Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [121]
‘Solid gold. Twenty-four carat.’ She was silent. ‘Bought with his salary, you know. He is in the Army. A Major. A promotion, another one.’ I wasn’t sure if that was correct, but it didn’t matter. And maybe I should have stopped there. ‘He’ll be coming home soon. On leave.’
‘Well, I am glad to see you are so well. Until next time, Hawa.’ And she stepped around me, which was annoying because I had wanted to be the first one to walk away. Still, the victory was mine.
I moved off in the other direction. There were still a good number of people outside the mosque, the imam among them in a long purple coat over his robes. I raised my umbrella over my head as I turned down a side street, passing the stalls selling second-hand electrical goods and suchlike, to where the Syrian traders — Lebanese, they were called now — had their shops. Looking about me I ducked into the nearest entrance.
The man behind the counter, shouting at somebody at the back of the shop, stopped the instant he saw a finely dressed woman enter and smiled at me.
‘Good day, madam,’ he said. That was how impressive I looked. I moved closer to the counter, underneath the dusty glass of which lay many pieces of jewellery, mostly gold.
‘How much for the gold?’ I asked.
‘To buy?’
‘No, to sell.’
‘What carat?’
‘Twenty-four,’ I told him. He raised his eyebrows.
‘Show me.’
I slipped my earrings off and dropped them into his outstretched hand. Oh, it was a difficult thing for me to do. He weighed them in his hand, scratched the surface with a dirty thumbnail and shook his head.
‘This is not twenty-four carat.’
I looked back at him. ‘Eighteen then,’ I said confidently. Still good.
He shook his head at that, and dropped them into a small set of scales. ‘Where did these come from?’
I decided not to mention my son. Not because I had anything to hide, but because these days too many people were saying bad things about soldiers, about the things they were doing. He would try to pretend they had been looted and use that to offer me an even poorer price.
‘Left to me by my mother,’ I replied.
Nine carat! Can you believe it? Of course he was taking advantage, but what was I to do? I didn’t bother to thank him. I took the money and put it in my purse. As soon as Lansana came home we would come back here and give that thief back his money. Redeem my earrings for the measly sum he gave me.
Outside the shop I stepped into a doorway for a few moments to adjust my headdress so that it covered my ears. A few people were still standing around by the mosque. I kept my chin high as I walked by. I could feel their eyes upon me. I looked neither to one side nor the other, but straight ahead, to the bicycle stand, and gave one of the fellows there my address. In full view of the lot of them I climbed on behind him and we rode away.
I felt the wind in my face. I sat sideways on the parcel shelf with my ankles crossed, feeling as demure as a girl out with a suitor. I felt something I had not felt for a long time.
I remembered the last time Lansana had come home, bringing with him a cassette player. He liked to listen to it all day, morning, noon and night. He took baths and changed his clothes, sometimes several times a day. Then sat back down, tapping his fingers or his foot on the floor, turning the cassette over every time one side finished. To tell the truth the noise got on my nerves: the repetitive sound of some man’s voice. One evening I asked him to turn it down. I had to raise my voice over the sound of the music, if that is what you could call it. I repeated myself once, twice. The third time Lansana suddenly swung around and faced me. For a moment he looked furious, I wondered if he had been asleep, dreaming, and I had woken him up. But then his face softened and he smiled. He stood up and grasped both my hands and swung me around, and had me dance with him to that terrible music. Yes, I really did. I danced.
I would not have that feeling of joy again for years to come. After that day when