Wife of the Gods (36 page)

“When I got there, I was trying to think of a way to poison her,
but time was going, the sun was about to sleep, Gladys wanted to
leave, and she kept asking me which was the medicine to cure AIDS.
I showed her a plant I didn’t even know, and she began to laugh at
me, saying that she didn’t think that was it. And the more she
talked, the angrier I became that she was telling me all these
things she was planning to do for you. She even said she was going
to make the Ministry of Health get you a nice guesthouse, and
that’s when I knew for sure that she wanted to live with you in
that house. I wanted to tell her that you belonged to me, not to
anyone else, that she couldn’t have you.”

Osewa turned to Dawson. “Isaac is everything to me in this
world. He gave me everything. His very touch the first day I met
him was like nothing I had known. He gave me the love I never had
from Kweku or anyone else, and most of all he blessed me with a
beautiful son. Do you know how much I wanted a son, Darko? Do you
know how I felt when I saw women with two, three, four beautiful
children while I had none?”

“I know it was painful for you, Auntie,” Dawson said. “What did
you do to Gladys?”

“I attacked her. I wanted to hurt her. We fell on the ground and
she started to scream. I squeezed her neck to make her quiet, and
she was looking up at me while I was doing it. She was struggling
and I wanted her to stop, so I kept squeezing. Her neck was very
soft. And when she stopped breathing, I felt sorry for her, and I
didn’t know what to do, so I just tried to make her more
comfortable by moving her underneath a palm tree. And I rearranged
her skirt and blouse so they were nice and neat again.”

Osewa turned her palms up and looked at them as if she was
seeing them for the first time. “I couldn’t let her take away my
treasure, that’s what you have to understand. Not Gladys, nor any
other woman.”

“Even your own sister,” Dawson said.

Osewa drew in her breath so sharply it made a sound of
asphyxiation. Her right hand, fingers spread, went to her chest.
She stood frozen. Dawson moved in close.

“Where did you bury my mother?
”

He grasped her arm, but she threw it off and sprang away like a
bush rabbit.

“Don’t touch me!” she snapped. Her eyes blazed like red-hot
embers. “You’re just like her. Even your laugh is like hers. She
was always better than me, that woman. Ever since we were children.
And then she would rub it in my face. She had everything. She lived
in Accra, she was more beautiful, she had you and Cairo while I was
barren
, and then she wanted Isaac for herself as well.”

Her chest was heaving and her hands were trembling.

“Isaac looked at Mama that day we came to see you,” Dawson said,
“and she looked back at him. I saw it, and so did you, and you knew
what it meant.”

“Yes. That she wanted him. She was going to get him.”

“When you said you had been outside setting the traps for the
rabbits,” Dawson said, “you really went to see Isaac, because you
were afraid that something was going on between him and Mama, and
you desperately wanted Isaac to reassure you that it wasn’t
so.”

“Yes.” She looked admiringly at Dawson for a moment. “How do you
know everything? Then, when your mother came to see us just after
Alifoe was born, a farmer mentioned to me that he had seen Beatrice
go into Isaac’s compound and that she had spent a long time there.
And then I knew Beatrice was in love with Isaac, because if that
wasn’t the case, she would have told me she had gone to see him,
maybe for some healing, but she didn’t. She did not say one word
about it.

“She came back to Ketanu again, and this time I challenged her.
I asked her, ‘Beatrice, I know you have been secretly going to see
Isaac Kutu. Why are you doing that?’ She told me she feared that
she might have offended the gods in some way and that’s why they
had taken Cairo’s legs away, that perhaps she needed to be
purified, and so that was why she had visited Isaac’s compound. And
I asked her, Why not just find a healer in Accra to purify her? Do
you know what she answered? She said that no one made her feel the
way Isaac did. She said she just felt so
happy
when she was
with him.

“And then your mother confessed something to me and begged me
never to tell anyone. And I said, All right, I won’t tell anyone.
She told me she often dreamed that she was standing with seven or
eight women who were Isaac’s wives, and one by one they died around
her. They just fell down on the ground one after the other and left
only Beatrice standing. Once they were all dead, she became Isaac’s
new wife.” Auntie Osewa shuddered. “That’s when I realized.”

“Realized what, Auntie Osewa?”

“Boniface Kutu had been right that one of my sisters was a
witch, only he chose the wrong sister. It wasn’t Akua who needed to
be tried. It was Beatrice.
She
was the witch. It was
Beatrice
who had stolen my womb from me.”

“Oh, no, Osewa,” Isaac said, dismayed. “That’s not the way it
was.”

“She had stolen my womb. Isaac got it back, and now Beatrice
wanted to steal
him
. How
dare
she? What gave her the
right to take so much away from me?”

Dawson’s bottom lip was quivering. “Auntie, how did you kill
Mama?”

“You already know,” she said, suddenly weary. “You held the
weapon in your own hands.”

Dawson felt sick.

“Yes, Darko. It was the rope we make from elephant grass, the
same kind I made for you when you were a boy.” Tears streamed down
her face. “I planned it. I knew I couldn’t do it with my bare
hands. Your mother was too strong.”

“And when it came time for Mama to return to Accra,” Dawson said
softly, “you walked with her toward the tro-tro stop, but you never
got there, did you? You led her to the grove – just like you were
to do with Gladys twenty-three years later – and you killed her
there. You told everyone the lie that you had seen Mama board the
tro-tro, but this last time, when I was having dinner with you and
you were telling us about it, you made another mistake. It’s always
in the lying that a mistake is made.”

“What mistake?”

“Mama would never have sat near the front seat, even if it was
the last tro-tro on earth.”

“Oh,” Osewa said dispiritedly. “I didn’t even know that.”

Dawson took her gently and held her close.

“Detective Sergeant Chikata is going to arrest you now, Auntie,
and then he will be taking you away. Okay?”

“I love you, little Darko. I will always love you.”

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

I
t wasn’t a fetish
priest who had built the juju pyramid at the plantain grove. It had
been Osewa’s creation. Maybe it would indeed serve to keep evil
spirits away, but its main purpose was to hide what was
underneath.

With Constable Gyamfi’s help, Dawson removed the rocks one by
one from the pile. He felt a certain closeness to the constable.
With Inspector Fiti and Constable Bubo suspended pending the
investigation into alleged police brutality, Dawson had offered to
stay in Ketanu and help at the station until a replacement
inspector could be sent in.

All the rocks were down now, and the soil was exposed. Gyamfi
had brought a shovel, and Dawson thrust it into the ground. Even
though the soil was soft from the recent rain, it was hard work
digging. Dawson had insisted on doing it without any help. When he
got three feet down, he stopped and wiped the sweat streaming from
his brow.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take over for a while?”
Gyamfi asked.

“I’m sure.”

As he continued, the shovel struck something hard, and he
stopped and knelt down. Gyamfi moved closer to see. It was about
the size of a thumb. It looked light in color but stained by the
dark earth. Dawson used his bare hands to clear more soil away. It
became clear that they were looking at a human bone.

Thirty minutes later, Dawson had the full leg and part of a
pelvis. He freed the other leg and the feet, then moved up the
spine. The body had been laid at a slight incline, so again he had
to use the shovel carefully until he reached another level of
bone.

He freed the arms. The skeleton was mostly intact. Around the
bones of the neck, Dawson removed the soil in careful, thin layers
until he found something again. It was coated with mud and the
chain had been broken, but it was there – the gold necklace with
its butterfly pendant.

“Mama,” he whispered.

When her head was exposed, Dawson gently touched her skull.

Gyamfi turned away and retreated quietly. Dawson brushed soil
out of his mother’s head and eyes. In his mind, he didn’t see her
skull, he saw her face and her smile and felt her skin.

“I’ll give you the burial you deserve, Mama,” he said, “and
Christine and Hosiah will be there. At last you’ll see them and be
proud. And then, Mama, you can finally rest.”

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

• gy, dj
  , and
  dz
  are pronounced like
  j
  in
  just
  .
  
• ky
  is pronounced like
  ch
  in
  church
  .
  
• e
  is rarely if ever silent.
  

Abatasu
: plant whose leaves are reputed to
help rid a person of disturbing spirits.

Abeg (ah-beg)
: corruption
of I beg
you
.

Adinkra
: symbolic designs or logos used to
decorate colorful patterned cloth, often expressing concepts such
as bravery or loyalty. Originally used for funeral wear but now
acceptable for other occasions and as a tourist item.

Akasa
: porridge made from slightly fermented
corn dough.

Ampe
: a girls’ rhythmic jumping and clapping
game in which the participant scores points according to which foot
she puts forward at the end of a sequence in relation to the other
player’s foot (reminiscent of rock-paper-scissors).

Ayekoo
: congratulatory exclamation
recognizing an achievement or hard work.

Banku
: fermented corn-cassava dough mixed
proportionally and cooked in hot water into a smooth, whitish
paste.
Bulla
: vulgar for
penis
.

Calabash
: dried, hollowed-out gourd used as
a container.

C
edi
: Ghana’s monetary unit, approximately
equal to one U.S. dollar in this work.

Chaley
: friend, familiar term only, as in
buddy.

Chaley-wate
: sandals made from old,
discarded rubber tires.

Chinchinga
: Ghanaian shish kebab.

Chop bar
: a small food establishment where
quickly prepared meals can be bought.

Chop Cutlass
: machete.

Dash
: money given as a tip, gift, or
bribe.

Durbar
: ceremonial meeting of a Ghanaian
chief and his subjects (deriv. Indo-Persian for “ruler’s
court”).

Ewe
: major language of the Volta Region
spoken by approximately five million people in Ghana, Togo, and
Benin (pronounced “eh-way”).

Fien nawo
: Ewe for
good evening
(short form:
fien
).

Fufú
: cassava, yam, or plantain pounded into
a soft, glutinous mass and shaped into a smooth ball, usually as an
accompaniment to soup, particularly palm nut soup.

Ga
: predominant language of the Greater
Accra Region.

Gari
: starchy carbohydrate made from
cassava, approximately the consistency of couscous.

Kai
: expression of revulsion.

Kawkaw-kaw
: verbal representation of a knock
on the door, used to announce one’s arrival at someone’s home and
to request entry.

Kelewele
: ripe plantain cut in cubes and
deep-fried with ginger and other spices till crispy.

Kontomire
: stew made with cocoyam leaves,
palm oil, hot peppers, and other flavorings.

Libation pouring
: at many important events,
tradition of pouring small amounts of alcohol or other liquid on
the ground accompanied by entreaties to the gods
^and
⁄
_or
ancestors.

Ndo na wo
: Ewe for
good afternoon
(short form:
ndo)
.

Okro
: variation of
okra
.

Oware
: a count-and-capture game of strategy
played with pebbles on a wooden board with shallow pits.

Shai Hills
: forest and grassland reserve
fifty kilometers northeast of Accra.

Small-small
: just a little bit.

Toto
: vulgar for
vagina
.

Tro-tro
: passenger minivan commonly used
throughout Ghana for mass transit. (From
tro
for
three
pence
, the fare charged during British colonial rule.)

Woizo
: Ewe word for
welcome
.

Zongo
: any of a number of communities in
Accra with large Moslem populations.

EOF