Of Works and Workshops of the Devil

Words by Ibrahim Babátúndé Ibrahim 

Art by Kaci Ellison

The sun is long gone. A bright moon and a hundred shiny dots light up the night sky. Occasionally, thick clouds move over the moon and darken everything in its absence, but it’s only seconds before they drift away each time, making the villagers appreciate its silvery glow even more. 

Àdìsá reclines on a mat, balanced on one arm. An àdìrẹ wrapper around his waist leaves his hairy chest and potbelly bare. Most of his face is hidden behind a thick beard, sideburns and bushy hair. He picks his teeth with a short broomstick as he enjoys the cool breeze of the night lightly coursing over his tall frame. Every now and then, he whisks flying insects away with a frantic wave of his hand, muttering curses beneath his breath.

The half-door on the house behind him creaks and swings open. From the darkness behind it, his wife, Àmọ̀pé, emerges, carrying a clay oil lamp and swaying elegantly in her tall and slim figure, muttering the Olúronbí song to herself. The beads around her ankle shake with every step. Her face, fair-complexioned, is lit up by the flame on her lamp as it dances to the night’s breeze, at times dimming almost to the point of going out. She is wearing a colorful blouse and wrapper that matches her skin tone almost to perfection.

“Olúkálukú jẹ̀jé̩ ewúré̩, ewúré̩, ewúré̩,

“Olúkálukú jẹ̀jé̩ àgùntàn, àgùntàn bọ̀lọ̀jọ̀

“Olúronbí jẹ̀jé̩ ọmọ'rẹ, ọmọ' ré̩ apọ́nbí epo

“Olúronbí ò, join join, Ìrókò join join.”1 

Àdìsá’s eyes journey with her from the half-door as she makes her way to the shed where their daughter, Kíké̩, is washing dishes. She drops the lamp beside another in front of Kíké̩ as the little girl joins in the singing, then she picks a small piece of wood lying on the ground. She goes over to a small fire burning close to the shed. Still singing the Olúronbí song, she stokes the fire until it crackles and spits a few sparks. 

“Màámi,” the little girl calls, standing straight and wiping her wet palms against the black wrapper folded across her chest.

“Yes, my daughter,” her mother answers.

“I was just thinking how wicked the Ìrókò is,'' the girl says, her arms akimbo on her plump figure. “Taking Olúronbí’s child like that instead of all the goodies she brought. It is not fair. I mean, how did Elédùmarè even allow that to happen?”

“Do you remember the moral of the story, my daughter?”

“Yes, Màámi.”

“What is it?”

“It is that we must not make promises we cannot keep.” Her tone registers a reluctance that suggests she still feels the Ìrókò was unfair.

“Good,” says her mother, coming into the shed and dropping the wood to the ground. “Others promised goats, sheep, and farm harvest. Olúronbí promised her child and so she had to give the child. Elédùmarè is a just god. You should always remember that.”

The girl nods. Her mother senses she’s not satisfied with the explanation and pulls her close, looking down into her eyes. “May we never find ourselves in situations where we’ll have to make terrible choices.”

“Àṣẹ!” the little girl responds to the prayer. 

Àdìsá follows the exchange in silence. He rarely admits openly, but he has such pride in these two.

He allows his gaze to travel back to the side of the house where his son, Ìgè, is starting to empty cocoa seeds from a cloth sack onto a paved platform.

“Will you stop that!?” he screams, jumping to a sitting position. The suddenness startles everyone, including the livestock—six goats, a cock, a mother hen and her newly hatched chicks—nestling along the compound’s dwarf fence of dried palm fronds. The cock flaps its wings and cackles in fright, and the hen runs a circle around her chicks. The boy springs erect. 

“Did you sweep that place!?” Àdìsá’s voice is even louder. 

The boy’s body is transfixed in a blue, sleeveless bùbá and matching ṣòkòtò pémpé that stops just above his knees. There is a scrape wound below one kneecap.

“Answer me, you useless boy!” 

“He did not,” offers Àmọ̀pé with a hint of mockery. “He cannot hold a broom. He thinks it’s only meant for girls.”

“How joyful it is for one’s son to resemble him,” Àdìsá says with his face to the sky. “This one, only Elédùmarè knows where his mother brought him from. I don’t.”

“Eh ehn o!” Àmọ̀pé returns, vividly agitated. “What is the meaning of that?”

“Me I don’t know o.”

“You better not know. You don’t know where I brought a boy black like the back of my cooking pot and long like a tree.”

Àdìsá turns his head to face away from her.

“Everybody else thinks he’s a spitting image of you, but you don’t know. You must not know where I brought his sister that is fair, short and chubby from either.”

“Of course, I do. Kíké̩lọmọ is my daughter,” he turns his head back to respond.

“Of course, she is. The good child, and the good child only is always the father’s.”

Àdìsá ignores Àmọ̀pé and turns to address the rigid figure of his son. “Before you contaminate my harvest, get a broom now and sweep that place.”

The boy murmurs something, not loud enough for anyone’s ears.

“What did you say?” his father asks angrily.

“I did not say anything o,” he responds and advances towards the shed where his mother is rinsing plates passed to her by his sister. He reaches for a broom leaning on one of its pillars. As he turns to leave, he hears Kíké̩ chuckle and shoots her a mean look over his shoulder. His eyes meet his mother’s, standing behind her girl and eyeing him all over, coldly. He flinches and hurries away. 

“That’s why you’ve spent four years in school but still can neither read nor write,” she shoots after him. “Useless boy!”

She turns to her daughter who is handing her the last of the pots for rinsing. She takes the pot and dips it into a big calabash of used water.

“Màámi,” her daughter calls. 

“Yes, my daughter.”

“I hope you’re still reading to me tonight.”

“Of course. When we’re done here, you’ll go over to your grandfather’s library and bring me whatever you want me to read.”

Kíké̩’s round face melts into a gap-toothed smile as wide as her mother’s. “Thank you, Màámi.”

Only a handful of the villagers can read; most of them are young students who attend the white man’s school. Àmọ̀pé has never been to this school but she’s one of those few. Her father-in-law was a widely-traveled man who himself learned in his old age. He had been disappointed his son refused to be taught but was pleased his daughter in-law was willing. His dying wish was that his grandchildren be sent to school. 

Àdìsá and Àmọ̀pé had waited a long time before finally bearing children, and like Olúronbí in the folktale, Àmọ̀pé had been everywhere in search of help. When she eventually got pregnant after more than fifteen dry years, she couldn’t tell which of the many gods she called on had heard her prayers. She could hardly even remember all the promises she made to these gods. Whenever her first child, Ìgè, erred or behaved as if he was possessed like he often did, it terrified her to know it could be any of the gods haunting her. 

So even though Àdìsá had been reluctant at first, when the missionaries visited and told them about a new god that could save her from the past, she had convinced him to let them enroll Ìgè in the missionary school. Ìgè was twelve. Two years after, his three-year younger sister was also enrolled. She had since joined him in the same class because he hadn’t progressed from the point he was since she enrolled. 

Parents of other kids would often march angrily to the house to scream their heads off at Àmọ̀pé, claiming Ìgè had bullied their children and taken away their food. One only just left that evening. She came cursing shortly after the family finished eating dinner, the smell of ewédú and ọbé̩-ata still heavy in the air. The commotion that followed is the reason Kíké̩ is only just doing the dishes.

“I will withdraw you from that school and send you to Ilé-Kéwú,” Àmọ̀pé had threatened the boy after the angry woman left, frustrated that her husband hardly contributed to the scolding. He had washed his hands off his dish and walked away into the house, only re-emerging after the woman had left. 

Àmọ̀pé has heard stories of Ilé-Kéwú, Quranic schools where the teachers are as famous for their whips as they are for their teaching. If his father will not discipline him, Ilé-Kéwú will, she thought. 

As she walks past the boy now with a burning lamp in one hand and a dripping wet pot in the other, she rolls her eyes at him. Bending towards the ground and swiping the broom across the paved platform, he senses her stare and turns so his back is to her. She hisses loudly and continues towards the half-door.

Àdìsá, again, springs to a sitting position on his mat. “What have I done to deserve hisses now, ehn?”

“It wasn’t for you,” Àmọ̀pé replies without looking back. “But since you claimed it, it’s because you encourage your son to be unmannered and unserious in school.”

Àdìsá flicks away his tooth-pick, smacks his palms rhythmically and droops the sides of his mouth, “Óga ò2 . How does that concern me? Does he not have his own name?”

Àmọ̀pé disappears indoors without a response. 

Kíké̩ approaches with stacked calabashes on one arm and a clay pot hanging from the tips of her fingers on the other, all dripping wet. She chuckles as she walks past in obvious jest of her brother and father.

“Is it me you’re laughing at?” Àdìsá barks angrily.

She bends her knees slightly and quickens her pace, then breaks into a race when she sees her brother turn and charge at her.

Àmọ̀pé appears from behind the half-door just then, making the boy stop in his tracks and retreat to his task of spreading cocoa seeds.

“Eh ehn,” Àmọ̀pé says as she pulls her frightened daughter towards her. “So, you’re going to bring your bullying from school, beat up my daughter, and break my cooking wares?”

The boy shrugs.

“It is that Ilé-Kéwú that you will end up, so that they can help me correct your head.”

The boy shrugs again. 

“Your sister will become an alákọ̀wé3. You can become a mu’alim4, or alfa5, or shehu6. I don’t care.”

Another shrug. 

His father chuckles and settles back on one arm. 

Kíké̩ peels away from her mother, kicks open the half-door and disappears inside.

“Take the lamp I left inside and go get the book ehn,” Àmọ̀pé says after her. “I’ll wait for you by the fire.”

A goat bleats loudly and two others respond just as loud. Ìgè picks a stone and throws it in their direction. It flies over them and over the fence.

“Alfa Ìgè,” Àdìsá says with a hint of sarcasm. 

“I prefer Mu’alim,” the boy responds in a low tone, stooping into a squat to continue his work.

Àmọ̀pé hisses and settles down on a heap of sand by the fire.

“Only snakes hiss this much, Àmọ̀pé.”

“Ehn, maybe I’m a snake. For wanting our children to go to school and have a good future, I’m a snake.”

“And who told you having a good future must be by the white man’s way? Did I go to school? Am I comfortable or not?” He holds his arms out by his sides with his palms open, then continues. “Have you forgotten that it is this same school that made Bàbá abandon his farms, and if I didn’t take them over, he would have died poor?”

Àmọ̀pé starts to say something, then stops.

Her husband goes on, “Is it not the same school that was feeding his head strange things that made him start thinking like someone who was mad?”

“It is to you that he seemed mad. Bàbá had a beautiful mind and could see the future through his books.”

“Books are not Ifá7. They cannot tell anyone the future. All they do is confuse the poor children that we leave at the white people’s mercy.”

Kíké̩ is returning from the small hut that stands beside the big house. It is the house her father grew up in. Before he built the much bigger one with smoother and higher clay walls beside it, it was the only structure in the entire compound. Her grandfather spent his last days in there with his books. Now his body rests beneath the paved platform where Ìgè is spreading cocoa seeds while the hut continues to house the books.

Kíké̩ can hear her parents’ argument. She shakes her head, ignores her father, and goes to sit on a lower heap of sand by her mother. She hands her a small dog-eared book and sat the lamp down at her feet.

“What’s the title of this one?” Àmọ̀pé asks, leaving her husband’s remarks unanswered.

“It’s called Confessions from Ancient Yorùbá Land.”

“Good,” Àmọ̀pé replies, turning the book over in her hands. “It is a collection of stories, published twelve years ago, in 1900.”

Her daughter nods, smiling sheepishly.

Àmọ̀pé turns to address her husband and son. "Is anyone joining us?”

A goat’s bleat and crackles from the fire are the only responses she gets. She hisses again, opens the book and begins to read.

***

Once upon a time in the village of Kétu, the King was near his death and his beautiful daughter, Ẹ̀míọlá, had to pick a suitor who would succeed him. 

You’ll struggle to believe me if I told you I was her favorite suitor. You will squeeze your face at the hunch that has burdened my back and curved me into a permanent bend. You will fold lines in your forehead at the sight of my home, the dingy cave by the mouth of the Òkùn hill. You will conclude that I cannot possibly be serious.

A silly mistake was all it took. It is by my own hands and my own actions that this evil has befallen me.

I was among those who would see Èṣù and make jest of his colored face, join others to laugh at his staggered steps, or decline when he asks for water to quench his thirst. He who doesn’t know Èṣù asks to be the subject of his deadly mischief. Once the ignorance is torn off such a person’s eyes, he’ll wish, like me, that his deeds can be undone. 

Unfortunately, once time has passed on an action, it becomes indelible. I know this too well and that is why I’m telling you this story. 

***

“Màámi,” Kíké̩ interrupts, the fire’s orange flames dancing in her curious eyes as she looks up at her mother. “I know this Èṣù o. My teacher—”

Àmọ̀pé shakes her head. “No, you’re not supposed to talk until I’m done reading.”

Kíké̩ nods and motions her mother to keep reading, her chubby cheeks animated, and the rings of plaited hair folded into imperfect circles on her head swinging back and forth. 

“My little girl thinks she knows Èṣù,” her father says with a laugh. “Èṣù láàlú ògiri òkò8.”

Àmọ̀pé hisses, pulls her daughter close with one hand and continues to read from the book in her other.

***

My story is one for another day. Perhaps it will make more sense if I first show you what I see from this hilltop where I’m perched. 

Táíyé has just hit his twin, Ké̩hìndé, hard across the face. Ké̩hìndé acts surprised, but he wastes no time to wield the inside of his palm in retaliation. 

A little distance down the path, Èṣù whistles a happy tune as he staggers away from the feuding brothers. They have allowed him to pass through their middle, and by this their veil of ignorance shall be torn to pieces.

Táíyé and Ké̩hìndé are known to be respecters of no one, but they never argue between themselves, much less engage in a bout. 

Earlier in the day, I watched them hide behind the shrubs that line both sides of the path, then leap out to frighten little Oríyọmí, one from either side. 

The poor boy was returning from his father’s farm with a heap of bundled yams sitting on his head. He quickly threw down the bundle and scampered away in fear. The twins must not have known that Oríyọmí’s father gives half of his yearly harvest to Èṣù as an appeasement for an agelong misdeed. 

Shortly after, the boys lit a fire and cut some of the yams into small pieces. They placed these over the fire to roast. I could hear the voice of one singing ewì9 and could see the other stamping his feet in a dance. 

***

“I don’t know this story, but I know that all their singing and dancing will not end well,” Àdìsá says from his mat. He is sitting up and has been listening to his wife read.

“Please o,” remarks his wife. “When we called you to join, you did not join. Now you’re interrupting.”

“It is you that know.” He responds, before turning and calling for his son.

There is an awkward silence.

“Ìgè,” he calls again.

Still no response.

“Ìgè!” It is both he and his wife this time.

But for crackles, cackles, and bleats, there’s no sound.

Àmọ̀pé packs her disappointment into a deep sigh.

Àdìsá shakes his head, rises and ventures towards the chickens. He crouches and makes a swift dash, grabbing the cock by its tail and sending the other livestock scampering away. He holds the cock up and pulls out a feather from its wings before letting it go.

Sticking the end of the feather in his ear and rolling it between his thumb and index finger, he says angrily, “When he returns, he will come and tell me where he has gone this late in the night.”

Kíké̩ tugs at her mother’s blouse and says almost in a whisper, “Màámi, keep reading please.”

***

Soon, Èṣù appeared along the path, staggering towards the boys. I saw him point at the tubers lying nearby, as well as the pieces roasting in the fire. He must have been telling them they belonged to him, but the boys only laughed. Their laughter was so loud that it made some resting birds take flight. A curious monkey leaped from tree to tree past me to see what was happening down there.

I saw Èṣù’s shoulders lift in a shrug, and his finger point so they could make way for him to pass. Then they split up and made the mistake of letting him pass through their middle.

They started to argue just after and it was so loud I could hear every word. 

Táíyé asked if Ké̩hìndé saw how strangely Èṣù’s face had the same black color as his cloth. Ké̩hìndé replied that the cloth and face were red, not black. The exchange was starting to bore me, and I was just looking away when I heard the slap. Now, Ké̩hìndé has hit back at his brother.

Èṣù turns to look back, the painting on one side of his face red, and the other side black, just like his cloth. He parts his lips into an ugly sneer, laughing at the brawl. 

***

“I told you.”

“Yes, you did. Can I continue now?”

“I did not hold you o.”

***

There’s nothing I hate more about Èṣù than that ugly laugh. I heard it for the first time after I became his victim. 

As a suitor to the king’s daughter, I had a beautiful life ahead of me, but I also had my guilty pleasures. 

Àdùké̩, my mother’s maid, had grown up before my very eyes: from a flat-chested little girl to a voluptuous pretty woman. When a laborer from my father’s farm began to get too close to her, I began to have ideas of my own.

Sometimes when no one was looking, I would grab and feel the softness of her backside or make to touch her breasts. Often, she would object, but a maid’s reluctance is nothing to a master’s will. Soon, when everyone else was fast asleep, I was sneaking into the barn where she passed the night with the livestock.

I started to notice the laborer frowned whenever he passed by me, but I couldn’t be bothered. Even when one afternoon, he sang an incantation—a eulogy of Èṣù—with his eyes set on me, it didn’t move me one bit.

Late one evening, after a light shower had wetted the ground and left the smell of dust hanging in the air, Àdùké̩ came to see me, dressed in òfì befitting of a princess. She had beads circling her waist, and dark tiro lining the edges of her eyes. I was surprised to see her smiling seductively, asking if I was coming to her that night. I licked my lips and nodded, then she turned and made me watch her backside jiggle as she walked away.

Princess Ẹ̀míọlá had sent a messenger. She had missed me and wondered if I could meet her at our spot behind the palace when everyone was asleep. I told the messenger to tell her to sleep tonight; I didn’t feel too good, but I surely would tomorrow.

When I could hear the entire house snoring, I got on my tiptoes and went off into the barn. Àdùké̩ was waiting but the seductive smile was gone. She asked me to stop, because she was wearing a spell of Èṣù given to her by her man, the laborer. I spat into the ground and struck her on the face. Then I pushed her against the bamboo wall and started to touch her all over. 

With each touch, I felt a load fall on my back. Before I could realize and stop, it had grown as big as it is now and bent me over. Then, that ugly laughter filled the barn from the darkness surrounding it, and before long it felt like all the animals in there were laughing too. Èṣù had caught me and placed a weight the size of my misdeed on my back. I will carry it around forever, for everyone to know what I’ve done.

When people ask about this hunch, I sometimes say it is the work of Èṣù. Táíyé’s cloth has caught fire. I hope he doesn’t burn to death. I’m sure when Ké̩hìndé too is asked, like me, he will shift the blame and say the same thing: it’s the work of Èṣù.

***

“Wow,” marvels Kíké̩, her face beaming with excitement. “What a story.”

“What a story indeed,” replies her mother. “So, what did you learn from it?”

“I learned to never take what is not mine. I also learned that a wrongdoer will never go unpunished.”

“Good,” Àdìsá chips in, standing close by with his back against a pillar of the shed. “That’s my daughter.”

Kíké̩ smiles briefly before confusion creeps onto her fire-lit face. “But if somebody punishes a wrongdoer, hasn’t that person done a good deed?”

“That’s correct,” her mother affirms.

“But Satan cannot do good deeds.”

Àmọ̀pé stiffens; likewise, her husband. “Who is Satan?” they chorus.

“Remember I told you I know Èṣù? He is Satan, the master of hellfire, the evil one that was cast away from heaven by the Father God in my teacher’s Bible book.”

“Who told you that,” barks Àdìsá.

“My teacher.”

Facing his wife, he rages. “You see? Did I not tell you it’s nonsense these nose-talking people are teaching our children? Imagine them confusing little kids like this. When did Elédùmarè’s enforcer of law and the messenger between heaven and earth become—”

A distant chant makes him swallow his words midway. He turns to the direction of the voices as they grow louder. He can see a small crowd carrying lamps and sticks, beating a tall and slim figure in blue bùbá and matching ṣòkòtò pémpé as they advance.

A few minutes later, the small crowd howls at a bowed Ìgè by the fireside where Àmọ̀pé has just finished reading to her daughter. Àmọ̀pé is kneeling and pleading with them while a short, stout, bald-headed neighbor speaks to a shrunken Àdìsá. 

“It is only because it is you,” he says in a pain-laden, thin voice. “If I catch him by my daughter’s window, or anywhere close to her ever again, I swear by Elédùmarè, I will cut off his manhood!”

Àmọ̀pé wipes the edge of her wrapper across her wet face as Kíké̩ tries to console her.

“Don’t cry Màámi,” Kíké̩ says, her voice shaky and her big eyes gleaming behind a cloud of tears. “It’s the work of Èṣù.”

1.  “Everyone promised goats, goats, goats

Everyone promised sheep, a sheep that is fat and robust

Olúronbí promised her child, her child as fair and shiny as palm-oil

Olúronbí o, join join, Ìrókò join join.”

2. An expression of resignation to a surprising, sometimes unwanted fate.

3. Educated fellow

4. Teacher

5. Islamic scholar

6. Islamic leader

7. An oracle

8. Èṣù who is great all over the place, and who is solid as a stone wall.

9. Poetry

This story contains an inset of the short story "The Work of Èsù" by Ibrahim Babátúndé Ibrahim, first published in Interpret Magazine.

About the author

After he was forcibly sent to science class in high school, it took Ibrahim twenty years to find his way back to his passion: in 2019 he left a ten-year career in media and entertainment to become a writer. His work appeared in Typehouse Magazine, JMWW, Ake Review, Landlocked Magazine, Agbowo Magazine, Chaffin Journal, Popula, and more. He has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and for the Best of the Net anthology.

Ibrahim's work explores the human experience from an African perspective and can be found on https://linktr.ee/HEEMtheWriter. He is @heemthewriter across social media.

About the illustrator

Kaci Ellison, a mother of two children from rural Western Kentucky, lives in a log home on ten acres of forest. The homestead is also home to bunnies, chickens, a cat, and a dog. An art major from Murray State University, she works as a home designer for Champion Homes. Her hobbies include gardening, illustrating, hunting, fishing, running, and watching her children play sports.

Kaci Ellison is enchanted by nature. She loves bird watching. Sunrises and sunsets remind her everyday is a new beginning. Kaci is passionate believer in God. She believes everyday kindness is the lifeblood of our own happiness.