Sankofa(76)

“I’m sorry about your experience in prison,” Kofi said.

“It wasn’t your fault, and I survived. Like you.”

“Hardly comparable. I was in prison for years, and I didn’t have a cell to myself.”

His lips and cheeks were shiny from the fat in the meat. He glistened in the firelight like an idol.

“Who told you?” I asked.

“What?”

“Who told you that I had a cell to myself?”

“Oh, Sule.”

“I didn’t mention it to Sule.”

“Someone else, then. I can’t remember.”

Kweku was the only person I’d told. Kofi could not forget his own son, a son that he had also imprisoned. It was suddenly obvious and clear.

“It was you. You’re the reason I can’t leave the country.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You had me put in prison, just like you put Kweku in prison when he crossed you.”

“I didn’t know you and Kweku were so close already.”

“You admit it?”

“Well, you wanted a taste of the real Bamana, running around and finding stories about child witches. I thought you might enjoy a night in jail.”

“They were right. You are the crocodile.”

I was close enough to strike him. If he thought he was vulnerable, he did not show it.

“Spare me the sanctimony. Flying in my private plane, eating at my table, sleeping in my hotel, everything paid for by me and you want to play the human rights activist.”

“Adrian warned me about you.”

“What do you know about him? That traitor. He betrayed Menelik. He betrayed us all. It was only decades after the fact that we discovered it.”

“He said he wasn’t a spy.”

“And you believed him? His intelligence days are over, but in the seventies he was instrumental in destroying the radical black left.”

“But you agreed to see him.”

“Because I know how to leave matters in the past, where they belong. I was going to give you this, but clearly you cannot handle the weight of history.”

He had carried Francis Aggrey’s diary all the way from Segu, perhaps in the glove compartment or even on his person, slipped into his trousers and held in place by his waistband. He held it now, its sudden appearance a sleight of hand.

He ripped a page out and dropped it into the fire.

“Don’t,” I said.

“Why not?”

“The man who wrote that diary would spit on you.”

“I am the man who wrote this diary. I am the man who grew up and discovered you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

He ripped out another page and another. It was violence against the past, against Francis Aggrey, my real father.

“Stop.”

“It is my image. It is my right.”

The pages glowed brighter than the rest of the flames, like thin sheets of gold. I emptied what was left of my water on the fire. It shrank but did not die. I stamped on the tiny flames, the heat rising through my rubber soles. I kicked at the ash, scattering it, but the pages were gone. My father’s words had disappeared. Kofi was staring at me.

“You looked like a phoenix. Take it. Take the rest. I’m done.”

I took the diary from him. It felt lighter. I was about to speak when something crashed in the bush. We were still for a moment.

“You shouldn’t have put out the fire completely. The embers scare off wild animals. Come, Anna. Enough of quarrels. It was wrong for me to have you arrested.”

“It seems a rite of passage for your children.”

“At least your sense of humor was not damaged. All right, strike me.”

“Pardon?”

“Strike me in return. For the blow that was dealt in the course of your arrest. An eye for an eye. You were not meant to be harmed in any way.”

He stood with his arms on either side of him, palms upwards like a figure of Christ. It was melodramatic and ridiculous.

“I’m not going to hit you.”

“Well, then, it’s time to sleep. I will sleep outside. We often slept under the stars.” He walked back to the car, away from confrontation. He returned with blankets and bedding. I took my bedding from him and went into the tent. When I lay down, the embroidery of my boubou itched against my neck. He had jailed me and then rescued me. He had freed Bamana and then bound the country in his own chains. It was his pattern, the ying and the yang, Francis and Kofi in one person.

I woke up in the middle of the night. The tent was claustrophobic. I dragged my pallet outside and lay down a few paces from Kofi. I fell asleep to the sound of his breathing, wheezing through his nostrils. The air still smelt of burned paper.





29


I woke up with the sunrise. Birds trilled out of sight, filling the air with sound. Kofi was lying with his eyes open. He turned his head when he saw me stir.

“I’ve been waiting for you. There is a jar of Robb in the glove compartment. Bring it for me.”

I took the keys from his outstretched hand. The SUV was shiny and unnatural in the daytime, its hard lines contrasting with the curves of the bush. I could drive off and leave him. He would either die or discover a way to survive.