Half way through the new year, Ali took Esi to Bamako; but not before he had sent messages ahead to warn his people. That is, Mma, Baba Danjuma, and his natural father, Musa Musa. This was his ‘real’ family and separate from the ‘Nima’ family. The latter, was, in reality, only a support system in an alien environment. He had been very careful with the message. It contained among others an apology for the fact that he had not been able to obtain their permission before taking up a second wife.
Ali knew very well that in the old days, his behaviour would have been unthinkable, and definitely unforgivable. For no matter how old you were or felt, you could not get married without your parents knowledge. And your parents were
the father who helped your mother to conceive you, the mother who gave birth to you,
and all those who claimed to be brothers and sisters to those two.
Like all ‘modern Western-educated Africans’, Ali couldn’t help it if he regularly bruised traditions and hurt people. But at least he was one of the few really sensitive ones. So he went home to Bamako, armed with plenty of real and symbolic kolas to say he was sorry.
It was already sundown when Ali and Esi arrived in Bamako, so there was very little talk. What there was, was not serious. Mma just saw to it that the travellers were comfortable for the night, so they got water to wash, a very light meal, a place to sleep. Ali had asked his office to book them into the most modern hotel in town for the duration of their stay. But he realised that at least for that night he was in no position to insist on not staying at Mma’s. It would not have been right at all. There was plenty of time to sort out the question of independent accommodation as well as other matters the next day. So for that night they slept at Mma’s.
In the light of an open day, Mma looked Esi over. She found her beautiful. But she also decided that Esi was not someone she would ever be able to warm to. She knew Fusena, liked her very much and approved enormously of her as a wife for her son. Besides, she would always remember the trouble she had had to go to in order to get Fusena as a wife for Ali. That sort of situation inevitably got you attached to people even if the lines of your lives never really allow you to get ever very close to them.
On the other hand, she told herself, her son Ali was not a fool. He had worked well and made something of himself. He had prospered. And as a son, he showed in every way that he cared for his family and for her in particular. Not only had he been helping her and Baba Danjuma to educate the younger children as if there were no difference between him and the others; in fact, it was clear that his office in Bamako had been given permanent instructions to make regular remittances to them. Yes, Ali had not forgotten his beginnings … So, if he found a woman like Esi attractive enough to want to marry her, then that should be good enough for her. He could have organised the matter of the permission better. But then, the joy of having children is also sometimes having to forgive them when, after they had done wrong, they come back to say sorry.
Musa Musa put up a different show altogether. He ranted and raved openly against the couple, telling Ali that he should be ashamed of himself. And that, as far as he was concerned, Esi was still just a concubine.
‘Because you had not bothered either to bring her to introduce her to us, or to get our approval before entering into this so-called marriage. It was not enough to ask your relatives from Nima along to your new in-laws. Besides, Allah is our witness, what else is the daughter of an infidel good for besides concubinage? Eh?
… Are good Muslim women finished from the earth?… And talking of good Muslim women, by the way, where is Fusena? Why don’t you make it possible for me to see my grandchildren more often? Eh, Ali? I have only seen them once since you all arrived from the white man’s land … And my last grandchild, never. Allah, what tribulations people expect me to suffer!—’
Ali tried to stop his father and refresh his memory about how only recently he had been with them in Accra. But Musa Musa was not going to allow any such interruption.
‘—Yes, so w-h-e-r-e is Fusena? Eh, Ali? And what does taking a second wife mean? What tasks had you given her to perform for which her energies had seemed inadequate? Eh, Ali? And how has she felt about all this?’
Eventually, Mma found herself helping Ali to beg for forgiveness. When Musa Musa was somewhat mollified, he chatted easily to Esi and openly flirted with her.
This was traditionally permitted and sometimes even expected, when the relationship between a woman and her father-in-law was good. As long as it did not go beyond the level of a harmless game.
For an incurable womaniser like Musa Musa, there was always a threat of any harmless flirtations becoming serious. But after his eyes had raked Esi’s body and he had in fact concluded that he could sleep with her, he had made a decision not to do anything ‘disgraceful’. He had told himself that he didn’t believe in older men like him acting as though their sons were their procurers, hiding behind bushes to steal their children’s prey. As he grew older, his motto had been that the day he stopped attracting women for himself, that was also the day he gave up women! Therefore, he decisively instructed himself that Esi was forbidden territory.
After the initial difficulties with All’s family, Esi had had a lovely time in Bamako. She liked All’s people. She liked Mma, although she also found her a little intimidating. On the other hand, from the first moment of encounter she had found Musa Musa charming and had not allowed herself to be remotely deceived by his earlier show of disapproval. She couldn’t get close enough to Baba Danjuma even to form an opinion about him. But that too was all right. It is known and accepted that some relationships by marriage are really too distant to grow much. Like anyone from the coast, meat had always been a luxury for Esi. In Bamako she ate enough during those two weeks to last her a very long time. What she couldn’t get over though, were the chickens and guinea fowls, succulently smoked with wild mint and other bewitchingly subtle flavours. It occurred to her then that perhaps when the best of African pastoral and campsite cooking met French cooking, you got pintade fumée avec vin blanc sec. Trop sec. She indulged.
Ali had been fascinated, watching Esi as she made some genuine efforts to operate in his other environment. For, apart from creating situations in which she could use the few words and phrases of French she knew, she had also started to learn Hausa, which is the lingua franca of the Sub-Sahel. At the end of the two weeks they turned their eyes southwards, loaded with all manner of goodies: Sub-Sahelian African as well as French, as well as nearly five kilos of extra body weight on Esi. And with all that was a conviction shared by both that they had had a wonderful holiday.