Still Sings the Nightbird

A girl like you

77 A A girl like you he sound of an attempt to gather and spit out mucous came from her Showshow. She rattled her throat with disdain. It was something people did when they saw someone they did not like. They would then spit out just in front of them. But Kabi knew Naana had a bad chest. Naana was not angry with Kabi but she was not happy for her. Her own daughter had done better in the eyes of the people. Kabi looked at her kindly. Naana’s frail figure was like a framed picture as she sat in the kitchen doorway in the mornings. She sat leaning forward on a roughly hewn wooden plank grounded firmly by two other pieces of wood, her chair. Sometimes, when this chair was propped against the kitchen wall, she leaned back and slept. The wall became the back part of the chair. The chair looked like a small bridge on the ground outside where she now sat. The light of the sun became stronger. She said that the rays bit her skin. She said that she saw black spots far in the shining sun. Then she said she became blind for some moments. She moved into the kitchen. Kabi lifted her chair for her. Naana sat still on her seat propped on the mud wall. The uneven surface pushed her shoulder blades in crookedly back into her flesh. She certainly knew the difference between old times and the present. These modern walls were not like the polished ones of the huts that were built in her days and smoothened with cow dung. She was proud of how they did things long time ago. She saw no progress here. She blew her nose noisily and quickly cleaned her fingers against the sooty dry wall. Kabi was staying home this day. She had herself to thank for not feeling sick looking at that thick liquid sliding down the wall. The mucous was tinged with snuff. She could thank too, the dry and crispy air in the house. Somehow she could forget the sound of mucous traveling down the throat of her grandmother and not even worry about bacteria. If it had been a cold and wet day, without a fire T 78 burning, Kabi knew she would have felt sick listening to the sound of mucous being gathered in the throat again and again. Naana aimed fairly well and spat into the ashes in the fireplace this time! Kabi looked tenderly at Naana. She always inserted tobacco in her nostrils to sneeze. Naana promptly pulled a dirty but colorful shuka around her flabby flesh on her legs. Kabi looked at her granny lovingly again. She forgot her own hard nights as she thought of her grandmother’s poor bed. She longed for the day she would be able to give her some basic joys. She hoped Naana would live to enjoy the comforts of a good bed, the type one longs to lie on. Naana spat again. Kabi spoke. “CNJcNJ ƭƭƭ, we are thinking of getting the old bed fixed for you.” “You are very kind child, but old flesh like mine needs to lie on a tough surface. You will soon need to fix me in rough wood and put me in the ground!” Naana had answered to the surprise of Wam who had walked in quietly. The old woman continued to speak like a doctor explaining that it was much better to sleep on a hard surface than on such a sagging thing. And that she was old enough to go. Naana stared at Kabi. It was as if Naana had a quarrel with the air. “And remember child, you will need your bed and everything you have. You have given birth. A girl like you will not be married by anyone… for a girl like you, no dowry, they will call you gƭcokio… a left over human being, the rejected one or the one who is returned. You have a child and no one is going to bring things, property to your father because of you. It is hard for you. I do not know if your education will marry you, a girl like you. You must be prepared for that!” Kabi did not say a word. That is not what one did with elders. One listened. Their words were like hidden gospels in their old chests. Revelations. But Kabi’s worth had been stamped on her spirit by...