Where the Hole Was First Opened

It was early morning when Mofá opened his eyes. Thin rays of light filtered through the bedroom drapes, filling the room with a pale, soft glow. For quite some time he was motionless in bed, dazed after a night of sleep and dreams, and as these loosened their grip, he remembered where he was, and slowly, so as not to disturb her rest, he turned on his side to face his wife, Odí.

Carefully, Mofá propped his head up on his left hand, his elbow resting against the soft pillows, and he watched his wife breathe. Odí was still, but her chest rose and fell slowly with each breath. His eyes rested at her breasts; they were full and firm, stretching the fabric of her nightgown dangerously as they rose. He smiled, and reached out to touch them, but stopped before he did. As his hand hovered close to her, the difference in years between them was obvious: his skin was worn and wrinkled, hers smooth and supple. “Why does a young woman love an old man such as me?” he thought.

He frowned, but only for a moment as he looked at her face. Odí was beautiful. Her skin was a rich, deep onyx that mocked the darkest night, and in her sleep, tiny beads of sweat formed on her brow. In the growing morning light, they sparkled and shimmered, like so many tiny diamonds resting against black velvet. Her complexion was smooth, and her cheekbones high; her lips were full, and ripe, and soft. Gently, he kissed her on the mouth.

Odí smiled when she woke, and she stretched, arching her back and throwing her arms around her husband's neck. Gently, she raked her long, red nails across the back of his neck. He loved those nails more than anything else about his wife; when they tickled his skin, he shivered. “Have you been awake all this time, watching me sleep?” Her voice was husky and soft.

“I always watch you sleep. You're beautiful.”

They lay there for quite some time, their arms and legs tangled, his head resting on her ample bosom. It was Mofá who broke the silence first. “I wish I could . . .”

“Shush . . .” she whispered, stroking his thick head of grey hair with her nails. “It's okay.”

For months, even though Mofá was passionately in love with his wife, he was unable to please her as a husband should. “But it's not right. You have needs. I don't know what's wrong with me anymore.”

“There's nothing wrong with you, and I have everything I need,” she said tenderly, and he almost believed her. Mofá lifted his head from her breasts to kiss her again; and Odí raised her hips against him lustfully. It was a needy grind against his groin, but her desires were not for him. They were for her lover.

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Mofá and Odí had a son together, and every morning, he was the first out of bed and ready to start the day. This day was no different; there came a muffled knock at their bedroom door, and then a louder one when they did not answer. Odí smiled at Mofá, “Do you want to answer that, or should I?”

Mofá groaned as he pushed himself out of bed; carefully, he slipped his feet into his slippers, and tied a robe around his waist. “You stay in bed. I'll get him ready for his lessons.” He leaned back to kiss his wife one last time, and opened the bedroom door to an anxious ten-year-old boy.

Alone in bed, Odí wrapped the sheets around herself tightly and leaned back against the pillows. She listened to her husband and son rushing to make breakfast, and she smiled. “Life is good here,” she thought. Then, she frowned. “Well, life is as good as it can be here.” With a deep sigh, she closed her eyes and thought of her lover. So long had she gone without intimacy that Odí had taken a secret lover; every day when her husband was gone, he would sneak in through the back and spend the afternoon with her, in bed. But she'd not seen him for four days, and Odí was worried. “Maybe I'll never see him again?” Sadly, she got out of bed and dressed.

“He might come today after all.” It was a whisper, and wishful. Odí needed him badly.

It was early afternoon when he scratched lightly at the backdoor. Odí was sitting at her kitchen table, sipping her coffee; her long, smooth legs were crossed at the knee. Thoughtlessly, she bounced her right leg up and down rapidly in succession. When she didn't answer the door, he knocked, but softly, and she jumped when she heard it.

Quickly, before the neighbors had the chance to see him, Odí whisked him inside. Her embrace was needy and passionate, and he returned her embrace with an open-mouth kiss. He lifted her with his huge, muscled arms; for him her weight was effortless, and Odí thought, “My husband could never do this. He is too old.” Swiftly, he carried her to the bed, her long, braided hair barely sweeping the floor. He laid her on her marriage bed, and there he took her like a wild animal, making her scream with both pleasure and pain.

But today was different from other days: Four days without him made her crazy, and the fire in her loins was hot. She rocked him like a tempest rocks a boat at sea. Soon, the screams were not her own; they were his, and the brutal, needy grunts and groans shook the walls as violently as they shook the bed. When they were done, Odí and her lover lay entwined, spent and panting like animals. Still gasping for breath, he said, “I can't do this anymore. I need you. All the time.”

“And I need you.” A single tear slid down her cheek. “I love my husband, and don't want to embarrass him by leaving him; but I'm in love with you . . . passionately, feverishly, hopelessly in love with you.” He lay on his back, his hands behind his head so his chiseled body was stretched and tight; and she lay on her side, grinding her body into his side hungrily while she raked her nails against his neck and shoulders. Despair and desire made her crazy, and waves of pleasure erupted in her again. She cried out; and when she was silent once more, panting, she saw that her lover held a small glass vial.

“This is the answer to all our problems,” he said, and he handed her the potion.

Odí looked at it, still stunned from the pleasure. It was a simple stopper vial with no markings. As her mind cleared, she swallowed, and asked, “Is this poison? Do you mean to murder my husband?”

“No, Odí. It is not for your husband. It is for you. Drink it.” He took the vial from her and pulled out the cork.

She bolted upright, pulling the sheets around her chest. “You want to poison me?” Her face paled with fear.

Seeing her terror, he put the stopper back in the vial, and sat it down on the bed. “It's not poison, Odí. But others will think it is.” She looked at him, still fearful but now puzzled. “Odí, it's a potion that will put you into a very, very deep sleep. Your breathing will slow, and it will be so shallow that your chest will not rise and fall. The sound of life in your chest, your heart, will be imperceptible. It will beat so slowly and softly that no one will hear it, not unless they listen for a long, long time. One vial of this and you will sleep for three days. On the fourth day you will wake up. And by then, you will be resting in the forest at the feet of the Iroko, left for dead. Mofá won't be disgraced. He will be mournful. And everyone will mourn the loss of his beautiful wife with him.”

Cautiously, she picked up the vial and lifted the cork. She sniffed at the lid. It smelled faintly of almonds. “They will think I killed myself with poison,” she whispered.

“Yes, and on the fourth day, I will come find you, and we can move to a new town. Start over. Be together. And just to be safe, you can disguise yourself. You can change your style of dress. You can cut your hair short.” He stopped, biting his lower lip, and gently, he took her hands in his. “Just don't cut these, your long, red nails. They make me crazy. I love them.”

They sat there for quite some time, and when the shock of the vial wore off, she rested against his thick, chiseled chest, his arms wound tightly around her body, with her nails gently tickling the skin on his arms. When the sunlight in the room began to mute and the shadows stretched, she turned to him. “Mofá will be home soon, as will my son. You're sure this will work?”

“Positive,” he said. “I bought two vials of the potion, and tried one on myself.” He paused, holding her hands in his. “Where do you think I was the past three days? The world thinks I am dead! When I woke up, I was alone in the forest at the feet of an Iroko; I unwound the cloth binding me, and walked away.” He smiled. “I would rather hurt myself than you. And as you can see, I woke up, and I'm fine.”

“I love you,” she said, tipping the open vial against her lips. It was sticky and sweet, and she swallowed it all in one gulp.

“I love you, too,” he whispered, kissing her on the lips. That was all she remembered before the room went dark.

He left her lying naked, tangled in the sheets with the vial still in her hands. He crept out the back door just as Mofá and his son were coming through the front. And he heard their screams when they found Odí crumpled and lifeless in the bed.

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It seemed everyone in town mourned the death of Odí.

Mofá was an old man, but sorrow made him all the more frail, and his young son had to help him walk. Mourners came to their home, leaving more food than the two could eat in a year. The funeral dirge was simple, but long; and by sunset on the third day, Odí's body was laid to rest deep in the forest at the feet of the ancient Iroko. Carefully, she was wrapped in white linen; and when her stiff body fell to the side between the tree's great roots, Mofá fainted. Their son wailed. Gently, the mourners carried both back to town.

Sunset the fourth day, as he promised, Odí's lover knelt at her side, gently cutting away the strips of white linen binding her body. When her eyes fluttered open, he greeted her with a kiss. Odí was confused. It seemed that only a moment ago, they were together in her bed.

They made love there in the great tree's roots, and before sunset, the two set off to make a new life in a new town. Odí cut her braids; her hair was short, and she dressed as a pauper. She took up work in the local marketplace selling okra and other vegetables that she grew herself in her garden. Her new husband was a laborer, the reason for his well-muscled, sleek body, and although she lacked many of the luxuries she had with Mofá, she was happy with her new life.

Mofá, as well, moved on. Without his wife, his young son took up many of the household chores; and the old man did what the son could not finish. Still, Odí was always in his thoughts, and his heart. His love was pure; and no matter how many women came to court his affections, he only thought of one woman—Odí.

After months of mourning, Mofá was ready to go out into the world again, continuing his work as a diviner; and in time, it happened that he was called away to a neighboring town to divine for the village's king. Since there was no one at home to watch his ten-yearold boy, Mofá took his son with him, and when they arrived in the village, he gave his son money and told him, “Go to the market and wander there for a spell. When the sun starts to set, I want you back here at the king's home. We will leave town together tonight.”

It was late afternoon when the young boy heard a voice like his mother's in the market. Over the din of the crowds, she was yelling out for buyers to come check her produce. “I have the finest okra in the village!” she yelled out; and he saw her holding up handfuls of the vegetable as she yelled.

When he saw the red nails, he thought he'd faint.

Slowly, with a gnawing pit in his stomach, the young boy walked up to the woman's booth; the closer he came, the more it looked like his mother. Her hair was short like a man's, but it was her face, her figure; and the red nails that stroked his head many a night as he lay down for sleep flashed and sparkled in the late afternoon sun. At the edge of the booth, with her back to him, he said one word. “Mom?” It was a plea, not a question; and the tears came from his eyes before she could turn and face him.

When Odí heard her son's voice, her heart broke, and then the broken fragments hardened; with fear chilling her skin, she turned and saw her son looking up at her, hot tears streaking his face. Trembling, Odí shook her head slowly. “No. What did you call me?”

“Mom?” His lower lip trembled, and his body shook.

“I don't know you, child. I am not your mother. Go home.” She turned her back so the boy could not see her cry, and began to yell again, “I have the finest okra in the kingdom . . .”

Slowly, he backed away from her, and when the crowd closed around the booth and he could see Odí no longer, he turned and ran to the king's palace.

“Mom is alive!” he screamed as he grabbed his father's legs, hugging him tightly and trembling as tears came freely.

Mofá narrowed his eyes and stroked his boy's head lightly, and then, with great difficulty, he bent down on his aged knees and took the child's head in both of his hands. “What did you say?”

“Mom. Mom. She's alive.” He stuttered and spit as he tried to get the words out.

The king walked to Mofá, putting his hand on his shoulder, gently. “Is the boy okay? He looks as if he's seen a ghost. And isn't your wife dead?”

“She is,” said Mofá, looking, puzzled, at his son.

“No, she's not!” The child screamed incredulously. “And she made me go away. Dad, she's alive. I saw her selling okra in the marketplace.”

The king called his wife; and when she came, he put the boy's hand in hers. “Watch him,” he said. “The child has had a great shock. We're going to the market to see the woman that sells okra.”

“But he recognized me,” Odí insisted as her new husband stood at her side. She was shaking, trembling, and he held her head on his shoulder, rubbing her back lightly to console her.

“Are you sure it was your son?”

“He called me Mom!” Fear and sorrow turned her voice shrill. “I am supposed to be dead. Can you imagine how he feels?” Hot tears burned his shoulder as Odí cried.

He looked through the crowd suspiciously; while Odí mourned her son, he was worried that someone else might recognize them. “Then we're leaving this town tonight. I'll stay with you. We'll finish up here. And then we'll go home, grab our things, and move on.” Odí lifted her head; her eyes were red and sore from crying. “We'll go so far away that no one will chance upon us.”

Odí wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands; her red nails flashed brightly in the late afternoon sun. And then, she picked up a handful of okra and yelled, “I have the finest okra in the village . . .”

By horse the king and Mofá traveled: the king took his most trusted guards, and both were in the center of a heavily-armed caravan galloping furiously through the kingdom, to the marketplace. Villagers saw the royal entourage's approach; they grabbed their children and moved to the sides of the streets so they could pass quickly. It took little time for the group to arrive at the marketplace.

Over the din of the market, Mofá listened to the hawkers, and he froze when he heard his wife's voice, but faintly, “Okra! I have the freshest okra in the entire village!” Wearily, he sank down against his horse, covering his face with his palms. Tears slid down his cheeks.

“Mofá?” asked the king, “Is it your wife?”

Mofá's eyes were reddened when he lifted his head. “It sounds like her voice. But it can't be. She's dead. I watched as her lifeless body was wrapped by the priests; I was there when it was set to rest at the Iroko's feet. But that voice . . . it sounds like her. Maybe that is why my son thought it was his mother. But it can't be her.”

“Are you sure?” asked the king. “Your son was . . . convinced . . . that it was her. Let us take a closer look.”

As they approached the vender's booth, villagers moved to the side when they realized it was the king traveling with the royal entourage, and the woman at the booth was at first confused, and then pleasantly surprised when she saw the king on his horse. “Sire,” she said, curtseying a bit in obeisance, “it is a pleasure to have you here. Have you heard about my okra?” Her new husband was turned away from the king, scanning the gathering crowd for signs of Mofá or his son. But the old man was so well hidden by the guards that he didn't see him sitting on his horse, his eyes burning with both sadness and rage.

The king dismounted slowly, and the guards pulled their horses to the side so he could walk through. “No, I haven't heard about your okra. But I am here on business.”

“And what would that be?”

“What is your real name, lady?”

“My name?”

Mofá dismounted; and while Odí was distracted by the king's presence, he walked to the booth, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. “It is you?” he whispered. The man sitting beside Odí tried to stand, tried to run, but the guards dismounted quickly and detained him.

“What?” she asked, turning pale when she turned and saw Mofá standing before her. Both hands went to her chest, and slowly, she backed away.

“My son . . . our son . . . was right. It is you.”

“I don't have a son,” she stammered, and she watched as the crowd closed in around her booth. They were curious as to the king's business with her, and they were quiet, listening.

“You do have a son. We have a son together, Odí. I know it's you. The hair is shorter. Your clothes are raggedy. But your voice is unmistakable, and your long, red nails give you away. After twenty years together, did you think I'd not recognize my own wife if I saw her?”

“She's my wife!” hissed the man; he was struggling against the guards as they held him. “You're crazy, old man!” A fist pummeled the back of his head; it was one sharp blow, and he fell to his knees in pain. The guard twisted his arm behind his back, holding him down so he could not move.

“Is this true?” the king asked the woman. “Are you Odí? Are you Mofá's wife? And is this new man now your husband?”

She stammered.

“Are you sure this is your wife?” the king asked Mofá.

“I am sure.”

The king motioned to his guards; quickly, they restrained the woman while the king addressed the town. “Good people, as you all know, Mofá is one of the wisest diviners in all the land. Months ago, his wife died, and she left behind a loving husband and a young son. And now, after months of mourning, Mofá and his son find her here, in the arms of another man.”

Odí twisted free from the guards and fell at the feet of her lover; in surprise, the guard let loose of the young man, and they clung to each other fearfully while the guards encircled them both. “What is the punishment for adultery in our land?” asked the king of the growing crowd.

“It is death!” offered one of the villagers. Quickly, one by one, the crowd began chanting, “Death. Death. Death. Death.”

“But what of my son?” whispered Mofá to the king. “What will we tell him?”

“We tell him that he was mistaken. We tell your son that the woman could have been a dead ringer for your wife, but simply, it was not her. He doesn't have to know anything more than that.”

Mofá nodded his head sadly, and walked away.

Before sunset, the townspeople had stoned Odí and her lover to death; and to make sure the two of them stayed dead, instead of laying them at the feet of the Iroko, they were buried deep in the earth so they would never rise again.

And this is why we say, in Odí, that the hole (the grave) was first opened; and that the wages for adultery are death.