Red ant upon a mango tree

2014-02-04T22:41:00.004-08:00

Chapter 18 Continued

* * * * * * * *

For the first time in many years, Emilia was going to church with a light heart. She felt that she had stared down her biggest temptation and emerged victorious. She knew many would judge her if they knew she had just spent the night under the same roof with a man she had just met but she still rejoiced in the fact that nothing had happened. Like most men, Harold had tried to take advantage of the situation but she respected him for understanding that agreeing to spend the night in his house did not necessarily mean agreeing to have sex with him. And, she also did not judge him for trying to ‘fornicate’ with her when he invited her to come to church with him. She knew, first hand, that going to church is not a badge of perfection.

She had liked being with him thus far. After dinner the night before, he had asked whether she would like to know where he lived. She said yes. The ride from Zongo Junction, near Mataheko, to Airport Residential Area had been a lot of fun. The Kwame Nkrumah Circle area was busy. They had stopped at My Shop, where he bought her a huge bar of Golden Tree chocolate. She was awed by the tree-lined median of the Ring Road as they neared the Redemption Circle. Although she had traveled on the Ring Road many times, she had not really had the time to appreciate what it was really like at night. She had mostly experienced the Ring Road through the hustle and bustle of commercial transportation, which did not afford passengers in Accra the luxury of sightseeing. The connection of such comfort with Harold somehow endeared him to her.

She was also impressed by the neighborhood in which he lived. Most of the houses were bordered by beautifully trimmed greenery. Others had short, artsy walls with beautiful flowers poking up above them. Some of the houses had their gates closed but those that had their gates open revealed long driveways and lovely architecture. Even the high rise government apartment buildings looked classy and well-cared for. The fragrance of ‘queen of the night’ hung delicately in the air.

She had not been able to see the whole of Harold’s house the night before. A small door inside the garage led into a huge living room. A billiards board in the center took up almost all of the Persian rug it stood on. A small television sat in front of a recliner in the southwestern corner of the room. That accounted for all the things in the living room. In the morning, however, she discovered there were three other bedrooms apart from the one she had slept in and that the room in which she had slept was the only one, apart from the living room, that had a television.

‘Why don’t you have the tv in your bedroom?” She had asked as he opened the door into the yard for her.

‘I hardly watch tv. I mostly listen to the radio.’

There was an empty, shallow map-like swimming pool in the yard. As they followed the pool, she realized that its larger part spanned the entire width of a side porch decorated with huge African leather puffs. The side of the porch had a winding staircase. Harold climbed the staircase and motioned to her to follow. She had expected to see another set of rooms. Instead, she saw a huge terrace from which you can see planes getting ready to land or taking off from the airport.

‘If you get to the top floor of that apartment building, you can actually see the planes on the runway,’ he had said, pointing. ‘But I like watching them up in the air too. It’s a beautiful sight at night.’

He had then walked to the edge of the terrace and plucked ripe mangoes from a mango tree with fruits hanging right above the wall of the terrace. She had opened her mouth wide in alarm when he rubbed his thumb on one of the mangoes and bit into.

‘I do tell children to wash their mangoes before they eat them,’ he had said. ‘I just don’t do it very often. Sometimes, I just like to be a child. It’s liberating.’

‘But, what kind of doctor endangers his health in order to feel like a child?’

‘Not all doctors are as wise as you would like, I’m afraid.’

‘Are you one of the unwise ones?’

‘You be the judge.’

‘If you want me to come to church with you, we need to leave early. Since you said the church is close to where I live, I need to stop at home to change into something more appropriate for church.’

So Harold had dropped her off where he had picked her the night before. She had not invited him in because she felt embarrassed by the disparity between where he lived and where she lived. She had returned looking gorgeous in a kaba and slit she had borrowed from Alice. She had intended to wear a dress she had bought from Kingsway but changed her mind after seeing him emerge from his bedroom iin an expensive traditional kente cloth that was wrapped around his body and thrown over his left shoulder.

‘You look great!’ he had said when she rejoined him in the car.

‘You too, she had replied. ‘You look like a chief.’

‘O, thanks. But, you know, those shoes are too nice. You will have to take them off before you enter the church building.’

‘You never cease to amaze me. You go to one of those churches?’

‘Wht is wrong with those churches?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with them. I’ve been to many of them myself. I guess it just had never occurred to me that University-educated men also go to such churches.’

‘What about University-educated women?’

‘I don’t know. I feel like it’s harder for men to believe in miracles. I don’t know. I just….I just...’

‘Don’t worry. I understand what you mean. I don’t go to that church to see miracles. My mother introduced me to it when I was a kid. Most of my childhood friends go there. It’s the only church I’ve ever been to and that’s where I feel at home.’

‘Is your mother going to be there?’ she asked, shifting nervously in her seat.

He coughed slightly. ‘She died a few months ago.’

‘Ooh, sorry!’

An awkward silence prevailed until he turned unto a street with an endless line of cars parked on each side.

‘Are we close?’

‘We’re here. I need to drive further up the street to see if I can find a spot to park.’

‘Are all these people here for the church?’ she asked, pointing from side to side at the parked cars they were passing.

‘Most of them. Yes.’

‘Wow! No wonder they have doctors in their congregation. I wouldn’t be surprised if General Akuffo himself attended this church.’

It seemed to be a special occasion. There were ceremonial flags all around and a couple of tents hd been erected to accommodate those who didn’t get room in the main auditorium, which she thought was really huge. The church she attended with her mother back home was not half the size of this one and yet there was always room enough for everybody. Sometimes, too much room. Harold was ushered into the main auditorium while she was given a seat under one of the tents. Introductory congregational prayer was in progress so she placed her purse on her seat and lifted her hands up as she poured her heart out to God.

Keyboard music began to play lightly on the PA system. It was a worship song she knew and loved. Gradually, the entire congregation joined in. Other instruments joined in. She was filled with emotion. Tears began to roll down her cheeks.

The sermon was preached by an elderly gentleman called Pastor Sharp. His accent sounded like someone who had lived in either Britain or the United States for a long time. He attempted to clarify the parable of the Prodigal Son, admonishing the congregation not to see new converts as ‘guests’ but rather as siblings who are ‘joint heirs’ in the Heavenly Kingdom.

Pastor Sharp ended his sermon with a prayer. While the prayer was going on, Emilia felt a gentle touch on her back. She opened her eyes and saw ushers picking people out of the congregation. The usher who had picked her motioned to her to follow the others who had been selected. It was a long line that snaked through the congregation onto the porch of an adjoining section of the church building that looked like a residence. Benches and chairs were arranged on the porch for her and those who had been selected like her. The line led up to a set of double doors. The person closest to the double doors went in, came back and motioned the next person in, like they do in front of a doctor’s consulting room.

After what seemed like an eternity, Enilia finally went through the double doors. It seemed like a normal living room with yellow curtains and white valances that blocked out the sunlight. The room was lit by white light bulbs and candles. The smell of ‘florida water’ and ‘holy oil’ hung in the air. A gentleman dressed in flowing white robes and a white head dress sat in the middle of a couch to the left of the ouble doors. A dining chair with a cushioned seat stood directly in front of him. Two pastors stood behind the couch, one on either side of the gentleman on the couch. All three men motioned her to the chair. She sat down. The man in the white robes put his hand on her forehead and said a prayer.

The Holy Spirit tells me that you have a very bright future. The Lord will honor you. Your mother and your sister are lookng for you...’

‘I have no sister!’ she interrupted.

‘But that is the message I’m getting. I’m just a messenger,’ he said.

One of the pastors behind him came round with olive oil, dipped a finger in it and drew a sign of the cross with it on her forehead. He then pointed her to the double doors and went back to take his position behind the founder of the church.

Harold was standing at the foot of the stairs of the porch when she came out.

‘You got to meet The Prophet,’ he said. She thought he looked very handsome in the traditional cloth. He held out his hand to help her down the stairs. She looked into his face. She thought he had a nice smile. But why is he keping his hair so bushy? she thought. And those side burns, too. She took his hand and descended the stairs gently, careful not to twist her ankle on her high heels.

‘I want you to come and meet my sisters.’

‘Sisters? You never mentioned that you have siblings!’

‘Emilia, it’s been less than twenty-four hours since we met.’

‘I’m sorry. Feels like I’ve known you for a long time.’

‘I don’t blame you. Me too. How did your meeting with The Prophet go?’

‘Not very well. He thought I have a sister. I told him I don’t.’

‘Maybe he was referring to a cousin or a niece.’

‘He told me my mother and my sister are looking for me.’

‘Well, at least he knew you weren’t with your mother.’

‘But that’s a very wide window. My mom and my sister could be here in this church right now and can still be looking for me. I don’t think that’s very prophetic...’

‘Let’s talk about this later,’ he mumbled. ‘My sisters won’t appreciate you saying that about The Prophet.’

He stopped in front of two women whose kaba and slit were made out of very expensive Dutch textile. Although the design and material were different, they were similar in quality. Their style and manner reminded her of Aunt Elsie. ‘They’ve got class!’ she thought.

‘Emilia, my sisters, Dede and Naki,’ he said, pointing to each woman as he mentioned her name.

‘How are you?’ Dede asked in Ga as she held out her hand. Emilia took her hand but looked up to Harold as if she didn’t understand the greeting. She understood but she couldn’t carry a full conversation in Ga.

‘I said how are you. Why, don’t you speak Ga?’

‘Unfortunately, I don’t.’

‘Tell him to teach you,’ Naki said when it was her turn to shake Emilia’s hand. ‘What language do you speak apart from English?’

‘I’m from the Volta Region.’

‘Hey da-avi! You must teach me your language so that when I go to buy red-red I can get a lot more for my money,’ Naki joked.

‘Don’t worry. Let me know whenever you want to eat red-red. I will cook it for you.’

‘Did you enjoy the service?’ Dede asked.

‘I did.’

‘She even got to meet The Prophet!’ Harold said excitedly.

‘Wow!’ his sisters said in unison.

Emilia maintained a straight face, trying not to give away her disappointment.

‘Well, I have to take Da-avi home,’ Harold said, walking away from his sisters. ‘Regards to the old man.’

‘You see him more than we do although we live in the same house with him, Naki said. ‘Hey, your nephew says he wants one of your tv sets since you hardly watch tv.’

‘All right.’

‘When should he come?’

‘Tell him to call me at the hospital.’

‘When are you going to fix the phone in your house?’

Harold laughed as he took Emilia’s hand and hurried towards his car.

‘Why are you laughing,’ Emilia asked. ‘She asked you a question.’

‘Don’t mind them. They stay too long on the phone so my father cut the line in his house. If I repair mine, they won’t give me any privacy. They’re both married. They should go and live with their husbands.’

‘Maybe your father needs someone to cook for him.’

‘That’s exactly what they said but it’sbeen six months.’

Chapter 18

2013-10-28T22:08:00.000-07:00

The loss of the briefcase with the ransom money weighed heavily on Ato’s mind as he turned the Volvo from the Tudu Road and onto the road in front of the Ministry of Education offices at Kinbu. The transport yard at the Kinbu station of the State Transport Corporation was crowded. He wasn’t very familiar with the place although he knew the Kinbu area of Central Accra very well. He didn’t even know there was an STC station there, complete with passenger parking space.

He manouvered the car carefully through a maze of hawkers, shoppers and sightseers, trying not to run over any feet. He found an empty spot, parked the car, got out and opened the door for his wife. He was trying to be on his best behavior as he tried to set the stage for breaking the news about the missing briefcase to her.

He elbowed his way through the crowd, creating space for Nana Ajoa while keeping a vigilant eye on her purse. A young man with a huge ‘afro’ stepped in front of them, waving a bottle filled with a strange pink liquid.

“Blow your hair!”

Ato shoved him impatiently aside.

“Hey, hey massa make you no push me, o! Plent-ay space dey for everybod-ay.”

Ato grabbed his wife’s left hand and guided her gently through the throng, ignoring the young man’s protest.

There was a Setra bus idling on the loading dock with ‘SOGAKOPE’ showing through its destination display window but no one was boarding or disembarking. Nana Ajoa was astonished that despite the crowded parking lot, the station itself was relatively quiet.

She knew what her mother looked like. Her image was imprinted in her mind’s eye and, since she had started thinking more and more about her, she has began noticing, each time she looked in the mirror, that she bore a little resemblance to her.

As they were walking towards the ticketing window, they saw a woman in a green and grey flowered head scarf, a navy blue blouse with white vertical stripes over GTP textile slit and cover cloth. She was standing beside a huge ‘chopbox’ with an old but seemingly expensive suitcase sitting on top of it. She had her back towards them so it was more out of intuition than recognition that Nana Ajoa called out, ‘Mama!’

Mama Aku nearly jumped but quickly composed herself. It was well that she did, otherwise she would have been knocked to the ground when her daughter rushed into her arms. She began to smile but when she felt Nana Ajoa’s body shaking with sobs, she could not hold back her own tears. Ato looked around, slightly embarrassed. But, when he saw two or three strangers wiping tears off their own faces, he was slightly touched.

The drive back to Dansoman was smooth. Traffic in Accra was always light during the weekends, especially in the mornings. Ato decided to take a longer route to give Mama Aku and Nana Ajoa some time to strengthen their mother-daughter bond before they got home. Nana Ajoa had decided to ride in the back seat with her mother so Ato had placed Mama Aku’s suitcase, which was having a hard time fitting in the trunk with the sizeable chop-box, on the passenger seat beside him. He was happy about Mama Aku’s arrival for many reasons but he was especially grateful that his wife was getting the opportunity to borrow from the wisdom and comfort of an older woman during a difficult time. He was also happy about being able to buy some time to think of how to break the news about the lost briefcase to Nana Ajoa. He felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he thought about his own daughter. He missed her dearly.

Nana Ajoa was surprised to find that her mother spoke Akan very well although she kept switching from dialect to dialect. Sometimes, in the middle of an Asante Twi sentence, she would swing in a Fante word. Other times, she would attempt an Akuapem Twi proverb and end it in Fante. The most important thing for Nana Ajoa, however, was that they could communicate. She even enjoyed listening to her mother’s way of speaking Akan. She kept hugging and laying her head on Mama Aku as if she wanted to make up for all the lost years. Strangely, it seemed they had stepped back into each other’s lives as if they had never parted.

Nana Ajoa kept thinking about her sister too. In her reply to Nana Ajoa’s letter, Mama Aku had mentioned that she had another daughter in Accra. As Ato turned the Volvo towards the Asylum Down Road leading to the Overhead Bridge near Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Nana Ajoa was wondering how Baaba would feel when she got back home to meet two new family members.

“So my sister’s name is Emilia?”

Ato looked back briefly, wondering whether he really heard what he heard, his mind suddenly going back to the night Kwesi had returned home with a prostitute. But he quickly disnissed that thought, thinking, “certainly, the world cannot be that small.” He could not see how a woman like Mama Aku could have raised a daughter to become a prostitute.

“Yes,” Mama Aku said. “She used to live with my friend at Lartebiokorshie but my friend doesn’t know where she is now. We will go and find her after we find my granddaughter. We shall find them. Both of them.”

Those words comforted Ato too. Although he did not believe in voodoo, he wished Mama Aku had brought some voodoo from Eweland to help find his daughter.

Chapter 17

2013-10-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

The three young men looked down into the briefcase full of money, wondering what to. Mahmoud had a suggestion. He wanted them to leave the little girl in front of her parents’ house and call the parents to pick her up. They can then leave the keys of the house under a rug, split the money and go their separate ways. Okota did not like the idea of leaving the girl alone by herself until her parents pick her up. Mahmoud had explained that they could stay in the car and watch her until her parents showed up but Nii Darku thought that would leave them vulnerable if the Police are involved. His suggestion was that they kill the girl, take the money and run. Okota objected strongly, saying they would have to kill him before they kill the girl. His opinion was that Mahmoud should take the money back and just let events go according to plan. Both Mahmoud and Nii Darku were worried that the old man could double-cross them in the end if they don’t take the money while they could.

Nii Darku’s suggestion that Baaba be killed put Okota’s nerves on edge. He had never imagined that Nii Darku was capable of such thoughts. He kept wondering whether the many nights of fear and enxiety, tempered by endless joints and the sudden sight of so much money were taking a toll on Nii Darku’s mental capacity. He had often heard that marijuana made people calm and peaceful but he was beginning to doubt that. He wanted to offer to take the money back in order to make things easier for everybody but he was scared. He no longer trusted Mahmoud and Nii Darku to respect Baaba’s life.

Mahmoud snapped the briefcase shut. A faint glow of orange sunlight was streaming through a parted curtain from a window on the west side of the living room, signaling approaching dusk. Okota looked at his watch. It was 6:27. He decided to go and check on Baaba. As he was walking out of the living room, he heard Mahmoud saying, “I think our work is done. We wanted the money. We have it.”

“No!” Okota said, stepping back into the living room. “Our work is not done yet. There’s a girl here who needs to go back to her parents. It is our responsibility to make sure that she safely gets back to her parents. If anything happens to her, you will be surprised that our lives would become even more miserable than it was before this whole nonsense began.”

He walked to the room where they had Baaba locked up. She was laying on the bed. Her lunch was still sitting on the small coffee table on which they had placed it, untouched. He stood in the doorway and watched her for a few minutes. He felt a light touch on his shoulder. He thought it was Nii Darku but he heard Mahmoud’s voice say;

“You’ve grown to like her very much.”

“She’s a great kid. She’s an innocent girl. She could be my sister or your sister. What has she done to deserve what we’re putting her through? She has to be home with her mother and father, eating well and sleeping peacefully.”

“It’s not us. We’re not the problem. Her own grandfather is. He is the one who decided to put her through all this. Only Allah knows why. Why do educated people do stupid things? A whole doctor, he should have more sense than that. We’re just uneducated people drawn into this because we want the cash. But, she could have ended up in the wrong hands. Just think about that.”

“I’m still not sure that she ended up in the right hands,” Okota said as she picked up Baaba’s lunch and led Mahmoud into the hallway. “ Nii Darku has become a monster overnight.”

“Don’t worry about him. I don’t think he really wants to kill her.”

“I won’t let him. I swear I won’t. I thought he brought me into this because he knows I like kids. My younger brother died of measles when he was only five years old. Every kid in trouble reminds me of him.”

Okota wanted to say more but he had to stop in order to hold back tears.

Nii Darku heard the others talking in the hallway. He thought they may be plotting against him so he went to join them.

“Chaley, you guys know I don’t really mean we should kill the girl, right?”

“Shhh!” Okota hissed, inclining his head towards the room in which the girl lay sleeping. All three of them tiptoed into the kitchen. Okota put Baaba’s neglected lunch on the counter. As he got ready to wash his hands and take her dinner down to her, he saw Nii Darku bring out a joint from his pocket, place it between his lips and get ready to light it. Okota snatched the joint, saying, “if we’re going to think clearly through this situation, neither of us must hire a lawyer!”

Both Nii Darku and Mahmoud laughed in spite of themselves.

Chapter 16

2013-06-04T02:21:00.002-07:00

Amasco Bar was very busy when they walked in. Almost every table was occupied. Harold politely asked Emilia to wait while he went to talk to the proprietress. There was a bright green scale in a corner of the bar. She walked over and stepped on it but before she could see her weight, she heard a woman’s voice cry out loudly in surprise; “Hey, Harry!”

She quickly looked up and saw an elderly woman throw her arms around

Harold in a warm embrace. The woman took his hand and started dragging him along. He signaled with his other hand to Emilia to follow them.

They went through what appeared to be the restaurant area. It was lighted by a couple of yellow fluorescent tubes. The tables and chairs were shorter than those in the bar. They then got to the back of the building, which looked more like a residence. The elderly woman quickly brought out a center table and put two short stools at each end. Harold introduced Emilia to the woman, whom he called “Da-avi”.

“So, Harry, how have you been? It’s been a long time. Have you been hearing from David?”

“I’ve been fine, Da-avi. I haven’t heard from David in a while but the last time he wrote to me, he said he was moving from London to Manchester.”

“Yes. He’s in Manchester now. He’s married to a beautiful British woman. She’s expecting a baby.”

“It means you’re soon going to be a grandma!”

“It’s about time. You should hurry up and make your parents proud grandparents too,” Da-avi said, eyeing Emilia mischievously.

“Where is Fafa?” Harold asked, changing the subject.

“Fafa is now a big girl. She wrote her ‘O’ Levels this year. Fafa!”

“Da-da!” a girl’s voice responded from another part of the building. Fafa emerged and rushed into Harold’s arms, just like her mother had done earlier.

“Efo Harold! It’s been a long time.”

“Fafa, you’ve grown so big. I wouldn’t have recognized you if we had met on the street.”

“Fafa,” Da-avi said as she moved towards the door leading to the restaurant. “Take care of your brother and his friend. Harry, I’ll be with you in a minute.”

“Please, may I bring you something to drink?” Fafa asked Emilia. Emilia looked uncertainly at Harold.

“I will have a gulder,” Harold said.

“I will have a mirinda,” Emilia said in Ewe.

Fafa went in and returned with two glasses. She set them on the table between them and went back into the house.

“You speak Ewe?”

“I am an Ewe.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“You didn’t ask me that.”

“Now tell me about yourself. Just a little bit more.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Married?”

“Nope.”

“Kids?”

“Nope.”

“Do you live with your parents?”

“I wish I do. I miss them. They’re in the Volta Region. My father is a carpenter. My mother is a trader. Anything else you want to know?”

Fafa returned, holding bottles of mirinda and gulder on a tray. She set them on the table and popped them open.

“What should I bring you to eat?” Fafa asked, looking from one to the other. Again, Emilia looked at Harold for direction.

“They have jollof rice, rice and stew, banku with okra stew, fufu, yakayaka, abolo....”

“Okay, okay,” Emilia said, cutting him off. “I see that you have the menu memorized. I’ll just have rice and stew with goat meat.”

“I will have yakayaka with fried fish and shito.”

“What kind of shito,” Fafa asked. “Black or red?”

“Black.”

“I’ll be right back,” Fafa said as she moved towards the door leading to the restaurant.

“Fafa?” Emilia called after her. Fafa stopped and turned. Then Emilia asked in Ewe; “Is he really a doctor?”

“Yes. His father too.”

“Hey, what did she say?” Harold asked Fafa, feigning alarm.

“She just wanted to know if you’re really a doctor.” Fafa said and hurried into the restaurant.

“I see,” Harold said drily, poured himself a glass of gulder and took a sip.

Emilia felt a tinge of guilt.

“I’m sorry,” she said smugly.

“Well, you did say that you don’t know me enough to trust me. I’m not offended.”

Later, when Fafa brought the food, they ate in silence.

Chapyer 15

2013-04-19T23:15:00.000-07:00

Harold kept following the Datsun, wondering when he was going to see a policeman he could alert. So far, he had not encountered any phone booths along the route. He was beginning to get anxious as the route got more and more isolated. He wished the Datsun would stop so he could also stop and ask someone to call the Police. He kept wondering whether the driver of the Datsun had noticed he was being followed. So far, he hadn't given any indication that he knew and that took some of the edge off Harold's anxiety.

Harold looked at his watch. It was almost 6pm. He worried that he might not get help before dark. He began to relax when he observed that he seemed to be more familiar with the area than the one he was pursuing. Three times, he had observed the man hesitate before turning at intersections. Harold felt completely at home around the Bubiashi/ Darkuman/ Dansoman area. He knew all the shortcuts to take on foot. He knew all the tro-tro routes and he knew how to avoid the roads with the greatest number of potholes. The driver of the car in front of him didn't seem to know these things.

Soon they were passing Club Hansonic, one of the clubs he had once taken Nana Ajoa to. They took a left at Dansoman Junction on the main Kaneshie Odorkor Road. One of the long 'King of Kings' buses known as 'road trains' got between him and the Datsun. He saw the Datsun turn on to the main Darkuman road. The long bus stopped to pick some passengers right in front of the Mobil Gas Station, blocking his path. He waited impatiently as the Datsun disappeared into the distance.

He was barely at the Cable and Wireless park when he noticed the Datsun about two hundred meters in front of him. Mahmoud stopped a after the DarkumanCircle Station. Harold had to pass him so he did. In his rear view mirror, Harold saw Mahmoud reverse and make a right turn. Harold took the next right turn, made another right turn and then another onto the road he saw the Datsun turn onto. There was no sign of the Datsun. As he continued up the road, however, he was just in time to see a gate closing behind the Datsun. He knew the house very well. He felt stupid. He knew that the house had belonged to Nana Ajoa's late mother. He had visited Nana Ajoa there frequently during Secondary School days. It was like a vacation home for the Dadzies until the matriach passed away. It was where Nana Ajoa was supposed to learn how to do those household chores that servants did for her at her dad's. He remembered how the kids at school used to tease Nana Ajoa, singing about how the dumpsters in Darkuman were full of loaves of bread. It was an allusion to the number of mud ovens in the area. The smell of sulphur hit his nostrils to remind him of another thing all the kids, including Nana Ajoa herself, had joked about concerning Darkuman pit latrines.

Concluding that what he thought was a crime was probably a harmless prank, he proceeded towards the junction at the end of the road. As he turned left on to the main Darkuman road, a woman made him do a double take. She had just gotten out of a taxi and was walking towards the next intersection away from him. He parked the car and crossed the street. He strode quickly towards her and, as soon as he was within earshot, he said; 'Hey, Nana, I'm so...'

The woman turned and began to smile as soon as she saw he was talking to her. It was then that he realized he had been mistaken. She had a gap in the middle of her upper front teeth. Nana Ajoa didn't. He held out his hand.

"I'm sorry. I mistook you for somebody else. My name is Harold."

"Harold? My name is Emilia."

"Are you related to Nana Ajoa?"

"Never heard the name. Everybody seems to think I look like someone else."

"Maybe they just want to say you're beautiful."

"Nice pick up line," she thought as she turned to walk away. "Thanks."

"Are you sure you're not related to Nana?" He stepped beside her. "That house right around the corner on that street belonged to her mother."

She didn't know which house he was talking about but she thought that anybody who knew something about a house on that street probably knew something she wanted to know. She stopped, almost too suddenly.

"Do you live on that street?" She asked.

"No. I don't live in this area."

"Oh," she said, disappointed. She began walking again.

"Hey, are you in a hurry? Can we go grab a drink somewhere and get to know each other?"

Emilia hesitated. "Is the word 'prostitute' written all over me?" she thought.

"I am in a hurry. I'm sorry. Let's make it another time."

"Okay. Let's fix that 'another time' right now. Tell me when and show me where you live."

"You're assuming I'm either not married or have no boyfriend."

"Sorry if I'm being too pushy. I was just hoping we could be friends."

Something about Harold reminded Emilia of Panyim and Kakra. He looked like someone who was raised in a rich home and was likely to take advantage of her. She decided that it was time for her to turn the tables and take advantage of him. The moved to give a semi truck a wide berth as it rounded the corner close to where they were standing, leaving a cloud of dust from the untarred road. As they moved further away from the dust, she said, "okay, where does one get a drink around here? I'm new here."

"That is a good question. I used to play around here a lot when I was a kid but I don't know anything around here anymore. But I have a car. We can go wherever you would like us to go."

"You lead the way. I have no particular place in mind."

"So, you don't live around here," Emilia said as they crossed the street to get to his car. "Where do you live?"

"Airport Residential Area."

"Do you live with your parents?"

"Hm, not really. I live in a house they own but I live alone. By the way, did you just assume that I don't have a wife?"

"Well, you asked me out. Besides, you can still live with your parents even if you're married. Who knows, maybe you're a Ga man."

"Wow, now you're attacking a whole ethnic group," he said as he opened the car door for her.

"It's not an attack. It's an observation."

He turned on the ignition and shifted into first. The car lurched forward as he stepped on the accelerator.

"Tell me about yourself. What do you do for a living?" He asked.

"You don't want to know"

"Why not? I asked.."

"I'm currently unemployed. I used to be a hairdresser."

Harold glanced briefly at her. Her hair was really low and it looked good on her. Her large white T-shirt was tied at her left hip, accentuating an attractive, generous bust. He could tell that she was much younger than Nana Ajoa but the resemblance was still striking. What if Ato has killed Nana Ajoa and this is her ghost? The thought crossed his mind but it wasn't deep enough to make him worry. Moreover, he wasn't really convinced about the existence of ghosts and he knew Ato loved Nana Ajoa very much.

Emilia was wondering why she had hesitated to tell him she was a prostitute. She had never hesitated to mention it to anyone except her parents. She felt a little guilty about deceiving her parents. She had recently been trying to convince herself that she had let them down just as much as they had let her down. I need to write to Mama, she thought. She thought she heard Harold say something.

"Pardon me. I didn't quite catch that."

"I said I work in a hospital," he said.

"Nurse?"

"Not really."

Her mind went back to her parents, wondering whether they were all right. She was especially worried about her father.

"Don't you want to know what I do at the hospital?"

"What do you do?" She asked disinterestedly.

"I'm a doctor."

"What?" Her tone betrayed her astonishment.

"I said I'm a doctor. Why, don't I look the part?"

"No, you don't."

"Why?"

"You're too young," she said emphatically.

"You don't even know how old I am."

"At least you must wear glasses or have a goatee with sprinkles of gray in it."

Harold laughed hysterically. As he turned left onto the main Kaneshie-Odorkor Road, a speeding dump truck emerged from his right, causing him to step suddenly on the brakes.

“Hey, Papa Doctor, don’t kill me o!”

Harold laughed again, this time more controlled.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

Darkness was beginning to fall when he stopped in front of Club Hansonic.

“Can we go to a quieter place?” She asked. “There will be too many Secondary School students here. You know how noisy they can be.”

“Okay.”

He got on the road behind the Mataheko Police Barracks, across the JT School soccer field and then onto the main Zongo Junction-Dansoman road. The route reminded Emilia of her days in the Sarpong household. She usually had to go shop for groceries at the Kaneshie market to cook for the family. She had often saved the bus money and walked, using part of the route Harold had just used. Mataheko, Lartebiokorshie, Kaneshie, Dansoman, Darkuman, Mamprobi, Korle Gonno were all places she had come to know so well. She smiled, thinking about how impressive that would seem to her childhood friends back home in the Volta Region.

“Do you know Lartebiokorshie very well?”

“I think so. Many of my mates in Medical School were from Lartebiokorshie. It’s very close to Korle Bu. We used to walk there from Korle Bu. Why, do you need to go there?”

“No. I used to live there.”

“It’s a beautiful place,” Harold said, glancing sideways at her.

“Not half as beautiful as Airport Residential Area,” Emilia said, wondering how Korle Bu could be close to Lartebiokorshie. She thought about it for a minute then realized that she had minimized the size of Lartebiokorshie in her mind, concentrating on the part where she had lived.

“You know, I didn’t realize how Lartebiokorshie could be close to Korle Bu until you mentioned it.”

“Lartebiokorshie, Korle Bu, Ayigbe Town and Sabom Zongo are all in that chunk of land bordered by the Accra-Mamprobi Road to the South, Kaneshie-Odorkor Road to the North, the Kaneshie-Mamprobi Road to the West and the Kaneshie-Korle Bu Road to the East. You can easily walk from one to the other without seeing a single vehicle if you know the short-cuts.”

“That chunk of land also has Abossey Okai in it. But, Lartebiokorshie extends further westward beyond the Kaneshie-Mamprobi Road.”

“You’re right. It extends all the way to Appiah Danquah, Sukura and Mambrook.”

Emilia felt deflated. She was trying to show off her knowledge of this part of Accra but now it seemed like the guy who lived all the way up in Airport Residential Area knew this area better than she did. She decided to talk about something else.

“So, tell me about this girlfriend of yours who looks like me.”

“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s married.”

“Oh,” she said, inexplicably relieved.

“What do you want to know about her?”

“Anything you’re willing to tell me.”

“Let’s not talk about her. Let’s talk about you instead.”

“Hm...maybe...she does not exist?”

“She does exist. Don’t you trust me?”

“I don't know you enough to trust you. I’m just pulling your legs, anyway.”

“She’s a lawyer. Her father and my father own a clinic together.”

“I see,” Emilia said, awed. She felt like she had suddenly been transported into a different realm. She had spent much of her adult life selling sex to alcoholics and uneducated people on the streets of Accra. Now here she was, riding in a doctor’s car; a young and handsome doctor who was even willing to buy her a drink. She decided that she wanted Harold’s friendship. She started arguing with her conscience about whether to tell him about her prostitution. In the end, she decided that if asked, she wouldn’t lie. Otherwise, she won’t volunteer any information.

A Token From Grandpa Chapter 14

2011-12-13T17:15:00.000-08:00

Mama Aku was on her way to Mass when she received the letter. She was very delighted. She associated letters with good news. When they were children, they somehow associated letters with affection. Whenever a girl received a letter from a boy, it was assumed that it contained words of affection. For most illiterates it was the idea of receiving a letter, not the contents of the letter, which mattered. Telegrams, on the other hand, were 'supposed' to contain bad news. There was a story of a woman who had started wailing and rolling on the floor as soon as she was informed she had a telegram about her son, who was at a boarding school in Accra. As it turned out, the telegram was informing her that her son had been offered a scholarship to a school in London. Her face beaming despite the tears still running down her face, she had gotten up and declared; “They made a mistake. Why did they send such good news in a telegram?”

Mama Aku was so eager to know the contents of the letter she decided that church can wait. She went straight to see if Efo Etse was home. The retired school teacher was also preparing to go to church when he saw Mama Aku through his open window. He knew she had never missed early morning Mass since her daughter left for Accra so he wanted to know why she wasn’t moving in the direction of the church. He was poking his head around the door to see where she was going when he heard her ask whether he was home. He quickly pulled his head back and responded that he was in.

After the formal exchange of greetings, she politely asked him to read the letter for her. While Efo Etse was still examining the return address, she anxiously asked whether it contained good or bad news.

“It is either from a lawyer or a lawyer wrote it on someone’s behalf,” he said in Ewe.

“But I don’t know any lawyer in Accra. Do you think Emi is in trouble?”

Efo Etse slit the envelope open, took out the letter and looked at the signature.

“It is from your daughter.”

Mama Aku thought she had only one daughter who could write to her from Accra. She had another daughter whom she bore when she was only sixteen with a Medical student at the University of Ghana. Although she loved and missed her dearly, she felt certain that she could never have any contact with her. So the daughter on her mind as she waited for Efo Etse to read the letter was the one she had with her husband, Avorgbedor.

Mama Aku felt guilty that she had not been able to send Emilia to Secondary School. She wondered whether it had something to do with why she hadn’t heard from her in such a long time. She hadn’t heard from Emilia for more than four years so she had been nursing the idea of going to Accra to find her. However, raising the money to make the journey had not been easy. Moreover, she had vowed, when the law snatched her first daughter from her, that she would never set foot in Accra again.

Indeed, it was her daughter who had written to her. But, it wasn’t the daughter she had hoped to hear from. After all these years, the daughter she had with Dr. Dadzie was writing to tell her that she recognized her as her mother and was planning to visit her with her daughter and husband.

“…however, our plans have been suspended as a result of the kidnapping of our daughter, who is also your granddaughter. This is to inform you, nonetheless, that I found out you are my mother and I think of you all the time. The abduction of my daughter has given me an opportunity to feel what you felt long ago when you were not allowed to take me with you. As sleepless night after sleepless night passes over me, the meaning of the tears you shed so many years ago becomes clearer to me. Mother, at least you now know that I am not dead. Please, let me know that you’re also alive.

Your daughter,

Nana Ajoa Quansah (Mrs.)

Barrister-at-Law”

The retired school teacher’s translation of the latter part of the letter had a dramatic effect on Mama Aku. The long years of reading letters for the illiterate village folk had caused him to develop a rare talent for conveying the mood of the letters with a clarity that could be missing even if the person could read the letter on his or her own. When he finished his task and turned to look at the woman, she had her hands on her chest and was staring almost lifelessly into space. Tears were trickling down her cheeks but she made absolutely no sound.

Efo Etse could hear the sound of African drums beating to Christian choral music in the distance. He was going to be late for church but he was willing to wait for Mama Aku to be completely purged of her emotions.

A Token From Grandpa...Chapter 13

2011-07-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

She was trying very hard to believe that what seemed to be happening between Kwesi and Gladys right before her eyes was none of her business. She was surprised, however, that Gladys would allow something like that to grow given her status and what she knew about Kwesi and her. It was true she had admitted she was only a prostitute Kwesi picked off the streets but she felt that should still be able to deter Gladys from getting romantically involved with him. It felt awkward for her to be sitting there watching them eat together, hold hands and even kiss as if she wasn’t there. Something inside her was hurting but she wanted to be happy for them. She wasn’t sure whether it was romance or platonic friendship but it seemed to her that Gladys was putting her job on the line for whatever it was.

“Emilia, are you okay?” Gladys suddenly asked.

Emilia opened her mouth to speak but feared her voice might betray her so she nodded instead.

“You make very quiet today….” Kwesi began but Gladys interrupted him with a playful slap on the shoulder.

“No more pidgin English. Emilia understands Fanti. She speaks Akan very well.”

Emilia was surprised at how familiar Gladys and Kwesi had gotten with each other in such a short time. She had met Kwesi before Gladys did and, although the meeting had been brief and ill-fated, she somehow felt Kwesi was being disloyal to her. It wasn’t supposed to hurt her but it did and she didn’t know which made her angrier-that she felt betrayed or the fact that it hurt when it shouldn’t. She hadn’t developed any feelings other than pity for him so she did not understand why his seeming romance with another woman bothered her so much.

She stood up from the chair Gladys had placed beside Kwesi’s bed for her.

“I must be going,” she said to Kwesi, trying hard to avoid eye contact with Gladys. “I’m so glad you’re doing okay. I was so scared.”

“You think say I go die?”

“I said speak Fanti,” Gladys said in Fanti as she moved from where she was sitting beside Kwesi on the bed. Emilia wondered what would have happened if any of the nurses or doctors had walked in to see one of their colleagues sitting on a patient’s bed.

“See you later, Emilia” Gladys said as she picked up the plates and cups she and Kwesi had just used. “You know he will be discharged tomorrow, right?”

“O, I’m so glad to hear that,” Emilia said still avoiding eye contact with Gladys. “I’ll come visit you at home on Saturday.”

“I no dey go for dat house anymore. I move.” Kwesi said.

“Where have you moved to?”

“He’s moving in with me,” Gladys said matter-of-factly as she strode out of the ward.

Pain shot through Emilia’s heart like a knife. She remembered the first night she had met Gladys at the hospital. Something in Gladys’ manner that night had seemed condescending. She didn’t look like the kind of nurse who would date a tro-tro driver at all. Or, Emilia wondered, is it a newly discovered familial link?

“I wish you all the best, Kwesi. I’m so happy for you.”

“Thank you,” Kwesi said with a smile.

Emilia left the ward with a lump in her throat. She felt somehow that Gladys was doing something wrong to her but she didn’t understand why she felt that way. She saw a visitors’ bathroom and hurried into it to release the tears welling up behind her eyelids.

“I should have said something to her. I should have!” She whispered softly to herself. But what was there to say? After all, she was just a prostitute who shouldn’t be emotionally attached to her clients.

That night, as she lay beside Alice trying to sleep, she became overwhelmed by self-pity. She thought about all that she had been through and wondered whether there was really a God who cared.

The sound of Alice’s snoring irritated her. She sneaked out of the room to sit on the wall of the uncompleted section of the building. The compound was very quiet. All of Alice’s co-tenants seemed to be sleeping. One of them was lying on a mat in front of his door, snoring. It must be too hot inside, Emilia thought.

She looked again into the house in which she had seen the little girl she suspected was blindfolded. It was very dark so she couldn’t see much. Suddenly, an overwhelming desire to sneak into that house overtook her better judgment. She jumped off the short wall and walked slowly to the wall dividing the two houses. She turned briefly to look at the man on the mat. He was still snoring. She kept her eyes on him as she put her hands on the wall and lifted body up. She put one leg over the wall, sat on it briefly before jumping into the darkness on the other side.

She landed on a soda can and winced at the sound it made. She expected something to happen so she hid among the plantain trees for a bit. She began to sweat from fright. The basic instinct for self-preservation kept telling her to jump back over the wall. She took a step back, put one hand above the wall but then she looked back again at the building that she thought held an innocent girl captive. She started moving through the darkness towards that building, one precarious step after another. She expected to hear someone yell or a dog bark

Okota had just locked the door on Baaba when he heard the crunch of a soda can. He quickly ducked under a window and looked out. It was too dark outside to see much. He was beginning to relax when he heard footsteps. He began to panic. Whatever he did not understand unsettled him. He moved stealthily across the corridor and into the room where Nii Darku sat on a couch smoking a joint.

“There’s someone outside. I hear footsteps!”

“It’s Mahmoud,” Nii Darku said with a wave of his left hand.

“It’s not Mahmoud. Mahmoud would have blown the horn for us to open the gate. There’s someone out there. It’s either a ghost or a robber.”

“Relax, relax!” Nii Darku got out of the couch, took a last drag on his joint and put whatever was left of it on a coffee table. “Okay, where is this ghost?”

They walked slowly out of the room, Okota leading the way.

Emilia found herself directly under a window when a flashlight lighted the path she had just traversed. She was so frightened she could hardly breathe. She held her breath as the bearer of the light passed right in front of her, swinging the light from side to side. She realized that her entry had not escaped detection. Another man appeared, holding something like a hand gun. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled to the other side of the building, away from the men. She sat below a window to catch her breath and nearly screamed when she heard the ‘clink’ of louvre blades being opened.

Then she heard a small voice singing. Emilia pressed her nose to the mosquito netting. She saw the shape of a girls face despite the darkness. The girl must have seen her too for she whispered excitedly, ”Mother!”

“Who are you?” Emilia asked as gently as she could.

Baaba stepped away from the window, covered her face and let out an ear-shattering scream. Emilia took to her heels and vaulted over the wall in one swift motion, not caring how she landed on the other side. The man who had been lying on the mat was now awake. He was urinating behind the wall. She knocked him over, landed on top of him and they both rolled in the muddy pool of his urine. When they got up, the man ran into his room like a rat that had just escaped the snap of a trap by a hair’s breadth.

A Token from Grandpa, Chapter 12

2011-07-27T05:34:00.001-07:00

When Harold first saw the Datsun at the end of the block, he thought nothing of it. He remembered, however, that it wasn’t there when he had parked his Toyota Publica wagon in front of the Quansahs' home. He still continued to look at the Datsun while he was trying to start his tired old jalopy. He felt embarrassed that Ato had come to meet him in that undignified position with Nana Ajoa. He felt ashamed that he had not taken her advice to leave. He was looking at the Datsun not because something about it interested him but because he needed something to look at as he absorbed the shame. As he was driving away, he glanced in his driving mirror at the Datsun one more time. It was then that he saw something around the Datsun that interested him. The door on the driver’s side opened, a foot stepped out but pulled back into the car and then the door closed again. Just out of childish curiosity, Harold parked his car as soon as he turned the corner, got out and hid to watch what would happen next. He was watching when a young man got out of the Datsun, walked over to Nana Ajoa’s Volvo and took a briefcase out of it.

Harold judged that if he ran after the guy and yelled ‘thief!’, he might get a number of people to help give chase but then they may not get very far after a thief who was driving. He ran back into his car, started it and was about to make a three point turn when he saw the Datsun come up. The thief seemed to be sure he had not been seen because he was driving at a rather normal speed. Harold decided to follow without being noticed, like they do in the movies. He tucked his bruised lower lip in over his tongue and sucked on it as he hummed the theme song from ‘The Mod Squad’.

A Token From Grandpa...Chapter 11.

2011-07-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

Mahmoud had always wanted to be rich. He had a rough time with his father as a child and had grown up to hate anyone who gave him orders. His grandfather owned a large herd of cattle but he also had grandchildren who nearly outnumbered his cattle. Mahmoud and his numerous cousins were supposed to take turns taking the cattle out to graze. He hated the task. One day, when he opted to go play soccer with his friends instead of going with his brothers to tend his grandfather’s cattle, his father whipped him with a leather belt until his whole body was covered with bloody cuts.

Another thing Mahmoud hated was school. Although he did well in all subjects, he didn’t like having to wake up early in order not to be late for school. He also hated that teachers whipped you for almost every infraction. You get to school late, you get six lashes. You get one mistake in mental math, you get two lashes. Whenever he could, he hung out with his friends at the Sakasaka Park, riding bicycles at his cousin Abukari’s bicycle rental joint. Whenever the school had a soccer game, however, his friends knew exactly where to find him after extracting a promise from the teachers not to punish him for playing truant.

One day, when Mahmoud was seventeen years old, his father heard that he hadn’t been going to school. Ahmed was further shocked to find that his son’s truancy had been going on for a long time. He had 15 other children with a lot of issues to worry about. It had never occurred to him to worry about Mahmoud’s schooling since his academic report was always all right. Ahmed felt like he had been outwitted. He felt like a fool and he didn’t like that. When Mahmoud heard his father call him, he heard something sinister in his voice. He was nervous but he wasn’t scared.

“Why haven’t you been going to school?” Ahmed asked as soon as he thought he had Mahmoud cornered.

“Because I didn’t want to. I hate school.”

Ahmed was too blinded by rage to see this as an opportunity to reason with his son about why school was important. He saw it as further proof of stubbornness and he thought he had what it took to stamp it out. A horse whip known as ‘koboko’. Mahmoud was surprised by the first two strikes. When Ahmed raised his hand for a third, his son dove at him head first, throwing him to the ground. The commotion brought Ahmed’s wives and other children out and the scuffle ended as quickly as it had begun. Mahmoud’s mother dragged him into her room and shut the door. They could still hear Ahmed yelling for his son’s blood.

“Mahmoud, why? You want to fight your father? Your own father? What is wrong with you? Who taught you that?”

“I wasn’t trying to fight him. I just didn’t want him to hit me again with that koboko. I don’t want to go to school. What is wrong with that?”

“You don’t know why you have to go to school?”

“I know why I have to go but I don’t have to go every day. I pass all my exams all right.”

At that point, the door flew open.

“Ahmed, please stay outside,” Mahmoud’s mother said sternly. “The boy has sought refuge under his mother’s wings. You know it’s a taboo to continue pursuing someone who has taken refuge.”

“He wants to fight me, his own father. Let him come out here and fight like a man!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ahmed. Mahmoud was not trying to fight you. He wants you to talk to him when he is wrong. He doesn’t want you to swing a koboko at him like an animal.”

“O, so now I am the one who needs to learn, right? Your son is disrespectful and stubborn but you jump to his side when I want to discipline him.”

“Mahmoud is seventeen years old. How old were you when you had your first daughter? When your son is old enough to have a child of his own, you also have to treat him with respect.”

As his parents argued, Mahmoud sneaked out of the room and ran out of the house.

He spent that night in his grandfather’s house. The next day, one of his cousins arrived with a truckload of charcoal bound for the South. Ishak lived in Wa. He was part owner of a charcoal making business. They transported a truckload of charcoal to Accra every two weeks. It seemed like a lucrative business but Mahmoud was not interested in the business. He just saw the truck as a means to get as far away from his father and school as possible. He joined Ishak on the trip and instantly fell in love with Accra.

Mahmoud realized that charcoal was not the only merchandise on the truck. Many of the sacks were not sacks of charcoal at all. They were sacks of marijuana hidden carefully among the sacks of charcoal. They also had kola nuts, shea butter and yams in small quantities for friends and family. It seemed Ishak had a ready market for both the charcoal and the marijuana. They spent their second day in Accra distributing the sacks of charcoal at various markets. The sacks of marijuana were kept in a house owned by Ishak’s business partner. It was where the truck driver and Ishak stayed whenever they got to Accra. There were five families living in the house as tenants. Mahmoud later found out that the tenants knew about the sale of marijuana in the house but kept their mouths shut.

When the time came for Mahmoud and Ishak to head back to the North, Mahmoud begged Aziz, the caretaker of the house, to let him stay with him. He promised to work hard and find a place of his own as soon as possible. Ishak tried to persuade him to come back to the North and join him in the charcoal business but Mahmoud would have none of it. He was happy to be far from his father and he wanted to keep it that way.

Nii Darku was not really Mahmoud’s friend. Nii Darku had no friends. He had fans. He was what you might call ‘an informal teacher’. He was the grown up son of one of the tenants in the house. He had dropped out of Secondary School at Form Three because his mother could not afford to pay his school fees after his father’s death. He once found a job in a textile factory at the Accra North Industrial Area. He started saving up to put himself back in school but he was laid off due to shortage of materials. He still hoped to go to school again although he was in his mid-twenties and jobless. He occasionally earned a small fee by running errands and doing minor administrative stuff for illiterates and those who were too busy to do them on their own.

Nii Darku knew things. He spoke eloquently about everything from technology to politics. He had erected a bench outside the house on which he sat every evening chatting with, and answering questions from, the youth in the area. Mahmoud sat with these people and listened to every conversation, sometimes without even understanding a word. Most of the people spoke Ga which was not very famous in the North. He spoke many languages from the North but the only Southern language he knew was Akan. Sometimes, people spoke Akan or English on the bench but Ga was predominant. Nii Darku was the only one who mentioned school to Mahmoud without infuriating him.

Thus, no alarm bells went off in Mahmoud’s mind when Nii Darku recruited him to take part in a mock kidnapping for a huge sum of money. According to Nii Darku, a man wanted to play a prank on his friend by having his daughter kidnapped. Nii Darku was supposed to recruit two friends to help him. Mahmoud suggested Okota, an auto mechanic who had taught him to drive, as the third person.

They were given a house and a car to use until they receive the ransom. They were supposed to plan and execute the kidnapping without getting the police involved. Nii Darku was in charge of the planning. Mahmoud’s task was to follow the victim’s mother’s car to ensure that she does not contact the police. He was also supposed to drop notes on the car when necessary without drawing attention to himself. He had a note that informed the parents of the victim that the kidnapping was a ‘joke’ and showed them where to get their daughter back. He was only supposed to drop that note if his instincts told him that the parents were about to contact law enforcement. Okota was a Sunday School teacher at a small church his mother had started. He was charged with babysitting the victim.

Mahmoud was parked about two hundred meters away from the Volvo. He observed that Ato had gotten out of the car without the briefcase he had received at the house in Roman Ridge. He waited for a few minutes, got out of the Datsun and started walking towards the Volvo. A man emerged from the house so he continued walking past the Volvo without even glancing at it. The man got into a Toyota parked in front of the Volvo and drove away. Mahmoud waited until the Toyota turned the corner then he turned back towards the Volvo. He could see the briefcase lying on the passenger seat. He tried the door. It was not locked. His heart began to pound. He took a deep breath and brought the briefcase out of the Volvo. He walked confidently back to the Datsun and drove away.

TO BE CONTINUED...

A Token From Grandpa...Chapter 10 contd.

2011-07-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

He rushed into the house and stopped in shock when he saw Nana Ajoa and Harold getting up from the floor. Nana Ajoa was wrapping a towel around her. Ato connected a couple of combination blows and would have continued hitting Harold if Nana Ajoa had not yelled at him to stop.

“What the heck were you two doing on the floor?”

Nana Ajoa ignored him and tended to Harold, whose face was already beginning to bear testimony of Ato’s attack. The size of his lower lip had increased by the size of a nut and seemed to be still swelling. Ato walked angrily past them into the bedroom and began pulling his clothes from the closet, dropping them on the bed. Nana Ajoa came into the room after him.

“What do you think you’re doing, Ato?”

“Your father said you want a divorce. At least you could have asked me nicely instead of putting on a porn show on the threshold.”

“My father does not speak for me. What you came to meet was an accident.”

“I would have believed you if I hadn’t seen the two of you kissing. Your dad gave me a copy of the picture.”

“My dear, stop packing and let’s talk,” she said as she plucked a shirt on a hanger from him and hung it back in the closet. “We need to talk. You need explanations. I can’t imagine what you’re going through but I know that if I came home to see a scene that suggested you were having sex with another woman, I wouldn’t be pleased. It seems to me my father is trying to pull us apart. He told Harold you had walked out on me and that I wanted a divorce. Harold came down here, hoping to help me cope with the heartbreak. When I heard him, I thought it was you so I ran out of the shower to come see how things went between you and my dad. I tripped and fell. He helped me up and then you walked in.”

Ato just stared into space, wondering whether her story wasn’t too good to be true.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

He turned to look at her and asked;

“What about the kiss? Was that an accident too?”

“My dad took me to the beach to help me relax because of what I was going through, you know. I was missing both you and Baaba. The house had become too big for me. I was happy to get out there. Harold and his parents were also there. Harold asked me to take a walk with him. As we walked, we talked about you and Baaba. I became sad and I cried. He hugged me and let me cry on his shoulder. Before I knew it, we had kissed. It happened so fast. I had no idea my dad took a picture. I’m sorry. Please, forgive me.”

“Are you sure you don’t want a divorce?”

“Do you?” When he did not respond, she held both of his hands in hers and pulled him closer. “Ato, I don’t think I made a mistake when I married you. I still love you.”

“I love you, too,” he murmured. He wasn’t in the mood to say those words but he didn’t want her to think he didn’t feel that way.

He remembered that the briefcase containing the money was still in the car. In his haste to confront his wife and Harold, he had forgotten all about the money.

“Where are you going?” Nana Ajoa asked as he rushed towards the door.

“I’ll be right back.”

He felt relieved when he didn’t see glass on the floor to suggest a windshield had been broken. He was however alarmed when he realized that the door was not locked and that the briefcase was not in the car.

TO BE CONTINUED...

A Token From Grandpa...Chapter 10

2011-06-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

Nana Ajoa was about to turn on the shower when she heard the knock on the door. She quickly wrapped a towel around her and rushed to the door. She instinctively pulled back inside the house when she realized it wasn’t her husband. But she instantly regretted her action and stepped back out.

“Harold, how are?”

“Fine. How about you?”

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

“I’ve really missed you.”

“Harold, you need to go on with your life…”

“May I come in?”

“In fact, I’m expecting my husband any moment from now. I don’t feel comfortable about him meeting just the two of us here like this, if you know what I mean.”

“Nana, you can’t do this to me. Your dad just told me you’re getting a divorce.”

“Getting a what?”

“Divorce. He said your husband walked out on you.”

“Wait a minute. My dad told you I’m getting a divorce? My dad?”

“Forget who said what. It’s okay to let the world know if you’re getting a divorce, especially from a man who walks away from a woman like you.”

“Harold, I’m sorry I may have sent you the wrong message by kissing you the last time we met. I was going through a lot and you provided a shoulder for me to lean on. I’m very grateful for that. But everything happened so fast and I lost myself. Ato and I still love each other very much. What we went through was not Ato’s fault. Anyone who is married will tell you that these things happen. I don’t know who gave my dad the idea that I’m getting a divorce. I’m not.”

“Nana, listen…”

“I’m sorry, Harold, you need to go now. I don’t want Ato to meet us here like this.”

As she turned away from him, he tried to hold her but inadvertently caught the loose end of the towel and it dropped to the floor around her feet. Her knees buckled in embarrassment and, as she fell to the ground, he instinctively reached out to help her. They both went down in an awkward heap.

TO BE CONTINUED...

A Token from Grandpa...Chapter 9

2011-06-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

Ato woke up very early in the morning, took a shower and put on his best suit. He had been wishing this day would never come. Nana Ajoa had sensed how he felt and had tried to ease his discomfort by luring him into a reenactment of their nuptial night. The lovemaking had been wonderful but as soon as it was over, the sour mood resurfaced. She didn’t want to be around when he left so she woke up earlier and went jogging-something she hadn’t done in a long time.

Ato knew there was going to be a showdown with his father-in-law and it made him nervous. He was prepared but he felt like he had been forced into an awkward position. He must choose his words carefully since the man was technically doing him a favor. It wassn’t going to be easy to return insults from a man who was providing millions of cedis to enable you see your only daughter again.

He made the bed and rearranged things in the bedroom to buy some time. He picked Nana Ajoa’s negligee and pressed it against his face. Memories of the previous night came flooding in. He kissed the negligee and dropped it gently into the laundry basket in the bathroom.

He stood in front of the mirror and adjusted his tie. He looked at his watch, checked his pocket for his wallet and moved towards the door. He walked back to pick the Volvo’s key from Nana Ajoa’s night stand, checked if he was missing anything, walked out and locked the front door after him.

It was a quiet Saturday morning. The traffic was thin. He took his time. He needed to think. He missed his daughter very much so he wanted to convince himself that he was doing whatever it took to see and touch her face again, to once again hear her quiet voice asking intelligent questions. A taxi driver behind him was honking and yelling at him to move faster. He moved the Volvo over to allow the taxi to pass. He was in no hurry to meet the humiliation that awaited him.

Instead of continuing on the Ring Road, he turned onto the Kwame Nkrumah Avenue and joined the Farrar Avenue to Asylum Down. As he passed the Psychiatric Hospital, he felt grateful that he had not lost his sanity as a result of what he was going through. A stray inmate from the hospital begged him for money when he stopped at a red light. He instinctively opened the glove compartment to look for change but found none. The light changed to green. As he shifted into gear to move, the lunatic frightened him by banging on the side of the car. He stepped on the accelerator as he took the Kanda Highway. The lunatic took a few hurried steps after the car, stopped and began yelling profanities.

Dr. Dadzie was sitting on custom-made throne-like rocking chair in his living room, anxiously awaiting Ato’s arrival. He had prepared his line of attack carefully and rehearsed it over and over in his mind. Now he was anxious to get it over and done with. He got up and walked around the center table on which he had a briefcase full of money. He had carefully counted the money himself, making sure it was exactly the amount the kidnappers had demanded. There was a gentle knock on the front door. Dr. Dadzie quickly sat back on his throne-like perch and tried to look as powerful as he could.

“Come in. The door is open.”

But it was not Ato who entered.

Dr. Dadzie and Dr. Harold Bossman went to Medical School together. They also own a gynaecology clinic together. Dr. Bossman’s son, Dr. Harold Bossman II, also practiced gynaecology. When Dr. Dadzie realized that his only daughter was not interested in Medicine, he had tried to get her interested in the younger Dr. Bossman so that the clinic and its fortunes would remain in the family. Things had gotten onto a good start until Nana Ajoa met Ato at a play at Efua Sutherland’s Drama Studio in Accra. The Drama student and the Law student apparently had more in common so the Medical student was left heartbroken. However, the abduction of Baaba and Ato’s decision to walk out of his marital home had rekindled Dr. Dadzie’s hopes. He had therefore sent for the younger Dr. Bossman to see if he could send him in pursuit of his old flame.

“Doc., I hear you want to see me,” Dr. Bossman said.

“O, Doc, no, not you,” Dr. Dadzie said as he rose from his kingly perch. “I just wanted to have a word with junior.”

“He hasn’t done anything wrong, has he? By the way, you look great!””

“Thank you. I think Junior is much more responsible than you give him credit for.”

“I know. It’s just hard for me to see him grow from a tiny baby into the man he has become. You have the same problem with Nana Ajoa, don’t you?”

“The only problem I have with Nana is her choice for husband. Thank God they’re now close to divorce.”

“What? Are they? What’s their reason? Now, wait a minute. That’s not why you sent for my son, right?”

“Don’t worry, doc. Junior wants me to keep what we discussed private and confidential,” Dr. Dadzie said as he moved towards the door to signal to his friend that the meeting was over. “I’m expecting some company in my efforts to save my daughter’s marriage. I’ll come see you tonight.”

Dr. Bossman looked incredulously at his friend and business partner. “You? Come on, doc. I know you never liked that marriage.”

“What kind of father would I be if I sit back and watch my daughter’s marriage disintegrate? I’ve got to be seen to be doing something about it. I’ll see you tonight.”

As the two doctors walked out of the living room and into the front porch, Ato was also getting out of the Volvo he had parked behind Dr. Bossman’s Peugeot 604 in the driveway. He got back in the Volvo, put it in reverse and parked on the kerb. Dr. Bossman got in his car and drove away. Ato waited for his father-in-law to walk back into the house. Then he got out of the car and walked to the front door.

Dr. Dadzie had gone to great lengths to ensure that he looked intimidating to Ato. He was dressed in a very expensive suit he had ordered from Lord and Taylor in New Jersey. He wore a top hat to match. He was sitting with his left foot over his right knee to ensure that Ato saw his hand-made snakeskin shoes. He motioned Ato into a chair directly opposite his.

“Nana Ajoa said you wanted to see me,” Dr. Dadzie said, a mischievous smile forming around his lips.

“She told me you had the ransom money and that I’m the only one you’re willing to hand it to.”

“I don’t think it’s the woman’s place to borrow that much money on her husband’s behalf.”

“Nana and I live by modern values. We don’t apportion tasks based on gender.”

The Doctor surprised Ato with a dry laugh.

“I knew you would say that,” Dr. Dadzie said as he got up to pour himself some drink from a bar behind him. The bar somehow separated the kitchen and dining area from the living room.

“This is brandy. Christian Brothers. Very good. Care for a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Hm. So, how do I get my money back?”

“I have no idea. I thought you discussed all that with Nana.”

“I thought I didn’t have to. I thought you were the man,” Dr. Dadzie said, taking a majestic step back towards his pseudo-throne.

“Nana Ajoa and I have a different arrangement. Our marriage is based on respect for each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We don’t believe in sexism.”

“You coined that, no doubt, so you can run from your responsibilities as a man.”

Ato, infuriated, got up and began to move towards the door.

“Are you walking away from an opportunity to get your daughter back?”

“I know a thousand people out there who can give me that money without using it to settle personal scores.”

“I bet you do.”

“What do you want from me, Doc? What do you want?”

“Just set my daughter free. Give her a divorce.”

“Nana has not asked me for a divorce. If she does, I will consider it. Until then, she is my lawfully wedded wife.”

“I can understand that,” Dr. Dadzie said with a dry laugh. “It’s not easy to find a woman who feeds and clothes her husband these days.”

“For your information, she hasn’t fed me in a long time and I bought all the clothes I need when I went to do my Graduate program in the United States.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Ato felt slightly triumphant and decided to ride that wave.

“What do I tell her about the money? Do we have to look elsewhere?”

“You don’t even know how to beg politely,” Dr. Dadzie said as he pointed to the briefcase on the center table. “That’s the money.”

As Ato reached for the briefcase, the older man picked a picture from his coat pocket with his left hand and dropped it on it. Ato paused briefly, took a glance at the picture amd concluded it must be an old picture. He lifted the briefcase and gently slid the picture onto the center table.

“Your wife had an affair when you left. I arranged it.”

The words stung Ato. The picture was of Nana Ajoa and Harold Bossman kissing. It looked like the picture was taken at the beach. Both Nana Ajoa and Harold were bare-shouldered.

“Thanks for letting me know. And, thanks for the money,” Ato said as he walked out of the living room and into the sunlight.

Once he got behind the steering wheel of the Volvo, he thought about what his father-in-law had just told him. It cut through his heart like a knife. He was more concerned about covering distance than about his safety. As the trees flew by and the ground raced beneath the vehicle, the image he had just seen in the photograph kept forming in his mind’s eye causing him pain and anxiety.

He thought he saw a stray lamb far ahead of him in the other lane. He glanced quickly at the briefcase lying on the passenger seat beside him. He panicked when he turned his eyes back onto the road and saw the lamb right in front of him. He veered onto the other lane and then swerved quickly back into his own lane when he saw a banana seller peeing into the gutter on the other side. He heard a loud thud as the side of the Volvo connected with the backside of the lamb. He momentarily lost control of the steering as a manhole marked off by warning signs moved dangerously towards him. He regained his composure just in time to bring the car to a halt right where it mattered most. He heaved a sigh of relief and looked into the driving mirror. The lamb was trotting away unharmed.

“Naked bastard,” he cursed as he started the engine and continued his journey.

TO BE CONTINUED...

A Token From Grandpa...Chapter 8

2011-06-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

The room was unbearably hot. The heat from the sun landed directly on the asbestos roofing and, since there was no ceiling, descended into the room with scientific ruthlessness. She had all her clothes off but she was still sweating. She wanted to sleep but she felt so uncomfortable sleep was not possible. A novel lay on a writing desk in a corner of the room. She picked it up, read a few sentences, snapped it shut and put it back on the desk. She walked to a window that opened into the yard. Some children were playing in the yard. She wondered why they weren’t in school. She decided to go outside and watch them play.

She took off her panty and bra and wore a long cotton dress. She stepped cautiously out of the room as if something lay in wait out there for her. The children were surprised to see her. They stared nervously at her but when she pretended she was too busy to notice them, they slowly returned to their game.

The house was a compound house in Darkuman, near the circle station. It was a slightly rotting suburb with the stench of human excreta and burning cannabis constantly in the air. Most houses had no toilets but there was a public latrine about half a mile away. There was also a sprinkling of rickety zinc structures that served as latrines for some households.

It was Alice, one of her friends, who had brought her there. Alice had listened as Emilia had opened her heart to her and narrated all her experiences in Accra. Emilia also expressed her desire to go back to Dzelukope but Alice had suggested that it would be disgraceful to return to Dzelukope empty-handed after living in Accra for so long. The plan, therefore, was for Emilia to move in with Alice in Darkuman, work intensively at the job she now abhors until she raises enough money to take home to her parents. Alice had even linked her up with some real decent customers.

Emilia was shocked by the smell of burning cannabis in the air. She thought such things should be done under the cover of darkness. She sniffed the air as if that could make her know where the smell was coming from. She looked sadly at the kids, wondering what the exposure to such smells at such a tender age could do to their future. But, she thought, who am I to judge?

She perched on the edge of a wall of an uncompleted addition to Alice’s room and realized that she could see into the yard of the next house, a house that opened onto another street. She was fascinated because the difference in style and value of the two houses was huge. Who builds such a beautiful house in such a poverty-stricken neighborhood, she thought.

She was still looking curiously into the house when something unusual caught her eye. Two gentlemen had taken a small blind girl out of a car and were leading her into the house. Everything about the scene seemed normal and yet something within her screamed ‘foul play’. She adjusted her position so she could observe the scene more closely without being seen. She was still trying to figure out what was wrong with the picture. She gripped the wall tightly as her concentration intensified. Her concentration was suddenly broken by the giggles of the children she had come out to watch play. As soon as she turned to look at them, they took to their heels. Instantly, she realized why they were giggling. While her mind had been concentrated on finding out what was amiss in the other house, she had forgotten she had no panty on. Her legs were flailing wide apart so the children feasted their eyes on her exposed womanhood. She pulled her dress down unnecessarily quickly and jumped off her perch. She looked around shamefacedly and sneaked back into Alice’s room.

That night, after her last client had left, she lay in bed beside Alice thinking about what she had seen in the morning.

“Are you alright?” Alice asked.

“Yes. Why?”

“You seem unable to sleep. Too many clients in one night?”

“O, no!” Emilia answered, eager to reassure Alice that her suggestion was causing no harm. She was really planning how to go visit Kwesi again without running into Ato but she didn’t want to tell Alice that. Each time Kwesi came up in their conversations, Alice tried to force her to admit she was in love with him. It made her uncomfortable so, instead of talking about what was really keeping her up, she decided to talk about something else.

“Who owns that house over there?” She asked, pointing in the direction of the house in which she had seen the two men and the blind girl.

“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“Seems like a beautiful house.”

“I’ve never been in there before. I don’t know what it looks like in there. How did you know it’s beautiful?”

“I sat on the wall and looked.”

“I hope nobody saw you doing that. There are rumors about some thugs living there.”

Thugs? What about that small girl. Is she a thug too? Suddenly, she realized that what the girl had been wearing over her eyes was not a pair of sunglasses. It had been one of those things people wear in an airplane to help them sleep. Maybe she wasn’t blind after all. Emilia, however, decided not to think about what was likely the case. She turned her mind back to her plans to visit Kwesi again at the hospital.

TO BE CONTINUED.

A token From Grandpa. Chapter 7

2011-06-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

The first thing Kwesi noticed when he woke up was that there was a policeman around. He couldn’t see him but he could sense him. As a tro-tro driver on the streets of Accra, you need to be able to smell a policeman from a thousand miles away. In the business of trying to clear the long lines of people trying to get to their destinations as quickly as possible, the urge to make a quick buck often trumps the necessity to observe road safety rules. There are those policemen who would stop you for a minor infraction and hold you up for the whole day. There are also those who stop you, not because you have committed an infraction but because they know that if you know there is something wrong with your vehicle, you would slip a few cedis into your papers when they ask to have a look. Either way, the policeman is a thorn in the tro-tro driver’s side and the tro-tro driver’s ability to sense the presence of a policeman along his route is important.

Kwesi felt uneasy. He tried to get up to go to the restroom but his hand felt heavy. He then remembered why he was at the hospital. He rubbed his bandaged hand as if to reassure himself that it was still there.

“Nurse,” he called. “Nurse, I wan’ go for toilet.”

He heard footsteps. The nurse suddenly appeared, trailed by a policeman. Kwesi smiled. He felt proud of himself. His instincts were sharp. He lifted his uninjured hand. The nurse put her shoulder under his arm and helped him out of the bed.

“The policeman be your husband?” He asked the nurse as she opened the restroom door for him.

“No. He wants to talk to you,” she answered.

“About wetin?”

“He wants to know what happened to your hand. They think it was attempted murder.”

“Attempted murder my nyash! Tell am say e-no be him business,” Kwesi said as he entered the restroom.

When Kwesi returned from the restroom, the policeman was still there and he seemed very friendly. “Must be one of the good ones,” he thought, trying to calm his nerves. He was always nervous around policemen.

“Mr. Quansah, I’m Sergeant Amoo. How are you feeling today?”

“Fine.”

“I won’t take too much of your time,” Sergeant Amoo said, sensing that Kwesi is not very enthused about his presence. “I just want to take your statement about what happened to your hand.”

“E-be small house matter. No be police case.”

“Since your brother came to file a report, I need to follow up. Just doing my job, boss.”

“My broda make mistake. E-be house matter.”

“Just tell me what happened. I will write it down, show it to my boss and then if he decides that e-be house matter, you’ll not hear from us again.”

“My girlfriend wan’ kill mouse wey my hand miss road and hit with de axe.”

“Your girlfriend was trying to kill a mouse with an axe?”

Gladys had just come down from her office and was walking towards the nurse’s office in Kwesi’s ward when the sergeant posed the question. The word ‘girlfriend’ drifted into her ears. She wondered why Emilia preferred to call herself a prostitute when the man was admitting they were in a relationship.

“Yes. She dey fear mouse.”

“Did you have an argument before she saw the mouse?”

“No.”

“Did she see you with another woman?”

“No,” Kwesi answered, trying to sound irritated.

“What is her full name and where is she now?”

“Officer, I think say you dey ask too many questions. I tell you say the matter be house matter. If you wan’ know anything, go ask my broda. Na him report case for you. I tire. I wan’ sleep. See my hand? I no well.” Kwesi lay back on the bed, exaggerating his discomfort. He covered his face with the sheet and began to snore. The policeman shook his head and began to laugh. He turned to look at the other patients in the ward as if he expected them to laugh too but they all looked away from him. He strode into the nurses’ office, wondering why people hated policemen so much.

As soon as Sergeant Amoo left the ward, Gladys entered with a tray holding a syringe and some medicines.

“Mr. Quansah, it’s time for your injections,” she sang in a friendly voice. She pulled the sheet back, revealing a mischievous smile on Kwesi’s face.

“Where dey de policeman?” He asked as he turned over and tried to expose the upper part of his backside for the injection.

“He is gone,” Gladys replied. She stuck the needle into a small bottle containing anti-tetanus medicine and lifted it to see the liquid fill the syringe. That was the part Kwesi hated about injections but he put on a brave face because he liked this particular nurse.

“Do you know that I went to school with your girlfriend?’ The question took Kwesi by surprise. He did not answer immediately, thinking that someone else would respond. “Mr. Quansah, I’m talking to you.”

“I no get girlfriend.”

“Then why did you tell the policeman she is your girlfriend?”

“Because she be fine girl. I dey like her but I no know if she like me.” He winced as the needle entered a vein and began to dispense the medicine. “How you fit to know who that woman be?”

“I saw her when she came to visit you.” She answered as she pulled out the needle and pressed a small swab of cotton on the invisible hole the needle had made in his flesh.

“She no come visit me!” Kwesi said, sitting up on the bed.

“Yes, she did. You had just come out of surgery. You were asleep.”

“Why you no wake me up?”

“I don’t work on this ward. And, we don’t wake patients up just because they have visitors, especially when they could be in pain.”

“So, she too be nurse?”

“No, we didn’t go to nursing school together. We went to elementary school together.”

“For where?”

“In the Volta Region.”

“You be Ewe woman?”

“No. I’m a Fante. My father was transferred to the Volta Region in those days.”

“Ah, if you’re Fante then why are we speaking English? I’m Fante too!” Kwesi said in Fante.

That day, Gladys found herself at Kwesi’s bedside more than ten times. Each time she had a little break in her shift, she would sneak to his bedside to chat with him. She thought he was fun to talk to. She thought he had a sexy way of speaking Fante that made the language funny and endearing. He made her feel at home. When her shift ended that night, she was sad to leave. As she waved the patients and her colleagues ‘goodbye’ and stepped out of the hospital, her eyes welled up. She smiled through her tears and whispered, “o, Gladys, you’re so stupid!”

TO BE CONTINUED.

A Token From Grandpa...Chapter 6

2011-06-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

She answered the door and was deeply disappointed to see her father’s face. Her mind raced for a plausible excuse to get the old man out of the way before her husband’s arrival. Dr. Dadzie walked past her daughter and entered the living-room. He went to sit in his favorite armchair, which faced the television directly.

“Any news yet?”

“Nothing,” she replied and walked briskly into her bedroom. She returned a few minutes later with a make-up kit, dabbing powder on her face. She sat on the edge of the center table and continued to apply make-up.

“Are you going out?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I’m handing a case over to a friend and I need to brief him on where we’ve gotten to so far.”

“I guess I need to leave, then. Are you sure you haven’t heard any news about Baaba at all yet?”

“No.” She wanted to say more but she wanted to be quiet to be sure if the sound she had heard outside was the sound of a vehicle. She felt a tightening in the pit of her stomach. The last thing she wanted at that moment was another confrontation between the two most important men in her life. She walked quickly to the window, parted the curtains and looked out. A wave of relief washed over her when she saw the roof of a speeding van over the fence wall.

“Are you expecting someone?” Her father asked as she picked up the make-up kit and walked towards the bedroom.

“Not really.”

She literally jumped when she heard the ‘bang’ of a car door closing.

“Calm your nerves, Nana Ajoa. What has come over you?”

She went back to the window quickly enough to see Ato close the gate behind him and walk towards the house. She headed for the door but the phone began to ring before she could let him in.

“Get the phone. I’ll get the door.”

Instinctively, Nana Ajoa obeyed her father. Seeing his father-in-law shook Ato quite a bit. Dr. Dadzie must have noticed it for he asked, “Disappointed to see me, huh?”

Ato merely muttered his greetings, entered the living-room and deliberately sat in the armchair he suspected his father-in-law may have just left to open the door for him. Although Dr. Dadzie had given the house to his daughter as a gift, it was Ato’s money that had furnished it. So all the furniture in the house, including the armchair Dr. Dadzie was so fond of, had been bought with Ato’s money. True, he owned it jointly with Nana Ajoa but the circumstances under which they were acquired gave him bragging rights over his father-in-law. Dr. Dadzie moved towards his son-in-law, intent upon prompting him to move from his position but thought better of it when he saw the look in Ato’s eyes. He chose another seat and sat down to think of something irritable to say to Ato.

Dr. Dadzie lit a cigar and blew the smoke arrogantly in the younger man’s general direction. Ato cleared his throat disgustedly.

“Sorry, do you mind if I smoke?”

“Sir, I do mind. I believe that second-hand smoke is an unfair way to go to one’s grave.”

Dr. Dadzie was caught completely off-guard. However, he managed to show a smile that said he accepted the challenge. He knew Ato did not smoke so, more out of formality than out of civility, he had always sought Ato’s permission whenever he wanted to smoke in his presence. The permission had hitherto never been refused. He gently stifled the glow off the tip of the cigar and put it away. He didn’t want Ato to say he was not a gentleman. It just might get to that, he thought.

“I’m very concerned about my granddaughter. What are you two doing to get her back?” Dr. Dadzie asked.

“I have already lodged a complaint with the Police although Nana Ajoa tells me…”

“We ought to be grateful we didn’t lose her to some ritual murderers,” Dr. Dadzie said, interrupting Ato. “Let’s be careful how we handle these people. Let’s not do things that may get them unduly agitated.”

Ato shifted uneasily in the armchair but kept quiet. Nana Ajoa hung up the phone with a worried expression on her face. Ato was immediately by her side.

“Come on, Nana, come into the arms of your responsible father,” Dr. Dadzie said, springing up onto his feet.

“Daddy, please!” Nana Ajoa yelled, holding up a restraining hand to her father.

An uncomfortable silence rose and held the air taut. Nana Ajoa walked slowly over to her father and hugged him.

“I’m sorry, daddy. I’m sorry. But I need to let you know that you don’t make me feel comfortable in your presence anymore, especially when my husband is around.”

Her father pushed her gently away and walked towards the door. He opened the door, turned and told Ato:

“I hear your brother has been injured by a prostitute he picked off the street. Too irresponsible to marry, huh? It’s in the blood, isn’t it?”

Nana Ajoa opened her mouth to say something but let out a deep sigh instead when her father walked through the door and closed it gently behind him.

Ato tried to hold her but she moved away from him.

“I’ve heard that you’ve applied for a job at the University. At least you could have informed me.”

“You know I need the job. I thought you might kick against the idea again,” Ato responded smugly.

“So it’s alright for me to do something you don’t like as long as I don’t inform you before I do it, huh?”

“Look, Nana, I can still withdraw the application or refuse to go for the interview or something if that is what you want.”

“No. I think you should rather pray you get the job. We need money. We need fifty thousand dollars to get Baaba back. Hard cash.”

“Good Lord! Where are we going to get that kind of money?”

“Daddy, of course. Who else?”

Ato eyed her as if she had just sold his soul to the devil.

“Okay,” she said when she saw the look on his face. “Let’s go see if Akuamoah can help us. But you must realize that I won’t hesitate to go to my dad if I have to. He’s as worried about her as I am and he’ll be glad of an opportunity to help.”

Nana Ajoa sat quietly in the passenger seat as her husband drove the Volvo towards the cluster of auto spare parts shops at Abossey Okai. She felt alarmed that no matter how hard she tried, she could not bring herself to love her father like she used to. She was particularly concerned that she had lied to him when he had asked about the kidnappers. Something within her had prevented her from telling him the truth. Although there was a good reason for her not to share the information with him, that reason had come to her after the fact.

There was a lot in her life to be thankful to her father for. However, she was beginning to wonder whether any of the things she had received were given out of love or out of a desire for control of her life. She felt particularly disgusted that all her life she had been steered away from the truth about her biological mother. And the reason for that, she suspected, was because Dr. Dadzie did not want to be reminded that he had had a child with a woman way below his own social standing. She could sense that in the way he treated Ato.

She felt a strong desire to go seek her biological mother. Since her own daughter was abducted, she could hardly think of the word ‘mother’ without conjuring up the image of a young woman’s tear-filled face as she pleaded to be allowed to take her baby away. And that image always brought tears to her eyes.

That it had taken her so long to miss her biological mother was due to the love that blossomed between her and her late step-mother. Mrs. Emily Dadzie had no children of her own and had treated Nana Ajoa with such love and respect that it felt almost sacrilegious for Nana to break a rule in order to find another mother. Although the other Emily in her life, her aunty Emily in Chicago, had kept pushing her to find her real mother, Nana Ajoa had been determined not to seem ungrateful to her stepmother. How ironic, she thought, that the incident that would lead me to yearn so much for my biological mother took place when I was trying to call the only woman who kept pushing me to find her.

“Why are you crying, Nana?”

Ato’s voice shot like an arrow through her thoughts. She instinctively groped behind her seat for the box of Kleenex she kept there. It was empty. Ato quickly pulled out a handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to her. He felt guilty.

“Nana, please cheer up. Baaba will be alright.”

Nana Ajoa nodded but remained quiet. Ato brought the Volvo to a stop in front of Akuamoah’s shop. One of the salesgirls recognized the car and walked over to Nana Ajoa’s side.

“Please, they’re on their way to Tamale. They left just a few minutes ago.”

“Are they going by State Transport?” Nana Ajoa asked, alarmed.

“No. They’re going in the Pajero.”

“Which way did they go? I want to see if I can catch up with them?” Ato said.

“Well, they’re going through Kumasi so they’ll probably use Nsawam road.”

Ato shifted the car into gear and lurched dangerously into the traffic. A mummy truck screeched to a halt just inches behind him. The driver hurled profanities on Ato whose concentration was on the road. He maneuvered the Volvo between a tipper truck and a taxi, causing his wife’s heart to miss a beat.

“Please, do be careful,” Nana Ajoa said.

“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine,” he replied.

He sped his way round the Obetsebi Lamptey Circle and headed towards the Kwame Nkrumah Circle to join the Nsawam road. He suddenly pulled over to the side of the road and parked the car.

“What are you up to?” Nana Ajoa asked angrily.

“The question is; why are we doing this?”

“For your daughter, remember? Kidnappers, ransom and a lot of money we don’t have. Come on, Ato. Are you okay?”

“I don’t think we need to chase them all the way from here to Tamale. Let’s go relax and call them in the morning.”

“We don’t have the time.”

“They didn’t give a deadline, did they?”

“Of course they did and I told you.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“I did, too!” Nana Ajoa said.

“Okay, alright, how long do we have and where do we take the money?”

“I can’t sit here and discuss that, Ato. Let’s do something!”

“What do we do?”

“We were following them, weren’t we?”

“That is pointless. There are so many ways by which they can get to Tamale. We can drive all the way to Tamale and all we will see are many Pajeros that look like theirs. It would be a waste of time.”

“Then,” Nana Ajoa said calmly. “Let’s go see my dad.”

He would have flared up but he checked himself, sinking his teeth into his lower lip. He held on tightly to the steering-wheel, cursing himself for having neither relatives nor friends who could help him at a time like this. All the people he knew who could part with that kind of money were Nana Ajoa’s people. Even the Akuamoahs were the late Mrs. Dadzie’s relatives.

An idea occurred to him. He started the engine, shifted the gear to first and, keeping his foot on the clutch, accelerated gently. As soon as there was a lull in the flow of traffic, he made a quick U-turn.

“Where are we going?” Nana Ajoa asked, surprised.

He did not respond. He kept his eyes on the road. He kept biting his lower lip to prevent himself from saying anything stupid. He brought the car to a halt in front of a red light.

“Are we going to see my dad?”

Ato turned and gave her a creepy glare that nearly made her jump out of her seat.

“Don’t ever look at me like that again,” she said as she shifted in her seat.

The light changed to green but he had to wait for a white cane wielding gentleman to finish crossing the street. He put maximum pressure on the accelerator, hoping to reach the next set of lights before they changed to red. He was unlucky. The lights changed from green to amber, then to red. Nana Ajoa gave a deep sigh of relief when he began to slow down.

Ato drove into the Darkuman station at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle area where Kwesi operated his van. He parked the Volvo, murmured an excuse to his wife and went into the office of the drivers’ union.

Mr. Mate Korley was the president of the drivers’ union. He was bald and had a mustache like one you would see at a beard and mustache contest in Alaska. He was proud of his massive belly and wore an African print shirt that made it prominent. The walls of the office were covered in schedules of drivers plying various routes of Accra from the station. The desk was bare save for a couple of newspapers of the day. He kept all his files in the drawers and only brought out the ones he needed whenever he needed them. As soon as he was done with each one, he put it right back where it belonged.

He stood up and gave Ato a warm handshake, hoping that the unannounced visit was not to announce Kwesi’s death. He had heard about Kwesi’s mishap and gone to visit him at the hospital. In fact, he had encouraged all the workers at the station to visit him at the hospital whenever they could.

He pointed to the chair in front of his desk and asked Ato to sit down.

“Thank you but I will not take too much of your time. My wife is waiting in the car.” Ato said as he took the seat.

“How is she?” Asked Mr. Mate Korley, trying to avoid asking about Kwesi since he expected the meeting to be about him.

“Everybody is fine, health-wise. So is Kwesi. He is recovering remarkably.”

“I thank God for that,” said Mr. Mate Korley, shifting in his chair with relief. He waited patiently for Ato to explain the purpose of the visit.

“Mr. Mate Korley, we have a very serious problem on our hands. I don’t want to bore you with unnecessary details. Long and short of it is that my daughter has been kidnapped. I don’t know your policy concerning help for families but I was hoping that since she’s Kwesi’s niece, the union could loan us some money to pay the ransom. My wife’s relatives would have given us the money but they’ve gone to Tamale for the weekend. I’ll pay you back as soon as they get back.”

“How much money are you talking about?”

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

“Wow!” The drivers’ union president put his hand on his mouth in astonishment.

“I’ll bring it back as soon as my wife’s relatives get back from Tamale.”

“Mr. Quansah, we have benefits for our union members but kidnapping is not in our books. Even if we could cut corners, and trust me I would gladly do that for your brother, it would involve immediate family members like mother, father, child and spouse. I’m sorry about your situation, but trust me, if I had that kind of money or knew how to get that kind of money, I would gladly help you off the books. I’m really sorry, trust me.”

Ato had known that he was clutching at a straw with this move but what could he do? He dreaded the humiliation of having to go to his father-in-law, of all people, for help. He stood up, shook the hand of the union president and thanked him for at least giving him audience.

“Why can’t some university graduates figure things out for themselves?” Mr. Korley asked his secretary as soon as he had closed the door behind Ato.

Ato was walking back to where he had parked the Volvo when he thought he saw Emelia standing in a long line of commuters waiting for tro-tro to Darkuman. He wasn’t sure whether it was her or not but he decided to check. He wanted her to know that neither he nor Kwesi bore her any grudge. He wanted her to understand that she was welcome to go visit him if she wanted to. He didn’t want her to keep running away from him.

Emelia had also seen him get out of the Volvo and enter the drivers’ union office. The Volvo was blue-black and Nana Ajoa was wearing a black beret to cover her hair because she hadn’t had time to have it done since the night Ato left. With the lack of sufficient sleep, her fear of the police and the weight of Kwesi’s injury on her conscience, Emelia’s mind was stressed to the point of paranoia. What began as a ‘what if” Ato was an undercover policeman driving a police car with his female partner became reality in her mind when she saw him walking towards her. She quickly got out of the queue and began to run.

"I just want to talk to you," Ato shouted after her but she kept running.
He threw his hands up in despair and walked back to the car.

“Funny woman!” He said as he took his place behind the wheel. Nana Ajoa surprised him with a hard slap on his right cheek.

“While Baaba is languishing in the clutches of some pedophiles who are probably planning to kill her, you’re busy running after cheap girls at Kwame Nkrumah Circle right under my nose? You should be ashamed of yourself!”

TO BE CONTINUED.

A token from Grandpa...5 continued.

2011-05-31T21:34:00.000-07:00

The meeting with Gladys sent Emilia's mind back to her mother and father. She hadn't heard from them in a long time. She wondered whether her father had fully recovered. She remembered the day they had taken him to the herbalist.

She hardly ever missed school. She was determined to go to Secondary School and then to the University of Ghana Medical School to become a doctor. However, on that particular day, she had to miss school. Her father was very ill and there was no money to take him to the hospital so they had brought him to the herbalist. She was struck by the number of people who had come to see the herbalist. It was almost like being at the hospital. She wondered how so many people got ill at the same time. Her friend, Alice, had once told her that not all the people you see in a crowded place are real people. Some of them are ghosts. Emilia shuddered and instinctively looked around her as if she expected to catch someone in the act of vanishing into thin air. She held on tightly to her mother’s hand. Her father, Xornam Avorgbedor, could not walk so they had been allowed to carry him to the front of the line and into an inner chamber for immediate attention.

Mama Aku, Emilia’s mother, could not stop crying. Emilia thought her mother cried like a man. No sobs, no sniffing, just a stream of tears coming out the corner of her eyes. She kept wiping them with the corner of her faded cover cloth. Emilia was scared. She was always scared to see her mother cry. She thought her mother was a very strong woman so any situation that could make her cry must be a very grave situation. She had observed her father’s illness deteriorate within a very short time. She had been hoping he would get better and was shocked when she woke up one day to see her mother struggling to help him into the bathroom. The sight had been very heartbreaking for her.

“Mama, we need to take him to the hospital,” Emilia had told her mother.

“I know. But the hospital is too far and there would be too many people. By the time they finish attending to all the important people and those with money for bribes, who knows what would have happened to your father? I’ll take him to the herbalist on the road to Keta.”

“I thought Christians were not supposed to go to herbalists. I thought herbalists were heathens who got their medicines from dwarfs.”

“Emi, it was the British people who taught us to think that way. They thought we wouldn’t buy their medicines if they didn’t discredit our herbalists. They even called them ‘witch doctors’. Emi, there is something good in everything. Your father and I are Christians but we take part in all kinds of traditional ceremonies. Some Christians think those ceremonies are heathen because of the rites that go with them. I say I’m giving unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and giving unto Christ what is for Christ.”

Emilia was tempted to argue but she wasn’t in the mood. She knew that times were bad and her mother had decided to do what was best under the circumstances. She couldn’t think of a better plan. One thing she knew about healing was that you had to believe.

“I’ll come with you,” she told her mother.

“You don’t have to. You have to go to school. They will give you your Common Entrance results today, won’t they?”

“Yes, they will,” Emilia answered sadly. “I know I will pass. But, if we don’t have money to take Papa to the hospital, how do we get the money to get me to Secondary School?”

Mama Aku saw the tears well up in her daughter’s eyes. She pulled her into her arms and hugged her tight, rocking her gently as the sobs shook her body. Emilia had sat for the Common Entrance the year before and passed but there was no money to send her to Secondary School. Since she was in Elementary Form 3, her parents had argued that it would be wiser for her to do it again the following year so she could have both an Elementary School Leaving certificate and qualification into a Secondary School. After all, beginning Secondary School at the age of 16 used to be the norm until all these new private elementary schools started sending 12 year olds from rich homes to Secondary School.

“Emi, don’t cry. We’ll think of something. Let’s get Papa to the herbalist first. Are you sure you want to come?”

“Yes.”

A tall gray-haired man came out of the inner chamber where Xornam Avorgbedor had been taken and yelled, “Aku?” Xornam may have said something in there because the gray-haired man glanced back into the room, and said with a little laugh, “Mama Aku!”

Emilia and her mother picked their way through the crowd, shouting “Agoo! Agoo!” The gray-haired man shouted Mama Aku’s name again even louder and someone responded, “she’s coming!”

Mama Aku was asked into the inner chamber whilst Emilia was asked to wait outside. A few minutes later, Mama Aku reemerges from the inner chamber with her husband leaning on her right arm. She also held some herbs and bottled concoctions in a paper bag in her left hand. The gray-haired man, apparently the herbalist, whispered last minute instructions to Mama Aku and called for the next patient. Emilia sighed with relief. Her smile broadened when two teenage boys she knew offered to carry her father home. Xornam wanted to walk home on his own but the boys insisted so he graciously leaned on their shoulders and allowed them to help him. He was very thankful, for, even with their help, he realized that every step was still excruciatingly painful. But Emilia was hopeful.

The three months after the trip to the herbalist were very tough for Emilia. Her father’s health did improve somewhat and he went back to work but the position of a village carpenter doesn’t yield enough money to send a child to a Secondary School in Accra. As she had predicted, she passed the Common Entrance examination and gained 287 out of 400. It was the third highest mark in the whole Region that year. She had hoped to get a scholarship from Labone Secondary School, her first choice school, but she didn’t. One of her friends had 265 and got a huge party from her parents. 287 was a big deal! The pass mark for girls that year was 225 and it was 230 for boys. A local correspondent for GBC1 even came to interview her. Unfortunately, although many sympathized with her for not having the means to go to Secondary School, nobody offered to help. Well, there was an offer. A local transport owner offered to pay Emilia’s way through Secondary School if she would marry him. His youngest son had taught Emilia in Primary School. Emilia wanted to accept it but her mother was disgusted. They argued over it for many days.

Finally, as they lay one night with Emilia’s sobs echoing through the darkness, Mama Aku inclined her head towards where her daughter lay. Since it was just a single room that could only take one bed, Xornam Avorgbedor had made his daughter a small foldable bed that looked like a settee when folded up. While her parents’ bed was set against the east wall of the room, Emilia’s bed was set against the west wall. Her father had laid a rod over their bed from which they hung a curtain that protected Emilia from any adult stuff they may do. She did remember a time when they used to make her laugh when one of them would poke his or her head out from behind the curtain and whisper, ”Emi, mon amie!” and then pull back quickly behind the curtain. It was the same way Mama Aku had poked her head from behind the curtain when she heard Emilia’s sobbing.

“Emi,” Mama Aku said gently. “Emi, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Mama,” Emilia answered, her speech distorted by her sobbing.

“Emi, listen. We’re sorry we don’t have the means to help you become the person you want to be. But I’m not sorry for refusing to allow you to marry that old man. There is a saying that an experienced person is better than a soothsayer. I know you’re cut out for great things. I know you’ll be a great person in future. I have faith in you. I don’t want you to become an old lady before you become a young woman. Anybody who offers a brilliant girl like you something with strings attached does not have a good heart. And who wants to allow her daughter to marry a man who has so publicly demonstrated that he doesn’t have a good heart? Most people go into a marriage without knowing the real person they’re getting married to. You are fortunate. God Himself has caused this man to show his true self. What other proof do you need?” Mama Aku paused for a few minutes. She could feel that Emilia was listening so she continued.

“Look at yourself, for example. You’re a young woman who is very clever. Supposing you marry this old man today and he helps you to achieve your dreams. Right now, all you know is this village with simple people and a simple life. When you go to Accra, it’s very different. Believe me, I have lived in Accra before. My mother and I used to sell ‘red-red’ at the University….”

“You’ve told me that before,” Emilia cut in quietly but clearly. Mama Aku noticed that she had stopped crying.

“Okay, now listen. Once you’ve met all those sophisticated people and danced on great carpets and held the hands of handsome younger men, your simple old man would no longer appeal to you. You would look at all the possibilities and curse the day you got yourself trapped into marriage with a man whose son could be your father. That is when you would be forced to break that man’s heart. Believe me, I know what that kind of heartbreak is like and I wouldn’t like you to do it to an old man.” Emilia murmured something.

“What did you say?” Mama Aku asked.

“I said I wasn’t going to break his heart.”

“Emi, you’re still a child. Listen to your mother.”

“Yes, Papa, “Emilia whispered, glad to hear her father’s voice getting stronger again.

“Emi, I’m going to send you to Accra, anyway,” Mama Aku continued. “I’m sorry it’s not going to be under the same circumstances you wished for. I have a friend there who is a very well-known hairdresser. She was also very clever when we were in primary school. But her passion was to become a hairdresser and she’s become a good one. She has agreed to train you for free. You’ll live in her house and help with household chores while you learn the trade. Once you master it, you can start your own business and earn some money to go to school. Education is not a race.”

That is how Emilia came to live with Mrs. Esilfie and her two sons, Panyin and Kakra.

TO BE CONTINUED.

A token From Grandpa...Chapter 5

2011-05-31T09:19:00.001-07:00

Chapter 5

Ato parked the van in front of the Maternity Department of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, crossed the street and walked through the Out-patients Department towards the Surgical Ward where Kwesi had been admitted. He felt somewhat relieved to have been able to comfort Nana Ajoa to some extent. What a way to begin a week, he thought. He was having a hard time finding a job. His daughter had been abducted. His brother was close to becoming an amputee. He thought through his clouds, seeking a faint glimmer of a silver lining. There had still not been any information from Baaba’s abductors and it made him feel very frustrated. Although he didn’t have the money to pay ransom, he wished it had been demanded so at least he could know what was needed to bring his daughter back.

A nurse came out of the ward and he dashed after her.

“Excuse me, nurse,” he said as the nurse briefly glanced over her shoulder and inclined her head to listen without breaking her stride. “Please, how is Kwesi Quansah doing? The man with the damaged wrist…”

“He’s still unconscious. He just came back from surgery. He can’t have any visitors for a while. He needs rest.”

As he descended the stairs, he caught a glimpse of a familiar face. A woman talking to a nurse in front of the OPD looked vaguely familiar. He was sure he had seen the face before but he couldn’t remember where. He turned again to look at her. She was walking away from the nurse. She also turned. Their eyes met.. She started walking faster away from him. Then he remembered. Emelia. That’s what she had said her name was. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to know what had really happened that night. Kwesi had not been able to say much. He had just kept saying that it wasn’t Emelia’s fault. Ato himself suspected it was an accident because of the dead mouse that had been lying beside Kwesi. He thought it may have been a freak accident from an attempt to kill the mouse. He wanted to reach out to her in order to reassure her he didn’t suspect her of foul play.

“Emelia?” He called gently as he broke into a jog to catch up with her. But she took to her heels. That angered him a bit. He continued running after her.

Behind the Medical School Hostel was a footpath that led to Mamprobi, one of Accra’s many suburbs. For those acquainted with the area, it was a very harmless footpath although the bush around it made it look like a fertile ground for muggers, robbers and other dangerous elements.

It was this footpath that Emelia decided to take. When she realized Ato was narrowing the distance between them, she jumped off the path and hid behind the foliage. Ato was searching among the bushes for her when he heard a rustle of leaves behind him. He turned sharply, expecting to see Emelia. Instead, he saw an old lady defecating nonchalantly among the bushes.

“Help! Rape!” The old lady shouted, pausing from her busy encounter with nature. Ato ran all the way back to the van without as much as a single glance over his shoulder. The old lady gave a thumbs up and winked at a grateful Emelia.

As she made her way out of the bushes, Emelia wondered whether Ato thought she had deliberately cut Kwesi’s wrist. She wondered what he thought her motive was. She also wondered what Ato would have done if he had gotten hold of her. She wanted to let him know what had really happened. She wanted him to understand that it was an accident and that she had nothing against Kwesi. In fact, she had gone to the hospital to find Kwesi and apologize to him. She had expected to meet Ato at the hospital but not under the conditions under which they had just met. She feared he might want to hand her over to the Police and she dreaded the Police.

She picked her way carefully back to the Surgical Ward, making sure Kwesi’s van was no longer parked where she had seen it earlier. She peeked into every room on every floor until she got to the sixth floor. She had been told that Kwesi would be in the Male Surgical Ward but she didn’t know the exact room. She decided to hang around until one of the nurses came by. She leaned on the parapet to observe the scenery down below. It was sunny and beautiful; a time for fun, not a good time to be stressed about the possibility of being held for manslaughter. She had heard numerous times that slashing the wrist can lead to death. The prospect of being considered a murderer did not particularly appeal to her. She so desperately wanted Kwesi to be alright. If there was anything she could do to ensure that he did not die, she was willing to do it no matter how difficult.

She was surprised by a gentle tap on her shoulder. She turned sharply, frightened, expecting to see Ato.

“Please, may I help you?” The nurse asked as Emelia let out a deep sigh of relief. The nurse looked vaguely familiar but Emelia was not sure about where she knew her

“I’m here to see my boyfriend,” she lied. “I’ve forgotten his number.”

“What’s his name?”

“Kwesi.”

“Is that his last name or first name?”

“I’m not really sure. I guess we haven’t been together long enough.” Emelia said, trying to hide her embarrassment in a comic giggle. The nurse looked at her intently.

“What is your name? You look and sound familiar. Have you lived in Accra all your life?” The nurse asked

“I was born and raised in the Volta Region. I only moved to Accra when I finished school.”

“Ah-ha! Your name is Emelia, right?” Emelia nodded.

“And you are Gladys. I knew it! I recognized you immediately. I just wasn’t sure. You haven’t changed at all. Aw, I’m so happy for you. You became a nurse.” The two women hugged briefly.

“What about you? What do you do?” Emelia hesitated but Gladys was curious because Emelia had done much better than she had when they were in school. She expected Emelia’s fortunes to also be much better than hers.

“Okay,” Gladys said when the silence was becoming awkward. “So, this friend of yours, what is he having surgery for?”

“He had a freak accident. He nearly lost his wrist, I hear.”

“I think I know who you’re talking about. Let’s check the second floor,” Gladys said as she led the way down the stairs.

There was something about Emelia that Gladys did not understand. She remembered how Emelia had been the darling of the whole school, combining awesome looks with an insatiable desire to excel in class. She had never been the best in class but she had always been in the top fifteen out of a class of forty-three students. The remarkable thing about her was that she actually worked hard, both at home and at school. Her mother, Mama Aku, was always selling something so Emelia hawked bread, bananas, biscuits and sweets after school. But she always had her homework with her even as she walked the length and breadth of the town, trying to help her family survive life below the poverty line.

Gladys and Emelia had not really been friends although they were in the same class. Emelia hardly had friends, anyway. She was either too busy raking in some money for her family or trying to improve her chances of getting into a good secondary school. She hardly attended social functions in the school and, even when she did, she either had a book to read or something to sell. And, in those days, she dressed neatly but boringly.

Emelia’s hair was cut very short. She wore large earrings and her beautiful nose had a ring in it. Her brown button-down shirt, which was tied at the back, barely covered her nipples and exposed her navel, which also had a ring. Her lime green skirt was very short, making her long legs seem even longer. Her high-heeled boots matched her blouse. She looks hot on a hot day, Gladys thought. Very unlike Emelia. But, ten years is a long time. Long enough to change a person.

As they descended the stairs, Gladys hoped that the Kwesi Emelia was referring to was not the tro-tro driver who had been brought in the night before. She thought it would break Emelia’s heart to hear that the guy had been with a prostitute. If indeed he was the one, did Emelia know all the details about the freak accident? Gladys did not work on the second floor but the news about the guy whose hand was nearly severed by a prostitute had traveled very quickly around the block. Even some of the patients had heard and joked about it. But somewhere deep within her, Gladys was also hoping that if she had to introduce Emelia to her friends, she wouldn’t have to explain how her former mate at school happened to be dating a tro-tro driver.

Kwesi was sleeping when they got to him. The nurse in charge explained that he was still under sedation and that he had lost a great deal of blood. Gladys took Emelia back to her office on the sixth floor after encouraging her to leave Kwesi a note. They sat in silence for several minutes.

“Do you know how he got injured?” Gladys asked, unable to hold it any longer.

“I do,” Emelia answered quietly. “I did it.”

“Were you jealous of the prostitute?”

“There was no prostitute,” Emelia said hesitantly. “His brother likes to call me a prostitute. He doesn’t like me.”

“Why doesn’t he like you?”

“I don’t know why.”

Gladys left Emelia in her office and went into the ward to do her rounds. Having spent most of her time in Accra dealing with people who judged her, her lifestyle and what she did for a living, Emelia kept wondering whether to tell Gladys the whole truth. She did not blame those who judged her. She sided with them. She desperately wanted to be the Emelia she was before she came to Accra. She hadn’t given up on her dream of getting herself a good education. She hadn’t given up on her dream to make her mother’s life better. She knew where she wanted to go in life and knew she had what it would take to get there. But, she found herself trapped in a situation where drawing sustenance from what she hated most about herself seemed inevitable. She knew there were prostitutes who were proud of being prostitutes. They set out to be prostitutes because that was what they had always dreamed of doing. She would not like anybody to judge them either. She just didn’t feel that she belonged in that profession and felt frustrated that it was difficult for her to get out of it. She believed that she had a mission to make her mother proud of her and that being in a profession the society around her frowned upon was a sure way to hasten her mother’s journey to the land of the ancestors. Maybe, if her challenges and circumstances had been different, she would have had no qualms about doing what she did for a living.

“I hear your boyfriend needs blood,” Gladys said as she strolled back into her office. “Can you help?”

“I would like to but I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Suppose they tell me I have AIDS?”

“O, come on. It’s better for you to know if you have it.”

“Look, Gladys, I …… Anyway, I don’t even know my blood group.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Gladys said as she prepared the apparatus to draw Emelia’s blood. “We’ll find that out. Will you do it?”

Emelia reluctantly lay on a bed and allowed her blood to be drawn. Gladys rushed the sample to the lab, came back to do her rounds and then went back for the results.

“You are not in the same blood group but they’ll exchange yours for some at the blood bank.”

“Did they check it for AIDS?”

“O, sorry, here’s the card.”

Gladys handed a small card to Emelia and went into the ward. Emelia studied the card hesitantly. When she saw the result she sighed deeply, held on to the edge of a table and sat down slowly. The room began to spin. She dropped the card on the floor and put her head on the table. She felt a gentle tap on her shoulder and lifted her head.

“Why, what’s the matter with you?” Gladys asked as she saw the tears in Emelia’s eyes.

“The report. It said ‘negative’.”

“Yes. It means you don’t have it.”

“I thought it was the opposite.”

“O, please! Don’t be funny,” Gladys said with a laugh. “Now, will you tell me what happened?”

“So, he really isn’t my boyfriend. I know you will be surprised to hear this but I am really a prostitute.” Emelia said as an introduction to her narration of the events that had brought Kwesi to the hospital.

A token from Grandpa...Chapter 4

2011-05-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

Chapter 4

Nana Ajoa was sitting expectantly by the phone. She was becoming impatient with the thumping of her heart against her ribs. She wanted, more than anything, to relax. She had still not been able to forgive herself for the manner in which Baaba was abducted. She kept wondering how any educated person could allow such a thing to happen. She kept replaying the incident in her mind, making corrections. She wanted desperately to make amends for her blunder. Initially, she had wept incessantly. She later decided, however, that crying was like admitting she had lost. She only had one desire-to ensure her daughter’s kidnappers are arrested and punished. She also thought she needed her husband.

She had received a call from the kidnappers an hour earlier. They had told her what she already knew; that they had Baaba. Baaba had tried to talk too but she was only able to say ‘Ma’ before the line went dead. Since then, Nana Ajoa had not been able to step away from the phone. The voice of her daughter had sparked hope within her. With that, she felt like she could hold her breath for eternity.

The phone rang again and she jerked it violently off the hook.

“Hello,” she said, her voice almost shaking with excitement.

“Hello, Nana. It’s Ato. Listen….”

“Ato, when are you coming back home? I miss you. Please, stop punishing me for my father’s mistakes. You have to stop listening to him. You’re both causing me a lot of pain with your petty squabbles. Do you even know where your daughter is at this time?”

“Relax, Nana. You need to relax. Listen, Kwesi has just been admitted at the hospital. It was a freak accident. I’ll give you the details later. The police are investigating. I was thinking of coming home tonight but in view of….”
“In view of nothing, Ato. You need to come home now!”

“I’m sorry but I can’t. Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Ato, you need to come home now. Baaba has been kidnapped!”

“What? What did you say?”

“I said Baaba has been kidnapped,” Nana Ajoa said, almost choking on the words as the tears trickled down her face. “I’m sorry, Ato. It’s all my fault. I should have done a better job of protecting her.”

“Everything’s going to be alright. Don’t blame yourself. I know you’re a good mother. Just hang on. I’m on my way.”

“Thank you very much, my dear. See you soon.”

“Nana?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“I…love…you…too,” Nana Ajoa said between sobs and hung up.

She felt sorry for her husband. She felt sorry for her daughter but she didn’t want to feel sorry for herself. These are challenging times, she thought. It had been really hectic for her since her daughter was kidnapped. Her firm had nine cases pending that she was directly responsible for. She had managed to have five of them adjourned to dates by which she hoped the storm in her world would have passed. She wondered whether Baaba’s abduction had anything to do with a case she may have handled in the past. Since most of the cases she had handled were civil suits, it was difficult for her to find the connection.

Ato’s exit from the house had been particularly difficult for her but Baaba’s abduction was like twisting the knife in the wound. It didn’t help that her father kept trying to make her see how everything was the consequence of Ato’s irresponsibility. She felt a great sense of relief now that she had talked to Ato. She looked forward to seeing him walk through the door again. She hoped he was coming home to stay. Not ‘home’ as in the house but home as in her arms. She was planning to give the house back to her father. She had come to the conclusion that she needed to choose between Ato and her father’s gift and she knew exactly who she didn’t want to lose.

As she moved away from the phone, she thought about her own mother. She remembered faintly how a group of people from the Volta Region had once come to her father’s house and demanded to be allowed to take her away. One of them, a beautiful woman in a faded blouse over an almost tattered wrapper, claimed she was her mother and had wept throughout the meeting. In the end, the matter had been taken to court and Nana Ajoa had been allowed to attend the proceedings. It was then that she had begun to admire lawyers and the way they strode confidently through the courtroom.

As she grew up, things had begun to fall in place in her mind. She had come to understand the situation through the hazy pictures her five year old brain had taken in. Her father had impregnated the daughter of a red-red(gari, beans and fried plantains) seller while he was studying at the University of Ghana Medical School. His parents had taken care of the seventeen year old girl till she gave birth. As soon as the baby had been born, they sent the young mother away with the promise that as soon as their son began to practice as a doctor, they would let him marry her.

Three years later, however, the young doctor had married the daughter of a wealthy businessman from Nkawkaw. Two years later, Aku heard about the ‘high society’ wedding and reported it to her family. The elders of the family came down to Accra with her to demand custody of Nana Ajoa. Dr. Dadzie advised them to take the matter to court. They did. The court ruled that it was in Nana Ajoa’s best interest to be raised in a home where she could have the opportunity of a good education. Thus, a five year old girl was legally snatched from her real mother. Although Aku had been awarded the right to visit her daughter any time she wanted, she never stepped in the home of the Dadzies again. Now that her own daughter had been snatched from her, Nana Ajoa could understand why the woman in her memory had been crying. Twenty-two years was a very long time but the pain came fresh into her heart.

“Mother, o mother! Where are you?”

Her naïve, five year old mind had seen a shabbily dressed woman. Her adult mind yearned for a hug from that woman. She wanted to hold her in her arms and say, “Mother, here I am after all these years. They threw you out of my life but now I want to get back into yours.”

She had vowed to stop crying but she couldn’t. Thinking about the woman she should really call ‘mother’ opened the floodgates again. She entered the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. She buried her face in her hands and cried all the tears she had held back for so long. She was still crying when the phone began to ring again.

A token from Grandpa..Chapter 3

2011-05-30T07:29:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3

There were times when Emelia had been tempted to blame God for her situation. She had often wondered whether she still would have become a prostitute if she had had at least a secondary education. In elementary school, she hadn’t been what you might call a genius but she had been one of those average students who were capable of making it to the university. When she was in elementary Form Three, she had sat for the Common Entrance Examination and passed. She was invited to Labone Secondary School but her parents could not afford the cost of sending her to secondary school at that time. They promised her the following year. Again, she had passed. Instead of sending her to school, they had sent her to Accra to learn hairdressing.

All would have been well if her boss, Mrs. Sarpong, had not had two sons you wouldn’t particularly call ‘angels’. One of them sneaked into her bedroom one night and raped her. When she reported it to Mrs. Sarpong, she was bribed to keep her mouth shut. The other son also raped her while she was taking a shower on a day when they had been left alone together in the house. Her self-esteem dipped to its lowest nadir. She began to lose weight and concentration. Gradually, she learned to accept being paid for sex. Her rapists brought their friends from school to pay and have sex with her. She began to make some money and even dared to dream about being able to save enough money to send herself to school. Then people began to say bad things about her. She started losing friends too.

One afternoon, while her boss was away on an overseas trip, Emelia ran to stay with one of the regular customers of the beauty salon who had once promised to send her to London to further her education. Unfortunately, a few months after Emelia had moved in, Auntie Elyssa was arrested and jailed for drug-trafficking. Most of Auntie Elyssa’s friends were seasoned professionals in the sex trade so they tutored Emelia until she was able to ply the trade on her own. Several times, she had tried to stop but she just didn’t have the will power to resist the temptation of getting back into it. In fact, just the day before Kwesi picked her up, she had been to a Deliverance Church Service at which she had promised God with all her heart that she would stop.

“Wetin you dey tink?” Kwesi asked, frightening Emelia back to the present. She smiled and moved over to sit next to him on the bed.

“I think say you dey sleep. You ok?”

“I be ok.. I no wan’ make my bro ask too many questions. E be so why I make like I sleep.”

“Na so!”

Emelia took off her dress, folded it neatly and dropped it on the couch. As she was walking over to the bed, she kicked something soft and furry. She screamed and hugged Kwesi tightly as a dazed mouse dashed uncertainly back and forth between the door and the dresser. Kwesi pushed her onto the bed, picked a hair brush off the dresser and threw it down hard on the mouse. Emelia screamed wildly and buried her face in her hands as the brush fell away from the bloody mess that had once been a living and breathing mouse.

Kwesi picked the dead mouse up with a piece of paper and headed for the door. He paused suddenly at the door and turned to Emelia, a mischievous smile playing around his lips.

“Wetin you dey do?” Emelia asked as Kwesi began to walk towards her, pointing the hand holding the dead mouse at her. When she realized what his intention was, she began screaming again and backed away until she fell off the bed. Kwesi sat astride her on the floor and swung the dead mouse from side to side, moving it closer to her face. She was so frightened she couldn’t even breathe. She held her left hand out to ward him off while her right hand groped under the bed and touched smooth wood. It was the handle of an axe. Kwesi inadvertently dropped the mouse beside her. As he stretched his hand to pick it up again, she brought the axe down hard on his hand, hardly thinking of what she was doing. Kwesi let out a deathly scream and rolled onto his side, holding his bleeding hand in agony.

“You kill me, o you kill me. I jus’ dey play wid you!” He said as Emelia picked her dress and ran frantically out the door. She was too scared to even remember she had to put it on as she ran down the street.

Kwashi, another tenant in the compound that housed Kwesi’s room had been awakened by the screams. He was just about to peep through Kwesi’s window to catch some of the action when Emelia ran out. He was slightly disappointed but ran over to the van, knowing that Ato will be in it.

Ato was so engrossed in his own thoughts that he did not see Emelia run, almost naked, across the street and into the night. But he saw Kwashi gesticulating wildly to draw his attention. He quickly lowered the volume on the radio and rolled down the window.

“Your broda,” Kwashi said breathlessly. “De woman kill am!”

Ato jumped out of the van and ran madly after Kwashi.

TO BE CONTINUED.

A token from Grandpa

2011-05-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2

He paused from his reading, marked the page with the middle finger of his left hand and tucked the book between his legs. He lay in a fetal position as hunger tore at his innards.

It didn’t help that the room was unbearably hot. The fan had stopped working again and he was tired of fixing it. After all, it only blew hot air and didn’t work long enough to merit the energy it took to get it back in action. He would have liked to take a walk but didn’t have the energy. Besides, he couldn’t take his mind off his wife and daughter and didn’t particularly relish the idea of walking the dangerous streets of Mamobi in the middle of the night whilst his mind was elsewhere.

It had been almost six months since he walked out of his marital home. It had nothing to do with his relationship with his wife. His marriage to Nana Ajoa had not been perfect. They had had their share of arguments. Curiously, however, their arguments had almost always been about her dad. Her dad was a constant presence in their home. To make matters worse, he picked any opportunity at all to show how much he hated Ato.

Ato often wondered whether any man could love a woman like the way he loved Nana Ajoa. He had no doubt that she loved him too. How else could she, one of the most beautiful women on campus while they were at Legon and the daughter of one of Ghana’s wealthiest medical practitioners, marry a man from as poor a background as his? Moreover, whilst she was reading Law, he had been reading Drama, a course which a man of science like her father frowned upon. In the beginning, Dr. Dadzie had resisted their relationship with all his wealth and might. He had even gone to the extent of ‘sponsoring’ dates between Nana Ajoa and some medical students he knew.

In the end, it was Nana Ajoa herself who had plotted the strategy that defeated her father. She deliberately got pregnant during her final year at Law School. When she approached her father about allowing Ato’s family to perform the marriage rites, he had suggested abortion instead. Finally, when the pregnancy began to show, he gave them the ‘go ahead’ to get married.

As these thoughts went through his mind, Ato felt sorry for Nana Ajoa. On the day he had walked out of the house, he had heard her sobbing. He suspected she was going to blame herself for it but he didn’t want to turn back and make Dr. Dadzie feel victorious. The encounter had began like most of the encounters he had had with the doctor, with an insult. He had just returned from a job interview that didn’t go quite well. As he walked into the living room, his daughter had jumped enthusiastically into his arms. The gesture had erased the frown of uncertainty on his face and replaced it with a loving smile.

The living room and the kitchen divided the house into two unequal halves. The front door opened into the living room which also opened into the kitchen. To the left was a door that led into the master bedroom he shared with Nana Ajoa. The door to the right opened into a small corridor with Baaba’s bedroom and the guest bathroom facing each other. Dr. Dadzie had emerged from that corridor just as Ato and Baaba were enjoying their father-daughter moment.

“Well, well, well,” said Dadzie with a sinister smile on his face. “She’s looking up to you. What kind of man should she marry when she grows up? One who shamelessly stays home to watch his wife labor to put food on the table? A man is not a man just because he knows how to impregnate a woman.”

As the doctor turned and walked contentedly away like a crocodile that had just devoured a chicken, Ato hoped he might utter another word; just one more word. Ato had not responded because he had felt protective of his daughter. He knew his father-in-law would have drifted further and further into language that was inappropriate in Baaba’s presence if he had responded. However, he was willing to cross that line had the doctor uttered another word.

At dinner that evening, Ato had his opportunity to vent. Dr. Dadzie, who had earlier agreed to dine with them, suddenly came up with the excuse that his wife would be offended if he ate out. While he was taking his leave, his granddaughter Baaba, apparently uninterested in both the food on her plate and the conversation between her mother and her grandfather, kept tapping a rhythm on the dining table with her fork. Without warning, Nana Ajoa’s hand had descended fiercely upon her daughter’s hand with a force that bounced a plate and emptied its contents onto the lap of the bewildered girl.

“What the heck did you do that for?” Ato had yelled.

“Don’t you yell at my daughter like that, bushman!” Dr. Dadzie had retorted. “She feeds and clothes you and your daughter. If you don’t have the decency to show gratitude, at least you can treat her with some respect.”

Ato jumped up suddenly, frightening all present at the table.

“Doc,” Ato said, shaking with anger. “You’re treating me as if your daughter picked me from a trash can. Didn’t I marry her? I may not have had nor do I hope to have as much money as you do but I spent all the money necessary for our wedding. I played my part fully. Today, things are not going well for me so she feeds me and my daughter, so what? Is that a taboo in your clan? I’m a man, Dr. Dadzie. Perhaps even more man than you are or ever will be. Why don’t you just leave your daughter alone? Are you not man enough to accept that she’s capable of taking care of herself? Don't you realize that we’re okay without you? Okay, alright, since you want to marry her, I’m leaving this house this minute so you can have all the incest you want!”

With those words, he had stormed out of the house with nothing except the clothes on his back. He had walked straight into this room and to his brother, Kwesi. Initially, he had pretended all was well. He used to sermonize his brother on the importance of settling down to start a family so he felt uncomfortable letting him know all wasn’t well in his own marriage. Kwesi had accepted his brother with open arms, no questions asked. He was the only brother he had and the only relative he had living in Accra.

During better days, Ato had been like a father to his brother. He fed, clothed and gave him shelter. He had tried to get him to at least finish Form Five but Kwesi had other plans. He hung out with taxi drivers, tro-tro drivers and their apprentices. Eventually, he had become a driver himself. Even then, Ato had not forsaken him. With the help of a room mate at the University who had become a big shot at a bank, Ato had raised a loan, added it to his own savings and bought a van for his brother. After six years, Kwesi had paid Ato the full cost of the van with ten per cent interest. Ato had initially protested against the interest but his brother had explained that he wanted to share his profits with his benevolent benefactor.

It’s a small world, Ato thought as he shifted again on the bed. It was a high twin bed wedged directly under a window and slightly hidden whenever the door swung open. The room itself was a twelve by twelve with only one window. Sometimes fresh air strayed in when the window was open but it hardly ever was open at night. Fresh air is good but security is even better. Keeping the room neat was not a difficult task. Odds and ends including tools, an axe and a machete were kept under the bed. Dressy clothes were kept in the drawers of a dresser next to the headboard of the bed. Clothes that have already been worn but have the potential of being worn again before being washed are hung on nails behind the door. An old suitcase that held the dirty laundry was hidden somewhere between under the bed and the door. An old table fan with a mind of its own sat on the edge of the dresser and blew air whenever it felt like it, whether it was switched on or not. There was a couch parallel to the bed and usually held dirty laundry when Kwesi was too tired to put them away in the old suitcase. It was this couch that Ato had been sleeping in for the six months he had been away from his marital home.

He glanced at a wall clock hanging above the couch. It was 11:37pm. He wondered what had kept Kwesi so long. He got off the bed, sat in the couch and tried to read again. A couple of weeks ago, they had received a message from Gomoa Potsin, their hometown, that one of their uncles had succumbed to the ravages of tuberculosis and gone to join the ancestors. It meant money. Since he had none, he had asked Kwesi to lie to the family that he had gone on a business trip abroad. He had expected Kwesi to return from the funeral on Sunday, which was the day before. He shivered as he remembered that sometimes his brother drove drunk.

He was frightened back into the present by a thunderous knock on the door.

“Who is it?”

“Ato, it’s me,” Kwesi answered in a drunken voice. Ato quickly opened the door. Kwesi staggered into the room supported by a woman Ato did not know. As soon as he fell on the bed, he began to snore.

Ato observed the woman with some awe. On several occasions, he had had the misfortune of having to drag his brother’s drunken frame from the kerb into the room and he had always considered it an arduous task. It had never occurred to him that a woman could do that.

“We’ve never met, have we?” Ato asked, noting that the woman bore a slight resemblance to his wife.

“My name is Emelia, “ she said, lowering her head somewhat embarrassedly.

Ato felt sorry for her. He looked down at Kwesi’s bulky body sprawled on the bed, its protruding belly rising and falling with his breathing. He looked again at Emelia. Women are suffering, he thought. He picked a sleeping cloth lying at the foot of the bed and moved towards the door.

“At times like this, I sleep in the van. You can call me if you need anything.”

“Thank you. He left some kenkey and fish in the van. He said he bought them for his brother. I guess that must be you.” Emelia said as she moved to sit on the couch.

“Thank you,” he said as he opened the door. “Goodnight.”

He went out and closed the door behind him.

TO BE CONTINUED.

A token from Grandpa...a story from Ghana

2011-05-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1

Nana Ajoa parked her car in the parking lot of the Accra North branch of the Ghana Posts and Telecommunications Services. She got out of the car and headed towards the IDD telephone booths. Baaba, her daughter, followed her excitedly. The technology that allowed people to make calls directly to other parts of the world was a novelty that fascinated many Ghanaians, even adults. Unfortunately, the service was not available on home phones. For Baaba, a ten year old, it also meant the ability to make her requests for sophisticated toys, beautiful clothes and candies directly to her great aunt in Chicago and promptly hear a reassurance.

The evening was young and the human traffic around the area, as usual, was dense. This particular part of Accra, proximal to the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, has commercial transport services to almost every corner of the city. Many American tourists refer to it as the ‘Times Square’ of Accra. Nana Ajoa would have loved to make her call earlier in the day when the traffic was much thinner but her aunt, Mabel, had a busy schedule and had pointed out that 6:30pm Ghana time was the best time to reach her. Aunty Mabel, like her brother, Nana Ajoa’s father, was in the Medical profession. But she was a registered nurse whilst her brother was an MD. Being her father’s only child, Nana Ajoa had no one closer to a sister, growing up, than her father’s younger sister.

Surprisingly, none of the phone booths were occupied. Nana Ajoa entered the first one and checked for a dial tone. She dialed her aunt’s number, put the receiver to her ear and turned to look at her daughter. But Baaba was not in the booth with her. She transferred the receiver into her right hand and pushed the door with her left hand. The door wouldn’t budge. She began to panic. She replaced the receiver on the hook and pushed the door with all her might. A passerby saw her struggling with the door and came to let her out.

She realized that a stick had been propped into the door handle to trap her in the booth. She thought her daughter had played a prank on her so she started thinking of appropriate punishment even as she stepped out of the booth and looked around for her. Her anxiety deepened as she searched futilely for her daughter. Suddenly, someone handed her a piece of paper and disappeared into the crowd. She tried to follow the person but realized she didn’t even know if whoever it was had been male or female. She looked at the paper in her hand. It read;

‘If you want your daughter back alive, don’t call the Police. Go home and wait for instructions.’

Nana Ajoa sat down on the floor, leaned her back against the booth and wept from the bottom of her heart.

TO BE CONTINUED.