Dial episode 38

DIAL
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Sequence 38
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At first, as I walked through the village trying to get my bearings, I was too consumed with rage against that royal princess to pay particular attention to my surroundings. However, gradually, my fury simmered down, and then I began to notice the decay and squalor around me.
This was indeed an impoverished village. Most of the clay buildings were crumbling and severely dilapidated. The children looked malnourished, to say the least. The women were worn-out, and the men mostly despondent. They stared at me as I walked, most of them not holding my gaze for long.
These were the same people who had pelted me with rotten fruits and vegetables, and poured stinking water on me, but now they stared at me with various looks of uncertainty.
I came upon a group of boys playing football, and asked one to direct me to the riverside.
He called his friends, and then they began to take me through the narrow paths, their faces excited. Sometimes the path passed right through a household, or through the kitchen of somebody. It was a way of life I had never seen in my life.
Eventually, we came to the grassy plains and they showed me the path that led to the riverside.
I brought out my wallet, unzipped an inner compartment, pulled out some ten-cedi notes, and counted them. They were ten, and I gave each of them ten cedis. Watching the incredulity on their faces, their stunned disbelief and great pleasure, I felt a warm glow spreading through me.
Here was a place where the smallest coin was a fortune, where the least show of generosity invoked the most remarkable and powerful response of gratitude. I wondered, for the very first time in my life, the amount of money I had wasted in my life chasing the space between the thighs of women, simply to put them on a self-glorifying list.
I sighed sadly and turned away from them.
But they did an amazing thing: they came at me, each of them, and they took my right hand and bowed low, murmuring words in their language. All of them, without exception, and once again I was touched deep down in me.
I smiled sadly at them and then I walked on to the side of the river. There were canoes on the banks of the river, but they were mostly unmanned. No surprise there, though. Most of the men were probably around the palace, obviously a part of the mob that had almost lynched me.
As I stood helplessly on the bank of the river, wondering how I was going to get across to the witch, and I guess that was when a plan began to occur to me. I stood quietly looking at the huge river, which served as their source of water for everything, and slowly my eye for detail and maximization took over, but this time in a purely unselfish manner.
Eventually a man approached a canoe, and got in. He was further down the river, but he rowed toward me with his long pole, and when he was near enough he stopped and looked at me.
“Do you want to cross?”
I nodded gratefully, and he motioned me over. I waded into the river, and then clambered into the canoe. He rolled gently across the expanse of the serene river, and then I sat quietly as my mind raced, and I worked out the angles my mind was taking me.
When he got to the other side he rowed forward until the sand stopped further ingress of the canoe.
“Thank you,” I said as I jumped out of the canoe, extending folded ten-cedi notes to him, but he shook his head sadly, and for a moment his lips trembled.
“I beg of you, please, please, help me!” he said, and I noticed the tears in his eyes.
I looked at him for the very first time. He was short and stout, muscular in a stocky kind of way. His head was bald, but his face had a full growth of grey beard. His face looked anguished indeed, and I scowled slightly at him.
The old Yao Biko wouldn’t have minded him. I would’ve dropped the folded money in the canoe and walked away. But not now, not today. I had almost been whipped by that crazy whip, and my back would’ve been a mess of flesh if that detestable Nana Bosomba hadn’t helped me.
I was old at twenty-six years, and I needed help that my wealth couldn’t buy. Suddenly, I was seeing another side of the world, a side where I knew a kind gesture went a whole way in alleviating deep-rooted pains.
“What is bothering you?” I asked quietly.
“Please, I was not at the palace, and I wasn’t part of the mob that came for you,” he said in an unstable voice. “I was at the Health Post. My daughter, my only child…she is just ten years old. She is sick, needs to be taken to the big hospital. They say he needs blood, and I have to pay. But I don’t have the money. Please, I heard of what you did today. I’m begging of you. Please, help me save my daughter’s life.”
I was used to dealing with a lot of people, and I knew just how much people might lie to get money, and so I scowled at him.
“Where is your daughter now?” I asked coldly.
“At the Health Post,” he said as a tear trickled down his cheek. “She’s Aba. My name is Tawiah.”
“My money is almost all used up,” I said quietly. “Can she wait till tomorrow morning?”
He nodded, almost violently.
“Yes, but she grows weak by the day,” he said.
“Tomorrow morning, meet me here,” I said slowly. “We’ll go and take a look at Aba.”
“Oh, thank you, sir, thank you so much!” he said, bowing low to me.
I nodded and turned away from him.
I went up the incline hurriedly, suddenly in a hurry to see that witch again. She had been really agitated when I was taken away, and yet she had not been able to follow because she was not allowed in the village.
She might be really agitated by now. And then I hit the cocoa trees, and as I moved along through the trees the image of Nana Bosomba came flooding my mind, and I surveyed my surroundings with a touch of curiosity, and I was convinced that yes, this was where that man had been standing.
So I stopped and turned round slowly, peering through the trees.
“Are you here?” I asked the emptiness. “You’re here, aren’t you? I know you’re here! Why don’t you come out?”
I was turning round as I spoke, and when I had gone round a full circle, I found a door standing there between two trees.
It wasn’t a building, not even a hut. It was just a door. Not a fancy door, but a simple brown door with a door-frame around it. It was not supported, and it was just standing there like that!
So I stopped and stared at the door, fighting the sudden fear that was threatening to engulf me. I could hear a great noise behind that door, as if something awful was approaching from the other side. It was indeed a very scary sound, and my lips went dry. For one wild moment I almost turned round and fled down the incline back to the river, but I steeled myself.
My palms were very wet, and my face perspired. My heart thudded with trepidation, and my legs buckled. It sounded like a great force was pounding toward that door, a horrible momentum that would crash everything in its path!
And then, just as I felt I couldn’t take it anymore, and was preparing to turn round and flee, the door opened from the other end, and then Nana Bosomba stepped out, dressed in exactly the way I had seen in that vision at the palace.
He took a step forward and stopped, and the door closed silently behind him. He looked at me with cold eyes.
“What do you want, Mr. Biko?” he asked calmly.
I was gasping for breath, fighting down my panic.
“Look at your head!” I said before I could stop myself. “You think you’re so wild! Do you know how badly you scared me?”
“My head?” he asked coldly. “Are you insulting my head, Mr. Biko?”
Well, that cleared my head pretty quickly, and I raised both hands in supplication.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, pleadingly. “Didn’t mean to insult you, Nana Bosomba. The sound behind that door scared me, that’s all. I’m sorry.”
He nodded and suddenly snapped his right hand, plucking a green apple from the air. He looked at it carefully, and then he bit into it. His eyes then came back to my face.
“Do you want an apple, Mr. Biko?” he asked calmly.
I shook my head in exasperation.
“Stop offering me apples, Nana Bosomba, please,” I said in a desperate voice. “I won’t eat your apples! Look at me, an old man at twenty-six years, when I had not eaten any apple from you! What will happen to me when I eat your apple?”
He chuckled and bit into his apple.
“Your process of growing old with more experience has nothing to do with my apples, Mr. Biko,” he said as he chewed.
I nodded, my eyes sad.
“And so, I’m still going to grow old and die,” I said softly.
“Yes, Mr. Biko, you’re growing old, and you will die soon,” he replied, bit several parts of the apple, and then he tossed it into the air.
“If you want me to die so quickly why did you intervene today?” I shouted at him, my heart suddenly weak with the sudden realization that indeed, this man had put a curse on me. “Why didn’t you let them lash me to death to appease your anger?”
“Akos demanded in her letter to me that I shouldn’t let you go through physical pain, Mr. Biko,” he said calmly. “I saved you because of the wishes of my daughter!”
“Because of her wishes?” I asked painfully. “Her wish was for you to release me! You didn’t do that! You cursed me instead! Please, Nana Bosomba, I’m so sorry about Akos and all the other things I did to those girls! Please forgive me and release me from this curse! Nana, please!”
He tossed the apple pith, and as always it disappeared in mid-air.
“Like I told you the other time, Mr. Biko, it is absolutely too late to feel sorry,” he said gently. “Just try to enjoy the rest of your days on earth, because you’re still growing with more experience, and you will die. Yes, you will die, Mr. Biko.”
The pain was like a hot iron in my chest.
Slowly, broken, I dropped to my knees on that forest floor and looked at him with a face ridden with remorse.
“Nana, I don’t wanna die, please!” I said, with my heart filled with real remorse. “I have come to realize that I did wrong, please! Yes, I was wrong in making love to Akos against her wishes! I was wrong in abandoning her when she was in her most vulnerable state! I am so sorry! Oh, I wish I could show you my heart, and let you see how sorry I am! Being in this village has changed my perceptions so much! Please, I have genuinely regretted, and I wish I could have done something to save Akos! Please, forgive me!”
He snapped, and another apple appeared in his hand. He brought it to his lips, hesitated, and then threw it angrily away. This time it didn’t disappear in mid-air, but it hit a cocoa tree and split into to.
His eyes, when he looked at me, were filled with unrestrained rage, and when he spoke real smoke billowed out of his ears, and for a wild moment I saw flames of fire in his eyes.
“You don’t fail to amaze me, Mr. Biko!” he said, and a burst of yellow flame leapt out of his mouth. “Even now, when you’re so pathetic and broken, when indeed your heart is filled with remorse, you still made no mention of your silly Dial List! You’re sorry, yes, but not sorry enough to see the vanity and vexation of keeping your damn list! Even now, it is of prior importance to you! Even now, you idolize it like a sort of god! And your inability to let go of your damn shrine, your fetish, is what will send you to your grave!”
I couldn’t speak again.
The tears of remorse fell down my cheeks as he turned away from me, opened that strange door, and passed into its black corridor…and then as I blinked, the door vanished.
I remained on my knees in deep despair, and then a figure slowly emerged from behind another cocoa tree.
It was Maame Ntiriwaa. She was dressed in a nice flowered dress, and she came slowly toward me with a stunned, scared face.
She stopped and looked down at me with horror.
“Was that the man who cursed you?” she asked in a horrified voice.
I nodded without speaking.
She reached down, grabbed my arm, and pulled me up to my feet.
She saw the tears raining down my face.
“Oh, Yao,” she whispered gently. “Do not cry. Don’t worry. Everything will be alright.”
She put her arms around me and hugged me tightly.
Strong arms, the arms of a mother, the shoulders of an angel.
I was already emotionally frayed, and as she hugged me I held her, and my heart opened. I couldn’t control the tears…they flowed serenely enough down my cheeks, but they were filled with rancid pain!