Childhood in contemporary nigerian fiction

269 When the vision of the baby appears, puzzles begin to unfold in The Icarus Girl. The myths of doubles, twins and doppelgangers unfold. Jess‟s abiku worlds) unfolds simultaneously. The vision of the crying and dead baby apparently reveals her dead twin sister Fern there were two of you born, just like there were two of me. The other one of you died (161), TillyTilly tells her. In Jess‟s states) of fantasy, delirium, and in her dreams, the puzzles open up, so that it is difficult for her to ascertain the reality of these claims. Her abiku personality dawns on her, as TillyTilly explains Your twins name was Fern. They didn‟t get to choose a proper name for her, a Yoruba name, because she was born already dead, just after you were born. You have been so empty, Jessy, without your twin you have no one to walk your three worlds with you (161) It dawns on Jess in this moment above that she is vicariously living the life of her dead twin Fern, that she lives in the multiple worlds of death and life, life before and afterbirth. As an abiku child, her identity is complicated by her multiracial heritage. The death of her twin sister Fern, at birth, as it occurs later, is problematised by the unfinished rituals that accompany that death, on the part of her mother. Living in these multiple worlds occurs as a possession by shadows, ghosts and spirits and TillyTilly mediates these worlds, transporting and teleporting Jess across as an unlikely double, and a ghostly companion. The new knowledge about her dead twin sister Fern seems to be the artifice behind the jigsaw puzzle about her schizophrenic personality. Her missing twin means an incomplete sense of herself and the lack of a matching double. As TillyTilly says You have been so empty Jessy, without your twin you have had no one to walk your three worlds with you (161). As if to confirm this reality, when she confronts her mother with this metaphysically acquired knowledge, it comes as a shock to her mother who in a state of bewilderment, says to her father Three worlds Jess lives in three worlds. She lives in this

270 world, and she lives in the spirit world and she lives in the bush. Shes an abiku, she always would have known The spirits tell her things. Fern tells her things. We should‟ve ... we should‟ve d-d-done ibeji carving for her We should‟ve
... oh, oh ... Mama Mummy-mi, help me ...” (165) As an abiku, Jess‟s world is confounded by the fact that she was born a twin, and further by the fact that her twin died at childbirth. Indeed, what we have with Jess is an intra- mythological fusion within Yoruba cosmology. While the notion of a racialised abiku seems to confound her diasporic identity, the fusion of two preternatural Yoruba worldviews complicates matters further. In Yoruba culture twins are believed to have supernatural power as well as links with both the worlds before and afterbirth. It is believed that the first twin is sent by the second one, to see how the world looks like, and then she would give the signal, by crying, for the second one to follow. The syzygial nature of their character is defined by one being introverted and precocious, with the other one extroverted. The myth of twinning in the Yoruba society in Nigeria follows a belief system that some scholars have attributed to the high perinatal mortality rate of twins over the years Leroy, Olalaye-Oruene, Koeppen-Schomerus & Bryan Twins are therefore considered to have preternatural powers related to a particular orisha (god) of twins in the Yoruba pantheon. Incidentally, the Yoruba are found to have the highest dizygotic twinning rate in the world (Leroy eta l, 2002:132). Twins are believed to share one soul. Rituals and sacrifices are usually conducted a short period after the birth of twins, dedicated to the orisha. In the case of the death of one twin during birth, a special carving, called an ibeji is supposed to be made, after consulting a babalawo (high priest. This carving or statue is supposed to symbolise the soul of the departed twin. The importance of this statue is found in the idea that upon the death of one twin the life of the other is imperilled because the balance of his soul has become seriously disturbed Leroy et al, 2002:134). These are the real fears of Jess‟s mother as quoted in the passage Leroy et al, (2002) Yoruba Customs and Beliefs Pertaining to Twins p. 132-136.

271 above. The restless precocity of Jess, the tantrums and states of delirium are therefore attributed, as TillyTilly tells her, to the emptiness occasioned by her dead twin Fern. The emptiness is mythically explained by the fact that her dead twin has destabilised the balance of her soul, having departed with half of it. It is important, the way myths and legends related to the twinning phenomenon are connected to the Yoruba pantheon and also the way infant mortality rate is explained through the phenomenon of the abiku child – even more specifically, in the ibeji statue culture. For Jess, these mythical and legendary worlds are coming back to haunt her, as part of her mission in trying to identify herself and reckon with these hidden heritages and legacies. Moreover, Cooper (2009) points out the emergence of these legacies, in the myths and legends that cut across different continents as a project immanent in new diasporic identities. As pointed out earlier, Oyeyemi‟s family history influences the imaginative subjectivities of her texts. Therefore, Jess‟s identity struggle is informed by the authors consciousness of mixed heritages, stories, narratives, myths, legends and legacies. However, the notion of race would seem to mediate the crossing of multiple mythologies across Africa and Europe. Sabrina Brancato (2008) makes interesting observations about “Afro-European Literature(s)” as anew and emergent Discursive Category of writers in Europe who portray heterogeneity of heritages, locations and allegiances (In their writing, these authors portray the silenced histories, legacies and heritages that cut across the spatio-temporal axes of their movements to their present diasporic worlds. Brancato delineates the plurality of the languages, heritages and locations of these writers while paying heed to the specific contexts of individual experience. Brancato ascribes the category “Afrosporic literature to this group of writers. In Oyeyemi‟s case, we can seethe interaction of myths and histories. In The

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