Gold of Our Fathers

by Kwei Quartey

  Yaw whipped around and raised the lantern, which showed his musculature in relief. Dawson approached, his badge raised.

  “Yaw, maadwo,” Twi for “good evening.” “I’m Chief Inspector Dawson, CID.”

  Yaw seemed frozen at the spot.

  “Do not fear, and do not run,” Dawson said. “You won’t come to any harm.”

  He got closer and in the poor light he never actually saw Yaw move until it was almost too late. The tip of the machete he wielded swished past Dawson at chest level as he jumped back. He lost his balance, stumbled, and shouted out as he fell. Yaw dropped the lantern and bolted.

  “He has a cutlass!” Dawson cried out. He saw a shadow pass across him like a blur, and then a thud in the darkness. Dawson’s chest was heaving and his heart racing as he fumbled for the flashlight on his belt. What was happening? The beam found Yaw on his belly fighting to free himself from the steel grip of Chikata on top of him. It could have been a battle to the death between two men closely matched in physical power, but it was all over because Kobby and Asase were on each of his arms. Yaw had lost grip of the machete during the tackle.

  Yaw stopped fighting them, and his hands came easily behind his back now. If only you’d complied from the beginning, Dawson thought furiously. All this struggle, and for what?

  Barely able to speak for his gasping, Dawson kneeled and informed the prisoner why he was being arrested, putting in everything he could think of: evasion of a police officer, assault of a police officer, resisting arrest, and suspicion of murder of one Bao Liu.

  Dawson stood up, feeling a little faint. He was pouring sweat as he retrieved the still-lit lantern Yaw had dropped. It cast a wider span of light than the more directed flashlights. Dawson returned to the captive as the other three policemen heaved him to his feet. Now he was being tiresomely passive-aggressive by acting like deadweight. Not a cooperative bone in the man.

  Dawson realized that Chikata was staring at him with an expression of fright he had never seen in the inspector’s face.

  “Boss,” he said. “You’re bleeding.”

  “What?” Dawson looked down. His shirt was soaked not with sweat, but with blood. He touched his chest, and his hand came away crimson wet. He swayed, and as the world began to spin, he collapsed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  At the packed Obuasi Hospital, Dawson waited in the treatment area of the casualty department. Besides one or two flimsy curtains hanging at intervals, he had no privacy in the mix of crying infants; pregnant women in labor; people with cuts, breaks, and bruises; and malaria sufferers shaking with rigors on bare cots.

  The young female doctor attending to Dawson advanced toward him with a syringe and what seemed to him a very long needle. His eyes went wide.

  “What, are you afraid?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, cringing. “Can you wait a moment?”

  “A moment for what?” the doctor asked.

  “Don’t move, sir,” the assisting nurse said.

  “Yes, I know, but . . .”

  “But nothing,” the doctor said. “I have to anesthetize you. The laceration is jagged, and I need to trim the edges in order stitch it up. Do you want me to do it without anesthesia?”

  “Yes. I mean no, Doctor.”

  The nurse was not amused by Dawson’s trepidation. “Stay still, Inspector,” she said sharply.

  “Ouch,” he said, stiffening as the first burning jab of the needle went into the wound in his chest. In the excitement in the forest, he had not realized that the tip of Yaw’s machete had caught him, gone through his shirt, and ripped his skin open over the left pectoral. A lot of blood, but nothing life threatening.

  “Why are men such babies?” the doctor asked rhetorically as she made rapid work of infiltrating lidocaine into Dawson’s cut as he winced. “Please stop moving, Chief Inspector. Aren’t you a policeman who deals with dangerous criminals?”

  “Yes, madam,” he admitted.

  “But you’re scared of this little needle,” she said. “I don’t understand it.”

  The nurse handed her the suture needle in the needle holder, and the doctor began to stitch Dawson up with an ease that suggested she could have done it in her sleep.

  “Okay,” she said, dropping the needle and holder in the tray and snapping off her gloves. “All done.”

  “Oh,” Dawson said, looking down at the masterpiece. “That wasn’t so bad.”

  “Oh, but you’re not done,” the nurse said. “You need an anti-tetanus injection.”

  He looked up in terror. She had an even larger syringe with an even thicker needle.

  By seven the next morning, Dawson and Chikata were at Dunkwa Police Station, where Yaw was being held. Dawson felt the pressure of the day and its tug in more than one direction: he wanted first to interview Yaw and then to get to the guesthouse to welcome Christine and the boys. She had already called to say they would be on the road in another hour.

  “How is the thing?” Chikata asked, tapping his chest to indicate Dawson’s wound.

  “It feels fine, thanks.”

  “Did it hurt when they sewed it?”

  “Not at all,” Dawson lied. He caught Chikata’s amused, knowing look. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  They had the use of a room to do the interrogation, and after Kobby had escorted Yaw in, Dawson and Chikata entered.

  “Maakye, Mr. Yaw Okoh,” Dawson greeted him as he and Chikata each took a seat opposite him.

  Yaw’s eyes flashed up at him for a second, and then looked away as if he simply couldn’t be bothered. His mouth was unyielding, his jaw set as hard as a block of onyina wood. They had kept him handcuffed because he was potentially dangerous, and Kobby remained at the door as an extra precaution, even though Yaw was well aware that it was the inspector opposite him who had taken him down in a powerful tackle.

  In English, Dawson recited the formal caution and the right to remain silent, which was ironic, because silence had been Yaw’s MO all along. To be sure that the message would get through, Dawson had Chikata give the caution in Twi as well, since his translation was a little better than Dawson’s.

  “I’m not at all annoyed with you, Mr. Yaw,” Dawson continued casually, the way he might with an old friend. “You put up a good fight, and I admire you for that. But now you are here with us, and it’s time to talk.”

  In Twi, he ran through routine questions: name, place, and date of birth as recorded on the national voter ID they had confiscated along with his belongings at his forest, and the names of Yaw’s relatives. The suspect’s response to Dawson’s every inquiry was dead silence. He stared at, and sometimes past, the two men with empty eyes.

  How does he do it? Dawson wondered. Or maybe he’s completely mad.

  “Do you understand my questions?” he asked.

  No response.

  “I will assume your failure to reply indicates assent to my queries,” Dawson said, jotting down, no response from suspect so far, 0732.

  “Mr. Yaw,” he went on, sticking to Twi, “approximately two months ago, your brother, Amos, came to his death at a mining site operated by a Chinese man, one Mr. Bao Liu. Amos fell off a bridge suspended over the water into a deep pit, and he was not able to save himself. Neither could he be saved by any who were present at the scene. Is what I’ve said correct in your estimation?”

  Yaw’s expression registered nothing.

  “Amos’s girlfriend said he shouted for help many, many times,” Dawson said, “but no help was forthcoming. I think I know what pains you, Yaw. You could have saved your brother if only you had been there.”

  Yaw’s eyes shifted, and now Dawson saw fire in them. And then the whites reddened, and shockingly, tears came. His nostrils flared, his lips and chin quivered, but still he uttered not a sound. Dawson was astonished. How did
the man cry soundlessly? Was he genuinely mute? One thing of which Dawson was certain—attempting to bully him into responding was probably not going to work. It was the opposite approach that showed the most promise.

  “I’m sorry,” Dawson said leaning forward slightly. “I am angry like you are angry. I’m angry with Bao Liu for what he did to Amos.”

  Yaw’s lids flickered, his eyes dry and clear again.

  “I think you were justified in killing Mr. Bao,” Dawson said. “He deserved to die after what he did to your brother.”

  Dawson was putting himself in Yaw’s position and imagining a similar fate coming to his own beloved brother, Cairo. Would he not feel murderous intent toward the culprit? He was certain he would.

  “And you,” Dawson continued, “you are not to blame in any part for Amos’s death. If you were there, you would have saved him, but you were not, and that is not your fault. Even if you had decided to farm with him as your father had asked you, it does not mean you would have been there that day at that time. You might easily have been elsewhere. Only God knows what might have been, and we cannot go back; we can only go forward. Do you get me?”

  Dawson hoped he saw a flicker of agreement in Yaw’s face, but it could well be his wishful imagination.

  “Yaw, do you have anything to say?”

  He remained silent and sullen, and Dawson’s judgment told him that the interrogation was over for now. He was not going to put himself in a position of weakness by begging Yaw to speak. He would keep him in custody for the forty-eight hours allowed and come back to him repeatedly in that time, chipping away bit by bit until the shell cracked.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Later that morning, Dawson arrived at the guesthouse before his family, but the news wasn’t good. The bathroom and kitchen fixtures were in, but water was not flowing. Nyarko wasn’t sure where the problem was, since the big house had water.

  An annoyed and flustered Gifty was there standing over him and continuously asking what the problem was, while Nyarko ran around trying to come up with the solution. Dawson felt sorry for the man, but stayed out of it, already exhausted by the whole situation. He was resigned that nothing was within his control at this point.

  Additionally, the beds for the boys’ bedroom had not arrived and probably wouldn’t until the following Monday. The furniture in the living room was serviceable and Dawson decided Hosiah could sleep on the sofa. For Sly, they would fashion a reasonably soft surface for him on the floor.

  Christine and the boys were expected at about one, so Dawson hung around just outside the house by the bougainvillea sprawling over the wall of the front yard. He was impatient and anxious to see them, and by one-thirty when they hadn’t shown, he called Christine, got no answer, and called again. On the third attempt he began to feel sick with fear that something terrible had happened.

  Just as he was about to attempt calling for the fourth time, a taxi approached and Dawson recognized Christine in the front. Thank God. He waved and the cab pulled over to the side. Dawson saw Hosiah’s little head behind the rear window, and the taxi had barely stopped when the boy pushed the door open, scrambled out, and ran to leap into his father’s arms. Dawson, ignoring the sharp jab from his stitched wound, hugged his son tight and kissed him.

  “I missed you, Daddy.”

  Dawson was tearing up. “I missed you too.”

  Sly joined them and embraced his father around the waist. Dawson rubbed his wiry hair, and Sly smiled up at him.

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  “How are you, Sly? How was the trip?”

  “It was good.”

  “Okay, Champ, I’ve got to put you down. You’re getting heavy.”

  Dawson joined Christine at the rear of the cab as the driver unloaded four bulging suitcases weighing down the boot. She smiled at him.

  “Hi, love,” he said, hugging her.

  “Hi, sweetie.”

  “You’re looking so beautiful. I missed you a lot.”

  She wore an orange chiffon sleeveless blouse that hugged her at the waist, and a pair of blue jeans.

  “How was the trip?” he asked her.

  “Exhausting,” she answered. “Actually, the entire week has been exhausting.”

  “I can imagine,” Dawson said, picking up a suitcase in either hand. “Good gracious. What is in these? Gold?”

  “I wish it was,” Christine said with a laugh, as she settled the bill with the cab driver.

  “Should Hosiah and I bring in the other ones?” Sly asked.

  “You could pull the one that has wheels, and Hosiah can push it.”

  “Okay.”

  The three men of the family lugged the suitcases into the courtyard toward the guesthouse. Gifty must have heard their voices, because she came running out jubilantly to welcome the boys with smothering kisses, which seemed to make Sly squirm, although Hosiah didn’t mind. Hosiah didn’t mind any number of kisses from anyone—at least for now. Dawson knew he was sure to grow out of it.

  Making their initial survey, Sly and Hosiah scampered in and out of the rooms of the house. Dawson kept his distance somewhat from Christine and her mother as they inspected the progress, or lack thereof.

  Mr. Nyarko hovered nervously. He had been working on a temporary solution to the water problem. At least until Monday, the next-door neighbors were willing to allow the Dawsons to fill two or three buckets of water a day from their backyard pipe for bathing and toilet flushing.

  “But the kids have nowhere to sleep,” Gifty said in distress.

  “They’ll be okay,” Dawson said. “Hosiah can be on the couch, and we’ll put down some padding for Sly on the floor.”

  “I see,” she said, and Dawson could tell that Gifty didn’t think that was a good idea. “Anyway, let’s go to Uncle Joe’s house now. He can’t wait to see you all.”

  At eight o’clock that evening, both Dawson and Christine were spent. They had passed some of the afternoon with Gifty and her brother, and she had pulled off a coup by suggesting the boys stay with them in Joe’s house until the guesthouse was in order. This time, as tiresome as Gifty could be with her “divide and conquer” maneuverings with his children, Dawson appreciated the offer. In any case, the boys were already entranced by Uncle Joe’s stunning high-definition, curved widescreen TV in a living room about as big as the entire guesthouse. Joe’s car rental business was evidently flourishing.

  After leaving the boys, Dawson and Christine had trekked to Ketejia Market to buy household supplies including the all-too-important buckets. Then it was back home to clear out the inevitable bits and pieces left behind by the workers. For now, all the Dawsons’ clothes would have to be arranged on a makeshift countertop until they obtained some drawer chests and wardrobes. Their financial reserves were draining fast, and until Christine found a job, hers were in danger of being completely wiped out.

  Both of them had had their rejuvenating bucket baths and were lying in a state of collapse on the unforgiving foam mattress of their narrow bed, Christine with her back to the wall and Dawson resting his head on her lap.

  “It’s a long time since my muscles have ached this much,” she said weakly.

  “Me too.”

  “It occurs to me that the kids have really gotten off lightly,” Christine commented.

  Darko snorted without much energy. “Spoiled, those children. When I was a kid, Cairo and I did all the cleaning up around the house, and if we didn’t, Dad would cane us.”

  “Okay,” she murmured, her eyes closed. “Go back to the Dark Ages then. I won’t be joining you.”

  He grunted.

  “And anyway,” Christine said, with just enough energy to raise her head and open her eyes, “what do you mean they are spoiled? We spoil them. You and me.”

  “All right,” he conceded.

  “In fact, I think you’re
worse than me,” she declared. “You love your children a bit too much.”

  He found that funny and began to laugh languidly.

  “What’s so amusing?” she asked, her eyes closed again.

  “I’m not sure. It’s just the way you said it.”

  She rubbed his head. “You need a haircut.”

  “I know. The boys do too.”

  “We’ll have to find a good barber in Kumasi.”

  She slipped her hand inside his V-neck to rub his chest and he flinched.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked curiously, and at the same time she felt the small bandage on his chest. “What’s this?” She snatched up his T-shirt. “My God, Dark, what happened?”

  “It’s nothing,” he said, trying to tug his shirt back down.

  “What do you mean, nothing?” she cried, pulling it right back up.

  “It was a guy we were trying to arrest,” Dawson said. “He swung at me with a machete.”

  “Ewurade!” She stared at him in disbelief. “I mean, he could have decapitated you!”

  “I don’t think so.” Dawson thought about it for a moment, and then started to laugh again.

  “I’m glad you think it’s so amusing,” Christine said in annoyance.

  “Do you know how difficult it is to cut someone’s head off?” Dawson said.

  “You know what I mean,” she said huffily. “Does it hurt? Who stitched it?”

  “A doctor at Obuasi Hospital.”

  “And I suppose you were squirming like a baby, as usual.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Christine made a noise with her mouth and they began to giggle with whatever strength they had left.

  “Anyway, how is the case going?” she asked.

  “If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to close it soon.” He propped himself up. “I want your opinion on something.”

  Dawson told her about the Okohs, the tragedy of Amos, and finally, Yaw and his peculiar inability, or apparent inability, to utter a word after his brother’s death. “What do you think?” he asked. “Fake or real?”