Yellowbone

by Ekow Duker

  Mrs Summerscales phoned him every morning and sometimes in the evening as well. She began every call with the same peremptory enquiry.

  ‘Well, Potgieter? Have you found her?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Summerscales.’ He repeated what one of the immigration officers had said to him: ‘Accra is a very big city. Karabo could be anywhere by now.’

  ‘Nonsense! I looked it up. It’s no bigger than a hamlet.’

  A muted chorus of car horns crept through the plate glass window, an unwelcome reminder of the tangled snarl of the city’s traffic.

  ‘I think it’s a lot larger than that.’

  ‘Let’s not argue over definitions. Have you been to the police station?’

  He’d been to the police headquarters twice already. He’d taken Mrs Summerscales’ advice and gone ‘straight to the top’. The police headquarters on the Ring Road was a squat, yellowing building with vertical concrete pillars strapped across the façade. André had spent hours there sitting in slow-moving queues, only to end up each time at the wrong desk.

  André suppressed a groan. ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I opened a case.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I also filled out a missing person’s form.’

  Mrs Summerscales snorted with displeasure. ‘What on earth for, Potgieter? Your job was to find and bring back the Guadagnini, not to engineer a reunion with Karabo.’

  It annoyed him that she insisted on calling him by his surname as if he were a servant. But he held his tongue and answered her as evenly as he could.

  ‘When we find Karabo, Mrs Summerscales, we’re sure to find the Guadagnini as well.’

  ‘That’s if she’s still got it. Did you put up wanted posters like I told you to?’

  Accra was festooned with posters, some bold and pristine and many more faded with age. They were pasted on gates and walls and hung from lamp posts like tattered flags. They advertised everything from lessons in computer literacy to militant church crusades. The most popular seemed to be potions guaranteed to bring about dramatic weight loss or an increase in the length of a man’s penis.

  ‘This isn’t the wild west,’ he said. ‘I can’t just go around putting up posters willy-nilly.’

  Mrs Summerscales fell silent for several moments and when she spoke again there was a slight tremor in her voice. ‘I suppose you’re right. I hope you know your trip is costing me a lot of money.’

  ‘Give me a few more days,’ André said. ‘I’ll go to the British High Commission tomorrow. They must have some influence here.’

  The next morning he tried to argue his way into the British High Commission in Ridge. The guard at the gate took one look at his South African passport and told him to take his grievance to the South African Embassy.

  ‘This, Britain. You, South Africa,’ the guard insisted. He addressed André in the same truncated manner, devoid of extraneous verbs and prepositions, in which André himself spoke to the locals.

  André had left his British passport in London and now he felt oddly naked without it. He’d thought, and Mrs Summerscales had concurred, that his South African passport would be more useful in Ghana. It was Africa, after all. A small interested crowd had soon gathered around them and André fled to his car, feeling utterly humiliated.

  ‘Where to?’ the driver asked.

  He was an elderly man by the name of Bediako. He had attached himself to André from the very first day with the genial persistence of a friendly neighbour. He appeared every morning as soon as André stepped out of the hotel, calling out to him as he had just now.

  ‘Where to, boss?’

  The Daihatsu was so small, André was forced to sit with his head bowed. But he had grown strangely fond of the old man and bore the cramped interior with uncharacteristic patience.

  Bediako’s hand rested on the ignition key but he did not start the engine.

  ‘Was the guard worrying you?’

  ‘He said I’m not British when I am,’ André replied bitterly. ‘He said to go to the South African Embassy.’

  Bediako sighed in solidarity. ‘Oh, these people! Once they put on uniform, they change. They use their power by heart.’

  ‘By heart?’ André asked. ‘What do you mean?’

  Bediako gestured as if he were scattering seeds wantonly about him. ‘Anyhow. They use their power anyhow.’ He started the car and waited for André’s confirmation.

  ‘South African Embassy?’

  André nodded glumly. It had rained earlier that morning and a fine mist hung in the air. The rain had shaken the flowers from the trees and dressed the grass verge in brilliant red and yellow petals. He was beginning to despair of ever finding Karabo. At the South African Embassy, however, the official he spoke to listened to him with some sympathy.

  ‘The best I can do, Mr Potgieter, is pass your details on to Karabo. That is, if she ever comes here to register.’

  ‘Do you think she will?’

  He was not surprised when the woman shook her head. ‘If she has stolen this violin, as you say, it’s unlikely she’ll ever come here.’ Then she smiled in an effort to cheer André up. ‘But you never know. There aren’t that many South Africans in Accra.’

  ‘Her father is Ghanaian.’

  ‘Ah,’ the woman said. ‘That makes it a little tricky then.’

  He didn’t ask her what she meant by that. He thanked her and went back to the taxi where Bediako was waiting.

  ‘We are not lucky today,’ the old man declared sadly when he saw the dejection on André’s face. He had taken on the quest to find Karabo and the Guadagnini as if it were his own.

  ‘I will have to leave in a day or two,’ André said.

  ‘You can’t go just like that!’ Bediako cried, his mouth agape in dismay. ‘Things take time in Ghana. We have to be patient.’

  ‘I realise that,’ André said, ‘but I can’t stay here forever. I have a job in London I must get back to.’

  ‘So you’ll leave the Gandini here? In Ghana?’

  André smiled in spite of his disappointment. Gandini rolled off the tongue more easily than Guadagnini. If he ever found the violin, a part of him would always think of it as the Gandini.

  ‘I suppose I could hold on a little longer.’

  ‘Amen,’ Bediako said.

  They drove on a little further before André realised they were not going to the hotel. The road ahead of them curved in a broad arc with the ocean on one side and a row of small, dilapidated houses on the other. Few of the houses were finished, yet they had an air of permanence as if they had always been there. Two apartment towers pierced the morning sky. These were also uncompleted and resembled a pile of crude concrete boxes piled one on top of the other.

  ‘Where are we?’ André asked.

  ‘Labadi,’ Bediako replied. ‘I want you to relax small. In Ghana there is too much up and down.’

  André smiled to himself. He didn’t have to ask what Bediako meant by up and down. It was the aimless trudge from one office to the other. The feeling of helpless bewilderment that the good nature of the people did little to assuage. At times he felt like a human pinball, swatted mindlessly from one end of the city to the other. It was terribly exhausting and he was almost out of energy. He was certainly out of ideas.

  André trudged onto the beach and stood a little distance from the shore. The waves lapped at his feet in spent billows of dirty washing water. He watched without much interest as a boy with no shirt led a tired-looking horse across the sand. Then two men came jogging past, their muscled shoulders bunched like cudgels across their backs. In the distance a sprinkling of canoes lay still on the ocean surface and behind them, the silver ball of the sun slid out of the sea and climbed steadily into the sky.

  André’s shoes sank into the soft sand and the tips of his toes were soon cold and wet. He headed towards a wooden shed with squat, black speakers staring mutely out to sea from the upper deck. He pulled up a rickety chai
r painted in fireman’s red and pondered what to do.

  He should have brought his violin with him from London. He missed it. He had never been without it for this long. He closed his eyes and steered an imaginary bow across invisible strings. He was bobbing his head gently and humming to himself when he realised he was not alone. The boy with the horse had returned and they were both staring intently at André. A barnyard stench blew off the the animal’s back and, as it looked at André, a shudder ran down its flanks.

  The boy pointed at the horse and raised the fingers of both hands.

  André shook his head firmly. Ten dollars for a horse ride was wildly exorbitant.

  The boy held up the fingers of one hand and mouthed, ‘Five.’

  André shook his head again and for the fun of it, raised one finger in return. He didn’t expect the boy to agree to such a low price but to his surprise, he did.

  ‘Shit,’ André muttered. He didn’t really want to ride a horse, especially not one as gaunt and decrepit as this. Afterwards he’d probably find his crotch infested with fleas. The thought was vaguely unpleasant and his hand crept instinctively between his legs. He was wondering how to get out of the arrangement when he heard someone call out his name. It was Bediako and he was wading through the soft sand as quickly as he could.

  ‘Mister André! Mister André!’ he cried.

  ‘What is it?’ He did not say Bediako’s name because he could not pronounce it. And despite the old man’s companionship over the last few days, André was careful to maintain a certain distance between them.

  ‘The Gandini!’ Bediako panted. It took him several minutes to catch his breath. ‘I know where they have taken it.’

  André sat up in his chair. ‘You do? Where is it?’

  A fit of coughing took hold of the old man and André waited impatiently for it to pass.

  ‘My landlord’s son …’ Bediako panted. ‘He is a court clerk … At the criminal court.’

  “Yes?’ He wished Bediako would hurry up and get to the point.

  ‘He saw the yellow girl from South Africa …’

  ‘Karabo? Where?’

  ‘I told you. At the court.’

  André sprang to his feet. ‘We must go there at once! How far are we from the court?’

  Bediako looked away and scratched his bald head. Then he ran a hand over his skull.

  ‘She is not there, Mister André. She has been sentenced already.’

  ‘Sentenced?’ André cried. ‘What for?’

  ‘He did not tell me,’ Bediako replied. ‘But they have taken her to Nsawam Prison.’

  ‘Kak! Waar is die Guadagnini?’ He corrected himself and forced himself to slow down. ‘The Gandini? Where is it?’

  ‘That is what I said. The Gandini is at the prison too.’

  CHAPTER 42

  Karabo arrived at the prison late in the afternoon. It was not very far from Accra but the van had broken down several times along the way. It had never occurred to her to make a run for it. There was nowhere for her to run to anyway.

  They entered through a military checkpoint with two soldiers dressed in battle camouflage and cradling assault weapons in their arms. There was another woman in the van with Karabo. She’d wept all the way from the courthouse, wringing her hands and moaning incessantly about what would happen to her children. Karabo had looked away for she had no answers to give.

  They drove a short distance through dry scrubland dotted with shrubs and scrawny bushes, then trundled down a tree-lined avenue. Through the little barred window, Karabo watched the trees race away. She felt as if the trees themselves wanted nothing more to do with her.

  The van came to a stop and the policewoman ordered them out.

  ‘Get out, get out,’ she cried.

  Karabo clambered down from the van and squinted up at her new home. The entrance was painted yellow with a strip of ancient brickwork on either side. The grey gate stood slightly ajar with the words ‘Nsawam Female Prison’ written in red letters above it. And in a curious juxtaposition of martial splendour and government-sanctioned squalor, the twin eagles of the national crest stood pinned against the wall.

  Curtained windows on the upper floor stretched the length of the building and gave the place an uncertain air of welcome. A notice on the wall indicated that visiting hours were from half past eight in the morning to half past twelve. It was already late in the afternoon and the eerie stillness was in stark contrast to the clamour of the city they’d left behind.

  The policewoman took Karabo by the hand and led her through the gate. She was unusually kind and for some reason had taken it upon herself to mother Karabo.

  ‘Mind the step,’ she said. She waited to make sure Karabo didn’t stub her toe on the raised ledge of the entrance. She was not as gentle with the other woman and scolded her at the slightest opportunity.

  They were led into a room where a prison guard scowled darkly behind a desk. To Karabo, it felt like the first day in a strange school where she didn’t know anyone. Then the policewoman said something to her in Twi.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

  ‘Me broni.’

  Karabo understood that. She was the policewoman’s white girl, although she wasn’t white at all.

  ‘I leave you with God,’ the policewoman said and backed out of the room.

  For a moment Karabo thought she was referring to the prison guard. After all, she was the only other person in the room. But with her face spattered with angry dark blemishes, she didn’t look god-like at all. She was dressed in the olive-brown uniform of the Ghana Prisons Service with a matching felt beret perched on her head.

  She barked at Karabo. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Karabo.’

  ‘Write it here.’ She pushed a large ledger towards Karabo. Vertical lines separated the pages into tapering columns. Out of habit, Karabo began to read the other entries on the page but this only made the guard lose her temper. She swore at Karabo and rose menacingly out of her chair.

  ‘Heh! Do you think we are playing here?’

  ‘I was just …’

  ‘You were just what?’ The blotches on the guard’s face swarmed into each other as she glared at Karabo through a twisted mask of dislike.

  Quickly, Karabo wrote down her name and the date. For nationality she put both Ghana and South Africa although the few days she’d spent in Ghana had been the worst of her life. For home address she wrote down the address in Mthatha but added Teacher’s local telephone number all the same. He’d made her learn it by heart before they took her away.

  Karabo’s bail had been set at four thousand Ghana cedis. That was a little less than seven hundred pounds but, to Karabo’s dismay, the amount had proved too much for Teacher. He’d been embarrassed to admit he didn’t have the money and it pained her to see him like that.

  In a peculiar way, Ghana had removed the layers of finery Karabo had clothed Teacher in, peeling them away one by one until a naked and shrivelled man stood shivering before her. How could he afford to stay in that mansion in Labone when he didn’t have seven hundred pounds to bail his own daughter out of prison? Mrs Summerscales could have paid that in a trice, even if she was in debt. But Karabo couldn’t ask Mrs Summerscales, not after what she’d done. She could have asked Mrs Harrison for the money but she was much too ashamed to tell her of her troubles.

  ‘Have you finished?’ the guard asked. She turned the book around and peered at what Karabo had written. Then she lifted her head and sneered at her. ‘So you are a Ghanaian, eh?’

  Karabo heard the thud of a gauntlet land at her feet.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ she said with as much pride as she could muster.

  The guard muttered darkly, then passed the book to the other woman to fill out her details. She was quicker than Karabo and when she was finished, the guard herded them both into the next room. There was nothing in there apart from a cupboard and a wooden table piled high with coloured plastic utensils. Karabo thought thi
s was where they were to sleep and was about to ask the guard where the bed was when the woman snapped at her again.

  ‘Take off your clothes.’

  Karabo looked at her without understanding.

  ‘Your clothes,’ the guard repeated slowly.

  Karabo stripped down to her panties, trying not to smell her own funk. But the guard clicked her fingers impatiently until she took her panties off as well. She stood there with her hands cupping her genitals while the guard swaggered in front of her. She looked Karabo up and down as if it were market day and Karabo was up for sale.

  ‘Turn around.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ That’s what Karabo had said to KK, the immigration officer, and he’d accused her of speaking big English. The guard’s reaction was much the same. She slammed her palm on the table with such force that the other woman cowered in fright.

  ‘I said turn around!’

  She pried Karabo’s buttocks apart and pushed a thick finger into her anus. Karabo gasped from the sudden pain. Then, without warning, she bent Karabo over and groped her from behind, scrabbling in Karabo’s vagina like she’d stolen something of hers and hidden it in there. Karabo heard someone whimper and thought for a moment it was the other woman. But it wasn’t. The piteous sounds were coming from her.

  Satisfied, the guard peeled off the latex glove she’d put on and threw it into the corner of the room. She swore at Karabo again.

  ‘Ashawo! Put on your clothes. Hurry up!’

  Karabo’s T-shirt was back to front but she was much too frightened to take it off again. Muttering all the while, the guard handed them each a bowl, a plastic cup, a spoon and a threadbare rectangle of cloth. Then she opened the cupboard and pointed at a pair of thin lengths of foam stacked upright on the lower shelf.

  ‘Your mattress.’

  Karabo took one and balanced the other items she’d been given on top of it.