I go to the stream on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Mama makes it crystal clear. Today she reminds me of my duty and places a piece of rag in my hands. I squeeze my face like a child taking lime for the first time. Next to me is a yellow keg that has been in the house for over ten years. Its body has been washed by excessive use, and it seems to be crying for a replacement, but Mama is the kind of woman who would wait for it to break before she buys another. “Why am I the one always going to the stream?” I complain as I yank the keg from the floor. 

“Abi you don’t want to eat?” is her reply. Sullenly, I grumble and walk out of the backyard muttering bitter complaints of how my sister is never asked to go fetch water. “Every time ‘Nnene do this, Nnene do that.’” 

In my melancholy state, I avoid greetings from friends, and I hear one woman say “This girl cannot even greet”. She expects me to realise my err, walk up to her, kneel before her, and chant greetings to her, but I just walk past.

The cool breeze from the stream welcomes me even before I get there. It fills my lungs and chases away my anger. I pull my face together and walk down the steep path that leads to the bank of the stream. On getting there, I realise I am the only one. Mama sef. 

I dip my leg into the coarse sand, and the sole of my feet accepts its coolness. I open the lid of the keg and walk into the river, filling the keg up. I lift it up from the water, then carry it back to the bank where I can place it on my head.

I am distracted by a voice. Someone is singing, and beautifully. The stream helps to propagate the sound and it travels to me. His tone is mellifluous. The melody of the song blends in, and I see myself moving towards the source of the sound. Maybe I missed it when I said I was here alone. 

The sand is light beneath my legs, and I feel I am floating on clouds. As I walk further, I hear the voice clearly. I can’t decipher the language, but irrespective of language, good music pulls. 

His back is turned away from me and he seems lost in what he is singing. I can only see his black, curly hair, and his bare back which is stuffed with hard muscles. He is sitting, so I don’t get to see much of him. I stand behind him and wait until the song is over, then, I clap. 

“That was so good,” I say. 

He turns his head so fast to look at me. For the few seconds I see him, he looks nothing like the village boys in this town. His nose is specially sculpted into a Greek, pointy nose, and the beauty in his eyes is conspicuous. He doesn’t say a word to me, instead, he dives into the river. Then, I see his tail. I stand unblinking, trying to process what happened before my eyes. I gape and place my hands on my mouth, and I feel blood drain out of my skin. For a moment, I am transfixed, then I think of one million and one things I can do. Should I run away and tell the villagers that I had seen a mermaid? Should I run straight to Mama and tell her of my encounter? Or should I beg him to come back? I do the latter. 

“Please,” I shout into the stream, “come back. I promise not to do anything stupid. You sang so beautifully. Please, can I see you?” I wait for a response or for him to resurface, but all I see is the still stream. I beg some more and wait until the sun begins to come out. Defeated, I carry my keg in silence and walk back home. 

Mama asks me why I took so long and rants about how lazy I am. I say nothing to her and she is baffled. If I tell her I found a man with a tail in the stream, she will stop me from going to fetch water. She gives me a look before she goes off to the kitchen. As I eat, I pick my food, and I think of a man with a tail.

It’s Friday, another day to fetch water from the stream. Before Mama comes out to remind me what to do, I take up my piece of rag and the washed keg. I double my steps in anticipation. Yesterday was possibly a bad day for him. I hope he turns up today. I don’t even fill the keg when I get there. I shout for him to come up again, promising not to bite. I sit and wait, telling him I won’t leave until he comes out. He doesn’t come out. 

I don’t give up. Mama lifts up her brows in suspicion seeing my eagerness to do what I despise. Before she wakes up in the morning, all the drums are filled up. She is tired of talking, so she keeps shut.She bars me from going out with my keg, but as the water starts to dry out, she has no other option but to let me go. 

I won’t give up on him, either. Before dawn breaks, I wait and call out his name, begging for just one word, then he can go back. I am about to leave in another defeat when the water begins to bubble. In slow strides, he comes out of the water. 

“You don’t seem to give up.”

His voice is heavenly, clear, and crisp. It cuts through my soul, and I can feel it tugging my heart. Now he is in front of me, I am speechless. I stand like a gargoyle as I look at him, drinking up his appearance. His tail is hidden in the water, but I can see the red shade of it. His hands are strongly built, and his jawline is at a perfect angle, covered with stubble that adds to his magnificence.

The environment is oblivious to me that all I see is him. I open my mouth but all that comes out is silence.

“I understand you are surprised. I, too, am.” 

I find one word and it is a question. “Concerning?”

“Seeing another creature except my kind. This is the first time I am coming to the surface.”

My cheeks get hot for no reason. “I couldn’t resist your voice. It was so beautiful. What song is that?”

“A common song in my world.”

I have so many questions to ask. I forget about Mama and place the keg aside. “So, you are a Papi Wata?”

He guffaws, and I get to see that his teeth are as polished as the pearls around his neck. “What is a ‘Papi Wata’?” It takes time for me to recover and remember that he asked a question. “It is a term used to describe your people; we call the women Mami Wata. I didn’t even believe in the existence of humans with tails. It is a controversial thing in our world. Some believe; others don’t.”

“Well, now you do.”

“I’m Nnene,” I say and stretch out my hands. He takes it and gives me a handshake. His hands are so cold that I fear he has no blood in them. “I am Kaleo,” he replies, “kay-low.”

“Kaylow,” I repeat.

“And please,” he adds, “none of your people should be aware of my existence. If you want to see me again, come alone, and be watchful.” I nod and he smirks. “Come, let me show you a place.”

He swims as I walk until we get to the end of the stream. There is a little cave at the corner, hidden from the rest of the world. “Welcome to my abode, Nnene.”

I return even on days when I don’t have to fetch water. He lets me touch his tail and I caress it. It is soft and leathery, and the fins at the bottom are endowed with pearls. He tells me everything about his world and its beauty, and I tell him the little I know about mine. Mama’s suspicions unclad. She is in the kitchen when I go to pick up our washed keg. As she adjusts the firewood, her eyes drill into my soul. “You’re going to fetch water.”

It is a question. 

“Yes. You asked me to fetch water.”

“But you seem to enjoy doing it now.”

“If I don’t fetch water, you will complain; if I fetch, you will still complain. Mama, should I kill myself for you?”

She lets me go, but I doubt it is over. Kaleo gives me a pearl when I get to the cave. It is beautiful like the one he wears. It glistens in the dark, and as I touch it, I feel like I am glowing, too. He wants to place itaround my neck, but I refuse, knowing the kind of mother I have. Instead, he plants it in my palms and I shove it down the throat of my pocket. I wear the pearl only at night when everyone is fast asleep. I put my hands on the pearl as I turn to the other side of the bed, and dream of him. 

The cave is now my home. I lie on Kaleo’s chest as he tells me everything. Listening to his heartbeat, I turn to him. “Are there Mami Watas in your kingdom? Like fine, curvy ones who wear clams around their breasts?”

He, too, has joined in calling mermaids and mermen—that’s how they call it in their kingdom—Mami Watas and Papi Watas. He laughs whenever I say it, so he laughs now. “Yes, there are Mami Watas in my kingdom. There are beautiful ones, too.” Jealousy pinches me, but I don’t let it get to my tone. “I guess you are married to one of them, seeing how handsome you are.” His chortles fill my tummy with butterflies. He sits up and takes my hands, caressing them. “I am in love with you, Nnene.”

My stomach does the flipping. I can’t think, I can’t move, and I can’t talk. He senses my discomfort and goes on to say: “Is everything all right? I know I should not have said that, we don’t belong in the same universe. You, maybe, have someone in yours, don’t you?”

I shake my head and laugh, and as I laugh, tears slide down from my eyes. Happy tears, I will say. Happy, happy tears. “No, no,” I said immediately. “I am only surprised that you’ll be in love with me when Mami Watas are hard to resist. I’m just ordinary.” He kisses my knuckle. “Not to me.” His kiss travels up from my knuckles to my lips. He is my first kiss—a Papi Wata (oops, a merman!). I close my eyes and accept him. As I wear the pearl in the middle of the night, I imagine him kissing me. My sister pokes me in the rib. “Who gave you that necklace?” she asks; her tone is groggy from sleep. 

“Someone.” She doesn’t see my smile.

“It’s beautiful. It is definitely not these village boys,” she says as she tries to take a good look at it. 

“Mama shouldn’t know, abeg.” 

She doesn’t reply to that. “When do I get to see him? Is he fine? Who is he?”

I look at the ceiling and my eyes are stuck at the rickety fan rotating in slow motion. “Oh, he is out of this world, Kele.”

~~~

“Can I be a Mami Wata?” I ask him. I have to be able to travel to his world; to breathe underwater.   

He touches the bridge of my nose with his index finger. “You can be anything you want. Except for a Mami Wata. Besides, I like you with legs.”

Our hands are interwoven, and for a while, we stay in the sun and listen to the water talk. I listen to his heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest. And I tell myself he is all I need.

“Jesussss!!!” a voice says behind me. My heart palpitates. Adrenaline rushes down my spine as realisation dawns on me. Mama. 

She is standing at the mouth of the cave with an aghast look. It looks like blood drains from her skin. Her hands are on her head, and she wrenches off the scarf she tied earlier. She screams so loud that the birds around the bank fly away in fright. 

“I am dead, I am dead,” she keeps on saying. Kaleo looks at me and mutters a “sorry” to me. He kisses the bridge of my nose, places a pearl in my hand, and dives into the water. I know this is the last time I will see him. 

I sit on the stone, place my head in my hands, and weep. I don’t know why I cry.

“I knew it,” she says. “I knew that something was calling you to the stream. My child has been possessed by a Mami Wata. Those devils!” How do I tell her that she got it all wrong? She comes to me and takes my hands. “My child o. My child has been taken by these heartless people. Their evil spirit is now in you. Rebuke it, rebuke it.” She drags me from the stone and pulls me up. “I have to take you to the church o. The pastor can break all the connections you’ve had with your spiritual husband. God forbid o. No wonder you are always coming here. God, come and save me from this mess. Kele told me you were following a man around the village, and I didn’t know it was not just a man.”

I don’t remember much except being dragged across the village, my skin mixing with the red earth. I don’t think of anything except Kaleo and his red tail. Will I ever see him again? My Papi Wata? I don’t know when I get to the church. A man wearing an oversized jacket with a big bible under his arms smiles at Mama as she narrates all that she saw. In between her narration, he replies with words that are inexplicable and then shakes his head. The name of his church seems funny to me. He should be a fake prophet, but that doesn’t concern Mama. Anyone who wears a suit with a bible is a pastor—a pastor who can set me free from Kaleo. 

The man tries to touch my head, but I shy away from his touch. He laughs. “You think you can stop me, you evil spirit?” I don’t reply to him, so he turns to Mama. “I will need my backup prayer warriors to help deliver her. The spirit in her is too strong.” Mama looks like she wants to cry. She nods. “Okay, okay. My daughter will be fine after, abi?”

“After the cleansing, yes.”

I don’t know what “cleansing” entails until I see two women and a man walking into the church with koboko in one of their hands and a bottle of anointing oil in another. Fear grips me. They grab me, lash me, and drain bottles of oil all over me. I cry out in pain as the cudgels land on all parts of my body. 

“Please, leave me alone. I did nothing wrong.” My voice is strained from shouting. 

The pastor turns to Mama. “That is what the spirit would say.” Mama nods fervently. I lie on the floor helpless, and Mama who is supposed to come to my aid shouts “Amen” to all the pastor says, keying too, in the prayer. 

They try to “flog out the evil spirit away from me”, but deep down my pocket lies Kaleo’s pearl, at the bottom of my Ghana-must-go bag at home lies the pearl necklace he gave to me, and deep down my heart lies Kaleo.

BIOGRAPHY

Onyinyechi Ndukaire is a writer from Lagos, Nigeria. Her works have been published in Brittle Paper, Isonomia Quarterly, NgigaReview, and Monday Microfiction Magazine. If she isn’t writing or reading a book, she is head-bent in an article on Wikipedia or Scrabbling, or most likely, contemplating a new story idea.