Wife of the Gods (32 page)

“Yes, yes, it’s all right. I believe you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing. Auntie Osewa, I might have to live
with you and get fat.”

She laughed, leaned over, and pinched his cheek. “You’re a sweet
boy.”

He smiled. Still a boy to her.

♦

Dawson did not have to tackle the police station to find Gyamfi
because, as he was on the way into town, the constable called him
to say he was headed to Auntie Osewa’s to see Dawson. They met
about halfway and found a quiet spot to talk.

“Did you find out anything?” Dawson asked.

“Yes,” Gyamfi said. “The last evening Gladys was seen alive,
Adzima had had a quarrel with her – you know that already. Now,
after he got angry with his wives and started to beat them up, a
cousin of his comes to Bedome and asks him why he’s making so much
trouble and tells him to come to Ketanu to drink beer.”

“Who is the cousin? Do you know him?”

“Now I do. The cousin brought him to Jesus My Soul Chop Bar, and
they ate
chinchinga
and drank beer and got drunk.”

Dawson’s heart was sinking again. “He was with the cousin all
the time?”

“Yes. And that cousin has some friends who sat and drank with
them also, and I found one of them and the stories agree. They
drank till late, and then Adzima went back to Bedome drunk.”

Just as with Timothy Sowah, the chance that Adzima had killed
Gladys was dwindling quickly.

“What about the bracelet?” Dawson asked, without enthusiasm. It
didn’t make much difference at this point.

“That I had a little more trouble with,” Gyamfi said. “I told
Togbe that some boys from Ketanu got to the body first after Efia
had left, and that when they heard Togbe coming, they ran and hid
and saw him steal the bracelet. He denied and denied it until I
told him Inspector Fiti and I would take him to Ho Central Prison.
Then he confessed.”

“What did he do with the bracelet? Does he still have it?”

“No, he sold it to a trader in Ho. I will try to get it
back.”

“Thank you, Gyamfi.”

Dawson clasped the constable’s hands, and their eyes met
warmly.

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

A
untie Osewa’s meal
that night was rice and grilled tilapia spiced with ginger and hot
pepper, with slivers of ripe plantain fried in palm oil until
crispy. They ate outside by lantern light and talked. Alifoe was
quite the comedian. As Dawson recovered from a stitch in his side
from laughing, Uncle Kweku turned to his wife. “Darko sounds so
much like his mother when he laughs,” he said to her.

“Really?” Dawson said. “No one has ever told me that.”

“I always thought the same thing,” Osewa said quietly. “But I
didn’t want to say so in case it brought sadness to you,
Darko.”

“No,” he said. “On the contrary.”

“What happened to Auntie Beatrice?” Alifoe asked.

“Alifoe,” Osewa said sharply.

“It’s okay,” Dawson said. “No one knows what happened, Alifoe. I
was twelve years old, and you were a baby, of course. After you
were born, she came twice to visit. The second time, she stayed a
few days and then she said she was going back to Accra. She never
arrived home.”

“What could have happened? Maybe the tro-tro had an
accident?”

Dawson shook his head. “That was checked by the detective
assigned to the case. There were no accidents between Ketanu and
Accra that day.”

Alifoe looked perplexed. “Then she must have got off somewhere
on the way.”

“That we don’t know,” Dawson said. “But why would she do
that?”

“Are we even sure she got
on
?” Alifoe persisted.

“Of course we’re sure,” Auntie Osewa said, sounding irritated.
“How many times do I have to tell people that it was me who went
with her to the tro-tro stop to see her off?”

“I’m sorry, Mama,” Alifoe said. “I didn’t know that.”

“Tell us about it, Auntie Osewa,” Dawson said. Now was as good a
time as any.

“It was before noontime,” she began. “She wanted to get home a
little early, so she didn’t want to wait until the afternoon to
start out for Accra. Do you remember that, Kweku?”

He nodded in agreement.

“So anyway,” Auntie Osewa continued, “we walked to the bus stop
talking and laughing. She seemed so happy. Even when she talked
about Cairo she was cheerful. Both of us were happy together, and
we agreed I should visit Accra and bring Alifoe when he got a
little older. When we got to the stop, I wanted to be certain she
got a tro-tro that was safe, so I let the first one go on because
it was a broken-down old boneshaker, but the second one was all
right. I made sure she got a good seat at the front near the
driver, and then we kissed good-bye.”

“And that was the last you saw of her?” Alifoe asked.

“Yes,” Auntie Osewa said sadly.

Dawson had stopped eating. He felt sick.

“Darko?” Auntie Osewa said. “Are you okay?”

He looked at her without seeing all her face. Had he heard her
right?

“You said Mama sat at the front of the tro-tro?” he asked. His
voice sounded distant and small.

Auntie Osewa looked quizzically at him, hesitating. “Yes, that’s
right. Why are you asking me that?”

Dawson’s blood turned chilly. What his aunt had just said could
not have been. She must have had a false memory of what had
happened.

Or she was lying.

Mama had always been scared to death of sitting in the front
section of a tro-tro. She wouldn’t do it. What did she always say?
If there’s an accident, I don’t want you flying through the
windscreen. Nor me
.

♦

They went to bed late. Dawson lay on his back in Alifoe’s room
with one arm crooked under his head as he stared up in the darkness
and his thoughts roamed. Nothing felt right to him. What Auntie had
said was twisting in his mind like a fish on a hook.
A good seat
at the front of the tro-tro…at the front…at the front
. That
phrase over and over. Memories of his boyhood visit to Ketanu
flooded back. Something had been wrong back then too.

Sitting at that table in Auntie Osewa’s house and eating her
delicious meal while the grownups chatted about things that bored
Darko and his brother stiff…and then suddenly, Mr. Kutu’s fleeting
look at Mama. Dawson remembered it clearly. Mama’s eyes had met
Kutu’s in a snatched instant so brief that no one would have
expected it to bear a message. But it did, and Auntie Osewa had
read it and understood. In turn, Darko had seen everything. One,
two, three stolen glances whose meaning disturbed him without his
quite knowing why.

What about later that evening, as they played oware? Auntie
Osewa had disappeared for a while.
To set the rabbit traps
,
she had said, and the quality of her voice had felt so strange to
Dawson that he had looked at her in surprise.

“Cousin Darko?”

Dawson lifted his head in surprise. He had thought Alifoe was
asleep.

“Yes?”

“You’re not sleepy?”

“I never sleep well.”

“Oh.”

“Something wrong?”

“No, nothing.”

Dawson waited. He knew there was more.

“Cousin Darko, have you ever kept something inside you that you
wished you could tell someone but you didn’t know whom to
trust?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“And when you find someone you trust, you feel like telling
him?”

“Whom do you trust?”

“You.”

“Thank you.”

“What would you do…I mean, how would you feel if you knew your
mother and father didn’t love each other?”

“Mine didn’t.”

“Really?” Alifoe sat up in the dark. “It’s the same with Mama
and Papa. I want to see them love each other, but it never
happens.”

“And you can’t make it happen either. That’s what you mustn’t
forget. If they fell out of love at one time, only they can get
themselves back in.”

“Do you think I shouldn’t care so much about it?”

“You can care as much as you want, but don’t let it stop your
life.”

Alifoe lay down again.

“Do you feel any better?” Dawson said.

“Yes, I do. Thank you, Darko.”

♦

As soon as the first cock crowed in the morning, Dawson’s eyes
popped open. He had been dreaming he was forcing his mother into
the front seat of a tro-tro and she was screaming at him to let her
go.

He looked at his watch. Five forty-five. Alifoe was still fast
asleep.

Dawson got dressed and went out to the courtyard to find Auntie
Osewa starting a fire for breakfast.

“Morning, Auntie.”

“Morning, Darko. Did you sleep well?”

“I did, thank you,” he lied.

“Good. Would you like to take some breakfast?”

“I would love to. Can I wash first?”

“Yes, I filled two buckets for you, and there is soap there
too.”

First he went to the pit latrine – a necessary evil – and then
he took a refreshing bucket bath.

As he ate breakfast, Auntie Osewa was chatty and Dawson did his
best to respond in kind, but he felt as though a two-way mirror had
gone up between them. Auntie was on one side seeing her reflection
and talking through it to Dawson, who was on the other side looking
at her.

“So,” she said, “what will you be doing today?”

“To start, I have to go and meet with Efia,” he said.

“That’s the one who found the body? One of Adzima’s wives?”

“Yes.”

“It must have been terrible for her when she found it,” she
reflected.

“It was. It’s affected her deeply, probably for life.”

He finished breakfast quickly and stood up. “Thank you, Auntie.
It was delicious. I’d best be going now.”

♦

Dawson walked the footpath between Ketanu and Bedome, and as he
came to the farm plots, he spotted Efia and Ama hoeing the soil
along with a few other farmers. Efia waved at him as he came up to
them.

“Morning, Efia. Morning, Ama.”

“Morning, morning, Mr. Dawson.” They spoke and smiled
simultaneously, just like twins. Both were sweating, Efia a little
more.

“How goes it, Efia?” Dawson asked.

“Fine,” she said. “I’m so happy to see you. They told me you
were going to leave Ketanu, and I was feeling so sad.”

“Who told you?”

“That man from Accra – Mr. Chikata?”

“Oh, yes. He’s my workmate. They told him to take over the case
from me.”

“Why?”

“Because…Well, it doesn’t matter. Can you help me a little
bit?”

“But of course.”

“I hope you don’t mind, but could you show me the way you left
the forest after you found Gladys dead, and also exactly where you
saw Mr. Kutu? Do you have time?”

“Yes, I can come.”

She handed Ama her hoe. “I’ll be back soon,” she told her
daughter.

Dawson and Efia walked back toward the footpath.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Togbe Adzima,” Dawson
said.

“Yes?”

“Did one of his wives die last year?”

“Yes. Her name was Comfort.”

“She died of AIDS?”

“I don’t know. They said she was cursed.”

“Efia, if it was AIDS, then it was Togbe Adzima who gave it to
her.”

She frowned as they turned onto the Bedome-Ketanu path, her head
down as she thought about the implications.

Dawson’s heart was in his mouth as he prepared to ask the next
question.

“Efia, did Gladys do a blood test on you? For AIDS?”

“Yes, and she said it was okay.”

Dawson breathed again. “I know it would be very difficult for
you, but if there’s any way you can avoid Togbe Adzima being with
you, any way at all. You and all of the wives – especially the new
one.”

Efia was troubled. “I don’t know what to do. The only thing that
works sometimes is when he drinks too much.”

“I’ll buy him a gallon of schnapps then,” Dawson said, “and you
can feed it to him every day.”

They looked at each other and laughed.

She slowed her pace.

“Mr. Kutu was somewhere here when I saw him,” she said, making a
circular motion with her hand.

Dawson nodded. “And how far away were you from here?”

“Down there.” She pointed. “I’ll show you.”

“Was he walking toward you or away from you?”

“Away.”

They went farther down the footpath. Two women talking to each
other went by them with cassavas balanced on their heads, and
Dawson and Efia wished them good morning.

“I came out from here.” Efia showed Dawson.

There was a break in the bushy vegetation, and Dawson recognized
it as the same access he and Inspector Fiti had used. He looked
back the way they had come. “I noticed a place up there that might
be another path into the forest. Come with me.”

They retraced their steps to the spot. It was true there was a
split in the vegetation, but it wasn’t very pronounced.

“Could you go from here to the plantain grove?” Dawson
asked.

Efia looked doubtful. “It looks tough. I’ve never done it.”

“Let’s try. You lead.”

The going was not at all easy. They had to weave and duck to get
through, and the underbrush was tangled and difficult to negotiate.
They arrived at the plantain grove after about eight minutes.

They stood looking around the clearing.

“This is the first time I’ve come back here since Gladys died,”
Efia said.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m all right.”

“I want to show you something,” Dawson said.

He led her behind the plantain trees and stopped at the juju
pyramid.

“Have you seen this before, Efia?”

“Yes, one time.”

“Are you afraid of it?”

“No, but I stay away from it.”

“What would happen if someone took all these rocks off to see
what’s underneath?”

Efia shook her head slowly and disapprovingly. “No one should do
that.”