“Of course, we didn’t have all these shortcuts back then. We mostly caught our own food, or villagers who supported the cause would hide supplies in marked places. It was dangerous for them. Some were killed—unarmed civilians shot by British forces. I am sure you did not learn about this in school.”
There was raw meat in a cooler bag, still chilled from the fridge. He showed me how to prepare a skewer, piercing each lump of beef in the middle so it would cook evenly. I felt the grit of spices rubbed over the meat like sand. We squatted on our haunches and held the skewers over the flames.
“We could cook only when it rained and the rain would hide the smoke. But, of course, if it rained, it was almost impossible to light a fire. Most of the time we were on the run from the British forces. They would have wiped us out if they could, but they did not have enough men.”
When the meat dripped clear juice, it was done. We ate on paper plates and drank from plastic bottles. We wiped our fingers on the grass and burned our plates. From these simple tasks, a mist of camaraderie rose between us, fine as spray.
“I’m sorry about your experience in prison,” Kofi said.
“It wasn’t your fault, and I survived. Like you.”
“Hardly comparable. I was in prison for years, and I didn’t have a cell to myself.”
His lips and cheeks were shiny from the fat in the meat. He glistened in the firelight like an idol.
“Who told you?” I asked.
“What?”
“Who told you that I had a cell to myself?”
“Oh, Sule.”
“I didn’t mention it to Sule.”
“Someone else, then. I can’t remember.”
Kweku was the only person I’d told. Kofi could not forget his own son, a son that he had also imprisoned. It was suddenly obvious and clear.
“It was you. You’re the reason I can’t leave the country.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You had me put in prison, just like you put Kweku in prison when he crossed you.”
“I didn’t know you and Kweku were so close already.”
“You admit it?”
“Well, you wanted a taste of the real Bamana, running around and finding stories about child witches. I thought you might enjoy a night in jail.”
“They were right. You are the crocodile.”
I was close enough to strike him. If he thought he was vulnerable, he did not show it.
“Spare me the sanctimony. Flying in my private plane, eating at my table, sleeping in my hotel, everything paid for by me and you want to play the human rights activist.”
“Adrian warned me about you.”
“What do you know about him? That traitor. He betrayed Menelik. He betrayed us all. It was only decades after the fact that we discovered it.”
“He said he wasn’t a spy.”
“And you believed him? His intelligence days are over, but in the seventies he was instrumental in destroying the radical black left.”
“But you agreed to see him.”
“Because I know how to leave matters in the past, where they belong. I was going to give you this, but clearly you cannot handle the weight of history.”
He had carried Francis Aggrey’s diary all the way from Segu, perhaps in the glove compartment or even on his person, slipped into his trousers and held in place by his waistband. He held it now, its sudden appearance a sleight of hand.
He ripped a page out and dropped it into the fire.
“Don’t,” I said.
“Why not?”
“The man who wrote that diary would spit on you.”
“I am the man who wrote this diary. I am the man who grew up and discovered you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.”
He ripped out another page and another. It was violence against the past, against Francis Aggrey, my real father.
“Stop.”
“It is my image. It is my right.”
The pages glowed brighter than the rest of the flames, like thin sheets of gold. I emptied what was left of my water on the fire. It shrank but did not die. I stamped on the tiny flames, the heat rising through my rubber soles. I kicked at the ash, scattering it, but the pages were gone. My father’s words had disappeared. Kofi was staring at me.
“You looked like a phoenix. Take it. Take the rest. I’m done.”
I took the diary from him. It felt lighter. I was about to speak when something crashed in the bush. We were still for a moment.
“You shouldn’t have put out the fire completely. The embers scare off wild animals. Come, Anna. Enough of quarrels. It was wrong for me to have you arrested.”