“It seems a rite of passage for your children.”
“At least your sense of humor was not damaged. All right, strike me.”
“Pardon?”
“Strike me in return. For the blow that was dealt in the course of your arrest. An eye for an eye. You were not meant to be harmed in any way.”
He stood with his arms on either side of him, palms upwards like a figure of Christ. It was melodramatic and ridiculous.
“I’m not going to hit you.”
“Well, then, it’s time to sleep. I will sleep outside. We often slept under the stars.” He walked back to the car, away from confrontation. He returned with blankets and bedding. I took my bedding from him and went into the tent. When I lay down, the embroidery of my boubou itched against my neck. He had jailed me and then rescued me. He had freed Bamana and then bound the country in his own chains. It was his pattern, the ying and the yang, Francis and Kofi in one person.
I woke up in the middle of the night. The tent was claustrophobic. I dragged my pallet outside and lay down a few paces from Kofi. I fell asleep to the sound of his breathing, wheezing through his nostrils. The air still smelt of burned paper.
29
I woke up with the sunrise. Birds trilled out of sight, filling the air with sound. Kofi was lying with his eyes open. He turned his head when he saw me stir.
“I’ve been waiting for you. There is a jar of Robb in the glove compartment. Bring it for me.”
I took the keys from his outstretched hand. The SUV was shiny and unnatural in the daytime, its hard lines contrasting with the curves of the bush. I could drive off and leave him. He would either die or discover a way to survive.
I found the jar and returned to Kofi. He had struggled to his side. His eyes looked fiercely away from mine. He was like a wild bird with a broken wing.
“Help me sit up.”
I slid my arm under his body and lifted him upright. It reminded me of the months I spent looking after my mother.
“My shirt.”
The shirt was sewn to fit his form. For a few seconds, his chin stuck in the collar and he was trapped in fabric. He stayed still, breathing faster, while I eased the shirt over his face with my fingers.
“Now the cream on my back.”
My eyes stung when I twisted the jar open. I started with his shoulders, hunched forward in rigor. He flinched and then settled to my touch. My hands ran down the discs of his spine, over scar tissue, clumped in strange shapes, comets and jagged stripes, like lightning.
“The arms now.”
His biceps were still firm but the skin around them had begun to loosen.
“I’ll do the rest.”
I took the diary and left him alone, wandering out of sight. The bush was alive with invisible scurrying. Some trees were in bloom, others had begun fruiting: odd, green fruit, hard and round, the size of eggs. Birds had pecked at them, tearing away the skin and revealing bright pink flesh. I picked one off the ground. When I returned, Kofi was dressed and standing, fully himself.
“Try this.”
He held out a twig to me.
“What is it?”
“Chewing stick. Nature’s toothbrush.”
He worked his twig around his teeth and over his tongue until the stick turned to pulp. When he was done, he tossed it on the ground.
“Hundred percent biodegradable. Your turn.”
“Where are we going?” I asked when we had driven for an hour. The tank was full after a brief station stop.
“You ask a lot of questions. In the bush we could go a whole day without speaking because your voice might carry on the wind.”
“Do you miss being a guerrilla?”
“I don’t miss the hunger, but things were more straightforward then. Our clear objective was to drive the imperialists out. Of course, once that is achieved, you must then build a country. We built it well. Like this road.”
We drove past pedestrians, trudging along with no obvious destination. A few tried to flag us down. They flapped their arms like large featherless birds. Kofi did not stop.
I hadn’t called Rose since our last conversation. It was becoming more difficult to believe that I had ever had a life in London. How had I filled my days before I discovered Francis Aggrey’s diary? Brooding over Robert’s adultery, brooding over Rose’s weight, dead eggs that could never hatch.
And how did I spend my days in Bamana? Waiting for Kofi to turn his attention to me. Even now, after knowing what he had done, I still could not bring myself to fear him. Papa takes care of his children. That was what Kweku had said. Not even crocodiles eat their young.