Changes

by Ama Ata Aidoo

  18

  Half way through the new year, Ali took Esi to Bamako; but not before he had sent messages ahead to warn his people. That is, Mma, Baba Danjuma, and his natural father, Musa Musa. This was his ‘real’ family and separate from the ‘Nima’ family. The latter, was, in reality, only a support system in an alien environment. He had been very careful with the message. It contained among others an apology for the fact that he had not been able to obtain their permission before taking up a second wife.

  Ali knew very well that in the old days, his behaviour would have been unthinkable, and definitely unforgivable. For no matter how old you were or felt, you could not get married without your parents knowledge. And your parents were

  the father who helped your mother to conceive you, the mother who gave birth to you,

  and all those who claimed to be brothers and sisters to those two.

  Like all ‘modern Western-educated Africans’, Ali couldn’t help it if he regularly bruised traditions and hurt people. But at least he was one of the few really sensitive ones. So he went home to Bamako, armed with plenty of real and symbolic kolas to say he was sorry.

  It was already sundown when Ali and Esi arrived in Bamako, so there was very little talk. What there was, was not serious. Mma just saw to it that the travellers were comfortable for the night, so they got water to wash, a very light meal, a place to sleep. Ali had asked his office to book them into the most modern hotel in town for the duration of their stay. But he realised that at least for that night he was in no position to insist on not staying at Mma’s. It would not have been right at all. There was plenty of time to sort out the question of independent accommodation as well as other matters the next day. So for that night they slept at Mma’s.

  In the light of an open day, Mma looked Esi over. She found her beautiful. But she also decided that Esi was not someone she would ever be able to warm to. She knew Fusena, liked her very much and approved enormously of her as a wife for her son. Besides, she would always remember the trouble she had had to go to in order to get Fusena as a wife for Ali. That sort of situation inevitably got you attached to people even if the lines of your lives never really allow you to get ever very close to them.

  On the other hand, she told herself, her son Ali was not a fool. He had worked well and made something of himself. He had prospered. And as a son, he showed in every way that he cared for his family and for her in particular. Not only had he been helping her and Baba Danjuma to educate the younger children as if there were no difference between him and the others; in fact, it was clear that his office in Bamako had been given permanent instructions to make regular remittances to them. Yes, Ali had not forgotten his beginnings … So, if he found a woman like Esi attractive enough to want to marry her, then that should be good enough for her. He could have organised the matter of the permission better. But then, the joy of having children is also sometimes having to forgive them when, after they had done wrong, they come back to say sorry.

  Musa Musa put up a different show altogether. He ranted and raved openly against the couple, telling Ali that he should be ashamed of himself. And that, as far as he was concerned, Esi was still just a concubine.

  ‘Because you had not bothered either to bring her to introduce her to us, or to get our approval before entering into this so-called marriage. It was not enough to ask your relatives from Nima along to your new in-laws. Besides, Allah is our witness, what else is the daughter of an infidel good for besides concubinage? Eh?

  … Are good Muslim women finished from the earth?… And talking of good Muslim women, by the way, where is Fusena? Why don’t you make it possible for me to see my grandchildren more often? Eh, Ali? I have only seen them once since you all arrived from the white man’s land … And my last grandchild, never. Allah, what tribulations people expect me to suffer!—’

  Ali tried to stop his father and refresh his memory about how only recently he had been with them in Accra. But Musa Musa was not going to allow any such interruption.

  ‘—Yes, so w-h-e-r-e is Fusena? Eh, Ali? And what does taking a second wife mean? What tasks had you given her to perform for which her energies had seemed inadequate? Eh, Ali? And how has she felt about all this?’

  Eventually, Mma found herself helping Ali to beg for forgiveness. When Musa Musa was somewhat mollified, he chatted easily to Esi and openly flirted with her.

  This was traditionally permitted and sometimes even expected, when the relationship between a woman and her father-in-law was good. As long as it did not go beyond the level of a harmless game.

  For an incurable womaniser like Musa Musa, there was always a threat of any harmless flirtations becoming serious. But after his eyes had raked Esi’s body and he had in fact concluded that he could sleep with her, he had made a decision not to do anything ‘disgraceful’. He had told himself that he didn’t believe in older men like him acting as though their sons were their procurers, hiding behind bushes to steal their children’s prey. As he grew older, his motto had been that the day he stopped attracting women for himself, that was also the day he gave up women! Therefore, he decisively instructed himself that Esi was forbidden territory.

  After the initial difficulties with All’s family, Esi had had a lovely time in Bamako. She liked All’s people. She liked Mma, although she also found her a little intimidating. On the other hand, from the first moment of encounter she had found Musa Musa charming and had not allowed herself to be remotely deceived by his earlier show of disapproval. She couldn’t get close enough to Baba Danjuma even to form an opinion about him. But that too was all right. It is known and accepted that some relationships by marriage are really too distant to grow much. Like anyone from the coast, meat had always been a luxury for Esi. In Bamako she ate enough during those two weeks to last her a very long time. What she couldn’t get over though, were the chickens and guinea fowls, succulently smoked with wild mint and other bewitchingly subtle flavours. It occurred to her then that perhaps when the best of African pastoral and campsite cooking met French cooking, you got pintade fumée avec vin blanc sec. Trop sec. She indulged.

  Ali had been fascinated, watching Esi as she made some genuine efforts to operate in his other environment. For, apart from creating situations in which she could use the few words and phrases of French she knew, she had also started to learn Hausa, which is the lingua franca of the Sub-Sahel. At the end of the two weeks they turned their eyes southwards, loaded with all manner of goodies: Sub-Sahelian African as well as French, as well as nearly five kilos of extra body weight on Esi. And with all that was a conviction shared by both that they had had a wonderful holiday.

  Part III

  19

  ‘Okay, if you can wait for a couple of minutes I could drop you home.

  ‘Hello, yes... hello, yes, yes, yes, it’s Ali... Hi... yes. Oh, but I have missed you! Fine, fine. And how are you?

  ‘Yes, oh yes. About four o’clock this afternoon.

  ‘Yes, fine.

  ‘Okay. But exhausting as usual …

  ‘Yes, this time, properly worn out…

  ‘Eh … eh . . I … well… eh … actually I am going straight home to wash out all this travel dirt... and ... nothing at all. Just jump into bed to try and recover from my jet-lag …

  ‘Esi, please try to understand …

  ‘Darling, it’s not like you to be unreasonable …

  ‘Not today.

  ‘Because it’s never possible for me to breeze through your place for five minutes… please?

  ‘Yes, tomorrow evening.

  ‘Oh, definitely, I shall come straight from work. So how about cooking me one of your specialities?

  ‘Ya … Ya … Ya … Ya …

  ‘… Good …

  ‘ … Lovely …

  ‘ … See you then. Okay … Bye!

  Fade in the end-of-day sounds of the city and its traffic: yes, do fade them in: especially when you are in doubt.

  It was now nearly a year since Esi re
married, and she was settled into her new life. In all, her basic hopes for marrying a man like Ali had been fulfilled. Ali was not on her back every one of every twenty-four hours of every day. In fact, he was hardly ever near her at all. In that sense she was extremely free and extremely contented. She could concentrate on her job, and even occasionally bring work home.

  It was at this time that she confirmed what she had suspected about herself all along: she not only enjoyed the job she was doing, but she actually enjoyed working. She enjoyed working with figures — co-ordinating them, correlating and graphing. She also had more time to give to other aspects of her job. Like not only being able to be present at nearly all the important office meetings, but also sitting attentively through them and fully participating.

  Of course all this was different from how things had been in the past. Now she had almost lost the harassed feeling that had attacked her every late afternoon of every working day: that she had to hurry home, or to the market or the shops to buy something, or do something in connection with her role as a mother, a wife and a home-maker. Of course, when she thought of her daughter, she felt a little bad too. But there was no doubt at all that she enjoyed the fact that she was free to attend all the conferences, workshops, seminars and symposia on her schedule, whether they were held inside the country or outside. Then on one of her trips abroad she had met a cousin who did her a great favour. He had helped her buy a small personal computer — for which it was agreed that she would pay the equivalent of its price in local currency to his mother when she arrived home. After she had installed the computer in her house, she virtually worked all the time. It was almost like before she had got married the first time and had had a child.

  Esi did not know exactly when the change started taking place in her. Later she began to wonder whether it was the Bamako trip. Perhaps Ali became a little more concrete for her as a being once she had met his father, his ‘mother’ and the other people from his past. In Bamako, she had also met the other Ali, the French- speaking dutiful son. That Ali was no less or more charming than the one she already knew, but the encounter had completed him for her in a way she could never have foreseen or thought possible. So they had returned south with her almost falling in love with him all over again. Besides, after the introduction to his roots, she felt she had become more of his wife. This inevitably led her to expect him to become more of a husband. If this feeling was not conscious, it definitely was subconscious.

  Then there was also this talk of having children. Even if she had been keen on the idea — and God knows she was not — she now wondered how the children were going to be made when she and Ali did not seem to get together often enough to make even one child.

  Clearly, the change was due to many things happening or not happening at the same time. For instance, there were many weeks in a row followed by weekends when she did not have to stay at work and do overtime or take work home. She felt at such times that she could do with company without her having to go out and look for it. Of course she had tried at such times to pretend to herself that it was just human company she missed. However, she could also not run away from the fact that Ali was supposed to be her husband, and she missed him. Just as Ogyaanowa was her daughter and she missed her. The comparison worked for her, although she knew they were not exactly the same type of relationship. But from then on, it took her only a short while before she began to wonder about the kind of relationship she had with Ali, and the kind of marriage she was involved in. In fact, the delay in her awakening had been due to the fact that, precisely because they met so seldom, when they did, they got so busy enjoying one another’s company that she could hardly remember he had been away so long.

  Then something she couldn’t find acceptable began to happen. She learnt that Ali had developed a habit of dropping his secretary home at the end of the working day. Esi became even more uncomfortable when she remembered that Ali had acquired a new secretary, a rather pretty and really tiny person with big eyes and unbelievably charming ways. The first time she had gone to All’s office and seen this new secretary, she had been reminded of a kitten, and she had returned from there feeling quite disturbed. Later that evening, Ali had gone to Esi’s, which got her wondering whether he had sensed that something was wrong. One never knew with Ali. That evening it had been on her tongue to ask him why he had not told her that he had got a new secretary. But she had bitten back her words, knowing she would have sounded very foolish. If that girl was the new secretary Ali was dropping home regularly, then Esi realised the signs were bad.

  Also from this time, Esi noticed — or was it just her imagination? — that Ali had suddenly developed a marked tiredness and an impatience in his voice any time she phoned him. He would have just come back from a trip’, and would complain of being ‘really worn-out’, ‘exhausted’, ‘just a little tired’, and did she mind if he phoned ... or saw her later? At other times, he informed her from the other end of the line that he was ‘just this minute leaving the office to catch a plane’. On such occasions, he was ‘terribly rushed’, he ‘simply had to run’, and ‘darling I shall phone as soon as I land’ wherever he was going, or ‘back home’ or go and see her ‘straight from the airport.’ It became a pattern. Sometimes he remembered to phone. At other times he didn’t. But she never saw him. Not much.

  One day around this time, Esi and Opokuya bumped into one another at the market. Esi was wearing a rather pretty boubou which combined with her figure for a totally stunning effect. So it could only have been a close and caring friend like Opokuya who could also have noticed that in fact there was something slightly lost in Esi’s eyes. Opokuya didn’t comment on it though. She just filed it.

  Instead, she commented on the boubou: how pretty it was, how becoming, and feminine it made her look. Esi was flattered and almost simpered, and she confirmed what Opokuya had guessed: that she had acquired it during the trip to Bamako. But Opokuya was to notice any time they met over the next few months that the slightly lost look never left her friend’s eyes.

  20

  That year’s end turned out to be perhaps the most desolate time Esi had spent in all her life. She not only felt tired like everyone else at that time of year, but she was also restless and lonely. She could not plan anything for the coming holidays. This was mainly because she kept hoping that Ali would come to stay for a reasonable length of time: during which they could decide on what they would do together. But in all the six weeks between the end of October and the middle of December, she saw him only twice, and on each occasion he was just breezing through. He would promise that when he returned from wherever he was going the following week he would come to hers, and be properly there. He readily admitted that they had a few things to sort out. But he never came.

  By the twenty-third of December, Esi was a nervous wreck. She had only half-heartedly done some Christmas shopping. She had not had the courage even to plan vaguely for any get-togethers at hers to which she would invite friends, or extended family members who lived in the city. She had received a number of invitations though; but she was almost sure that she was not going to go anywhere. Even her attempt to have own daughter with her for the festive season had not only run into snags but eventually ended in a fiasco.

  She had gone over to Oko’s mother at the beginning of the school holidays to tell her that she would like Ogyaanowa to come to the bungalow for the Christmas and New Year period.

  ‘What ever for?’ Oko’s mother had asked her.

  Esi couldn’t believe her ears. Was Ogyaanowa her daughter or not? If she was, why should she need to explain to anybody why she wanted them to be together? Oko’s mother had put on her ‘dear-God-why-do-I-have-to-suffer-this-witch’s-visits?’ look, and then proceeded to talk to Esi: very slowly, like the half-wit she took the latter for. Did she remember the last Christmas? Or was it New Year? Why did she want to expose the child to her chaotic and useless life again?

  Esi thought she might tell the older woman that the ch
aos she was alluding to had not been her creation, but her son’s. But then, as she had been asking herself over and over again, what was the point? No one in that household ever listened to anything she had to say. They hadn’t when she was married to Oko and they were not about to, especially now that she had divorced him. She was aware of a strong temptation to stop going to the house and forget about Ogyaanowa. But apart from the fact that her own mothering instincts revolted at the mere thought, she also knew her mother and grandmother would not let her do that. They had already scolded her for agreeing to let the child go to Oko’s people. Besides, she had a secret fear that Oko and his family were working the child against her anyway. She would only make things worse for herself if she cut even her occasional visits to that house. Already, she had noticed that the child never showed any desire to go away with her. Of course Ogyaanowa was always happy to see her; however, Esi thought she had dragged her feet a bit any time she had taken her to go spend the odd weekend at the bungalow.

  In the end, Esi had had to agree to do without her daughter’s company on the old well-beaten premise that there was no sense in taking a child from a house and neighbourhood full of children to the ‘cemetery’ that was where she lived.

  ‘After all, Christmas is for children,’ Oko’s mother had ended the discussion grandly, as if she had just discovered that other festivals were not for children. And all this was why Esi was later to think that the only positive thing she had done that whole year’s Christmas period was taking her daughter’s present of new clothes and sweets to her.

  Meanwhile, she had also toyed with the idea of just packing up on Christmas Eve and going to the village to be with her people. She would return to Accra for the two or three working days between Christmas and the New Year, then return to the village for the New Year weekend, and stay there through the rest of the holidays. But the thought of not having decent answers for the questions she was sure her people would ask her had depressed her so much that she gave up on that idea too. That had not been an easy decision to make though. She kept being sure and not being sure. Half of one day, she was going to the village; the other half she was not. As late as Christmas morning she had packed a few things into her old car and started it. Then a feeling of despair so heavy had overwhelmed her; it was almost like nausea. Of course, she knew her unhappiness was partly caused by her suspicion that her car could break down on the road. For some time now, it had only just managed to take her to the office and back. And since she had not even planned the trip to the village properly, she had not remembered to ask her regular fitter to check on it. Now it was just too late. On Christmas morning, who would be near a workshop even if they were Muslim? In any case, she had not researched the fitter’s religion.