Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama [186]
Still, it must have been lonely for Helima, for your grandfather worked all the time and had no time for friends or entertainment. He did not drink with other men, and he did not smoke tobacco. His only pleasure was going to the dance halls in Nairobi once a month, for he liked to dance. But he also was not such a good dancer—he was rough, and would bump into people and step on their feet. Most people did not say anything about this because they knew Onyango and his temper. One night, though, a drunken man began to complain about Onyango’s clumsiness. The man became rude, and told your grandfather, “Onyango, you are already an older man. You have many cattle, and you have a wife, and yet you have no children. Tell me, is something the matter between your legs?”
People who overheard the conversation began to laugh, and Onyango beat this man severely. But the drunk man’s words must have stayed with your grandfather, for that month he set out to find another wife. He returned to Kendu and inquired about all the women in the village. Finally he made up his mind on a young girl named Akumu, who was well regarded for her beauty. She was already promised to another man, who had paid her father six cattle in dowry, promising to deliver six more in the future. But Onyango knew the girl’s father and he convinced him to send back these six cattle. In return, Onyango gave him fifteen cattle on the spot. The next day, your grandfather’s friends captured Akumu while she was walking in the forest and dragged her back to Onyango’s hut.
The young boy, Godfrey, appeared with the washbasin, and we all washed our hands for lunch. Auma. stood up to stretch her back, her hair still half undone, a troubled look on her face. She said something to Dorsila and Granny, and drew a lengthy response from both women.
“I was asking them if our grandfather took Akumu by force,” Auma told me, spooning some meat onto her plate.
“What did they say?”
“They say that this thing about grabbing the woman was part of Luo custom. Traditionally, once the man pays the dowry, the woman must not seem too eager to be with him. She pretends to refuse him, and so the man’s friends must capture her and take her back to his hut. Only after this ritual do they perform a proper marriage ceremony.” Auma took a small bite of her food. “I told them that in such a custom some women might not have been pretending.”
Zeituni dipped her ugali into the stew. “Yah, Auma, it was not as bad as you say. If her husband behaved badly, the girl could always leave.”
“But what good was that if her father would only end up choosing someone else for her? Tell me, what would happen if a woman refused her father’s choice of a suitor?”
Zeituni shrugged. “She shamed herself and her family.”
“You see?” Auma turned to ask Granny something, and whatever it was that Granny said in response made Auma hit Granny—only half playfully—on the arm.
“I asked her if the man would force the girl to sleep with him the night of her capture,” Auma explained, “and she told me that no one knew what went on in a man’s hut. But she also asked me how a man would know if he wanted the whole bowl of soup unless he first had a taste.”
I asked Granny how old she had been when she married our grandfather. The question amused her so much that she repeated it to Dorsila, who giggled and slapped Granny on the leg.
“She told Dorsila that you wanted to know when Onyango seduced her,” Auma said.
Granny winked at me, then told us she had been just sixteen when she married; our grandfather was a friend of her father’s, she said. I asked if that had bothered her, and she shook her head.
“She says that it was common to marry an older man,” Auma said. “She says in those days, marriage involved more than just two people. It brought together families and affected the whole village. You didn’t complain, or worry about love. If you didn’t learn to love your