Inside out, p.11
Inside Out, page 11
“Your English doesn’t need to be elegant, Wofai. I need to get the rough and raw copy of it,” Affy encourages, keeping her voice modulated so as not to spook her.
“There’s anger,” Wofai chokes out as she let her vulnerability show. It feels more intense for her since she’d recently struggled through a crisis.
“Just anger?” the queen prods slowly, her voice an encouragement.
Wofai shook her head.
“Anger is the beginning. And then there’s a tightening in my chest that leaves me breathless. Then my throat closes off, and I can’t speak or express myself. I hate crying because I don’t want to appear weak. So it feels like only a scream can unburden all I’m going through,” Wofai says without looking up, panting as though she ran a marathon.
“The scream is like killing several birds with one stone. You get to express yourself and your anger. You get to loosen the tightening in your chest and un-block your throat so you can breathe.”
Wofai looks up in shock. It was as though the monarch speaks from experience.
At the girl’s expression, Affy nods, “I understand fully, Wofai, but unfortunately, nobody speaks that language. Since you’ve said that anger is a part of it, what do you think causes the tightening in the chest?”
“I don’t know,” Wofai says sincerely and shrugs.
“Oh, but you do, darling. Every reaction is caused by an action, and if you want to get past this and behave like a normal, beautiful woman, which you are, then we must dig for what’s causing the tightening. If we can find this niggling problem, then we can solve it, and you will not have a need to scream any longer. Wouldn’t you like that?” Affy asks with a smile as though she is discussing shopping instead of a deep-seated psychology issue.
Wofai nods and could almost taste the freedom of not screaming ever again. She wants it so bad she is willing to try. “But I don’t know how to dig for it,” she frets, looking desperate.
“Okay, let’s look at it this way. Certain situations have always caused these reactions, right?” and Wofai nods. “Now, tell me, from the recent one the day you arrived, what were you thinking at that moment? What thoughts were crossing your mind?”
Her brows furrow as she thinks deeply. “I was thinking that here is yet another man who thought he could rule me just because I’m a woman.” Wofai looks up with shock. She seemed surprised also at her revelation.
Affy nods encouragingly, smiling with understanding. She knows her worth. She is the prod Wofai needs to learn about herself and heal her serious issues.
“I wanted to carry my bags myself. I’ve always had pride in being self-sufficient despite being a princess, but everybody back home just feels it’s wrong, and I don’t know why.”
“And how has this made you feel over time?”
“Like I’m worthless. I feel as though I’m not important or as though I’m missing a major characteristic of a perfect woman.”
“Ha,” she murmurs victoriously, instantly understanding a part of the underlying problem.
“Wofai, my dear, there’s no perfect woman. I am going to end this little discussion here. But I want you to ponder on the fact that there is no perfect woman in the whole universe. Yes, we’ve been created with the same features, and yes, some arrogant men insist on piling us in the weak category, but that’s a lie.
“As women, we come with our different strengths and weaknesses, our advantages, and disadvantages, and we are specifically built to compliment someone out there. None of us is worthless or perfect.”
“I never saw it like that,” Wofai whispers in realization. It appears the narrow passage of her mind is widening to see greater possibilities. Light is slowly filtering in and is eagerly dispersing her constrictive ideas and beliefs.
“I always thought that since I’ve been unable to snag a man despite my features, there must have been something wrong with me.”
Affy laughs heartily, “Where you rejected by someone?”
“They always find someone better,” Wofai confesses in a pained whisper.
Affy zeros on the word ‘they’ and shares the girl’s pain. “Men, at least the fickle ones, are just that, fickle. Nobody knows what they really want, least of all themselves. They are always searching for the next best thing. I bet they left because the idiots couldn’t explain why a princess is self-sufficient and not weak, waiting for a prince charming to rescue her.”
“Your majesty, you speak as though you’d been there.” Wofai’s eyes widen in pleasing shock because somebody finally understands her pain. “Some can’t get why I’m extravagant when they discover I was a princess.”
“I understand, Wofai,” the queen says and leaves her stool to drop her empty ice cream container in the bin and her spoon in the sink. She even washes and rinses them out, adding the ones Wofai and Sara had used.
Wofai is impressed, and she cannot wait to continue this discussion tomorrow.
“It is in our hands to not let men subject us…and don’t forget, there is no perfect woman,” Affy says as her parting shot before leaving a grinning Wofai in the kitchen.
12
This is Gossip. My eyes are bulging from all the engrossing drama flying around. Then again, this is why I’m telling this tale.
A story isn’t worth much if it’s covered up and preserved. So don’t judge, just enjoy.
At this moment, two princes are struggling through the exact emotion. Well, not entirely the same because Prince Ekong is engaged, and his issue is more complicated than Prince Onen’s.
Anyway, we shall come back to the princes, but right now, let’s visit Nkoyo at the Atam palace and see how she’s faring after a couple of days in casual clothes.
It is going quite well.
After she searches for the queen to express her gratitude for the clothes, she is told that the queen and king are away. Therefore, despite the speculative looks given to her by the handful of palace workers, she tours the court, and her first port of call is the kitchen.
In her father's kingdom, Nkoyo never ventures into the kitchen unless to give the cook grieve. It isn’t that she doesn’t know how to cook. She does. An Efik woman who doesn’t know her way around the kitchen is regarded as a complete failure or an alien.
Nkoyo created her own ideal direction by being aloof to the traditional norms expected of a woman. Her mother would have been remiss in her duties if she hadn’t taught her how to cook. Nevertheless, Nkoyo decides her future daughter will be instructed this compulsory norm, but not from her. A professional cook will be employed for the purpose.
Therefore, for about two years, Nkoyo stayed away from the kitchen, purposely shutting her mind from the urge to create culinary masterpieces ingrained in her from an early age. She regards cooking not as a woman’s pride but as something beneath her as a royal and only fit for paid workers.
Discovering the Atam palace kitchen does not magically turn her thoughts around as one might hope. Not Nkoyo. Instead, it serves as an edge in her struggle for escape. You read right. Nkoyo is still bidding her time and waiting for the perfect opportunity to flee from the palace.
On day five, after the arrival of the casual clothes, Nkoyo is touring again. Impressed at the vastness of palace premises, she saunters into the backyard when she hears the queen’s welcoming voice.
“Nkoyo, you came at the right time.”The backyard looks like a madhouse. Blackened pots, used basins, firewood, and a host of ingredients for a very sumptuous meal dot the vast space.
“Your majesty,” Nkoyo breathes in shock. She is momentarily unable to move a step. This immobility is caused by the sight of the queen dressed like a peasant, elbows deep in work with other local women. If she had not spoken, Nkoyo would have just breezed past without realizing the queen’s presence.
“Don’t look so shocked, girl. We need help with the vegetables.” The queen burns the hairs off a mighty chunk of cow skin over a blazing fire of firewood before pulling it out to scrape with a dull-looking knife.
Nkoyo’s eyes drift to the big basin full of vegetables, and her heart skips. She doesn’t like plucking the pumpkin leaves from the stalks or the more rigorous process of slicing the vegetable leaves to thin shreds.
The abundant chlorophyll in the pumpkin always makes her nails green. Likewise, the pieces of sliced vegetables always stick under her nails no matter how many times she washes her hands.
In her teen years, she would spend hours using sharp objects to pick her nails until they were clean.
Now, the adult Nkoyo looks down at her long, manicured nails and shivers. Anyway, she assumes, she only has to pluck the leaves from the stalks. Not a big deal. Smiling at the queen, she finds a low stool in the melee, sits down, and begins plucking.
Conversations in the local dialect fly about her, but she isn’t bothered. Occasionally, she looks up at what the queen is doing and shakes her head. She can’t understand why the monarch chooses to dirty her hands by burning the cowhide.
No one pays any kind of attention to her, and she likes it that way. Before long, she completes her task and even magnanimously washes the leaves so many times at the tap until they are free of sand and any other dirt.
“I’m through,” Nkoyo calls out to the queen while she surreptitiously arches her back to ease the dull ache from bending so long while washing the leaves. It has been quite a while since she did any manual labour.
The queen gives her a cursory glance but doesn’t reply. Instead, she thanks the women who had come from the village to help her. The maid, who welcomed Nkoyo on her first day, hands out bulging plastic bags to the five women. The way they thanked the queen profusely, the monarch obviously showed appreciation for their services with gifts. Nkoyo silently wonders why they are leaving when there still is so much to do.
Jesam only turns to her friend’s daughter when the backyard is only left with her three maids, Nkoyo and herself. What is left to be done will be completed by them.
“Sweetheart, who do you think will slice those pumpkin leaves?” she asks pleasantly while chopping the cow skin that she just finished burning.
“The women could have done that, but you let them go,” Nkoyo points out succinctly.
“They have their own families, and it’s the last hours of the school day. They need to go prepare food for their children’s return,” Jesam answers with a slight smile while patiently waiting for the next excuse.
“So why don’t you have more maids?” Nkoyo sounds affronted.
“Because I brought my children up to be self-sufficient. The maids do what has to be done, and my children take care of themselves although they are royals,” Jesam smiles, not regretting her direct jab at Nkoyo.
The princess sighs in exasperation because she sees the maids are fully occupied. “I can’t slice the pumpkin leaves with my nails. The process will be a challenge.”
“Lucky you, Nkoyo, I just happen to have a nail dissolver lying around. Nengka,” Jesam calls.
The maid who welcomed her the first-day answers, leaving the pile of yam she was peeling to rush to the queen’s side and then rush off when the monarch speaks to her in their dialect.
Nengka returns with a one-litre plastic bottle of nail dissolver and a big pack of cotton wool that looks used. She deposits them in Nkoyo’s hands and goes back to her work.
“We need those leaves soon,” Jesam warns as Nkoyo stands still, her face registering abject shock at the turn of events.
Swallowing all the snide and acerbic things that are eager to spill from her lips, she settles back on her stool. She proceeds to soak up a large bulb of cotton wool with the dissolver. Then, placing it on her nails, she rubs it slowly to dissolve the artificial nails from her natural ones.
Nkoyo doesn’t waste time with the task, since the dissolver is an authentic product. It makes her formerly intricately designed artificial nails disappear like magic. Additionally, she doesn’t want to complain more and end up being regarded as a petulant child. There is no way she will destroy the positive steps she gained with the queen just because of nails.
“If you can’t do without manicures, I’ll have my personal stylist come fix you up with something that won’t hamper housework,” Jesam says without looking up.
Nkoyo doesn’t know what to say or what to think at the queen’s comment. The woman comes off harsh and then, in the next moment, kind. It felt as though she purposely kept Nkoyo confused.
When she was ready, all that she’d been taught as a child returned to her. Nkoyo finds a stainless tray large enough. She rinses it thoroughly, finds a chopping board and does the same. Then she finds an elevated spot, places the board in the tray and proceeds to slice the pumpkin leaves with a sharp knife.
“Do you want it sliced tiny?” Nkoyo asks without turning or stopping the expert movement of her hands as they slice the leaves.
“Yes, please,” the queen replies while staring at the girl’s hand fly with the knife and smiles.
Nkoyo is so engrossed in her task that she abandons her sitting position to a standing one, though bent from the waist to get good traction as she slices. She also doesn’t notice the other maids had completed their tasks and left the backyard. Only the queen and herself remained by the time she finished the slicing.
Scraping the last of the chopped leaves into a basin, she proceeds to rinse all the utensils she’d used, just like she’d been taught. When she finishes and turns to ask where she can drop the washed utensils, she notices she is alone with the queen. The monarch is hard at work stirring a boiling caldron on the fire.
Taking the time to watch her, Nkoyo silently wonders why the queen prefers to put herself through this when she is wealthy enough to employ help. As though reading her mind, the queen looks up and smiles.
“When my husband’s family deigns to visit, I prefer to make everything by myself to ensure perfection. And I also do that when my husband requests his favourite meal, which is often. Come sit close to me, Nkoyo,” she invites, sounding like a grandmother at that moment.
Nkoyo drops all she is holding, grabs the basin of chopped pumpkin leaves and approaches the queen. The monarch covers the large cooking pot and settles her bottom on her comfortable-looking stool.
“So,” Jesam says, turning to face Nkoyo fully with a relaxed gaze, “I’ve been looking to have this conversation with you from the beginning, but you’ve been unavailable.”
“Unavailable?” Nkoyo asks with a confused frown. Have I been invisible this whole time?
Jesam smiles again, reading the girl’s thoughts as though she is an open book. “While you were off in your delusional princess world,” she explains.
“I’m not delusional,” Nkoyo refutes instantly. She couldn’t keep calm any longer while the older woman insulted her in the name of advice.
Jesam, on the other hand, has discovered that the only way into Nkoyo’s head is a good offence. She isn’t a psychologist, but she’s been observing the princess. It almost seems like she has a key to locking down reality and choosing to believe her own fantasy. The only way to get her to trigger some sort of natural reaction is to offend her imagination, and poof, an accessible path is open to reason with her.
“Expecting everyone to do everything for you…even shave, that’s delusional. Oh, don’t look so shocked. Your mother cried over that one for a long time. I, on the other hand, would have made you shave all my workers' private parts, even the men just so you would understand what you’d put that poor girl through.”
Nkoyo is breathless, but she has the decency to look ashamed of her past actions. Right then, she regrets the shaving incident. She tried it because she heard the French monarchs did it. At the time, she hoped nobody would know about it, but all her threats didn’t stop the maid from blabbing.
“How would you feel if a replica of yourself came into your palace, the one that you rule with the man you love and behaves exactly as you have behaved?”
The princess took the question literally. Her head lowers in thought, and she imagines a kingdom with the man that she loves. It isn’t Prince Ekong she is envisioning. It is the queen’s son, Onen. She gasps and looks up guiltily as though the queen can read her thoughts. Fortunately, it comes off as though she is guilty because of all the things she’s been doing.
“I’m sorry,” Nkoyo apologizes in a whisper. How has she not thought about her fiancé for over weeks? Why was she envisioning being the queen to Onen? It is an impossible dream. Even though the prince doesn’t seem affronted by her presence, he doesn’t seem accepting of it either. He always seems to be in a hurry when in Nkoyo’s presence, as though avoiding contamination.
“I’m not saying this to make you sorry, dear. I’m saying this to give you clarity. A leader isn’t a leader to punish. If you understood the basic tenets of leadership, you wouldn’t even want to be queen someday.”
Nkoyo speechlessly rolls her shoulders in blatant disbelief and denial. She so wanted to be queen.
“You don’t believe me, and it’s okay. It’s a free world, after all. But I can assure you, being a leader is demanding work. Back-breaking, bone-numbing, hard work. It is actually about serving the people, and that is if you want to be a good leader anyway. Sometimes, people don’t even know what is good for them. They clamour for things that will hurt them eventually, and you have to risk being hated to do the right thing.
“Leadership isn’t about all the perks you can get. Although I have to say, some luxurious suits are to die for,” Jesam says, injecting some fun into her lecture, and Nkoyo smiles widely in agreement.
“The things the whites will do for you when they discover that you are an African royalty,” Nkoyo chips in with a little shake of her head.
“Yes, the whites. They probably just want to swindle all your money from you. So, no, I’m not impressed with them,” the queen says, instantly killing Nkoyo’s buzz.
