Fiction by Ruby Excel

A woman my age has garnered a few funeral clothes. Black velvet knee-length dresses from my late twenties, long African print dresses that touched the ground in my thirties, Slit and Kaba made from very dull tie and dye fabrics for my forties and finally, lace cloths to tie my mid-section as I wear black Kente Slit and Kaba for my early fifties. All worn to funerals of my loved ones. My father when I was twenty-eight, my mother when I turned thirty-seven, my eldest brother in my forty-sixth year, my mother-in-law four years ago and now my dearest friend, Afi, in the fifty-third year of my life.

To Afi’s funeral, I had no idea what I should wear. I knew her when we were too young to even go to funerals. We grew up together on the banks of the Volta in Sogakope. We left home to separate secondary schools, learned German and spoke it when we reunited. We settled in the city years later, lived an hour apart, made plans to visit Germany but hardly even left Greater Accra unless for important family functions. We watched each other raise our families and always, always remained friends.

I attended Afi’s family’s funerals of course, and she was at mine, but I never thought oneday I’ll attend a funeral where Afi was wearing her white wedding dress and I wore a witch’s ensemble.

When they called us to go and look at her, I wept, tormented by that image which would remain in my mind as the last symbol of her presence in this world.

I walked slowly around her body in my slippery Ahenema sandals–– horrified that her beautiful face was now ashy, detached, her lips fastened by the silence of death, her nose wedged with cotton so it could not taste the air of the living anymore.

My husband, Darko, was beside me, squeezing my arm, helping me move so I wouldn’t hold up the queue of death-lookers. There she was, my Afi, with a frozen smile under her veil. I tried not to wail. I reminded myself constantly of my age and position. I wasn’t supposed to break down.
I had to be strong for all who knew her.

But when they were lifting her away for burial, I tore my cloth from my body and wailed like a lost child. I rolled on the floor, bruised myself and ripped my funeral clothes. I called her name, and no one there could console me.

Six weeks to fifty-three is such a young age to die, but there she was. Gone forever.

When we arrived home, I shut myself away. The grief hadn’t hit me this hard when I found out that she had left this world. I wasn’t even this broken when we went to the mortuary and saw her frozen body. I wasn’t even this terrified when I sent her wedding dress to the seamstress to resize and her two sewing machines kept breaking down mysteriously. Even when I was leaving bits of food at my door, as custom demands we do for our dead, I didn’t really grasp that I would never see Afi again.

When the seamstress told me I had to be there for a whole day as she worked on the wedding dress so Afi’s spirit would recognise me and allow her to do the job, I laughed a little at the absurdity of it, but now, weeks after her burial, I wish I could feel the coldness I felt in the seamstress’ shop and recognise it as Afi’s presence. I wish I could pretend to feel what the woman heard as Afi’s instructions for making her dress. Even if I could laugh at myself later, I wish my friend’s ghost would haunt me, so I could be with her.

I just sleep. I lie down and cry till sleep takes me and then I wake up again to continue. Here, in this land, women are born for men. But Afi was born for me. She was my heart’s own rhythm. And she had taken my spirit away with her to the dead lands.

How I wish I could join her stealthily, without the drama of exiting the world. I just want to close my eyes in sleep and wake to find her waiting for me along the banks of the stream we played on when we were girls.

She would be disappointed to see me like this–– at odds with reality, only getting up from bed when nature absolutely dictated that I must. She hated weakness, but I hope she realises how powerless I am against the grief.

My youngest, Abena, cooks for the household these days. I taught her well, as my mother taught me. I’m often still in bed when Darko returns from work. Abena hurries back from school and prepares supper.

Darko’s patience is declining fast. Abena is preparing for her final exams, and it has nothing to do with how to make swallows not lumpy. She must be learning the science behind food, not the domestics of cooking. He is right, I realise that. But how do I return to my life after Afi and what happened to her. A woman my age, with more vigour in her left hand than I have in my body has died suddenly.

An incident made Darko so furious we had one of the biggest fights of my fifties, and I tell you, the competition was tight.

I was in bed thinking of Afi when we were twenty-five and the world revolved around our pencil skirts and wild opinions. I heard a scream. Even rushing downstairs was a gruelling charge.

She should have known not to fry fish in such a small pan. The oil overflowed when she slipped the fish in. This was science, how come she hasn’t learnt that in school?

When Darko came home and I told him the kitchen was nearly burnt because Abena was frying fish of all things and had no knowledge of basic Science, he wanted to tear me apart. “You almost cost me my daughter and my home?”

I laughed and told him that he should be more furious that Abena didn’t know better, she should have used a bigger pan, and I had taught her better than that. He looked at me as though I was insane. Maybe I am. Even though I avoided the looking glass in my room, I know I looked shabby and beaten.

Abena was badly shaken up and wouldn’t even go to the kitchen, much less go near the stove. I had to return to my wifely duties and Abena had to study more Science.

I started small. Simple suppers and no breakfasts. The obligation was arduous now and all I wanted was to quench my energy, curl up in the darkness in the bedroom and sleep away my sadness.

Darko was not speaking to me and I’m sure he wouldn’t break that wall to tell me he didn’t enjoy boiled rice and tomato stew five times a week.

Another week went by, and no soups or swallows. Only rice, rice and beans.

The following week, the wall cracked a little. When I placed his food before him, he said, “Beans again?” Few days later, “Rice and beans today too? The palm oil isn’t even fried with onions!” The next evening, “I need soup! Teresa, soup, or forget cooking!”

The following morning I went to the market and bought ingredients for Chicken Soup and Fufu. Then I remembered it was Afi’s favourite. I went to bed after leaving the items in the kitchen and slept all day. I couldn’t prepare the soup. Darko came home, saw the porridge I had made instead, and just left. He returned at one in the morning and went straight to bed.

The next morning he had some words for me. “I know you’re grieving…” He started. “I know. But if this is how you’re behaving, what should Afi’s husband do? Mmm? He is being a man about it. He carries on as usual. Yes, he’s in pain, but what would you say if he slept all day and didn’t work to feed his children?”

I was silent, seated on the sofa in the living room, staring, as he stood tall over me, thinking if it was really that weak to grieve this strongly.

After months of faint existence, where I cooked when I could, however imperfectly, Afi’s husband called me for the ceremonial event of going through Afi’s things. Most of the women from her family attended, including the one who had taken the children in to care for them as her husband had been unable to.

The men sat outside with the widower while the women went through her clothes and other personal items.

While we spoke about the life of my friend we also spoke of what had followed her death. I was surprised to find through gossip that Afi’s husband had already begun looking for a new mother for the children.

“Oh,” I said softly, my voice unable to hold the dense helplessness. “I suppose that will happen whether Afi’s youngest is six or twenty years old.”

The women nodded in agreement.

We segregated her silk scarfs from her church clothes, dresses from her youth from garments of motherhood. We labelled those to be kept for her children, those the women there were welcome to take to remember her by. My tears soaked the pile of arrays of a lifetime.

The ones Afi’s husband had ordered us to burn were taken to the backyard. Some stood by the pillars on the veranda, some in the doorway, others by the window, a few in the compound, but everyone was there to see me light a fire on her clothes.

As the flames ate the pile I followed the trail of smoke heaven-ward, thinking of where Afi’s home was now and which people or clothes were keeping her warm. She had always been the one who helped me deal with my Great Sadness, as we called it. Whenever my mind had failed me, she came to me, and reminded me of what there was to be joyful of.

Her presence was in the escaping smoke which was climbing towards the clouds. I closed my eyes and solidified my senses with her compassion, comforting words and kindness. Her loud, happy laughter and our incomparable affection for each other.

Facing the fire alone with everyone behind me, I let the heat dry the tears and didn’t shed any more. I tucked her memory gently in my heart and sat with the heaviness that came with it—allowing myself to carry her with me wherever I’d go.

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Bio
Ruby Excel is a writer living in Accra who aspires to create stories which challenge misconceptions about Africa. She explores themes from national identity to mental health struggles, and complexities of romantic relationships.

She enjoys blues and soul music, period films, classic novels, looking at art and drinking tea.

She is currently working on her second novel, which focuses on mental health and the African attitude towards it, loneliness, and sisterhood.

Her first novel, Lyrics to the Colour Red – a political romance novel – was shortlisted for the 2024 Island Prize.