Sankofa(21)

I leaned my head against the glass. The windowpane would flatten one side of my hair. I would need to fluff it up with my fingers before we reached Edinburgh.

I had stopped straightening my hair when Rose went to secondary school. Robert was shocked by my new curls, not quite an afro in the round mushroom style, but still too thick for him to run his hands through when we had sex. He grew to love it, he said, even though it meant people stopped asking if his wife was Mediterranean.



I woke to rain falling soundlessly. Droplets raced across the window. The view of scraped fields was blurred. I had a one o’clock appointment with Adrian Bennett, professor of postcolonial history at the University of Edinburgh. He had written other books. He had married and had two children. He had taught at Harvard and spent a year at Makarere in Uganda. There was a photograph of him on the university website, squinting and silver-haired, and an e-mail address.

After his first response, I suggested a meeting time. He replied by asking about my university affiliation. Professor Bennett, it seemed, had become cautious in his old age: not the Adrian of his memoir, held at gunpoint by a Bamanaian police officer on suspicion of being a spy. I told him I was an “independent researcher of Welsh and Bamanaian origin.” I hinted at a possible family connection to Kofi. The date and time were fixed.

In the week leading up to our meeting, I returned to the British Library. I went to church with Katherine but left before the sermon. I watched a YouTube video of Kofi Adjei speaking at some sort of rally in 1988, a decade into his rule. He was flamboyantly dressed: gold buttons, silk pocket square, and a leopard-skin hat angled forward. The crowd cheered after almost every sentence, stopping only when he raised his hands to quiet them.

I read Amnesty International reports and looked at its human rights rankings. Bamana’s position was nearer North Korea’s than Sweden’s. Freedom of speech was a flexible concept. Outspoken journalists were regularly detained. I reread Kofi’s Wikipedia page and lingered at the section titled “Controversies.”


In May 1988 five student activists, known as the Kinnakro Five, were shot dead on the campus of the Kinnakro University of Science and Technology after agitating for President Adjei to resign. It has been alleged that Adjei is linked to their deaths, although he has never been charged and no evidence has been brought forward.



I clicked on Kinnakro Five. Their brief entry began with a disclaimer: Additional citations required for verification. Someone had pasted their head shots into one photograph: five close-ups that looked like mug shots. They seemed young to have been in university—only one had a beard, the rest as hairless as my palms. They were shot at close range in the dorm room of Patrick Dumelo, their leader. Three of them had bullet wounds to the head, faces mutilated, closed-casket funerals. The authorities said it was an armed robbery. Nothing was stolen, not even the brand-new Walkman that Patrick’s uncle had sent him from Hamburg.

The man in the diary was my father and the man on Wikipedia was also my father. If he had done what the internet alleged, then he was to be feared, not sought out. I was repelled by Kofi and drawn to Francis.

Eighteen months ago, I would not have traveled so far to meet a man who had known Francis Aggrey. Eighteen months ago, I was Robert’s wife, and that came with its own preoccupations, an entire set of people and holidays and activities that I now see had everything to do with Robert and nothing to do with me. But there was an Anna Bain before there was an Anna Graham, perhaps the real Anna, the interrupted Anna who had always been curious about her father, maybe even desperate for him. And who was this Anna, hurtling towards Edinburgh? Anna unrooted and untethered, free and lost as a balloon in the sky.

The train broke into some sunshine. We were by the coast. A lone figure walked on a beach. A dog ran ahead. Beside me the snacks trolley rolled past in the aisle.



“Welcome to Edinburgh Waverley. Please remember to take all your belongings with you as you leave the train. We wish you a pleasant onward journey.”

The station is named for a novel by Sir Walter Scott, a historical romance. The streets are paved with cobblestones: beautiful to look at, impractical for modern transport. I bounce in the back of my taxi. I cannot understand my driver’s accent. I let him keep the change.

I stand at the cafeteria entrance watching the student life drift in and out. The fare is better than I remember from my own time at university—a salad bar, five dessert options, gluten-free, Halal, vegan, and the price of all this choice written in bold. Everyone knows what to do. They pick up trays, read menus, queue and pay, only briefly looking up from their phones. I walk around until I see Adrian seated in a window booth. I recognize the silver hair. I draw closer.

“Anna?” he asks.

I can still walk past.

“I beg your pardon. I’m expecting an Anna Bain.”

“I’m Anna. Are you Professor Bennett?”

“Adrian is fine.”

He stands to shake my hand. He is tall and his belly is flat under the checked shirt tucked into his dark jeans. He rises with ease and his grip is strong.

“I hope you had a pleasant trip from London. Will you be staying long?”

“I leave this evening,” I say.

“In your e-mail you mentioned some family business?”

“This is it.”

“Of course. You have a family connection to Francis,” he says. “Can I offer you anything? A cup of tea or a coffee?”