Girl

by Edna O'Brien

  ‘Take ginger,’ she whispered, as if it was my only hope.

  Then a strange thing happened. A woman, unknown to us, came marching into the yard, swinging her arms, her hair tied with different bits of ribbon and twine. There was something provocative about her. She asked for food and drink, demanded it, yet never touched it when it was set down before her. She kept looking at me, a steady look, saying that a spirit was telling her one guest was absent. I knew she meant Babby. She left without touching the food, which was considered ungrateful and when Uncle followed her outside, to see in which direction she went, she had vanished.

  I felt someone touch my arm and turned to find Abigail, like a blaze of colour. We were friends at primary school and I used to help her with her lessons. Her braids, that were henna-coloured little serpents, piled high and roped around the top of her head. Their ends were tied with teeny metal balls that tinkled, and one glass bead dropped onto her forehead like a talisman. The whites of her eyes were big and soft, so clear and besotted. She wore a red wrapper with matching top and lipstick of a fuchsia colour. ‘I am the fuchsia girl,’ she said to the gaping women who looked on and the men who feigned indifference as they drank their beers, a distance away. She studied style and colour co-ordination in the pages of the magazines that her father brought back at weekends. He worked as a night porter in an embassy in the city.

  The moment she saw my phone in its knitted case, she asked if she could look at it and then just gazed and gazed. Whereas I saw moons and bubbles, swimming in a haze of marcasite stars, she saw her man, her prince, smiling out at her and sending positive vibes.

  ‘I am in love,’ she whispered and steered me away, towards the kitchen, so that we would not be overheard. Then cradling the phone in the hollow of her neck and without dialling any number whatsoever, she spoke into it. She was thinking of him. ‘All the time. All the time. It was not you who made me HIV positive, darling, because you would not do that to me. I feel nearer to you than I have ever felt. When we meet we will discuss everything.’ She is assuring him that it was that stupid bitch in the hair salon, where she had her braids done, that infected her. The bitch had a gash on her finger and somehow their bloods got mixed, because the braiding took forever. In the clinic to which she went each week, they assured her that she would be cured. Then she half knelt and asked if I would allow her to phone him once a week and in that way she would feel connected. He always attended Friday prayers in some city or other, so that she would be certain to track him down. On other days he was travelling, because as a skilled carpenter and joiner he was needed in different cities.

  ‘I have a baby,’ I whispered.

  ‘I know,’ she whispered back.

  She knew, because on Friday evenings after prayers, when the elders met in the square to eat, she was enlisted to pass the dishes, though she was not allowed to serve the men. The talk was of Babby. What to do with Babby. They argued fiercely. One man spoke of a story, a true story he had read of girls returning from captivity only to plot the murder of their parents and their extended family. The mention of an orphanage was immediately shouted down, as all the orphanages were full. Camps were also full. Uncle wanted it to be disposed of at once. He was adamant. ‘It has to go.’ A neighbour asked him to show some compassion, saying that I had not gone willingly with my captors, inferring the torments I had endured and to remember that I carried an infant through all the dangers of the forest, when I could easily have left her to die.

  Abigail saw how agitated I had become and had to pull me back from racing out of there at that very moment. She said nothing would be decided for weeks and weeks. There would be a big conclave of emirs and elders, many of whom would have to travel from different states, so that there was time, there was time.

  Mama is calling to me to bring the sweet dishes. There are buns that we were given in the city, stale by now, but the icing still soft and sweet. There are also fruits, nicely peeled and wedged on a metal tray that we have been loaned – papaya, star apples, guava and passion fruit, arranged so that their colours complement each other. The guests are talking and laughing louder than they should. Everyone is very happy and I am ready to die.

  Pastor Reuben came forward to welcome me home. He was in the same old smock that he always wore, claiming that the four pockets were useful to put things in. It had been stitched many times and patched in several places. He looked older, thinner and more shaken. His wife had since died, as he told me, and the church was gone, the church that everyone, including my father, had helped build. People travelled to bigger churches in the city and everything was more modern – microphones, loudspeakers, guitar music, pouring out into the yard outside, where the goats and their young nibbled on whatever they could find. The emphasis was less on scripture and more on soul-searching and entertainment. He looked into my eyes and saw the well of tears.

  ‘I baptised you, Maryam,’ he said out loud and to everyone’s astonishment, placed his hand on my shoulder, guessing my distraughtness. He said that once a week there was a gathering in his house next to the church and women came from all over to share their stories and their burdens. I was always welcome.

  Not too long after, the place emptied and I was alone with Mama and Uncle.

  ‘Take broom,’ Uncle said and I went back out into the yard and began to sweep up the debris and the burnt wood shavings.

  I spoke to Babby. I did not know where Auntie’s house was, but it was somewhere across those dark and sinister fields, across the black mud and the brown mud, across the hoardings and the burnt villages and oh my God, I would go there and I would find her.

  *

  I was out on the road the following morning and all the mornings waiting for her, the way my father had waited for me. I sat on the seat he had made. Sitting there I had a view of three roads and on one of those roads a car would be coming. I had been promised it.

  People who passed by thought I was a little strange, talking to myself and singing the song that Buki and I sang when we walked in the forest.

  Chumi, a friend of Mama’s, came and sat beside me. She had a gift for me. I thought it a good omen. It was a coloured sewing book called Projects Made Simple. I would learn to sew. I would have a trade. Eventually, I might become a seamstress and build up a business. She was at pains to tell me of this new resurgence in sewing, due to a popular television programme. Sewing was no longer a pastime or a duty; it was mainstream. As she flicked through the pages, I saw coloured pictures of socks, slippers, tassels, pencil cases and a variety of bags. There were also detailed instructions on how to fit zip fasteners and shoulder pads.

  Chumi was being so nice and friendly that I felt I could trust her. Could she help me to get my child back? Could she intercede with my mother and my uncle? In an instant she was up, flustered, enraged, her eyes fuming, saying what a sly and thankless girl I was. I must accept my fate, help my family and I might find myself a husband and make more children. She fled so quickly that she forgot the sewing book. It was on my lap. I looked down at the cover, with its trellises of flowers and orange-chested birds.

  *

  Next morning, the letter was on the seat, held down with a stone. The paper was damp from dew. The outside read, FROM A CLOSE RELATIVE WHO WISHES TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS. The writing, which was in pencil, was in capitals, each letter separate from the next, as a decoy. In places the letters were blurred and then again in heavy black ink – BABY JESUS COMMANDS YOU TO GIVE UP THIS CHILD.

  The earth is spinning. A whole hilltop has gone up into the sky. My eyes are bleeding. Flocks of lambs huddled together are being driven to their slaughter. They are bleating, bleating their last breaths.

  Baby Jesus is plunging the knife.

  UNCLE AND MAMA are setting out on a journey. They are dressed in their Sunday clothes. She will not say where.

  I have the freedom to walk around and vent my rage. I talk to myself.

  ‘Baby Jesus has taken Babby. Baby Jesus is cross with me. Mama is cross
with me. Uncle is cross with me.’

  I decide I will run away. I have no belongings. I know the road that leads to the market and passes the twisting yellowish river. Then, farm on all sides and soon after that, traffic, lots of traffic, the little tuk-tuk taxis, people hanging out of them, bringing chickens and corn and whatever they have to sell. The chickens screeching.

  Once in the market I am safe. I can slip in and out between the crowds. I will eat rinds or anything that is thrown down. From there, I will make my way to where Rebeka is. Rebeka is not cross with me, but she has sickness.

  I did not leave at once. I had scores to settle, walking around our kitchen, striking things.

  There was an old bath out in the yard that was packed with sand. Big ugly weeds feeding on it. The sand was solid, first rain, then dry season, then rain and more dry season, on and on. A soiled brown colour. The weeds sulked at being flung down. I carried water from the well and met people on the way. I thought, when Mama and Uncle come back and miss me, these same people will tell them I hauled buckets of water. They won’t find me.

  As soon as the sand had loosened and was a bit flakier, I shovelled it onto the yard to make little dwellings.

  Weirdly, words begin to pass through me. A blast of words, prayers and curses – ‘Mother is so sweet, Mother is not so sweet.’ My captors are speaking through me. Words and phrases that I did not know I knew, unless I heard them during lessons.

  ‘Sabo. Sabo. Sabo.’

  Blasphemy. Blasphemy. Blasphemy.

  ‘Raquki kuturwa. I am a female leper.’

  ‘My brother is gone to Kano. Ya sam mini goro. He got me a bit of kola nut.’

  ‘Ya ara min riga. He lent me a sad, grey gown.’

  ‘Men overcame me in war … they took my money. They each had three wives … it is a sin that leads to death.’

  Ba zan koma ba

  Ka kama

  Ki kama

  Ku kama.

  Seize. Seize. Seize.

  Ku kai

  Ku kama shi

  Ki sa rana

  I had not heard them, not even seen them, but my mother is frantic, calling, ‘Nathan. Seize her, seize her,’ as I try to run away. She is trembling with fear. She says the Jihadis have come and are going to kill us. I smile and give her a little friendly curtsy. Allah ya rufa mana. May God conceal our secrets.

  Uncle has caught me. His hand on the nape of my neck, clutching it. He has also taken my phone, my last link to Pastor Reuben, or Abigail, or anybody.

  I am being marched through the kitchen. Mama is petrified. Uncle puts black tarp on the window and she hands him little tacks to hold it down. They press it in at the corners. The room is pitch black. He stands above me, holding a mace. Two or three blows of that mace and my brain is pulp.

  I am craven with them. I beg for mercy. I tell them I love them, which is not true, and that I will work on the farm. I will do anything rather than be locked up in this dungeon, because the Jihadis will find me and spirit me away.

  *

  The window is blocked up. The bars have been there a long time. Not a flicker of light shows through. At first I stood, thinking that someone might see my imprisoned shadow, but nobody does. I stand for hours, until it is so cold that I crawl back to bed and pull the cotton coverlet over my head, to vanish. In the deep silence, a wail was borne in from some dreaded lair.

  Mama slept on a chair in the kitchen and at dawn, escorted me to the outside closet. The yard was a glaze of dew that I would have gladly lain on, but she hustled me along, not wanting anyone to see me. Later she left gruel on a plate outside the door. It was as if I was a leper.

  So it went on, from dream to waking and back again. I cannot tell the difference, as I am inert. Later, I hear the apprehensions and sounds of night. Sometimes I am in the forest, an unfamiliar forest, emptied of all mankind. The trees are gigantic, their grey trunks gnarled. They are talking gnarled talk.

  MAMA IS PULLING ME out of bed, dragging a comb through my hair, steadying me on my feet. We have visitors. Auntie and cousins have come to speak with me. They have news. I am led into the kitchen and see five women and a little girl with a brown cap, skulking in the corner. Her name is Pia. She is told to hand me things. She does it bashfully and avoids looking me in the eye. There is the green soother, with hanging wooden beads, a pair of knitted bootees and a dribbler. Auntie can barely speak with grief, her tears as plump as her pearls. Her nails are jet black, the pink of her cuticles so raw, and brazen.

  ‘Babby is gone. Babby is no more.’ It was a peaceful death, a cot death, which is not uncommon. How it broke their hearts, hers and Pia’s.

  They have come to share everything with me, every happy moment up to her last. Her bath each evening, which Pia called bubbles, and weighing her on the kitchen scales, so tiny was she. Her weight is inscribed in a little notebook, which Auntie feels as yet she is unable to part with. One day, she will let me read it and I will see how tenderly my child was cared for. All the time Pia is moving her head back and forth, like the shifting needle on the kitchen weighing scales. They have brought a cake. Mama suggests that everybody sit and have a piece of it. There are not enough chairs. The cake is three colours, yellow and brown and green. Funeral bread. They talk while they eat. The ice-cold certainty of her doom had not yet possessed me. Auntie dwells on the moment she heard Pia running down the hall, calling, ‘Lady, lady, come quick,’ and her going to the room and beholding this little dead effigy that was so recently a bonny treasure.

  I hate them. I want to kill them.

  I am whispering to Mama to please bring me to ‘its’ grave, I am already calling Babby ‘it’. She hears what I am whispering and asks, telling them it is my one wish. They are sorry, but it is impossible. I must know that the baby had a proper burial according to ancient ritual and was dressed in a new white shroud. She had to be buried a long way from our region, in order to banish the lingering evil. The man who did it was a hired undertaker and had taken it to a border state, where its powers were nullified.

  ‘Take me there,’ I am shouting at them. I am telling them if their words mean anything, their hearts will thaw. There is a car outside that can fetch me. That is all I ask. I will accept her death if I am brought to her grave. They shake their heads. It cannot be. Auntie commences a prayer and the others join in.

  In the midst of all that praying and breast-beating and hypocrisy, something inside me went black. I went towards it. I embraced it. I went inside it, into blackness.

  FIRST IT WAS her shadow, then her ghost, the little figure in gossamer, her feet barely touching the ground.

  ‘Babby,’ I whispered. She did not answer. I was petrified.

  After the third visit I was less afraid. It was always dusk when she came, while Mama was cooking something for Uncle. The glow from the gossamer of her dress shed light as a lamp would. She prowled. What did she want. She would not answer.

  ‘I am lonely,’ I tell her, and ask what is in store for me. Once I tried to touch her but she flittered from my grasp. Why does she always rummage. What is it she is looking for. Finally, I knew. With a glee she pulled it out. She dusts it off. It was the drawer lining I won for my essay on trees. I stare at it. ‘Woods of Windsor’. How we cling to the merest fragment.

  ‘Don’t go, don’t go,’ I plead, but she has already gone leaving a strange perfume in the room, ethereal as an essence. Mama smells it when she comes in, sniffing around, saying, ‘There’s been someone here.’

  She fears the Sect are going to come for me and is certain they have sent a siren to lure me away.

  MAMA LAY ON THE bed beside me.

  ‘What have I done … what have I done?’ she keeps asking. We are better friends now. Again and again I ask her, implore her, can we go to the grave. She is constantly reproaching herself. Pastor Reuben is doing his best to get them to agree. Mama tells me that I talk in my sleep. I beg of her to bring us even to the cemetery gate, saying that if it is locked we can hold on to it and r
attle it, we can yell through it and make ourselves heard.

  ‘What have I done … what have I done,’ she keeps saying it in daylight and in darkness.

  ‘O Lord, thou pluckest me out,’ I answer.

  Uncle shouts from the kitchen that I should get up, that it is planting time and I should be in the farm.

  ‘She is like a reed,’ my mother answers.

  I could not understand why I was telling her, but I was. I relive the day that I tried to drown Babby. With hunger, constant screaming and Buki dead, I had gone over the edge. I brought Mama with me on the walk, describing the long distances between the trees, a monkey that chased us from treetop to treetop and one bush with the shower of small pink flowers. Then the sight of the water itself, oval like a platter, so beautiful and silvery, and my lifting her down into the cool that she craved. I described the soft current swishing over her and she smiling a little smile of beatitude.

  ‘Don’t, don’t,’ Mama said. She could not bear to hear any more. She went out of the room, muttering to herself, her body stooped in atonement. Much later, she returned with things – a cassava fritter and a few raisins. I could not tell how she got them.

  As time went on she became afraid that something was going to happen to me. She feared she might be up at the farm helping him and I would be all alone. She fetched a bell that had belonged to her ancestor who was a chieftain. It was a copper cowbell. I could alert a neighbour or a passer-by. The hammer had stalled from disuse, but I grasped it anyhow.