OF COURSE, THEY do! At times, I do as well, and yet to hear the truth from a friend hurts. It’s as if Ama’s squeezed a bruise that won’t heal. Even though I’m aware of what Ma’s capable of, to be told that women loathe her wrenches my guts.
Heavy-hearted, I wander upstairs to check if Maybe’s back. He isn’t. Surprised by how much I miss him and need to talk to him, I knock on my grandmother’s door. Already at her dressing-table, she’s preparing for bed. I finish plaiting her hair, savouring its texture along with the floral scent of baobab-seed oil that she uses to moisturise it.
All I do is touch Nana and a stream of sadness swirls around me, drawing us closer. She’s as unhappy as I am. Even more so, once I’ve filled her ears with what I saw and heard outside: Ma’s battle with the most powerful women of our village while their menfolk stood by and marvelled.
Nana’s shoulders slump. ‘In that case,’ she says. ‘They’ll send a delegation to see me first thing tomorrow. Take out my white-and-black adinkra bou-bou, Sheba. The one with the Akofena symbol on it; the sword of war. They came to our house in battle dress. I shall meet them with courage.’
I open her wardrobe looking for the garment she wants: a white dress stamped with black clashing swords. It’s the dress she wears when she wants to become the leader our ancestor was – fearless and valiant. I hang the bou-bou on the wardrobe door. Then, I tell her about Ma’s toma, those waist beads that turned to feathers this morning and the love-beads she’s wearing right now.
‘A house divided cannot stand,’ my grandmother moans. ‘How can our village survive if Sika pits men against women? For what? Her own glory? Shame on her!’
Nana begins pacing the floor, half-walking, half-shuffling back and forth as thunder groans outside. Thunder without rain is agonising, especially when the seasons are in flux and the air is unbearably hot and sultry as it is today.
Nana pauses, and then facing me, asks: ‘When the time comes, Sheba, do you have everything you need to set yourself free?’
I don’t want to reply. If I do, her going away inches closer.
Nana’s eyes search mine. ‘Answer me, Sheba.’
‘I do, Nana. Aunt Clara returned what belongs to me.’
Thanks to my aunt I have the pouch my mother buried a few months after my birth. The day after our consultation with Maanu, Aunt Clara had visited my Uncle Solomon’s house. There, with his permission, she dug beneath the frangipani tree and found the package Ma had planted to sow her spell. Inside a soiled plastic bag was the tattered mud-cloth pouch that held fragments of the cord that once attached me to Ma.
Remembering the strange lullaby she sang, the incantation she conjured over Aunt Lila and me, I hurry to bed. Clutching a pillow to smother an ache in my chest, I ask a question I’ve raised again and again; a question no one has answered to my satisfaction. ‘Why does Ma hate Aunt Lila?’
‘You should ask your mother that.’
See what I mean about my family? ‘I no longer talk to her, Nana. How can I after what she’s done?’
Silence speaks louder than words. I reckon my grandmother must be giving up on Ma as well.
‘Thank you for taking me to see Maanu,’ I reassure her. ‘If you hadn’t, I’d be out on the terrace instead of here with you now.’
Nana smiles. ‘At least I’ve done one thing right. Remember, Sheba, it’s not over yet. You are the key to what happens next.’
‘I’ll remember.’
Her smile widens, giving way to a bone-rattle sigh, the sigh that gathers me in. Weighing her words carefully, testing them first on the tip of her tongue, she says, ‘About your mother and Lila. Let me put it this way, grandchild of mine. What if your Uncle Solomon is the only man your mother’s truly loved? What if Lila is nothing like your mother?’
‘Like Grandma Baby and Ma?’
‘Worse,’ says Nana. ‘Baby and your mother are blood rivals. The rivalry between in-laws is much worse. Think of a colour.’
‘Yellow.’
‘Then Lila’s purple. And if she’s turquoise blue like a clear sky at noon, Sika is blood red like the water in Maanu’s pot.’
‘But why does Ma hate her, Nana? Why?’
Nana starts pacing the room again. But this time, walking up and down, she rolls up the sleeves of her robe and then shakes them out violently. ‘Jealousy can change a woman into a leopard, Sheba. Your mother can’t forgive Lila for marrying her twin. Can’t forgive her for raising her daughters, for turning them into fine city girls with no taste for people like us. City folk say that people like us come from the bush. Now, go to sleep, grandchild.’
I close my eyes, but sleep won’t come. How can it in a house under siege, in a house on edge and as jittery as I am? I hug my pillow, pull my cover cloth over my head. However, the rooms and corridors of our home, even the courtyard downstairs, are too thick with emotion for sleep to creep in.
Too overwrought to settle, my mind flits like a flea from Maybe to Ma, Ma to Uncle Solo and Aunt Lila in Accra, and then Salmata and Nana. My skin on fire, Snake hisses, the sing-song of her voice beneath mine, until eventually the way clears and truth beckons. Tomorrow, when Nana acts, so must I.
This is what I tell myself as my grandmother pads the floor. I count her strides, her pauses. Count the steps of her shuffles before she sits down. Then, as she paces again, I imagine the worst that can happen. To guard against it, I plan, setting events in sequence the better to see them.
‘Calm down,’ Snake advises, wriggling alongside me. ‘We need to sleep now. We have to gather our strength for tomorrow and the day after. Sleep,’ she hisses. ‘Better still, think of what we’ll do afterwards. Think of Maybe and the river. Think of Ama and Gaza.’
‘What about Nana?’
Snake won’t answer. Ignoring her silence, I imagine the future I’d like instead. Above all, we’ll be safe. Maybe will be able to see again and everyone will be as we were before Ma returned. This is my hope, even as the elements that flash and rumble outside remind me that the worst is yet to come.
By morning the wind is up, slamming and opening doors, shaking the shutters as it strips leaves off the mango tree in the back yard. Aunt Clara, mindful of the guests who’ll be arriving later, tells me to sweep and dust our sitting room; the upstairs room in which a portrait of Nana Gyata su looks over us while disputes are settled.
I follow her instructions, but as I fling the shutters open, I gasp. Arrayed on the cotton tree like the black sails of a windswept galleon, are hundreds of crows. Yesterday’s fledglings are now enormous birds; birds massed with others of their kind, as well as ravens and red-eyed drongos. Every branch of the tree is heaving. Every twig winged and feathered.
Illuminated by streaks of lightning, their eyes open and close, a monster from a realm beyond the grave, watching me. Their size and number is unnatural. But what unnerves me most, is that on opening the shutter, each and every one of the birds turns, and their gaze on me, blink as one.
Snake tells me not to be afraid.
I back away. Dust the next shutter and the next while murmuring a prayer to the portrait of Nana Gyata su on the wall behind me. Then, flinging the shutters open, I pretend that everything is as it should be. I do it in spite of the creature observing my every move; in spite of claps of thunder and flashes of light in a sky heavy with rain, I behave as if all is well.
The wind howls, a gust blows the front gate open, and in they come. There are only five women this time.
‘Ago!’
‘Amie! Come in!’ I hear Aunt Ruby cry. ‘Welcome!’
I scramble downstairs in time to see them taking off their sandals before Aunt Ruby escorts them up to the sitting room. Then, I do what’s expected of the youngest in the house. I assemble glasses, fill them with water and after carefully placing them on a tray, carry them upstairs.
My grandmother, her back to the cotton tree, is wearing the adinkra bou-bou, her sword of war dress, a clash of black blades against white.
Head lowered, I offer our guests water. They look at me askance, peering at me as Ma’s shadow steps between us.
Picking up a glass, Auntie Esi says: ‘Thank you,’ in such a way that it wouldn’t take much for her to damn me in the next breath. Auntie Vida follows her example, while the rest of them purse their lips as if to say: ‘What? Sip water from a glass offered by Sika’s daughter? A snake bite would be better!’
Hah! You don’t have to be a seer to hear Ma’s shadow cackling behind me; Ma scoffing as she says: Think you’re different, do you? Think again, little chick. You and I are alike.
Grandma Baby, catching my eye, winks, while Nana, beside her, relieves me of a glass, as do Clara and Ruby. I’m about to leave (as befits a dutiful daughter of the house), when to everyone’s surprise, Nana calls me back.
‘Sheba,’ she says, her voice quiet but calm, ‘I want you to hear what we’re going to discuss. It concerns your mother.’
‘Nana Serwah, is that wise?’ asks Vida, tugging her ear in consternation. ‘This is woman palaver. Your granddaughter’s a slip of thing.’
‘Sheba has a mind of her own, and if she doesn’t hear what we discuss, she’ll get wind of it from Ama Smart next door. Am I right, Esi?’
Auntie Esi agrees.
Folding her hands on her lap, Nana’s features rearrange themselves. There’s a subtle shift. Same eyes, same forehead, mouth and nose, but if you look closely at the framed photograph of my great-grandfather opposite and place it over Nana’s face, it’s as if the two are merging; as if somehow, after dipping into her soul, she’s drawing on our ancestor and channelling him.
Nana lifts her head. She begins as custom demands. ‘Vida, what is your mission here today?’ She may not be sitting in our ancestor’s brass-studded chair, but the power radiating from her sends shivers through each of us.
I hover, listening to complaints about my mother: what she’s doing to our village, how she’s pitting husbands against wives, creating conflict between and within families.
‘Big Man is so smitten by her,’ Vida exclaims, ‘that he threatened Akosua when he got home. Said she’d shamed him and if she dared pull such a stunt again…’
Auntie Esi nods. ‘That’s exactly what Allotey said. Sika’s a stain I can’t remove from our marriage. Nana, what am I to do?’
‘Did Allotey harm you? Did Big Man hurt Akosua?’
Ama’s ma shakes her head, but as Nana and Auntie Vida exchange glances, the air between them sizzles.
Vida’s chin drops. ‘We should have rid ourselves of him years ago.’
‘We had Gaza to think of,’ Nana reminds her.
‘He’s rough with him as well,’ Vida replies. ‘And now Sika’s rekindled the past. Her anger is too much, even for us, Nana. We women arrived here afraid. If we hadn’t left our homes, we’d have been lynched. Yet our anger is nothing compared to your daughter’s.’
At this, the women start talking over each other, their voices a chorus of grievances.
‘We can hardly breathe,’ one says. ‘The air in our village has changed since Sika’s return.’
‘The rains haven’t come,’ says another. ‘And yet since our visit here last night, one, two, boom! Thunder! One, two, zoom! Lightning! Night and day. It met us here, now it won’t stop.’
‘This is Sika’s doing,’ someone mumbles.
Voices tumble over each other. ‘Have you seen the crows on the cotton tree, Nana? The eyes of Sasabonsam are on us. Tell your daughter to go!’
‘Whatever’s happening to us, Nana, arrived with your daughter!’
‘She has to go before matters slip out of our hands and bones are broken.’
‘Banish her, Nana, before wahala slaps our faces and we’re too ugly to care if there’s blood on our hands.’
Nana’s back stiffens. As her eyes glaze over, freezing any trace of warmth from her countenance, her Queen Mother death stare silences everyone. ‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ she declares. ‘Thank you for expressing your complaints.’ She takes a sip of water. ‘I promise you, I shall deal with Sika. Tell your men, and those who follow them, that if they wish to remain in our village, they should steer clear of my daughter.’