Mistress of the Game

by Asabea Ashun

  Chapter 8

  September 5, Oakville, Canada

  Sarah was dreaming. It was in the morning and she was looking at herself in the full-length mirror beside the double doors. She always looked thinner in the morning. Her tummy seemed to be flatter, her skin firmer and her silhouette that much more desirable than around six pm – her worst time of the day. Maybe she should try and entice Philip in the mornings. She reached to her side of the bed where the bassinet stood. She picked one of the bottles of milk she’d pumped around two in the morning, shook it gently, put a few drops on the back of her hand, winced at the taste and picked the baby up. She then proceeded to feed him, cooing and gently rocking him as the baby hungrily sucked the life giving substance. The shrill ringing of the phone woke her from this all too familiar dream in which there was always a baby, and she was always his mother.

  She ignored the irritating rings and rolled over. Unable to ignore it after the fourth ring – the answering machine was set to come on after six rings - she stretched her neck to see the caller ID and smiled wistfully when she realized it was Philip. She debated returning to her dream but knew exactly where it would lead. Instead, she chose to think of Philip, their relationship and their future, a future that looked horribly difficult especially since that fateful day in the doctor’s office. It was bad enough that they couldn’t have a baby and now, Philip had AIDS?

  They’d met in Toronto, through a mutual friend who thought they’d be great together. His eyes were piercing and shrewd but on getting to know him, Sarah realized that Philip was merely a risk taker. There was no business idea that Philip didn’t find interesting. In his position as IT analyst at Greybank in Hamilton, he was always meeting people who had participated in and experienced quite a lot of financial gain in the tech boom. While she pursued her science degree, Philip was already working in the IT industry after completing his degree in Computer Science & Business. They dated on and off for two years and then he popped the question. When she said yes and told her Mama, she got a dressing down; when Margaret was mad, her Ghanaian accent completely took over her diction.

  “Ei, these days young people paa. Now when you need to get married, you talk to each other first? I’m sure you’ve got some of your Auntie Ceci’s wayward genes…she never listens to anyone you know? She’s moving to Canada ohhhhh….and she just told me last week!”

  To which Sarah just howled with laughter. Of course they’d talk to one another first! She couldn’t imagine a situation where she didn’t know who she’d be marrying but her parents would. Their track record in choosing spouses for others was not great; Sarah’s brother was married to a woman whose infidelity was the talk of their little town of Bethlehem…in Texas. And to top it off, he was called Joseph and she was called Mary but there was no offspring to bear the sacred name of Jesus. Talk about a useless pun.

  Her reverie was interrupted by another phone call. She woke with a start and the suddenness brought on a massive headache that made her squint in the dim light of their bedroom.

  “Have you got your laptop on?”

  “No…why?”

  “Because I need you to send me something right away”

  “But I’m sleeping….oh okay, hold on a minute.”

  Sarah deftly swung her legs out of bed, trudged to the living room and switched her laptop on.

  “Okay, I’m online now”, she said as she continued to pat the baby down. “Are you still there? Jane?”

  “ Yes, Yes, I just need you to send me something I can use to assess the laboratory assignment that has to do with ASA. I had the students perform the experiment and forgot to give them the rubric. Do you have that?”

  Sarah sighed and then smiled to herself. Jane was one of those adorable but eccentric friends of hers and she had enjoyed sharing many a high school summer with her. They both grew up in Ghana, went to the University of the Gold Coast and then both got scholarships to study in Canada. By the time Sarah completed her Masters in Science Teaching, she was married and moving to Toronto to work with the Peel District School board while Jane – always the more adventurous of the two – was off to teach in Korea.

  “Shall I send it to your school email address?’, Sarah asked.

  “Yah, please. My class is in an hour and I bet the photocopy room is full of people who wait till the last minute!”

  “You mean people like you?”, Sarah laughed.

  “You paaaa, just shut up!” Jane scoffed. They had a tendency to lapse into Ghanaian lingo every so often.

  “How are your tenth graders behaving this term?” Sarah asked.

  “Huh? Oh yeah, they’re fine. Still whiny and not realizing they have very little time left for university. They don’t want to hand anything in on time and when you take marks off for lateness, their parents come after you like you’re the one who’s committed a crime. Girlfriend, gotta run, I hear the PA…apparently there’s an emergency staff meeting. Will call you back yah?”

  Sarah hung up and slowly walked towards the bedroom she shared with Phillip. They’d bought this one bed-roomed condominium in Oakville just two years ago and were slowly beginning to enjoy suburban life. Her semester sabbatical was surely coming at the right time but when she requested the leave of absence, it was really to allow her body to recover from the onslaught of medical treatments and invasions she felt she’d had to endure this past year.

  A sideways tilt of her head revealed a stain on the once silky sexy nightdress she was wearing. These days, she hardly cared what she looked like and sometimes wondered if she was going through some sort of pseudo postpartum depression. Of course with no baby to show for it, it made no sense to call it that but what else did she have? Every test came back inconclusive and she had been to every info session she could find. Philip had initially not been worried about their inability to conceive but about three years ago, he had been asking a lot of questions. She was excited about this pro-active attitude of his and this buoyed her on to find several websites and fertility gurus all over the globe. Last year it had been an herb-like treatment from India. All you had to do was mix it with water and drink it every four hours at precisely the same time each day. She had followed it religiously and even Philip would call to remind her from work. Philip had started teaching in the same board of education as she did after he lost his IT job and the more she heard him talk about his students and what they were learning, the more she realized he was made for the classroom. Of course he didn’t need to have gotten this job for her to know – she just had to watch him at church with the youth; he was a natural.

  Which made it all the more frustrating when the regular treatments didn’t work and the non-traditional treatments from as far away as little Islands in the Pacific, made her gag. Once she’d known she’d need some time to recuperate and get her body back in shape, she called Jane who was finishing her fourth year of teaching in Korea and told her there’d be a vacancy at her school. Jane was ready to come back to Canada but the effort required to find a job was something she had forgotten how to summon up, so she just continued year after year, teaching in an environment that didn’t give her a thrill anymore but was still something that produced a paycheck. It was easy to get Jane to be interviewed. Sarah had already wowed her administration with her focus on lab work and gifted education and Jane, if a little eccentric, could do almost the same thing. Within a month, Jane was calling flight agents to figure out the cost of the flight back to Canada and Sarah was no longer feeling guilty that her students would have a useless teacher as they prepared to go to university. As she mused over her previous four years at Johnson Braeburn Academy for Excellence, she was also glad she was missing this ‘emergency’ staff meeting. No doubt the ineffective principal, Mr. Aubry Hamm would be shifting needlessly from foot to foot, wondering how to correctly phrase the inane statement he was about to make, probably something along the lines of ‘Please make sure students pay attention in class’, or ‘It has come to my notice that the senior stu
dents are not helping junior students’. Wow, what do you say to that? A smile slowly crept along Sarah’s face as she recalled those staff meetings, and how badly all the teachers wanted to laugh and yet how maturely they held their faces together. By Mr. Hamm’s side would be his trusty sidekick Mrs. Jess Mapin, one of those women who had been very effective, a very long time ago. Word on the street was that she had hit the glass ceiling before there was a glass ceiling and she was now reduced to saying yes to everything Mr. Hamm came up with. She was planning to retire in a few years and gave the impression that she’d given up on the educational corporate ladder. No one was fooled.

  Brrrrr….

  Sarah rushed to the pick up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Girl, you sitting down?”

  “Yes, why?” Sarah answered apprehensively. Jane was breathing very deeply and seemed distressed.

  “I don’t know this guy since I’ve just gotten here but you probably will. Kevin Taylor.”

  “Yes, I remember him. Tall guy, school athlete, awesomely polite with amazing parents. Why, what’s wrong?”

  “Well, he just died.”

  “WHAT?”

  Sarah screamed so loudly that within five seconds of the scream, another followed, as her tiny condominium took on the characteristics of a cave. She heard her voice echoing all over the place and clutching the phone, moved from one part of the apartment to another, stomping as she murmured to herself ‘no, no, no…”

  Taking a deep breath, she asked calmly.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Hamm just told us that Kevin was working at his after school job and had an accident. He was rushed to Sick Kids Hospital by helicopter but died en route. Everyone is in a daze here and I feel weird, girl. I didn’t even know the guy and I’m feeling weird.”

  “Oh dear God. Why? Not…him”, Sarah muttered.

  “I’ll call you tonight okay?” And with that, Jane was off and Sarah was left to process this information. This is where it would have been a godsend to have a baby to hold…to divert attention; she would jog the baby up and down as she processed the information. How could this possibly happen to such a good kid? Last year, he was the only student in the class to hand his work in on time, and being a school athlete, it was a complete shock. He never complained about work…he was quite the darling. And of course the girls worshipped the ground he walked on but he never took advantage of that adoration. Seriously speaking, Kevin was quite a kid and she’d often pray that if she ever had a child of her own, that he’d turn out that decent. She quickly leaned on one of the chairs in the dining hall area, slowly allowing herself to feel the soft cushion. She went back to her Apple laptop and decided to go on twitter…she’d most likely find some information there and she needed to be kept busy. She signed in and looked to find one of the trustworthy students in her previous class and clicked to ‘follow’ her. Almost immediately, she started receiving a barrage of tweets about Kevin. He’d apparently died just that morning surrounded by family. He never woke from the coma and late the previous night, his parents had decided to let him go peacefully to his Lord. The funeral was the following weekend in Oakville, at Our Lady of Mercy at the Corner of Trafalgar and Basildon. Sarah immediately put it in her calendar and then got up to call Philip.

  “Hi”, she said softly.

  “Hi sweets. I called you earlier… were you still sleeping”?

  He sounded very happy to hear her and who could blame him? Lately, they only spoke to one another to relay important information – your dinner’s on the range, make sure you let the cat out, there’s a debit on our bank statement from a company I didn’t shop at – did you?”

  “Yah, sort of but one of my students has just died” Sarah said.

  “WHAT?”

  “Yah, I know, Kevin Taylor -you know the athletic kid I was telling you about the other day? The one who organized the surprise party for Mr. Hamm?”

  “Yes I do. What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get home. Its just too weird right now and I’m…I’m just all shook up. Can you please pick up some couscous on your way home?”

  “Sure. Hang in there. I know how much you liked him but these things happen.”

  “THESE THINGS HAPPEN? KIDS DIE IN FREAK ACCIDENTS LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME?” Sarah’s voice was definitely not a whisper this time. She put one hand on her chest as she fought back tears, breathing heavily with sadness and anger all at once.

  “No, you know what I mean. I mean stuff happens that we have no control over. I know I’d hate for this to happen to any of my students”, Philip concluded.

  “I can’t believe you’re saying that…like its no big deal. Did anyone tell you in Teachers College that you’d be outliving your students?”

  Philip sighed. Clearly he was going to have to handle her with very kid gloves; she was extremely raw.

  “No of course not. I’m sorry honey…I’m just tired. But I’m really glad you called me to share the information, however sad.”

  “Gosh you are absolutely no help!!!” Sarah yelled down the phone line. She burst into tears and the waterworks muffled the next few sentences Philip muttered an apology. She placed the wet handset back into the cradle, staring at the wall right in front of her.

  “Ugh”! She spat out.

  Philip hung up and stared for a few minutes at his phone. Then he placed it back in his pocket. In another lifetime, he would have called her back, and jokingly asked if it was her time of the month. He couldn’t afford to do that now. The past few months had been the worst of his life. He felt sick and he looked sick. He’d never been one to dwell on outward appearances but it was getting to the point where it was painful to look at himself in the mirror. His face was blotchy, patches of dark pink in a sea of light pink, eyes that looked dull and a smile that no longer looked inviting because of persistent cold sores. It wasn’t surprising that Sarah never looked at him with desire. Of course with the diagnosis of HIV, there wasn’t much they could do in bed and there was definitely no energy. How long they were going to go on like this was anyone’s guess but he for one wanted it to be over. He took his phone out of his pocket and started dialing a long distance number.

  “This is the MTN mail box belonging to 0243 334 909, please leave a message”

  “Jay bud, its Phil. Just calling to check up on ya. Hope you good. Call when you get this message ok?”

  Phillip wearily put the phone back in his pocket and stared out of the office window.

  

  It was a bright sunny day at the forested prayer camp three hours outside the city of Accra and the tall woman with the stately gait made her way towards the center of the crowded field, making sure to watch her step. There were men and women lying on the ground on makeshift beds, some surrounded by relatives, others alone and looking barely alive. Suddenly she heard a shrieking voice that sounded like it came out of someone very much out of this world. Before she could turn around to see the source of the blood-curdling sound, she was knocked down onto the dusty field by a group of people who were also trying to get away from the shrieking voice. Swallowed by the confusing crowd, she barely managed to let out a gasp before coming face to face with what could only be described as a demon. He was bedraggled with cuts all over his body, matted hair and a smell that raccoons would run away from. She lay still on the sodden earth, trying not to look at him. Beside him, trying to hold onto him were two beefy men and an older woman with a headscarf tied in an old fashioned way – all the way forward on her forehead. The latter was crying and shaking as she shouted.

  “Jesus, help us ohhhhh. Who else do we have to turn to eh? This madness…where did it come from ohhhhhh? O God, help my child please”

  The mad man continued to struggle with the two beefy men, yelling obscenities at them and cursing at the top of his demonic voice. Suddenly, one of the men gave him a big knock on the side of his head and with that, he fell to the ground beside the tal
l woman. Almost immediately, he started shaking violently, frothing at the mouth and seemingly choking. Everyone started running away from him, except the tall woman who looked like she was not from these parts, who lay transfixed at the same spot, unable to move away and yet, well aware that she was in a dangerous place. The mad man continued to foam at the mouth as his relatives, among those who’d run away, started screaming at the woman.

  “Madam, move away ohhhhh…if you become mad too, you can’t blame us ohhhhh. Get up quick!”

  She slowly came to, and started shifting slowly away from the mad man. She was afraid to move too fast just in case he woke from whatever trance he was in and made straight for her. On the other hand, if she didn’t move away, the froth emanating from his body would touch her. And according to what she’d heard, it was dangerous, though how so, she had no idea. By the time she had moved about two feet from him, the frothing stopped and he lay as if dead. The relatives ran to him and his mother took off her outer cloth that she’d wrapped around her long skirt and started cleaning her son up. People started attending to their own business and the out of town woman slowly moved away from the scene. She looked around her to make sure no one she knew had seen her. She need not have worried. No one there knew who she was.

  Except the wizened man with the darting eyes who always came with her, and who stood surreptitiously at the edge of the field with an incredulous look on his face.

  

  Philip had asked for a leave of absence from the school board for the upcoming Winter Semester. In the past month, he had hacked and coughed and sneezed more than he ever had in his entire life. Preparing lesson plans for the grade nine’s was a chore but the twelve’s were a delight. Maybe it was because they were applying to universities and the heat was on. Maybe it was their hormones. Whatever. They were giving him less hassle than they did last year and especially at this time, Philip needed less hassle in his life.

  He stared at his laptop as he sat in the Staff Room. He felt people were looking at him weirdly but then again, he felt many things these days, most of them unreal. After that disastrous phone call from Sarah, the house had seemed chillier than normal, a normal that had replaced the warmth which had previously characterized his marriage. When he’d first laid eyes on her, he’d thought she was hot. So hot he dared not talk to her. She was medium height, lovely black hair done in cornrows and a body that made him think that all female bodies should be made this way. He’d dated many types but this was the first time he had felt attracted to a black girl…and he felt weird. So weird he told no one, hoping the feeling would pass because it seemed like such uncharted territory. They were both at University of Toronto, taking a French elective along with fifty other students so it was easy for him to watch her without making it too obvious. One morning, just after the class had ended at eleven, he gingerly walked behind her, aching to say hi, introduce himself and maybe ask her for a coffee at the Tim Hortons in the Quad. As he mustered the courage, she paused to pick up a pen that had fallen out of her open purse and onto the floor. He debated in that split second whether to pick it up. He did, she smiled her thanks at him and flashed those pearly white teeth and he had a chance to look into her dark brown face. How very odd that black people had such white teeth, he thought.

  ‘Hey, you in a hurry”?

  ‘No, not really’, she replied

  ‘Shall we get a coffee?” he suggested.

  She nodded and they headed towards Timmy’s, talking about their Professor, Mademoiselle Landry’s insistence on everything being handwritten in this age of technology and the maddening way she refused to let them work on individual projects – everything had to be done in groups. By the time they sat down – Philip with his coffee (with double cream) and Sarah with her medium French Vanilla – they were friends. Philip was amazed that they shared so much in common: Sarah loved sports, had even played field hockey in her native Ghana and she followed American football avidly – she was a diehard Buffalo Bills Fan. No one had ever told him that an African, let alone a woman would enjoy the commercially brute excitement of an NFL game. He was even more enamoured when she knew of the famous game – The Miracle at Rich - that the Bills played against the Houston Oilers in the nineties where they had the greatest comeback of any NFL team. He was in love and he knew it. They said good-bye but he knew his mind was enraptured. How was he going to make this work?

  He still couldn’t tell anyone but he decided to find out everything about Ghana. He had only heard of Guyana and was smart enough not to say that to her face. He went online and searched for its location. Then he read various blogs about traveling in Ghana and what it was famous for, surprised that it had been a major hub for the slave trade prior to the nineteenth century. He didn’t know any black people and he knew of no friends of his, or family who knew any black people. The more he read, the more he learned and by the time Mademoiselle Landry had what they called her ‘awakening’ and asked them to choose partners for a skit, he knew who he wanted to work with.

  Sarah seemed reserved those first few months. She was fun to be with but she never initiated any intimacy. Later, she told him it was the Ghanaian way – no girl ever acted like she wanted a boy; that was sacrilegious and shameful. He was intrigued and wondered if she’d never have told him if he never told her he liked her. Yes, she replied emphatically. She was raised to believe that a man should go after the woman and not the other way round. Odd, Philip thought, but quite endearing. She had no family in Canada since she’d come over as a foreign student so there was no one to meet in the early stages of the relationship, which suited him fine. He had family but they were also out of province. Many a night was spent introducing Sarah to ice hockey, a game she thought was beautiful when the Russians played the Canadians and never when the Americans played the Canadians! She initially couldn’t stand the smell of macaroni and cheese, said it smelled like vomit. He added some shrimp, threw in a couple of mango slices and she was literally eating out of his hands. She told him that when they were married, he’d never have to cook. She’d be disowned by her family if she allowed her husband to be seen slaving away in the kitchen. Another odd thing, he thought but he was secretly looking forward to it. The thought of it actually turned him on and he wondered if creeping up from behind her while she chopped cucumbers or some such vegetable would scare her or turn her on; he was excited just at the thought. This signaled a turning point in the relationship and Philip decided to do the official thing and ask her to marry him. He arranged for a para-gliding lesson, did all the necessary arrangements and then invited Sarah to come along with him. It was a warm April afternoon and the instructors had assured him that there was going to be no April shower or freakish thunderstorm. Sarah, arrived, intrigued at the thought of hanging in the sky.

  “You know my parents will have heart attacks when they hear I am doing this?”

  “Why, its fun” replied Philip.

  “Yah, I know its fun but its dangerous Philip. You white people are not afraid of this sort of thing at all are you?”

  “And why should we be? If we take all the necessary precautions, how could anything go wrong?” Philip asked.

  “Well…there are bad spirits and stuff…”

  “A-n-d?”

  “And they can do stuff” Sarah added, sounding unsure of herself.

  “What kind of stuff? Like cut the strings, punch a hole in the equipment, cut off our heads, blind us so we don’t see what we’re doing?”

  Philip was joking but one look at Sarah told him she wasn’t on the same page with him. This was not going the way he planned.

  “Listen Sarah, I’m sorry, I was just trying to be funny.”

  “Well you weren’t…seriously, bad stuff can happen, don’t you know that? Don’t you believe in bad spirits?”

  “Yes I do, but I also believe in good ones too and I’d rather think of them than always worry about the bad ones. If it makes you feel better, we shall pray, say the apostle’s
creed or something and we’ll be protected. Deal?’

  She smiled at him and cupping his face in her hands, she kissed him slowly and awakened all those yearnings he was trying desperately to control. He ached for her and wanted her so badly but she’d told him she planned on remaining a virgin until she married. He was very fine with that, when his head was okay. But when she did this to him, looking at him with her large brown & white eyes, her full lips taking his less full lips head on, literally, running her hands along his back and arching her front so it fit snugly into his own, he was definitely not fine with that. He breathed in her scent, struggling not to show how madly his body was behaving and then she slowly released him from her hold. His head felt faint. O God, he wanted her so badly.

  The preparation for the flight took about an hour and a half and by the time they were all suited up, Sarah was the one who felt faint.

  “Do you know how many bad spirits are rejoicing right now that I’m playing into their hands? Huh? I’ve kept safe for so long and now, I’m going to jump out of a plane? Do you realize I am the only black person here? I’m following you, a white boy who has done this several times and who has no bad spirits following him. May my ancestral spirits forgive me for doing this very foolish thing. Philip, promise me you will never tell my mother otherwise she will personally cage me until some sense is knocked into my African head. What the hell am I doing here? Tell me now. WHAT THE HELL!”

  Philip clutched her as her body stiffened with fear. He reached into his pocket and fingered the ring. He couldn’t wait to shut her up by showing it to her.

  It was their turn to jump. The helicopter was flying low over some fields and down below, all seemed right with the world. Up above, Philip was smiling and holding tightly onto the hand of a frightened black girl. She was heaving so strongly that it could have been possible for her to drown out the engines of the helicopter. The instructor motioned to Philip for them to jump. He looked at Sarah, nodded and jumped, dragging her with him. She yelled and screamed but held on tightly. The winds were slow so it didn’t cut through their faces as much as he’d feared. She calmed down after they’d fallen about ten feet, still clutching his hands tightly and not planning to let go. At about fifty feet down, he told her he needed to get something from his pocket.

  “What? Are you crazy? What will I hold onto?”

  “My other hand honey!”

  “I will skin you alive with my African knife when we get back to earth you hear? And I will make Macaroni and cheese out of your white body you hear?”

  He smiled. Holding the ring in his left hand and trying to swallow as little wind as possible, he shouted:

  “Sarah Ama Adobea Ankrah, will you marry me?”

  He felt so proud of himself pronouncing those names. Well Sarah was easy. But the others were quite the mouthful but after she explained what they meant, it oddly became easier. Ama meant she was a girl born on Saturday and Adobea was her grandmother’s name.

  She just stared.

  And then she smiled.

  “Give me your hand white boy! I need that more than the ring!”

  “But will you marry me?’ he insisted

  “If you give me your hand and it has the ring, well…I’ll have no other choice, will I?”

  She smiled, clutching his hands ever tighter. They could see the ground now and in a matter of minutes, they would be on terra firma.

  They landed with different thuds. Philip’s was soft because he knew how to land and Sarah’s could be heard a mile away because as she later told Philip, she thought her ample African buttocks would cushion the fall. Fat chance. She rubbed her sore bottom, aching and moaning for the next few minutes. He sat quietly looking at her and then he moved closer. She pretended not to notice and kept rubbing her thighs, ankles, anything just to keep from looking at him. He was willing to wait and when she finally turned to look at him, she had tears in her eyes.

  “Why are you crying?” he asked.

  “Because I love you.”

  “And I love you too and that’s why I want you to marry me.”

  “But I can’t’, she replied softly

  “But you just said you loved me”, Philip was confused.

  “I know I did. But that doesn’t mean I will marry you’.

  “What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘Please don’t be angry, let me explain. You see, I’m the only daughter of a very educated man, a Ghanaian diplomat who has even shaken the hands of the Queen of England.”

  She rolled her eyes back. Clearly she didn’t think this was so important that they shouldn’t be married, Philip thought.

  “My parents sent me here to Toronto, to get an education, not to get married to a white boy. Besides in Ghana, people don’t get married this way, the families have to get involved. They have to conduct an investigation to find out if there are any extenuating circumstances that would prevent us from having a very fruitful marriage, like insanity and incurable diseases and such. Yah, I know, sounds ridiculous but that’s how it’s been and it isn’t going to change. To date, I’ve never met anyone in your family and you’ve never met anyone from mine – what if my parents are insane and yours are…well, insane too? In Ghana, the family is so much more than just your parents and brothers and sisters – it’s everyone who’s ever known you since you were born. Can be a bit annoying but when I hear that someone wants to commit suicide here in the Western World because they are lonely, I realize why I hardly heard of such a reason to want to die in Ghana. Everyone is in your face so you don’t have a chance to be lonely. I cannot and will not get married without my parents permission and blessing and until we do get it…and yours as well, we’ll just have to…you know…hang out and stuff. Am I making any sense?”

  Philip looked at his beloved. She was so beautiful when she was at her most ridiculous so for this performance, she would definitely be Miss Universe.

  “Tell me what to do my African princess and I shall. Shall we start with mine?”

  She looked like she didn’t believe him at first. Wasn’t he going to argue that she was ridiculous?

  ‘Sarah, what you said makes no sense to me. But I’m willing to agree that it makes sense to you and if we are to be together, I’ve got to make sense of these African things. You’ve learned to eat mac and cheese, watch ice hockey, sleep with a cat in the same bed and cry when you are happy instead of only when you are sad. All things you tell me are quite white. So what do you say I learn some African things? I will learn to eat that sticky thing you call fufu and I promise not to gag. I will find a team, other than the USA, Spain or Portugal – a genuinely African team to support at the World Cup, and I will learn to dance well enough not to look like a rubber chicken. I will try not to let the cat sleep in my bed all the time and I will not beg you to let us keep snakes as pets. Deal?”

  Their trip to Ghana at Christmas of that same year was one of his most memorable trips anywhere. First of all, the trip took forever and the wait in Amsterdam was numbing. By the time they reached Accra, the capital of Ghana, he was aching for a bath and some air conditioning. The first, he got. The second, not really. The electricity was shut down to Sarah’s parents neighbourhood of Pokuase so after waiting half an hour for it to come on and it didn’t, Sarah’s father asked the house help to turn the generator on. Dr. Ankrah was a well-read man, educated at St. Cross, Oxford and with almost forty years of diplomatic service under his belt, he was on what he called, the final leg of his diplomatic tour. He was hoping for a posting closer to home but dreaded the thought of it being any of the unstable countries that shared Ghana’s borders. There’d been quite a lot of unrest after the government had dramatically reduced subsidies to farmers in the North and since that was a populous region, many international observers were keeping their fingers crossed that it wouldn’t incite the Muslim north to start an uprising. Mrs. Margaret Ankrah was Sarah’s mother. Tall, stately and the perfect hostess, she plied Philip with so much food that he knew he had
gained ten pounds in only the first week of his visit. They visited the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum where the architect of Ghanaian independence from the British was buried. They walked on top of the rain forest in Kakum and lazed on the beaches of Busua in the Western Region. They water skied in Sogakope, hiked at the foot of the Shai Hills and took a leisurely cruise on the Volta Lake near Akosombo. Philip had heard of the Aburi Botanical gardens and wanted to see some of the world’s largest collections of herbal remedies so on the weekend before they left, they spent the whole day at the Arboretum. Local witch doctors told them they’d found the cure for cancer, heart disease, diabetes and AIDS. Philip marveled, till Sarah signaled with her eyes that it was all probably hogwash. By the end of the two-week trip, Philip was in love again. With a land that was both mystical and real, dirty in many parts but clean in some, warm at all times of the year and vibrant like he’d never known anywhere else to be. He and Sarah grew closer and he began to understand the connections that people believed they had to spirits – both good and bad.

  On the last evening, as the family gathered to say good bye with a dinner so elaborate that Philip thought the Queen of England was going to be there, Philip officially asked Dr. & Mrs. Ankrah for Sarah’s hand in marriage. There was loud clapping and shouts of joy from everyone present. There were aunts and uncles, cousins twice and thrice removed and old family friends from Sarah’s parents old college days. Sarah’s brother and his wife were in Texas so she had no sibling present, but no one looking at the gathering would have guessed it. The meal was a five course one, replete with hot sauces, fruits and vegetables, sticky yams and fried meats. Then there was the dancing. Hot African rhythms that begged you to move your body and slow gyrating melodies that pulled you towards a bedroom to continue the movements your body had already began to make. Philip was completely sold and as he held Sarah’s body really close, his achy dreams of the past year crashed into his reality. Here was his love and he wanted her like never before.

  ‘Ei, excuse me ohhhhh, not until the engagement ohhhh’, boomed a loud voice from behind him, interrupting his erotic thoughts.

  That was Uncle Ebo, Sarah’s forty-year-old uncle. He worked for Newmont, a gold company based in East Legon, a suburb of the capital of Accra. He was still not married and Sarah had hinted to Philip that he might be gay. Philip wondered why no one knew Uncle Ebo was gay.

  ‘How will they when they know no one who is gay? Do you know I never knew there was such a thing till I came to North America? I remember we used to call boys who acted as girls, Kojo-Besia, meaning Kojo-girl. And you know that Kojo refers to a boy born on Monday right?’ Sarah explained.

  Uncle Ebo was gyrating his hips, much like everyone else except that his was a bit effeminate. Philip smiled at him, trying to move his body in rhythm with the Kwabena Kwabena hit that everyone else seemed to know. They continued dancing as they talked above the music. Philip moved closer to Uncle Ebo so he could respond to his accusation.

  “What do you mean Uncle Ebo? We’re practically engaged”.

  “Who said so?” Ebo asked.

  “Dr. Ankrah. When I asked him for Sarah’s hand in marriage, he nodded.”

  Uncle Ebo laughed.

  “Oh you white people! He was just being polite. You’re not engaged yet my son. All you’ve done is declared your intent. Just you wait till you find out what the engagement is!”

  With that he sidled away, gyrating his effeminate hips and turning heads all around the room. Philip continued dancing his way towards the kitchen, where Sarah had disappeared when Uncle Ebo came up to talk to him. She wasn’t there but all the ladies smiled broadly at him and congratulated him. What did Ebo mean then? Why would they be congratulating him if he wasn’t engaged to Sarah?

  Philip woke with a start from his reverie in the staff room. Those had been the very good days. What he would give to go back there? Everything. It was a no brainer.

  

  As a mourner, Sarah could wear nothing but black. Ghana does that to you; makes you colour conscious even for events. She maneuvered her green VW Beetle off the main road and into Basildon Court. The parking lot was packed with other mourners and the little church looked like it would be ready to burst at its seams. She drove out of the parking lot after unsuccessfully trying to capture a spot and managed to find street parking two streets down. She deftly parallel parked and stepped out of the car - a 2008 model – like she was stepping out of a Mercedes 320. Just like Mama had taught her.

  “Ei, if you want to be a lady, you’ve got to show you’re a lady ohhhhh…even when you’re just getting out of a car, everyone must see that the Queen has arrived.”

  Sarah’s mother Mrs. Margaret Ankrah was one of those women who had married ‘up’ and was ready at all times to show it. She insisted on ‘proper dress’ at all times, and made sure that everyone knew that she’d been invited to Buckingham Palace as the wife of a man who represented the Ghanaian diplomatic corps.

  Despite her grief, Sarah smiled wanly. The last time she’d been to Ghana was about four years ago and she missed her mom and dad deeply. Her only brother was in Maryland with his wife and she really didn’t get much time to see them. Without family in Canada, she and Philip had been drawn to the Church of The Holy Sepulcher and it was here, a multicultural church in the heart of Toronto that they had formed strong bonds with members that they now called family. Philip was an Elder as well as the Assistant Youth Pastor and she was the Assistant Treasurer. She walked into the Sanctuary where Kevin Taylor’s funeral was being held and heard soft mellow music as she viewed the one thousand or so people who’d gathered to celebrate his life. Jane had told her she’d sit at the back and reserve a seat for her so she made her way along the back row, looking for a black, medium height woman with a gigantic hair weave. Ah, there she was. Jane was looking stunning with a thirty-inch wavy hair weave and wearing a dark pair of pants and dark jacket. Still so Ghanaian – there was no way they could go a funeral without wearing black!

  She slipped in beside her best friend, took the program that Jane handed her and proceeded to look around. This was a painful exercise since the room was filled mostly with students and their parents, all of whom she recognized and who recognized her. It was only the first week of school and already, there was so much grief to deal with.Tears welled up in Sarah’s eyes as she looked up on the projector to see Kevin’s young tanned face, eyes full of life and a smile full of hope. The thought that this human being would never walk the earth again filled her with so much wrath and sorrow that she just had to get out. Sarah literally stomped out with her head low, tears coursing down her cheeks and snot struggling to stay in her nose. She rushed to the bathroom, relieved to find no one else there and just bawled her eyes out. As she drooled and wiped – nose, eyes, mouth – she used her hands to hold onto the industry standard sink and stared at her tear streaked face in the mirror. What looked back was a grown woman with blood shot eyes. She wondered how much worse she could look if she’d visited Johnny Walker the night before.

  Sighing deeply, she wiped her face and proceeded to go back into the service. Jane looked inquiringly at her but didn’t push any further when the redness in her eyes and the smudged makeup revealed what Sarah had been doing. The service continued with singing and remembrances and then before midday, the coffin was led down the aisle as the family walked behind solemnly. When they got to her, she reached out to the nearest family member, Mr. Taylor and gave him a hug.

  “I’m so sorry”, Sarah said between sobs.

  “He’s with the Lord…and we have to accept that” his father said.

  “But how can you be so calm Mr. Taylor?” Sarah asked incredulously.

  The man didn’t look like he’d cried at all. Could be a white thing, Sarah thought. This was one of the first shockers in her adult life; that a white funeral and a Ghanaian funeral could be fundamentally and markedly different. At the former, you could see family members, standing around the open caske
t smiling or laughing, chatting and eating cookies and at the Ghanaian one, intense wailing from everyone present, even those who didn’t know the deceased or the family members, and had come in for the free food. It was considered bad luck to have a dry eye at your funeral. Why worry about more bad luck after you’re dead, Sarah often thought.

  “I’m not so sure Mrs. Arthur-Beck. All I know is that people like you touched Kevin’s life and made it so meaningful while he was here. I think perhaps, God has given us what he talked about – that peace that passes all understanding?”

  This man was seriously delusional Sarah thought, as she nodded graciously, pretending to understand everything he’d said. Yah, maybe it was a white thing - this stiff upper lip business that stopped people from showing emotion. Here was a seventeen year old young man, in his prime for crying out loud, destined for great things and snatched away before he could accomplish them and all his father could say was he had a peace? She grabbed Jane’s hand and found the quickest way out of the sanctuary, stomping off like someone was sticking pins in her.

  “Did you hear him?” she angrily asked Jane as they exited the large church building into a blistering Canadian sunshine devoid of heat.

  “Girl, you’re over-reacting ohhh…you’re just really angry and sad at the same time”, Jane concurred wisely.

  “Oh shut up!”

  “Please ohhh, don’t bring your wahala on me please. I’m just trying to make you see that you should chill. You’re not Kevin’s mom…heck, you’re not even family!”

  “And you think I don’t know that? Of course I’m not his parent, I’m his teacher!”

  “And you think that gives you the right to be more upset than his parents?”

  They walked together in silence, Sarah still stomping in her two-inch Walmart no name brand heels and Jane in her four-inch Manolo Blahnik knock offs she picked up shopping in Bangkok. The two friends reached their cars and glared at each other.

  “I need to laugh again”, admitted Sarah.

  “Well follow me – Ayo and Margarethe had planned to meet me at the Tim Hortons at Dundas and Trafalgar. You know Margarethe will have stories about her many men!”

  Sarah groaned.

  “Not that kind of laughter Jane! I don’t want to hear how she’s seeing another guy just after dumping another one two weeks ago. I’m really getting worried about her you know, there’s only so much time before she contracts something…”

  “Like AIDS?”

  “Yah, like AIDS.”

  “Oh stop being morbid and let’s go!”

  Jane revved up her pink Ford Fiesta and waited for Sarah to do the same. They slowly made their way out of the crowded parking lot and headed towards Trafalgar Road.

  

  Margarethe and Ayo were waiting at Senora’s as promised and as Jane’s Fiesta, a few cars ahead of Sarah’s turned into the parking lot, they let out a whoop. The four had been friends for a couple of years and every so often, they’d meet and have a chin wag.

  Margarethe was a petite brunette with lashes that seemed immediately fake but were not. She was a Business Analyst for AT & T after having completed a degree in Business and Communications at Wilfred Laurier University. She was in her mid thirties, still unmarried and seemingly not worried about her ‘condition’, as Jane called it. Almost every time they met, Margarethe had a story about a guy she was dating, and it was never the same one. Ayo was Nigerian and had lived in Canada for about ten years, ever since her husband had accepted a position as a Professor of Education at McMaster’s new Mississauga Campus. She was tall and buxom, fair skinned and with a permanent hair weave, something the girls laughed about constantly. She had the natural confidence of a Nigerian woman, sure of her beauty, her strength and her ability to train a man and she would often regale her friends with stories such as the day she was going out to do her hair and her husband Tunde asked:

  “Where are you off to?’

  “Why?’, she asked haughtily

  “Well, I’ll be at home alone,” Tunde said.

  “Ei, get used to it my brother, life is short.” Ayo responded.

  They’d laugh and laugh and laugh at the thought of the six foot two Professor Tunde Akinlolu, wanting to be home with his wife because he didn’t want to be alone. And then Ayo would say:

  “I lie ohhh”

  And then they’d laugh again, recollecting how Ayo alone had the power to imitate the ways of African men and women with a vividness that made it difficult to believe that the incidents she spoke of would never happen in her home.

  She was clearly telling one of her stories when Sarah and Jane entered because Margarethe was almost on the floor laughing, holding her sides and almost choking.

  “Ei Ayo, what are you doing to this poor white girl huh? Stop oh, before you get arrested for killing a white girl.” Jane jokingly said.

  “Not my fault oh? Margarethe claims she is now dating a Nigerian man and I asked her if it was 419. Of course she doesn’t know about 419 so I told her to be careful he doesn’t chop her dollar ohhhhh! Especially as her body is not the kind that a legit Nigerian man would want, there’s got to be another reason for his interest in her and its not because she’s easy!”

  They all burst out laughing. This was what they all needed and it was at times like this that they realized just how much they did. Ayo didn’t have a chance in hell at making Tunde laugh at home. He was surly, studious and too academic for her liking but her parents had chosen him for her so what choice did she have? They’d told her he’d take good care of her. Check. They’d told her she’d never be in want of anything material. Check. They told her there was no hint of infertility in his family so they’d have many children. She and Tunde had four strapping boys. Check.

  They didn’t tell her she’d hardly laugh.

  Margarethe’s life, despite the spin she put on it was horribly empty. She was an only child with parents who’d adopted her when they were in their fifties. In her small town of Ancaster, she’d had few friends, quickly realizing that the world could be a cruel place if you had no familial backup. Because her parents were leaders in the church, she followed them dutifully, even going to the local Christian college for her first two years. All was well until that fateful night when she’d been brutally attacked by three men from a biker gang on the outskirts of Hamilton. She died that night and her spirit haunted this body that she hated with a might no one would ever know. Laughing with her girls was therapy. And she was addicted to therapy.

  Jane was ashamed of herself. Here she was, a sassy, hot African girl with international experiences and still man-less. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she keep a man? She’d tried everything. The demure angle had attracted a soft-spoken Korean man while she was teaching in Korea. That was a two-week nightmare when she found that he couldn’t hold her unless her skin was cold and clammy. His demands, prior to a date included her lying in a cold bath to chill her skin. Then there was the Ghanaian guy she’d met online, both embarrassed at having to go online to find someone. They chatted through skype till she found out his idea of a relationship, involved only co-habitation, at her expense. He was an illegal immigrant living in Ohio and he wanted out. Jane’s Canadian citizenship would be his ticket out of immigration hell. When she refused, he offered to pay her. Feeling like crap, she gave in to the advances of her yoga coach at the local Premier Fitness Center, starting a spiral free fall that was still in free fall. Whenever she wasn’t laughing with her girls, she wanted to cut herself, mutilate the body she no longer felt was useful. That was so, not, African, she thought.

  “So Margarethe, is an engagement eminent?” Jane asked, a little jealous.

  “I hope so” Margarethe grinned.

  “Well you better get ready girl – these African engagements are not like your usual white ones you know? It’s a whole elaborate affair, like a real marriage. Right Sarah?”

  All eyes were on Sarah who was quite subdued today. She smiled wan
ly, grateful for an opportunity to jump into a conversation at a safe point. She and Philip were going through the roughest patch of their marriage and a chance to recall one of the better times was very welcome.

  “Well, let me tell you!’ she perked up. And the friends all inched closer. Margarethe took a bite of her biscotti while the others dug into their Caesar salads.

  “You remember that we went to Ghana for a visit first, right? And Philip was shocked to hear that asking for my hand in marriage and receiving a positive response didn’t indicate an engagement right? Well my dear Margarethe, in Africa, the engagement begins with a knocking ceremony. This is where the groom’s family pays a bride price for the bride.”

  “Ei, my bride price was high oh – about ten bars of gold and Tunde couldn’t wait to deliver!” Ayo butted in.

  Margarethe and Jane mock boxed her.

  Sarah laughed as she continued.

  “Both the groom’s side of the family and the bride’s are expected to be there along with well-wishers and hangers on. Being that the typical African family is large, it is not unusual to find a family ‘delegation’ of a hundred people at an engagement ceremony. There will be a lot of food and drinks, and with the talking drums, the general air will be festive. The family of the groom has to ceremoniously knock at the door of the bride’s family home to be allowed in. They will be kept waiting - tradition requires that they be mocked this way to indicate that they are looking for something so precious that they are prepared to humiliate themselves outside the door.”

  ‘Gosh, such drama!” Margarethe lamented.

  “You call that drama girl? You aint seen nothing yet!” Jane added slyly

  “Eventually, the brothers of the bride – the metaphorical gatekeepers - will demand an entry price and once this is paid, they are allowed to enter. The groom’s family then states their mission, always reminding the ‘audience’ that the lady they seek is a beautiful one, an intelligent one, and very fecund! The bride’s family agrees in principle that they have beautiful, intelligent and fecund young women in their household, but they are not sure whom the groom’s family is really asking for. Three ‘fake’ brides – and you can use your two pathetic girlfriends and yours truly- will be paraded before the groom who will attest to the fact that neither one is the true bride. The bride’s family will extol the beauty and virtue of their wonderful daughter, implying that she is too good for the groom. At which point, the groom’s family extols his virtues and supports all of this with gifts – a suitcase full of African fabric, lingerie, shoes, clothes and accessories for the bride, money and gifts for the parents of the bride, the siblings of the bride, the uncles of the bride, the aunties of the bride and the grandparents of the bride! And being that this is an African affair, your aunt doesn’t have to be your mother’s sister – she just has to have known you since you were a child and she qualifies!”

  “OH MY GOD”, Margarethe exclaimed.

  “Yes, your God!’ Ayo replied and they all surrounded poor Margarethe who looked like death’s shadow had been cast at her door, and gave her a big group hug.

  “Not to worry Margarethe,” said Ayo slyly. “This guy is just ‘chopping your dollar’ so there’s no chance of you going through the harrowing experience Sarah has mentioned.”

  This elicited another barrage of laughter from the girls by which time the main meal had arrived and this calmed them down a bit. As they dug into their meat and potatoes, Ayo prodded them about the funeral they’d just attended.

  “What did you say killed him?”

  “One of those bread making machines ohhhh’, Jane offered. “Its really sad.”

  “Real natty, I tell ya. This kinda stuff is spiritual no bi so?” said Ayo, lapsing into Nigerian pidgin English. She turned to Margarethe and murmured a sorry.

  “I was just saying it’s really weird, this kind of stuff. Back home it would for sure be some evil spirit that was following the family because of a curse of some sort.”

  The African girls nodded their ascent. Margarethe looked confused but shook it off.

  “So how is Philip these days?”, Margarethe asked

  The table fell silent as all of them strained to hear Sarah’s answer without seeming too interested in it.

  “He’s okay. Still plenty tired and stuff but at least it’s not worse than before. He’s planning on taking a semester’s leave of absence so he can really focus on getting better. You know how it is when you’re teaching day in and day out and those students are driving you insane.”

  “I hear ya sista,” Jane said.

  The table fell silent again. Not because no one knew what to say but because everyone wanted someone else to ask Sarah the other big question. Ayo broke the silence.

  “How now the peekin wahala?” Again, she turned to Margarethe to translate her pidgin.

  “I just asked how the baby process was going. Have they made any progress?”

  “Yah, I got it?” Margarethe said. To which the other three smiled fondly at her. This girl was fast understanding their pidgin…truly a necessity for marrying an African man!

  “Nothing much ohhhhh…its just getting so frustrating. I’m thinking of not trying for a while. My body is so tired and I think I miss work too.”

  They murmured their ooms and aaaahs.

  “Maybe you both need a rest girlfriend. The process has worn you out – physically and psychologically” murmured Jane.

  All eyes were turned back to Sarah as she bought time by biting into a red leaf that stood out all by itself in the garden salad.

  “Yes, his immunity has been compromised so he’s undergoing treatment. Just yesterday he had some blood work done and it shows that the steroids are working well and his white cell count is improving.”

  She smiled, recalling how good it was to see him smiling again without wincing at the cold sores at the edge of his mouth. His arms were bulking up a bit more too and his thin lips were not horribly stretched across his teeth in the macabre way they had been the past couple of months.

  “We’re thinking of visiting Rome actually.”

  “Really!” the other three exclaimed. And then they burst out laughing at the coincidence.

  “Yah…you know, life is way too short and we don’t want to take for granted, the time that we have so we’re going to go away –maybe at Christmas…still planning the details.”

  “At Christmas?” said Ayo.

  “Yah…why?”

  “But it’s Christmas – you must be home for Christmas abi?”

  Sarah looked at her in mock disgust.

  “You sound like my mother, Ayo. I’m sure when she hears this, I will hear no end of ‘…what kind of pagan thing is this…’, ‘…what demon has gotten into you…’ and ‘…Ei Lord, what did I do to deserve this unholy child who is going to travel far away and indulge herself during your most holy season…’…!”

  The girls burst out laughing as Sarah imitated her mother.

  “And then she’ll go on to tell me of people she knows who traveled during Christmas and got maimed, shot, demon possessed or kidnapped.”

  Margarethe stopped laughing before the rest of them, wishing that she could remember her home with such fondness. She indicated that she was off to the washroom and the laughter subsided as each one demanded the bill, haggled over who was going to pay for it and then proceeded to the bathroom to fix their makeup. Jane’s phone rang just as soon as she went into the washroom stall.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi Jane – its Philip – is Sarah still with you? I can’t seem to reach her on her mobile.”

  “Um yah…but can you give me a minute please?”

  She put the phone gently on the floor of the washroom stall and gave it a gentle shove into the next stall. Lucky there was no one else there but Sarah.

  “Who is it?” Sarah’s voice hollered.

  “Just pick it up and talk girl!”

  “Hello?”

  “Hi Hon – its Phil.”
>
  “Hi baby – are you okay?”

  “Yeah…now. Breaking news through CNN that two bodies of oil workers in the Takoradi had been found on the edge of path in the forest. They were white and I freaked out, got onto the phone right away to make sure Jason was alright.”

  “And is he?” Sarah asked panicking as she got up from the toilet seat and tried to button her pants.

  “Yes, he says he’s fine. He’s been spending many weekends at your parents but turns out when the incident happened, he was actually in Busua Akwaaba with a Canadian friend called Gerry so they missed all the fuss.”

  “Oh thank God. When is he coming home Phil? This oil business has some undertones I don’t like at all.”

  “I know honey…me too. He says he should be here by the 10th but he can only stay for about a week”

  “That’s good – better than nothing right? My mum will be here already too – we’ll have a full house Philip!

  “That will be nice.” he murmured. Yes, it really would be nice to have some more people in the lonely apartment and God knew having Margaret around felt like ten more people!

  “I’m on my way home okay?”

  “Sure. Love you sweets…”

  “Love you more.”

  By this time she was out in the sink area as her friends waited eagerly to hear what the news was. Ayo had pursed her lips as if waiting for a kiss while Margarethe had struck a pose by the door with a come hither look on her face. Jane grabbed Sarah by the shoulders while the others remained in their romantic poses.

  “Cut the crap girl – we know you have the hots for your hubby and that’s all good but wassup with Jason?”

  She explained what had gone on with the kidnapping and they all murmured in relief. As they walked out, Ayo seemed to have remembered something.

  “Sarah, na dis your brother-in-law, he dey love black girls?”

  “No Ayo, he made it very clear when he was here that he doesn’t find black girls attractive…and besides, aren’t you married?”

  “Says who?” Ayo queried.

  “Says Tunde!” the other three shouted.

  “Please oh…I was just joking!” Ayo begged for mercy.

  The four friends got into their respective cars and waved each other good-bye.

  *****