Free Yefon: The Red Necklace by Sahndra Dufe Page A

of pet names for everyone at home. For example he now called Ma darling instead of
yawan
or
Yento
. She would blush deeply each time. My name never changed.
    We even began to drink tea every morning before going to the farm. After Pa finished the course, his business indeed picked up just as Uncle Lavran had predicted. It had something to do with the fact that he couldn’t be cheated anymore now that hecould calculate invoices and match them with his earnings. It was a good time in our lives. Pa encouraged his sons to go to school.
    “The white man’s book is like black magic,” he explained to them desperately, but they were not interested. My brothers were more interested in kola nut farming and that disappointed Pa a little.
    By 1956, we resided in a bigger compound in Shisong, not too far from the new church that the white missionaries had built. I often sat in front of our house and watched the white people travel up the road. They would double their speed suspiciously whenever a black person looked at them for fear of getting robbed. I knew this because we would share an uncomfortable glance, especially, this one old nun who always wore a lengthy dusty cloak. Her nose was as long and crooked as the wicked witch of the west, and she had a queer look in general. I think she either disliked Africa or me because her face was always irritated every time she passed by. It would seem that I smelled of shit or something.
    Even though I tied a wrapper around my chest when I was seated there, some of my keloid cicatrices were visible, and they always seemed to puzzle her. That was one of the reasons why I preferred wearing white man’s clothes. People could never stop staring at my breasts. It made me feel strange, and self-conscious, especially when it was cold and my nipples were hardening for all to see.
    In the mornings, when we were on the way to the farm, we could hear the Christians recite the Rosary as if an invisible angel was holding a shotgun at their napes. “Hail Maria, you dey for gracia…” they chanted miserably as they dragged their feet to church. Later, I realized most of them had no idea what they were saying. It was obvious from the wrong words that were being used, and I always wondered what the point of prayer was if you were saying the words wrong in the first place.
    The bakery car from Bamenda would drive past in the same direction right after, filling the air with the warm smell of freshly baked bread. I used to stand there staring at it and wonder what it would feel like to sit inside a car. Only missionaries and doctors drove cars, usually old Volkswagens. The cars would spray dust up our throats when they sped off to Bamenda or some other distant village for ministry. Some local children would run after the cars, singing playful songs.
    One of the little boys even made his own toy car out of bamboo, and it was the talk of the town for a week or so after the incident.
    During one of Uncle Lavran’s visits, he convinced Pa to go in on a joint venture that would change the money game for them.
    “We would be filthy rich, and can completely separate ourselves from the Caucasians,” he explained.
    And Pa bought it, so they purchased a lorry, which was used to transport people from Nso to Bamenda at two pence per passenger. It was the new talk of the town and made the memory of the little boy and his bamboo car fade into thin air! A black man who owned a lorry! Our compound was always full during that period.
    I can still vividly recall the first day when the car was brought to our compound. We were officially the coolest children around. We danced proudly by our father and his brother as they were presented for all to see.
    “If a child washes his hands, he can eat with kings,” Fai began, as he addressed the kinsmen that had come to celebrate with us through song and dance. This was a groundbreaking achievement as the brothers were the first people besides the priests to own a vehicle in the