Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [278]
‘No, I no tell him.’
‘Man try kill you bootiful Hambo, you no tell? Why dat?’
Arifa settled the wrap over her ample shoulders and lowered her lashes. ‘I ’fraid Iboti too much,’ she said.
There was laughter at this, especially from the women. Arifa was bigger than Iboti and noted for her termagant temper. ‘Poor little kuku, poor mwona,’ Tabakali called, ‘I so sorry for you.’
Under this provocation, Arifa forgot her role of fearful woman. Her eyes flashed and she clenched her fists. ‘Foulani baggage, crow pick you eye,’ she said.
‘Never mind dem,’ Tongman said, giving her a look of sympathetic understanding. ‘I sabee why you no tell Hambo. You not sartin, dat why. Early mornin’ light no very good. You see Iboti pick up someting, but mebbe piece string, mebbe piece flint. Mebbe not Iboti. Dat right?’
Flustered by the laughter and misled by Tongman’s sympathetic tone, Arifa was brought to agree that in fact Iboti had been some considerable distance away and that a man picking up dust would not easily be distinguished from a man picking up any small object. But she still swore it was Iboti and said she knew it was dust because of the careful way he had carried it.
Tongman turned away from her to address the assembly at large. The evidence against Iboti was completely discredited already, as he felt sure they would agree; however, he proposed to call one witness who would demolish any shreds of credibility still remaining. There was something of a sensation at this, for Tongman had told noboby about this witness, for fear she might be intimidated. It was Koudi, who had been sitting silent among them all this while. She was a quiet, long-limbed, rather shy and self-effacing woman with a kind expression of the eyes.
Gently, amidst complete silence, Tongman drew out her story. She had seen Iboti on that particular morning – she knew it was the same day that Arifa had been referring to, because it was the day for the washing of the pulped koonti roots. She herself had gone down to the creek, though a little later. There had been several women already there, Arifa among them.
This evidence as to the day carried complete conviction. Everyone knew that the washing of the pulp was planned in advance and that it was collective work, involving repeated saturation and straining, the women helping one another with the heavy baskets.
‘So now de day fix, you tell us where you see Iboti,’ Tongman said.
‘See him nearby de graveyar’.’
‘What time day?’
‘Mornin’. Sun jus’ come up.’
‘What he carry?’
‘Carry chop knife an’ baskit.’
‘An’ you comin’ from graveyar’, dat right? Come from Wilson an’ Tibo grave?’
‘Dat right.’
This too, no one would have dreamed of doubting. It was common knowledge that Koudi visited the graveyard frequently in the early hours of the day so as to sprinkle water on the graves of Wilson and Tibo and conciliate their spirits. These two men had died because of her in the early days of the settlement, one murdered for her sake and the other put to death for the crime. An aura of evil fortune had hung over Koudi ever since. Nobody held her directly responsible, but a woman who brings death to two men can never be quite as others are. Koudi was regarded as an unlucky woman and so, to some extent, guilty. However, on this occasion, for Iboti, she was lucky enough.
Tongman had allowed an appreciable pause for the significance of her statements to come fully home to the people. Now he put his last, crucial, question to her: ‘What course Iboti lay? He lay for hut, he lay adder way, for bush?’
‘Adder way,’ Koudi said, without hesitation. ‘Iboti lay for bush.’
‘Iboti lay for bush,’ Tongman repeated loudly. ‘I tank you. Dat all. Now, Iboti, stan’ up, hoist up you head. You no ’fraid. Only one ting you say dese good people. Where you go with you baskit an’ knife?’
It was Iboti’s moment. He raised his head and straightened his shoulders. ‘I go cut cabbage in de ammack,’ he said, in his drawling, thick-tongued voice.
‘Iboti, you good man,’ Tongman said. ‘I sorry you have dis trouble.’ He was standing