Sankofa(70)

“I’ve been here longer than expected and I still don’t really know my father. Sometimes he’s kind to me. Sometimes he ignores me. I don’t see any part of myself in him. The man from his old diary is gone.”

“He did write it a long time ago. My twenty-year-old self wouldn’t recognize me, either. She’d be quite disappointed I haven’t ended up a CEO.”

This is the common sense I called Katherine for. She is right. Francis Aggrey is a man in the past, a man I can never meet. Why go on pining for him?

“Does he have a wife? Other children?” she asks.

“I’ve met one of his daughters. We didn’t get on. I fared a bit better with my half brother.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Come back. Once I can.”

“Is there anything stopping you?”

I don’t want to worry her. I am safe in Kofi’s house now.

“Some paperwork. It’ll be sorted soon,” I say.

“You know, you’re so brave. Traveling all that way and staying so long. I couldn’t do it.”

“You could,” I say.

“Just to let you know I’ve been keeping an eye on your house. Everything looks fine.”

“Thank you.”

There is a moment of dead air. The call has come to its natural end.

“It’s been so good to hear from you. Let me know when you get back,” she says.

“I will.”

“Bye now.”

I feel better. My house is in order and I have a place to return to. With the time I have left in Bamana I must know Kofi for who he is now, or not know him at all.

I shower. Yesterday’s towel is damp and so I pace around the room naked, like a tethered animal. The room is a store for curious things: a large vase in the Ming style, fired in a man-sized kiln, white and faintly luminous; a set of sofas upholstered in kafa, patriotic and homegrown; masks on the walls, and one abstract painting of grey, blue, and green swirls. I put on my dressing gown and stand close to the canvas, studying the thickly piled pigment.

“Knock, knock.”

My brother is in my room. I don’t know how long he has been here. Despite his size, he moves as silently as our father. I knot my robe a second time.

“Kweku.”

“Your face.”

“What about it?”

“Is more beautiful than ever.”

He joins me in front of the painting.

“A gift from the prime minister of Canada. They say it’s of a woman’s body. You have to stand upside down to see her. How are you?”

“A little shaken but I’m fine.”

“What reason did they give?”

“They thought I was a spy.”

“You? How?”

“They said there are no official records of my Bamanaian passport. Kofi thinks President Owusu was behind it.”

“I see. Do you call Papa ‘Kofi’ to his face?”

“Yes.” He is not my Daasebre.

“Come, let’s sit down. You shouldn’t be standing for too long.”

We sit on one of the kafa sofas. They are overstuffed and hard.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“I’d rather not.”

“I’ve been arrested before,” he says.

“Why?”

“I crashed one car too many the year I turned eighteen. Papa had me put in jail for a week. To cool my heels, he said.” Kweku smiles at the memory.

“What did your mother do?”

“She tried to stop him, of course. That’s the problem when your husband is head of the house and head of the country. You don’t know who’s punishing your son. The president or the father of your child. It wasn’t so bad. I had the cell to myself.”

“So did I.”

“Yes. Papa’s name still carries enough weight to get you a good jail cell.”

He jokes often about our father, but the humor is black. It is not easy being Kofi Adjei’s eldest son.

“I heard he’s running in the next election,” I say.

“Is he? Who knows with Papa? I told Benita and Kwabena about you. Your other siblings.”

“What did they say?”

“We’ve always thought it couldn’t just be the four of us. It’s unusual for a man of Papa’s status to have only one wife . . . but we didn’t expect it to be an older sibling.”

“What are they like?”

“Benita, I think you would get on with. She speaks her mind. She’s an artist. I have a few of her pieces—twisted wire and paint splattered on canvas. I don’t understand it myself but it’s very popular in Sweden. Kwabena is our human rights UN advocate. Too self-righteous for us all, even Benita. Papa’s children that can stand him live in Bamana, and those that can’t live abroad.”

He leans back into the chair. He is the right size for the room, built to the same scale as some of the other objects.

“So did you apologize to him?” he asked.

“To who?”

“Papa.”

“For what?” I said.

“Telling him Francis Aggrey would be disappointed in him.”

“Should I?”