He was buried at four o’clock. I had taken the schoolchildren to where he lay in state. When his different relatives saw the little uniformed figure they all forgot their differences and burst into loud lamentations. ‘Chicha, O Chicha, what shall I do now that Kwesi is dead?’ His grandmother addressed me. ‘Kwesi, my Beauty, Kwesi my Master, Kwesi-my-own-Kwesi,’ one aunt was chanting, ‘Father Death has done me an ill turn.’
‘Chicha,’ the grandmother continued, ‘my washing days are over, for who will give me water? My eating days are over, for who will give me food?’ I stood there, saying nothing. I had let the children sing ‘Saviour Blessed Saviour’. And we had gone to the cemetery with him.
After the funeral, I went to the House of Mourning as one should do after a burial. No one was supposed to weep again for the rest of the day. I sat there listening to visitors who had come from the neighbouring villages.
‘This is certainly sad, and it is most strange. School has become like business; those who found it earlier for their children are eating more than the children themselves. To have a schoolboy snatched away like this is unbearable indeed,’ one woman said.
‘Ah, do not speak,’ his father’s youngest sister broke in. ‘We have lost a treasure.’
‘My daughter,’ said the grandmother again, ‘Kwesi is gone, gone for ever to our forefathers. And what can we do?’
‘What can we do indeed? When flour is scattered in the sand, who can sift it? But this is the saddest I’ve heard, that he was his mother’s only one.’
‘Is that so?’ another visitor cried. ‘I always thought she had other children. What does one do, when one’s only water-pot breaks?’ she whispered. The question was left hanging in the air. No one dared say anything more.
I went out. I never knew how I got there, but I saw myself approaching Maami Ama’s hut. As usual, the door was open. I entered the outer room. She was not there. Only sheep and goats from the village were busy munching at the cassava and the yams. I looked into the inner chamber. She was there. Still clad in the cloth she had worn to the divorce proceedings, she was not sitting, standing or lying down. She was kneeling, and like one drowning who catches at a straw, she was clutching Kwesi’s books and school uniform to her breast. ‘Maami Ama, Maami Ama,’ I called out to her. She did not move. I left her alone. Having driven the sheep and goats away, I went out, shutting the door behind me. ‘I must go home now,’ I spoke to myself once more. The sun was sinking behind the coconut palm. I looked at my watch. It was six o’clock; but this time. I did not run.
A Gift from Somewhere
The Mallam had been to the village once. A long time ago. A long time ago, he had come to do these parts with Ahmadu. That had been his first time. He did not remember what had actually happened except that Ahmadu had died one night during the trip. Allah, the things that can happen to us in our exile and wanderings!
Now the village was quiet. But these people. How can they leave their villages so empty every day like this? Any time you come to a village in these parts in the afternoon, you only find the too young, the too old, the maimed and the dying, or else goats and chickens, never men and women. They don’t have any cause for alarm. There is no fighting here, no marauding.
He entered several compounds which were completely deserted. Then he came to this one and saw the woman. Pointing to her stomach, he said, ‘Mami Fanti, there is something there.’ The woman started shivering. He was embarrassed.
Something told him that there was nothing wrong with the woman herself. Perhaps there was a baby? Oh Allah, one always has to make such violent guesses. He looked round for a stool. When he saw one lying by the wall, he ran to pick it up. He returned with it to where the woman was sitting, placed it right opposite her, and sat down.
Then he said, ‘Mami, by Allah, by his holy prophet Mohamet, let your heart rest quiet in your breast. This little one, this child, he will live . . .’
And she lifted her head which until then was so bent her chin touched her breasts, and raised her eyes to the face of the Mallam for the first time, and asked ‘Papa Kramo, is that true?’
‘Ah Mami Fanti,’ the Mallam rejoined. ‘Mm . . . mm,’ shaking awhile the forefinger of his right hand. This movement accompanied simultaneously as it was by his turbanned head and face, made him look very knowing indeed.
‘Mm . . . mm, and why must you yourself be asking me if it is true? Have I myself lied to you before, eh Mami Fanti?’
‘Hmmmm. . . .’ sighed she of the anxious heart. ‘It is just that I cannot find it possible to believe that he will live. That is why I asked you that.’
His eyes glittered with the pleasure of his first victory and her heart did a little somersault.
‘Mami Fanti, I myself, me, I am telling you. The little one, he will live. Now today he may not look good, perhaps not today. Perhaps even after eight days he will not be good but I tell you, Mami, one moon, he will be good . . . good . . . good,’ and he drew up his arms, bent them, contracted his shoulders and shook up the upper part of his body to indicate how well and strong he thought the child would be. It was a beautiful sight and for an instant a smile passed over her face. But the smile was not able to stay. It was chased away by the anxiety that seemed to have come to occupy her face forever.
‘Papa Kramo, if you say that, I believe you. But you will give me something to protect him from the witches?’
‘Mami Fanti, you yourself you are in too much hurry, and why? Have I got up to go?’
She shook her head and said ‘No’ with a voice that quaked with fear.
‘Aha . . . so you yourself you must be patient. I myself will do everything . . . everything. . . . Allah is present and Mohamet his holy prophet is here too. I will do everything for you. You hear?’
She breathed deeply and loudly in reply.
‘Now bring to me the child.’ She stood up, and unwound the other cloth with which she had so far covered up her bruised soul and tied it around her waist. She turned in her step and knocked over the stool. The clanging noise did not attract her attention in the least. Slowly, she walked towards the door. The Mallam’s eyes followed her while his left hand groped through the folds of his boubou in search of his last piece of cola. Then he remembered that his sack was still on his shoulder. He removed it, placed it on the floor and now with both his hands free, he fished out the cola. He popped it into his mouth and his tongue received the bitter piece of fruit with the eagerness of a lover.
The stillness of the afternoon was yet to be broken. In the hearth, a piece of coal yielded its tiny ash to the naughty breeze, blinked with its last spark and folded itself up in death. Above, a lonely cloud passed over the Mallam’s turban, on its way to join camp in the south. And as if the Mallam had felt the motion of the cloud, he looked up and scanned the sky.
Perhaps it shall rain tonight? I must hurry up with this woman so that I can reach the next village before nightfall.
‘Papa Kramo-e-e –!’
This single cry pierced through the dark interior of the room in which the child was lying, hit the aluminium utensils in the outer room, gathered itself together, cut through the silence of that noon, and echoed in the several corners of the village. The Mallam sprang up. ‘What is it, Mami Fanti?’ And the two collided at the door to her rooms. But neither of them saw how she managed to throw the baby on him and how he came to himself sufficiently to catch it. But the world is a wonderful place and such things happen in it daily. The Mallam caught the baby before it fell.
‘Look, look, Papa Kramo, look! Look and see if this baby is not dead. See if this baby too is not dead. Just look – o – o Papa Kramo, look!’ And she started running up and down, jumping, wringing her hands and undoing the threads in her hair. Was she immediately mad? Perhaps. The only way to tell that a possessed woman of this kind is not completely out of her senses is that she does not uncloth herself to nakedness. The Mallam was bewildered.
‘Mami Fanti, hei, Mami Fanti,’ he called unheeded.
Then he looked down at the child in his arms.
Allah, tch, tch, tch. Now, O holy Allah. Now only you can rescue me from this trouble, since my steps found this house guided by the Prophet, but Allah, this baby is dead.
And he looked down again at it to confirm his suspicion.
Allah, the child is breathing but what kind of breath is this? I must hurry up and leave. Ah . . . what a bad day this is. But I will surely not want the baby to grow still in my arms! At all . . . for that will be bad luck, big bad luck . . . . And now where is its mother? This is not good. I am so hungry now. I thought at least I was going to earn some four pennies so I could eat. I do not like to go without food when it is not Ramaddan. Now look – And I can almost count its ribs! One, two, three, four, five. . . . And Ah . . . llah, it is pale. I could swear this is a Fulani child only its face does not show that it is. If this is the pallor of sickness . . . O Mohamet! Now I must think up something quickly to comfort the mother with.
‘Hei Mami Fanti, Mami Fanti!’
‘Papaa!’
“Come.’
She danced in from the doorway still wringing her hands and sucking in the air through her mouth like one who had swallowed a mouthful of scalding-hot porridge.
‘It is dead, is it not?’ she asked with the courtesy of the insane.
‘Mami, sit down.’
She sat.
‘Mami, what is it yourself you are doing? Yourself you make plenty noise. It is not good. Eh, what is it for yourself you do that?’
Not knowing how to answer the questions, she kept quiet. ‘Yourself, look well.’ She craned her neck as though she were looking for an object in a distance. She saw his breath flutter.
‘Yourself you see he is not dead?’
‘Yes,’ she replied without conviction. It was too faint a breath to build any hopes on, but she did not say this to the Mallam.
‘Now listen Mami,’ he said, and he proceeded to spit on the child: once on his forehead and then on his navel. Then he spat into his right palm and with this spittle started massaging the child very hard on his joints, the neck, shoulder blades, ankles and wrists. You could see he was straining himself very hard. You would have thought the child’s skin would peel off any time. And the woman could not bear to look on.
If the child had any life in him, surely, he could have yelled at least once more? She sank her chin deeper into her breast.
‘Now Mami, I myself say, you yourself, you must listen.’
‘Papa, I am listening.’
‘Mami, I myself say, this child will live. Now himself he is too small. Yourself you must not eat meat. You must not eat fish from the sea, Friday, Sunday. You hear?’ She nodded in reply. ‘He himself, if he is about ten years,’ and he counted ten by flicking the five fingers of his left hand twice over, ‘if he is about ten, tell him he must not eat meat and fish from the sea, Friday, Sunday. If he himself he does not eat, you Mami Fanti, you can eat. You hear?’
She nodded again.
‘Now, the child he will live, yourself you must stop weeping. If you do that it is not good. Now you have the blue dye for washing?’
‘Yes,’ she murmured.
‘And a piece of white cloth?’
‘Yes, but it is not big. Just about a yard and a quarter.’
‘That does not matter. Yourself, find those things for me and I will do something and your child he shall be good.’
She did not say anything.
‘Did you yourself hear me, Mami Fanti?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now take the child, put him in the room. Come back, go and find all the things.’
She took the thing which might once have been a human child but now was certainly looking like something else and went back with it to the room.
And she was thinking.
Who does the Mallam think he is deceiving? This is the third child to die. The others never looked half this sick. No! In fact the last one was fat. . . . I had been playing with it. After the evening meal I had laid him down on the mat to go and take a quick bath. Nothing strange in that. When I returned to the house later, I powdered myself and finished up the last bits of my toilet. . . . When I eventually went in to pick up my baby, he was dead.
. . . O my Lord, my Mighty God, who does the Mallam think he is deceiving?
And he was thinking.
Ah . . . llah just look, I cannot remain here. It will be bad of me to ask the woman for so much as a penny when I know this child will die. Ah . . . llah, look, the day has come a long way and I have still not eaten.
He rose up, picked up his bag from the ground and with a quietness and swiftness of which only a nomad is capable, he vanished from the house. When the woman had laid the child down, she returned to the courtyard.
‘Papa Kramo, Papa Kramo,’ she called. A goat who had been lying nearby chewing the cud got up and went out quietly too.
‘Kramo, Kramo,’ only her own voice echoed in her brain. She sat down again on the stool. If she was surprised at all, it was only at the neatness of his escape. So he too had seen death.
Should any of my friends hear me moaning, they will say I am behaving like one who has not lost a baby before, like a fresh bride who sees her first baby dying. Now all I must do is to try and prepare myself for another pregnancy, for it seems this is the reason why I was created . . . to be pregnant for nine of the twelve months of every year. . . . Or is there a way out of it at all? And where does this road lie? I shall have to get used to it. . . . It is the pattern set for my life. For the moment, I must be quiet until the mothers come back in the evening to bury him.
Then rewrapping the other cloth around her shoulders, she put her chin in her breast and she sat, as though the Mallam had never been there.
.....
But do you know, this child did not die. It is wonderful but this child did not die. Mmm. . . . This strange world always has something to surprise us with . . . Kweku Nyamekye. Somehow, he did not die. To his day name Kweku, I have added Nyamekye. Kweku Nyamekye. For, was he not a gift from God through the Mallam of the Bound Mouth? And he, the Mallam of the Bound Mouth, had not taken from me a penny, not a single penny that ever bore a hole. And the way he had vanished! Or it was perhaps the god who yielded me to my mother who came to my aid at last? As he had promised her he would? I remember Maame telling me that when I was only a baby, the god of Mbemu from whom I came, had promised never to desert me and that he would come to me once in my life when I needed him most. And was it not him who had come in the person of the Mallam? . . . But was it not strange, the way he disappeared without asking for a penny? He had not even waited for me to buy the things he had prescribed. He was going to make a charm. It is good that he did not, for how can a scholar go through life wearing something like that? Looking at the others of the Bound Mouth, sometimes you can spot familiar faces, but my Mallam has never been here again.
Nyamekye, hmm, and after him I have not lost any more children. Let me touch wood. In this world, it is true, there is always something somewhere, covered with leaves. Nyamekye lived. I thought his breathing would have stopped, by the time the old women returned in the evening. But it did not. Towards nightfall his colour changed completely. He did not feel so hot. His breathing improved and from then, he grew stronger every day. But if ever I come upon the Mallam, I will just fall down before him, wipe his tired feet with a silk kente, and then spread it before him and ask him to walk on it. If I do not do that then no one should call me Abena Gyaawa again.
When he started recovering, I took up the taboo as the Mallam had instructed. He is now going to be eleven years old I think. Eleven years, and I have never, since I took it up, missed observing it any Friday or Sunday. Not once. Sometimes I wonder why he chose these two days and not others. If my eyes had not been scattered about me that afternoon, I would have asked him to explain the reason behind this choice to me. And now I shall never know.
Yes, eleven years. But it has been difficult. Oh, it is true I do not
think that I am one of these women with a sweet tooth for fish and meats. But if you say that you are going to eat soup, then it is soup you are going to eat. Perhaps no meat or fish may actually hit your teeth but how can you say any broth has soul when it does not contain anything at all? It is true that like everyone else, I liked kontomire. But like everyone else too, I ate it only when my throat ached for it or when I was on the farm. But since I took up the taboo, I have had to eat it at least twice two days of the week, Sunday and Friday. I have come to hate its deep-green look. My only relief came with the season of snails and mushrooms. But everyone knows that these days they are getting rarer because it does not rain as often as it used to. Then after about five years of this strict observance, someone who knew about these things advised me. He said that since the Mallam had mentioned the sea, at least I could eat freshwater fish or prawns and crabs. I did not like the idea of eating fish at all. Who can tell which minnow has paid a visit to the ocean? So I began eating freshwater prawns and crabs – but of course, only when I could get them. Normally, you do not get these things unless you have a grown-up son who would go trapping in the river for you.
No Sweetness Here and Other Stories Page 8