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
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
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.
TO BE CONTINUED.
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