by Maya Angelou
The drive was too short to clear my mind. I had never been face to face with royalty and didn’t know the protocol. I suspected that I had been sent for to discuss some incident pertaining to the presence of Black American residents, and I was nervous. I knew I was given to dramatic overstatement, or was known to waffle about repetitiously. To further complicate matters, I was sincere. Sincerity badly stated elicits mistrust.
The driver stopped before a mansion, which in the dark, surrounded by even darker trees, appeared ominous. Light came from a few windows, and the small fires of servants were visible in the compound beyond the house. Muffled drums could be heard from a distant hill. I noticed only a few cars parked along the street when I got out of the car. I asked the driver if the Nana was giving a party.
He shook his head and gave me an impish smile. “Auntie, I do not hear your language.”
The driver opened the front door for me and I walked into a woodland fantasy.
The large living room was furnished with rich sofas, burl tables and was interrupted by a wide-branched tree that grew up through the ceiling. African mats were thrown on the tiled floor, and in a distant corner two men sat talking under lamp light.
The chauffeur disappeared after he ushered me through the door, and the men seemed to take no notice of me. I stood unsure in the shadows and struggled with a decision. What was the proper way to address a chief, and more hazardous, what would he think of me if I violated some unknown but sacred taboo?
In Egypt I had seen well-dressed and urbane diplomats prostrate themselves before a visiting Hausa chief, and I had read that the Akan chiefs were believed to be the living embodiment of all the Fantis and Ashantis who had ever lived; therefore, their leaders’ physical bodies were sacred.
Admittedly, my ancestors had come from Africa, but I was my own person from St. Louis, Arkansas and California, a member of a group which had successfully held a large and hostile nation at bay. Anyway, I had been minding my own business in my own house. I hadn’t asked to come to pay homage to anybody.
I walked past the tree over the slippery mats and into the light.
“Nana? I am Maya Angelou. You sent for me?”
Both men looked up and their smiles were quick. They had been aware of my entrance and of my hesitation all along.
“Miss Angelou. Welcome to my home. Please meet Mr. Kwesi Brew.” The chief wore a white Northern Territory smock. His black skin, white teeth and red tongue made for an unutterable drama.
Kwesi Brew rose and shook my hand. I had read his lyrical poetry and knew that he was Minister of Protocol in charge of State formalities, so I was not prepared for his boyishness.
“Sister, so I am getting to meet the very famous Maya Angelou. Too many people in the country say good things of you. Can you be that good?”
“Mr. Brew, I am happy. It is always a pleasure to meet a poet.”
He was caught off-guard, but recovered in an instant. “Oh, Miss Angelou, you don’t mean you have wasted time reading my sad little efforts?”
“Mr. Brew, I am certain that your poem, ‘If this is the time to conquer my heart, do so now,’ is neither little nor is it sad.”
A delighted laugh popped out of his mouth. “Oh, oh, Nana. This one! This lady. But she’s quick, oh!”
Nana nodded, smiling, “Kwesi, sit. Maya. May I call you Maya?” I nodded.
“Maya, sit. Welcome to the Ahenfie. That means the house of the Nana, and what will you have to drink?”
I said I had no preference, and he shook his head. “A woman like you should always have a preference.” I thought of my grandmother. If I responded to a question of choice by saying, “I don’t care,” she would give me a look identical to the one I had just seen on Nana’s face. Then she would warn me that “Don’t care ain’t got no home.”
I told Nana, “I’ll have gin and ginger.” He said, “You can have schnapps. Schnapps is the proper drink for serious conversation.” Immediately I drew up, stiffened my spine. “I’m sorry, I don’t drink schnapps. If you don’t have gin and ginger, I will have water.”
Kwesi laughed, “Oh, Nana, I had better be your Ocheame.” He turned to me still smiling, but with a formal air. “Sister, anything you want to say to the Nana, say it to me. I will be your correspondent. Speak only to me.” He had the posture and only needed the livery to be taken for the chief’s spokesman.
“Please, Ocheame, I would like to have a schnapps. It is good for me.” Nana smiled, acknowledging my tact, and called for drinks.
I had never heard such a voice. In ordinary conversation it had been deep and mellifluous, but raised to a shout, it rattled and clattered and clanged like a cowbell played by a madman.
“Kwame, take whiskey and bring it. “He shouted, or yelled in Fanti, and I imagined that every mote of dust in the room quivered into action. I must have jumped because Kwesi put his hand on my arm and grinned. “My chief’s got some voice, huh?”
When drinks were placed before us, Nana poured a libation on the tiles and said a prayer to the old ones. It was done as perfunctorily as grace is said at an informal family table. He drank first then in an ordinary voice he said, “Maya, we have been talking about the Afro-Americans. Osagefo knows America. He said that in the United States he was not an African from the Gold Coast. Whites only saw the color of his skin and treated him like a nigger.”
Kwesi added, “Aggrey of Africa also lived in the United States for a while. You know who he was, don’t you, Sister?”
Nana intruded, “Dr. Kwegyr Aggrey from Ghana earned a doctorate from Columbia University and taught in North Carolina. He understood racism and he loved his Black skin. He said, ‘If I died and went to heaven and God asked me would I like to be sent back to earth as a White man’ ”—Nana’s voice was thundering again—“ ‘I would say no, make me as Black as you can and send me back.’ ” The klaxon trumpeted. “Aggrey of Africa said, ‘Make me completely Black, BLACK, BLACK.’ ”
That was the spectacular language, the passion of self-appreciation. I had traveled to Africa to hear it, and hear in an African voice, and in such a splendor of sound.
The gold chain on the chief’s black chest was cruelly bright. “Aggrey speaks for me. Aggrey speaks for Africa. We are Black, BLACK! And we give no explanation, no apology.”
The warmth flowed through me and I had to hold on, close my teeth, contract my muscles or I would have become an embarrassing quiver of gratitude.
Kwesi Brew lifted his glass. “I propose a toast, Nana. A toast.” He bounded up and I quickly stood to clink his glass. I expected Nana to join us, but the chief remained seated, although he held his glass aloft.
Kwesi said, “To the African Personality.” I gestured with my glass and repeated, “To the African Personality.” Nana roared, “To the African Personality,” and we drank.
I realized that I had not seen the tribal leader on his feet since my arrival. His bare muscled arms were robust and his skin was as smooth as black flannel, but maybe he was ill.
Kwesi saw my concern and shook his head, “Sister, Nana does not stand. In our tradition everyone stands for the Nana, but the Nana, spiritual and moral leader of Ahanta people, stands for no one. It would mean that all the Ahantas are standing and no one is great enough to command such tribute, you understand? Na Na. Ena ena. Mother of his people, father of his country.”
The chief busied himself during that explanatory speech. He twisted the knobs on the radio at his side and sipped from his glass of schnapps.
“But Sister”—Kwesi poured drinks for the two of us—“We, you and I, are lowly mortals, not saints like our chief.”
Nana roared a cautionary “Kwesi,” and Kwesi laughed. “Nana, you are my chief, and if I make a mistake I am certain you will overlook it.” Nana smiled and beckoned Kwesi to sit down again.
He spoke in a moderate voice, “You are my poet, and maybe Ocheame, but you are not my jester. Sit, now and let me talk more to this lady.”
Kwesi and I sat
obediently upon the sofas like scolded children.
“Efua speaks of you as a sister. T. D. Bafoo, our enfant terrible, claims you are his relative. Even Kofi Batcha and others supported your membership in the Ghana Press Club. Julian Mayfield was the only Black American there until you came.”
Nana listed each commendation as if he were reading from a plaque soon to be presented to me.
He continued, “It is known that your salary at the University is less than any amount paid to a non-Ghanaian. It is also known that your son studies at Legon and that you receive no financial assistance for his education.”
His monologue was leading toward a sweet haven of help. I knew now why I had been sent for. The Chief and the Chief of Protocol were about to announce that I had been allotted a fabulous raise. A smile slipped out of my control, but Nana was not watching me, and Kwesi, who had not taken his gaze from my face, smiled back. “You are a mother and we love our mothers.” Nana had reached a rhythm reminiscent of preachers in Southern Black churches. There would be no turning back.
“Africa is herself a mother. The mother of mankind. We Africans take motherhood as the most sacred condition human beings can achieve. Camara Laye, our brother, has said, ‘The Mother is there to protect you. She is buried in Africa and Africa is buried in her. That is why she is supreme.’ ”
Kwesi was accompanying Nana with his voice, “Ka, Nana, Ka, Nana, Ka, Nana.”
I had been forgotten for the while as the men performed a concert of sound, passion and music. Years of discomfort on the hard seats of the Christian Methodist Church in Arkansas had given me the talent to appear attentive while my real thoughts were focused in the distance.
What was I going to do with the money? Would I pay off the car or Guy’s tuition or buy gold? I decided that if the university had displayed such patience so far, it could wait a little longer for Guy’s tuition and my car payment, and I would have a gold necklace. I would have a necklace made of gold the color of sunrise and it would make my brown skin voluptuous, and I would at last buy a small piece of Kente cloth, red, gold and blue. I would ask the seamstress to make me a skirt so tight that it would mould my behind into a single roundness, and I would have to take mincing and coquettish steps.
Nana’s sermon on the saintliness of Motherhood was falling, the tempo had slowed, Kwesi’s encouragements had ceased. When Nana stopped talking there was a moment of respectful quiet.
I said, “Nana, I appreciate hearing that Africans cherish their mothers. It confirms my belief that in America we have retained more Africanisms than we know. For also among Black Americans Motherhood is sacred. We have strong mothers and we love them dearly.”
Kwesi put his glass down. “Sister, I do not wish to contradict you, but isn’t it true that the most common curse word among Americans imputes that the offender is the offspring of a female dog?”
What would he have said had he wanted to contradict me?
I said, “Brother, I was speaking not of Americans but Black Americans. We’re not the same; we’re more like you, if you haven’t noticed.”
Nana laughed, “She’s got you, Kwesi.” Kwesi kept his diplomatic smile and plunged directly to my heart.
“But, Sister, isn’t it true that Black Americans and Black Americans alone, of all the people in the world, created a curse word which suggests that the accursed has known his own mother? Known her, that is, in a biblical sense?”
My rapier brain parried, “Yeah, yes, well, not really. I mean, I don’t know.… Possibly in some other language …” I was falling and Nana became my net. He said, “Kwesi, you know that the oppressed person, if convinced that he is worthless, looks to strike the person dearest to him. Oscar Wilde reminded us that we always hurt the thing we love. So it is human all over the world.” He laughed, “Even in Harlem. Maybe especially Harlem. That is why we must do something special for our people in the diaspora. You in America have labored long and done well. Look at your schools, Fisk, Tuskegee, Atlanta University. You were slaves and now you head universities. Horace Mann Bond and St. Clair Drake are friends of mine.” I had been ready to leave. After Kwesi spoke of the vulgarity heard so frequently in our neighborhoods, I was prepared to disappear in shame, but the mention of our schools and scholars was redemptive.
I smiled, “Oh yes, not all Blacks hate themselves.”
Nana said, “We are well aware of that” (He often used the royal “we”) “and now … I asked you here to see if you are interested in a job in Kaneshie.”
So I wasn’t being offered a raise. All that daydreaming about gold had been a waste of time.
I said, “Kaneshie? That sounds lovely.” It was horrible. Kaneshie was a bush town, 150 miles from Accra.
I continued, “But I am quite happy at Legon, and I think I am of use there. Kaneshie? They say it’s beautiful country up there, but—”
Nana interrupted, “This job pays double your present salary and you will be provided with a bungalow and a new car.”
Kwesi said, “Now that’s looking after our people in the diaspora.”
A move was not necessarily a negative thing. A house of my own in the heavily wooded area up north could be quite inviting, and with a new car I could drive to Accra in a few hours, and I could still buy that red-gold necklace and even a full kente cloth.
Kingdoms may fall and love may leave, but a dogged survival instinct is loyal to the end. I had never been promised nor (despite my secret hopes) did I expect certainty. I knew that God was in His heaven and anything might happen to His world. Kaneshie was the center of the diamond industry, and as I thought about it, it began to increase in promise. Rumors had it that people walking around might stumble upon diamonds laying in the road. I had not been a particularly lucky person, but just possibly I would find a lovely diamond to go with my gold necklace.
I said, “Nana, the idea interests me. What would be my duties?”
He answered, “You would do much as you are currently doing. Run the office. You can type of course?” He didn’t wait so I didn’t have time to lie. “And, I suppose, familiarize yourself with the working of a mine. Know the laborers, the output, the World Bank prices. This sort of thing. I’m sure you could do that.”
I had always liked the idea of being someone’s girl Friday. It promised responsibility with good pay and was a sort of marriage without sex.
“I’d be pleased to give it a try, and thanks to the person who mentioned me for the job.”
Kwesi looked at me and wagged his head forward, then smiled and said, “Nana, I believe we have had a most fruitful meeting. Maya will do well in Kaneshie. It might be a little lonely at first, but your people will be coming up to see you and you will make friends. Now, Sister, do tell me how did you come to read my poetry?”
Nana said, “Kwesi, one minute. Poets are worse than prime ministers, always looking for ears. Maya, I’m going to send for my children. They should meet you.”
Kwesi laughed, “Of course. The Budu-Arthur tribe. They are wonderful, and they are many.”
Nana lifted his voice and hurled it into the universe.
“Children, come. Araba, Adae, Abenaa, Abaa, Ekua and Kwesi Budu-Arthur. Come, come and greet your American Auntie.”
The clarion voice, enunciating the names with such force, prepared me for a schoolroom of children arriving in martial drill. Instead, a tall, slim, beautiful girl of fifteen entered the lighted area.
“Poppa, you wanted me?” Her voice lovely and musical.
Nana said, “Araba, yes, I want you and the others. Miss Angelou, this is my oldest child. Araba Budu-Arthur, Miss Angelou.”
As he spoke, more children drifted in, talking among themselves. When five of them had gathered, Nana looked up and asked, “And Adae? As usual I must ask. And Adae?”
Four young voices answered him, but no meaning could be extracted from the din. When the noise reached a peak, another girl entered to stand with her siblings. Adae was nearly as tall as Araba, but while her older sis
ter displayed a solemn dignity, Adae seemed to move even standing still. The children stood together like an often rehearsed theatrical troupe, their eyes focused on me.
I said, “I’m pleased to meet you all.” Adae turned to her siblings and said knowingly, “That’s the way American Negroes speak. They say ‘you all.’ ” She faced me again, while her brothers and small sisters examined me with obvious curiosity.
Adae said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Maya. Very pleased.”
Keeping my voice low, I said, “As you have noticed, I am an American Negro, and among my people children do not call their elders by their first names. A fifteen-year-old girl [Adae was 15] would call me Mrs. Angelou, or if she liked me and I agreed she would address me as Auntie Maya. I will accept either.” Adae looked at her older sister then at the young children. She looked at me for a very long minute.
“Very well, I don’t know you yet, but I’ll probably like you, so we will call you Auntie Maya. Do you agree?” She left me no time to respond. She nodded and said, “Good-bye, Auntie Maya. Good-bye, everybody.” The four smaller children, as if on a signal, chorused, “Hello and good-bye, Auntie. Good-bye, everybody,” and running, followed Adae from the room.
Nana, who had been silent during the exchange, spoke to Araba who was standing calmly before me. “And you, Araba, do you have something clever to say to Auntie Maya?” Her voice was as smooth as cream, and her smile was gentle. “Auntie, Adae knows that African children behave as you described Black American children do. She was acting the way European kids act at our school. Please overlook her, she’s really a very nice person.” Araba excused herself with the grace of a kindly monarch taking leave of adoring subjects. Kwesi and Nana smiled at each other.
Kwesi said to me, “That is the Budu-Arthur brood. There is no way to tell what they will become, but I’d wager Adae will be president of the world and Araba will be its queen.”
Nana shook his head and laughed to himself proudly, “My children.” Then he looked over at me, “I do hope Adae didn’t annoy you. It is through the eyes of strangers that a parent can see their children as people.”