The Penitent

Chapter 3

“Please, Mother. I’m going there to save him. And Father.”

“Save him from what? Look, Tinu. There’s something they’re not telling us. How can grown men lose their way? Stop to think about that.”

Tinu bites her tongue.

“Are we going there to bring back dead bodies?—before wild animals devour them?”

“Oh, Mother. Just stop. Please, just stop.” Tinu stomps off, leaving her mother to walk back home alone.

***

Back in the dim, suffocating air of their hut, Tinu slumps onto a stool, kicking at the packed-earth floor. She lets out an exaggerated sigh—just loud enough for her mother to hear over the crackle of the cooking fire—and drags her fingers through the dust on the windowsill, tracing idle, sullen circles. She turns her face away from her mother, refusing to help her shred Ewedu leaves.

"Have you considered that you could m**m yourself out in the forest and ruin your chances at the maiden carnival? You think your boyfriend will choose a girl with one eye?”

“Wande is not my boyfriend. He’s like a brother.”

“That was when he was a boy. Now, he’s like a man. What if he doesn’t pick you at the carnival?”

Tinu humphs. “I don’t care.”

“Well, boys do, and you should too. Don't be foolish, Tinu. Rash decisions like this can change your life. I doubt any of your friends are going."

Tinu's eyes sting. The image of her mother cutting leaves on a chopping board ripples. It's hard to think straight with her nonstop monkey chatter.

"What will I say to your father if something bad happens? What will I say to Oshun, whom I cried to for a child? And she gave me you, after years of ridicule from Bolanle and the others...?" Her mother turns to look at her and sees her tears.

Iya, please, I beg you, Tinu's eyes say.

“I said no," Iya Adeola says firmly. "I have tried to reason with you, but all you can think of is going into that forest to play."

"I'm not going to play; I'm going to help."

"And they don't need you." Iya Adeola points the kitchen knife at Tinu threateningly. "Now, look. Don't get me more upset than I already am. I don't want to hear a sound from you.”

Tinu’s tears flow as silently as she can make them.

“Why can’t you spare a thought for me? It is not enough for you that I might have already lost a husband." Iya Adeola resumes her chopping of leaves. "If you don’t want to stay and keep me company, you may leave. I will not hold you prisoner. But make sure you bring yourself back to this house before Bedtime. I know you won't think of going into that forest."

Tinu steps out into the courtyard.

Iya Bolanle and Iya Kemi, her mother’s mates, are examining a pile of utensils, things they plan to take with them into the forest.

“Who brought this bucket?” Iya Kemi laughs. “Someone thinks there are bathrooms in the forest.”

“Look,” Iya Bolanle says. "Listen well," Iya Bolanle says. She scans each face before continuing—there is a confused pause when she sees Tinu's teary-eyed face. “Leave the food. We don’t need extra weight. Think about those you are about to rescue and bring anti-venom and medicines we’ll need to treat their wounds. The only things that look like weapons we’ll need are—cutlasses, for cutting through thickets.”

Tinu stares down the road, watching as her clan vanishes behind the hut at the bend—first their bodies, then their shadows, until the dust settles bare. Wande would’ve been stunned to see her on his first outing with the army—he would be stunned that, even after turning sixteen and being drafted, they still did things together. She could almost taste the satisfaction of the look on his face. She stares at the ghosts of her clan on the empty road, fingernails digging into her palms, pondering what might have been.

No. She won’t return to her mother’s monkey chatter. Instead, she'll check on Eniola. Has she gone with her clan? Has she had better luck?

Across the hamlets, clans stream toward the village square. Their lanterns bob like fireflies in the sunset. Children drag their feet, pausing to pick up shiny rocks and other curios before darting after their clans.

“Aburo Tinu!” a girl's voice cracks the dusk. It's Wunmi. She and her half-brothers, Wale, and another boy—Dele, or some name like that, yes Dele—peer at her from a hut window. “You’ll be in our team, yes?”

Tinu forces a smile. “I hope so.”

She once regaled those wide-eyed kids with bedtime stories, tales Baba Folarin and her grandfather told her. Now, they (young as they are) are about to live through their own adventures, raw and unpolished. How cruel life is.

At Eniola’s hut, Tinu finds only her mother stirring a pot of soup over the fire. “She left for Remi’s hamlet,” her mother says, glancing up, her wooden spoon scraping the iron pot.

Remi’s clan home is one hamlet away, so no point turning back now.

Halfway there, the muffled pop of cupped palms coming together to produce a hand-tossed drumbeat echoes softly through the evening haze. The measured clapping increases Tinu's heartbeat. Are they practicing their dances? At a time like this? She drops low, slinks behind the splintered wood of Remi’s mother’s chicken coop. The coop reeks of feathers and dried droppings, but it hides her well. How can they be practicing for the carnival when the very husbands they will be seeking are probably wounded or dead?

Two nondescript girls spin and tap their feet to a rhythm woven from voices and clapping, their slender forms etched in the dim glow of a bush lamp set on the ground. Remi and Eniola, who are easier to recognize, are percussionists for the other two. They cheer louder and clap harder, driving the two dancers into a spirited duel as the muffled pop of their claps reaches fever pitch. Chickens stir and cluck guardedly, sensing Tinu nearby. But not even their restless squawking can break the spell that all four girls are under.