No Sweetness Here and Other Stories

by Ama Ata Aidoo

  ‘O you drivers. . . .’

  ‘But of course all drivers . . .’

  ‘What have I done? Don’t all my male passengers agree with me? These modern girls. . . . Now here is one who cannot even have a baby in a decent way. But must have the baby removed from her stomach. Tchiaa!’

  ‘What . . .’

  ‘Here is the old woman.’

  ‘Whose grandchild . . .?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nana, I hear you are coming to Cape Coast with us.’

  Yes my master.

  ‘We nearly left you behind but we heard it was you and that it is a heavy journey you are making.’

  Yes my master . . . thank you my master.

  ‘Push up please . . . push up. Won’t you push up? Why do you all sit looking at me with such eyes as if I was a block of wood?’

  ‘It is not that there is nowhere to push up to. Five fat women should go on that seat, but look at you!

  ‘And our own grandmother here is none too plump herself. . . . Nana, if they won’t push, come to the front seat with me.’

  ‘. . . Hei, scholar, go to the back. . . .

  ‘. . . And do not scowl on me. I know your sort too well. Something tells me you do not have any job at all. As for that suit you are wearing and looking so grand in, you hired or borrowed it. . . .’

  ‘Oh you drivers!’

  Oh you drivers . . .

  The scholar who read this tengram thing, said it was made about three days ago. My lady’s husband sent it. . . . Three days. . . . God – that is too long ago. Have they buried her . . . where? Or did they cut her up. . . . I should not think about it . . . or something will happen to me. Eleven or twelve . . . Efua Panyin, Okuma, Kwame Gyasi and who else? But they should not have left me here. Sometimes . . . ah, I hate this nausea. But it is this smell of petrol. Now I have remembered I never could travel in a lorry. I always was so sick. But now I hope at least that will not happen. These young people will think it is because I am old and they will laugh. At least if I knew the child of my child was alive, it would have been good. And the little things she sent me. . . . Sometimes some people like Mensima and Nkansa make me feel as if I had been a barren woman instead of only one with whom infant-mortality pledged friendship . . .

  I will give her that set of earrings, bracelet and chain which Odwumfo Ata made for me. It is the most beautiful and the most expensive thing I have. . . . It does not hurt me to think that I am going to die very soon and have them and their children gloating over my things. After all what did they swallow my children for? It does not hurt me at all. If I had been someone else, I would have given them all away before I died. But it does not matter. They can share their own curse. Now, that is the end of me and my roots. . . . Eternal death has worked like a warrior rat, with diabolical sense of duty, to gnaw my bottom. Everything is finished now. The vacant lot is swept and the scraps of old sugar-cane pulp, dry sticks and bunches of hair burnt. . . how it reeks, the smoke!

  ‘O, Nana do not weep . . .’

  ‘Is the old woman weeping?’

  ‘If the only child of your only child died, won’t you weep?’

  ‘Why do you ask me? Did I know her grandchild is dead?’

  ‘Where have you been, not in this lorry? Where were your ears when we were discussing it?’

  ‘I do not go putting my mouth in other people’s affairs . . .’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So go and die.’

  ‘Hei, hei, it is prohibited to quarrel in my lorry.’

  ‘Draba, here is me, sitting quiet and this lady of muscles and bones being cheeky to me.’

  ‘Look, I can beat you.’

  ‘Beat me . . . beat me . . . let’s see.’

  ‘Hei, you are not civilised, eh?’

  ‘Keep quiet and let us think, both of you, or I will put you down.’

  ‘Nana, do not weep. There is God above.’

  Thank you my master.

  ‘But we are in Cape Coast already.’

  Meewuo! My God, hold me tight or something will happen to me.

  My master, I will come down here.

  ‘O Nana, I thought you said you were going to the hospital. . . . We are not there yet.’

  I am saying maybe I will get down here and ask my way around.

  ‘Nana, you do not know these people, eh? They are very impudent here. They have no use for old age. So they do not respect it. Sit down, I will take you there.’

  Are you going there, my master?

  ‘No, but I will take you there.’

  Ah, my master, your old mother thanks you. Do not shed a tear when you hear of my death . . . my master, your old mother thanks you.

  I hear there is somewhere where they keep corpses until their owners claim them . . . if she has been buried, then I must find her husband . . . Esi Amfoa, what did I come to do under this sky? I have buried all my children and now I am going to bury my only grandchild!

  ‘Nana we are there.’

  Is this the hospital?

  ‘Yes, Nana. What is your child’s name?’

  Esi Amfoa. Her father named her after me.

  ‘Do you know her European name?’

  No, my master.

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘. . . Ei lady, Lady Nurse, we are looking for somebody.’

  ‘You are looking for somebody and can you read? If you cannot, you must ask someone what the rules in the hospital are. You can only come and visit people at three o’clock.’

  Lady, please. She was my only grandchild . . .

  ‘Who? And anyway, it is none of our business.’

  ‘Nana, you must be patient . . . and not cry . . .’

  ‘Old woman, why are you crying, it is not allowed here. No one must make any noise . . .’

  My lady, I am sorry but she was all I had.

  ‘Who? Oh, are you the old woman who is looking for somebody?’

  Yes.

  ‘Who is he?’

  She was my granddaughter – the only child of my only son.

  ‘I mean, what was her name?’

  Esi Amfoa.

  ‘Esi Amfoa . . . Esi Amfoa. I am sorry, we do not have anyone whom they call like that here.’

  Is that it?

  ‘Nana, I told you they may know only her European name here.’

  My master, what shall we do then?

  ‘What is she ill with?’

  She came here to have a child . . .

  ‘. . . And they say, they opened her stomach and removed the baby.’

  ‘Oh . . . oh, I see.’

  My Lord, hold me tight so that nothing will happen to me now.

  ‘I see. It is the Caesarean case.’

  ‘Nurse, you know her?’

  And when I take her back, Anona Ebusuafo will say that I did not wait for them to come with me . . .

  ‘Yes. Are you her brother?’

  ‘No. I am only the driver who brought the old woman.’

  ‘Did she bring all her clan?’

  ‘No. She came alone.’

  ‘Strange thing for a villager to do.’

  I hope they have not cut her up already.

  ‘Did she bring a whole bag full of cassava and plantain and kenkey?’

  ‘No. She has only her little bundle.’

  ‘Follow me. But you must not make any noise. This is not the hour for coming here . . .’

  My master, does she know her?

  ‘Yes.’

  I hear it is very cold where they put them . . .

  .....

  It was feeding time for new babies. When old Esi Amfoa saw young Esi Amfoa, the latter was all neat and nice. White sheets and all. She did not see the beautiful stitches under the sheets. ‘This woman is a tough bundle,’ Dr. Gyamfi had declared after the identical twins had been removed, the last stitches had been threaded off and Mary Koomson, alias Esi Amfoa, had come to.

  The old woman somersaulted into the room and lay groaning, not screaming, by
the bed. For was not her last pot broken? So they lay them in state even in hospitals and not always cut them up for instruction?

  The Nursing Sister was furious. Young Esi Amfoa spoke. And this time old Esi Amfoa wept loud and hard – wept all her tears.

  Scrappy nurse-under-training, Jessy Treeson, second-generation-Cape-Coaster-her-grandmother-still-remembered-at-Egyaa No. 7 said, ‘As for these villagers,’ and giggled.

  Draba Anan looked hard at Jessy Treeson, looked hard at her, all of her: her starched uniform, apron and cap . . . and then dismissed them all. . . . ‘Such a cassava stick . . . but maybe I will break my toe if I kicked at her buttocks,’ he thought.

  And by the bed the old woman was trying hard to rise and look at the only pot which had refused to get broken.

  Certain Winds from the South

  M’ma Asana eyed the wretched pile of cola-nuts, spat, and picked up the reed-bowl. Then she put down the bowl, picked up one of the nuts, bit at it, threw it back, spat again, and stood up. First, a sharp little ache, just a sharp little one, shot up from somewhere under her left ear. Then her eyes became misty.

  ‘I must check on those logs,’ she thought, thinking this misting of her eyes was due to the chill in the air. She stooped over the nuts.

  ‘You never know what evil eyes are prowling this dusk over these grasslands – I must pick them up quickly.’

  On the way back to the kraal, her eyes fell on the especially patchy circles that marked where the old pits had been. At this time, in the old days, they would have been full to bursting and as one scratched out the remains of the out-going season, one felt a near-sexual thrill of pleasure looking at these pits, just as one imagines a man might feel who looks upon his wife in the ninth month of pregnancy.

  Pregnancy and birth and death and pain; and death again. . . . When there are no more pregnancies, there are no more births and therefore, no more deaths. But there is only one death and only one pain . . .

  Show me a fresh corpse my sister, so I can weep you old tears.

  The pit of her belly went cold, then her womb moved and she had to lean by the doorway. In twenty years, Fuseni’s has been the only pregnancy and the only birth . . . twenty years, and the first child and a male! In the old days, there would have been bucks and you got scolded for serving a woman in maternity a duicker. But these days, those mean poachers on the government reserves sneak away their miserable duickers, such wretched hinds! Yes, they sneak away even the duickers to the houses of those sweet-toothed southerners.

  In the old days, how time goes, and how quickly age comes. But then does one expect to grow younger when one starts getting grandchildren? Allah be praised for a grandson.

  The fire was still strong when she returned to the room. . . . M’ma Asana put the nuts down. She craned her neck into the corner. At least those logs should take them to the following week. For the rest of the evening, she set about preparing for the morrow’s marketing.

  The evening prayers were done. The money was in the bag. The grassland was still, Hawa was sleeping and so was Fuseni. M’ma came out to the main gate, first to check up if all was well outside and then to draw the door across. It was not the figure, but rather the soft rustle of light footsteps trying to move still more lightly over the grass that caught her attention.

  ‘If only it could be my husband.’

  But of course it was not her husband!

  ‘Who comes?’

  ‘It is me, M’ma.’

  ‘You Issa, my son?’

  ‘Yes, M’ma.’

  ‘They are asleep.’

  ‘I thought so. That is why I am coming now.’

  There was a long pause in the conversation as they both hesitated about whether the son-in-law should go in to see Hawa and the baby or not. Nothing was said about this struggle but then one does not say everything.

  M’ma Asana did not see but she felt him win the battle. She crossed the threshold outside and drew the door behind her. Issa led the way. They did not walk far, however. They just turned into a corner between two of the projecting pillars in the wall of the kraal. It was Issa who stood with his back to the wall. And this was as it should have been, for it was he who needed the comforting coolness of it for his backbone.

  ‘M’ma, is Fuseni well?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘M’ma, is Hawa well?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘M’ma please tell me, is Fuseni very well?’

  ‘A-ah, my son. For what are you troubling yourself so much?’ ‘Fuseni is a new baby who was born not more than ten days. How can I tell you he is very well? When a grown-up goes to live in other people’s village . . .’

  ‘M’ma.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘No. Please it is nothing.’

  ‘My son, I cannot understand you this evening. Yes, if you, a grown-up person, goes to live in another village, will you say after the first few days that you are perfectly well?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shall you not get yourself used to their food? Shall you not find first where you can get water for yourself and your sheep?’

  ‘Yes, M’ma.’

  ‘Then how is it you ask me if Fuseni is very well? The navel is healing very fast . . . and how would it not? Not a single navel of all that I have cut here got infected. Shall I now cut my grandson’s and then sit and see it rot? But it is his male that I can’t say. Mallam did it neat and proper and it must be alright. Your family is not noted for males that rot, is it now?’

  ‘No, M’ma.’

  ‘Then let your heart lie quiet in your breast. Fuseni is well but we cannot say how well yet.’

  ‘I have heard you, M’ma . . . M’ma . . .’

  ‘Yes, my son.’

  ‘M’ma, I am going South.’

  ‘Where did you say?’

  ‘South.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘As far as the sea. M’ma I thought you would understand.’

  ‘Have I spoken yet?’

  ‘No, you have not.’

  ‘Then why did you say that?’

  ‘That was not well said.’

  ‘And what are you going to do there?’

  ‘Find some work.’

  ‘What work?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Yes, you know, you are going to cut grass.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘But my son, why must you travel that far just to cut grass? Is there not enough of it all round here? Around this kraal, your father’s and all the others in the village? Why do you not cut these?’

  ‘M’ma, you know it is not the same. If I did that here people will think I am mad. But over there, I have heard that not only do they like it but the government pays you to do it.’

  ‘Even still, our men do not go South to cut grass. This is for those further north. They of the wilderness, it is they who go South to cut grass. This is not for our men.’

  ‘Please M’ma, already time is going. Hawa is a new mother and Fuseni my first child.’

  ‘And yet you are leaving them to go South and cut grass.’

  ‘But M’ma, what will be the use in my staying here and watching them starve? You yourself know that all the cola went bad, and even if they had not, with trade as it is, how much money do you think I would have got from them? And that is why I am going. Trade is broken and since we do not know when things will be good again, I think it will be better for me to go away.’

  ‘Does Hawa know?’

  ‘No, she does not.’

  ‘Are you coming to wake her up at this late hour to tell her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You are wise.’

  ‘M’ma, I have left everything in the hands of Amadu. He will come and see Hawa tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. When shall we expect you back?’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Issa . . .’

  ‘M’ma.’

  ‘When shall we expect you back?’

  ‘M’ma, I do not know. P
erhaps next Ramaddan.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘So I go now.’

  Allah go with you.’

  ‘And may His prophet look after you all.’

  M’ma went straight back to bed, but not to sleep. And how could she sleep? At dawn, her eyes were still wide-open.

  ‘Is his family noted for males that rot? No, certainly not. It is us who are noted for our unlucky females. There must be something wrong with them. . . . Or how is it we cannot hold our men? Allah, how is it?

  Twenty years ago. Twenty years, perhaps more than twenty years . . . perhaps more than twenty years and Allah please, give me strength to tell Hawa.

  Or shall I go to the market now and then tell her when I come back? No. Hawa, Hawa, now look at how you are stretched down there like a log! Does a mother sleep like this? Hawa, H-a-a-w-a! Oh, I shall not leave you alone. . . . And how can you hear your baby when it cries in the night since you die when you sleep?

  . . . Listen to her asking me questions! Yes, it is broad daylight. I thought you really were dead. If it is cold, draw your blanket round you and listen to me for I have something to tell you.

  Hawa, Issa has gone South.

  And why do you stare at me with such shining eyes? I am telling you that Issa is gone south.

  And what question do you think you are asking me? How could he take you along when you have a baby whose navel wound has not even healed yet?

  He went away last night.

  Don’t ask me why I did not come to wake you up. What should I have woken you up for?

  Listen, Issa said he could not stay here and just watch you and Fuseni starve.

  He is going South to find work and . . . Hawa, where do you think you are getting up to go to? Issa is not at the door waiting for you. The whole neighbourhood is not up yet, so do not let me shout. . . and why are you behaving like a baby? Now you are a mother and you must decide to grow up . . . where are you getting up to go? Listen to me telling you this. Issa is gone. He went last night because he wants to catch the government bus that leaves Tamale very early in the morning. So . . .

  Hawa, ah-ah, are you crying? Why are you crying? That your husband has left you to go and work? Go on weeping, for he will bring the money to look after me and not you. . . . I do not understand, you say? May be I do not. . . . See, now you have woken up Fuseni. Sit down and feed him and listen to me . . .