A Fitting Funeral

by Kellyann Zuzulo

Gazing through rheumy eyes at the throngs jostling below him, Beluu stood upright on the dais. He raised his arms, complacency on his features and readiness in his heart.

He had waited many years for this day, for a time to render the response to a challenge the gods had delivered to him so long ago. His purpose derived from misfortune. Everything he did that brought him to this moment was the echo of his beloved Wanda’s death.

“This is truly an auspicious occasion.” Beluu’s voice resonated through the crowd. Their rapt gazes assured him of their child-like devotion. “This is a time to celebrate with a great citizen of our village and to console the imminence of his passing with our admiration and joy. A memorial to our esteemed Ashong.”

At the gesture of Beluu’s outstretched hand, Ashong, who had been sitting on a canvas chair along a row of the village elders, lumbered across the platform to stand next to the ancient shaman.

He nodded to the crowd, waving both hands. A sour smile twisted his thick lips. He was a stout man with the face of a boar, even to the stiff, wiry whiskers that poked out of his upper lip.

The malignant cells that coursed through his body flooded his skin with a yellow tinge, the color of pus hardening in the air. He had less time than he thought.

Beluu watched him closely. This man had plagued Beluu’s existence, his birth had been a scourge. The cancer may now threaten his life, but it had long ago invaded Ashong’s soul. Now was the time that Beluu would exorcise the spirit of his son from this changeling beast.

The crowd emitted a buzzing like locusts primed for the opulence of a ripe harvest. A sheen of communal sweat cast the villagers in dreamy opalescence as they moved and reached and wriggled.

The embroidered colors of their finest Kente cloth had grown opaque in the heat until they seemed like a single writhing organism. No breeze relieved the oppression of the sun. The mingled odors of their bodies invigorated the air with a sharp vinegar scent.

Kume stood a little off from the writhing melee, leaning against the post of a makeshift canopy. Beluu surveyed her over the crowd. He could read the awareness she had of her own beauty in the way she arranged the lithe proportion of her limbs. She glanced down the front of her body at the tan wrap of silk she had bought special for this occasion. Her eyes seemed to appraise the contrast of the material against her skin, which was the shade of alfalfa honey.

Kume fanned herself with a love letter Dede Nunu had written for her, scratched in pencil on thin cardboard and now creased and folded into a convenient triangle. The wait these many months for the result of Dede’s labors had taught her patience. Her hand moved in slow circles over her abdomen.

He was to be her husband and yet had excluded her from the secrets of his workshop. But she knew. She knew that he hammered and pried and sawed into the dawn to complete a commission for Master Ashong at the behest of Beluu. There could be no greater honor. Even if it was for a coffin.

However, while Dede Nunu once had been the prime catch for a young girl of her village, Kume had found a greater achievement. Her index finger moved to the small figure carved in green agate that dropped between her breasts and hung just at her sternum.

Beluu raised his staff of blackthorn in the air and Kume pivoted her gaze to the crest of the hill. This was the signal to Dede Nunu.

The old man’s voice was surprisingly robust. “And now we look to the future to see the form of Master Ashong’s destiny and the shape of our own salvation.”

The crowd had quieted at this sign from their village healer. For six decades, he had mended their spirits and their bodies. Kume’s own grandmother revered him. He had kept their secrets and whispered new ones into their ears.

Jonny William scampered like an ant up the post to perch next to Kume. An emaciated youth who moved like shadow through the town, Jonny was an orphan. Most nights he found refuge alongside the compost pile in Elder Mebembe’s yard. Jonny’s withered leg jostled against Kume as he climbed. She shrugged him off. He smelled of rotting banana peels.

Leaning down, he shook Kume by the shoulder. “You’ll see. You’ll see.” He pointed to the hill. “I seen it. It’s nothing from this world. It’s everything.” He nodded his head, overcome by the exhilaration of the inevitable unveiling.

Kume pushed away his foot, where it roosted on a nail near her shoulder. “Back off, Jonny William. Shut your nonsense.”

Beluu lowered the staff and the thunderous groans of wood on steel reverberated from the other side of the hill. Five mules appeared, straining against the ropes that bound them to a strange and awesome vehicle, like something imagined in childhood and crafted by the ambitions of adulthood.

Dede Nunu led the mules, holding the lead tether aloft and grinning in unrestrained satisfaction. He was not a handsome man, but he was large. The thought of the span of his wide fingers tickled an erotic memory in Kume’s mind. Her lips twitched, but she shook her head slightly. Beluu taught her that there was more than just the body’s pleasures to consider. Was she wrong in the choice she had made? Kume chewed on her bottom lip as she watched.

Straining and creaking over the crest of the hill was a caravan of wooden train cars in miniature. Each one was twice the length of a man, and, indeed, one of the cars, when emptied of its cargo, would bear Ashong beyond life. Until then, it would be the living, glorious memorial that he coveted.

The humming cacophony of the crowd became punctuated with intakes of breath, whistles, and gasps of anguish that such wonders had never been seen before.

Each car appeared to be carved from giant shards of color that could only have been delivered by the gods themselves to the woodland floor.

The first car was a locomotive of blue, bestowed by its divine custodian as a cube of late summer sky. Blue represented the color of spirit and of heaven and the highest attainments of the soul. This vehicle had been whittled and shaped into an elephant, a mammoth among creatures. An upward trumpet of the trunk signified fortitude in life.

The second was a boxcar in emerald, containing an inventory of Ashong’s possessions. Kume flinched to see those noble fittings of a prosperous life ready to be distributed among the people of the valley. Bide your time, Beluee had said. She fidgeted with the agate pendant between her breasts.

The furnishings had been cleared from Ashong’s summer bungalow at the urging of Beluu, who represented Ashong in his dealings with Dede Nunu.

Kume nibbled on a thumb nail as she mentally listed the items of an overstuffed sofa clad in damask, the oval gilded mirror, mahogany end tables, the unwieldy tube of a rolled Persian rug. All these things peeked from the top of the pile, cast-offs to make way for new beginnings.

This boxcar showcased a feat of charity swathed in the green of new life, as though fulfilling the command of the god of spring and generosity.

The third was a yellow gondola car heaped with a wealth of corn cakes and sweet butter. Homage to the god of the fields and offered for the surcease of the hunger of spirit and body of all witnesses.

The fourth was a purple tank car that sloshed with sweet juice from the god of wine, libations proffered to quell sorrow’s thirst and to mute the crowd’s protest, should there be any.

Rich purple, like the mantle of a king, recalled uncommon qualities, the strength of character and good judgment that should mark a man in life.

Despite the sugary draft off this car, Kume’s thoughts were bitter. Ashong had spent all his ripe days squeezing commerce into profit and deserved to drown in liquid tribute such as this.

The final car was the caboose in unblemished white. This offering had been chiseled and sanded into the form of the long-crested hawk. A ghostly and powerful usher, it stood as a symbol for the knowledge gained in life, granted by the god of wisdom. Its presence reverberated with the ‘kik-kik-kik-kik-keee’ that was the call of the hawk and the sound of wheel on rail.

Kume’s heart seized with sudden superstitious fear at the sight of the final car. But she recalled her decision and rested her fingers cautiously on her swollen belly.

Beluu’s gaze found Kume as the procession drew up along the crest of the hill. She stood up straight, absorbed by the play of color and promise that refracted off the cargo carrier-cum-coffin. The fan forgotten, her arms fell to her sides. Beluu could see the lust for achievement that passed through her stare. She was impressed, as he knew she would be. He willed her to look at him. When she found his gaze, he mouthed the words, It is time.

Kume looked once more at the carven white hearse, her fingers played over the slender pedestal of her neck and imagined, just for an instant, the other choice she could make. Life with Dede would be satisfying. The wife of a widely respected village craftsman would be guaranteed select cuts from the butcher, impractical white curtains on the windows, clothes mailed in brown paper packages from the city, perhaps even a wet nurse for the half dozen children that would be expected.

But the meager comfort of being Dede’s wife paled in comparison to the inheritance from Ashong. She would not have to bear his diseased breath for long. Kume rubbed the charm at her breasts and began to move through the crowd toward Beluu and Ashong.

Dede Nunu left his position next to the lead mule when he could not find Kume in the crowd. He jutted the round prominence of his chin before him as he shouldered through the crowd, straining to catch a glimpse of Kume.

“Kume! Kume!” Dede called to her when he saw her walking past him toward the dais. He grabbed her arm at the elbow before she noticed him.

Roused from her focus on Ashong, Kume looked at him through glazed eyes. “Oh. Dede. What do you want?”

“Where are you going? I was searching for you.”

She glanced up at Beluu, who was standing and facing Ashong. They seemed to be arguing. “Go back to your tools, Dede. I can’t talk now.”

“What? But this is all for us. I did this for you. For us.” He swept his arm back along the lines of the horizon, where the train sat idling. Desperation seeped into his plea as though he smelled the faint odor of rejection in Kume’s exhalation. “Just look, Kume, look!“

“I saw it, Dede.” Her voice was tight, her gaze sweeping to the dais.

Dede grabbed Kume by the shoulders. “The memory of each of us is captured by what we do. Look! Look what I have done for our children, for the family we’ll have….” He dropped his arm to touch Kume’s belly and she stepped back from him. “…soon.”

“Yes, Dede, you made a coffin.” Kume looked again beyond Dede at the sharp colors in the waning afternoon. “And when people die, it is you they will remember.” She laughed and ran two fingers along his cheek.

“Don’t look so forlorn, Dede. It’s not your child. I carry Ashong’s heir.” Kume stepped pulled her elbow from Dede’s loose grip. She left his standing there, his jaw gaping like a fish caught on a hook and walked toward the steps of the dais.

On the dais, Ashong watched the cavalcade of his life’s containers chug by without regard for his presence. The air around him seemed to have evaporated. His mouth opened and closed in deep gulps. He reached out and grabbed the blue-and-gray-striped satin of Beluu’s kaftan, steadying himself even has he dug his fingers into the older man’s forearm.

“What…what is the meaning of this, Beluu?” The words rasped from Ashong’s suddenly parched throat. A sharp burn started in his left shoulder and meandered like lava down his arm.

Beluu smiled, moving his eyes across the undulating crowd, now jostling forward in joy and incredulity, hands out, eyes devouring the exorbitant gifts.

“What do you mean, Master Ashong?”

“I gave you authority for the expenditures of this project…” He pulled a white square of silk from the breast pocket of his gray linen tunic and mopped his forehead.

“Is it not splendid, Kofi?”

Ashong was startled by the use of his first name. He had not heard it spoken since he was a boy.

“You mock me, old man. I wanted a noble memorial.” Ashong stabbed Beluu in the chest with a fat finger. “You have outfitted a real funeral. I am not dead yet! I can’t afford this. I’ll be ruined.” His eyes felt hard and swollen as though he was deprived of oxygen.

“You exaggerate, Kofi.” Beluu’s eyes were black and unblinking as he whispered. “You always exaggerate your own importance, your place in the world, your burden of responsibility…”

Beluu flicked his fingers toward Kume who had reached the dais and now slid into place in front of the shaman. “There is plenty of money left, and it has been placed into a trust.”

Growing rage pounded blood into Ashong’s face. “You can’t do that. You had a responsibility to me.”

“What greater responsibility is there than of a father to a son.”

“What?” Ashong shifted his gaze to Kume, noticing her for the first time and not understanding. “What is she doing here? She’s a whore. You can’t believe what she says.”

“Yes, Kofi, I can. I sent her to you. And she bears the talisman of your family around her neck. A talisman that you gave her in a rutting moment of disregard.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” Ashong grabbed the front of Beluu’s smooth tunic in his clenched fist. His breath burned his throat.

Beluu reached the bony tendrils of his fingers between Kume’s breasts and lifted the green charm. “This talisman, the crouching leopard, has been the symbol of my family for countless ages. And you threw it away.

“Because of you, my wife is dead. But you were just a baby. How could I blame you? So I decided to watch you. I needed to know if there was some evil at work in you.”

Air drained from Ashong’s lungs. Vision became a mass of prismatic colors as though everything shattered. Ashong fell to his knees on the platform. The enthusiasm of the villagers became a muffled thudding in his head. The lava seared his shoulder, his chest.

Beluu crouched next to Ashong. A note of regret crept into Beluu’s lowered voice. “I vowed to support you as long as your mother’s family kept me a secret from you. I gave you every opportunity to show me the spark of your spirit. But your whole life, you have been driven by the force of your greed and desire. You have given your consideration to nothing in your life, Kofi. Now, consider this!”

Beluu rose quickly to his feet and lifted his blackthorn staff. Ashong craned his neck to watch the old man.

“Today, there is only one death…the death of your troubles. This train will carry them away. Brother Ashong redeems the promise of his birth.”

He called out unfamiliar words to the sky, which had darkened with swirling cumuli. A stiff wind blew his robes out behind him. “Let this train take away your cares. Push them away.”

The grasping, groping crowd moved as one massive body writhing alongside each car and behind the caboose, pushing and straining. Several grasping arms pulled the things that had populated Ashong’s summer house out of the green car. More followed. The horde of his prosperity tumbled and thudded alongside the tracks in colorful chunks that were quickly carted away.

Several children scampered along the top of the yellow car, tossing down corn cakes before leaping to the ground.

Jonny William ran from car to car, yanking items and tossing them down to villagers like a triumphant invader. After drinking his fill from a chink in the purple car, his teeth and lips were stained violet and he tottered on unsteady feet like a happy satyr.

A hum and tremor of human emotion engulfed the train in a fluid layer of longing. The rising vibrato coursed into and around each car of the train. Ashong covered his ears.

The train began to shudder and glimmer. Only Ashong saw the belch of black smoke from the upheld trunk of the blue locomotive. Only Ashong heard a rustling arise from the hawk at the rear of the train.

Beluu threw up both of his arms and lifted his face to the sky. A shrill ululation pierced the air like tears on the wind. The crowd was exhilarated. Kik-kik-kik-kik-keeee filled the valley as the memorial train inched forward.

Despite being the benefactor of the feast, Ashong was forgotten on the dais. If anyone had watched him, they would have seen his eyes widen in horror as he perceived great wings splinter from the rectangular sides of the caboose and spread outward in a foamy white eruption.

There was a sound like trees falling in a primeval forest and the elephant was charging forward. Seemingly propelled by the velocity of collective exuberance, the leviathan wraith took wing.

Ashong leaned on one knee. All his worldly possessions were flying away from him. He squinted against the sun to look up into Beluu’s impassive face.

Spittle settled along Ashong’s lower lip as he spoke in a husky voice. “You betrayed me.”

Beluu slowly shook his head. “I offer you redemption. Ride your train away from this place. Or you can stay and live a short, obscure life in piety for your sins, recompense for an unborn child and a dead mother.”

Ashong groaned a long steady growl that was like bark shredding from a tree. To his eyes, the funeral procession careened into the atmosphere, accelerating then veering back over the dais. He heaved himself up in a final desperate breath. Beluu stepped out of his way.

With a final surge, Ashong pushed Kume from the platform as he grabbed at the departing hawk caboose. “It’s mine,” he screamed.

Clutching his chest, Ashong wailed in desolation as life itself was ripped out his body, following the trail of the imagined celestial train.

On the ground, people continued to swarm over the stalled wooden cars. Kume lay prone in the dirt, hugging her abdomen. Dede found her there and cradled her head in his lap, smoothing her hair.

Beluu didn’t move. His eyes took in the prostrate form of Ashong on the dais and the vanishing specter of his life misting into the clouds. A small figment of breath leaked from Ashong’s body and trickled in shimmering vapor to the ground where it dribbled against Kume. A new son would rise.

The exorcism was complete. The soul that should have been Beluu’s son survived. Beluu lowered his eyes and whispered a prayer of thanks. His murmured words were the same he had spoken at his wife’s side all those years ago. “Death is always a new beginning.”