Swallow, page 22
“I don’t know what I want when I start off,” she said, pinching her fingers together. “Then I unfold it. The surprise at the end. That’s what I like most. It’s like a story.”
I placed the fabric on my chest. “You love your work too much.”
She shrugged. “It tires me, hurts my fingers, and business is not that good.”
My mother’s palms had never been the color they were meant to be. They were reddish-brown from dye, and her fingernails had the same stain, like henna.
“That bad?” I asked.
“That bad. No one is buying, except the rich, these days, and you know they prefer their imported laces and brocades. We thought they would buy more adire when imports became more expensive. Before it was all imports, imports. Now we have fewer imports and still, there is no business.”
I put the cloth down. “At least there is food in the marketplace.”
“Yes, from somewhere else. No one grows food here. You should see the farming settlements, what is left of them, and how little they produce. We are all traders now, or businesspeople in town.”
“Have you ever considered making something out of your cloth?”
“Something like?”
“Adire arts and crafts. I see them in Lagos.”
After Sanwo left for Lagos, I began to think up more ideas, not in a way he would approve of, with a feasibility study. I was thinking that I could design table spreads and mats. I couldn’t make them myself, but finding people who could cut and sew would be easy. I could start a business in Makoku.
“That’s Lagos,” my mother said. “We have no use for adire arts and crafts here.”
“But you can make them here,” I said.
My mother shook her head. “Lagos tailors are trained. Here, they can only cut straight lines and a wide curve for a neckline. Anything else they ruin.”
I laughed. “Tailors ruin cloth in Lagos too, and I’m not thinking of anything complicated.”
She looked me up and down. “So why are you asking me this?”
“I’ve been thinking,” I said.
“Of what?”
“Staying here.”
My mother nodded slowly. “I see.”
“What?” I asked. It was obvious she was not taking me seriously.
“I hear a man was looking for you today,” she said.
My voice rose. “Who told you that?”
“People have eyes.”
“Yes, too much around here. They’re all such busybodies.”
“But you still want to stay here with us?”
I played with the edges of my cloth. I had to tell her something.
“He had news about my job.”
“News about your job?”
“Yes.”
“Is he your boss or what?”
“No.”
“Then who is he to you?”
“A friend.”
She shrugged. The gesture annoyed me more. She knew it was a personal visit.
“No one came to ask for my hand or anything,” I said.
“Pity,” she said.
“Why?”
“After all, you’re not a child.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You want to stay in my compound until you become an old woman?”
“Mama mi, I don’t want to hear this.”
She’d resisted marriage until she was twenty. Twenty was old to her.
“You’ll be a lonely old woman,” she said.
“Yes. Maybe that is my fate.”
“Childless old woman. People will call you that.”
She was taunting me and I tried to sound cheerful to irritate her.
“Let them,” I said. “A woman doesn’t have to be married to have a child anyway. Didn’t you say Peju and her mother are doing fine?”
“It’s not that easy.”
“How do you know it will be difficult for me?”
“Because I raised you on my own.”
“So. It is not impossible then, and anyway, I didn’t come home over petty problems like marriage or having children.”
“That’s good,” she said. “At least you’re talking, even if it’s nonsense.”
My voice rose again. “I am not talking nonsense!”
She beckoned. “What sense are you making then? Tell me. That you left your job? That you want to stay here and make tablecloths? That you believe you’re your own god or that you think you can continue to behave like a child, sitting around here, moping...”
“I am not moping.”
She slapped her knee. “Yes, you are. Moping is what it looks like to me, and what became of you? You had a good head. You were honest. Yes, you were. Now you come home and spin tales to me, thinking I can’t tell the difference. You can’t even look me in the eyes. No, you can’t.” She pointed. “Who came to see you today? What news did he bring about your job? Who died? Answer me.”
I stood up impatiently. “My life isn’t simple like yours.”
“Hm, simple. That’s very good.”
“Living here, being an elder in a compound, being respected. I had to look after myself in the city. I had no one. No one. Ruin around me. Living in fear, trying to escape one problem or the other. It caught up with everyone...”
How could I tell my mother?
“Go on,” she said. “Hide it. After all, you are your father’s daughter.”
I could have ripped her cloth for saying that. One standard for herself and another for me. One rule for Peju’s mother and another for me. If I didn’t tell her the truth, I’d learned that from her. She was always hiding behind her bizarre stories.
“What father?” I asked. “The one I thought was mine?”
Words are like eggs.
My mother’s face stiffened. I was not prepared for her reaction. I was trembling and my face burned. The nerves in my armpits prickled. Realization clouded her eyes.
“What did you say?” she whispered.
I placed my hand on my chest. “I’m sorry, but I am your daughter. Whatever happened between you and my father, you should have told me. You should have, Mama mi.”
“And I,” she said. “Am I not someone’s daughter?”
Did you ever see adire makers at work? Did you ever? The original adire, that is. There are many hands involved, women’s, and they work in groups. They knead the clay with their feet, mold it into pots, dry it, fire it; soak the cassava tubers to remove their poison, peel them, squash them, dry them, shred them, and pound them. They cook the powder into a starch with alum and water, pound the elu leaves in mortars, dry out the mash until it blackens to indigo, burn the cocoa shells, strain the dye through the ash, stir it in bowls, taste it to test that it is ready, and within a week they must use it; otherwise, it becomes useless.
Timing and harmony are of the essence. If the women get it right, the dye on the cloth will be the exact color of the sky at night. The cassava starch will resist the dye clear as the stars. The most trying part of the process is painting the starch on the cloth over and over, over and over, repeating the same patterns.
It was nighttime. The compound was dark, except for the kerosene lanterns visible from windows. We had not spoken for hours. I stayed in my mother’s bedroom while she remained in the main room. I finally came out to join her.
“I saw Iya Alaro in a dream,” I said.
The moon was a grayish yellow. My mother’s face was as still as the night. I could easily mistake her calmness for anger, but I knew better. She was never angry for long.
“Iya Alaro,” she said. “She appears to me, too. She will come to warn you.”
I rubbed my arms, though I was not cold.
“My father took me everywhere. I could tell he didn’t like attention.”
“He was what you call humble.”
“Yes. He was fair.”
My mother shook her head. “A woman makes more than her fair share of compromises. How fair is that?”
“That is the way of the world,” I said.
“What way?”
“For a woman to compromise. Her worth, for one.”
“Did I not raise you to value yourself?”
“I am not accusing you of anything.”
“Then how come you’ve come to that sorry conclusion already?”
“Mama mi, I’ve lived hundreds of miles from you. I have discovered some things on my own.”
“Like what?”
“I trusted a man who lost my money. You know what that means.”
“You are not old enough to draw comparisons with my life.”
“Forgive me, but you will have to decide if I’m too old or not old enough. It is no wonder I am confused.”
“You will certainly never be old enough to speak to me that way.”
“You can’t continue to see me as your daughter!”
“I can’t see you in any other way!”
“I’m not the innocent girl you think I am.”
“You’d be surprised. I know exactly who you are.”
“I’ve done things that I’m ashamed of. You think I am proud to admit that to you?”
She paused. “No, but I know what it is like to live with shame, and I did that when I was young, younger than you are. Are you old enough to hear about that?”
I sat by her side. I was not sure. If she confirmed my suspicions, then my father’s way was revolutionary, and hers was sacrifice. She could have had more children. She could have exposed him. Instead, she enjoyed freedoms that other women envied, freedoms that belonged to her, and for what? The privilege of keeping his secret?
“I’m listening,” I said.
My mother lifted a strand of raffia from the floor. “See this? I use it for my work. Every day. I have a way of tying knots so they do not come loose while I am dyeing. When I am through with dyeing, I cut the knots with a blade, clean, like so. It severs the strands. It is possible to undo a knot with your fingers, but it takes time, and you must do it delicately.” She blew the raffia out of her palm.
“We Yoruba believe in a cycle of life. A person dies and passes to the spirit world only to return to the land of the living. I have struggled with this concept in many ways. The last and first breaths for instance, how much time is between? The knowledge acquired in one life, at what point is it forgotten?
“I certainly do not have a simple existence. Is this ever possible? It is more likely that a simple assumption has been made about my life. I have always said, in passing judgments on others, that if you want to know the best and worst a person is capable of, try and imagine their greatest fear.
“No story should remain untold. Death is the state that should follow the surrender of all the secrets we carry, and I have resolved that it makes no difference how much time there is between our successive lives anyway. What matters is what we learn whilst we are living, what we can teach. Therefore, we need not wait for the moment before death to look at each other and say, ‘Listen to me. Let me tell you what has happened in my life so far. Let me tell you as I understand it now.’”
As my mother spoke to me that night, I laughed and cried, although I’d heard her stories before, about her childhood fight with my father, his dedication to work and careless generosity. She talked about her own work, her beloved Vespa and esusu investment scheme. She told me how her aunt had saved her, about an oyinbo man who brought her fame, and another local man who had made her infamous in town. As usual, she spoke with gaps, but the moment arrived when she said, “There is something you haven’t heard before. Something I haven’t revealed as of yet.”
I remembered Iya Alaro’s counsel.
“Mama mi,” I said. “You don’t have to say another word.”
“But I have not finished,” she said.
Lies hide between words and the truth need not draw attention to itself. I drew closer to my mother. Would I not let her rest?
“It’s my turn to speak,” I said. “Your story is already told.”
Sefi Atta, Swallow
