“In London I’m a nobody.”
“I find that hard to believe. A woman bold enough to fly all this way to meet me, to stay on alone at the request of a stranger, to challenge me at every turn.”
“Sometimes I can go a week without speaking to anyone.”
“It is lonely over there?”
“Yes.”
“I can understand that. Before I befriended Thomas, I was very lonely in London.”
“I’m done,” I said.
“Let me see.”
He came and stood beside me.
“It’s a good likeness. Too many wrinkles but a good likeness. You have talent.”
He placed his hand over mine briefly and then walked across to the driver’s side.
We drove until late afternoon without stopping. Kofi put on music, a jazz hybrid with piano, double bass, and African drums.
“Will you tell me about the Kinnakro Five?” Despite my earlier resolution, I could not leave it alone. It was no longer about the boys. I just wanted Kofi to confide in me, to glimpse a secret part of him as I had glimpsed many secret parts of Francis Aggrey.
“Thomas Becket,” he said.
“Who?”
“Archbishop of Canterbury, saint of the Anglican and Catholic Church. You didn’t study him in your school history of the British Isles?”
“Yes, but I don’t understand.”
“His is the story of the Kinnakro Five. When one is in power, one must be careful with one’s words, even those spoken in jest. There will always be those who rush to fulfill your whims out of a perverse understanding of loyalty. ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ As I remember, Henry the Second regretted his words also.”
“But what—”
“It is enough, Anna. We must move forward.”
It was not enough, but it would have to do. None of his other children, not even Afua, could have gotten as much. He turned up the volume and I fell asleep to the offbeat rhythm, each stroke arriving unexpectedly.
When I woke, the car had stopped. We were outside a bungalow built in the same colonial style as Kofi’s show home. We were not in the bush. There were distant buildings on either side of us, but it felt isolated. The house was the lone structure on a large plot of land surrounded by trees and tall grasses. It was growing dim. No lights were on inside.
“Where are we?”
“We’ve come to see an old friend.”
Kofi opened his door and got down. He had stiffened during the drive.
“Who is this old friend?”
“Come. You have trusted me this far.”
I got down. He knocked on the front door and pushed it open. I followed into a living room with chairs upholstered in velvet, faded antimacassars draped over their headrests. There were photographs on the walls, portraits of long-dead people. I glimpsed a young man in a morning suit and top hat, holding a pipe and silver cane, his fine possessions on display for the lens. Kofi crossed the room to a doorway with no door. A rectangle of blue fabric covered the opening. The breeze blew through, swelling the fabric like a sail.
Kofi drew it aside and we walked into a courtyard. An open fire burned in the center. A woman sat beside it on a low stool. She was wrapped in a white, faintly luminous cloth. Her shoulders and chest were bare, except for a red beaded necklace, each bead the size of a pigeon egg. The fire gave off a thick smoke, heavy with fragrance, rich with bitter notes.
“Daasebre,” she said, but did not rise.
“Wuyo,” Kofi replied, and he bowed. She was the first Bamanaian to whom I had seen him show deference.
“This is Wuyo Ama. She was our spiritual guide in the bush,” he whispered to me.
“What brings you here, Daasebre?”
“I have come with my daughter.”
“The one from over the water?”
“Yes, Wuyo.”
“Come, daughter,” she said, beckoning to me.
Kofi nudged me forward. I crossed the steps towards her on my own. She was very old and fat. Her skin hung loose from her neck like peeling plaster. I bowed like Kofi had done.
“Daughter, what is your name?”
“Anna.”
“Daasebre, what name did you give her?”
“Nana.”
“Your new name is in the old one.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Have you played Scrabble before?”
“Pardon?”
“Scrabble. The game. Daasebre, I thought you said she is from Europe.”
“Yes, I’ve played Scrabble before.”
“If you move the tiles one way, you get A-N-N-A. If you move them another, you get N-A-N-A.”