Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [97]
A child’s face. At the window, framed by curtains, a child was watching me, unblinking black eyes. For several seconds I stared back. The child didn’t move and neither did I. Just gazed into each other’s eyes. I felt peaceful. For a moment I caught a glimpse of my own face among the reflections in the glass, my head superimposed upon the child’s shoulders. The image wavered. I saw the child’s eyes grow wider and its mouth open, though the sound was drowned out by the rain and the flapping of wet wings. A woman appeared behind the child. I saw her look up and take a step towards the window, pushing out her chin and drawing it back with a jolt, something like shock.
I turned away, pulled my hood back over my head. I walked fast, until I broke into a run. My heart was beating. I began to feel afraid. I worried the woman might leave her house, come after me, demand to know what I was doing. Suddenly the fear reared up, like great shadows behind me, chasing me. Faster and faster, I ran all the way to the hostel.
The next day it was cold, too cold to get out of bed. I lay there, pulling the cover over my head to block out the slow light that burned through the window. I dozed and dreamed. And in my dreams I saw sometimes the child, and sometimes the face of Bobbio my childhood friend. Another time I was snatched up by a great, black bird, carried through the air and dropped into a nest, where I lay on soft feathers, surrounded by jostling chicks. I woke up to the sound of tapping, saw a pigeon’s red and yellow eye staring at me as its beak struck the glass.
The room grew dark and light again. How many times I don’t know. Once somebody knocked on the door of my room. I didn’t answer, I waited until they went away. It was quiet again, I was pleased at that. Silence, except for the sounds of the pigeons on my window sill, but they were my friends. Another time, another knock. Still I didn’t reply; the person came in anyway. She looked a bit like one of the nuns from the boarding home, so I let her urge me out of bed and slip my duffel coat over my shoulders. I put my hands into my pockets and felt the slimy mush that lined the bottom. I wondered what it was.
Next I was in a car. The driver kept turning around to look at me, asking me questions I couldn’t hear so instead I looked out of the window. A stone horse reared up from a plinth. The rider, halfrisen in the saddle, stared straight at me. A man leaning out of an advertising billboard, proffering a cigarette, fixed me with his gaze. A woman beckoned me with a sideways look, raised a steaming mug of drinking chocolate. A dog’s bulging, brown eyes followed my progress from the kerb.
A man asked my name. ‘Mariama,’ I replied. I don’t know why I said that. I had been Mary for a long time. We were out of the car now and in a new place. More questions followed. I couldn’t find the English words so I answered him in my own language. He spoke to the woman who had brought me. Meanwhile I sat in my chair and looked at him. There was something strange about him. I stopped listening and watched him closely; still it took me a while to put my finger on it. Then I saw: he had no teeth! No gums, no tongue. Just a black hole behind his barely moving lips.
It was dark again when I woke up. A soft bed. A hard, square patch