Ada's Room

A kaleidoscopic novel spanning generations and continents, that reveals the connections between four women all fighting for survival. A woman in 15th century Ghana named Ada buries her child and confronts a Portuguese enslaver. A woman in Victorian England named Ada Lovelace, a mathematical genius based on the only child of Lord Byron, tries to hide her affair with Charles Dickens from her husband. A woman named Ada, imprisoned in a camp brothel at Buchenwald in 1945, will survive one more day. Connected by an unknown but sentient spirit, and a bracelet of fertility beads that each Ada encounters at a pivotal moment in her life, these women share a name and a fight. ; As their interwoven narratives converge on a modern day Ada, a young Ghanian woman who finds herself pregnant, alone, in Berlin, searching for a home before her baby arrives, their shared spirit will find a way to help her break the vicious cycle of injustice. ; This novel is a feat of imagination and breaks down simplistic notions of history as a straight line; one woman’s experience matters to another’s 400 years later, on a different continent. In this deeply moving, at times mordantly funny, ultimately hopeful book, there is a connection between all those fighting for love, for family, for justice, for a home.

Autorentext

Sharon Dodua Otoo; translated by Jon Cho-Polizzi

Leseprobe
Ada

Totope

March 1459

During the longest night of the year, blood clung to my forehead and my baby died. Finally. He had whimpered in his final moments, and Naa Lamiley had caressed his cheek. How lovely, I had thought, that this would be his final memory. She lay beside him, the child between us, and her head rested next to mine. Naa Lamiley's eyes shimmered as she assured me it would not be much longer now, "God willing." She whispered because all of our mothers were sleeping on the other side of the room, but Naa Lamiley's voice would have given out at any moment anyway. Together, we had cried and prayed at my baby's side for the last three nights. I could barely hear her, and I understood her even less. While she caressed him, she had stared at me, as if surprised by my confusion-though the words How would you know? never left my lips. In an already unbearable situation, this moment was particularly absurd. Naa Lamiley always knew. But in that moment-it was quite literally a matter of my own flesh and blood-I did not want to seem clueless to her. To distract myself, I scratched my forehead. I scratched and forgot I had blood under my nails.

The few candles Naa Lamiley had gathered and placed before the doorway flickered.

"It was this way with Kofi, too." She breathed softly, as if she did not wish to disturb my son while he was dying. Shame on me. This was not so long ago. The ensuing silence resulting from my shame and her sympathy accompanied us through the final tortured breaths. The candles wept.

Outside, Naa Lamiley had prepared a tiny pad of palm leaves to lay him out in the moonlit courtyard. She spread a white cloth over it. There would be no grave. The boy did not even have a name; he was only five days old. And yet he had tarried longer than my first child. Also a boy. He had opened his eyes immediately after birth, looked around, and evidently not liked what he had seen. That little one had left us before I could even take him in my arms.

Naa Lamiley squeezed my hand once, briefly, then shifted to her knees and stood. I wanted to as well, but with great effort, I managed to make it only halfway-a squat. It was about time to carry out his body-I remained on the floor. She bent over one of the flames-I remained on the floor. She blew one candle out, then the next, then another. Finally, she lifted the baby's body and carried him from our room. I remained on the floor. The darkness comforted me.

Through the open doorway, I watched how Naa Lamiley weighed my baby in her arms, how she lay his body gently down onto the palm leaves, how she adjusted his head lovingly, pressing his lips together. How she blinked her tears away. I leaned back against the wall, closed my own eyes, and dozed off.

By sunrise-his body was still warm-the older women, toothless and spitting, had assured one another that I had best forget about it all as quickly as possible. They sat together on the bench directly in front of our hut, watching the morning unfold. The one whose eyesight was poorest nodded emphatically in Naa Lamiley's direction as she pronounced that I was still young and could, God willing, bear at least three more healthy children one after another.

"Or"-Mami Ashitey cackled, shaking her broom-"perhaps all three at once!" And as if this were the best joke of all time, they began to laugh in unison. Their rib cages shook, and their eyes wept tears of laughter. I bit my lip. Did they not know the prophesy had foretold that I-the woman they all called Ada-would accompany only one child into adulthood?

Naa Odarkor, who was frying up the masses of shrimp that would later be brought to market, threw her fan to the ground and leapt over the coal stove. She had to prop up the toothless one whose hearing was poorest, as she began to laugh so mightily, she almost fell from her bench.

Forget it all as soon as possible? I fought to hold on to every memory I had of him! I clung with all my strength to the sour scent of my son. His murmuring still resounded in my ears, as though he had only just stopped nursing. And I longed for this again, o! My swollen breasts all but robbed me of my breath. As chapped and tender as my nipples were, I wished for nothing more than to exchange the agony in my engorged breasts for the torture of nursing. Naa Lamiley shook her head and chewed at her cracked thumbnail while the toothless ones began to laugh at me once more. But it was really true that I could still feel how he had gazed at me as I had held him in my arms. Like a promise, he would stay with me forever. Or perhaps a promise that I had never really lived without him.

"Eh-eh!"

"He's not your HUSBAND, o!"

I turned away. So, I should only mourn someone I once had lain with? Pfft!

I did not want a grave. There should not be another forgotten, overgrown place that no one would care for after we had departed-and that would be soon after all: We were only waiting for a sign. No grave. But there should be a ritual; Naa Lamiley knew which one.

Not until early evening, after the hearth fire had been fanned, the soup cooked, and the yams mashed-not until all of us had eaten-only then would one of my mothers "take care of the baby." Unless I could steal away with him while the toothless ones-surrounded by plucked feathers and slaughtered hens-continued to chatter on excitedly. I would walk to the great water, approach its edge, and permit the tiny peaceful body to glide out upon the waves. This was my wish.

Because I did not yet want to show myself at market-it was still too soon-I sent Naa Lamiley instead to collect the two or three yams we needed for the ritual. She nodded, first in exhaustion, then in determination-disappearing with a basket of smoked fish. I also threatened to disappear. Before my eyes an all-encompassing blackness spread. A hole. Were I to fall into it, there would be no escape.

The toothless ones calmed themselves, and the hens, too, ceased their clucking and flapping. Mami Ashitey cackled on, hobbling about and fluttering her arms in the air.

"Naa?" she cried, her right eye tearing.

Naa Odarkor shook her head. Seconds before, she had watched as Mami Ashitey had rubbed her face with her dusty hand. I should have removed whatever it was that ended up in her eye-it would have been better, for Naa Odarkor's fingers shook-but it was still too soon. I could not tolerate Naa Odarkor's loving gaze upon her wife, the tenderness of her touch, the pettiness of Mami Ashitey's pain. By …