[Stories] The girl with the magic hands (last episode)

uli.
“You mustn’t tell a soul,” Chidera said as they gave their secret handshake.
“Have your magic hands made you a fool, too?” Florence asked. “You know me better than that! You can trust me with your life.”
The four girls painted and painted and talk of the almost finished mural spread beyond their village, miles and miles away. Soon people from other villages and towns were coming to see. Several vendors of mineral, oranges and peanuts even began to hang around, hoping to sell their goods to the lingering audience.
Chidera’s mother’s figurines became something so highly demanded that her mother stopped selling vegetables and sold only the figurines with Chidera’s painting on them. It brought much money into their home. Her father walked about like a proud rooster, his chest out and his mouth blabbing that his daughter was the next great artist.
“Like that Italian man, Michelangelo!” he boasted.
The day that Chidera put the finishing touches on the gorgeous mural, Florence (adorned from head to toe with uli ), Ngozi and Chinwe stood back and gave her applause. Several of the people watching clapped too. Chidera laughed, her cheeks aching with her big smile. The mural had become more than what Mama Ugo asked for. The musical painting had grown a life of its own and the girls couldn’t help but follow it.
Instead of just covering the front of the house, it wrapped all the way around the entire house. Dancing, leaping, vibrant colours that sang out the way Mama Ugo used to sing when she was younger and still had a husband who was alive, the way she still sang as she tended to her small garden when she was alone. The mural made Mama Ugo somewhat of a chief with its beauty.
When the three girls stopped clapping, there was still the sound of clapping. One man in particular, clapped more loudly than everyone else. It was this man’s shiny Mercedes that was parked on the side of the road. Florence had pointed it out to Chidera as he’d pulled in. His driver sat in the driver’s seat. Chidera quickly inspected the man. He had many jewelled rings on his fingers and wore a clean black suit with white stripes and a white hat. His skin was very dark and he looked about the age of her father. He walked up to them with his hands in his pockets.
“I’ve heard a lot about you girls,” he said. His voice was low and very very smooth. Chidera wasn’t afraid of him but he was a wealthy man, so she didn’t trust him. Wealthy men usually just passed by on the road, they rarely stopped in her village. “You are Chidera, right? The one with the magic hands?”
Chidera nodded as the other girls moved next to her.
“I am,” she said. “And these are my friends, Florence, Chinwe and Ngozi. We all made this.”
Mama Ugo came from behind the house where she’d been gardening.
“Why do you disturb my girls,” she said. “They’re trying to work.”
“It looks like they have finished,” he said to Mama Ugo. “And I must say this is the most amazing sight I have ever seen. I heard you girls make the paint from scratch?”
“What do you want, sir?” Mama Ugo said.
“Call me Dr. Boniface,” he said. “I would like to hire these girls to paint my house as they have painted yours.”
Chidera’s eyes grew wide and she took Florence’s hand. Chidera could barely contain herself. This was most wonderful indeed. Chinwe and Ngozi were looking at Mama Ugo.
“I am not their parents,” she said. “You must go ask them for permission.”
The man nodded, “Will you show me where each of these girls live?”
“Have a seat while I finish my gardening. Then I will show you,” Mama Ugo said.
And that is how an eleven-year-old girl who still lived in her father’s house and played in the streets with her friends started her own business.
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There is a saying that we Igbos like to use: nye onya bu nke onye. It means, “a thing of one’s own remains one’s own.” All the paintings that Chidera made, on houses, schools, inside office building, on the inside walls of homes, those will always belong to Chidera. She can always look back and say, “I made that.” No one can ever take them away from her. She had something of value. Not necessarily her paintings, but her magic hands, hands that could create. A talent she always had but only recently discovered.
Chidera, at such a young age, had become an artist who changed her own sad life, brought happiness to her parents, and made her village famous. The flap of a butterfly’s wing can change the weather hundreds of miles away. Chidera was one colourful butterfly. All she needed was that little push in the right direction by the mysteries of the forest.
Chidera is eighteen years old now and preparing to go off to college. As she grew older, her work grew more sophisticated. People come from very far to view it, which can be found all over Igboland now. She has her own art gallery full of her more experimental work in a small hut built next to her house. Nevertheless, at the root of all that she creates is uli.Her parents still work but not nearly as hard as they used to. Chidera and her three partners make enough money to make things very comfortable for their families.
It is because of these girls that many younger girls and even some women in the area had started to perform uli rituals as they did decades ago. People began to know the word. Several men studying art in the universities even began to incorporate it into their own work.
Chidera doesn’t tell many people the story of the day her life changed. That day in the forest. No, she’s not a shy young lady but she is very humble and she is fully aware of what many people would think of her story. The spirits that she encountered were not evil at all but some people can be quite narrow-minded. And what they don’t understand, they often assume is bad.
But one day, Chidera was walking down the road on her way to the market and she passed my porch. It was the day before the New Yam Festival and she must have been going to buy a few last minute items for her mother. Or maybe she was going to meet her friend Florence there. I waved at her.
“Good afternoon, young lady,” I said.
“Good afternoon,” she said, slowing her walk.
She had uli drawings on her face and hands. Already a beautiful young lady, they made her even more beautiful. I asked her about the uli drawings on her face and hands. She pointed to the circle just below her throat.
“This is the moon. Tonight is a full moon, so I am honouring it.”
She pointed to the sun just below it.
“This is the sun, tomorrow will be a sunny day, I hope. For the festival.”
She pointed to the squiggly lines that accentuated her collarbones.
“I put these here because they’re pretty,” she said with a laugh. Then she pointed to the back of her left hand. “This leaf on my hand, it has always been there.”
She looked at me with hesitation. I smiled and nodded at her.
“Go on,” I said with a wink. “Tell me about that one. I’m an old man. Nothing surprises me these days.”
And that is how I learned of Chidera’s story. People get inspired to write, paint, draw, sing, sculpt, dance in many different ways. And there are many types of art. But the one thing that they all have in common is that they are all a sort of magic. Sometimes the magic flows from one’s fingers other times it is transferred to the person who experiences the result. Magic has always worked in mysterious ways.
Who knows? Maybe I have inspired you to draw the tree next to your house. Or the insect that just flew by or the mosquito that bit you yesterday. Start simple. Even the greatest drawings started with one simple line. And that line is like the road; you never know where it will take you.


THE END....

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