessica did not reply. It seemed as if she had not even heard what Asanga had said. Asanga pushed her aside and picked up Emily in her arms.

Emily's eyes were open but Asanga could not see her pupils.

"Oh God, Emily, Emily!" Asanga shrieked

The girl did not answer. Asanga rushed out of the house with Emily in her arms. Her legs trembled. Emily's weight was almost too much for her.

She had driven like a demon. Luckily for her, there was no traffic since it was late. However, the entrance to the Pavilion was crowded. She had reached there at 12:45 AM. Several taxis were at the entrance, forcing her to park about a hundred meters away from the gate.

She strapped Emily to her back and headed towards the hospital. She was wearing skintight jeans and a blood-colored sweater. Emily was wearing white pajamas sprinkled with tiny pink flowers.

"We are not sure yet, madam. It is too early to tell. Her vitals are normal but she is unconscious. I have asked for some tests to be done. We will know more when the results come in. For now, you can just wait or even go home and rest and come back in the morning."

"No, I am not going anywhere," Asanga said categorically "I need to know that she is okay"

"She will be," the doctor said smiling. For the first time, Asanga looked at him. He was broad-faced with a warm fatherly smile. He had touches of grey hair at his temples. His short thick fingers were folded carefully on the table between them. He was clad in a green gown attached to his body by thin ropes.

"What really happened?" he asked

"I don't know. She was in her room and I heard her scream."

"Had she been complaining of anything recently?"

"No, well she was in a boarding school and she came back home yesterday. She seemed fine"

The doctor sighed. "Okay. Let's wait for the results so we can know more"

Asanga left the doctor's office and went back to the ward where Emily was. She sat down on the lone chair that was beside Emily's bed and watched her sleep. The ward was unoccupied except for another teenage girl with a swollen leg.

A wave of nausea passed through Asanga as she inhaled the air that smelled faintly of bleach. She hated hospitals because of the smells. When she had been pregnant with Emily she had hated coming for antenatal because of the smells.

*

She must have dozed off for a few minutes. When she opened her eyes, the room was cold. The air still smelled of bleach but the smell had grown intense. In front of her seated on Emily's bed were big Mammy and her mother. They were staring at her with cold expressions, both clad in white bed sheets streaked with blood stains. The girl with the swollen leg was snoring quietly and Emily was still in the position she had been in when Asanga came in.

"Is she awake?" Big mammy asked

"Yes she is"

Asanga's heart skipped several beats as she realized who the women who sat before her were.

"Mama, Big mammy…"

"Did I ever tell you how your father died?" her mother asked

Asanga shook her head, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. "You always avoided the subject"

Big mammy sighed. "It is not a good story but we have decided you should hear it"

"Why now? I had been eager even as a little girl to know my father but you hid him from me."

"I did not hide him, he passed away and I loved him too much. I did not want to…well…let me tell you about him"

"Tell her." Big mammy said

Your father Asanga was from the North West. He was a young engineer who had come to Eyangnchang to work on the pipe-borne water project under the Ministry of Mines. When he saw me, he fell in love with me immediately. It was when he was inspecting the Baku stream whether it would be good for extracting water. I went there to carry water. He told me he loved me and wanted to marry me."

"What? Just like that?" Asanga asked

"Just like that"

"So what did you say?"

"I told him that if he was serious he should come to see my mother"

"Did he come?"

"Yes. He came and after two moons we were married."

"Wow…I wonder what has happened to the men of these days. They are no longer interested in marriage," Asanga said

"What you should think about is what happened to the girls of these days. They are too quick to open their legs. A man just needs to smile at them and they are already on their backs with their legs wide open."

"No divert from the story, we no get plenty time," Big mammy said

"Right. So, back to what I was saying. The only problem was that I was a priestess of Mukenge"

Asanga shifted in her seat.

"A priestess of Mukenge can sleep with a man only during particular periods of the year for the sake of procreating. Apart from that, her body belongs to the ants. A man must not know her carnally when it is not during one of the specified periods."

"Did you tell my dad that you were a priestess?" Asanga asked

Big mammy shook her head sadly.

"No, I didn't" Asanga's mother replied "I was not supposed to. My brothers, David and Joe warned me severely never to tell him and that was what led to his death. We had decided to move from Eyangnchang to Mamfe where he had rented a three-room house. It was on the fourth of June 1983, and he came back from work late and a bit drunk. Apparently, he had been out drinking with his friends after work. He wanted me but it was not the specified period of the year and I reminded him of the fact but he would not listen since I could not give a clear explanation of why we could not make love"

She paused to think back on the event. "I begged him and begged but he was under the influence of alcohol. He finally had his way but before he could go far the Mukenge rose up and devoured him leaving only his bones, picked clean"

Asanga's mother fell silent.

"What is the moral of the story?" Asanga asked, "You waited all these years to tell me this?"

"The Mukenge is part of our family." Big mammy said "You see the thing that they do to Ebaneck because he try to sleep you when it was not the time of the year. Now you don transfer am for your child. No interfere with the Mukenge again. If you interfere, your child go die."

"Take Emily to the village so that Nem Taseng can perform the final rites for her to start her life of consecration to Mukenge"

"No way. It will be over my dead body." Asanga said

The other two women looked at each other and then back at her. "Uncle Joe is looking for the slightest opportunity to destroy you. Step out of the way. You refused to be the priestess. You can go back to your busy life and allow your daughter." Asanga's mother said

"Priscilla, Priscilla," Big mammy said "Strong head no fine"

"I will never allow my daughter to go and waste in that village…not while I am alive"

The other two women looked at each other again and then back at her. "Then so be it," they said in unison.

Suddenly big mammy and her mother were no longer in front of her but two huge piles of black soldier ants. Asanga cringed, trying to get away from them. The chair she was sitting in fell over backward with her. Before she could find her feet, the ants were on her. Their tiny mandibles dug into her flesh. Pain shot to her brain from all angles of her body.

She fought back. Her hands instinctively went to her eyes and ears to brush off any ants that tried to enter, but the ants were too fast for her. They were biting her more than she could brush them off. She tasted blood as they bit her lips and she felt her air supply being cut off as large quantities of ants scurried into her body through her nostrils. She screamed.

*

"Madam, Madam are you alright?" A nurse was touching her shoulder.

Asanga shook herself. She was still sitting on the chair near Emily's bed. The air was hot and a few flies buzzed here and there. The girl with the swollen leg was now awake, sipping something from a plastic cup. It was morning.

Asanga only nodded.

"The doctor would like to see you. Follow me"

Asanga stood up. Her body ached from sleeping on the chair. Her thigh muscles were unwilling to carry her but she forced them as she followed after the nurse, a tiny birdlike woman in a pink uniform.

Behind her, Emily, still in the position she had been in the whole night, smiled.

*

When Otafion woke up that morning he had a problem with his bathroom. He had waited for Asanga's call until he fell asleep. When he woke up the clock app on his phone said the time was 5:00 AM. His bladder was almost bursting with urine. He got off the bed and sauntered sleepily to the bathroom. The light switch for the bathroom was inside the bathroom so he had to open the door before flicking it on. He pushed open the door absentmindedly. Normally he hardly ever flicked on the light so that he could continue sleeping after he finished emptying his bladder.

The bathroom was a large square, tiled all white with the white throne on the edge opposite the door. There was a mirror above a sink on the right wall and beside it was a sequence of hooks on which hung some towels. On the ground, on the left side, there were three large plastic buckets in which he stored water for bathing because the tap stopped flowing without warning on some mornings. On the wall above the buckets, there was supposed to be nothing.

As he walked towards the white throne, the corner of his left eye caught something on the wall, something dark. He paused to look more closely at it but because of the dim light that entered the room, he could not make anything of what he was seeing.

He continued to the toilet and exposed the pipe of his manhood so that urine could escape. As the urine gushed out he felt a sharp pain behind his right knee. He reached instinctively and clasped the place with his right hand causing urine to splash on the floor and on the edge of the toilet.

His fingers got a small tiny object. He held on to it and finished easing himself. He went back to the light switch and flicked it on.

The light brought new revelation. The tiny object he had between his fingers was a black soldier ant. The walls and ceiling were decorated in various places with different patterns of black soldier ants. There was hardly any place on which there were no ants. Goosebumps appeared on Otafion's bare arms.

On the left wall, above the plastic buckets, the ants had arranged themselves to form what looked to him like letters of the alphabet.

He went closer to take a better look and confirmed it. The ants had formed words on the wall. He read them aloud, slowly and in disbelief as he realized what the words meant.

"Bring Emily to the village"