Ancestor Stones

by Aminatta Forna

  Inside the house I shook Adama’s shoulder, we were alone, the two of us. I showed her what I’d seen. We did not sleep that night, we kept a vigil on the back verandah, watching the lights on the horizon.

  Early prayers and the mosque was full, my neighbour stopped by with this news — for I had long given up going. Afterwards everybody wanted to talk about the omens in the night sky. At ten O’ clock my nephew came and pushed me to town in my barrow. Those days, the effort was far too much for Adama. Twice we had thought her labour was beginning, twice the birth attendant had been summoned. Both times it turned out to be a false alarm. Still, Kadie and Ansuman had delayed travelling to Guinea. In the end, though, Adama had urged her parents to go. Even if the baby came, we would manage.

  Adama walked alongside me. The streets were quiet as we made our slow progress through them. In the square I noted half a dozen empty stalls among the regulars. No charcoal. Now, that was interesting. Charcoal was delivered from out of town first thing in the morning. I noticed one other thing, though I mentioned none of it to Adama — all the traders had already sold out of bread.

  We opened up the shop, customers were scarce. A little after eleven Mr Wurie passed by with news of strangers sighted on the main road out of town. It was only a rumour, he told us quietly, but we ought to know. I thanked him for that and his offer to help us in any way he could.

  At midday I closed up the shop. Other shop owners had already done the same. We spent a short time moving stock to the storeroom at the back. I took the money box and hid it under the stairs. Afterwards we pulled down the metal shutters and set off home.

  Just two streets from the house, past the old railway station, there is a place where the wall of a house juts out and the road curves sharply around it. We turned the corner. On the road ahead of us I spotted Kamanda, the madman. He was wearing an old fisherman’s sweater and a pair of trousers with the seat torn out. Around his neck hung a necklace of bottle tops and crumpled drink cans. Kamanda’s face was running with sweat, he was babbling, spraying great gobs of spit. His calloused feet with their long, grey toenails stamped the earth as he marched up and down, up and down, swinging his arms.

  ‘Kamanda! Kamanda!’ I called. For he was a gentle soul. I had often given him the off cuts from reams of fabric, which he wrapped around his head or tucked into his belt like fluttering handkerchiefs. I had never seen him like this. I tried to calm him with my voice, but there was no reasoning with him at the best of times. For a few moments he seemed to settle, only to jump up, as if to attention, and begin striding up and down again.

  At home I sent my nephew back to his house. ‘Hurry! No shilly shallying,’ I urged him. Then I busied Adama, telling her to bring the washing in, round up the chickens, and to light a fire.

  While she was occupied I went around the house collecting up all my jewellery and precious things. From the suitcase under my bed I fetched the gifts I had bought for Adama’s baby, a silver coin with a hole in the middle and a gold chain to hang around the baby’s waist. Along with my most valuable pieces I tied them up in a cloth and dropped them into the water jar at the back door, then I sank a large stone on the top. The lesser pieces of jewellery I spread out on the table in the middle of the room.

  Outside I loosened the tether of the goat and waved my stick at her until she bolted into the bushes. Afterwards I went to the yard and ordered Adama to bring the biggest of the cast iron pots and twelve cups of rice. Adama exclaimed upon the quantity, but did as she was told.

  A lot of rice. Yes, indeed. I intended to cook enough to feed an army.

  There was a town I used to visit. I had been there many times before. In that town was a factory which manufactured dyes and finishes. Every once in a while the owners produced a new range of colours and invited all their customers to view them. I always took the job of going to see the new range myself. Before I had my stroke it was something I liked to do. I liked the metallic tang in the air inside the main hall of the factory, the wooden vats of colour stirred by men with iron paddles, the smudges of colour on the walls. Mr Bangura, the foreman, was a cheerful fellow. A widower, whose wife had died of cholera, he had never remarried. On the third finger of his left hand he wore a ring. Not an ordinary wedding band, but a heavy gold signet ring engraved with two sets of initials. We always conducted our business upstairs in his office across a table holding many jars of pigment and glass tubes of colours. When our business was concluded he would serve me a cold drink out of the fridge behind his chair while we chatted about many things. Once he had joked that with our occupations we would make a good pair. And though I replied in a teasing voice that I was past all that, it occurred to me there was once a time when the idea would have not seemed such a bad one.

  My visits to the factory also gave me a chance to see Alpha who worked nearby as a teacher’s assistant in a boy’s secondary school. He would cycle to meet me, carrying lunch for us both in aluminium pots wrapped up in cloths. We would share our meal, catch up on each other’s news and after I had rested a little and Alpha run whatever errands he had in town, we would set off to the factory, Alpha walking his bicycle, me alongside him.

  The last time I visited, the heat had been dazzling, the sun directly overhead. The grass was pale yellow and bone dry, rustling in what little breeze there was. The great, black boulders scattered at the bottom of the hills glistened in the sun. The sky was hazy, streaked with clouds. It was too hot even for the birds, who hid from the heat in the branches of the trees. The factory was some small distance from the town. Despite the heat Alpha and I walked without stopping, lost in the pleasure of each other’s company.

  There was no guard at the factory gate. We passed through, still chattering and we walked on up the empty drive. Mr Bangura didn’t hurry down to welcome me, or wave from his office window as he usually did. I noticed, yes. But did I think it so very strange? I don’t know, perhaps I only think so now.

  The big factory door stood open. We stepped through. Inside the main hall, silent pools of colour. A paddle lying on the ground by my feet. Not a soul in sight.

  For some reason we did not call out. We stood still and stared around us. Only a moment or two later did we open our ears and listen, and when we did we heard a sound that must have been there all along. A buzzing, like a faint whine, like an aeroplane engine high in the sky. We followed the sound across the factory floor towards the great, double doors that led out to the back, where deliveries came and went. On the opposite side was the storeroom where the tubs of pigment were kept.

  One thing nobody ever mentions afterwards is the smell. The indignity of it, I suppose. Such a commonplace smell. One to make your mouth water and your stomach rumble. For the rest of your life at a family gathering, a festival, it will serve to bring back the nausea, return you to the horror.

  What is it? It is the smell of roasted meat.

  The roof of the storeroom was mostly gone, what remained had collapsed into the building. The windows were ringed with black, shards of darkened glass like broken teeth stuck out of the frames. On the ground below one window lay a tub, partly melted, the spilled violet powder a shock of colour. The door had turned to charcoal, and split apart as Alpha kicked it. The sound of buzzing soared. All around us briefly turned to black as we were engulfed by a great mass of flies. I covered my face and hit at them with my hands, and once the air cleared I saw what was inside.

  They had been rounded up and herded inside at gunpoint. We know this because it happened later, to others. Those few who survived all told the same story. At first they imagine it is a robbery, they are being locked up to stop them from raising the alarm. From the window they watch carefully the movements of the armed men. Then they see the plastic containers, smell the petrol as it is splashed on the walls and roof of the store. Men with guns encircle the building. Those inside begin to shout and hammer at the door, frantic now. Somebody takes a tub of dye and throws it at the window, it smashes the glass. They scramble over one ano
ther to escape the stifling fume-filled air and the certainty of death. The first one to try to climb out is shot.

  The screams of the men as they burned must have been terrible, must have filled the air, sent the birds and animals fleeing. And yet nobody hears them. Their killers are deaf to them. There is no one else for miles. And afterwards, when the gunmen are gone, have ransacked the office and made off with the vehicles, silence follows. A desperate, resilient, unbreakable silence.

  Alpha and I uttered not a word, not even a gasp, except the grunt he gave at the effort of kicking in the door. We moved around the corpses, who stared up at us through melted eyes, reached out to us with charred and twisted limbs. Some lay alone. Others were fused together, so here a corpse which seemed to have too many limbs, there a pair in apparent embrace. Most of all I remember the hands, by which I tried for a short while to identify Mr Bangura, searching for his ring. Brittle, blackened sticks reaching out. For what? Curled claws, trying to hold on. To what? To life itself, I can only imagine.

  So you see, on that day I believed I knew what was coming. I sat outside on my old stool and positioned myself where I could best see the road. I settled down to wait. Whatever was out there was on its way. On its way to us.

  Adama sat next to me, I watched her hands as she unpicked the frayed edge of a basket and prepared to repair it. I saw how her usually nimble fingers stumbled over the repair, weaving and unpicking the same few inches over and over. At that moment she turned her unblinking gaze up at me.

  ‘Let me fetch you something to eat.’ She was concerned for me, as I was for her. Each one pretending for the other’s benefit. I had no appetite, my mouth was dry as sand.

  ‘Yes, please. I’m a little hungry.’

  As she rose she pressed the heel of her hand into the small of her back and stood there for a moment. I watched her cross the yard and bend over the cooking pots. For a while she remained doubled over. When she straightened again I saw her features tremble with pain.

  Dear God, I said to myself. Not now.

  She saw me watching and tried to force her lips into a smile. ‘Another false alarm.’

  ‘With your mother it was just the same,’

  We sat and waited, the cooling feast spread out in front of us. We saw nobody. No visitor come to pay respects, no neighbour to exchange the news of the day. Not even a single passer-by.

  In the last part of the afternoon I sat up suddenly, cocked my head and listened. I could hear dogs barking. Not the snarling, yelping of a scrap. Nor the howling call and answer that went on through the night. Rather a relentless, monotonous barking that started and did not stop. I sat listening while I worked out where in the town it was coming from, tracing its progression through the streets towards us.

  I stood up and went, quickly as I could manage, into the house, unlocked the storeroom and gathered up a few pieces of smoked fish, some dried cassava. I poured two cups of rice into a handkerchief and knotted it. I found a packet of matches, a little money and a tin cup, tied them all up in a lappa. By the time I had finished I was exhausted.

  I thrust the bundle into Adama’s hands. I told her what she must do. She shook her head: ‘No!’ she said. The baby might be on its way, I told her. I knew the pains had been coming all afternoon. I had seen her turn away from me every time it happened. The poor child began to cry, and, Oh, how I wanted to cry too, to clutch her and weep, for this wasn’t how we had imagined it would be when she came home for the birth. Instead I reached out and gave her shoulder a shake. In the distance came the sound of gunfire. Somebody ran past in the street shouting a warning. I still had my hand on her shoulder, now I pushed her as hard as I could towards the door, telling her to find the neighbours and join them.

  She went. She did as she was told. I said I would follow as soon as I could. Maybe the baby would come today, maybe it would come tonight. Maybe it would come next week. But it would come. I could only pray I would be with her when it happened. I kept sight of her as she walked through the banana groves. My ears followed her progress long after she was no longer visible. For several minutes I stood and listened to the clicking of her fingers fading as she walked into the arms of the forest. Only then did I turn to go inside.

  When my mother died she left me her possessions, among them the great chest in which she once stored her belongings. It was empty now. I went over to it, dragging my bad foot along the floor. I opened the lid, laid my stick inside. With all the strength left in my one good arm, I hoisted myself up on to the edge. I balanced there for a moment, then I leaned forward and let myself topple in. I lay there, a little winded. Then I reached up and pulled the lid down over me. I curled up in the darkness and went on waiting.

  I could hear nothing save a few muffled sounds. And all I could see was the narrow beam of light that came from the space between the lid and the box. For the first time I began to feel afraid. For a while I did nothing, just listened to the sound of my own breathing. In the closed space my breaths seemed raucous, as though they had transformed into vapours, clamorous with life, swirling around, searching for a way out.

  I tried to make myself comfortable. I should have put down some cloths or sacking to line the inside. Too late now. I was lying on top of my stick and I squirmed until I managed to ease it out from under me. I turned on to my back and lay there with my knees bent. The temperature inside the box was rising, it would soon be as hot as a furnace. I loosened my clothing as best I could. I pulled off my head-wrap, bunched it up and put it under my head as a makeshift pillow. The effort made me thirsty, but I had no water. I didn’t dare risk climbing back out, I would have to manage without.

  After a bit I began to explore my surroundings. This had been my favourite hiding place when I was a child. I’d lie on top of my mother’s belongings, waiting for someone to come and find me, as scared of being discovered as of not being found at all. When the lid finally opened above me, I screamed and screamed. Still, I went back, over and over, to hide in the same place. I didn’t think anyone would imagine I would be so stupid as to choose such an obvious place. My double bluff never worked. I prayed it would work this time.

  I ran my fingertips around the sides of the box. It was well made, solid and strong. We were more or less the same age, and yet I was the one who’d begun to sag and creak. The box on the other hand had only grown more handsome with the years: the richness of the patina, the worn-smooth surface. I had become so used to it over the years, I’d stopped seeing it, but it was a very elegant box.

  I came across a knot in the wood and explored it with my fingers. It was grainy, at odds with the feel of the rest. I scratched it with my fingernail and felt it crumble. I reached up and took a pin from my hair and began to dig at the place. The knot wasn’t wood at all, but some sort of plaster, probably where the carpenter had plugged the place where a knot had fallen through. I scratched away like a mouse until I had made myself a spyhole. It was a little high, I had to push myself up on one elbow, but it was better than nothing.

  There was more light now, a circular beam coming in through the spy hole. I followed the beam to the other side of the box where it revealed a series of markings: vertical cuts, where somebody had scored the wood with a knife. Two rows of ten, one above, one below. A carpenter’s trademark? Perhaps the box had been made using wood from something else. I ran my thumbnail across the rows, backwards and forwards, making a vibrating sound like a musical instrument.

  Now I remembered. As a young girl, watching my mother. Every year, on the day we ate the first rice of the new harvest, going to her room where the great chest stood. With a sharp knife she would score the wood in the same place every year. Every year for ten years. Ten anniversaries. Ten birthdays. Asana and Alusani. Then Alusani died and stole her happiness to take with him back to the other world.

  Rofathane. I had fought so hard to leave all that behind. And yet.

  We had a herbalist, a carpenter, a blacksmith, a birth attendant and a boy who never grew old. Sooth
sayers prepared us for the unexpected. Teachers travelled to us, bringing the word from Futa Djallon. People who wanted to live in Rofathane had first to find a patron and then to ask permission to settle. There existed an order, an order in which everybody had their place. An imperfect order. An order we understood.

  A lullaby came to me, one my mother used to sing:

  Asana tey k’ kulo,

  I thonto, thonto,

  K’ m’ng dira.

  Asana, don’t you cry,

  I’ll rock you, rock you,

  Until you sleep.

  I hummed softly to myself, and as I did so I began to rock back and forth, growing sentimental, a wet-eyed, foolish old woman. I thought of my mother and father, sleeping safely in their graves. I thought of Osman, of Ngadie. I hoped Kadie and Ansuman were still in Guinea and that they would hear what was happening and not come back. I feared for Alpha.

  Voices! Ugly, bold, challenging. They seemed to come from all directions. Voices and the sound of running feet. The feet were bare, I remember that because there was something oddly unthreatening in the way they patted the earth.

  I put my eye to the spyhole, and looked left and right.

  Two men and a woman came into view. Walking high on the balls of their feet. The woman and one of the men were carrying guns, resting them upright against their shoulders, fingers on the trigger. Just like they do in the cinema. The other man carried a machete and smoked a cigarette. They were looking this way and that, all around them, as they advanced.

  Such strange garb, they were dressed like children who had found a dressing-up box. A pair of ladies’ sunglasses. Amilitary-style jacket with gold epaulettes. A red bra. Jeans. Camouflaged trousers. A T-shirt with the face of a dead American rapper. A necklace of bullets. Around their necks and wrists dangled charms on twisted strings. They were talking to others I couldn’t see, but their talk was unintelligible to me. I thought at first it was some strange tongue, the kind we made up as children. But every now and again a fragment of the exchange occurred in my own language. Gradually I realised that I was listening to several languages being spoken at once.