The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi: A Novel (20 page)

That afternoon the children outnumbered the adults, and besides meeting the sons and daughters of several noble families we were introduced to Prince Alexander, who bore an uncanny resemblance to his mother Anna Pavlovna. He had her Slavonic eyes, her dark hair, and had even adopted some of her gestures. His sister told us we could call him Sasha. He agreed to this graciously, and before the evening was out he reminded us quite plainly that we should address each other informally, as friends.

Gingerbread dolls and marzipan were passed around, but the princess was brimming with excitement. She wanted us to meet her father and her other brothers, but couldn’t find them. However, Anna Pavlovna came forward, with a frail white-haired old lady.

“Brrr,” Anna Pavlovna shuddered, “the wind never stops blowing in this place!” She looked around the room accusingly. She was followed by Madame Kuchelev, another formidable Russian lady. Kwame asked Sophie if Russian men were even bigger than the women.

The crown princess took the little old lady by the hand—she was Mademoiselle de Sybourg, her former governess, now senile and in the princess’s care—and led her to a seat with high arms and back, into which the tiny figure sank. For the rest of the evening all she did was stare into the void and dip ginger biscuits into her cup of tea to make them soggy, after which she licked the sticky mess off her fingers.

At seven it was time for some singing. We were taught several ditties invoking St. Nicholas, which reminded us of the way we chanted for the spirits in our temple by the lake. After half an hour the lights were dimmed and the doors opened. We were showered with confectionery and everyone, the adults in the forefront, raised a great shout of expectation. Kwame gave me a look as if everyone had gone mad. There were more songs, this time not in the drawing-room but in the entrance hall, which was dark. Anna Pavlovna launched into a song, and everyone joined in. A long-robed figure stepped inside. On his head he wore the mitre of a Roman Catholic bishop. It was St. Nicholas. Everyone cheered, whereupon he scratched his white beard and enquired whether we had all been good children. There was a resounding cry—even from the adults—of “Yes!” But the saint was not satisfied with this answer, and asked the question again, adding that anyone not telling the truth would be sent to Spain forthwith.

I began to feel very uneasy. What if St. Nicholas actually put us on a boat all over again—to Spain this time! Imagine being at sea in this weather! I was so confused and frightened that I didn’t dare say yes when he asked us again whether we had been good boys in the past year. I was terrified that I had done something wrong, although I always tried to please everyone by being as obedient as I possibly could. This visit from St. Nicholas was turning into an ordeal.

Anna Pavlovna gave a sign for the lamps to be relit. St. Nicholas took a seat and opened the large book bound in red Morocco which lay on his knees. He called for his Black Peters, whereupon two fellows with blackened faces leaped out from behind the curtains, waving birch rods. There was a lot of shrieking while the Black Peters lunged at the children in search of those who had been up to mischief. Boys and girls fled in all directions. I stood rooted to the spot, until Kwame nudged me saying that they were all just having fun. I couldn’t see the fun of it, but started to calm down.

The next instant, the larger of the two Black Peters, who wore enormous bloomers, pounced on me. He seized me by my shoulders just as he had seized other children before, but when he set eyes on my face his jaw dropped, and he let go of me as if he had burnt his fingers. He bent over with a look of disbelief.

“Well I never!” he blurted. All attention was focused on the pair of us. The Black Peter switched his gaze from me to Kwame and back again, took a few steps back and rubbed his eyes, then looked around the room in wonder, unsure whether he should persist in his role of Black Peter in our presence. No one seemed to know what to do. The lull in the conversation roused Mademoiselle de Sybourg, who raised her hand from her teacup, pointed a soggy finger in our direction, and cried shrilly: “It is Willem! It is plain for all to see. Guillot! Can’t you tell? It’s our dear, dear little Guillot!”

Now the tension was broken, everyone started laughing and talking at the same time. But that was not the end of it. The Black Peter stood rooted to the same spot. It did not escape him that he had cut a risible figure and that his awkward behaviour was a source of amusement. Suddenly he whipped off his beret and curly wig and flung them to the floor. Under his mop of fair hair, there was a distinct line marking off a band of pink skin from the blackened features of his face. Kwame and I were horrified—it looked as if the man had been flayed alive. He swore under his breath, hitched up his bloomers and stalked off, so incensed that he knocked a side-table over on his way out, sending a crystal bowl crashing to the floor. He slammed the door behind him with such force that one of the panels came loose.

Madame Kuchelev distracted everyone’s attention by clamouring for a slice of the cinnamon cake that had been baked specially by the Russian pastry cook, whereupon Anna Pavlovna signalled for it to be cut and shared out. St. Nicholas cleared his throat with much ado, and turned to address us. He told Kwame and me to come and sit on his lap. Some of his front teeth were missing, and he smelled so strongly of tobacco that I had to stifle a cough. The saint said he knew all about us. I found that surprising, as I had never seen him before. I said so, at which he chuckled and claimed to have met my father, too. He knew everyone.

“How is my father?” I asked. St. Nicholas conveyed my father’s good wishes to us. Kwame thought he had misheard and asked him to repeat his words, but he had not been mistaken, and the message pierced my soul. This was the first news from Kumasi that had ever reached us, and we were hearing it from a stranger! St. Nicholas mumbled that he could look into people’s hearts all over the world, and had seen that my father missed us, thought of us every day and wished us well.

I could see him in my mind’s eye, standing on the ramp of our palace in Kumasi, his back to me, staring into the distance. For so many months I had succeeded in banishing him from my mind and now, in front of everyone, he actually turned to look at me. I don’t think he knew who I was.

I broke into a coughing fit. Turning the pages of the big red book, the saint had apparently come across mention of improper conduct on my part during school examinations, which was certainly not true, and also of Kwame’s reluctance to wash, which accusation was perhaps less far from the truth. However, our crimes were not so serious as to detract from the overall impression of good behaviour, he declared, and he gave us a heavy, colourfully wrapped box and a slice of cinnamon cake, and sent us away.

I could not make up my mind whether to hold on to the image of my father or to let it go, and was so preoccupied by this that much of the further festivities escaped my notice. The other children were given the same treatment we had received. Most of them were reprimanded for disobedience but each of them received a gift, which they unwrapped at once.

We had not dared to open ours. We were new to the custom of concealing gifts in paper wrappings. When the others tore open their parcels I felt embarrassed at not having done so too, but by now I felt it was too late.

Finally the saint himself was given a present by Anna Pavlovna, whereupon a Russian choir sang a mournful song. The chattering resumed, and Princess Sophie came running to show us her gift. It was a mechanical doll, which by pressing a button could be made to sit down at its desk, dip its pen in the inkwell and write “Sophie” on a sheet of paper. Sophie demonstrated her doll twice in succession, and gave each of us a sheet with her name on it. I thanked her, but was dejected and unable to hide my emotion.

“Is it because of my brother’s behaviour?” she asked. “You mustn’t take any notice. He’s just a show-off. He has a temperament. Mamma says there’s a lot of my grandpa Paul in him. Temperament, you know. My brother Willem Alexander is a real Romanov . . . Like the Tsar.” She eyed me steadily, and added: “Of Russia.”

“Yes, yes of course,” I mumbled.

“When are your birthdays?”

“Our birthdays?” Kwame asked in surprise. “We don’t have any.”

“Not right now perhaps, but at some time in the year, surely?”

“No, we don’t have birthdays.”

“What nonsense, everyone has a birthday!” She waved her hand dismissively. “Everyone except Mademoiselle de Sybourg, that is. Every day’s the same to her and she’s so very old already, I can’t see how she can get any older.”

“We’ve never had a birthday,” Kwame insisted.

“No, never,” I echoed.

“Why ever not? Or do you celebrate your name-day? That’s just as good, I suppose. When are yours?”

“On Saturday,” Kwame said. “Yes, my name-day is Saturday.”

“And mine is Sunday.”

“But that’s absurd. Sunday and Saturday, a birthday each week! Whatever next?” She lost her patience, spun round to face Kwame and gave him a commanding look: “Come now, tell me the date of your birth.”

“I don’t know it,” he said.

“He doesn’t know!” Sophie turned to me saying, “And are you any better informed, may I ask?”

“Not really,” I said. She wrinkled her nose when she laughed, like a puppy about to sneeze. “I only know what I’ve been told,” I went on, “but I have no proof, for I can’t remember being born.”

“Nor can I!” She thought for a while. “In actual fact . . .” she went on, “in actual fact, my birthday is the only proof I have.”

“And when is it?”

“The eighth of April.” As an afterthought she said: “So it’s not for a long time yet.”

“We know that,” said Kwame, feeling somewhat left out. “We know the months. We’re not stupid.” Sophie walked away. I was afraid that we had vexed her, but she soon returned, with the bearded saint trailing after her. St. Nicholas bent over so that he might speak to us face-to-face. The acrid smell of tobacco! I did my best not to start coughing again.

“What’s this I hear? Don’t you boys have birthdays?”

“No sir,” I said.

“But then we must pick a date at once.”

Anna Pavlovna abandoned her tête-à-tête with Madame Kuchelev at the other end of the room and sailed over to see what the commotion was about.

“Goodness gracious!” she cried. “What’s the matter with them? They haven’t even opened their present.”

“It’s not their birthday,” said Sophie.

“Since when does it have to be one’s birthday before one can open one’s gift from St. Nicholas?”

“You don’t understand,” the saint said. “They don’t have birthdays. They don’t celebrate them.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“What an odd way of attracting attention,” Anna Pavlovna remarked, glancing at us quizzically. The saint hitched up his robe and sat down beside us.

“What was the date of your departure from Africa?” he asked. “You do know that, don’t you?”

Kwame remembered exactly. Van Drunen had written it down for us, and as soon as Kwame learned to use a calendar he looked up the day at once, and marked it. It was also etched in my memory because Kwame hadn’t spoken a word all day when the date had come round last spring.

“The twenty-fourth of April,” he said.

“And the date of your arrival in the Netherlands?”

“The twenty-first of June.”

“In that case we shall from now on celebrate your birthday, Prince Aquasi, on the twenty-fourth of April. And yours, Prince Quame, on the twenty-first of June. How does that strike you?”

“Wonderful, Pappa!” exclaimed Sophie. She giggled at her mistake: “I mean St. Nicholas, of course.”

Suddenly Willem Alexander, the heir apparent, came in. He had wiped the blacking off his face, but some of it had remained, emphasizing the lines that were already appearing around his eyes, which were small and partially hidden by a fold of eyelid. His cheeks were rosy from scrubbing, and shone with some kind of grease. He had exchanged his bloomers for a suit. He took a glass of port and tried hard to make up for his previous outburst of ill temper. The other Black Peter turned up in his wake. In uniform.

“Hendrik, such fun!” The princess ran towards him. “I was thinking the whole time that you had to be the other silly nigger, but I couldn’t possibly see which was which. I was looking for you, as I want to introduce you to two friends of mine, with whom you’ll have a lot to talk about, I’m sure. Prince Quame and Prince Aquasi, this is my brother Hendrik.”

The young man, with a flushed, plump face, held out his hand and also saluted in acknowledgment of our station, which was superfluous but well intentioned. Sophie put her arm through his.

“He knows the tropics better than anyone. I’ve had to miss him for so long. I only got him back last summer. And now I shan’t let him go again. Go on, Hendrik, tell them. He’s seen so much of the world, for someone so young!”

The prince asked for a bite of food, and withdrew with us to the next room. He spoke with ardour of faraway lands. At the age of sixteen he had already rounded the Cape, but the only place in Africa he had visited was Table Mountain. He talked of life at sea and the customs on board, of Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta, Delhi, and the Himalayas. His fondest memories were of the East Indies, which he had visited last year, the first member of the House of Orange to do so. He lowered his voice, twirled his wrists in the air, and from time to time he caught a glimpse, over our heads, of green hillsides, the courtyard of a native temple, a long lost friend. In a few words he brought to life the string of islands on the school atlas: Celebes, Java, Ambon, Ternate.