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workers their wages and held the keys to the store; she ordered the provisions and hired the servants; it was she who had the authority to decide which of the women should cook for my father, or travel with him when he went away on business. I found there was nobody to help me. My grandmother shared her daughter’s fears. Even my father would not confront my mother, for she was older than him in years.
    * * *
    I was sitting outside our house on a stool with my tray on the ground before me, preparing
ogere
to sell in the market, wrapping the balls of fermented sesame seeds in leaves and tying the packages with raffia. I used to make the
ogere
myself, standing over the pot, stirring the seeds which boiled for the whole day. Then I would spread them out on rice bags and lay heavy rocks on top of them. After three days, I pounded the fermenting seeds into a paste with my pestle and mortar.
    Ogere
tastes good, but you know how bad it smells. That’s why we never cook it inside the house. Always on the three-stone fire in the yard. At that time it seemed a good job for me. I smelled so bad anyway.
    Those days my chest felt bruised. I was growing breasts, though I didn’t know it. Your uncle saw me. And he knew what he saw. And he stopped and talked to me nicely for a while. I watched him walk away, swinging his prayer beads in his hand, his body outlined by the wind beneath his white gown, and I let my imagination follow him down the street. I saw the power of his shoulders, the strength of his arms and the narrowness of his waist. I did not notice the weakness in the line of his jaw. The next day he came back with a gift: a bowl of scented roseapples. He ate one, and afterwards he handed me an apple and had me eat it. But with every bite I took all I tasted was the raw
ogere
, it overpowered the sweet fruit and made me nauseous. Your uncle appeared not to notice. I saw a man who was kind to me, and I saw the way to free myself from my mother. I ran from the smoke straight into the fire.
    There’s not much more to tell. It’s a true story. You never knew my name was Yankay, the firstborn. That I was once a twin. That I had a brother Alusani, the other half of my soul. Or that I grew jealous of him and longed for my mother to look at me, without knowing what it was I wished for. And how I watched a man with skin like the shadows of the moon collecting the souls of lost children in the forest.
    One day you married one of these men and brought him home. As soon as I saw him so close I could not help myself. I reached out my hand and I touched his skin. And it was warm, so warm — notcold like sea water. But I made you ashamed and afterwards I heard you whispering, making apologies for me you thought I was too deaf to hear.
    Maybe I acted like a fool — and you can call me that if you like. I don’t care because, you see, for one moment I was she, that girl again and I wanted to run to your moon-shadow man and beg him: ‘Tell me where Alusani is? Tell me which one of the birds flying in the sky is my brother?’

3
Mariama, 1931

Stones
    I remember how it was when I danced with my mother. Sometimes I close my eyes and drift as though I am going to sleep. But I am not asleep. I am remembering a time when I was still a baby, before I knew how to talk or even walk.
    Whirling. Whirling. Round and around. Don’t feel dizzy. Eyes closed. Nose between shoulder blades. Lips against soft skin. Breathe the scent of her. We dance. Me on her back. We want to go on for ever. This is how we dance on nights we go together to the women’s place — the secret place where women meet.
    Supper eaten, mama binds me to her back. Holding me squashed against her breasts, bends over, twists my body round her own. On her back now. I know better than to fall off. Cling to her with my thighs, my fists. She drapes the cloth across my buttocks, holds it in her teeth. Ties two ends tight round her waist. Hitches the