Echoes Of Fuladu 3: Tomorrow Doesn’t Care

Mrs Owens came to greet her too, drawn outside by the noise of the children and the indignant clucking of the hens. She stopped when she saw the small mountain of things that had arrived with Matou.

“My goodness, Matou! Did you leave anything in Farato?”

The adults laughed, and for the first time since morning Matou felt something other than sorrow rise inside her. Pride.

She knelt beside the bundles and began explaining everything carefully. These vegetables were from Borogie’s garden. The groundnuts had come from one of the women in the neighbourhood. The eggs had been given by another. The ripe crops had been selected by her father. The cloth was homemade. The hens had come from the family compound.

“And this?”

“Another neighbour gave me that.”

“And this too?”

Matou nodded.

Mrs Owens looked genuinely astonished. “All these people gave you things?”

“Yes.”

There was pride in that answer.

Matou did not possess the words to explain why the question pleased her so much.

These were not merely vegetables, groundnuts, eggs, cloth and hens.

They were evidence.

Evidence that somewhere beyond Bakau there was a whole community in which Matou’s existence mattered. People had heard that she was leaving and had gone into their houses, opened baskets, looked among what they themselves possessed and found something to send with her.

Take this. Carry this to Bakau. Give this to the people you live with. Don’t forget us.

The abundance was not in the monetary value of what had been given. Some of those neighbours possessed very little themselves. The abundance was in the number of hands that had contributed.

Mrs Owens lifted the cloth and examined it admiringly.

“This is beautiful.”

“My mother sent it.”

Matou said it quickly, almost possessively. My mother.

Mrs Owens looked at her and smiled. “Then you must thank her for me when you see her again.” When you see her again.

Matou held onto those words.

Not if. When.

Around them the children were still examining everything. Jane had become particularly interested in the hens and was trying to decide which one she liked best.

“That one is mine,” Matou warned.

“You brought it here.”

“That doesn’t make it yours.”

“Then I’ll name it.”

“You won’t!”

Their squabbling sent the others into laughter.

And strangely, standing there among the children and the gifts, Matou began to notice the Owens’ compound properly. Everything looked different. Brighter somehow. Cleaner. Shinier.

Had the house always looked like this? After two months in Farato, the modest comforts of the Owens’ home seemed almost luxurious. The walls looked smoother than she remembered. The windows seemed larger. The furniture appeared polished. Even familiar household things caught her attention as though she were seeing them for the first time. And there was electricity. She had almost forgotten what it was like to enter a room and have light appear without someone trimming a wick or checking whether there was enough kerosene.

She stared at the electric bulb. Jane caught her. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re looking at the light.”

“I am not.”

“You are!”

Matou pushed her playfully. “Go away.”

Later, she would turn the switch herself and watch the room brighten instantly. Click. Light. She did it again. Darkness. Click. Light.

How extraordinary that something she had once taken for granted could become fascinating after only two months away. There was no smoky kerosene smell clinging to the room. No lamp flame trembling when somebody passed too quickly. No need to protect the precious light from the wind. The bed looked different too. Soft. Almost embarrassingly comfortable.

Matou pressed her palm into it and watched the mattress yield beneath her hand.

For two months she had slept on a hard mud slab, sometimes with little more than a thin covering between her body and the hardness beneath. On cold nights the blanket never seemed thick enough. She and Bubel would wriggle towards Borogie, competing shamelessly for the warmth of her body.

“Move!”

“You move!”

“You are on my side.”

“There is no side!”

Then Bubel would somehow end up sideways, one leg across Matou and his head burrowed against Borogie as though the entire sleeping space belonged to him.

Matou would complain.

Borogie would tell them both to keep quiet.

Five minutes later they would be giggling again.

Sometimes Nenneh Dado, from her own sleeping place, would threaten to throw all of them outside if they did not stop talking. Now Matou looked at the soft bed in Bakau. She could stretch her legs. There was room. There was comfort. There was electricity.

There were things here that her parents’ compound did not have. And she would have exchanged them all without hesitation for that hard bed in Farato. Give her the slab. Give her the thin blanket on a cold night. Give her the mosquitoes whining against Borogie’s carefully hung net. Give her the kerosene smell. Give her Bubel’s heel digging painfully into her thigh.

Give her his snoring. Give her Borogie muttering, “Will you children sleep?” Give her Nenneh Dado complaining from across the room. She would take all of it.

Because comfort, Matou was beginning to understand, was not always the same thing as happiness. One could sleep on something soft and ache. One could sleep on something hard and feel safe.

……………………

Nata stayed long enough to make certain everything was properly settled. She helped arrange the gifts and spoke politely with the adults. She inspected where Matou’s belongings were kept with the seriousness of an older sister conducting an investigation. She asked questions Matou found slightly embarrassing and watched Aunty Bae more closely than Matou would have liked. At last, there was nothing left for her to do. “I should go.” Matou’s happiness vanished. “You have to?”

“Yes.”

“Stay.”

Nata smiled. “And tell my husband what?”

“Tell him I refused to let you leave.”

“He might come and collect both of us.”

“Good. Then I can go to Jeshwang with you.”

Nata laughed, but Matou did not.

For one foolish, hopeful moment she had meant it. Nata saw the change in her face. She took Matou’s hand and led her a little away from the others. “Hey.”

Matou looked down.

“Look at me.”

Slowly, she did.

“Don’t start crying again.”

“I am not crying.”

“Your eyes have been telling everybody a different story since Farato.”

Matou almost smiled.

Nata held both her shoulders.

“Listen to me.”

Matou did.

“Don’t allow sadness to make you forget why you are here.”

Matou’s eyes immediately dropped.

“I know.”

“No. Don’t say you know because you want me to stop talking. Listen.”

Matou looked up again.

“You are here to learn. You have opportunities here that Baba and Neneh want you to have. That does not mean everything here will be easy. And it doesn’t mean you have to love being away from us.”

“I don’t.”

“I know.”

“I hate it sometimes.”

Nata’s expression softened.

“I know that too.”

Matou swallowed.

“And don’t think being here means you don’t belong to us.”

Something in Matou’s face changed. Nata saw it immediately. She took her younger sister’s face between her hands.

“You hear me?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think you heard me.”

“I heard you.”

“Then what did I say?”

Matou looked embarrassed. “That I belong to you.”

“Where?”

Matou shrugged.

“Say it.”

“In Farato.”

Nata shook her head.

“In Jeshwang.”

“No.”

Matou looked confused.

Nata smiled.

“Everywhere.”

She touched Matou’s forehead.

“You belong to us in Farato. You belong to us here in Bakau. You belong to us when you are at school. You belong to us when you are angry with us. Even if one day you go so far away that none of us can pronounce the name of the place, you will still belong to us.”

Matou’s eyes filled.

“Nata…”

“No crying. Please. Your eyes already look like somebody beat you.”

Matou gave a wet laugh.

“I didn’t sleep last night.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“Everybody knows. Your face has announced it to the whole of Bakau.”

That made Matou laugh properly.

Nata pulled her into an embrace.

This time Matou held her tightly.

“When will I see you?”

“I don’t know.”

Matou pulled back immediately.

“Everybody keeps saying that.”

“Because nobody knows tomorrow, Matou.”

“I don’t like tomorrow.”

Nata laughed softly. “Tomorrow doesn’t care.”

That sounded so much like something Yerro might say that Matou smiled.

Nata kissed her forehead.

Then she left for Jeshwang.

Matou followed her to the edge of the compound.

She watched her sister walk away.

Nata turned once and waved.

Matou waved back.

Then Nata continued.

Matou remained there long after there was nothing left to see.

………………….

Only after Nata disappeared did the Owens’ compound change again.

A few minutes earlier it had seemed bright, almost new. Now its brightness felt different.

Too neat.

Too quiet.

Too settled.

Matou turned back towards the house.

The children were still there. Jane was saying something to her. One of the hens protested from its temporary confinement. Mrs Owens and the others were still discussing the gifts.

Nothing terrible had happened.

Nobody had rejected her.

In fact, everyone seemed genuinely pleased that she had returned.

Yet loneliness slipped into her as quietly as evening shadow.

She looked at the things she had brought.

The hens shifted and complained.

Vegetables filled baskets.

There were groundnuts, eggs and crops. Folded cloth rested among the belongings.

Matou reached for the homemade cloth and ran it between her fingers.

That morning she had believed she was leaving everything behind.

Perhaps she had been wrong.

Farato had followed her.

It had travelled in baskets and bundles.

It had come in vegetables pulled from her mother’s garden and crops handled by her father’s hands. It had come in hens that had scratched around the same compound where she had spent her holiday. It had come in homemade cloth that smelled faintly of smoke, dust and the long journey.

But Farato had followed her in ways nobody could unpack.

It was in the prayers spoken over her by old women.

It was in the neighbour who had searched her stores for something to give.

It was in Yerro’s hand resting briefly on her head.

It was in Nenneh Dado’s instructions.

It was in Nata extending a one-night visit by several days because she would not allow her little sister to make the return journey alone.

It was in Bubel’s screams.

And most painfully of all, it was in Borogie’s decision not to accompany her.

Matou understood now why her mother had stayed behind.

Bubel had cried so desperately that taking him along would merely have moved the heartbreak farther down the road.

Still, part of Matou wished Borogie had come.

She wanted one more mile with her.

One more stop.

One more hour.

One more moment in which she could look beside her and see her mother there.