Alusani complained of a headache. I didn’t care. He said he wanted to lie down. As he turned away I saw his face had a look that was sly, one eyelid drooped. My mother told me to run and fetch the herbalist, have her bring her pan of herbs. Afterwards I sat on the step outside while the woman did her work. I watched the people arriving for prayers and leaving. Twice. Maybe three times, even. I waited there a long time, in case I was needed to run another errand. When I heard my mother call my name I jumped up and went inside, swaying in the sudden darkness. My mother sat on the side of the cot, stroking her son’s face. I had never seen her cry, but now I did. Karabom sat at the other end of the bed, holding my brother’s feet in her hands. My mother beckoned me to sit down and I did so. I bent my head down, and felt Alusani’s breath against my cheek, and waited. He spoke. I could barely hear him.
‘Brine’, he said.
And, though it took me time, I understood. The answer to the last riddle. What do you give a thirsty stranger to drink? Brine. Then Alusani closed his eyes.
My brother was dead. What else do you want to know? That’s how it happened.
How you look at me so?
You’ve guessed, guessed it didn’t happen that way at all. Well then, you are right. You’re cleverer than I thought. Yes, it is just wishful thinking. I wish there had been no fire between us the day Alusani died. Alusani complained of a headache, that much is true. And his eye, the sly look — that is true, too. But he died alone in the afternoon while I went about my errands and my mother counted stones in my father’s parlour. He went to sleep and never got up again.
We buried Alusani in a treeless plot on the outskirts of the graveyard. That same day I won my mother back. Every season, when she cooked the first pot of new rice, my mother had taken a knife and scored a line inside the lid of the wooden chest where she kept her most precious belongings. As we grew up she stopped bothering to count our anniversaries. Now the fear began to spread like a shadow at dusk. Alusani would return for me — because our spirit was cleaved in two.
What can I tell you? That she fed me treats, the way she had with Alusani? Or that she let me sleep in her bed on those nights when my father went to visit her co-wives? Maybe she allowed me to abandon my chores while she kept me by her side and let me pass the days playing childish games. I wish it had been that way. But the fear tainted her like dye dropped into water. Alusani, who had been her beloved, now became the very being she most dreaded. Determined not to let him have his way, she fought him for possession of me.
Pa Yamba fashioned talismans, coated them with saliva and betel nut juice, and dangled them from my neck and around my waist. I stood in his hut. It was dark and feverishly hot. Vapours from the fire filled the air, burning my lungs. At our house I saw my mother on her knees scratching a hole in the floor with her bare hands and she placed the amulet Pa Yamba had given her in the dark space. But in the morning the fear was back, more monstrous than before. I can’t tell you the times we waded across the stream to the opposite bank where the diviner lived. My mother begged him to conjure ever more powerful charms. But it was never enough. She had become the man who has convinced himself that his neighbour is out to steal his goat and builds a thousand fences around it.
We were standing in the market when my mother overheard a conversation between two women. One, a tray of smoked fish balanced on her head, claimed a moriman had rid her of a troublesome rival who would have put her out of business. My mother did not care what these women thought of her, the wife of a big man, and interrupted their talk. But the fish seller was flattered and answered my mother’s questions. The moriman had instructed her to sweep up her rival’s footsteps and to bring the dust. This was what she told us. And so in the amber light of evening we searched the corners of the house until we found one of Alusani’s footprints. I cried easily to see the shape of his foot in the earth. I wanted my mother to comfort me, but her face was flat and she went about the business briskly. The next morning she woke me early to walk to the town where the moriman lived. And there I knelt and watched all that remained of Alusani go up in flames.
And so it went for months. How many magic men I could not count. One splashed a liquid in my eyes that stung for a long time — to stop me from seeing Alusani and wanting to go to him. There were times I had a powerful medicine made from boiled roots rubbed all over my limbs. The moriman said it would deter wicked spirits. People believed these things then. My mother believed them, too. I did not. I was miserable. I smelled like rice left in the pot for days, slimy and sour. I was ashamed.
My mother was the senior wife. There was a time when I was so pleased with myself that I was the daughter of the most important of the wives. She paid the workers their wages and held the keys to the store; she ordered the provisions and hired the servants; it was she who had the authority to decide which of the women should cook for my father, or travel with him when he went away on business. I found there was nobody to help me. My grandmother shared her daughter’s fears. Even my father would not confront my mother, for she was older than him in years.
* * *
I was sitting outside our house on a stool with my tray on the ground before me, preparing ogere to sell in the market, wrapping the balls of fermented sesame seeds in leaves and tying the packages with raffia. I used to make the ogere myself, standing over the pot, stirring the seeds which boiled for the whole day. Then I would spread them out on rice bags and lay heavy rocks on top of them. After three days, I pounded the fermenting seeds into a paste with my pestle and mortar.
Ogere tastes good, but you know how bad it smells. That’s why we never cook it inside the house. Always on the three-stone fire in the yard. At that time it seemed a good job for me. I smelled so bad anyway.
Those days my chest felt bruised. I was growing breasts, though I didn’t know it. Your uncle saw me. And he knew what he saw. And he stopped and talked to me nicely for a while. I watched him walk away, swinging his prayer beads in his hand, his body outlined by the wind beneath his white gown, and I let my imagination follow him down the street. I saw the power of his shoulders, the strength of his arms and the narrowness of his waist. I did not notice the weakness in the line of his jaw. The next day he came back with a gift: a bowl of scented roseapples. He ate one, and afterwards he handed me an apple and had me eat it. But with every bite I took all I tasted was the raw ogere, it overpowered the sweet fruit and made me nauseous. Your uncle appeared not to notice. I saw a man who was kind to me, and I saw the way to free myself from my mother. I ran from the smoke straight into the fire.
There’s not much more to tell. It’s a true story. You never knew my name was Yankay, the firstborn. That I was once a twin. That I had a brother Alusani, the other half of my soul. Or that I grew jealous of him and longed for my mother to look at me, without knowing what it was I wished for. And how I watched a man with skin like the shadows of the moon collecting the souls of lost children in the forest.
One day you married one of these men and brought him home. As soon as I saw him so close I could not help myself. I reached out my hand and I touched his skin. And it was warm, so warm — not cold like sea water. But I made you ashamed and afterwards I heard you whispering, making apologies for me you thought I was too deaf to hear.