I sat on the still warm stones of the gravel heap, waiting for my father to come home in his official car. This was where I usually waited for him, and today I was tense with anticipation. I had something very important to say.
Inside the kitchen Amadu and Amara hadn't turned on the strip light yet – it wasn't dark enough for that. Amadu and Amara. I always thought of the two cooks as one person really. People said, Go and ask Amadu and Amara, not Amadu or Amara. Amaduandamara. Amara was washing the rice for supper. He stepped outside and poured the water, milky with starch, into the yard. Back inside he began sifting through the wet grains for stones.
Santigi was ironing just outside the kitchen door, with one of those big, old-fashioned irons, the type you filled with burning coals. Most people preferred them really, even though you had to stoke them and keep the fire burning under the lid. Few households had electricity and even those that did knew it couldn't be relied upon, especially in the rainy season when the rain dragged down the wires and lightning fenced with the telegraph poles. Santigi Kamara had a high forehead, deep charcoal skin and a set of teeth, with slightly pointed incisors, which his gentle smile was ashamed to reveal – almost as though his teeth belonged to someone else.
With the departure of my mother, the extended family had reestablished itself and various cousins and uncles travelled down from Rogbonko and Magburaka to move in, filling up the boys’ rooms and the ground floor of the big house. I barely noticed the ebb and flow of relatives and for much of the time they remained shadows at the periphery of my vision.
Albert, one of the younger cousins, came back down the path from the main road carrying his college books, his trademark Afro comb stuck through the front of his hair. He didn't see me and I didn't call to him. I did not want to talk to anyone. Today something happened: my stepmother hit me. No one had ever hit me before.
We had arrived home from Nigeria and, in a matter of weeks, been absorbed seamlessly into the rhythms of the large and busy house. I was a chameleon child, capable of adapting myself quickly to new surroundings. The whirligig of my childhood had made me unquestioning and passive in the face of change: parents, families, houses, countries, schools revolved around me, while I stood still centre stage.
There had been changes at Spur Loop in the last two years: Big Aminatta had gone north to be married and I counted her departure as a piece of good news. Milik still worked in the kitchen and he still couldn't pronounce milk. I was happy to see him – he was an easy place in altered territory. Milik took over some of Aminatta's tasks, supervising us cleaning our teeth at night and switching off the light at bed time.
On the aeroplane our father had told us he had a new wife, a stepmother to help take care of us, and as the car drew into Minister's Quarters she was standing at the front door. Our father introduced her as Auntie Yabome and as I said hello I barely bothered to form an impression. I had assimilated my stepfather into my life with scarcely a ripple, hardly noticing him most of the time, and I assumed the same would be true of this Auntie Yabome. But though I couldn't know it yet, I had never been more mistaken.
Santigi removed the layers of blankets and folded down the ironing board. Apollo, Jim's replacement, lay like an apostrophe in the dirt at his feet. When Santigi moved the dog stretched with liquid languor, curled up into a full stop and went back to sleep. Santigi went inside and the fly screen banged behind him. The iron was left on the step with the lid open, resting on its hinges; the glowing coals made it look like an enormous, stranded firefly. I once caught a firefly: it lay pulsating light in the cavern of my cupped hands while I inspected it – a plain, tan insect with transparent wings. I let it go and it flew off, leaving scribbles of light, like the patterns that children make in the air with sparklers on bonfire night.
The start of the trouble with my stepmother had come a few mornings before, when I couldn't find Milik. I swung open the door of the kitchen to ask Amaduandamara. ‘Where's Milik?’
The cooks were working on opposite sides of the kitchen, making okra stew for supper; neither of them looked around. ‘Milik is not here,’ replied Amara. He was chopping okra with a sharp knife, top and tailing each pod and slicing it into pieces. A thread of slime hung from the knife blade.
‘Well, I'm looking for him,’ I repeated, waiting for them to tell me where he was.
‘Milik is gone,’ Amadu spoke. He didn't look at me; he kept his head down and his eyes fixed on his work.
Milik didn't normally go anywhere – he had a room in the boys’ quarters. I thought Amara might mean Milik was on an errand, but equally I could sense something wasn't quite right. ‘Where's he gone?’ There was no answer. ‘Well, when's he coming back?’ Impatience sent the pitch of my voice soaring.
Amara set down his knife and turned to look at me squarely. He spoke slowly as though I was stupid: ‘Milik is gone. He is gone from here. He is gone back to his family.’
‘Why? Why, when he lives here with us?’ My voice was still too loud by far, but I introduced a plaintive note – I didn't want to annoy them too much. Glances had been exchanged then, crossing in the air above my head, an adult alliance was forming and they weren't going to say any more. ‘Is he coming back tomorrow?’ I asked hopefully.
Amadu shook his head: ‘Milik no dae cam back.’
From then on I could persuade no one to tell me what had become of Milik. At breakfast one day I asked Auntie Yabome. She sat at the head of the table giving rapid orders to the servants, snapping her beringed fingers. She didn't even acknowledge my question before she stood up to go to her bedroom, dress and leave the house. The days eased one into the next and Milik still didn't come home.
We started school. We were given new blue and white uniforms, pristine exercise books of rough, grey paper: one lined, the other printed with squares for maths with a set of times tables printed on the back in purple ink, and a slate to use in the classroom. I had never owned a slate before, and I felt proud and sophisticated to possess such a thing.
Uncle Ismail drove us to school in an old Land-Rover. He was our father's brother by another mother. Uncle Momodu too still came and went on business. But where the other brothers, Momodu included, were dark with the same distinctively handsome Forna features, Ismail was lanky with freckled, ginger-brown skin, an uneven beard and a laugh that erupted from his chest like an old man's cough. My father paid for Uncle Ismail to go to college; he had been sent to us by Pa Roke, who hoped our father's influence would calm Ismail.
In Uncle Ismail's hands the ageing Land-Rover flew along the steep-sided roads and spun round hairpin bends, while every bolt and shaft of the vehicle groaned like a pig in pain. In the back we toppled off the narrow side benches. We thought it was hilarious and that we were immortal. There was only one place where I felt a jolt of fear in my stomach: on the descent into the city, where a flimsy bridge balanced over a deep crevasse. There I looked down and I could see the rusting anatomy of a poda poda, lying in the rocks. I wondered about the fate of the people and I imagined the rust on the doors and the window frames was dried blood.
One afternoon, home from school, I jumped down from the Land-Rover and ran towards the kitchen door. Behind me, under Auntie Yabome's instruction, Santigi, Morlai and some others were unloading bags of rice from the Land-Rover. Amara was sitting on the step; he put out his hand and caught me by the arm: ‘We have a surprise for you.’ He cocked his head towards the kitchen door.
Milik was sitting inside at the kitchen table, dressed in long trousers and a shirt, instead of his usual shorts, but otherwise just the same. He had brought sweets: little brown cough drops, wrapped in transparent orange paper, tasting of camphor and molasses. I hugged him and danced around, showing off the contents of my satchel. From outside came the crunch of heels on gravel, the Land-Rover doors slammed. Milik got up to go. He had stayed only moments. By the time I realised I had a dozen questions still to ask him, Milik had slipped away.
The next morning at breakfast I told Aunti
e Yabome Milik had been to visit. When I had finished she put down her teacup and marched into the kitchen, where she announced to the staff assembled there that if Milik came back he was not to be allowed in the house. If he showed his face they were to tell her immediately. I ran after her and stood at the door listening. I was worried I might have got Amadu and Amara into trouble. I still couldn't understand why Milik wasn't allowed back. But now I knew it was my stepmother who had banished Milik, and a clot of dislike began to form in my heart.
Eventually we had a confrontation. I can't remember exactly what it was over, but it wasn't Milik. I had amassed so many grievances. There was the way she combed my hair, dragging through it with a plastic comb until my eyes watered, tugging so hard at the knots she all but lifted me off my feet, stretching every strand into tight cornrows that lasted upwards of a week. Afterwards my scalp was singing and the hair around my hairline was pulled so tight I had Chinese eyes.
My stepmother sent me on endless errands: to fetch a glass of water, then go back for some ice, take a message to the kitchen, find her handbag; she insisted on going over my homework when I knew it was right; believed passionately in the qualities of Seven Seas cod liver oil on Sunday mornings – for everyone in the house. She'd only just joined our family and she ordered us all around.
Who knows how the altercation began the morning of the day I sat outside waiting for my father to come home, but it came to an end when I called my stepmother an African.
‘Get outside and cut a switch.’ Her eyes were round with anger and her mouth was smaller than I had ever seen it. ‘And when you find one, you bring it back here!’ She was going to hit me! Neither my mother nor my father ever struck me. My father was away at the office and Auntie Yabome bore down on me with such seriousness of purpose I ran outside to get away from her. I could hear her high heels clattering across the floor behind me.
Among the long grass beyond the mango tree I found a sapling and pulled down a switch. I chose the smallest, narrowest one I could find because it seemed to me to be the safest bet. I carried it back to my stepmother, who stripped off the leaves and told me to put out my hand.
The switch cut through the air with a hum like a mosquito. Afterwards, Auntie Yabome told me to wipe my face and stop crying, but it was more than I could do. The more I gulped and heaved, tried to arrest the compulsive rise and fall of my shoulders, the more exasperated she became. In the end she had stamped off and left me alone.
My father was later than usual. I could hear the rustle of the plants going to sleep, closing their leaves against the coming dew. During the day the tiny ferns shut like butterfly wings the moment you touched them. In Creole they were called Close you lappa, man dae cam – Tie your lappa, a man is coming. They grew all round the house, producing their tiny violet blooms like shredded crêpe paper. I liked to tickle the leaves at the edge and watch the entire patch close up in a wave; the plants showed their greyish undersides and the whole effect was as if a cloud had cast its shadow on the earth.
Hazy wood smoke blended with evening scents of night blossoms. Violet funnels of morning glory, their petals twisted like paper, dropped down one by one; the flowers were prettier when they were dead than alive. A gecko flicked its head to catch a mosquito then lay still, lowering translucent lids over black irises.
I had spent the whole day outside, roaming around by myself. I crept into the long grass behind the mango tree, wading deeper and deeper into it, farther than I had ever been before. At some point I must have stretched out my hand to push aside the grass. A coil of abandoned barbed wire lay hidden in the grass like a snake. I looked at my hand and saw a pale slice across my dusty palm. The blood and pain came later.
I can feel it now: a thick keloid scar cutting right across my lifeline. It was a deep gash at the time, and after a few moments dark blood oozed slowly out underneath a flap of skin. But my anger also ran dark and deep and I refused to go inside and ask my stepmother to bandage it for me.
It was almost dark by the time the slanting headlights came into view and the car drew up. I ran down the gravel slope towards my father. I wanted to get to him first before anyone else, particularly Auntie Yabome. He was late and he looked tired, his eyelids were creased and shadows circled his eyes. He swung his briefcase loosely in one hand. Usually I liked to carry it in for him but on this occasion I was feeling too sorry for myself. I stood in front of him and stuck my hand, palm uppermost, in front of his face. He took hold of it, peering in the near darkness. ‘Ouch. Poor you! We should clean that up. How did you do that?’
‘Auntie Yabome did it,’ I said as gravely as I could, and as I did so I glanced at him. In the hours I had been waiting for him I had turned the events of the day over and over in my mind, until I persuaded myself of my own truth. The accident to my hand had happened close to the sapling tree. Why not when I went to cut the switch? I would never have been there at all if it weren't for her. Whichever way I looked at it, my stepmother was to blame.
‘Really?’ He didn't sound convinced, so I elaborated: she had hit me, hit me with a switch. She had cut me, I insisted. My hand was cut and it was all her fault. Outrage, hurt and betrayal made me determined he should believe me.
‘I'll talk to her about it,’ he promised and we walked slowly together towards the house.
I lay in my bed that night after the lights were switched off. My hand was lying on top of the sheet, clean and dressed, and I was sated on my revenge. I could imagine what my father was saying to Auntie Yabome, how she must be regretting caning me. She would be begging with him to be allowed to stay. By the time I fell asleep I was convinced there was no way Auntie Yabome would still be in the house when I woke up the next morning.
21
I was so preoccupied with my war against my stepmother that it was a while before I realised something was wrong in our country.
It was Saturday and we were at the market. Santigi, Memuna, Sheka and I followed Auntie Yabome through the crowd, like the tail of a giant beast, as she moved from stall to stall, buying huge quantities of food for the household. We walked when she walked; when she stopped we stopped too; she filled our arms with her purchases one by one. Uncle Ismail did not follow but stayed by the Land-Rover, chewing cola nuts and spitting out the masticated pieces, exchanging greetings with the people around him, waiting to load the baskets of mangoes, plantains, yams and chickens and to drive us home.
Vlisco Dutch wax prints, elaborate garas, batiks, weaves and block prints switched and swapped places. I walked along with my head down, lifting my gaze just often enough to keep an eye on Auntie Yabome's costume and head-dress. I was still nursing my resentment, keeping it alive and warm, incubating malevolence like a goose on an egg. Why hadn't my father sent her away for what she did to me? I didn't want to be at the market and I couldn't understand why she was still here at all, in charge of everyone.
I could tell we were in front of the chicken stall by the smell. The birds were held in round baskets, six in each one, stacked one on top of the other. Their legs bound, they were forced to lie on their sides. They looked so awkward and uncomfortable, I felt sorry for them. In front of us the stallholder pulled out a cockerel. Auntie Yabome shook her head. He opened the basket and slung the bird back inside. It landed on its companions, which squawked and pecked at it with malicious beaks. At home, Memuna and I had a pair of chicks. One was blind and the other had an ominous growth on one of its scaly legs. We annoyed the cooks by keeping them in the kitchen, where they were always underfoot and the poor blind chick ran around and pecked at passing toes.
Next door was a woman selling yams. On the ground next to her a young child snatched occasionally at her empty breasts as they swayed loosely. She wrapped the yams in a piece of newspaper, an advertisement for beer featuring a white woman with breasts like light bulbs, held up by a strapless evening gown.
The stallholder gave a chicken a couple of shakes to get my attention as he held it upside down in front of me. Smal
l sounds of protest bubbled up from the bird's throat. I forced myself to put out my hand and take hold of the legs. They felt warm, dry; the feet were unexpectedly soft, the claws were like dead men's nails. Santigi had two chickens, one in each hand, and was holding them down at his sides like a couple of shopping bags. Their wings flapped open; they looked like they were already dead. I made a nest of my arms and settled my bird upright in it. As we walked through the crowds I tried to protect her from the bumps and jostles of the people. The chicken seemed much happier and perfectly calm as she rode high in my arms, a princess and her bearer.
We walked along on the edge of the market close to the road, where young men in open shirts patrolled the boundaries selling single Marlboro cigarettes, Bic pens and plastic lighters. I wasn't really looking where I was headed – my attention was absorbed by the chicken. I didn't see the circle of people until I came right up against the solid row of backs.
In the middle a man was on the ground. He had both arms round a telegraph pole and he was scuttling like a crab as he tried to avoid the kicks of another man. His feet were bare; his rubber flip-flops lay in the dust by the feet of the crowd among discarded leafs of paper; his clothes were torn and stained. The man doing the kicking cursed, hissing spittle through his teeth. He wasn't doing a very good job – he kept on missing because his target was moving so quickly and for a moment, at one point, he very nearly unbalanced and fell on the ground himself. Both of them were not much beyond their early twenties. The attacker wore a red shirt.
The Devil that Danced on the Water Page 19