Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [137]
I could hear nothing save a few muffled sounds. And all I could see was the narrow beam of light that came from the space between the lid and the box. For the first time I began to feel afraid. For a while I did nothing, just listened to the sound of my own breathing. In the closed space my breaths seemed raucous, as though they had transformed into vapours, clamorous with life, swirling around, searching for a way out.
I tried to make myself comfortable. I should have put down some cloths or sacking to line the inside. Too late now. I was lying on top of my stick and I squirmed until I managed to ease it out from under me. I turned on to my back and lay there with my knees bent. The temperature inside the box was rising, it would soon be as hot as a furnace. I loosened my clothing as best I could. I pulled off my head-wrap, bunched it up and put it under my head as a makeshift pillow. The effort made me thirsty, but I had no water. I didn’t dare risk climbing back out, I would have to manage without.
After a bit I began to explore my surroundings. This had been my favourite hiding place when I was a child. I’d lie on top of my mother’s belongings, waiting for someone to come and find me, as scared of being discovered as of not being found at all. When the lid finally opened above me, I screamed and screamed. Still, I went back, over and over, to hide in the same place. I didn’t think anyone would imagine I would be so stupid as to choose such an obvious place. My double bluff never worked. I prayed it would work this time.
I ran my fingertips around the sides of the box. It was well made, solid and strong. We were more or less the same age, and yet I was the one who’d begun to sag and creak. The box on the other hand had only grown more handsome with the years: the richness of the patina, the worn-smooth surface. I had become so used to it over the years, I’d stopped seeing it, but it was a very elegant box.
I came across a knot in the wood and explored it with my fingers. It was grainy, at odds with the feel of the rest. I scratched it with my fingernail and felt it crumble. I reached up and took a pin from my hair and began to dig at the place. The knot wasn’t wood at all, but some sort of plaster, probably where the carpenter had plugged the place where a knot had fallen through. I scratched away like a mouse until I had made myself a spyhole. It was a little high, I had to push myself up on one elbow, but it was better than nothing.
There was more light now, a circular beam coming in through the spy hole. I followed the beam to the other side of the box where it revealed a series of markings: vertical cuts, where somebody had scored the wood with a knife. Two rows of ten, one above, one below. A carpenter’s trademark? Perhaps the box had been made using wood from something else. I ran my thumbnail across the rows, backwards and forwards, making a vibrating sound like a musical instrument.
Now I remembered. As a young girl, watching my mother. Every year, on the day we ate the first rice of the new harvest, going to her room where the great chest stood. With a sharp knife she would score the wood in the same place every year. Every year for ten years. Ten anniversaries. Ten birthdays. Asana and Alusani. Then Alusani died and stole her happiness to take with him back to the other world.
Rofathane. I had fought so hard to leave all that behind. And yet.
We had a herbalist, a carpenter, a blacksmith, a birth attendant and a boy who never grew old. Soothsayers prepared us for the unexpected. Teachers travelled