Ama

by Manu Herbstein

  “Well, I am fond of the boy. I believe that he will make a great ruler of Asante one day.”

  “Your good wife, Abena Saka, Nana Mamponhemaa, might be the best person to take charge of the boy. I know that she would not tolerate any nonsense from him. But of that you must be the best judge.”

  “Mama, mama.”

  Kwame Panin came running in at the gate.

  “Nana is coming. Get ready, get ready!”

  Nandzi thought, every one around here seems to be called Nana. Could this really be the King coming to pay such an informal visit?

  It was indeed Nana Osei Kwadwo, fourth Asantehene, descended on his mother's side from Opoku Ware, second Asantehene and on his father's side from Osei Tutu himself, the founder of the Asante nation. He walked slowly and with a stick. Several attendants hovered behind him but he brushed them off impatiently as he passed through the gate, allowing only one to accompany him.

  “Àgòo,” he called, giving notice of his arrival.

  Konadu Yaadom and Koranten Péte rose to their feet and Nandzi followed suit. As she did so, the baby pissed, wetting himself, his cloth and Nandzi's too. Then he woke and began to cry. Her child's cries threw Konadu Yaadom into a state of confusion. She tried to get a stool for the King, to welcome him, to help him to the stool and to deal with the baby all at once. Osei Kwadwo waved her away; Koranten Péte went to get the stool and Konadu Yaadom took the baby from Nandzi, giving her a look which said it was all her fault. As soon as the King had taken his seat, she sat too and gave the child her breast.

  “Nana,” she said, “You are welcome. Please excuse this fellow’s bad manners.”

  Koranten Péte had remained standing.

  Osei Kwadwo motioned him to a stool.

  “Nana, I have already presumed on Nana Asantehemaa’s hospitality too long. May I ask your permission to leave?”

  Nandzi was still standing. She felt that she could hardly sit down uninvited in the presence of the King. She felt acutely embarrassed standing there in her wet cloth, an uninvited guest. The King’s attendant looked at her with undisguised curiosity, but no one else seemed to notice her so she remained where she was, wishing she could make herself invisible.

  “Sit down, my son,” said the King, “Why should you attempt to leave just as I come in? How is your wife? And Nana Mamponhene?”

  He turned to Konadu Yaadom.

  “Nana Asantehemaa,” he said with a smile, “I need a drink. That short walk from my quarters has left me thirsty.”

  “Nana, of course,” she replied.

  The child had gone back to sleep. She handed him to Nandzi, who took that as a signal to sit down again.

  “What will you take? I have some fresh palm wine. Cool and refreshing in this hot weather.”

  “My child, I am old enough to be your father, and then some. Stop mothering me. Give me some European liquor.”

  “Nana, are you sure you should . . .?”

  He cut her inquiry dead with one look and she went to bring the drink.

  “E-si!” she called, but Esi had not yet returned.

  When Konadu Yaadom came back with a bottle and two glasses on a silver tray, Osei Kwadwo was on his hobbyhorse.

  “The walls will be of stone: I have people searching the kingdom for a good source. It is not easy to find. The stone must be strong but the pieces must not be too heavy to carry. Then the roof. These our thatched roofs leak too much. What I plan to do is to bring plenty of brass pans from the coast and have them beaten flat. I will make a framework of carved elephant tusks and lay the brass sheets over them with a good slope so that the rain water runs off. I shall have the doors and windows sheathed in gold, like my niece's there upstairs.”

  He pointed up to Konadu Yaadom's first floor window.

  “And that is not all. When the house is finished, I shall mark the occasion by giving each of my ministers a large loan to improve his own house. I want Kumase to be the finest city in the world.”

  Konadu Yaadom had heard all this before, not once but many times. She changed the subject.

  “Nana, do you see what Wofa brought me?”

  She indicated Nandzi.

  The King peered at her and then beckoned.

  “Does she understand Asante?”

  “A little,” said Koranten Péte. “That is one reason why I chose her for Nana. Less trouble to train.”

  Nandzi approached, overtaken with embarrassment and confusion. She felt weak at the knees as she stood before the King and she was afraid she would drop the child. She sank to her knees and bowed her head.

  Osei Kwadwo chucked her under the chin and raised her head so that he could look at her face.

  “A pretty girl,” he said. “A few years ago, I might have taken her as a wife. I still have half a mind . . . What is your name?”

  “Please, Nana, they call me . . .”

  She paused, caught her own name at her lips, and said, “Ama.”

  She was aware of Konadu Yaadom’s nodded approval.

  The Queen Mother said, “All right, Ama, you can go back to your seat.”

  “Wait,” said the King, “Let me look at the child.”

  “Opoku Fofie,” the child's mother said, in case the King had forgotten his name.

  “A handsome boy. One day he will surely occupy the Golden Stool,” said the King.

  “By the grace of God,” replied Konadu Yaadom.

  “It is this child I have come to talk to you about,” said the King.

  “The child?” asked Konadu Yaadom, puzzled, as Nandzi made her way back to her seat, still trembling.

  “Yes, the child.”

  He made an attempt to stand up. The lad hastened to help him but Koranten Péte intervened.

  “Nana, let me,” he said, taking the bottle of Dutch schnapps from the King and pouring a silent libation to the ancestors.

  “The child,” repeated the King. “It is not good that he should grow up without a father. Every boy, especially a future Asantehene, needs a father to look up to, to train him in manly ways. And a young woman like you needs a good man. I want you to marry again.”

  “But, Nana, it is barely a month since Adu Twum Kaakyire died. I am still in mourning.”

  “Nana Konadu, do you remember what I told you six years ago when I fetched you from Mampon and had you enstooled as Asantehemaa on your own new stool? We royals are not like common people. Our noble birth imposes certain obligations upon us. This is one of those obligations.”

  “Does Nana have some one in mind?” asked Koranten Péte.

  “Yes,” replied the King. “My son, Owusu Ansa. It is time he settled down. Otherwise he might get himself into trouble. You see,” he continued with a twinkle in his eye, “I know the nature of young men. It is not all that many years since I was one myself.”

  They knew that he was referring to the adulterous relations he had had with not one but four of the wives of his predecessor, Kusi Obodum. It had only been his royal uncle's indulgence and the brave sacrifice of his own life by the harem-keeper (what was his name now?) that had saved Osei Kwadwo’s skin.

  “Is that settled then?” he asked.

  “If Nana says so,” replied Konadu Yaadom.

  “Not ‘If Nana says so,’“ said the King. “Rather, ‘Nana, I should be happy to marry Owusu Ansa.’”

  “Nana, I should be happy to marry Owusu Ansa.”

  “Now that’s better.”

  He took a deep draught of the alcohol.

  As Osei Kwadwo licked his lips, Kwame Panin rushed in. Seeing the King, he came to a sudden halt and then proceeded to walk forward with a measured pace.

  “Ah, Kwame, my boy, come and greet me,” said the King.

  When the customary pleasantries had been exchanged, he introduced the boy to his attendant.

  “This is Opoku, Opoku Frede-Frede I call him. He is a fine boy. Take him away and get to know him. In future he may serve you well.”

  “Who is the lad, Nana?” Korant
en Péte asked when the two youngsters had retired.

  “He came to me as part of the death duties of the late Oyokohene. He is a smart fellow; he has a nimble mind: that is why I call him Frede-Frede. When he has completed his military training I am going to send him to the Treasury. I am always on the look-out for talented youngsters to recruit into the public service, you know. Asante has grown too large for the King to run on his own. Authority must be delegated. That creates a demand for servants of the state who are clever and honest. When I find a lad with potential, I snap him up, even if he is a slave.”

  “Is this lad a slave, Nana?” asked Koranten Péte.

  “No, no, just an ordinary commoner. But he has an excellent memory and a good logical mind. He knows how to reason and argue. And he can count. I see a great future for him.”

  He paused. He squeezed his eyes and bit his lower lip as if in pain. Konadu Yaadom exchanged a look with Koranten Péte. Then the spasm seemed to pass.

  “To change the subject,” he said when he opened his eyes, “Nana Konadu, I have been thinking over your kind advice. I know, that if any one has my true welfare at heart, it is you.”

  “Nana it is true.”

  “I have decided to consult Okomfo Tantani.”

  “Nana, I am pleased. The gods speak through Okomfo Tantani. He is a powerful healer. And if any one knows the uses of medicinal herbs it is his wife. Shall I send for them? When will you see him?”

  * * *

  Esi was short, fat, untidy, irresponsible and irresistibly ebullient.

  When she laughed, as she did frequently, her eyes lit up and she showed a mouthful of fine white teeth with the gap between the front two which the Akan regard as a sign of beauty. Incurably inquisitive, she was a repository of all the most confidential and up-to-date court gossip; but there was not a tittle of malice in her. Nandzi lost her heart to her irretrievably at first sight.

  “First, let me tell you the sad story of my life,” Esi said as the two of them bathed Opoku Fofie in a brass basin. “Then you will tell me yours.”

  “My mother is Asante and so, of course, am I. But my father, bless him, is a Fanti man. That's how I come to have a Fanti name. In Asante, Sunday-born girls are called Akosua, not Esi.

  “As a young man Papa was taken prisoner in one of the wars. He was made to join the Asante army and sent to fight in the north. He acquitted himself so well in the first Dagomba war, that, as a reward, he was given some land to farm; and my mother to marry.

  “What happened next is a famous event in Asante history. Can you guess?”

  Nandzi shook her head.

  “I was born!”

  The baby chortled as if he had understood Esi's joke and they both smiled at his babbling.

  “Hallo my little chuckle-and-snort,” Esi told him and gave him a kiss.

  “Well, to continue, though I dearly cherish my beloved Papa, I have to admit that, except as a soldier and as a loving father, he has not made much of a success of his life. You see, in Asante, money is everything. Papa's ambition has always been to make a quick killing, to make his fortune through a single stroke of genius, white man's genius. He is forever talking about how clever the white man is.

  “Have you ever seen a white man? I mean a real white man, like those who live on the coast? No? Well, neither have I, but Papa has and to hear him talk of them, you would think they were gods.”

  Esi paused as she ladled up water to rinse the soap off the baby. Nandzi was glad to be able to relax her attention for a moment. Esi spoke so quickly that it was a struggle for her to keep up.

  “Now where was I? Ah, Papa and the white men. As I was saying, to him the white man is next to God. Then come the Fantis. We Asante follow a poor third. As for northerners . . .”

  She gripped Nandzi's wrist with a soapy hand.

  “I'm sorry, nothing personal. I certainly don't share my good father's silly prejudices.”

  She laid the baby on a soft towel which she had spread across her lap.

  “You must be very particular about how you dry grandfather Opoku Fofie's royal bottom. Maame Konadu will give you a proper beating if you leave a single speck of dampness on his aristocratic little body.”

  She lifted him up in his towel and gave him a hug. He responded with a gurgle of joy. Nandzi remembered her little brother Nowu. I wonder whether my mother has had another baby yet, she mused.

  “Well, to return to my father and his white-man schemes. Cut down Odum trees and send them to the coast. The white man will pay anything for good wood. Build a dam across the village stream and grow fish in the pond behind the dam. Go to Kumase and bring white man’s cloth and liquor to sell in the village market. One thing after another. After a while my mother began to make bitter fun of him and his dream-world. After all she was not only growing the food that we ate, all eight of us (and some more that died young) but also giving him pocket money to drink his palm-wine.”

  “Now mister pisser,” she said to the baby as she tucked in the little cloth which she had wrapped around his nether regions, “Will you just try to keep dry while Ama and I have something to eat? Ama, will you please bring the soup and the fufu, while I get this fellow settled?”

  “To cut a long story short,” she continued, as she tore a small finger-load off the ball of fufu and dipped it into the palm soup, “Papa began to borrow money to finance his crazy projects. As time went by, he got deeper and deeper into debt. Eventually there came the crunch. The creditors were themselves in debt and they were demanding immediate settlement. To save Papa’s skin, I volunteered to be pawned. What I didn’t know then was that Papa’s creditors owed money to our dear mistress, Maame Konadu, bless her. So Papa’s creditors pawned me, in turn, to her. So here I am and here I stay, worse off than a slave like you, until Papa’s unlikely miracle happens or until I can find a rich man who will pay off the debt and marry me. End of story.”

  She blew on a spoonful of the soup to cool it and then fed it to the baby. He pulled a wry face at the pepper. Then he licked his lips, kicked his little legs and waved his arms about. Esi smiled.

  “Now what about you?” she asked, “First, how do you come to be called Ama? Do your people use the same names as we do?”

  “My real name is Nandzi but Nana said she didn’t like it so she called me Ama.”

  “Tchtt! Typical of the woman! You cannot even call your name your own in this place. However,” and here, somewhat out of character, Esi paused to think, “however . . . I advise you to accept it. In our situation we have to take care to choose our battles. Otherwise . . .” and she chopped at the back of her neck with the edge of a flattened hand.

  “Do you understand?”

  Nandzi thought she did.

  “Let’s shake on that. I’m Esi,” laughed the owner of that name.

  “I’m Ama,” said Nandzi as she took the proffered hand; and from that moment, Ama she became, to others, and, in due course, to herself.

  * * *

  “I love going to market,” said Esi, “Don’t you? Even though I never have any money of my own to spend. Nana said to ‘show you the ropes.’ You know why, of course?”

  They were standing in the shade of one of the mighty trees which lined the square, next to the stall of a gold-weigher. Lined up on his table was an array of tiny brass castings, each in the shape of an animal or a plant or some human activity. Ama watched with fascination as the man used his brass scoop to pour his customer's gold dust into one of the pans of his scales and added a selection of his brass weights to the other until the two pans swung freely.

  “Have you never seen gold dust weighed before?” asked Esi.

  Ama shook her head.

  “Then remember the weights,” Esi said, counting with her fingers, “Six ackies make one tokoo; and forty ackies make one peredwan.”

  “One peredwan,” she mused, “if I had one peredwan I could buy my freedom. Can you count?”

  “Of course. In my own language up to a thousand; but
in Asante I have only learned up to ten.”

  “Never mind, I’ll teach you the rest. But remember, it is better to have the gold weighed at home before you come to market. If you have it weighed here you could be cheated. And Nana is very suspicious; she will assume that you have stolen some. Of course, I always do.”

  “You always do what?” asked Ama.

  “Oh my little innocent,” replied Esi, “I always steal some of her gold dust, of course. I tell her that prices have gone up. She is too aristocratic to go to the market herself, so she can’t check whether I am lying. But I never take more than a few tokoo at a time. And I hide it well. It is not beneath our mistress to come and search our room, you know.”

  Ama needed some time to think about all this.

  “Is that right?” she asked, “Stealing, I mean.”

  “Right? Is it right that we should work for her for nothing, the mean thing? Last week I showed her this old cloth I am wearing: it is worn right through from washing with cheap soap. Do you think she would give me a small dash to buy a new one? No way! How will I ever find myself a husband to buy my freedom when I have to dress like this?”

  “But to steal . . .?”

  “Ama, in Asante only money counts. Without it you can do nothing.”

  She continued, “You didn't answer my question. Do you know why Nana wants me to ‘show you the ropes’?”

  Ama shook her head. They were wandering amongst the meat vendors. Fowls and guinea fowls, dead and alive, were on display, deer meat, dried and smoked; spiced monkey flesh; great forest snails strung on grass ropes.

  “Well, she is dissatisfied with me. ‘Esi is stupid, Esi is lazy,’ et cetera, et cetera. She wants to use you to threaten me. If she finds she likes you, she might have me dispatched at the next royal funeral. I hope you won’t play her game. We must stick together.”