Changes

by Ama Ata Aidoo

  She slept for a long time during which her mother and grandmother must have returned from church, and even got some food ready. She had not heard a thing. And now as she struggled awake, she could hear voices.

  Ena:

  What shall we tell the child?

  Nana:

  You have already made a mistake.

  Ena:

  What mistake?

  Nana:

  By calling her a child.

  Ena:

  And isn’t she my daughter?

  Nana:

  That she is.

  Ena:

  So then, what crime do I commit if —?

  Nana:

  Please, select your words very carefully. Your daughter — my granddaughter — has thrown a problem at us. That is what we are talking about. Committing crimes should not even be mentioned here.

  Ena:

  But Mother —

  Nana:

  What? Now don’t you dare turn into a child and melt on me. You should know by now that I do not approve of many things these days. Like many ways of behaving and speaking. Not because they are new and I’m old, but because they are just bad.

  Ena:

  Mother!

  Nana:

  You shut up. Since you have already called your daughter a child, and you are my daughter, maybe I should call you a child and treat you like one. (She pauses.) Listen, you gave birth to Esi. But when was the last time you wiped any shit off her bottom? (The mother is stunned. She looks at the older woman, her own mother, as if waiting for an answer to the question from her. And she gets it.)

  Nana:

  You have nothing to say, or you can’t remember? Well, that’s how old she is. She is a woman. And remember that after you have called someone a child, there is nothing you can tell her which she is going to find useful.

  Ena:

  You see, that’s what I meant.

  Nana:

  What did you mean?

  Ena:

  I meant: look at my life. It hasn’t been much of anything. What can I take out of such a life and give to anybody? Even if she is my own child? And Esi had such high school education and she is such a big lady.

  Nana:

  Have I not asked you to shut up? Especially if you are going to utter such stupidities. I wonder what has come over you these days. (Musingly) I wonder how it escaped me.

  Ena:

  What escaped you?

  Nana:

  That you were growing into a fool.

  Ena:

  Oh Mother!

  Nana:

  Yes, you have grown up very badly.

  Ena:

  Why are you saying all these harsh things to me?

  Nana:

  Because my daughter, it is not our fault that you and I did not go to school. I can also forgive myself and you that we have not made money … Even not having more than one child is not so bad …

  Ena:

  After all, some have none at all.

  Nana:

  Indeed, some have none at all.

  Ena and Nana:

  But only fools pity themselves.

  Nana:

  Eheh!

  Ena:

  And no one forgives fools.

  Nana:

  Eyiwaa.

  Ena:

  Not even themselves.

  Nana:

  Thank you!

  From the inner room Esi heard them and pain filled her chest. She could never be as close to her mother as her mother was to her grandmother. Never, never, never. And she knew why. Not that knowing exactly why helped much. Trying to ward off despair was proving difficult. She could only ask the emptiness a few questions.

  Why had they sent her to school?

  What had they hoped to gain from it?

  What had they hoped she would gain from it?

  Who had designed the educational system that had produced her sort?

  What had that person or those people hoped to gain from it?

  For surely, taking a ten-year-old child away from her mother, and away from her first language — which is surely one of life’s most powerful working tools — for what would turn out to be forever, then transferring her into a boarding school for two years, to a higher boarding school for seven years, then to an even higher boarding school for three or four years, from where she was only equipped to go and roam in strange and foreign lands with no hope of ever meaningfully re-entering her mother’s world ... all this was too high a price to pay to achieve the dangerous confusion she was now in and the country now was in.

  She tried to suppress a cough and could not. Her mother and grandmother heard her.

  From the outer room, the grandmother’s voice came, full of love and strong with concern, ‘ My lady, my lady…’

  ‘Yes, Nana,’ Esi replied, struggling for an equally strong voice.

  ‘When you are ready you can join us here,’ the grandmother continued.

  ‘Yes Nana,’ replied Esi, jumping up. She knew that although it had been put to her very nicely in the form of a request, her grandmother’s words were a command. As she walked the few paces between them and her, her mood changed again. As a young Ghanaian woman government statistician divorcee, a mother of one child, getting ready to be a second wife and the rest, she was aware of these and other equally serious personal, and not so personal, questions. But she was also going to be humble enough to admit that the answers to them could not come from her, an individual. Hopefully a whole people would soon have answers for them. In the meantime she would listen to her grandmother. She would not pity herself. She would just relax and flourish in her mother’s and her grandmother’s peace.

  The second time that Ali went to Esi’s village was the Sunday that began the last quarter of the year. This time he took his elders with him and Esi’s fathers did not ask him how he had managed to produce such solid people after all. Everybody just saw to it that everything went smoothly. When the necessary questions were asked, they received appropriate replies. So kola was broken and gin was poured in libation and a little of it drunk by Esi’s people. Ali and his people, as practising Muslims, could not share the alcohol. Esi’s fathers ritualistically asked for, and were given by All’s people, the very small sum that symbolised dowry.

  Finally, Ali gave a pure gold ring to one of the women to be given to Esi. And if any of the people around were surprised, they didn’t show it. After all, everyone knew that both Esi and Ali were ‘scholars’ for whom, naturally, the white man’s customs were considered very important. All the spirits should have been appeased: ancient coastal and Christian, ancient northern and Islamic, the ghost of the colonisers.

  At that stage, everyone knew that the purpose of all the weeks of discussions and the goings and comings had been served. Esi and Ali had become man and wife. Some of the women raised ululations. Even children joined in. Everyone was happy. There was some eating and drinking. For such an occasion, Esi a divorcee and Ali already having a wife, no one expected a huge wedding ceremony or celebration. Not even in the best of circumstances.

  Before they left Esi’s village in their separate cars that Sunday, Ali and Esi had agreed that he would be waiting at her house for her. After all, he had a bunch of duplicate keys to the gate, the main front door and indeed, the whole house. Therefore she could not believe her eyes that when she arrived he was not in the house. There was not a soul in the house, and her feeling of disappointment was sharp. What she couldn’t understand though was that any area of her mind could have expected anyone else apart from Ali. There couldn’t have been. And as for her newly-acquired husband, he was probably home with his wife and children, to whom it must seem that he had been away from home too often for too long lately. It occurred to Esi that if Ali had told Fusena where he was bound for when he set out earlier that morning, then there would be no need for him to hide anything. And late as it was, he could still drop by her place for a little while at least? But if he had not told her, then of course it was
going to be difficult for him to find another excuse to be out of their house again in the evening of the same day, much of which he had spent with her and her people. Then she told herself it was silly to speculate. She unpacked her car. She nearly gave in to a temptation to leave the gate open. But she gathered some courage to go out and lock it. She also locked the car up, went inside and locked the front door behind her.

  The sun set completely and Ali did not come. Esi admitted that she was feeling rather depressed. Soon after watching the news, she went and had a bath and changed into night clothes. There had been quite a lot of eating back in the village and although she couldn’t recall sitting herself down to have a proper meal, she knew she had nibbled a lot. In any case, it was not a question of how much she had eaten earlier in the day. She had no appetite for food. She decided to go to bed early. After all, the next day was a regular working day.

  Lying alone in bed with her eyes hard and wide-open in the dark, she remembered some of the advice her mother and her grandmother had given her. They had told her to be careful. That being one of any number of wives had its rules. If she obeyed the rules, a woman like her should be all right. If she broke the rules, then her new marriage would be like a fire that had been lighted inside her. They recited some of the rules to her. They made her aware of some of the pitfalls. Above all, they said, there were two things she had to bear in mind at all times. One was never to forget that she was number two, and the other was never to show jealousy. She almost started laughing. It had not even taken half of one day for her to begin to know what being number two meant, had it?

  And as for not showing jealousy, how did anyone begin to do that? Suddenly, she started remembering something else: her marriage to Oko and especially her wedding day. On that day, the problem had been how to find a minute and a corner to herself. She had later realised that as a bride, in fact, she had not been expected to be alone at all. And she had not been. Not at that day’s beginning, and definitely not at its end.

  Oh well,’ she yielded to the night and the dark, and drifted off to sleep.

  15

  Ali could already see his house when he decided to go back to Esi. He had been feeling guilty for all the fifteen or so minutes since he’d left her. Of course, there had been no question of sleeping at hers tonight; tonight being New Year’s Eve. Although Muslims, and therefore he and Fusena had very little interest in Christmas, they could never avoid the general air of festivity that simply invaded everything and everywhere around this time of the year. Like other Muslims, Ali felt particularly bitter about the fact that the country didn’t bother to claim a state religion, yet Christianity was everywhere. Assumed. The children were especially vulnerable. Towards the end of the year, which was also the end of the first school term, they always came home singing Christmas carols. He and Fusena had still not got an answer to the problem. So they bought the children some balloons and sweets and soft drinks. New clothes were still only for the Id. And no expensive Christmas presents either. That would be going too far. Altogether the struggle to maintain a difference between Christmas and Islamic festivals was extremely difficult.

  New Year was different. He and Fusena had, over the years, established a pattern for New Year. He organised his business affairs in such a way that he wouldn’t have to be away from home on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. On New Year’s Eve, he dropped everything by six o’clock if it had been a working day, and went home. He was convinced that a man had to see his family — at least for a while — by the daylight of the passing old year, and let the family see him. Not that once he was home, they did anything special. They just had tuo together. Then when the children were asleep, he and Fusena would sit and watch whatever was on television. Depending on how they felt, they talked or sat in a relaxed friendly silence. In recent years, he would sometimes select a film he knew both he and Fusena would enjoy, and show it on video. When the new year actually arrived, he would open a bottle of champagne, and they’d each have a glass — the only time he shared alcohol with Fusena. Then they would wish one another a happy New Year, then go to bed, make love and sleep. On the New Year’s Day they had an open house. Nothing like a conscious celebration. But there would be kola, fried meat, gravy and rice. And lots of fruits, for themselves and any friends that cared to drop in. For something to drink there would be non-alcoholic beverages for strict Muslims, and different alcohols for anyone else who preferred them. It was often a pleasantly loose day: the kind he enjoyed tremendously because most of his days were really so unhealthily busy. So they spent New Year’s Day very much like they did the last day of Id: let it assume its own character and momentum.

  Now here he was: one part of him feeling the need to hurry home and initiate known rituals, while another part of him was busy feeling guilty.

  Guilty in spite of the fact that by all the precepts of his upbringing Esi was indeed his wife, and yet by ‘home’ he meant only one place, which was where Fusena and his children were. Hopelessly guilty because he knew that there was not the slightest possibility of him ever being able to establish any rituals in the relationship with Esi.

  However, on this particular afternoon, he decided, there was something he could do. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be something. From the office, where he was, he would go and spend some more time with her, and then he would rush home. It was already getting to five o’clock, and it was plain that he would not be able to make his six o’clock deadline. A real pity. However, he would try and be there before the children had to go to bed. In a flash, he had jumped into his car and was heading towards Esi’s place.

  How did our fathers manage? He wondered to himself. He knew the answer. They, our fathers, lived in a world which was ordered to make such arrangements work. For instance, no man in the old days would be caught in his present predicament: that is, wondering which woman he would be making love to on a New Year’s Eve.

  That was the real problem this afternoon, he admitted to himself. And the thought panicked him so much that he nearly hit a young girl who was crossing the street holding the hands of a little boy who must have been her brother. He screeched to a stop, his heart thumping very badly. He drove the car to the side of the road to enable him to pull himself together. Then he looked across the street and saw the girl and the little boy hopping along their way as if nothing had happened. He sighed with relief. He started the car and decided almost at the same time that he would go back to the office and pick up a bottle of champagne for Esi.

  Esi was very surprised and pleased to see him. Yet after managing a rather muted hello she said almost nothing at all, all the time she was opening the gate and entering the house with him. And he didn’t say anything. They just went to her bedroom, and started eating one another up. It was a wild and desperate lovemaking. For both of them. For Esi it was shame for her dependence on a man who, as far as she could see, was too preoccupied with other matters to ever be with her … and of course for him it was several shades of guilt, especially one which was a product of an awareness that if he was so busy pumping into Esi, then he was also busy ruining a tradition. And the more he thought of what he was destroying between him and Fusena, the more his groins burned, and the harder he drove into Esi. And both he and Esi peaked so high, they feared they wouldn’t survive that incredible climax. Then he was ready to empty some of his confusion and genuine affection for both women into a cauldron that was one.

  Just at that moment they heard a car come through the gate. They couldn’t believe their ears. But sure enough it was a car, and they could hear it parking outside where their two cars were. Their passion died instantly, each pair of eyes asking the other who they thought it could be. Esi remembered with regret that in her excitement at seeing Ali again she had not locked the main gate or any of the doors after Ali had come in. There was nothing she could do about any of that now. There was knocking on the front door... Poom, poom, poom. ‘Esi...’ Poom, poom, poom, poom. ‘Esi...?’

  Ali got
off from on top of Esi and fell on the bed beside her. Whoever it was had tried the front door, found it unlocked and was in the front room already.

  ‘Esi, Esi, Esi.’

  Then Esi knew who the voice belonged to. It was Oko’s voice. Esi jumped off the bed, naked like the day she was born, rushed to the door between the bedroom and sitting-room, banged it shut and double-locked it. Ali was never to forget that. Because he just couldn’t figure out how anyone can have that much presence of mind in the middle of a crisis. But then having done that, neither Esi herself nor Ali knew what to do next. And of course, they couldn’t discuss the situation.

  In the meantime, Oko must have realised what was happening when Esi locked the door, and now even more angry with himself for not rushing straight into the bedroom in the first place, he was banging on the door and calling her name with a frenzy which Esi was later to think had been amusingly childish. But of course at the time, she had been in no position to laugh.

  ‘I know you are in there, so why don’t you answer?’ he was screaming. Esi’s mouth refused to open up. Finally, she and Ali got up at the same time, and hurriedly put their clothes on. Then, opening the door only wide enough for his slim body to pass through, Ali went out. When Oko saw him, he dashed towards the door, as if to rush in. But the door had a Yale lock and Ali quickly banged it shut and locked both of them out of the bedroom. Frustrated, Oko turned and faced Ali.

  ‘Where is she?’ he demanded.

  ‘Where is who?’ Ali asked coolly, as if he genuinely had not the slightest idea to whom the other man was referring.