Somebody's Heart Is Burning

by Tanya Shaffer

  “Information circulates so quickly,” said Stephen. He turned to me. “Sistah Korkor, I present to you my brothahs of the university. Brothah Bengo studies economics and development planning and will one day be president of Ghana here, if not of the whole world. And Brothah Kojo, who studies language and literature, will one day be a learned professor and writer of books.”

  “I’m honored.” I extended my hand.

  Bengo’s long, knobby fingers grasped mine with surprising force. His eyes were conspiratorial, as though we shared a thrilling secret.

  “Sistah Korkor! This will be a very profitable friendship for the two of us.”

  As it happened, Stephen was on his way to class. With effusive apologies, he explained to me that I had come on the one day of the entire semester on which he had no time to spend with me. He had classes and appointments scheduled back-to-back and would not return to his dorm until nine o’clock that night.

  “If you have some hours to spend on campus here, Kojo and I will be very pleased to be your guides,” said Bengo.

  The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology occupies a luxurious seven square miles of land, a quick twenty-minute tro-tro ride from Kumasi. The campus is elegantly laid out, with vast green lawns and brightly flowering tropical plants. The buildings are sleek and modern. We strolled through the botanical gardens, the air rich with the musky aroma of blooms just past their prime. As we wandered the tree-lined paths of the campus, taking in a sculpture garden, a science lab, and an art studio, Bengo kept up a running commentary on the university’s history: when the buildings were constructed, illustrious graduates, visiting professors and dignitaries. I nodded and smiled, paying scant attention, enjoying the sensation of the sun on my arms and the nearness of these two handsome men.

  After my tour was completed, Bengo invited me back to the dormitory for conversation.

  “I would like very much to air my views on many subjects, and to have an opportunity to learn yours,” he said.

  On our way back to the dorm we stopped at a stand selling minerals. I selected an icy Pee Cola, and Bengo and Kojo got orange Fantas. When I tried to pay, Kojo spoke up for the first time, insisting that I was their guest. We carried our icy drinks up to their bedroom, where they turned on an overhead fan. I sat in a corner chair in the cramped space—similar to my own college dorm room, but slightly smaller—while they perched on their respective twin beds.

  “Now,” Bengo said eagerly, as soon as we were seated. “Tell me every single thing about the United States of America. Omit no item, large or small.”

  I laughed. “That’s a daunting task.”

  Bengo did not laugh with me, but simply gazed at me like a scientist observing a chemical reaction, his eyes alert with expectation.

  “Well,” I began, “it’s a large country, very diverse . . .”

  Time disappeared in their room. I sat talking with the two of them while outside the small window day turned to dusk turned to night. Sometimes it felt like I was being pounded by a heavy shower, an unrelenting flow. Bengo had a vast inner storehouse of Americana that ranged from the trivial to the profound. This included entire memorized speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy, as well as the populations, geographic features, and chief industries of all fifty states. There were few facts about the United States of America he didn’t already know, and none he didn’t want to learn.

  But as broad as his interests were, there were certain questions he kept returning to; they nagged at him like mosquito bites.

  “What about the black man there?” he asked me at least five times over the course of the day. “Are things improving for him, or are they actually getting worse?”

  “That’s a big question,” I’d begin, and we’d be off and running: Martin Luther King Jr., Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, James Baldwin, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Michael Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Clarence Thomas, Rodney King, the gains of the civil rights movement, rumors of the CIA planting drugs in poor neighborhoods, black separatism, affirmative action. The breadth of his knowledge took my breath away. How had he gleaned all this information? Even in Accra, the capital, I’d had trouble staying on top of the most basic current events. He must have spent every waking moment searching out reading material and devouring it.

  Bengo’s politics were eclectic. He was willing to consider any perspective: left, right, or center—consistency was no object. He liked to try opinions on for size. He argued strenuously for the virtues of creating an independent black nation within the U.S., as Nadhiri had done, then turned right around and declared it impractical. In discussing the rights of racist groups to march and organize, he made an eloquent case for uncompromising adherence to the First Amendment, then contended that certain types of speech did not deserve protection.

  “But what do you believe?” I asked him again and again. “You’ve just effectively argued both sides. What’s your actual opinion?”

  He grinned mischievously. “I would not be a good politician if I told you, eh?”

  “Come on.”

  “I have not yet perfected my views on these subjects. I am gathering evidence.”

  “Do you really want to go into politics?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I trust that when I do form opinions, they will be sound and well-balanced. I am a reasonable man, and reasonable men must govern if Africa is to move forward in the new century. I will never let my personal emotions stand in the way of my judgment.”

  “You mean you are ruthless,” said Kojo quietly.

  “I mean I am capable of doing what needs to be done. I have every confidence in myself.”

  But despite his avowed openness, Bengo had a strong streak of the bootstrap conservative in him. His father was a wealthy merchant with more than twenty wives. At nine years old, Bengo had gotten sick and missed so much school that he was held back a year. His father considered this a disgrace and refused to pay his school fees from that time on. In order to continue studying, Bengo became resourceful, growing vegetables behind his mother’s hut and selling them in nearby villages. He cultivated his running skills and delivered messages for the village women, sometimes over great distances. In this way, he paid his own school fees until he finished high school and was awarded a scholarship to the university.

  “You see?” he said to me. “I did it all myself. Why do people need handouts? When I hear those in Ghana here who say they can find no means to educate themselves, I think they are simply lazy.”

  I groaned. “Bengo, look at yourself. You are not an average person. You’re not even an above average person. You’re a phenomenon. You have the intellect of a Nobel scientist and the stamina of an Olympic athlete. Someone shouldn’t have to be you to get an education. And besides, you did have certain advantages. You had to pay your own school fees, but you didn’t have to sell gum on the street corner to eat, like some of these kids. You didn’t suffer from malnutrition. As it stands now, the main factor in getting a decent education, both here and in the U.S., is money. It’s ridiculous. Everyone deserves a shot.”

  Bengo thought about this for a moment, then he began to chuckle. “He shouldn’t have to be me, eh? Well, perhaps you have a point.”

  Bengo was the first true atheist I’d met in Ghana. In his commitment to atheism he reminded me of my mother, a statistician so convinced of the absence of God that she smirks at the suggestion of belief. Although Kojo claimed to be an atheist like Bengo, he did feel that there was more to Ghanaian life than met the eye. Committed as most Ghanaians were to Christianity, he said, every village still had a fetish priest, and these men wielded a great deal of power.

  “If someone is in line for a promotion ahead of you,” said Kojo, “and you want to stop him, the fetish priest can help you to do this. Many of them will use their power for evil as well as good, if you pay them enough money.”

  “How could he prevent the promotion?”
I asked.

  “He can cause the man to drop dead.”

  “Surely he cannot do this,” Bengo scoffed, “unless he spices the man’s soup with poison.”

  “He can do it by calling out the demons,” said Kojo.

  “So you believe there are demons?” I asked.

  “I don’t believe in them,” said Kojo quickly, “but they exist.”

  “Eh!” shouted Bengo. “Stop with all this. You will give a bad impression to our American friend.”

  “You cannot tell me what I have and have not seen,” said Kojo, flaring. “I have seen a small girl vomiting frogs.”

  “This is a trick,” said Bengo angrily. “Primitive superstition. Something that civilized people cannot accept.”

  “I said I do not believe in it myself,” said Kojo, backing down beneath Bengo’s stare. He remained silent for a long moment, his mouth and forehead working as though he were engaging in a strenuous inner dialogue. Then he added, with quiet dignity, “But the fact remains that I have seen it.”

  “Why is there so much divorce in your country?” Bengo asked me later. This question had come up so often in Ghana that I’d developed a fairly elaborate response. I delivered my spiel about the individualism inherent in American culture, the way our families and communities didn’t hold couples together the way they did in Ghana. I talked as well about the Hollywoodstyle expectations of love I’d grown up with.

  “We don’t get into relationships expecting to have to toil over them,” I told him. “We expect them to come ready-made. When things get too rough, we just persuade ourselves we’ve picked the wrong person and start looking for someone else.”

  “Eh!” said Bengo. “You must be a sociologist! You understand this phenomenon very well.”

  I smiled wanly. Ah, irony. I knew the ills of my society like I knew the smell of my own sweat. But at twenty-seven years of age, my longest relationship by far was the one with Michael, and we’d lived together for exactly two years. No matter how I might rail against rugged individualism and overblown romantic expectation, I was a prime example of both.

  “What do you think of these interracial couples?” asked Bengo.

  “I think people should marry whomever they want,” I said.

  “I wholeheartedly agree,” he said. “Whichever woman a man wishes to marry, he should do so.” He paused for a moment, then asked pointedly, “Don’t you think so, Kojo?”

  “I think that in marriage, a person should choose among those who understand him best,” said Kojo, staring at him evenly.

  “There are still some small-minded villagers who feel that a man must stay within his tribe, that Ashanti must marry Ashanti,” said Bengo.

  Bengo and Kojo were both Ashanti, as were a high percentage of Ghana’s political and economic elite. Although I was light-years from understanding Ghana’s complex tribal histories, I saw that the Ashanti as a group garnered both respect and resentment. Long ago, they had sold other tribes into slavery.

  “This attitude is small-minded,” Bengo continued. “I myself will marry an intelligent woman. I do not care whether she is Ashanti or not. I do not even care whether she is black! I care only that she is educated and that we can talk to one another as equals.” He looked at me with those laser-bright eyes of his, and I felt my face grow hot. Kojo, too, was watching me with an unpleasant expression on his face.

  “What do you think, Sistah Korkor?” Bengo asked.

  “Well, it’s complicated,” I said, stammering a little. “As I said, I think people should marry whomever they choose, regardless of race or nationality . . . or gender,” I added. Kojo looked startled. He glanced at Bengo, whose face was blank.

  “But I do think cross-cultural marriages can be challenging,” I continued. “If I were to marry a Ghanaian, for example, we would each come to the relationship with certain expectations about what a partnership between a man and a woman means— anything from who is expected to do the cooking and cleaning to how we handle our finances to how we raise a child. My boyfriend in the U.S. is Chicano—his parents are Mexican, but he grew up in the States—and even there, there are challenges. I’m not saying it can’t work, just . . .” I stopped, feeling a pang of emptiness. I’d called Michael my boyfriend. But what should I have called him? My former boyfriend for whom my feelings remained suspended in a state of hellish limbo?

  Bengo started to say something, but Kojo interrupted.

  “Gender, you say,” he said cautiously. “Is it true that there are those in the United States who believe that two males or two females should be permitted to marry each other?”

  “Oh, sure,” I said. “Lots of people. Not the majority yet, but more and more. Certain employers are already providing benefits to partners of the same sex who live together.”

  “This is not wise,” Bengo said sternly. “It will cause the breakdown of the social order. It is against nature.” He looked directly at Kojo as he spoke the final sentence.

  “Now you sound like the Pope,” I said lightly, looking from one to the other. Their eyes were locked in some kind of stare-down, which Bengo broke to respond to my remark.

  “This is not religion; this is science. If men married men and women married women the human race would die out. Charles Darwin has shown that our instinct is to continue the species. If you go against nature, things will not go well for you.” His tone was hard.

  “I might argue that all human behavior is natural,” I said. “We are, after all, animals. So anything humans do comes from our own natural urges. We don’t manufacture our desires.” I paused and glanced at Kojo, who appeared to be examining his navy blue bedspread with intent interest. “Isn’t there a movement for gay rights here in Ghana?” I asked.

  Bengo shook his head vigorously. “No. There is never a movement. There may be some rumor of a young boy, in school, who has made some experiment with another boy, but he will never boast of it. He will deny it every day.”

  Later on, Bengo briefly excused himself and left the room. Kojo and I sat for a couple of minutes in a deepening silence. Suddenly he drew in his breath and spoke, in a soft, furtive tone that was almost a whisper.

  “You live in San Francisco?”

  “In the area, yes.”

  “I have heard . . .” his voice trailed off. He glanced quickly at the door.

  “Yes?” I said encouragingly.

  “I have heard that there are very many, very many of . . . of those men and women who . . .” he swallowed, closed his eyes, pressed his palms tightly together.

  “Yes,” I said, “There are. Very many. A whole community.”

  His eyes met mine, then, for a quick moment. “And they can live there, as they are, openly?” His tone was querulous, disbelieving.

  “Yes, they can.” I looked at Kojo’s smooth face, struggling to contain my curiosity. “You and Bengo,” I said suddenly, “are you lovers?”

  Kojo looked at me in terror. I was immediately sorry I’d asked. I heard Bengo’s step in the hallway.

  He shook his head violently. “Please,” he whispered.

  I shook my head too, to reassure him, placing a finger to my lips.

  We had returned from our campus tour at noon. Now my watch said seven o’clock. Other than Bengo’s brief departure, we hadn’t stirred from our perches in many hours. I was dizzy and exhausted. My stomach was growling so loudly I was sure they could hear it. Kojo, too, appeared drained. Since our conversation he hadn’t spoken a word, and in fact seemed to have sunk into a kind of catatonia, staring blankly into space. Bengo, however, showed no sign of tiring. His eyes gleamed as he pumped me for details about the U.S. He was debating the highs and lows of Richard Nixon’s career when I finally spoke up.

  “Bengo—” I interrupted.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “What?” Kojo stirred from his lethargy.

  “Please . . . I’d like to get something to eat. Is it time for dinner, do you think?”

 
Bengo started laughing. “Oh, my goodness,” he gasped. “Our guest, we have overlooked. We have forgotten to feed her.”

  Kojo looked at him reproachfully.

  “This is not funny,” he said. “This is shameful. We must apologize. We were simply so eager for your words that we have forgotten everything else.”

  “Oh, no, it’s no big deal. I was just thinking, you know, maybe we could get something . . . before the stands close down.”

  “Oh,” said Kojo, “This is terrible. We become so absorbed. We forget entirely what is right.”

  He went to a shelf and pulled down a tin of fish from a small stack.

  “This we have,” he said. “We have only to buy some kenke and pepper sauce to accompany it.”

  We walked a couple of blocks to where a lone man stood at a table beneath a streetlight. Once back in the room, Kojo opened the tin of fish while Bengo brought out a small folding table.

  “Is this okay?” said Kojo, anxiously. “Will you have enough?”

  “Oh sure, plenty,” I said, although I wasn’t sure at all.

  There was a momentary silence as we pulled apart our balls of kenke and dipped the pieces into the pepper sauce. I ate slowly, trying to stretch out the experience.

  “Do you guys normally eat dinner later, or . . . ?”

  “We are not so conscious about food,” said Bengo. “Sometimes we will eat twice in a day, and sometimes only once. For myself, I try to conserve funds, for books. I am not so concerned with hunger. I have more important concerns,” he smiled. “Like talking to my new American friend.”

  “Of course,” said Kojo. “Why should you be concerned for her stomach? You have no concern for anyone’s appetite but your own.”

  Bengo looked at him coldly. Then he gave me an uneasy smile.

  “I am sorry for your hunger,” he said

  “Oh! Not at all,” I said, embarrassed. I looked quickly from one to the other, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

  10

  The Children of Afranguah