Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [27]
My father clapped, picking up the rhythm, and joined in with the reply. I remember how surprised I was at that. It was strange to think of my own father as a child and that once there were people who could tell him what to do.
And yet I noticed things about my father. Outside he had a stern face, which did not care to smile. He built the mosque and was inside it five times every day. He walked quickly. And people hurried around him, offering greetings, showing respect. A sober man. Yet I saw my mother do things nobody else did. He used to lie with his feet in her lap while she massaged them, pulling at his toes gently one by one. And I saw her hit him with a fan! Across his face, as though she were slapping him with the back of her hand, but using her fan instead. She touched him only lightly. Still, I had never seen anybody touch my father. For a long time I couldn’t remember what happened next. Maybe I had made myself forget. And then I realised the reason I couldn’t remember was that nothing happened. She hit him with her fan. Laughter. The conversation between them carried on.
That evening my mother sang the next part. Where my father’s voice was heavy and rich, like the smell of the best coffee beans, my mother’s was high and clear as an empty sky.
Then it was over. My father laughed and clapped again. He called me to sit by his side while he ate. I never could cross my legs properly, I don’t know why. My thighs ached and I was unable to take my eyes off his plate. Guineafowl stewed with honey and whole lemons. It was not a dish the other wives cooked. I hadn’t eaten. My stomach groaned loudly. My father laughed and his body shook. He held out a morsel of guineafowl in his fingers, and I reached up to take it from him. Then I remembered my mother. I hesitated. Hunger had prevented me thinking properly. Perhaps my father would consider me greedy. I glanced up at my mother, saw her slight smile, the way she inclined her head towards me. And I knew I had done well.
That day, or maybe it was another time, my mother fetched the small seven-stringed guitar she owned. Lately, since I have been thinking about her, I have wondered where she learned to play such a thing. I have never seen a woman play one before or since, only the travelling players on market days.
She sang a song for my father. It was a Madingo song about love. Not a love song. You couldn’t really call it that. I knew it off by heart:
Quarrels end,
But words once uttered never die.
Lovers part,
But love lives on.
Marriages end,
But hearts survive.
You leave your mother’s breast,
For your father’s side,
And why should this be so?
Because love forever changes.
When from her father’s house,
A girl goes to a man,
We see the same again,
Love’s constant changes.
And when into the night she slips away,
To her lover’s arms,
The same rule applies, my friend:
Love’s inconstancy.
My father laughed again, a different laugh this time. My mother sent to me to go and find my brothers. The sound of her voice wrapped itself around me and followed me out into the darkness of the compound where the words broke free and floated up to the stars.
Of course my mother was not a slave. What man would treat a slave that way? Do you ask a slave advice and talk to them about how to run your affairs? Do you listen to what they have to say and then go away and do what they tell you? My mother even had a girl of her own to help her. Does a slave have a servant? So stupid. Some people were jealous of her, that’s all. Because he brought her gifts. If he went away — on those occasions when he couldn’t take her with him — he never once forgot to bring her something back. The fan — that was a present. It was the shape of a kola leaf, like an upside down heart, finely woven in different colours. Another time he gave her a real gold nugget. And when he came back from Guinea he brought her an almond tree in a pot.