Anambra Moonlight Tales

*Chapter 1: The Boy Who Borrowed Other People's Voices* Every full moon in Nnewi, my 89-year-old grandmother Mama Nnukwu gathered us children under the Udara tree to tell stories the city has forgotten. We had no light. NEPA had taken it again. But her voice was light enough. "Chike," she would say, pointing her walking stick at me, "you that likes to write love letters for other people, come and hear how it all started." Long before w******p, long before Nnewi became a city of spare parts and generators, there was a boy in Abagana who had no voice. Not that he was mute. Chike could speak. But when he spoke for himself, his tongue tied itself like a wrapper. He stammered. He shook. The words fell like broken palm kernels. But when he spoke for other people — ah! When he spoke for other people, kings wept. It started with a love letter. Obinna, the strongest wrestler in Abagana, loved Adanna from Nawfia, but he did not know how to write. Nawfia and Abagana were at war that year over a piece of land. No Abagana boy was allowed to cross into Nawfia. "Chike, write for me," Obinna begged. "If I go, they will kill me." Chike took a piece of brown paper, the kind they wrap akara in, and wrote: "Adanna, if war is because of land, let them take my own. I have no land, only eyes that have seen you fetching water..." Adanna did not just reply. She ran away in the night and came to Abagana. When her brothers came with cutlasses to take her back, she read Chike's letter aloud. Her eldest brother, who had lost his wife the year before, started crying. That was how a love letter stopped a war between Abagana and Nawfia. After that, everybody came to Chike. The Igwe came: "Chike, write my speech for the Ofala. I want my people to remember me." The woman selling fufu came: "Chike, write a letter to my son in Lagos so he will send me money." Even the tortoise came — or so Mama Nnukwu said. Because why does Tortoise have a cracked shell? You people of the city don't know. In those days, Tortoise shell was smooth and shining like a brand new keke. He was proud. He went to Chike and said, "Write me a praise song so that all animals will say I am the most beautiful." Chike wrote: "Mbe is wise, Mbe is slow but his wisdom is faster than Leopard..." Tortoise took the song to the animal kingdom and sang it. All animals clapped. But Parrot, who was jealous, said, "If you are so beautiful, why don't you dance on top of that big rock near the river?" Tortoise climbed. He danced. He fell. Kpam! His smooth shell cracked into pieces. He tried to pack it, but the cracks remained. That is why till today, Tortoise has a cracked shell. Mama Nnukwu said his lesson is: Never borrow a voice to praise yourself. Chike was writing for everybody except himself. He had words for wrestlers, for Igwes, for tortoises, but when Amara, the girl who sold akara under the moon, asked him, "Chike, what about you? What do you want?" he had nothing. His mouth opened. No words came. Mama Nnukwu would stop here every time and look at me. "Chike is you," she would say. "All you children in Onitsha who write assignments for your friends for 500 naira, who write captions for i********: for girls who don't know you — when will you write your own story?" The moon would be high then. The other children would have slept on the mat. And I would bring out my small notebook, the one I used to ghostwrite love letters for boys in my school, and I would start to write. This is my own story now. This is Anambra Moonlight Tales.