King Peggy

by Peggielene Bartels

  She continued in a milder tone, “As you know, Nana Kwesi, the most honest person in my family, will be my regent when I am back in Washington, and he will have oversight of the royal bank account.”

  Nana Kwesi cast a calm glance around the council table. “That’s right. I will make sure that not a penny goes missing.”

  Now it was Tsiami’s turn to grow irritated. He had, evidently, drunk some of the ancestral libations, because when he stood up he swayed a bit as he cried, “You think you know everything, Nana Kwesi! You think you do, and you want to tell everybody what they should do, but how can you when you are not even from this town? ”

  “You are an evil, nasty old man, Tsiami,” Nana Kwesi said. His angelic smile had evaporated and his lower lip and jaw, which jutted out from his face, were tense with anger. His eyes, usually sparkling with happiness, had become small and cold. Peggy had never seen him like this before.

  She turned to Tsiami. “You are acting like a child, Tsiami!” she said. “Sit down.”

  Tsiami did not sit down. “Nana Kwesi is the child. He is too young to be telling the elders what to do!”

  “He’s fifty-three.”

  “See what I mean? A child. I am”—and here he puffed up his skinny chest—“eighty.”

  Peggy corrected him. “You are not eighty. You are seventy-seven. And even if you were a hundred and fifty, you are not the king of this place. I am. So be quiet. You are being ridiculous. Now sit down.”

  Tsiami wobbled and sat down.

  Aggie, who had been leaning against the kitchen door holding her spatula, took two strides toward Tsiami and loomed over him, pointing at him threateningly with the long hand-carved implement. “Tsiami is not nice!” she cried. “He has stolen money from Otuam, and he disrespects Nana Kwesi!”

  Tsiami cast her a look of loathing. “You are being disrespectful of the ancestors to insult a tsiami,” he said, almost spitting the words. “They will punish you.”

  Peggy waved her hands. “Enough!” she cried. Tsiami and Aggie stopped bickering and looked at her.

  Mama Amma, who had been silently smoldering, stood up from her bench, her square face tense with anger. “You should put them all in jail, Nana! Put the thieves in jail and throw away the key! Let them rot there with no liquor and no women! I speak for the honest people of Otuam. I speak for the future of Otuam. We stand behind our lady king! We want everyone to use these new checks. No more cash! These selfish old men have been stealing money from Otuam’s children for years. Of course you don’t want to stop. How else will you be able to afford all the booze you drink?” She turned to Peggy and said, “You should have no expectations that these crooks will ever learn to be honest. It is well known that you cannot change a donkey into an elephant.”

  Uncle Moses popped up from his seat like a jack-in-the-box waving his arms and turned to Mama Amma in a fury. “Who are you to speak in this manner to a male elder? I am not a donkey!” he said.

  “Yes, you are,” Mama Amma countered. “You are a donkey, but you think you are an elephant.”

  “You are a donkey!” he cried, then launched into another rant about ancestral traditions and plagues and the shameless, disrespectful, loudmouthed old women of Otuam.

  When he paused to take a breath, Peggy said pleasantly, “Times are changing, Uncle Moses. Women speak their mind these days. Get used to it.”

  “And you!” Uncle Moses cried. “You are just a woman! You are supposed to listen to men, to do what we say! Why do you think we chose you as king? ”

  Peggy could feel her heart stop for a beat. There it was, finally. Confirmation of the suspicion she had had ever since that four a.m. phone call, that Uncle Moses had orchestrated her kingship for his own purposes. That he had seen her not as his king, but as a tool to be used. She felt stunned, as if he had slapped her in the face. But then something occurred to her. Kingship, she knew, was divine. Therefore, Uncle Moses must have been the tool of higher powers to make sure that the candidate they wanted, Peggy, was chosen.

  She felt a warm sense of calm spread over her and said, “But you didn’t choose me as king, Uncle Moses. God and the ancestors chose me as king. They just used you. You thought you were being so smart and crafty, choosing a woman who lived thousands of miles away who would do what you say and let you keep on stealing. But you were just a tool the spirit world used to put me in this position to help the people of Otuam. God wanted me here, and here I am, and you had better get used to it.”

  “She’s right, Moses,” Tsiami said, suddenly rousing himself from his usual catatonic state. “I knew you wanted the new king to be a woman who lived far away because you thought she would never look into the town finances, let alone threaten to put you in jail. You’ve always thought I made the schnapps steam up so that your candidate would be chosen, but I didn’t, because really what do I care who becomes the new king? Plus, I wouldn’t know how to make it steam up. It was the ancestors who chose her, Moses, not you. And frankly I think they picked the worst possible person on that list in terms of doing what you want the king to do, which is to leave you alone to steal all the money.”

  Tsiami started to laugh, something so rare that everyone stared at him. His face, usually as expressive as a plank of mahogany, broke into creases and folds they had never seen before. “What are you going to do now, Moses,” he guffawed, “kill this king, too?”

  “I didn’t kill him!” Moses shot back. “At least, I didn’t mean to. Besides, he died months after that episode! ”

  Silence descended heavily on the table.

  “After what episode, Uncle Moses?” Peggy asked, shocked. Had she heard correctly? Was Uncle Moses really responsible for the late king’s death?

  Moses calmly sipped his beer as if he hadn’t heard.

  “Tsiami, what did you mean when you said that about Moses killing the late king?” Peggy persisted.

  Scratching his ear and gazing straight ahead, Tsiami said, “Toward the end of his reign, the late king in the fridge realized how Uncle Moses and Isaiah the Treasurer were stealing the land sales. He called in the Saltpond police to investigate. He was going to put them both in jail.” He stopped.

  “I know about this,” Peggy said. “But why did you say that Uncle Moses killed the late king? ”

  “Uncle Moses was very angry at the late king in the fridge and very afraid of going to jail, so he got out his old military shotgun and took it upstairs in the palace, into the bathroom where the king was standing in the tub bathing with his bucket, and pointed it at him and said he would kill him if the police tried to put Uncle Moses in jail.”

  Peggy was horrified. “And then?”

  “And then the king had a stroke, on the spot, and fell into the bathtub unconscious.”

  “I knew it!” Mama Amma bellowed, hand on her machete. “You’re all murderers.”

  Uncle Moses cried, “I’m not a murderer! That gun wasn’t even loaded!”

  “If you push a fisherman off his canoe into the sea and he drowns, is it his fault for not swimming well enough or yours for pushing him in the first place?” Mama Amma asked heatedly. She had a good point, Peggy had to admit.

  “He recovered from that stroke and died months later,” Uncle Moses insisted.

  Tsiami just shook his head. “He never came back from the hospital. He stayed there a few months and died. And you must admit that you were glad he was in no condition to meet with the police. I think it’s safe to say you killed him.”

  Uncle Moses rolled his eyes. “That’s what you say, Tsiami.”

  “That’s right, that’s what I say. And that’s what the stools say, too, because they told me you killed him and you would have a heavy price to pay. They say you are going to die horribly and that the late king will come back for you a month after his burial. Anyway, I’d say the joke is on you because the weak lady king you wanted is much younger and stronger than the one you killed, and I don’t think you can make her have a stroke by taking a gun into the bat
hroom to scare her.” Tsiami broke into a broad grin, revealing perfect white teeth.

  Peggy turned her unblinking gaze toward Uncle Moses, whose cheeks were sagging now, no air in them at all. “Well, Uncle Moses, what do you have to say for yourself? I think your murder of the late king is something that should be discussed.”

  Uncle Moses seemed about to speak and then closed his mouth. Finally, he said, “All right. I will go outside to pee and when I return we can discuss it.”

  Peggy nodded. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Uncle Moses ambled out the door and into the bushes.

  Scanning the table, Peggy saw her elders’ downcast faces. Isaiah the Treasurer, of course, would never have revealed anything unflattering of his mentor Uncle Moses, but why hadn’t Baba Kobena and Eshun ever told her this story?

  “Baba, Eshun, did you know about this? ”

  They nodded sadly.

  “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

  “We didn’t want to upset you, Nana,” Baba Kobena said.

  “Or frighten you,” Eshun added, “especially when you were taking a shower.”

  “To give him some credit,” Baba Kobena continued, “after Uncle Moses made the king have a stroke, he came running into the courtyard still holding his shotgun, which we thought was odd, and asked us to get a cab to take the king to the hospital, as he had fallen down in the shower and was having a fit. We had to prop him up unconscious in the taxi between Uncle Moses and Isaiah. Later I asked Uncle Moses about the shotgun, and he told me what had really happened.”

  Peggy nodded. So Uncle Moses had, at least, immediately called for help. Or had he waited a while before doing so? How would anyone ever know?

  “It was a terrible thing,” Isaiah the Treasurer said. “Ever since then, Uncle Moses has felt just awful about it.” Somehow Peggy doubted that.

  The fan swirled around and around over their heads, making a clicking, whirring sound, and outside a goat bleated. Peggy’s royal robes were airing on the laundry line strung out right behind the dining room, like colorful tablecloths, flapping in the breeze. Nana Kwesi stared vacantly at them, his lips in a half smile, shaking his head slowly. Tsiami studied his fingernails as if all the mysteries of the world would be revealed in his cuticles.

  “It’s been a long time,” Cousin Comfort said after several minutes, tapping her long red fingernails gently on the table. “Do you think Uncle Moses is all right?”

  “Who cares,” said Mama Amma, taking a deep swig of beer.

  Peggy replied, “Oh, he’s all right. I think the coward went home. Perhaps he’s coming back with his blunderbuss.”

  But Uncle Moses didn’t come back.

  19

  Peggy had much to think about. What Uncle Moses had done was far worse than theft; he had killed the late king. Or had he really? Had Uncle Joseph been on the verge of a stroke that would have felled him at some point during that day or the next? Weren’t strokes caused by blood clots, which formed over a period of time? Perhaps the shock of seeing Uncle Moses run into his bathroom with a gun, while Joseph was standing there naked with his bucket, pushed the blood clot into a major artery and caused his stroke a few hours or days earlier than otherwise would have occurred.

  Uncle Moses couldn’t have known that his behavior would make the king have a stroke. Perhaps she could best describe it as an accidental death, though come to think of it, there was nothing accidental about taking a gun into a bathroom and pointing it at a ninety-two-year-old. Should she put Uncle Moses in jail for helping to push the late king into the village for good? Should she mitigate his punishment because he had arranged to get the king to the hospital? She discussed it with Cousin Comfort and Nana Kwesi.

  “The important thing is that Uncle Moses knows that you know what he did,” Cousin Comfort replied, after much consideration. “I think that alone will take a lot of the wind out of his sails. If he ever acts up with you, all you have to do is mention the words gun and bathtub, and I bet he will be quiet.”

  Nana Kwesi said, “Nana, I think Comfort is right. You need to start off your reign fresh, a new beginning. But I also think you should watch out for yourself.”

  “Watch out?”

  “Well, what’s to prevent Moses or his partner in crime, Isaiah the Treasurer, from trying to harm you in some other way?”

  “You think I’m in danger?”

  Nana Kwesi shook his head. “I don’t know. But from now on when you are drinking or eating something and your elders are around, don’t ever take your eyes off your glass and plate. And regarding the borehole for the palace, I know you wanted pipes outside with a tap for people living in the boys’ quarters to get water. But I think I’ll keep the pipes inside the palace, so no one can get near them.”

  Peggy stared at him. “You mean my elders might try to poison me? ”

  Nana Kwesi looked out the window. “If they did, with no doctor here and no ambulance, you wouldn’t get any medical care for at least an hour.”

  Cousin Comfort said, “They’ve had an easy lifestyle for several years now, Nana, and you have taken that away from them. They can’t get their hands on fishing fees anymore, and everyone in Otuam knows that no land sales will be legal unless they bear the signature of you or Nana Kwesi. So I imagine there is more resentment than you know.”

  “And there are the daughters of the late king,” Aggie piped up from the kitchen door. “My brother here in Otuam tells me they’re planning something because Nana won’t let them bury their father now and wants to give him a royal funeral. But no one knows what.”

  Peggy was stunned. Could her life possibly be in danger? Was she surrounded by enemies plotting against her for trying to help her town? But then she shook off the thought. No one was ever going to frighten her out of doing her duty.

  Fear, she knew, would paralyze her ability to rule. She had had plenty of experience with fear, especially after William left, living in dread of being hurt again. The fear had slowly boxed her into a smaller and smaller life, until her life was so tiny she could barely turn around in it. It had been the best she could do at the time, but it had still been a mistake. It was not a mistake she would repeat in her kingship.

  Angry elders, vengeful daughters, shotguns and poison and plots. She would not be afraid. Not this time. “Bring it on,” she said calmly.

  For weeks now, Nana Tufu had come almost every day with his tsiami to visit. Peggy always welcomed him and gave him and Papa Adama beer and whiskey, and more beer and more whiskey, but it seemed they never wanted to leave. When these visits had started shortly after her arrival in Otuam, she thought Nana Tufu wanted to discuss preparations for her gazetting ceremony, which he was sponsoring. But after making a couple of remarks about it, they stayed, either chatting about nothing in particular or drinking in silence. Now that the gazetting was over, they still came and sat there drinking. As they discussed the fishing fees, or the land sales, or Uncle Moses’s killing of the late king—whatever was the main topic of the day—Peggy couldn’t help but notice that Nana Tufu often cast fearful glances at the front door.

  One day, Peggy finally asked, “What’s the matter? Why do you keep looking at the door? ”

  Nana Tufu slumped in the chair. “My cousin came back,” he said. A tall and robust man, he now looked deflated, as if he had once been a big happy birthday balloon but the air had seeped out of him, and he had become a sad and shriveled thing.

  “Cousin?”

  “Well, Nana, you know that the Nana Tufu, the official mediator of Otuam, has a stool of his own, has kingly status. But I was never actually enstooled since my cousin was in line for the throne, and five years ago he asked me to fill in for him temporarily until he came back. I thought he would be gone a year or so. But it has been five years, and I have worked hard to learn the role of mediator, and I have given much. I don’t want to leave.”

  And maybe you like the palace and the tsiami, the gifts of whiskey and the bowing
and scraping of townsfolk in the street? Peggy asked silently. Maybe you don’t want to give that up either. Peggy was fond of Nana Tufu, but she wasn’t blind to the appeal of being a king.

  Nana Tufu looked at the door again.

  “Are you expecting him to show up here?” she asked.

  “No. But I told him he couldn’t ask me to leave now, after all these years, and that I wasn’t going to stop being the Nana Tufu. As a result, he hired the Asafo to follow me around and harass me.”

  The term Asafo meant “company of warriors.” In the past, the Asafo was the people’s militia, formed to defend the community against aggressors. But there weren’t any aggressors these days, so throughout Ghana the Asafo groups, wearing leopard-print army uniforms and red kerchiefs on their heads, sang traditional songs, danced, and beat drums at festivals, funerals, and other town events. More recently, the Asafo had permitted women to join, tough women who enjoyed marching up and down the street chanting and carrying old guns with black powder but no bullets.

  For seventy years, the Otuam Asafo had been led by Uncle Fitter, whose name reflected his decades of work as a mechanic fitting together pieces of metal. In his nineties, he was several inches shy of five feet tall and without a single tooth in his head, which gave him a spitting, whistling speech. He wore an ancient khaki hat with a huge hole in the center, as if a mortar had ripped straight through it.

  The Asafo had performed on Main Street during Peggy’s enstoolment the year before and at the recent opening of the Otuam bank. But they had a role in addition to their musical performances. You could hire them to harass people you didn’t like. For some cash and a bottle of whiskey, they would walk down Main Street in uniform, banging on drums and singing loudly—“Kwame Sowah is a jackass” or “Pearl Brempong stole her sister’s necklace”—until the harassed person either resolved the dispute or paid the Asafo more money and whiskey to keep silent than the aggrieved person had paid them to sing. Either way, singing or silent, the Asafo made a lot of money and drank a lot of whiskey.