“I wonder if they will allow us to eat,” Constance says, looking forlornly at the overflowing trays of roasted meats and seafood, fruits, vegetables, and bread. The food looks like TV food, no creamy peanut butter soup or banku, which has no taste, so it must be accompanied with fried fish, a spiced spinach or palm-nut stew, or shito pepper sauce. Where is the rice?
“If they serve food like this wherever we go, then it cannot be that bad, eh?” Mamie whispers to Constance and me. Instead of answering, I down the rest of my punch, then plot how to get more.
As time passes, one by one, the guards return and escort their assigned girls away. They do this when a customer approaches them. Each girl shoots a look back at the rest of us as she is led away. I cannot help wondering if this is goodbye. Or if we will see each other again.
Sometime later, my guard approaches. Mamie and I are the only two left.
“Come,” he tells me. Mamie stares ahead forlornly. Paul’s words come back to me. You will not return to the Compound. For her sake, I hope she does fetch a price. Words I never thought would cross my mind.
The back patio has a secluded gazebo. In it, a stocky obroni, a White man, waits in a wicker chair. There is a lit firepit in front of him, flames lapping at the air. My guard directs me to the opposite chair. I sit stiffly at the edge of the seat. Being away from the house and other girls is unnerving. The way this man observes me is unnerving. It is difficult to tell in the lighting, but his closely cropped hair is ginger or maybe blond. His eyes are small, hard. Thin lips and a prominent nose with a bulbous tip.
The guard remains near but far enough to allow a little privacy. Why all these formalities? If they mean to sell us, then do it quickly! But I rein in the bloom of anger and watch the White man watch me.
“Bonjour. Al-lo.”
I understood his French the first time, but my gut tells me not to let on. Better they do not know the depths of my knowledge.
“Wo din de s?n?” he asks in butchered Twi. What is your name?
“Aninyeh.” The only reason I answer is that I cannot pretend I do not understand.
In English, and louder, he asks, “Can she speak? English?”
My guard shrugs. He does not care for this man any more than I do. It is the only commonality he and I share.
“A little,” I say hesitantly, pinching my thumb and index finger together to show him how little, although I am fluent in English too.
He is pleased. He points to himself. “I am Monsieur Robach. I live in France. You know France?”
I pinch my fingers together again. My father has been—had been—there to study abroad. I pored over all the history books I could find about it as I learned the language.
“I like you very much, Aninyeh,” Monsieur Robach says. His eyes intensify, no longer looking at me politely but more like I am one of those trays of roasted meats or a specimen. “You are a beautiful girl. Very pretty. Paul says you’re special, of good lineage.”
I say nothing to this.
“I would like to take you to my home in France. It is lovely there, and I think we shall get along very well. Don’t you?”
I say nothing to this either.
“I think you will like my home. It will be your new one.”
His home will never be mine, and I do not believe for one moment he thinks it will be.
When he has had his fill of me, he coughs once. The intensity in his eyes evaporates, much to my relief. He looks away from me, at my guard, nodding at him. “Tell Paul I approve of her and the quoted price. I will wire the money immediately.”
The guard does a quick bow. “Very good, sir.”
I do not need prompting to stand because I am already on my feet, ready to leave. I walk away briskly, not wanting to be around the man one moment longer, knowing they now consider me his property. What does this mean for me? What manner of servitude, degradation, or worse will he subject me to? All at once I begin to second-guess my desire to leave the Compound. I am marching into an unknown world, moving away from a devil I know to one of which I have no idea.
The guard leads me to a back bedroom where three other girls wait. The guards stand vigil at the closed door. Another is outside the window. I can see his shadow pacing back and forth. This room has a lavish bed, and the movie Spider-Man plays on a large TV. Though the movie is a couple of years old, it still holds the girls’ rapt attention.
The girls tell me Yaa and Ester have already left with their sponsors as soon as all the funding went through. There were no goodbyes.
“Do you know where they’re going?” I ask, sitting with a plate piled high with the glorious food we saw in the other room. The other girls work through their own mountains of food.