Ililililil! Ililililil!
As they picked their way out of the gate and started down the road she noticed that the streets and alleyways, usually so busy, were silent, that doors were shut tight. Wobbles of woodsmoke, the odd dog foraging among the stones and bones, roosters crowing as always, but otherwise an unnatural hush.
She began to see the holes – ragged holes, punched through sturdy mud walls – and to glimpse the homes inside: raised wooden beds strung with leather, pots and pans, dividing curtains. Once she saw directly through to a front door, barricaded against the disease until the house’s inhabitants could fashion their escape. The women noticed her looking. They drew the netela further about her face, and hurried her on.
And then the feasting began. She knew – because she had helped, or been told to run off and play because she was getting in the way – that the women had been cooking for weeks. She had watched the huge earthenware gans of grain in the storehouse deplete, and those of mead and beer multiply, had watched the pounding, the chopping, the sifting, the kneading, had stared as shouting men whipped and dragged five bullocks through the narrow gate. The blood had dried into dark tributaries around the stones in the yard, and now in a corner a dog gnawed at a horned skull.
She was used to eating separately from the adults, to being silent unless spoken to. Silent she was still, but in a confusion of pride and worry. Here was all the attention she had ever wanted – but in such an inversion of her usual state! Everyone made a fuss of her, kissed her, hugged her; even her aunt coaxed her to take sips of mead or, collecting together a little heap of the best pieces of meat, the whitest injera, fed her. She opened her mouth politely, tried not to gag.
Poems again, more joy-cries. Someone beat a drum and was instantly shushed. At this her whole body rose in protest. She thrilled to drums, to music; hearing even the most distant party would slip down the lanes to join in. Why could she not do this now the drummers were in her own home? Her mother noticed. ‘My heart, please understand. It draws attention. If we play the kebero, if we dance, the evil eye will notice us and the disease will come here. It’s killing people. Remember that lady from the market? She said her waist ached, she had a headache, she rattled with fever. She died yesterday. We cannot risk that. Please understand, child.’
She would always remember no one danced at her wedding. And for the rest of her life she would try to make up for it, threading her way into the centre of the room, placing her hands on her hips, crooking her neck and – especially after her husband died – showing everyone how it ought to be done.
The next morning she was given a new underdress. Then another, for warmth and volume. The main dress was a mass of soft white muslin edged in red. A necklace, corded black silk wound round with delicate gold chains, so long on her eight-year-old body that its two stubby gold crowns swung well below her waist. Silver anklets. A wide, light netela, draped generous around her shoulders and chest, up over her head, then around her shoulders again to secure it.
‘Nigisté,’ said her mother. ‘My queen.’
A scatter of hooves, footsteps, a tumble of voices, and then one of the groomsmen, a relative of theirs, bowing in through the door, bowing to the women. How did you spend the night? Well, the women answered, thanks be to God, and you? Well, well, may His name be praised, may He be thanked for bringing us this day, may His honour and glory increase, and she was lifted up, up through a welter of hugs and kisses, prayers and instruction, into the brightness outside.
The elders were waiting. Past the women, first. Past her smiling grandmother, her aunt. Then the men. May you be given a long life. May He watch over you and keep you, rain blessings down upon you. Her father kissed her. May He go with you, child, all the days of your life.
Gently the groomsman placed her on a waiting mule. Then, because she was too young to control it, he mounted too, and, passing an arm around her waist, grasped the reins. Firmly he pulled the animal’s head round; slowly they moved out of the compound, and left her family behind.
At first she concentrated on their mount, on the animal’s rough narrow back, the part in its mane a dark bolt of lightning. The balls of red wool sewn to bit and bridle that shook at every step. The embroidered saddlecloth. The side of its face, unfeasibly long lashes blinking away flies. The uneven rocking as it searched a path through the stony streets.
After a while she became aware of the running children, the women on errands, the yodelling calls of door-to-door salesmen, the compounds whose walls reflected the sound of their mule’s hooves back to them. And the other hooves, too, clopping out a ragged counterpoint. She knew what they carried: narrow embroidered dresses she could wear now; big square dresses, for when she was older; a length of perfectly white, perfectly even cotton; delicate shemmas; thicker shawls edged with wide red bands; fine basketwork woven by cousins over the long rainy season; twelve grey-tinged salt amolés in lieu of silver; gans of dark beer; a case of cured goat hide, just the right shape for a psalter. The slave girl, Wulé, walked alongside them. Another groomsman. And him.
They were led not to the wide das, where, under a temporary roof of saplings and branches, the wedding guests had already gathered, but to the bridal hut nearby. She felt him sit, felt the groomsmen take their places, took her own.
Ilililililililil! Ilililililililil! She recognised none of the women, but the sound was the same.
The noise from the das rose and rose. Rushes of music, a drum – there was no illness in this part of town. Every so often men came to the door, carrying fluttering chickens as offerings to be made into stew for the bridal party; women with fistfuls of pancake and butter, rich food they held direct to her mouth. But she was not hungry. And she still could not trust that she would not wet her bed at night. So she shook her head and refused it all.
The second day. In the das a minstrel sawed at his jasmine-wood masinqo and tossed rhymes like spears into the crowd. Guffaws of recognition only underscored her distance from home. She heard clapping, ililta. They were dancing! Tears dropped onto her hands. The groomsman who had come to fetch her from her family noticed. He caught her small feet in his hands and drew a finger over her anklets. Who bought you these? Do you know how to clean silver? She shook her head.
The third day. Her mouth stuck shut with thirst but she took only the tiniest sips of water, to loosen it. In the das they danced and sang and clapped and cheered but in the little hut, where if she had been old enough the marriage would have been consummated, no one spoke. Then, ‘Listen. Have you heard the story of the hawk and the tortoise?’ No. ‘Shall I tell you?’ A slight nod. For the rest of the day the groomsman dredged his memory: The monkey king. The tortoise and the hare.
The fourth day. ‘A cat and a mouse were getting married. On the day of the wedding the cat’s groomsmen gathered and together they made for the bride’s house, dancing and singing in anticipation of a feast. The mouse, like all brides, waited amongst her kinsfolk to be taken away to her new life. Then one of the other mice piped up – “You know, cats can’t be trusted. Let’s dig holes in the ground, just in case.” So they set to it, scrabbling out deep tunnels with hidden entrances. Finally the cats came into view, chanting “Ho – pick one up here, ho, pick one up there, ho.” When the mice saw them approaching they turned as one and plopped into their holes. And the cats, who thought they’d been so clever, didn’t catch a single mouse.’ His laugh wilted into the silence.
The fifth day. ‘Aleqa Gebrè-hanna, the famous wit – he was also leader of the church in which you were just married, did you know that?