Wife of the Gods (11 page)

“Yes, Auntie.”

She let out a cry, put down the lantern, and rushed forward to
throw her arms around him. Now he towered over her, and the top of
her head reached only to his chest. It felt strange because, after
all, the last time she had hugged him, years ago, she had had to
bend down to his level.

“Woizo, woizo!” She stepped back to gaze at him in disbelief.
“Look at how tall you are! Oh, Darko, why did you wait so long to
come back?”

“You’re right, Auntie Osewa. It’s been too long and I’m
sorry.”

She placed her hand over her chest, and her eyes welled up. “Oh,
Darko, my dear. I’ve thought of you so often.”

“Come on,” he said, hugging her again. “No need to shed tears.
I’m here now.”

“Yes, you’re here now, and that’s all that matters.” Her voice
still felt like silk after all these years, just at a slightly
lower register. “Come, come inside. Uncle Kweku is home. Ei,
Constable Gyamfi, is that you?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Come in too, both of you come in. Woizo.”

She led Dawson by the hand. It must have seemed natural to her,
but Dawson felt awkward. Inside, the house was lit by a combination
of a lantern and one small electric lamp. He knew this was the same
place they had eaten Auntie’s masterpiece meal and played oware,
yet everything looked different and much smaller.

Auntie Osewa also seemed smaller in stature than he remembered.
Whether it was the effect of age on her or his false memory or
both, Dawson couldn’t say. For certain, though, she had kept her
looks and her smooth, lovely skin. Her eyes were a little less
bright, or perhaps it was wisdom Dawson was seeing. In a way,
through Auntie Osewa, Dawson had a fair idea of what his mother
might have looked like by now.

Uncle Kweku was sitting at a small wooden table carefully
writing something in an exercise book.

“Kweku, you will never guess who is here,” Osewa said
excitedly.

He looked up over a pair of glasses halfway down his nose. That
and the gray-peppered hair made him look like he had aged much more
quickly than Auntie Osewa, and he was now a fraction of the size he
used to be.

“Don’t say anything yet,” Osewa told Dawson. “Just stand there
for a moment. Kweku, who do you think this is?”

He frowned. “I don’t think I know him…”

“Yes, you do. This is Darko, Beatrice’s boy.”

Uncle Kweku’s mouth dropped open, and he took off his glasses
and rested them on the table.

“That’s Darko?
Ei!
” He rose. “I don’t believe it!”

He began to laugh as he pumped Dawson’s hand and then embraced
him strongly, which surprised Dawson.

“How long has it been?” he said, looking him up and down. He too
was now much shorter than Dawson.

“Twenty-five years.”

Kweku shook his head in disbelief. “It doesn’t even seem
possible. Woizo, woizo back to Ketanu. We’re very happy to see
you.”

Kweku now noticed Constable Gyamfi hovering in the
background.

“Constable!” He chuckled. “Come in, come in, never be shy,
sir.”

“Yes, please sit down,” Auntie Osewa said. “Darko, you have to
tell us everything about you.”

Uncle Kweku immediately offered Dawson his chair and drew up a
stool each for Osewa, Gyamfi, and himself.

“Our son, Alifoe, is not here right now,” she told Dawson, “but
he’ll be back soon so you can meet him. You remember we had a
son?”

“I do remember,” Dawson said. “I know what a blessing it was to
you.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, glancing at Kweku with a smile. “Truly. And
Darko, how is Cairo doing?”

“Very well at the moment, Auntie, but sometimes life is a
struggle for him, you know.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, inclining her head in sympathy. “We often
feel for him. And your wife?”

“Christine – she’s fine, thank you. She’s a teacher.”

“Oh, very good. And how many children do you have now?”

“Still just one. Hosiah is six.”

Auntie Osewa was beaming at Dawson with such intensity he had to
avert his eyes for a moment.

“Wonderful, wonderful,” she said. She was sticking to Ewe, being
much more comfortable with it than English.

“Will you take some beer?” Kweku asked. “I’m sorry, it’s not
cold.”

“No, thank you, Uncle Kweku. I don’t drink at all.”

Gyamfi politely said no as well.

“What about some fresh coconut water, then?” Osewa offered.

“Yes, please. That would be nice.”

She went to the nearby kitchen, leaving Dawson, Uncle Kweku, and
Constable Gyamfi to talk. Dawson was glad to have Gyamfi there,
because he would have felt a little awkward alone with Uncle Kweku.
Unlike with his auntie, Dawson had never felt a personal connection
with Kweku and had thought him aloof. But he began to relax now as
he found Uncle to be much more affable than he’d expected or
remembered.

Dawson stole a glance at Auntie Osewa working in the kitchen.
She expertly chopped off the top of a coconut with a cutlass. She
was still extraordinarily strong, and the muscles of her lean arms
had remained well defined. She poured the coconut juice into two
glasses and brought them to Dawson and Gyamfi.

“Thank you, madam,” Gyamfi said.

“Oh, come on, Constable,” she said playfully. “You can call me
‘Auntie’ too.”

Gyamfi laughed. “All right, Auntie.”

“If you want more coconut, just tell me and I’ll bring some
more.” She sat down next to Dawson at an angle so she could easily
make eye contact with him. “So, Darko, what brings you here to see
your poor old auntie, eh? The one you’ve neglected for all these
years?”

There was laughter all around. She was teasing, of course, but
it was still uncomfortable for Dawson, because the truth was he
had
neglected her, and there was no easy explanation.

“Auntie, it’s not that Cairo and I didn’t often think about you
and Uncle Kweku,” he said, deflecting the question a bit. “In fact
I was telling him just yesterday how much I regretted our not
having come to visit you from time to time. I promise I won’t let
it happen again.”

“All right,” she said, smiling. “Constable, you are my
witness.”

More laughter all around.

“So how do you know Constable Gyamfi?” Uncle Kweku asked
Dawson.

“We’ve just met,” Dawson said. “You know, I’m with the police
now. I work for CID in Accra.”

“Oh, is that so?” Uncle Kweku said, looking impressed. “So
you’re a big, important man, eh?”

Dawson smiled. “Well, I’m not so sure about that, but thank
you.”

“Inspector has come to help us with the investigation of Gladys
Mensah’s death,” Gyamfi said.

Uncle Kweku clicked his tongue with regret. “It’s terrible what
happened to her. We’ve heard so many rumors. Some people say she
fell down in the forest and hit her head, some others are saying
she died from witchcraft.”

“I don’t know much about witchcraft,” Dawson said, “but for sure
we know now she was murdered.”

“Oh!
” Kweku said, shocked. “Who could do something like
that? She was such a good person. She came to see us one day, not
so, Osewa?”

She nodded. “She did.”

“Really?” Dawson asked with interest.

“Yes,” Auntie Osewa said. “You remember Mr. Kutu?”

“Very well.”

“Maybe you don’t know, but he helped me to bear a child through
his herbal medicines. Gladys Mensah, well, she wanted to learn
about those kinds of medicines – how she could use them to help
more women who could not have children, or something like that. So
one day she came with Mr. Kutu to meet us.”

“How did you find Gladys to be as a person?”

“Oh, just a very fine young woman,” Auntie Osewa said. “Very
fine. She sat and ate with us, and we talked about many
things.”

“How was she with Mr. Kutu?”

“What do you mean?”

“How did they behave with each other?”

Osewa shrugged. “I think everything was okay. What do you think,
Kweku?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I saw that they liked each other very
well.”

Dawson caught a movement from the corner of his eye and turned
to see a young man in the doorway.

“Alifoe!” Osewa said. “Come and greet your cousin.”

Their son was not as tall as Dawson, but his shoulders were much
broader. He moved easily and had a bright, spontaneous grin. Dawson
stood up, and Alifoe embraced him and then stood back at arm’s
length to gaze at him.

“So, finally I get to meet my cousin in the flesh,” he said,
smiling.

“Welcome back to Ketanu, Darko,” Alifoe said. “How is
Accra?”

“Big and dirty,” Dawson said.

“But you like it?”

Dawson turned his palms up. “It’s home. I complain about it all
the time, but I’m not leaving.”

“I want to live there,” Alifoe said. “I like the big city.”

“Alifoe, do you want some coconut?” Osewa said suddenly, and
Dawson found the interruption striking.

“No, thank you, Mama,” Alifoe said. He fell silent, Kweku looked
away, and Dawson felt tension spring out of nowhere like water from
a hidden underground stream.

“Darko, you and Gyamfi must eat with us,” Osewa said, hurriedly
filling in the lull.

Darko’s salivary glands squirted into action at the thought of
Auntie Osewa’s cooking.

He looked at Gyamfi, who nodded enthusiastically.

“We would love to,” Dawson said. “Thank you, Auntie.”

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

T
he Ministry of
Health kept a guesthouse in Ketanu for the occasional stay by a
minister or one of his or her deputies. It was small but
comfortable, with a kitchenette and bath. The bedroom-cum-sitting
room had one small table, an armchair, and a desk. The two beds
were narrow and firm.

Dawson immediately took a cold shower – cold was the only
temperature available. The water pressure was low, but it still
felt good. In the bedroom he opened the window louvers to get in as
much air as possible. He wanted to call Christine, but he would
first have to recharge the battery of his mobile. He plugged it
into the wall and hoped there wouldn’t be any surprise electricity
cuts within the next hour.

Ever since that night twenty-five years ago when he had first
stumbled through a tune for Mama on the kalimba she had given him,
he had loved the instrument and continued to practice. It soothed
him whenever he played, and it connected him to his mother. He now
had quite a collection of kalimbas, and he had selected an
eight-note to bring along to Ketanu.

He sat and played for a while, both improvised tunes and ones he
had composed, and then he rolled a joint and smoked. He needed it.
The kalimba had taken away some of the tension the day had built up
but certainly not all.

He thought about Gladys Mensah. She must have been quite someone
to know, a force to be reckoned with, and that might have been
exactly the problem.
Someone feared her or hated her enough to
kill her. Or loved her and was rejected by her
.

He began to think about it in a circular way. Round and round
until it no longer made any sense. He knew it was the THC
infiltrating his brain. Tetrahydrocannabinol. What a cold, clinical
name for stuff that soothed him with silky, molten warmth. He felt
it infusing like rainwater saturating thirsty soil. His muscles
started to relax, and his body felt light and floating. He sighed.
It was very good, this feeling.

The world seemed to expand when he smoked. Sometimes that gave
life more meaning, but on other occasions it only made it seem more
mysterious. Marijuana had a sense of humor too. Dawson stared at
the bed, and it looked longer, wider, and higher, but in an odd,
distorted way. The angles seemed all wrong, and he giggled at how
ridiculous it appeared as a piece of furniture.

He sobered again. Christine loathed his habit. She knew he
smoked, but they never talked about it, and he kept it strictly
away from her and Hosiah. This trip was ideal for getting some good
marijuana in – far from home and CID Headquarters.

Possession and use of marijuana was illegal in Ghana, but it
didn’t bother Dawson that he was breaking what he considered a
silly law.

He finished his joint, lay down on the bed, and returned to
thinking about Gladys. Who would kill her? Togbe Adzima? Maybe. She
had evidently infuriated him. Samuel Boateng? Perhaps. Dawson
didn’t know enough about him yet. What about family members
themselves? Inspector Fiti had discounted that proposition, but
even as a boy, Dawson had learned that a detective should never
overlook a “loved one” as the victim’s possible slayer.

♦

As soon as Papa had returned from Ketanu, he went to Accra
Central Police Station to report Mama officially missing. It was
two weeks before anyone got back in touch with them. A plainclothes
policeman came to their house. Darko stared at him. He was about
Papa’s age, late thirties, neat, and
small
. Darko had always
thought policemen had to be big.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Daniel Armah,” he said to Papa. “Is
Beatrice Dawson your wife?”

“Yes,” Papa said.

Armah shook hands with him and then with Darko and Cairo, who
was in his wheelchair.

“So,” Armah said. “She’s still missing?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” Armah’s gaze was flat and steady, and Darko couldn’t
tell what he was thinking. At first he thought the detective simply
wasn’t that interested in Mama’s case, but when Armah sat down and
took a long and painstakingly detailed report, Darko realized he
had been wrong. Armah took his time and asked Papa a lot of
questions – sometimes the same question twice – and wrote
everything down. After more than an hour, the detective left. Darko
stood at the door and watched him walking away, oddly wishing he
could stay longer. Suddenly Armah turned around and waved to him as
if he had felt Darko’s gaze.