Daughters On The Brink

This afternoon, my ten-year-old twin daughters, Naima and Nadia, will be driven to Uselu, our homestead, by my husband, Malik, where they will be cut and their vaginas sewn closed tomorrow. My husband reminds me of this over a breakfast of hot akara, toasted bread, and tea. He has sent enough money to our mothers individually. His mother will summon the blade-bearers, mine will purchase items for the feast that will accompany the girls’ transitioning into womanhood.

I glare at him from where I sit. He brings the tea mug to his lips, slurps, and continues to talk. I stare down at the burnished wooden dining table before gawking at my daughters, who, in what seems rehearsed, pick up their mugs in sync and sip, emitting slurps like their father.

‘Did you hear what I said, darling?’

I raise my head. ‘Sorry, I missed that.’

‘You know it isn’t safe travelling the road when it’s late,’ he says. ‘We need to leave by two p.m.’

I don’t respond.

‘Are you even listening?’

‘I heard you,’ I grumble, my voice clearly acrid.

My daughters stare at me. When I hurl a playful eyebrow waggle at them, Naima digs into her plate, picking up the last ball of akara. Naida continues chewing her bread.

‘Are we still on this matter?’ His voice is low-slung.

‘Of course…’

‘But we already talked about this.’

I scoff. I want to ask if he meant two nights ago, when he first brought it up after a long day at work, and by the time I was responding, he was already snoring. Or had he dreamt that I agreed?  Instead, I say, ‘When did we agree?’

‘Don’t be like that,’ he says, almost in a whisper, pushing his chair back as he stands.

Naima gulps down her tea and says, ‘Thank you, Mami. Thank you, Dadi.’

Naida follows suit.

‘My sweethearts.’ He turns to them. ‘Guess what!’

‘What, Dadi?’ Naida hollers.

Naima just stares.

‘We’re visiting your grandmamas today.’

I see excitement glinting in their eyes. I understand their fondness for Uselu, especially now they are on holiday, their eagerness to see their grandmamas, who would dote on them ceaselessly, and to play with the other children in the family.

‘I need to tidy things up at the office. When I return, we will leave.’ He kisses them on their cheeks.

I think of how much of a betrayal this is. I imagine myself a spectator witnessing the treasonous kiss of Judas. They both dash to the sitting room and scramble for their novels.   

‘They are happy…’

‘Because they don’t know what their father is about to do to them.’

‘It’s the tradition of our people…’

I reach for his hands, and caress. ‘You fear that if we don’t do this, they will end up being promiscuous? That’s a lie our people have held onto for ages. Our daughters can never be that, not under our caring and watchful eyes.’

‘What do you expect I tell both our parents who are literally on my neck?’

‘Tell them our daughters won’t participate.’

‘How about the blade-bearers already summoned?’

I pause.

‘You know what that means for us, huh?’ When I don’t respond, he adds, ‘I have no problem if you won’t join us. Just ensure my daughters are ready.’

He struts out. 

My eyes wander to the wall clock. Nine-thirty a.m. Then, to the sitting room where my daughters are curled up on one of the sofas, in their pajamas, their French braids trailing over their shoulders as they laugh, like birds tittering at dawn, maybe at something in the novel they’re reading. I want to believe it’s just the book. Not what their father told them. But what if it is?  Tears sting my eyes as I ask them to head for the bathroom. I picture them in Uselu, their laughter curdling into shrieks. Is this what I want for them?

In Uselu, where I was raised, we’re always told of the inviolability of the blade-bearers. If you press your ear to the earth on the morning of every third market day and listen closely, you will catch the smack of their footsteps and the solemn cadence of their chants, their rattling beaded headdresses, shattering the land’s serenity as they roam. Their voices are gruff, like crumbling rocks; you might mistake them for men, not knowing they’re just five aged tan-skinned women. Women no one dares address unless spoken to, lest one go mute forever. They visit homes and do strange things to girls, with the full consent of the girls’ parents. To cancel on them after a summon is to call madness upon yourself. It’s a breach of sacred order, something no one ever dares.  

My encounter with the blade-bearers happened on the morning of my tenth birthday. My father fibbed that there would be a ceremony in the house, and that, as the celebrant, I was to stay indoors until all the arrangements were complete.

I was in my room when my Mother sashayed in with a thatched mat and said, ‘You will become a full woman today.’

‘A full woman?’ I probed.

Spreading the mat on the cemented floor, she added, ‘You will be cleansed of the filth inhabiting your body as a girl,’ and left as soon as she finished.

I lay back on my bed, eyes glued to the sun filtering in through my window, and dozed off. The sound of rattling headdresses jerked me awake. The blade-bearers filed into my room. Mother stood behind them, urging me to do as they bade. I took off my gown and lay naked on the mat, as instructed by the matriarch, the oldest amongst them.

The four other women clamped my legs and hands down with their calloused hands. They barely spoke a word. I was helpless, an animal in a slaughterhouse.

The matriarch, cradling a small smoke-spewing calabash, paced the room, chanting. A fabric pouch slung over her shoulder. When she was done, she dropped the calabash, and squatted between my splayed legs. I struggled to raise my head, my heart hammering. She retrieved a spool of thread, a needle, a rusty blade, and a small bottle of green concoction from the pouch. She raised the blade and said, ‘By this blade, you’re named amongst women.’ She poured the concoction over my thighs and massaged down to my genitalia.

Fear settled over me like a paralyzing shroud. Sweat broke across my face.

The blade’s cut was swift and sharp.

I bucked and screamed.

‘Don’t fight it,’ Mother yelled.

My body was aflame. Hot urine fled my vagina and splattered on the matriarch’s face and gown. Still, she kept cutting and cutting. The blade tore through my flesh with a wet, meaty squelch. I shrieked until my throat ached, until I felt life seeping out of me.

‘Now, you step across the breath of your mothers,’ the matriarch’s voice came, distant.

The room was losing its light, and just before my eyes fluttered shut, I felt the sting from the needle puncturing my flesh.

The ritual left me traumatized and half-paralyzed: tied on the mat for four days, unable to urinate or walk. I carried a stitched vagina everywhere until I got married to Malik, after we both graduated from college in the city. A union that subjected me to a second torture: deinfibulation—unstitching for my husband’s pleasure, as tradition demands. A blood-draining ordeal that had me bedridden for two days.

Is this what I really want for my daughters?

My daughters’ laughter reverberates in their room where I sit now, sorting out their dresses. My phone buzzes. It’s Malik.

‘I’ll be home in an hour, darling,’ he says. ‘Are my girls ready?’

My throat is tight, but I say it, ‘My daughters won’t participate.’

‘Lasila, not again!’

‘They won’t suffer what I suffered.’

‘Not again!’

‘To hell with tradition!’ I hang up.

I know what I must do. I won’t have my daughters spend the rest of their lives wondering if it’s a crime to have been born girls. I dress them in bubu gowns, coil their braids into buns, and pat their round faces with talcum powder.

The sun is a fiery-red orb in the sky when we ease onto the tarmac, stretching before us like welcoming hands. My wristwatch reads twelve-thirty p.m.

‘Mami, where is Dadi?’ Naima asks.

‘He will join us soon.’

‘Where are we going, Mami?’ It’s Naida.

I want to tell them we’re running away, that we’re heading to a place where their bodies aren’t objects to elevate silly customs, where they are not sewn into silence, but I don’t say. I have no idea where our next destination will be, or if we will return should my husband change his mind, or when the consequences of this act will catch up with me. Well, the madness can strike later. For now, I’ve got my girls to save. 

‘Somewhere, Nadia,’ I say. ‘Somewhere.’