Ekechi - A Short Story

Shandie Shing Avwontom

A faint, first only slightly perceptible sound sauntered through the half open door into the stillness of the room from the corridor outside. Then distinctly; feet shuffling. I can’t say for how long I had remained in a stupor but the noise brought me back to my senses instantly: “Oh my God” I prayed, “Ekechi!” I murmured under my breath and sucked my teeth. Stories of rape victims swirling in my mind, I whirled my feet one after the other in an arch to the floor and with my heart clocking overtime, dashed out of the room. There was no one in the corridor.  It was getting to dawn. I threw open Ekechi’s room door without a thought of knocking. She was already dressing up. The bewildered poor thing snatched a towel and held it to her chest, in vain. She stared at me questioningly. I asked her if everything was okay and quickly realised she was unaware of what had happened.

So I told her about our underworld guests. She was crestfallen. First transfixed, she suddenly spread the large towel arm length in front of her. Her fingers found two tips, and she stretched the edge taut then swung it round and brought it to her body fastening it tightly over her breast. Clean white bra straps strung neatly over her broad even shoulders. The towel edge dropped down to slightly below the thighs. Not before revealing, for a split second, the contour of rounded curves in the shimmering first light of day, speckling in through the leaves of the gently swaying sour sop tree outside the window. She stormed past me leaving behind a draft of freshly worn “Avon Timeless” lotion and swept across the sitting room to the main entrance door.

There my key was, still in the keyhole. The rest of the bunch dangled down from the loop; swinging accusingly from side to side as if disapproving of my carelessness. I might as well have handed the keys to the burglars. Wordlessly, Ekechi pulled the bunch of keys out and dumped it on the dining table, her irritation camouflaged in silence, her eyes avoiding mine. Once again I had been too inebriated to lock the door and pull out my key when I returned. It was not the first time this had happened. If she could, I knew she would have given me a proper dressing down. But sulk she could, and definitely would in the couple of days or three ahead. She would place my meals on the table with an ever so low, yet distinct thud and honour me with nothing more than monosyllables for answers. Luckily nothing beyond that. In an attempt to lessen her frustration I decided to downplay the whole issue and sheepishly asked her to go to school.

Tiko is a dripping hot and stuffy town. Travelers along the Tiko-Douala highway, see row after row of rubber and banana trees with no idea that they harbor Tiko. The surrounding plantations conceal it as an attractive fruit does a cankerworm till one bites into it. The little port town is regularly engulfed in the putrid smell of processing sap. The sap is hand-collected by slave-like laborers in thousands of conical aluminum and black plastic cups from dripping, scarified rubber tree trunks. This is the town where a series of coincidences had led me to settle and practice as Sheriff Bailiff. That was eight years ago. But again, that is a different story.

Much later that morning at the road side, I stood waiting for a taxi to take me to the Gendarmerie Command Post to report my night’s ordeal. I saw the same fishermen I saw everyday returning with their puny catch from the treacherous creeks of the Gulf of Guinea. They trudged along in silence, with the same cracked blue enamel basins they balanced hands free on their heads. Their shoulders slouching from the weight of the same nets and used fertilizer bags of fresh fish. And, for some, the same dressing. Green Wellington boots and thick, yellow, plastic raincoats they wore since I first set eyes on them close to a decade now. I knew where they were headed. The women would go to the market, sell the fish and buy foodstuff for the household. The men shot straight to “afofo” joints where they bought the colourless soporiferous distillate that helps them sleep through the stifling heat of the afternoon till night time. After sun set the men would leave their “junior wives” and mistresses, gather their things and head back to spend the night with their senior “wife” or first love…the sea.

The emptiness and vacuity of my life in this “cul de sac” was daunting. Realization was suddenly and wickedly projected before me. It was there in the fishermen wading up and down through unseen obstacles, bearing weights as if accepting penance to expiate hidden sins: The “Inferno” of the same thing every morning and every evening, day after day.

What had I been thinking? Eight years needled like a spider to the wall. Wriggling to no purpose in this town that seemed, upon independence, to have frozen still in mid development. The soap factory had closed down, no more Tiko soap. The Cinema hall was dark and silent and the vibrant wharf reduced to naught. “Airport Hotel” was a macabre shadow of itself. As for the Tiko Airport itself, where the Great Nkrumah himself landed and took off the only time he came to this country, it had been closed down. The runway was split up and ploughed out, divided among tribal traders who respect no history and venal “chefs de terre” Administrators. Those people who hang up banners in abysmally poor language in Tiko as if to drive in the nail to the coffin and deny the town its very identity. “No!” I protested under my breath.  I had had my share of Tiko and I had to leave… or perish.

The above is excerpted from Shandie Shing Avwontom's novella Tiko. Avwontom is a Conference Interpreter/Translator at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda – Arusha, Tanzania

Comments

[Dante Besong]

Amazing work. I just enjoy the nostalgic temperament this work highlights. It's sad what mediocre governance could do. Once more, lovely piece.

[EST]

Beautiful piece; I read with such imagination from the beginning to the end. I was able to connect the poetic dots though in the mind of a scientist. The author was in his own way able to let me into that world of imagination with such power only second to abstract projection.You did in a way only you could do best. I converted your words into video in my mind as I read. I must say it sounded so real filled with facts and near facts. Again this was a good piece!!

Sir, Tiko is hot but not dripping hot; I completely disagree with you. The geography of Tiko gives her the natural [but not dripping] hot climate which is not all year round. To this effect, the inhabitants must fully comply with the desired dressing code. Come to think of it; you were a Sheriff Bailiff and what that means was, you appeared professionally during must of your working and even non-working hours! What do you think? When you dress as thus you guys, expect Tiko to be dripping hot just within your bodily territory.

Putrid smell? from rubber sap? the aforementioned sounded to me derogatory! The putrid smell you so decribed in your text is not in line with the type of smell you must have experienced in Tiko. A smell that is putrid will result from microbial degradation in a process known as putrefaction. However, the processing of the rubber sap does not entail any of such process and as such describing the resultant smell [from vulcanization of rubber] as putrid is to me a misnomer. This smell is not a characteristic of Tiko as you so intend to describe. It stays (half life) in the air an average of 20-30 minutes and thanks to the ever breezy nearby creek, there is always that quick natural air purification. This is common with must cities with industries around! This explains why there has been no scientific proof of the smell being a health hazard to the denizens in and around Tiko.

In as much as this stands a carefully crafted piece, it also stands to hit hard on the nature or the outlook of a town that is now rapidly growing in all aspects to regain its rightful place in the country. You should come back and contribute to that city building project(s)

You must have said some truth but not all the truth; this is what I called the danger of a single story!

[Emerencia]

Mr. ETS, this is not a scientific paper but a creative work with the author free to use creative license to convey his message. And yes, the smell in Tiko is putrid (nothing pleasant about it) and the weather, dripping hot.

[Account Deleted]

Emma Nde,

Welcome to the club. I saw this piece when it was a young child and I am happy to see how it has grown.

Mr EST, Chimamanda Adichie used the phrase 'the danger of a single story' and I suspect you are not using it appropriately just now. Nde is entitled to poetic licence in depicting the setting of his story. If that is how the protagonist experiences your city, you have to deal with it. In any event, I am not entirely certain that this depiction is in any way faulty. Rubber smells bad, period.

[Philip Achu-Fombe Snr.]

Shandie Shing !!!!!!

Emma you will never cease to amaze me. Good narration..so real.could not take my eyes off it..unfortunately it was only the "avant gout".Can't wait to get the "resistance".

Keep it up !

[Facter]

Tiko indeed stinks, and microbial putrefaction comes to mind, although if you have lived there long enough, you realize that there are different sub aromatic notes to the pungency depending on the stage of processing. Processing rubber involves the use of toxic chemicals at some stages, so it was not a totally benign process. That toxic brew made it down to the creeks, and who knows what it has been doing to the local ecology over the last century. Who knows what it did to the inhabitants of Tiko and the CDC workers.

The town has also deteriorated since the days of the colonialists, who ploughed much of the profits into worker well being in the shape of CDC schools, shops that sold to workers at near cost, unions that actually struggled for the fair wage and went on strike if there were none, workers social clubs and subsidized sports and social events, CDC schools, a provident fund ie a pension plan that invested in world capital markets. Cameroon government and some greedy individuals diverted most profits into their pockets since the 1970s and the workers quality of life plummeted. The British colonialists were definitely better for the common man I am sorry to say. That is what is missing in this story and it must be told.

[Leila Ndze]

Great piece Emma.

So when are we going to be served the full plate. Can't wait to savour...