Mask~querades Off

“Don’t try it next time” she said to the victim, while they stood and stared.

As a child, I was told the story of the girl who beat up a masquerade. She was Yoruba and reminded me of Moremi, the courageous Queen. It had come at her, flogged her, and she, of course, struck back. They say she also unmasked it.

Eleven days ago, I was she. Flogged, hit, and flogged again for refusing to run away. This time, I know the full story. This one played out like a deja vu- a story I was sure I had heard before. It was faster than the previous author had ever described it, and I was unable to do all I’d imagined, even with the many simulations I had run of such experience several times over in my head before.

I was tired. After hours of walking through familiar streets, I was just eager to find a house with an empty room despite its being over my budget, so I called Nene. “The lodge is really nice, has water and light. Plus you get to have coursemates as neighbours”. I liked the sound of that, so I willed my body to move. I only had to take a bike to the bus stop and call the caretaker, right?

I’m not alright. Thinking back to that day, those moments, I feel sick- cold feet, goosebumps, racy heart. I just want to not remember.

“I’m taking this route because there are masquerades on the road”, the biker had said. It was as though he had read my mind because it’d gotten way longer than a 100 naira trip. The bad road and the bush paths already had me saying a prayer seconds before he mentioned the detour.

I’m taking a break from this piece for a bit because I think I’m about to have a panic attack.

I remember sighting a masquerade some distance away the first time we stopped; I’m sure he did too because he quickly moved us into an open compound. I asked if we were there and he replied, “Yes, this is evergreen”. I was certain he won’t have smaller denominations to give me as my change even as I took out the 500 naira note in my wallet but still, I gave it. He returned it and voiced my thoughts. “Let me go buy airtime or something,” I said as I turned and started walking to a store I had seen earlier.

The next coherent memory I have is of a masquerade running to me with a tree branch cane in its hand while people shouted. Amazing, how I could think of what sort of malnourished tree could have such a tiny branch at that moment even as the said branch rained down on me. Once, twice- then the rage. Lots of people tried getting me away from the masquerade but all I thought of was my need to be closer to it. My hand flew to it as I saw its malnourished cane being taken off of it. Its hand landed on the side of my face, mine, I hope- on its body.

“Give him back his cane so he can flog her as she doesn’t want to run”, someone shouted in Igbo. I knew I should run, but I saw myself taking off my left slippers and lunging at my assailant. In the end, the cane got back in its hand and I was dragged into a store with ugly rubber slippers hanging off thick threads amidst the back and forth. Some men stayed in with me, keeping the burglary proof closed as that masquerade and many others snarled at me from the other side of the bars. I started recording on my phone only to be sneered at by the villagers for doing so. At that moment, I wished to completely alienate myself from the Igbo people and culture, I could understand every word they said and was terrified at their callousness- the children especially. I dialled Victor Onuoha Martins, the first ring, second ring, “Hello-” then I cussed. I remember thinking that I shouldn’t be cussing but that makes me cuss louder. I sounded like a banshee, and just like the cries of a banshee, I was finally heard.

The masquerade that hit me came by the window and stared at me with black sinister eyes. I had at that moment understood why the heroine from my childhood memories unmasked the masquerade. “Take off your mask if you dare”, I yelled at him. My sanity took a break at that moment as I raged. It ate at me that I’d never get to see the face of my assailant. I could pass by the face behind that mask on the streets someday, and it could even hit on me but I wouldn’t recognize it. We could share a joke, laugh and I won’t recognise that it was my assailant. I kept recording even as Victor called back many times and I kept screening the calls because all I could think was, ‘I need to record everything.’ The woman into whose store I had been placed to avoid the masquerades had long panicked, pushing at me to leave. She was visibly terrified of them. On and on it went until finally, the masquerades left and a mother hen came in.

It took less than 30 minutes to get home from there. I sometimes still feel as cornered as I did in those streets I refuse to ever be in again. How do I explain how much more violating it felt to be held by that mother hen and asked if I wanted to unmask a masquerade? She- the one person who when she walked up to me felt like she was someone to lean on because like most African mothers, she was thick and her bosom looked like comfort itself. Yet, as she held my hand and asked me that question, called me devil herself and talked with such rage I thought she might hit me, she still felt like a mother hen. It wasn’t until she finally pushed me out of the last bit of the fight I was clinging to and onto the streets, did I realise that she indeed was a mother hen, just not mine. She who I had let my guard down before, who blew out the fire, only to stab me in the darkness.

I hate that I feel indebted to her. I know all too well, that her pushing me out that stall was the best exit I could’ve possibly asked for as a tigress who had cowered in fear in the end.

While being dragged out of the store by mother hen, the only thing that gladdened my heart was the owner of the stall in a rage saying she would go make a report with the town council and all her goods must be paid for. I still hope within me even as I write, that those masquerades who I’m certain the members of the community know beneath the mask, will at least be made to pay for her damaged goods.

I’ve experienced a handful of traumas in the past but always got through them. This time, after giving it my all to fight back, why am I unable to move past that store I had run into to find solace? Why do I still see the black masquerades clawing at me? Why do I still feel the urge to scream “Unmask yourselves and come at me, you cowards”. I‘d say it’s because I fought. For the first time, in the midst of experiencing trauma, I had fought and lost. Unlike other times when I never fought, I fought, lost and for the life of me, unable to seek a rematch. Now I have to keep fighting to overcome the hurt I finally let myself express.

Yesterday, I restarted my house hunting. While en route, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I was about to get in danger. The place I was going to check was, after all, along the route to my place of damnation. Today, I am here, writing about my experience. After many tomorrows, I hope to be at that place and not panic.