Adé: A Love Story (7 page)

“They have sayings printed on them!” I said. “The one I am wearing today says
Haraka, haraka, hakuna baraka
which means, if you are in a hurry, you won’t get the blessing.”

My mother laughed her big laugh when I told her this, and Adé did too, his ear pressed against the receiver listening for the sound of her, the living place of my birth. I began to feel like an intruder standing between them, keeping one from the other, and so I passed the ancient handset to Adé, who took to it like fire, his voice softening with respect.
“Jambo Mama.”

His face grew serious as he listened to her with unflinching sobriety. “All is well,” he said, utterly appropriate for the moment. “Do not worry. I know she is far from home, but I am taking care of her. Even my mother, she is taking care of her.”

This last utterance made me feel like a little girl wearing a little yellow dress and standing only to Adé’s kneecaps. I fought an urge to skip and jump up and down. He was taking care of me. Even his mother was taking care of me. I was being slung over a warm hip for the rest of eternity.

Adé handed the phone back to me and I was an adult again, but softer, more vulnerable this time.

“He sounds so tender,” my mother said. “I’m so happy for you. This is good.”

I nodded my head. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, this is good.” And my mother and I laughed conspiratorially. I was meant to replicate
her experience, but at the same time remake it to fit my own life. I was still constructing our mother-daughter house, but Adé and his island were pillars supporting the whole.

Before leaving the post office, Adé and the man behind the counter exchanged a few parting words, implicit with promise of future favors, reciprocity. I reveled in these moments. I was so used to taking care of myself, of quickly surmising the lay of the land and negotiating it for survival, that the sheer ease of it, of having to do nothing at all, flooded my brain like a drug.

I knew from that day forward, the man from the post office would not look me in the eye because it would be a sign of disrespect. If we passed each other one afternoon on my way to the storefront where I bought passion-fruit juice, he would nod deferentially, eyes lowered, telegraphing the silent knowing of my position. I was part of Adé’s family now. I was spoken for. I commanded the same respect as his sisters or cousins. The blend of anonymity and acknowledgment was exquisite. I was free, but protected.

I was alone, but never without the specter of my man.

Within the week I told Hassan of our engagement, and bid him, the proprietor of the guesthouse in which I had lived for so many weeks, a teary farewell. I moved my books and clothes into the new room, our first house, and immediately set about making the place our own. I swept the floor and covered the bed with a large white
kikoi.
The cotton was thicker than the cotton of the
kangas,
more like soft canvas than muslin. I hung my wraps on the hooks, adding streams of color: bright orange, pale blue, a rich, loamy brown. I arranged my collection of novels, spines out, in a neat line along the floor. I collected fruit—mangoes mostly, but also
passion fruit and guava—in a bowl by the bed. I gathered chalk-white stones from the beach and lay them in a mound on the tiny bedside table. I bought amber musk from one of the scent shops and sprinkled it in each corner of the room.

Adé did everything else. He bought the extension cords necessary to light the coils of the hot plate. At night he cooked my favorite foods: coconut rice and
mchicha,
a spinach-like leafy green. Mango soup. He hung the mosquito net over our bed. He showed me a dozen times how to shower with the tin cup and tub of water and scolded me, jokingly, about my inability to use water sparingly. He washed all of our clothes, quickly and efficiently, and hung them on a retractable line he strung across the terrace.

One day I went out with him on the dhow and an unexpected shift of the tide left us stranded on another island in the archipelago. The next day I could barely move—my entire body was on fire from what the sun had wrought—and Adé walked the island for hours until he found a local remedy, then laid me gingerly on our bed and slathered the concoction in smooth, even strokes across my back and down my legs.

As the days passed, we spoke Swahili and English, him looking up from the tiny outdoor washbasin, his face streaming with water, eyes half closed.
How do you say?
And he would point to my toothbrush, his leg, or the loaf of bread on the tiny table.
Mswaki, mguu, mkate.
So much of what we shared was unspoken, unnamed, beyond language, and yet the new words were important. We were building a house to live in. A house that reflected the sounds and colors and laughter of all our days. A house of words.

Adé made love to me with growing confidence, and I sensed his pride in his newfound skill. After much discussion, one afternoon
we walked to the women’s clinic for birth control, holding hands as we navigated the narrow streets. When the young woman at the clinic informed me of my options—a shot of Depo-Provera or a shot of Depo-Provera—I remembered reading about the drug; it was used in developing countries as a trial, to test for potential long-term side effects. It was being tested on poor women who had few options. Adé said it was my decision. I focused on the upside of six months without a period, kissed his cheek, and stretched out on the clinic table. I stared at the smooth, white, hand-plastered ceiling and, wordlessly, allowed the long needle to puncture my skin.

THINGS CONTINUED
to change.

Adé’s cousins told me one day, in the garden, or rather, the patch of grass behind their tiny house, that I should start wearing the
buibui.

“Not over your face, but your head. You should cover.”

They giggled when they said this. It was not an order, but a gentle recommendation to the woman who was to become someone akin to a sister-in-law. I told them it was impossible. I had seen them wrap themselves in the yards of black cloth dozens of times and could not grasp even the most basic mechanics. Silencing me with their insistence and circling me with focus and intention, they showed me how to tuck one corner under my arm, and wrap the other twice around my midsection. Each time the fabric fell to the floor, they laughed hysterically, as if I were the stupidest girl in the world.

“You need one to zip, like an old lady,” Maryam said, and they all burst into peals of laughter so loud I was afraid their mother might come and reprimand us.

Enveloped by this bevy of women, I was brought to a shop to buy a ready-made
buibui.
I couldn’t understand what they
told the shopkeeper, but he took their words very seriously. The women could joke about these matters, but he, a man in a compromised position, privy to the inner sanctum of women and obliged to serve them, could not. He responded to Fatima’s requests, her orders, silently and with reverence. He knew their mother, their mother’s mother, and their aunts. He knew Nuru and Adé. His father before him had owned the shop. Respect, discretion, and solicitude were the founding principles of his business: as if he were a visitor in their home and not the other way around.

Eventually, we found something suitable—a
buibui
that I could pull over my shoulders like a dress, with a zipper up the front, so that I could, if necessary, step in and out of the sheath without raising my arms. A black scarf wrapped around my head would be worn as a separate piece.

The very next day, Maryam, Mouna, and Sobra ushered me around town in my new garment, introducing me to my new peers: young and newly married women in their early twenties of a certain class—neither rich nor poor, but comfortable, respected, adorned. In short order I learned to recognize them by the movement of their eyes peeking above the strips of black cloth, the way they tossed their gold bangles as they pointed to items in shops, or the color of their beaded slippers peeking from the hems of their
buibui
as they ran errands.

It was the first time Maryam, Mouna, Sobra, and I were able to be together in public. Before then, when I was not covered, I was still outside. It would not have been right for them to be seen with me. On our early trips out, they glided as I stumbled, slowly acclimating myself to the miles of fabric. We walked to the local school and sat at lunchtime chatting with their younger cousins
still in attendance. We went to the market together and they showed me which sellers sold the best of each staple. I walked to the beach as one of them now, and leaned against the stone wall with all the other women looking out at the sea, gossiping. The few who spoke English translated my words to the others.

“Ah, she is from
Amrika.
She went to
skuli
there,” said Sobra.

Then one of my other future cousins-in-law, usually Maryam, would tell everyone that I was to marry Adé, and all the eyebrows would fly up.

“Kweli?” True?

And she would nod and look at them mischievously, daring them to protest.

“Kabisa,”
she would say.
I swear.

Sometimes as they talked, I would sit with my knees to my chest, the hem of my
buibui
grazing the sand. I’d catch words here and there, but mostly I absorbed the women. Their scent was heavy from sweat—the
buibui
was hot (when I wore it, I could barely breathe, let alone ignore the constant stream of sweat that cascaded down the sides of my torso)—and they all wore the same sweet, overpowering jasmine perfume that brought dizzying waves of nausea. A few took the time to speak to and about me with kindness, asking what it was like where I was from, and how I met Adé. Those women told me I was lucky to be marrying him, that all the girls had wanted him since he was a young boy.
So handsome!
they said.
And strong!
A few of them laughed, referring, I think, to his presumed sexual prowess.

Other women were angry and threw cutting knives of jealousy at me with their extraordinarily expressive eyes. The movement of their hands was sharp as they spoke quickly and gestured to me, a newcomer to the circle. I could not understand what they
were saying. I wondered if one of these women had been chosen to marry Adé. I could not be sure, but I could imagine the loss of him, and what it might mean to the community—I was a foreigner, after all.

On some days, I felt afraid, neither inside nor outside. But then the breach was always crossed in the tiny room at the top of the hill—on the bed Adé carved, in the world Adé, seemingly, built with his bare hands.

In the evenings, Adé took me to meet the elders—the men and women who raised him, the ones who taught him how to carve, sail, and read the Qur’an. I didn’t feel as if he was seeking their approval, but after the fifth or sixth visit, I understood I was being vetted. Each night, Adé would lead me by the hand to a new part of town I did not know existed, with homes secreted behind immense carved wooden doors opening onto proper stone courtyards that to me were as grand as the Taj Majal.

Once inside, it was always the same. Adé would sit quietly in a chair as our host asked him questions about me, my family in the U.S., and our future plans. At Adé’s every response, the host looked me over carefully, making mental notes of my features and body movements. I became quite agile at this ritual penetration, and performed the appropriate greeting and leave-takings as required.

None of it bothered me, the strong, independent woman from America. I didn’t feel demeaned or degraded. Some would say I could feel this way because I could leave. I still had my father’s credit card and my mother’s cash. But instead, each meeting brought me closer to Adé. I understood I was his decision. And as each day passed, I grew more confident that he was mine. Why
not allow myself to be observed? I had nothing to hide. Why not stand by his side? Was there someone else, anywhere, better than him?

Still, sometimes at night, in our bed, gripped by insecurity, I asked him why he chose me. Because you are my destiny, he might say. But this most often: because you were free to choose, and you chose me.

One morning, Adé told me it was time to visit the
shamba.
I had no idea what this meant, only that we were leaving the island for the first time together, going to the mainland. I dressed carefully. I was not confident enough to wear my
buibui
away from home, but knew I had to approximate the effect, so I put on a black skirt and a white shirt with three-quarter sleeves. I draped my black headscarf around my shoulders, and asked Adé if I looked okay. He pulled the fabric over my head and hair and told me I looked beautiful that way, covered.

“Why won’t you cover for me?” he asked. “I am almost your husband, and still you won’t cover for me?” And then again, “Ah, but you look like a real Swahili girl that way. Pure.”

I laughed and brought it back down, looking into his eyes. We both knew I was not ready. He kissed me then, a long kiss in our little room before a grueling day of travel.

We boarded the ferry. I reached for his hand, but he did not take it, which shocked me, but only for a moment. We were not walking the narrow streets of his tiny town, after all, but entering the larger world of strangers. Within the walls of our room anything was possible. In the island’s small village, we were free to roam as young lovers. Away from home, our connection would be maintained through an invisible but unbreakable thread. We
would appear separate, but to the trained eye—the people who knew what lovers and husbands and wives looked like in this world—our togetherness would be unmistakable.

We rode the ferry like all the other couples: sitting quietly on the hard wooden seats, looking straight ahead and silently watching the water while the ancient engine groaned. An hour later, we climbed onto the dock and into chaos. I hadn’t seen any cars or roads for months, let alone throngs of people arguing and haggling with dozens of street vendors. I had not seen whole groups of people who were not Muslims, who were not Swahili, but Luo and Kikuyu, with round faces and Christian names. I was overwhelmed, but Adé took my elbow and steered me through the maze to a bus stop with an aluminum roof. He motioned for me to sit in the lone empty seat.