3

IN SEARCH OF my father, I found Maybe.

Next day, before he arrives, I know he’s coming. He doesn’t knock at our door, doesn’t call my name or stand on the porch waiting for me to come out. There’s no need to. Like a river whirled by wind, the current between us glimmers when he’s nearby. It reels me in and sings as I smile.

I run, open the door. In his arms is a crate of sobolo, a drink his mother makes from hibiscus petals and ginger.

Cackling with glee, Aunt Ruby relieves him of his cargo. ‘Sheba! Walk to school with your friend! Krachi,’ she says to Maybe, honouring him with the title of ‘young man’, ‘be our eyes and ears today. Look out for our daughter. And on your way home, pick up the money I owe your mother.’

The two of us head in the direction of the cotton tree. I’m wearing shoes while Maybe, barefoot, walks with the tread of a leopard about to leap on its prey: poised, alert, hushed. Between the pad of his footfall, I detect the patter of feet.

I hear it again: a shuffle like the rustle of seed pods in a breeze. The sound scatters, and then settling on Maybe, changes into pinpricks of light on his skin.

I freeze.

‘Aren’t you coming?’

I nod, even as I stare. The more I stare, the more the sunbeams on him glitter, then fade, only to brighten moments later. They shiver and blur, forming shapes that shimmer. Three of them; shifting, retreating.

The curve of a cheek.

The smudge of a lip in a play of shadow and light.

Three mouths cup in smiles as Maybe turns to me.

‘Are you frightened?’

I shake my head. I’ve seen such things in our house. Spirits of the dead-departed who watch over us. I’ve listened to Nana Gyata su walking down our corridors. And when Ma’s away, I’ve heard his ghost purring in my ear before I fall asleep. Spirits are everywhere, Nana says. And of those of us who glimpse them, it’s usually children who see them most. Our eyes haven’t yet set, so we’re likely to see more of the world we came from than adults.

‘They wanted to meet you,’ Maybe explains. ‘They waited for me to be born to delight in this.’ His arm circles our village: the splendid cotton tree at its centre; steam rising from banana leaves at the first kiss of the sun; the coo and gurgle of nesting pigeons. ‘I’m their everything,’ says Maybe.

‘True, true?’

He nods. ‘Meet my brothers, Musa and Jebril. My sister, Moona.’ Shadows flit through him, accentuating the shine of his skin.

My mouth opens. ‘They were with you in the cornfield?’

‘Of course! That’s why they wanted to greet you.’

‘Does your mother see them?’

He shakes his head. ‘She’s suffered enough. Some things are only for those of us who are still close to where we come from.’

Maybe grins, and as he does so, I hear the tinkling of those around him; their chuckles as they escort us to school.

From that day on, Maybe is my forever friend, my closest companion. He’s not as frightened of me as most of the children at school are. He isn’t bothered that I’m Nana Serwah’s granddaughter, or that I hail from a house of royal women.

If I’m not following Maybe or imitating his leopard prowl, we’re side by side, walking in step with his classmate, Gaza – so called because every once in a while, his father thrashes him within an inch of his life.

One afternoon, when the three of us go home for a snack, Aunt Ruby sucks her teeth, enraged at a bruise on Gaza’s cheek.

‘Krachi, your mother was a friend of my heart. I loved her,’ she reminds him. ‘Next time your father touches you, tell me, and I’ll deal with him.’

She turns Gaza round. Lifts his shirt. Touches the marks on his back and recoils as an ocean of hurt sears her fingers.

Ancient welts quiver beside tender new ones.

My aunt is furious – so incensed that as she peels sugar cane with a cutlass, disgust clamps her lips. Doesn’t speak. No! Not a word escapes her until her fury, unleashed in the slash and thrust of the cutlass, is spent.

Aunt Ruby severs the stalk in three: a piece for each of us. Then, in a voice that rumbles like thunder, a voice that makes everyone who hears it sit up and listen, she says: ‘Krachi, what my poor friend endured, you shall not! As long as I’m here, a man who drinks kill-me-quick liquor, morning, noon and night will not obliterate you as he did her! You hear?’

Gaza nods and Aunt Ruby turns to Maybe and me. ‘If you’re ever in a situation where this boy needs my help, make sure you come and fetch me.’

We promise to do so, while Gaza, who hasn’t talked much since his mother died, wheezes his thanks on a harmonica, a gift from his ma.

The instrument sneezes and a tune soars from the ocean within him: a serenade to his mother’s love, a sad song with a melody so sweet, it entices her to reveal herself. Those of us able to see, watch as she emerges, drifting closer. Three steps. Two and the scent of neem flowers circles us as her hand flutters over the bruise on her son’s cheek.

She tries to touch it, kiss it, fondle his hair. But hand, face and lips dip into him and disappear. Frustration illuminating what was once her face, she steps away. ‘Please help my boy,’ she says. ‘I won’t be able to rest until he’s happy again.’

I nod, and so does Maybe.

The serenade complete, Gaza puts his harmonica away and retrieves a gecko from a pocket of his school shirt. He gives the lizard a strand of cane to eat. Uh-huh. Gecko doesn’t relish sugar as much as we do. We’re chomping and sucking, spitting out cane. Once we’ve guzzled the last drops of sweetness and there’s nothing left but shredded strands on the floor, we sweep it up and go back to school.

‘When we finish pick fruit, mek we visit Ama’s house.’ I’m dangling from a bough of the mango tree in our back yard. Dangling while talking to Maybe.

‘Ama? Huh!’ He scrunches his face as if he’s eaten something rotten. Scrunches it, and then shakes the tree to grab Gaza’s attention.

Above us, hidden by foliage, Gaza’s dozing while Gecko feasts on fruit-flies.

I throw a mango at Maybe. He drops it into Aunt Clara’s hamper. Eager to create a relish she craves, she’s asked us to fill it with green mangoes. Climbing down, I perch beside my friend.

What Maybe decides, Gaza usually agrees to. Sure enough, Gaza swivels his eyes in a signal that encompasses all of us. He wants us to stick together and keep away from Ama.

‘But I want to see her,’ I insist.

Maybe shakes his head, counting Ama’s flaws on his fingers. ‘One. Your friend is too know.’

‘How?’

‘She thinks she knows everything. Two. That mouth of hers! She’s the queen of name-calling, and three, she takes up too much space.’

My next-door neighbour, Ama, is clever and doesn’t bother to hide it. Even when boys say she’s weird and yell ‘Ama Smart! Ama Smart!’ at her because she knows so much more about the world than they do, she pretends not to care. In fact, she wears her nickname as a badge of honour and shrugs, a smile on her face, while she mutters insults under her breath. Insults she thinks only I can hear, such as: ‘Look at your nose, you son of a rat.’ ‘Ah! Those ears of yours are the size of an elephant’s.’ Her favourite insult is to call those who offend her nincompoops. At times, I’ve felt the burn of her ant’s-bite tongue as well. It can be brutal, I tell you! I don’t mean brutal like the bite of black ants, but those red ones with stings that make you shriek.

She can be nasty, I admit it. But take up too much space? I pucker my lips at such foolishness. ‘You want us to take up less space than you do?’ I say to Maybe. ‘How possible?’

Gecko back in his pocket, Gaza clambers down to our branch. ‘Her tongue never tires,’ he grumbles. ‘Even when she’s old and her teeth fall out, she’ll yap, yap plenty.’

Maybe nods. ‘That girl is like cow dung. Hard on the outside, slippery inside.’

‘What?’ I talk with my lips again, this time in horror. ‘Are you saying my friend is shitty? Aba!’ I lip-talk some more. Nana says it’s vulgar when people resort to lip-talk. But sometimes you have to be vulgar to make a point.

‘No one is perfect!’ I confess. ‘Not even you!’ I fold my arms, disgruntled.

‘OK, OK,’ Maybe concedes. ‘If you girls can beat either Gaza or me in a tyre race, she can join us. But if we win, she stays away.’

I twist his words in a way I hope will benefit me: ‘Why not – if one of you defeats us in a game of ampe, you join us?’

‘But ampe is a game for girls,’ says Gaza.

‘And tyres are for boys!’

‘But you want Ama to join us,’ Maybe replies.

Seeing the logic in his argument and the mistake in mine, I take up his challenge. We pump fists. But then, annoyed at the insults they’ve heaped on my sister-friend, I lob a mango in the basket and lip-talk to myself.