dial episode 35

DIAL
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Sequence 35
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The witch stood gazing across the river for a while, watching the royal princess scampering into the canoe, and then a very sad and anguished look passed across her face suddenly, and she turned away abruptly.
“Come, Yao, let’s have some breakfast,” she said.
I stared at her retreating back for a while with puzzled eyes, and then I turned and followed her up the incline, then through the cocoa trees and down toward her house. She seemed very agitated as she removed a scarf from around her arm and tied it around her hair tightly.
The witch walked ahead of me, her gait fast so that she put a little distance between us, and I could not speak to her until she entered the veranda. She had put a low table there, and served food on it in two earthenware pots, both covered.
There was a bowl of water, and a metal cup containing some water.
There were two low stools on each side of the table, and she sat down on one of them brusquely, and motioned me to the other.
“Eat fast, Yao,” she said, and her old face was worried. “They would be here very soon, and they would take you away.”
“Who?” I asked with raised eyebrows. “The princess and her people?”
“Yes, and stop asking too many questions,” she said, keeping her face low as she uncovered the food.
“Then you have to provide me with some answers, witch!” I said, agitated. “I can see you’re very strung up all of a sudden. You look so sad and wound-up, and I couldn’t help but notice how your eyes lit up when you were looking at that naughty princess! Why, Maame, why?”
She looked up at me suddenly, and her face wasn’t angry as I had feared, but the face of a very sad and distraught woman who had tears in her eyes.
“Because she is my daughter!” she said quietly, and tears dripped down her eyes slowly as her lips quivered. “My daughter, my only child! And now she hates me!”
“The royal princess is your daughter?” I asked in hushed tones, shocked to my very core.
She nodded without speaking.
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“Meaning you’re – or were – the Queen Mother?” I asked.
She put her head to one side and regarded me solemnly.
“Eat, Yao, please,” she said. “As soon as she gets to the palace, the King would send guards after you, to capture you. When you get to the palace just tell them you’re a stranger, and you’re not familiar with our customs. They’ll probably ask you to buy a sheep to be slaughtered to appease the gods, or they’ll throw you out of the village! Do you have a little money on you?”
“Appease the gods because I wouldn’t fall down on the ground in front of that damn…sorry, sorry, but this princess, your daughter, she does irritate me.”
“Yes, Yao, it is the custom of our people,” she said. “Do you have money to pay for a sheep? I have some little savings. I can give it to you if you don’t have money.”
“Forget about money, please, Maame,” I said as I drew my stool forward. “Money is not a problem. I want to know about this daughter of yours! Why is she living in such a flamboyantly arrogant way while they’ve driven you to the outskirts of the village because you’re supposedly a witch?”
“Eat first, Yao,” she said quietly, using a corner of her cloth to wipe her eyes. “I’ll tell you as we eat.”
I sighed, and glanced down at the food, and then my expression changed.
The stew she had served was green and covered with red oil, with smoked fish and two eggs. Lying in it were slices of papaya. I had no qualms about it, because it smelled good.
My problem was the food itself.
It appeared to be some sort of cocoyam, but it had not been peeled. It had been boiled in its skin, and served like that. I looked at her with agitation all over my face.
“You witch!” I said, shaking my eyes. “I’m not eating that food with the skin! What the heck is that? Is that how you eat here, with all the damn skin?”
Although she was so sad, she chuckled softly, and without a word she picked up one of the cocoyam and deftly peeled its skin off, and then she put it into the stew in front of me.
“We’re not animals, Yao,” she said as she picked up another. “We cook it in its skin because it is very hard to peel, but easy to peel when cooked. Secondly, cooking it with the skin ensures that the good nutrients are retained inside the food. The skin is medicine, you know.”
I looked at her with a sheepish look on my face, and then I smiled, half-ashamed of myself.
“Ah, well, sorry then,” I said and reached out for the peeled cocoyam.
The witch slapped my hand sharply.
“Oh, shame on you!” she said and pointed at the water. “Over here we wash our hands before eating.”
I chuckled lightly.
“Too known woman,” I said, washed my hand, and turned to the food. She had several cocoyam peeled and lying in front of me.
I was a bit apprehensive. I had never eaten cocoyam before, but when I took a first bite…oh, boy…oh, boy…bliss! It tasted so good that soon I was wolfing it down.
“Take your time, Yao,” she said with a little smile. “The food is not running away!”
“Ah, women!” I said with my cheek filled with cocoyam. “First I should eat fast before I’m arrested, and now I should eat slow because I’m uncouth! Indeed, you’re a witch, woman!”
I had expected her to smile, or even laugh, but she didn’t.
Instead, she sat back slowly and regarded me.
“You’re sad again,” I stated gently. “Are you not eating? Is it about your daughter? Please eat a little.”
She nodded sadly, and again tears formed in her eyes.
“I lost my appetite,” she said slowly. “Abena Adobea, that’s the name of my daughter.”
“And you were Queen Mother then?”
She shook her head.
“Oh, no, my dear husband and I were the traditional healers in the village,” she said, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “He was quite a man, my late husband. He knew a lot of herbs, and he taught me, and we healed all kinds of diseases. I also helped the pregnant women deliver, you know. And people from all around came to see us. After Adobea, we couldn’t get any more children, unfortunately.”
I nodded and shoved another piece of cocoyam into my mouth.
“My husband loved his daughter very much, you know,” she said with a sad reminiscent smile. “Went everywhere with her, and pampered her. Rather spoilt her, I’m afraid. I was always the bad one as I tried to correct her. She had such a domineering attitude, quite feisty, she was, even as a child.”
“I could imagine,” I said as I bit into a juicy bit of fish.
“Anyway, we had a different king then, Nana Kwakupia, quite a man, kind, loving and loved by all his subjects. He always relied on my husband for advice. They were quite close, since they were childhood friends. This of course made the Fetish Priest, Okomfo Basabasa, very angry and jealous of my husband.
You see, the fetish priest, or Okomfo, had always been the most powerful man in this village after the King. But Nana Kwakupia loved my husband. Anyway, the king was old, and he died. He had a cousin called Obiba, and a son called Kwamepia. Now, after the king’s death, Kwamepia should’ve been the next king, although he was just eighteen years old.
That was two years ago. However, Okomfo Basabasa suddenly said the gods wanted Obiba – who was not even close to the stool because his father was a foreigner – to be the new king! We all protested, but they had some influential elders and kingmakers supporting them. They made Obiba the new king.”
I paused and scowled.
“Now that was mean,” I said softly. “And what happened to this rightful heir, the son of the dead king, Kwamepoom or whatever?”
She chuckled and with real laughter, rolled her eyes at me.
I was happy; I had intentionally mispronounced the name of the man.
“Kwamepia, not Kwamepoom! He protested wildly, of course, he and his mother,” Maame Ntiriwaa continued sadly. “In the end, they said he conspired to kill his father just to be king, and so they put him into the dungeons in the palace for three months. When he was released, he and his mother were banished from the village for killing the king. They settled two villages away, protected by the king of that village!”
“Oh, that’s cruel!” I said, and I was sad, very sad.
“Yes, it was,” she said and shook her head sadly. “No one could talk, though. Nana Obiba and Okomfo Basabasa had huge thugs working for them, threatening people and crushing all opposition. And then, around that time, my husband died too. Abena Adobea, my daughter, grew up to be the most beautiful in the land, yes. She was really hurting over her father’s death. She was seventeen when it happened. Anyway, the new king, Obiba, suddenly came around asking to marry her.”
“Marry her?” I asked with some surprise. “But she looked young. Is the man that young?”
“No, he isn’t,” Maame Ntiriwaa said sadly. “He will be sixty years this coming new moon. He has three other wives, and children older than my daughter, who will be twenty-two years in six months.”
“Jeeeeezoooz!” I whispered, aghast. “That’s preposterous! He’s too old for her!”
“Yes, she is,” the woman said sadly. “I protested wildly, of course. But Adobea wouldn’t listen to me. She was fascinated by the power she was going to get out of being the King’s Stool wife. As stool wife, she got to sit beside him in the palace, and on all social occasions! People revered her, falling at her feet when she passed! She had her own small palace, servants to wait on her, gold to spend, and all that she had dreamt of ever having. She’s but a young girl who had never known any man apart from the affections of her father. She was so easily swayed by this dirty old man of a king!”
I stopped eating and looked at her with horror all over my face. The picture was emerging now, and it horrified me, sickening me to my very guts.
“That’s why they said you were a witch!” I said hollowly.
She nodded with a sad smile.
“Yes, the works of Okomfo Basabasa,” Maame Ntiriwaa said sadly. “He claimed the gods had informed him that I gave the medicine to Kwamepia and his mother to kill Nana Kwakupia. They said I have been drinking the blood of children who died at childbirth. They said I was responsible for the people that died in the village, and lastly, they said I killed my husband.”
I nodded, horrified.
“And your daughter loved her father,” I said.
“Yes, Yao, and she considered me the bad one because I was always hard on her, trying to teach her the proper ways of a woman, and she thought I hated her,” she said, and her voice trembled. “She accepted it! They took me to the village square to burn me, but Nana Obiba was scared. He knew the laws of the land had changed, and he could be arrested. Moreover, because he was lusting after the body of my daughter, he couldn’t let me be killed. And so they drove me out of the village to come and live here, all alone.”
“And your own daughter believed this of her own mother?” I asked, feeling the fury against the royal princess rising. “She’s such an unfeeling little monster!”
“Don’t blame her too much, Yao,” she said, tears spilling down her face again. “She was brainwashed, and she loved all the power that came her way!”
“And she’s married to the king now?” I asked.
“No, they would get married six months from now when she turns twenty-two. Stool wives in our custom shouldn’t be below twenty-two years. So I’m here, watching that dreadful day drawing nearer, knowng my daughter would know only misery as that evil man’s wife, and yet not being able to do anything about it!”
I stayed still for a long time.
Suddenly, I heard drums and wild yells coming from the trees.
Maame Ntiriwaa got to her feet with sudden fear on her face.
“They’re coming, Yao!” she cried with fear. “Oh, because you’re with me, they’ll do their best to make you face the worst! Please, hurry up, get the money! They’ll be here to capture you! I wouldn’t be surprised if they take as much as two hundred cedis from you!”
I almost laughed.
She considered two hundred cedis the end of the world?
I washed my hands slowly and entered the room.
I rummaged into the secret compartment of the duffel bag, took my wallet, and stuffed it with a lot of fifty cedi notes.
When I emerged from the room I saw them, and I quailed inside. The fear shook me up a bit, yes, at the sight of them.
They came from the cocoa trees and rushed at the house. These were many men with hideously-painted faces. They were dressed in war regalia, and they were holding long-barrelled guns, spears, swords, machetes, spiked clubs, knives and a whole lot of weapons.
It was a most frightening sight!