Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [56]
‘Ah, but let me introduce you, Asana.’ The voice he used was offhand. ‘This is Mabinty.’ Before me the girl bowed her head and dropped into a curtsey.
And that was how I met my husband’s newest wife.
Osman delighted in his triumph. He did not call me to his room. When I saw that girl — humming, wandering about, toying with some new bauble, smiling stupidly even at the chickens — I recognised myself, the way I too had been.
I contemplated my position — the third wife of a man who was of a lesser family than my own, yet who treated me with contempt. Replaced by a peasant girl brought back from one of his trips — in all likelihood given to him for the price of a sack of rice.
Osman did not care that he flaunted marriage customs. One, two, three nights he was with her. And then a fourth night. I began to wonder if I would ever lie with my husband again. I wanted more children, yes. But there was something else. I was ashamed to think of it. Despite myself I was gripped by a craving I could not quell. One morning I saw Osman sitting at the front of the house waiting for Mabinty to bring his shirt. Dressed only in his trousers, slippers half on his feet, naked to the waist. I found my eyes drawn to the spirals of hair scattered across his chest, the deep ridges of his stomach in which drops of sweat glistened, the dark trail that led down from his belly button and disappeared into the waistband of his trousers. He caught me watching him and quickly I looked away.
Liquid like melted moonlight: pale, opaque, translucent. Ngadie handed me the enamel mug, hitched up her skirts and sat down on a log. The palm wine had fermented in the heat of the day. It was strong and vinegary, faintly fizzy. I took a sip, and then another, felt the trickle of warmth reach my belly. All was quiet. We were far from the house in a small clearing surrounded by palm trees: raphia palms, oil palms, coconut palms. I had already tasted the wine from all three. When I was a child I had once tried the first sap, the juice collected early in the morning. It was sweet, clear and innocent to drink. Nothing like this. I sipped again.
Ngadie had once possessed a great beauty. The traces were there in the perfect symmetry of her lips; in the gap between her front teeth considered so desirable in a woman; in the dimple on her chin that was now no more than a smudge in the soft flesh. There was delicacy, too, in the turn of her wrist as she poured the palm wine. And regret in the trembling of her fingers.
I realised, watching her, that I did not know what her face looked like when she smiled. I had never heard her laugh. I took a kola nut, split it, and passed half to her. She hesitated, her eyes held mine for a moment. Then she accepted it and thanked me.
What had become of Osman’s father? I asked. Ngadie paused, the edge of the cup rested on her lower lip.
‘A great man,’ she replied. ‘Loved by his people.’ Osman had not known his father. He had been a leader who defied the pothos when they came crowning chiefs. Osman’s father was one who resisted. ‘He warned his brothers not to trust the pothos. He told them no white man ever gave anything without wanting more in return. They didn’t listen.’ The leaders seized the gifts they were offered, signing away their lands and their power with a thumbprint. In return they were given a wooden staff with a brass handle and an upholstered chair bearing the arms of the potho queen. As for Osman’s father, the pothos deposed him and gave his position to a man from a rival clan. He was forced to leave his people and went to live on the other side of the land. He died. Osman grew up in his mother’s family, working on the land while the sons of the new chief grew fat. Osman resented his family’s poverty terribly.
Ngadie told me there were many people who