“Who put you here?” I asked.
“My uncle.”
“Why?” It was a foolish question. There was no answer that could justify her present state.
“He said I am the reason why his business is failing. He said I should change what I have done, then he will release me.”
What else could I ask? I looked to Marcellina but she was sending a text.
“How have you been eating?” I said.
“He brings food for me in the mornings. He just says I should fix his business, then he will let me go.”
“How old are you?”
“Nine.”
I stood up and backed away to the entrance.
“What’s the matter?” Marcellina said.
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Can’t what?” She knelt by the girl and checked where the chain gripped her ankle. They spoke in their language softly and under their breath. She stood up.
“Okay, let’s go.” She was brusque, businesslike. The obroni had proved a disappointment.
“We can’t leave her here,” I said.
“I can’t take her tonight. Let’s go.”
One foot was still bare. I tapped at the ground with my heel. It was soft, would shift easily. I bent and began to dig around the stake.
“We’ve tried that already. It’s cemented to the ground. Stop. The uncle will know someone has been here.”
“We can’t leave her.”
Abena’s hand on my arm was light, like a butterfly perching.
“It’s okay, ma. Sister Marcellina will help me.”
Marcellina stamped the soil I had dislodged back into place.
“Let’s go.”
I wore my shoe outside. We did not speak until we returned to her car.
“I just assumed. Most of the foreigners we get here are either journalists or aid workers. You didn’t seem like an aid worker,” she said. “Mama Christie’s next?”
I remembered why I was always suspicious of people with causes. Their self-righteousness could justify almost any behavior. I was angry and still a little frightened.
“No, please take me back to the palace.”
“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where we were going. Let’s go to Mama Christie’s. I’ve shown you the worst of the village. You must see something else.”
Mama Christie’s was close to the main road. Meat roasted on an open brazier, skewered over hot coals. There was indoor and outdoor seating. Indoors, patrons huddled around a television, watching a football match. Outdoors, colored bulbs wound around poles like Christmas lights. We sat outside on plastic chairs. There was an ashtray on the table, half-full.
“Your face is still long,” Marcellina said. Her eyes had taken on the mood of the bar, twinkly like a garden gnome.
“Sorry, I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Don’t worry. She’ll be okay. I’ll get her out by tomorrow.”
“Everyone is so cheerful, and just a few miles away there’s a little girl chained in a hut.”
“Don’t people do bad things to each other in your country?”
“Yes, but—”
“And don’t people still get on with life?”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s no different.”
She was right, of course. I felt I had witnessed the depths of darkness tonight, but I had never thought of the cases of abuse I read about in London, of babies found in quiet suburbs with cigarette burns on their skin, as the “depths of darkness.” My obroni prejudice was revealed, and by a woman not yet thirty.
There was shouting indoors. A ball tumbled into a net in Europe and, in West Africa, people rejoiced. Mama Christie herself brought us two beers and meat on sticks. The meat was spicy, the beer was strong.
“How do you find living here?” I asked.
“In Gbadolite? I was born close by. I’m a government scholarship kid. That’s one thing Sir Adjei did for my generation. Gave with one hand, took with the other.”
“What do you think of him? Sir Adjei.”
“I thought you are not a journalist?” Her tone was teasing. I relaxed into the bar ambience, pulled away from the horror of Abena.
“I’m curious about the country,” I said. “I’m half Bamanaian.”
“Which side? Your mum or your dad?”
“Dad. I never knew him. My mother was a single parent. I came back to try to reconnect to the country.”
“Have you seen your dad?”