A token from Grandpa...5 continued.

The meeting with Gladys sent Emilia's mind back to her mother and father.  She hadn't heard from them in a long time.  She wondered whether her father had fully recovered.  She remembered the day they had taken him to the herbalist.  

She hardly ever missed school.  She was determined to go to Secondary School and then to the University of Ghana Medical School to become a doctor.  However, on that particular day, she had to miss school.  Her father was very ill and there was no money to take him to the hospital so they had brought him to the herbalist.  She was struck by the number of people who had come to see the herbalist.  It was almost like being at the hospital.  She wondered how so many people got ill at the same time.  Her friend, Alice, had once told her that not all the people you see in a crowded place are real people.  Some of them are ghosts.  Emilia shuddered and instinctively looked around her as if she expected to catch someone in the act of vanishing into thin air.  She held on tightly to her mother’s hand.  Her father, Xornam Avorgbedor, could not walk so they had been allowed to carry him to the front of the line and into an inner chamber for immediate attention.

Mama Aku, Emilia’s mother, could not stop crying.  Emilia thought her mother cried like a man.  No sobs, no sniffing, just a stream of tears coming out the corner of her eyes.  She kept wiping them with the corner of her faded cover cloth.  Emilia was scared.  She was always scared to see her mother cry.  She thought her mother was a very strong woman so any situation that could make her cry must be a very grave situation.  She had observed her father’s illness deteriorate within a very short time.  She had been hoping he would get better and was shocked when she woke up one day to see her mother struggling to help him into the bathroom.  The sight had been very heartbreaking for her.

            “Mama, we need to take him to the hospital,” Emilia had told her mother.

            “I know.  But the hospital is too far and there would be too many people.  By the time they finish attending to all the important people and those with money for bribes, who knows what would have happened to your father?  I’ll take him to the herbalist on the road to Keta.”

            “I thought Christians were not supposed to go to herbalists.  I thought herbalists were heathens who got their medicines from dwarfs.”

            “Emi, it was the British people who taught us to think that way.  They thought we wouldn’t buy their medicines if they didn’t discredit our herbalists.  They even called them ‘witch doctors’.  Emi, there is something good in everything.  Your father and I are Christians but we take part in all kinds of traditional ceremonies.  Some Christians think those ceremonies are heathen because of the rites that go with them.  I say I’m giving unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and giving unto Christ what is for Christ.”

Emilia was tempted to argue but she wasn’t in the mood.  She knew that times were bad and her mother had decided to do what was best under the circumstances.  She couldn’t think of a better plan.  One thing she knew about healing was that you had to believe.

            “I’ll come with you,” she told her mother.

            “You don’t have to.  You have to go to school.  They will give you your Common Entrance results today, won’t they?”

            “Yes, they will,” Emilia answered sadly.  “I know I will pass.  But, if we don’t have money to take Papa to the hospital, how do we get the money to get me to Secondary School?”

Mama Aku saw the tears well up in her daughter’s eyes.  She pulled her into her arms and hugged her tight, rocking her gently as the sobs shook her body.  Emilia had sat for the Common Entrance the year before and passed but there was no money to send her to Secondary School.  Since she was in Elementary Form 3, her parents had argued that it would be wiser for her to do it again the following year so she could have both an Elementary School Leaving certificate and qualification into a Secondary School.  After all, beginning Secondary School at the age of 16 used to be the norm until all these new private elementary schools started sending 12 year olds from rich homes to Secondary School.

            “Emi, don’t cry.  We’ll think of something.  Let’s get Papa to the herbalist first.  Are you sure you want to come?”

            “Yes.”

A tall gray-haired man came out of the inner chamber where Xornam Avorgbedor had been taken and yelled, “Aku?”  Xornam may have said something in there because the gray-haired man glanced back into the room, and said with a little laugh, “Mama Aku!”

Emilia and her mother picked their way through the crowd, shouting “Agoo!  Agoo!”  The gray-haired man shouted Mama Aku’s name again even louder and someone responded, “she’s coming!”

Mama Aku was asked into the inner chamber whilst Emilia was asked to wait outside.  A few minutes later, Mama Aku reemerges from the inner chamber with her husband leaning on her right arm.  She also held some herbs and bottled concoctions in a paper bag in her left hand.  The gray-haired man, apparently the herbalist, whispered last minute instructions to Mama Aku and called for the next patient.  Emilia sighed with relief.  Her smile broadened when two teenage boys she knew offered to carry her father home.  Xornam wanted to walk home on his own but the boys insisted so he graciously leaned on their shoulders and allowed them to help him.  He was very thankful, for, even with their help, he realized that every step was still excruciatingly painful.  But Emilia was hopeful.

The three months after the trip to the herbalist were very tough for Emilia.  Her father’s health did improve somewhat and he went back to work but the position of a village carpenter doesn’t yield enough money to send a child to a Secondary School in Accra.  As she had predicted, she passed the Common Entrance examination and gained 287 out of 400.  It was the third highest mark in the whole Region that year.  She had hoped to get a scholarship from Labone Secondary School, her first choice school, but she didn’t.  One of her friends had 265 and got a huge party from her parents.  287 was a big deal!  The pass mark for girls that year was 225 and it was 230 for boys.  A local correspondent for GBC1 even came to interview her.  Unfortunately, although many sympathized with her for not having the means to go to Secondary School, nobody offered to help.  Well, there was an offer.  A local transport owner offered to pay Emilia’s way through Secondary School if she would marry him.  His youngest son had taught Emilia in Primary School.  Emilia wanted to accept it but her mother was disgusted.  They argued over it for many days.

Finally, as they lay one night with Emilia’s sobs echoing through the darkness, Mama Aku inclined her head towards where her daughter lay.  Since it was just a single room that could only take one bed, Xornam Avorgbedor had made his daughter a small foldable bed that looked like a settee when folded up.  While her parents’ bed was set against the east wall of the room, Emilia’s bed was set against the west wall.  Her father had laid a rod over their bed from which they hung a curtain that protected Emilia from any adult stuff they may do.  She did remember a time when they used to make her laugh when one of them would poke his or her head out from behind the curtain and whisper,  ”Emi, mon amie!” and then pull back quickly behind the curtain.  It was the same way Mama Aku had poked her head from behind the curtain when she heard Emilia’s sobbing.

            “Emi,” Mama Aku said gently.  “Emi, can you hear me?”

            “Yes, Mama,” Emilia answered, her speech distorted by her sobbing.

            “Emi, listen.  We’re sorry we don’t have the means to help you become the person you want to be.  But I’m not sorry for refusing to allow you to marry that old man.  There is a saying that an experienced person is better than a soothsayer.  I know you’re cut out for great things.  I know you’ll be a great person in future.  I have faith in you.  I don’t want you to become an old lady before you become a young woman.  Anybody who offers a brilliant girl like you something with strings attached does not have a good heart.  And who wants to allow her daughter to marry a man who has so publicly demonstrated that he doesn’t have a good heart?  Most people go into a marriage without knowing the real person they’re getting married to.  You are fortunate.  God Himself has caused this man to show his true self.  What other proof do you need?”  Mama Aku paused for a few minutes.  She could feel that Emilia was listening so she continued.

            “Look at yourself, for example.  You’re a young woman who is very clever.  Supposing you marry this old man today and he helps you to achieve your dreams.  Right now, all you know is this village with simple people and a simple life.  When you go to Accra, it’s very different.  Believe me, I have lived in Accra before.  My mother and I used to sell ‘red-red’ at the University….”

            “You’ve told me that before,” Emilia cut in quietly but clearly.  Mama Aku noticed that she had stopped crying.

            “Okay, now listen.  Once you’ve met all those sophisticated people and danced on great carpets and held the hands of handsome younger men, your simple old man would no longer appeal to you.  You would look at all the possibilities and curse the day you got yourself trapped into marriage with a man whose son could be your father.  That is when you would be forced to break that man’s heart.  Believe me, I know what that kind of heartbreak is like and I wouldn’t like you to do it to an old man.”  Emilia murmured something.

            “What did you say?” Mama Aku asked.

            “I said I wasn’t going to break his heart.”

            “Emi, you’re still a child.  Listen to your mother.”

            “Yes, Papa, “Emilia whispered, glad to hear her father’s voice getting stronger again.

            “Emi, I’m going to send you to Accra, anyway,” Mama Aku continued.  “I’m sorry it’s not going to be under the same circumstances you wished for.  I have a friend there who is a very well-known hairdresser.  She was also very clever when we were in primary school.  But her passion was to become a hairdresser and she’s become a good one.  She has agreed to train you for free.  You’ll live in her house and help with household chores while you learn the trade.  Once you master it, you can start your own business and earn some money to go to school.  Education is not a race.”

That is how Emilia came to live with Mrs. Esilfie and her two sons, Panyin and Kakra.

 TO BE CONTINUED.

A token From Grandpa...Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Ato parked the van in front of the Maternity Department of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, crossed the street and walked through the Out-patients Department towards the Surgical Ward where Kwesi had been admitted.  He felt somewhat relieved to have been able to comfort Nana Ajoa to some extent.  What a way to begin a week, he thought.  He was having a hard time finding a job.  His daughter had been abducted.  His brother was close to becoming an amputee.  He thought through his clouds, seeking a faint glimmer of a silver lining.  There had still not been any information from Baaba’s abductors and it made him feel very frustrated.  Although he didn’t have the money to pay ransom, he wished it had been demanded so at least he could know what was needed to bring his daughter back. 

A nurse came out of the ward and he dashed after her.

            “Excuse me, nurse,” he said as the nurse briefly glanced over her shoulder and inclined her head to listen without breaking her stride.   “Please, how is Kwesi Quansah doing?  The man with the damaged wrist…”

            “He’s still unconscious.  He just came back from surgery.  He can’t have any visitors for a while.  He needs rest.”

As he descended the stairs, he caught a glimpse of a familiar face.  A woman talking to a nurse in front of the OPD looked vaguely familiar.  He was sure he had seen the face before but he couldn’t remember where.  He turned again to look at her.  She was walking away from the nurse.  She also turned.  Their eyes met..  She started walking faster away from him.  Then he remembered.  Emelia.  That’s what she had said her name was.  He wanted to talk to her.  He wanted to know what had really happened that night.  Kwesi had not been able to say much.  He had just kept saying that it wasn’t Emelia’s fault.  Ato himself suspected it was an accident because of the dead mouse that had been lying beside Kwesi.  He thought it may have been a freak accident from an attempt to kill the mouse.  He wanted to reach out to her in order to reassure her he didn’t suspect her of foul play.

            “Emelia?”  He called gently as he broke into a jog to catch up with her.  But she took to her heels.  That angered him a bit.  He continued running after her.

Behind the Medical School Hostel was a footpath that led to Mamprobi, one of Accra’s many suburbs.  For those acquainted with the area, it was a very harmless footpath although the bush around it made it look like a fertile ground for muggers, robbers and other dangerous elements.

It was this footpath that Emelia decided to take.  When she realized Ato was narrowing the distance between them, she jumped off the path and hid behind the foliage.  Ato was searching among the bushes for her when he heard a rustle of leaves behind him.  He turned sharply, expecting to see Emelia.  Instead, he saw an old lady defecating nonchalantly among the bushes.

            “Help!  Rape!”  The old lady shouted, pausing from her busy encounter with nature.  Ato ran all the way back to the van without as much as a single glance over his shoulder.  The old lady gave a thumbs up and winked at a grateful Emelia.

As she made her way out of the bushes, Emelia wondered whether Ato thought she had deliberately cut Kwesi’s wrist.  She wondered what he thought her motive was.  She also wondered what Ato would have done if he had gotten hold of her.  She wanted to let him know what had really happened.  She wanted him to understand that it was an accident and that she had nothing against Kwesi.  In fact, she had gone to the hospital to find Kwesi and apologize to him.  She had expected to meet Ato at the hospital but not under the conditions under which they had just met.  She feared he might want to hand her over to the Police and she dreaded the Police.

She picked her way carefully back to the Surgical Ward, making sure Kwesi’s van was no longer parked where she had seen it earlier.  She peeked into every room on every floor until she got to the sixth floor.  She had been told that Kwesi would be in the Male Surgical Ward but she didn’t know the exact room.  She decided to hang around until one of the nurses came by.  She leaned on the parapet to observe the scenery down below.  It was sunny and beautiful; a time for fun, not a good time to be stressed about the possibility of being held for manslaughter.  She had heard numerous times that slashing the wrist can lead to death.  The prospect of being considered a murderer did not particularly appeal to her.  She so desperately wanted Kwesi to be alright.  If there was anything she could do to ensure that he did not die, she was willing to do it no matter how difficult.

She was surprised by a gentle tap on her shoulder.  She turned sharply, frightened, expecting to see Ato.

            “Please, may I help you?”  The nurse asked as Emelia let out a deep sigh of relief.  The nurse looked vaguely familiar but Emelia was not sure about where she knew her

            “I’m here to see my boyfriend,” she lied.  “I’ve forgotten his number.”

            “What’s his name?”

            “Kwesi.”

            “Is that his last name or first name?”

            “I’m not really sure.  I guess we haven’t been together long enough.”  Emelia said, trying to hide her embarrassment in a comic giggle.  The nurse looked at her intently.

            “What is your name?  You look and sound familiar.  Have you lived in Accra all your life?”  The nurse asked

            “I was born and raised in the Volta Region.  I only moved to Accra when I finished school.”

            “Ah-ha!  Your name is Emelia, right?”  Emelia nodded.

            “And you are Gladys.  I knew it!  I recognized you immediately.  I just wasn’t sure.  You haven’t changed at all.  Aw, I’m so happy for you.  You became a nurse.”  The two women hugged briefly.

            “What about you?  What do you do?”  Emelia hesitated but Gladys was curious because Emelia had done much better than she had when they were in school.  She expected Emelia’s fortunes to also be much better than hers.

            “Okay,” Gladys said when the silence was becoming awkward.  “So, this friend of yours, what is he having surgery for?”

            “He had a freak accident.  He nearly lost his wrist, I hear.”

            “I think I know who you’re talking about.  Let’s check the second floor,” Gladys said as she led the way down the stairs.

There was something about Emelia that Gladys did not understand.  She remembered how Emelia had been the darling of the whole school, combining awesome looks with an insatiable desire to excel in class.  She had never been the best in class but she had always been in the top fifteen out of a class of forty-three students.  The remarkable thing about her was that she actually worked hard, both at home and at school.  Her mother, Mama Aku, was always selling something so Emelia hawked bread, bananas, biscuits and sweets after school.  But she always had her homework with her even as she walked the length and breadth of the town, trying to help her family survive life below the poverty line.

Gladys and Emelia had not really been friends although they were in the same class.  Emelia hardly had friends, anyway.  She was either too busy raking in some money for her family or trying to improve her chances of getting into a good secondary school.  She hardly attended social functions in the school and, even when she did, she either had a book to read or something to sell.  And, in those days, she dressed neatly but boringly.

Emelia’s hair was cut very short.  She wore large earrings and her beautiful nose had a ring in it.  Her brown button-down shirt, which was tied at the back, barely covered her nipples and exposed her navel, which also had a ring.  Her lime green skirt was very short, making her long legs seem even longer.  Her high-heeled boots matched her blouse.  She looks hot on a hot day, Gladys thought.  Very unlike Emelia.  But, ten years is a long time.  Long enough to change a person.

As they descended the stairs, Gladys hoped that the Kwesi Emelia was referring to was not the tro-tro driver who had been brought in the night before.  She thought it would break Emelia’s heart to hear that the guy had been with a prostitute.  If indeed he was the one, did Emelia know all the details about the freak accident? Gladys did not work on the second floor but the news about the guy whose hand was nearly severed by a prostitute had traveled very quickly around the block.  Even some of the patients had heard and joked about it.  But somewhere deep within her, Gladys was also hoping that if she had to introduce Emelia to her friends, she wouldn’t have to explain how her former mate at school happened to be dating a tro-tro driver.

Kwesi was sleeping when they got to him.  The nurse in charge explained that he was still under sedation and that he had lost a great deal of blood.  Gladys took Emelia back to her office on the sixth floor after encouraging her to leave Kwesi a note.  They sat in silence for several minutes. 

            “Do you know how he got injured?”  Gladys asked, unable to hold it any longer.

            “I do,” Emelia answered quietly.  “I did it.”

            “Were you jealous of the prostitute?”

            “There was no prostitute,” Emelia said hesitantly.  “His brother likes to call me a prostitute.  He doesn’t like me.”

            “Why doesn’t he like you?”

            “I don’t know why.”

Gladys left Emelia in her office and went into the ward to do her rounds.  Having spent most of her time in Accra dealing with people who judged her, her lifestyle and what she did for a living, Emelia kept wondering whether to tell Gladys the whole truth.  She did not blame those who judged her.  She sided with them.  She desperately wanted to be the Emelia she was before she came to Accra.  She hadn’t given up on her dream of getting herself a good education.  She hadn’t given up on her dream to make her mother’s life better.  She knew where she wanted to go in life and knew she had what it would take to get there.  But, she found herself trapped in a situation where drawing sustenance from what she hated most about herself seemed inevitable.  She knew there were prostitutes who were proud of being prostitutes.  They set out to be prostitutes because that was what they had always dreamed of doing.  She would not like anybody to judge them either.  She just didn’t feel that she belonged in that profession and felt frustrated that it was difficult for her to get out of it.  She believed that she had a mission to make her mother proud of her and that being in a profession the society around her frowned upon was a sure way to hasten her mother’s journey to the land of the ancestors.  Maybe, if her challenges and circumstances had been different, she would have had no qualms about doing what she did for a living.

            “I hear your boyfriend needs blood,” Gladys said as she strolled back into her office.  “Can you help?”

            “I would like to but I’m scared.”

            “Of what?”

            “Suppose they tell me I have AIDS?”

            “O, come on.  It’s better for you to know if you have it.”

            “Look, Gladys, I ……  Anyway, I don’t even know my blood group.”

            “You don’t have to worry about that,” Gladys said as she prepared the apparatus to draw Emelia’s blood.  “We’ll find that out.  Will you do it?”

Emelia reluctantly lay on a bed and allowed her blood to be drawn.  Gladys rushed the sample to the lab, came back to do her rounds and then went back for the results.

            “You are not in the same blood group but they’ll exchange yours for some at the blood bank.”

            “Did they check it for AIDS?”

            “O, sorry, here’s the card.”

Gladys handed a small card to Emelia and went into the ward.  Emelia studied the card hesitantly.  When she saw the result she sighed deeply, held on to the edge of a table and sat down slowly.  The room began to spin.  She dropped the card on the floor and put her head on the table.  She felt a gentle tap on her shoulder and lifted her head.

            “Why, what’s the matter with you?” Gladys asked as she saw the tears in Emelia’s eyes.

            “The report.  It said ‘negative’.”

            “Yes.  It means you don’t have it.”

            “I thought it was the opposite.”

            “O, please!  Don’t be funny,” Gladys said with a laugh.  “Now, will you tell me what happened?”

            “So, he really isn’t my boyfriend.  I know you will be surprised to hear this but I am really a prostitute.”  Emelia said as an introduction to her narration of the events that had brought Kwesi to the hospital.

A token from Grandpa...Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Nana Ajoa was sitting expectantly by the phone.  She was becoming impatient with the thumping of her heart against her ribs.  She wanted, more than anything, to relax.  She had still not been able to forgive herself for the manner in which Baaba was abducted.  She kept wondering how any educated person could allow such a thing to happen.  She kept replaying the incident in her mind, making corrections.  She wanted desperately to make amends for her blunder.  Initially, she had wept incessantly.   She later decided, however, that crying was like admitting she had lost.  She only had one desire-to ensure her daughter’s kidnappers are arrested and punished.  She also thought she needed her husband.

She had received a call from the kidnappers an hour earlier.  They had told her what she already knew; that they had Baaba.  Baaba had tried to talk too but she was only able to say ‘Ma’ before the line went dead.  Since then, Nana Ajoa had not been able to step away from the phone.  The voice of her daughter had sparked hope within her.  With that, she felt like she could hold her breath for eternity.

The phone rang again and she jerked it violently off the hook.

            “Hello,” she said, her voice almost shaking with excitement.

            “Hello, Nana.  It’s Ato.  Listen….”

            “Ato, when are you coming back home?  I miss you.  Please, stop punishing me for my father’s mistakes.  You have to stop listening to him.  You’re both causing me a lot of pain with your petty squabbles.  Do you even know where your daughter is at this time?”

            “Relax, Nana.  You need to relax.  Listen, Kwesi has just been admitted at the hospital.  It was a freak accident.  I’ll give you the details later.  The police are investigating.  I was thinking of coming home tonight but in view of….”
            “In view of nothing, Ato.  You need to come home now!”

            “I’m sorry but I can’t.  Didn’t you hear what I said?”

            “Ato, you need to come home now.  Baaba has been kidnapped!”

            “What?  What did you say?”

            “I said Baaba has been kidnapped,” Nana Ajoa said, almost choking on the words as the tears  trickled down her face.  “I’m sorry, Ato.  It’s all my fault.  I should have done a better job of protecting her.”

            “Everything’s going to be alright.  Don’t blame yourself.  I know you’re a good mother.  Just hang on.  I’m on my way.”

            “Thank you very much, my dear.  See you soon.”

            “Nana?”

            “Yes?”

            “I love you.”

            “I…love…you…too,” Nana Ajoa said between sobs and hung up.

She felt sorry for her husband.  She felt sorry for her daughter but she didn’t want to feel sorry for herself.  These are challenging times, she thought.  It had been really hectic for her since her daughter was kidnapped.  Her firm had nine cases pending that she was directly responsible for.  She had managed to have five of them adjourned to dates by which she hoped the storm in her world would have passed.  She wondered whether Baaba’s abduction had anything to do with a case she may have handled in the past.  Since most of the cases she had handled were civil suits, it was difficult for her to find the connection.

Ato’s exit from the house had been particularly difficult for her but Baaba’s abduction was like twisting the knife in the wound.  It didn’t help that her father kept trying to make her see how everything was the consequence of  Ato’s irresponsibility.  She felt a great sense of relief now that she had talked to Ato.  She looked forward to seeing him walk through the door again.  She hoped he was coming home to stay.  Not ‘home’ as in the house but home as in her arms.  She was planning to give the house back to her father.  She had come to the conclusion that she needed to choose between Ato and her father’s gift and she knew exactly who she didn’t want to lose. 

As she moved away from the phone, she thought about her own mother.  She remembered faintly how a group of people from the Volta Region had once come to her father’s house and demanded to be allowed to take her away.  One of them, a beautiful woman in a faded blouse over an almost tattered wrapper, claimed she was her mother and had wept throughout the meeting.  In the end, the matter had been taken to court and Nana Ajoa had been allowed to attend the proceedings.  It was then that she had begun to admire lawyers and the way they strode confidently through the courtroom.

As she grew up, things had begun to fall in place in her mind.  She had come to understand the situation through the hazy pictures her five year old brain had taken in.  Her father had impregnated the daughter of a red-red(gari, beans and fried plantains) seller while he was studying at the University of Ghana Medical School.  His parents had taken care of the seventeen year old girl till she gave birth.  As soon as the baby had been born, they sent the young mother away with the promise that as soon as their son began to practice as a doctor, they would let him marry her.

Three years later, however, the young doctor had married the daughter of a wealthy businessman from Nkawkaw.  Two years later, Aku heard about the ‘high society’ wedding and reported it to her family.  The elders of the family came down to Accra with her to demand custody of Nana Ajoa.  Dr. Dadzie advised them to take the matter to court.  They did.  The court ruled that it was in Nana Ajoa’s best interest to be raised in a home where she could have the opportunity of a good education.  Thus, a five year old girl was legally snatched from her real mother.  Although Aku had been awarded the right to visit her daughter any time she wanted, she never stepped in the home of the Dadzies again.  Now that her own daughter had been snatched from her, Nana Ajoa could understand why the woman in her memory had been crying.  Twenty-two years was a very long time but the pain came fresh into her heart.

            “Mother, o mother!  Where are you?”

Her naïve, five year old mind had seen a shabbily dressed woman.  Her adult mind yearned for a hug from that woman.  She wanted to hold her in her arms and say, “Mother, here I am after all these years.  They threw you out of my life but now I want to get back into yours.”

She had vowed to stop crying but she couldn’t.  Thinking about the woman she should really call ‘mother’ opened the floodgates again.  She entered the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed.  She buried her face in her hands and cried all the tears she had held back for so long.  She was still crying when the phone began to ring again.

A token from Grandpa..Chapter 3

Chapter 3

There were times when Emelia had been tempted to blame God for her situation.  She had often wondered whether she still would have become a prostitute if she had had at least a secondary education.  In elementary school, she hadn’t been what you might call a genius but she had been one of those average students who were capable of making it to the university.  When she was in elementary Form Three, she had sat for the Common Entrance Examination and passed.  She was invited to Labone Secondary School but her parents could not afford the cost of sending her to secondary school at that time.  They promised her the following year.  Again, she had passed.  Instead of sending her to school, they had sent her to Accra to learn hairdressing. 

All would have been well if her boss, Mrs. Sarpong, had not had two sons you wouldn’t particularly call ‘angels’.  One of them sneaked into her bedroom one night and raped her.  When she reported it to Mrs. Sarpong, she was bribed to keep her mouth shut.  The other son also raped her while she was taking a shower on a day when they had been left alone together in the house.  Her self-esteem dipped to its lowest nadir.  She began to lose weight and concentration.  Gradually, she learned to accept being paid for sex.  Her rapists brought their friends from school to pay and have sex with her.  She began to make some money and even dared to dream about being able to save enough money to send herself to school.  Then people began to say bad things about her.  She started losing friends too.

One afternoon, while her boss was away on an overseas trip, Emelia ran to stay with one of the regular customers of the beauty salon who had once promised to send her to London to further her education.  Unfortunately, a few months after Emelia had moved in, Auntie Elyssa was arrested and jailed for drug-trafficking.  Most of Auntie Elyssa’s friends were seasoned professionals in the sex trade so they tutored Emelia until she was able to ply the trade on her own.  Several times, she had tried to stop but she just didn’t have the will power to resist the temptation of getting back into it.  In fact, just the day before Kwesi picked her up, she had been to a Deliverance Church Service at which she had promised God with all her heart that she would stop.

            “Wetin you dey tink?”  Kwesi asked, frightening Emelia back to the present.  She smiled and moved over to sit next to him on the bed.

            “I think say you dey sleep.  You ok?”

            “I be ok..  I no wan’ make my bro ask too many questions. E be so why I make like I sleep.”

            “Na so!”

Emelia took off her dress, folded it neatly and dropped it on the couch.  As she was walking over to the bed, she kicked something soft and furry.  She screamed and hugged Kwesi tightly as a dazed mouse dashed uncertainly back and forth between the door and the dresser.  Kwesi pushed her onto the bed, picked a hair brush off the dresser and threw it down hard on the mouse.  Emelia screamed wildly and buried her face in her hands as the brush fell away from the bloody mess that had once been a living and breathing mouse. 

Kwesi picked the dead mouse up with a piece of paper and headed for the door.  He paused suddenly at the door and turned to Emelia, a mischievous smile playing around his lips. 

            “Wetin you dey do?” Emelia asked as Kwesi began to walk towards her, pointing the hand holding the dead mouse at her.  When she realized what his intention was, she began screaming again and backed away until she fell off the bed.  Kwesi sat astride her on the floor and swung the dead mouse from side to side, moving it closer to her face.  She was so frightened she couldn’t even breathe.  She held her left hand out to ward him off while her right hand groped under the bed and touched smooth wood.  It was the handle of an axe.  Kwesi inadvertently dropped the mouse beside her.  As he stretched his hand to pick it up again, she brought the axe down hard on his hand, hardly thinking of what she was doing.  Kwesi let out a deathly scream and rolled onto his side, holding his bleeding hand in agony.

            “You kill me, o you kill me.  I jus’ dey play wid you!”  He said as Emelia picked her dress and ran frantically out the door.  She was too scared to even remember she had to put it on as she ran down the street.

Kwashi, another tenant in the compound that housed Kwesi’s room had been awakened by the screams.  He was just about to peep through Kwesi’s window to catch some of the action when Emelia ran out.  He was slightly disappointed but ran over to the van, knowing that Ato will be in it.

Ato was so engrossed in his own thoughts that he did not see Emelia run, almost naked, across the street and into the night.  But he saw Kwashi gesticulating wildly to draw his attention.  He quickly lowered the volume on the radio and rolled down the window.

            “Your broda,”  Kwashi said breathlessly.  “De woman kill am!”

Ato jumped out of the van and ran madly after Kwashi.

 TO BE CONTINUED.

A token from Grandpa

Chapter 2

He paused from his reading, marked the page with the middle finger of his left hand and tucked the book between his legs.  He lay in a fetal position as hunger tore at his innards.

It didn’t help that the room was unbearably hot.  The fan had stopped working again and he was tired of fixing it.  After all, it only blew hot air and didn’t work long enough to merit the energy it took to get it back in action.  He would have liked to take a walk but didn’t have the energy.  Besides, he couldn’t take his mind off his wife and daughter and didn’t particularly relish the idea of walking the dangerous streets of Mamobi in the middle of the night whilst his mind was elsewhere.

It had been almost six months since he walked out of his marital home.  It had nothing to do with his relationship with his wife.  His marriage to Nana Ajoa had not been perfect.  They had had their share of arguments.  Curiously, however, their arguments had almost always been about her dad.  Her dad was a constant presence in their home.  To make matters worse, he picked any opportunity at all to show how much he hated Ato.

Ato often wondered whether any man could love a woman like the way he loved Nana Ajoa.  He had no doubt that she loved him too.  How else could she, one of the most beautiful women on campus while they were at Legon and the daughter of one of Ghana’s wealthiest medical practitioners, marry a man from as poor a background as his?  Moreover, whilst she was reading Law, he had been reading Drama, a course which a man of science like her father frowned upon.  In the beginning, Dr. Dadzie had resisted their relationship with all his wealth and might.  He had even gone to the extent of ‘sponsoring’ dates between Nana Ajoa and some medical students he knew.

In the end, it was Nana Ajoa herself who had plotted the strategy that defeated her father.  She deliberately got pregnant during her final year at Law School.  When she approached her father about allowing Ato’s family to perform the marriage rites, he had suggested abortion instead.  Finally, when the pregnancy began to show, he gave them the ‘go ahead’ to get married. 

As these thoughts went through his mind, Ato felt sorry for Nana Ajoa.  On the day he had walked out of the house, he had heard her sobbing.  He suspected she was going to blame herself for it but he didn’t want to turn back and make Dr. Dadzie feel victorious.  The encounter had began like most of the encounters he had had with the doctor, with an insult.  He had just returned from a job interview that didn’t go quite well.  As he walked into the living room, his daughter had jumped enthusiastically into his arms.  The gesture had erased the frown of uncertainty on his face and replaced it with a loving smile. 

The living room and the kitchen divided the house into two unequal halves.  The front door opened into the living room which also opened into the kitchen.  To the left was a door that led into the master bedroom he shared with Nana Ajoa.  The door to the right opened into a small corridor with Baaba’s bedroom and the guest bathroom facing each other.  Dr. Dadzie had emerged from that corridor just as Ato and Baaba were enjoying their father-daughter moment.

            “Well, well, well,” said Dadzie with a sinister smile on his face.  “She’s looking up to you.  What kind of man should she marry when she grows up?  One who shamelessly stays home to watch his wife labor to put food on the table?  A man is not a man just because he knows how to impregnate a woman.” 

As the doctor turned and walked contentedly away like a crocodile that had just devoured a chicken, Ato hoped he might utter another word; just one more word.  Ato had not responded because he had felt protective of his daughter.  He knew his father-in-law would have drifted further and further into language that was inappropriate in Baaba’s presence if he had responded.  However, he was willing to cross that line had the doctor uttered another word.

At dinner that evening, Ato had his opportunity to vent.  Dr. Dadzie, who had earlier agreed to dine with them, suddenly came up with the excuse that his wife would be offended if he ate out.  While he was taking his leave, his granddaughter Baaba, apparently uninterested in both the food on her plate and the conversation between her mother and her grandfather, kept tapping a rhythm on the dining table with her fork.  Without warning, Nana Ajoa’s hand had descended fiercely upon her daughter’s hand with a force that bounced a plate and emptied its contents onto the lap of the bewildered girl.

            “What the heck did you do that for?”  Ato had yelled.

            “Don’t you yell at my daughter like that, bushman!”  Dr. Dadzie had retorted.  “She feeds and clothes you and your daughter.  If you don’t have the decency to show gratitude, at least you can treat her with some respect.”

Ato jumped up suddenly, frightening all present at the table.

            “Doc,” Ato said, shaking with anger.  “You’re treating me as if your daughter picked me from a trash can.  Didn’t I marry her?  I may not have had nor do I hope to have as much money as you do but I spent all the money necessary for our wedding.  I played my part fully.  Today, things are not going well for me so she feeds me and my daughter, so what?  Is that a taboo in your clan?  I’m a man, Dr. Dadzie.  Perhaps even more man than you are or ever will be.  Why don’t you just leave your daughter alone?  Are you not man enough to accept that she’s capable of taking care of herself?  Don't you realize that we’re okay without you?  Okay, alright, since you want to marry her, I’m leaving this house this minute so you can have all the incest you want!”

With those words, he had stormed out of the house with nothing except the clothes on his back.  He had walked straight into this room and to his brother, Kwesi.  Initially, he had pretended all was well.  He used to sermonize his brother on the importance of settling down to start a family so he felt uncomfortable letting him know all wasn’t well in his own marriage.  Kwesi had accepted his brother with open arms, no questions asked.  He was the only brother he had and the only relative he had living in Accra. 

During better days, Ato had been like a father to his brother.  He fed, clothed and gave him shelter.  He had tried to get him to at least finish Form Five but Kwesi had other plans.  He hung out with taxi drivers, tro-tro drivers and their apprentices.  Eventually, he had become a driver himself.  Even then, Ato had not forsaken him.  With the help of a room mate at the University who had become a big shot at a bank, Ato had raised a loan, added it to his own savings and bought a van for his brother.  After six years, Kwesi had paid Ato the full cost of the van with ten per cent interest.  Ato had initially protested against the interest but his brother had explained that he wanted to share his profits with his benevolent benefactor.

It’s a small world, Ato thought as he shifted again on the bed.  It was a high twin bed wedged directly under a window and slightly hidden whenever the door swung open.  The room itself was a twelve by twelve with only one window.  Sometimes fresh air strayed in when the window was open but it hardly ever was open at night.  Fresh air is good but security is even better.  Keeping the room neat was not a difficult task.  Odds and ends including tools, an axe and a machete were kept under the bed.  Dressy clothes were kept in the drawers of a dresser next to the headboard of the bed.  Clothes that have already been worn but have the potential of being worn again before being washed are hung on nails behind the door.  An old suitcase that held the dirty laundry was hidden somewhere between under the bed and the door.  An old table fan with a mind of its own sat on the edge of the dresser and blew air whenever it felt like it, whether it was switched on or not.  There was a couch parallel to the bed and usually held dirty laundry when Kwesi was too tired to put them away in the old suitcase.  It was this couch that Ato had been sleeping in for the six months he had been away from his marital home.

He glanced at a wall clock hanging above the couch.  It was 11:37pm.  He wondered what had kept Kwesi so long.  He got off the bed, sat in the couch and tried to read again.  A couple of weeks ago, they had received a message from Gomoa Potsin, their hometown, that one of their uncles had succumbed to the ravages of tuberculosis and gone to join the ancestors.  It meant money.  Since he had none, he had asked Kwesi to lie to the family that he had gone on a business trip abroad.  He had expected Kwesi to return from the funeral on Sunday, which was the day before.  He shivered as he remembered that sometimes his brother drove drunk.

He was frightened back into the present by a thunderous knock on the door. 

            “Who is it?”

            “Ato, it’s me,” Kwesi answered in a drunken voice.  Ato quickly opened the door.  Kwesi staggered into the room supported by a woman Ato did not know.  As soon as he fell on the bed, he began to snore. 

Ato observed the woman with some awe.  On several occasions, he had had the misfortune of having to drag his brother’s drunken frame from the kerb into the room and he had always considered it an arduous task.  It had never occurred to him that a woman could do that.

            “We’ve never met, have we?”  Ato asked, noting that the woman bore a slight resemblance to his wife.

            “My name is Emelia, “ she said, lowering her head somewhat embarrassedly.

Ato felt sorry for her.  He looked down at Kwesi’s bulky body sprawled on the bed, its protruding belly rising and falling with his breathing.  He looked again at Emelia.  Women are suffering, he thought.  He picked a sleeping cloth lying at the foot of the bed and moved towards the door.

            “At times like this, I sleep in the van.  You can call me if you need anything.”

            “Thank you.  He left some kenkey and fish in the van.  He said he bought them for his brother.  I guess that must be you.”  Emelia said as she moved to sit on the couch.

            “Thank you,” he said as he opened the door.  “Goodnight.”

He went out and closed the door behind him.



TO BE CONTINUED.

A token from Grandpa...a story from Ghana

Chapter 1

Nana Ajoa parked her car in the parking lot of the Accra North branch of the Ghana Posts and Telecommunications Services.  She got out of the car and headed towards the IDD telephone booths.  Baaba, her daughter, followed her excitedly.  The technology that allowed people to make calls directly to other parts of the world was a novelty that fascinated many Ghanaians, even adults.  Unfortunately, the service was not available on home phones.  For Baaba, a ten year old, it also meant the ability to make her requests for sophisticated toys, beautiful clothes and candies directly to her great aunt in Chicago and promptly hear a reassurance. 

The evening was young and the human traffic around the area, as usual, was dense.  This particular part of Accra, proximal to the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, has commercial transport services to almost every corner of the city.  Many American tourists refer to it as the ‘Times Square’ of Accra.  Nana Ajoa would have loved to make her call earlier in the day when the traffic was much thinner but her aunt, Mabel, had a busy schedule and had pointed out that 6:30pm Ghana time was the best time to reach her.  Aunty Mabel, like her brother, Nana Ajoa’s father, was in the Medical profession.  But she was a registered nurse whilst her brother was an MD.  Being her father’s only child, Nana Ajoa had no one closer to a sister, growing up, than her father’s younger sister.

Surprisingly, none of the phone booths were occupied.  Nana Ajoa entered the first one and checked for a dial tone.  She dialed her aunt’s number, put the receiver to her ear and turned to look at her daughter.  But Baaba was not in the booth with her.  She transferred the receiver into her right hand and pushed the door with her left hand.  The door wouldn’t budge.  She began to panic.  She replaced the receiver on the hook and pushed the door with all her might.  A passerby saw her struggling with the door and came to let her out.

 She realized that a stick had been propped into the door handle to trap her in the booth.  She thought her daughter had played a prank on her so she started thinking of appropriate punishment even as she stepped out of the booth and looked around for her.  Her anxiety deepened as she searched futilely for her daughter.  Suddenly, someone handed her a piece of paper and disappeared into the crowd.  She tried to follow the person but realized she didn’t even know if whoever it was had been male or female.  She looked at the paper in her hand.  It read;

‘If you want your daughter back alive, don’t call the Police.  Go home and wait for instructions.’

Nana Ajoa sat down on the floor, leaned her back against the booth and wept from the bottom of her heart. 

TO BE CONTINUED.