No Sweetness Here and Other Stories

by Ama Ata Aidoo

  Listen to me and I will tell you of another man who left his newborn child and went away.

  Did he come back? No, he did not come back. But do not ask me any more questions for I will tell you all.

  He used to go and come, then one day he went away and never came back. Not that he had had to go like the rest of them . . .

  Oh, they were soldiers. I am talking of a soldier. He need not have gone to be a soldier. After all, his father was one of the richest men of this land. He was not the eldest son, that is true, but still, there were so many things he could have done to look after himself and his wife when he came to marry. But he would not listen to anybody. How could he sit by and have other boys out-do him in smartness?

  Their clothes that shone and shone with pressing. . . . I say, you could have looked into any of them and put khole under your eyes. And their shoes, how they roared! You know soldiers for yourself. Oh, the stir on the land when they came in from the South! Mothers spoke hard and long to daughters about the excellencies of proper marriages, while fathers hurried through with betrothals. Most of them were afraid of getting a case like that of Memunat on their hands. Her father had taken the cattle and everything and then Memunat goes and plays with a soldier. Oh, the scandal she caused herself then!

  Who was this Memunat? No, she is not your friend’s mother. No, this Memunat in the end ran away South herself. We hear she became a bad woman in the city and made a lot of money. No, we do not hear of her now – she is not dead either, for we hear such women usually go to their homes to die, and she has not come back here yet.

  But us, we were different. I had not been betrothed.

  Do you ask me why I say we? Because this man was your father. . . . Ah-ah, you open your mouth and eyes wide? Yes my child, it is of your father I am speaking.

  No, I was not lying when I told you that he died. But keep quiet and listen. . . .

  He was going South to get himself a house for married soldiers.

  No, it was not that time he did not come back. He came here, but not to fetch me.

  He asked us if we had heard of the war.

  Had we not heard of the war? Was it not difficult to get things like tinned fish, kerosene and cloth?

  Yes, we said, but we thought it was only because the traders were not bringing them in.

  Well yes, he said, but the traders do not get them even in the South.

  And why, we asked.

  O you people, have you not heard of the German-people? He had no patience with us. He told us that in the South they were singing dirty songs with their name.

  But when are we going, I asked him.

  What he told me was that that was why he had come. He could not take me along with him. You see, he said, since we were under the Anglis-people’s rule and they were fighting with the German-people . . .

  Ask me, my child, for that was exactly what I asked him, what has all that got to do with you and me? Why can I not come South with you?

  Because I have to travel to the lands beyond the sea and fight . . .

  In other people’s war? My child, it is as if you were there. That is what I asked him.

  But it is not as simple as that, he said.

  We could not understand him. You shall not go, said his father. You shall not go, for it is not us fighting with the Grunshies or the Gonjas. . . . I know about the Anglis-people but not about any German-people, but anyway they are in their land.

  Of course his father was playing, and so was I.

  A soldier must obey at all time, he said.

  I wanted to give him so many things to take with him but he said he could only take cola.

  Then the news came. It did not enter my head, for there all was empty. Everything went into my womb. You were just three days old.

  The news was like fire which settled in the pit of my belly. And from time to time, some would shoot up, searing my womb, singeing my intestines and burning up and up and up until I screamed with madness when it got into my head.

  I had told myself when you were born that it did not matter you were a girl, all gifts from Allah are good and anyway he was coming back and we were going to have many more children, lots of sons.

  But Hawa, you had a lot of strength, for how you managed to live I do not know. Three days you were and suddenly like a rivulet that is hit by an early harmattan, my breasts went dry. . . . Hawa, you have a lot of strength.

  Later, they told me that if I could go South and prove to the government’s people that I was his wife, I would get a lot of money.

  But I did not go. It was him I wanted, not his body turned into gold.

  I never saw the South.

  Do you say oh? My child I am always telling you that the world was created a long while ago and it is old-age one has not seen but not youth. So do not say oh.

  Those people, the government’s people, who come and go, tell us trade is bad now, and once again there is no tinned fish and no cloth. But this time they say, this is because our children are going to get them in abundance one day.

  Issa has gone South now because he cannot afford even goat flesh for his wife in maternity. This has to be, so that Fuseni can stay with his wife and eat cow-meat with her? Hmm. And he will come back alive . . . perhaps not next Ramaddan but the next. Now, my daughter, you know of another man who went to fight. And he went to fight in other people’s war and he never came back.

  I am going to the market now. Get up early to wash Fuseni. I hope to get something for those miserable colas. There is enough rice to make tuo, is there not? Good. Today even if it takes all the money, I hope to get us some smoked fish, the biggest I can find, to make us a real good sauce. . . .’

  No Sweetness Here

  He was beautiful, but that was not important. Beauty does not play such a vital role in a man’s life as it does in a woman’s, or so people think. If a man’s beauty is so ill-mannered as to be noticeable, people discreetly ignore its existence. Only an immodest girl like me would dare comment on a boy’s beauty. ‘Kwesi is so handsome,’ I was always telling his mother. ‘If ever I am transferred from this place, I will kidnap him.’ I enjoyed teasing the dear woman and she enjoyed being teased about him. She would look scandalised, pleased and alarmed all in one fleeting moment.

  ‘Ei, Chicha. You should not say such things. The boy is not very handsome really.’ But she knew she was lying. ‘Besides, Chicha, who cares whether a boy is handsome or not?’ Again she knew that at least she cared, for, after all, didn’t the boy’s wonderful personality throw a warm light on the mother’s lively though already waning beauty? Then gingerly, but in a remarkably matter-of-fact tone, she would voice out her gnawing fear. ‘Please Chicha, I always know you are just making fun of me, but please, promise me you won’t take Kwesi away with you.’ Almost at once her tiny mouth would quiver and she would hide her eyes in her cloth as if ashamed of her great love and her fears. But I understood. ‘O, Maami, don’t cry, you know I don’t mean it.’

  ‘Chicha I am sorry, and I trust you. Only I can’t help fearing, can I? What will I do, Chicha, what would I do, should something happen to my child?’ She would raise her pretty eyes, glistening with unshed tears.

  ‘Nothing will happen to him,’ I would assure her. ‘He is a good boy. He does not fight and therefore there is no chance of anyone beating him. He is not dull, at least not too dull, which means he does not get more cane-lashes than the rest of his mates. . . .’

  ‘Chicha, I shall willingly submit to your canes if he gets his sums wrong,’ she would hastily intervene.

  ‘Don’t be funny. A little warming-up on a cold morning wouldn’t do him any harm. But if you say so, I won’t object to hitting that soft flesh of yours.’ At this, the tension would break and both of us begin laughing. Yet I always went away with the image of her quivering mouth and unshed tears in my mind.

  Maami Ama loved her son; and this is a silly statement, as silly as saying Maami Ama is a woman. Which mother would not? At the time of
this story, he had just turned ten years old. He was in Primary Class Four and quite tall for his age. His skin was as smooth as shea-butter and as dark as charcoal. His black hair was as soft as his mother’s. His eyes were of the kind that always remind one of a long dream on a hot afternoon. It is indecent to dwell on a boy’s physical appearance, but then Kwesi’s beauty was indecent.

  The evening was not yet come. My watch read 4.15 p.m., that ambiguous time of the day which these people, despite their great ancient astronomic knowledge, have always failed to identify. For the very young and very old, it is certainly evening, for they’ve stayed at home all day and they begin to persuade themselves that the day is ending. Bored with their own company, they sprawl in the market-place or by their own walls. The children begin to whimper for their mothers, for they are tired with playing ‘house’. Fancying themselves starving, they go back to what was left of their lunch, but really they only pray that mother will come home from the farm soon. The very old certainly do not go back on lunch remains but they do bite back at old conversational topics which were fresh at ten o’clock.

  ‘I say, Kwame, as I was saying this morning, my first wife was a most beautiful woman,’ old Kofi would say.

  ‘Oh! yes, yes, she was an unusually beautiful girl. I remember her.’ Old Kwame would nod his head but the truth was he was tired of the story and he was sleepy. ‘It’s high time the young people came back from the farm.’

  But I was a teacher, and I went the white man’s way. School was over. Maami Ama’s hut was at one end of the village and the school was at the other. Nevertheless it was not a long walk from the school to her place because Bamso is not really a big village. I had left my books to little Grace Ason to take home for me; so I had only my little clock in my hand and I was walking in a leisurely way. As I passed the old people, they shouted their greetings. It was always the Fanticised form of the English.

  ‘Kudiimin-o, Chicha.’ Then I would answer, ‘Kudiimin, Nana.’ When I greeted first, the response was ‘Tanchiw’.

  ‘Chicha, how are you?’

  ‘Nana, I am well.’

  ‘And how are the children?’

  ‘Nana, they are well.’

  ‘Yoo, that is good.’ When an old man felt inclined to be talkative, especially if he had more than me for audience, he would compliment me on the work I was doing. Then he would go on to the assets of education, especially female education, ending up with quoting Dr. Aggrey.

  So this evening too, I was delayed: but it was as well, for when I arrived at the hut, Maami Ama had just arrived from the farm. The door opened, facing the village, and so I could see her. Oh, that picture is still vivid in my mind. She was sitting on a low stool with her load before her. Like all the loads the other women would bring from the farms into their homes, it was colourful with miscellaneous articles. At the very bottom of the wide wooden tray were the cassava and yam tubers, rich muddy brown, the colour of the earth. Next were the plantain, of the green colour of the woods from which they came. Then there were the gay vegetables, the scarlet pepper, garden eggs, golden pawpaw and crimson tomatoes. Over this riot of colours the little woman’s eyes were fixed, absorbed, while the tiny hands delicately picked the pepper. I made a scratchy noise at the door. She looked up and smiled. Her smile was a wonderful flashing whiteness.

  ‘Oh Chicha, I have just arrived.’

  ‘So I see. Ayekoo.’

  ‘Yaa, my own. And how are you, my child?’

  ‘Very well, Mother. And you?’

  ‘Tanchiw. Do sit down, there’s a stool in that corner. Sit down. Mmmm. . . . Life is a battle. What can we do? We are just trying, my daughter.’

  ‘Why were you longer at the farm today?’

  ‘After weeding that plot I told you about last week, I thought I would go for one or two yams.’

  ‘Ah!’ I cried.

  ‘You know tomorrow is Ahobaa. Even if one does not feel happy, one must have some yam for old Ahor.’

  ‘Yes. So I understand. The old saviour deserves it. After all it is not often that a man offers himself as a sacrifice to the gods to save his people from a pestilence.’

  ‘No, Chicha, we were so lucky.’

  ‘But Maami Ama, why do you look so sad? After all, the yams are quite big.’ She gave me a small grin, looking at the yams she had now packed at the corner.

  ‘Do you think so? Well, they are the best of the lot. My daughter, when life fails you, it fails you totally. One’s yams reflect the total sum of one’s life. And mine look wretched enough.’

  ‘O, Maami, why are you always speaking in this way? Look at Kwesi, how many mothers can boast of such a son? Even though he is only one, consider those who have none at all. Perhaps some woman is sitting at some corner envying you’

  She chuckled. ‘What an unhappy woman she must be who would envy Ama! But thank you, I should be grateful for Kwesi.’

  After that we were quiet for a while. I always loved to see her moving quietly about her work. Having finished unpacking, she knocked the dirt out of the tray and started making fire to prepare the evening meal. She started humming a religious lyric. She was a Methodist.

  We are fighting

  We are fighting

  We are fighting for Canaan, the Heavenly Kingdom above.

  I watched her and my eyes became misty, she looked so much like my own mother. Presently, the fire began to smoke. She turned round. ‘Chicha.’

  ‘Maami Ama.’

  ‘Do you know that tomorrow I am going to have a formal divorce?’

  ‘Oh!’ And I could not help the dismay in my voice.

  I had heard, soon after my arrival in the village, that the parents of that most beautiful boy were as good as divorced. I had hoped they would come to a respectful understanding for the boy’s sake. Later on when I got to know his mother, I had wished for this, for her own sweet self’s sake too. But as time went on I had realised this could not be or was not even desirable. Kodjo Fi was a selfish and bullying man, whom no decent woman ought to have married. He got on marvellously with his two other wives but they were three of a feather. Yet I was sorry to hear Maami was going to have a final breach with him.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ she went on. ‘I should. What am I going on like this for? What is man struggling after? Seven years is a long time to bear ill-usage from a man coupled with contempt and insults from his wives. What have I done to deserve the abuse of his sisters? And his mother!’

  ‘Does she insult you too?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Why not? Don’t you think she would? Considering that I don’t buy her the most expensive cloths on the market and I don’t give her the best fish from my soup, like her daughters-in-law do.’

  I laughed. ‘The mean old witch!’

  ‘Chicha, don’t laugh. I am quite sure she wanted to eat Kwesi but I baptised him and she couldn’t.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that, Maami. I am quite sure they all like you, only you don’t know.’

  ‘My child, they don’t. They hate me.’

  But what happened?’ I asked the question I had wanted to ask for so long.

  ‘You would ask, Chicha! I don’t know. They suddenly began hating me when Kwesi was barely two. Kodjo Fi reduced my housekeeping money and sometimes he refused to give me anything at all. He wouldn’t eat my food. At first, I used to ask him why. He always replied, “It is nothing.” If I had not been such an unlucky woman, his mother and sisters might have taken my side, but for me there was no one. That planting time, although I was his first wife, he allotted to me the smallest, thorniest plot.’

  ‘Ei, what did you say about it?’

  ‘What could I say? At that time my mother was alive, though my father was already dead. When I complained to her about the treatment I was getting from my husband, she told me that in marriage, a woman must sometimes be a fool. But I have been a fool for far too long a time.’

  ‘Oh!’ I frowned.

  ‘Mother has died and left me and I was an only child too. My aun
ts are very busy looking after the affairs of their own daughters. I’ve told my uncles several times but they never take me seriously. They feel I am only a discontented woman.’

  ‘You?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘Perhaps you would not think so. But there are several who do feel like that in this village.’

  She paused for a while, while she stared at the floor.

  ‘You don’t know, but I’ve been the topic of gossip for many years. Now, I only want to live on my own looking after my child. I don’t think I will ever get any more children. Chicha, our people say a bad marriage kills the soul. Mine is fit for burial.’

  ‘Maami, don’t grieve.’

  ‘My daughter, my mother and father who brought me to this world have left me alone and I’ve stopped grieving for them. When death summoned them, they were glad to lay down their tools and go to their parents. Yes, they loved me all right but even they had to leave me. Why should I make myself unhappy about a man for whom I ceased to exist a long time ago?’

  She went to the big basket, took out some cassava and plantain, and sitting down began peeling them. Remembering she had forgotten the wooden bowl into which she would put the food, she got up to go for it.

  ‘In this case,’ I continued the conversation, ‘what will happen to Kwesi?’

  ‘What will happen to him?’ she asked in surprise. ‘This is no problem. They may tell me to give him to his father.’

  ‘And would you?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘And would you succeed in keeping him if his father insisted?’

  ‘Well, I would struggle, for my son is his father’s child but he belongs to my family.’

  I sat there listening to these references to the age-old customs of which I had been ignorant. I was surprised. She washed the food, now cut into lumps, and arranged it in the cooking-pot. She added water and put it on the fire. She blew at it and it burst into flames.

  ‘Maami Ama, has not your husband got a right to take Kwesi from you?’ I asked her.

  ‘He has, I suppose, but not entirely. Anyway, if the elders who would make the divorce settlement ask me to let him go and stay with his father, I wouldn’t refuse.’