The Tomorrow-Tamer

by Margaret Laurence

  The women clucked softly. Mammii Ama, ashamed of her attack, soothed and soothed in her full mother-voice.

  “There, my red lily. Cry, then. It is nothing. I am a fool; I have a head like a calabash, empty.”

  Into the hush-hushing throng of women ran Comfort. Her face was frightened and excited.

  “Mammii Ama! Mammii Ama! A white woman has come to your stall!”

  And Mammii Ama looked amazed, dumbfounded, only partly in mockery of the child. Hastily she hitched her cloth up around her, and flew back.

  “Ei–what a madness!”

  She went running along like a girl, like a young girl at her first outdooring. She carried her weight lightly, and her breasts bounced as she bounded over gutter and path, over smouldering charcoal burner, over the sleeping babies with blackflies at their nostrils’ edge.

  “Who is the young virgin fleeing from her seducer?” Moki shouted, as she approached. “Oh oh Mammii Ama!”

  The white woman was thin and tall. She had very little flesh on her, just yellow hide over bones, and her eyes were such a pale blue they seemed not to be there at all–only the jelly of the eyeball, nothing to see with. She was holding a brown earthen bowl in her hands.

  Mammii Ama regained her breath.

  “Madam–I greet you,” she said with hoarse cheerfulness.

  The white woman smiled uncertainly and looked over her shoulder. Mammii Ama looked, too, and it was Ampadu standing there.

  Ampadu was a clerk. He had a good job. One heard he had influence. He was a really educated man–he knew not only reading and writing, but also the work of account-books and typewriters. Mammii Ama, who could neither read nor write, and who kept her accounts in her head with never a mistake in twenty-four years, was greatly impressed with Ampadu’s power over words and numbers. She did not tell him so–in fact, she constantly made fun of him. They were distantly related, and Ampadu, who understood her unexpressed pride in this relationship, took her jibes in an easy-natured way.

  She clapped him on the shoulder. He was neatly dressed in a white shirt and grey flannel trousers. How prosperous he looked. And his rimmed spectacles, how well they suited him.

  “Ampadu! I greet you!” she cried in Ga. “How are you, great government man? Do they still say your pen is more active than your love-branch? Hey–you, Moki! Did you know this? When the old chief’s young wife wanted a lover, she sent for Ampadu’s pen!”

  The clerk laughed, but not wholeheartedly. He patted his stomach in embarrassment. Mammii Ama, realizing Ampadu was accompanying the white woman, began to roll her eyes and pretended to stagger.

  “What’s this, Ampadu? What’s this? What’s all this about?”

  Ampadu held up his hand, like a policeman stopping a lorry. “She wants to see the market,” he hissed. “She’s the wife of my new boss. Mammii Ama, please be sensible, I implore you. She wants to buy a calabash, God knows why.”

  The white woman was growing impatient.

  “Ampadu–ask her what she’ll take for this bowl, please.”

  “Ten shilling,” Mammii Ama replied without hesitation.

  “Ten shillings!” the white woman cried, and even Ampadu looked stunned.

  Mammii Ama seized the bowl from her hands.

  “See, madam–dis one, he be fine too much. No be bad one. Look–put you fingah heah–you feel? All fine–nevah broke, dis one. Ten shilling, madam.”

  “How much is the usual price?” the white woman asked Ampadu.

  Ampadu scuffed his shoes in the dust. Mammii Ama felt quite sorry for him, but she had to try hard not to laugh.

  “Usual price?” Ampadu appeared to search his memory. “Let me see, what is the usual price? I am sorry, madam–I am afraid I don’t really know. My wife, you see, buys all the cooking-pots–”

  “Ten shilling!” shouted Mammii Ama in a huge voice. “All time, meka price he be ten shilling! I tell you true, madam. I no t’ief you.”

  “Five shillings,” the white woman offered.

  “Nine shilling sixpence–for you.”

  They settled at length on six shillings, to Mammii Ama’s well-disguised delight. The white woman then bought a black cooking-pot and two calabashes. Mammii Ama was amazed. What could such a woman want with cooking-pots and calabashes? Were Europeans living like poor Africans all of a sudden? Mammii Ama felt excited and confused. The order of things was turning upside down, but pleasurably, in a way that provided food for speculation and gossip.

  When the white woman was gone, they all discussed it. Who could understand such a thing? Mammii Ama, dusting and re-arranging her stock of pots and bowls, began one of her speeches.

  “Hey! Stranger woman, listen to me. Do you feed your man from a calabash you bought in the market? Does your man eat from a bowl made of river clay? Ei! The gourd-vine dances–he shakes his leaves with laughter. Ei! The river fish drown in their laughter. Your own dishes–are they not white as a silver shilling? They are white as the egret’s feathers, when he sleeps in the baobab tree. If the fine vessels displease you, give them to my grand-daughter. Yes! Give them to Comfort, the lovely and dear one–”

  Mammii Ama turned the last bit into a song, and sang it all day. Some of the others joined the refrain, varying it from time to time for amusement.

  “Yes! Give them to the woodseller,

  Give them to Moki, the lovely one–”

  Mammii Ama added a stanza in pidgin, so everyone around would know she was no longer cross at Sabina.

  “Meka you dash dem for Sabina,

  She fine too much, same been-to gal,

  She like all fine t’ing–”

  A week later, the white woman returned, this time alone. Mammii Ama greeted her like an old friend. The white woman bought a gourd spoon from T’reepenny, and haggled with Mammii Ama over the price of another bowl. Finally, Mammii Ama could restrain her curiosity no longer.

  “Madam–why you buy African pot?”

  The white woman smiled.

  “I want to use them for ashtrays.”

  “Ashtray! For dem cig’rette?” Mammii Ama could not believe her ears. “You no got fine one, madam?”

  “Oh–I have lots of others,” the woman said, “but I like these. They’re so beautifully shaped.”

  Mammii Ama could not credit it.

  “An’ dem calabash? Madam chop fu-fu now?”

  “I use the shallow ones to put groundnuts in,” the woman explained. “For small-chop with drinks. The big ones I’m using for plants.”

  “Free-Dom time, meka all African get dem fine dish,” Mammii Ama mused. “I look-a dem na Kingsway store. Fine dish, shine too much.”

  She stopped herself. It would not do, for business, to admit she would like to use fine white dishes. She even felt a little guilty at the thought. Were not her calabashes and bowls the best in the market? But still–

  The white woman was looking at her oddly.

  “You don’t mean to tell me that you think you’ll all be given–what did you say?–shiny dishes, when Independence comes?”

  Mammii Ama did not know whether she believed it or not. But she grew stubborn.

  “I tell you true!” Speaking the words, she became immediately convinced of their absolute truth. “Market woman, all dey be same queen mammy den.”

  “Is that what freedom means to you?” the woman asked.

  Mammii Ama felt somehow that she was being attacked at her very roots.

  “What dis t’ing, what dis Free-Dom? You no savvy Free-Dom palavah, madam. He be strong, dis Free-Dom, he be power word.”

  “You’re free now,” the woman said. “We give you justice. I’ll wager you won’t have it then.”

  The woman did not speak pidgin. Mammii Ama could not follow every word, but she detected the meaning. The white woman was against Free-Dom. Mammii Ama was not surprised, of course. Nor was she angry. What else would you expect of Europeans? When she spoke, it was not to the white woman. It was to the market, to the city, to every village
quiet in the heat of the sun.

  She spread her arms wide, as though she would embrace the whole land. She felt the same as she had once long ago, when she went to meet her young man in the grove. She was all tenderness and longing; she was an opening moonflower, filled with the seeds of life everlasting.

  “Dis Free-Dom he be sun t’ing,” she cried. “Same sun, he be shine. I no ’gree for Eur’pean. I ’gree for Free-Dom.”

  The woman looked thoughtful.

  “Your leader seems popular among the market women.”

  “Ha–aah! He fine too much. He savvy all t’ing. He no forget we. Market woman all dey come queen mammy. All–all–”

  She stuttered and stopped. The Free-Dom speech seemed to have lost something of its former grandeur. Now, Mammii Ama’s words would not rise to her heights. Earthbound, she grasped for the golden lightning with which to illumine the sky. She found it.

  “Dat time, you t’ink we pay wen we deah go for bus?” she cried. “We no pay! At all! Nevah one penny.”

  The white woman still peered. Then she laughed, a dry sound, like Moki breaking firewood.

  “You really think the buses will be free after Independence?”

  “I hear so,” Mammii Ama said, truthfully. Then, feeling her faith not stated with sufficient strength, “Be so! Meka come Free-Dom nevah one penny for we. We go for bus free, free, free!”

  Her words had the desired effect. The white woman was staring at her, certainly, staring with wide eyes. But in her face was an expression Mammii Ama did not understand. Who was this stranger, and why did she come here with her strange laughter and strange words and a strange look on her skull-face? Why didn’t she go away?

  Mammii Ama frowned. Then she heaved her shoulders in a vast shrug and turned back to her stall.

  “Hey, you Comfort! Hasn’t the village woman come yet with the new calabashes?”

  Soon, with the white woman gone, everything was in order, everything was itself once more, known and familiar.

  “Mammii Ama sell all fine pot,

  Oh Oh Mammii Ama!

  She no t’ief you, she no make palavah,

  Oh Oh Mammii Ama!”

  The white woman did not come again for a long time, and Mammii Ama forgot about her. Things weren’t going so well. Both Adua and the child got sick–skin burning all over, belly distended. Mammii Ama went to a dealer in charms. Then she went to a dealer in roots and herbs. She spent, altogether, six pounds four shillings and ninepence. But it did no good. Adua wouldn’t drink the brew the herb-dealer concocted, nor would she allow Mammii Ama to give it to the child. When the fetish priest came to the shanty, Adua lay with her head covered by the blanket, not wanting to see him, but afraid to send him away. Then Adua insisted that Mammii Ama take Comfort to the hospital to see the doctor. Mammii Ama was very much opposed to the idea, but one did not dare argue with a sick person. She took the child. They waited three days before they could see the doctor, and Mammii Ama was in a panic, thinking of her empty market stall, and no money coming in. She had a little money saved, but it was almost gone now. Finally, the doctor gave Comfort a bottle of medicine, and Mammii Ama, when they arrived home, gave some of it to Adua as well. Slowly, the sickness went away, withdrawing a speck of its poison at a time. Adua went back to work, but Comfort was still too weak to help in the market.

  That was always the way–sometimes you had luck; you were well; the coins in the wooden box grew; you bought a little meat, a little fish, a bowl of lamb’s blood for the stew. Then–bam! Fever came, or somebody robbed you, or nobody needed pots and calabashes that month. And you were back where you started, eating only garri and lucky to have anything. You got by somehow. If you couldn’t live, you died, and that was that.

  But then a great thing happened. Not in the ordinary run of exciting things, like Moki killing a small python, or Sabina getting pregnant again, this time by a live man. No–nothing like that at all. This was a great thing, the greatest of all great things.

  Independence.

  The time came. Everyone was surprised when the time actually came, although they’d been expecting it for so long. It was like a gift–a piece of gold that somebody dashed you for nothing.

  Mammii Ama was so excited she could hardly breathe. The night before the Day, everyone gathered at the Parliament building, everyone who could dance or walk or totter, even old T’reepenny, who nearly got broken like a twig by the crowd, until Mammii Ama staunchly elbowed a path for her. And there at midnight, the white man’s flag came down, and the new flag went up–so bright, and the black star so strong and shining, the new flag of the new land. And the people cried with one voice–“Now–now we are Free!”

  The Day–who could describe it? Commoners and princes, all together. The priest-kings of the Ga people, walking stately and slow. The red and gold umbrellas of the proud Akan chiefs, and their golden regalia carried aloft by the soul-bearers, sword-bearers, spokesmen, guards. From the northern desert, the hawk-faced chiefs in tent-like robes. The shouting young men, the girls in new cloth, the noise and the dancing, the highlife music, the soldiers in their scarlet jackets. The drums beating and beating for evermore. The feasting. The palm wine, everybody happy. Free-Dom.

  Mammii Ama sang and shouted until her voice croaked like a tree toad’s. She drank palm wine. She danced like a young girl. Everybody was young. Everybody’s soul was just born this minute. A day to tell your grandchildren and their children. “Free-Dom shone, silver as stars–oh, golden as sun. The day was here. We saw it. We sang it and shouted.”

  The day, of course, like any other day, had to finish sometime. Mammii Ama, exhausted, found her way home through the still-echoing streets. Then she slept.

  The next morning Mammii Ama did not rise quite so early. The tea and boiled yam tasted raw in her mouth. She swallowed her cold bile and marched out.

  Only when the bus drew to a stop did she remember. She climbed on, cheerful now, full of proud expectancy. She was about to push her way through the standing people near the door, when the driver touched her arm.

  “Hey–you! You no pay yet.”

  She looked at him shrewdly.

  “Wey you say? You t’ief me? I no pay now.”

  “So? Why you no pay?”

  Mammii Ama folded her arms and regarded him calmly.

  “Free-Dam time, meka not one penny for we. I hear it.”

  The driver sighed heavily.

  “De t’ing wey you hear, he no be so,” he said crossly. “Meka you pay you fare. Now–one-time!”

  Some of the other passengers were laughing. Mammii Ama scarcely heard them. Her eyes were fixed on the driver. He was not deceiving her–she could read it in his tired, exasperated face.

  Without a word, she took out the coin and dropped it in the metal fare-box.

  That day the white woman visited the market again. Mammii Ama, piling bowls in neat stacks, looked up and saw her standing there. The white woman held up a calabash and asked how much.

  “Twelve shilling,” Mammii Ama said abruptly, certain that would be enough to send the woman away.

  To her utter astonishment, however, the woman paid without a murmur. As Mammii Ama reached out and took the money, she realized that the calabash was only an excuse.

  “How were your Independence celebrations?” the white woman smiled. “Did you have a good time?”

  Mammii Ama nodded but she did not speak.

  “Oh, by the way–” the white woman said in a soft voice. “How did you get on with the bus this morning?”

  Mammii Ama stared mutely. She, the speech-maker, was bereft of speech. She was more helpless than T’reepenny. She did not have even one word. She could feel her body trembling. The fat on her arms danced by itself, but not in joy. The drummer in her heart was beating a frenzy. Her heart hurt so much she thought she would fall down there in the dust, while the yellow skull of the woman looked and tittered.

  Then, mercifully, the word was revealed to her. She had her power o
nce more. Her drumming heart told her what to do. Snake-swift, Mammii Ama snatched back the calabash, at the same time thrusting the coins into the woman’s hand.

  “You no go buy from Mammii Ama! You go somewhere. You no come heah. I no need for you money.”

  She felt a terrible pang as she realized what had happened. She had parted with twelve shillings. She must be going mad. But she would not turn back now. She took another belligerent step, and the yellow menacing skull retreated a little more. She spoke clearly, slowly, emphasizing each word.

  “I no pay bus dis time,” she said. “Bus–he–be–free! You hear? Free!”

  Inspired, Mammii Ama lifted the gourd vessel high above her head, and it seemed to her that she held not a brittle brown calabash but the world. She held the world in her strong and comforting hands.

  “Free-Dom he come,” she cried, half in exultation, half in longing. “Free-Dom be heah now, dis minute!”

  The sun rolled like an eye in its giant socket. The lightning swords of fire danced in the sky.

  She became calm. She knew what was what. She knew some things would happen, and others–for no reason apparent to her–would not. And yet, there was a truth in her words, more true than reality. Setting down the calabash, she re-adjusted her fish-patterned cloth above her breasts. She looked disinterestedly at her former customer. The white woman was only a woman–only a bony and curious woman, not the threatening skull-shape at all.

  She watched the white woman go, and then she turned back to her stall. She picked up the calabash and set it with the rest. An ordinary calabash, nothing in it. Where was the glory she had so certainly known only a moment before? Spilled out now, evaporated, gone. The clank of the coin in the fare-box echoed again in her head, drowning the heart’s drums. She felt weary and spent as she began stacking the earthen pots once more. A poor lot–she would be lucky to get ninepence apiece. They seemed heavy to her now–her arms were weighted down with them. It would continue so, every day while her life lasted. Soon she would be an old woman. Was death a feast-day, that one should have nothing else to look forward to?