Ancestor Stones Page 14

  High on the hill, up above Old Railway Line on the road that winds down to the city. That’s where I saw her. Walking with her hand on her hip. Sashaying. Like a woman who has just seen her lover coming down the street. Her felt hat was pushed back over her head, swinging by the cord around her neck. Her socks crumpled around her ankles. She placed one foot directly in front of the other. Like so. The hips swung, the hat bounced along behind her. It was her. I knew it at once. The jolt it gave me was like an electric shock, a flicker of heat across my skin that brought me out in a momentary sweat.

  I tried to turn around to see her properly, but I was caught between the women on either side of me in the taxi. I felt a twinge in my neck. The pain pulled me back, as if to say — what foolishness is this?

  Of course I knew it wasn’t her. I never really thought it. Just the fleeting glimpse of a silhouette that reminded me of her. And as the taxi turned down King Harman Road I looked around, not to double-check exactly, but to see the disappearing figure just once more.

  The other girls nicknamed her Marie Palaver. Over time a syllable slipped out unnoticed: Marie Plaba. She was troublesome. Cussed. She was my first friend. And I couldn’t believe my own good fortune. To some people we were an odd couple. I could see as much reflected in Sister Anthony’s smile, though she encouraged the friendship between us. She thought I was a good influence.

  The mission was built on top of the old graveyard. Nobody really wanted the nuns here, or their school. But the obai was worried about giving offence, so he let them have a piece of land no one cared about. Outside the dormitory window you could see the outlines in the earth, like old flower beds. The trees with upturned candelabra blooms: there was only one place where they were planted in such abundance.

  The new girls were always afraid. Afraid of what they had heard. Fearful of the nuns who were as pale as the dead. And had a way of looking at you, but not seeing you. Even when you were walking towards them, their eyes would just glide over you. Then at the last minute, just when you had convinced yourself you maybe didn’t exist, they would greet you. For most of us it was the first time we had ever seen people like that, with eyes of coloured glass and hair like saffron threads. Well, it’s true I had once seen the District Commissioner in the place where we lived. Still it was strange to be up so close to them. I didn’t know how to behave exactly. When the Reverend Mother addressed me I drew my hand up to my forehead and saluted, as I had seen the Court Messengers do. Marie sniggered at that. It was the first time I noticed her.

  In the dormitory where there was a shortage of beds — when they saw the world changing the local people changed too, and decided now they wanted to send their daughters to the nuns’ school — some of the girls shared a single bunk lying top to toe. I lay in the crook of Marie’s body, sharing a pillow, and listened to the ghost stories she made up late into the night.

  Marie told me stories of women and their night-husbands; women lured away from the river bank when they went to fetch water; women who were visited by bush spirits and later gave birth to their children. Marie’s mother had been a birth attendant. Once she had seen a spirit child for herself. It had two faces and four arms and legs. You could see it was part human. Born dead. It lay on the floor wrapped in an old cloth.

  The school caretaker was a one-legged man. He was the only person I have ever seen like that who did not use crutches. He hopped everywhere, tall and straight, a human pogo stick. Sometimes when the wind called and the building creaked there were strange bangs and thumps. Marie said it was One-Foot Jombee, hopping through the dark on his one good leg.

  I was thrilled and yet I was afraid. Afraid of the stories. And as I lay there listening to her I was afraid too that the end was near and would take with it the sound of her voice.

  I would go to sleep and dream strange dreams. A palm tree with leaves of human hair. A chair made of living flesh and bones and skin that was rooted to the ground. A snake wearing a red cloth embroidered with cowrie shells. The white nuns with skin like eels’ beneath their habits and long flowing hair hidden under their wimples. I dreamed I hid behind a coconut tree and watched them cast off their clothes and slip into the sea like Mammy Wata.

  These visions began to enter my thoughts even when I was wide awake. Not so I thought they were actually there before my eyes. No. More like a flashing picture that appeared and just as quickly disappeared. After it I felt weakened, and that made me know it must have been the work of some kind of devil. In morning Mass I prayed to God and to the Virgin Mary, in the hope that the dreams were messages from Heaven. The answer never came, but I noticed that when I was praying the visions stayed away.

  A class in Idaho had raised the money for my baptism. They chose my new name and sent it in a letter to the bishop, who came up to the school and baptised all those girls who had new names. Mary. Not so different from Mariama. As thanks I sent them back a bouquet of prayers. Twenty Our Fathers, Thirty Holy Bes, a dozen Masses and Communions, and because they had given me her name — one hundred Hail Marys. At the bottom of the letter I signed my new name with rounded letters and a long looped ‘y’ at the end.

  Pagan babies. That’s what we were. We knew our baptisms were paid for through something called the Pagan-Baby Project, only somehow we never realised we were those babies.

  We were two. Marie and Mary. Mary and Marie.

  In the walled gardens on the other side of the road that we tended before morning Mass and after vespers grew every kind of vegetable. We were almost entirely self-sufficient, with the exception of rice, meat, fish and palm oil which two of us were sent to the market to buy in the mornings. The school was on an island. It was quite a large island, with a small town: Tihun. And several fishing villages, a church and a boys’ school. The town was a long walk, and so we went to the market in Baiama on the big island on the other side of the inlet, crossing the water in the launch along with fishwives and petty traders. At those times I would lift my chin into the wind and taste the salt. Or else I looked down at the dark shapes: the rocks, the shoals of fish, the shadow of the boat. And I would dream of Kassila, the sea god, swimming in the depths.

  There were nights the sea howled like an animal in agony and the palm trees danced themselves into a frenzy. The fishermen hauled their canoes up on to the shore. And in the morning, before they set out again, muttered prayers and platitudes to Kassila, so he might make the seas still and keep them safe.

  At mealtimes we ate from tin plates and drank from empty Peak milk tins. At one time we received a consignment of cutlery from a church group in America. The first day I tried to make the grains of rice stay on my fork, to cut the meat from the oxtail and winkle out the marrow. Everybody was struggling. How hungry we were when we left the dining room. So much food gone to waste on the floor. A rota was put up on the board. Every week six girls were invited to sit at Sister Monica’s table. I was one of the first. Watch and copy. That was the way we learned. I held my fork upside down and piled food on the top, while all around me girls rolled tasty balls of rice and plasass with the tips of fingers, and popped them into their mouths.

  It was the first time I saw how Europeans often liked to do things the most difficult way. The nuns preferred to carry piles of books in their arms instead of on the top of their heads, so that we were always having to run ahead to open doors for them. And once in the town I saw a white woman pushing a baby along in a pram. She was sweating and puffing, the wheels kept getting caught in the ruts and the potholes. Eventually two men ran to her assistance, hoisted the pram on their shoulders and carried it all the way back to her front door. The mother ran after them, hopping and calling, like a hen whose chick has been carried away by a hawk. And the women with their children on their backs stopped to stare at her.

  I saw that woman again. Walking on the beach, all by herself, eyes streaming. Maybe it was the wind. Still, it was a strange thing to do, walk about for the sake of it. And alone, too.

  Sister Eadie said that wh
en babies are carried on their mothers’ backs it makes them grow up with bow legs. But I did not think this could be true as my legs are straight.

  Every day we queued for lunch, holding our plates out to the serving women who stood behind great tureens of rice and potato leaves. At that time Marie had a feud with one of the cooks, a woman with a short neck and a sly look whom everybody knew stole the food meant for the girls. Ma Cook we called her. In the morning the girls took turns helping to wash and chop the leaves. We were supposed to be assisting the kitchen staff, but this woman sat back and made us do everything. We washed and chopped furiously, even so we were almost always late for our first class.

  Once Marie and I were on kitchen detail together. I tried to move a vat of palm oil from the fire by myself. The pot was too heavy and I staggered under the weight of it. Hot oil splashed on to my arms. Marie poured cool water from a jug on to my scalded skin. Ma Cook came into the room just then and accused us of wasting time. Marie told her what had happened, but Ma Cook’s response was sour: ‘Een mamy go born orda one’ Her mother can have another one.

  It’s a coarse retort. I’d heard it before. But somehow it angered Marie greatly. She gave the woman a great shove. In turn Ma Cook slapped her around the face. A moment later the fracas brought Sister Agnes to the kitchen door, and without any questions she took Ma Cook’s side. That was the way it was in those days. You couldn’t answer back, you had to do as you were told. If somebody was older than you they were always right. And besides, everyone knew Marie Plaba was trouble.

  Marie was put on slop duty for a week. I felt badly for her, and so every morning I collected the night-time slops from the dormitory myself and poured them down the drain, even though to do so sometimes made me retch.

  Marie won her revenge the very next week. The last class of Friday was needlework. We had made samplers. God Bless this Home. Surrounded by cross-stitched borders of differently coloured threads. Sister Anthony canvassed suggestions from the class about what we should do next. Marie raised her hand.

  ‘Let’s make a present for Ma Cook’s baby,’ she said.

  Sister Anthony asked what she meant and Marie pointed at the window. There was Ma Cook, waddling just like a woman who is about to give birth. Or like a python that has swallowed a goat. Kitchen contraband, all of it. A whole snapper strapped round her waist.

  Ma Cook was given a warning and the next day she was back serving. When Marie held out her plate Ma Cook gave her an extra-large helping. I was surprised at that. Marie laughed with satisfaction. Only when we sat down and began to eat did we discover the meat had a rotten taste.

  Marie told me about the soothsayer who had set up near the marketplace, who could read the future. Even the white woman had been seen visiting his place. I felt the fear already beginning to seep cold through my blood. Of course Marie wanted to go. ‘Just because,’ she said and shrugged her shoulders, head to one side. Just because. Just because it was something to do. Just because we were bored. Just because the sisters would be sure to disapprove. Witch doctors. Pagan antics. Satan’s pastimes. So said Sister Eadie.

  And so we went. I was afraid, it’s true. But equally I could never have refused her.

  ‘Try not to look so scared,’ said Marie as we made our way through the marketplace. But somehow, alone, the place was different, more disorientating. The traders called attention to their wares in scornful voices. Colourful cries of red and yellow and green flew in the air above my head. The bright sun made it hard to focus. I swerved to avoid a basket of oranges and almost fell into a glistening pile of garden eggs that had transformed into a great hole that would have sucked me inside. The market was busy, full of people but only a small number of them seemed to be selling or buying. The others were busy doing nothing.

  I lowered my eyes and kept them on the ground, following Marie’s heels kicking up the dust in front of me.

  The room was dark and thick with smells I did not recognise, not the common smells of the marketplace but desiccated, stale smells. The figure of the fortune-teller was hidden by the darkness like smoke and gradually he emerged out of it. Oh, so much is gone. I’m trying to remember. Perhaps that isn’t how it was. No, perhaps it was light and the room smelled of nothing but the cardamom coffee that brewed over a metal brazier in the corner. I do remember one thing though. His mouth. A tiny child’s tooth grew out of his upper gum and he had a huge lower lip that the words spilled over, to roll around the edges of the room.

  And I remember that from the moment I entered that place I felt lost.

  ‘What do you have for me?’ asked the moriman, who wore a Western-style suit.

  For once Marie was silent. We had no money. We had not thought of that.

  The moriman busied himself, rearranging objects around him. He did not ask us to leave and we, in turn, made no move to do so. ‘You belong with the white women. The ones whose husband wears black and comes to visit them once a week like a stranger.’

  I had to think for a minute what he meant by that. Presently I replied: ‘That’s not their husband. That’s Father Bernard.’

  He was the priest who came to hear our confession. From the dormitory we could see him coming down the lane from the direction of the boys’ school. He would grind his cigarette out in the mud before he reached the gates and enter the convent chewing on a sprig of sorrel freshly plucked from the gardens.

  ‘Ah, so this is why they have no children of their own. What do they want with you, then?’

  ‘We are being educated. It is a school.’ said Marie, pompously.

  ‘A school?’ the man considered this for a moment, letting the word slide around his mouth for a moment or two, before it slipped over his lip.

  ‘And they are married. The nuns. Actually. They’re married to God,’ added Marie.

  ‘Ah yes. They have a spirit husband,’ nodded the moriman. ‘A very powerful spirit. One day I would like to visit this school and see these witches for myself.’

  ‘They’re not witches. They’re nuns. I told you.’

  The moriman shrugged. ‘Then tell me, where did they come from and how did they get here? And what of all those things they possess? Beyond the knowledge of mortal man. Such things were not made on this earth.’

  The nuns didn’t have a great many possessions, still they had more than any of us. In the library were picture books and old magazines. Among the pictures of giant cities, of men in hats and women holding dogs like babies there were some I remember more than the others. Pictures of men in uniform, of aeroplanes filling the night sky like bats. A ruined city. Some years later I saw a photograph of a great cloud the shape of a cotton tree. An image of a scorched pocket watch with the time: a quarter-past eight. And another one, a strange photograph of the shadow of a man on the steps of a building, except most of the building was gone. And so was the man. Only his shadow remained. It was the first time I realised there had been a war.

  ‘And so they are bringing you up to worship that spirit too. That’s good. It is a powerful one. But, tell me, do they teach you their witchcraft? Or keep you just to work for them?’

  Upon the floor he spread a few bits of metal, some nails and little pieces of scrap. From his pocket he took another piece of metal and this he rubbed between the palms of his two hands. Eyes closed, face tilted upwards, he muttered some words in another language. Not Temne or Mende or Creole. Arabic, maybe. He blew across the surface of the ground in front of him and then on to the lump of metal in his hand. Then he extended his hand, palm down, over the objects as they lay on the ground.

  Before our eyes those dead pieces of scrap came alive. One by one they leaped from the floor. Flew through the air into his hand, his fingers closed around them.

  It was a cheap trick. But I’m telling you now — other things happened in that dark room. Things that truly came to pass. That I can never explain. The moriman told us to close our eyes and to imagine the person we most wanted to see. Behind my eyelids I saw my mother and I walk
ing together when I was very small. I smelled the scent of her, felt her squeeze my hand. ‘Open your eyes and tell me what you see,’ said the man. Right there behind him, I saw her. Standing in the shadows of the room. Her eyes rested on me for a moment. Then she took a backwards step and slipped through the wall.

  There were no trances, no mirrors or bowls of water through which a diviner communed with the spirits as we had been led to expect. There was a piece of paper with some markings, dots. Questions. My mother’s name. I looked up then, expecting to see her once more. At times he counted up the dots. One or two he circled.

  A star close to me. A spirit calling my name. Sometimes I thought too much. As if in passing he told me I would never marry.

  Marie was full of questions where I had ventured none. But the moriman made as though he was deaf. He drew and scratched on his piece of paper. Eventually he looked up.

  ‘Somebody is blocking you.’ The words made a loud noise in the sudden silence of the room.

  I looked at Marie. I could feel anxiety creeping up under the skin of my back.

  ‘You know who it is.’ That’s all he would say. I waited uncertainly. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next. ‘Come and see me some other time.’ And he got up and left the room.

  And that was it. Marie stood up. A moment later I scrambled to my feet and followed her into the light.

  I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t that what these diviners always do? It was part of the entrapment. To entice you back. Persuade you to part with your money or some goods you were willing to exchange for the next part of the prophecy. And maybe it was.

  An hour after we returned Marie spoke out loud the very thing I had been thinking. ‘Ma Cook,’ she said.

  We were cleaning the dormitory. Marie swept. I followed behind scooping up the dirt with two pieces of wood and throwing it into an empty margarine tub. The next time we saw Ma Cook coming towards us down the corridor Marie deliberately bumped her with her shoulder. Ma Cook opened her mouth to curse her, but Marie was there first. ‘I dae nah you head,’ she said.