A Token From Grandpa...Chapter 8

The room was unbearably hot.  The heat from the sun landed directly on the asbestos roofing and, since there was no ceiling, descended into the room with scientific ruthlessness.  She had all her clothes off but she was still sweating.  She wanted to sleep but she felt so uncomfortable sleep was not possible.  A novel lay on a writing desk in a corner of the room.  She picked it up, read a few sentences, snapped it shut and put it back on the desk.  She walked to a window that opened into the yard.  Some children were playing in the yard.  She wondered why they weren’t in school.  She decided to go outside and watch them play.

She took off her panty and bra and wore a long cotton dress.  She stepped cautiously out of the room as if something lay in wait out there for her.  The children were surprised to see her.  They stared nervously at her but when she pretended she was too busy to notice them, they slowly returned to their game.

The house was a compound house in Darkuman, near the circle station.  It was a slightly rotting suburb with the stench of human excreta and burning cannabis constantly in the air.  Most houses had no toilets but there was a public latrine about half a mile away.  There was also a sprinkling of rickety zinc structures that served as latrines for some households. 

It was Alice, one of her friends, who had brought her there.  Alice had listened as Emilia had opened her heart to her and narrated all her experiences in Accra.  Emilia also expressed her desire to go back to Dzelukope but Alice had suggested that it would be disgraceful to return to Dzelukope empty-handed after living in Accra for so long.  The plan, therefore, was for Emilia to move in with Alice in Darkuman, work intensively at the job she now abhors until she raises enough money to take home to her parents.  Alice had even linked her up with some real decent customers.

Emilia was shocked by the smell of burning cannabis in the air.  She thought such things should be done under the cover of darkness.  She sniffed the air as if that could make her know where the smell was coming from.  She looked sadly at the kids, wondering what the exposure to such smells at such a tender age could do to their future.  But, she thought, who am I to judge?

She perched on the edge of a wall of an uncompleted addition to Alice’s room and  realized that she could see into the yard of the next house, a house that opened onto another street.  She was fascinated because the difference in style and value of the two houses was huge.  Who builds such a beautiful house in such a poverty-stricken neighborhood, she thought.

She was still looking curiously into the house when something unusual caught her eye.  Two gentlemen had taken a small blind girl out of a car and were leading her into the house.  Everything about the scene seemed normal and yet something within her screamed ‘foul play’.  She adjusted her position so she could observe the scene more closely without being seen.  She was still trying to figure out what was wrong with the picture.  She gripped the wall tightly as her concentration intensified.  Her concentration was suddenly broken by the giggles of the children she had come out to watch play.  As soon as she turned to look at them, they took to their heels.  Instantly, she realized why they were giggling.  While her mind had been concentrated on finding out what was amiss in the other house, she had forgotten she had no panty on.  Her legs were flailing wide apart so the children feasted their eyes on her exposed womanhood.  She pulled her dress down unnecessarily quickly and jumped off her perch.  She looked around shamefacedly and sneaked back into Alice’s room.

That night, after her last client had left, she lay in bed beside Alice thinking about what she had seen in the morning.

            “Are you alright?”  Alice asked.

            “Yes.  Why?”

            “You seem unable to sleep.  Too many clients in one night?”

            “O, no!” Emilia answered, eager to reassure Alice that her suggestion was causing no harm.  She was really planning how to go visit Kwesi again without running into Ato but she didn’t want to tell Alice that.  Each time Kwesi came up in their conversations, Alice tried to force her to admit she was in love with him.  It made her uncomfortable so, instead of talking about what was really keeping her up, she decided to talk about something else.

            “Who owns that house over there?”  She asked, pointing in the direction of the house in which she had seen the two men and the blind girl.

            “I don’t know.  Why do you ask?”

            “Seems like a beautiful house.”

            “I’ve never been in there before.  I don’t know what it looks like in there.  How did you know it’s beautiful?”

            “I sat on the wall and looked.”

            “I hope nobody saw you doing that.  There are rumors about some thugs living there.”

Thugs?  What about that small girl.  Is she a thug too?  Suddenly, she realized that what the girl had been wearing over her eyes was not a pair of sunglasses.  It had been one of those things people wear in an airplane to help them sleep.  Maybe she wasn’t blind after all.  Emilia, however, decided not to think about what was likely the case.  She turned her mind back to her plans to visit Kwesi again at the hospital.

           

           

 TO BE CONTINUED.