by Adwoa Badoe
“I want to show you the latest linen,” said Bea.
How could she be so bold? I followed timidly behind.
Madam Cee’s eyes followed us around the store. Bea ignored them as she led me around. But even Bea hesitated to run her fingers over the rolls and layers of fabric lining the shelves. I wanted to feel the smoothness of the velvet and the weightlessness of the see-through chiffon they used for wedding veils.
A young girl who worked in the shop approached us.
“Are you buying something?”
“No, I’m just looking,” said Bea defiantly.
I tugged at her hand. “Let’s go now.”
Outside I felt as if I had escaped with my life.
“Could you hear those rolls of material calling, Buy me, wrap me around yourselves and be gorgeous?” said Bea.
“In your dreams,” I scoffed. “Let’s go and buy our foodstuffs now.”
“No. Let’s go to the Jeans-Jeans shop. You should see the shoes they have, all from Italy. Italian shoes are the best, I swear,” she said, wagging a finger in the air.
I wondered how she would know that, but I was fast realizing that there was much more to Bea than I knew. So we walked down the road hand in hand, carrying our baskets in our free hands. Soon we were at the Jeans-Jeans shop, and it was full of people. There were T-shirts with slogans painted across them in fiery reds and brilliant blues. There were dress shirts and blouses, pants, jeans and corduroys in every color.
An assistant was talking to a client.
“These are designer clothes. Read the labels. Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Laurent, Armani, Versace. That’s the reason the prices are what they are,” he said.
“Haven’t you heard the Chinese are making replicas and merchandisers import them to make even more profit?” said the young woman. “You buy it, then two weeks later the fabric frays.” She was sharply dressed in a white three-quarter sleeve shirt and the deepest blue jeans. She held her hair straight back in the severest ponytail. Bea and I watched her.
“Not these clothes,” said the assistant. “It’s the real thing, straight from America and Europe.”
The woman looked like a model in one of the glossy American magazines. She pushed her large dark glasses onto her head. Her perfume saturated the air.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Jemali in person, the jazz-highlife singer! This was where she shopped.
I feasted my eyes on her. Now I knew how I wanted to look when I grew up.
We trailed around the store, touched the things she’d touched, tried the shoes she’d tried. The shop was a shoe heaven, with shoes of all colors sitting on shelves from the ceiling to the floor.
“I like those pointy snakeskin browns with the matching bag,” said Bea. She read the designer name. “Gianni.”
I preferred the pointed black shoes with a strap across the heel. They reminded me of something Christine would wear.
I felt the buckles on the belts where they hung on a rotating stand. Black leather belts for men, chain belts and the wide elastic belts with their large metal clasps that women wore high on their waists to make their busts look full. There were also glass cases full of bangles and watches with all manner of stones and glittering things.
I stared and stared. Everywhere there were shop attendants watching closely.
I wanted everything.
“When I have some money, I’ll come here to buy my clothes,” Bea said longingly.
“Me, too.”
“The things are beautiful, yes?” It was a heavily accented voice. The speaker was Lebanese.
“Yes,” I said.
“You like?”
“Yes, I like.”
He picked up a skinny pair of jeans.
“This one will fit. It has spandex. It will stretch. My name is Faisal. I own the store. What’s your name?”
“Gloria.” I couldn’t believe a young man like that could own such a store. I gaped at him.
“You be my friend. You can pay small-small, anything you buy,” he said. He was dashing. His dark silky hair spilled over his forehead, but I thought his nose was hawkish and big for his face.
“What about me?” asked Bea.
“Okay, because you are her friend,” Faisal said with a shrug.
I laughed. Bea rolled her eyes.
We had spent longer than I thought, and I needed to get home early. I had promised to make palm nut soup for Christine and her friends — Mimi, Julie and Dr. Joe. Dr. Joe had promised to bring his girlfriend, Doyoe, and she was always nice to me.
We returned to Kejetia Market as fast as we could. All of sudden I was attracted to every vendor selling accessories or underpants or even handkerchiefs. Bea laughed at me.
“I thought you were the one from the big city,” she said. “You are behaving like a villager come to town.”
I bought plantains, onions and tomatoes. I didn’t bother to haggle over pennies as I had learned from my mother. In Kumasi, the doctors were too wealthy for that. I had never seen Christine haggle. I bought kontomire leaves and pepper. Then I bought beef and goat meat. I bought koobi fish as well. I waited while Bea bought snails and crabs. I couldn’t stand snails.
Our baskets were too heavy to carry by hand so I carried mine on my head. Bea struggled to hold on to hers but she would not carry the basket on her head.
“Let’s take a drop-in taxi,” she said at last. “We could share the cost.”
We were turning into our compound when Bea told the taxi driver to stop.
“Why?” I asked.
“Do you want Christine to see you in a taxi?”
“She doesn’t mind if I ride in a taxi.”
“You’re lucky. My mother will go crazy if she sees me spending her money on taxis.” We paid the taxi driver and got out. This time I didn’t put my basket on my head.
“It was nice today, wasn’t it?” Bea asked.
“Yes.”
“We should save for those clothes and shoes.”
I nodded. “Maybe we could meet later at the clubhouse,” I said.
“Sure,” said Bea, and she raised her free hand for a high-five. “First we shower, then we shadda, then we can sit like ladies and have a drink.”
It was nice to have something to look forward to, and at the edge of the milk bush we parted ways until sunset, when we could change and for a while become like Somebodies.
• SIX •
Schools closed for the long vacation and then the rain came. It was hot and humid. I wasn’t sure which was worse — noontime in Accra or two o’clock in Kumasi. We could have roasted plantains just by sitting them out in the sun.
In the bedroom, Christine and Sam were putting puzzles together, and the ceiling fan was going at top speed. Christine called them jigsaw puzzles and Sam had about ten of them, which we assembled piece by piece, making beautiful pictures. His favorite was a big red train with a smiley face. He called it Thomas. There were Thomas books, Thomas puzzles and Thomas trains, too. Sam even had a Thomas shirt.
Bea came by one afternoon. She was all excited.
“My friends are outside waiting to meet you,” she said. “Maybe we could all walk to town to watch a Chinese film.”
“I don’t know,” I said. Daa never liked me going out that way.
“Go on. Go and ask Dr. Christine,” Bea urged.
So I went to knock on Christine’s door.
“Sistah Christy, can I go and watch a film with Bea and her friends?”
Christine was building a Lego wall with Sam. She kept on pressing brick onto brick. I waited, holding my breath.
“Okay,” she said at last. “Be home by six o’clock.”
“Thank you, Sistah.” I could not believe my luck.
Bea’s friends were standing at the Block D carport. I knew Serwaa and
Cynthia, but it was the first time I was meeting Simon. He was tall and skinny and he had an open honest face and a wide grin. He seemed nice.
Bea said Simon was a good guitarist. Soon we were talking about our favorite artists. My first love was Daddy Lumba, of course.
We cut through the medical students’ hostel, using the path behind the hospital into town.
“In our band, we’re looking for a different groove,” Simon said. “We want to adapt hip-hop to highlife.”
“Do you really have a band?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I sing.”
“We need a singer,” said Simon. “Can you join us?”
“But you haven’t even heard her,” said Bea.
“I can tell by her speaking voice.”
“I think you like her,” Bea teased. “Tell the truth, Simon.” The girls burst out laughing and I couldn’t look at Simon. I knew it would get worse if I protested. Those years in school had taught me that.
“Yes, I like her,” said Simon, surprising me.
And Bea and Serwaa shouted, “Aieiii!”
•
We began to meet regularly at the Block F carport near the end of the doctors’ compound, just where the dust gave way to the mango trees and bushes. Simon brought Jima and Osi to join us. Jima was the drummer and Osi was the keyboardist of the band, which as yet did not have a name. Simon brought along an old guitar but the other two improvised. Jima drummed on every available receptacle, including broken pots, cardboard boxes, wooden crates and old barrels. He was really good and I loved his sounds. There was nothing much for Osi to do. Mostly he would hum his part.
Whenever Sam came along on Christine’s duty days, we passed him around from person to person. Someone always had to entertain Sam because otherwise he would get himself very dirty, and there were too many things to put in his mouth.
Simon paid attention to me because he said hip-life depended more on beat and voice. We began to experiment with the songs we knew well. Sometimes Simon would break into rapping in English or Twi. It was so much fun.
Osi came up with a plan. If we joined the youth music ministry of his church, we would have access to the church’s instruments on some weekdays.
Christine was willing to let me attend those youth meetings once a week on Thursdays as long as she was home to look after Sam.
“It’s a good place to meet people of your age group and still have some supervision,” she said.
“We have good Bible studies and discussions,” I said, playing up the godly bit. “It’s very much like my youth group at home.”
“I know there is also prayer time,” she smiled. “But none of these have prevented precocious teens from trying things they shouldn’t.”
“Sistah, I’m not like that.”
“No one is like that. Things just happen, hm? Listen, Glo. I know life is very interesting at sixteen and boys may be saying things to you, making suggestions. But it is a smart girl who makes up her mind early who she is going to be and what it takes to be that person. Otherwise you may as well sleep with the night watchmen who spread their mats on verandas, with a million mosquitoes buzzing about their ears.”
She was looking at me intently. I opened my mouth to say something but no words came.
“Abroad, they give girls like you condoms to carry in their purses against pregnancy and AIDS. This is Ghana. We don’t do such things. Your condom is your mind. Use it when your boyfriends are making suggestions,” she said.
“Yes, Sistah.”
I thought about what Christine had said. I had heard it before in religious language from my father and the preachers in church. Everyone seemed to think sex was all we teenagers thought about.
On Saturday, Christine’s department doctors had a party. Christine and her friends had their hair done at Yramesor Salon. Yramesor was Rosemary turned the other way. It was the best salon in town. I watched them transform before my eyes in Christine’s bedroom, giggling like Effie and her friends, trying out lipstick and eyeliner and glitter, changing bags and trading shoes. Often Sam got in the way so I wrap-tied him on my back to keep him from trouble. I ran errands to and from Julie’s apartment, fetching shoes and bags and tissues. Then at three o’clock they left in Christine’s car for the party at the Georgia Hotel.
I wanted to visit the clubhouse, and I knew Bea would love that, too, so I changed Sam’s shirt and off we went, cutting through the milk-bush hedge to the nurses’ compound.
Bea’s mom, Sister Janet, was a large woman who kept her straightened hair in a thinning ponytail. Her eyes were small and without humor.
“Bea, your friend is here,” she said. Then she turned away without greeting me. “Make sure you finish the dishes before you go wandering.” Her voice was scratchy, as though she’d lost it a while ago and found only a part of it again.
“Yes, Mama,” Bea replied from inside.
Bea came through the kitchen door and gave me a mischievous wink, but I had on my good-girl face and I didn’t wink back. Sam held on tightly.
“Mama, can I bring Gloria to the kitchen?”
“Yes.” Sister Janet’s answer was short.
I followed Bea to the kitchen and stood by the door while she washed dishes in murky soapy water, then rinsed them in an aluminum pan of clear water. The kitchen was hardly bigger than a cupboard, and most of their cooking was actually done out in the yard where the coal pot stood among other soot-stained pots and pans.
In some ways I was reminded of my home in Accra. I guess it was just that look of weariness, even among the pots and pans.
I didn’t volunteer my help. I was bathed and well dressed for the afternoon, and besides, I had Sam. So I talked to her from the doorway.
“Where do you want to go?” Bea asked, transferring plates with dripping hands.
“To the clubhouse.”
“Do you have money?”
“Just enough for a drink,” I replied. “Do you have money?”
“No.”
Soon the dishes were all arranged on the draining board. Bea wiped the area around the sink and mopped the floor. Then she washed her hands and dried them on the front of her dress.
“Wait for me in the living room while I change,” she said.
I was glad she was going to change.
“Use deodorant,” I said.
The small living-dining was next to the kitchen. I looked around at the old dusty armchairs huddled in the gloom. Heavy gabardine curtains drooped on sagging wire supports above the window, blotting out the sunlight.
There were several photographs on the room divider. I was looking at them when Bea returned in a clean blue-and-white dress with a white collar and short sleeves.
“That’s my father,” she said proudly, pointing to a distinguished-looking man in a group photo. “Dr. Kotoh.”
Her mother was in the photograph, too. She looked much younger and slimmer.
“Your father’s handsome,” I said. “Does he work on ward C1 with your mother?”
“No, he’s an obstetrician-gynecologist,” she replied. “He works in the A Block.”
“What’s an obsti — whatever you said?”
“A woman’s doctor, dealing with pregnancy and such,” she replied. “He does operations, too.”
I thought of her doctor father and her nursing-sister mother. Bea should have been one of those “daddy’s children” who went to private schools and wore ribbons in their hair. My old school in Accra had people like Bea whose fathers were Somebodies, rich and important. But the children of ex-wives, concubines and second wives were often left to struggle in poverty with their mothers.
The clubhouse on Saturday afternoon was buzzing with life. There were tennis-playing men in their whites, beer bellies pushing against their tight shorts. From time to time they mopped away at the
sweat with towels their ball boys handed them. Others sat on white deck chairs, their towels hanging around their necks. The bar boys served Star and ABC beer in tall glasses, saying, “Yes, sah. T’ank you, sah!”
I noticed five young women about Effie’s age sitting with a group of men sipping beer and soft drinks. They were all fashionably dressed and made up, too.
“Let’s sit here,” said Bea, pointing at some chairs near the entrance to the courts. Sam sat on my lap. We sipped our drinks and watched the game, and the group to our right got larger and larger.
Someone tapped me on my shoulder. It was Dr. Joe.
“Gloria, how are you? Hey, Sam!”
He held his arms open for Sam. Sam climbed over to him.
“Where’s Christine?” he asked.
“She’s gone to the party at Georgia Hotel.”
There was someone behind Dr. Joe. She was a very pretty girl but she was not Doyoe.
“Hello,” said the girl. Her smile was friendly.
“I’ll keep Sam for a while,” said Dr. Joe. I followed them with my eyes to the other group.
“All the girls are from the nurses’ training college,” Bea said. “I’ve seen most of them.”
Sam looked happy as he sat on Dr. Joe’s friend’s lap.
“I wonder if Doyoe knows Dr. Joe’s friend?” I said.
“I bet she’s his other girlfriend,” Bea chuckled. “All the doctors have nurse girlfriends.”
But I didn’t think Dr. Joe would have a second girlfriend.
We turned our attention to the game. More people came in. Some of them were older than Dr. Joe’s lot.
“Those are my father’s friends,” Bea whispered.
They didn’t recognize Bea. The place was full. There were no more deck chairs for the people coming in. Soon we’d have to go.
I heard Sam’s cry. He was tired of listening to strangers. I went over to get him.
“Small girl, what’s your name?” one of the men in Dr. Joe’s company asked.
“Aah, you, too,” said Dr. Joe. “Ogyam, this one is too young! Christine will kill you if you go that way.”
Everyone burst out laughing.