And Then Life Happens

by Auma Obama

  I could hardly wait to tell Ian the joyful news. During our phone calls, I barely managed to keep it to myself. I had decided to surprise him with it on my return home, and my plan succeeded. I bought a card, on the front of which was a picture of tiny baby hands, and gave it to him when I was back in England and we were sitting together at dinner. Ian carefully opened the card and discovered on one side the ultrasound image of a baby and on the other a few corny words like “Hello, Daddy!”

  With a broad smile, he looked at me. And before he could say anything, I declared, “It will be a girl.”

  “Of course!” he answered with a laugh. “Real men have girls.”

  I was overjoyed. And that night, as I fell asleep with my husband’s arms around me, I knew that our little girl was in good hands and would be received with great love into our world.

  * * *

  My graduation film was finally finished and could be submitted for approval. It was December 1996. I was in Berlin again for a few weeks, and each evening when we spoke on the phone, Ian asked impatiently when I would be returning to England. “After the film’s first screening,” I said each time.

  My film was titled All That Glitters Is Not Gold and was about an African woman living in rural Germany as the wife of a wealthy but rather cold German husband. She is extremely lonely. One day, she loses her seven-year-old daughter under unusual circumstances.

  When I showed my film to faculty and students, it was very quiet in the hall and it was impossible to tell how it went down with the audience.

  After the lights came back on, it took a while before the silence was broken. Finally, a student raised her hand and said, “The whole thing is unrealistic! In real life something like that would never happen.”

  With that she set something in motion that resembled a tsunami. Suddenly, I was subjected to a multitude of questions and criticisms. I tried to respond to the many attacks, some of which did not make sense to me. I felt as if I could not really defend myself at all. My film seemed to have offended people, but what exactly it was that was offensive no one could explain clearly to me. Even when I later asked Elke and some other friends, whom I had invited to the screening, what on earth I had done wrong, they were not able to give me a clear answer. I could only suspect that from the point of view of the Germans, the film made the African woman too much a victim and so triggered among the viewers an unpleasant sense of complicity.

  Feeling rather bruised, I left the hall. Shortly before leaving the building, I went to the bathroom. There I discovered that I was bleeding. My baby! I thought in horror. I was in my third month, a critical time for miscarriages. In a panic, I rushed out of the bathroom to look for Elke. Fortunately, she had not gone home, but was absorbed in a conversation with some other people. I took her aside and told her what had just happened to me.

  “We’re going to the hospital immediately!” she said resolutely. “Don’t get worked up and don’t move more than necessary.” With these words, she took me by the elbow and led me toward the exit. “Sit down here on the stairs. I’ll get my car.”

  * * *

  In the hospital, I was informed that I might, in fact, have a miscarriage. But I was reassured, told to just lie still on my back and everything would be all right.

  I expected a few days of prescribed bed rest, but the doctor who examined me the next day said I would have to remain lying down until the birth. Almost seven months!

  From day to day, I grew more distressed, especially as I could not pry a clear explanation for my condition out of him. A few days before Christmas, Ian, who had heard the despair in my voice, made a decision. “I’m coming to get you,” he said. I did not feel comfortable with the idea—what would the doctors say about it?—but I simply could no longer bear to stay in the hospital and agreed to his plan.

  “We can’t be held responsible if you take your wife with you,” the doctor treating me told Ian, when he showed up the next day in the hospital. “Anything can happen.”

  “I understand,” he replied, and asked for the necessary documents. “We’ll deal with this in England.”

  * * *

  The doctor in the British hospital, where I went immediately on arrival, sent me back home after the examination.

  “If you have any pain, take these pills here. Otherwise, you can do everything without any problems.”

  “But in Germany I was told…”

  “Everything is fine with you. There’s no reason to lie in bed all day.”

  Was this a classic case of “different countries, different norms,” or was I the victim of an error in judgment? In Germany, the doctors had insisted on total bed rest; in England, however, I was advised to keep a stiff upper lip and carry on with things as usual. And that’s what I did!

  On the morning of May 3, 1997, I gave birth to a perfectly healthy daughter—I had been right. I took her in my arms and at the sight of her little face felt a love such as I had never previously experienced. I was insanely happy—and at the same time panic-stricken. She was so little and seemed so fragile. I was afraid of pressing her too tightly, not holding her securely enough, being incapable of looking after her. I was beset by all the fears that most women probably have at the birth of their first child. Suddenly, I was responsible for the survival of this little being who was completely dependent on me. There’s no doubt that happiness and fear are closely related.

  Ian sat at my bedside. He had missed the actual birth. When the contractions had begun the previous evening and he drove me to the hospital, it had been assumed that the delivery would take substantially longer than the two hours my daughter needed the next morning to come into the world. For that reason, Ian had been told on the telephone that he did not have to hurry. So by the time he had woven his way through the rush-hour traffic, his daughter was already there.

  “It can’t be true!” he exclaimed as he rushed into the room. I lay exhausted on the bed. Aunty Jane, who was visiting us at the time, entered the room behind him.

  “Look, over there.” With my head I gestured to the bassinet in which our little girl was sleeping peacefully in a white romper. “There’s our daughter.” I was overjoyed. It sounded so good. Our daughter. My daughter. I had a daughter.

  “Can I pick her up?” Ian asked hesitantly.

  “Of course!” said Aunty Jane, beating me to it. She, too, was smiling from ear to ear. “And hurry, or else I’ll take her from you. I want to hold my granddaughter in my arms.” In place of her older sister, my mother, Aunty Jane was at that moment the grandmother.

  Then came the obligatory photos: the baby with the father, then with the exhausted but elated mother, finally another picture with Aunty Jane, and, of course, a shot of the leading lady lying in her bassinet. We had named her Akinyi, which means “morning child” in Luo. I looked through the wide window of the room. The sun shone brightly. It was a magnificent, almost cloudless day. Here in the room, my husband and my aunt admired our child, and outside a wonderful early summer day was dawning.

  * * *

  In my first days as a mother, my everyday life revolved exclusively around our daughter. I had eyes almost only for her. For the fear that had seized me in the hospital and the doubts about whether I would manage to take care of her were still alive. It became really difficult when Aunty Jane left and I was alone with the little one during the day. Ian had to work, and in the neighborhood—we had just moved to Bracknell, a town in Berkshire—I still didn’t know anyone. My one attempt to get closer to my neighbors had failed miserably.

  Shortly after we had moved into our house, I invited our immediate neighbors—to the right and left and across from us—for tea one afternoon. And they all came. We sat in our small living room, drank tea, and made small talk, as I imagined it was done in England. And when they said their friendly good-byes, I thought the afternoon had been a success, especially as they said things like “You should definitely stop by our place, too.” Then I waited, but in vain. Not a single return invitati
on came from our neighbors.

  “I find that really impolite,” I said, disappointed. We were sitting in the kitchen, Ian was making dinner, and I was nursing the baby. “In Kenya, you always return an invitation after visiting someone. Anything else is impolite.”

  Ian just shrugged.

  “Don’t you think so?” I was a bit irritated by his silence.

  “It’s somewhat different here,” he began, as he peeled the last of the potatoes. As he said this, he turned to me, because he had heard the sadness in my voice. It was not the first time we had spoken about the—in my eyes—somewhat strange social behavior of British people. But now that I was alone all day with the child, I suffered increasingly from their distance. I longed for friends and companionship.

  “Here people don’t deal with each other as openly and freely,” Ian explained.

  “Then why did they come to our house at all?” I asked, annoyed. “I thought they had a genuine interest in getting to know us.”

  “Unfortunately, it was probably only curiosity,” Ian replied, as he put the potatoes on the stove. There would be fish and a salad as well. “But it might also be that they don’t invite us because they don’t want to disturb us. We Brits are somewhat strange in that regard.”

  It surprised me that our neighbors’ behavior seemed not to bother him.

  After a while, my loneliness became mixed with resentment toward Ian. I didn’t understand why he had not taken time off after the birth of our daughter. Almost immediately after I returned home from the hospital, he had gone back to work. It occurred to me that the loner who was now my husband had told me once at the very beginning of our acquaintance that he could easily imagine living on a secluded farm somewhere in Scotland. There, he wouldn’t need more than a sheepdog.

  “Why don’t you join a mother and toddler group in our area? There you’ll definitely meet other mothers.” With these words, Ian put the fish in the oven.

  “What is a mother and toddler group?” My question sounded only moderately interested. I actually wanted to do something with him, not with mothers I didn’t know.

  “It’s a group of mothers with babies or newborns. They meet regularly and do various things together. There, you’d have the chance to get to know people.”

  But everything was not as simple as Ian imagined—at least not for me. Although I tried out several mother and toddler groups, I did not really feel comfortable at any of them. The fact that I had little desire to talk only about diapers and burping techniques didn’t make it any easier. Because many British women—unlike in Germany—have their children rather early, I frequently met very young mothers in the groups. I myself was already thirty-seven. On top of that, almost all of them were housewives, had entirely different interests than I did, were—with the exception of one mother—white, and came from the conservative British middle class.

  I felt out of place and missed my friends in Germany, missed the vibrant life in Berlin. Even Bayreuth seemed to me lively and exciting from afar.

  “Can’t you take a few weeks off?” I asked Ian. “Then we could invite the neighbors over again.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? You’ve just become a father.”

  “I have to earn money, Auma!” Ian replied adamantly.

  His words had reduced me to silence. I could not compete with the need to make money. Since my move to England, I had not had a chance to contribute to our income, which was due primarily to the pregnancy and my ensuing situation as a young mother. Ian did all the shopping. I had my pride, and it was hard for me to ask him for money. I had never before had to rely financially on someone. First, I had my scholarships; later, my well-paid trade fair jobs as an interpreter and my fees as a freelance journalist. Now Ian was the sole earner, and I was completely dependent on him.

  * * *

  When Akinyi was five months old, we took her with us on a trip to visit my brother in Chicago. I wanted Barack to meet his niece—and vice versa. It was October. A cold autumn wind swept through the streets, though the sun was still high in an almost cloudless sky. I was surprised at the cold. My brother said it came from Lake Michigan, directly from Canada.

  “In Canada, it’s already much colder than here,” he added.

  “I’m glad you don’t live in Canada,” I replied with a laugh.

  Over a year had passed since I had last seen my brother. In the meantime, he was living with his wife, Michelle, in their own apartment, and the two of them seemed to have a happy marriage. They were delighted to see their little niece, especially Michelle, who didn’t have any children yet. Maya, too, came to visit and greeted Akinyi with a gift that was supposed to keep all evil spirits away from her.

  We stayed only a week in the United States. Mich, as everyone called Michelle, and Barack had to work during the day—he as a civil rights lawyer, she as vice president for community and external affairs at the University of Chicago. In the evening, we cooked together and sat at the table for a long time after the meal and talked. At one point, Michelle’s brother, Craig, who lived in Chicago, too, came for a visit with his wife and two young children.

  The time with Barack was short, but it did me good. It felt great to be back in the family circle after the loneliness in Bracknell, and I enjoyed the attention bestowed on me, the young mother. I experienced those days almost as a sort of compensation for the fact that I had not been treated like a manyur up to that point. That is what the Luo call a woman who has just given birth to a child. In our tradition, a manyur is not supposed to do any work or is permitted to do only very light tasks in the first six weeks after her delivery. Her main job consists of nursing the infant. She is spoiled by her mother and the rest of the women of the family; she gets only the best food to eat and as much rest and relaxation as she needs before she fully assumes the role of mother and guardian of her child.

  * * *

  Akinyi was eleven months old when Ian and I took her with us to Kenya to introduce her to my family there. Ian, who had worked hard all year, wanted to go to the coast to relax. A visit to Nairobi did not much appeal to him, because he did not particularly like the city. But I wanted to go to the city in which I had grown up and in which all of my friends and most of my relatives lived. So we decided that I would fly there alone with the little one and then he would follow. Afterward, we planned to take the train together to Mombasa, where we had rented a vacation apartment. My mother would accompany us. That way she would not only get to spend time with her first granddaughter, but also lighten my load a bit.

  I was disappointed that Ian did not want to spend more than a few days in Nairobi. I myself never lasted long on the hot coast—nor was I keen on possibly being treated there like a woman who had managed to snap up a muzungu, a white man. Although I was not aware of it at the time, I now think that this was the beginning of the end of our marriage. I had simply not managed to convey to my husband how much the people who loved me and wanted to be with me meant to me and what I so intensely missed in England: friendships.

  * * *

  The British and their culture remained foreign to me. I often spoke on the telephone with my friends, who all thought that I lived near London and did not understand why I was so lonely.

  “But there’s so much to do in that city, even more than in Berlin,” Elke said during one of our phone calls.

  I explained to her that we lived quite a ways outside of the city and Ian preferred anyhow to keep his distance from it.

  “Then invite people over. You have a garden, and I assume that British people like to barbecue, right?”

  “I’d like to, but Ian works all the time. And when he’s at home, he wants to rest.”

  “But he can’t be in the office every weekend!”

  “Almost every.”

  Most of the conversations with my other friends, who were unfortunately all too far away to offer me more than words of comfort through the telephone, went similarly. And soon the high telephone bills w
ould become another contentious issue between Ian and me.

  Our shared social life was limited mostly to going to a pub together once a week to eat curry. Curry is a popular dish and an integral part of British people’s Friday night out. On those evenings, you usually meet with friends, eat together, and drink beer. For Ian, too, those occasions were an established institution.

  As I had experienced at other social gatherings, here, too, the women sat separately from the men, who mainly stood at the bar and talked about politics, but above all about sports. Then, after a few (or too many) glasses of beer, it was time for the—to my mind—often-tasteless jokes. The women conversed about housework and children. I had never witnessed such a separation of the sexes in Germany. Nonetheless, I did make a few nice acquaintances, though the contact remained limited mostly to the meetings at the pub.

  In the meantime, our daughter had begun to walk, and I had learned the art of being a mother and no longer felt overwhelmed and daunted by my new responsibilities. And because I loved Ian, I wanted our marriage to work. To overcome my difficulties adjusting and my loneliness, I decided to delve into the world of work in order to have a meaningful occupation and meet people.

  Bracknell was not the right place to teach German or get a job in film. That would have been London, but I could go there only rarely, because I needed to be close to home for Akinyi. On top of that, I had not been involved in film circles for a while and first would have had to develop a network of relationships. So I had to look for other prospects.

  “I’m sorry, but you are overqualified,” I was told again and again, until I finally got a job as a personal assistant to a purchasing manager at Boehringer Ingelheim, a German pharmaceutical company. The company had a British branch in Bracknell.

  To this day, I am grateful to Gayle Reis for offering me the opportunity to do administrative work for her and thereby get out of the house. On the whole, the job was undemanding and monotonous. But Gayle, an older, maternal woman, was a wonderful boss and never hemmed me in. We also got along very well. I could on occasion even talk to her about my loneliness. She must have suspected that Ian and I were slowly drifting apart.