Where Bones Dance: An English Girlhood, An African War

Trader

Trader G abriel says, “Madam, the trader is here.” He says that every Friday. My mother goes outside. The trader is a thin man in khaki shorts with a white rag wound around his head. His eyes are long and thin too. With a flick of his toes he pulls out the kickstand of his bicycle. He carries the burlap sack from the bicycle to the shade of the front porch. Before he opens it he says, “Madam, I have one, two thing very special, very old. The other ladies, they do not know. You have a knowing eye. I will show you what I have.” He brings out the things one by one, unwrapping the newspaper from each and pausing. My mother watches silently as he lays out ashtrays of Kano silver, wooden masks with round eyes, small bronze lions. Then he pauses a second longer and with a sigh unwraps the special thing. This Friday it is a pair of wooden figures. As my mother reaches for them he says, “These are very very old, Madam” and stands them side by side. Surrounded by the ashtrays and masks, they stare straight ahead with heavy lidded eyes. One is a woman. Her breasts hang down to her belly 86 button. The other has a huge thing which sticks out. They are dusted with blue powder which clings to the dark wood as if it is skin. Their legs are squat and bowed, they aren’t even a foot tall but they are heavy, they are heavy with themselves. There is something else I can feel but I can’t say about them. My mother wants them. The trader knows this. She asks him to show her the rest of his goods and she watches until he has unwrapped the last bundle, then she points to the figures. “These are Yoruba?” She is using her African voice. It isn’t pidgin but it isn’t ordinary English. She speaks slowly, the words stiff and separate like Lego bricks. “From what region do they come?” “This I do not know. I bought them from another trader. I paid a high price because I knew Madam would be interested.” “How much you want for them?” “Fifty pounds, Madam” “Oh no, John, what you think I am an American? I can give you twenty-five pounds.” His face becomes so long it seems to hang down from his forehead like a rag as he reaches for the figures to wrap them in newspaper . “Madam, I myself paid forty pounds.” “I will give you thirty pounds.” “Madam, Madam.” When my father comes home she says, “Darling, look what I got from John today, a pair of Ibejis, aren’t they marvelous?” He holds them in his long hands and frowns. “They’re a real find, listen to what the book says.” She opens it to where the marker is. “How much did you pay for them?” “Listen. This is the explorer Richard Lander in 1830: Many women with little wooden figures on their heads passed in the course of the morning, mothers who having lost a child, carry imitations of them about their persons for an indefinite time as a symbol of mourning. 87 C y c l e 2 88 None could be induced to part with these affectionate little memorials . Whenever the mother stopped to take refreshment, a small part of their food was inevitably presented to the lips of these inanimate memorials.” “How much were they?” “Twenty-five pounds.” “Anna love, we just don’t have that kind of money to throw around.” “Any museum would give their eye teeth to get their hands on these.” He doesn’t reply. “We’ll eat mince for a week sweetheart.” “How are we going to get them out of the country? The government doesn’t allow the export of antiquities, you know.” “Just look at them darling, aren’t they marvelous?” “They are very fine,” he says. He bends down to look at the pair squatting on the long glass coffee table between the two Benin bronze leopards. They are standing side by side. They don’t look at him. They were sold. They don’t want him to touch them. The word I couldn’t find for them is angry. C y c l e 2 ...