This cannot be real. This morning I woke to the sun shining on my face, excited about the trip to Accra we were going to take this weekend. My body is so rigid it begins to cramp from its fortification against this immoral violation.
If Ofori does this thing, we are marked forever. We will be Adam and Eve after they ate of the fruit, no longer able to look upon each other in innocence. We will be forever damned.
“Sorry,” he whispers dully. His fingers are clumsy as he fumbles with his pants.
“Ofori Kwaku Asym.” Papa’s voice rings out, tremulous but angry. “Do this, and you’ll be damned, me ba barima.” My son. “Please—” Papa’s voice cracks.
“Shut up!” someone snarls.
A tear slides down Ofori’s cheek.
Papa is cut off amid a flurry of grunts as the men assault him again, silencing Papa’s protests.
I wish to shut my eyes, but I cannot turn from Ofori. I stare into his frightened eyes, at the tear that trails down his face. His shame is evident, but so is his resolve to save himself.
Ofori frees himself. His eyes shut as if he doesn’t want to look. But I do. I must see my brother as he does this thing to me. Even if by force, he had a choice. And Ofori chose wrong.
My brother, the weak. His choice was to survive no matter what, no matter who. He positions himself awkwardly, preparing himself. I suck in air, a feeble attempt to move away from him, even if only a millimeter.
He comes even closer to me, the tip of his tongue flickering out to moisten his chapped lips.
I whisper, “Please. Please, please, Ofori.”
His lips are moving, but no sound comes from them. He is limp against me. At least there is that, and he is finding no pleasure from this.
My eyes bore through his closed eyelids. I hold my breath for an eternity, unable to breathe because if I do, it brings me that much nearer to that piece of him that should never be so close to that piece of me. But my body is fighting to breathe. I am at war with my physical self and my mental, as every facet of physical me begs to take a breath while my mind says, Do not. Do not make it easy for him, Aninyeh.
I hold my breath for an eternity. And just when I am about to pass out from lack of oxygen or succumb to my body’s need for air, just as I am about to be forever damned by my brother, miraculously, just as he . . . touches me . . . the weight of him suddenly lifts off me. All the air inside me releases; then my body convulses from sobs.
“You are a perverted son of a bitch, you know that?” Paul says incredulously. “I don’t know whether to be repulsed by you or impressed. I can’t believe he was going to do it.”
“Well, you are quite convincing,” Attah Walrus deadpans. “Who would say no to you?” He looks down at the dead bodies of my brothers. “Or the bullet?”
There is raucous laughter from the men as Ofori hurriedly fixes his clothing, his shoulders bowed in complete shame.
I have never felt so betrayed.
I have never thought I could hate my brother as I do in this moment.
And I have never thought I would feel gratitude to Paul for ending the incestuous horror before it was enacted, even though the command came from him. Because Paul is not my brother; Ofori is. And Ofori will now be exactly as my father declared. Damned, damaged for eternity, because of what he was willing to do to his sister to save himself.
My eyes close, tired of it all, tired of living. I want nothing but to see the darkness.
“You have promise, boy.” Paul sighs. It sounds regretful. “But unfortunately, you are useless with your father’s blood coursing through your veins. Put him with the others.”
Ofori cries, becoming crazed, “No! Uncle, I only did as you asked. Only as you asked!”
His reference to Paul, using a title of a respected elder, is another nail driven through me. His groveling stirs no affection in me. Only contempt that grows like a snowball as they throw him in with the crowd of waiting villagers. My brother. Ofori, the weak.
Moments later, I hear rapid firing, screams, wails. Then silence, and I think, Good. He is gone, and there is nothing left.
But Paul is not yet finished with me.
Paul, voyeur puppet master, directs Bena and another faceless, vile soldier to have a go at me, and they do. No one stops them this time.
My agony sears through hoarse whimpers because I have no voice left. Papa weeps for a virtue cleaved from me like a hot knife shears through butter. My body tears in two.
Paul ignores him.
The men laugh.
The laughter is worst of all, laughter at my pain, my humiliation, my being made nothing at all. It is laughter that will haunt me for the rest of my life.