Speechless

by Anne Simpson

  She’ll tell you.

  I guess she will. She didn’t sound like herself. And it was rushed — she had to go and there were still things I wanted to ask her.

  From the dining room, Clare could see Monica in the living room with two of the younger boys. On the television screen, Clare could see men getting out of a car at a police checkpoint. There was some overly dramatic shouting; one man raised his hands, and another ran into the bush.

  She is in good hands right now, said Thomas. That’s the main thing.

  I don’t know anything about Felix.

  A cracking sound from the television and the man with the upraised arms clutched his chest, which appeared to be smoking. He fell over. The other man, who had run into the bush, parted the leaves of a banana tree to look out. The alarm on his face was comical.

  Monica got up and came into the dining room. Two boys peeped over the back of a sofa.

  Jonathan? said Clare. Andrew?

  The boys laughed and fell down on the sofa, their feet in the air. Their father called them, and they reappeared, one yanking up a sock.

  Is this how you greet your Aunt Clare from Canada? said Thomas.

  Hello, boys, said Clare.

  How do you do? asked one of them. It was the elder one, Jonathan.

  Very well, thank you. Clare smiled.

  The youngest boy clutched his chest, closed his eyes and rolled on the floor. He started giggling, and Monica rattled off a volley of words.

  He stood up, biting his top lip to keep from laughing. His brother nudged him.

  Hello I am Andrew how do you do? he burst out, all in a rush.

  On the screen, a young woman bent over the man whose chest had been smoking. He appeared to be dead. I beg you, cried the other man from between the parted banana leaves, and the woman backed away in fright.

  I beg you, cried Andrew, imitating the voice perfectly, and Clare laughed before she could stop herself.

  Boys, boys, said their father. Off to bed now. Goodnight.

  Goodnight, they said, in unison, and careened down the smooth floor of the hallway, sliding in their sock feet. I beg you, they sang. I beg you!

  Monica and Thomas sat with Clare while she ate her jollof rice. Nearly time for bed, Clare thought, and here she was, eating. Ice cubes clinked into a glass as Thomas poured her some water. Her hand had slid out of Thomas’s hand. Her father had told her to hold his hand, because she was eleven and Thomas was only nine, but the man with the mouth like a cave had come between them. She clutched the change purse her father had given her, with the hard coins inside, but her head scarf came loose, and the dancers printed on it twirled away so she couldn’t see them under the sandals and shoes. She was working out a problem and she couldn’t work it out if she was being shoved forward. Beside her, a man in torn jeans slipped and almost fell down, but two people next to him helped him up and he laughed and started yelling again. The cook died and Thomas had been adopted, but how did that make him her brother? Someone’s elbow or knee jammed into Clare’s back, and she cried out. If she fell, no one would see. She was too small. They would keep moving and she would be slapped into the dirt of the street.

  Clare!

  She could hear her father, but she couldn’t see him. She could see someone’s worn shirt, buttoned up the wrong way. A politician’s face printed over and over on a wrapper around the belly of a heavy-set woman. Splotches of paint on someone’s arm.

  Clare!

  Her father found her. He gripped her wrist and it hurt when he did that, his fingers hard and tight around her narrow bones; he could have crushed them. But he’d found her, he’d managed to catch her, and he pushed away from the crowd, gasping. Then he picked her up and held her close, his chin scratching her cheek. Are you all right? He turned to a street vendor, a woman selling soft drinks. Thomas, he called.

  A boy detached himself from the woman and ran to them. He turned up his face, open as the bowl of a spoon, and Clare’s father took him by the hand.

  Good fellow, Thomas, said her father.

  Clare promptly turned her face into her father’s shirt and burst into tears.

  I wonder how Sophie’s holding up, said Thomas.

  When Clare finished the rice, and Monica offered her a dish of papaya, pulpy fruit so deeply orange, seeds like shiny, black eyes. She hadn’t eaten papaya in years. She picked up the fork, set it down.

  Do you like papaya? asked Monica.

  Yes. Yes, very much. It’s lovely here.

  Your first time in this house. Monica smiled, in the same way as Hortensia.

  I brought small things for the children.

  That is kind. You didn’t have to do that.

  Clare nibbled on a piece of papaya.

  Thomas got up, fetched a newspaper. He slid it across to her.

  What is it?

  But Clare already knew what it was. I just want to see her, she said. I want to go to her.

  Maybe we should leave all this until you’ve slept, said Monica.

  No, I have to know. You read it, Thomas. It’s what Sophie wrote, isn’t it?

  I won’t read the whole thing, he said. The act of adultery involves two people, and yet, in the case of A’isha Nasir, only the woman has been brought to trial. In this case, the woman is regarded as a criminal, dragged through the courts, and sentenced to death by stoning, while the man with whom she had relations is allowed to remain free. What justice can there be if this man is not brought to trial?

  I’ll skip the next part, he said. Here, yes: The essential fact of this case is that the woman is the one being prosecuted, and she is being prosecuted precisely because she is a woman, because she became pregnant and gave birth to a child. This is the sum of the evidence. The evidence that might reveal the man to be at fault, that of DNA testing, is not required by shariah courts.

  Thomas jabbed at the newspaper. That’s the point a lawyer would make.

  That’s the point a woman would make.

  Thomas looked at her sideways and they laughed, ruefully. Monica didn’t laugh.

  What else did she say?

  That’s enough, Thomas, said Monica firmly.

  He folded the newspaper and pushed it away from him.

  I wonder what has happened to A’isha, said Clare.

  She finished the last of the papaya. The lights of the chandelier were scattered, reflected in the polished table.

  Today I saw one man hit another man with a crowbar, she said. Wanting to kill him, I think.

  Uh-oh! exclaimed Monica.

  First there were men fighting each other, punching and swatting, you know, like kids. And then one of them hit the other hard, and he staggered back. The third one had a crowbar.

  Monica put her arm around her. It’s all right now.

  I could drive you to Abeokuta, Clare, said Thomas. Or wherever you need to go.

  But the fighting, objected Clare.

  We could take a circuitous route.

  Thomas, now — said Monica.

  Yes, we could go tomorrow after church. I’ll talk to Jacob. He touched Monica’s hand reassuringly.

  After church? said Clare.

  But now you need to rest, he said.

  Clare wasn’t ready to rest. You know, when I first learned about this case, I researched some of the cases of women who had been convicted of adultery around the world. In many cases, the woman was never stoned; her sentence was commuted to a prison term or something like that, but in certain cases, the stoning was carried out.

  Monica made a sharp little sound.

  They bury the woman up to the chest, I guess so her arms can’t be free, can’t cover her head.

  I know how it’s done, Thomas said, looking at Monica.

  But we don’t know, Clare went on, unable to stop. We have no idea. To feel the first rock hit your head, to feel it. And it’s slow. It takes time to stone a person to death. There was a child, a thirteen-year-old child in Somalia who was gang raped and her family went to the aut
horities —

  Clare, it is not good to speak of this, said Thomas. He was examining the surface of the table.

  I think of that child, she said. Since I found out about her, I can’t get her out of my head.

  Clare.

  I have to believe there’s justice, she said. That wrongs can be righted. There are people like you, people who believe such things. You’re a lawyer, after all.

  That doesn’t make me good. It only makes me strive for the good.

  But isn’t that what’s needed here?

  I work hard, but I don’t take on more than I can chew. Don’t get the wrong idea about me.

  She didn’t say anything.

  Clare, don’t imagine for a minute that I’m going to take up that case.

  No, no, no, said Monica. Thomas is not going to put himself in the way of danger like that. He cannot do such a thing.

  Thomas looked at Clare ruefully. I’m not a courageous man. I couldn’t do it. Anyway, I do not believe it will go badly for A’isha. You will see: they will appeal it. In Nigeria no such sentence has ever been carried out.

  It could be, though.

  He spread his hands. We cannot solve the ills of the world. I think it’s time we all went to bed.

  Clare stood up. Goodnight then, dear Thomas.

  He kissed her cheek.

  She took Monica’s hand. Thank you for having me here, she said. Goodnight.

  We will get your Sophie home in one piece, said Thomas.

  Ah, breathed Clare, and the fear rushed back in as if he’d opened a door. Thank you, Thomas.

  She went to her room and stood with her back against the wall in the darkness. Outside, night sounds: a clicking, a low screech. She thought of the stories she’d read, first to find out about A’isha and what might happen to her, and then the accounts about those who had been stoned. She undressed in the darkness, went into the bathroom, and put on the light.

  But it followed her, the story of the thirteen-year-old Somalian girl. Clare came out of the bathroom, got into bed. Kismayo, southern Somalia. The girl was imprisoned after her family went to the authorities, told them how she’d been raped by three men. She was taken to a stadium.

  Clare lay still, breathing in, breathing out. She turned over. Finally, she felt herself slipping into drowsiness.

  They stood in a ring, all men, except for the nurses, who had been brought under pain of death to watch the stoning. Fifty men, maybe more, many of them armed. Even if some of them had wanted to help the girl, they wouldn’t have been able to; so many of the men had guns. The girl was brought in struggling against her captors. Don’t kill me, don’t kill me, she cried. She was placed in a hole, buried up to her shoulders, crying. A white head covering, face of anguish.

  Don’t kill me.

  They buried her, packed the earth up to her shoulders. The men with the shovels stepped back. Her body, gone into the earth. A man raised his hands to the sky, chanting. Her feet, never to walk. Chanting. Her hands, her arms. Chanting, then silence. The first rock against the back of her head, the second flying against her temple. Then more rocks, so many they were like hail. Thrown hard. Around her, white rocks in a pattern on the ground.

  The nurses were forced to check, after a few minutes, to see if she was dead or alive. They took her out of the hole, rolled her onto the ground, checked for a pulse. Still alive. And so back into the hole she went.

  Shouting, pounding feet. A boy tried to do something, tried to save her. He was shot.

  Clare yelped, and the yelp woke her. She sat up, her right hand over her chest, over the thin material of her nightgown. No one had been stoned. Clare had bunched up the sheet in her left hand, clutching it. She released it. Nothing had happened; she’d been dreaming. She was in a bed in a guest room in Thomas’s house, but her breath came hard and fast, because her heart was crazily scrambled, and she willed herself to slow it down. Someone’s daughter died like that.

  She sat up and fumbled for her phone, and sat with it in her hand, waiting for her heart to slow down. Whatever she said to her daughter would have to be calm and collected. No, she wouldn’t call again.

  It would be fine, she told herself. It would be fine.

  12

  ____

  IT WAS NOT A CHOICE SHE’D BEEN GIVEN, as if she was given a choice in anything now. She’d been told that it was for Safiya’s sake.

  A’isha bent to go through the doorway with her wash basin, soap, and towel, setting them down to tie up the curtain and let the air inside the hut; she wondered whether she’d find her mother dead when she knelt beside her, but no, Nafisa was still alive, her belly more distended than ever. A’isha was almost used to the smell now, and it was always better once she’d taken away the contents of the bedpan. She greeted her mother, and Nafisa’s eyes focused on her; in their gleam A’isha could see her dear mother, clinging to life. A’isha set down the wash basin and the soap on its wadding of cloth but kept the towel over her shoulders.

  She lifted her mother’s legs without retching, and slid out the pan, taking it out of the hut to toss just beyond the cashew tree. It was a putrid mix of fluids. She turfed some dirt over it and spat at the goats trotting toward her eagerly.

  The goats waited. Stupid animals.

  She yelled to make them scatter and watched to make sure they wouldn’t return as she wiped the pan with the rag she kept for this purpose, glancing across the compound to the basket where Safiya lay sleeping in the shade. Little Talata bent down over her, loving nothing in the world more than being asked to watch over Safiya. Soon Talata would be called away to do one task or another, but Safiya would sleep for a while yet.

  Standing with the pan in one hand and the rag in the other, A’isha was desolate. Usually she shrugged it off, this sense that nothing would ever be right again, but not this morning. She took the pan back inside, eyes burning, and the smell caught her off guard at the threshold; she stood for a moment to compose herself.

  Would it be today?

  She knelt down and lifted her mother’s legs tenderly and slid the clean pan under her. All her life Nafisa had worked so hard without complaining. Never enough time to be still, until now, and now she was dying. Today, tomorrow.

  A’isha put the cloth in the warm water of the wash basin and squeezed it. She soaped the cloth and then washed her mother’s body. There was almost nothing left of her mother’s buttocks, and the skin of her thighs was slack, but her abdomen was swollen. There must be such pain; Nafisa winced as A’isha washed her. A’isha wished there was some way she could take the pain from her. Maybe it was the last time A’isha would do this, and she was determined to do it well. Nafisa’s eyes bored into A’isha as she worked. She couldn’t meet her mother’s gaze, her mother who knew everything.

  The cloth, soft as it was, wasn’t soft enough, and might scrape against her mother’s skin. A’isha finished bathing one leg, then the other. The thighs, the knees, the calves, the ankles, and the feet. The feet that would not bear Nafisa’s weight again. A’isha blinked, rinsed out the cloth in the basin. It was different than washing Safiya, with her tiny hands, clutching and opening, and her cries when she was doused with water from the bucket. Her feet were pale pink and the skin was still so new, without any calluses, but Nafisa’s feet were hardened and cracked. A’isha took special care with her mother’s feet.

  Now the swollen belly, but this pained her mother and A’isha paused, turning instead to the loose pockets of her mother’s breasts, which lay against her chest. Then she bathed her mother’s neck and under her arms. A’isha concentrated on each arm, the way a fold of skin hung down as she raised the arm up, to be sure to wash the whole of it. When she came to Nafisa’s left hand, her mother’s fingers worked their way into A’isha’s fingers and stopped them. A’isha bowed her head.

  I must go away, said A’isha. With Safiya. They told me I have to leave.

  A’isha couldn’t tell her mother what might happen if she stayed. The compound, everyone
in it, and Safiya too, might be killed. Maybe what they were saying was true: that A’isha was to blame.

  She felt her mother’s fingers, birds in a nest. Finally, A’isha lifted her head. Her mother’s eyes, bleary with pain.

  I’m sorry, A’isha said. She couldn’t say all that she felt, that she couldn’t bear to leave.

  Nafisa made an effort. She was trying to say something, but it sounded like dry leaves rattling in her throat. She strained forward.

  What? A’isha murmured, coaxing her.

  Know your strength.

  A’isha’s eyes stung. She was not strong, not the least bit. Her mother was the one who was strong. She wiped her face with her arm and towelled her mother’s body dry. Nafisa’s eyes were closed now; it had taken something away from her to speak and be heard, a bit of the life that remained in her.

  A’isha finished, and put a clean wrapper around her mother’s body, turning her gently to the left and then the right, though this movement must hurt Nafisa. A’isha knotted the cotton material so it would stay. She wanted her mother to be clean and tidy, and she knew it was because she didn’t want anyone to find Nafisa disgusting. She didn’t want them to back away because of the reek. But who wouldn’t back away? The clean fabric she’d brought for a wrapper had been given to A’isha for her wedding: it was a length of green and pink and white material. Flowers on branches. It was better if she wrapped her mother in it, and she knew it was because it reminded her of that wedding. Nafisa hadn’t wanted the marriage, but A’isha’s second father had decided things, and he had decided that A’isha must marry the old man. He wasn’t a bad man, as husbands go, but now he was dead and so was her second father. A flutter, unbidden. A’siha didn’t miss either of them. It was better that they were both dead, even if it was wrong of her to think such things.

  But she couldn’t make herself get up.

  Outside, there was a car in the compound: the jumped-up sound of the driver braking was followed by the offended cry of a guinea hen, and the greetings between the driver and A’isha’s auntie. A’isha had already gathered her belongings into a bundle and left them with her auntie, and besides, the driver would have to be fed something. He would have to talk to everyone, take a gift from A’isha’s auntie for the head man, Alhaji Hassan, and put it into the car, since A’isha and Safiya would be staying with him for the time being, and A’isha’s uncle was grateful for that; they wouldn’t be his problem. Finally, A’isha and Safiya would get into the car, and they would leave, and A’isha would show nothing in her expression.