Monifa went to order, returning to the table with a handful of paper napkins. She took from her bag a small bottle of spray sanitiser and used it liberally on the surface of the table. She wiped this off with the napkins, fished out a packet of sanitising wipes, and used these on the chairs. She used another one on her hands and gave one to Simi for the same purpose. When she was satisfied, she nodded at the chairs and both of them sat.
Monifa folded her hands. She considered the best way to begin. She wondered if she should wait for the food. She decided that, as there was much to say, she ought to make a start. She began in a voice she kept quite low, saying, “You are approaching nine years old. What do you know of becoming a woman, Simi?”
Simi frowned. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting this. She slid her gaze to the street and then back to Monifa. She said, “Lim’s mum told her about babies and Lim told me.”
Monifa felt alarm race along her spine. Four years Simi’s senior, Lim had been Simi’s only Nigerian friend in Mayville Estate, but for weeks they hadn’t spoken of her. “What did Lim say?”
“That a girl can’t have babies till she’s a woman and a man puts his thingy inside her somewhere. We couldn’t work out where, me an’ Lim, except Lim said babies come out of a woman’s stomach, so I said maybe the man puts his thingy in her mouth cause that’s where food goes to get into her stomach as well.”
“Did Lim not tell you she’d become a woman?”
Simi shook her head, but she looked intrigued, which was very good. “Is that why she’s gone to her gran’s for summer hols?” she asked Monifa. “She will come home, won’t she?”
Monifa answered the only way she could. “I do not know and her mother has not said. But I do know that Lim had begun her bleeding and you will also, not so very far into the future. It’s the bleeding that says your womanhood has arrived.”
“Bleeding?” Simi asked. “Mum, Lim was bleeding? But how . . . ?”
A number was called. Monifa went for Simi’s food. For herself, she’d purchased nothing. She had no appetite for this sort of thing. She set the tray on the table, removing each item and placing it in front of her daughter on three paper napkins that she opened to serve as protection against the table she’d already cleaned. She nodded at Simi to eat. Her daughter took a French fry and nibbled on it.
Monifa spoke quietly, bending towards Simi so that no one could overhear. Home would have been a better place to talk about this, but the truth was that she couldn’t risk it. “When a girl bleeds between her legs—which she does monthly when she reaches womanhood—her body is speaking to her, saying that she’s ready.”
“For babies?”
“Yes. But until there are babies, she prepares herself to grow them, and she also prepares herself for the man who will plant them in her.”
Simi had picked up her cheeseburger but she didn’t take a bite. Instead, she said, “Mummy, I don’t want babies. Not now. Really, Mummy. I don’t.”
“Of course not. Not yet,” Monifa told her. “That comes much later for a girl, after she is able to declare herself both pure and chaste. In Nigeria, this usually happens in her village. But for us—for our family—it is more complicated.”
Simi finally took a bite, but first she said, “Complicated? Why, Mummy?”
“Living apart from our tribal village means that we must declare ourselves Yoruba. And this happens through an initiation. A ceremony must be performed to take you into the Yoruba tribe. Then, after the ceremony, you will be able to meet your aunts and uncles and cousins.”
Simi’s small brow furrowed as she took this in. She thought about it and finally said, “Oh. You mean I have to be really and truly Yoruba, so that I can meet them.”
“This is exactly what I mean.”
“Mummy, is that why we never see our family in Peckham? Because I’m not part of the tribe yet? But you’re part, aren’t you? And Papa? And Tani?”
“We are part because we were born there, all three of us. Being born there makes things different. As to Peckham, we will go for a visit once you’re made pure. Would you like that, Simi? You would be so welcomed by your cousins.”
“I would ever!”
“Then that shall happen when you are ready.” Monifa tucked an errant bit of hair into the scarf Simi was wearing like a headband. “There will be a grand celebration. You will be the guest of honor, and people will come to celebrate your womanhood and to bring you presents and money. Only when you are ready, though.”