By
Obododimma Oha
One night I woke up suddenly and discovered that my sibling, who was sleeping next to me, had died and my father was carrying the lifeless body in the next room and was gnashing his teeth. My mother was torn between wailing and singing bitterly:
Edi abalị analara m nwa!
Edi abalị analara m nwa!
(The hyena has taken my child from me!
The hyena has taken my child from me!)
A blind man, who was my father's friend, was playing his thumb piano. It was obvious that my father understood what the man was saying through his music. The blind man was talking to my father through the thumb piano, for he nodded once in a while and continued gnashing his teeth. That was a big lesson for me, first on music and the psychology of tragedy. The blind man was treating my wounded father but I did not know.
These days when young people wear wires from ear to ear and listen to their noisy music, I hope they are getting their healing like my father that terrible night. I hope the thraldom of this life is well mediated and filtered through the wires.
It was painful, very painful, that somebody with whom I had struggled to decide who would lick the soup pot, was lying lifeless in my father's arms. I desired the healing myself for I was in a terrible pain and wished I knew what the thumb piano was saying. Anyway, the sound filled our sad house and I am sure it touched me, too.
I did not want to leave the wailing thumb piano when I was asked to go and inform my married sister in another village far away. But I just had to go, to plunge into the pool of the dark night. But the wailing piano was already in me and I left with it.
Now when I see the thumb piano, I remember its role that tragic night and how it ruled me, too. The piano was my strength, my vision, my consolation.
I am beginning to view that blind man's music in symbolic terms. He was blind but his music was not blind. It knew where to touch one, where to heal. It also gave sight and insight. It was a guide in the darkest hour.
The thumb piano led me confidently to my sister's home and brought me back. It ruled my heart, steeled me, so that I feared neither spirit nor wild beast. In fact, I knew that I was no longer me. Something was in charge.
The rhythm or wailing of the thumb piano took me to my sister's home, told me where to sit and when to sit, told me when to get up and leave! I left for home, getting there even before daybreak.
How was I able to pass all those frightening groves and shrines in that darkness and then walk unaccompanied for a long distance to give information to my elder sister? It was more than just courage. Maybe I had become something else and plunged into the darkness in my transform. Well, the nonverbal instructions of the thumb piano took over things.
My pained father was not the only one touched by the thumb piano. It touched everyone in its own style of wailing. The wailing entered straight and took over the host. It became the host. This way, it spread, even running errands. It went as me to my sister's village to give her the painful news. It still held the blind man's fingers to the strings and lamented.
One thing that we did not quite understand was that the experience was about making a journey. Night was a journey itself. Life, a journey. That of sleep, too obvious. It was from the journey of sleep that my sibling embarked on another journey. It was a journey of no return but we did not know if to prevent it and how.
It is even more difficult to return when held captive and led by a music. My sibling heard this tune and was in. No escape. The captive must make the journey to the village beyond and listen to the tune to the very end.
The journey that I had to make was just a negative of the real image, the real journey. Above all, it was to alert the network, for members had sucked the same breast, had stayed in the same womb, had lived in the same family. So, I had the responsibility of alerting a member of the network.
I remember that terrible night and the thumb piano and the blind man and journeys....
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