The Pilate Guilt

Chapter 1

CHAPTER -1-

Although the drumbeats are faint, Adaku can still hear them where she sits dusting talcum powder onto her face. She hums excitedly as she applies sticky lip-gloss on her full pink lips. Smoothing her hands over the red maxi gown cascading down soft, ample curves, she twirls, admires herself in her mother's broken mirror before slipping out of her room.

Nneoma casts keen eyes on her daughter as she walks out of the room she shares with her younger sisters, Chioma, 19 and Nwannedimma, 17. She never ceases to be amazed at the great beauty that God bestowed on her first daughter and prays this beauty and innocence will not be compromised, especially this Christmas season when young, unsuspecting girls fall prey to male predators.

Adaku's footsteps are hurried as she makes her way to Attaka Town Square, home of the biggest market in the town. As she draws near to the square, the drumbeats amplify, coalescing with the crazed cheering from the crowd gathered to watch the yearly wrestling match held by most of the villages in their town. Attaka is made up of seven villages: Umuagwu, Ekenta, Isipiama, Adaigwe, Eziala, Okenwo, and Umunta. The first five villages are separated from Okenwo and Umunta by a wide stretch of land and forests which make it difficult for the indigenes in those villages to share common interests like the wrestling match with the other five villages.

Adaku's gown is carefully pulled around her so it doesn't gather dust. The care put into looking good is not so much for the event but for Wale Ogunjobi, the handsome stranger who has recently arrived at their village with her friend Nnamdi Ogbuefi. She first met Wale at the motor park where she had gone to buy fairly-used clothes from her mother's friend, Mama Charity. Since Wale saw her seven days earlier, he had pursued her with the relentlessness of an alley cat until she felt herself falling for his charms.

The weather is so hot that she plucks out the white embroidered handkerchief Wale gave her on their second date, four days after he arrived. As she mops her face and walks towards the shade under the large Udara tree where most of the crowd has gathered for the wrestling contest, she feels many male eyes turning to look at her with undisguised admiration and lust. Catcalls follow, but she pointedly ignores them and only responds to greetings from friends.

The main attraction of the event is not always the wrestlers that come to show off their prowess but the young women and men that come to see and be seen. Many young men that come from the city are usually the toast of the day and the young girls pull the stops in their dressing to attract possible suitors. Mothers are on their knees at this time of the year praying to God to protect their daughters from deceivers while admonishing them to be careful and avoid possible pregnancies which could only make them 'second-hand market' or worse. The festivities, decorations, and display of wealth seen at Christmas time are usually entertaining, but those things also pose dangers to the youth―especially females―as they are sometimes drawn into experiences they cannot extricate themselves from. Adaku has since learned this, and she knows better than to allow herself become consumed by material offerings from seemingly wealthy boys. She sighs sadly as she remembers Erimma, the lovely young lady who used to be the toast of Umuagwu village. Erimma was so beautiful that every man who set eyes on her was automatically cast under her spell. Sadly, the charms of a stranger from Okenwo village swept Erimma off her feet and left her pregnant. All hell broke loose when the young man denied any part in her predicament. Her father had been so angry that he threw her out of the house and was only stopped from performing the dreaded Ikwo Aka ritual when his second wife, Erimma's mother, put up a fierce fight.

Adaku's mind strays to another time before the civil war when the terrible Ikwo Aka ritual ended in a gruesome murder. She was very young then, but the story of Ugoeze's tragic death still haunts their village. After that experience, parents ceased to perform the Ikwo Aka ritual on their fallen daughters. The culprit is either made to marry the girl or the girl is left with the choice to marry any of the numerous old men looking for 'young blood' to renew their tired and creaky bones. To ward off shame, many of these girls are always ready to comply, so while a few lucky ones go ahead to marry the father of their unborn baby, others become wives to men old enough to be their fathers. The unlucky ones, daunted with the scary prospect of raising their child without any help become chattels to unscrupulous men.