Yellowbone

by Ekow Duker

  ‘Ashawo?’ Karabo asked and Fatima looked at her in surprise.

  Auntie Jemima’s husband was very strong. He put Auntie Jemima in a headlock and began to punch her in the face with his other hand. Karabo remembered the raised scar she’d seen above Auntie Jemima’s left eye.

  Fatima put both hands around her neck. Auntie Jemima could not breathe. She thought her husband was about to kill her. She grabbed a knife off the table and plunged it into her husband’s stomach. Fatima made a fist and punched herself sideways in the stomach and Karabo drew a sharp breath.

  Horrified at what she’d done, Auntie Jemima rushed her husband to hospital. Fatima got down on her knees and clasped her hands together. But despite all Auntie Jemima’s prayers, her husband died that same night.

  ‘But why was he hitting her?’ Karabo asked. ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She no put meat in the soup.’

  Karabo was incredulous. ‘Her husband beat her because there was no meat in his soup?’

  Fatima spread out the fingers of her left hand. ‘He give her five Ghana cedis. Only five Ghana cedis.’

  What could that buy you? Two packets of chewing gum? Certainly not a full-on meal brimming with meat. Karabo hugged herself in despair. How many women were locked in here because of a fleeting fit of desperation? How many were like Auntie Jemima? How many were like her?

  She was about to ask Fatima another question when a clutch of women emerged from the cell block behind the metal church. They were all dressed in yellow with matching scarves tied around their heads. From the way they hobbled, Karabo guessed that some of them were very old.

  ‘Who are those women?’

  Fatima turned to see where Karabo was pointing, then quickly looked away.

  ‘Condemned,’ she replied.

  ‘You mean condemned to die?’ Karabo whispered.

  Fatima nodded sadly.

  The women trudged behind the church, shepherded by a prison guard. It was bizarre that women sentenced to death should be forced to wear such bright colours. Someone in the Ghana Prison Service must have a cruel sense of humour. Then it struck Karabo that most of the inmates wore a uniform of sorts. Some, like Auntie Abena, were dressed in blue from head to toe. Others, like Fatima and Morocco, wore blue skirts with greying, white blouses.

  ‘Blue is life sentence,’ Fatima explained. She spoke as if Karabo was in nursery school and she was explaining colours to her with the aid of a picture chart.

  Blue is for Boy. Blue is for Ball. Blue is for Life Sentence.

  Karabo pointed at Fatima’s white blouse and the fading black star painted over her left breast.

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Convict,’ Fatima replied simply. She gave Karabo an encouraging smile. Karabo was finally learning her lessons.

  White is for Convict. Blue is for Life Sentence. Yellow is for Condemned.

  Karabo looked down at her own clothes. She’d bought the top in a shop in Bond Street. It hadn’t cost much but she could still remember how excited she’d been to wear it the first time. Now the fabric was so filthy, it crawled against her skin.

  ‘You remand,’ Fatima said, pointing at Karabo. ‘After court, you will change your clothes.’

  CHAPTER 44

  Karabo was the only one to receive a visitor that day. One of the inmates came looking for her, shouting Karabo’s name at the top of her voice.

  ‘Wo papa a ba!’ she cried when she found Karabo.

  Karabo ran with her to the entrance block. The woman was so excited, it was as if Teacher had come to see her too. She led Karabo into a small room with a metal grille down the middle and a prison guard sitting on a chair in the corner. The guard pointed Karabo to an empty chair.

  ‘You can sit down,’ she said. ‘They are coming.’

  Karabo was puzzled. Had Teacher come with someone? Was it the woman who came in to clean his house and look after him? She looked up at the clock on the wall. It was Chinese with an ornate border in peeling yellow gold. It was almost midday. Visiting hours ended at twelve-thirty. She’d thought Teacher would have come much earlier. Karabo didn’t like to think her father was succumbing to African time. That wouldn’t be like Teacher at all.

  She sprang to her feet when she saw him. He looked splendid in a pair of narrow white trousers and a collarless long-sleeved shirt. He called those African-styled outfits his ‘up and down’ and Karabo had never understood why. Why would he deconstruct what he wore into what went up and what went down? But somehow here in Ghana, the description seemed very apt.

  Karabo’s smile faded when she saw who Teacher had brought with him.

  ‘Hello, Ma’ama,’ she said dully.

  Karabo hadn’t seen Ma’ama in almost ten years but her grandmother was as resplendent as ever. She’d come draped in wax print and a ruffled head-dress that was more like an elaborate hat than a scarf. There was only one chair on their side of the grille and Ma’ama took it, leaving Teacher to stand. When she was seated, she looked at Karabo for a very long time.

  ‘So this is where you are,’ she said at last. ‘This is where you have ended up.’

  There was no ‘How are you?’ No ‘Are they looking after you?’ This was where Karabo had ended up and she said it with such finality it was clear she’d expected nothing else.

  ‘They said you stole a violin.’

  ‘I didn’t steal it.’

  ‘Then why are you in here?’

  Karabo couldn’t answer that. She glanced at Teacher for help. In response he held up a woven Ghana Must Go bag with red and blue stripes.

  ‘We brought you some things,’ he said brightly. ‘Soap, toothpaste, biscuits.’

  ‘And rice,’ Ma’ama added. ‘I hope you know how to cook.’

  The bag looked heavy and Teacher put it down again. How much rice had he brought? It looked like he expected Karabo to be in prison for a very long time.

  ‘When am I getting out of here?’ Karabo asked in a small voice.

  ‘You should have thought of that before you took what does not belong to you,’ Ma’ama said haughtily. Karabo rolled a gob of saliva in her mouth, ready to spit at her. Morocco had spat at a guard this morning and they’d clubbed and kicked her to the ground.

  Teacher held up his hands to diffuse the sudden tension. ‘We are working on it,’ he said.

  But that wasn’t what Karabo wanted to hear. It sounded like a quintessentially Ghanaian refrain. We are working on it. Like Leave everything to God. The two phrases were contradictory anyway. Why would they be working so hard on something when they’d also left it to God? One of them was probably not doing anything at all.

  ‘Did you get me a lawyer? A proper one this time.’

  Teacher cast his eyes down at the floor. ‘I … I’m doing the best I can.’

  Ma’ama rapped her knuckles on the counter and snapped at Karabo through the grille.

  ‘You ungrateful girl! Wasn’t Lawyer Appiah good enough for you? The man was doing you a favour, for god’s sake!’

  ‘I’m not ungrateful,’ Karabo began to say. ‘I just …’

  ‘Shut your mouth!’ It was the guard this time and she lumbered to her feet. Karabo thought she was about to hit her and she raised her arms to ward off the blow.

  ‘You must learn to respect,’ the guard said. She glared at Karabo like she might really strike out and hit her at any minute. On the other side of the grille, Ma’ama nodded in approval.

  Respect was a big deal for Ghanaians. Karabo understood that. The mad woman in the shower, Auntie Jemima, had accused her of not showing her respect earlier that morning. But for Ghanaians, respect seemed to equate to not speaking, not looking and not doing anything at all.

  Karabo turned to Teacher. ‘How is Mum? Does she know that I’m here?’

  Teacher’s face fell and it took a while for him to answer. ‘Yes, she does. She is very upset. She wanted to fly to Accra at once but …’ Teacher’s voice trailed away and he cast his eyes down at the floor.
/>   Karabo’s eyes pricked with tears. Her mother didn’t have the money for the flight and it was all her fault. She began calling herself names in her head. She’d been so extravagant. Impetuous. Foolish. How unbearably foolish. She only had to say the words out loud and she knew Ma’ama would complete the list for her.

  Ma’ama softened a little when she saw the tears snaking down Karabo’s cheeks.

  ‘Don’t cry. Paa Kofi would have come but he has travelled,’ she said.

  Karabo nodded. She missed her grandfather’s big, booming laugh. She never thought she’d ever say this but she’d rather Paa Kofi was here than Teacher.

  ‘Where has he gone?’

  ‘To Kumasi. He is lecturing at the university.’

  ‘Oh.’

  It seemed unlike Paa Kofi to be lecturing while Karabo was in prison. It wasn’t like him at all.

  ‘Does he know I am here?’

  ‘I will inform him when he comes back,’ Ma’ama replied. ‘This is not something you announce over the telephone.’

  This restored Karabo’s faith in Paa Kofi, not that it had ever wavered. If Paa Kofi knew where Karabo was, he’d have swum the length of Lake Volta to get to her.

  ‘Teacher, go and bring my bag from the car.’

  Teacher looked at his mother in surprise. ‘But it’s right next to you,’ he said.

  Ma’ama frowned to show her displeasure and her voice grew sharp and insistent.

  ‘The car, Teacher. Go to the car.’

  Teacher glanced at Karabo and his face was pinched with regret.

  ‘What’s going on?’ cried Karabo. ‘Teacher, where are you going?’

  Things happened very quickly after that. The guard came around and pinned Karabo’s forearms to the chair as Teacher stumbled out of the room. Then a door opened on Karabo’s side of the grille and a man in dark, baggy trousers and a long, white cotton coat came in. With the white surgical gloves on his hands, he could have been a butcher. Karabo went weak all over again. This man was there to probe her arsehole and vagina again. Or kill her. It was all the same.

  ‘So no mu!’ Ma’ama cried in Twi. She was on her feet now, her fingers gripping the grille like talons. The guard tightened her hold on Karabo until the tips of Karabo’s fingers tingled. She drummed her feet on the ground and kicked furiously at the guard’s shins. But it didn’t help. The bitch was as strong as a Cape buffalo.

  The butcher man pushed the sleeve of Karabo’s T-shirt up towards her shoulder.

  ‘Relax,’ he said.

  She spat at him and he recoiled in disgust as her spittle ran down his face. He looked at Ma’ama as if asking what he should do. She gestured at him impatiently but a cloud of doubt crept into her eyes.

  ‘Be quick,’ she said. ‘You should have finished by now.’

  Butcher man smiled grimly and took a clear plastic bag out of his pocket. There were plastic tubes in it and needles sheathed in blue protective caps. He tapped on Karabo’s forearm with his fingers and cocked his head as if he expected to hear something. He tapped again and ran a finger along her vein. Then he took a ball of fluffy cotton wool out of the bag and pressed it against the mouth of a small bottle. He rubbed Karabo’s forearm with it and the stench of alcohol filled her nose. She watched helplessly as he took a needle and inserted one end into a yellow plastic cylinder and screwed it into place. And when he removed the cap from the other end, the needle glinted wickedly in the light. The butcher man’s lips moved in a grim smile that stopped well before his eyes.

  ‘If you move …’

  He made a steep approach with the needle before he finished his sentence. He pushed the needle into Karabo’s arm and she almost blacked out from the pain.

  ‘Teacher! Teacher!’ Karabo screamed but Teacher didn’t come.

  ‘Be quiet!’ the guard snarled. Her face was inches from Karabo’s and her eyeballs were draped in a tangle of red veins. Then the butcher man pushed a slim tube with a purple cap into the yellow cylinder and Karabo’s blood flashed backwards into the void. When it was full, he turned to Ma’ama again.

  ‘One more?’

  Ma’ama nodded and he replaced the tube with another. When that was full, he stepped back and handed both tubes to Ma’ama through the grille.

  ‘Here you are, madam.’

  He pulled the needle out of Karabo’s arm, pressed a ball of cotton wool against the puncture and instructed her to hold it in place. He seemed in a hurry to leave and threw the other tubes and bottles into his bag. Then he stood by Karabo with an expectant look on his face.

  ‘I will meet you outside,’ Ma’ama said.

  ‘Don’t forget me, madam,’ the guard called out as butcher man left the room. Karabo buried her head in her lap, sobbing with shock and grief. Why had Ma’ama done this to her? And Teacher too?

  Ma’ama issued one final set of instructions to the guard.

  ‘Make sure she gets these things.’ The Ghana Must Go bag rustled loudly as Ma’ama lifted it onto the counter.

  ‘Yes, madam,’ the guard replied. Her voice was suddenly obsequious, quite different from when she’d yelled at Karabo to shut up. Then Karabo heard a tapping on the metal grille. She lifted her head and saw Ma’ama looking down at her. There was pity in her eyes but even more contempt.

  ‘It’s for your own good, Karabo,’ she said. ‘Your father should have done this long ago.’

  CHAPTER 45

  Karabo and Fatima were on their hands and knees scrubbing the floor of the washroom. Karabo didn’t mind the work, it stopped her thinking about Ma’ama and the butcher man who had taken her blood. They’d told her he was the prison doctor. She didn’t even want to think of Teacher.

  ‘How did you get here, Fatima?’ Karabo asked. ‘What did you do?’

  But the story was too intricate for Fatima’s limited English and Karabo’s almost non-existent Twi. Karabo looked around in frustration, then called one of the inmates over to interpret.

  The harmattan haze lay thick in the air the day the robbers came. There were three of them, all in their twenties and with the soiled attire of men who had not worked that year. Fatima had never seen them before and she barely noticed them when they walked past. Fatima sold boiled groundnuts from a little wooden table at the entrance to the Tamale market and sales had been unusually brisk that day. She greeted the men pleasantly when they came back and was a little surprised when they asked her for directions to Alhaji Grunsah’s house. They did not look like the sort of men who would have any business with Alhaji Grunsah. But she thought little of it at the time. They must have been going somewhere else and Alhaji Grunsah’s house was a useful landmark. Alhaji Grunsah lived in a huge mansion just off the main Salaga road. It had three floors and three satellite dishes, one for each of his wives.

  The next morning, Fatima retrieved her table from her brother’s kiosk and stacked her groundnuts into a steep conical pile in readiness for her first customer. That was when she heard someone shout that Alhaji Grunsah was dead. The story raced through the market, gathering small embellishments along the way. By the time her brother recounted the details to her, she even knew what colour underwear Alhaji Grunsah had on when he died.

  Three robbers had entered Alhaji Grunsah’s compound in the night. They used a ladder to climb over the wall, then tried to flee when Safiyah, Alhaji Grunsah’s youngest wife, raised the alarm. Alhaji Grunsah came running out of his room to see what the commotion was about. He was a big man with a sharp beard that pointed the way to a large, rounded belly. In the confusion, one of the robbers slashed the old man’s arm and neck with a cutlass. His wives tried to rush Alhaji Grunsah to hospital but none of them knew how to drive. Safiyah went running into the street to find a driver or, failing that, a taxi. But there were no taxis at that time of night. She hailed a passing car who returned with her to the house. But by the time she got there, Alhaji Grunsah was dead.

  Alhaji Grunsah was a very good man and the news of his murder made Fatima very sad. But thankf
ully, all three of the robbers had been caught. The men were not even from Tamale and this made many people indignant. Two of them were from Bolga and the third was from Burkina. Fatima had never met Alhaji Grunsah before but she felt as though she knew him. His killing was sure to bring bad luck. She never imagined that the bad luck would fall on her.

  They arrested Fatima later that morning. Six policemen in riot gear drove up to the market and surrounded her little wooden table with their guns pointing at her. The men who had killed Alhaji Grunsah had said it was Fatima who had shown them the way to his house. When Fatima tried to explain that all she’d done was answer an innocent question, they kicked over her table and trampled her groundnuts beneath their feet before carting her away. She spent a month in custody at the Lamashegu police station before she was transferred to Accra where her case was to be heard. She thought the judge would see how absurd her case was and set her free. Instead, he sentenced her to fifteen years in prison.

  ‘How old are you, Fatima?’ Karabo asked when Fatima was done.

  Fatima looked away and smiled shyly. ‘I have seventeen.’

  Shit, Karabo muttered. She was even younger than her.

  ‘Do you have a lawyer? I mean, you didn’t do anything wrong.’

  It was as if Karabo had asked if she was on first name terms with the president of the United States. Fatima put down the scrubbing brush and showed Karabo her palms.

  ‘No money. No money for lawyer.’

  ‘But you’ll be more than thirty years old when you get out!’

  But Karabo was speaking too fast for Fatima and her agitation upset the young girl. She began to scrub the floor with a quiet fury, pushing her thin arms back and forth like pistons. They finished their work in silence and Karabo didn’t see Fatima again until they were herded back into the cell for the night.