Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [24]
Now it is I who seizes Bobbio. ‘Where did you get it? Who gave it to you?’ I force him to look at me. I know he understands. He returns my hands to me, waves at me to sit down. Like a spectator at a masquerade I watch while Bobbio tells his story.
And here it is. Together with the little I knew for myself:
The Shekunas forced people to forsake the old gods, learn Arabic and pray in the new way. There were bonfires in every town and village. People were afraid. They carried their prayer mats to the fields, dropped to their knees and touched their noses to the ground every time a stranger approached.
In the first few months that followed the meeting my father became suddenly more devout. Yes, I remember that. I thought little of it. I thought little of anything in those days. Where before he left his wives to their own devotions, during that time he demanded their presence in the mosque every Friday. I wore a head veil and accompanied my mother. We sat at the back of the mosque among the other women. Ya Namina, she took to accompanying him there every day. So did the two youngest wives, keen to demonstrate their obedience.
Any activity Haidera said was haram, our father forbade. No more drinking palm wine in the village. Haram. Instead the old men sat out near the fields late at night passing the gourd from one to the other and wandered back towards the houses on unsteady legs at dawn. All matters connected with the old religion: charms, even the beads mothers hung around the waists of little children. Haram. Offerings of cakes and kola nuts at the graves of the dead. Haram. Dancing, drumming. Haram. The secret gatherings of women. Haram! Haram!
It was our usual habit, on those nights when it was our mother’s turn to be visited by our father, to sleep in the house of Ya Jeneba and Ya Sallay. For those three nights we shared mats with their children. It was during one of those times, while he wandered through the darkness, that Bobbio saw them.
A man striding. A woman pleading. Please. Please. Bobbio marches with matchstick straight legs and arms. Begs with a sideways bent body and clasped fingers. Points at me. Cradles an invisible baby in his arms. Your mother. My mother and my father. In the night. Your father is very angry. Hooded eyes, a rigid mouth. Now a sorrowful face. Your mother is crying. Bobbio follows them. At a distance. Ducking in and out of shadows. Down to the river.
I wish Bobbio could speak. I wonder what they are saying to each other. Bobbio stares at me silently. Your mother. Yes? My mother. Bobbio looks around. Points beyond the trees in the direction of the houses. Something about the village? Our house? No! No! Madam Bah’s shop! Now, I am certain. The snuff. Of course. My father found out about us making snuff. Not good, but not so very bad. I let the air out of my chest.
Bobbio shakes his head. Shoulders droop. For several moments we are silent, gazing at each other. My friend drops to his knees, mimes a person praying. The mosque. Praying in the mosque. Your mother. My mother is a Muslim? Shakes his head vigorously and waves a finger. Not. My mother is not a Muslim? Shakes his head despondently. Shrugs. Your mother is not a good Muslim.
That evening my father had interrupted my mother in her room, as she read her fortune in the stones. My mother never looked for trouble, perhaps that’s why she wasn’t more careful. She never believed trouble might look for her. But at that time my father was in the grip of a fever, determined to end all the superstitions that marked us out as half-hearted Muslims. He demanded her stones.
My mother pleaded. Crawling towards him, trying to touch his feet. I watched Bobbio grovel on the ground, holding illusory garments around imaginary breasts. Reaching out to touch invisible feet. O mama! I felt my heart pounding. My father stepped smartly back, refused to allow her