Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [76]
9
Serah, 1956
Red Shoes
Well, there was this one white woman. I mean she was our teacher, she was married to the District Commissioner. I think she taught, you know, just to keep herself occupied. There wasn’t much to do except run the house. A lot of those types did not bring their wives, or the wives didn’t want to come, or if they did they lost their minds and had to be sent home. That happened.
Once when I was growing up a District Commissioner was invited to attend a palava of the chiefs. It was a grand affair, the chiefs travelled in from miles. Some important land matter was to be discussed that required the Commissioner’s approval. This man decided to bring his wife along, as a diversion for her — she was recently arrived in the country. At that time I was a young initiate, and our dancing opened the proceedings.
The men talked for hours. You know how it goes. And while they did so, I watched the woman. She sat with her hands on her lap, head to one side. Her glance flew from face to face, settling on each for a moment, like a bird flitting through the trees. From her expression you would imagine she was paying a great deal of attention, though it must have been entirely unintelligible. Even the chiefs were using interpreters between themselves. The time passed slowly. But the woman’s face did not redden in the heat. Rather it grew pale. She was swallowing, swallowing all the time, looking in her husband’s direction. He had his back turned to her, listening closely to the words his Court Messenger was whispering in his ear. He couldn’t see her. I saw her eyelids flutter like a fledgling’s wings, her eyeballs rolled back as though she was trying to see the inside of her own head.
Gbap! She fell off her chair.
Well, there was silence at that. Then the chiefs, the pa’m’sum, everybody hurried over. The chiefs began waving their fly swats around her. The woman lashed out at them. I could hear her screaming. The more they tried to help her, the more she sobbed and backed away, holding her handbag out in front of her. In the end her husband managed to calm her and lead her away, his arm around her shoulders. The whole palava had to be called off and reconvened at another time. Later the Court Messenger came to explain the woman was suffering from malaria. But those close enough to see what had happened said she had made up her mind that we were all cannibals. Every one of us. And that the chiefs, in their garbled tongue, were really discussing the best way to kill her.
Our teacher, Mrs Silk, was not this sort. Not at all. For a start there was the way she looked at you, straight in the eye. And she would ask you to look her in the face too, when you spoke. It got me into trouble with my grandmother, who slapped me for being so bold. But when you talked to Mrs Silk and saw the way she looked at you and smiled and nodded. Well, it made you feel good in yourself. Like you were saying something interesting. So I learned to look down at my grandmother’s feet, and up into Mrs Silk’s eyes.
Every morning Mrs Silk arrived at the school in her husband’s car. And every morning we gathered at the windows to watch. Mrs Silk sat in her seat, making no move to get out. Her husband would climb down and walk all the way around the front of the car to open her door. And then he kissed her.
Kissed her!
On the lips!
Just like that!
In front of us all!
We’d whoop and duck down out of sight quickly, before they looked up.
What did we think? We thought: what shameless people are these? Such behaviour in public! But secretly I had another thought, and I think some of the other girls did, too. How this man must love his wife to allow himself to act that way. Yes, Mrs Silk was very lucky. Oh, and I prayed one day I would have a husband to love me like that, too.
We used to powder our faces with chalk dust. To dampen the shine. We smuggled in hot-combs and ironed each other’s hair in the dormitory at night. I wonder the teachers never seemed to ask themselves how we had curly hair one day and