Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [133]
Yet who the strangers were, nobody could say.
Members of the ancient clans, the leopard and the crocodile, outlawed for many decades but still continuing their fearful practices, said some. Others insisted such feats were beyond the power of mortal man. And others still said everybody else was talking nonsense, these deeds were the acts of the Army, devious in their hunger for power.
On the radio a Government spokesman reassured us. Small groups of insurgents were at work in some parts of the country. The Army was involved in a series of mopping-up operations, they said. He made it sound as harmless as spilled milk.
What an insurgent was, nobody knew. Then somebody said it was another word for rebel. Rebel!
People whose children had vanished hid their faces. People reporting fresh disappearances had their homes turned over, the roofs torched. People fell silent, dared not open their mouths to speak. There was a stillness in the air. From the outside it looked like calm, but beneath the surface were turbulent, invisible currents: fear, suspicion, confusion.
Still, life continued, for none of us had the luxury of pausing. For many years that was the way we lived. Finding scapegoats. Turning our faces from the truth.
A rooster used to call false dawns all through the night. I remember because when I woke up his voice was the first sound I heard. By then I had begun to find myself more and more a stranger to sleep. I knew I’d be awake now until morning. It was age, of course, and an effect of my condition. I couldn’t keep my eyes open after lunch, only to be awake in the early hours, lying on my back, alone and floating unhinged upon a tide of darkness. That particular morning I woke with a full bladder. Impossible to wait for morning and Adama to come and help me. I put out my hand, felt for my stick, knocking it to the floor. I groped, found it with my fingers and hauled myself up.
Outside the air was cool, damp. I made my way slowly, inching forward with my now sideways walk, like a crab across the ground.
I didn’t bother to go all the way to the latrine. I urinated out of doors, something I liked to do: the feel of the air on my thighs, the breeze murmuring in the trees, the smell of damp grass, the sound of the night birds interrupted by the hiss of steaming piss. I pulled up my lappa. It amused me to think I was doing something possible only under the disguise of the night. What, I sometimes wondered, would happen if I were to do the same thing in the middle of the day? They would think I had finally gone mad, but men do it all the time, don’t they?
Ah, my eyes, my twilight eyes. But for them I would have noticed sooner.
I urinated with my back to the house. I closed my eyes, savoured the weakness that follows the release. Finished, I opened my eyes and squatted there, in no hurry to go back inside, slowly generating the energy to stand up. My eyes rested on the horizon. I blinked. I squinted. Looked again. Brilliant dancing lights of orange, green and gold in the east. Not the warm glow of a bush fire, these were flashing lights, more like Chinese fireworks. I looked up at the night sky and saw the moon still high above me. I stood up, watched the shifting hues of this unearthly display. For a long time I was still, not knowing what to do.
Inside the house I shook Adama’s shoulder, we were alone, the two of us. I showed her what I’d seen. We did not sleep that night, we kept a vigil on the back verandah, watching the lights on the horizon.
Early prayers and the mosque was full, my neighbour stopped by with this news — for I had long given up going. Afterwards everybody wanted to talk about the omens in the night sky. At ten O’ clock my nephew came and pushed me to town in my barrow. Those days, the effort was far too much for Adama. Twice we had thought her labour was beginning, twice the birth attendant had been summoned. Both times it turned out to be a false alarm. Still, Kadie and Ansuman had delayed travelling to Guinea. In the end, though, Adama had urged her parents