Wife of the Gods (5 page)

He looked disbelievingly at her.

“I’m serious,” she assured him.

“Really? I’ve
never
seen grass that tall.”

She chuckled. “People use the pieces of straw to make rope and
baskets.”

“Can
you
do that, Auntie?”

“Of course. Watch.”

Auntie bit the end of Darko’s straw into two and split it along
its length. She twisted each half of the split straw on the other
by rolling it against her thigh, and then she combined the two
strands to create a length of rope thicker and stronger than the
original filament.

“There,” she said, smiling. “See how we do it?”

“That’s clever.”

“You can have this piece. That’s my little gift to you.”

“Thank you, Auntie.” Darko folded it carefully and put it in his
pocket.

After that, Darko and Cairo began to get restless as Mama and
Auntie Osewa conversed nonstop. Uncle Kweku excused himself for a
moment and went outside, which led Cairo to ask Mama if he and
Darko could do the same.

“Yes, but stay where Uncle Kweku can see you. And don’t get
dirty because we’re going to eat soon.”

There were a few huts nearby, and Uncle was standing next to one
of them talking to a neighbor. Noisy weaverbirds were building
their upside-down, trumpet-shaped nests in the trees.

“Let’s go into the forest,” Cairo said.

“But Mama said not to go far,” Darko said.

“I know. We won’t. Come on.”

They passed several large mango trees just beginning to bear the
season’s fruit and then clusters of pawpaw and banana trees until
they were in the forest proper. The ground here was thick with dead
leaves and fallen branches, in the midst of which sprouted virgin
palms and brand-new ferns and creeping plants. Cocoa trees here and
there were not very tall, but the forest giants towered over them
and let in only dappled sunlight. Darko loved it. There were no
forests like this in Accra.

“Cairo,” he said, “do elephants live in the forest?”

“Yes, and if they get you they’ll pick you up with their trunks
and throw you into the trees.”

Darko cackled. “No,” he said, but he half believed it.

A millipede crossed in front of his feet, and he knelt down to
touch it. It rolled into a tight, impenetrable ball, and its
million legs miraculously disappeared.

“Cairo! Darko!”

Mama was calling. They ran back out of the forest and saw her at
the front of Auntie Osewa’s house looking around for them. Uncle
Kweku had gone inside.

“We’re coming, Mama!” Cairo yelled.

♦

Dinner was delicious. The soft plantain fufu Osewa had prepared
was arranged in a bowl like a row of smooth, rounded pillows too
perfect to be disturbed. Steaming, fluffy white yam was piled high
on another plate. Chunks of goat meat,
okro
, and aubergine
lay in rich palm nut soup like islands in an ocher sea.

As they ate, Mama and Auntie Osewa talked back and forth and
laughed together. Uncle Kweku joined in a little, but the
conversation still belonged to the women. Cairo and Darko sat next
to each other and were mostly quiet, the way children were supposed
to be in the presence of their elders, but they slipped each other
a few inside jokes and giggled in secret.

A call came from outside the house, “Kawkaw-kaw!”

“Come in,” Uncle Kweku said.

A man entered. He looked about Auntie’s age – around twenty-four
or twenty-five. His physique was thicker than Uncle Kweku’s by far.
His face was angular, with high cheekbones as sharp as mountain
ridges, and his smoky black skin was as smooth as a woman’s.

“Woizo,” Uncle Kweku said, getting up to shake hands with
him.

“How are you, Kweku?”

“Fine, fine.” Uncle Kweku was beaming. “Come and eat with
us.”

“Thank you, my brother. I was passing by and wanted to greet
you.”

Darko listened to his speech. It had an uneven rhythm. His voice
was not exactly rough, but it had cracks in it like the surface of
a badly tarred road.

“Woizo, woizo,” Auntie Osewa said.

She made space for him at the table and then introduced Mama,
Cairo, and Darko. His name was Isaac Kutu. He was one of the local
healers. He smiled at everyone. His eyes were dark and deep, and
sometimes he looked to the right or left without turning his
head.

“Mr. Kutu has been helping us,” Auntie Osewa said, looking from
her husband to her sister. Darko didn’t know what she meant.

“Oh, very fine,” Mama said.

“How is Papa Kutu?” Kweku asked.

Isaac looked troubled. “Not well at all.”

“What a pity,” Osewa said. “I’m so sorry.”

“I am doing most of the work now,” Isaac said. “He is too
tired.”

Osewa brought him a bowl of water to wash because he preferred
eating in the traditional manner with his fingers – right hand
only, left hand tucked securely out of the way. As they talked, it
came out that the compound Mama and the boys had spotted on the way
in belonged to Isaac’s father. Papa Kutu apparently had great
prestige as a traditional healer.

The discussion moved to farming and the price of cocoa and other
unbearably boring grown-up talk. Darko didn’t pay much attention to
what they were saying, but for some reason he kept stealing glances
at Mr. Kutu.

At one point, Uncle Kweku cracked a rare joke and the grown-ups
burst out laughing. Darko didn’t get what was so funny, and maybe
Mr. Kutu didn’t either because his chuckle seemed halfhearted or
distracted. As Darko watched him, he saw something.

Mr. Kutu’s eyes flashed sideways at Mama, who sat opposite him
at an angle. It was very quick – again without turning his head –
and Mama returned the look. But Auntie Osewa was quicker still, and
she caught that glance between Mama and Mr. Kutu. It all happened
in a tiny fraction of time, but Darko captured it like a photograph
and he reacted strangely to it. His stomach knotted up and he lost
his appetite and stopped eating.

“What’s the matter, Darko?” Mama asked him.

“Nothing.”

“Eat up then,” she said briskly. “You don’t waste food, hear
me?”

Darko felt Mr. Kutu’s gaze shift to him, but he never looked
directly at the man again. He couldn’t face the eyes.

♦

Evening had arrived when Mr. Kutu left. Uncle Kweku brought out
a game of
oware
, and they played by the light of a kerosene
lantern. Auntie Osewa went up first against Cairo and was soundly
thrashed. Mama challenged Cairo and went down in flames in the same
way.

“Okay, let someone else play,” Mama said. “Darko, play with your
uncle.”

Darko squirmed with discomfort. He wasn’t terribly good at it –
no comparison to his brother.

“Come on,” Auntie Osewa said, “don’t be so shy.”

Darko did better than he’d expected, or maybe Uncle was just
being nice to him. The contest between Uncle and Cairo was fierce,
and it seemed like it would never end. When Cairo got squashed, he
couldn’t bear the defeat and challenged his uncle to a rematch.
What intrigued Darko was the way Uncle Kweku had come to life with
the game.

Laughing at the players’ antics, Auntie Osewa got up, said she
would be back in a moment, and went outside.

Cairo and his uncle went another round. Auntie had been gone
longer than Darko thought she would be. When she returned, Uncle
Kweku and Cairo were just about ready to finish up the game.

“Okay, I’m tired now,” Uncle said. “Cairo, you’re too good for
me.” He leaned back against the wall with a sigh. “Where did you
go, Osewa?”

“I went to set the rabbit traps.”

Darko, startled, looked sharply at her. Her voice had changed.
It wasn’t musical like before, and it shook slightly, like the
tremor of a leaf in a brief stir of breeze.

“Those rabbits have been at our crops again,” she added. Her
eyelids fluttered very slightly. Darko saw that. It wasn’t a
mannerism. Auntie Osewa did not have such a mannerism. It was
something else.

Whether a person’s voice felt like silk or sandpaper to Darko,
the texture did not vary much. The pitch could change, and so could
the volume or loudness, but the way it
felt
to him stayed
the same…
unless
. Unless the speaker was holding back an
emotion or hiding something.

Or lying.

Why would Auntie Osewa lie? Darko’s face grew warm, perhaps on
her behalf, or maybe because such an embarrassing thought should
even have entered his mind. No, she wouldn’t lie – not his Auntie
Osewa.
Would she?

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

A
t the end of the
workday, Dawson went to the CID garage to get his assigned Toyota
Corolla and put away his motorbike in a secure spot. Before he went
home, he had two stops to make. The first was to his brother,
Cairo, who lived with Papa in Osu, a south-central district of
Accra.

Once robust and naturally athletic, Cairo had been a paraplegic
now for twenty-five years. Whenever he thought about it, Dawson
experienced an eerie moment of unreality. He could still barely
believe it. The accident had happened in Accra three months after
the trip to Ketanu.

♦

Mama sent Cairo to the corner kiosk to buy a tin of sardines.
He was starting across the street when she remembered something.
“Get some bread too!” she called out through the window. He turned
at her voice, walking backward and sideways at the same
time
.

“What did you say, Mama?
”

She screamed as she saw what Cairo never did. The oncoming
car hit him hard. He went up over the roof of the car and down the
back
.

♦

Within seconds, Cairo was paralyzed from the waist down.
Yesterday the master of his own body, today immobile and dependent
on the care of others. Mentally the anguish was immeasurable, and
if anyone suffered as much as or even more than Cairo, it was Mama.
Her guilt was a living torment.

Two years after Cairo’s accident, she took a trip to Ketanu and
never came back. She disappeared into thin air. Perhaps she could
not bear ever to look Cairo in the eye again, but perhaps that was
not it either. To this day, no one knew, and Dawson wondered about
it over and again.

Jacob, Dawson’s father, was in his early sixties now, and he was
Cairo’s sole caretaker except for the occasional member of the
extended family who took over when Papa had to go out. Cairo made a
little bit of money carving wood face masks – the kind popular with
tourists. Dawson always felt guilty about how little he contributed
to Cairo’s everyday needs. The one rule he kept firm to the point
of superstition was he never left town without first stopping by to
see his brother. In any case, as if sensing Dawson’s imminent
departure, Cairo had called him on his mobile that afternoon to ask
if he was going to drop in.

The house really wasn’t far from CID Headquarters, traffic just
made it seem so. Dawson made his slow way down Ring Road to Danquah
Circle, where policemen were directing the flow. He got around the
circle to the segment of Cantonments Road aptly nicknamed Oxford
Street for its density of shops, Internet cafés, glitzy stores and
banks, and restaurants serving anything from sushi to pizza. Once
he got past Oxford, things lightened up a bit and he arrived at
Papa’s house and parked the car.

Cairo was in his wheelchair repairing a hole in the wood fence
at the back of the house. He looked up and smiled.

“I thought you didn’t love me anymore,” he joked as they
hugged.

“I do love you,” Dawson said sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I have no
excuse and I’m not going to make one up. How are you? You’re
looking good today.”

In fact, with inactivity, Cairo had become overweight, and bouts
of infection had taken their toll. It was often painful for Dawson
to visit him, especially when Cairo was having a rough time. It
left Dawson with a lump in his chest and moisture in his eyes. His
mother gone, his brother maimed – these things still hurt.

Dawson was glad to help Cairo repair the fence. Doing something
active with him made the visit easier and more cheerful. They
chatted happily. As adults they were intellectually equal and
compatible, but Dawson always regarded Cairo as his older, wiser
brother and he was comfortable with that.

“Listen,” Dawson said at length, “I have to go to Ketanu
tomorrow.”

“What’s going on up there?” Cairo asked.

“Someone’s been murdered.” Dawson handed him a nail. “Lartey
wants me to find out who did it.”

“Just like that, eh?”

They laughed.

“So, back to Ketanu after all these years,” Cairo said.

“The way it’s grown, I probably won’t recognize the place.”

Leaning forward in his chair, Cairo deftly drove the nail home.
“You might even need directions to Auntie Osewa’s house.”

“You know what I feel sorry about?” Dawson said.

“What?”

“That we’ve never visited her again over all these years. I
mean, she was very good about writing every once in a while,
sending us photos of the family, and so on. But after all that,
it’s not her invitations to visit that’s taking me back there, it’s
official business.”

Cairo shrugged. “Why should you or I want to return there?
Ketanu took Mama away from us. At least, that’s the way I look at
it.”

“I’d never thought of it quite like that,” Dawson said. Cairo
had a way of seeing things differently.

Papa emerged from the house into the yard. He acknowledged
Dawson without actually saying hello, and true to form he was short
on conversation. He had always been that way, and Dawson could not
remember him ever hugging them as children. For sure there had been
lots of sharp, angry cuffs to the sides of their heads. Apparently
that was the physical contact he had been most comfortable with.
After all these years, Dawson didn’t understand his father or like
him much.