Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [104]
‘None of us, Ambrose. None of us.’
And I saw my husband shrivel up and shrink, right there before my eyes.
After Janneh had gone, Ambrose and I lay side by side on the divan, not touching, cold under the nylon quilt. Ambrose was still awake. I could tell by his breathing, and by the fact he was lying too still. That meant he was brooding.
‘You know, you ought to warn that friend of yours he’ll end up behind bars,’ Ambrose said eventually, speaking into the dark. ‘You mark my words. He’s looking for trouble in the easiest place to find it. They’ll lock him up and they’ll throw away the key.’
And with those words he rolled away from me.
A friend of mine once was ill. I remember I went to visit her at a time when she must already have been sick. Her skin was luminous, her eyes shone, when she smiled she showed pink gums and white teeth, her hair was braided into thick plaits. In every way she appeared as beautiful as before. But the disease was eating her from within. When she brushed her teeth her gums bled. Her teeth were loose. The plaits were all that held her hair close to her scalp and when she undid them, it fell out in great clumps. She told nobody how ill she was. Gradually those closest to her noticed the changes, but they said nothing. Her flesh wasted away, her teeth fell out and she tied a cloth round her balding head. Still she refused to admit to her illness or go to the doctor and though her family, her friends, even strangers saw that she was dying, nobody said out loud what had become evident to them all.
That was the way it was with this country. Those who noticed refused to speak of it, as though they feared that to do so would make it real. Others drank and danced, partied into the night as though tomorrow was a long way away. And so it seemed as if everything was fine.
When I first arrived back all I thought about was how much I had missed it. There’s a beauty about this place, one that cannot even be imagined. How small a hummingbird truly is! I sat on the verandah of our new bungalow and watched a tiny, shimmering bird flit from flower to flower before coming to land on the stamen of a scarlet hibiscus, as though it were a tree branch. Under the bird’s weight, the stalk merely bowed, the petals quivered as he disappeared into the hollow. A moment later I watched him fly away, a blur of beating wings. The giant fan palm in the garden, its leaves spread out like a peacock’s tail. The lustrous evening light, the colour of mother-of-pearl. These were the things I saw.
I travelled upcountry to visit my home and left money with Ya Namina to pay the doctor’s bills for my father. A month later Ya Memso came to stay, bringing with her all the contents of my marriage box. I saw how round her eyes grew to see the way Ambrose and I lived, with indoor toilets and hot water pouring straight into a tub and glass windows that closed out the rain and the dust, but allowed the sun inside. The manager at the coffee shop had given me a farewell gift, a bonus on my last day. I kept it until we were on our way home to tell Ambrose. How delighted he was, hugging me and lifting me up off my feet to swing me around. He put it down as a deposit on a Volkswagen and promised he would teach me to drive.
Ambrose said there was no reason for me to work, and so I stayed at home with Junior and little Yaya, who was born soon after we returned. I enjoyed myself, why not? Though sometimes I wondered what the years of study had been for. Every morning I waved goodbye to Ambrose as he drove to his job in the Attorney-General’s office where he was helping to draft new Acts of Parliament. I made friends among the wives of Ambrose’s colleagues and spent my days visiting, going from house to house. I would sit in their parlours, being served cold drinks by the houseboy,