by Maya Angelou
I thought of the unpleasant irony that Africans and Asians always speak dialects, rarely languages, while Europeans speak languages and almost never dialects.
The woman continued, “The interpreter said, ‘the chief says, you are human beings. I can see that, because I am a human being.’”
There was a little laughter in the Common Room.
She went on quoting the old African.” ‘God made daylight so that human beings can be busy outside tending their farms, fishing, and doing all the things for which they need light. God also gave human beings this head,’” she pointed a thin finger at her own head, “‘so that they would have enough sense to make indoors. Human beings sleep indoors at night, for God made night so that animals can search for their food, and breed, and have their young.’” The woman paused, then added, “Well, I thought that was poetic. Then he sent us to a hut where ledges had been built in the walls. We were given mats to sleep on. I guess it was a kind of guest house. John said the people who had lived there before had died of mosquito bites. Anyway, we slept in our clothes and in the morning a woman was cooking over a fire just outside and she gave us yams and crab stew about seven-thirty in the morning. Imagine crab stew at seven-thirty in the morning. When we tried to give her a tip, she refused, and beckoning us to follow, took us back to the old man and the translator was called again. He stood before the chief who looked at us and shook his head as if we were naughty children. When he stopped talking, the translator said, ‘The chief says “you are human beings. I can see that. God has chosen to make you without a proper skin. I do not question why. I accept. We brought you inside and slept you and fed you because you are humans. You cannot pay us. We did not make you human. God did that. You are traveling in a strange land. What less could we do? If I came to your land, and was outside, you would have to do the same for me. Gould I pay you? No. For you did not make me. God did that.’”
A man with a mouthful of coffee sputtered, “Can’t you just imagine the old codger caught in a revolving door in New York expecting somebody to help him because God made him?”
There was a round of self-conscious laughter.
An English woman stood, dropped her napkin and spoke in a low voice. “Even if that story is true you should never tell it again. You and your husband sound like ungrateful clods, and the African has the grace of Saint Augustine. I must say that I don’t pity you. I don’t pity Africa. I pity Europe. What poor representatives she has sent abroad. I am here to give three seminars. I must say I’ll be relieved to go. You are an embarrassment.”
The woman left and there was more soft embarrassed laughter. I sat watching the little group, wondering and curious to see what they would do and even more interested to learn what I would do.
“Well, must be going.”
“I, too. See you at seven?”
“Of course.”
“Ciao.”
“Ta.”
And they were gone. I looked at the steward, but his face had no more expression than a black billiard ball. I gathered my belongings and left the Common Room walking in an air of pleasant pride. I had not let my heart be troubled, I had not spoken idiotically, and I was overjoyed that the English woman whom I had seen only once had stood up and talked back. It was sad that she was leaving, and I wouldn’t have the chance to know her.
On an early morning the small figure of a woman stood in my office door. I was used to being at the institute long before other faculty members, so I supposed the figure to be a student, but as I neared I recognized Grace Nuamah.
Her smile was white and wide and a wonderful morning treat. “Sister Maya, welcome. Sister Maya, I came early to ask you to come to lunch with me today.” It wasn’t yet eight o’clock. “I wanted to ask you before you made other plans. A special friend of mine is preparing food. And Sister, there will be no fish.”
Grace and I left Legon under the blistering midday sun.
“Sister, I am still thanking you. We’re going to Ring Road and then over to Asylum Down.”
I asked whose house we were visiting. Her smile was sassy. She said, “Someone who knows how much I am in your debt. Just you wait and see.”
After we reached Accra, the drive was short. Following her directions, I stopped the car in front of a large impressive house surrounded by palms and a beautifully kept flower garden. Grace laughed with happy anticipation.
“Just you wait, Sister Maya.”
Her expectation was contagious, and I became excited. The door was closed, which was unusual in Ghana, and meant that the house was air conditioned.
A servant greeted us. Seeing Grace, he grinned, “Ooo, Auntie, welcome.” He spoke Ashanti, so I assumed our hosts were also from the north. In the foyer, I was introduced and the servant nodded solemnly to me, but gave his smile back to Grace.
“He is expecting you, Auntie Grace. Please come and sit; I will bring beer.”
We followed him into the richest living room I had seen in Ghana. Over-stuffed sofas were discreetly placed on Oriental rugs. Ornate sconces hung on walls covered with flocked paper. Crystal and silver sat on highly polished tables and recorded music issued softly into the room.
When Grace and I were alone, I asked, “Who are these folks?” Grace, still grinning, said, “Just you wait.”
We were sipping beer from German steins when a side door opened and a slim man of medium height wearing a suit, shirt and tie entered the room. He moved like a dancer and spoke in a rich baritone voice.
“Oh, little Grace. So you have come. What honor you bring to my humble house.”
He took Grace’s hands and drew her up from the sofa. She purred like a stroked kitten. He said, “You have stayed away entirely too long. If our relationship is in jeopardy, the crime must be on your head and it is you who will pay.”
He was laying it on and Grace was loving it, twisting her short body from side to side, taking one hand then the other from his grasp to put over her mouth as she smiled coquettishly. Their chatter and gestures came to an abrupt stop and Grace said, “Brother, I have brought my friend.” They both turned to look at me, and I knew at once that I had been a spectator at a ritual which had been choreographed for my enjoyment.
“Sister Maya, this is my dear friend Abatanu.” Now the man smiled for me. His teeth were white as if they had just been painted.
He reached for my hands and I stood.
“Miss Angelou, you have made a great impression on Grace, and she is not easily impressed. Welcome.”
He held my hands a moment too long, and looked just a little too deeply into my eyes. I decided in those first moments that I didn’t like his type. His suaveness was too practiced and his sophistication too professional. When he led the conversation to my background, my family, and where I lived in the States, Grace became silent, allowing us to get acquainted. Although I knew how to equivocate and to flirt by oblique responses, the man’s manned so put me off that I answered politely, but directly. Only a charlatan or a fool will ignore rejection, and Mr. Abatanu was neither.
When we sat down to lunch, he spoke only to Grace, and although she repeatedly tried to include me in their conversation, he would have none of it. Grace saw her match-making intentions foiled by our mutual lack of interest, and tried every gambit to sow interest between me and my host, but at last admitting failure, we finished the meal amid awkward silences.
My departure was plain. I shook hands with Abatanu and he soberly accepted my thanks for lunch. Grace said she’d join me in the car, so I went outside and didn’t have long to wait.
“Sister.” Hurt and reprimand vied for prominence in her voice. “Sister,” she shook her head, “Oh, Sister, and I was trying to thank you. He is a fine man, educated man, rich man, and he loves women, oh.”
“Grace, I was glad to meet him, so I thank you.”
“No, Sister, you didn’t like him and when he saw that, he stopped liking you.”
“Sister Grace, he never started liking me.”
“I told you I would thank you, and you probably thought I forgot, but I have been talking to Abatanu for weeks about you, and when finally I had everything arranged you didn’t like him. Oh, pity, Sister. Pity.”
It was hot. I was driving and more than a little irritated that I had spent an entire afternoon bored. I said, “Sister Grace, not to be rude, but if he is so fine, why don’t you have him?”
My question surprised her and drove the frown from her face. She laughed and put her hand lightly on her breast.
“Me? Me? Oh no! When you have a big beautiful gold nugget, you don’t melt it down to play with it. You might lose it. A wise person puts the nugget in a strong box and saves it for an important occasion. Sister Maya, I’ve been saving him a long time, and I was giving him to you.”
She stayed quiet for a while as I drove through heavy afternoon traffic, then she gave a great sigh and asked the breeze, “And what about him? Oh, what does he think?”
Years before I memorized a George Eliot quote, “I never feel sorry for conceited people, supposing they carry their comfort around with them.” Abatanu had enough comfort to cushion him from a drop higher than the one I furnished for him. I said nothing. Grace sighed again and said, “An African woman would have appreciated the gift and accepted it.”
I hadn’t been expecting her to give me a teddy bear or a talking doll. I gave my attention to the highway, hurrying back to Legon. When we stopped, I got out and took Grace’s hand. “Sister, I truly appreciate your thinking so kindly of me, and I’m grateful for your generosity.”
Grace would not or could not surrender her distress.
“Sister, I knew Americans were different, but….” She shook her head, patted my shoulder, and I stroked her arm. We stood looking at each other with nothing more to say.
Sheikhali was late again. I had been dressed and waiting for two hours. His tardiness had become so frequent that even as I prepared for a rendezvous I did so slowly, knowing there would be no need to rush.
Our date was for seven. At nine-thirty I got into my car and drove to the Star Hotel.
The head waiter took me to a pleasant table for two, overlooking the dance floor. Hurt pride rather than hunger or my wallet made me order a bottle of wine and a three-course dinner. I had nearly finished choking down the unwanted food when Sheikhali arrived.
He wore a flowing white robe and red tasseled fez. He was followed by the small Mamali who wore a matching outfit. They strode to my table. Sheikhali called for another chair and the two men sat down.
“Maya. I went to your house. It was dark. Even the servants refused to answer.” I decided not to tell him that both Otu and Kojo were away.
“I went to the Continental Hotel, the Lido, L’auberge. Am I a man to chase a woman? Look at me.” Anger had furrowed his face and tightened his throat. “My French is not good enough. I have brought Mamali to speak for me.”
For the first time Mamali spoke, “Good evening, Sister. Sheikhali has asked me to translate for him. He will speak Fufulde. I will translate into French.”
Mamali spoke with warmth, but his posture and words were formal.
Sheikhali leaned back in his chair and looked at Mamali. “Bon?”
Mamali nodded, the big man coughed and began. His language was melodic and his voice soft. He stopped.
Mamali said, “I have walked thousands of miles through forest storms, and I know under which tree to stand when the rains fall; a certain tree can change the mind of the winds. I know.”
Mamali stopped so that Sheikhali could resume. He spoke for a long time. When his voice fell, the attentive Mamali spoke again.
“I know the desert. I find my way through sand that burns and sun that bites, and I am never lost. I look at a cow. I feed a horse. I know them. I look at the moon and read the weather. You know books. Me, I know life. I have never been into one school. Not one. You read. I can write my name. So you know schools, but I know man, woman, cow, horse, desert, jungle, sun and moon. Who is smart, you or me?”
I said nothing.
Sheikhali turned and spoke to me directly. “I will marry you, for you are a good woman. In Mali the women will teach you to be better. If you are intelligent enough, you will learn enough. Because of me, you will be respected. But you must lose this White woman way of…” He said a word to Mamali, who translated. “Impatience.” Sheikhali continued, “Your father will come from America and we will talk.” For a second I tried to imagine Bailey Johnson, Sr., who was at least as proud as Sheikhali and as stiff as a penguin, leaving his perfectly furnished home in San Diego, California, to come to Africa, which he thought was populated by savages. It was impossible to picture my fastidious father even considering a prospective son-in-law who had grown up sleeping on the ground, surrounded by cattle.
I said, “I can’t marry you. I can’t go to Mali. Thank you, but … I can’t.”
He turned quickly to Mamali and spoke in Fufulde. Mamali dropped his eyes. When he spoke it was with regret.
“If you say no again, I will stop trying. I am a man, not a boy to be played with. This last time, will you …?” “No. I cannot.”
Sheikhali stood a mile above my head and smiled. His even teeth glistened.
“You are still a good woman, but you are not so intelligent. You are a functionaire. Only a functionaire.” He spat out the words, turned and followed by Mamali, left the restaurant.
In French the word for civil servant did not sound as lifeless as in English.
Each morning Ghana’s seven-and-one-half million people seemed to crowd at once into the capital city where the broad avenues as well as the unpaved rutted lanes became gorgeous with moving pageantry: bicycles, battered lorries, hand carts, American and European cars, chauffeur-driven limousines. People on foot struggled for right-of-way, white-collar workers wearing white knee-high socks brushed against market women balancing large baskets on their heads as they proudly swung their wide hips. Children, bright faces shining with palm oil, picked openings in the throng, and pretty young women in western clothes affected not to notice the attention they caused as they laughed together talking in the musical Twi language. Old men sat or stooped beside the road smoking homemade pipes and looking wise as old men have done eternally.
The too sweet aromas of flowers, the odors of freshly fried fish and stench from open sewers hung in my clothes and lay on my skin. Car horns blew, drums thumped. Loud radio music and the muddle of many languages shouted or murmured. I needed country quiet.
The Fiat was dependable, and I had a long weekend, money in my purse, and a working command of Fanti, so I decided to travel into the bush. I bought roasted plaintain stuffed with boiled peanuts, a quart of Club beer and headed my little car west. The stretch was a highway from Accra to Cape Coast, filled with trucks and private cars passing from lane to lane with abandon. People hung out of windows of the crowded mammie lorries, and I could hear singing and shouting when the drivers careened those antique vehicles up and down hills as if each was a little train out to prove it could.
I stopped in Cape Coast only for gas. Although many Black Americans had headed for the town as soon as they touched ground in Ghana, I successfully avoided it for a year. Cape Coast Castle and the nearby Elmina Castle had been holding forts for captured slaves. The captives had been imprisoned in dungeons beneath the massive buildings and friends of mine who had felt called upon to make the trek reported that they felt the thick stone walls still echoed with old cries.
The palm tree-lined streets and fine white stone buildings did not tempt me to remain any longer than necessary. Once out of the town and again onto the tarred roads, I knew I had not made a clean escape. Despite my hurry, history had invaded my little car. Pangs of self-pity and a sorrow for my unknown relatives suffused me. Tears made the highway waver, and were salty on my tongue.
What did they think and feel, my grandfathers, caught on those green Savannahs, under the baobab trees? How long did their families search for them? Did the dunge
on wall feel chilly and its slickness strange to my grandmothers who were used to the rush of air against bamboo huts and the sound of birds rattling their grass roofs?
I had to pull off the road. Just passing near Cape Coast Castle had plunged me back into the eternal melodrama.
There would be no purging, I knew, unless I asked all the questions. Only then would the spirits understand that I was feeding them. It was a crumb, but it was all I had.
I allowed the shapes to come to my imagination: children passed tied together by ropes and chains, tears abashed, stumbling in dull exhaustion, then women, hair uncombed, bodies gritted with sand, and sagging in defeat. Men, muscles without memory, minds dimmed, plodding, leaving bloodied footprints in the dirt. The quiet was awful. None of them cried, or yelled, or bellowed. No moans came from them. They lived in a mute territory, dead to feeling and protest. These were the legions, sold by sisters, stolen by brothers, bought by strangers, enslaved by the greedy and betrayed by history.
For a long time, I sat as in an open-air auditorium watching a troop of tragic players enter and exit the stage.
The visions faded as my tears ceased. Light returned and I started the car, turned off the main road, and headed for the interior. Using rutted track roads, and lanes a little larger than foot paths, I found the River Pra. The black water moving quietly, ringed with the tall trees, seemed enchanted. A fear of snakes kept me in the car, but I parked and watched the bright sun turn the water surface into a rippling cloth of lamé. I passed through villages which were little more than collections of thatch huts with goats and small children wandering in the lanes. The noise of my car brought smiling adults out to wave at me.
In the late afternoon, I reached the thriving town that was my destination. A student whom I had met at Legon had spoken to me often of the gold-mining area, of Dunkwa, his birthplace. His reports had so glowed with the town’s virtues, and I had chosen that spot for my first journey.
My skin color, features and the Ghana cloth I wore made me look like any young Ghanaian woman. I could pass if I didn’t talk too much.