Beneath The Yellow (a novel): 7

Inside, I joined GeeMaa and Naana in the kitchen as they switched from an energetic rendition of Osibisa’s Fire, to A.B. Crentsil’s Moses. Naana joked that it was sacrilegious to sing Moses on Sunday since the Christian Council of Ghana had tried to get the song banned because A.B. had given new meaning to the parting of the Red Sea. GeeMaa was chewing on a thin stick of neem branch as usual. She passed me a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, which I crammed into a sandwich and downed in five mouthfuls.

“Where is the real food?”

GeeMaa released a deep laugh and Naana’s head shook.

“Don’t worry,” said GeeMaa. “The kenkey seller will pass by any moment from now.”

Naana laughed loud. Suddenly. As though some phantom had tickled her.

“Do you remember Grandma and the yellow kenkey?”

I didn’t answer. Our kenkey was white again, but the balls were smaller. When the kenkey seller arrived, balancing her wide aluminium basin on her head, I went out through the kitchen door to our veranda to help her place it on the ground. I asked for nine balls of kenkey: two for me, two for my father and one each for Naana, GeeMaa and my mother, plus two for jaala, just in case one of the women wanted more after they had eaten their first ball. The kenkey seller was not our regular one. She was younger. She had two thin tribal scars on her left cheek and she wore a simple onepiece dress made from a popular blue and white wax print pattern. Around her waist she had a different patterned cloth, also in blue and white, which she had tied in a

knot. Her fish tray had maŋ, tsile, samaŋ, tilapia and some shrimp, all arranged in neat piles on the wooden disk that sat above the kenkey in her aluminium basin. The kenkey was covered in transparent plastic to keep it hot.

“Sarah, samaŋ aloo tsile aloo tilapia?” GeeMaa yelled into the house. My mother didn’t like maŋ because they had too many bones.

“Tsile.” My father’s voice boomed back.

GeeMaa signalled Naana, who produced a clean plate, and picked the choicest pieces of tsile from the selection on offer. GeeMaa asked the kenkey seller for a small quantity of shrimp and some red pepper and then asked her how much everything cost.

“Thirty six cedis.”

GeeMaa untied a knot in the cloth she was wearing around her waist and took out forty cedis in green twenty cedi notes. She held the notes halfway between herself and the woman without handing them over.

“Ni owoo mli?”

The woman rubbed her hands on her knees. “Oh, Mmaa, things are expensive these days. If I give you excess I won’t be able to eat.”

GeeMaa smiled. “My dear, if you sell kenkey you will always eat, and a finelooking woman like you will never starve.”

A smile crept across the woman’s face as she tossed an extra piece of tsile into the plate Naana was holding.

GeeMaa passed the forty cedis to her.

“Mmaa, I can tell you’re an old hand at bargaining.”

GeeMaa shook her head. “We women always have to learn to get the best out of everything we have. We are born old.” She took her change from the woman and helped her place the basin back on her head. “Go with the right road, young lady.”

She took the neem stick out of her mouth and tossed it in the grass beyond the veranda.

The woman tied the money into the knot in her cloth. She waved and moved her swaying body swiftly down the street, chanting, “Kɔmi kɛ kenam ee.”

GeeMaa and Naana went back to the kitchen with the kenkey. Naana re-emerged carrying a bowl with seven of the balls of kenkey in it. She placed it on a large stripped wood table on the veranda beside the plate of tsile, shrimp and red pepper. I pulled all the four chairs available on the veranda around the table. GeeMaa came out with a large bowl of clean water that she placed at one end of the table. She sat down and washed her hands in the bowl. Naana sat beside her and did the same. My mother and father came out through the main door and sat on the two other chairs.

My father washed his hands and inclined his head towards Naana and GeeMaa. “So you people want to challenge my musical freedom, eh?”

Naana shook her head and laughed.

GeeMaa looked at him calmly and said, “Kojo, you know you love Moses.”

My mother and I washed our hands and started eating. I squatted since I had no chair.

“True, Ma…” My father stopped to look at my mother’s hands hovering above the fish and pepper. “Heh, you people are eating without praying. Sarah?”

“Kojo, you never pray. You just start eating when everyone’s eyes are closed.”

My father shook his head while GeeMaa, Naana and my mother laughed. I was so hungry that I didn’t even look up. I soon finished one ball of kenkey and moved on to my second.

“Ei, Ebo, are you eating two balls of kenkey like your father?”

I nodded.

“Hmm, children these days. Your age reaches double figures and you think you’re a man.”

“Look who’s talking,” said GeeMaa, reaching for the last shrimp and dipping it in the shrunk spread of red pepper. “You used to eat just as much as a boy.”

“Ma, such information is not for his consumption.”

My mother slapped my father’s arm. “Leave my son alone.”

“And, Daddy, we all know the kind of child you were. You tell us yourself.”

Naana added.

“Oh, so it’s four against one. Naana, go and bring some shitɔ from the kitchen.

Don’t think because you are growing breasts you are a woman.”

“Ah Kojo.” My mother slapped my father’s arm again. Sometimes you talk by heart, by heart.”

“He has always been like that.” GeeMaa licked her fingers as she spoke. All five in quick succession.

I finished my last morsel, washed my hands in the bowl, and almost bumped into Naana, who was returning with the shitɔ, as I left the scene of my father’s next protest. Usually I would sit through he banter but I wasn’t in the mood that day.

“Ebo, water.” My father’s voice filtered across the screen door that protected the kitchen from fly invasions.

“OK, Dad. I’m coming.” I turned into the kitchen.

A chair scraped the concrete outside.

“I’ll get it,” I heard GeeMaa say.

In the kitchen, GeeMaa took a bottle of iced water from the fridge and put it on the blue sideboard by the sink. She turned to me and held out her arms. We hugged, then she held me at arm’s length to look at my face. She pulled the skin beneath my eyes down to look at my pupils and sighed.

“GeeMaa, what’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing, mi bi. Nothing.” She crossed the kitchen to the large basket containing mainly yam, plantain and avocado pears. Reaching into it, she took out a fruit and passed it to me. “Eat this. Otherwise you won’t be able to stop eating all day.”

I took the fruit, felt its weight and spiky skin.

“You know what it is?”

“Yes, alunguntungui.”

“Good. Every time you have a bad night, eat one as soon as you wake up. And…” She reached into her waist cloth and took out a stick. “If you don’t want to have chest pains at night chew one of these every morning.” She grabbed the bottle of iced water.

“GeeMaa, what’s wrong with me?”

She looked me directly in the eye. “Nothing, mi bi. Nothing bad. Do you know that there are people who get nosebleeds when there is too much conflict around them?”

I shook my head and stared at the floor.

She transferred the bottle of water from her right hand to her left. “You have a gift, a gift tied to love. Love is not reversible, so you must learn to live with it. It is in the soil we walk on.” She moved closer and put her hand under my chin. “It’s not always that we must run when we hear thunder, for the rain might bring good fruits.

You are young. When you are older you will understand.”

We heard an impatient shifting of chairs outside.

GeeMaa smiled. “I’d better take this water to your father.”

I put my forehead against the fridge and breathed with the weight of confusion. I heard the door shut behind GeeMaa. I turned to look outside the window, towards the gate where I had walked the day before to think. I felt no wiser. This was scarier than catching the spider on my bedroom wall.

I raised the fruit in my hand and split it open. It was sweet and full of seeds.