by Kwei Quartey
The circle broke open, and a slow procession came through toward Adzima. The girl heading the procession, no older than fifteen or sixteen, carried a dappled black-and-white stool on her head and wore a black-and-white cloth bunched above her breasts.
“This will be Togbe’s fifth wife,” Fiti said.
And she’s well into puberty, Dawson thought, which meant he might have sexual relations with her as immediately as tonight. Dawson’s skin crawled at the thought of the hideous little toad touching this teenager.
Right behind the trokosi, the women of her extended family brought in cloth, gin—yet more gin, Dawson thought—kola nut, and money in large bowls balanced on their heads, but the men, solemn and silent, carried nothing.
The trokosi stopped in front of Adzima and curtsied to him as she placed the stool at his feet. He did not appear moved by the gesture, nor did he acknowledge the family members as they laid the bowls of goods in front of him.
All the women began to sing and clap joyfully as the trokosi performed a ceremonial dance around the circle. From Dawson’s point of view, she moved as if she had feet of lead. Her face seemed contorted with sadness. She wept all the way through the dance, but Adzima watched her with a hint of a smile.
Dawson studied the trokosi’s face and wondered what her name was. Last week she might have been chatting with her friends the way all teenagers do, unaware of the fate about to befall her. Completely innocent, she may not even have known about the family crime for which she was supposedly the atonement.
Abruptly, Adzima stood up and began to leave the circle, followed by other priests and half a dozen village elders. The young woman continued to dance until they were all gone. Then she stood still while family members crowded around her and unwound the first layer of cloth from her body, exposing her plump breasts. She was wearing beads around her waist and between her thighs, and there were white markings on her legs down to her bare feet.
The family ushered her forward in the direction the fetish priest had gone, and the village crowd followed.
According to Fiti, the new trokosi would go on to a series of private shrine initiation rites in the presence of Adzima and a few other priests. They disappeared into a small, smoky hut reputed to contain fetish objects before which the wife would bow. The public part of the ritual was over, and it was Dawson’s and Fiti’s chance to get to Efia.
They circled the perimeter of the village, and under cover of the bush they spotted the “old” trokosi wives preparing Adzima’s wedding feast behind a cluster of huts. Some were pounding fufu in large mortars to the rhythm of their singing, others were stirring soup in pots over woodstoves. The children played with one another, and undernourished dogs hovered for scraps.
“That’s Efia over there,” Fiti said, pointing one of the women out. She was in the center deftly slicing plantains with a large, sharp knife. “And that one, the old one, that’s Nunana. She’s been here a long time.”
“We have to get Efia away from there, but how?” Dawson said. “A diversion—that’s the only way.”
Fiti thought about it for a second. “I know what to do. I’m going to the other side. Once I cause a commotion, go and get Efia. You have to be fast.”
Dawson nodded. He was ready.
Fiti disappeared, and Dawson waited and watched for him to reappear somewhere, but he didn’t show. Dawson frowned. Where was he?
Suddenly Fiti’s voice shrieked from somewhere in the bush, “Snake! Snake!”
Dawson had to admit it was brilliant. Nothing created more pandemonium than a long, slithery reptile with no legs. In seconds, men came from all directions yelling and waving sticks and cutlasses. Some children and women scattered, but a few were drawn to the direction of the screaming man.
“Snake! Help! Snake!”
Dawson kept his eye on Efia. She was moving back and forth and peering up and down, apparently searching the stampeding crowd for something or someone. The minute she spotted what she was looking for, she sprang forward, and in seconds she had extracted a girl from the mayhem and pulled her away. As she withdrew with the girl, she became relatively isolated and Dawson saw his chance.
He didn’t run because he didn’t want to alarm her, but he moved quickly, with an extralong stride.
Efia and the girl looked up at him, and he realized they were mother and daughter.
“Ndo, Efia.”
“Ndo.”
“Don’t stand here,” Dawson said. “The snake might get you. Come with me where it’s safer.”
Efia hesitated for a moment but then followed him with her daughter in tow. He moved quickly behind the cover of some trees, where they wouldn’t be observed.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, fine, thank you, sir.” She spoke softly. Her voice was like the gentle stirring of air on the skin, light as the tone of a flute. Her shoulders were bare, and she wore a long, wrinkled, dark blue cloth bunched above her breasts and a curious necklace made out of straw. She was one of the loveliest women Dawson had ever seen.
“My name is Dawson,” he said. “I’m from Accra.”
“You are welcome, sir,” she said with a hint of a curtsy as they shook hands.
“This is your daughter?”
“Yes, this is Ama.”
He shook her hand as well. “How are you, Ama?”
“Fine, thank you.”
Dawson could hear the men still beating the bushes hunting for the elusive snake, but he knew he had to hurry. “I work in Accra for the police, and I’m here in Ketanu to try to find out what happened to Gladys Mensah.”
Efia’s eyes widened.
“Don’t be afraid,” Dawson said. “I just have some simple questions to ask you, and I will never tell Togbe, okay?”
She nodded uncertainly.
“Was Gladys a good person to you?” Dawson asked.
Her eyes were downcast. “Yes.”
“She wanted to help you.”
Efia nodded and looked up at the sky while she tried to blink tears away.
“I’m sorry,” Dawson said.
Ama was holding her mother’s hand. Efia tried to pull herself together.
“I know Togbe doesn’t want you to talk to me,” Dawson went on, “but I’m begging you to help. If we’re quick, you can go back to the cooking and no one will know I spoke to you. Can you help me? Not just for my sake, but for Gladys’s and her family’s.”
Efia touched Ama’s shoulder. “Go and stand over there and wait for me.”
Her daughter obeyed and walked out of earshot.
“The morning you found Gladys Mensah, can you tell me what happened?” Dawson asked Efia.
She told him how she had been going to pick plantains for Togbe Adzima. “That’s when I saw her lying there.”
“Did you see anyone else around?”
“No, no one, sir. I was shouting for help, but… no one. Only after I came running out of the forest did I see Mr. Kutu.”
“What happened after you came back with him?”
“He wanted to go and call the inspector, and he told me to stay there until he came back, but I was afraid and I ran away.”
“You came back to Bedome?”
“Yes, and then I told Togbe what had happened, and he went to the place to see for himself”
That grabbed Dawson’s attention. “Togbe went there alone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long was he gone?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Okay, no problem. Efia, did Gladys teach you about AIDS?”
“Yes.”
“And what else?”
“She told us how women can do so many things. Like being a doctor.”
Dawson smiled. “What do you think about that?”
“I believe it, because Gladys herself was like that.”
“Did she want to find a new life for you and Ama?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When was the last time
you saw her alive, Efia?”
“The day before I found her in the forest, she came to talk to us in the village. Everyone wanted to hear what she had to tell us, but Togbe wouldn’t allow us to listen to her.”
“What happened next?”
“He and Gladys, they had a bad quarrel. I saw them shouting at each other behind his house.”
“Did you hear what they were saying?”
“She told him how she didn’t like how he treats us, and she said she could call the police to come and take him away. And he became very angry with her and told her to get out of Bedome. He told her …”
“What, Efia? What did he tell her?”
“That she was going to die. The gods would kill her, he told her.”
“And what did she say to that?”
“She laughed at him and turned her back and left.”
“Did Togbe follow her?”
“No. I think he just went into the house to drink.” Efia looked around nervously.
“No one can see you,” Dawson reassured her. “Do you know if Togbe came out of the house a little later?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“I have just one more question. Gladys’s family says she was wearing a silver bracelet the last time they saw her. Did you notice if she was wearing one when you found her?”
Efia cast her mind back. “I’m not sure.”
“Or have you seen a silver bracelet in Bedome? Somebody wearing one?”
She shook her head.
Just then there was a rustling in the bush, and a man appeared carrying a loaded sack on his head. Efia drew her breath in. The man paused in his tracks, stared at them for a moment, and then continued on.
“He knows me,” Efia said, panic gripping her voice. “He knows me. I have to go. Ama, come. Come!”
And grabbing her daughter’s hand, she left Dawson without his being able to thank her.
No snake was ever found, of course. It was concluded that the creature had got away. So after the excitement, things settled back down to normal and the women finished up cooking while more drumming and dancing began.
Dawson smiled approvingly at Fiti as they met up again. “Good job. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
Fiti tossed his head and looked pleased. “Did you have a chance to talk with Efia?”
Dawson gave him a verbatim account of his conversation.
“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “Togbe Adzima is our prime suspect. I think he’s clever. He threatened Gladys that the gods would bring about her death and he deliberately said it loudly enough for others to hear. He set it up so when he killed her himself, people would be convinced the gods were responsible, because that’s the kind of thing people believe in. And I think he has that bracelet too. We need to search his house.”
Fiti seemed uncomfortable. He looked away, chewing on his lip as if wrestling with a problem, and for a moment Dawson couldn’t understand what could possibly be the matter. Then it hit him. Consciously or subconsciously, Fiti was afraid to antagonize Adzima. Timothy Sowah had mentioned that even some in the police force were fearful of interfering with the trokosi tradition because the fetish priest supposedly could invoke some terrible punishment by the gods. Here in front of Dawson was that fear in living color.
“I can go in there alone if you like, Inspector Fiti.”
Fiti drew his shoulders up. “No problem. I will go with you.”
The wedding celebration was in full swing. Adzima sat smiling and swigging down schnapps as he watched young women performing the Agbadza dance. Dawson waited by one of the huts as Fiti went up to him and shouted in his ear above the din. Looking annoyed, Adzima rose from his seat and followed Fiti to where Dawson stood.
“Inspector, I am very busy,” Adzima said.
“It won’t take long,” Fiti replied.
“Togbe Adzima,” Dawson said, “as part of the investigation into Gladys Mensah’s murder, I’m informing you that we will be searching your house.”
Adzima drew back. “Never.”
“I’m not asking you,” Dawson said evenly. “I’m telling you.”
Adzima was livid. Schnapps and gin had loosened his tongue. He unleashed a tirade while Fiti tried in vain to placate him, but Dawson, who had no patience for this kind of inebriated nonsense, turned and walked in the direction of Adzima’s house. Technically he should have obtained a warrant from the district magistrate, but Dawson needed to search the house now, not later, and quite frankly he didn’t care about the rules where this odious fetish priest was concerned.
As Fiti followed Dawson, Adzima trailed them with an unsteady gait and slurred speech. When they reached the priest’s house, he stopped for a moment with arms akimbo and said in English, “I don’t care, you moddafockas. Go and search it. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but you won’t find it.”
TOGBE ADZIMA HAD BEEN right—there wasn’t much to his living quarters: one room with two wooden stools, one small table, and a deteriorating foam bed mounted on planks and old crates. He kept his clothes in a cardboard box or hanging from nails in the wall. There was a pair of sandals near his bed and a selection of alcoholic drinks, mostly gin and schnapps, in another box. The place smelled musty and pungent.
Adzima leaned against the doorjamb and glowered at them as they searched. Fiti looked desultorily underneath the foam mattress while Dawson checked the sleeping cloth on top of it. If only he could find that silver bracelet, get a confession from Adzima, and wrap this case up. He would love that.
He went through the priest’s few clothes, digging in pockets. Fiti leaned against the wall and folded his arms, apparently done with his search, and Dawson reluctantly admitted to himself that he was about done too. He looked around. There had to be something.
“Are you satisfied now?” Adzima said with a slight smirk.
“No,” Dawson said. He was staring at the box of booze and thinking it reminded him of the way Daramani kept his own stash of toxic elixirs in a portmanteau. He hid things in there too—stolen watches, for instance.
And so might Adzima.
Dawson reached into the box and began pulling the bottles out—gin, schnapps, whiskey. Fetish priests and village chiefs received an impressive amount of alcohol as gifts.
Ah.
Under the Beefeater gin, Dawson found a small, locked, rusty tin. He shook it gently, and it rattled.
“What’s inside?” he asked Adzima.
“Coins.”
“Would you open it, please?”
The priest gave Dawson a slow, seething look before removing a small key from his pocket. He unlocked the box.
Dawson found some coins, safety pins, and a watch. No silver bracelet. Disappointing, very disappointing. He gave the box back. “Thank you.”
Before he and Fiti left, Dawson said to Adzima, “We’ll be back.”
He liked telling suspects that. It kept them off balance.
Dawson and Fiti walked back to the dancing circle, and Togbe Adzima returned to his spot. As Dawson watched and listened, he saw in action the Ewe people’s long-held fame for the drumming tradition, and he made a mental apology to the village of Bedome for having dismissed it as underdeveloped. In the realm of drumming and dancing, Bedomeans were unmatched by anything Dawson had seen before. He was not the only one impressed. Many in the thrilled audience had evidently come from Ketanu and other surrounding towns.
Dawson spotted John in the crowd, and as he smiled and waved, he saw something else out of the corner of his eye. A man appeared next to Adzima and whispered in his ear. Dawson’s heart stopped. It was the same man who had passed by while Dawson was talking to Efia in the bush. The man cast a furtive glance at Dawson, and the priest followed his lead. Dawson looked straight ahead, as if he had not seen them.
The man slipped away. Adzima rested his chin casually in his palm, but his narrowed eyes glinted with anger. He knew.
He got up and left abruptly.
“I’ll b
e right back,” Dawson told Fiti, and he quickly cut a path through the crowd. Not quite fast enough, because Adzima had disappeared from view. Dawson picked up the pace. As he passed by the wives cooking, he saw that Efia wasn’t there, and his stomach plunged. He began to run.
As he got to the priest’s house, he heard two voices.
“Didn’t I tell you not to talk to them?” Adzima was saying. “Eh? Didn’t I?”
Dawson heard the first strike and Efia’s cry. He charged into the room. Adzima had her cowering against the wall with her hands raised defensively. He hit her across the face.
“Leave her alone,” Dawson said.
Adzima jumped away from Efia and swung around. Dawson reached him quickly and hit him hard in the face with an open palm. The impact sent Adzima’s head whipping to the side as if unhinged from his neck. He reeled and toppled, but before he fell, Dawson got him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. Adzima kicked out, but found only air. He swiped and groped uselessly as Dawson dragged him across the room by the throat and drove him into the wall with the force of a wrecking ball.
Dawson pushed his thumb into Adzima’s gullet and increased the pressure until the priest’s eyeballs began to jut blood red from their sockets. A short gurgle escaped his open mouth.
“This is how it feels to die,” Dawson said. “Do you like it?”
The priest’s eyelids fluttered and his body slackened. Dawson released some of the pressure on his neck and slapped him again across the face. Adzima’s body shuddered.
“If you ever hurt her again, I will finish killing you. Do you hear me?”
“Please, I beg you,” Adzima whispered hoarsely.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, yes, please …”
Dawson released him with a shove, and the priest collapsed to the floor like a sack of yams.
Dawson turned to Efia. She had stood up but was still pressed against the wall.
“Are you all right?”
She was trembling violently. “I’m fine.”
“Let me look.” He lifted her chin to check. Her left cheek was swelling up rapidly, but her flawless skin had not been broken. For a moment their eyes met and held. Dawson found her so vulnerable, so achingly lovely. Their bodies were almost touching, and he drew back, startled by what he was feeling.