Homegoing(39)

James nodded, trying to see her through the doctor’s eyes.

“Your grandfather was so excited to marry her. I remember the night before she was to come to the Castle, we took James over to the company store just as the sun was going down and drank up almost all of the new liquor shipment. James had to tell the bosses back in England that the ship that had transported the liquor had sunk or been taken over by pirates. Something like that. It was a great night for all of us. A little rabble-rousing in Africa.” A dreamy look came over his face, and James wondered if the old man had gotten the adventure he seemed to have been chasing here in the Gold Coast.

In a month, James would get what he had been chasing. The call came in the middle of the night. Fast-paced, high-pitched panting and shrieking as the watchmen of Efutu went from hut to hut, shouting that the Asantes were coming. The British and Fante armies stationed there sent out word for backup to join them, but the panic in the watchmen’s eyes told James that the Asantes were closer than any help could be. Already by that point, villages throughout Fanteland, Ga-land, and Denkyira had been living in fear of Asante raids. British soldiers had been stationed intermittently in the towns and villages surrounding Cape Coast. Their goal was to keep the Asantes from storming the Castle, lest they do it successfully, but Efutu, only a week’s journey from the Coast, was far too close for comfort.

“You must run!” James shouted at the White Doctor. The old man had lit a palm oil lamp next to his cot and pulled out a leather-bound book, reading with his spectacles perched at the tip of his nose. “They will kill you when they see you. They will not care that you are old.”

The White Doctor turned the page. He didn’t look up at James as he waved goodbye.

James shook his head and left the hut. Mampanyin had told him that he would know what to do when the time came, and yet here he was, so panicked that he could hardly breathe. He could feel the warm liquid traveling down his legs as he ran. He could not think. He could not think quickly enough to devise a plan, and before he knew it, shots were being fired all around him. The birds took flight, a black and red and blue and green cloud of wings, ascending. James wanted to hide. He couldn’t remember what had been so bad about his old life. He could learn to love Amma. He’d spent so much time seeing the bad in his parents’ marriage that he’d assumed there had to be something better. What if there wasn’t? He had trusted a witch with his happiness. With his life. Now he would surely die.

—



James woke up in the bush of some unknown forest. His arms and legs ached, and his head felt as though it had been beaten by a rock. He sat there, disoriented, for countless minutes. Then an Asante warrior was beside him, so quiet in his approach that James did not notice him until he was standing over him.

“You are not dead?” the warrior asked. “Are you hurt?”

How could James tell a warrior like this that he had a headache? He said no.

“You are Osei Bonsu’s grandson, are you not? I remember you from his funeral. I have never forgotten a face.”

James wished he would lower his voice, but he didn’t say anything.

“What were you doing in Efutu?” the warrior asked.

“Does anyone know I’m alive?” James asked, ignoring the man’s question.

“No, a warrior hit your head with a rock. You didn’t move, so they threw you in the dead pile. We aren’t supposed to touch the pile, but I recognized your face and took you out so that I could send your body back to your people. I hid you here so no one would know I touched the dead. I didn’t know you were still alive.”

“Listen to me. I died in this war,” James said.

The man’s eyes grew so wide they looked like echoes of the moon. “What?”

“You must tell everyone that I died in this war. Will you do that?”



The warrior shook his head. He said no over and over and over again, but ultimately he would do it. James knew he would do it. And when he did, it would be the last time James would ever use his power to make another do his bidding.

For the rest of the month, James traveled to Asanteland. He slept in caves and hid in trees. He asked for help when he saw people in the bushland, telling them he was a lowly farmer who had gotten lost. And when he finally got to Akosua, on the fortieth day of his travels, he found her waiting for him.





Kojo





SOMEBODY HAD ROBBED old Alice, which meant the police would come sniffing around the boat, asking all the ship workers if they knew anything about it. Jo’s reputation was spotless. He’d been working on the ships in Fell’s Point for nearly two years and had never given anybody any trouble. But still, whenever a boat was robbed, all the black dockworkers were rounded up and questioned. Jo was tired of it. He was always jumpy around police, or anyone in uniform. Even the appearance of the postman had once sent him running behind a lace curtain. Ma Aku said he’d been like this since their days in the woods, running from catchers, from town to town, until they’d hit the safe house in Maryland.

“Cover for me, would ya, Poot?” Jo asked his friend, but he knew the police wouldn’t miss him. They couldn’t tell one black face from another. Poot would answer when they called his own name and then answer when they called Jo’s too, and they wouldn’t know the difference.