When I was little, I use to follow my father like a shadow. It was always at night, when the stars were bright and no one was in sight. Mother and the maids were always asleep. And I of course was supposed to be as well, but that is a different matter altogether. Out of the tent and past the stable, father would circle the lot three times real quickly, an old family tradition that always confused the demons and sent them fleeing.

In the corner, I claimed a space under the only baobab tree in our settled village. The roots go deep and the branches stretch wide, directing me where to stand. It seems that it has experience shielding spies, for many generations. But how old is this practice? How many sons have stood invisible under this tree?

Father is on the final leg of the encirclement. He is muttering now, irritated that it takes him three times to do this. He always does that. Mutters, curse and then spit. He spits to cleanse his lips. “Better to clean it now than later at the temple,” he says. Of course, when I do it, he thrashes me with his ebon-cane he carries everywhere – everywhere except at night, when he sneaks out in the absence of light.

The wind is clear and confident, blowing fresh air from all around. I smell the goats and geese, the mules and mutton, the horses and our few camels that Father keeps, reminding him of his past, when he herded camels as a child, from the south. Dwenadel is awake but deceptively silent. She knows the ritual. She knows her place. Out of all creatures in our stable, only she is deemed worthy enough to ride at night. Not because she is the fairest or swiftest. Wä knows that camels are no match for such beasts as horses or stallions.

No, she is a dromedary camel and a quiet dromedary at that. White and in the night, Dwendel glides in the wind, betraying no sounds as Father glides out of sight. I of course already know the ritual so there is no need for me to follow pursuit as if I didn’t know where they were headed. They are headed to harlot’s valley. Harlot’s Valley. Even that name sounds rogue. And when I first heard that name, I heard it among the chief and elders who would accuse the beggar in our village of spending too much time in the harlot’s valley. “The harlots have all but spent you and spoiled your worth,” Odune our chief, would reprimand a beggar, who after spending all day in the beating sun pleading for a meal from his fellow neighbors, would fall at his feet and complain at how cruel and uncaring our village was. “I have no sympathy for a man who would forsake his family and spend his life so frivolously in such a lewd and licentious place!” Odune scorned. In the end, the elders would give the old beggar something to eat but always warned that this would be his last meal as the village could not support their own families as well as his – whom they fed too.

Growing up, I always suspected my family knew that Father was unfaithful. At least my mother did. She was no fool. But she was also no man, nor woman of ancestral or family clout. Her dowry was heavy, but not heavy enough to forsake the laws of our land and break marital covenant – even if it was due to infidelity. If one of my daughters today, with me being both rich and wise, were to beseech me about breaking covenants over infidelity, I think I would not only sympathize, but also comply.

I saw how mother would look in the morning at father, who slept, while she rose early, early before the sun became hot. When he arose, a ring of contempt engulfed her eyes, but her throat was held, since she only just stared quietly and intensely at Father for a few meaningful seconds, while he stretched into the new day. She seemed to be both condemning and crying at the same time in her silence, but only expressing it by shaking her head and then leaving him to eat his meal by himself. I of course slept in later, but not nearly as late as Father because I did not dare stay out as late, knowing full well the punishment for my slumber if I did so. Children are never granted the privileges of adults.

On the first night I ever followed Father, I nearly lost him. Seeing him ride off with Dwenadel, I began to despair as the dromedary are aswift on foot. I was still new at riding such beasts of burden despite having a saddle to my disposal. The other camel was not a dromedary and the blasted thing nearly exposed me every few paces. It went this way or that – for what seemed an ungodly long time – until passing the meeting of the trees that faced our lot.

Father’s trail was cold and the smell nearly gone by the time I caught up to see his image in the distant night. He was descending quickly into the valley which shone like a forest of lights. The valley never sleeps because no one lives in the valley, only play. Tavern after tavern, the valley fires raged and its songs clashed, as father entered the one by the blacksmith. Evidently these so-called harlots were unaware of the superstitions we had of blacksmiths being near commoners. But Father always did pick and choose his superstitions; like when he thrashed me for trying to call down eagles from the sky with witch spells.

“Don’t you ever in my presence summon witchcraft! Do you hear me child!” he spat, his eyes quivering like a mad hyena gone wild in the village. “I will disown you and throw you into the woods if you ever do that again. Do you understand me!”

“Yes, Father.”

“Leave my sight, you wicked and foolish child.”

I still loved him at that moment. I just didn’t understand him. Like whenever he gave money to the woman he would go into the dark with. He gave her two silver coins – one before they went and one after. And if he was in good spirits after, he gave her another, “Oh, my dear sweetheart (he called mother that – but I always thought there was only supposed to be one sweetheart?), surely you must get yourself something nice. For you were too kind to me too night! You have flushed my sorrows and all I can do is thank you.”

They’d kiss one last time in the shadows, the place where I dwelt and go their separate ways, scouting the world with their eyes. Father then would go to another tavern and sit by three other burly men. They were lowlanders and wore their hair long, having deep scars on their faces – their sign of manhood initiation. They were also half dressed, covering only their hides. Whenever he entered, they broke into a song or a quick chant calling him, white honey. “Too addictive you are to the harlots!” they taunted. Father would smile his sheepish, embarrassed smile and nod, sitting beside the three lowlanders.

A few drinks later however, Father, with that sparkle in his eyes that I only saw unsheathed in this forbidden valley, would resurrect the old song that was bestowed upon him when he first entered. He uttered such words and phrases and jokes that I did not understand at my early age. The tavern laughed. The wind blew ashes, the night howled threats and all Father did was smile. Smile as if to redeem the bitter tears he’d shed at night once he returned to our small tent. Smile as if to begin the ritual of forgetting once he returned home. I of course, being his shadow could never break form and tell on my own.