Redemption in Indigo

23

one door closes . . .

Finding Paama was embarrassingly easy. Once Kwame entered the main street and asked for the whereabouts of Ansige's house, a passerby wordlessly pointed him towards a large stone and wood structure whose open door was swarming with humanity. Some of the people appeared to be in either great distress or great happiness—it was difficult to tell which. Kwame drew nearer with some hesitation—he disliked crowds.

There was a man sitting on the pavement a short way off from the door. His face, which bore an expression of poignant woe, was partly hidden in his hands. Kwame sidled up to him, unsure as to whether he should intrude in the man's grief.

The man lifted up anguished eyes and thought he saw a comforter.

'I knew this would happen,’ he said. ‘I knew it, but would he listen? Of course not.'

'Ahh, my deepest sympathy, but can you tell me—'

'Giving credit is no better than gambling, gambling on a man's honour, gambling on a man's good luck. But he said that it always paid to do business that way with the lesser chiefs and their kin. What did I know? I was only following orders! But he'll make this my fault somehow,’ he concluded bitterly.

Kwame added his knowledge of Ansige to the man's words and tried a guess. ‘You are a grocer?'

'A junior partner in a wholesale grocery company,’ he confirmed, and then his face fell into deeper depression as he added, ‘but not for much longer, I fear.'

'I am sorry, but can you tell me where I might find Paama, Ansige's widow?'

The grocer jerked his head towards the door, saying with a weak smile, ‘Good luck getting through. I understand only the undertaker's been paid so far, and that's because thirty degrees and eighty-percent humidity is kind to no corpse.'

Kwame managed something between a grin and a grimace in reply and started towards the door. After a few steps, his stride faltered. It was bedlam. People were pushing each other out of the way; the moment someone shouldered their way in, they were almost trampled by someone storming out.

'This is not my way of doing things,’ Kwame muttered to himself.

He bypassed the entire drama and slipped down a side alley. It was walled off at the end, but there were green, leafy branches hanging over a corner of the wall, hinting at gardens beyond. He climbed the wall and discovered a small footpath that led to another road, but he ignored that, choosing instead to jump lightly down into the adjacent garden. The divisions between the back gardens were low and flimsy, so it was only a matter of a hurdle, a quick sprint from an angry dog, and a rolling dive over a fence before he was in the back garden of the late Ansige's residence.

The gate there was shut up tightly, just as he had expected. Paama was sitting on the back doorstep with a knife in her hand and a bowl in her lap, trimming string beans. She froze and stared at him warily for a second before throwing the knife into the bowl and scrambling up hastily.

'Sister Jani and the others sent me,’ he explained quickly, getting to his feet and spreading his hands to show he was harmless.

'How do I know that?’ she challenged, hesitating on the threshold.

'Sister Carmis dreamed me. And I see you're still wearing your headband, but I don't see the brooch.'

Paama slowly relaxed, or at least became less tense. ‘I should have sent a message to them when I got here,’ she admitted. ‘But first I was taking care of Ansige, and then this?'

Shifting the bowl into the crook of her elbow, she rolled her eyes to indicate the noise of the ongoing mayhem at the front of the house.

'That's Ansige's lawyer they're tearing apart. I had to give him a good portion of my gold before he would agree to settle the debts and the estate for me. I've done what was expected of me, and I don't want to do any more.'

'Didn't your husband leave you anything?'

'Anything that wasn't already collateral for a greater debt? No. I suppose they will have to sell off the house to pay off everything. No matter. I wouldn't have wanted to stay in it anyway.'

'Will you be coming home, then?’ Kwame asked.

Paama's mouth twisted. ‘I must stay for the funeral at least. That's the last of my duty. Then back to the House of the Sisters to tell them my news and to Makendha for my sister's wedding. After that, who knows?'

Kwame nodded. ‘I know. Sometimes grief can only be cured by wandering. I have done it myself. Then again, I have often wandered for the sake of wandering, so I suppose it would be hard to tell the difference.'

She smiled. ‘Wandering for the sake of wandering. I like the sound of that. But tell me, young man, do I look grieved?'

He paused and examined her. ‘You look tired ... a bit fed up, which is understandable given the descent of the vultures ... and a little bit sad, but not as if bereaved, though. As if you are missing something. Or someone.'

She did not lose her smile, but whatever humour or cheer there had been in it seemed to fade out, as if a cloud had dimmed the world.

'Something or someone indeed, and possibly both,’ she replied. ‘And neither of them are Ansige or anything to do with him. I left him more than two years ago, and there was plenty of time for me to finish my grieving then.'

She seemed to shrug to herself, as if pushing an old burden off her shoulders. Then she looked at him sharply. ‘How did you know to find me here? As you have already noticed, I had to set aside the brooch a while ago.'

'I guessed,’ he said simply. ‘I asked questions, I made assumptions and I acted on them. I believe the Sisters thought I was very impulsive, though.'

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. ‘It was a very good guess. Did the Sisters tell you why they thought I might be elsewhere?'

Kwame shook his head, amused at the memory. ‘I think they tried, but getting information out of them was like extracting gold from ore—a lot of labour and time, and why bother to do it when you know there's a store just around the corner? I figured that if I was wrong, I had at least eliminated the obvious, which is the first duty of a tracker.'

She smiled again, this time with more brightness. ‘I'd say that chance brought you. The obvious would not have helped you in this situation.'

Then, without warning, she began to cry.

There are a few men in the world who are unmoved by tears from a woman. Kwame was not one of them, but at that moment he wished very much indeed that he were. He came up to her, without a handkerchief, without anything useful and soothing to say, and patted her arm with clumsy concern.

She started to laugh through her tears, which unnerved him even more.

'I am so sorry. It's just that I've had a very strange time recently. Are you a good listener? I don't even know your name, but it would help if I could talk to someone.'

He smiled. ‘My name is Kwame, and in my type of work, one has to be a good listener.'

She sat on the doorstep again, set the bowl in her lap and absently returned to her previous work as she told her tale. Kwame leaned against the door post and watched her as she talked. She told him the whole story of how the Stick had been given to her and how her life had been transformed thereafter. From time to time she glanced at him anxiously to see if disbelief or scorn was showing on his face. Kwame did not have to dissemble. It was no hardship for him to keep his face calm—except for when he looked stern at the cruelty of the indigo lord; awed at the story of the bandit treasure hid beyond human reach; sad at the plague deaths; stirred at the sailors’ courage and the general's integrity; and amused at the naughty little boy who learned how terrible a thing it can be to be beside oneself.

In fact, he reacted in much the same way as I hope you did when you heard it for the first time—and perhaps even more so, because although Paama did not have a storyteller's skills, she had the advantage of having been the one to suffer through the tale's adversities first hand. Kwame listened and felt for her. Compassion is a great amplifier of empathy, and at times it is the only thing that can make a dull story interesting.

When she finished speaking, he remained pensive and silent, so silent that she grew embarrassed.

'Well, It is not an ordinary tale, to doubt you think me mad,’ she said, awkwardly trying to laugh while her knife flashed and nipped off the last of the string beans in a fury of desperation and chagrin.

'I think it is indeed an extraordinary tale,’ he agreed, and then he looked straight at her with eyes that did not judge, and continued, ‘I also think that you are an extraordinary woman.'

The knife hung immobile for a moment as they stared at each other. Then Paama blinked and bent her head over the bowl, drawing her fingers repeatedly through the mass of beans to see if any were left untrimmed.

Kwame cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps I can send a message to the Sisters on your behalf?'

'Yes, thank you. That is something I must do at once,’ she said.

But she did not get up, and he did not move from his position by the door post.

'If I may,’ he said tentatively, ‘it might be a good idea for you to have someone about. The lawyer has enough on his plate, and I fear that others may try to harass you.'

'Yes,’ she acknowledged sorrowfully. ‘I would feel safer with someone else about, but I don't want to drag my family into this. They have already suffered from my marriage to Ansige, and I tell, it might be foolish, but if I could spare them this last bit I would be thankful.'

He shook his head. ‘You don't have to trouble them. It would take a while for them to travel here, perhaps too long. I was referring to myself. After all, I'm already here, and if you have any concerns you can ask the Sisters about me. They can vouch for me?'

'Oh,’ Paama said, and she looked lost and deeply disappointed. ‘I thank you, of course, but I have to be careful. I have to watch my money—I wouldn't be able to pay you for your time.'

Kwame looked very serious. He knew instinctively that he had to be very careful what he said next, for a woman's sense of honour and pride and independence was in many ways no less fragile than a man's.

'I wouldn't worry about that if I were you. I've already been handsomely paid.'