But I do not mind these difficulties. If the Mallam came back to tell me that I must stop eating fish and meat altogether so that Nyamekye and the others would live, I would do it. I would. After all, he had told me that I could explain the taboo to Nyamekye when he was old enough to understand, so he could take it up himself. But I have not done it and I do not think I shall ever do it. How can a schoolboy, and who knows, one day he may become a real scholar, how can he go through life dragging this type of taboo along with him? I have never heard any scholar doing it, and my son is not going to be first to do it. No. I myself will go on observing it until I die. For, how could I have gone on living with my two empty hands? – I swear by everything, I do not understand people who complain that I am spoiling them, especially him. And anyway, is it any business of theirs? Even if I daily anointed them with shea-butter and placed them in the sun, whom would I hurt? Who else should be concerned apart from me?
But the person whose misunderstanding hurts me is their father. I do not know what to do. Something tells me it’s his people and his wives who prevent him from having good thoughts about me and mine. I was his first wife and if you knew how at the outset of our lives, death haunted us, hmmm. Neither of us had a head to think in. And if things were what they should be, should he be behaving in this way? In fact, I swear by everything, he hates Nyamekye. Or how could what happened last week have happened?
It was a Friday and they had not gone to school. It was a holiday for them. I do not know what this one was for but it was one of those days they do not go. When the time came for us to leave for the farm, I showed him where food was and asked him to look after himself and his younger brother and sisters. Well my tongue was still moving when his father came in with his face shut down, the way it is when he is angry. He came up to us and asked ‘Hei, Nyamekye, are you not following your mother to the farm?’ Oh, I was hurt. Is this the way to talk to a ten-year-old child? If he had been any other father, he would have said, ‘Nyamekye, since you are not going to school today, pick up your knife and come with me to the farm.’
Would that not have been beautiful?
‘Nyamekye, are you not following your mother to the farm?’ As if I am the boy’s only parent. But he is stuck with this habit, especially where I and my little ones are concerned.
‘Gyaawa, your child is crying. . . . Gyaawa, your child is going to fall off the terrace if you do not pay more attention to him. . . . Gyaawa, your child this, and your child that!’
Anyway, that morning I was hurt and when I opened up my mouth, all the words which came to my lips were, ‘I thought this boy was going to be a scholar and not a farm-goer. What was the use in sending him to school if I knew he was going to follow me to the farm?’
This had made him more angry. ‘I did not know that if you go to school, your skin must not touch a leaf!’
I did not say anything. What had I to say? We went to the farm leaving Nyamekye with the children. I returned home earlier than his father did. Nyamekye was not in the house. I asked his brother and sisters if they knew where he had gone. But they had not seen him since they finished eating earlier in the afternoon. When he had not come home by five o’clock, I started getting worried. Then his father too returned from the farm. He learned immediately that he was missing. He clouded up. After he had had his bath, he went to sit in his chair, dark as a rainy sky. Then he got up to go by the chicken coop. I did not know that he was going to fetch a cane. Just as he was sitting in the chair again, Nyamekye appeared.
‘Hei, Kweku Nyamekye, come here.’
Nyamekye was holding the little bucket and I knew where he had been to. He moved slowly up to his father.
‘Papa, I went to the river to visit my trap, because today is Friday.’
‘Have I asked you for anything? And your traps! Is that what you go to school to learn?’
And then he pulled out the cane and fell on the child. The bucket dropped and a few little prawns fell out. Something tells me it was the sight of those prawns which finished his father. He poured those blows on him as though he were made of wood. I had made up my mind never to interfere in any manner he chose to punish the children, for after all, they are his too. But this time I thought he was going too far. I rushed out to rescue Nyamekye and then it came, wham! The sharpest blow I have ever received in my life caught me on the inside of my arm. Blood gushed out. When he saw what had happened, he was ashamed. He went away into his room. That evening he did not eat the fufu I served him.
Slowly, I picked up the bucket and the prawns. Nyamekye followed me to my room where I wept.
The scar healed quickly but the scar is of the type which rises so anyone can see it. Nyamekye’s father’s attitude has changed towards us. He is worse. He is angry all the time. He is angry with shame.
But I do not even care. I have my little ones. And I am sure someone is wishing she were me. I have Nyamekye. And for this, I do not even know whom to thank.
Do I thank you, O Mallam of the Bound Mouth?
Or you, Nana Mbemu, since I think you came in the person of the Mallam?
Or Mighty Jehovah-after-whom-there-is-none-other, to you alone should I give my thanks?
But why should I let this worry me? I thank you all. Oh, I thank you all. And you, our ancestral spirits, if you are looking after me, then look after the Mallam too. Remember him at meals, for he is a kinsman.
And as for this scar, I am glad it is not on Nyamekye. Any time I see it I only recall one afternoon when I sat with my chin in my breast before a Mallam came in, and after a Mallam went out.
Two Sisters
As she shakes out the typewriter cloak and covers the machine with it, the thought of the bus she has to hurry to catch goes through her like a pain. It is her luck, she thinks. Everything is just her luck. Why, if she had one of those graduates for a boy-friend, wouldn’t he come and take her home every evening? And she knows that a girl does not herself have to be a graduate to get one of those boys. Certainly, Joe is dying to do exactly that – with his taxi. And he is as handsome as anything, and a good man, but you know . . . Besides there are cars and there are cars. As for the possibility of the other actually coming to fetch her – oh well. She has to admit it will take some time before she can bring herself to make demands of that sort on him. She has also to admit that the temptation is extremely strong. Would it really be so dangerously indiscreet? Doesn’t one government car look like another? The hugeness of it? Its shaded glass? The uniformed chauffeur? She can already see herself stepping out to greet the dead-with-envy glances of the other girls. To begin with, she will insist on a little discretion. The driver can drop her under the neem trees in the morning and pick her up from there in the evening . . . anyway, she will have to wait a little while for that and it is all her luck.
There are other ways, surely. One of these, for some reason, she has sworn to have nothing of. Her boss has a car and does not look bad. In fact the man is alright. But she keeps telling herself that she does not fancy having some old and dried-out housewife walking into the office one afternoon to tear her hair out and make a row. . . . Mm, so for the meantime, it is going to continue to be the municipal bus with its grimy seats, its common passengers and impudent conductors. . . . Jesus! She doesn’t wish herself dead or anything as stupidly final as that. Oh no. She just wishes she could sleep deep and only wake up on the morning of her glory.
The new pair of black shoes are more realistic than their owner, though. As she walks down the corridor, they sing:
Count, Mercy, count your blessings
Count, Mercy, count your blessings
Count, count, count your blessings.
They sing along the corridor, into the avenue, across the road and into the bus. And they resume their song along the gravel path, as she opens the front gate and crosses the cemented courtyard to the door.
‘Sissie!’ she called.
‘Hei Mercy,’ and the door opened to show the face of Connie, big sister, six yea
rs or more older and now heavy with her second child. Mercy collapsed into the nearest chair.
‘Welcome home. How was the office today?’
‘Sister, don’t ask. Look at my hands. My fingers are dead with typing. Oh God, I don’t know what to do.’
‘Why, what is wrong?’
‘You tell me what is right. Why should I be a typist?’
‘What else would you be?’
‘What a strange question. Is typing the only thing one can do in this world? You are a teacher, are you not?’
‘But . . . but . . .’
‘But what? Or you want me to know that if I had done better in the exams, I could have trained to be a teacher too, eh, sister? Or even a proper secretary?’
‘Mercy, what is the matter? What have I done? What have I done? Why have you come home so angry?’
Mercy broke into tears.
‘Oh I am sorry. I am sorry, Sissie. It’s just that I am sick of everything. The office, living with you and your husband. I want a husband of my own, children. I want . . . I want . . .’
‘But you are so beautiful.’
‘Thank you. But so are you.’
‘You are young and beautiful. As for marriage, it’s you who are postponing it. Look at all these people who are running after you.’
‘Sissie, I don’t like what you are doing. So stop it.’
‘Okay, okay, okay.’
And there was a silence.
‘Which of them could I marry? Joe is – mm, fine – but, but I just don’t like him.’
‘You mean . . .’
‘Oh, Sissie!’
‘Little sister, you and I can be truthful with one another.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘What I would like to say is that I am not that old or wise. But still I could advise you a little. Joe drives someone’s car now. Well, you never know. Lots of taxi drivers come to own their taxis, sometimes fleets of cars.’
‘Of course. But it’s a pity you are married already. Or I could be a go-between for you and Joe!’
And the two of them burst out laughing. It was when she rose to go to the bedroom that Connie noticed the new shoes.
‘Ei, those are beautiful shoes. Are they new?’
From the other room, Mercy’s voice came interrupted by the motions of her body as she undressed and then dressed again. However, the uncertainty in it was due to something entirely different.
‘Oh, I forgot to tell you about them. In fact, I was going to show them to you. I think it was on Tuesday I bought them. Or was it Wednesday? When I came home from the office, you and James had taken Akosua out. And later, I forgot all about them.’
‘I see. But they are very pretty. Were they expensive?’
‘No, not really.’ This reply was too hurriedly said.
And she said only last week that she didn’t have a penny on her. And I believed her because I know what they pay her is just not enough to last anyone through any month, even minus rent. . . . I have been thinking she manages very well. But these shoes. And she is not the type who would borrow money just to buy a pair of shoes, when she could have gone on wearing her old pairs until things get better. Oh I wish I knew what to do. I mean I am not her mother. And I wonder how James will see these problems.
‘Sissie, you look worried.’
‘Hmm, when don’t I? With the baby due in a couple of months and the government’s new ruling on salaries and all. On top of everything, I have reliable information that James is running after a new girl.’
Mercy laughed.
‘Oh Sissie. You always get reliable information on these things.’
‘But yes. And I don’t know why.’
‘Sissie, men are like that.’
‘They are selfish.’
‘No, it’s just that women allow them to behave the way they do instead of seizing some freedom themselves.’
‘But I am sure that even if we were free to carry on in the same way, I wouldn’t make use of it.’
‘But why not?’
‘Because I love James. I love James and I am not interested in any other man.’ Her voice was full of tears. But Mercy was amused.
‘O God. Now listen to that. It’s women like you who keep all of us down.’
‘Well, I am sorry but it’s how the good God created me.’
‘Mm. I am sure that I can love several men at the same time.’
‘Mercy!’
They burst out laughing again. And yet they are sad. But laughter is always best.
Mercy complained of hunger and so they went to the kitchen to heat up some food and eat. The two sisters alone. It is no use waiting for James. And this evening, a friend of Connie’s has come to take out the baby girl, Akosua, and had threatened to keep her until her bedtime.
‘Sissie, I am going to see a film.’ This from Mercy.
‘Where?’
‘The Globe.’
‘Are you going with Joe?’
‘No.’
‘Are you going alone?’
‘No.’
Careful Connie.
‘Whom are you going with?’
Careful Connie, please. Little sister’s nostrils are widening dangerously. Look at the sudden creasing-up of her mouth and between her brows. Connie, a sister is a good thing. Even a younger sister. Especially when you have no mother or father.
‘Mercy, whom are you going out with?’
‘Well, I had food in my mouth! And I had to swallow it down before I could answer you, no?’
‘I am sorry.’ How softly said.
‘And anyway, do I have to tell you everything?’
‘Oh no. It’s just that I didn’t think it was a question I should not have asked.’
There was more silence. Then Mercy sucked her teeth with irritation and Connie cleared her throat with fear.
‘I am going out with Mensar-Arthur.’
As Connie asked the next question, she wondered if the words were leaving her lips.
‘Mensar-Arthur?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which one?’
‘How many do you know?’
Her fingers were too numb to pick up the food. She put the plate down. Something jumped in her chest and she wondered what it was. Perhaps it was the baby.
‘Do you mean that member of Parliament?’
‘Yes.’
‘But Mercy . . .’
Little sister only sits and chews her food.
‘But Mercy . . .’
Chew, chew, chew.
‘But Mercy . . .’
‘What?’
She startled Connie.
‘He is so old.’
Chew, chew, chew.
‘Perhaps, I mean, perhaps that really doesn’t matter, does it? Not very much anyway. But they say he has so many wives and girl-friends.’
Please little sister. I am not trying to interfere in your private life. You said yourself a little while ago that you wanted a man of your own. That man belongs to so many women already. . . .
That silence again. Then there was only Mercy’s footsteps as she went to put her plate in the kitchen sink, running water as she washed her plate and her hands. She drank some water and coughed. Then as tears streamed down her sister’s averted face, there was the sound of her footsteps as she left the kitchen. At the end of it all, she banged a door. Connie only said something like, ‘O Lord, O Lord,’ and continued sitting in the kitchen. She had hardly eaten anything at all. Very soon Mercy went to have a bath. Then Connie heard her getting ready to leave the house. The shoes. Then she was gone. She needn’t have carried on like that, eh? Because Connie had not meant to probe or bring on a quarrel. What use is there in this old world for a sister, if you can’t have a chat with her? What’s more, things like this never happen to people like Mercy. Their parents were good Presbyterians. They feared God. Mama had not managed to give them all the rules of life before she died. But Connie knows that running around with an old and depraved public man would hav
e been considered an abomination by the parents.
A big car with a super-smooth engine purred into the drive. It actually purrs: this huge machine from the white man’s land. Indeed, its well-mannered protest as the tyres slid on to the gravel seemed like a lullaby compared to the loud thumping of the girl’s stiletto shoes. When Mensar-Arthur saw Mercy, he stretched his arm and opened the door to the passenger seat. She sat down and the door closed with a civilised thud. The engine hummed into motion and the car sailed away.
After a distance of a mile or so from the house, the man started conversation.
‘And how is my darling today?’
‘I am well,’ and only the words did not imply tragedy.
‘You look solemn today, why?’
She remained silent and still.
‘My dear, what is the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh . . .’ he cleared his throat again. ‘Eh, and how were the shoes?’
‘Very nice. In fact, I am wearing them now. They pinch a little but then all new shoes are like that.’
‘And the handbag?’
‘I like it very much too. . . . My sister noticed them. I mean the shoes.’ The tragedy was announced.
‘Did she ask you where you got them from?’
‘No.’
He cleared his throat again.
‘Where did we agree to go tonight?’
‘The Globe, but I don’t want to see a film.’
‘Is that so? Mm, I am glad because people always notice things.’
‘But they won’t be too surprised.’
‘What are you saying, my dear?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Okay, so what shall we do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Shall I drive to the Seaway?’
‘Oh yes.’
He drove to the Seaway. To a section of the beach they knew very well. She loves it here. This wide expanse of sand and the old sea. She has often wished she could do what she fancied: one thing she fancies. Which is to drive very near to the end of the sands until the tyres of the car touched the water. Of course it is a very foolish idea as he pointed out sharply to her the first time she thought aloud about it. It was in his occasional I-am-more-than-old-enough-to-be-your-father tone. There are always disadvantages. Things could be different. Like if one had a younger lover. Handsome, maybe not rich like this man here, but well-off, sufficiently well-off to be able to afford a sports car. A little something very much like those in the films driven by the white racing drivers. With tyres that can do everything . . . and they would drive exactly where the sea and the sand meet.
No Sweetness Here and Other Stories Page 9
