Where Bones Dance: An English Girlhood, An African War

God

198 God G ranny believes in God. He is white and has a beard. She says that isn’t true. She says, “God looks like every single person on earth.” “And animal?” “Animals don’t have souls.” She looks at me. “At least, they say they don’t. But maybe you’re right.” I smile thinly. I’ve been learning how to smile like that from the woman at the shop by the beach. She does it anytime you ask for anything. It is a smile which isn’t a smile. “So God could be a Nigerian? And God could be a woman?” “God is love,” says Granny. She picks a daisy and spins it in her fingers. We are sitting in between the red currant bushes at the bottom of the garden. “So how come nobody ever says, Our Mother which art in Heaven?” I think about the picture of God leaning over the world and I make it my mother’s face but I don’t like that. I make it Granny and then I make it Christine. “How about the Mother, the Daughter, and the Holy Ghost? ” I don’t want to make Granny sad but suddenly there are more and more questions I never thought of. “Are priests and vicars and ministers only men?” “Yes.” “Why?” I think maybe she will just say “because” but she doesn’t. She says, “Do you remember the Garden of Eden?” I nod. In the book she gave me, Adam and Eve are running around in fig leaves. He has curly blonde hair. Hers is long and straight. “Well, Eve ate the apple first and then she gave it to Adam. Eve was the one who gave in to temptation. She listened to the snake.” “So?” “So she committed the first sin which is what they call original sin. All women carry the stain of that sin. That’s why we can’t be ministers. Women are the weaker vessels.” “That’s not fair. Just because she did it first.” I feel sick. “Why did she do it?” “Because she wanted to know too much.” Granny looks at me. Her eyes are saying, ‘Like you,’ but she’s not cross. I want to tell her I’m a boy anyway but I don’t. I’m not sure all the time. None of it makes sense. Then I think it’s the curse, it’s the same thing, but that doesn’t make sense either unless maybe the curse is the punishment for eating the apple. “That’s why,” Granny says, “when a woman gets married she agrees to be guided by her husband.” “What if she doesn’t get married?” “All women get married.” “What about nuns?” “Nuns marry God.” “What if God is a woman?” I think about Chiaku and Adagu in Christine’s story but I know the priest told Ruth a woman can’t marry a woman. Granny doesn’t say anything. “What about Aunt Elsie? She didn’t get married and she isn’t a nun.” Aunt Elsie 199 C y c l e 3 200 isn’t really my aunt. She is Granny’s best friend and they read tea leaves together. Aunt Elsie is very tall and she wears trousers even though the neighbors don’t like it. She loves pansies. They grow all around her house. When I walk past her house to go to the shop they nod and wink at me. One day I went into her garden. I lay in the grass and looked at their faces. I didn’t hear her come out of the house. I started to get up but she put her hand on my head and I lay down again. She lay down in the grass with me. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” I nodded. My head felt warm where she put her hand. “I like the crimson ones best,” I said. She reached out and stroked the petals. “I love them all,” she said. “Sometimes I think they’re calling me. They say my name.” I don’t know why I said that. She turned and looked at me. Her eyes were quiet and green. “Do you hear them anywhere else?” “Down by the stream.” Her eyes looked all over me but I wasn’t afraid. “You’re your grandmother’s granddaughter alright,” she said and she smiled so her...