No Sweetness Here and Other Stories

by Ama Ata Aidoo

  ‘Her spirit was gone.’

  Certainly it was her son who drove it away. And then Mansa left with her soul.

  ‘Have you ever seen Chicha Ato’s lady-wife?’

  No. We hear they had a church wedding. But Auntie Araba did not put her feet there. And he never brought her to Ofuntumase.

  ‘Maybe the two of them may come here today?’

  I don’t see how he can fail to come. But she, I don’t know. Some of these ladies will not set foot in a place like this for fear of getting dirty.

  ‘Hmmm . . . it is their own cassava! But do you think Mansa will come and wail for Auntie Araba?’

  My sister, if you have come, do you think Mansa will not?

  Other Versions

  The whole thing had started after the school certificate exams. Instead of going straight home, I had stayed in town to work. This was going to be my first proper meeting with the town and when I sent the letter home announcing my intentions, I felt a little strange. Bekoe and I were going to stay in a small room in his uncle’s house. The room was like a coffin but who cared? We found a job as sorting hands in the Post Office. I’ve forgotten how much they were paying us. Really it’s strange . . . but I have. Anyway, it was something like twelve pounds. Either it started at fourteen pounds and then with the deductions leaned out to twelve-’n’-something or it was twelve with no taxes. But I remember twelve. Bekoe told me that his uncle was not expecting us to pay anything for the room and that he had even instructed his wife to give us three meals a day for free. I say, this was very kind of him. Because you know what? Some people would have insisted on our paying. They would have said it would help us get experienced at budgeting in the future. And in fact we later discovered that the wife didn’t have it in mind to feed us free like that. After the first week, she hinted it would be nice if we considered contributing something. She was not charging us for the meals. No, she was just asking us to contribute something. We agreed on three pounds each. We also thought Bekoe shouldn’t tell his uncle this. Not that Bekoe would have told on her anyway. He knew nephews and nieces have been able to break up marriages. Ei, he didn’t want any trouble. Besides his mother would have killed him for it. His mother is a fierce trader and I know her. She could easily have slapped him and later boasted it around the market how she had beaten up her son who was finishing five years in college!

  Anyhow, that was three pounds off the pay. Then there was this business of the blazer. I mean the school blazer I wanted to buy. It cost ten pounds and Father had made it quite clear that he considered his duty by me done when he paid my fees for the last term. How could I go to him with a blazer case? So I thought I would keep four pounds by every month towards that. We were going to work for three months. That was the only time we could have in the long vacation. You see, we both wanted to go to the sixth form. Well, if I was able to set by this four pounds every month, I would have two pounds over after I had bought it. And I could use this to look after myself until our pocket money from the government came.

  Then I remembered what Mother had told me. I remembered her telling me one day that any time I got my first pay, I was to take something home. Part of this would be used to buy gin to pour libation to the spirits of our forefathers so they would come and bless me with prosperity. That was why the first Saturday after pay-day, I went to the lorry park and took The Tailless Animal. As for that lorry, eh! I was not surprised to read in Araba’s letter the other day that Anan, its owner and driver, has bought a bus. Anyone would, after the two of them had for years literally owned what was to their right and to their left in the way of passengers.

  Of course, I had always thought this money would go to Mother. And so see, how do you think I felt when, in a private discussion with her the afternoon I arrived, she told me it would be better if I gave it to Father? I had decided on four pounds here, too, reserving the last pound for regular spending. Anyway, the moment the money fell into her hand she burst into tears.

  ‘Ao, I too am coming to something in this world. Who would have thought it? I never slept to dream that I shall live to see a day like this. . . . Now I too have got my own man who will take care of me. . . .’ You know how women carry on when they mean to? She even knelt down to say a prayer of thanks to God and at that point I left the room. Yes, and after all this business she didn’t take the silly money.

  ‘Hand it over to your father. He will certainly buy a bottle of gin and pour some to the ancestors. Then I will ask him to give me about ten shillings to buy some yam and eggs for Sunday. . . .’

  ‘That should leave at least three clear pounds,’ I thought aloud.

  ‘Listen my master, does it matter if your father has three pounds of your pay? It does not matter, I am telling you. Because then they shall not be able to say you have not given him anything since you started working.’

  ‘But Mother, I am not starting work permanently.’

  ‘And what do you mean?’

  ‘Mother, I have done an examination. If I pass very well, I shall go to school again.’

  ‘Ah, and were you not the one who made me understand that you would finish after five years?’

  ‘Yes, but the government asks those who do very well to continue.’

  ‘And does the government pay their fees too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then that is good because I do not think your father would like to pay any more fees for you. Anyway, it does not matter about the money. You give it to him. His people do not know all these things about the government asking you to continue. What they know is that you are working.’

  God!

  I hadn’t thought of giving anything of that sort. Certainly not that soon. . . . However, Sunday came and I ate the oto mother prepared with the yam and palm oil. I ate it with some of the eggs to congratulate my soul. Then I went to say goodbye to people, and Mother took me up to the mouth of the road. Being a Sunday, we thought it would be useless to wait for The Tailless Animal to wander in. Because it simply wouldn’t. It did that only on the weekdays.

  And I was to realise that I hadn’t heard the last of the money business. Mother thought it would be good if I continued to give that ‘little something’ to Father as long as I worked.

  ‘Ho, Father?’

  ‘Yes. You know he has done very well. Taking you through college. Now, giving him something would not only show your gratitude but also go towards your sisters’ fees.’

  Ei, I say, have you heard a story like this before? I tell you, eh, I caught a fever in the raw. But Mother was still talking.

  ‘I had thought of a nice dignified something like five pounds. But you brought four this time and maybe it will be better to maintain just that.’

  ‘And how much do I give you?’

  ‘Me?’ She sounded quite shocked – ‘why should you bring me anything? I do not need your money. All I want is for you to be happy and you shall not be if they say you are bad. And do you think I am an old fool to ask you for money? If you give that to your father, you will be doing a lot. Say you will do it, Kofi.’

  ‘I shall do it, Mother,’ I parroted.

  I had a dazed feeling for the rest of the journey and the whole day. I just could not figure it out. To begin with, whose child was I? Why should I have to pay my father for sending me to school? And calling that ‘college’ did not help me either. Besides he only paid half the fees, since the Cocoa Brokers’ Union, of which he is a member, had given me a scholarship to cover the other half. And anyway, Father. He is the kind of parent who checks out lists so thoroughly you would think his life depends upon them. And he doesn’t mind which kind either. Textbook lists? ‘Hei, didn’t I buy you a dictionary last year?’ The lists of provisions you needed to survive the near-starvation diet in a boarding school? ‘And whom are you going to feed with a dozen Heinz baked beans?’

  Well, you know them. In fact from talking to people you learn that most fathers are like that and that’s the only nice thing about it. Anyway
Father is surely like that. It was a battle he and I fought at the beginning of every term. Once when Mother didn’t know I was within earshot I heard her telling my little aunt that Father always feels through his coins for the ones which have gone soft to give away! Don’t laugh. It’s not very funny when you are his son. So you see why I got so mad to have Mother talk to me in that way? And the main thing was, it wasn’t the money I was giving away which hurt me. It was the idea of Father getting it. I had always thought of making a small allowance for Mother from the moment I started working. I was the third child. My two older brothers were all working but married and couldn’t care much about the rest of us. There were two girls after me, then one other boy. Father pays the fees and complains all the time. Mother gets us clothes and feeds us too because the three pounds he gives for our chop-money is a nice joke. Mother peddles cloth but I know she is not the fat rich market type – say, like Bekoe’s mother. In the villages you always have to settle for instalments and money comes in in such miserable bits someone like Mother with four children just spends every penny of her profit as it comes. It is her favourite saying that she sells cloth for the fish-and-cassava women. There is always a threat of her eating into her capital. And naturally, it was of her I had thought in terms of any money-giving I was going to do.

  But I obeyed her. I sent four pounds to Father at the end of the remaining months and each time just about burst up. ‘Why not Mother? Why not Mother?’ I kept asking myself. It drove me wild.

  Well, we went to the sixth form. And of course Father realised I was still in school. He was quite proud of me too. He always managed to let slip into conversations with other men how Kofi was planning to go to the Unifartisy. Oh, it was fine as long as he was not paying. . . .

  I passed higher and with lots of distinctions. I stopped working at my holiday jobs to get ready to go to our national University. And then I met Mr. Buntyne, who had been our chemistry teacher. He asked me if I would be interested in a scholarship for an American University. He knew a business syndicate. They were looking out for especially bright young people to help. They had not had an African yet. But he was sure they would be interested. Of course I applied. There were endless forms to fill out but I got the scholarship. And I came here.

  Somehow I never forgot the money for Mother. I told myself that I would do something about that the first thing after graduation. Perhaps it is the way she genuinely thinks she does not need my earnings that much which makes me want to do something for her. I’ve even thought of finding a vacation job here to do so I can send some of my pay home with express instructions that it is for her. But that I know will distress her no end. Better still, I planned to save as much money as I could so I could take her about forty pounds or even four hundred to do something with. Like building a house ‘for you children’ as she always put it. . . .

  And then somehow this thing happened. It was the very first month I came. I was invited by Mr. Merrows to go and have dinner with him and his family. He is either the chairman of this syndicate which brought me here or certainly one of its top men. They came to pick me up from the campus to their house. Oh, to be sure, it was a high and mighty hut. Everything was perfect. There were other guests besides the Merrows family. The food was gorgeous but the main course for the evening was me. What did I think of America? How did I plan to use this unique opportunity in the service of Africa? How many wives did my father have? etc., etc., etc.

  I had assumed that everyone in the household was there at the dinner table. Mrs. Merrows kept popping in and out of the kitchen serving the food. And as I’ve said before, the food was really very good. Everyone complimented her on it and she smiled and gave the wives the recipes for this and that.

  A couple of hours after the meal, Mr. Merrows proposed to take me back to the campus because it was getting late. I agreed. I said my thanks and good-nights and followed Mr. Merrows to the door. I waited for him while he pulled out the car from the garage. He asked me to jump in and I did. But then he left his seat, leaving the engine running and returned some five or ten minutes later followed by someone. It turned out to be a black woman. You know what sometimes your heart does? Mine did that just then. Kind of turned itself round in a funny way. Mr. Merrows opened the back seat for her and said,

  ‘Kofi, Mrs. Hye helps us with the cooking sometimes and since I am taking you back anyway, I thought I could take her at least half her way. Mrs. Hye, Kofi is from Africa.’

  In the car she and I smiled nervously at each other. . . . I tried not to feel agitated.

  But then was it the next evening or two? I don’t even remember.

  I was returning again to the campus from visiting a boy I knew back at home and whom I had met the first few days I arrived. I took the subway. When the train pulled up at the station, I got into the car nearest to me. It looked empty. I sat down. Then I raised my eyes and realised there was someone else in it. There was a black woman sitting to the left end of the opposite seat.

  Another black woman.

  Now I can’t tell whether she really was old or just middle-aged. She certainly was not young. I realised I had to be careful or I would be staring. She was just normal black with a buttony mouth, pretty deep-set eyes and an old black handbag. Somehow I noticed the bag. She was wearing the lined raincoat affair which everyone wears around here in the autumn. Except that I felt hers was too thin for that time of night.

  That time of night.

  I got to thinking of what a woman her age would be wanting in a subway car that time of night. I don’t know why but immediately I remembered the other one who had been in the Merrows’ kitchen while they ate and I ate. Then I started getting confused. I can swear the woman knew I was trying not to stare. She most probably knew too that I was thinking about her. Anyway, I don’t know what made me. But I drew out my wallet. I had received money from my scholarship. So I took some dollar bills, crumpled them in my hand and jumped like one goaded with a firebrand.

  ‘Eh . . . eh . . . I come from Africa and you remind me of my mother. Please would you take this from me?’

  And all the time, I was trying hard not to stare.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  I’m not sure I really heard these words above the din. But I know she patted the space by her. The train was pulling up at a station.

  ‘You say you come from Africa?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘What are you doing here, son?’ she asked.

  ‘A student,’ I replied shortly.

  ‘Son, keep them dollars. I sure know you need them more than I do,’ she said. Of course, she was Mother. And so there was no need to see. But now I could openly look at her beautiful face. I got out at the stop. She waved to me and smiled. I stood there on the platform until the engine had wheezed and raged out of sight. I looked at the money which was still in my hand. I felt like opening them out; I did. There was one ten-dollar bill and two single ones. Twelve dollars. Then it occurred to me that that was as near to four pounds as you could get. It was not a constriction in the throat. Rather, the dazed feeling I had had that Sunday afternoon on the high road to town came back. And as I stumbled through the exit, and up the stairs, I heard myself mutter, ‘O Mother.’

  AFTERWORD

  Telling Stories and Transforming Postcolonial Society

  Ketu H. Katrak

  Storytelling, History, Kinship

  I come from a people who told stories. . . . My mother ‘talks’ stories and sings songs. . . . [She] is definitely a direct antecedent. Having my daughter Kinna has also influenced my writing. . . . My mother has been a tower of strength (Interview with Aidoo; James 1990, 19–20).

  Ama Ata Aidoo’s work as creative artist, cultural worker, teacher, and thinker makes significant contributions to African literature and culture. Her diverse literary achievements in drama, poetry, fiction, and essays illuminate struggles and triumphs facing women and men in their post-independence Ghanaian society. Aidoo is a creative wri
ter who believes ardently that telling stories and reciting poems can inspire social change. Her vision is historic, committed to black peoples in Africa and the diaspora, as well as feminist. Aidoo casts a probing though sympathetic eye on colonial history and postcolonial realities, on her people’s ancient traditions and the dubious paradoxes of modernization. Her work represents how the personal and the intimate are as political as public discussions of law and nation. “Even in terms of the relationship between a man and a woman,” she remarks, “the factors that affect the relationship are very often outside of themselves; they have to do with social structure, with economics, with political reality” (Modebe 1991, 40).

  Aidoo’s artistic and social commitments unfold seamlessly and are rooted in her personal family history. Christened Christina Ama Ata Aidoo, she was born on March 23, 1942, in Abeadzi Kyiakor in Ghana’s central region. Aidoo acknowledges that her mother shared a rich heritage of “talking” stories with her daughter. She first “heard” what later became Anowa, a drama, in the form of a song that her mother sang. “Looking back to my parentage,” Aidoo remarks, “I think I come from a long line of fighters. . . . I have always been interested in the destiny of our people. . . . I am one of these writers whose writings cannot move too far from their political involvement” (James 1990, 13–14). Her paternal grandfather was “tortured to death in a colonial prison for being ‘an insolent African’”; and her father supported Kwame Nkrumah and believed that, “‘above all, a nation should educate its women’” (quoted in Allan 1993, 191). Aidoo had first heard Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey’s famous statement from her father, “If you educate a man, you educate an individual. If you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” Her father was very keen that Aidoo receive an education “in spite of the prevailing bias,” notes Allan, “against schooling for girls” (192). Aidoo attended the Wesley Girls’ High School at Cape Coast where her writerly bent was encouraged by an English teacher, Barbara Bowman, whose gift of an Olivetti typewriter was most valuable to the aspiring young writer.