Who Fears Death

Although the tension between Mwita and Onye persists, at night their physical needs outweigh their tension and their concern that she will become pregnant. They try to remain quiet but find it difficult to do so. Soon, the others grow frustrated at the way she and Mwita “flaunt” their ability to have sex, as the others are still unable to do so. “If you’ve mastered all this sorcery, why don’t you cure us,” Diti asks.

Before she can answer, a pack of wild animals charges toward them. Onye tells them to run, then gets Mwita. The animals ransack their camp, taking what they want, then depart. Onye observes that they’ve been working together like that for some time. They salvage what they can; in the evening, Mwita, Fanasi, and Luyu go hunting to replenish their supplies. That night, Diti sleeps in Binta’s tent instead—it is no longer bearable to stay with Fanasi because they cannot have intercourse.

During one of Onye’s scouting flights, she sees a town up ahead; this concerns Mwita because there shouldn’t be a town there according to their map, which means they are off course. Onye and Mwita discuss the issue, Onye believing they should avoid the town and Mwita believing that they should take the risk and replenish their supplies there.

In the evening, they set up camp a mile outside of the town and discuss. The group is split: Binta and Diti want to go into town, while Fanasi and Luyu think it’s not worth chancing. Mwita proposes that he and Fanasi find out the name of the town, only to figure out how far off course they are, then immediately return. However, this sparks a fight over who should go, if anyone, and when Onye argues that none of them should, Diti angrily throws sand in her face. Onye responds by beating her; however, she does not use her powers, and Mwita and Fanasi are able to pull the two apart.

Luyu tries to talk to Onye and Mwita, but Mwita reminds her that their inability to have sex pales in comparison to he and Onye’s skin color, and that Diti’s insults had latched onto those feelings.

That night, when Onye tries to talk to Diti, she discovers that Diti and Binta have disappeared. It’s still in the early hours of the morning, so they decide to pack up, find them, and move on as soon as they do. As they do, though, they realize that wild camels follow them. Onye and Mwita recognize that the camels intend to travel with them for a while; Luyu and Fanasi are shocked and disgusted by this, but Onye and Mwita convince them it’s fine. The camels travel with them to the town but refuse to come into the town with them.

When they enter the town, they discover it is Banza, and that they are indeed off course. They notice that the town is lively, even at the late hour, “driven by art and culture” (200), and that the people dress differently—more colorful, more exposed. They pick up some supplies at the market while they talk to people and try to track down Diti and Binta. Luyu purchases a portable electronic device from an old woman in the market that includes an electronic GPS map to better enable them to stay on course. The woman likes Luyu but speaks ill of Onye.

They find Diti and Binta at the White Cloud Tavern, drunk and entertaining a group of men. They are telling the men about how they’re going to stop the Nuru; a man asks if they have a leader, and Diti says they do, “An ugly Ewu woman” (203). Fanasi grabs Diti while Binta rushes to cover herself; Onye angrily leaves.

Outside the tavern, Onye encounters a group of young men, one of whom calls out to her, “Giant Ewu woman” (203). He asks why she is wearing so much clothing; when she responds that this is what she prefers to wear, he says that he “thought Ewu women preferred to wear nothing at all” (203). He then tries to get her to come “entertain” him, saying that she doesn’t need to ask for payment as they know her trade (204). The other young men follow suit, calling dibs on their turns. “In Jwahir, Ewu people were outcast. In Banza, Ewu women were prostitutes. It was no good wherever I went,” Onye thinks (204).

When she refuses, “A series of unspoken words [passes] between” the men (204); they decide to rape her instead and pounce on her. Onye cries for help, but the people just stand and watch as it happens. As they hold her down, Onye begins to harness the wind and uses it to press the men to the ground. She rises and is about to funnel the wind like a weapon into each of the men when Mwita stops her, reminding her not to use violence. She throws the wind like a spear just beyond the youngest boy; then she changes into a sphinx to terrify the men: “Next time you want to attack and Ewu woman, think of my name: Onyesonwu” (206).

At this, though, the men recognize the name and apologize profusely, claiming they didn’t know—it turns out other travelers had heard of her and her powers previously. The men flee. One of the onlookers, a woman, apologizes to her and says she wasn’t aware of who she was; Onye retorts sarcastically that she supposes it would have been okay if it had been any other Ewu, and the woman responds simply that Ewu women are prostitutes here. However, she asks Onye and Mwita to visit the Ewu section of town on the hill so that they might remember Banza differently.

When they reach the house to which the woman directed them, Onye remembers immediately where she had heard the name “Banza” before—the man who opens the door is the Ada’s son, Fanta, whom she recognizes immediately. The woman had sent them there for selfish reasons: twins bring luck, but Fanta’s twin sister, Nuumu, is ill, and the woman wanted Onye to cure her so that Banza would remain prosperous. Nuumu has scoliosis, and the condition has grown so bad that she is not likely to survive much longer if she isn’t healed.

After a brief debate, Onye tells Fanta to bring Nuumu outside to be healed. Once outside, Onye begins to pull in all the energy around her and use it to change Nuumu, feeling her own body shift as she does; in that moment, she realizes how to help her friends break the juju, but files it away for later. When she is nearly finished, Nuumu’s spine healed, Nuumu connects with her without words and tells her something; Onye at first resists, but then she pulls “the greenness” from her and takes her life instead.

Onye briefly shifts into the wilderness with Nuumu to watch her spirit fly away. She returns just in time to feel Fanta’s fist connect with her chest. They fight, but Onye tells him she couldn’t heal Nuumu because Nuumu wouldn’t let her: “I should have healed her anyway but she didn’t allow me to think to do it. It was her choice. That’s all” (214).

Though Fanta curses them, he doesn’t kick them out, and they stay for the night. Onye insists on sleeping outside, alone. After some time, Fanta comes and sits with her, calmer. He asks how Onye knew Nuumu wanted to die; Onye explains that there was no choice or question, but a demand. Fanta admits that Nuumu had told him months prior that she was ready to die, that her body was making her spirit suffer, which Onye recognizes as the feeling Nuumu was imparting.

Onye then tells Fanta about his and Nuumu’s real mother, the Ada, as Fanta believes he has no family left. Fanta is initially shocked, but then realizes that Nuumu had known based on a painting she had found when they were little, so Onye tells him everything she knows about their mother. They spend the night outside together, platonically, and in the morning Fanta tells them he intends to travel to Jwahir to be with his biological mother.

As they leave the town, Onye gets the distinct feeling that whatever she is to do in the West, it is going to be violent: “I was Ewu, who would listen to me without the threat of violence?” (218). When they reach the outskirts, the wild camels are still there waiting for them. Each of the group introduces themselves to the camels; Onye notes that when Fanasi does, he bitterly tells the camels that he travels to follow his wife.

That night, Mwita tells Onye “Ifunanya” (220), ancient words that have no direct translation in other languages, and words that only has meaning when spoken by a man to the one he loves. It means something more than love and is only spoken once in a man’s life. “Ifu means to ‘look into,’ ‘n’ means ‘the,’ and anya means ‘eyes.’ The eyes are the window to the soul” (221).