Her three days short story

The Anchor Book of

Modern African Stories

Edited by

Nadezda Obradovic with a foreword by

Chinua Achebe

AN ANCHOR BOOKS ORIGINAL, DECEMBER 2002

Copyright@ 1994, 2002 by Nadezda Obradovic Foreword copyright © 1994 by Chinua Achebe

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,

and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Previously published, in slightly different form, as African Rhapsody: Short Stories from the Contemporary African Experience,

in 1994 by Anchor Books.

Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

These stories ate works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously. Resemblance to actual

persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Anchor book of modern African stories / edited by Nadezda Obradovic ; with a

foreword by Chinua Achebe. p. cm.

ISBN 0-385-72240-0 (pbk.) 1. Short stories, African (English) 2. Short stories, African—Translations into English.

3. Africa—Social life and customs—Fiction. 1. Title: Modern African stories. II. Obradovic, Nadezda.

PR9348 .A53 2002 823'.0108896—dc21

2002074441

Book design by Oksana Kushnir

www.anchorbooks.com

SEMBÈNE OUSMANE

Sembène Ousmane was born in 1923 in Senegal. He left school at the age of fifteen after only three years of formal education.

He joined the French Army in 1939, and accompanied them to liberated France in 1944. After the war Ousmane became a

longshoreman in Marseilles, drawing on his experiences for his

first novel, Le Docker Noir (The Black Docker), published in

1956. Believing that film had the potential to reach a wider audi-

ence than the written word, he enrolled at the Gorki Studio in Moscow in 1961. He returned to Senegal two years later, and since then has produced a number of feature and short subject films. In 1966 he directed La Noire de. . . . The first feature ever produced by an African filmmaker, it won a prize at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival. Beginning with Mandabi (The Money Order), Ousmane has been producing films in the Wolof lan- guage, taking his work on tours throughout Senegal. His subse- quent films have often been temporarily banned or censored for their political commentary. Among his books are God's Bits of Wood, The Last of the Empire, Niiwam and Taaw.

Her Three Days

Translated by Len Ortzen

She raised her haggard face, and her faraway look ranged beyond the muddle of roofs, some tiled, others of thatch or galvanized

iron; the wide fronds of the twin coconut palms were swaying slowly in the breeze, and in her mind she could hear their faint rustling. Noumbe was thinking of "her three days." Three days for her alone, when she would have her husband Mustapha to herself . . . It was a long time since she had felt such emotion. To have Mustapha! The thought comforted her. She had heart trouble and still felt some pain, but she had been dos-

144 SEMBÈNE OUSMANE HER THREE DAYS 145

ing herself for the past two days, taking more medicine than was pre- scribed. It was a nice syrup that just slipped down, and she felt the beneficial effects at once. She blinked; her eyes were like two worn buttonholes, with lashes that were like frayed thread, in little clusters of fives and threes; the whites were the color of old ivory.

"What's the matter, Noumbe?" asked Aida, her next-door neighbor,

who was sitting at the door of her room: "Nothing," she answered, and went on cutting up the slice of raw

meat, helped by her youngest daughter. "Ah, it's your three days," exclaimed Aida, whose words held a mean-

ing that she could not elaborate on while the little girl was present. She went on: "You're looking fine enough to prevent a holy man from saying his prayers properly!"

"Aida, be careful what you say," she protested, a little annoyed. But it was true; Noumbe had plaited her hair and put henna on her

hands and feet. And that morning she had got the children up early to give her room a thorough clean. She was not old, but one pregnancy after another—and she had five children—and her heart trouble had aged her before her time.

"Go and ask Laity to give you five francs' worth of salt and twenty francs' worth of oil," Noumbe said to the girl. "Tell him I sent you. I'll pay for them as soon as your father is here, at midday." She looked disap- provingly at the cut-up meat in the bottom of the bowl.

The child went off with the empty bottle and Noumbe got to her feet. She was thin and of average height. She went into her one-room shack, which was sparsely furnished; there was a bed with a white cover, and in one corner stood a table with pieces of china on display. The walls were covered with enlargements and photos of friends and strangers

framed in passe-partout. When she came out again she took the Moorish stove and set about

lighting it. Her daughter had returned from her errand. "He gave them to you?" asked Noumbe. "Yes, Mother." A woman came across the compound to her. "Noumbe, I can see that

you're preparing a delicious dish."

"Yes," she replied. "It's my three days. I want to revive the feasts of the old days, so that his palate will retain the taste of the dish for many

moons, and he'll forget the cooking of his other wives." "Ah-ha! So that his palate is eager for dishes to come," said the

woman, who was having a good look at the ingredients. "I'm feeling in good form," said Noumbe, with some pride in her

voice. She grasped the woman's hand and passed it over her loins.

"Thieh, souya dome! I hope you can say the same tomorrow morn-

ing . ." The woman clapped her hands; as if it were a signal of an invitation,

other women came across, one with a metal jar, another with a sauce- pan, which they beat while the woman sang:

Sope dousa rafetail, Sopa nala dousa rafetail Sa yahi n'diguela. (Worship of you is not for your beauty, I worship you not for your beauty

But for your backbone.)

In a few moments, they improvised a wild dance to this chorus. At the end, panting and perspiring, they burst out laughing. Then one of them stepped into Noumbe's room and called the others.

"Let's take away the bed! Because tonight they'll wreck it!" "She's right. Tomorrow this room will be . ." Each woman contributed an earthy comment which set them all

laughing hilariously. Then they remembered they had work to do, and brought their amusement to an end; each went back to her family occu-

pations. Noumbe had joined in the laughter, she knew this boisterous "rag-

ging" was the custom in the compound. No one escaped it. Besides, she was an exceptional case, as they all knew. She had a heart condition and her husband had quite openly neglected her. Mustapha had not been to see her for a fortnight. All this time she had been hoping that he would come, if only for a moment. When she went to the clinic for mothers and children she compelled her youngest daughter to stay at home, so

HER THREE DAYS 147 146 SEMBÈNE OUSMANE

that—thus did her mind work—if her husband turned up the child could detain him until she returned. She ought to have gone to the clinic again this day, but she had spent what little money she possessed on preparing for Mustapha. She did not want her husband to esteem her less than his other wives, or to think her meaner. She did not neglect her duty as a mother, but her wifely duty came first—at certain times.

She imagined what the next three days would be like; already her "three days" filled her whole horizon. She forgot her illness and her baby's ailments. She had thought about these three days in a thousand differ- ent ways. Mustapha would not leave before the Monday morning. In her mind she could see Mustapha and his henchmen crowding into her room, and could hear their suggestive jokes. "If she had been a perfect wife . ." She laughed to herself. "Why shouldn't it always be like that for every woman—to have a husband of one's own?" She wondered why not.

The morning passed at its usual pace, the shadows of the coconut palms and the people growing steadily shorter. As midday approached, the housewives busied themselves with the meal. In the compound each one stood near her door, ready to welcome her man. The kids were play- ing around, and their mothers' calls to them crossed in the air. Noumbe gave her children a quick meal and sent them out again. She sat waiting for Mustapha to arrive at any moment . . . he wouldn't be much longer now.

An hour passed, and the men began going hack to work. Soon the compound was empty of the male element; the women, after a long siesta, joined one another under the coconut palms and the sounds of their gossiping gradually increased.

Noumbe, weary of waiting, had finally given up keeping a lookout. Dressed in her mauve velvet, she had been on the watch since before midday. She had eaten no solid food, consoling herself with the thought that Mustapha would appear at any moment. Now she fought back the pangs of hunger by telling herself that in the past Mustapha had a habit of arriving late. In those days, this lateness was pleasant. Without admit- ting it to herself, those moments (which had hung terribly heavy) had been very sweet; they prolonged the sensual pleasure of anticipation. Although those minutes had been sometimes shot through with doubts and fears (often, very often, the thought of her coming disgrace had

assailed her; for Mustapha, who had taken two wives before her, had just married another), they had not been too hard to bear. She realized that those demanding minutes were the price she had to pay for Mustapha's presence. Then she began to reckon up the score, in small ways, against the veudieux, the other wives. One washed his boubous when it was another wife's turn, or kept him long into the night; another sometimes held him in her embrace a whole day, knowing quite well that she was preventing Mustapha from carrying out his marital duty elsewhere.

She sulked as she waited; Mustapha had not been near her for a fort- night. All these bitter thoughts brought her up against reality: four months ago Mustapha had married a younger woman. This sudden real- ization of the facts sent a pain to her heart, a pain of anguish. The addi- tional pain did not prevent her heart from functioning normally, rather it was like a sick person whose sleep banishes pain but who once awake again finds his suffering is as bad as ever, and pays for the relief by a redoubling of pain.

She took three spoonfuls of her medicine instead of the two pre- scribed, and felt a little better in herself.

She called her youngest daughter. "Tell Mactar 1 want him." The girl ran off and soon returned with her eldest brother. "Go and fetch your father," Noumbe told him. "Where, Mother?" "Where? Oh, on the main square or at one of your other mothers'." "But I've been to the main square already, and he wasn't there." "Well, go and have another look. Perhaps he's there now." The boy looked up at his mother, then dropped his head again and

reluctantly turned to go. "When your father has finished eating, I'll give you what's left. It's

meat. Now be quick, Mactar." It was scorching. hot and the clouds were riding high. Mactar was

back after an hour. He had not found his father. Noumbe went and joined the group of women. They were chattering about this and that; one of them asked (just for the sake of asking), "Noumbe, has your uncle (darling) arrived?" "Not yet," she replied, then hastened to add, "Oh, he won't be long now. He knows it's my three days." She deliberately changed the conversation in order to avoid a long discussion about the other three wives. But all the time she was longing to go and find

148 SEMBÈNE OUSMANE HER THREE DAYS 149

Mustapha. She was being robbed of her three days. And the other wives knew it. Her hours alone with Mustapha were being snatched from her The thought of his being with one of the other wives, who was feeding him and opening his waistcloth when she ought to be doing all that, who was enjoying those hours which were hers by right, so numbed Noumbe that it was impossible for her to react. The idea that Mustapha might have been admitted to hospital or taken to a police station never entered her head.

She knew how to make tasty little dishes for Mustapha which cost him nothing. She never asked him for money. Indeed, hadn't she got herself into debt so that he would be more comfortable and have better meals at her place? And in the past, when Mustapha sometimes arrived unexpectedly—this was soon after he had married her—hadn't she has- tened to make succulent dishes for him? All her friends knew this.

A comforting thought coursed through her and sent these aggressive and vindictive reflections to sleep. She told herself that Mustapha was bound to come to her this evening. The certainty of his presence stripped her mind of the too cruel thought that the time of her disfavor was approaching; this thought had been as much a burden to her as a heavy weight dragging a drowning man to the bottom. When all the had unfavorable thoughts besetting her had been dispersed, like piles of rubbish on wasteland swept by a flood, the future seemed brighter, and she joined in the conversation of the women with childish enthusiasm, unable to hide her pleasure and her hopes. It was like something in a parcel; questioning eyes wondered what was inside, but she alone knew and enjoyed the secret, drawing an agreeable strength from it. She took an active part in the talking and brought her wit into play. All this vivacity sprang from the joyful conviction that Mustapha would arrive this evening very hungry and be hers alone.

In the far distance, high above the treetops, a long trail of dark gray clouds tinged with red was hiding the sun. The time for the tacousane, the afternoon prayer, was drawing near. One by one, the women with- drew to their rooms, and the shadows of the trees grew longer, wider and darker.

Night fell; a dark, starry night. Noumbe cooked some rice for the children. They clamored in vain

for some of the meat. Noumbe was stern and unyielding: "The meat is for your father. He didn't eat at midday." When she had fed the children, she washed herself again to get rid of the smell of cooking and touched up her toilette, rubbing oil on her hands, feet and legs to make the henna more brilliant. She intended to remain by her door, and sat down on the bench; the incense smelt strongly, filling the whole room. She was facing the entrance to the compound and could see the other women's husbands coming in.