Who Fears Death (Who Fears Death, #1)

by Nnedi Okorafor

My mother named me Onyesonwu. It means “Who fears death?” She named me well. I was born twenty years ago, during troubled times.

Most abided by the old saying, “A snake is foolish if it dreams of being a lizard.” But one day, thirty years earlier, a group of Okeke men and women in the city of Zin rejected it. They’d had enough. They rose up rioting and demanding and refusing. Their passion spread to neighboring Seven Rivers towns and villages. These Okeke paid dearly for having ambition. Everyone did, as is always the case with genocide. On and off this had been happening since.

The Nuru men, and their women, had done what they did for more than torture and shame. They wanted to create Ewu children. Such children are not children of the forbidden love between a Nuru and an Okeke, nor are they Noahs, Okekes born without color. The Ewu are children of violence.

No one knows why Ewu children always look the way they do. They look neither Okeke nor Nuru, more like desert spirits. It would be months before the trademark freckles showed up on the child’s cheeks. Najeeba gazed into her child’s eyes. Then she pressed her lips to the baby’s ear and spoke the child’s name.

“Onyesonwu,” Najeeba said again. It was right. She wanted to shout the question to the sky: “Who fears death?” But alas, Najeeba had no voice and could only whisper it. One day, Onyesonwu will speak her name correctly , she thought.

Mwita himself was also a good distraction. He was well spoken, well dressed, and he carried himself with respect. And he didn’t have the same type of outcast reputation I had. Luyu and Diti were envious of my time with him. They took pleasure in telling me about the rumors that he liked older married girls in their late teens. Girls who’d completed school and had more to offer intellectually.

No one could figure Mwita out.

I’d hear people mention his “unhealthy” skin and “foul” odor and how no matter how many books he read, he’d only amount to something bad.

People, Nuru and Okeke, are more comfortable with Ewu folk who play the fool, dance about, or do tricks, as long as you avoid eye contact and move on when you’re done entertaining.

“Life isn’t so simple,” he said. He smiled. “Especially for Eshus.” “You’re not Eshu.” “Well, for any of us, then.”

“Panic won’t do you any good,” he continued. “If you want to learn how to wield a knife, Obi here will teach you.” He motioned to a beefy man standing near the stage. “He can also train you to run long distances without getting tired. But we’re a strong people. Fear is for the weak. Buck up. Live your lives.” He sat down. Dika the Seer slowly stood, using his cane. I had to strain to hear him speak. “What I see . . . yes, the journalist shows the truth, though his mind is unhinged by it,” the seer said. “But faith! We must all have faith!” He sat down. There was silence for a moment.

Once the elders left the stage and the square, everyone began to speak at once. Discussions and agreements broke out about the photographer and his state of mind, his photos, and his journey. However, the Ndiichie had worked—people weren’t panicked anymore. They were energetically pensive. My father joined in the discussion, my mother quietly listening.

“I’m a poor woman,” she said, looking out at her small crowd. She pointed to a calabash decorated with orange glass beads. “I got this in exchange for a story when I was in Gadi, an Okeke community beside the Fourth River. I’ve traveled that far, people. But the farther east I have come, the poorer I get. Fewer people want to hear my most potent stories and those are the ones I want to tell.” She sat down heavily and crossed her thick legs. She adjusted her expansive dress to fall over her knees. “I don’t care for wealth, but please when you leave, put what you can in here, gold, iron, silver, salt chips, as long as it’s worth more than sand,” she said. “Something for something. Am I heard?” We strongly answered, “Yes,” “Gladly,” “Whatever you need, woman.”

She smiled broadly and motioned to the drummer. He started playing a louder but slower beat to draw us in.

Mwita’s arm held me...

“I’m not finished,” the storyteller said. The drummer beat a moderate beat. He was sweating but his eyes remained on her. It was easy to notice he was in love with her. And because of her past, his love was doomed. The closest he came to touching her was probably through the beat of his drum. “As we were doomed in the past and are doomed in the present, we will be saved in the future,” she said. “There’s a prophecy by a Nuru Seer living on a tiny island in the Unnamed Lake. He says a Nuru man will come and force the Great Book’s rewriting. He’ll be very tall with a long beard. His mannerisms will be gentle, but he will be cunning and full of vigor and fury. A sorcerer. When he comes, there will be good change for Nuru and Okeke. When I left, there was an ongoing manhunt for this man. They were killing all tall Nuru men with beards and gentle mannerisms. All of these men have turned out to be healers, not rebels. So have faith, there is hope.”

There was no applause but the storyteller’s calabash quickly filled up. No one stayed to talk with her. No one even looked at her. As people walked into the evening, they were quiet and pensive, and they moved fast.

“Good evening, Ewu children. I give you my love and respect,” she said, kindly. “Thank you,” Mwita said. “I’m Mwita and this is my companion, Onyesonwu. Your stories touched us.” Companion? I thought, tickled by the reference. “The prophecy, where’d you hear of it?” Mwita asked. “It’s all the talk of the West, Mwita,” she said with seriousness. “The Seer who spoke it viciously hates Okeke people. For him to say such a thing, it must be true.”

Finally, I arrived at Aro’s hut. I felt a pang of hunger and the world around me grew vibrant. Clusters of bright light danced at the top of the hut and in the air. The monster came at me when I got to the cactus gate. A masquerade was guarding Aro’s hut, a real one. It seemed this day Aro felt he needed protection. Masquerades commonly appear at celebrations. In these cases, they’re just men dressed in elaborate raffia and cloth costumes dancing to the beat of a drum. Tock tock tock went a small drum as the real masquerade rushed at me, spraying a wake of sand as tall as my house and wide as three camels. It shook its dusty colorful cloth and raffia skirts. Its wooden face was curled into a sneer. It danced violently, jabbing itself at me and then pulling back. I stood my ground, even as it slashed its needle-fingered hands an inch from my face.

When I didn’t run, the spirit stopped and stood very still. We looked at each other, my head tilted up, its head tilted down. My angry eyes staring into its wooden ones. It made a clicking sound that resonated deep in my bones.

The masquerade turned and led me to Aro’s hut. As it moved, it slowly faded away.

“Do you believe in Ani?” “No,” I said, matter-of-factly. Ani was supposed to be merciful and loving. Ani wouldn’t have allowed me to exist. I’d never believed in Ani. She was just an expression I was used to using when I was surprised or angry. “Some creator then?” he asked. I nodded. “It is cold and logical.” “Are you willing to allow others the same right to their beliefs?” “If their beliefs don’t hurt others and, when I feel the need, I am allowed call them stupid in my mind, then yes.” “Do you believe it’s your responsibility to leave this world in better shape than when you came into it?” “Yes.” He paused, looking at me more intensely. “Is it better to give or receive?” “They’re the same,” I said. “One can’t exist without the other. But if you keep giving without receiving, you’re a fool.” He chuckled at this. Then he asked, “Can you smell it?” Immediately, I knew what he spoke of. “Yes,” I said. “Strongly.” Fire, ice, iron, flesh, wood, and flowers. The sweat of life.

PART II Student

Diti looked at my feet, Luyu looked to the side, and Binta stared at me. My confidence wavered. I was so aware of the brightness of my skin, the boldness of my freckles, especially the ones on my cheeks, the sandiness of the braids that reached down my back.

I smelled burning sage as I approached Mwita’s hut. He was sitting quietly on a wide mat meditating, his back to me. I stood in the doorway and looked around. So this was where he lived. Woven items hung on the walls and were piled around his hut. Baskets, mats, platters, and even a halfdone wicker chair.

“BRICOLEUR, ONE WHO USES all that he has to do what he has to do,” Aro said. “This is what you must become. We all have our own tools. One of yours is energy, that’s why you anger so easily. A tool always begs to be used. The trick is to learn how to use it.”

I took notes with a stick of sharpened charcoal on a piece of paper. At first, he’d demanded that I hold all lessons in my memory but I learn best by writing things down.

Aro pushed back his long sleeves. “You’ve carried this knowledge, since you . . . have known me. That may help or it may not. We’ll see.” I nodded. “Everything is based on balance.” He looked at me to make sure I was listening. I nodded. “The Golden Rule is to let the eagle and the hawk perch. Let the camel and the fox drink. All places operate off of this elastic but durable rule. Balance cannot be broken but it can be stretched. That’s when things go wrong. Speak, so I know you hear me.”

He wanted constant acknowledgment of my understanding.

“The Mystic Points are aspects of everything. A sorcerer can manipulate them with his tools to make things happen. It’s not the ‘magic’ of children’s stories. To work the Points is far beyond any juju.” “Okay,” I said. “But there’s logic to it, pitiless calm logic. There is nothing that a man must believe that can’t be seen or touched or sensed. We are not so dead to th...

The day I learned how to glide through the wilderness, I was ignorable for a week. My mother could barely see me. Several people probably thought I was dead after seeing what they thought was my ghost. Even after that, I was prone to moments of not being quite either there or here.

Mwita grew closer to and more distant from me. He was my healer. He was my mate, for though we could not have intercourse, we could lie in each other’s arms, kiss each other’s lips, love each other dearly. Yet, he was barred from understanding what it was that was shaping me into something he both marveled at and envied.

I walked home in a daze. I didn’t want Mwita to walk with me. I cried the entire way. Who cares who saw me? I had less than an hour to be in Jwahir. When I walked in, my mother was waiting for me in the main room. She handed me her cup of tea as I sat beside her on the couch. The tea was very strong, exactly what I needed.

PART III Warrior

I flew into our tent and stood for a moment with my wings spread. Mwita was weaving a basket by candlelight. He always wove when he was worried. “Luyu was looking for you,” he said, putting his basket down. He threw me my rapa once I’d changed back. “Eh? Why? It’s late.” “I think she just wants to talk,” he said. “She’s been reading the Great Book.” “They all have.” “But she’s starting to understand more.” I nodded again. Good. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow.” I sat down beside him on our sleeping mat.

“Onyesonwu, there are times you have to take what is offered to you,” he said. “There’ll always be risk with us. You are a risk.” I leaned forward and kissed him. Then I kissed him again. And after that, nothing could have stopped us. Not even the end of the world.

“The prophecy was wrong . . .” “It will be an Ewu woman,” Luyu said. “How did . . .” “I guessed. It makes more sense now.” She chuckled. “I walk with a legend.” I smiled sadly. “Not yet.”

Banza was an Okeke town driven by art and culture. It wasn’t old like Jwahir. Banza’s wounds were fresh. As the years passed, Banza learned to use the bad to create the good. The town founders turned their pain into art, the making and selling of which became central to Banza’s culture.

“Does this town sleep?” Luyu had asked. “Their minds are too active,” I said.

“I think everyone here is crazy,”...

“I’ll sell it to you for that price only because I like you,” the woman said. “Thank you,” Luyu replied with a grin. “You’re not from here, are you?” the woman asked. “No,” Luyu said. “We’re from farther east. Jwahir.” The woman nodded. “Beautiful place, I hear. But you all wear so much cloth.” Luyu laughed.

In Jwahir, Ewu people were outcast. In Banza, Ewu women were prostitutes. It was no good wherever I went. “I’m a holy woman,” I asserted, holding my voice steady. “I entertain no one. I am and will remain untouched.”

“Eh!” I shouted at a women just standing there staring. “Help! Help me, o!” But she didn’t. There were several people doing the same, just standing there watching. In this lovely town of art and culture, people did nothing when an Ewu woman was dragged into a dark alley and raped.

They held my face to the dirt, tore at my garments, and freed their penises. I concentrated. The wind increased. “There are consequences to shifting the weather,” Aro had taught. “Even in small places.” But I didn’t care about that right now. When I’m truly angry, when I’m filled with violence, all things are easy and simple. The men noticed the wind and let go of me. The boy yelled, the tall one stared, the fat one tried to dig a hole to crawl into, and the one with the braids pulled at his hair in terror. The wind pressed them to the ground. The most it did to me was blow my thick braid and loose garments about. I stood up, looking down at them. I gathered the wind, gray and black in my hands, and pressed it together, elongating it into a funnel. And I would thrust it into each man, as each had wanted to thrust his penis into me. “Onyesonwu! Don’t!” Mwita’s voice was resonant, as if he’d thrown it at me. I looked up. “See me!” I shouted. “See what they wanted to do to me!” The wind kept Mwita back. “Remember,” he shouted. “This is not what we are. No violence! It’s what sets us apart!”

I pressed my lips together. Thinking of the first time I saw Mwita. When he’d told me to jump from the tree after I’d unknowingly turned into a bird. I hadn’t been able to see his face, I didn’t know who he was, but even then I trusted him. I threw the spear and it blasted a large hole beside the young one. Then the idea came to me. I changed myself. In the Great Book there is a most terrifying creature. It only speaks riddles and, in the stories, though it never kills, people fear it more than death. I changed into a sphinx. My body was that of a giant robust desert cat but my head remained mine. It was the first time I used a shape I knew, altered its size, and kept a part of myself the same. The men looked up at me and screamed. They groveled lower to the ground. The onlookers also screamed, running in all directions. “Next time you want to attack an Ewu woman, think of my name: Onyesonwu,” I roared, whipping my thick tail at them. “And fear for your life.”

The woman selling the rapas gave me a thick lovely multicolored rapa that was treated with weather gel so that it would remain cool in the heat. She refused my money, insisting she didn’t want any trouble. She also gave me a matching top made from the same material. I put on the grand outfit and threw away my torn clothes. As was the style in Banza, both items fit closely, accentuating my breasts and hips.

“Step back,” I said to everyone. To Nuumu I said, “This may hurt.” I began to pull it in, all the energy around me. It was good to have the others so close and so afraid. It was good to have her brother so concerned and full of love. It was good to have Mwita there, locked in on only my well-being. I took from all this. I gathered what I could from the sleeping town. There were brothers arguing nearby. There were five couples making love, one of them two women who loved and hated each other. There was an infant who’d just woken up hungry and whiny. Can I do this? I wondered. I must. When I had enough, I used it to help me dig as much energy from the land as I could.

I felt the warmth rise into my body, into my hands. I placed them on Nuumu’s chest. She screamed and I grunted, biting down on my lower lip, as I fought to keep my hands still. Her body began to slowly shift. I could feel her pain in my own spine. My eyes watered.

I felt my spine curve this way and that. My breath left me. And in that moment, a revelation came to me. I know exactly how to break Diti, Luyu, and Binta’s Eleventh Rite juju!...

At its core, the town was good, but parts of it were festering.