by Anne Simpson
Of course they forgave her. Who could not?
Come, said Hassan, we will go in.
And much to Binta’s disappointment, the three of them vanished inside the house.
The sun was very warm, even under the shade of the awning, and one of the men who had been waiting to settle a matter with Hassan began snoring. It was a grumbling noise, occasionally punctuated by a clownish snort. Beyond the terrace in the compound, three girls dozed under a tree on a mat, their pale feet showing, and a woman picking insects out of a basin of rice let her hand fall idly on its rim; even the chickens were quiet, finished with squabbling. Dust furled and settled across the swept ground, and then all was still. Binta felt herself giving in to a sleepiness that crept up her legs, her thighs, her arms; she could not resist.
When she woke, she realized that her jaw had been hanging open. A small boy, seated on the step leading into the house, was gazing at her. Binta wiped her face with her kerchief. The men had gone, taking their claims and disputes with them, and there was only the child, laughing as he made a show of wiping his own face, mimicking Binta. Farih almost fell over the boy when she swept outside, and Hassan clapped his hands to make him scurry away.
Rasheed, Rasheed — off with you.
Binta sat up straight to cover her embarrassment; she hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She wasn’t a bush girl now.
LATER, WHEN THOMAS AND BINTA were leaving, Hassan came close to the driver’s side of the car.
There will have to be a council, said Hassan. A meeting of elders. They will have to agree that Farih will take up the second appeal with your help and that of Danladi Baku, who worked with her on the first appeal, and perhaps Yakubu. It is a formality; I can assure you that they do not want harm to come to A’isha.
I will wait to hear, then, said Thomas. I hope I have the necessary mettle for this job.
It is said that unless we are afraid, we do not find courage, Hassan said wryly, lifting up his sunglasses so they were on his forehead.
If it is to be found at all, said Thomas.
Exactly so, said Hassan. He tapped the roof of the car in farewell.
SEVERAL DAYS AFTER the first meeting, Thomas went back to see Hassan with Binta and Yakubu. Hassan had invited Farih and Danladi Baku. Binta, too, was offered a chair in the circle, as if she herself were a lawyer. She sat very still. Her spine was iron. They had gone through the introductions; refreshments had been handed around, and Hassan went into the house and returned with the baby that was now being bounced on his thigh. The child was about eight or nine months old, with satiny brown skin and a chubby face. Hassan held her hands to keep her balanced, and she crowed whenever his leg gave an extra jiggle she wasn’t expecting.
A grandchild, thought Binta.
This is Safiya, said Hassan. Safiya, I want you to greet some very intelligent people. He bounced; the child shrieked.
Hassan rose with Safiya in his arms and deposited her with Thomas. She gave him a puzzled look, then smiled rapturously as one hand went to his glasses, pulling them. He turned his head so she wouldn’t yank them off, but now she tried the other side, grabbing his ear as if it were a toy. The others began to laugh as Thomas grimaced.
O-ho, she has you in her grip, said Hassan merrily.
She does, said Thomas.
Enough, now, Safiya, said Hassan gently, and she turned to him while Thomas retrieved his glasses. She climbed into Hassan’s arms.
You have children, Hassan said to Thomas.
We have three at home. We are in the process of adopting another. Thomas did not add that this was Binta; she bowed her head so as not to look at him.
Praise Allah! So, you have an understanding of their deviousness, their caprices. I myself am father to seven, he boasted. And grandfather to five.
However, this one is not mine. He grinned and dabbed Safiya’s nose.
He looked around at all of them more sternly. You should not underestimate the work you are facing, work that will require your complete attention.
Perhaps, thought Binta, these fancy lawyers had imagined Alhaji Hassan as a man from the bush, when he was not like that at all.
You may fail, but I hope you do not.
Safiya arched her back and began to cry, and Hassan handed her over to a girl who had appeared in the doorway of the house.
You must work only with one thing in mind. The benefit of that child, he said. And not only that child, but the child’s mother. You must be very wise here. He tapped his finger against the side of his head. But you must be even wiser here. He tapped his chest.
BUT I HAVE NOT YET MET HER, said Binta that evening, as they ate dinner.
Monica sipped from her glass of water. It may be days yet.
Maybe we should get some medicine for Hassan’s mother, said Thomas.
Oh, I was going to check. For pleurisy, is it?
Binta tossed her napkin on to the table. All of this will take a month! And meanwhile nothing is done for A’isha.
Eat your food, said Monica. Hortensia, what have you got on your fingers that you need to stick them into your mouth all at once?
They’ll stay there, said Binta. There was a girl in my village who did that, and she couldn’t get her hand out of her mouth. She tried and tried, and then her mother tried and then —
Monica smothered a laugh.
That’s not true, said Jonathan.
Would I make up a story like that, Master Jonathan-I-know-more-than-you?
Hortensia’s fingers promptly came out of her mouth. Her eyes were wide.
Yes, Binta, went on, looking at Hortensia. Her name was Efome.
Thomas got up from the table. Well, I don’t want to have to excuse myself, but I must get to work.
Hours later, when Binta was going to bed, she saw he’d fallen asleep in his desk chair. She knocked on the open door to wake him.
Binta. He roused himself, collected the papers he’d been studying. I should be off to sleep, and you as well. Goodnight.
Goodnight, she said shyly.
Binta went to the bedroom she shared with Hortensia, where she undressed and folded her clothes in the dark. She lay down on the bed, but she couldn’t sleep.
When Binta and Monica had gone to the Wuse Market to buy cloth, the sky was cool and fresh and blue. It was early, before the sluggish heat took the colour out of it, and all that Binta saw was new, a world made entirely new — the orange of a woman’s headscarf, the green skins of the oranges piled in a basin, bottles of palm oil arranged on a shelf in a stall, a woman with a girl in her lap, plaiting her hair, a man taking another man’s hand, lightly, in greeting, chickens stepping through the maze of feet and bicycles and motorbikes. A bus had broken down across from the market, and the passengers streamed out, some hoisting belongings onto their heads, some swinging them at their sides.
Binta and Monica were among them, dodging passengers who were disembarking, trying to get out of the way of a man carrying a huge woven basket on his head. One handsome woman, with an elaborate flowering arrangement of braids, had lost the heel from her shoe, and Binta helped her find it. She couldn’t fasten the thin spike of the heel to the shoe; the woman would need to find someone who could fix it properly. She thanked Binta, picked up her bags and suitcase, and hobbled off with one shoe on and one shoe off.
Monica smiled at Binta; Binta grinned back.
They came to the section of the market where material was sold, and Binta reached out to touch the printed cotton, the rolls of gold and green, pink and yellow, silver and blue. She settled on the material with the birds in the air, soaring and dipping, because she was thinking of the airplane that Sophie and Clare had taken on their way home a week before. Had they been frightened, flying over the ocean?
It had been hard to decide between the cloth with the birds and the cloth with the flowers, and in the end, Monica bargained for both and bought them.
RASHEED WAS TOLD to get another chair and he raced off.
You have me
t her, Hassan told Thomas. Her father thought she was simple, but that is not so. She hides herself well.
It was some time before A’isha appeared, with Safiya, to greet Farih and the men seated in the shade. Hassan motioned for Binta to take the one vacant chair, but Binta remained where she was. If anyone took the chair it should be A’isha. A’isha’s hijab was a little askew, as if she had been caught unprepared. It was the face of a girl like herself, thought Binta, but not a girl; she had the dignity of a woman, and because of that she reminded Binta of a woman of Monica’s age.
A’isha greeted Hassan respectfully, whereupon he got up, taking Safiya and wheeling around in a circle until the child giggled.
A’isha, said Thomas, standing up. I am glad to see you again. He spoke in Hausa.
She lifted her eyes briefly.
I will be one of those who will represent you. I am hopeful that we can win this next appeal.
Hassan gave Safiya back to A’isha. She looked from one to the other, jiggling her baby in her arms. Binta could not be sure if there was a smile on her lips.
Mr. Thomas, said A’isha, speaking in English. You are welcome.
And this is Binta, said Thomas. She will be helping.
A’isha’s eyes barely met Binta’s, but there was a glint of curiosity, as if A’isha was interested in the indigo birds printed on the blue cotton. She wanted to see them, Binta thought, she wanted to see the swoop and spiral of the birds. Binta herself couldn’t stop herself from looking down or keep from fingering the button at the collar. The tailor had worked swiftly. She wanted to say to A’isha that it had been a gift, that she hadn’t been able to contain herself and had uttered a shriek of delight when Monica had come back from the tailor’s and unfolded the newly made blouses and skirts, shaken them out. Had anyone ever given her anything like this? Two sets of clothes. Monica and Hortensia had agreed on how nice Binta looked when she put them on, one set, and then the other, and showed them off. Monica said she needed a pair of shoes to go with them.
A’isha and Binta remained standing, waiting for the boy to bring the extra chair. They were about the same age. Binta could have been the one with a baby in her arms; she could have been the one needing help. A’isha’s skin was sleek and clear, and her eyes were large; Binta wanted her to look up. Instead, A’isha concentrated on Safiya, whose brown arm hung free from her mother’s cradling arms. Even in the shade, it was steaming hot, and Binta shifted her weight from one leg to the other as she felt the material of her dress sticking to her skin.
A’isha should live; she shouldn’t die. It roused a fierceness inside Binta that she hadn’t known was there — the way A’isha stood, with her right hip slightly tilted, and how she first looked at Binta, as if questioning her, or the way Safiya’s arm drooped sleepily, or the way that Thomas sat in the chair, one leg forward, one leg bent, listening to the man on the other side of him. Hassan took a spoon from his drink, which was tea, yes, she’d heard him ask his wife for sweet tea, with two spoons of sugar. She watched as he put the spoon beside his glass cup on the table, heard the sound it made as he set it down. All of this flashed through her and was gone.
I am glad to meet you, said Binta. You and Safiya.
29
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IF THIS APPEAL DOESN’T DO ANY GOOD, if it doesn’t change anything, at least I’ve given myself to Safiya, at least I’ll know that. I tried to be a good daughter, a good mother. I want to think about that and not pay attention to the counsels for the prosecution, one of them coughing now, so that the one beside him unwraps a candy and gives it to him. I can hear the unwrapping of the candy as if it is exploding in my ears.
I am on the other side of the courtroom, in the Court of Appeals, with the counsels of defense, close to Farih Hussaini. I can almost feel her body vibrating beside mine. But I don’t want to hear what they are saying, what they have been talking about for hours. I don’t want to be in this room, trying not to listen and listening because I must. There are Farih’s beautiful shoes to look at instead, her shoes with the gold loops. When she shifts her feet, the gold loops glisten, and this helps to calm the fanned-up feathers of panic, as if there’s a bird in my chest, trying to get out. Maybe there really is a bird inside.
I can’t bear to look at the face of the Grand Khadi as he reads the judgement. I can’t bear to hear about zina, but then I find myself listening to him. He is saying that the police should not have charged me with the offense of zina. He is saying this, and I almost lift my eyes, but instead I keep them on Farih’s shoes, and the gold loops, one looped with another. I think about how they were looped that way, how someone did that.
He is saying more, that the act of zina must be openly witnessed by four people, and that because four people have not witnessed it, the accused, the appellant, should be discharged and acquitted. Farih touches my arm, with a touch as light as the tip of a wing. I want to ask about discharged and acquitted, but the Grand Khadi has gone on to the next point, and anyway, I can’t speak in this court, and I wouldn’t speak even if I could.
I glance up, so that no one will notice, and I see the way he is intent, the way his face is set. His voice is a voice I can listen to. It is low, but it can be heard in every corner of this room, and he is making a rope with it, a good, strong rope. I hold on, I listen, I don’t try to make him smaller in my mind. He says that discharging the man accused of being with me — Musa is the man he means, but he doesn’t say Musa’s name — that discharging the man while convicting the woman was an error and should not be sustained before the court. It was an error.
A mistake, something wrong. It was wrong for Musa to make me fall down with the basin of water in my hands. I close my eyes. I am lying still and looking up at the underside of the tin roof and the warm water making my clothes damp, and I am lying still, listening to Safiya’s first cry, after she came out of my body, and I am lying still and not sleeping after my mother’s burial, after she was wrapped in white.
But what Musa did was wrong.
The Grand Khadi says it was an abuse of law for a judge to sit alone at a trial, to preside over a trial when it has been stipulated in the penal code that a judge and two members should sit at the trial court. And he is saying that it was not valid, my confession was not valid, because it was not repeated multiple times, and also, that I was not allowed to withdraw my confession.
And he is still talking, but my ribs are opening. I can feel them opening from the bone that runs down the centre of my chest. They open, but not in the same way as a door. They open in the way the body opens. I can feel this happening, though my eyes are closed.
I hear some of the words he is saying, some of the bits and pieces, but not all. He is speaking of an accused person, he is speaking of the Qur’an. He is saying that the trial court records were unclear, and that where there are doubts, they should be resolved in favour of the accused.
My ribs are opening. Something wants out.
I hear him saying that the burden of proof should be borne by the prosecution. I hear him saying that the court has heard in favour of the accused, the appellant, and that this is the decision by which the counsels of law must abide, that A’isha Nasir is discharged and acquitted forthwith, that it is the will and decision of the Court of Appeals that she should go free.
30
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AS SOON AS THE DOG JUMPS OUT of the car at the beach, trailing his leash, Sophie sees how the world has opened up. It has been months since she returned to Canada with her mother, but almost two years have passed since she has been at this beach. Sky, a roll of dunes, dashes of blue ocean where the ridges of sand and marram grass dip to reveal it.
No, she cries. Cuba, wait!
But Cuba is off down the weathered boardwalk, the uneven boards, with the burgundy leash flipping behind him. No one else is around; it’s chilly. Cuba comes lolloping back and Sophie releases the catch on the leash, bundling it up in her pocket. She comes to the end of the boardwalk where it slopes
down to the sand.
It’s more than just chilly. The wind is biting, and waves pile one on top of the other, racing onshore, white flicked back from each roll of blue green. It makes her want to run. She turns east and the dog runs with her, galloping in and out of the water, making the seagulls fly up in a flurry of white and grey. The wind drives and drives and drives the tide, whipping it onward. The waves swing curving bodies into the home stretch, plunging forward on the sand. When the water draws back, the stones in the damp, purplish-brown sand are slick, and each one is sharp and clear and polished, each has a shadow.
She walks all the way to the eastern tip of the beach, where the dunes rise up in high mounds.
Thunder of waves against sand. A tern swoops low for something invisible on the beach, soars up; a flock of gulls putter around half-buried shells near a tidal pool. She walks on to the place where the water sucks through a channel at the mouth of the estuary, the current a muscle, surging up, higher than the rest, a thick muscle. The light is strong, heady. She could be tipped over; she is insubstantial. No, she isn’t going to think about Felix. She won’t. She sits where she can be sheltered from the wind, sheltered but thinned to gauze, less than she was before.
This is the place where she and her mother came, in the sheen of early morning, to scatter her father’s ashes. Her mother wanted to scatter them at this hooked end of beach, and it had to be morning, and it had to be August, on the day of their anniversary. Clare anticipated everything, with a full plastic bag for Sophie, one for herself, and another with the tops of cut flowers that could be tossed with the ashes. She and Sophie were careful about the direction of the wind. Sophie put her hand into the bag and drew out a handful of brown-grey ash with bits of sparkle, the tiniest fragments: all that remained of a body that had been her father. Mostly it was the same colour as the sand at her feet, but it felt different, not what she expected. She held the ashes cupped in her palm. Her father. She didn’t want to give anything up to the water, but her mother showed her how to throw some of it away from her, with flowers in it, so it would fall on the surface of the water, and they could watch the bobbing heads of carnations. She tossed her father’s ashes here, where the channel from the estuary met the waters of the Northumberland Strait in this strip of wild water, right at this spot. The water twisted away, fled away. One thing poured into the other. Her father’s ashes went out, rising on the swell of current, they must have risen, mixed with the water, the blossoms, going away and away, curling and spinning away.