Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [87]
After the rebellion a change had come over my father. Slowly at first. For days at a time he stayed shuttered up against the sun. In the darkness of his room his skin stretched until it was thin and dry as paper. The flesh moulded itself to his bones. His voice faded to a whisper.
When he had accepted my bride price my father knew he was marrying me to a man who was beneath me. The amount was so little. Like I was worthless, the last item left behind at an auction. And yet all the time I was growing up I had listened to the stories of Asana’s bride price, seen the listeners’ eyes grow as big as coins as the figure rolled out. She who hadn’t even held on to her man.
So one day I went to ask him to pay back this small amount of money, to free me from my marriage. My face burned as I stood there in that closed, dark room, listening to him tell me of the disgrace I was bringing upon the family. I remembered how it had been when I was a child and my mother made me sing for him. The terror I had of him then. Now I listened to my father talk to me as though I were that very child. I bowed my head, reached out and touched his feet.
But at the same time as I begged my father not to disown me, different thoughts began to enter my mind. I was thinking that my father was stuck with his head in the past. Oh, yes, perhaps he had been a big man, son of a chief’s daughter and a warrior, and all that. But that time was distant now. Peasants had set fire to his plantation. Dragged him from his house and set him on top of the rubbish heap, pelted him with jibes and taunts. Yes, these were the things that had happened. Never to be undone.
And as I left his room my father’s new wife passed me by carrying a platter of rice. Not a young girl offered to him by a humble family hoping for his patronage. Nor the daughter of a chief. A middleaged widow whose family were glad to be free of the burden! Brought here by Ya Namina to help care for my father.
Over the days that followed I made up my mind to ask my brothers to do what my father would not. Ibrahim and Idrissa. They were successful men now. Idrissa, an Army Major. Ibrahim a businessman with a big import — export business.
And then, as if to pre-empt my plans and prove he had never cared for me, my husband upped and left. Two days before Eid-al-Fitr. For Kabala, to where the Fula had driven their herds and work was plentiful.
Well, I moved back to my house. And after a while, when he had graduated from school, Khalil came to stay with me. I had no reason to go to my father’s house any longer. And so I did not. Khalil’s parents were angry and they sent his brothers to complain to my father. But I didn’t care. You see, it was my own father who had exchanged me for free meat. Who was he now to criticise me for living in this way with Khalil? There were those who said I had brought shame on the family. But the truth was — we were already shamed.
Besides — and it took me a while to realise this — there was really nothing anybody could do.
I was happy, even though it was hard for us to make ends meet. We ate fish. Fish stew, fried fish, pepper soup with smoked fish — into each dish I poured the gladness inside my heart. I wrote a letter to my brother Idrissa who was stationed at his Army barracks further north. Well, Khalil wrote it. It was good to have a man who could write. And he signed my name on the bottom. Almost always my brother enclosed a little market money in with his reply. I sent Ibrahim a letter at the same time as I wrote to my eldest brother. I dictated my words to Khalil: ‘This letter serves to remind you of your sister, who is always praying for your success.’ Khalil signed my name at the bottom. Madam Hawa Kholifa.
Now when I look back, through my whole life, my two brothers were the only people who looked after me. Yes. Even Khalil, in the end, betrayed me.
My joy lasted three years.
The problem began when I had to send the girl back to her family. I saw the half-smiles she had begun to give Khalil.