“After?”
“I mean she found out she was pregnant after you’d gone. She was already pregnant when you were there, because the child was yours. The child was me.”
“What is this, Adrian?”
“It seems an unlikely story, Francis—”
“Kofi.”
“I’m sorry. It seems an unlikely story, but Anna contacted me in Edinburgh saying she had a family connection to you. She brought the diary to me, I read it, and the facts are authentic. She is Bronwen Bain’s daughter.”
“Where is this diary that I allegedly wrote?”
“It’s here.”
I gave it to him. The servants returned to clear away our dishes. They walked with their backs bent. They did not straighten, even after they had lifted the plates from in front of us. When my father finally spoke, he addressed Adrian.
“I don’t know how this fell into her hands. It has obviously helped her concoct this ridiculous story. I want the two of you out of my house. I’m disappointed in you, Adrian.”
“What did you want me to say? ‘Hi, Kofi’s secretary. I’d like to see him. I’m coming with his daughter he’s never met.’”
“I know all my children.”
“If you’ll just let me explain,” I said. “My mother never spoke about you or else I would have found you sooner. All she said was that you’d gone back to Bamana and the two of you had lost touch. The only thing I had was your name: Francis Aggrey. I don’t want anything from you. I’m comfortable in England, but I am your daughter.”
“I am almost sorry to see her in distress over what is a complete fabrication. I cannot help her. Only a psychiatrist can do that. This meeting is at an end.”
He stood up with the diary.
“This is my property.”
“That’s not fair, Kofi. You gave it to her mother.”
“Not to let it fall into the hands of some lunatic. I have entertained this long enough. Get out of my house. Either you go willingly or I will have someone escort you.”
My mother knew when she hid his diary that there would be no father waiting for me in Bamana. We walked down the corridor on our own this time, past the famous faces, past a playful Muhammad Ali with his fist clenched.
Outside, the gardener was pruning. He raised a hand again in salute.
“You mustn’t take it personally. I told you Francis has changed completely from the man in that diary.”
“I can take it any way I like,” I said, but he was not listening.
“I wish I had photographs. Such a historical find. Now he’s got his hands on that diary, he’ll probably burn it and erase all evidence that he was ever a human being. Did you manage to—”
“Don’t. Please.”
Adrian had tried to warn me, had tried to shield me from disappointment, but here it was anyway, crouched like a small, dense animal on my chest.
Meanwhile, Segu continued, immune to my own personal dramas. A young man whizzed past on roller skates, dodging traffic, skimming through the gaps between cars. I had had an hour with my father, perhaps all the time I would ever have, and I had squandered it.
When I got back to my room I went to the bathroom and stood over the toilet. The egg from Kofi’s house rushed into the bowl followed by clear, thick spit. When I was done, I brushed my teeth and confronted my reflection. My hair had grown out of its corn rows. I was a disheveled middle-aged woman, too old to be Kofi’s child. I undid the weaving and pulled out the gold threads. I splashed cold water on my face. I cried.
20
I ordered my meals to my room and piled the plates by the door. I watched television, Bamanaian television. The films were poor quality, rich drama. Sons duping fathers. Wives poisoning rivals. When room service knocked to clean, I went downstairs to the gym. It was empty most of the time. There were mirrors on the walls and posters of bodies to aspire to. I rode a stationary bike until my face was wet.
My anger arrived two days after our meeting, like thunder lagging behind lightening. How dare Kofi dismiss me without even asking for proof? I should have demanded a DNA test. It was the least he owed my family, the Bains who housed him in London when no one else would.
I chanced on a wedding reception in the hotel’s banqueting suite. I stood by the doors and watched the guests come and go. The women were dressed like celebrities—feathers stitched to bodices, headdresses that added a foot to their height, fabric trains that dragged behind them, sweeping up dust. Far away, so far away that there were screens to help you see them, were the bride and groom on a dais, two small figures on a cake. The bride’s dress overflowed the bounds of her throne, like foam rising out of a glass. On the throne next to her, the groom sat with his legs crossed. They held hands across the armrests and looked out into the crowd.