Sankofa(53)

The plates from last night’s meal had been cleared. Someone had come while I was sleeping. I dialed Sule.

“Good morning. How was your night?”

“Fine, thank you,” I said. “I’d like the key to my room, please.”

“Of course.”

“What is Kofi doing today?”

“Sir Kofi is sitting in congress this morning.”

“What’s that?”

“He holds congress in the village of Gbadolite. The villagers come with their disputes and he settles them. It is an old African way of doing things.”

“I’d like to see it,” I said. “Please. If that’s not too much trouble,” I added. He was Kofi’s manservant, not mine.

“I can arrange a car for you. It is open to the public, but we are leaving soon. Have you taken breakfast?”

“I don’t need to. I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes. Please can you send someone to fetch me? I’m not used to the building.”

We sped out of Gbadolite in a convoy of black Mercedes, police escorts at the head and rear. The other drivers pulled over to let us pass, smaller beasts scattering from a charging bull. We slowed when we turned onto a narrow side road. It was lined with people fluttering handkerchiefs and palm fronds. I wound down the window.

“Madam, please wind up for your security,” my driver said. We were alone in the car. His glasses and the windows were tinted the same shade. The faces outside seemed benign but I obeyed his order.

The congress was held in a large earthen square. The villagers were already waiting. They were dressed in a homespun fabric I recognized from the markets of Segu, a coarse cotton called kafa, dyed in primary colors, sewn into smocks, loose trousers, stiff blouses and wrappers. Their clothes contrasted sharply with their skin. Music played from a loudspeaker while hawkers drifted through the crowd with food. It had the feel of a fête. Kofi emerged from his car, a kente robe draped over his shoulder. His chest was bare, one nipple exposed. Sule walked behind him, shading him with a fringed umbrella. The villagers began to cheer.

“Daasebre!”

He responded with a clenched fist. A woman with a bundle broke past the cordon. Guards moved to restrain her, but Kofi waved them away. The bundle was a baby. She knelt. Kofi blessed the child, or at least touched it, his palm covering the face. She was overcome with emotion. She could not stand. She was lifted to her feet, supported by two guards.

“Daasebre!”

They would not stop until he had taken his place on the raised wooden throne, until his feet had been covered with a leopard skin, until he lifted his hands for them to be quiet.

I had never seen a black man presented in public like my father, regal, beloved. I was suspicious of populism, cynical of emotional display in politics, and yet I felt pride rising in me.

I stood in the crowd. For once, I was not the spectacle. There was no time to ogle at an obroni when a troupe of acrobats performed. They wore bells on their ankles, their feet tinkling like courtesans. At the end of their routine they stacked themselves in a pyramid, holding the pose for a few seconds before collapsing into individual human units.

If I were to paint this scene, what would my subject be? Kofi on his wooden throne was an obvious choice but I did not want to paint him as a king. In time, perhaps, I might make a more intimate, vulnerable portrait, but today, if I had an easel and canvas and paints, I would choose the crowd in their primary colors. I would use quick, sharp brushstrokes to give the piece movement. Perhaps Sule might be able to find some art supplies for me. He seemed the person to ask.

When the formal proceedings began, I grew restless. Few claimants spoke English, or spoke an English that was recognizable to me. I could pick out only a few words: for land, property, in-law. The ground was littered with fruit peelings and sweet wrappers dropped from careless fingers. Flies were drawn to the food remains. I felt like an animal trapped in the warm center of a herd. I struggled to the edge of the square.

“Hello. What brings you to Gbadolite?” The woman who spoke to me wore trousers in contrast with the other women present. Her weave was dyed auburn and pixie-cut. The frames of her glasses slanted into cat eyes and her fingernails were painted green. I could not blend in, and she did not want to.

“I am a guest of Sir Kofi.”

“Yes, he flies in foreign journalists to write about his white elephant. I know all about that. Have you seen the zoo? Did you feed the giraffes?” she asked. Her tone was mocking but with good humor. “You obroni like that. A newspaper in New York called it an African center of culture. What culture? I tell you, it’s a curse when a former president thinks he’s an intellectual.”

“What do you do?” I asked. She seemed close to Rose’s age and I wanted her to keep talking. She was the first young person I had spoken to in Bamana.

“I work with an NGO, Bright Futures. We support children’s rights in the region and advocate against child abuse. We say no to their oppression.”

The words were practiced, said by rote, but her zeal felt fresh, unwrapped today. I had not felt strongly about anything in years.

“Did you see the crocodiles?” she asked.

“Pardon?”

“The crocodiles, at the palace?”

“Yes, I did.”

“They say he fed his enemies to them in the nineties. Maybe you can put that in your article. What paper did you say you write for again?”