Candela

The sun had already set, and the heat that had reigned during the day, scorching the skin and parching the earth, was beginning to subside. A cool wind started to blow; it came from afar, from beyond the desert, from the seacoast, carrying with it the scents of distant flowers and the moans of dead ancestors, the smell of wild beasts coming out to hunt, and the whisper of sorcerous incantations… The African night was taking its rightful place. Candela sat naked, squatting by old Mbehe's house, and gazed thoughtfully at the sky. Her dry, calloused heels were accustomed to the earth's warmth, her breasts were just beginning to take shape, and between her legs, there was not a single hair. She was 18 years old, and in an hour, she was to undergo her initiation.

Mbehe

was very old; during the day, he stayed indoors, hiding from the heat, and at night, he conversed with his deceased brethren. They came to him from a distant land and told their stories. They were wondrous tales of lands entirely covered by water, where there was no place for humans, only mysterious fish reigned; of magical birds in lush eastern gardens; of mysterious cold countries covered with something white and burning, where tall trees grew and people wrapped themselves in furs… Mbehe would later tell all this to little Candela, and she would listen to him open-mouthed, as usual, squatting and fiddling with her toe. She loved his stories, loved watching his face when he gazed into the distance, and the old man's eyes seemed to contain many lives, so detached and deep were they. But today, she was not thinking about stories. She was nervous, and Mbehe, sitting beside her, felt her childish fear. The first stars were appearing in the sky, and the crimson horizon drew her gaze. Every girl went through this ritual, and today Candela was to go through it… She felt a chill in her lower abdomen; it seemed her tender, dark, pink-folded pussy sensed the impending pain.

It was the rite of circumcision, a rite every girl had to undergo to enter adulthood. It had been this way from the beginning, and all the women of their tribe, and all the women of other tribes, had gone through it. Candela was not to go through it alone; several other girls from their village, nervous yet also secretly rejoicing in their coming of age, awaited their fate. The hour passed quickly; time for Candela generally flew by—it seemed like morning one moment, and then the day was already gone, and night descended upon the earth with a lazy step.

 — There's no need to be afraid. — Mbehe said once again and looked at the girl, — Everyone goes through this.

She remained silent. Then she said:

 — Tell me again about the moon and the hunter.

Mbehe smiled with all his wrinkles. He had told her this story many times before, as Candela liked it very much. It was the story of the Wild Hunter who learned from an old shaman that his dead ancestors lived on the moon, high in the sky, and that one could reach them…

Candela listened, and old Mbehe told the tale with inspiration:

 — And so he learned that to reach the moon, he needed a bow, but not an ordinary one—a magical bow. No one had this bow; only the Desert Sorcerer possessed it. The Sorcerer, whom no one had seen for a very long time; everyone thought he was dead, but the Hunter was determined to find him and did not give up, though failures pursued him. He spent not one week and not one month, and one day, at sunset, exhausted, he found the Sorcerer in his hut, in the sands, in a place forgotten by God and men, where only wild beasts found shelter. He was so old, and the wrinkles on his face so deep, that it seemed he had witnessed the birth of the world. He laughed for a long time when he learned why the Wild Hunter had sought him, but he gave him his bow and instructed him to climb the highest dune in the sands or the highest hill at night and shoot from there at the night luminary. The Hunter did just that. He found a tall dune, climbed to its very peak, his feet sinking into the sand, took the bow in his hands, drew the string, and released an arrow straight toward the moon. And the arrow, with a rope attached to it, flew into the sky. It pierced the moon, and the Hunter, clutching the rope, began to climb upward…

Mbehe told his tale, and Candela, enchanted by the amazing story, even forgot her fears. Lulled by his voice, she began to doze off when suddenly she was awakened by a cry:

 — Cande-e-ela!

It was Aunt Swamba shouting, the fat, sweaty, and good-natured aunt who was precisely the one to perform the initiation rite on Candela. Everything inside Candela shuddered, but she stood up.

 — Don't be afraid, — Mbehe touched her hand.

… In Aunt Swamba's house, the girls had already gathered, along with young women and their mothers, present for the procedure. It was hot, smelling of female sweat; the girls huddled by the wall of the hut. One woman sat on a chair standing in the center.

 — Nguma! — called Swamba.

A naked girl of about ten with slumped shoulders detached herself from the wall and obediently approached the chair. The seated woman turned her back toward herself and sat her on her lap, holding her tightly with her arms. Swamba approached the girl with a small knife that glinted in the hut's semi-darkness and said:

 — Now you are an adult!

Candela watched with wide eyes as Swamba ordered the girl to spread her legs wider, and the woman on the chair hugged her tighter so she wouldn't jerk. Swamba spread the girl's upper labia and pinched the small clitoris with her fingers. Nguma jerked. Swamba pressed the blade to the very root of the clitoris, pulled it, and made several quick movements with her hand. That was it—the clitoris was cut off. The girl did not moan, though it was clear she was in great pain. Moaning and crying during the rite was forbidden. She stood up, and among the standing women, a hum of approval passed, joyful exclamations were heard.

 — Go to the stream, — Swamba told her, and the girl walked with uncertain steps to the stream that flowed next to the hut; there she squatted and immersed her bleeding wound in the water.

Then it was another's turn. The girl also sat in the embrace of the seated woman, Swamba leaned over her, and with one motion severed that fleshy little protrusion, the clitoris. This was the essence of the rite, the initiation into adulthood. Watching this, Candela felt, besides fear, also excitement; she already knew how much pleasure that little thing could bring, sometimes playing with it, caressing it with her finger, and now, realizing that she was about to lose such a pleasant part of her body, that they would cut out the center of her pleasure with a knife, her head buzzed and her groin tightened. And yet she understood that it was necessary, such were the traditions, there was no way around it. Now they would cut it off, and she would become a full-fledged woman.

Her turn came. Everything happened quickly, and yet she saw it all from within as if in slow motion. She approached the chair and sat on the woman's lap; she wrapped her arms tightly around her so she wouldn't jerk. "Don't cry, don't cry," pounded in Candela's head. Swamba leaned over her:

 — You will become a woman. Ready?

The girl nodded. Swamba grabbed her thigh and moved one leg aside for better access. "Now they will cut it off!" — Candela was horrified, looking at her crotch, so bare and defenseless, with pink, soft lips and the little bump of her clitoris. She felt the breasts of the woman holding her against her back, her deep breathing. Swamba leaned down, grabbed her clitoris, and pulled it. "It hurts!" Candela wanted to scream, but she endured. Swamba brought the knife to the base of the clitoris, and the girl felt the touch of the blade, goosebumps ran over her skin. A sharp pain pierced her groin; she jerked her legs but did not moan. Swamba straightened up with the severed little bump in her hand, and Candela stared with wide-open eyes at the bleeding wound.

 — Well done! Good girl! — she heard the voices of the women standing around. She had endured!

 — Go to the stream. — Swamba told her.

The woman on the chair relaxed her arms and stroked Candela's head; the girl stood up and got to her feet. Two small trickles of blood flowed from her groin. She hobbled to the exit, and each step echoed with pain in her crotch. Going outside, she reached the blessed stream, whose water, warmed by the daytime heat, was cooling under the evening chill, and squatted in the water, immersing her pussy in it. God, how pleasant it was! The water enveloped her maiden crotch, her legs, caressed her aching wound… Candela looked between her legs and saw the blood stop flowing, saw the blood wash away and be carried off by the current, and the pain recede. Another girl came out of the hut and also climbed into the water. Night was falling. Candela sat in the stream and looked at the darkening sky. High, high above, the first stars began to appear…