1884 (arranged)
This day is not a happy day. It is the funeral of my husband and I was not the only one crying. There were three other women, my rivals, also crying for Fo Atsu. It is a sad day indeed; you can hear the sad dirges that the market women are singing under the tall tree on the compound, their favourite shed maker is dead. He made most of the sheds you can find in the market. The way he makes it is special, believe me when I say, Fo Atsu knows how to use his fingers to please women. He takes his time and carves the woods to look aesthetically pleasing, then he carves the face of Asinyo, the goddess known to bring blessings to market women, into the shed stands. And I think that is what makes the women love his handicraft.
Oh, that was why I ended up as his second wife. I am not a trader, my mother was. When the young Fo Atsu had just finished carving her market shed for her, she was excited and pleased but she wants more of these market sheds, as she has two other girls under her, who sells for her on market days. And two more sheds meant more money to pay, so my mother, feeling greedy, told me that she wants me to marry Fo Atsu and she will be visiting my father in the next village to tell him that she has found a suitor for me.
Do I love Fo Atsu? I can’t say.
Do I have a say? I don’t have one.
But I found comfort in the fact that I will be married to an industrious man and not to one lazy unproductive man like Kodzotse, who often chases me and shouts that he is going to marry me whenever he is drunk. Thank goodness, my mum really hated him because he bought some fish from her and refused to pay.
Days later, Fo Atsu with his family heads came to our house. My father was around that day as it was my mother’s turn to have him that week. Fo Atsu came with his twin brother, Efo Etse. I will not tell you a lie, I loved Efo Etse. He helped me not once, but twice when I was sending some heavy baskets of fish to the house. He is younger, more smiley and his ears were perfectly small and I always thought they felt like petals. He smells strong too, you can smell the earthy and moist soil from his arms always and he was single, so I always had hope. He was just a simple farmer, a hardworking one. But he never gave me that look, you know, that look of a man that he wants you and he will do everything to get you and keep you. He was just kind to me, just as he was kind to everyone else. He had eyes for one girl and I guessed at that time he was just waiting for the girl to go through gbɔtowɔwɔ then he can marry her, well he did. Fo Atsu came with the knocking items to ask for my hand in marriage. He brought some carved stools too, one for my dad, one for my mom (you can see her beaming with a secret smile knowing her plans are coming to succeed: free sheds!). He brought one for me too, it was small and romantic. I still have it in the corner of my room, right now.
My sisters were proud of me. They told me how much they will miss me. Even though I confessed to our last born that I don’t love him, she said, “It’s just marriage, that’s what you must do to have children”. I gave a chuckle, this one, she is wise. She spent most of her days amongst her grandmothers and aunts, so she has a bitter tongue. But she spews what mostly an elderly person will tell you, harsh but truthful.
I married him, it was a graceful ceremony. The market women were proud and jealous, if only their daughters would not be chasing these young fishermen. I was happy too, in fact, I was lucky. I wasn’t given to a man who I would regret ever loving. I was not crying stubborn tears, I was not foolishly led to a greedy man’s home and I wasn’t getting married to a chronic drunkard. At least, I will count them as my blessings. His first wife, Da Yawa, was happy at the ceremony but it didn’t get any easier in our husband’s home.
That evening, Da Yawa told me to wrap myself in a white calico and she smeared her scented shear butter on my body.
“Do not be afraid of the night, tonight, you become a real woman, you put all that your youthful yearnings and pleasure to use this night. It is dark but you shall see starlights dancing for you”. I knew what was going to happen. I am going to receive his seed for his baby. We were taught during our puberty rite.
Da Yawa sent me to his room, where he tied his cloth around his groin. On his raised mat, waiting for me. My mind was racing and booming so I didn’t hear what exactly she said when she brought me in but I know it will be centered around her bringing me to him without any malice in her heart and she has accepted me as a sister and a second wife. When Da Yawa left, I walked towards my husband, just as I was taught. But he told me to stop. I stopped. Confused. He leaned on the wall with one leg stretched and the other bent at the knee. Fo Atsu looked at me. I meant he really really looked at me and licked his lips, his rich pink tongue, glistering his lips with his saliva, as if it was coconut oil he smeared on his lips. He continued, looking at me, from my chesty bulging balls, he looked at them, he yearned for them, he earned them. I felt special, no one ever looked at me like that before. It felt as if someone really wanted me, appreciated how good I took care of myself and that the person wanted me. I felt like rushing to my house right now to tell my sister how exclusively special I felt that night.
He knows. How? My nipples, they betrayed me. Then some cool and shiver ran through my body and he stood up. He walked towards me and took my right hand.
He then said in a low voice, growling and ravenous voice, “you…are…mine!”. Oh, that joy, I wanted to scream, but the scream never came out. My body wants him now and whole. He led me to the bed and made me stand by the candle at the window pane. He came behind me, hugged me, gave me a gentle kiss on my neck and he whispered “When you are ready, blow out the candle”. I blew it.
The next day, Da Yawa caught that glimpse of pride and happiness on my face. She even cooked for me and introduced me to her two sons. They were in a hurry to go to the farm so they didn’t really get the time for me. But I was good and okay, I know how it is important for them, it gives them purpose.
The beginning years of my marriage was peaceful and lovely until I started giving birth and Da Yawa and I quarrelled because one of her sons knocked my son. It was an embarrassing moment actually and two months later, the third wife came. She came with the problems, she wanted Fo Atsu for herself and she doesn’t want to share him with anyone. And she was barren too, so the fourth one came, a shy and innocent one. Her father gave her out so early because they suspected that one fisherman wanted to marry her or just have sex with her, which would be a disgrace, so they gave her out. The third wife tried poisoning the fourth one when she came, no one understood why she would do that but she was sent back to her house. Her mother died and Fo Atsu brought her back to his home.
But does all that matter now? Our man is dead, lifeless and gone forever. Tears in my eyes now because it is sad. This is the man I never wanted, but he proved me wrong, he loved me, he listened to me, he comforted me and he supported me, he gave me three strong boys: Gameli, Ganyo and Korku, and I loved him in return, I thank my greedy mother for giving me one of the most wonderful men that ever walked the surface of this earth.
1947 (rebellious)
My sister shouted my name and added that someone was looking for me and by someone, she meant Cynthia. I quickly stood up and went outside and saw her. She was smiling and she opened her clear rubber container to pick an already packaged kɔkli porridge in a black polythene rubber, she looked at me again. “Cynthia, good morning”, I greeted smiling too. “I am doing fine, and you?”, she asked. “I am fine too”, I replied. Silence, just smiles. “You can give the porridge to Seli, I will take it later”, I said and was about to go back into the room, I don’t want my sister to suspect anything. “No, wait”, she said and I was surprised, “I want to give you this myself. Will you be coming to church tonight?”,(that is our code) she asked. “I will come with my mother”, I replied. “Okay, then, we will meet at church”, she said and placed the package into my hands and started walking out. I smiled as I saw her callipygian form. She loves me, I know it. The church is the place she sees me often, hence our encrypted address. Since I went to school, I realised I have become a very hot cake in the village. Our village is developing but not at the rate of those in the city, especially Accra. I learnt that White men are building a lot of great things in the city which is making young people get a lot of money. I too want to make a lot of money like my late grandfather, Torgbui Gameli. He was so rich that he left my father a big plot of land and his corn selling businesses, that is why my father is a respectable person in the society, he is able to make business with the White men who came to the village too and I have been hearing that he is more important than the chief of our village. Does that make me the prince of our village? No, it only created a social rule. My father will always tell me, “Everything here is for you and your elder brother, and before you can continue my legacy, you must have the respect of the people and that respect is power, that is why I am giving you education. You see the yevus in the village, they come to me before going to the Chief palace? That is power”. I will normally respond with a nod or “Yes please”. One day he added something new when I was returning back to school, “Learn hard oo, because I want you to marry the daughter of the Major in the capital”. That came as a shock to me, I love Cynthia and even though he was not aware, that is who I want.
We meet normally after church, under a big neem tree where we talk about everything and nothing.
I tell her about school and how I learn and the adventures I have whenever I was in school and she will tell me about how she goes round to sell kɔkli every morning except Sundays and later help her grandmother on the farm and how the village drunkards tell her that they were going to marry her one day.
Talking to Cynthia is like an angel blowing a cool breeze over your face. I promised her that after her puberty rites, I will tell my dad that I want to marry her. She will smile shyly and I will feel proud. She wanted to go to school too but school wasn’t a top priority parents had for their daughters in these times and I feel sad for her about that. I know she would have been a very intelligent girl at school and also she would have made a fine teacher. Maybe when we marry, I will let her go to some kind of adult school, if possible, so that she can become a teacher or a seamstress.
Back to this morning, I took my porridge into my room but I realised something, it wasn’t hot like how it used to be hot for me every morning, I took the porridge in the tied rubber out and realised it was really bulgey and I can see something in the porridge, it looks like another white rubber in it. I was surprised, so I quickly went into the kitchen to pick a bowl. Usually, I drink the porridge by pinching a hole in the corner. I poured the porridge into the bowl and I was right, there was a tied rubber with a folded brown paper in it. I took out the tied rubber, in fact, the paper was again wrapped in two different rubbers. When I finally got the brown paper, I opened it and it read “I love you” in scribbled writing but it made me smile and I think it was on this day, 15th April 1940, I etched the name of Cynthia Amelornyo into my heart.
I asked her later how she was able to do all that. She told me that she asked her brother, who is in school to teach her to write ‘I Love You’ and she will get him some extra tin of cocoa powder for school. The letter in the kɔkli was her own ingenuity, Abraham Maslow can never. So I hope you understand why I didn’t like the idea of marrying someone my parents would choose for me. I know that from centuries before us, parents were in charge of their children’s marriages but one thing I am learning at school for myself is that I should have my own freedom; to choose as an educated man and the romance we read about in literature is a beautiful thing to experience in one’s lifetime. I am a man, I am an educated man, so I deserve the love Shakespeare talks about in his drama, even if it will end like Romeo and Juliet.
Two days after resuming back to school, I was left alone in the house. It was a Saturday and everyone was going to a funeral in the village square. My father doesn’t allow me to go out to those functions especially when the time for me to return to school is near. I know that my father will not return early so I told Cynthia to come visit me in the house. When she came, I served her some juice and told her to relax because she was afraid my parents or siblings would bounce into the room anytime. I told her they will be back in the night and that she shouldn’t worry about that. Talking and laughing, I held her hand and told her I love her and I will always do. She smiled shyly and not knowing what to say or do, she kissed my hand gently. Gentle electrolytes flew around my body and I looked at her. I was silent for a while, looking at her, breathing slowly and got closer to her. I held her head with both hands and kissed her. What happened that afternoon wasn’t my first but it was her first. The vacation was over and I went to school, the term was ongoing very well, when after 6 weeks, there was a letter delivered to the headmaster that I should go back home because my father demanded my presence. I got to the village and then I was hit with the fact, Cynthia is pregnant and I have been named the father of the unborn child. I have been summoned to answer the allegation raised against me. My village takes these things seriously because of our traditions. My father wasn’t very happy, my mother was too. I saw her standing in the kitchen with her elder sisters, I can imagine the shame she’s going through right now. Well, I had no choice but to accept and agree to the allegations. “It is true. I love her”, those were the words from my lips. I can feel my father’s blood boiling, it’s like a child building a perfect sand castle and you tumble it down because of your carelessness. But this is my rebellion, I don’t want to conform to his plans.
When we got home, my father did something that annoyed me. He started shouting angrily about how I disgraced him and the family, I was just looking at him, he was just biased, if I were to impregnate the daughter of whom he wanted me to marry, he wouldn’t have been this angry. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I managed to send a message to Cynthia to meet me at our usual place in the evening. She came and I told her that I love her and I am glad she’s going to be the mother of my child. I told her that she should listen to me. The next day, in the afternoon, she should join me so that we could run away to the city. I saw the fear in her eyes but I told her she shouldn’t worry that I am going to love her and provide for her once we get to Accra. I told her the village will never accept her and my parents hated her. That was enough reason for her, she agreed and we escaped the next day.
We got the car traveling to Accra on the way and after five hours, we arrived in the noisy and bustling city. Lights, music, smoke, horns and ladies laughing. We were both new to the city but we managed to get a place with the money I had stolen from my father. Well, I have a share in his inheritance, so I took it. We got a place in Agbogbloshie, and I started working in the big market while I let Cynthia stay at home. At home would have been easier but a man must create his own path and walk on it. Seven months later, Mabena arrived, she was cute, beautiful and smiley. She became my world, and I did everything I could to provide for her to make her comfortable. And I loved Cynthia, day and night, telling her that she was the only woman I had loved. I gave her the little joys of life and she loved me too until the day I came home telling her that I met a lady called Magdalena and had fallen in love with her.
1979(unrequited)
The most painful thing in the world is unrequited love. You decide to love someone and hold onto that decision for the rest of your life and the most painful aspect is that they don’t even see you. January 9th 1971, i met Maabena on her way back from a wedding or a party i think, she was sleek, walking fast and holding onto her dear little bag. I got closer to her and she kept walking, I called her Ohemaa and she stopped. She looked at me with a vexing face. I told her I didn’t mean any harm and that I couldn’t help but notice that she’s in a hurry but I needed to talk to her. She asked me whether I knew her from somewhere and I jokingly replied that we have been meeting in our dreams. I told her she was beautiful and I would like to be her friend. She agreed and told me where she stays- Agbogbloshie. I told her I will stay around there too and if it is possible that we meet sometimes, I could see she was blushing and I was happy with myself. Our friendship was very beautiful. I visited her often and after a year, I could confidently visit her at their wooden home where her mother is. “I hope you are not like other men, Jack, I
hope you are different”, Maa Cee, her mother, always tells me. One day I asked Maabena why her mother always asks me that question and she told me that she doesn’t really know her dad. She told me that her mom and dad were really in love until one day her father came home telling her mother that he is going to marry another lady called Magdalena. They got married and she got broken and she doesn’t trust men from that day. I asked her if her dad was still alive and she said her father died during the 1948 riot and the lady Magdalena also died three months after. She also told me she has never been to her hometown before as her mother believes that no one from their village will want them back. I felt sorry for her, growing up without a dad is a difficult thing to experience but I admired Maa Cee’s courage. She became strong and created this powerful figure and sense of community in the Agbogbloshie market. She started being suspicious when I started coming around at the beginning but Maabena kept telling her that we were just good friends and that nothing was going on between us. But is nothing really going on between us? We did couple of adult stuffs but to Maabena, they are just fun and she has no meaning to it, but that wasn’t what I wanted, I wanted her, everyday, every night, in the days i am sick, she is the reason why i would take injections instead to swallowing the bitter tablets, so that can be well quickly for her because I hate to see her worried, especially about me. But does Maabena worry about me? I do not think so, she comes back to tell me epistles of her love encounter she had with the big men her other friends introduced to her. Is Maabena a prostitute? I do not know and I cannot infer but why does she leave the house late at night and return in the morning like the day i met her? Where does she get money to buy me church shoes on my birthdays? And why is she not dating anyone? That’s the most important question to me, is she not dating anyone because she loves me and does not know how to say it? But I occasionally ask her if she wants us to date or try falling in love and she always laughs it off. She once told me that she is incappable of love and she doesn’t think that she will ever fall in love but i told her that she was wrong and that she can get all the love she wants when she is open enough to receive them. Two days after i gave her that advice which i was hoping to be the recipient of her love, she claimed she fell in love with Yaw Burns, at a funeral. We went to the funeral together, one of her friends’s mother had died and I decided to follow her to the funeral. When we got there, she met her old classmate who came with Yaw Burns. The guy is a true gentleman, no matter how annoying I had to admit that and he has a car too. After the funeral, Maabena was helping with serving water to the guests and she went to serve Yaw Burns, she said he looked at her and licked his lips, he asked her who she was and they decided to talk. He later told her that she should later join her in his Toyota Corolla Levin and she also agreed. Before she went to him, she came to me at the place we were lodging and told me that Yaw Burns wants her to come and visit him. I only nodded because my heart cannot fathom her going to see another man. She left and came back late that night. I was heavily drunk with palm wine and not in any good mood for the words that came out of her mouth, “Jack, I think I am ready to settle down, I think I have given a chance at love…with an open heart”. I stood up from the bed i was laying on and got closer to her, “Maabena, when i say if you truly want love, you have to be open enough to realise and receive them, I was talking about me. I know that i always ask you if you are sure you do not love me and you keep saying that you do not love me but i want to tell you right now that it is you i need in my life and i have spent all these years being your friend and i want to spend the rest of my life being your husband, i know you love me because you never told me or anyone that i am like a brother to you, i love you Maabena and i know you love me too”. I was shaking and my nose was drooling even. She was silent for a while and turned her back on me, as if she was ashamed of me or something. “I never loved you and I don’t think I will ever be”, she said. “You are a liar Ohemaa”, I replied and she turned to face me, “I do not love you Jack Ofori, and maybe if you really want confirmation then I am telling you right now that you are nothing but a brother to me!” dizziness, dazzling tingy stars and palpitations. All I heard next was the door slamming. She was gone, gone forever from my life.
She got married to Yaw Burns the following month. I never went, but I heard of it at every club, pub and barber shop I went to. It was the wedding of the decade, they called it. Will I ever love someone like how I patiently love Maabena? I don’t know, maybe I was the cursed one for her love or she was the cursed one for my love. The most painful thing in the world is unrequitted love. You decide to love someone and hold onto that decision for the rest of your life and the most painful aspect is that they don’t even see you.
2011 (cynical)
It’s the first reunion after Grandma Maabena’s death, and James automatically knew it is going to be the most exhausting week for him because his aunts and uncles are going to ask him that one question that even lingers on the mind of his employees in the company, “When are you going to get married?”. He sighed heavily when he heard the notification sound on his iPhone 4. It was a message from Belinda, the wife of his Logistics Manager. They have been flirting for a month now and he really wonders if her husband will ever find out that his wife has been flirting with a topless guy on Facebook called Awakpo Erasmus. He enjoys it, chatting up with infidel wives to prove his point that no one can be trusted and marriage isn’t all that people have been perceiving it to be. He opened the message and it read, “When am i seeing your handsome face, baby, we have been chatting up for five weeks now”. There was a knock on the door and Kofi entered, James coughed hard. “Are you fine Mr Burns?”, Kofi asked. “I am good Kofi, you are returning from the family house?”James asked him, “Yes Sir. The canopies have been delivered too, Belinda would have loved to bake some pastries as she did last year but she said she will be out of the capital on Saturday the whole day”, Kofi said and James faked a cough again. “Oh, that is sad, they really loved her pastries last year”, he said while trying to chuck some water down his throat. “It’s a shame, we can order some from Adinkra, if that’s fine by you”, Kofi said and James nodded. James knew how hardworking Kofi is, and he never regretted bringing him to the company. He remembered when he came looking for a job after his university,he wasn’t the brightest at the interview but his eyes were fixed on a hole on the table when he came in but before leaving the interview room, he pointed out that there’s an insect burrowing into the table and that alone impressed James. A year after, he got married to Belinda and James sponsored most of the wedding. James smiled and raised to see Kofi leaving his office, “Mr Addo”, he called him and he stopped, “Hope you are loving Belinda as you should?”, he asked. “Everyday of my waking life”, Kofi replied and James nodded and he left the office when he heard the notification ping, he opened the message and it read, “Saturday?”
By ELIKEM DOGBEY KOFA