The young woman known as Izubahil was washing clothes in the Niger with
the rest but slightly on the outskirts of the chattering group of women,
which was fitting since she was both a comparative stranger and as yet
unselected by any man to grace his household. Which, in a way, was
passingly strange since she was comely enough. Clad as the rest with
naught but a wrap of colored cloth about her hips, her face and figure
were openly to be seen. Her complexion was not quite so dark as most.
She came from up-river, so she said, the area of the Songhoi, but by the
looks of her there was more than average Arab or Berber blood in her
veins. Her lips and nose were thinner than those of her neighbors.
Yes, it was strange that no man had taken her, though it was said that
in her shyness she repulsed any advances made by either the young men,
or their wealthier elders who could afford more than one wife. She was a
nothing-woman, really, come out of the desert alone, and without
relatives to protect her interests, but still she repulsed the advances
of those who would honor her with a place in their house, or tent.
She had come out of the desert, it was known, with her handful of
possessions done up in a packet, and had quietly and unobtrusively taken
her place in the Negro community of Gao. Little better than a slave or
Gabibi serf, she made her meager living doing small tasks for the
better-off members of the community.
But she knew her place, was dutifully shy and quiet spoken, and in the
town or in the presence of men, wore her haik and veil. Yes, it was
passing strange that she found no man. On the face of it, she was
getting no younger, surely she must be into her twenties.
Up to their knees in the waters of the Niger, out beyond the point where
the dugout canoes were pulled up to the bank, their ends resting on the
shore, they pounded their laundry. Laughing, chattering, gossiping. Life
was perhaps poor, but still life was good.
Someone pretended to see a crocodile and there was a wild scampering for
the shore. And then high laughter when the jest was revealed. Actually,
all the time they had known it a jest, since it was their most popular
one--there were seldom crocodiles this far north in the Niger bend.
There was a stir as two men dressed in the clothes of the Rouma
approached the river bank. It was not forbidden, but good manners called
for males to refrain from this area while the woman bathed and washed
their laundry, without veil or upper garments. These mean were obviously
shameless, and probably had come to stare. From their dress, their faces
and their bearing, they were strangers. Possibly Senegalese, up from the
area near Dakar, products of the new schools and the new industries
mushrooming there. Strange things were told of the folk who gave up the
old ways, worked on the dams and the other new projects, sent their
little ones to the schools, and submitted to the needle pricks which
seemed to compose so much of the magic medicine being taught in the
medical schools by the Rouma witchmen.
One of them spoke now in Songhoi, the _lingua franca_ of the vicinity.
Shamelessly he spoke to them, although none were his women, nor even his
tribal kin. None looked at him.
"We seek a single woman, an unwed woman, who would work for pay and
learn the new ways."
They continued their laundry, not looking up, but their chatter dribbled
away.
"She must drop the veil," the man continued clearly, "and give up the
haik and wear the new clothes. But she will be well paid, and taught to
read and be kept in the best of comfort and health."
There was a low gasp from several of the younger women, but one of the
eldest looked up in distaste. "Wear the clothes of the Rouma!" she said
indignantly. "Shameless ones!"
The man's voice was testy. He himself was dressed in the clothing worn
always by the Rouma, when the Rouma had controlled the Niger bend. He
said, "These are not the clothes of the Rouma, but the clothes of
civilized people everywhere."
The women's attention went back to their washing. Two or three of them
giggled.
The elderly woman said, "There are none here who will go with you, for
whatever shameless purpose you have in your mind."
But Izubahil, the strange girl come out of the desert from the north,
spoke suddenly. "I will," she said.
There was a gasp, and all looked at her in wide-eyed alarm. She began
making her way to the shore, her unfinished washing still in hand.
The stranger said clearly, "And drop the veil, discard the haik for the
new clothing, and attend the schools?"
There was another gasp as Izubahil said definitely, "Yes, all these
things." She looked back at the women. "So that I may learn all these
new ways."
The more elderly sniffed and turned their backs in scorn, but the
younger stared after her in some amazement and until she disappeared
with the two strangers into one of the buildings which had formerly
housed the French Administration officers back in the days when the area
was known as the French Sudan.
Inside, the boy strangers turned to her and the one who had spoken at
the river bank said in English, "How goes it?"
"Heavens to Betsy," Isobel Cunningham said with a grin, "get me a drink.
If I'd known majoring in anthropology was going to wind up with my doing
a strip tease with a bunch of natives in the Niger River, I would have
taken up Home Economics, like my dear old mother wanted!"
They laughed with her and Jacob Armstrong, the older of the two, went
over to a sideboard and mixed her a cognac and soda. "Ice?" he said.
"Brother, you said it," she told him. "Where can I change out of these
rags?"
"On you they look good," Clifford Jackson told her. He looked
surprisingly like the Joe Louis of several decades earlier.
"That's enough out of you, wise guy," Isobel told him. "Why doesn't
somebody dream up a role for me where I can be a rich paramount chief's
favorite wife, or something? Be loaded down with gold and jewelry, that
sort of thing."
Jake brought her the drink. "Your clothes are in there," he told her,
motioning with his head to an inner room. "It wouldn't do the job," he
added. "What we're giving them is the old Cinderella story." He looked
at his watch. "If we get under way, we can take the jet to Kabara and go
into your act there. It's been nearly six months since Kabara and
they'll be all set for the second act."
She knocked back the brandy and made her way to the other room, saying
over her shoulder, "Be with you in a minute."
"Not that much of a hurry," Cliff called. "Take your time, gal, there's
a bath in there. You'll probably want one after a week of living the way
you've been."
"Brother!" she agreed.
Jake was making himself a drink. He said easily to Cliff Jackson,
"That's a fine girl. I'd hate her job. We get the easy deal on this
assignment."