by Ekow Duker
The paperwork was surprisingly quick and efficient. Madame, the superintendent, called Karabo in to her office and slid a sheet of paper across to her. Karabo signed in the allotted space. The superintendent shook her hand and led her out onto the veranda. Karabo rubbed her eyes for it looked as if the entire prison was massed in the courtyard. There was a solid block of blue and white below her with the odd fleeting glimpse of yellow. She saw Auntie Abena standing in the front. It was against regulations for an inmate to take off her head scarf but Auntie Abena had removed hers anyway. Her hair was a cartoon explosion of white filaments and when she looked up at Karabo, her dark eyes gleamed with pleasure. Fatima and Morocco were there also, holding hands and grinning. Even the mothers had come with their children to say goodbye.
Karabo raised her hand in a tepid imitation of Mandela leaving prison and all the women clapped and cheered loudly. It was as if she’d done something extraordinarily clever but she didn’t feel clever at all. Then, of course, Auntie Abena began to pray and everyone closed their eyes. If Karabo had known this was going to happen, she’d have told Morocco this was the perfect time to break out of jail, when the guards’ eyes were shut in prayer. But knowing Morocco, she’d probably thought of that already.
Someone said an impassioned ‘Amen’ and that was the cue for Auntie Abena to slip into a more animated gear. She spoke so powerfully they must have heard her over at the men’s prison. But Auntie Abena went on for so long that Karabo began to fidget. She really wished she would stop. She didn’t understand much of what Auntie Abena was saying but it felt like she was issuing a great commission and it was one Karabo didn’t want to accept. She wasn’t going to do anything grand or momentous when she left prison. And all this attention was only making her anxious.
The last ‘Amen’ rang out and Karabo opened her eyes to see Madame standing over her, Rocky style, with both arms raised in triumph.
‘Do you do this for everyone who gets out?’ Karabo asked nervously.
Madame laughed and said, ‘Oh yes. It just doesn’t happen very often.’
Karabo followed her down the stairs to the heavy metal door. Officer Apenteng was skulking by the entrance. She sprang to attention the moment she saw the superintendent and a brief exchange of words followed, after which Officer Apenteng released the bolts with a scowl. Karabo wanted to say something to her, some cutting wisecrack that would put Officer Apenteng in her place and make her heart a little lighter. But she couldn’t think of anything to say. She just stumbled over the metal ledge and into the sunshine, dragging her suitcase behind her.
She’d expected to find Teacher waiting outside but there was no one there except for a large lizard with a bright orange head. It scuttled across the road and stopped at the edge of the gutter. There it raised and lowered itself on its forelegs several times, a reptilian athlete doing press-ups. Then it stopped and blinked at Karabo as if inviting her to do the same. They stared at each other until the lizard lost interest and slithered away in disgust.
Karabo could still remember the way she’d come all those weeks ago. The boomed entrance where the soldiers stood guard with their automatic weapons couldn’t be more than two kilometres away. She’d find a taxi there, she still had Teacher’s address. The heat from the tar crept through her slippers. If she could just have a drink of water, she thought, she’d have enough strength for the walk. Karabo turned back to the prison gate and knocked on the metal door.
It swung open immediately as if she’d been expected. Madame was standing in the doorway. She looked relieved to see Karabo.
‘Thank god you are still here,’ Madame said. ‘The Chief Superintendent just called. He wants you at the service.’
‘With the president?’ Karabo asked in a hoarse voice.
‘Yes.’
‘Can Auntie Abena, Fatima and Morocco come too?’
Madame looked at her strangely and Karabo took the opportunity to add one more name.
‘And Auntie Jemima.’
‘That’s not allowed,’ said Madame.
‘Then I’ll carry on walking to the main gate.’
She’d only gone a few steps when Madame called her back.
‘Wait for me by my car,’ she said.
She returned with Auntie Abena, Fatima and Morocco. The three of them were holding hands like little girls and Auntie Jemima wasn’t far behind. She was wringing her hands and scanning the horizon, while asking in a querulous voice if anyone had seen her husband.
Karabo made her way to the back of the 4x4 but Madame insisted she sit in the front.
‘You’re not a prisoner anymore.’ She leaned over and patted Karabo on the knee. ‘It will take you a few weeks to readjust,’ she said. ‘You are lucky to have your father.’
Karabo covered her eyes with her hand. Then where the fuck was he, this father of hers who was supposed to come bearing luck? She’d tried calling him earlier this morning but the call had gone straight to voicemail.
They drove right up to the gate of the men’s prison. With its thick, sloping walls, it looked like a fortified bunker. It was quite unlike the women’s prison which, with a new coat of paint and some flowers, could have passed for a large house in the forest.
There seemed to be women, wives and girlfriends everywhere Karabo looked. Small children scampered over the bags of food they’d brought with them while their mothers scolded them half-heartedly and told them to sit still. The women’s prison was deathly quiet compared to this. Over there the children were prisoners too.
They lowered their heads for a burly prison guard to hang a dirty ribbon with a plastic tag around their necks. Then they followed Madame through a narrow corridor and out towards a large hangar-like construction in the middle of a bare field. The male prisoners had already taken their seats. There were at least a thousand of them, huddled together like schoolboys on a rare outing. Their voices rose in lewd chatter as the women walked past. Karabo could feel their eyes on her, some bold and others shy, but all undeniably hungry.
‘Sit over there,’ Madame said. She pointed to a roped-off area just behind the dignitaries in their panama hats and dark glasses.
‘But I want to sit with them!’ Karabo said obstinately, pointing at Fatima and Auntie Abena.
She was still complaining when Auntie Jemima came up and took her hand.
‘You’re not a prisoner anymore,’ she said softly. Her eyes were strangely lucid and, as Karabo looked at her, her eye closed in a slow wink. Then the madness rushed back and took her and Auntie Jemima began enquiring about her husband again.
Karabo hugged Auntie Abena, Morocco and Fatima in turn. She wept bitterly as Madame ushered them away towards the back. She didn’t think she’d ever see them again. She was still crying when she took her seat in the middle of a group of jewel-encrusted and over-ripe women. They laughed too much and talked too quickly in a vain attempt to hide their fear.
Ahead of her on the stage was a wooden lectern, and next to it a row of seats with uniformed prison officers and a judge in red robes. From the size and tattered splendour of the judge’s wig, Karabo guessed he must be very important, the Chief Justice perhaps. One of the officers on stage was very short indeed but despite his small stature he appeared to be in charge. Every now and then a junior officer would come up and whisper something in his ear and he would nod and issue what seemed to Karabo to be lengthy instructions. There was an empty chair in the middle of the stage, which Karabo assumed was for the president.
And that was when she saw André.
She wondered why she hadn’t seen him before. He was on the stage with the others but on the opposite end to the lectern. In his white ruffled shirt and a black bowtie, he looked much like he had that evening at Mrs Summerscales’ house. A violin hung loosely by his side and even from this distance Karabo could see the splendour of the wood. She felt faint. It was the Guadagnini.
CHAPTER 52
Everyone rose to their feet when the president arrived, chanting his
name as he stepped onto the dais. The cheers grew in intensity until the ground shook beneath Karabo’s feet. And the president beamed happily at the throng through his round wire-framed spectacles.
A line from Aaron Neville’s Louisiana 1927 crept unbidden into her head. A little fat man with a notepad in his hand. A president no less. She was playing the old-school game again and, instinctively, she looked around for Teacher. But Teacher wasn’t there. Realising how terribly thirsty she was, she asked the woman next to her if she had some water to spare. But when the woman saw Karabo’s dishevelled state, her expression changed from interest to mild revulsion. She made a drawn-out sucking sound through her teeth and turned her head away.
The Chief Justice tried several times to calm the prisoners down. But this wasn’t a courthouse and he didn’t have a gavel. It was a rare opportunity for the prisoners to shout abuse at a senior judge in his hearing and they did not hold back. The Chief Justice flapped his hands ineffectually, looking like a strange red bird who had fallen out of a tree.
When eventually the chatter died down to a grumbling murmur, the Chief Justice was finally able to say a few words of welcome. Some inanities about how pleased he was to be here this morning, and how seriously the government took the prisoners’ plight. The president nodded his bald head and scribbled something in his notepad. Then the prison chaplain stood up and launched into a lengthy prayer. He spoke a pompous brand of English, opting for two long words when a shorter one would do. He reminded Karabo of Father Majola.
Karabo winced as a sudden flash of light exploded in her head. One moment the president was leering at close range into her face and the next he was a black speck on the distant hillside. She needed water badly or she was going to faint.
Then the little officer slid off his chair and walked up to the microphone. He spoke haltingly, as if he were unused to the limelight.
‘We are privileged to have a celebrated violinist with us today,’ the little man said. ‘No doubt some people will say that a prison is the last place where a violin recital should be held. They forget that our mission is to reintegrate you back into society and what better way to do that than to expose you to the very best society has to offer?’
He paused as good-natured cries of ‘Conductor!’ rang out from the assembled prisoners. The president leaned back and chuckled as if he’d come up with the name himself.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the little officer continued, ‘please join me as we give a rousing Ghanaian welcome to the world-famous violin virtuoso, André Potgieter.’
He hurried back to his seat, clearly relieved his task was over. Then André walked to the centre of the stage, violin and bow in hand. He waited for the applause to die away, then placed the Guadagnini against his neck. A hush fell over the gathering and Karabo turned to look at the sea of prisoners behind her. Most of them would never have heard the sound of a violin before, let alone seen one in real life. They edged forward on their seats, glancing at each other in nervous anticipation. Karabo felt a tingling in her fingers and a strange tautness in her neck as she waited for André to begin.
But André did not play. His face was pinched in concentration and for a moment Karabo thought he had forgotten the notes. The bow strained and trembled above the strings as if pleading to be set loose as the murmurs of incomprehension from the prisoners curdled and became a low growl.
Then suddenly a piercing catcall rang out from behind Karabo, which seemed to shake André out of his stupor. He drew the bow slowly across the strings and a single note filled the air. Another note joined the first and the pair hung shimmering and resplendent above the gathering like a rare and brilliant constellation. And then the most wondrous melody began to flow outwards from the stage.
It was a few moments before Karabo recognised the haunting strains of ‘Ave Maria’ and it was so beautiful that her eyes brimmed with tears. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw a slightly built woman standing at the edge of the throng. Her complexion was almost as light as Karabo’s and with her small hat and agitated gestures, she reminded Karabo of her mother. But it couldn’t be Precious because Precious was in Mthatha. Then, as Karabo watched, a tall, dark man standing behind the woman placed his hand gently on her elbow. It was Teacher and the woman was her mother after all.
A hot plume of happiness surged through Karabo’s body as an enormous weight slipped off her shoulders and rolled away forever. It would have been much more sensible to wait until the service was over but she’d waited too long already. She stood up and began sidling towards the aisle.
She trod on a dozen toes and offered as many apologies as she pushed her way to where Teacher and Precious were standing. It was like clambering through a narrow, upholstered tunnel with knees and chair backs for hand-holds. At last Karabo stumbled into the aisle and sucked chestfuls of air into her lungs. She looked at the stage to get her bearings and there behind the dais was the most astonishing sight.
She saw a flock of birds swooping down from the hilltops. There were so many of them they filled every inch of sky. What strange birds were these that flew with such geometric precision? And as they drew nearer, a dark shadow flitted over the ground beneath them. They flew with grim purpose and it looked like they were headed directly for the prison and the hangar where the prisoners and the dignitaries were gathered. Karabo stumbled backwards in fear. She shook the closest man by the shoulders and pointed at the sky.
‘Look!’ she whispered.
He stared at her, his eyes magnified through thick, round glasses. Then his stubbled cheeks bunched up in a paternal smile and he touched an admonishing finger to his lips.
‘Shhh!’
He couldn’t see them. No one else could. And André’s music was more magnificent than ever. It was operatic in its intensity, yet strangely intimate at the same time. One moment shrill and metallic, the next dark and sonorous. Periods of veiled calm gave way to passages of radiant eloquence that thrilled Karabo and quelled the terror that raged in her heart.
The shadow was upon them now. It stole across the stage and crept behind each person and draped a dark cloak over their shoulders. The president, the chaplain, the judge and the little officer. Everyone, that was, except André. He stood alone in a cone of brilliant light, his eyes closed, the Guadagnini singing against his neck.
Then the flock of birds parted and wheeled away in two glistening streams, one to Karabo’s left and the other to her right. Their wings beat the air with slow, metronomic strokes. And as they went past, Karabo realised with a shudder how huge their wings were. They were much larger than any she had ever seen on a bird. Then she gasped and fell to her knees for these were not birds at all, but winged men. She threw her head back and laughed at the absurdity of it all. She howled and cackled like Auntie Jemima did when the madness took hold of her. Only insanity could make her see an army of angels flying above her. She’d lost her mind in prison, for sure.
Silently the angels streamed into the hangar. They were each naked and came in all colours. Some were as black as obsidian with feathery velvet wings to match while others were as pale as albinos with red-rimmed eyes. They pulsed their wings and gusts of electricity powered through the air, making it tingle as if an immense storm were about to break.
One by one, an angel came to rest above each prisoner and each of the people present. They hovered in place for a moment, moving their hands through the air as if they were treading water. Then, on a silent command, they unfurled their wings and held them aloft, before stooping and, with infinite tenderness, embraced the person seated below them.
Karabo felt something caress her cheek. She looked up into the smiling eyes of an angel. She’d thought all the angels were men but this was a woman. Her hair was cropped short and clung to her head in tight, dark curls. She didn’t look much older than Karabo and, like the other angels, she was completely naked. She smelled of freshly washed linen and her nipples stood firm against soft, swelling breasts. She wrapped her arms around
Karabo and her pubic hair grated against her back. Then she bent her head and kissed Karabo so gently it was as if she were afraid she might break. Karabo closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the angel’s chest. Her skin was as warm as a fireplace in winter. What was more, she was a yellowbone. Just like Karabo.
Epilogue
André said goodbye to Chief Superintendent Larbi in the carpark outside the men’s prison. Although the last of the dignitaries had left long ago, an echo of festivity still lingered in the air.
‘You are going,’ the chief superintendent said. He looked exhausted but he smiled at André with satisfaction. ‘You put on a good show, Mr Potgieter. Everyone is talking about your performance.’
André cradled the violin case in his arms. ‘It was my pleasure.’
‘So you’ll be coming back to Ghana,’ the chief superintendent said. ‘You cannot refuse a direct request from the president.’ He paused and glanced around the carpark. ‘What will you do, Mr Potgieter?’
André shrugged. ‘I’ll have to see what I can arrange with Saint Anthony’s. They’ve been calling me back as it is.’
‘Ah yes,’ the chief superintendent said. ‘We are all beholden in some way to someone else. But that is not what I meant.’
‘What did you mean?’
The chief superintendent stepped forward and rapped the violin case lightly with his fingertips. ‘What will you do with the violin? The woman in London …’
‘Mrs Summerscales.’
‘Yes. She must be awaiting your return.’
A small worm of despair stirred in André’s belly.
‘You could stay, Mr Potgieter.’
‘Here at the prison?’ André asked in surprise but the chief superintendent shook his head.