“Come I tell you, Salima, heeh,” Yurna whispers in that way only lunatic women can. She holds my hair in a fist, and drags it close to her mouth.

“What now, you Yurna.”

“You know that boy. The one who speaks the poems? Let me tell you, Rashad saw him slaughter a whole cow. At night, before he went to speak his poems at Slam Afrika!”

“Now Yurna, who is preaching these lies to you? Eh! Go wash your mouth with Omo,” I scold her. She clicks her tongue, and drips dark henna onto my hair. He hands are brown-red from it.

“Rashad saw him, you listen. I’ll show you where he threw the bones near the place for madras.”

I smack her face with the scarf of my hijab. She spits it out of her mouth, and her eyes lined with dark kohl laugh at me.

“Fine, we go today,” I concede. She faces away from me so I can braid her hair too.

I know where it is she speaks of. She does not need to show me; I buried them myself.

***

Let me tell you: this will not be a story about for looking for pity. This is supposed to be a grown-up story, with no crying, no snot and nothing.

When we have seen the bones, now yellow as the sun has begun to bleach them, I leave Yurna to smoke her shisha in Yusuf’s kibanda* (a small kiosk) closest to the mosque. I go home. Allah laughs some more. I laugh with him, I think.

I do not like to eat sliced oranges at Yurna’s. They taste like raw onions, always. Because she never washes the knife after chopping onion for sukuma wiki* (kales). “Eeh, it is all swallowed by the same mouth and goes to the same stomach. No need, nah!” she says.

***

Today Abdoullaih comes back from Ethiopia. Mama is dressed in her best hijabi, going with Uncle to pick him up from the airport. He will come smelling of spiced perfume from all the women’s houses he has slept in. And his wife will not complain, because he will bring with him Arabica coffee. Not the kind found in shops, wrapped in expensive foil. No, his he buys from the small mabati bandas, where they still roast the beans good; prayers of the Koran to go with it.

He will bring freshly dried and ground perfumed shisha for the (wo)men. And we will sit around the dish on the mat in the evening meal, listening to his telling of this country he has travelled from. All the legends told in the very same way, as if we have never had him speak before. Then we too, will go to sleep smelling of strange women.

***

Yurna comes to find me in my bed that night.

“Mama. Let me tell you, ah? There is a matchmaker who has come from the city. He is charging 4500 hela.”

“How does he do?” I whisper to her in the dark.

“He takes your palms. And whispers to the spirits, and they drop the name of your husband on his lap.”

“Then what.”

“Then he brings the man to your table. And you will know it is him if he knows the colour of your heart when you weep.”

“Liar.”

She stays silent. “Tomorrow we go,” she says.

“Where do we get 4500 hela from, you Yurna.”

“We beg.”

***

We do not beg on the street the next day. Instead, I talk nicely to Abdoullaih and tell him I will cover for him when he leaves his wife to meet Hamisa after the sun goes down. So, he gives us the money. From Ethiopia, with love, he brags.

Yes, they must be good to him down at Dire Dawa where he goes to do business.

“And what is the money for?” he asks.

“To buy clothes, of course,” I say, with a girl-like vanity I do not really mean.  And men, I think.

He laughs loud and pats me on the shoulder.

Yes; to buy clothes and men.

***

I do not know what I wanted the seer’s house to look like. I know what I wanted him to look like however. Tall, and bone thin, because nothing else would do. With a sterile, white turban around his head. Wrapped in layers and too heavy for him to carry. Maybe a loincloth in place of a kanzu.

He looks everything and nothing like this. He is short, and fat in the belly. His eyes, however, are wise and aged. Not dishonest like I anticipated. Not leering. This is really what he does. He is no fool, and he likes to live in deep comfort, so his house informs me. I wonder how he got Abu Dhabakhi to make him a throne on such short notice since his arrival in town.

We are welcomed by a young manservant, and we sit on a sisal mat in the living room. The mat has, in the centre, shells in different sizes. He holds himself with royal importance, and like the rest, we ordinary humans do not matter in the least.

I am afraid to speak up lest it breaks the spell we are under. He looks at Yurna first, then me.

“You, girl,” he addresses Yurna. She looks at his palms, at silent command that his eyes are not for our discretion. His palms hold two cowry shells which are white with streaks of black and brown. Yurna does not speak.

“The man from Slam Afrika. You follow him everywhere, and he knows, though he pretends not to. You want him to bring dowry home to your mother.” Yurna nods, excitement playing in her eyes. How did he know?

“Leave him alone,” his quiet voice fills the silent air.

“Why,” Yurna dares to ask.

‘He will bring to your home bad omen. Of no luck when you go to market. No one will buy your maize. Of no luck when you lay with him to have children. He will give you none.”

I am unsure of how I should react to his words. I know he lies. I do not know how. I just know.

He releases the shells from his palm and casts a quick glance at me. I hold my hijab closer to my face. He recasts the shells on the mat, willing the spirits to tell him of my destiny. Once, twice, and I sense unrest within him as he is not satisfied with the patterns the shells give him to read.

“You. The spirits refuse to tell me what you keep from the world.” He admits with a subtle male arrogance, that can only be borne from the irritation of a woman besting him at anything. Even breathing.

“You are strange fruit. The green grape that yields red sultans to eat.”

I stare at his forehead. It has a sheen of sweat that looks likes clean palm oil smeared on his face. He falls silent.

The night air is warm. It is uncomfortable instead of comforting. Silent like a cat on its paws, he gets up from the mat and walks out without a word. And he goes, goes. Goes into the dark night.

***

Life is surreal. In your mind, you know that if the person seated next to you in the matatu tries to steal from you, you will yell and fight and make them stop. And you will win.

And then when it really happens, you freeze. And remain silent. No fighting. Because you know if you do, they will kill you. The cold barrel of the gun against your ribs tells you so.

***

Yurna gets up from the mat and runs to peer out the window some moments after the seer has left. I don’t follow her. She makes a mewling sound of distress. I watch her back rise and fall with her panicked breaths.

I remain stoic. Because I told you, this will be an adult story. With no crying, and no snot and nothing.

***

At home, the women sit around a fire, made to seem brighter by the still-dark night. Yurna and I go and sit to join them. No one bothers to ask where Yurna and I have been. They do not care, frankly. The theatrics would only ensue if men were present. One woman is stronger than ten men put together. Mama knows this, our aunts too.

Aunt Hawa begins a quiet chant, as the beer is passed round in a pot. She sings to the flames, coaxing them to rise higher and higher, to the sky, to greet the stars. And we follow, hesitant at first, lest we betray our presence, before the ancestors tell us if we are welcome to play with Aunt Hawa or no:

Mwanangu ana ng’ombe, eh!
(My daughter has cattle!)

Mwanako ana ng’ombe, eh!
(Your daughter has cattle!)

Nataka zipatane, eh!
(Let us bring them together!)

Mi na ng’ombe wangu!
(Me with my cattle!)

We na ng’ombe zako!
(You with yours!)

The fire roars in approval, and we sing louder. There is no need for drums to keep us in beat. The rhythm is the beats of our hearts. Owned by us since birth.

“Rashad was here earlier,” Mama tells Yurna. She means for Yurna to crack under the silent threat in her voice, and speak to her about where we had been.

But Yurna does not give away so easily. She stays silent, the fire lighting her face and chasing her shadows to hide behind her.

“Now what did he want? That boy, nkt,” she responds and her tongue clicks loud.

“He wants to bring you home to his mother, eh!” Mama flares back.

“Heeh! I will tell him I cannot cook sukuma wiki. And shaa (tea) the way his mother drinks,”

This is the truth.

“You Yurna, you know that does not matter. He can hire cooks and yaya to take care of your children,” Mama insists.

“I cannot give him children,” she says. We both recall the seer’s words. And I know Yurna lies as she repeats them to the circle of women.

“Now, msichana, who will marry you if you refuse all of them?” Aunt Biryan speaks up. “Acha atafute muuza madafu basi! Kama ni mali hataki!” she continues.

There are muted sounds of approval from the rest of the circle.

***

The following day, down at the mosque for prayers, we walk in single file, no one daring to speak, so that we do not upset each other further, because of the pounding in our heads from the beer.

Yurna has on makeup and her nicest hijab, though we are not fasting. Mama makes no objection. It is because she assumes that Yurna will accept Rashad’s proposal. When we are done, Yurna does not come home with us, and I follow her to where she goes, without her seeing me. She is at the place for madras once more, and I see her dig out the cow’s bones once more. This is interesting and frustrating.

She bows over them, and I assume she is praying. The seer must have known.

I don’t blame him for leaving. He saved himself the stress of being Yurna’s companion. And saved himself from having to keep teaching her the same lessons and resist the urge to drown her when she refused to learn them.

I go back home. Home. Where is home? Home where I was born, or home where my mother wishes to send me to a husband.

Uncle Abdoullaih must have twelve homes. All the places in Ethiopia where his shoes have left their dust. On the doorsteps of the women, in the strange mosques whose walls have never heard him recite from the Koran.

With brief panic, I remember that he will want to know what we bought with the 9000 hela. But I smile at the straps of my sandals. To buy clothes and men, the list stated.

Tomorrow, I go look for a man.

# # #

Angelica A. Oluoch is a writer from Kiambu, Kenya. She seeks to educate the world about the New Afrika she grew up in and lives in, through the stories she tells. She has been published in ‘Popular Dissent’, ‘Dodging the Rain’, ‘The Quail Bell Magazine’ among others.

Photo: Oluwakemi Solaja