Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [31]
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There were so many of us — children of my father. And yet I had few friends among my brothers and sisters when I was growing up, only Idrissa and Ibrahim who were my belly brothers. Mariama and her sisters were gone. Ya Janeba and Ya Sallay’s children kept to themselves: like their mothers they appeared not to welcome outsiders. My brothers, too, preferred their own company or that of the other young men around. And although they sometimes came and boasted to me of their exploits, we spent less and less time together.
Finda was my friend. I followed her as she went about her chores. When my brothers and I fought I ran to hide behind her. And it was she I asked the things I didn’t understand, when Idrissa and Ibrahim sniggered into cupped hands but refused to tell me what was funny. Finda didn’t tell me either, but she scolded them and that was good.
It was Finda I turned to when I noticed my mother growing taller.
I’ve told you my mother was a tall woman. And so she was. Only those days, every time I looked at her, she seemed higher than ever. Though my father was always telling me I had grown, I even began to imagine I was shrinking. I measured myself, scratching a mark on the outside wall of the house with a stick. One afternoon we were trapped by the rain, watching it fall out of the sky like sheets of glass, distorting the shapes of the houses and trees beyond, turning the ground into miniature rapids of red mud. I was helping Finda to husk groundnuts, breaking open the soft, steaming shells and peeling the thin membrane from each of the nuts.
Finda set down her pan and told me my mother was sick.
I didn’t know what she meant. I asked the only question I could think of: ‘Why would that make her taller?’
‘Your mother isn’t taller. That’s just the way it looks.’
A wasting illness had stolen her appetite. And as her body drew in so it seemed to lengthen.
‘When will she be better?’
‘Soon. God willing.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Maybe not.’
‘Next tomorrow then?’
‘Soon. God willing.’
The weeks rolled past, my mother took to her bed. The house was quiet. My brothers were out all day. I sat at home and waited for my mother to get well again. Sometimes I went to her room and sat with her. The room smelled of un-aired clothing, sweat and something rotten. My mother was a black woman, but out of the sun her skin yellowed like a dried tobacco leaf. I tried to keep her company, to tell her the things that occupied my day but she seemed not to listen because too often she would laugh suddenly in the wrong place or ask a question that had nothing to do with the thing I was saying.
My father sent for a doctor. Somebody from the town. The man arrived by bicycle and carried a battered black bag, empty except for a stethoscope. Finda was displeased when he pressed the cold metal disc against my mother’s breast, but she told me after that she did not protest because she knew my father had placed his faith in this man who was taking so much of his money. Under the doctor’s instructions we gave her one tablet, aspirin, each day and every other day Finda rubbed her body with mentholatum from the brown glass jar the doctor brought us from the pharmacist. We waited. My mother grew thinner.
My mother was ashamed of being sick, of the sour smell that rose from her and stained the air. Finda brought star lilies and placed them in my mother’s room and their thick scent mingled with the odour of sickness. As if contaminated by my mother’s shame my father stopped his visits. Instead he arranged for her to visit the hospital in Kamakue. I was not allowed to go, though Finda went and my brothers too.
Idrissa described the big white building, surrounded by walls built of concrete breeze blocks and lawns of spiky grass, walkways wrapped in bougainvillaea and morning glory. I imagined my mother would be happy there, among the flowers. Of course we expected miracles. Finda was the only one who had any doubts. The others of