Read Online Adé: A Love Story by Rebecca Walker - Free Book Online
Authors: Rebecca Walker
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stretched out on the clinic table. I stared at the smooth, white, hand-plastered ceiling and, wordlessly, allowed the long needle to puncture my skin.
THINGS CONTINUED to change.
Adé’s cousins told me one day, in the garden, or rather, the patch of grass behind their tiny house, that I should start wearing the
buibui.
“Not over your face, but your head. You should cover.”
They giggled when they said this. It was not an order, but a gentle recommendation to the woman who was to become someone akin to a sister-in-law. I told them it was impossible. I had seen them wrap themselves in the yards of black cloth dozens of times and could not grasp even the most basic mechanics. Silencing me with their insistence and circling me with focus and intention, they showed me how to tuck one corner under my arm, and wrap the other twice around my midsection. Each time the fabric fell to the floor, they laughed hysterically, as if I were the stupidest girl in the world.
“You need one to zip, like an old lady,” Maryam said, and they all burst into peals of laughter so loud I was afraid their mother might come and reprimand us.
Enveloped by this bevy of women, I was brought to a shop to buy a ready-made
buibui.
I couldn’t understand what theytold the shopkeeper, but he took their words very seriously. The women could joke about these matters, but he, a man in a compromised position, privy to the inner sanctum of women and obliged to serve them, could not. He responded to Fatima’s requests, her orders, silently and with reverence. He knew their mother, their mother’s mother, and their aunts. He knew Nuru and Adé. His father before him had owned the shop. Respect, discretion, and solicitude were the founding principles of his business: as if he were a visitor in their home and not the other way around.
Eventually, we found something suitable—a
buibui
that I could pull over my shoulders like a dress, with a zipper up the front, so that I could, if necessary, step in and out of the sheath without raising my arms. A black scarf wrapped around my head would be worn as a separate piece.
The very next day, Maryam, Mouna, and Sobra ushered me around town in my new garment, introducing me to my new peers: young and newly married women in their early twenties of a certain class—neither rich nor poor, but comfortable, respected, adorned. In short order I learned to recognize them by the movement of their eyes peeking above the strips of black cloth, the way they tossed their gold bangles as they pointed to items in shops, or the color of their beaded slippers peeking from the hems of their
buibui
as they ran errands.
It was the first time Maryam, Mouna, Sobra, and I were able to be together in public. Before then, when I was not covered, I was still outside. It would not have been right for them to be seen with me. On our early trips out, they glided as I stumbled, slowly acclimating myself to the miles of fabric. We walked to the local school and sat at lunchtime chatting with their younger cousinsstill in attendance. We went to the market together and they showed me which sellers sold the best of each staple. I walked to the beach as one of them now, and leaned against the stone wall with all the other women looking out at the sea, gossiping. The few who spoke English translated my words to the others.
“Ah, she is from
Amrika.
She went to
skuli
there,” said Sobra.
Then one of my other future cousins-in-law, usually Maryam, would tell everyone that I was to marry Adé, and all the eyebrows would fly up.
“Kweli?” True?
And she would nod and look at them mischievously, daring them to protest.
“Kabisa,”
she would say.
I swear.
Sometimes as they talked, I would sit with my knees to my chest, the hem of my
buibui
grazing the sand. I’d catch words here and there, but mostly I absorbed the women. Their scent was heavy from sweat—the
buibui
was hot (when I wore it, I could barely breathe, let alone ignore the
THINGS CONTINUED to change.
Adé’s cousins told me one day, in the garden, or rather, the patch of grass behind their tiny house, that I should start wearing the
buibui.
“Not over your face, but your head. You should cover.”
They giggled when they said this. It was not an order, but a gentle recommendation to the woman who was to become someone akin to a sister-in-law. I told them it was impossible. I had seen them wrap themselves in the yards of black cloth dozens of times and could not grasp even the most basic mechanics. Silencing me with their insistence and circling me with focus and intention, they showed me how to tuck one corner under my arm, and wrap the other twice around my midsection. Each time the fabric fell to the floor, they laughed hysterically, as if I were the stupidest girl in the world.
“You need one to zip, like an old lady,” Maryam said, and they all burst into peals of laughter so loud I was afraid their mother might come and reprimand us.
Enveloped by this bevy of women, I was brought to a shop to buy a ready-made
buibui.
I couldn’t understand what theytold the shopkeeper, but he took their words very seriously. The women could joke about these matters, but he, a man in a compromised position, privy to the inner sanctum of women and obliged to serve them, could not. He responded to Fatima’s requests, her orders, silently and with reverence. He knew their mother, their mother’s mother, and their aunts. He knew Nuru and Adé. His father before him had owned the shop. Respect, discretion, and solicitude were the founding principles of his business: as if he were a visitor in their home and not the other way around.
Eventually, we found something suitable—a
buibui
that I could pull over my shoulders like a dress, with a zipper up the front, so that I could, if necessary, step in and out of the sheath without raising my arms. A black scarf wrapped around my head would be worn as a separate piece.
The very next day, Maryam, Mouna, and Sobra ushered me around town in my new garment, introducing me to my new peers: young and newly married women in their early twenties of a certain class—neither rich nor poor, but comfortable, respected, adorned. In short order I learned to recognize them by the movement of their eyes peeking above the strips of black cloth, the way they tossed their gold bangles as they pointed to items in shops, or the color of their beaded slippers peeking from the hems of their
buibui
as they ran errands.
It was the first time Maryam, Mouna, Sobra, and I were able to be together in public. Before then, when I was not covered, I was still outside. It would not have been right for them to be seen with me. On our early trips out, they glided as I stumbled, slowly acclimating myself to the miles of fabric. We walked to the local school and sat at lunchtime chatting with their younger cousinsstill in attendance. We went to the market together and they showed me which sellers sold the best of each staple. I walked to the beach as one of them now, and leaned against the stone wall with all the other women looking out at the sea, gossiping. The few who spoke English translated my words to the others.
“Ah, she is from
Amrika.
She went to
skuli
there,” said Sobra.
Then one of my other future cousins-in-law, usually Maryam, would tell everyone that I was to marry Adé, and all the eyebrows would fly up.
“Kweli?” True?
And she would nod and look at them mischievously, daring them to protest.
“Kabisa,”
she would say.
I swear.
Sometimes as they talked, I would sit with my knees to my chest, the hem of my
buibui
grazing the sand. I’d catch words here and there, but mostly I absorbed the women. Their scent was heavy from sweat—the
buibui
was hot (when I wore it, I could barely breathe, let alone ignore the
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