Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [134]
Adama walked alongside me. The streets were quiet as we made our slow progress through them. In the square I noted half a dozen empty stalls among the regulars. No charcoal. Now, that was interesting. Charcoal was delivered from out of town first thing in the morning. I noticed one other thing, though I mentioned none of it to Adama — all the traders had already sold out of bread.
We opened up the shop, customers were scarce. A little after eleven Mr Wurie passed by with news of strangers sighted on the main road out of town. It was only a rumour, he told us quietly, but we ought to know. I thanked him for that and his offer to help us in any way he could.
At midday I closed up the shop. Other shop owners had already done the same. We spent a short time moving stock to the storeroom at the back. I took the money box and hid it under the stairs. Afterwards we pulled down the metal shutters and set off home.
Just two streets from the house, past the old railway station, there is a place where the wall of a house juts out and the road curves sharply around it. We turned the corner. On the road ahead of us I spotted Kamanda, the madman. He was wearing an old fisherman’s sweater and a pair of trousers with the seat torn out. Around his neck hung a necklace of bottle tops and crumpled drink cans. Kamanda’s face was running with sweat, he was babbling, spraying great gobs of spit. His calloused feet with their long, grey toenails stamped the earth as he marched up and down, up and down, swinging his arms.
‘Kamanda! Kamanda!’ I called. For he was a gentle soul. I had often given him the off cuts from reams of fabric, which he wrapped around his head or tucked into his belt like fluttering handkerchiefs. I had never seen him like this. I tried to calm him with my voice, but there was no reasoning with him at the best of times. For a few moments he seemed to settle, only to jump up, as if to attention, and begin striding up and down again.
At home I sent my nephew back to his house. ‘Hurry! No shilly shallying,’ I urged him. Then I busied Adama, telling her to bring the washing in, round up the chickens, and to light a fire.
While she was occupied I went around the house collecting up all my jewellery and precious things. From the suitcase under my bed I fetched the gifts I had bought for Adama’s baby, a silver coin with a hole in the middle and a gold chain to hang around the baby’s waist. Along with my most valuable pieces I tied them up in a cloth and dropped them into the water jar at the back door, then I sank a large stone on the top. The lesser pieces of jewellery I spread out on the table in the middle of the room.
Outside I loosened the tether of the goat and waved my stick at her until she bolted into the bushes. Afterwards I went to the yard and ordered Adama to bring the biggest of the cast iron pots and twelve cups of rice. Adama exclaimed upon the quantity, but did as she was told.
A lot of rice. Yes, indeed. I intended to cook enough to feed an army.
There was a town I used to visit. I had been there many times before. In that town was a factory which manufactured dyes and finishes. Every once in a while the owners produced a new range of colours and invited all their customers to view them. I always took the job of going to see the new range myself. Before I had my stroke it was something I liked to do. I liked the metallic tang in the air inside the main hall of the factory, the wooden vats of colour stirred by men with iron paddles, the smudges of colour on the walls. Mr Bangura, the foreman, was a cheerful fellow. A widower, whose wife had died of cholera, he had never remarried. On the third finger of his left hand he wore a ring. Not an ordinary wedding band, but a heavy gold signet ring engraved with two sets of initials. We always conducted our business upstairs in his office across a table holding many jars of pigment and glass tubes of colours. When our business was concluded he would serve me a cold drink out of the fridge behind his chair while we