Speechless

by Anne Simpson

  A’isha had to set her jaw partly because of the smell, but also because she dreaded what lay before her. Nafisa had been placed on a counter in the middle of the room; her eyes had been closed. It bothered A’isha that her mother lay on the counter with nothing comfortable under her, except a folded piece of material under her head. It was not her mother; it looked like her mother, though the face was made of dark leather and pleated with age. Her mother was gone. It was this clear fact of her mother’s death that released the tangles in A’isha’s stomach. Her mouth was dry, but she hardly noticed; she would do what she was here to do and do it swiftly.

  The tap wasn’t working, but there was a bucket in the sink and water stored in the two large drums outside. Jummai went out and came back with a bucket of water, which she set down gently, the handle clanking against the side of the pail. A’isha’s auntie had brought the cloths, a stack of clean ones, and, when Durah unrolled a piece of cloth on the table against the wall, A’isha’s auntie set them down on it, everything in order, unpacking the plastic gloves and giving a pair to each of them. All this was done wordlessly, in the muted dimness of the room. A’isha put on the gloves she’d been given, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the tears. How many times had she washed her mother’s living body? That was different, because even when her mother had been very sick, her body had still been pliant. Now there was a distinct odour, despite the incense that was burning, smoking upwards in a grey, scrolled line, but A’isha was not going to breathe it; she was not going to wipe the wetness from her cheeks.

  THEY GOT TO WORK. Her auntie covered herself with an apron, and her hands, encased in gloves, pressed on her mother’s stomach to rid the body of its fluids. It was very warm; it didn’t matter that air came through the breeze blocks at the top of the walls on both sides of the room. The blood and shit and gas from the corpse gave off that peculiar smell that A’isha had already noticed, and something else, like rotting meat and tainted eggs. Jummai put her arm up to her face, buried her nose in the crook of her elbow. A’isha and her auntie, who was breathing heavily with the effort, began the first cleansing, and Jummai and Durah joined them. Her auntie said the prayers, wheezing as she explained what she was doing — I am washing the body — so that the soul of Nafisa would understand. The monotony of the words comforted A’isha. Even though the cloths had been wrung out, some water dribbled across the skin of Nafisa’s body, over her ribs, over her swollen belly. It was not her mother, thought A’isha; it was not her mother, and yet they must tell her, must help her to understand.

  I am washing the body, intoned A’isha’s auntie.

  A’isha did not hesitate. It was she, not her auntie, who cleaned between her mother’s legs. Then Durah lifted up the legs by the ankles, and A’isha helped her, so Jummai could clean under the body. A’isha stood back from them, rocking slightly on her heels. She felt dizzy. The first cleansing was finished, and Jummai went to get fresh water, while A’isha’s auntie handed out new gloves. Durah, who had brought a few sprigs of hyssop, picked off some of the leaves and dropped them in the water when Jummai brought it.

  They began again, all of them this time, starting at Nafisa’s head, turning the body and working their way down the right side, though the right arm was rigid and resisted any efforts to move it. A minty scent of hyssop was released as they turned the body so they could clean the left side, then each emaciated leg, and finally, the feet, one foot and then the other, with A’isha’s auntie leading them.

  Once again, the pail of water and the cloths and towels were taken away. A’isha felt dazed. She had been wakened in the dark hours of early morning at Alhaji Hassan’s house. Now she couldn’t go back to that time before waking; it was over; her mother had vanished. Jummai returned, and there was a final washing of the body, this time with a soft sponge, soap and water, until the body was entirely clean, and a new scent rose up: the smell of camphor. Durah and Jummai towelled the body and A’isha’s auntie powdered and padded the underwear, which they struggled to pull on, and finally, when it was in place, they had to cover the flat pockets of Nafisa’s breasts with a brassiere. Nothing could have been more difficult than dressing the body with the requisite pieces of clothing, and all the while the air was becoming thickly humid as the morning progressed, yet the camphor overpowered the smell of death.

  A’isha’s auntie continued chanting as they shrouded the body. The head was covered, and now Nafisa was utterly gone. A white-veiled head: egg sac of a spider. And though A’isha tried to banish the memory, there was her mother’s face next to her own when she had been a child, her mother telling her the story of the spider, sent down to earth to fetch something. A’isha could hear her mother’s voice, could see her pretty, almond-shaped eyes, her mother’s younger face.

  To fetch what? asked A’isha.

  Oh, what did that spider have to fetch? said Nafisa. He didn’t know. That clever spider disguised himself and went back to find out, by spying, that he was supposed to get the sun, the moon, the dark, the light. And so off he went to get them.

  But he couldn’t do that, A’isha said.

  Yes, he could.

  Her mother’s fingers crawled up A’isha’s body, and soon they were both laughing.

  NAFISA HAD BEEN FULLY GOWNED in white. Her head was covered; her body was covered. Now A’isha’s auntie led them in shrouding her; they bound the shroud with the five ties and then the body was ready for burial, snowy white, a long, wrapped package lying on the counter. They lifted it, put it into a wooden coffin. Finally, they cleaned the room and took away all the cloths and towels. It was done. They had made her mother ready, and within minutes her body would be taken into the mosque for the prayers.

  Outside at the tap, A’isha washed her hands with soap along with the others, rinsed them, and took the towel Jummai handed her. Air. She breathed it in. Car exhaust, dust, a smell of rubber, but not the smell of death. She opened her palms under her nose after rubbing them with crushed bits of wilted hyssop that Durah handed her as they went back inside; her mother’s clean scent was the fragrance A’isha would carry with her. Now all of them gathered with the women where they could hear the imam beginning the salat al-janazah, the prayers.

  THE MEN GATHERED IN THE STREET behind those who carried the coffin. The sky was full of ragtag clouds, not the heavy reddish dust of harmattan. The dry season was upon them, though, and soon there would be sand everywhere. A’isha, her auntie, and her cousins clustered with the other women under an oleander tree where several young women fanned themselves with battery-operated fans taken from purses. A’isha could feel the air spun toward her face.

  Look now, said Durah. The police — they are so many.

  They are anticipating, said Jummai.

  Jummai didn’t say the police were anticipating trouble, and A’isha said nothing, knowing that she herself was the trouble. They all knew that she was the trouble. There had been riots in Minna and no one could say whether they had ended.

  So many, murmured Durah.

  It was strange not to be with Safiya for such a long time, especially now that A’isha’s milk was coming down and she could do nothing about the wetness coming through her blouse except try to cover it with her hijab. A mother who couldn’t do the job of mothering. She closed her eyes, swaying a little beside her auntie. A’isha dreaded being seen by people, knowing they would turn and whisper to one another, yet it must be done; all that protected her was the knowledge that she was doing it for her mother, for her mother’s soul, which she thought of now. It was a clean and pure soul, far cleaner and purer than A’isha’s, if indeed she had a soul. How strange it was to think of her mother’s soul apart from her body.

  Someone nudged her, Durah or Jummai, and she began to move forward with the others. Was it grief, the sense that she was slightly above the ground, shimmering? Why did she feel such peace, as if it were evening and she were holding Safiya, watching the patterns of leaf shadow on her daughter’s face? She walked slowly, aware only o
f other sandals and shoes, other feet slapping gently beside her own, as the women began to walk, behind A’isha’s uncle helping to bear the body, behind her other uncles and cousins, behind the men who knew the family. It was quiet outside the mosque, and policemen lined the road on either side under the trees; A’isha didn’t look at them, but she knew they were there, a dark, tense presence.

  And she knew they were passing the Madame Fine Chop Restaurant, with several rough tables and mismatched chairs, and the electrical supply shop, where Balarabi would be sitting, chewing in that cow-like way of his, so his entire mouth seemed to revolve. A’isha stepped aside to avoid a pothole, and it was about here that, if she glanced up, she’d see a little stall that sold bread and eggs and matches and batteries, and, beside it, the place, painted lime green, that sold mobiles in a glass cabinet, and, nearby, the bicycle shop where Musa worked. On a wall behind the shops was a hand-painted sign: No Urination.

  A’isha’s best shoes were thinly soled, and she could feel the press of stones underfoot. They passed a cluster of huts where someone was cooking over an open fire, and the smoke and roasting meat reminded A’isha of her hunger; near these huts was the cell tower, and close to it was Laila’s sewing shop with its black sewing machines made in China, and beside that, the pump where people got water in the early morning.

  They passed ancient Danladi, no more than a skeleton, who possessed only three teeth; A’isha could see the lower part of his wrapper of brown and yellow, his yellow plastic shoes, the staff against which he leaned. One of his eyes, she knew without looking, was a pale, milky blue, but he managed to see out of the other one. Because he wandered in the night, his sister used to leash him, though A’isha’s auntie heard she’d given it up and now he did as he pleased.

  They passed the huge banyan tree that had stood for generations on generations, a tree that was about as old as Danladi himself, Jummai said. A’isha wanted to reach out and touch it, as she often had as a child, straggling behind her mother after a long day at the market.

  Goodness lives in that tree, Nafisa told her.

  How do you know that? asked A’isha.

  I don’t, she said.

  Then why did you say it?

  I think because a tree like that has weathered many, many years, and it still opens its arms to the sky.

  All trees do that, said A’isha, doggedly.

  Her mother said nothing in reply, and A’isha thought she had won her point. But whenever she passed the tree, the question rose in her mind, and she wondered if the banyan looked kindly on her.

  THE WOMAN MUST HAVE BEEN waiting at the roadside; she seemed to pounce on A’isha. She blocked her path. A’isha’s eyes travelled from the woman’s shoes, turned in at the arches, all the way up to her face, but she didn’t recognize her.

  You are nothing but a harlot, a whore, the woman said, leaning close, so A’isha could smell her breath. She spoke fast in low, harsh tones that only A’isha could hear. You’re no better than that. I know you, she continued. I know what they’ve said. It’ll be a good thing when they —

  A’isha stared at the woman, stunned.

  It was Danladi, of all people, who appeared at her side. Danladi with his stick. He beat the ground several times at the woman’s feet, narrowly missing one of her shoes.

  Go, now, he said. Old baboon.

  Danladi might be ancient, but there was strength in his thin arms. And he was taller than the woman. Who had said that Danladi’s mind had slipped away from his body? It had not; he was in command.

  The woman flapped, or seemed to flap, sputtering.

  Danladi waited, stick raised, until she shuffled to the edge of the road, and A’isha remembered only when she watched the woman’s lopsided gait, her flat feet, and the way her left hip gave her trouble. It was one of her dead husband’s relatives, one of those who’d claimed the house from A’isha after her husband had died. Was there no end to this business?

  DURAH LINKED HER ARM in A’isha’s. Come, she said.

  A’isha would not stop here; no, she would not. She would go on, helped by Durah. They passed a flurry of children, one of them muttering about a ghost, an older boy scaring the younger ones, until someone shushed him. They passed more huts, and a rooster made a noisy cry, so the hens answered — cluck cluck-cluck — as they pecked in the dust of a compound. As they neared the cemetery, everyone stopped because of a traffic jam; they waited while the police cleared the road.

  A’isha raised her head. A girl was struggling to pull a goat away from the road, a goat whose mouth was lined with white foam. A sick animal. The child tried in a panic to haul it away, tugging the creature by the hind legs, and when the goat didn’t budge she tried again, ripping the pale-green dress that hung on her slender body; this time she pulled hard enough to yank the goat to the edge of the road, where it lay on its side between two cars.

  There was a gaping hole at the waist of the girl’s ugly dress. She looked down at it, picking at threads with her fingers, and A’isha knew she was already devising a way to fix it. But there was no fixing the goat; it would die. Someone might take it upon himself to kill it, and, as if coming to the same conclusion, the girl backed away from the animal, and stood on a narrow plank over a sewer ditch, balancing there, the skirt of her dress drooping where it had been torn. Aware that someone was watching her, she looked up, straight at A’isha, her large eyes all the larger because her face was small; it was a sweet, childish face. A’isha saw Safiya, grown into a girl.

  A’isha shifted her gaze to the ground, to her good shoes, faintly scuffed and layered with red, the same red soil that had already been dug in the cemetery so her mother’s body could be placed in it. Her feet ached, but she hardly registered this. Was her mother near, close enough to brush A’isha’s ear? She closed her eyes, swaying. This was not the end of it. It was not the end. She was lifted, floating on rocking waves of light she’d felt earlier. A mosquito-small thought passed through her: she felt this way because she was thirsty, because she was exhausted, because she had been called a whore, because it had been difficult, preparing her mother’s body, because they were standing in the road in the glare of a sun that had come out from behind the clouds.

  Why did she sense joy and not sorrow? Why did a glow radiate within and without her? Her whole body was dazzled with it, tingling from the top of her head to her neck and shoulders down to her fingers, from her legs down to her toes. She felt lifted up, lifted out of the world. A’isha opened her eyes, and though she felt very tired, the glow within her didn’t diminish as she stared at the velvety red dirt. She would not leave Safiya, no. She would do whatever she could for her daughter. She must live.

  A policeman came over to inspect the dying goat, and the girl in the green dress, sensing trouble, vanished as if she were nothing more than a soap bubble, a bright, iridescent, wobbling thing that left no trace.

  21

  ____

  MONICA FELL ON THOMAS, holding him, weeping, standing back from him, weeping. Thomas-ooooo! she yelped, and fell on him again. But why? Why did you not tell me? And Jacob, you are here. Are you well? You are living, you are living-o! Come into the house, come inside now now. Yes, come. It is the middle of the night! Here is Hortensia to see you!

  Jacob smiled broadly, eyes shining.

  Hortensia, in her cotton shift, came sleepily down the hall, and Thomas caught her up in his arms. He kissed her and tickled her until she could not stop giggling.

  You have no car, went on Monica. She was laughing and crying, crying and laughing; her hands had flown to her face. How did you come? And your clothes — whose clothes are these? You are like tramps.

  You have a big hole, said Hortensia.

  In my shirt, a big hole! said Thomas, sticking his hand through the hole so she laughed.

  Andrew and Jonathan came running.

  Oh-ho, two young tramps! said Thomas. Andrew, Jonathan! He swung them in circles so they hooted and hollered.

  No car, no
money, said Jacob. We footed it some part of the way. He showed Monica how one shoe had come apart. See now! He laughed.

  But what happened? she said.

  Thieves took us. They took our car.

  Carjacking, said Jacob.

  But Clare has your car. Doesn’t she?

  Clare is living? She is well?

  Yes, she’s very well, but worried about you. She is in Minna.

  We must go. To Clare. We must go there.

  Monica laughed, swatting the air as if to get rid of flies. Yes, we will go, but now it is not yet morning!

  Thomas got down on his knees and hugged Hortensia, tousled her hair.

  Daddy, said Hortensia. You’re crying.

  I am crying-o.

  22

  ____

  FELIX HAD BEEN MOVED FROM MINNA, and now he was in intensive care in the hospital in Abuja. Within one day he’d worsened; he was being given fluids and antibiotics, and nurses were checking on him frequently. There was the possibility he had sepsis. In this new hospital, everything was white and blue tiled, sparkling with light, terrifying. Dr. Osungwe had come immediately after Felix had arrived, and she’d given orders quickly. Faith, one of the nurses, took blood from Felix as Sophie, Grace, and Serena watched. Already she had two vials of burgundy-coloured blood.

  When will you know if it’s — if he’s — said Grace.

  Dr. Osungwe said, Rest assured that we will do everything we can for him.

  The swift efficiency should have comforted Sophie, but she felt she was at the bottom of a pond with Felix drowning beside her. Rest assured. If it was sepsis, there was a danger of his organs failing, a danger of his body being overwhelmed by infection. Sophie sat with him, his unresponsive hand in her hand. Grace and Serena sat on the other side of the bed. Where had he gone? Sophie left to find a washroom and came back to find Grace sobbing in her daughter’s arms. Serena had her arms around Grace, had tucked her mother’s head against her chest. It was private; it was between them.