The Penitent

Chapter 1

A thoughtful frown settles on Baba Folarin's face, his gaze distant.

“So? How is it, Baba?” Tinu asks.

Baba Folarin takes another swig. This time he tilts the keg and drains it, his throat thrusting up at the cartilage, latex-white palm wine spilling from the corners of his mouth. Tinu holds her breath. She reaches for Eniola’s arm and gives it a soft squeeze. Muso! He seems to like it, her gesture says.

Baba Folarin lowers the keg, wipes a white dribble from his chin, and burps. Locking eyes with Eniola, he says, "My child. If I were much younger—and I speak of the days when my oko was as hard as a pestle—I would have put you beneath me and pounded away."

Tinu stiffens.

No, he didn't. He didn’t just say what she thinks he did. He couldn't. He just couldn't.

Eniola widens her eyes at his words, her lips forming a downward arc, a hint of a smile in her glaze of astonishment. "Baba, you're so naughty,” she says. “I did not know you could be this naughty."

Baba Folarin laughs a croaky laugh. "When I’m done, you will say to me, Help me up, Baba. Teach me how to walk again."

Tinu groans. Olofin-Orun, can you make him stop? Shut him up, please. For a man his age. To say things like that. To a girl who could be his granddaughter. It would mortify anyone. Anyone but Eniola. Just look at her. Simpering like a fool, head swelling like an elegede and probably shaping into one, too. Hard to believe she and Eniola used to come here to listen to fairytales, their imaginations shaped by his stories. He was quite a storyteller back then. Now he was just an old drunk.

“Baba, will you pray for us?” Eniola says.

“Shake your big behind like this—” Baba Folarin struts like a duck with a long tail feather and stumbles. “—if you want to win the contest. No other dancer will stand a chance.”

Eniola cups her mouth to hide her smirk.

She shoots Tinu a glance, and Tinu flinches. Eniola might think she’s jealous if she catches her staring. And she’s not. Eniola is cute, true. But even Eniola knows she’s prettier. Surely, she doesn’t expect her great-uncle to say something that racy to her.

"You too, Atinuke. If you were not my nephew's daughter, I would have done the same to you. Mogbe, I would have torn you from the back."

The drumming in the courtyard rises. It’s joined by chants and the scuffing of feet. The rain dancers are at it again. Tinu clenches her jaw. Please let them be wrong. Dark skies don’t always mean rain. The sky might be rehearsing for the new season, just like they've been rehearsing their songs and dances for the Maiden Carnival. Rains this early will ruin everything. Especially with everyone looking forward to the carnival.

Baba Folarin smacks his forehead and drags his palm over his face. "I’m sorry, my child," he says to Tinu. “That was most inappropriate of me. Forgive me." He picks up the keg, still swishy with wine, and extends it to her.

"Eshe, thank you, Baba," Tinu declines.

Finally. Saneness returns.

Baba Folarin yanks the curtain aside and wedges the keg into a wine store crammed with kegs, drums, and calabashes.

Tinu whispers to Eniola, "We should go. He’s had too much to drink. He needs to sleep it off."

"You can go. I'm staying," Eniola rasps.

"Hey. I brought you here. If I leave, you should leave too."

"What’s the big deal? I could have come on my own."

"But you didn't. You didn’t."

"Will you lighten up." Eniola breathes heavily like someone unused to speaking in such a low voice. "When was the last time you had this much fun? Oh, I see. It's because I'm getting all the attention."

Tinu hisses. “Do as you wish. See if I care.” Ode oshi. Stupid girl.

Whether it's from men who are too old or too drunk, Eniola likes to be admired. She's an asiere, a lowlife. What in Oya's name was she thinking by bringing her along to see her great uncle?—only that she too might benefit from his prayer mediation and make the right choice at the Maiden Carnival, a time when marriage-ready girls welcomed home victorious warriors and treated them to a fete of song and dance, hoping to charm and betroth them. Unselfishly, she had thought that Eniola, too, would need the grace of the gods to pick the right husband from total strangers.

The drumming in the courtyard stops, and the shrieking swells with high-pitched screams.

Baba Folarin slants his head back. "What is happening out there? What are they shouting about?”

Tinu springs up from her mat and scrambles to the low arching door.

***

It's mid-afternoon, but it’s twilight dark outside. Dreggy black patches have reduced the sun to twinkles. Her mother would see rainclouds and say, “The sky is in the throes of labour. This one’s about to birth a huge storm.”

Eniola brushes past her and freezes when she sees the sky pulsing between shadow and light. The drummers and dancers resume their celebration with renewed energy.

"E gba mi o,” Eniola says. “This can’t be. Our men are still on army duty. Aren’t we supposed to be married before this happens?"

Tinu shrugs.

Baba Folarin squeezes past her in the doorway. "What is the Modakeke doing up there?"

Tinu giggles. Indeed, the sky looks like the roiled sandy bottom of a creek.

“No wonder I was not myself,” Baba Folarin adds.

"What do you mean?” Tinu asks. “I thought it was the wine.”

"That is as far as you can see, my child. See how the cloud casts a shadow over parts of the village?”

“Yes?”

“Well, it means there are dark forces about. And they bring out the worst in people.”

Eniola titters. “Ah-ah, Baba. You’re still telling us fables at our age.”

Baba Folarin snaps his mouth shut and stares off into the distance.

“But you're teasing us, aren't you?” Tinu says to lighten the mood. “Can you feel dark forces around us?"

“Even if I say I do, will you believe? No. So, believe what you want. I don’t care.” He storms into his hut, barging past Tinu, who, again, fails to get out of his way.

Eniola mocks him with a funny face as he disappears behind the beaded curtain. "He’s like a child all over again. He’s just as gullible.”

"I want to apologize for how he spoke to you,” Tinu says. “It was unlike him. He was tipsy."

"Unlike him? Are you serious? Ask around. Your uncle is the only person who can get away with whatever he says. As an amoye who knows the wine of the ancestors, everyone laughs at the things he says because, as they say, if you know the stupor of the ancestors, you must know their humor."

"Whatever you say."

"I like him for speaking his unfiltered mind."

“Again, whatever you say, Eniola.”

“Do you think my butt is big?”

“What?”

Eniola breaks into a grin. She flounces to the dancing women and joins them in their rain dance.

Idiot.

Baba Folarin shuffles out of his hut. “I’m going to see Yetunde. He might know what the clouds mean,” he says to Tinu.

“Rain, perhaps?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”