Adé: A Love Story (8 page)

Finally, I asked, “
Where
are we going?”

“We are going to the
shamba,
” he said again, meaning the farm, but no kind of farm I had ever known. “We are going to see my father.”

My face gave away my surprise. Adé had mentioned his father once or twice, with a quiet detachment that sometimes felt like simmering rage, but more often like a sea of disappointment. I instinctively felt protective. I knew it must have to do with our impending marriage; some unwritten agreement between father and son. I didn’t, couldn’t, know the depth or the specifics, only that I had to be present, respectful, and strong. I nodded solemnly.

“Don’t worry,” he said distractedly, “we will not stay long, and we will stop at the house of my cousins on the way back. You will like them. They are three women, living alone without husbands. One of them is studying to be a
daktari.
”

I asked him to tell me more about his cousins. I was always trying to piece together the endless web of relationships, to build the family tree in my mind in order to embed myself within it. But we were already on the bus, and the road had grown dusty and narrow. Adé was withdrawn, staring out the window. We were traveling to meet the father who abandoned his mother for another woman and took no part in raising him. He was seeing the man his mother forced him to respect in the traditional ways, irrespective of his actions. I sensed that my marriage, our marriage, would be the rite that ended the charade. Adé was to become his own man, and this last bit, perhaps a last goodbye, was a crucial exchange.

The
shamba
was a dusty compound at the end of a dusty road that reminded me of the old roads I drove with uncles and aunts in the South when I was a little girl. The dirt was red. Tall grasses grew alongside, suffocated by the dust. I could not picture Nuru living here. It was beneath her, this sweltering heat with no ocean in sight, a barren land isolated from the comings and goings of her family and friends. In fact, I could not see how any of them—not Adé or Amina or Mumin, Adé’s brother—would fare without Lamu’s narrow stone streets and stately doors, aromatic shops full of chapatis and chai, its sparkling sea at the edge of it all.

Adé flagged the bus driver and we stepped off the bus at an unmarked spot, in a wasteland. I linked my arm into his and he pulled away, growing even more pensive as we walked up the road. I poked his side for levity, but his expression did not change. When we arrived at the mouth of the compound Adé was completely quiet, impossible to read, masked. He had begun to walk a few steps ahead of me as if scouting for land mines, and
if any were tripped, he would bear the brunt of the explosion. I wanted to give him support, succor, but Adé was the hero of his own journey now. I smoothed my skirt and felt pride, assuming the role of the young wife-to-be as best I could as we approached the grouping of four small houses, not unlike the shacks where my mother was born, in the South—but these were filthy and run down, and those were not. Five or six children ran, laughing, between them, playing a version of tag. Their clothes were dirty, their houses were dirty, their road was dirty. Adé and I were spotless—the wealthy city mice visiting the poor country mice, except we were not particularly wealthy, just clean and full of hope.

Another turn and then, there he was—Adé’s father—on the porch of one of his little houses, sitting stock still on the top step, expecting us, it would seem, with one elbow resting on a raised knee. He saw us, but showed no emotion. He was darker than I had imagined, darker than Adé, than Nuru. He looked hollow, lost, overrun. He seemed angry. He glanced at us, briefly, with a stare so empty that a chill ran through me. It occurred to me that I did not know where I was, or with whom. If anything happened, I would barely know how to get back to Lamu.

Adé made the respectful greeting. “Papa,
shikamoo,
this is Farida.”

His father looked briefly at Adé and gave me a quick glance before nodding a begrudging approval. Adé asked after his four wives, and all of their children. He knew all of their names and ages, and each of them came up to him as he spoke and looked at him shyly, with shining eyes, admiration, and not a small bit of awe. He was from far away! He was their big brother, even if they did not know exactly what that meant. Adé pulled small gifts
for them out of his shoulder bag, items I had not seen him pack. A
kanga
for the oldest girl, gum and candy for the youngest, pens for the boy in the middle. The wives stood watching without words, nodding their heads in gratitude from doorways. The scene was like an old Western: tumbleweeds, stoicism, unspoken heartache, and an undercurrent of violence.

I wondered if these children had ever seen the ocean. I wondered what it would be like to be related to them. Would they expect me to bring them gifts, to curry favors on their behalf? I respected the family, but knew I did not want this responsibility. Nuru’s children would always have my allegiance. But these children did not belong to her or Adé, these children I would not, could not, claim.

After a few more silent moments, Adé pulled out a giant wad of bills—cash I did not know he had, more money than I ever imagined he could have—and handed it over to the wordless, emotionless man. The wives moved closer. The children grew quiet. Adé said something I could not understand, did not need to understand. The money, my presence, his determination to face his father squarely, without deference, were all signs, at least to me, of Adé claiming his freedom. He had been a good son; he had honored his father over the years, despite his father’s dishonoring his mother and abandoning him. Now he had his own bride, his own money. He was leaving his father’s house.

His father did not count the money, but slipped it into his shirt pocket with a nod. He did not thank Adé, but accepted the bills as if they were owed to him. As if the deal had been struck long ago and there was no need for pretense. Adé paid for his release, and when the transaction was complete, their eyes met and
parted for the last time. Adé turned, and I with him, to take our rightful place in another life far, far away.

Adé was quiet all the way back on the bus to the small house in the main town of Malindi, closer to where the ferry docked. The three women—Khadija, Asma, and Halima—his cousins, answered the door with bright smiles and a huge meal of coconut rice and cassava. I exhaled as they spoke Swahili too quickly for me to understand, and wandered through the simple, wood-framed house until I found a room with a small bed. I pulled a few of my
kangas
from my bag for cover, and drifted into a deep sleep filled with dreams of dust, winding roads, and strangers appearing out of tall grasses.

I awoke to darkness and the sounds of the four of them talking in the kitchen under the fluorescent light that shone blue or green, depending on how the light struck the eye. Adé must have told them about me because when I wandered in, they made me a plate of food and started to ask questions about my life in the States. Their concerns were practical, and the sisters communicated with the same straightforward intensity as Nuru had months before. But I was no longer frightened of this way of slicing straight to the heart of things. It was a relief to get to the basics, to know the strength of the foundation before deciding how high a tower, how deep a future, was possible together.

They were especially interested in the details of my parents’ divorce. I told them I was still in school and eight years old at the time. My mother had moved to California and my father remained in New York, so I spent my childhood traveling back and forth between them. His cousins nodded knowingly. The splitting
of families was not a new phenomenon. Determining the dimensions of the scar tissue was the thing to be done.

“How far was your mother’s house from your father’s?” Asma asked. “From Malindi to Lamu, or Malindi to Nairobi?”

“No, no,” I said, searching for a closer parallel. “More like Nairobi to Saudia,” using the same shortened version of Saudi Arabia that I had heard so often at Nuru’s house when they were discussing the ultimate pilgrimage—making the hajj.

“Ohhhh,”
said the three of them almost at once, while looking at me with pity.
“Far.”
Khadija ran her hands over her kanga, punctuating her assessment of the damage.

Later that night, in the bigger bed they had given us, Adé told me more about the women. Halima had mental problems and would never marry, he said. These troubles had been with her “since she was a little girl and her father wanted nothing to do with her.” She was being taken care of by the other two, both sisters by different fathers. Khadija was studying to become a doctor—“not an ordinary doctor but one who helps people who have problems in their heads, who cannot understand things as they are.” And Asma, the one with the chocolate skin who laughed at my stuttering Swahili, was “to be married to a man in a high position” and would always be known as the one who married so-and-so, with a name of prominence and respect. From then on, it would be as if the entire family had married this man, because that is how it was in Swahili culture. I did not ask what kind of high position. Politics, religion, it meant the same: she would have more power as his wife, which would elevate the power of all of us.

In the morning, the sisters asked me what I thought of Adé’s father and I made a face, opening my eyes wide and raising my
hands as if to say I could make neither heads nor tails of him. They looked at each other, and laughed.

“He is not a good man,” Khadija said.

“Adé is the best that came out of that one!” Asma agreed. “He will not dare come to the
harussi.
Nuru would not allow it.”

And then they laughed and laughed, and I laughed along with them because I knew Nuru too, and she would never tolerate her ex-husband’s presence. The image of any attempt he would make to show up despite her wishes was comical, absurd. But Adé did not laugh as we did; he chastised us.

“He is my father. It is not right for you to speak of him this way.”

Halima turned her head away from where he sat, as if his voice were coming from somewhere else.

“You will never have to see him again,” Asma said. “You have given him money even though it is he who should have given it you, or is it? He has seen Farida is healthy enough to have children. You will have your own family now. He cannot ask anything else of you. It is over,
basi.
”

Adé was quiet. She was right. There was nothing more to say.

ON THE DAY
we returned to the island, a heated discussion was taking place in the small causeway of Nuru’s house about the absence of my parents. Amina translated the main points for me, and told me that after marathon sessions late into the night it had come down to the issue of parental approval. Permission to marry must be granted in person. Adé had to approach both of my parents in the traditional way and ask if our families could be joined. If my parents agreed, money would be exchanged.

This I could not understand. “My parents are to give you a dowry?” I asked Adé as we listened to Amina’s recounting.

“No,” Adé said. “My family is supposed to give
your
family a sum of money to put away for the things we will need after the wedding—plates, furniture, clothes, silver—whatever we need to set up house. The money is a seal. Once paid, plans for the
harussi
can commence because your parents will know that I can take care of you, and our future children. My mother is very concerned about all this. Will your parents come to Lamu, or should I go to
Amrika?
”

I didn’t know what to say.

“You have to understand, Farida,” Amina said. “The coming together of the families cannot be avoided. The
harussi
is for them too. By the end of the ceremonies the two households come together as one.”

A few of the women slapped their palms together as if to say,
yes,
that is it—the thing that cannot be sacrificed. The others grew quiet, nodding. The
harussi
would be impossible without the involvement of my parents.

There was also the issue of my personal, bodily ablutions. Only women were allowed to discuss these matters and a dozen came to Nuru’s house the next day for just that purpose. Flinging off their
buibuis
at the threshold, they seated themselves on cushions around the edges of the hallway, with their backs against the wall. I sat with Adé’s grandmother on her raised wooden cot, feeling exposed, as if my naked body was being prodded like a mango for tenderness. But I was also happy, because this was another sign of belonging: what happened to me mattered.

Again, Amina translated the salient points for me. It was unusual but not unheard of for Swahili men to marry women from the West, but Adé was special to the community and so customs must be observed as faithfully as possible. A son like Adé was not simply thrown to the wind.

At the moment the women were discussing the
singo
that should be applied in the days leading up the wedding, a purifying paste of jasmine, rose petals, sandalwood, and other ingredients Amina struggled to translate.

I nodded, and then thought of my own parents. They would ask if I loved Adé, if he made me happy, and once this was determined, my father would quietly assess Adé’s net worth and calculate
his ability to provide for me. My mother would embrace Adé, and immediately move on to his mother and the other women in the family, eventually setting up shop on the floor among them.

Adé’s family was different, the assessments more carefully calibrated. Many of the women were adamant that my own mother be responsible for the bridal rituals: taking care to bathe and dress and present me in the right way, to ensure I had a respectable number of gold bangles on my wrists, and to provide monies for food for the days and days of feasting. Everyone seemed to agree on this, but then Nuru stated the obvious: my parents were unable to complete the tasks. Even if they came for the wedding, they did not know how to prepare me in the traditional way.