The Hundred Wells of Salaga

by Ayesha Harruna Attah

  “Pray over it,” said Jaji, as Wurche untied Baki.

  They waved goodbye, and Wurche made for the big afternoon market, wondering, as she had all the way from Kpembe to Salaga and even as she spoke to Jaji, whether Moro was in the back room. She’d told herself she’d visit her teacher, buy salt, and return to Kpembe, but a knot had grown in her belly and she was convinced that the only way to uncoil it was to go the back room. Just to make sure he wasn’t there.

  When she and Fatima had played their game, she hadn’t thought it inherently wrong, but she knew if they were seen, they would get in trouble, which is exactly what had happened when Mma caught them. Not long after that, she and Jaji studied a poem about the path of truth. When asked how she stayed on the elusive path of righteousness, Jaji said, “The text says, ‘Stop straying from the path.’ The word ‘straying’ is key here. It recognizes that we’re human and that, sometimes, we do things continually, over and over, until we get them right. We all get more than one chance. I usually just pray and stop repeating my mistakes.”

  Wurche inched Baki forward, willing herself to change her mind. Saying a prayer of sorts. Stop repeating your mistakes. What would she say to Moro when she saw him? Would she bring up the baby? Stop repeating your mistakes. She cut across the road that would take her back to Kpembe and considered going home, making up some excuse to Mma about the salt. But that became a passing thought, because she kept on, crossed the ruined mosque, entered the market, and stopped before the hut she and Moro had made their lover’s den. Stop repeating your mistakes. She tied Baki to the tree next to the building and made for the door.

  “Salaam alaikum!” she shouted, but no one responded.

  The door was locked. Disappointment met relief. She went back to her horse, her trusty Baki, and began untying the knot she’d made.

  “Ah ha!” shouted a voice, accompanied by three loud claps. It was Maigida, Moro’s landlord friend. She’d never seen him outside or standing up. He was about half her size, with ashy skin. He needed sun. “Your man-friend left his slave here and hasn’t come back for her. It’s costing me money. Feeding her alone…”

  “Lower your voice,” Wurche said through gritted teeth. She tightened the knot. “And don’t call him my man-friend.”

  “I’m sorry. You see…you can’t trust anyone in this town anymore. He was one of the last trustworthy ones.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “A week ago.” So Moro was still coming to Salaga. “Come inside.” They went into the cold room and he offered Wurche a cowskin. “He bought this girl from another of my buyers. He was thrilled, but now he’s left her here and I’ve received no message from him.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “He said Kete–Krachi, and that he would return, latest, in three days. It’s day seven. I could make a lot of money selling her to someone else. I’m a good man, but my patience is wearing thin.”

  Moro sold people. He didn’t buy them, thought Wurche. Why was he buying this girl? “Show her to me.”

  “Follow me, please.”

  They walked to the market. Laughter, loud conversations, drumbeats, dogs barking, singing, butchers hacking at meat, bells ringing. Everywhere Wurche turned, there was a flurry of activity. It amazed her how resilient human beings were. Things were broken, but life went on. Maigida greeted continually and stopped before a group of people chained to each other.

  “This one.” He pointed to a girl a few years younger than Wurche. She looked up at Maigida, her expression accusing him of something. Her skin was reddish like the laterite in the market, her hair was plaited in cornrows, her haughty nose came to a point, her lips were full and her breasts were small and perky. Wurche’s heart contracted and the feeling slid into her belly. For seconds, words abandoned her. The girl was beautiful. What had Moro planned to do with her?

  “I’ll take her,” Wurche said, nauseous. From spending time with Moro, the whole idea of slavery had grown questionable to her and, yet, in a heartbeat, without pausing, she’d offered to buy someone.

  Maigida’s face changed. He didn’t seem pleased, but said nothing. Then it hit Wurche. The Kpembewura was usually given unsold slaves as gifts. Maigida probably thought she was asking to be given the girl for free. When the old Kpembewura was alive, Shaibu and the other princes picked slaves with impunity, leaving many landlords fuming. Wurche did not want to be anything like Shaibu. She rummaged in the pocket of her smock. She had cowries for Mma’s salt and a few more she carried whenever she came to Salaga, which she seldom spent.

  “How much?” she asked.

  Disposition changed, Maigida clapped his hands and led Wurche by the arm.

  “Let’s go back inside to discuss price,” he said. “We don’t sell out in the open.”

  “How much were you selling her to Moro for?”

  “Well, you know he’s a friend…”

  “Fine. Tell him I outbid him. No need to make the process long.”

  Moro was buying her at 250 cowries. Girls were usually 400. The landlord settled for 300. He started talking about how some of his clients enjoyed bargaining for bargaining’s sake. Some of them spent entire afternoons there just to get the upper hand. He shut up when he saw that Wurche was looking at the door.

  There was the problem of how to transport the girl to Kpembe. She would have to ride with Wurche. Mma was going to have several fits. No salt. A slave on a horse. Mma said once that if a commoner sat on a horse, its lifetime was shortened.

  The landlord went back and unshackled the girl. She stood as tall as Wurche. The pain returned to Wurche’s chest. It was pure, uncontaminated jealousy. And more. Something like attraction.

  “What does she speak?”

  “Tell her,” said the landlord, but the girl continued to stare at him with eyes that condemned him for some wrongdoing. “Hausa,” he said. “Some Twi, I believe.”

  “Very well,” said Wurche. “What’s your name?”

  The girl looked at Wurche, didn’t say anything at first. Her eyes darted up and down as she studied her, deciding whether or not to speak.

  “Aminah,” she said, finally.

  Aminah

  The woman with the short hair and man’s smock walked Aminah across the market and bought her a cotton smock, which Aminah gratefully put on. They moved wordlessly. The boyish woman strode ahead and Aminah followed, befuddled. The only clear thing was that the man who was supposed to have bought her hadn’t shown up, and Maigida had sold her to the boyish woman. They stopped before a horse with a coat so black and shiny she was sure she would catch her reflection in it.

  “Up,” barked the boyish woman in Hausa, but Aminah stood still.

  Before Aminah could think of how to get up, the boyish woman shoved her against the horse, grabbed her waist as if she were a child, and hoisted Aminah up with her shoulders. The woman’s fingers pressed into Aminah’s rib cage so she scrambled up to end the discomfort. The boyish woman then climbed up in front like a monkey, took Aminah’s hands and clasped them around her waist. They set off so fast that Aminah was sure she would fall, but the woman had control of the creature. The roughness of the smock scratched Aminah’s skin and the woman’s leather bag poked her stomach, but fear had seized her throat. They climbed up out of the valley and the sand jagged into rocky land, with spurts of tall grass. Aminah imagined that once they breasted the top of the incline, she would look down and see Botu. She would jump off the horse, run, taste the soil, and then return to embrace this woman who’d saved her. But when they plateaued, they met large trees lining a golden-brown path. A gust of wind blew through, scattering fallen leaves. It was not Botu.

  “Get down,” ordered the woman.

  It was quite a height. The boyish woman leapt down and reached for Aminah, beckoning her down. With much trepidation, Aminah held on to the woman’s outstretched hand, but stil
l couldn’t jump, her body glued to the horse. After a loud, annoyed sigh, the woman tugged her with such force that she fell off. The woman got back on her horse with ease and trotted ahead. Aminah dusted off the red dirt and followed, surprised that she’d been allowed to ride the horse and now suddenly wasn’t wanted. Was it because of the odor of her body?

  Fifteen minutes later, they arrived in another town, smaller and more solemn than Salaga. Missing were the sounds that gave Salaga its heartbeat, its special flavor: the muezzin’s call, dogs barking, a drunk—always a drunk—singing his way home, bells, drums, lazy cocks crowing after the morning had already begun, more muezzin calls, the voices of people buying and selling, loud laughter, continuing until evening.

  Girls were playing outside a hut and Husseina and Hassana flitted back into Aminah’s mind. Had they found each other? She hoped she would see them again. She thought she had numbed herself of feeling—happiness, sadness, nostalgia—but seeing these girls made her realize she wasn’t at all numb. She missed her family. She willed herself to look away from the children, who were now watching her, the same way they’d stared in Botu every time a new person came by. As they continued on, the gazes of the girls burned into her back.

  They stopped before a bright white house with two big rocks flanking an entrance, through which the woman went. She dismounted, landing on a smooth floor made of a thousand tiny mirror shards, reflecting light on everything. She led the horse into a room to the left of the entrance. Aminah craned her neck and saw three more horses. The boyish woman had to be wealthy, thought Aminah. Several huts lined the courtyard, and Aminah was led into a small one with a blue-and-white striped curtain draped in front of its door. The woman called out in a language Aminah had heard for the first time in Salaga. She preferred it to the language of Wofa Sarpong—this one almost sounded as if a gong were being beaten when people spoke. Out shuffled an old woman. She was round in a way Eeyah was not. Her eyes, nose, even her mouth were round. And yet, she made Aminah think of her grandmother. She decided that all old people look alike. Their cheekbones, their jaws, their pleated necks. The two women exchanged heated words, then the boyish woman turned to Aminah and spoke in Hausa.

  “Mma, my grandmother,” she said. The old lady welcomed Aminah into her room, where she sank into a bed raised with blocks of sand. Between the old woman and the wall lay a sleeping baby. The baby was curled like a leaf and looked so peaceful, Aminah found herself strangely envious of him. The two women’s voices went up again and, as if they remembered the baby at the same time, they stopped speaking in unison and watched Aminah, whose feet fused with the ground. Then the old lady spoke.

  “You’re here to help Wurche, my granddaughter, take care of her baby,” she said. The baby was four months old, and Aminah’s tasks were to bathe him, feed him, put him to bed. When he slept, she was to help around the house, cooking and cleaning. “Rest today. There’s plenty to do in the coming days.”

  Aminah couldn’t believe the boyish woman had had a baby. She was a pole. She also wondered, as they left Mma’s hut for the one next to it, when someone like Wofa Sarpong would appear. Wurche unlocked the door and inside were a mat, an army of pots and pans coated with dust, and piles of sand gathered along the base of the walls. She pushed the window open. The tinny smell of metal grew stronger the longer they stayed in the room. Wurche showed Aminah to the cooking area, an open shed with metal pans, clay pots and utensils piled on a low, wide table. Under the table were brooms, mats, hoes and digging tools, more pots and pans. Wurche left Aminah with a broom and returned with arms overflowing with clothes, which Aminah presumed were to be washed.

  “They are yours,” said Wurche. “I’ve never worn them and never will.”

  Who were Wurche and her people? They were treating Aminah too well. How long would the hospitality last? She took out the mat in the room and shook it out; crusty bits of dried grass broke into her hand. As she returned the broom to the kitchen, a man limped out of the hut across the way. He came towards her, saying something in the language Mma and Wurche had spoken. Aminah shook her head. He tried Hausa.

  “I haven’t seen you here before,” he said.

  Aminah said she was looking after Wurche’s baby. He said he was Wurche’s older brother, Sulemana. And if Aminah needed anything, to go to him for help. She was sure she would do no such thing. The kind treatment was agreeable, but it was as if she were wearing borrowed clothes that were too small. Or like she was holding her breath, and exhaling would make everything fall apart. She stared at her fingers, raw after repeated biting. Back in the room she’d been given, she closed her eyes, her thoughts all over the place. What had happened to the man who intended to buy her? How long would she stay with these people?

  She didn’t know when she fell asleep, but when she woke—with a start—the room was bathed in black. She panicked. She should have been outside, helping with the food. Once, on Wofa Sarpong’s farm, she took a nap and slept past dinnertime. His first wife called her lazy and made her search for firewood with no help from the other girls for a month.

  Outside, three children about Hassana’s age played with small empty tins. Mma sat on a stool beside a tiny woman, who Aminah found out was Wurche’s aunt. They didn’t mention anything about Aminah oversleeping. Instead, Mma gave her a huge calabash and asked her to fetch water. She pointed in the direction of Sulemana’s room. Aminah didn’t understand how a water hole would be in there, but when she got closer, she came to a well surrounded by a ring of large stones, next to which was a small bowl for fetching. She filled the calabash and returned it to Mma, who poured it onto large cuts of meat. Everything suggested that these were wealthy people. Water right there in the courtyard, horses, enormous chunks of meat. Mma passed Aminah a bowl of onions, and she looked approving as she sliced through the first. Aminah was so proud, then, that Na had taught her well. This was sudden: her need to impress. She had spent the last two years not caring.

  Mma scooped a handful of shea butter into a pot, which she placed and adjusted on a three-mounded hearth. It was just like at home in Botu. Three small hills fused with the earth.

  Wurche came out of her room, balancing the baby on her hip. Now that he was awake, he looked half her size. Aminah had never seen such a huge baby. Wurche handed him to Mma. Aminah was almost done laying out the raffia mats for dinner when a man stepped out of the hut closest to the entrance. He was tall, wearing an elaborate smock with a piece of cloth folded on his shoulder. He had to be Wurche’s father. Their faces had the same round shape. Immediately, Aminah curtsied like they did for older men in Botu.

  The man said something in the language of Salaga, his voice booming. Then gestured for Aminah to get up.

  “She’s the girl taking care of Wumpini,” said Mma in Hausa. Not long after, Mma whispered with sour, onion-flavored breath, “He’s the King of Salaga and Kpembe. I’m sure Wurche didn’t tell you, but it’s important you know.”

  Aminah nodded, dumbfounded. The hair on her arms stood up and her skin pocked. No wonder. How had she ended up in the King of Salaga’s court?

  A large man came out of Wurche’s room, trailed by Wurche, and Aminah understood that he was her husband.

  When everyone sat down to eat, Mma dished out rice onto three large platters and Aminah poured the meat sauce over the rice, her hand trembling as she felt the King of Salaga’s piercing gaze on her. She was nervous because he was king, but also because she was reminded of the man from the caravan, the one whose hand had traveled to places it shouldn’t have. And as Aminah tried to focus on the food, the king’s gaze never left her. Same with Sulemana. Wurche’s husband was the only man not looking at her.

  After dinner, Aminah followed Wurche to her room to clean the baby. The room breathed! To get from the floor to the ceiling, would take three people. Chests and baskets large enough to hide a person lined the circular walls of the room, and still there was space. She saw he
rself in a mirror slanted against the wall next to the window and wished she hadn’t looked. Her skin stuck to her bones. Her cornrows had joined in a matted mess, and her eyes were ringed in a darker shade than the rest of her face. Were the men staring at her because she looked sickly? To her, beautiful was Na during pregnancy. In spite of her sadness, Na’s skin had looked as smooth as the silt by the water hole, her hair had grown thick, and when she combed it out, one was tempted to sink into its cottony curls. This reflection in the mirror was not beautiful.

  The baby gargled as she wiped his plump body with a wet cloth. His father came in and out, and each time, Aminah caught him looking at his wife. She had seen it before, that look. It was the same one that Baba gave Na when she was resolved to win an argument. If it wasn’t a look of love, it was certainly admiration. It was too early to begin to understand everyone, but Aminah prayed to Otienu that this house wouldn’t have a Wofa Sarpong or, even worse, his son. She was already scared of the king, but she hoped his position required him to be honorable.

  “When you get used to him,” Wurche said suddenly, “you’ll keep him until he falls asleep.”

  * * *

  —

  When Wumpini was about eight months old, after Aminah had been at Wurche’s for about four months, his father came to her. It was afternoon. Everyone was napping and she was playing outside with Wumpini, who refused to sleep and kept garbling. Adnan crouched before her and stared. He was the last person she expected that from. He usually just smiled, or called out her name as if it were a song, but the only person he had eyes for was his wife. Aminah and Adnan hardly interacted. Steeling herself, she prepared for his proposal. She didn’t like the feeling of being sewn up every time she encountered a man—it was exhausting. Would he want the same as Wofa Sarpong? Or more? What about Wurche? Even though she didn’t seem to care for Adnan, she would surely kill Aminah if she found out her husband was doing things with her. Wurche was not one of Wofa Sarpong’s docile wives.