Free Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna Page A

not stay. Each time Pa Foday brought her back. Eventually the time came when she went away for good.
    As for Haidera Kontorfili, the authority of the Shekunas grew ever greater. He began to tell the world that the rule of the
pothos
was at an end. So the Europeans sent soldiers to arrest Haidera. The preacher swore he would never surrender. The Shekunas lay in wait on the opposite side of a bridge and killed the first man who tried to cross: a white man. Soon after, reinforcements arrived armed with guns.
    Haidera was killed in battle, they said. The hyenas feasted on his body. The order went out: taxes to be collected and defaulters punished. But Haidera’s followers claimed their leader had used his magic powers to evade his captors. He had transformed himself into a deer and galloped away.

4
Hawa, 1939

Fish
    My life wasn’t supposed to be like this. But a lot of things happened to me that weren’t my fault. If things had been different, I could have been like you. Listen to what I am trying to tell you. The truth. The way it really was.
    I never had luck. Not like other people. Yet I stand by and watch other people win all the time. Two days ago my neighbour came back with banknotes flapping out of his pocket, the new ones, not even the old ones. He had bought a lotto ticket and won. Later he came with soft drinks and beer for everybody in the compound. By the time I arrived there the others had already helped themselves. My own one was flat, but I drank it just to show willing.
    People with bad thoughts were always taking my luck away. I was still a girl, I was gutting fish — slitting open the bellies with a sharp knife, pulling the gleaming dark mass from within. The fish were fresh, some still alive. Under the table cats darted in and out of our legs, snatching at the pieces that fell. One moment I was concentrating on my work, the next I felt a sharp pain in my foot that made me cry out loud. A dirty white cat stared up at me with cold blue eyes. Somebody tried to shoo it away. The cat clung to the ground with its claws. We waved our arms. It hissed back at us. One of the women, braver than the rest, threw a knife which clattered on to the ground. The cat jumped up on to the wall of the house and away. Later the same women would not look me in the face. They all knew it, you see. When a cat bites you, it’s a sure sign somebody out there is trying to change your luck for the worse.
    When I was a child I was always being blamed, blamed for everything. It was easy to make me the scapegoat because I had nobody to defend me. So in time I found ways to make my own luck.
    I remember a time of happiness.
    On the first day of fishing the women gathered with their nets at dawn on the edge of the village. Then there was not one among them who dared to begin without her. Yet she took her time, always. Dressed with great care. Oiled her scalp between the partings of her hair. A bracelet dangled from her wrists, around her throat a necklace of red and white beads. And when she was ready she would call for me to fetch her fishing net down from the hook on the wall. Then she walked, with deliberate steps, down past the houses towards the stream. Never breaking her stride. When they saw her they ceased their chatter and followed her.
    In those days she was my father’s favourite wife. She alone. If anyone tells you any different, they’re lying. This was the reason they waited for her. They knew she had my father’s ear. Whatever medicine the Tuntun had placed around the river would have been lifted. The day she collected her net and walked to the river — for all the women in the village that was the most assured sign.
    At the waterside she tucked the trailing cloth of her
lappa
into the waist and shook out her net. I ran forward and picked up the end — so it didn’t drag across the ground. I walked behind her as she waded in. When the water reached her waist she gripped the bamboo hoop