He could hear his own breathing and the soft slap of his shoes in the dirt. His clothes were getting soiled, but he couldn’t worry about that at the moment. He rounded a bend. Thankfully, he knew this road like the back of his hand, even in the dark. He wasn’t far from where the old woman liked to fry and sell akara. He stopped and his legs shook with adrenaline.
There stood the man.
Yards away, under the streetlight.
Waiting?
Nnamdi’s entire body was shaking. But as he stared at the shadowy man, he felt his heart leap. “Oh my God,” he whispered. The man wasn’t a shadow anymore. Nnamdi paused. Then he slowly walked toward him. The man was tall and wore black pants, a black long-sleeved shirt, and . . . a green beret. Nnamdi stopped, four feet away, his heart doing a dance in his chest. The man’s back was turned. Standing about six feet tall, his shoulders were broad and slightly hunched forward. His hands were at his sides, the fingers thick and long. Nnamdi breathed through his mouth and shut his eyes. When he opened them, the man was still there. There was only one thing to ask. “Daddy? Daddy, is that you?”
The night was warm and dark. The streets were empty. Nnamdi’s world had become the patch of land beneath the streetlight, the man, and himself. Nnamdi stepped into the light and the man turned around. Nnamdi’s mouth fell open, the world swam around him, and then his vision cleared. He looked deep into his father’s eyes.
“Nnamdimma, my son,” his father whispered.
“But . . . you’re dead,” Nnamdi said. “I saw . . . your body at . . . at the funeral.” The breeze blew, and right before his eyes he saw his father’s chest and head grow transparent and then solid again. “Kai!” Nnamdi exclaimed. “You’re a spirit, o!” He stepped back, thinking of how his auntie Grace often warned him about “the devil in disguise.” The man’s beret even had the silver elephant emblem in front. In his chest, Nnamdi felt the longing for his father like something pulling at his heart. He could even smell his father’s cologne. Run! he thought. But he couldn’t. He flexed his legs and then relaxed. Tears came to his eyes. It had been a year, yet in this moment, the reality of his father’s death washed over Nnamdi more strongly than he’d ever experienced. The moment left him breathless.
His father held up his hands and then dropped them back to his sides. He sighed. “I’m sorry I died, my son,” he said.
Nnamdi’s shoulders shuddered as he fought his emotions. Even with all the effort, he couldn’t help starting to sniffle. His father’s voice, his scent, his everything. He missed him so, so much. The words tumbled from him like overdue rain. “Mommy . . . they got Mommy,” he blurted. “Last week. It was the guy they call Never Die! Mommy is . . .”
“I know.”
“Mommy’s had to start selling tapioca! And that’s how . . .”
“I know,” his father said more firmly.
“She curses you every day!” Tears dribbled from Nnamdi’s eyes. “And . . . and I don’t blame her! Why’d you have to go and get yourself . . . killed like that? Now Mommy has to struggle! No one respects her enough to protect her now. We’re lucky we still have our house! The thieves will descend on us soon, Daddy! As revenge against you! You didn’t finish what you started. And I can’t do anything about it!”
Nnamdi took a step forward, his arms half-raised. Then he stepped back and just stood there, sobbing, his arms to his sides. No, he couldn’t run into his father’s arms. Not anymore. His whole body prickled and clenched. Those days were over. His father did not move to comfort Nnamdi either. He, too, just stood there looking sad. After a few moments, Nnamdi asked, “Why are you here?”
“To give you something.”
“Give me something?” Nnamdi wiped the tears from his eyes. “Give me what? What can you possibly give me now?”
“Do you wish to protect your mother?”
“Yes.”
“And Kaleria, as a whole?”
Nnamdi frowned.
“No need to answer right now. It’s too big a question. But you will have to answer it soon enough. I can at least give you what you need, regardless.” He paused, looking hard at Nnamdi. “Hold your breath.”
Nnamdi hesitated, his auntie Grace’s warnings about devils, witches, and demons running through his mind yet again. He looked around. Still, not a car passed on the road. Not a person walked by. Even at night, this was bizarre. It was Saturday. The akara lady made most of her week’s pay on this night. Where was she? Was this the devil bringing him to a secluded place where no one could save him from being tempted to evil? But deep in his gut, he felt this truly was his father, not the devil trying to deceive him. And hadn’t his father always said to trust your gut? He took a deep, deep breath and held it.
“This object, this thing . . .” His father spoke softly as he knelt down and gathered what looked like a pile of dirt at his feet. “It will steal your breath if you breathe while I’m offering it. That is what I am told.” He spoke in a monotone voice, as if he were doing a ritual. He gathered and gathered the dirt into a pile and then it began to gather itself. Nnamdi’s eyes grew wide as he struggled not to breathe.
“An Ikenga,” his father said, scooping up some of the dirt. In his ghostly hands, the dirt rippled like vibrating water. “Know your deep Igbo, my son. Ikenga means ‘place of strength.’ From me to you, my son. To you only. No one else is to touch this. It is your responsibility. It is yours alone.” The dirt made a crackling sound as it fused itself into the shape of an ebony figure with two long spiral horns, seated on a stool grasping what looked like a machete in its bulbous right hand. In its left, which was much smaller, it carried what looked like a planet. Its face was fierce and focused ahead, as if it could see the future and it didn’t like what it saw. Every surface of the object was etched with tiny symbols, except the piercing eyes and thick, unsmiling lips. His father picked up the Ikenga and blew softly on it.
“You can breathe now,” his father said softly.
Nnamdi exhaled and then took a deep breath, filling his lungs. The smell of strong palm wine entered his nose and the sound of the blood rushing in his veins thumped in his ears. He looked at his father.
“This one is old, passed down over and over. It will guide your hand correctly if you calm yourself and focus on the tasks,” his father said.
Nnamdi shook his head to clear it. “What tasks?”
“Hold out your hand.”
Nnamdi slowly held out both of his hands.
“Not the left,” his father snapped. “Only the right. You do not take the Ikenga with any other hand but the right, your aka ikenga.”
Nnamdi frowned, an odd thought popping into his head: “Any other hand”? Why not just say “right hand”? We only have two hands. He brought down his left and slowly, his father set the Ikenga on the palm of his upturned right hand. It was warm, like something alive, and felt oddly heavy, as if it were full of water. It was larger than his hand and as solid as a ten-pound barbell. Nnamdi grunted and stumbled forward, working not to bring his left hand up to help. But even as he did this, the Ikenga was shrinking, growing lighter and lighter until it was smaller than the palm of his hand.