AMA ATA AIDOO
Ama Ata Aidoo was born in 1942, the daughter of a Fante chief. She received her college education at the University of Ghana in Legon, where she majored in English, and around this time wrote her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost. When it appeared in 1965, she became the first published African playwright. She has been a lecturer at the University of Cape Coast and a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, and, in addition to her academic career, served as Minister of Education in 1982–83. Aidoo has lived in America, Britain, Germany, and Zimbabwe. Most recently, she held the post of visiting professor in the Africana Studies Department at Brown University. In the course of her prolific career, she has published the short story collections No Sweetness Here (1970) and The Girl Who Can and Other Stories (1997); poetry collections such as Someone Talking to Sometime (1986), Birds and Other Poems (1987), and An Angry Letter in January (1992); and the novels Our Sister Killjoy (1977), The Eagle and the Chicken (1986), and Changes: A Love Story (1991). She won the 1987 Nelson Mandela Award for Poetry and the 1992 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Africa.
Two Sisters
(1970)
As she shakes out the typewriter cover and covers the machine with it, the thought of the bus she has to hurry to catch goes through her like a pain. It is her luck, she thinks. Everything is just her luck. Why, if she had one of those graduates for a boyfriend, wouldn’t he come and take her home every evening? And she knows that a girl does not herself have to be a graduate to get one of those boys. Certainly, Joe is dying to do exactly that—with his taxi. And he is as handsome as anything, and a good man, but you know . . . Besides, there are cars and there are cars. As for the possibility of the other actually coming to fetch her—oh well. She has to admit it will take some time before she can bring herself to make demands of that sort on him. She has also to admit that the temptation is extremely strong. Would it really be so dangerously indiscreet? Doesn’t one government car look like another? The hugeness of it? Its shaded glass? The uniformed chauffeur? She can already see herself stepping out to greet the dead-with-envy glances of the other girls. To begin with, she will insist on a little discretion. The driver can drop her under the neem trees in the morning and pick her up from there in the evening . . . anyway, she will have to wait a little while for that and it is all her luck.
There are other ways, surely. One of these, for some reason, she has sworn to have nothing of. Her boss has a car and does not look bad. In fact, the man is all right. But she keeps telling herself that she does not fancy having some old and dried-out housewife walking into the office one afternoon to tear her hair out and make a row . . . Mm, so for the meantime it is going to continue to be the municipal bus with its grimy seats, its common passengers and impudent conductors . . . Jesus! She doesn’t wish herself dead or anything as stupidly final as that. Oh no. She just wishes she could sleep deep and only wake up on the morning of her glory.
The new pair of black shoes are more realistic than their owner, though. As she walks down the corridor, they sing:
Count, Mercy, count your blessings
Count, Mercy, count your blessings
Count, count, count your blessings.
They sing along the corridor, into the avenue, across the road, and into the bus. And they resume their song along the gravel path as she opens the front gate and crosses the cemented courtyard to the door.
“Sissie!” she called.
“Hei Mercy.” And the door opened to show the face of Connie, big sister, six years or more older and now heavy with her second child. Mercy collapsed into the nearest chair.
“Welcome home. How was the office today?”
“Sister, don’t ask. Look at my hands. My fingers are dead with typing. Oh God, I don’t know what to do.”
“Why, what is wrong?”
“You tell me what is right. Why should I be a typist?”
“What else would you be?”
“What a strange question. Is typing the only thing one can do in this world? You are a teacher, are you not?”
“But . . . but . . .”
“But what? Or you want me to know that if I had done better in the exams, I could have trained to be a teacher too, eh, sister? Or even a proper secretary?”
“Mercy, what is the matter? What have I done? What have I done? Why have you come home so angry?”
Mercy broke into tears.
“Oh I am sorry. I am sorry, Sissie. It’s just that I am sick of everything. The office, living with you and your husband. I want a husband of my own, children. I want . . . I want . . .”
“But you are so beautiful.”
“Thank you. But so are you.”
“You are young and beautiful. As for marriage, it’s you who are postponing it. Look at all these people who are running after you.”
“Sissie, I don’t like what you are doing. So stop it.”
“Okay, okay, okay.”
And there was a silence.
“Which of them could I marry? Joe is—mm, fine—but, but I just don’t like him.”
“You mean . . .”
“Oh, Sissie!”
“Little sister, you and I can be truthful with one another.”
“Oh yes.”
“What I would like to say is that I am not that old or wise. But still I could advise you a little. Joe drives someone’s car now. Well, you never know. Lots of taxi drivers come to own their taxis, sometimes fleets of cars.”
“Of course. But it’s a pity you are married already. Or I could be a go-between for you and Joe!”
And the two of them burst out laughing. It was when she rose to go to the bedroom that Connie noticed the new shoes.
“Ei, those are beautiful shoes. Are they new?”
From the other room, Mercy’s voice came interrupted by the motions of her body as she undressed and then dressed again. However, the uncertainty in it was due to something entirely different.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you about them. In fact, I was going to show them to you. I think it was on Tuesday I bought them. Or was it Wednesday? When I came home from the office, you and James had taken Akosua out. And later I forgot all about them.”
“I see. But they are very pretty. Were they expensive?”
“No, not really.” This reply was too hurriedly said.
And she said only last week that she didn’t have a penny on her. And I believed her because I know what they pay her is just not enough to last anyone through any month, even minus rent . . . I have been thinking she manages very well. But these shoes. And she is not the type who would borrow money just to buy a pair of shoes, when she could have gone on wearing her old pairs until things get better. Oh, I wish I knew what to do. I mean, I am not her mother. And I wonder how James will see these problems.
“Sissie, you look worried.”
“Hmm, when don’t I? With the baby due in a couple of months and the government’s new ruling on salaries and all. On top of everything, I have reliable information that James is running after a new girl.”
Mercy laughed. “Oh, Sissie. You always get reliable information on these things.”
“But yes. And I don’t know why.”
“Sissie, men are like that.”
“They are selfish.”
“No, it’s just that women allow them to behave the way they do instead of seizing some freedom themselves.”
“But I am sure that even if we were free to carry on in the same way, I wouldn’t make use of it.”
“But why not?”
“Because I love James. I love James and I am not interested in any other man.” Her voice was full of tears.
But Mercy was amused. “Oh God. Now listen to that. It’s women like you who keep all of us down.”
“Well, I am sorry but it’s how the good God created me.”
“Mm. I am sure that I can love several men at the same time.”
“Mercy!”
They burst out laughing again. And yet they are sad. But laughter is always best.
Mercy complained of hunger and so they went to the kitchen to heat up some food and eat. The two sisters alone. It is no use waiting for James. And this evening a friend of Connie’s has come to take out the baby girl, Akosua, and had threatened to keep her until her bedtime.
“Sissie, I am going to see a film.” This from Mercy.
“Where?”
“The Globe.”
“Are you going with Joe?”
“No.”
“Are you going alone?”
“No.”
Careful Connie.
“Whom are you going with?”
Careful Connie, please. Little sister’s nostrils are widening dangerously. Look at the sudden creasing up of her mouth and between her brows. Connie, a sister is a good thing. Even a younger sister. Especially when you have no mother or father.
“Mercy, whom are you going out with?”
“Well, I had food in my mouth! And I had to swallow it down before I could answer you, no?”
“I am sorry.” How softly said.
“And anyway, do I have to tell you everything?”
“Oh no. It’s just that I didn’t think it was a question I should not have asked.”
There was more silence. Then Mercy sucked her teeth with irritation and Connie cleared her throat with fear.
“I am going out with Mensar-Arthur.”
As Connie asked the next question, she wondered if the words were leaving her lips. “Mensar-Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“How many do you know?”
Her fingers were too numb to pick up the food. She put the plate down. Something jumped in her chest and she wondered what it was. Perhaps it was the baby.
“Do you mean that Member of Parliament?”
“Yes.”
“But, Mercy . . .”
Little sister only sits and chews her food.
“But, Mercy . . .”
Chew, chew, chew.
“But, Mercy . . .”
“What?”
She startled Connie.
“He is so old.”
Chew, chew, chew.
“Perhaps, I mean, perhaps that really doesn’t matter, does it? Not very much anyway. But they say he has so many wives and girlfriends.”
Please little sister. I am not trying to interfere in your private life. You said yourself a little while ago that you wanted a man of your own. That man belongs to so many women already . . .
That silence again. Then there was only Mercy’s footsteps as she went to put her plate in the kitchen sink, running water as she washed her plate and her hands. She drank some water and coughed. Then, as tears streamed down her sister’s averted face, there was the sound of her footsteps as she left the kitchen. At the end of it all, she banged a door. Connie only said something like, “O Lord, O Lord,” and continued sitting in the kitchen. She had hardly eaten anything at all. Very soon Mercy went to have a bath. Then Connie heard her getting ready to leave the house. The shoes. Then she was gone. She needn’t have carried on like that, eh? Because Connie had not meant to probe or bring on a quarrel. What use is there in this old world for a sister, if you can’t have a chat with her? What’s more, things like this never happen to people like Mercy. Their parents were good Presbyterians. They feared God. Mama had not managed to give them all the rules of life before she died. But Connie knows that running around with an old and depraved public man would have been considered an abomination by the parents.
A big car with a super-smooth engine purred into the drive. It actually purrs, this huge machine from the white man’s land. Indeed, its well-mannered protest as the tires slid onto the gravel seemed like a lullaby compared to the loud thumping of the girl’s stiletto shoes. When Mensar-Arthur saw Mercy, he stretched his arm and opened the door to the passenger seat. She sat down and the door closed with a civilized thud. The engine hummed into motion and the car sailed away.
After a distance of a mile or so from the house, the man started a conversation.
“And how is my darling today?”
“I am well,” and only the words did not imply tragedy.
“You look solemn today, why?”
She remained silent and still.
“My dear, what is the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh . . .” He cleared his throat again. “Eh, and how were the shoes?”
“Very nice. In fact, I am wearing them now. They pinch a little but then all new shoes are like that.”
“And the handbag?”
“I like it very much, too . . . My sister noticed them. I mean the shoes.” The tragedy was announced.
“Did she ask you where you got them from?”
“No.”
He cleared his throat again. “Where did we agree to go tonight?”
“The Globe, but I don’t want to see a film.”
“Is that so? Mm, I am glad because people always notice things.”
“But they won’t be too surprised.”
“What are you saying, my dear?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay, so what shall we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shall I drive to the Seaway?”
“Oh yes.”
He drove to the Seaway. To a section of the beach they knew very well. She loves it here. This wide expanse of sand and the old sea. She has often wished she could do what she fancied: one thing she fancies. Which is to drive very near to the end of the sands until the tires of the car touched the water. Of course it is a very foolish idea, as he pointed out sharply to her the first time she thought aloud about it. It was in his occasional I-am-more-than-old-enough-to-be-your-father tone. There are always disadvantages. Things could be different. Like if one had a younger lover. Handsome, maybe not rich like this man here, but well off, sufficiently well off to be able to afford a sports car. A little something very much like those in the films driven by the white racing drivers. With tires that can do everything . . . and they would drive to exactly where the sea and the sand meet.
“We are here.”
“Don’t let’s get out. Let’s just sit inside and talk.”
“Talk?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. But what is it, my darling?”
“I have told my sister about you.”
“Good God. Why?”
“But I had to. I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.”
“Childish. It was not necessary at all. She is not your mother.”
“No. But she is all I have. And she has been very good to me.”
“Well, it was her duty.”
“Then it is my duty to tell her about something like this. I may get into trouble.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “I normally take good care of my girlfriends.”
“I see,” she said, and for the first time in the one month since she agreed to be this man’s lover, the tears which suddenly rose into her eyes were not forced.
“And you promised you wouldn’t tell her.” It was Father’s voice now.
“Don’t be angry. After all, people talk so much, as you said a little while ago. She was bound to hear it one day.”
“My darling, you are too wise. What did she say?”
“She was pained.”
“Don’t worry. Find out something she wants very much but cannot get in this country because of the import restrictions.”
“I know for sure she wants an electric motor for her sewing machine.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s what I know of.”
“Mm. I am going to London next week on some delegation, so if you bring me the details on the make of the machine, I shall get her the motor.”
“Thank you.”
“What else is worrying my Black Beauty?”
“Nothing.”
“And by the way, let me know as soon as you want to leave your sister’s place. I have got you one of the government estate houses.”
“Oh . . . oh,” she said, pleased, contented for the first time since this typically ghastly day had begun, at half past six in the morning.
Dear little child came back from the playground with her toe bruised. Shall we just blow cold air from our mouth on it or put on a salve? Nothing matters really. Just see that she does not feel unattended. And the old sea roars on. This is a calm sea, generally. Too calm in fact, this Gulf of Guinea. The natives sacrifice to him on Tuesdays and once a year celebrate him. They might save their chickens, their eggs, and their yams. And as for the feast once a year, he doesn’t pay much attention to it either. They are always celebrating one thing or another and they surely don’t need him for an excuse to celebrate one day more. He has seen things happen along these beaches. Different things. Contradictory things. Or just repetitions of old patterns. He never interferes in their affairs. Why should he? Except in places like Keta, where he eats houses away because they leave him no choice. Otherwise, he never allows them to see his passions. People are worms, and even the God who created them is immensely bored with their antics. Here is a fifty-year-old “big man” who thinks he is somebody. And a twenty-three-year-old child who chooses a silly way to conquer unconquerable problems. Well, what did one expect of human beings? And so, as those two settled on the back seat of the car to play with each other’s bodies, he, the Gulf of Guinea, shut his eyes with boredom. It is right. He could sleep, no? He spread himself and moved farther ashore. But the car was parked at a very safe distance and the rising tides could not wet its tires.
James has come home late. But then he has been coming back late for the past few weeks. Connie is crying and he knows it as soon as he enters the bedroom. He hates tears, for, like so many men, he knows it is one of the most potent weapons in women’s bitchy and inexhaustible arsenal. She speaks first.
“James.”
“Oh, are you still awake?” He always tries to deal with these nightly funeral parlor doings by pretending not to know what they are about.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“What is wrong?”
“Nothing.”
So he moves quickly and sits beside her. “Connie, what is the matter? You have been crying again.”
“You are very late again.”
“Is that why you are crying? Or is there something else?”
“Yes.”
“Yes to what?”
“James, where were you?”
“Connie, I have warned you about what I shall do if you don’t stop examining me, as though I were your prisoner, every time I am a little late.”
She sat up. “A little late! It is nearly two o’clock.”
“Anyway, you won’t believe me if I told you the truth, so why do you want me to waste my breath?”
“Oh well.” She lies down again and turns her face to the wall. He stands up but does not walk away. He looks down at her. So she remembers every night: they have agreed, after many arguments, that she should sleep like this. During her first pregnancy, he kept saying after the third month or so that the sight of her tummy the last thing before he slept always gave him nightmares. Now he regrets all this. The bed creaks as he throws himself down by her.
“James.”
“Yes.”
“There is something much more serious.”
“You have heard about my newest affair?”
“Yes, but that is not what I am referring to.”
“Jesus, is it possible that there is anything more important than that?”
And as they laugh they know that something has happened. One of those things which, with luck, will keep them together for some time to come.
“He teases me on top of everything.”
“What else can one do to you but tease when you are in this state?”
“James! How profane!”
“It is your dirty mind which gave my statement its shocking meaning.”
“Okay! But what shall I do?”
“About what?”
“Mercy. Listen, she is having an affair with Mensar-Arthur.”
“Wonderful.”
She sits up and he sits up.
“James, we must do something about it. It is very serious.”
“Is that why you were crying?”
“Of course.”
“Why shouldn’t she?”
“But it is wrong. And she is ruining herself.”
“Since every other girl she knows has ruined herself prosperously, why shouldn’t she? Just forget for once that you are a teacher. Or at least remember she is not your pupil.”
“I don’t like your answers.”
“What would you like me to say? Every morning her friends who don’t earn any more than she does wear new dresses, shoes, wigs, and what-have-you to work. What would you have her do?”
“The fact that other girls do it does not mean that Mercy should do it, too.”
“You are being very silly. If I were Mercy, I am sure that’s exactly what I would do. And you know I mean it, too.”
James is cruel. He is terrible and mean. Connie breaks into fresh tears and James comforts her. There is one point he must drive home, though.
“In fact, encourage her. He may be able to intercede with the Ministry for you so that after the baby is born they will not transfer you from here for some time.”
“James, you want me to use my sister!”
“She is using herself, remember.”
“James, you are wicked.”
“And maybe he would even agree to get us a new car from abroad. I shall pay for everything. That would be better than paying a fortune for that old thing I was thinking of buying. Think of that.”
“You will ride in it alone.”
“Well . . .”
That was a few months before the coup. Mensar-Arthur did go to London for a conference and bought something for all his wives and girlfriends, including Mercy. He even remembered the motor for Connie’s machine. When Mercy took it to her she was quite confused. She had wanted this thing for a long time, and it would make everything so much easier, like the clothes for the new baby. And yet one side of her said that accepting it was a betrayal. Of what, she wasn’t even sure. She and Mercy could never bring the whole business into the open and discuss it. And there was always James supporting Mercy, to Connie’s bewilderment. She took the motor with thanks and sold even her right to dissent. In a short while, Mercy left the house to go and live in the estate house Mensar-Arthur had procured for her. Then, a couple of weeks later, the coup. Mercy left her new place before anyone could evict her. James never got his car. Connie’s new baby was born. Of the three, the one who greeted the new order with undisguised relief was Connie. She is not really a demonstrative person but it was obvious from her eyes that she was happy. As far as she was concerned, the old order as symbolized by Mensar-Arthur was a threat to her sister and therefore to her own peace of mind. With it gone, things could return to normal. Mercy would move back to the house, perhaps start to date someone more—ordinary, let’s say. Eventually, she would get married and then the nightmare of those past weeks would be forgotten. God being so good, he brought the coup early before the news of the affair could spread and brand her sister . . .
The arrival of the new baby has magically waved away the difficulties between James and Connie. He is that kind of man, and she that kind of woman. Mercy has not been seen for many days. Connie is beginning to get worried . . .
James heard the baby yelling—a familiar noise, by now—the moment he opened the front gate. He ran in, clutching to his chest the few things he had bought on his way home.
“We are in here.”
“I certainly could hear you. If there is anything people of this country have, it is a big mouth.”
“Don’t I agree? But on the whole, we are well. He is eating normally and everything. You?”
“Nothing new. Same routine. More stories about the overthrown politicians.”
“What do you mean, nothing new? Look at the excellent job the soldiers have done, cleaning up the country of all that dirt. I feel free already and I am dying to get out and enjoy it.”
James laughed mirthlessly. “All I know is that Mensar-Arthur is in jail. No use. And I am not getting my car. Rough deal.”
“I never took you seriously on that car business.”
“Honestly, if this were in the ancient days, I could brand you a witch. You don’t want me, your husband, to prosper?”
“Not out of my sister’s ruin.”
“Ruin, ruin, ruin! Christ! See, Connie, the funny thing is that I am sure you are the only person who thought it was a disaster to have a sister who was the girlfriend of a big man.”
“Okay; now all is over, and don’t let’s quarrel.”
“I bet the coup could have succeeded on your prayers alone.”
And Connie wondered why he said that with so much bitterness. She wondered if . . .
“Has Mercy been here?”
“Not yet, later, maybe. Mm. I had hoped she would move back here and start all over again.”
“I am not surprised she hasn’t. In fact, if I were her, I wouldn’t come back here either. Not to your nagging, no thank you, big sister.”
And as the argument progressed, as always, each was forced into a more aggressive defensive stand.
“Well, just say what pleases you, I am very glad about the soldiers. Mercy is my only sister, brother; everything. I can’t sit and see her life going wrong without feeling it. I am grateful to whatever forces there are which put a stop to that. What pains me now is that she should be so vague about where she is living at the moment. She makes mention of a girlfriend but I am not sure that I know her.”
“If I were you, I would stop worrying because it seems Mercy can look after herself quite well.”
“Hmm” was all she tried to say.
Who heard something like the sound of a car pulling into the drive? Ah, but the footsteps were unmistakably Mercy’s. Are those shoes the old pair which were new a couple of months ago? Or are they the newest pair? And here she is herself, the pretty one. A gay Mercy.
“Hello, hello, my clan!” And she makes a lot of her nephew. “Dow-dah-dee-day! And how is my dear young man today? My lord, grow up fast and come to take care of Auntie Mercy.”
Both Connie and James cannot take their eyes off her. Connie says, “He says to Auntie Mercy he is fine.”
Still they watch her, horrified, fascinated, and wondering what it’s all about. Because they both know it is about something.
“Listen, people, I brought a friend to meet you. A man.”
“Where is he?” from James.
“Bring him in,” from Connie.
“You know, Sissie, you are a new mother. I thought I’d come and ask you if it’s all right.”
“Of course,” say James and Connie, and for some reason they are both very nervous.
“He is Captain Ashley.”
“Which one?”
“How many do you know?”
James still thinks it is impossible. “Eh . . . do you mean the officer who has been appointed the . . . the . . .”
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t there a picture in The Crystal over the weekend of his daughter’s wedding? And another one of him with his wife and children and grandchildren?”
“Yes.”
“And he is heading a commission to investigate something or other?”
“Yes.”
Connie just sits there with her mouth open that wide . . .