Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [147]
Still today and every day those women appear to me in my mind’s eye, my aunts in all their guises, often when I am least expecting it. Vibrant and noisy, tumbling through time, jostling for my attention, and always with something new to say about whatever it is I am doing. Superior by far to any box of disintegrating diaries and lifeless letters.
I passed Ya Namina’s house, which is how I have come to think of it. A workman was knocking nails into the edges of the window frames. An evening a week earlier, as we all sat keeping company in front of the house, Asana had voiced her intention to move in, to live in her mother’s house again. A moment later she eased herself slowly to her feet with the aid of her stick, saying she was on her way to bed. On the steps of the verandah she turned to Aunty Hawa, who that particular evening had scarcely shared in the talk, but sat silent as the chatter flew around her. ‘And will you stay with me?’ she asked. Aunty Hawa jumped up and ran over to her, and I saw her bend down and fleetingly touch her elder sister’s feet.
They were all there on the day planting began. Serah poured a libation over the first seedling and uttered a short impromptu prayer. Then she told us she had something to say. She had decided to look for her mother. She and Mary planned a trip to the South, to the town where Serah’s mother was last heard to be living. It was only a beginning, so many years and a war had intervened, but the women who made gara were full of information and all knew each other. They would carry with them the pieces of cloth from Serah’s marriage box to show them. Every woman had her own designs like a trademark, somebody might remember. And afterwards Hawa sang a song, surprising me with a voice that was powerful and true. Gradually the others joined in, and I hummed along to the parts that were familiar, until after a few verses I had the confidence to sing out loud.
The day before I was due to return to the city to catch my flight to London the four of them decided to join me for my morning bath in the river. They were already there by the time I arrived, I heard the sound of their laughter and bickering bouncing across the water. I suppose, strictly speaking, Aunty Asana shouldn’t have been there, but that was just a convention after all. And if I had learned one thing about my aunts, it is that they would not be bound by anything so flimsy.
Coming down the narrow path I saw them before they spotted me, Asana and Serah out in the dark water, beyond the fallen tree, their breasts bobbing round and high as young girls’ breasts on the surface. Asana as lithe and whole as ever she had been. Hawa standing with her back to me, slim and straight, a sentinel waiting for her son to come home. Mariama in her element, shaking her head, a shower of crystal droplets like an elaborate crown.
Four African ladies having a bath, a group of water maidens basking in the river.
And later, when we had climbed out and were drying ourselves, Mariama called me over. She grasped one of my hands in both of hers and pressed an object into my palm, something heavy, warm and smooth. I opened my fingers and looked down. It was wet and glossy: a pure, black pebble.
That was three years ago, and every year since I have returned to Rofathane, taking with me my husband, my daughter and my son. The seedlings have taken root and now the young coffee trees stand taller than my children. And we have planted more: limes, almonds and cashew nuts, chillies and ginger, too. The first crop left the village, loaded into a truck in wooden boxes with the words ‘Kholifa Estates’ stamped on the side.
I am writing this at my desk in the den. In front of me sits a bowl of stones, a gift to me from Mariama along with the one she gave me in Rofathane. In the silver light of the morning they seem to glitter, sending out flickers of light and the occasional flash, like tiny shooting stars. Especially the crystals, the black stones and a grey one, the one that looks as though somebody has pressed their thumb into it. On summer days