Aminatta Forna - Ancestor Stones

And so this was how I arrived at my husband’s home: my wedding gown flecked with vomit and my breath sour. Not that I need have worried. My husband was not there, in his place a message to say he was away on business. Many days passed before he returned.

In the beginning I refused to see what was in front of my face. I saw a big house with many rooms. I did not notice that it was empty as a cave, with plain walls and no furniture. I ignored the chickens that ran freely through the house, dropping their chalky turds. I failed to notice the cockroaches hiding in the crack between the door frames and the mud walls, flattening their skeletons to fit into the tiny space. I did not see the way the hill at the back rose abruptly up out of the earth, engulfing the house in its long shadow. I let my eyes pass over the bitch that lay in the sun, with swollen teats and dried blood under her tail. And I mistook the silence of my two cowives for acceptance.

They were all signs and there would be more, surfacing one by one, floating in front of me like flotsam from a shipwreck. Even when I was drowning I dismissed them all, first with foolishness, then with pride, and finally because I had put out my own eyes with hot pokers of shame.

From the beginning my face wore a happy expression and I forced myself to act the same way. When my husband returned I knew I had been right. I saw again how handsome he was: he had only to utter my name for me to shiver — a shiver that started behind my heart, trickled down my spine, crept up the back of my neck. Any time he called me I dropped whatever I was doing and ran to him. When he praised my cooking I was in ecstasy. Each morning I woke up and told myself how lucky I was. And for a long time I believed it. The bad feeling in my heart was overtaken by another feeling, a fluttering and leaping from somewhere below my belly, like a fish jumping on a hot pan.

Maybe this is something you don’t want to hear. You pity us, not so? You think we don’t have the same feelings as you — because of what was taken away, that we are dead down there. No desire. We come together with a man without pleasure. You see how hard it is for me to talk about these things: we are sworn to secrecy. And so we bear your contempt. But there are some things that should be said. So that you, at least, understand. Because you are our daughter. Listen.

For us it was something special: the gifts, the food — delicacies to eat whenever you want — friendships made that last for ever, singing and dancing, the company of women. For the rest of your life, wherever you are, when you are lost or alone, you may start to sing one of those songs and when you hear the voice of another woman join in the refrain — you know that woman is your sister. For all of us it was the first time we had been away from our mothers. That part was hard, even for me. I missed her.

That first night: sitting in the cold stream with the other girls, chewing on bitter herbs and waiting for the moment when your name was called. The circle of holes in the earth, filling up with blood. One by one. What you remember afterwards is not the pain. That is forgotten, like the pain of giving birth. No, what I remember most was the sound of a blade cutting through my own flesh. Such an ordinary sound, like a cook cutting through the flap of a chicken wing.

My mother had said to me: ‘When it is over you stand up and you walk.’ I promised myself I would do that. I pushed a cloth hard between my thighs. My legs trembled. I gasped for air. The pain rose in waves, crashing into me. I concentrated only on one thing — walking away from that place. One step at a time. One foot in front of the other.

Twice we are made women. For the first time when we are initiated. And the second time when we go to our husband’s room. With Osman there was tenderness, yes. And pleasure, too. I wanted to go to him. I longed for it.

Osman came and went a great deal leaving me with plenty of time to myself. I was waiting to conceive. Not so easy with a husband who is never there. Balia and Ngadie, my co-wives, had their own children. Balia’s children had left home, except the youngest who was already able to help her with the cooking. Ngadie had two. A girl and a boy, who were so alike I could barely tell one from the other, they flitted about silent as shadows.

I began to dream of my own children who were waiting to be born. Of course I must have sons to take care of me when I was old, but most of all I longed for a daughter — a girl whose face I might look in to see my own secrets. I began to choose names, then worried it might bring bad luck. I picked leaves from the gbono gbono tree and stirred them into my cooking so that, with God’s blessing, I might fall pregnant the next time Osman was home.

There was less to do in this place than in Rofathane. There was a well for water and only a small vegetable plot. Osman earned money working as a road inspector. The colonials were busy building roads and railways up and down the country. To the big mines and down to the coast where ships waited to carry the loads away. Osman talked a lot about his job and with pride. The new roads were built of tar and as smooth as the floors in a house. People liked to spread their laundry out upon them to dry, as well as their rice and grain. Osman told me how he confiscated their washing, threatening to burn it, and swept the grain away.

Balia and Ngadie’s daily routine did not alter to include me. I had no chores. Well, I didn’t mind. Wasn’t I the lucky one? I’d heard the tales of junior wives who found themselves pounding rice late into the night, minding other wives’ small children, working long hours in the vegetable plot. With so little to do I spent my time on petty vanities. When I grew bored of those I began to look around me, searching for ways to distract myself.

A wasp with black and yellow-striped forelegs building a nest held me captive for a long time as I watched her rolling tiny balls of mud from the edge of a puddle and flying away with them to build a nest in the branches of a tree. Another day I noticed the funnelshaped spiders’ webs that blossomed in the grass every morning, sparkling with dew and lit by the sun. On another afternoon it was the fluttering black crest and blue feathers of a plantain eater — hopping up and down next to his nest, calling for his mate to come back. ‘Kooroo kooroo ko ko ko ko.’

Gradually I began to notice other things.

Early in the morning I gazed out of my window. There was Ngadie walking towards the house from the direction of the grain store. The next morning I saw her again, and the next. I wondered what she could be doing there so early. The way she walked, with a great deliberateness, placing one foot in front of the other, like a person walking on the ridge between fields of crops. She didn’t notice me watching her.

The next morning I woke before the light. I hurried down and hid behind the grain store. After a short time Ngadie passed by, eyes darting from side to side to see who was watching. I slipped in behind her, followed her along the path into the forest. She stepped off the path, I stepped quickly back into the trees opposite. Once, twice she glanced over her shoulder. I waited before I switched my hiding place and had her again within my sights. I waited and watched.

Ngadie stepped up to a tall palm tree, reached up and scored the trunk three times with the blade of the knife. Sap poured from the wound. Ngadie dipped her fingers into it and raised them to her lips. She tied a gourd to the trunk beneath the flow. From higher up she took down a second gourd and from the way she braced her body, I could tell how heavy it was. This she lifted to her lips. She raised her head and for an instant seemed to stare right at me. I held my breath. The seconds passed. She lifted the gourd a second time and I relaxed. When she lowered it I saw her upper lip was crested with foam.