Esu III - The Market

This is a continuation of the Esu series.

I continue to relish the thought of Ajiun’s eventual death as I step into the crowded market but every thought of the plantain farmer quickly vanish as the stink of human sweat hits my nostrils.

I am hardly inside when various items are shoved in my face. A pair of fair hands push neatly woven burgundy baskets directly under my nose. “This one was just woven last night. See the pattern?”, the hands continue to push.

A young girl with small calabashes containing kola nuts tries to steal my attention with her sing-song voice, “My mother’s kola is said to be the best in the village”. She hardly finishes her sentence before a teenage boy stretches his drums, “You will need drums!”, he shouts.

I raise an eyebrow and the boy, intimidated, stutters, “F…for your father. Buy for your father!”

Uninterested, I walk away and will the thought of Ajiun begging for his life back into my head until a small voice calls my name. The owner of the voice was a frail old woman sitting on the ground next to a few coral beads spread out on an old raffia mat. 

I walk up to her and bend to run my fingers over the beads as I caress my bare neck. Holding one before my face, I let my eyes trail down each cylindrical bead strung together by fake twine. The imperfect beads of various sizes shake and rattle as I carefully turn them in my hands.

“I just brought them freshly made from Agbede village”, the old woman offers.

An obvious lie. The beads were quite old and the people of Agbede would die before they accepted such poor workmanship as their own. Nevertheless, I continue to study the ileke until a pair of feet appear next to me.

“You should not be seen in public without beads. I will buy them all for you!” 

That arrogant voice belonged to Sogunde, Oloye Aremo’s oldest son. I stand to my full height and look down at his balding head. “Adufeeee, learn to smile”, he cajoles before casually picking up the ugliest beads of the bunch.

“Bend”,  he commands but I simply stare. My face remains stoic giving off no sign of the rage that has begun to boil inside of me.

Sogunde stubbornly stretches his short frame, trying to raise the beads over my head. The old woman winces at this pitiful struggle, willing me to bend and put him out of this humiliation. Biting his tongue in frustration, Sogunde holds the string of beads behind his head and throws it, aiming for my head but misses. The beads fly over my shoulder and land on the floor behind me and he picks it up in an attempt to try again.

Bored, I snatch the beads from his hands and place them over my head. He finally exhales and smiles, “This is how you ought to be out in public!”.

I look down at the disappointing beads resting on my breasts and conclude that Sogunde is a dullard. Even the old woman knew these beads went horribly with my aso-oke but Sogunde continued to smile like a thoroughly-fed goat. 

From behind him, bata drums start to play and the dancers catch my eye. I move away from his presence, discarding him like one does a fly and plant my eyes on the dancers. I watch sweat roll off their barebacks as they twist their well-defined bodies to the beat of the drums. Their legs fly off the ground and forcefully come back down before turning in circles, only to go the opposite way when the tune of the drums changes. They hold their waists, moving their shoulders up, down and sideways whilst smiling through it all.

I stand enthralled.

I become so lost in the performance that I do not see the man with the sheathed dagger, watching me from behind Iya Abeni’s stall.

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