Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [22]
My father, in order to avoid being drowned, went away on business with his sixth wife.
And this same time was when the dancing stopped. The steps followed mama when she walked out of the village. She went, leaving behind everything, even her name. So I wrapped it in longing and kept it for her.
Clouds spread over the sky. Overripe fruit drops from the trees at night and morning brings the smell of wet earth and the sweet stink of rotting flesh. The river is dammed. The water rises. After dark, house-children — black-eyed geckoes — feast on swarms of mosquitoes.
I was sharing a plate of rice with my sisters at the back of Ya Namina’s house when mama’s ghost walked back into the village. Three people saw her with their own eyes. Salia Bangura and his woman had argued and he was late that morning. She walked past them both without a word of greeting. The alpha was shaving with a piece of broken mirror on the steps of the mosque. Over his shoulder he saw the figure of a woman, dripping with dew. Afterwards he pointed at the shattered glass, dropped in fright. Old man Bangura, spoiling for a fight he could win, began an argument over whether a ghost would possess a reflection. Nobody could agree. What they did agree on was this: spirit or mortal man, it walked straight up the main road towards our father’s house.
We heard them shout and dropped our plate. We ran with greasy mouths and fingers. But by the time we reached the place where the three of them stood with open mouths, she had vanished.
The next time I see her for myself.
Up the river mangroves crowd the banks. There we like to dive into the muddy waters and pull oysters from the tangled roots. Below, the river spreads out, glistening green, weed streaming just below the surface like a witch’s hair. Here boulders are scattered across the sand, black pearls at a Tuareg woman’s throat. It is morning, raining. Drops of rain splash on to the water, as though on to a scalding pan. Steam rises from the bottomless below. Insects race along the surface of the water, escaping on pinpoint feet. It was once my favourite place. I used to come here and dig fish out of the mud, fish with no fins and bulging eyes.
At first I don’t notice her, standing half hidden in the shadows on the sharp line where the trees meet the river, in front of the abandoned fishing hut. Her hair is scattered about her shoulders in tangled ropes. Her dress is tattered, torn at the neck so it hangs down like a flap of skin. One breast is naked, tilted up, pointing at the sky. She is watching me.
I climb down from the rock, slowly. Afraid of startling her. She is so very still.
‘Mama,’ I cry. I start to run. She jerks slightly. Takes a step towards me, extending clasped hands, like she is begging me for something, imploring me. ‘Mama,’ I run faster, I catch my foot on a rock. She steps into the sunlight.
That day some boys from the village on the opposite bank had crossed to set some traps on our side. Now they see her.
‘Hai! Hai!’ One of them bends to pick up a stone.
‘Leave her alone!’ But I’m too late. Like a hounded stray my mother cowers, starts to back off. She is gone before the stone hits the branch of a nearby tree. A shower of splintering bark and leaves. I race to the boy nearest me and push him in the chest. Hard with the heels of my hands.
‘She’s a crazy woman,’ he touches his temple and laughs loudly, ‘Craz-y. Let her go from here.’
I run after her. I run behind the fisherman’s hut. She is nowhere. Inside the hut a tree grows through the middle, out through the roofless roof. The mud is crumbling away from the walls, leaving wooden poles exposed like ribs. Inside there is a place on the floor, like the warm spot underfoot where a chicken has roosted for a while.
Pa Foday: he brought my mother back. As soon he came back from the plantation and heard