The taxi rolled to a halt. One of the officers, a brisk no-nonsense man wearing large black sunglasses and tight pants tucked into high black boots, asked Ebenezer to show his license. In the front passenger seat, Nana Kwesi leaned toward the officer, smiling. “This is the king of Otuam,” he said, gesturing to the backseat, where Peggy was wearing the robe of a king. In Ghana the police routinely waved dignitaries through roadblocks and would never ask them for bribes. But this officer, evidently, was an exception. He had shot a look at the king of Otuam and noticed that she was a woman, and a woman certainly wasn’t going to stop him from collecting his bribe.
The officer glanced at Ebenezer’s license. “This has expired!” he said, waving it. “This is a very serious infraction.”
“But it isn’t—” said Ebenezer.
“Stop being rude! You should not contradict me,” interrupted the officer. He took off his dark sunglasses and glowered at Ebenezer.
Sighing, Ebenezer opened his wallet and pulled out several colorful bills. But Peggy had had enough of this foolishness. She couldn’t even do something as simple as going shopping without corrupt officials trying to steal money. She was surrounded by them, all men, of course, and she knew exactly what she was going to do. For a moment she summoned the dignity demanded of a king, then leaned forward and snatched the driver’s license from the policeman’s hand.
She peered at it. “Expiration date 2013!” she said grandly. “What is this nonsense? His license is not expired. You are trying to extort a bribe from him. I am the lady king of Otuam and I will not put up with this. I am going to tell the president of Ghana, who is a subject of mine from Otuam, about your thieving! What is your name? Show me your ID!”
The officer’s jaw dropped. “I … I… I misread the expiration date on the driver’s license,” he sputtered. He stepped back and saluted her, motioning for Ebenezer to go, hoping Ebenezer would go.
Ebenezer put the car in gear, eager to leave. “Wait,” Peggy said. She stuck her head and shoulders out the open window and glared at the officer, frowning her face like a frog. His knees seemed to buckle, but somehow he found the strength to make a quick, awkward bow before he scurried back to the other officers at the barrier.
“All right,” she said, pulling herself back in and tapping Ebenezer on the shoulder. The car lurched forward.
“These men really have no idea who they’re dealing with,” Peggy declared. She had just about held her temper and was glad of it. Though she hadn’t been able to see the policeman’s eyes behind his dark sunglasses, she had seen a wave of fright pass over his face, and it made her feel she had used her kingship for good. Maybe he wouldn’t be in such a hurry to squeeze money from the next hapless driver.
Nana Kwesi and Ebenezer were chuckling, but at first Peggy failed to see the humor in the situation. Corrupt officials hurt innocent people, hurt her beloved Ghana. She would like to line them all up in a room—it would have to be a very big room—and give them a talking to. She would then put them in the Otuam jail (though it would have to be in shifts because the cell only held ten at a time), which would make the chief inspector very happy what with all those tips. Except … why did the chief inspector accept tips? She looked out the window and scowled.
“You should have seen the look on his face,” Nana Kwesi said, clutching his chest as he guffawed. “I thought the poor man was going to pee in his pants.” He put his hands over his eyes and wagged his head from side to side.
Both hands gripping the steering wheel as he rolled into a pothole, Ebenezer opened his mouth and guffawed. Even Peggy started to see the humor in it, the bullying policeman ready to cringe at one word from her, the frightening lady king of Otuam. The three of them laughed all the way to Agona Swedru.
That other crook, Kwame Lumpopo, had at least immediately returned Peggy’s red royal umbrella, which she would need for her gazetting. Its various pieces were now in a large canvas bag leaning against the wall near the front door. But returning the red umbrella was yet another blow to Kwame Lumpopo’s fragile ego, and word of it, along with word of the king’s treatment of him outside the palace, spread like wildfire. The next time he swaggered down Main Street in his spotless white outfit and white straw hat, many people laughed at him.
“Kwame Lumpopo!” they cried. “How is your good friend, the king? Why aren’t you walking under the red royal umbrella?” Many of those who made fun of him were the very women Kwame Lumpopo had scammed.
To salvage what was left of his reputation, Kwame Lumpopo told everyone who would listen that an evil spirit had entered Peggy to make her hate him. Him, the one who had given her the good news about becoming king. Such bad behavior, he said, couldn’t be the king’s fault (and here he must have been thinking about her crying stool, who wanted to kill him when he had talked so badly about her), therefore it must be the fault of the evil spirit. He told this to the seamstress hammering away at her little sewing machine, and the man who sold beer from a stand. He told it to the women selling fish from buckets on their heads, to the old men playing checkers under a tree, and to the four policemen lounging in front of the blue and white police station.
Peggy received several reports of Kwame Lumpopo’s nonsense and just shook her head each time she heard it. It was well known that if an evil spirit entered you, it made you hateful to everyone, not just one particular person, the very person who had lied to you and stolen your money. Besides, she always wore a lot of eyeliner, which deflected evil spirits, and her own spirit was strong and just. Evil spirits only entered the bodies of the weak-minded, and it occurred to her that perhaps this had happened to Ekow. Peggy shook her head. Kwame Lumpopo, who cared so much about his image, was just making himself more and more ridiculous to everyone in town.
Bad behavior walks hand in hand with its own punishment, she thought.
The day before Peggy’s gazetting, Cousin Comfort rolled up in front of Peggy’s house in a car driven by her son from Tema. She was gorgeous in a royal blue gown and large matching head wrap. Though Peggy had enjoyed sleeping alone the two days before Ekow’s arrival and after his departure, it had been against royal etiquette, and now she would have an attendant to watch over her. And this attendant—intelligent, pleasant, polite—would be a highly welcome change from crazy muttering Ekow. The timing of Cousin Comfort’s arrival was especially helpful because Peggy wanted her opinion on how to stop the corruption as soon as her gazetting was over.
Cousin Comfort immediately settled back into her role as confidential advisor, pulling a chair over to Peggy’s left side for the afternoon council meeting. The purpose of this particular meeting was to go over every detail of the gazetting one more time to make sure that no mistake would dishonor the stool or the ancestors.
The electricity had gone off about an hour earlier, and Peggy wondered how long Cousin Comfort’s starched robes and head wrap edged with gold lace would stay crisp, how long her black wig would remain perfectly coiffed, how long her rouge would stay perched on her wide mahogany cheekbones before it slowly glided downward and landed somewhere between her jaw and her chin. It was because of the melting effect the heat had on makeup that Peggy rarely wore foundation or rouge; even her eyeliner had a tendency to slide, making her look like one of those sad Pierrot clowns.
As the elders discussed the ceremony before the council of chiefs, Peggy looked around the table at them, the sweat running down their cheeks in streams. It occurred to her that all of them were, in fact, human muffins in an oven, rising, swelling with the heat. At what point would the timer go off—bing!—and they would be taken out to cool down? Nighttime, perhaps. Or sooner, if the electricity came back on.
Suddenly Uncle Moses barked, “We will need five hundred dollars from you, Nana, to purchase the drinks for tomorrow’s gazetting party.”
Peggy’s mouth dropped open. She had agreed to pay for the food and the goat and renting the van. She had assumed, therefore, that the council of elders would contribute the money f
or the drinks. Within this assumption was the belief that she was finally teaching them the respect due their king. Wrong, wrong, wrong. She had been so wrong.
“Give us the five hundred dollars now,” Tsiami said, his weathered brown hand outstretched, as if he really expected her to reach into her bra and meekly hand the money over with a beatific smile.
“What!” Peggy cried in outrage. “You’re kidding, of course. paid for my airline ticket over here. I have been sending money from my measly salary as a secretary to renovate that decrepit royal palace. I alone have to pay for the expensive royal funeral of the late king who is in the fridge. And now I have to buy drinks for everybody, too?”
“We should find the money for you,” said Baba Kobena quickly. “Nana is right.”
“I agree,” Uncle Eshun said. “Nana shouldn’t have to buy everything herself. Just because she is American doesn’t mean she is a multimillionaire.”
“How dreadfully embarrassing that we don’t have that kind of money,” Isaiah the Treasurer said. “But, Nana, you must remember that Americans are, truly, much richer than we poor Africans are.”
“Do what you want,” Peggy replied, mustering as much dignity as possible, “but I am not buying any drinks for tomorrow. I have bought all the food, paid three hundred and fifty dollars to Nana Tufu for sponsoring me and seven hundred and fifty dollars to the council of chiefs as my enrollment fee. The elders can buy the drinks or you will all go thirsty. And what is a party where you can’t all get rip-roaring drunk? I guess you will have a very boring time.”
Muttering to one another, the elders left. Peggy put her head in her hands and shook it. She heard Aggie come in, open the fridge, pop the top off a beer, and plop it down in front of her. She put a hand around the beer just to feel its lovely coolness ripple through her fingers. She could be in her condo in Silver Spring, Maryland, right now, with air-conditioning, and a flush toilet, with a hot shower and television. Instead she was here, baking like a muffin, washing in a bucket, flinging water at a toilet, and fighting a battle with her temper that she was losing with distressing frequency.
At least I have someone to argue with, she thought, and the thought was so startling that she raised her head from her hands, wondering where it had come from. But it was true, wasn’t it? Back in Silver Spring she had no one to talk with at all. During her sliver of spare time, she sat numbly on her sofa eating dinner on her lap, not watching the news. Was that kind of life better than living in a tangle of friends and family, punctuated by periodic arguments? Suddenly she didn’t think so. It might sound like a good thing to have no arguments, but people inevitably brought arguments with them, and a life with no arguments meant a life with no people.
This astonishing conclusion was interrupted by Cousin Comfort, who said, “You did the right thing. They’ll come back with the drinks because those men always find money when it comes to alcohol. They can’t pitch in and dig a new borehole for the kids, or upgrade the health clinic, or buy some used computers for the schools. But they will always find the cash for whiskey and beer.”
That made sense. Cousin Comfort always made sense. Still, Peggy sincerely hoped that self-control was like a muscle, and that as she exercised it, it would grow stronger. She did not enjoy shouting and behaving badly and longed to handle disagreements with regal aplomb. She pulled a handkerchief out of her bra and dabbed at her moist face. “I hope you’re right. You know, I’m not sure if I can stand this heat a minute longer.”
Suddenly the fan came back on with a grunt followed by a reassuring whir. The two women raised their faces to feel the air coming off the fan’s blades.
Two hours later, the elders came back with the drinks.
16
Early the following morning, Uncle Moses brought the goat for the gazetting ceremony and tied it to a tree out front. He had ordered it specially for the ceremony from a goatherd who bred sacrificial goats. Otuam goats were tiny, short-legged creatures, some of them not much larger than the obese cats Peggy had seen in America. Their hair was short and bristly and their stumpy horns unimpressive. This goat was tall and well built, however, with a broad chest and large curling horns. His long golden brown hair had been washed and combed.
Peggy had eaten another anti-urination breakfast of boiled yams, palm oil, and hard-boiled egg. Afterward, Peggy’s dresser, Grace, arrived to adorn her for her gazetting. Due to the extreme heat already rising so early in the morning, Grace and Peggy agreed that makeup and jewelry would wait until right before the ceremony.
While Grace was draping her in kente cloth, Peggy thought about the throng of relatives and Otuam citizens who would be attending the ceremony and subsequent party. Sadly, one very important person would not be there. Peggy had called William the week before and invited him to join them. But he had laughed and said, “What? With that big crowd? You know I’m shy with lots of people I don’t know.” She told him she understood and would try to visit him before she left Ghana.
Nana Kwesi’s taxi rolled up, and he emerged fiddling in irritation with his red, white, and black checked cloth. He hated wearing traditional cloths and, unless required by a solemn ceremony such as today’s, always wore black or khaki trousers and a short-sleeved shirt. When Peggy walked onto the porch to greet him, she saw him clumsily trying to wrap the material over his left shoulder but dropping it each time. Uncle Moses, adept at draping men’s traditional robes, rushed to help him with it.
Peggy and her entourage crammed into the van, driven by Ebenezer, and the goat sat on the floor. They drove first to the royal palace and circled the large tree in the courtyard three times as Uncle Moses leaned out the window and blasted the cow horn to let the ancestors know that today was the day of Peggy’s gazetting and ask for their support. Then they drove to Main Street, where taxis and vans carrying other relatives joined the caravan.
Essuehyia was a town much like Otuam, also on the coast, though the thick thatch of trees bordering the beach blocked the ocean breeze. There were concrete block dwellings and mud huts, and chickens and goats wandering the streets. The caravan pulled up outside the Hall of Chiefs, a large airy structure. The council of chiefs had instructed Peggy to be there at nine o’clock sharp, which would give her enough time to prepare for the ceremony, which was scheduled to begin at ten. She and her entourage were told to wait in the courtyard of a building adjoining the hall.
They sat in plastic chairs on the veranda, which shielded them from the sun but not from the heat. Grace Bentil put a wig on the Soul, black yarn with yellow stripes, and jabbed in golden ornaments that looked like ancient Egyptian lotus blossoms. This was a traditional wig for Souls, the yellow stripes representing gold, which in turn stood for innocence. Virgin brides, too, often wore the wigs at their weddings, as did queen mothers at official ceremonies, though Peggy’s queen mother preferred a closely cropped hairdo, which was also acceptable. The Soul took her place on a little stool in front of Peggy to start deflecting evil spirits immediately.
Grace next adorned the king with long gold necklaces, bracelets, rings, and anklets. She gently placed a black velvet crown adorned with gold-painted wooden moons and stars on Peggy’s head. This wasn’t the real gold crown Peggy had worn at her enstoolment, but was much lighter and cooler. Then she ground myrrh and dabbed it on Peggy, the queen mother, and the Soul. Peggy asked Grace for eyeliner, which she applied heavily.
A member of the council of chiefs informed Peggy that another king was being gazetted first, so she and her entourage would have to wait a while. They waited. And waited. They simmered. Then they sweltered. Perspiration rolled down their faces and tickled their armpits. Their makeup, sweat, hair, and clothing melted into a sticky glue. Cousin Comfort’s head wrap drooped, and below it the curls of her black wig unfolded. Even the queen mother, usually so cool and crisp in her flawless white robes and long gold necklaces, looked like a sadly wilted flower, a jonquil perhaps, its fragile springtime glory blasted by an early heat wave. Peggy took a swig f
rom her water bottle and found that it was as hot as tea.
Finally, at one o’clock, the ceremony was ready to start. Though this was three hours later than the time Peggy had been given, no one in her entourage complained. In most of Africa time was an amorphous thing, hard to grab on to. Precise time was a fussy, Western concept, which the Europeans had brought with them in the form of sundials, clocks, watches, and church bells. Before their arrival, Africans had understood planting and harvesting time, the dry and rainy seasons, morning, afternoon, evening, and the days of the week. For thousands of years Africans had done quite well without a demanding system of hours and minutes, and its sudden imposition by colonizers had often been met with a shrug and a dismissive wave of the hand.
Now, decades after independence, ancient traditions remained strong. Even in modern offices in the capitals, even in the government ministries themselves, a fixed appointment was actually a vague suggestion to try to meet within two or three hours of the stated time. People expected to wait for hours, and they were especially happy to do so if there was air-conditioning and a magazine. With a wink and a nod, Africans generally explained to baffled Westerners this routine sliding of appointments as “African time.”
African time was finally ready for Peggy’s big moment, which made her happy, since there was no air-conditioning or magazine on the courtyard porch. Tsiami stood next to Peggy holding his tsiamiti, his speaking staff, which all tsiamis held during important public functions. On top were the symbols of Otuam—the turtle, the snail, and the gun. Perhaps I should change those symbols, Peggy thought, to a bottle of beer, a bottle of whiskey, and a wad of cash.
Cousin Charles opened the giant red umbrella and held it high over Peggy. But it sagged in a way unlikely to impress the council of chiefs. Peggy’s elders tried to fluff it up, but one of its ribs had broken where two long, thin metal pieces were held together by a clip.
King Peggy Page 22