Ancestor Stones (34 page)

I should not have looked in at my mother, but I did. Hidden where she couldn't see me, behind the shutter of the open window. In all my life I cannot remember having seen her naked except that one time. I had never even seen her without her hair covered.

There she stood, in the centre of the room, like a child waiting
for her mother to come and dress her. Arms by her side, palms turned out, staring into the shadows. Folds of empty skin at her belly. Long, flat breasts. Her hair white and soft as the clouds.

Her lips were moving, a murmured prayer. In less than a minute the women would arrive to lead her to the stream. She knew what was coming, she'd been through it before. They would remove the last mourning dress, would wash her arms and hands, her body and her face. They would give her water to rinse and spit. They would wash away her old life and warn my father's spirit from coming back to her. For she was no longer his.

Then I realised she was not staring into the shadows, but at the portrait of my father. And though I couldn't hear what she was saying I realised she was not praying, but talking to her husband one last time. Once she gestured with her right hand and as she did, offered a glimpse of her face to me. I saw the grief and the love there. And suddenly I felt hot with shame for spying on her. I turned and walked away.

Once when I was a teenager I accompanied an aunt on an errand to another village. We passed a woman bathing alone in a stream. She acknowledged the two of us by inclining her head.

‘Good morning, Ma,' I returned.

My aunt shook her head. ‘Good morning, Pa,' she corrected.

I had heard of women like her, though I had never seen one. They were women who had become members of the men's society, not like the silly girls who banged the tortoiseshell drum — they were being punished. No, rather these were women who had already married and borne their children, women of age and wisdom, who had earned a certain kind of respect and whom the society honoured with their title. As we continued I turned my head again and again to look again at the woman, standing there up to her waist, alone in the water.

The memory of this came to me as I sat with my mother, Ya Isatta and several of my aunts, among them the one with whom I had walked from one village to the other. They were visiting to congratulate me on the success of Kholifa Turay Cloth Merchants,
though in a remarkably short time the talk had turned to my continued unmarried state. My elders had turned out in force to urge me to take a husband. The store was a success, they were pleased at that, naturally. But now I would need a man to help me. I could not see why they should say this. They were telling me to give away what I had worked so hard to build up. Besides, I was happy.

Once, in the hollow of a dead tree behind our home, a wildcat gave birth to her kittens. I used to climb a nearby tree and watch them for many hours, playing outside the den while their mother caught rats and mice to bring back to them. After a few months they began to accompany her on hunting trips in the early morning. In those times she taught them to creep up on a partridge until they were inches away, to avoid the cobra's lair and to steal the eggs from the nests of birds. The seasons passed, the tree crumbled into soft powder, an aardvark dug a warren beneath it. At night sometimes, rarely, I would catch a glimpse of her and her tiny dark-skinned baby scratching at the termite hills. Another time a she-leopard and her two cubs were mobbed by monkeys on the banks of the stream; the mother fought her assailants tooth and claw, bringing down four or more and lacerating a dozen others before she retreated.

My aunts thought that I was unnatural not to want a man in my life, but to me it seemed the most natural thing in the world.

I said nothing, I watched my aunts' faces, I nodded and dreamed and at some point my mind travelled back to the day I went walking with my aunt and saw a
mambore
for the very first time.

From the day a woman joined the men's society she would be called Pa, give up her creel and learn to use a line and hook, exchange the stool at the back of the house for the hammock at the front, swap her snuff for a pipe. And she relinquished her place in the society of women.

The
mambores
. The women who lived as men.

My aunts' voices droned on like flies in the summer. I stopped listening and dreamed. I saw the house that was sometimes round
and sometimes square. I saw the fat, happy children. I saw the empty hammock swaying in the early evening breeze.

And in that moment I saw something else.

I saw the hidden path curling between the trees.

My mother was ready. The women had knocked on her door and now she preceded them down to the river. She walked with her chin up, one shoulder bare where her dress had slipped. The silence blew through the gathered crowds like a breeze, people stood and watched in awe.

Women were coming from every direction, out of houses, up the path, through the crowd, women laying down their cooking spoons, women preparing to leave the fires unattended, women squeezing through the people. One, two, three. Ten, twenty, thirty. Seventy, eighty, one hundred. One by one the women fell in behind my mother, from the oldest to the youngest.

Every woman in the village. Except one, and that one was me. I let them pass. I stepped aside to join the men.

Yes, it's true. I can see you've guessed it, but don't know quite whether to believe it. Me, your own aunty. Well, you've guessed right. It was nothing dramatic. I let the men of the society come to me. I let it be known that I would consider relinquishing the birthright of womanhood in exchange for the liberty of a man. And in time they found me. After all, there are few women who would choose such a life. Naturally, there were those things I missed, mostly the company of other women. But I had made the life I dreamed of, and it suited me. I had taken my own path, neither right nor left.

After a while we heard the singing and knew it was over. When the women reappeared their mood was changed, they were dancing, shuffling their feet through the dust, swaying their bottoms. Somewhere in the centre of them all she walked alone. They had dressed her in a new costume made from a heavy blue fabric: a silk damask of four hundred threads, real damask from
Syria, double-sided with highlights of silver woven through the design.

I knew because it came from my own store, I had chosen it myself. On her shoulder she wore a sash of the same cloth, her hair was hidden inside a tall headdress. My mother, walking towards an unknown future. As beautiful as a bride on her wedding day.

It had rained during the night, an unseasonal rain. In the morning the ground was stained in dark patches, like sweat. The light was dull, there were no shadows at all. And yet the rain had done nothing to clear the air, which was heavy and hot. I woke early, went outside to urinate and afterwards I lay on my bed, looking up at the rafters.

From somewhere in the darkness above me a drop of water fell slowly through the dense air, shattered upon a rafter and showered on to me. I didn't move. I felt the water sliding down my face. In my mind I saw the next drop, swelling and growing like a ripe breadfruit ready to drop from the tree. Instead of a drop of water I imagined a great fruit whistling through the air, smashing on the rafters and covering me in sticky flesh and juice. With that thought I pulled myself up.

There was a hole in the roof, and by the time the rains came the zinc would have rotted in a dozen more places. I told myself I must remember to tell him when he came home, so he could go and borrow a ladder from my uncle opposite and climb up there to take a look. He would know what to do. He would send into town for a hammer and nails, and some sheets of zinc. Then he would climb up there again to fix it, while I prepared him something to eat. Maybe groundnut stew, which was always his favourite with smoked catfish from the river. Or then again I would have made that to celebrate his homecoming. Maybe a bowl of pepper soup and some coco yams. Or sour sour. Or cassava leaves. There were
no leaves left in my plot, I had lost them all to the locusts. I would have to go into town to the covered market, to see what I could find. I would buy only the best: the youngest, sweetest leaves.

Whenever he came home the truck dropped him off at the roundabout in town and he would walk to the house. Not sticking to the road, but in a straight line. Cutting across from one road to the next, through backyards and down the sides of the houses. His walk came from me, not his father. Of course, they taught them these things as well. How to walk in straight rows, swinging their arms and raising each leg up high, holding it there for just a moment, letting the heel drop to the ground so it sent up a little spurt of dust. Not looking this way or that. All the time with their eyes fixed straight ahead. When he came home people looked up to watch him pass. Little boys ran after him, begging to try on his cap or else placing their small feet in the prints left by his boots. Even before I saw him in the distance, I could always tell when he was on his way.

That dark morning I went out to the yard and called for the girl to get on and light the fire, while I washed. I untied my
lappa
and hung it up on the peg. I stood there for a moment and looked down at a body I no longer recognised. Loosening all over, as though I was shrinking inside. I pulled at a handful of my skin, and felt the flesh slip away from the bone. My body was nearly smooth, the hair no longer had the energy to grow. After all those years spent stripping the hair away. I soaped myself, using the last sliver of the soap my son had brought. Imperial Leather: the soap wore away until all you were left with was the label. And then I doused myself with water from the bucket, dried with the
lappa
, slipped on my plastic shoes and made my way back inside.

The girl came to inform me there was no sugar for the tea. Stood in front of me holding out the empty blue cardboard box with the red lion stamped on the cover.

‘So you told me yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that,' I told her. ‘Perhaps you think I'm senile, that I don't remember.'

‘No, aunty.' But she didn't go away, just stood there with the box in her hand. As though I would magically fill it up again.

So I asked her: ‘You think I can snap my fingers like that and make sugar for you?'

‘No, aunty.' She spoke softly, especially when she was being rude. This girl could go back to her family for all I cared. If she ever became somebody's wife they'd send her back with sixpence on her head in no time at all.

‘“No aunty, no aunty.”' I mimicked her. ‘So what do you want me to do?'

‘Maybe you can buy some when you go into town.' And she had the audacity to look me straight in the face when she spoke. Straight in my eye! Such insolence. I snatched the box and threw it upon the fire. You just had to watch the change come over her when Lansana was home on leave. Like a cat on heat. That sullen face suddenly all pouts and simpers. Encouraging his teasing. Brushing her breasts against him whenever she passed, hiking her skirt up round her thighs when she sat down opposite him. Then and there I promised myself I'd be rid of her before his next visit.

At breakfast the girl ate noisily. Swallowing great mouthfuls of porridge and plugging her face with hunks of bread. She'd eat me out of house and home, this one. I stood up and removed the dish, before she could finish the lot, otherwise there would be nothing left for tomorrow except carambola from the tree that hung over the wall from my neighbour's garden. And that always gave me problems with my stomach.

‘Have you ironed my dress yet?' I asked her.

‘You haven't given it to me,' she said with her mouth still full. Always with an answer. Too clever for her own good. I would have thrown it at her, but for the fact it was my best dress. I stepped inside to prepare myself.

I sat down in front of the mirror and creamed my face, using some of the face cream Lansana had given me. On the side of the jar along with some kind of Arabic writing was a drawing of a woman with black, black hair and eyelashes, red, red lips and white, white skin. She was holding a rose up to her face. A red rose. I dusted my face with a little talc and dabbed some perfume on my neck and between my breasts from the little bottle I kept hidden from the
girl. I put it carefully back in its place behind the loose stone in the wall.

The girl came in with the dress just as I was replacing the stone. Now I'd have to find a new place for the bottle. I stood and watched her out of the corner of my eye as she laid the dress on the bed. She was making a good show of pretending not to be interested in what I was doing.

‘Go count the chickens,' I told her, just to get rid of her. Go count your chickens before they hatch, I thought. She'd get a surprise soon enough when I sent her on her way. That would wipe the smirk off her face.

I slipped the top over my head. It was tight-fitting, with narrow sleeves to the elbow. I regretted then that I had sent the girl away. She might have made herself useful helping me, but it was too late for that. By the time I managed to get my head through and straighten the bodice I was damp with sweat. I stood with my legs apart while I wound the
lappa
three times around my waist and then sat back down again for a moment to catch my breath. My jewellery box was on the table in front of me. I opened it and rummaged through the odd buttons, hair clips and safety pins until I found what I was looking for. The pair of gold earrings.

I let them drop from one palm into the other. I pushed them through the holes in my ears and lifted the mirror up to my face. I turned my head from side to side, feeling the weight pulling at my lobes. The reflected light bounced from my cheekbones. I took them off and inspected them again. One of the hoops was very slightly dented. I rubbed my finger across the place, as if I might smooth it out. It didn't matter. Nobody would see. All they would notice was the size of the hoops, the quality of the gold. Eighteen carat. Twenty-four probably. Such good quality, a son buys nothing but the best for his mother.