Stars of the Long Night. Tanure Ojaide

poverty. Without memory the child would burn itself a second time, a third time, and on and on till it could be fatally hurt. Without memory the wild animal that had struggled out of a trap once would likely walk into and be killed by another trap. Without memory a people who had given up kingship because of its tyranny could place one of them in a high chair again and chant names that would turn his head to declare himself king of his praise-singers. Certainly, without memory those who believed that whatever men could not achieve would be impossible to accomplish would be stuck with the problems that arrested them.

      Aridon will guide me to tell my story, my people's story.

PART ONE Dynasties of Men

1

      From the very day Amraibure and his father returned from Orhokpor, where they had gone to consult the famed diviner, however weirdly things had turned out, the young man became a sniffing he-goat in town, looking for girls, as if he had not been seeing them playing around all the time.

      Not used to interacting with girls, he became clumsy in his manners whenever he played with them. He smiled too broadly, his lower and upper rows of teeth clenched, as if he could endear himself to girls by doing so. He put in so much seriousness into what should be play that he took the fun out of it. There was a measure of brusqueness in his behaviour that he could not shed despite every effort on the playground to be a normal boy. He had been too long in the company of his seniors that he could not just be normal among his own age-mates again. He had been so praised for being so responsible for his young age by older people that he now realized he had to lose some of that praise to be like his fellow boys and girls. He was being driven by his feelings to seize what he wanted and, at the same time, held back by the awkwardness and roughness of not being used to the normal ways of playing.

      He had heard of big boys like him dragging smaller girls into plantain plantations and pawing about them. He had learned from bigger boys that the girls giggled when boys touched their breasts. He had also learned from the same big boys that girls liked boys paying special attention to them. The practice of luring or pulling girls into lonely corners to play with intimately happened in the dark or on moonlit nights when the adults were inside or engaged in some other ways and not paying attention to the young ones playing and having fun. Most times the girls submitted to the intimate play as long as nobody saw them. Such girls were called “Don't-let-my-mother-know.” Out of curiosity, a few boys and girls had tasted hurriedly for the first time on the soft moist bed of plantain leaves what they were still forbidden from enjoying.

      Of the girls playing in Amraibure's street, Kena's body had the most alluring features to him. Young ones from neighbouring streets often played together now in one street and then in another; they had no street boundaries at playtime. The spirit of play possessed them and they followed the flow it evoked. Kena was tall for her age and had a body more on the thin side than on the plump side. Her large eyes shone beneath a swath of lashes. Her oval face was unique among the girls of the wide dusty streets. She tied a wrapper over her chest, but that cover did not hide the big breasts that settled on her chest like twin hillocks on a narrow plain. Amraibure, in his imagination, looked through her wrapper and saw breasts that would be warm to touch. Kena distinguished herself in many ways. She had a good smile, which came out naturally, and she was as energetic as a young woman could possibly be. She danced and sang and carried herself as the leader of her age-mates. One could easily single her out of her group for her spritely nature and the natural poise with which she moved about.

      Amraibure was enthralled by her luscious body and liveliness and felt he did not need to go farther than his immediate streets to look for someone to be his girlfriend. Go where, he asked himself, when she of the big breasts and the smooth skin, the rice teeth and warm smile, the leader of the girls, was close by for him to choose? Why go into the forest and be subjected to briars and thorns, he also asked himself, when he could find in his backyard what he wanted? But he did not really know what he wanted to do with her. Coming together in the playground would start the process of intimacy, he hoped.

      The chance he wanted and anxiously waited for soon came. The spirit of play created the opportunity he waited for: a moonlit night. On such nights, boys and girls played together, unlike on dark nights when boys played with boys and girls with girls. The moon freed boys and girls from their gender compartments into the open space it burnished with its brilliance. The moon created a boundless arena for young boys and girls to tease their fancy and cross lines that it blurred with light. On the moonlit night, playing hide-and-seek, Amraibure entered the game with the sole purpose of pursuing Kena into the dark plantain plantation. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to pay special attention to her and wanted her to know that.

      It came to his turn to seek her, as she ran to hide, and his heart beat a fast but strangely rhythmic drum. It did not appear that he had planned and rehearsed this scenario on the playground for so long as he had done the past one month. He had thought that once the opportunity came, he would follow his laid-out plan smoothly. He had the plan of the hunter who easily shot the game and celebrated his kill. However, now at the crucial moment, the details of his plan had gone out of his head. And so, nervous and confused, he chased the smaller framed Kena into the shrub as he expected her to run to for hiding.

      She ran gracefully and not with the speed of one running from danger to hide, as she was expected to from the spirit of kene-kene game that could cause her to break her mother's plates if caught, and that further confused Amraibure. It was as if she was luring him into the dark, where she would spring a surprise at him by disappearing out of sight. She with her shadow remained visible in the moonlight, as if taunting him to follow her directly as far as she dared to go that night. And directly he followed her in the chase. As soon as she was in the moonlit shadows of plantains, he caught up with her. He was breathing fast; she was breathing normally, hardly affected by the running. He held her by the cloth tied to her waist, rather than just tagging her by the shoulder to indicate that he had caught her, as required by the rules of the game.

      His heart beat faster, as if he had been chased there by a wild dog or some other vicious animal. He tried to calm himself as he thought about what he should do next. All his carefully prepared schemes had vanished. Even before his mind was made up about what to do next, he grabbed the wrapper tied round her waist and tried to tear it off her body, but she laughed teasingly because she knew that he couldn't from the tough way she had knotted it. And she did not think that he would be so stupid anyway to tear the cloth from her waist. What was he going to do by attempting to strip me naked? she asked herself.

      They had not been familiar and so she could not guess what he was after. As Amraibure was struggling, unexpectedly sweating like someone doing a most arduous task, she sprang a surprise. In a flash she stripped, and asked him, “What do you want to remove my cloth for, you stupid boy?” She tied the wrapper back as soon as she had waved it before him. The bait had disappeared in a flash. In that lightning moment, Amraibure imagined in the blazing moonlight what a naked maturing girl looked like. A cherry plant with tempting ripe fruits lowered for him to pluck by the spirit of play! Of course there was no time to pluck any fruit. The beauty of the moment froze his hands from moving, not to talk of stretching to pluck what was meant to chastise him for his daring manner. The shadows displayed the plantains with their branches, leaves, and fruits, and they all wavered a confused canvas in the light night wind. He wished it was daylight for him to have seen clearly the fresh and alluring body he had been craving for. He had wanted to hold Kena down and do what his dreams had taught him to be a thrilling experience, but things had happened so fast that he could not imagine how long it had taken. He, like a warrior, appeared ambushed by an unarmed but powerful girl he could not conquer.

      But Kena was not done with her surprises. She took a step backwards and Amraibure felt she was going to run again and he would pursue her further. He would pursue the antelope into the heart of the forest until he could aim a good shot. He would pursue the game until it collapsed before him. But Kena, sleek like an antelope, was no antelope in the hunt. Again in a flash, Kena came forward and pushed him away from her with such vehemence that would knock down a wall. He staggered backwards and intoned the