Osman did not care that he flaunted marriage customs. One, two, three nights he was with her. And then a fourth night. I began to wonder if I would ever lie with my husband again. I wanted more children, yes. But there was something else. I was ashamed to think of it. Despite myself I was gripped by a craving I could not quell. One morning I saw Osman sitting at the front of the house waiting for Mabinty to bring his shirt. Dressed only in his trousers, slippers half on his feet, naked to the waist. I found my eyes drawn to the spirals of hair scattered across his chest, the deep ridges of his stomach in which drops of sweat glistened, the dark trail that led down from his belly button and disappeared into the waistband of his trousers. He caught me watching him and quickly I looked away.
Liquid like melted moonlight: pale, opaque, translucent. Ngadie handed me the enamel mug, hitched up her skirts and sat down on a log. The palm wine had fermented in the heat of the day. It was strong and vinegary, faintly fizzy. I took a sip, and then another, felt the trickle of warmth reach my belly. All was quiet. We were far from the house in a small clearing surrounded by palm trees: raphia palms, oil palms, coconut palms. I had already tasted the wine from all three. When I was a child I had once tried the first sap, the juice collected early in the morning. It was sweet, clear and innocent to drink. Nothing like this. I sipped again.
Ngadie had once possessed a great beauty. The traces were there in the perfect symmetry of her lips; in the gap between her front teeth considered so desirable in a woman; in the dimple on her chin that was now no more than a smudge in the soft flesh. There was delicacy, too, in the turn of her wrist as she poured the palm wine. And regret in the trembling of her fingers.
I realised, watching her, that I did not know what her face looked like when she smiled. I had never heard her laugh. I took a kola nut, split it, and passed half to her. She hesitated, her eyes held mine for a moment. Then she accepted it and thanked me.
What had become of Osman’s father? I asked. Ngadie paused, the edge of the cup rested on her lower lip.
‘A great man,’ she replied. ‘Loved by his people.’ Osman had not known his father. He had been a leader who defied the pothos when they came crowning chiefs. Osman’s father was one who resisted. ‘He warned his brothers not to trust the pothos. He told them no white man ever gave anything without wanting more in return. They didn’t listen.’ The leaders seized the gifts they were offered, signing away their lands and their power with a thumbprint. In return they were given a wooden staff with a brass handle and an upholstered chair bearing the arms of the potho queen. As for Osman’s father, the pothos deposed him and gave his position to a man from a rival clan. He was forced to leave his people and went to live on the other side of the land. He died. Osman grew up in his mother’s family, working on the land while the sons of the new chief grew fat. Osman resented his family’s poverty terribly.
Ngadie told me there were many people who believed Osman’s father had been right and those people also imagined Osman had inherited his father’s spirit. They waited for him to come and lead them. Osman’s mother shared this belief, but the truth was, the people waited in vain. Osman did not have the stomach to be a leader. He accepted their accolades but shunned the challenge.
Balia was the daughter of one of his father’s closest advisors who had joined him in exile, betrothed to Osman when they were still children. As for Ngadie, Osman had seen her beauty and wanted her for himself. Ngadie rejected his advances but Osman bided his time. The day after her father’s store of seed yams burned in a fire, Osman arrived with a proposal of marriage. Her father used the bride price to rebuild his barns.
I wondered silently how Ngadie and Balia could tolerate this empty life.
Ngadie swilled the liquid in her cup and spoke as if in answer to my question: ‘For me and Balia, it’s over. If Osman leaves us alone — then all the better.’
In his return to form Osman made a daunting adversary. He relished my humiliation. He shamed me in public: for the way I dressed, the fashion in which I styled my hair, the expression on my face. In front of his uncles he ordered me to remove a dish of fourah cakes I had prepared, insisting they were not fit to serve to guests. The room fell silent. Osman’s mother was quick to support her son.
‘Useless girl. No good in the kitchen!’ As for Ngadie and Balia, they averted their eyes when I passed. I pretended to myself it didn’t matter. Osman made people think I was a bad wife, so what?
Kadie was asleep on the bed, curled and sucking her thumb. I sat on the floor and stared into the mirror. This was what I had become — a woman who existed only as what she saw reflected in the eyes of others. I was sorry for myself and sorry for the daughter I had brought to this place.
As the days passed I tried to avoid giving Osman a reason to belittle me. I spoke only when I was spoken to, I cooked several different dishes each night it was my turn to cook — chicken rolled in spices and roasted over an open fire, yams and hot-pepper soup, fried fish and cassava bread. The time came when if he deigned to taste even one of them I sighed with relief. All day I observed his face searching for signs that might alert me to his mood.
Do you see how I was becoming like all those other women — Osman’s mother, his sisters, Balia, Ngadie? All I wanted to do was to avoid the pain of humiliation. Oh, how quickly that simple wish transformed into a desperation to please, so quickly I did not even see it happening in myself. My senses were numbed, I behaved like a sleepwalker. The days passed steadily, weeks turned into months. By that time I was treating Osman as a god.
Then came the morning when Osman told me I should come to his room that night. All that day, as I waited for the evening to come, I could not concentrate on the simplest task. Twice I burned the rice until Ngadie removed the pot from my hands and gently ushered me away from the cooking place. Kind Ngadie. The dish she cooked was one of Osman’s favourites. That evening I claimed it as my own and watched as Osman ate two helpings, while I managed no more than a few mouthfuls. The next night and the next she did me the same kindness.
I lay in the bed with my arms down by my sides. The last time it had been so different. Before I was shy, yes — a new bride — and yet every movement was right. This time I reached across and touched him. ‘I’m here,’ I said.
How could I have known these things happened to men? I had been brought up to believe men were always in a state of desire. Our mothers told us to cover ourselves when we came back from bathing. In case a man should see us. There was even a plant that grew, that closed up when you touched it with your fingertips, sometimes all you had to do was breathe upon it and the tiny ferns came together and sealed like a pair of fans. Bom mompneh runi ngang ang bek, it was called. Cover yourself, there’s a man coming. A woman’s modesty and a man’s desire were what made us different from each other. Yet I knew that I felt desire, even lying there next to the man I no longer loved.
That first night Osman rejected me I was wretched. I cannot tell you. Later, alone, I wept bitterly. Osman was ashamed though he would not show it. The second night I slipped out of my gown and lay naked beside him, I tried to reassure him, stroking him gently. But Osman covered his own shortcomings by blaming me, I was too forward he said. No modesty. On the third and final night, when it happened again he pointed his finger at me and called me a witch.
The next night Osman spent with Mabinty. I sat on my bed. I did not sleep. I stared into the blackness, I tried to see my future but I could see nothing. In the morning my eyes were sore from lack of sleep, I breathed deeply and walked out to the cooking place to prepare breakfast for Kadie. At the door I stopped and stared. There was Mabinty, sitting on a stool, weeping and loudly blowing her nose on her head-tie.