Ancestor Stones Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 hasconvinced 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