Sankofa

by Chibundu Onuzo

  When he is gone, I check my in-box and see a new message.

  Dear Ms. Bain,

  Thank you for getting in touch. That would certainly be a historical find. Kofi, or Francis, as he was known then, was privy to the inner circle of prominent black intellectuals and nationalists living in London at the time. I myself knew him while he was a student.

  I would have to read the contents of the diary to judge if it were an original. Even then, it might be a carefully doctored fake. These hoaxes have been known to exist.

  Perhaps we could arrange a meeting, if you were willing to visit Edinburgh? Where are you based?

  Regards,

  Adrian

  10

  My train was scheduled to depart at 7:00 a.m. I left home at 5:30, when the street was still dark. There were sensors outside most houses and lights flashed on as I walked past, set off by my movement. On the tube workmen slumped in a row, orange high-vis jackets powdered with construction dust. Two were awake and speaking softly in Polish.

  In King’s Cross Station travelers stood with their heads tilted up to the electronic boards. My platform was not displayed. I bought a coffee and a pastry. Still no platform. I hovered in the aisles of WHSmith, stepping aside for more decisive customers. Finally, I chose a magazine with a maturing cover girl, more vigorous than youthful. Platform 7.

  The carriage was warm, my window seat narrow. At 7:00 the train jerked forward. We sped past empty glass buildings, open-plan floors, vacant desks. There were apartment blocks painted in primary colors, designed by architects who obviously enjoyed playing with Lego. I saw bicycles on balconies, a naked face at a bathroom window, stacks of council housing, shopkeepers rolling up metal grilles, a boy in a hoodie pedaling sharply around a corner. Moments later, we burst out of London and into brown fields where trees and pylons dominated the skyline.

  I searched flights to Bamana on my phone; prices began at seven hundred pounds with an eight-hour layover in Istanbul. Decent hotels—hotels with clean bathrooms and fresh linen, hotels with three-star reviews and above—started at a hundred pounds a night. I might be able to afford it all with a credit card. Three weeks was how long I imagined I would need to find Francis/Kofi, to meet him, to establish some sort of relationship.

  I looked down at the magazine. It was wrapped in a plastic film that would choke a dolphin in six months. For every page of content, there were at least two of adverts. Mixed-race models abounded, our khaki skin en vogue now. I was once as pretty as these girls, prettier perhaps, but without knowing it. I was born before my time.

  The cover woman was a pop star from the eighties, now retired to the countryside. They had photographed her in her garden with loose clothing and minimal makeup. Beside this was a smaller picture of her on stage, twenty years younger and wearing a leotard. Even with no one watching, she was still reinventing herself.

  I leaned my head against the glass. The windowpane would flatten one side of my hair. I would need to fluff it up with my fingers before we reached Edinburgh.

  I had stopped straightening my hair when Rose went to secondary school. Robert was shocked by my new curls, not quite an afro in the round mushroom style, but still too thick for him to run his hands through when we had sex. He grew to love it, he said, even though it meant people stopped asking if his wife was Mediterranean.

  I woke to rain falling soundlessly. Droplets raced across the window. The view of scraped fields was blurred. I had a one o’clock appointment with Adrian Bennett, professor of postcolonial history at the University of Edinburgh. He had written other books. He had married and had two children. He had taught at Harvard and spent a year at Makarere in Uganda. There was a photograph of him on the university website, squinting and silver-haired, and an e-mail address.

  After his first response, I suggested a meeting time. He replied by asking about my university affiliation. Professor Bennett, it seemed, had become cautious in his old age: not the Adrian of his memoir, held at gunpoint by a Bamanaian police officer on suspicion of being a spy. I told him I was an “independent researcher of Welsh and Bamanaian origin.” I hinted at a possible family connection to Kofi. The date and time were fixed.

  In the week leading up to our meeting, I returned to the British Library. I went to church with Katherine but left before the sermon. I watched a YouTube video of Kofi Adjei speaking at some sort of rally in 1988, a decade into his rule. He was flamboyantly dressed: gold buttons, silk pocket square, and a leopard-skin hat angled forward. The crowd cheered after almost every sentence, stopping only when he raised his hands to quiet them.

  I read Amnesty International reports and looked at its human rights rankings. Bamana’s position was nearer North Korea’s than Sweden’s. Freedom of speech was a flexible concept. Outspoken journalists were regularly detained. I reread Kofi’s Wikipedia page and lingered at the section titled “Controversies.”

  In May 1988 five student activists, known as the Kinnakro Five, were shot dead on the campus of the Kinnakro University of Science and Technology after agitating for President Adjei to resign. It has been alleged that Adjei is linked to their deaths, although he has never been charged and no evidence has been brought forward.

  I clicked on Kinnakro Five. Their brief entry began with a disclaimer: Additional citations required for verification. Someone had pasted their head shots into one photograph: five close-ups that looked like mug shots. They seemed young to have been in university—only one had a beard, the rest as hairless as my palms. They were shot at close range in the dorm room of Patrick Dumelo, their leader. Three of them had bullet wounds to the head, faces mutilated, closed-casket funerals. The authorities said it was an armed robbery. Nothing was stolen, not even the brand-new Walkman that Patrick’s uncle had sent him from Hamburg.

  The man in the diary was my father and the man on Wikipedia was also my father. If he had done what the internet alleged, then he was to be feared, not sought out. I was repelled by Kofi and drawn to Francis.

  Eighteen months ago, I would not have traveled so far to meet a man who had known Francis Aggrey. Eighteen months ago, I was Robert’s wife, and that came with its own preoccupations, an entire set of people and holidays and activities that I now see had everything to do with Robert and nothing to do with me. But there was an Anna Bain before there was an Anna Graham, perhaps the real Anna, the interrupted Anna who had always been curious about her father, maybe even desperate for him. And who was this Anna, hurtling towards Edinburgh? Anna unrooted and untethered, free and lost as a balloon in the sky.

  The train broke into some sunshine. We were by the coast. A lone figure walked on a beach. A dog ran ahead. Beside me the snacks trolley rolled past in the aisle.

  “Welcome to Edinburgh Waverley. Please remember to take all your belongings with you as you leave the train. We wish you a pleasant onward journey.”

  The station is named for a novel by Sir Walter Scott, a historical romance. The streets are paved with cobblestones: beautiful to look at, impractical for modern transport. I bounce in the back of my taxi. I cannot understand my driver’s accent. I let him keep the change.

  I stand at the cafeteria entrance watching the student life drift in and out. The fare is better than I remember from my own time at university—a salad bar, five dessert options, gluten-free, Halal, vegan, and the price of all this choice written in bold. Everyone knows what to do. They pick up trays, read menus, queue and pay, only briefly looking up from their phones. I walk around until I see Adrian seated in a window booth. I recognize the silver hair. I draw closer.

  “Anna?” he asks.

  I can still walk past.

  “I beg your pardon. I’m expecting an Anna Bain.”

  “I’m Anna. Are you Professor Bennett?”

  “Adrian is fine.”

  He stands to shake my hand. He is tall and his belly is flat under the checked shirt tucked into his dark jeans. He rises with ease and his grip is strong.

  “I hope you had a pleasant trip fro
m London. Will you be staying long?”

  “I leave this evening,” I say.

  “In your e-mail you mentioned some family business?”

  “This is it.”

  “Of course. You have a family connection to Francis,” he says. “Can I offer you anything? A cup of tea or a coffee?”

  “No, thank you.”

  A herd of students walk past, braying at a joke. I bring out the diary and place it on the table. His eyes shift to the book. He leans forward but does not touch it.

  “So you found this in your mother’s possession? What was your mother’s relation to Francis, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “He was a lodger. My grandfather was his landlord,” I say.

  “Does Francis mention me in the diary? Is that why you contacted me?”

  “Partly. And I read your book on Bamana.”

  “May I?”

  I nod, and he picks up Francis Aggrey’s book. He opens it gently, like it might crumble. I look around. In an opposite booth, a boy and girl eat hunched forward, watching a single screen.

  “This is remarkable.” He is scanning those arresting opening lines. “How did you say your mother came by it?”

  “They were friends.”

  “May I take photographs? I’ll need more than a glance to make a judgment. I would not reproduce it, or even allude to it, without your express permission.”

  I will have to trust Adrian because he knew my father both as a student and as prime minister. He can tell me more than I can tell him.

  “Yes. That should be fine,” I say.

  We take the lift to his office. It is a large box on the fourth floor. There are books on the shelves, on the carpet, on his table, even on the windowsill, blocking out the sunlight.

  “Excuse the mess. Please have a seat. Now, where did I put my camera?”

  I sit, and he moves around me, opening and shutting drawers, crouching to look under the table. His haunches are firm against his jeans but when he tries to rise from all fours, he falters and his knees stay on the ground. I look away until he stands.

  “I’m so sorry. It must be at home. Will you wait while I go and look? Or perhaps you could come with me and have some tea. It’s only a ten-minute walk and it would be more comfortable there than here.” His manner is scrupulously polite. A gentleman, my mother would have called him. “A toff” would have been Aunt Caryl’s description.

  I am surprised that he is so trusting. The diary might be fake, a trap to lure him to some disaster. But he is male. He ignored all those warnings about strangers.

  “Sure,” I say.

  Outside, it is cold but the sun has come out.

  “Edinburgh is an ancient city. There have been people living here for thousands of years.”

  He speaks like a tour guide projecting to the back of the group.

  “This street is called Cowgate, because in the old days farmers used to bring their cattle to the city via this road.”

  He has assumed that I am interested, and I am, in his obvious enthusiasm. I look at the street properly and see it is not meant for human proportions but for cattle, marching ten-deep, raising dust as they pass on their way to slaughter.

  He lives in a town house behind a red door, the brightest one on the street. We step into a faint must of old paper. In the hallway there are shoes piled in a small pyramid.

  “Shall I take off my shoes?” I ask.

  “No, never mind that. Please. This way.”

  The living room is south-facing and flooded with light. There are books here also, enough to run a small lending library. Logs are cut and stacked by the fireplace. An entire wall is lined with wooden masks. They should be seen by a steady procession of guests. Perhaps this is why he has brought me to his home, to admire his collection. He follows my gaze.

  “Mostly from West Africa,” he says. “Some even from Bamana.”

  “Which ones?”

  “This one here.” He steps forward and touches it. I remember Francis Aggrey’s words about sacred objects handled by the uninitiated. “Harvest mask, circa 1940,” he continues, his fingers pale against the dark grain of the wood. “Look at the mouth, the deep ‘o’ for hunger that is about to be filled . . . and this is a wedding mask; same group that made it. Notice the eyes, the slits not so narrow, almost semicircles, happy eyes. They are very complex. Small movements in the wood can change the expression. This is what Picasso grasped immediately. Please, do sit down.”

  I choose a leather armchair that seems perfect for reading.

  “What was Francis like?” I ask, before Adrian can launch into another lecture.

  “I knew him better as a student. He was reserved back then. Obviously intelligent, but almost shy. When I met him again in Bamana, after he had become prime minister, I was surprised by how outgoing he had become. It made me wonder: which was the real person?” he says. “Let’s get you something to drink.”

  He is a practiced host. He offers tea, biscuits, and serves them on a tray. The teacup matches its saucer; the biscuits are arranged on a gold-rimmed plate and there are silver tongs for the small, white sugar cubes. These are feminine details, but there has been no mention of a wife. He forgets his search for a camera and sits by a desk in the corner. There is a notepad and a pen already set out, and as he turns the pages of the diary, he jots things down.

  There is no television in the room. When my tea grows cold, I walk to a shelf that touches the ceiling and read the titles. African books by African authors: One Man, One Machete, The Joys of Motherhood, God’s Bits of Wood. I stop at Bessie Head because the name sounds English. When Rain Clouds Gather. I read the introduction. She was like me. White mother, black father, but in a worse place to be colored. The opening pages are strong so I take the book back to the sofa.

  “I don’t believe this,” Adrian says.

  “What?”

  “I think I was present at this lecture. Listen.”

  “Yesterday, I heard Margery Perham lecturing on decolonization in West Africa at the Royal African Society. There were a few other Africans in attendance and afterwards they clustered around her. She is a collector of African students, Thomas tells me. Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Danquah, Appiah: she knew them all when they were ambitious young men in London and, even now, can call the state house in Accra and ask for a favor. I don’t care for the Margery Perhams of this world. My maternal great-grandfather was a sheikh who walked from Togo to Mecca and, on the way home, stopped in Segu and never left. It is he who should be lecturing here, explaining West Africa to these obroni. I said this to Thomas and he replied, ‘Finally. You are waking up.’”

  “I was there,” he says. “I was in the room. Incredible. And who knew Thomas Phiri was so important to Francis.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Well, Thomas was rather a second-rate fellow. Pompous, a bit of a hanger-on really, but I suppose Francis, as a newcomer to our circle, wouldn’t have been able to tell.”

  “Your circle?” I ask.

  “Yes, the British left. Socialists. A few Communists.”

  “Who else was important to him? Did he have any lovers?”

  “Lovers?” He is puzzled by the question. As if I have asked for Francis’s shoe size. “I wouldn’t know about that. I doubt it. He was a very buttoned-up fellow in England. Although, you never know. He was handsome.”

  Adrian returns to the diary and I return to my novel, set in an arid place, dotted with dry bushes and thirsty cattle. Time passes until I look up and see the sun is setting. Adrian has not moved. There is no camera. Perhaps there never was. All he wanted was to work at his desk.

  “I’m sorry to stop you but I must catch the train back to London. Will you take photographs of what’s left?” I say.

  “To be honest, I hate those things. You take the pictures and then work out how to get them onto your laptop, before finally opening the thing up and discovering you can’t read the fine print no matter how much you zoom in. You could
spend the night, if you wish. I’ll have finished by tomorrow morning. I’m just about halfway.”

  “I don’t have any nightclothes,” I say.

  “There are spares.”

  I do not want to disappoint him after his excess hospitality, but I have not planned to spend the night in Edinburgh. My deliberation is obvious.

  “I’m sorry, I got carried away. Reading Francis’s diary has reminded me of my first time in Bamana. Nineteen seventy-eight. I traveled alone for the most part when I was outside the capital. Sleeping in strangers’ homes was the norm. I would ride till evening and stop when I saw huts. Every night I thought my luck would run out and the villagers would leave me out in the bush . . . but it never happened. There was always room for one more.”

  “I’ll go tomorrow morning,” I say.

  “No, please. You mustn’t do anything you don’t feel comfortable with.”

  “I’m very comfortable sitting here with Bessie Head.”

  Adrian makes dinner. The kitchen is warm, heated by underfloor pipes. His pots and pans hang on the wall, copper finish, gleaming like parts of a gamelan. He works from scratch, filleting the fish, peeling the potatoes, dicing the vegetables. It is like watching a cookery show. He moves around with practiced ease, using sharp tools and chatting at the same time. Steam rises and fogs the windows. Oil sizzles when the plaice is laid in the pan, skin down. I offer to help. He shrugs me away.

  “Tell me about your life in London,” he says.

  “I live alone. I have a daughter who is very busy with her work. My husband and I are separated. Is there a Mrs. Bennett?”

  “She died last year.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say. “Have you been back to Bamana since you wrote the book?”

  “Just once. In 1984 Francis invited me to be part of a government-sponsored arts festival. Music, dancing, culture, literature—everything and nothing. I hardly saw him. There were too many rings of bureaucracy by then. Bear in mind, on my first visit, I stayed with him and his wife whenever I was in the capital.”