Wurche froze. Had Moro rejected her and then gone on to blabber about their affair? She didn’t really care if Helmut knew. But if Helmut knew, surely Shaibu did, too, which also meant all of her father’s enemies. And that she didn’t want. If Moro had told Shaibu, she would turn into a murderer like the so-called Catherine the Great was rumored to be. In broad daylight, she would use the musket Dramani had given her. But when Helmut took her hand, she understood what he meant. He would be the lover. Wurche suddenly felt stupid.
Helmut said, “I was pleased you asked me to go for a walk. I’ve been trying to find a way to spend time with you. Alone. But I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do…Or if you were interested.”
He swallowed the last word. He had turned the color of a fish’s gills.
“There are too many constraints,” said Wurche, thinking out loud. What she didn’t add were the words, even if I were really interested. When he looked perplexed, she held up her hand against his, pointed to the skin enfolding them. “This. What would happen if we had a child?”
“We don’t—” began Helmut.
“It wouldn’t end well. Look at Hafisa.” Wurche thought of the poor woman, who was looking more wretched by the day, with her yellow-skinned child. The image sparked her. “Your guard spurned her. You and your people can do whatever you want. It doesn’t matter to you whether I’m the daughter of a chief or the daughter of a commoner. You can do what you want because you have powerful guns and even more powerful people protecting you. You say you’re here to bring us friendship and protection, but I’ve seen the way your people—English or German—talk to our chiefs. There is no respect. The Asante king has been exiled. For what? Defending his land and his people? You told me you are here for friendship, but that is not the way to treat a friend. Can you tell me the truth? Why are you here? And why are you competing? English, French, German. Why don’t you leave us to handle our own affairs?”
Helmut looked at his feet, his face purple with embarrassment. Time stilled. The silence between them was like the air on a humid day. Cloying.
“I’m sorry,” said Wurche, ashamed about her outburst. “You have been nothing but kind to me and Jaji. You have shown us friendship and been open and wonderful. I am simply trying to understand what’s happening to us. If you would look at things from our point of view, you would see that we are being forced into new ways of living and it’s confusing.”
“I understand,” said Helmut. “I promise to be as honest as I can with you. The way I see things, we benefit from you as much as you from us. It’s an exchange.”
“An exchange, I could handle. But what bothers me is you telling us how to live. I’ll give you an example. Before your people arrived, slaves were people caught in war or people whose families couldn’t take care of them. A lot of them married into even royal families. After you came, it became a business. Kidnapping, raiding. Those things were started to meet your needs. Now, all we hear is how you Europeans want slavery to end. In other words, you’re calling us the bad ones.”
“You may be right,” said Helmut, “about the hypocrisy.”
He admitted that many became prosperous from slavery and even the abolition of it. But he believed the good outweighed the bad. “We are working on building schools in Kete–Krachi and making sure that children stay in school,” said Helmut. “In Lomé, we’ve built railroads, we’ve built roads and bridges. If you ever make it down there, you’ll see what Kete–Krachi could look like in a few years.”
Wurche looked into his eyes and saw he was earnest. He believed what he was saying. And yet, she wasn’t sure the other white men, like those who had exiled the Asantehene, shared Helmut’s belief. He held her gaze. The sound of water slapping the riverbank crept into the quiet that was again growing between them.
Then Helmut did the strangest thing. He palmed her cheek and pressed his lips to hers. It wasn’t the way she and Moro had expressed their feelings for each other—they’d pressed their foreheads together. Fleetingly, it troubled her that he had so easily moved on from the conversation—it made him seem insincere. But she liked how she felt.
When she caved in to his advances, it was out of curiosity, out of defiance, out of hoping it would get her back home. It happened again and again.
“I need your advice,” said Wurche.
Jaji peeled her gaze away from her manuscript. The teacher didn’t like to be interrupted when she was reading, but now was the time to ask. Aminah wasn’t there and neither was Wumpini, who had started repeating everything he heard. Jaji nodded for Wurche to go on.
“Is it bad that I have Aminah?”
“How so?”
“Is it wrong for me to have a slave?”
Jaji lowered her manuscript onto her lap. She pressed her fingers under her chin and hunched her shoulders.
“There’s a story I very much like about a philosopher and an old man. The philosopher says to the old man, ‘I have a bird in my hand; is it dead or alive?’ The old man responds, ‘The life of the bird is in your hands.’ “
Then Jaji picked up her manuscript. Why couldn’t the woman just say yes or no? Wurche supposed that it meant that Aminah’s life was in her hands. Was that a bad thing or a good thing? Helmut was telling her it was bad. From that riddle of a response, she supposed, Jaji agreed with Helmut.
Aminah
Aminah had just bought Wumpini a colorful beaded necklace at the market and yet he pointed to a small drum with black rope crisscrossing its body, next to a collection of koras and flutes. Aminah tut-tutted and grabbed his hand as he reached for it. He always wanted things, a small disappointment for Aminah, who suspected that this greed came straight from Adnan. Only greed could have made Adnan as fat as he was. The minor disappointment came from the fact that she’d come to regard Wumpini as family—he was as good as a son to her, the only family she had. Like any mother, she wanted the best for him and at the same time, projected her hopes and dreams on to him. Despite her disappointment, she indulged him when she could afford it.
It was as loud and crowded as any market day. They walked past mats of rusty guns, axes, rolls of cotton and tie-dyed cloth, sandals, cones of shea butter, glass, baskets, balls of tobacco of the kind Eeyah had used to get to stuff her pipe. Soon, they arrived at the livestock market.
“Asalaam alaikum,” she greeted the butcher, who was chopping slabs of meat. He nodded at her. “Mutton, goat head, cut into pieces like you always do, and cow foot.”
She began negotiating, a dance she both enjoyed and detested. It pleased her to get a good bargain, but she didn’t like the long process it involved. She looked about for Wumpini and, when she didn’t see him, she stared wide-eyed at the butcher, who simply shrugged. There was no knowing what Wurche would do to her, and she didn’t want to find out. She scanned the scene before her: a barber holding a blade close to a Mossi trader’s skull; green water streaming down the market soil; a mangy brown dog lapping from the stream; a woman with dried fish spread on her cloth; a man selling metal tools. And there, Moro, holding Wumpini’s hand. Her heart climbed back from her stomach.
Outside Jaji’s, she often ran into Moro. Usually, he appeared seriously involved in something, so she or Wumpini noticed him first. She didn’t want to encourage the thought that something larger was pitting their paths in collision. That whole business of licabili. He’d look up and smile, and when that happened she’d scurry away, not in fright, but because of her conflicted emotions. Her attraction to him. The repulsion she felt for who he was. The fact that she had to forgive him. She thought of Eeyah on the floor of their compound, of Issa, of the twins, of Na and the baby roasting to death. She was not yet ready.
“Wumpini!” She rushed to grab his hand, nodded a hasty greeting, and went back to the butcher.
“It’s my fault,” said Moro, suddenly at her side. “I waved at him and he ran to me. Give my sister the best pa
rts, o!”
The butcher snorted at Moro, slapped the goat head on his board, and hacked it to pieces. Aminah studied the morsels of meat, the flies that wove around the butcher, the large sheep’s carcass hanging in the back of the stall, against the braided grass wall. Anything to not have to speak to Moro. When the butcher handed Aminah her meat, she placed it in her basket, smiled to indicate she was on her way, then dragged Wumpini in the direction of the barber. She looked back. Moro had already disappeared into the throng of market-goers. She exhaled.
Because he hadn’t pressed her for anything, Aminah panicked less when she saw Moro after that encounter at the butcher’s. She let him accompany her for short distances, but only if she had Wumpini by her side. She hadn’t decided how she wanted him to fit into her life. Soon, she found that Moro was generous and Wumpini benefited greatly from this arrangement. Moro bought him the drum he wanted. Next, an ostrich feather. Moro always bought kola to give to the blind beggars in the market.
One evening, after delivering eggs to the barracks, she saw Helmut seated on the veranda with a fellow white man smoking a pipe similar to Eeyah’s. Before she could stop him Wumpini was on the veranda. Helmut picked him up and tickled him and he responded in giggles. Aminah froze. She would have approached had Helmut been alone, but the other man, with his thick mustache, seemed gruff. And whenever she went to the barracks, the guards hurried her through the back, where Bonsu the cook worked. She’d never been on the veranda. The gruff man burst out laughing. Helmut waved at her to come over. She curtsied and pried Wumpini from Helmut’s grasp.
“Sister will be waiting for us,” she said.
Helmut stood up and tickled Wumpini’s belly, rippling laughter through the boy again.
“Off you go, then.” He walked down the steps of the veranda, then touched Aminah’s arm. “Perhaps, it’s not my place to say this, but I will say it anyway: Moro really cares for you.” His eyes searched hers for a reaction, but she didn’t know what to say to him or what to do with that information. She already knew it, but to hear it confirmed was at once comforting and frightening. She needed a friend. She needed to have her feelings chewed and digested by another person before she could make sense of them. In Botu, when she had continually mentioned Motaaba’s name, her friends let her know she liked him. But it was a short-lived infatuation that ended when she began menstruating. Suddenly, Motaaba appeared too immature, with his crocodile-hide disguises and skinny legs. This time, she would have told her friends that the problem was that men like Moro had broken up her family, had broken her. It seemed foolish to love a person like that. What was the line between forgiveness and foolishness?
Meanwhile, the emancipation they’d heard about from the Gold Coast wasn’t spilling over the river into Kete–Krachi. People still sold slaves in the markets, captured people were still in boats on the river, and Wurche had said nothing about setting Aminah free. Jaji had told Aminah to wait, but it was making her impatient. Waiting made Wurche annoying: the way she swallowed water, letting a little gulp escape from her throat; the way she spoke, rounding out her mouth and dotting the corners with her thumb and forefinger, made Aminah want to lash out and scratch her. And just as soon as she had those thoughts, shame would flood her. On days like that, it was best to stay away from Wurche. Aminah would walk to the market, Wumpini’s tiny hand clasped in hers, her other hand clutching the precious cowries she had earned from selling eggs.
Wurche wasn’t giving her a lot—which could have been another source of Aminah’s irritation—but she decided to start saving. Birds built their nests little by little, and so too would she. Maybe, she could buy her freedom without having to wait for emancipation to arrive in Kete–Krachi. She would be so proud to be able to do that.
The smell of a chicken coop: eggy, meaty, fecal; an unusual combination of foul and pleasant. A million clucks and squawks. A coop full of droppings. Aminah wondered why she was strangely attracted and repulsed by the smell of the place. It wasn’t downright putrid like the excreta of other animals—the pigs of Wofa Sarpong, for instance. Still, after more than five minutes in the space, she had to hold her breath. And all that noise! Chickens were talkative.
“A nice surprise,” she heard. Wurche’s voice. Aminah couldn’t leave the coop for fear that Wurche would think she was being nosy. She was forced to keep inhaling the coop’s odor. She heard Helmut mumble a greeting.
“You’ve never come here this early,” continued Wurche. “It’s nice to see you in morning light.”
“Yes,” said Helmut, his voice unusually stiff. “Listen. I just heard this and wanted you to know, because you have every right to know. And because I care about you. And I promised to be honest with you.”
“What is it?”
“A group left for Salaga early this morning. Your father has apparently breached the agreement he made with us. He accepted the British flag some years ago, and when one of our generals recently tried to extend ours to him, he refused. I don’t know what they are going to do in Salaga, but they were heavily armed. I am going up to Dagbon with another group. We have been given orders to make sure the paramount chief accepts our flag with whatever means we need to use.”
Aminah felt like she had smeared chicken feces in her nostrils. There was no longer anything pleasant about it. She took back her initial opinion.
“I have to go back,” said Wurche.
“There’s nothing you can do. You’re safer here.”
“I have to warn them.”
“They’ll be in Salaga faster than you can get there.”
A feather flew straight into Aminah’s nostrils. She sneezed violently.
“Aminah,” Wurche snapped.
Aminah opened the door of the coop and walked out. Helmut was in a green uniform and cap, with a gun slung over his right shoulder.
“I can’t stay. Please don’t do anything rash.”
Then he reached forward and pressed his lips to Wurche’s. She stood there with her hands at her sides, looking like she’d been forced to eat a teaspoon of fermented dawadawa. And yet, it was a moment so intimate, so private, Aminah was forced to look away. It explained Wurche’s absences.
“Don’t repeat this to Jaji,” said Wurche when Helmut left. Aminah waited to be lambasted for eavesdropping, but Wurche said nothing more.
Later that evening, Wurche paced the length of the small courtyard. She hadn’t touched her dinner. Jaji greedily swallowed huge morsels of tuo. The learned teacher did not possess one cooking bone and so was very happy when invited to join Aminah and Wurche’s meals.
“How do I get back?” said Wurche.
“Are you sure you should be heading there so soon?” asked Jaji. “Not everyone will be as kind to you as Shaibu. Your father has many enemies and if the Germans are in Salaga, they have definitely gone with some of Etuto’s enemies who know you.”
“If the Germans have already attacked, I’m sure Etuto’s enemies wouldn’t be looking for me.”
Aminah saw a door opening. By the time Wurche returned from Kpembe, she could be long gone. If the Germans attacked Salaga, Wurche and her father—if he was still alive—would be too weakened to worry about a runaway. The problem was Wumpini. What would happen to him? Jaji could not take care of him.
“I’ll go to the stables tomorrow to get transportation for us,” said Wurche, ending Aminah’s scheming. “We should leave by the end of the day. Aminah, pack all our bags.”
“It’s too risky,” said Jaji. “Wait till you hear news. Or at least pack only some of your things, in case you have to return.”
“We’ll have Wumpini with us,” said Wurche. “People are nice to mothers with children.”
Aminah wanted to give Wurche a lesson on people. The horsemen hadn’t cared about mothers or children. But her having said that made Wurche seem softer, more receptive. Aminah had never seen her so subdued.
&nbs
p; “What if you go and it’s wiped out?” asked Jaji. “Will you come back? Why don’t you wait for news?”
“I have to go back. They haven’t always been good to me, but they are still my family.”
Wurche went back to her hut.
Aminah followed. “Sister.” Wurche regarded her. “I want to stay in Kete–Krachi.”
“So do I,” said Wurche. It wasn’t the response Aminah had been expecting. She thought she would be told that she was needed to care for Wumpini. Instead, Wurche added, “I thought I would make something of myself before going back…I need you in Kpembe.”
She hadn’t said the right thing. She should have said she wanted to be free.
Aminah stuffed her belongings and Wumpini’s in a cloth sack. Next, she tied up the chickens, as Wurche had instructed, and put them in two baskets. Everything was happening so fast, and it filled her with panic and sadness, made her angry with herself for not being bold. It drove her in search of Moro. Maybe it was also seeing Wurche and Helmut in that intimate moment. It made her ready to forgive Moro.
She went to Shaibu’s. He lived in a cluster of huts as palatial as Etuto’s abode in Kpembe. The Germans had built it for the new Salagawura, and Shaibu and Moro also lived there. Shaibu’s face remained as cool as a rock when Aminah told him the Germans were going to attack Salaga. She was acting reckless, she was sure, but it didn’t seem to matter. It was as if the world were ending and there was no time to waste.
“Where’s Moro?” she said.
“The market.”
She combed through every corner of the market, looking at every tall figure that came by. She found him studying a hoe by the metalware seller. She tapped his shoulder and when he turned to regard her, she blurted out, “We’re going back to Kpembe.”
The Hundred Wells of Salaga Page 18