2. New Friend, New Life
The sun was already down when she finally woke up. She reached for the matches and lit her lamp. Immediately she remembered her new friend, the snail.
But what a nice smell there was in the room! The smell of freshly cooked rice and fried fish! She looked at the old wooden table in the corner of the room. She could hardly believe her eyes. There was a bowl of white rice, a plate of fried fish and a dish of vegetables. She went to the table.
No, she was not dreaming. There was the food, still steaming hot, as if it had just been cooked. It was a long time since she had eaten such a good meal. Who was the kind person who had brought her this? Bu Aminah thought and thought, but couldn’t think of anybody who could have been so generous to her. She had no relatives and her nearest neighbor lived a mile away.
From that time onwards Bu Aminah always had enough food. Whenever she came home from the river or the market, she would find the house clean and the food ready on the table. Day by day her hut changed too. One by one the old chairs were replaced with new ones; then there was a new table, and one evening Bu Aminah found some new clothes on her old bed which in time also changed into a new one. And all that time she could not find out who the kind person was. She had asked her friends in the market, but nobody seemed to understand. Most of them even thought that the loneliness had made her mad.
“If only my little snail could talk,” thought Bu Aminah, “then she would be able to tell me who comes here every day.”
“Did you see anybody entering the house, my friend?” she asked, but the snail did not answer. Instead she crept slowly into the earthen pot and pulled her long neck inside the golden shell.
Finally Bu Aminah had an idea. The next day she took her basket and went out as usual. But instead of going all the way to the market she turned back to her house, following a different road. She walked quietly towards her hut, hiding herself as much as possible in the bushes that grew beside the path. She wanted to find out who her mysterious visitor was. When she was near the hut she crept on hands and knees towards the window which she had left slightly open on purpose. She put her ears against the bamboo wall and listened hard. For a long time nothing happened then suddenly she heard a soft movement from inside the hut. The old woman looked through the window.
A Person Who Lived Under A Spell
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