The Tomorrow-Tamer (29 page)

“Is that what freedom means to you?” the woman asked.

Mammii Ama felt somehow that she was being attacked at her very roots.

“What dis t'ing, what dis Free-Dom? You no savvy Free-Dom palavah, madam. He be strong, dis Free-Dom, he be power word.”

“You're free now,” the woman said. “We give you justice. I'll wager you won't have it then.”

The woman did not speak pidgin. Mammii Ama could not follow every word, but she detected the meaning. The white woman was against Free-Dom. Mammii Ama was not surprised, of course. Nor was she angry. What else would you
expect of Europeans? When she spoke, it was not to the white woman. It was to the market, to the city, to every village quiet in the heat of the sun.

She spread her arms wide, as though she would embrace the whole land. She felt the same as she had once long ago, when she went to meet her young man in the grove. She was all tenderness and longing; she was an opening moonflower, filled with the seeds of life everlasting.

“Dis Free-Dom he be sun t'ing,” she cried. “Same sun, he be shine. I no 'gree for Eur'pean. I 'gree for Free-Dom.”

The woman looked thoughtful.

“Your leader seems popular among the market women.”

“Ha–aah! He fine too much. He savvy all t'ing. He no forget we. Market woman all dey come queen mammy. All–all–”

She stuttered and stopped. The Free-Dom speech seemed to have lost something of its former grandeur. Now, Mammii Ama's words would not rise to her heights. Earthbound, she grasped for the golden lightning with which to illumine the sky. She found it.

“Dat time, you t'ink we pay wen we deah go for bus?” she cried. “We no pay! At all! Nevah one penny.”

The white woman still peered. Then she laughed, a dry sound, like Moki breaking firewood.

“You really think the buses will be free after Independence?”

“I hear so,” Mammii Ama said, truthfully. Then, feeling her faith not stated with sufficient strength, “Be so! Meka come Free-Dom nevah one penny for we. We go for bus free, free, free!”

Her words had the desired effect. The white woman was staring at her, certainly, staring with wide eyes. But in her
face was an expression Mammii Ama did not understand. Who was this stranger, and why did she come here with her strange laughter and strange words and a strange look on her skull-face? Why didn't she go away?

Mammii Ama frowned. Then she heaved her shoulders in a vast shrug and turned back to her stall.

“Hey, you Comfort! Hasn't the village woman come yet with the new calabashes?”

Soon, with the white woman gone, everything was in order, everything was itself once more, known and familiar.

 

“Mammii Ama sell all fine pot,

Oh Oh Mammii Ama!

She no t'ief you, she no make palavah,

Oh Oh Mammii Ama!”

 

The white woman did not come again for a long time, and Mammii Ama forgot about her. Things weren't going so well. Both Adua and the child got sick–skin burning all over, belly distended. Mammii Ama went to a dealer in charms. Then she went to a dealer in roots and herbs. She spent, altogether, six pounds four shillings and ninepence. But it did no good. Adua wouldn't drink the brew the herb-dealer concocted, nor would she allow Mammii Ama to give it to the child. When the fetish priest came to the shanty, Adua lay with her head covered by the blanket, not wanting to see him, but afraid to send him away. Then Adua insisted that Mammii Ama take Comfort to the hospital to see the doctor. Mammii Ama was very much opposed to the idea, but one did not dare argue with a sick person. She took the child. They waited three days before they could see the doctor, and Mammii Ama was in a panic, thinking of her empty market stall, and no money coming in. She
had a little money saved, but it was almost gone now. Finally, the doctor gave Comfort a bottle of medicine, and Mammii Ama, when they arrived home, gave some of it to Adua as well. Slowly, the sickness went away, withdrawing a speck of its poison at a time. Adua went back to work, but Comfort was still too weak to help in the market.

That was always the way–sometimes you had luck; you were well; the coins in the wooden box grew; you bought a little meat, a little fish, a bowl of lamb's blood for the stew. Then–bam! Fever came, or somebody robbed you, or nobody needed pots and calabashes that month. And you were back where you started, eating only
garri
and lucky to have anything. You got by somehow. If you couldn't live, you died, and that was that.

But then a great thing happened. Not in the ordinary run of exciting things, like Moki killing a small python, or Sabina getting pregnant again, this time by a live man. No–nothing like that at all. This was a great thing, the greatest of all great things.

Independence.

The time came. Everyone was surprised when the time actually came, although they'd been expecting it for so long. It was like a gift–a piece of gold that somebody dashed you for nothing.

Mammii Ama was so excited she could hardly breathe. The night before the Day, everyone gathered at the Parliament building, everyone who could dance or walk or totter, even old T'reepenny, who nearly got broken like a twig by the crowd, until Mammii Ama staunchly elbowed a path for her. And there at midnight, the white man's flag came down, and the new flag went up–so bright, and the black star so strong and
shining, the new flag of the new land. And the people cried with one voice–“Now–now we are Free!”

The Day–who could describe it? Commoners and princes, all together. The priest-kings of the Ga people, walking stately and slow. The red and gold umbrellas of the proud Akan chiefs, and their golden regalia carried aloft by the soul-bearers, sword-bearers, spokesmen, guards. From the northern desert, the hawk-faced chiefs in tent-like robes. The shouting young men, the girls in new cloth, the noise and the dancing, the highlife music, the soldiers in their scarlet jackets. The drums beating and beating for evermore. The feasting. The palm wine, everybody happy. Free-Dom.

Mammii Ama sang and shouted until her voice croaked like a tree toad's. She drank palm wine. She danced like a young girl. Everybody was young. Everybody's soul was just born this minute. A day to tell your grandchildren and their children. “Free-Dom shone, silver as stars–oh, golden as sun. The day was here. We saw it. We sang it and shouted.”

The day, of course, like any other day, had to finish sometime. Mammii Ama, exhausted, found her way home through the still-echoing streets. Then she slept.

The next morning Mammii Ama did not rise quite so early. The tea and boiled yam tasted raw in her mouth. She swallowed her cold bile and marched out.

Only when the bus drew to a stop did she remember. She climbed on, cheerful now, full of proud expectancy. She was about to push her way through the standing people near the door, when the driver touched her arm.

“Hey–you! You no pay yet.”

She looked at him shrewdly.

“Wey you say? You t'ief me? I no pay now.”

“So? Why you no pay?”

Mammii Ama folded her arms and regarded him calmly.

“Free-Dam time, meka not one penny for we. I hear it.”

The driver sighed heavily.

“De t'ing wey you hear, he no be so,” he said crossly. “Meka you pay you fare. Now–one-time!”

Some of the other passengers were laughing. Mammii Ama scarcely heard them. Her eyes were fixed on the driver. He was not deceiving her–she could read it in his tired, exasperated face.

Without a word, she took out the coin and dropped it in the metal fare-box.

 

That day the white woman visited the market again. Mammii Ama, piling bowls in neat stacks, looked up and saw her standing there. The white woman held up a calabash and asked how much.

“Twelve shilling,” Mammii Ama said abruptly, certain that would be enough to send the woman away.

To her utter astonishment, however, the woman paid without a murmur. As Mammii Ama reached out and took the money, she realized that the calabash was only an excuse.

“How were your Independence celebrations?” the white woman smiled. “Did you have a good time?”

Mammii Ama nodded but she did not speak.

“Oh, by the way–” the white woman said in a soft voice. “How did you get on with the bus this morning?”

Mammii Ama stared mutely. She, the speech-maker, was bereft of speech. She was more helpless than T'reepenny. She did not have even one word. She could feel her body trembling. The fat on her arms danced by itself, but not in joy. The drummer in her heart was beating a frenzy. Her
heart hurt so much she thought she would fall down there in the dust, while the yellow skull of the woman looked and tittered.

Then, mercifully, the word was revealed to her. She had her power once more. Her drumming heart told her what to do. Snake-swift, Mammii Ama snatched back the calabash, at the same time thrusting the coins into the woman's hand.

“You no go buy from Mammii Ama! You go somewhere. You no come heah. I no need for you money.”

She felt a terrible pang as she realized what had happened. She had parted with twelve shillings. She must be going mad. But she would not turn back now. She took another belligerent step, and the yellow menacing skull retreated a little more. She spoke clearly, slowly, emphasizing each word.

“I no pay bus dis time,” she said. “Bus–he–be–free! You hear? Free!”

Inspired, Mammii Ama lifted the gourd vessel high above her head, and it seemed to her that she held not a brittle brown calabash but the world. She held the world in her strong and comforting hands.

“Free-Dom he come,” she cried, half in exultation, half in longing. “Free-Dom be heah now, dis minute!”

The sun rolled like an eye in its giant socket. The lightning swords of fire danced in the sky.

She became calm. She knew what was what. She knew some things would happen, and others–for no reason apparent to her–would not. And yet, there was a truth in her words, more true than reality. Setting down the calabash, she re-adjusted her fish-patterned cloth above her breasts. She looked disinterestedly at her former customer. The white woman was only a woman–only a bony and curious woman, not the threatening skull-shape at all.

She watched the white woman go, and then she turned back to her stall. She picked up the calabash and set it with the rest. An ordinary calabash, nothing in it. Where was the glory she had so certainly known only a moment before? Spilled out now, evaporated, gone. The clank of the coin in the fare-box echoed again in her head, drowning the heart's drums. She felt weary and spent as she began stacking the earthen pots once more. A poor lot–she would be lucky to get ninepence apiece. They seemed heavy to her now–her arms were weighted down with them. It would continue so, every day while her life lasted. Soon she would be an old woman. Was death a feast-day, that one should have nothing else to look forward to?

Then a voice, hoarse as a raven's, began to sing. It was Moki the woodseller, and as he sang he beat out the rhythm with one of his gnarled sticks. Nearby, others took up the song. Sabina, singing, wrapped her cover-cloth more tightly and swaggered a little in front of her stall so they could see her belly was beginning to swell with the new, good child. The Hausa man donned one of his gilt-beaded hats and waggled his head in mock solemnity. Ancient T'reepenny shuffled in her solitary dance.

Mammii Ama, looking from one to the other, understood their gift and laughed her old enduring laughter and sang with them.

 

“Mammii Ama sell all fine pot,

Oh Oh Mammii Ama–”

 

She was herself again, known and familiar. And yet–there was something more, something that had not been before. She tried to think what it was, but it eluded her. She could feel it,
though. So that the others might know, too, she added to her old chant a verse no one had ever heard her sing before.

“Mammii Ama, she no come rich.
Ha–ei! Be so. On'y one penny.
She nevah be shame, she no fear for nothing.
D' time wey come now, like queen she shine.”

And they caught the rhythm, and the faith, and the new words. Mammii Ama straightened her plump shoulders. Like a royal palm she stood, rooted in magnificence, spreading her arms like fronds, to shelter the generations.

 

THE END

 

AFTERWORD

BY GUY VANDERHAEGHE

R
eaders change by guy vanderhaeghe, but books with life in them survive readers' changes. When Margaret Laurence's
The Tomorrow-Tamer
was first published, the emerging nations of Africa were much in the news and much on the conscience of the West, and it was assumed that the stories in this collection offered “sociological” and “political” insights into post-colonial Ghana. Now, in a different climate, assumptions have reversed. Concerns about “cultural appropriation” and “authentic voice” foster doubts whether a white, middle-class liberal, a mere sojourner in Africa, could possibly render the continent and its inhabitants accurately. Regardless of where one stands in this controversy, an awareness of the arguments surrounding it subtly shape and colour one's response to
The Tomorrow-Tamer
, and influence what one seeks and, consequently, finds between its covers.

Of course, it has to be recognized that Laurence herself broached these topics now so hotly debated. Discussing her African novel,
This Side Jordan
, in her essay, “Gadgetry or
Growing: Form and Voice in the Novel,” she volunteered remarks which apply equally to
The Tomorrow-Tamer
.

I actually wonder how I ever had the nerve to attempt to go into the mind of an African man, and I suppose if I'd really known how difficult was the job I was attempting, I would never have tried it. I am not at all sorry I tried it, and in fact I believe from various comments made by African reviewers that at least some parts of the African chapters have a certain authenticity. But not, perhaps, as much as I once believed.