Free Adé: A Love Story by Rebecca Walker Page B

of Nuru’s house about the absence of my parents. Amina translated the main points for me, and told me that after marathon sessions late into the night it had come down to the issue of parental approval. Permission to marry must be granted in person. Adé had to approach both of my parents in the traditional way and ask if our families could be joined. If my parents agreed, money would be exchanged.
    This I could not understand. “My parents are to give you a dowry?” I asked Adé as we listened to Amina’s recounting.
    “No,” Adé said. “My family is supposed to give
your
family a sum of money to put away for the things we will need after the wedding—plates, furniture, clothes, silver—whatever we need to set up house. The money is a seal. Once paid, plans for the
harussi
can commence because your parents will know that I can take care of you, and our future children. My mother is very concerned about all this. Will your parents come to Lamu, or should I go to
Amrika?
”
    I didn’t know what to say.
    “You have to understand, Farida,” Amina said. “The coming together of the families cannot be avoided. The
harussi
is for them too. By the end of the ceremonies the two households come together as one.”
    A few of the women slapped their palms together as if to say,
yes,
that is it—the thing that cannot be sacrificed. The others grew quiet, nodding. The
harussi
would be impossible without the involvement of my parents.
    There was also the issue of my personal, bodily ablutions. Only women were allowed to discuss these matters and a dozen came to Nuru’s house the next day for just that purpose. Flinging off their
buibuis
at the threshold, they seated themselves on cushions around the edges of the hallway, with their backs against the wall. I sat with Adé’s grandmother on her raised wooden cot, feeling exposed, as if my naked body was being prodded like a mango for tenderness. But I was also happy, because this was another sign of belonging: what happened to me mattered.
    Again, Amina translated the salient points for me. It was unusual but not unheard of for Swahili men to marry women from the West, but Adé was special to the community and so customs must be observed as faithfully as possible. A son like Adé was not simply thrown to the wind.
    At the moment the women were discussing the
singo
that should be applied in the days leading up the wedding, a purifying paste of jasmine, rose petals, sandalwood, and other ingredients Amina struggled to translate.
    I nodded, and then thought of my own parents. They would ask if I loved Adé, if he made me happy, and once this was determined, my father would quietly assess Adé’s net worth and calculatehis ability to provide for me. My mother would embrace Adé, and immediately move on to his mother and the other women in the family, eventually setting up shop on the floor among them.
    Adé’s family was different, the assessments more carefully calibrated. Many of the women were adamant that my own mother be responsible for the bridal rituals: taking care to bathe and dress and present me in the right way, to ensure I had a respectable number of gold bangles on my wrists, and to provide monies for food for the days and days of feasting. Everyone seemed to agree on this, but then Nuru stated the obvious: my parents were unable to complete the tasks. Even if they came for the wedding, they did not know how to prepare me in the traditional way.
    After much back and forth, which Amina mercifully did not translate, an older woman, her eyes ringed with kohl, spoke while gesturing passionately with her hands, as if scripting a solution in the air. This time, Amina translated: Adé’s cousins would apply my
singo
and the elaborate henna designs that would cover my hands and arms, and Nuru would take charge of the many fittings for the vestments I would wear at various stages of the weeklong celebration. Another cousin would arrange for the preparation of the