It was dead in the middle of July and we were all outside on the verandah to escape from the crippling heat of our house. We were mostly wrapped in mama’s wrappers, clapping every so often to ward off the mosquitoes that owned the night. Other houses had their bulbs lit with electricity from generators. Although the sound made by those generators was deafening, it was a sound we wished would come from our own house someday. I frowned—if it did, we wouldn’t miss Super Story again. At a corner was Ada, my younger sister, squinting beneath the gleam of the kerosene lamp as she struggled to get her homework done. I had promised the twins a story tonight. I didn’t tell one the night before because they slept early after exhausting themselves playing with the other kids all day. But not tonight. They seemed eager and bright. I let out a sigh.

“Fine, I will tell you a story, just—”

“Yes! Thank you! Thank you!” Their claps and shouts interrupted me and brought life to the night, waking papa who was enjoying his sleep on a raffia mat a few steps away.

“Sharrap there! Una no know say night don come?”

I chucked under my breath as he clapped off a trespassing mosquito. He readjusted to another side of his body and pulled up his wrapper in the half-darkness.

“Shh, don’t shout guys. Papa will be mad.”

“Sorry sir,” they said in a voice that carried their remorse.

“I will tell you just one story, only one. It is already late and you need to wake up early tomorrow for school. So, story story?”

“Story!” Their voices had grown eager again as they recited the time-tried tradition of Nigerian storytelling.

“Once upon a time?”

“Time time!”

II.

Ikot Oku, Calabar.

In the time before Nigeria got her independence, before aeroplanes could fly, those years when we saw white people like gods and aliens, there lived a farmer named Okon. Okon lived with his family in Calabar. Old Calabar at that time wasn’t the city with big roads and tall buildings like it is now, there were no ranches then. Calabar was just a village outlined by the sea. People went to the river to do everything. Fishing and farming was their major occupation then.

Okon was not a fisherman. He owned a cassava and cocoa farm, where he worked hard to fend for his family. He was a happy and contented man, with all he would ever need, except for one thing. He had a lovely wife, several huts, and beautiful children.

But he had no sons.

A male child was really important in those times. Apart from the fact that they helped on the farm, they carried and represented their family name. They fought wars, built huts and were generally the breadwinners of their family. So Okon was distraught at his lack of male children. He could never be complete as a man without sons who would inherit his name. He married a second wife after many years of trying with his first but he still didn’t get any son. Until a dibia visited him one morning.

Ituofia was the most feared dibia across many villages. He had no home that anyone knew of. People said that he lived in the heart of a big tree inside the evil forest. Others said he descended and ascended the sky at will. Nobody could consult Ituofia. He could not be found for consultation. Instead, he found people whom he would help himself. Everyone wished for a visitation from Ituofia. There was no problem he could not solve if you were blessed enough by the gods for him to visit you. He had once visited Ezeugbo the Beggar and by the next harvest, Ezeugbo owned three huts and was about to marry a second wife. Everyone knew of Elioka the Pawpaw. She was the village’s oldest spinster. Her age-mates were already having their fourth or fifth children by the time Ituofia went into her hut. Within three months three men had killed themselves over her hand in marriage. The marriage ceremony was the loudest the village had ever had.

So that fateful day when Ituofia entered Okon’s compound, the whole village knew and by evening, were already trooping to give Okon their congratulations.

True to time, nine months later, Okon was pacing anxiously outside the midwife’s house. He rubbed his sweaty palms together. There were beads of sweat lacing the lines of worry on his forehead, sweat streaming down his armpit in rivulets.

“Okon, calm down. This is not her first time, she will be fine.”

It was Ekemeni, his closest friend, and they were both anxious men. His first wife has been in the hut with the midwives for the past ten hours. The sun was returning home to the West, and the sun flies were returning to their hidden homes in the shades of the earth.

“She has been at it for hours, for ten hours!” Okon’s voice was pregnant with worry.

“Don’t worry, Ituofia has said it will be done. And if you are thinking about her health, Ngozi is a strong woman and surrounded by the best midwives. You are even scaring the children, this way.”

Okon’s eyes trailed to meet Mfon and Enobong who sat on the raffia stool, worry in their eyes, studying his every demeanor. Ufok-Obong had a small clay pot in between her legs where she coughed phlegm in every while and then. It was not the custom that a man is there while the child is being delivered but his anxiety had the better of him. Okon tugged on his wrapper by its knot, tightened it with some force, and sat down, feigning calm.

An hour later, a shrill wail tore through the air, knocking Okon off his dozing. He jumped to his feet and shouted.

“Okon, I told you!”

Ekemini’s palms clashed with Okon’s as they shook hands furiously. Okon lifted his friend off his feet. The children leaped with joy. The cock crowed, goats bleated and dogs barked in unison, momentarily turning the evening into a festival of noise.

III

Ike had his arms in the air.

“What is it, Ike?”

“So, Okon’s wife have born?” Ike, one of the twins asked.

“Yes”

“Boy or girl?” Eke, the second one asked.

“Listen, till I am done with the story don’t interrupt me. You can ask the questions when I am done.”

“Sorry.”

“Where was I?”

“The goats bleated, Okon and his family are happy.”

“Good! Allow me finish my story, then you can ask your questions later.”

IV.

Ikot Oku, Calabar.

Okon had immediately gone back home to observe whatever was left of tradition. If his wife had delivered, it had to be a male child. Ituofia had said it.

He could not stand still, though. He stared in anticipation at the wooden door, for the midwives and the women, to hear the song that also congratulates manhood. So when the wooden door creaked open all of a sudden, unveiling wrinkled women, beads of sweats settled on their forehead, their face drawn and sketchy, he was surprised to the nails. In the stead of the smile of a victory and child birth, he felt a knot in his tummy, a clenching of the muscles around his heart.

The wails of a baby hit his ears, it was alive. What about his wife? Nothing was wrong with her, he knew it in his spirit. But what could be the—

A second wail jabbed him. Another contestant in the background. He felt a stab somewhere in his body and his knee buckled. No, no, no, no. No way.

But he knew it before they said it, before they field his hut with sad faces and sighs, before they presented him with his own seed.

His wife had given birth to twins, the devil’s children. With his head lowered, avoiding Ekemini’s eyes and that of anyone, he went out to his barn where he sat and wept for the first time in fifteen years.

Night came, with the darkness and moonlight, with crickets singing behind a screen. The cold of the evening was soft with melancholy. The babies, wrapped in a blanket, were fitted in a basket. Okon left them outside and he bolted the door behind him. Ngozi cried the loudest in his hut. Soon they could hear heavy footsteps and jingling bells. The wailing of his wife climbed to a tired peak, soon to descend to the recess of a depression.

Okon groaned under his breath. The children also started to cry at different pitches as the wailings of the new babies slowly disappeared into the woods.

V

“Okon! Okon! Have you heard?” Ekemini’s voice disrupted Okon’s morning weeding. The house had grown sad with weeds in two days and irritation flushed through him at the man’s insensitivity.

“What is it?”

“So you’ve not heard?” Ekemini’s breathing rose and fell, commanding Okon’s interest.

“What is it?”

An emotion crept onto Okon’s face. It was something between a smile and a frown—Okon could not tell. “There is something bigger, my friend. Last night…do you know the Night Witch? Last night, the White Witch entered the evil forest with her people.” He took a breather, spat, and then continued. “She carried away all the twins put there to her place.”

Shock rammed through Okon. His clenched fist softened. The Witch. The evil forest. Twins. A smile crept on his face as he looked at his friend.

Ekemini decided it was a smile and they infected one another until the smiles on each face was unmistakable.

VI

Days will turn to weeks, then months, and then slowly into years. And Okon would always pass the White Man’s compound, where the chapel resided, his eyes peering and scanning the little children that were in it, learning the white man’s ways, dressed in shirt tucked into trousers, and playing strange games with a round object. He wouldn’t stop staring until his eyes fell on the boys with huge flat noses, busty lips, and a bent swagger to their walk. His Boys. James and John.

VII.

By the time I was done, the twins were snoring. It was not a particularly interesting story like the usual. There was no confrontation anywhere. Typically, I would have constructed a confrontation, some sort of conflict between Ituofia, Okon and the White Witch. It would have grabbed their attention. They would have been proud to retell it at school tomorrow but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

“Blessing. Pack your brothers inside. Ada, haven’t you read enough? Do you want to become a professor. Please stop wasting my kerosene and come inside. It is very late already.”

Mama woke Papa up and watched him groggily try to hold on to his wrapper with some amusement. She rolled the mat up, went over to Ada and killed the lamp. Ada carried her books and the mat inside. Mama woke up the twins and carried Ike. Eke was mine. I held him up against my ribs. He had such big lips. Much bigger than my own. On my way across the parlour to my room, I strained at the big picture frame on the wall. They looked exactly like Great-grandpa James’.

Udousung Blessed Abraham, when he is not fiddling with electrical engineering books and ideas, writes. A lover and collector of books, a lover of life and beauty.