DARKO DAWSON’S FIRST VISIT to Ketanu had been twenty-five years ago. He was ten and his brother, Cairo, was thirteen when their mother, Beatrice, took them there to visit Auntie Osewa and Uncle Kweku. Papa couldn’t go with them because he couldn’t get any time off from work. That’s what he said, but Darko didn’t believe him. For some reason, Papa wasn’t fond of Mama’s side of the family.
Ketanu was about 160 kilometers away, the farthest Darko had ever traveled, and he was excited about the trip. They boarded a tro-tro at the Nkrumah Circle lorry park, a whirling dust bowl of people coming and going. Darko thought the tro-tro was packed enough to begin with, but the driver made two more stops in the city and the tro-tro conductor, or mate, squeezed in a few more passengers. Darko and Cairo had wanted to sit somewhere up in front, but Mama would not allow it.
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head firmly. “If there’s an accident, I don’t want you flying through the windscreen. Nor me. We sit in the back.”
Mama was very nervous about traveling in tro-tros. Darko noticed how tense she became, gripping the seat in front of her whenever the vehicle had to brake sharply.
Several cramped and bone-rattling hours later-the ride seemed endless to Darko-they arrived at a transit town called Atimpoku, on the Volta River, where they were to change tro-tros. The Atimpoku stop was a bustling trading place. Market women with trays of merchandise balanced effortlessly on their heads swarmed around arriving vehicles in aggressive attempts at selling sugar-bread and the popular “one-man-thousand,” plastic bags packed tight with tiny crispy-fried fish.
Mama waved the traders off and firmly led Darko and Cairo away from the mayhem. They had a little time before the next tro-tro to Ketanu was to arrive.
“Come, boys,” she said. “Let’s stretch our legs. I’m going to take you to a secret place.”
Darko loved exploring. “Where, Mama?”
“You’ll see. It’s a bit of a walk, so get your legs strong and ready.”
“I have strong legs,” Darko said.
“They’re skinny,” Cairo said. “Just like a girl’s.”
“They’re not.” Darko hit his brother on the arm, and Cairo struck back and almost knocked him over.
“Boys, if you don’t stop, I’m not going to take you there at all,” Mama said sternly.
They managed to behave themselves as she led them away from the depot across the Adomi Bridge spanning the Volta River. The bridge bounced noticeably up and down with passing traffic.
“Why does it do that?” Darko asked.
“Because it’s a suspension bridge,” Mama said.
“What’s a suspension bridge?”
“What we’re walking on,” Cairo said obviously.
“Look up, Darko,” Mama said more kindly. “See all those cables that go up to the top? That’s what’s holding the bridge up-suspending it.”
He gazed upward. “Oh. I see.” After walking a little more, Darko declared, “I like this bridge.”
“It’s the only suspension bridge in Ghana,” Cairo informed them. He knew a lot of things.
They stopped for a moment to look out on the expanse of the Volta, with its lush banks and islands of palm and mango trees. The sun reflected off its surface, silhouetting fishermen in their canoes gliding silently and smoothly over the water like spirits.
“Come along,” Mama said.
At the other side of the bridge they went off the road and were soon going up an incline thick with vegetation. Birds sang, and bees and butterflies flitted from plant to plant.
“Just a little longer,” Mama said over her shoulder.
“I’m thirsty,” Darko said.
“Me too,” Cairo said. “This hill is steep.”
“Here we are,” Mama said, breathing heavily. “We can stop here.”
“Oh, look!” Cairo said. “You can see the whole river even better than on the bridge.”
Darko stood on tiptoes while holding on to his brother.
“Come on, shorty pants,” Cairo said, stooping down. “Get on my shoulders.”
Cairo lifted him up for the full view.
“The Akosombo Dam is up that way,” Mama said, pointing north.
“We learned about it in school,” Darko said. “I’m sure I could swim across the river.”
“No, you couldn’t,” Cairo said.
“Yes, I could!”
“No.”
“I’ll throw you both down this hill in a minute if you don’t shut up,” Mama said crisply.
Darko and Cairo collapsed in the bushes and laughed till their sides hurt.
It was getting late in the day when they alighted at Ketanu’s small bus terminal off the main road and took a footpath in the direction of Auntie Osewa’s house.
“Mama?”
“Yes, Darko.”
“Do Auntie Osewa and Uncle Kweku have any children?”
“No, they have no children.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you know?” Cairo said brightly “She’s barren.”
“Cairo!” Mama said sharply. “Who told you that?”
“Papa.”
“What does barren mean?” Darko asked.
“Never mind,” Mama replied quickly.
Darko looked up at her walking beside him. Everything about her gave him reassurance and comfort. He knew the touch of her hand and the fresh smell of her skin. He loved to sit on her lap with his head resting against her while he played with the gold necklace she always wore and never removed. The pendant was a little butterfly, because she loved butterflies.
The footpath took them past thatch-roofed huts and tin-roofed houses. Goats, sheep, and stray dogs shared their route.
“Are people staring at us?” Darko whispered.
They had indeed attracted some attention from the locals, who could tell they were from out of town, but it was out of interest and not hostility. Mama called out “Good afternoon” here and there. She had always said that politeness toward complete strangers was the highest form of courteousness.
The dwellings began to thin out, and in turn the forest became more evident.
“Look at that place over there,” Darko said, pointing in the distance.
It looked particularly different from the other houses they had been seeing. It sat within a grove of trees, a comparatively large abode subdivided into three with a courtyard formed by an encircling wall.
“I wonder what they do in there,” Darko said.
“They live there, of course,” Cairo said.
“Here we are,” Mama said, at length. “That’s Auntie’s house over there.”
It had a rusted tin roof. The walls were marred with gashes and trailing cracks. A crooked screen door hung open with ragged mosquito netting curling off the frame.
Mama announced their arrival. “Kawkaw-kaw!”
Seconds later a woman came to the door. Darko could immediately tell she was Auntie Osewa, just from her resemblance to Mama.
“Woizo, woizo!” she cried in welcome.
She kissed Mama and then Darko and Cairo over and over again. She was younger than Mama by a few years and not as tall. Both were pretty, with heart-shaped faces and lovely skin. But to Darko, his auntie was only a close second to his mother. No one was prettier than Mama.
“How are you, Sis?” she said to Mama. “It’s been so long-too long.”
Darko felt the silken quality and the musical lilt of Auntie’s voice. He had always had a peculiarly heightened sensitivity to speech. Not only did he hear it but he often perceived it as if physically touching it. He had on occasion told Cairo or Mama that he could feel “bumps” in a person’s voice, or that it was prickly or wet. They were mystified by this, but Darko could not explain it any better than he could describe the process of sight or smell.
“Come with me,” Auntie Osewa said. “Let’s go and fetch Uncle Kweku. He went to the farm to get cassava.”
They followed her around the small house to the back. The “farm” turned out to be a tiny plot of land. Uncle Kweku was bent over using a hoe to dig up the soil around the cassava plants.
“Kweku!” Auntie called. “Come along, they’re here!”
He looked up, put down the hoe, and dusted off his hands as he approached. He was average in build, but his right hand and forearm were disproportionately large from years of wielding farm tools. Close up, Uncle Kweku seemed to Darko quite a bit older than Auntie Osewa, or maybe just more worn down. He was sweating profusely in the heat.
“Woizo,” he said, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. He gave Mama a hug and lightly patted the boys’ heads.
“How was everything? The journey was fine?” His voice was quiet, the texture of a wet loofah sponge lathered with soap.
“It was very good, thank you,” Mama said, and Darko and Cairo secretly exchanged amused smiles because she had failed to mention how petrified she was of traveling in tro-tros.
“Come on,” Auntie Osewa said. “Let’s go inside now.”
The house had only two rooms, a table and a stool and chairs in one, a bed in the other. It was hot and airless, and the two windows let in very little sunlight.
They sat down to chat, but Mama and Auntie did most of the talking. Uncle Kweku didn’t say much, merely nodding and smiling at intervals.
Darko noticed a bundle of straw in the corner of the room.
“What’s that for, Auntie Osewa?”
“I’ll show you.” She took him by the hand. “Pick a straw out. Any one, it doesn’t matter.”
He pulled one of the long filaments from the bundle.
“We get these off the tops of elephant grass,” Auntie Osewa explained.
“Why’s it called elephant grass?”
“Because it can grow as tall as this house.”
He looked disbelievingly at her.
“I’m serious,” she assured him.
“Really? I’ve never seen grass that tall.”
She chuckled. “People use the pieces of straw to make rope and baskets.”
“Can you do that, Auntie?”
“Of course. Watch.”
Auntie bit the end of Darko’s straw into two and split it along its length. She twisted each half of the split straw on the other by rolling it against her thigh, and then she combined the two strands to create a length of rope thicker and stronger than the original filament.
“There,” she said, smiling. “See how we do it?”
“That’s clever.”
“You can have this piece. That’s my little gift to you.”
“Thank you, Auntie.” Darko folded it carefully and put it in his pocket.
After that, Darko and Cairo began to get restless as Mama and Auntie Osewa conversed nonstop. Uncle Kweku excused himself for a moment and went outside, which led Cairo to ask Mama if he and Darko could do the same.
“Yes, but stay where Uncle Kweku can see you. And don’t get dirty because we’re going to eat soon.”
There were a few huts nearby, and Uncle was standing next to one of them talking to a neighbor. Noisy weaverbirds were building their upside-down, trumpet-shaped nests in the trees.
“Let’s go into the forest,” Cairo said.
“But Mama said not to go far,” Darko said.
“I know. We won’t. Come on.”
They passed several large mango trees just beginning to bear the season’s fruit and then clusters of pawpaw and banana trees until they were in the forest proper. The ground here was thick with dead leaves and fallen branches, in the midst of which sprouted virgin palms and brand-new ferns and creeping plants. Cocoa trees here and there were not very tall, but the forest giants towered over them and let in only dappled sunlight. Darko loved it. There were no forests like this in Accra.
“Cairo,” he said, “do elephants live in the forest?”
“Yes, and if they get you they’ll pick you up with their trunks and throw you into the trees.”
Darko cackled. “No,” he said, but he half believed it.
A millipede crossed in front of his feet, and he knelt down to touch it. It rolled into a tight, impenetrable ball, and its million legs miraculously disappeared.
“Cairo! Darko!”
Mama was calling. They ran back out of the forest and saw her at the front of Auntie Osewa’s house looking around for them. Uncle Kweku had gone inside.
“We’re coming, Mama!” Cairo yelled.
Dinner was delicious. The soft plantain fufu Osewa had prepared was arranged in a bowl like a row of smooth, rounded pillows too perfect to be disturbed. Steaming, fluffy white yam was piled high on another plate. Chunks of goat meat, okro, and aubergine lay in rich palm nut soup like islands in an ocher sea.
As they ate, Mama and Auntie Osewa talked back and forth and laughed together. Uncle Kweku joined in a little, but the conversation still belonged to the women. Cairo and Darko sat next to each other and were mostly quiet, the way children were supposed to be in the presence of their elders, but they slipped each other a few inside jokes and giggled in secret.
A call came from outside the house, “Kawkaw-kaw!”
“Come in,” Uncle Kweku said.
A man entered. He looked about Auntie’s age-around twenty-four or twenty-five. His physique was thicker than Uncle Kweku’s by far. His face was angular, with high cheekbones as sharp as mountain ridges, and his smoky black skin was as smooth as a woman’s.
“Woizo,” Uncle Kweku said, getting up to shake hands with him.
“How are you, Kweku?”
“Fine, fine.” Uncle Kweku was beaming. “Come and eat with us.”
“Thank you, my brother. I was passing by and wanted to greet you.”
Darko listened to his speech. It had an uneven rhythm. His voice was not exactly rough, but it had cracks in it like the surface of a badly tarred road.
“Woizo, woizo,” Auntie Osewa said.
She made space for him at the table and then introduced Mama, Cairo, and Darko. His name was Isaac Kutu. He was one of the local healers. He smiled at everyone. His eyes were dark and deep, and sometimes he looked to the right or left without turning his head.
“Mr. Kutu has been helping us,” Auntie Osewa said, looking from her husband to her sister. Darko didn’t know what she meant.
“Oh, very fine,” Mama said.
“How is Papa Kutu?” Kweku asked.
Isaac looked troubled. “Not well at all.”
“What a pity,” Osewa said. “I’m so sorry.”
“I am doing most of the work now,” Isaac said. “He is too tired.”
Osewa brought him a bowl of water to wash because he preferred eating in the traditional manner with his fingers-right hand only, left hand tucked securely out of the way. As they talked, it came out that the compound Mama and the boys had spotted on the way in belonged to Isaac’s father. Papa Kutu apparently had great prestige as a traditional healer.
The discussion moved to farming and the price of cocoa and other unbearably boring grown-up talk. Darko didn’t pay much attention to what they were saying, but for some reason he kept stealing glances at Mr. Kutu.
At one point, Uncle Kweku cracked a rare joke and the grown-ups burst out laughing. Darko didn’t get what was so funny, and maybe Mr. Kutu didn’t either because his chuckle seemed halfhearted or distracted. As Darko watched him, he saw something.
Mr. Kutu’s eyes flashed sideways at Mama, who sat opposite him at an angle. It was very quick-again without turning his head-and Mama returned the look. But Auntie Osewa was quicker still, and she caught that glance between Mama and Mr. Kutu. It all happened in a tiny fraction of time, but Darko captured it like a photograph and he reacted strangely to it. His stomach knotted up and he lost his appetite and stopped eating.
“What’s the matter, Darko?” Mama asked him.
“Nothing.”
“Eat up then,” she said briskly. “You don’t waste food, hear me?”
Darko felt Mr. Kutu’s gaze shift to him, but he never looked directly at the man again. He couldn’t face the eyes.
Evening had arrived when Mr. Kutu left. Uncle Kweku brought out a game of oware, and they played by the light of a kerosene lantern. Auntie Osewa went up first against Cairo and was soundly thrashed. Mama challenged Cairo and went down in flames in the same way.
“Okay, let someone else play,” Mama said. “Darko, play with your uncle.”
Darko squirmed with discomfort. He wasn’t terribly good at it-no comparison to his brother.
“Come on,” Auntie Osewa said, “don’t be so shy.”
Darko did better than he’d expected, or maybe Uncle was just being nice to him. The contest between Uncle and Cairo was fierce, and it seemed like it would never end. When Cairo got squashed, he couldn’t bear the defeat and challenged his uncle to a rematch. What intrigued Darko was the way Uncle Kweku had come to life with the game.
Laughing at the players’ antics, Auntie Osewa got up, said she would be back in a moment, and went outside.
Cairo and his uncle went another round. Auntie had been gone longer than Darko thought she would be. When she returned, Uncle Kweku and Cairo were just about ready to finish up the game.
“Okay, I’m tired now,” Uncle said. “Cairo, you’re too good for me.” He leaned back against the wall with a sigh. “Where did you go, Osewa?”
“I went to set the rabbit traps.”
Darko, startled, looked sharply at her. Her voice had changed. It wasn’t musical like before, and it shook slightly, like the tremor of a leaf in a brief stir of breeze.
“Those rabbits have been at our crops again,” she added. Her eyelids fluttered very slightly. Darko saw that. It wasn’t a mannerism. Auntie Osewa did not have such a mannerism. It was something else.
Whether a person’s voice felt like silk or sandpaper to Darko, the texture did not vary much. The pitch could change, and so could the volume or loudness, but the way it felt to him stayed the same… unless. Unless the speaker was holding back an emotion or hiding something.
Or lying.
Why would Auntie Osewa lie? Darko’s face grew warm, perhaps on her behalf, or maybe because such an embarrassing thought should even have entered his mind. No, she wouldn’t lie-not his Auntie Osewa. Would she?