Sankofa(20)

But at twenty-two, it was Robert’s assurance that was attractive. I let him choose and choose, until I became like one of those religious people with their mantra tattooed on their wrist: What would Robert do? This instinct to confide in him, where will it go when we are divorced?

“I found my father,” I say, against my better instincts. “He’s alive and he lives in Bamana. It’s a small country in West Africa.”

“I didn’t know you were looking for him. That’s great, Anna.”

“Is it? You never asked about him,” I say.

“I thought he and your mother lost touch after he left England.”

“But you never asked me. We could have tried to find him.”

“I didn’t know it was something you wanted,” he says.

“Or you didn’t want a black father-in-law?”

“That’s not fair, Anna. I love that our family is diverse.”

His phrasing is odd. Diverse, like a family in a brochure, strangers assembled and told to smile.

“All right. We could go there to meet him,” he says. “I could take the time off work. The next two months are pretty busy, but after that my schedule is light. I’ve always wanted to go to Africa.”

“No,” I say, puncturing his excitement before it overwhelms me. “I need to decide things for myself.”

“Of course.”

I feel churlish. It is Robert’s way to rush to the center of things. He does not always mean harm.

“Thank you for the offer,” I say.

“How’s Rose? She still won’t really speak to me. Do you see her?”

“Sometimes,” I say.

“How’s she looking?”

“Fine,” I say. “A bit peaky after her trip to India. Food poisoning, I think, but fine.”

“Right. Maybe I’ll pop by her flat this weekend.”

It was Robert who noticed Rose’s eating. She was sixteen the first time she stopped. It was like a virus sweeping through her school, a plague of eating disorders: all those young, striving girls determined to starve. It was Robert who pointed out the slimness that slid into thinness, Robert who took her to the hospital, Robert who wanted to be married, wanted to be a father.

“I should go,” Robert says. His tea is finished, and our conversation has dried up. I should offer protest, but I am ready for him to leave. He has unbalanced the mood of my house.

“Thank you for the flowers.”

He has been drinking. I smell it when he hugs me. Not in the past hour, and I hope not alone, but it is no longer my concern. I am becoming someone apart from Robert, a process from which I now believe I will emerge mostly upright.

When he is gone, I check my in-box and see a new message.


Dear Ms. Bain,

Thank you for getting in touch. That would certainly be a historical find. Kofi, or Francis, as he was known then, was privy to the inner circle of prominent black intellectuals and nationalists living in London at the time. I myself knew him while he was a student.

I would have to read the contents of the diary to judge if it were an original. Even then, it might be a carefully doctored fake. These hoaxes have been known to exist.

Perhaps we could arrange a meeting, if you were willing to visit Edinburgh? Where are you based?


Regards,

Adrian





10


My train was scheduled to depart at 7:00 a.m. I left home at 5:30, when the street was still dark. There were sensors outside most houses and lights flashed on as I walked past, set off by my movement. On the tube workmen slumped in a row, orange high-vis jackets powdered with construction dust. Two were awake and speaking softly in Polish.

In King’s Cross Station travelers stood with their heads tilted up to the electronic boards. My platform was not displayed. I bought a coffee and a pastry. Still no platform. I hovered in the aisles of WHSmith, stepping aside for more decisive customers. Finally, I chose a magazine with a maturing cover girl, more vigorous than youthful. Platform 7.

The carriage was warm, my window seat narrow. At 7:00 the train jerked forward. We sped past empty glass buildings, open-plan floors, vacant desks. There were apartment blocks painted in primary colors, designed by architects who obviously enjoyed playing with Lego. I saw bicycles on balconies, a naked face at a bathroom window, stacks of council housing, shopkeepers rolling up metal grilles, a boy in a hoodie pedaling sharply around a corner. Moments later, we burst out of London and into brown fields where trees and pylons dominated the skyline.

I searched flights to Bamana on my phone; prices began at seven hundred pounds with an eight-hour layover in Istanbul. Decent hotels—hotels with clean bathrooms and fresh linen, hotels with three-star reviews and above—started at a hundred pounds a night. I might be able to afford it all with a credit card. Three weeks was how long I imagined I would need to find Francis/Kofi, to meet him, to establish some sort of relationship.

I looked down at the magazine. It was wrapped in a plastic film that would choke a dolphin in six months. For every page of content, there were at least two of adverts. Mixed-race models abounded, our khaki skin en vogue now. I was once as pretty as these girls, prettier perhaps, but without knowing it. I was born before my time.

The cover woman was a pop star from the eighties, now retired to the countryside. They had photographed her in her garden with loose clothing and minimal makeup. Beside this was a smaller picture of her on stage, twenty years younger and wearing a leotard. Even with no one watching, she was still reinventing herself.