by Maya Angelou
The African accepted his beer, and without a glance at the steward, poured a glass and drank.
“Hum,” he licked his lips. “Delicious. We may not make a great democracy, but no one can complain that we don’t make a good beer. What?”
The Europeans laughed and the African joined in. They had assassinated my people as well as my new country. I looked at the steward, but his face was passive and his eyes focused on the open door.
I raised my voice and said, “Obviously you people think you’ve got all the answers. Well, you should wait until someone who really cares asks you a question. You don’t know a damn thing about Black Americans, and I resent every stupid thing you’ve said.”
It wasn’t going well at all. My brain was not responding properly. I needed to be sharp, cutting, and politely rude in order to reach their hardened ears, and all I had done was blubber.
I said, “You people are idiots, and you dare speak of Ghana. You rejects.” I was surprised to find myself standing and my voice loud and screeching. “You left your old cold ass countries and came here where you’ve never had it so good. Now you’ve got servants and can bathe more than once a month. It’s a pity more of you don’t take advantage of the opportunity. You stinking bastards.”
Rage piloted me to the door. “And don’t say a word to me, I’ll slap the water out of all of you.”
I always knew that fury was my natural enemy. It clotted my blood and clogged my pores. It literally blinded me so that I lost peripheral vision. My mouth tasted of metal, and I couldn’t breathe through my nostrils. My thighs felt weak and there was a prickling sensation in my armpits and my groin. I longed to drop on the path to my office, but I continued ordering my reluctant body forward.
“Professor?” A soft voice turned me around. The steward was there smiling as if I was a child who had acted mischievously.
He asked, “Professor, why you let them disturb your heart?”
I Stuttered, “They were—” I knew the steward was uneducated, but surely he understood the rude scene that had occurred.
“They were insulting my people. I couldn’t just sit there.”
His smile never changed. “And your people, they my people?”
“Yes, but—I mean American Blacks.” “They been insulted before?” “Yes—but …” “And they still live?”
“Yes, but … they also insulted Ghana, your country.”
“Oh Sister, as for that one, it’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” He was not only uneducated, I thought he was stupid as well.
He said, “This is not their place. In time they will pass. Ghana was here when they came. When they go, Ghana will be here. They are like mice on an elephant’s back. They will pass.”
In that second I was wounded. My mind struck a truth as an elbow can strike a table edge. A poor, uneducated servant in Africa was so secure he could ignore established White rudeness. No Black American I had ever known knew that security. Our tenure in the United States, though long and very hard-earned, was always so shaky, we had developed patience as a defense, but never as aggression.
I needed to know more. I said, “But that African. He is a part of that group.”
“No, Sistah. He is a part of Africa. He just a Beentoo.”
Beentoo was a derisive word used for a person who had studied abroad and returned to Ghana with European airs. The steward continued, “He’s been to the United Kingdom. Been to the United States. In time, that posing will pass. Now he is at home, and home will take him back.”
He reached out his arm and touched my shoulder. “Don’t let them trouble your heart. In a way you are a ‘Beentoo’ too. But your people … they from this place, and if this place claims you or if it does not claim you, here you belong.”
He turned and shuffled back to the lounge.
The steward, Otu, and I were in the kitchen. Since I prepared all the food, he was second cook. He washed and diced vegetables, cleaned the utensils as I finished using them and generally made my job easy.
“Auntie?” It was a name of respect.
“Uncle,” I responded respectfully.
“There is a boy, Kojo, who would like to speak to you.”
“What does he want?”
“Oh, Auntie, should I know?”
Otu didn’t look at me directly and I knew the conversation promised to be as formal as a Japanese tea ceremony.
“Otu, if you do not know, I shall not know. Then I cannot speak to the boy.”
My friendship with Efua, reading Ghanaian short stories and the Fanti I had learned provided me with some insight into the circuitous conversational form.
“Auntie, if I am to say that which I do not know, I will serve neither you, the boy, nor myself.” He stopped talking so abruptly I could almost see the period at the end of his sentence. Obviously, we had to start again.
“Uncle?”
“Auntie?”
“This boy who wants to see me, is a nice boy?” “Yes, Auntie. His family is good. His father and uncles are from my village.” “Kojo is his name?” “Yes, Kojo.”
“And how can I help Kojo, Uncle?”
“Ah Auntie, it is known that you are good.” I had found the right key. “This boy would like to work for you, Auntie.”
For me? There was nothing I needed done, and if there was I had no money to pay anyone to do it.
“Otu, there is no job here. Please tell him.”
“Auntie, he has not asked me for a job. He has asked to speak to you.”
Oh, the tortuous subtlety of language. “There is no point …” Otu turned, and standing stock-still, looked at me.
I was beaten. I said, “Well, tell him to come around, I will speak to him.”
“Yes, Auntie.” Otu seldom smiled, but a quick change on his face told me of his pleasure.
“I will get him.”
“No, Otu, let’s finish dinner. Maybe tomorrow.” “He is just there, Auntie.” I followed his nodding head and saw a small figure pressed against the screen door.
“Kojo.” Otu’s voice was strong with authority. “Kojo, bra.”
The door opened and a boy of about fourteen stepped timidly into the room. His smile was both deferring and mischievous. He had heard the entire conversation and knew how I had been maneuvered by Otu.
“Kojo, this is Auntie Maya.”
Respectfully, he dropped his eyes, but not before I saw the glint of amusement.
He whispered, “Evening, Auntie.”
“Kojo, I’m sorry, but I have no job for you.”
“Oh.” His head was still bowed.
“Ka. Ka. Ka.” Otu spat out the Fanti word meaning speak.
Kojo lifted his eyes and I noticed his resemblance to my beloved brother. He shared with Bailey a rich, dark brown color, small hands and a perfectly round head.
He said, “Auntie, I can do anything. I can shop, and save you money at Makola Market, and even in Bokum Square.” Those were the two largest markets in Accra, where the intimidating market women haggled customers to desperation, and they did present a challenge to me.
The boy continued, “I hear Ga and Hausa. I can clean, and I am learning to tailor.”
The timidity had been a disguise, he was as lively as young yeast.
“But I shop and I have a dressmaker.”
Otu was quietly putting pans away.
“Auntie, I can be your ‘small boy.’ I can bring you beer and wash your car, and if Wofa Otu will teach me, I can laundry. Auntie, I don’t want money. No salary. Just dash.”
In West Africa, while tips were not compulsory, they were expected and were called dash. “Otu?” “Auntie?”
“Can you use a small boy?”
The older man answered as if I had asked a silly question. “Auntie, all children are serviceable. Everyone can use a small boy.”
“Kojo, I will take you.” The boy’s smile made me gasp. His straight white teeth clenched and I saw Bailey’s smile.
“Where
will you sleep?”
“Near, Auntie. Near. I have another uncle who has a place for me. But morning, I will be here. All day and evening. Thank you, Auntie. Thank you, Wofa.”
He turned and ran out the screen door, slamming it behind him. I glanced at Otu quickly, hoping to catch a certain knowing look, but his face was expressionless.
Alice and Vicki accepted Kojo and within weeks he seemed a part of the household. He was in the way when I wanted to cook, in the living room dusting furniture which Otu had just polished, sitting in my parked car playing with the steering wheel and smiling, always smiling that Bailey smile.
“Auntie,” Otu was helping me prepare dinner.
“Otu.”
“Auntie, that small boy, Kojo, wants to speak to you.” “Well? He speaks to me all the time.” “He thought, Auntie, that he would speak to you after dinner.”
I suppose I should have known that something important was coming, but I did not.
Alice and Vicki were out and I was sitting drinking Nestlé’s coffee in an easy chair when Kojo whispered from the dining room, “Auntie, is it time to talk to you now?”
“Come in, Kojo, don’t hang about out there.”
He stood a few steps from me, his head bowed.
“Kojo, look at me. Don’t pretend shyness. I know you.”
“Auntie.” The sweet smile and soft voice were softening me for whatever was to come.
“Auntie, you see, I am a small boy.” Everyone could see that.
“And I need to go to school.”
Of course. How could I have not noticed that summer was ending and he would have to return to his village?
“Yes, Kojo. Certainly you need an education. When will you be leaving?”
“Well, Auntie, the school I want is here, in Accra, just near to this place.” He waited and my brain laboriously began to work. He wanted me to send him to school and to pay his fees. I had been set up.
“Auntie, I have my school fees and they have accepted me. Only I want to continue to be your small boy.” Again I had misjudged the child. He was not manipulating me. He liked me. I let him know of my relief.
“Well, of course, Kojo, if you are able to do your school work and still be my small boy, you are welcome. I like you too, Kojo.” When he left we were both smiling broadly.
Two weeks later he brought a letter addressed to me. The headmaster asked for my presence to discuss Kojo’s courses. The meeting was so long and detailed I was exhausted when I finally arrived late at the university. Kojo had brought good grades from his village school, but he had not studied certain required subjects. The headmaster explained that the boy would need a great deal of help at home and he was so lucky to have educated Aunties.
Three evenings each week, Alice, Vicki or I sat with Kojo at the dining table conjugating verbs, dividing sums and making maps to scale.
At times an annoying thought would buzz in my head; my son was finally grown up and at college. While packing his clothes for the university, I included my last nights of poring over homework and worrying about grades. I locked into his cases the years of concentrating over childish penmanship and memorizing the capitals of countries and their chief exports. I had been freed. Now, with Kojo’s eagerness the old became new and I was pinched back into those familiar contractions. His young laughter, high-pitched and honest, and his resemblance to Bailey enchanted me away from resistance. I resumed the teaching-mother role automatically and easily, save for the odd uncomfortable moment when I felt trapped in a déjà vu.
The music of the Fanti language was becoming singable to me, and its vocabulary was moving orderly into my brain.
Efua took me to a durbar, a thanksgiving feast in Aburi, about thirty miles from Accra. Thousands of gaily dressed celebrants had gathered, waving, singing and dancing. I stood on the edge of the crowd to watch the exotic parade. Hunters, rifles across their shoulders, marched in rhythm to their own drummers. Soldiers, with faces set in grim determination, paced down the widened roads behind their drummers while young girls screamed approval. Farmers bearing scythes and fishermen carrying nets were welcomed loudly by the throng.
The annual harvest ritual gave each segment in the society its opportunity to thank God and to praise its workers and their yield.
I was swaying to the rhythm when the drums stopped, and the crowd quieted. The restless air steadied. A sound, unlike the other sounds of the day, commenced in the distance. It was the harsh tone of hundreds of giant cicadas grinding their legs together. Their rasping floated to us and the crowd remained quiet but edgy with anticipation. When men appeared out of the dust scraping sticks against corrugated dry gourds, the crowd recovered its tongue.
“Yee! Yee! Awae! Awae!”
The scrapers, like the paraders who preceded them, gave no notice to the crowd or to the small children who ran unceremoniously close to their serried ranks.
Rasp, Rasp. Scrape! Scrape, Scour, Scrunch, Scrump. Rasp, Rasp! Scree! The raspers faded into a dim distance.
The deep throb of royal drums was suddenly heard in the distance and again the din of celebration stopped. The people, although quiet again, continued to move, sidle, exchange places and wipe their brows. Women adjusted the clothes which held babies securely to their backs. Rambunctious children played tag, men and women waved at each other, smiled, but kept looking toward the sound of the drums.
Efua touched my shoulder and offered me a large white handkerchief.
I said, “Thank you, but I’m all right.” She kept her hand extended. I took the handkerchief.
Men emerged out of the dim dust. One set had giant drums hefted onto their shoulders, and others followed in splendid cloth, beating the drums with crooked sticks. The powerful rhythms rattled my bones, and I could feel the vibrations along the edges of my teeth.
People began clapping, moving their feet, their hands, hips and heads. They shouted clamorously, “Yee! Yee! Aboma!” And there was still a sense of anticipation in the turbulence. They were waiting for a climax.
When the first palanquin hove into view, I thought of a Chinese junk on the Yangtze (which I had never seen), and a tien ton truck on a California freeway (which I knew well). Long poled hammocks, sturdy as Conestogas, were carried by four men. In the center of each conveyance sat a chief, gloriously robed in rich hand-woven Kente cloth. At his side (only a few chiefs were female) sat a young boy, called the Kra, who, during an earlier solemn ceremony, had received the implanted soul of the chief. If the chief should die during the ritual, there would be no panic, for his people would know that his soul was safe in the young boy’s body and, with the proper ritual, could be placed into the body of the chief’s successor.
The drums beckoned, the kings appeared, and the air nearly collapsed under the weight of dust and thudding drums and shouting jubilation.
Each chief was prouder than the one preceding him. Each dressed in more gold and richer colors. Each black beyond ebony and shining with oil and sweat. They arrived in single file to be met by the adoring shouts of their subjects. “Na-na. Na-na.” “Yo, Yo, Nana.” The shouting united with the thumping of the drums and the explosion of color. Women and men bounced up and down like children’s toys, and children not tall enough to see over the crowd were lifted by the nearest adults to see their passing royalty.
A flutter of white billowed over that excited scene. Thousands of handkerchiefs waving from thousands of black hands tore away my last reserve. I started bouncing with the entranced Ghanaians, my handkerchief high above my head, I waved and jumped and screamed, “Nana, na-na, na-na.”
The sunlit dance floor seethed with wiggling bodies. Benson’s High Life Orchestra played the popular tune “Wofa No, No.” After dancing for a half hour, I was resting at my table in preparation for another spree. On Ghana’s dance floors, women and men could dance alone or with members of the same sex without causing the slightest notice. As I looked around at the mostly empty tables, I saw a man in a white lace Grand Bou Bou whose size
was startling. His back was turned so his face was not visible, but he sat so high above the surface of his table he had to be over six and a half feet tall. He had broad shoulders and a very thick neck.
I didn’t want to be caught staring if he turned, but I did cut my eyes in his direction often, hoping to see his face. When the orchestra finished playing, three women and a small man returned, laughing, to his table. The big man stood and roared, “Bienvenue. C’était bien?” He turned and I saw that his face had the regularity of a perfect square. Every feature was of the proper size and in the proper place. He looked like romantic drawings of ancient African kings on caparisoned horses. He would have been at home surrounded by voluminous tents, talking birds and camel caravans. He remained standing while the women sat. He pulled the smaller man away from the table and bent his great bulk to speak privately and briefly. When he finished he spoke to the women and they gathered their stoles and purses and followed him as he made a path through the tables to the door. I watched the small man walk toward my table. In a wee corner of my mind I hoped that he was headed for a destination beyond me.
He stopped and gave me a slight bow. “Mademoiselle?” I nodded.
“May I take a little of your time?” I nodded again. He sat nicely on the edge of a chair. “My name is Mamali, and I have a friend.” His quiet voice and manner gave him a ministerial air. “Yes?”
“May I ask your name and if you are married?” My answers were as direct as his questions. “Is it possible that you noticed the large man who sat at that table?”
I reined in wild horses and answered with calm dignity, “I noticed him.”
“He is my friend. He is Sheikhali, and he has asked me to ask you if you will dine with him tonight.” He took out a note pad and pen.
The horses were surging again. I said, “But I don’t know him. Who is he? Where does he live? Where would we dine?”
“Miss Angelou, he is from Mali. He imports thoroughbred horses and was formerly the largest importer of beef to Ghana. When he visits Accra for business purposes, he generally stays at my residence, but he has a place and I am certain that he would take you to a very fine restaurant.”