THE UNKNOWN HANDS (EPISODE FOUR)

STORY SERIES

…I thanked the man for his suggestions even though I knew that I would never return to Orija. I needed no one to tell me that I should stay far away from my enemies. Yes, my enemy, for that was what the members of my family were. Having shared all my father’s property, all they wanted still was to get me totally exterminated.

I had heard that orphans were sometimes visited by their dead parents and I was praying fervently that the same should happen to me. At least, I needed to let them know everything that had been happening to me, especially in the hands of those they called their family and even Pa Lapite in whom my father had confided throughout his life. I remembered I had once asked my father why it was only Baba Lapite that kept visiting us. He had explained that he used to have many friends but only Pa Lapite had proved most trustworthy and reliable among them and as a result, he had dropped all the others and continued friendship only with him. What an irony of life. How could the man have got himself so close into my father’s heart the way he did when in actual fact, he had now shown himself to be most unreliable person in the world? It was the bitterest lesson I had learnt that one’s best friend could be his worst enemy. I could not blame my mother in her own case for not having any intimate friend. Women did not enjoy the same air of freedom and liberty as men and except their meetings at market places, their friendship did not go beyond that. They could also meet during preparation for village or family meetings when they were required to prepare some food in readiness for such meetings. In fact many a man detested his wife having any serious relationship outside her home. For most of the time, my mother’s place was beside the kitchen, a small hut some steps away from the main compound where she was engaged in her business of shelling palm kernels. How I loved her. There was an occasion I can never forget. I had accompanied my mother to the evening market and due to a problem I could not understand, there was a quarrel between her and one of the traders. The next thing I heard the trader say was that my mother was a witch. I burst into a hysterical laughter contrary to what the people. ..To be continued on Tuesday.

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