The sea and the wet sand to one side of it; green tropical forest on the other; above it, the slow, tumbling clouds. The clean, round, blinding disk of sun and the blue sky covered and surrounded the small African village, Kumansenu.
A few square mud houses with roofs like helmets were here thatched, and there covered with corrugated zinc, where the prosperity of cocoa and trading had touched the head of the family.
The widow Bola stirred her palm-oil stew and thought of nothing in particular. She chewed a kola nut rhythmically with her strong toothless jaws, and soon unconsciously she was chewing in rhythm with the skipping of Asi, her grandaughter. She looked idly at Asi, as the seven-year-old brought the twisted palm-leaf rope smartly over her head and jumped over it, counting in English each time the rope struck the ground and churned up a little red dust. Bola herself did not understand English well, but she could easily count up to twenty in English, for market purposes. Asi shouted, “Six,” and then said, “Nine, ten.” Bola called out that after six came seven. “And I should know,” she sighed. Although now she was old and her womb and breasts were withered, there was a time when she bore children regularly, every two years. Six times she had borne a boy child and six times they had died. Some had swollen up and with weak, plaintive cries had faded away. Others had shuddered in sudden convulsions, with burning skins, and had rolled up their eyes and died. They had all died; or rather he had died, Bola thought, because she knew it was one child all the time whose spirit had crept up restlessly into her womb to be born and mock her. The sixth time, Musa, the village magician whom time had now transformed into a respectable Muslim, had advised her and her husband to break the bones of the quiet little corpse and mangle it so that it could not come back to torment them alive again. But she had held on to the child and refused to let them mutilate it. Secretly, she had marked it with a sharp pointed stick at the left buttock before it was wrapped in a mat and taken away. When at the seventh time she had borne a son and the purification ceremonies had taken place, she had turned it surreptitiously to see whether the mark was there. It was. She showed it to the old woman who was the midwife and asked her what it was, and she had forced herself to believe that it was an accidental scratch made while the child was being scrubbed with herbs to remove placental blood. But this child had stayed. Meji, he had been called. And he was now thirty years of age and a second-class clerk in government offices in a town ninety miles away. Asi, his daughter, had been left with her to do the things an old woman wanted a small child for: to run and take messages to the neighbors, to fetch a cup of water from the earthenware pot in the kitchen, to sleep with her, and to be fondled.
2
She threw the washed and squeezed cassava leaves into the red, boiling stew, putting in a finger’s pinch of salt, and then went indoors, carefully stepping over the threshold, to look for the dried red pepper. She found it and then dropped it, leaning against the wall with a little cry. He turned around from the window and looked at her with a twisted half smile of love and sadness. In his short-sleeved, open-necked white shirt and gray gabardine trousers, gold wristwatch, and brown suede shoes, he looked like the picture in African magazines of a handsome clerk who would get to the top because he ate the correct food or regularly took the correct laxative, which was being advertised. His skin was grayish brown and he had a large red handkerchief tied round his neck.
“Meji, God be praised,” Bola cried. “You gave me quite a turn. My heart is weak and I can no longer take surprises. When did you come? How did you come? By truck, by fishing boat? And how did you come into the house? The front door was locked. There are so many thieves nowadays. I’m so glad to see you, so glad,” she mumbled and wept, leaning against his breast.
3
Meji’s voice was hoarse, and he said, “I’m glad to see you too, Mother,” rubbing her back affectionately.
Asi ran in and cried, “Papa, Papa,” and was rewarded with a lift and a hug.
“Never mind how I came, Mother,” Meji said, laughing. “I’m here, and that’s all that matters.”
“We must make a feast, we must have a big feast. I must tell the neighbors at once. Asi, run this very minute to Mr. Addai, the catechist, and tell him your papa is home. Then to Mami Gbera to ask her for extra provisions, and to Pa Babole for drummers and musicians . . .”
“Stop,” said Meji, raising his hand. “This is all quite unnecessary. I don’t want to see anyone, no one at all. I wish to rest quietly and completely. No one is to know I’m here.”
Bola looked very crestfallen. She was so proud of Meji and wanted to show him off. The village would never forgive her for concealing such an important visitor. Meji must have sensed this because he held her shoulder comfortingly and said, “They will know soon enough. Let us enjoy each other, all three of us, this time. Life is too short.”
4
Bola turned to Asi, picked up the packet of pepper, and told her to go and drop a little into the boiling pot outside, taking care not to go too near the fire or play with it. After the child had gone, Bola said to her son, “Are you in trouble? Is it the police?” He shook his head. “No,” he said, “it’s just that I like returning to you. There will always be this bond of love and affection between us, and I don’t wish to share it with others. It is our private affair and that is why I’ve left my daughter with you.” He ended up irrelevantly, “Girls somehow seem to stay with relations longer.”
“And don’t I know it,” said Bola. “But you look pale,” she continued, “and you keep scraping your throat. Are you ill?” She laid her hand on his brow. “And you’re cold, too.”
“It’s the cold, wet wind,” he said, a little harshly. “I’ll go and rest now if you can open and dust my room for me. I’m feeling very tired. Very tired indeed. I’ve traveled very far today, and it has not been an easy journey.”
“Of course, my son, of course,” Bola replied, bustling away hurriedly but happily.
Meji slept all afternoon till evening, and his mother brought his food to his room and, later, took the empty basins away. Then he slept again till morning.
5
The next day, Saturday, was a busy one, and after further promising Meji that she would tell no one he was about, Bola went off to market. Meji took Asi for a long walk through a deserted path and up into the hills. She was delighted. They climbed high until they could see the village below in front of them, and the sea in the distance, and the boats with their wide white sails. Soon the sun had passed its zenith and was halfway toward the west. Asi had eaten all the food, the dried fish and the flat tapioca pancakes and the oranges. Her father said he wasn’t hungry, and this had made the day perfect for
Asi, who had chattered, eaten, and then played with her father’s fountain pen and other things from his pocket. They soon left for home because he had promised that they would be back before dark; he had carried her down some steep boulders and she had held on to his shoulders because he had said his neck hurt so and she must not touch it. She had said, “Papa, I can see behind you and you haven’t got a shadow. Why?”
He had then turned her around facing the sun. Since she was getting drowsy, she had started asking questions, and her father had joked with her and humored her. “Papa, why has your watch stopped at twelve o’clock?” “Because the world ends at noon.” Asi had chuckled at that. “Papa, why do you wear a scarf always around your neck?” “Because my head would fall off if I didn’t.” She had laughed out loud at that. But soon she had fallen asleep as he bore her homeward.