Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [37]
But I knew better than that. Life hadn’t been fair to me. I kept quiet. And that day I learned how to turn my luck around.
5
Serah, 1950
Woman Palava
My mother? I haven’t thought about her in a long time.
My mother left.
Tried to alter her destiny. Looking back it was a brave thing to do, I suppose. Foolish, maybe. I don’t know. Who did she think she was?
She was Saffie. The tenth wife. Imagine it.
A tenth wife has no status. Not much better than a servant. But sometimes it is the lowliest people who have the most courage — because they’re the ones with the least to lose.
There are things I remember. I don’t know if any of it makes sense. Some questions were never answered. And there were other things I made myself forget.
Well, let me see. Where do you want me to start?
My mother used to tell me how she first met Ya Namina. My mother was a young girl standing at the side of the path when Ya Namina and her entourage passed by on their way back to Rofathane. She had been at court with her husband and was returning without him. My mother was carrying a pot of water and she stepped off the side of the road to allow this woman past. Whoever she was, my mother could see she was important. Everybody around her was laden while she walked ahead unburdened.
Ya Namina had journeyed for many miles. She beckoned the child with the water pot over. My mother lowered the heavy pot from her head, filled a cup of water and held it out to the older woman, bowing as low as she could. Bent over double like that she noticed the woman’s feet: long toes, and toenails that curved at the ends and pointed downwards. Ten toes pointing at the ground.
As my mother stretched out her hand for the empty cup, the woman touched her chin, tilting her face upwards. She asked her name and what family she belonged to. That was it. Where it all began. How she became my father’s next wife.
Three years later she saw the moon. Two years after that she was taken to her husband’s room. Ya Isatta performed the obligations on behalf of Ya Namina, bathing her, rubbing her limbs with oil and perfume, carrying her into the room. That night my father sat on a cushion on the tapestries on the floor, counting silver coins, stringing them, through the hole in the middle of each one, into great ropes of money. My mother perched on the edge of the fourposter bed, a bed as big as a boat, and watched him until she became drowsy and fell over backwards. In the morning she woke up alone.
The next night he brought out a board hollowed out in twelve places, six on each side, and numerous small, silver beans. He beckoned her to sit opposite him, took a handful of the beans in one hand and allowed four to drop into each hollow. Afterwards he gathered up the contents of one and began to count them out. One, two, three, four. All this was done in silence. My mother gazed at him. He jabbed his forefinger at the board. She dropped her eyes. He never spoke.
Later he stood up, placed a round felt hat upon his head and left the room. My mother was a virgin. But she had been initiated and she was a married woman. She knew enough to know this was not the way it was supposed to be, though she let on to nobody. Not even Ya Isatta who called her to one side the next morning with a crafty look on her face. That was how they often spent their nights together. Playing warri. She became very good at it.
Of course, these were things I found out later. Ya Memso was prone to those sorts of indiscretions.
It wasn’t as though nothing ever happened. My mother gave birth to me and then to my brother. But, warn? Warri is a fine game. But when was a board game ever enough for a woman?
All this was many years ago, around the time people began to