[Stories] THE GIRL WITH THE MAGIC HAND [episode 1]

The Girl with the Magic Hands

By Nnedi Okorafor

The flap of a butterfly's wing could change the weather hundreds of miles away

-A Nigerian proverb

Have you ever seen a painting or a sculpture that made you smile? Brought you to tears? Made you laugh? Or shake with fear? Made you wonder if the artist had been drinking too much beer?

It’s a wonder how merely looking at works of art can cause you to feel such powerful things. As if the artist had cast a magical spell on that piece of canvas or wooden sculpture. What if that artist were to draw on you? Would the spell still work? A girl named Chidera would probably think so.

My name is Nwora Sunday Okafor. However you may call me Periwinkle. I am an old man who has seen many things in my many years because my favorite pastime is to sit on my porch and watch people. There is much you can see if you sit still and watch things. The world in front of my porch is like an on-going painting. A work of art at play. Over the years, I have watched many interesting characters come and go.

There is Florence Mgbafor. This girl thinks she is the most beautiful girl in the village. Probably because her loving parents have told her so since the day she was born. I watch her walk to school each day looking more at the mirror in her hand than the cars on the road. Luckily people driving by seem to know her. Drivers are never surprised to see her walking down the middle of the road, as if she owned it, and easily swerve around her.

Now, Chioma is the tallest woman I have ever seen. She’s tall as those male basketball players in America. Her husband, Bem, is even taller and an albino. Epperi Drewbrass is a stout man who always walks with hunched shoulders as if he was a snake in a past life. Not surprisingly, in this life, he’s a businessman known for committing all types of fraud.

I can go on and on about the people I have seen, greeted and waved at on their way to the market. I’m old, so I’ve seen thousands and know each and every one of them.

But this story is about Chidera. Oh what a miserable child she was. Chidera had the saddest face you could imagine. Her face was so long with sadness that her chin might as well have dragged on the ground. Poor Chidera rarely laughed, though she had friends and did well in school. Miserable children are usually the result of miserable parents. Chidera was no exception.

Her parents were poor though not so poor that they could not afford food, a tiny house (which was closer to being a hut), and Chidera’s schoolbooks and uniform. But even the slightest bit of poorness can become terrible when it is mixed with sadness.

Everyday, her mother would wake up and go to her garden behind the house to see how it was doing. And everyday, she’d come back with a face sadder than the one she’d left with. The tomatoes were dying or the cocoa yams were not sprouting or the peppers were rotting or it had rained too much or it had rained too little or there were worms and beetles attacking everything. She would sell the vegetables she grew from it at the market. Not surprisingly, Chidera’s mother didn’t make much.

Her mother also sold tiny figurines that she carved from wood. She told people that she carved them from a special wood that she could only find deep in the forest during dry season. Chidera’s mother told potential customers that the figurines brought good luck. Her mother actually made the figurines from scraps of wood she found here and there and honestly they weren’t very good at all. Chidera didn’t think they brought good luck either. All she had to do was look at her parents to know this. Nevertheless, her mother was able to sell them regularly for a small price.

Her father was a sour man, his brow always creased and his thick lips always puckered as if he’d been eating lemons. Chidera even thought his breath smelled like limes, for the only things that came from his mouth were bitter complaints.

“What kind of bland rubbish is this?!” he’d shout at every breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Chidera’s mother would always say, in a sad voice, “It is all we can afford.”

Chidera would frown and think, “Why don’t you try to make something good tasting with what we have, daddy?” But she would stay silent. Her father had a bad temper, especially in the morning when he was preparing to go to work.

Chidera tried her best not to cross him. Even at her age, she knew her father did not really like her. Whenever he was angry with her and he thought she was outside where she could not hear him, he’d say things to her mother like, “What is she good for? Nothing. Why couldn’t she at least have been a boy?!”

She was the only child of her mother and father. And no matter how hard she tried, she would never be a boy. When she was lying in her bed in the dark, listening to the crickets and frogs outside, she would wonder, “What’s so bad about me? Maybe I’m not good at anything but I’m not a bad person.”

She wanted so dearly to make her father proud and to make her mother smile. She would drift off to sleep with tears in her eyes and the first thing she did when she awoke was wipe the dried tears away.

Just imagining what it would be like to be Chidera is depressing, no? It’s a tragedy for a mere girl to experience such deep sorrow. But things were about to change for this girl. Oh yes. When things are meant to be, they will. The world always turns and the candle always burns. And Chidera was about to learn that one can get the very things one yearns.

Chapter One

The day that Chidera became strange to her village was the day she came across the two women with three voices. That morning the air smelled especially fresh, as if there were tiny flowers floating through the air. But Chidera didn’t notice this. Her father had just yelled at her and she was trying to make things right. She didn’t mean to spill the plastic pitcher of water. Her elbow had knocked it over.

Her father had been eating his breakfast and he jumped when he heard the water splashing to the floor. He’d sucked his teeth loudly. Chidera could hear her mother sigh and she didn’t have to look at her mother to know that she was also shaking her head, her face heavy with gloom. Her mother had just come in from checking on her garden. The leaves of her tomatoes had been eaten away by hungry grubs during the night.

To be continued... 

Watch out for episode 2