Wife of the Gods (34 page)

Efia felt uneasy about leaving Ama with Togbe. The other wives
were busy trying to catch leaks in the roof while the children
played around, but Efia stood at the doorway waiting anxiously for
Ama. Togbe’s lantern had gone out, which worried Efia even more.
She sighed, took a few steps toward Togbe’s hut, and turned back
again. What should she do? Should she check on Ama?

She decided she would. She was already soaked, so what
difference did it make? She stepped out, trying to avoid the
deepest parts of the water and holding up her skirt so she wouldn’t
trip over it.

Suddenly, before she could get to Togbe’s hut, Ama came running
out. Her mouth was open in a silent scream against the storm. Her
top was torn. Her skirt was tangled and pushed up and some of her
thigh was exposed. Efia knew immediately what had happened, and it
stabbed her in the heart and seared clear to her back in between
the shoulder blades.

She caught Ama in her arms. The girl was shrieking. Efia held
her tight and cradled her head. Ama wanted to collapse, but Efia
wouldn’t let her fall. They stood in the rain until Ama was still,
and then Efia took her to the wives’ hut.

Nunana came to them. Efia looked at her in a special way, a way
that said,
The worst thing possible has happened
, and Nunana
nodded. She understood.

“Sit down with her and hold her,” she told Efia.

Nunana turned around and ordered the other wives and all the
children out.

“In the rain?
” they said, incredulous. She must be
crazy.

“Get out,
now
!” Nunana yelled furiously. “Go to the other
hut. You can come back later.”

They left hastily, crying children and all.

Efia was sitting on the floor holding Ama tightly, gently
rocking her. Nunana knelt down and put her arms around both of them
as they began to cry.

After a while, Efia stopped, and then so did Ama.

“Ama,” Nunana said, “did he make you bleed?” She spoke above the
noise of the storm, but her voice still sounded gentle.

Ama nodded.

“We’ll wash it with rainwater,” Nunana said. “Did he go inside
you?”

“I don’t know. I…I’m not sure. I think so.”

“I have to touch you, Ama,” Nunana said. “I won’t hurt you.”

The girl cringed, but she let Nunana check her by lantern light
while Efia held her tight and talked soothingly into her ear.

Nunana looked at Efia and shook her head. “There’s blood,” she
said, “but no seed.”

Efia kissed Ama, and into her ear she whispered, “It will never
happen again, Ama. I promise you that.”

♦

The storm quieted down to a steady light rain, and finally
everyone could get some sleep. Keeping her arms around Ama as she
slept, Efia waited two hours. Her eyes never closed in that time.
She was extra alert, her mind bright and clear.

She shook Ama gently. “We have to leave.”

“Eh?”

“Shh. Come.”

They stepped over the sleeping wives and children and went
outside. A feeble flash of lightning lit up Togbe’s hut for a
moment, showing the way.

Ama wiped rainwater away from her eyes. “What’s wrong, Mama?
Where are we going?”

“Togbe will try to hurt you and me again. We’re going to run
away to Ketanu, and from there maybe someone can take us to another
town far away, where Togbe will never find us.”

Lightning illuminated Ama’s face, and Efia saw how fearful she
was.

“Wait for me here,” Efia said, but thunder drowned her out and
she had to repeat it.

“I have to get something from Togbe’s hut first,” she explained.
“Don’t come to look for me, do you hear? No matter what, you must
not come looking for me. You understand?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“But when I come out, we run, okay?”

Ama nodded. She was shivering from cold and fear.

Efia knew about how many steps it was to Togbe’s house, and she
found the edges of the doorway and went in. She waited for the next
bit of lightning. It was less bright, but still enough to see Togbe
sleeping on his right side the way he always did. He was a heavy
sleeper and slept even better when it rained and when he was
sleeping off his drunkenness.

Efia knelt down behind him and gently tapped his left shoulder.
He grunted, moaned, and rolled onto his back, and she waited a few
moments until she was sure he had settled back into deep sleep.
Efia fumbled around for the bottom edge of his sleeping cloth. Some
of it was tangled under his weight, and she had to gently peel it
up and out. She looked nervously up at the door to make sure Ama
wasn’t there.
Good girl. Just a few minutes more
.

She had almost all of Togbe’s lower section uncovered. He was
wearing trousers, but she was still worried the exposure to the air
would wake him. Now she had to be quick.

One burst of lightning, and then thunder. Good.

One button. The others had fallen off long ago.

Lightning. She spread the fly open. Thunder.

Don’t wake up, please
.

Her knife, the one she used to cut goat meat with, was under her
cloth. She took it out. He stirred.

No, no, don’t turn over
.

Knife in her right hand, left poised steady over his penis like
a runner on his mark.

A brilliant flash of lightning, and she saw it clearly, grasped
the shaft, and pulled up. The knife blade arced silently through
the dark, so sharp she did not feel it cut the flesh, but she felt
his penis come cleanly up and away from his body in her left hand.
He writhed like a worm on a stick and sat up, but she was already
at the door, and she never heard his first scream.

For a moment she didn’t see Ama.
Where was she?

They bumped into each other.

“Run!” Efia shouted.

In pitch darkness, they held hands and ran over ground they
could not see into a future they did not know.

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

“D
arko? Darko, wake
up.” He started and opened his eyes. Auntie Osewa was gently
shaking his shoulder. “Good morning. I hate to wake you, but you
have a visitor.”

She left him so he could get dressed. He pulled on his jeans,
threw on a shirt, and went outside, where he was surprised to find
Elizabeth waiting for him. She looked grim and anxious.

“Morning, Inspector Dawson. Can you come quickly?”

♦

As Dawson hurried with Elizabeth to her house, she explained
what had happened. She had been in the shop early to set up for the
day. Glancing out the window, she had spotted Efia and Ama walking
by. Elizabeth did not know them well, but she recognized Efia as
one of the Bedome traders with whom she had good-naturedly haggled
at Ketanu’s big market day a couple of months ago. Efia had struck
her then as an extraordinarily lovely woman in pitiful tattered
clothing, but this morning there was a special distress to her
bearing as she led her trailing daughter by the hand. Sodden and
miserable from last night’s rain, they were looking around with
wondering, confused eyes.

It took time and skill to get the whole story, but once
Elizabeth found out that Efia and her daughter were on the run from
Togbe Adzima, she didn’t have a second’s hesitation in taking the
two women into her home for safety, a bath, and a change into dry
clothes.

When Dawson and Elizabeth got to the house, Ama had fallen
asleep in Gladys’s room, but Efia was in the living room wide
awake, tense and nervous. Dorcas Mensah was cooking breakfast, and
Elizabeth joined her, leaving Dawson and Efia to talk.

“Are you all right?” Dawson asked.

“I’m better now, thank you, Mr. Dawson.”

“You spent the whole night in the forest?”

“Yes, but as soon as it started to get light, we came to Ketanu.
I didn’t even know what we were going to do when we got here. The
gods will bless Madame Elizabeth for what she has done for us.”

“She’s a very good person,” Dawson agreed. “What made you decide
to escape from Togbe?”

Efia cast her gaze down. “For a man to rape his own daughter…”
Her voice trailed off. Tears welled up in her eyes. She shook her
head as if she still could not believe it.

“It happened last night?”

“Yes, and I promised Ama it would never happen again. Nor will
it happen to any other woman. Because I took away his manhood
forever.”

Dawson was uncertain what she meant. “You mean you put a curse
on him?”

“No, I mean I used a knife to cut his manhood off.”

Dawson’s jaw dropped and he gazed at Efia with new awe, and then
he smiled inwardly.
Sweet vengeance
.

He took her hand gently and gave it a quick squeeze. “You are
very brave.”

She nodded, but she was desolate. “Maybe now they will kill me
for what I’ve done.”

“Never. I won’t let anyone kill you.”

“I’m afraid.”

“I know.”

They were both quiet for a moment.

“You hid the knife?” Dawson asked her.

She nodded. “It’s in a safe place in the forest.”

“Good. Don’t tell me where, and if the police come, don’t say
anything
all right?”

“Please, yes, sir.”

Dawson took out his mobile. He hadn’t charged it since leaving
the guesthouse, and it had almost completely lost its juice.

Timothy Sowah answered on the third ring.

“Good morning, Timothy. This is Detective Inspector Dawson.”

Silence for a moment.

“Morning, Inspector Dawson.” He sounded wary.

“I need your help. I’m at the Mensahs’ house with Efia, one of
Togbe Adzima’s trokosi.”

“The one who discovered Gladys’s body?”

“Yes. She and her daughter escaped from Adzima last night.”

“Goodness.”

“We need them moved away from here to somewhere safe.”

“This is what Gladys and I prayed every day would happen,”
Timothy said, his voice trembling with excitement, all the
aloofness in it now gone.

“Can you help?”

“Yes, I’ll send a car to bring her here to Ho, and we’ll go from
there.”

“Thank you, Timothy. Oh, and by the way, I’d like to officially
apologize for my arresting you. No hard feelings?”

“None. You were doing your job.”

“Good.”

♦

Once Efia and Ama were safely away, Dawson went to the
guesthouse to look for Chikata again. He was just leaving as Dawson
arrived.

“The bird has flown,” he said as Dawson got out of the car.

Dawson stopped in his tracks. “Kutu’s gone?”

“Correct. I went looking for him yesterday at his compound, and
everyone there said he had left and they didn’t know where he was.
I checked inside his rooms to make sure he wasn’t hiding.”

“Have you searched for him in town?”

“I didn’t have enough time yesterday to do a good job before the
rain, so I’m going now.”

“I’ll come with you. I can’t believe you’re actually doing some
work, D.S. Chikata.”

“Thank you, D.I. Dawson, sir. You’re very funny, sir, but thank
you.”

♦

They canvassed the street, asking people if they had seen Isaac
Kutu anywhere. No one had.

“I’m hungry,” Chikata said.

They stopped at a street hawker’s stand and bought some red-red
– fried plantain and black-eyed peas in spicy-hot palm sauce – and
a Coke and a Malta.

“You really think your auntie was lying about Samuel?” Chikata
said, with his mouth full of food.

Dawson swallowed before speaking. “Last night I thought so, this
morning I’m not so sure. I’m confused.”

“I believe her story,” Chikata said. “You read her police
statement, right?”

“Yes.”

“If she was lying, how could she know those details about the
clothes they were wearing – Adinkra symbols and all that stuff?
Everything she says checks out.”

“Yes, I know.” Dawson shook his head. “I’m frustrated.”

“Drink some Malta,” Chikata said with a snort. “Maybe it will
help you think.”

Dawson didn’t answer. He stopped eating, and his blood turned to
ice.
Adinkra symbols
.

Chikata was staring at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Under my nose,” he whispered. “Under my very nose.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Let’s go,” Dawson said.

“Hey, man, I haven’t finished eating.”

“Can’t you eat and walk at the same time?”

“Where are we going?”

“To buy me a skirt and blouse.”

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

A
t Osewa’s firewood
spot, Dawson instructed Chikata to turn his back and not to look
until called. Dawson walked the approximately three hundred meters
to the area at the side of the forest not far from the beginning of
the path to Ketanu. It was here that Isaac had rebuked Samuel for
talking to Gladys and had chased the boy away. That was well
established. The unanswered question was whether Samuel had really
rejoined Gladys on her way back to Ketanu after she and Isaac had
parted. That was Auntie Osewa’s version of the story, and if it was
true, Samuel must have hidden behind a tree or bush and waited
until the coast was clear. But how could he have done that if he
had stayed with the farmers until nightfall?

Dawson had bought a skirt and blouse at Elizabeth’s – extra
large to fit him. He had lied and said it was to be a gift for a
full-figured sister-in-law. The outfit was identical to the one
Gladys had been wearing: blue and white with small Adinkra symbols.
He had not shown it to Chikata.

With considerable ineptness, for which he forgave himself, he
put on the outfit over his own clothes. Then he called out to
Chikata to turn around. He stood in place for about three minutes
and then walked toward the Bedome-Ketanu footpath. He went up as
far as the mango tree laden with tempting fruit. He didn’t know for
sure, but he surmised Gladys would have got to at least this point
before being accosted by Samuel.