by Fiona Zedde
“Did you hear about what happened at the home of Ibada?” she asked Ny.
Ny’s throat tightened to hold in the lie she had to tell. “Kizo said something about him throwing out his wife, but I don’t know exactly what happened.”
“It was Duni, his second wife.” Her mother made a noise of disgust. “I feel sorry he was her family’s only choice of a husband for her. He probably doesn’t beat her, but what a beast he is. Two seasons with Ibada must have been torture for Duni.”
She brushed a light hand over Ny’s shoulder, like she was telling herself no matter how desperate she was, she’d never give her daughter to a man who didn’t deserve her. Or that’s what Ny liked to think. Despite her worry for Duni, her mother’s touch soothed her in a way she didn’t think she needed. It reminded her of those half-forgotten memories from when she was a child, her mother rocking her to sleep with Ndebele lullabies before her altar to Yemaya, sprinkling river water on her forehead with a smile that held so much happiness that Nyandoro never completely forgot it.
“Ibada is just dreadful.” Her mother continued the story, telling Ny everything Kizo had told her, and more. “Instead of taking Duni to the village high priestess and setting her aside. He took to the road.”
Ny cringed.
There were two ways to break a marriage in the village. The first was for the couple to see the village Iyalawo together and arrange with the priestess for the quiet dissolution of the spiritual bonds of their marriage. The second way was to walk through the main road of the village, calling out the name of the wife or husband before every house, throwing down a stone each time. The second was humiliating and reserved for when someone had been done a great wrong. It was ultimately up to the village elders whether or not the divorce would stand, but when someone took to the road, especially a wife or husband with any wealth or influence, the elders rarely stood in the way of the divorce.
“Everyone knows he never wanted Duni in the first place. He saw the goats her family promised and his eyes grew big. I doubt she truly has a lover. Ibada is only doing it this way so people won’t think badly of him when he brings Dabiku’s youngest child home in place of the old wife. Dabiku should be ashamed for allowing him to take her daughter. He will sour that little girl in no time.”
Early morning birds sang in the resulting silence. The wind whispered through the leaves. Though Ny didn’t know Dabiku’s daughter and didn’t even remember the girl’s name, she felt a sharp pang of sympathy for her. But maybe, unlike Duni, she wouldn’t want more than her new husband offered. A bed to sleep in, sister wives for company, children of her own one day. Just maybe.
“Is there anything we can do for Duni, Iya? If the elders allow the divorce to stand?”
Her mother looked at her, an odd expression on her face, like she saw through all the untruths and half-lies Ny had ever spoken about her and Duni. Her face seemed carved from rock. Cruel. But she turned to look back up the dirt path toward the market, and her face seemed like her own again.
“All we can do for her is pray.”
Pray? Ny barely stopped herself from making a disrespectful noise. When had prayer ever gotten them anything they needed? She thought of Duni huddled in Kizo’s house, waiting for the lions to be set loose on her.
“I worry something like that will happen to you,” her mother said.
Ny glanced at her, startled. “You think some man will throw me out, Iya?” She tried to keep humility in her voice but knew she failed. The day some man thought he would determine her fate was the day he lost his balls.
Their footsteps mirrored each other as they made their way through the village that had long since been awake. The sound of children singing from the school nearby rose in the morning air along with the cries of goats and conversations from front gardens.
“Not exactly.” Her mother paused. “I worry about the day you will—you might be at someone else’s mercy. That’s not something easily gotten used to.”
“I have already told you, I would rather take a wife, Mama. Men do not suit my taste.”
Her mother pressed her lips together, was silent as their sandaled feet slapped against the dry dirt road. The dozen or so bangles on her mother’s arms, a decorative custom only the women in her far-off village practiced, chimed softly with each step.
“I want grandchildren from you, Nyandoro. It is a hard thing for me to accept, you choosing the life of the onek epanga without really knowing what it means.”
“It’s not a choice, Iya. I’ve already told you that. If you would like grandchildren to sit on your lap, my brothers are more than happy to provide them.”
“But I want a child from my daughter. Blood born from your blood.” Her mother’s clan passed everything through the females. Property, names, power. It had taken her many seasons to get used to how things were in her husband’s village. “It’s not the same coming from your brothers.” Her mother stared into the distance, a wrinkle between her eyes. Although she spoke the words Ny was long familiar with, she didn’t seem invested in the argument, like whatever decision Ny made, having children would be the least of her worries.
“I should start looking for a wife soon,” Ny said, just to prick her mother from the strange mood she was in. “I will officially be an adult next season.”
“Next season?” Her mother stopped so fast, her basket almost pitched into the dirt. “But you’re still a child. My child. And a virgin.”
Ny bit the inside of her lip. She didn’t want to lie. She was no longer a virgin and had the ache between her legs to prove it. The memory of Duni’s fingers deep inside her, the stretch of faint pain then the pleasure, confronted her under the hot sun. This conversation didn’t seem as funny anymore. “I am not a child, Mama. I’m not.”
Her mother’s eyes searched her face. Ny felt her gaze like a touch, rippling from the top of her head, over her breasts she had chosen to cover that morning, to her hips, her feet. Her mother’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed. “You’re too young, Nyandoro. Being a grown-up is complicated business. Your cho-cho may be ready, but your heart is not.”
“Mama!” She couldn’t stop her face from prickling with embarrassment.
“It’s true.” Her mother’s narrowed eyes were trained like twin spears on her face.
Ny grit her teeth. She was tired of people telling her how young she was. “I’m old enough to have a child if I wanted. And if Papa decides that it is okay, I can marry today.”
“No.” Her mother was agitated, her steps falling quicker and harder on the dirt road. The basket lurched again on her head and she grabbed it before it could fall. “Don’t be so wicked to your own iya, Nyandoro.”
“I’m not being wicked. I’m just telling you the truth. I have been with someone. And she is someone I want to marry very soon.”
Her mother drew in a sharp breath, her face going faintly gray under the early morning sun. “It’s too soon, Nyandoro. Don’t be in such a rush to take on responsibilities that may be too difficult for you.”
“I’m not too young to love, Mama. Just like I’m not too old to go to the market or attend council meetings or kill an antelope and clean it before bringing it home. Those are also the things that make an adult life, yet you and Papa insist I do them.”
Her mother’s breath came quickly, like she was fighting a panic of some sort. Her hand fluttered up to her face before dropping back to her side. The silence between them was poison. “I’m just not ready to let you go.” Her mother’s voice was barely a whisper.
“I’m not going anywhere, Iya. I’ll be mostly by your side and will only move as far away as Ndewele,” her brother lived two houses over on the family compound, “and then you’ll get tired of seeing me every day.”
A shaky smile tilted on her mother’s mouth. She took Ny’s hand and gently squeezed. Ny was relieved when they arrived at the market, breathing in with ready familiarity the smells of ripe fruit and meat, honey, and the sweat of so many people in
one place.
“Greetings, sister!” a woman Ny had often seen traveling to the village called out to her mother. Her mother, a big believer in not revealing the soft underbelly of her family’s troubles for others to sink their teeth into, replied with her widest smile and a greeting of her own.
And so it continued as they walked through the loud and raucous market, women waving at them to buy what they had to sell. A few men brushing past and admiring the sway of her mother’s hips, looking Ny over as if she was also for sale. She gave them her stoniest face while her mother simply ignored them. Her mother put on her public face as they went from vendor to vendor, getting the small things they came for. Yams. Carrots. More scented oil for her mother’s hair and skin.
Gradually, the rhythm of the market soothed the tension between them. Her mother bent to look at a piece of kanga cloth with the symbol for “daughter” etched along its edges, drew it between her fingers, and touched Ny to draw her attention to it. “I think Ndewele’s wife is going to have a girl. She would like this, I think.”
“A girl?”
After all these seasons, Ny was still surprised when her mother knew things before everyone else. Whether it was her persistent nosiness or the fact that people told her things they would never confess anyone else, her iya always had the news before even the most voracious gossips in the village. Ny imagined her sister-in-law with two small babies draped in the identical folds of the soft green fabric. “That would be nice,” she said, touching the cloth where it still drooped from her mother’s fingers.
“Yes.” Her mother bought the cloth from the vendor and put it in the basket on top of her head.
“Iya, let me carry that for you.” Ny gestured to the half-filled basket.
“I’m not old and helpless yet, Nyandoro.” A smile creased her mother’s cheeks. “But if you insist, you can take the basket when it gets full. There’s barely anything in it now.”
Ny laughed. “Okay.”
Just like that, things were right between them. The tension fell away, and they were once again their usual selves. During the meandering morning, they sampled fruit, laughed at the jugglers in the small square, and watched the dancers performing in their colorful robes and costumes for money and patronage.
At the stall selling gourds of all types, Ny’s mother passed over the now heavy basket and Ny took it, laughing. She twisted a cloth on top of her head and balanced the basket there, settling the heavy weight in a way that did not strain her neck.
As she lifted her hand to steady the basket, she caught a pair of masculine eyes focused on her. Used to being stared at by men, she ignored him. But the longer she felt his stare, the more she realized he wasn’t looking at her like other men. Instead, something truly predatory lurked in his unblinking gaze, a promise of blood and screams. She frowned. Then the man looked away.
At her side, her mother was bargaining with the vendor woman for two of her best drinking gourds. She didn’t see the man with screaming in his eyes. Ny shifted closer to her mother, about to open her mouth and mention the stranger when she clenched her teeth.
What was she going to say? After talking with her mother about almost being an adult, now she was running to her about the scary man in the market? Either she was a child or she was a woman. She didn’t get to choose at different times of the day whether to be one or the other. Ny kept her mouth shut.
Her mother bought the gourds and loaded them into the basket. After a quick word to Ny, she slipped through the crowd to pick up the sandals she’d ordered a few weeks before from the leather merchant.
Ny looked up. The sun, warm on her arms and back, had moved to the middle of the sky. As usual, she and her mother had been at the market for a while. The morning was almost gone, and although she’d been having a good time, with the appearance of the stranger, she now wished desperately to be indoors. Preferably with Duni, a cool sheet draped over their bodies while they talked about the future they would share together. She scanned the market. The stranger was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t watching her, hiding behind the shifting crowd so she couldn’t see him.
When her mother reappeared with her new shoes, Ny sighed with a tiredness she almost felt.
“Mama, let me take the basket back home for you. It’s getting heavy. And I know you want to spend a little more time out here.”
Her mother went on her tiptoes to drop her sandals in the basket on Ny’s head. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you want to leave. You lasted much longer than usual today.” She squeezed Ny’s shoulder, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Thank you.”
“You know I love being with you at the market, Iya.”
“Yes.” Her mother laughed. “Almost as much as your baba does.”
Ny rolled her eyes. “Almost.” Her father hated the market with a passion he reserved for few things.
“Go on home,” her mother said. “Let me enjoy the rest of this market day before coming back home to slave in the kitchen.”
But she knew her mother loved cooking for the family. One of the many ways she showed them her love.
“Okay. Wonderful.” Ny smiled and kissed her mother’s cheek. “We’ll be waiting impatiently for dinner when you get back.”
At home, she put away the food and left the cookhouse with her mind on Duni, and on the stranger at the market.
“I’m glad you came home today, daughter.”
Ny’s footsteps faltered. In a daze, she had wandered into the common room, nearly stumbling over her father who lay on his favorite chair, his legs stretched out in front of him and into the sun from the open window.
“Today is market day,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Why aren’t you with the council?”
Her father grunted. “I wanted to be home to see my wife and children.”
He was smoking his pipe and looking through the ledger that recorded the productivity of the village’s crops for the year so far. Even at home and at rest, he was still working. But it had been a long time since he had last been at home before the evening meal. If he returned from one of his trips to other villages, he often left to report his findings to the chief, to sit with him, and his advisors until Iya sent one of the neighborhood children to let him know it was time to eat.
“The council members are squabbling like babies today,” he said. “I can get my work done here and in peace.” He puffed lazily on his pipe and put the ledger beside him on the chair. “Where is your iya?”
“Still at the market.” She sat in the chair across from her father and stretched out her legs, mirroring his posture. “I don’t know where she finds all the energy to stay there so long then come back here and make the evening meal.”
“She is blessed by the Orishas with the beauty and strength of a hundred women,” her father said with a soft laugh. “Maybe even two hundred.”
Ny smiled. One day she hoped to love her wife—love Duni—as deeply as her father loved his. She smiled even more at that secret happiness, then tucked the thought of her new lover away for later.
“Iya deserves to rest, just like you do, Baba. One day, the boys and I will cook the main meal so you two can sit together all day and play love songs on my kora.”
Her father chuckled although the sound seemed hollow. “A glimpse of paradise,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time your iya and I just sat together with nothing else to do.”
Now that she’d said it, Ny was convinced that she should do this for her parents. Her brothers wouldn’t mind. Nitu was actually a better cook than she was and would happily take over the cooking of the evening meal if he had someone to do the chopping and mortaring for him.
“Good,” Ny said. “We’ll do that sometime soon.”
She sat with her father until her mother came in from the market carrying a small grass woven bag over her shoulder. Her mother stood in the entrance to the common room, her body haloed in the late evening sunlight. Her warm smile flashed, and she c
ame into the room smelling faintly of her mint body oil and the sweat of her walk.
“My two favorites,” she said and danced her fingers over Ny’s hair.
Her father put aside his pipe and, still stretched on his side on the couch, invited her mother with open arms to sit in the cup of his reclined body. She sat and leaned into him with a sigh, closing her eyes. “The day has been long, husband.”
Their easy intimacy, something Ny had simply taken for granted as a child, now pulled a different cord in her. Her parents’ love, though not always perfect or peaceful, was constant and unwavering. Seeing it now, instead of making Ny embarrassed or just tolerant, made her want a love of her own. She left them to go find it.
She rushed a bath and a change of clothes before taking off at a jog for Kizo’s house.
“Slow down, Lady Nyandoro. Where are you going in such a rush?”
It was the local washer-woman, large and friendly with big eyes and an even bigger smile. She carried a bundle of wet clothes from the river in her basket. Ny nearly kept running past, but her manners forced her stop. She straightened her wind-tossed kanga and made her breath even out, her heart rate slow down.
“It’s a pretty day, Iya Kipenzi.”
She had always been nice to Ny, even if she was a bit of a gossip. Her husband threw her out seasons before Ny was even born, but Iya Kipenzi had recovered her life and seemed happy. She had always called Ny “Lady Nyandoro” even when Ny was a child. Back then it made her feel special. Now, it just made her uncomfortable.
“Pretty enough to slow down and enjoy the butterflies then, no?”
“You’re right, Iya Kipenzi.” Ny struggled to find a smile, not wanting to be rude and dismiss the older woman but eager. “I’ll see you later.”
Iya Kipenzi chuckled like she knew a secret. “Yes, child. Later.”
At Kizo’s hut, the window of the main room was open, the door propped open to let in the last of the sun. The faint trails of gray wood smoke from the back of the hut rose in the air. Someone was making food. She called out to him before she walked into the hut.