When he left that day without asking to see me in private, I did not fret. Nor did I fret the next time, or the time after. I didn’t always dress up for him, but I could tell, from how he smiled at me, that it wouldn’t be long before we made our first arrangement.
* * *
—
I could not read Thula’s report cards, but I attended every parent-teacher meeting, always the lone mother in attendance on behalf of a girl. Her teachers told me every time what great intelligence she had, what a hardworking student she was, the best they’d ever had.
Everything I heard about her passion for knowledge, all the evaluations I got of her report cards, made me happy, because it made her happy. Still, I was aware of what a waste all her reading would amount to in Kosawa. All the hours spent doing homework—what good would it be after she finished her schooling at seventeen and became even more peculiar, an eagle among domestic animals? One of her teachers once said she could go to Bézam and attend a higher school so she could get a job with the government. I was not sure whether to spit in this man’s face or to heap upon him every curse for suggesting that my daughter become a servant for the same people who killed her father. But then the Sweet One and the Cute One came to me at the beginning of her fifth and final year at Lokunja with the letter from the American school, and even though I still don’t understand how going to America will help her after she returns to grow old alone in Kosawa, I agreed to hand her to them, because knowledge is what she seeks, and knowledge is what they’ll give her there.
I worry for her every day and night. What if she needs me and I’m not there to help her? What did I think I was doing, letting a child of seventeen go alone to America? Will I ever see her again? When will I see her again? The Sweet One said how long she stays in America will depend on her, on how much schooling she wants to get before she returns home. I dream of her homecoming. I tell myself not to worry, and then I worry even more. I can’t stop worrying for my children. But if I were to spend ten thousand years worrying about all that could happen to them, what difference would it make?
* * *
—
Aisha got married not long before Thula left for America. How I danced that day. I couldn’t remember the last time I so enjoyed myself. I was up before the rooster’s crow to make breakfast for Yaya and the children, after which I hurried to Aisha’s family’s hut to join the women of Kosawa in cooking. We sang as we sliced vegetables, swapped stories as we diced and fried. At some point, one of Aisha’s uncles brought his drum, and the preliminary dancing began, women twirling buttocks and mincing spices to the right, grating cocoyams and stamping feet to the left. From the corner of my eye I saw Thula, peeling plantains in a circle of friends—even she who didn’t love to dance was swinging her tiny hips in delight. By the time we returned home to take our baths and dress up I was tired, but my fatigue disappeared when Aisha was led out of her hut, veiled and clothed in white.
In front of all of Kosawa and her relatives from the sibling-villages, her father asked her if he should accept the bride price that had been offered for her hand. “Remember,” he said, “once I eat these animals and drink these bottles of wine, I cannot return them. That means you cannot come to me and say you no longer want to be married to this man. Once you go with him, there’s no coming back. Do still you want to go?” When Aisha, in a soft voice, said, “Yes, Papa,” her husband stood up and pulled off her veil, and we all shouted for joy. We danced till the dust rose to the sky. We ate and we sang and we danced some more, till the moon appeared and Aisha left Kosawa, never to return.
* * *
—
By then, I’d spent close to a year waiting for the Cute One to do more than smile at me. I’d moved from dressing up for him to offering him and the Sweet One food, meals I made with the Cute One’s enjoyment in mind. For my efforts, all I got was words of profound gratitude. Still, I persisted. Only after a random conversation, during which he mentioned his wife’s name three times, did I decide to pour water on the fires of my yearning. I decided it was time to stop flirting with the Cute One and all the men I laughed too loudly with whenever their wives’ backs were turned. I decided I could no longer be a part of the shameless competition—I would live with my plight for the rest of my days. I asked Malabo to forgive me for the infidelity of my thoughts and promised him I would be only his until we meet again.
I told Aisha this a few days before her marriage celebration, while we were lounging on my bed on a rainy evening. I told her to cherish these days when she had a man to herself, her own man, not another woman’s she’d stolen. I told her to protect her man, because potential man-stealers like me abounded. She laughed, and sighed, before saying that it really was about time women started marrying each other. When I tried to laugh, she told me she wasn’t joking. She asked me to think about it, think about what bliss would envelop Kosawa if all the husbandless women like me met in barns at night and paired off and did to each other what we no longer had husbands to do to us.