I was eight years old and I had a goat with white and black patches called Sira, and I had a school notebook with a blue cover on the doorstep, and my grandmother was in the middle of the courtyard with the bundle on her shoulder, and from the other side of the river came gunshots.

My grandmother had said to me: «Aminata, take one thing and we go.»

One thing, she had said. One, not two. And I had looked at Sira, then at the notebook, then at Sira again, then at the notebook again, and my grandmother was not speaking. She was still in the middle of the courtyard and she was holding the bundle on her right and the stick on her left, and her sandals were already full of dust, because she had crossed the courtyard twice, first to tie the bundle and then to lock the door at the back of the house that gave onto the henhouse. The chickens were no longer there: she had given them away the day before to the cousin of my father's aunt, who lived further south, because — my grandmother said — those who leave do not take chickens, they take only mouths.

Sira was tied to the post. I tied her neck myself every morning, with the knot my father had taught me two years before, under the guava tree in front of the house, before he went to Bamako for the work at the construction site. It was a double-loop knot, and my father told me the secret was to tighten without tightening, because the goat must be still but must breathe. Sira was good. She knew me. She looked at me with her two wide-open eyes like every morning, and she was waiting for the milk.

The notebook was on the doorstep. My mother had left it the evening she had gone to Bamako, six months before my father. She had put it there and had said to me: «Aminata, read one verse a day and you will be a woman.» And on the first page she had written, in her round hand — the one I loved and tried to copy, and never quite managed — she had written in blue ink: *Aminata, read one verse a day and you will be a woman*. Below she had copied, in the same round hand, twelve verses by Massa Makan Diabaté. I knew the twelve by heart. I could have gone without the notebook and still have had the verses. But the notebook had the handwriting, and the handwriting was not in the verses: the handwriting was my mother's, and my mother was not in Bamako that morning, my mother was in the courtyard with my ear.

I took two steps toward Sira. Sira came one step toward me, because the tug of the rope had reached her. I took two steps toward the notebook. The notebook was still. I took two more steps toward Sira. My grandmother said: «Aminata.» She said it quietly. Only once.

I opened the notebook.

I opened it on the first page, where my mother's round hand was, and I read aloud — louder than I read at school, louder than usual — I read the first line: *I trusted myself to the river and the river carried me*. Sira did not move an ear. My grandmother closed her eyes. The gunshots from the other side of the river came closer, but it was not a matter of distance, it was a matter of time. I read the second line: *I trusted myself to the earth and the earth broke me*. My grandmother opened her eyes.

I closed the notebook. I took it under my left arm. I went to the post. I undid the double-loop knot with the gesture my father had taught me. The rope stayed in my hand. Sira took a step. My grandmother said: «Aminata, it is all right.» She said it as if she did not believe it, and in fact she did not.

We went out the gate and walked west, because to the east there were gunshots, and to the south the cousin had the chickens. My grandmother walked ahead, with the bundle, and I came behind her with Sira's rope on the right and the notebook under my left arm. Sira tripped on the first runnel. She looked at me. She walked more slowly. I walked more slowly too. My grandmother turned, stopped to wait for us.

We went on like that, with the goat deciding. I walked the whole morning with Sira on the right and the notebook on the left. We walked for two more days in the same way. Sira gave us milk in the morning and in the evening. The notebook gave me the first page, which I read before sleeping. My grandmother watched me read without saying anything.

Sira died in Bamako two years later, of something the vet had not been able to name. The notebook is still here on the table in front of me, as I write. The round hand is blue, it is still blue. *Aminata, read one verse a day and you will be a woman*. My mother never wrote to me again. My grandmother died in her sleep last winter. The gunshots from the other side of the river have never stopped: they have only moved one river over.