Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [25]
Bobbio could see in the dark, almost. He noted where the stones had fallen. When my mother and father had gone he went closer, inspected the stones lying on the ground. Saw they were different to the ordinary river pebbles. He slipped back into the shadows. Left them there. That was all.
A dark rock the shape of a man’s cigar. A broken pebble, open like a split plum. A stone with a dimple that fitted my thumb. A twinkling crystal. A pale three-cornered stone. I won’t say I found them quickly. Not at all. Bobbio helped me. But even then, there were some I never found, whose faces I did not remember as well as I imagined.
The Ancestors, she called them. Her murmured chant, once engraved upon my brain, now suddenly was gone. The effort of remembering turned into a great rock. Then, when I finally abandoned the effort, the words appeared, like a sculpture carved out of sandstone. And now I recognise them for what they are.
Names.
The name of my mother’s mother. Of my grandmother. Of my great-grandmother and her mother. The women who went before. The women who made me. Each stone chosen and given in memory of a woman to her daughter. So that their spirits would be recalled each time the stone was held, warmed by a human hand, and cast on the ground to ask for help. And as the names emerged from the shadows, I saw how my father had destroyed my mother.
Mama returned. She stayed for a while. Then one day she left again. Danced on the outskirts of villages where superstitious villagers, thinking she was possessed by the spirit of some siren, left food out for her. Nearer the town they chased her away with sticks and stones. Once, twice, maybe three times, she returned, but the restlessness was too great. She could not stay. Each time Pa Foday brought her back. Eventually the time came when she went away for good.
As for Haidera Kontorfili, the authority of the Shekunas grew ever greater. He began to tell the world that the rule of the pothos was at an end. So the Europeans sent soldiers to arrest Haidera. The preacher swore he would never surrender. The Shekunas lay in wait on the opposite side of a bridge and killed the first man who tried to cross: a white man. Soon after, reinforcements arrived armed with guns.
Haidera was killed in battle, they said. The hyenas feasted on his body. The order went out: taxes to be collected and defaulters punished. But Haidera’s followers claimed their leader had used his magic powers to evade his captors. He had transformed himself into a deer and galloped away.
4
Hawa, 1939
Fish
My life wasn’t supposed to be like this. But a lot of things happened to me that weren’t my fault. If things had been different, I could have been like you. Listen to what I am trying to tell you. The truth. The way it really was.
I never had luck. Not like other people. Yet I stand by and watch other people win all the time. Two days ago my neighbour came back with banknotes flapping out of his pocket, the new ones, not even the old ones. He had bought a lotto ticket and won. Later he came with soft drinks and beer for everybody in the compound. By the time I arrived there the others had already helped themselves. My own one was flat, but I drank it just to show willing.
People with bad thoughts were always taking my luck away. I was still a girl, I was gutting fish — slitting open the bellies with a sharp knife, pulling the gleaming dark mass from within. The fish were fresh, some still alive. Under the table cats darted in and out of our legs, snatching at the pieces that fell. One moment I was concentrating on my work, the next I felt a sharp pain in my foot that made me cry out loud. A dirty white cat stared up at me with cold blue eyes. Somebody tried to shoo it away. The cat clung to the ground with its claws. We waved our arms. It hissed back at us. One of the women, braver than