by Adwoa Badoe
Suddenly, I remembered the timid girl in white, and her plate of chicken. For a moment I tensed up, until I realized I was up to this. I wasn’t sixteen. I was in university, a member of a small cohort of the nation’s best-educated women.
I pulled my hand out of his and he made a sad face.
The name of the disco was so apt. The Fox Trap. I wondered how long Mr. Opoku and Mary would last inside, where the air conditioners competed in vain against the Kumasi humidity, cigarette smoke and the hot sweaty bodies.
They didn’t last very long. I looked up, and there they were at our table, already saying goodbye. They had another party to attend.
“Asare’s a good guy, Charlotte. He will take care of you and drop you safely at Africa Hall. I trust him,” said Mr. Opoku.
To be honest, I felt a little stranded, but I had to trust Asare. Even more, I had to trust me. So I stuck with Coca-Cola and Muscatella, while Asare drank more beer. We talked and danced.
Then at about ten-thirty, I asked to be dropped back at Africa Hall.
“Why so early?” asked Asare.
“I have a group discussion,” I lied. I wanted to get back before the porters locked the hall at midnight. But it wasn’t just that. Leaving early was one way of making sure my driver was not too drunk. And the group-work excuse was perfect for saying our goodbyes at the car.
I knew Mary was likely not spending the night at the hall, and I didn’t want Asare to come upstairs with me.
‹•›
Asare’s BMW was black, and the windows were a very dark tint. It made you curious as to who was inside, and why they had such a desire for privacy. Asare called it The Witch.
It was a different world inside the car. A low-slung bucket seat cradled me like a baby. Dashboard lights winked suggestively, and even the potholes were subdued before us.
It was almost with reluctance that I got out of the car at Africa Hall. I watched as Asare primed his engine and roared off like a teenager showing off his rich dad’s car. I waved, although it was impossible to see if he waved back.
It was hard not to like the relaxed company of accomplished men who could wine and dine you outside the limitations of a weekly allowance. Yet Sylvia had made good arguments for the fun and freedom we had with our university guys. Older guys demanded more from their girlfriends.
I was startled by strong hands gripping my shoulders hard from behind.
“Aha! Now we have you,” I heard someone say.
It was Alice Donkor, the leader of the notorious ponders.
“Nobody gets away from the pond initiation. It is part and parcel of being an Africa Hall lady. We’ll give you double for outsmarting us the first time,” she threatened.
I could have kicked myself for losing my guard so completely. I didn’t say another word as unsympathetic laughter surrounded me. I knew there was nothing for it. Six girls pushed and dragged me to the pond. They didn’t even let me take off my shoes. They grabbed my arms and legs, swung me twice and dropped me into the pool with a shout.
“Pom-pom-pom. Another one bites the dust!”
I rose to the surface, sputtering. To my disgust, I had swallowed pond water. I clawed my way out of the pond and algae, thankful that my shoes had stayed on my feet. Otherwise I would have left them in the pond.
I spat out saliva with my anger. Best not to react to these foolish girls, I thought. They would easily pond me again.
I found my way to the stairs, avoiding the porter’s eyes. My dress clung in all the wrong places.
I was beyond mad.
Like an apparition, Banahene appeared at the foot of the stairs.
“Charlotte,” he called softly.
I ignored him and climbed up the first flight of stairs, dripping my shame on every step. It wasn’t just that I was wet and miserable, but the thought that he’d been right and that they’d had the last laugh was too much.
Suddenly tears pushed past my eyelids. Everything was wet now, even my eyes.
I stomped up all one hundred stairs before I realized that I had left my bag beside the pond. My keys were in my bag, the door was locked, and Mary was out with Mr. Opoku. It would be nearly impossible to find small-boys around at that time of night.
Still, I was about to shout for one, when Banahene rounded the last flight of stairs.
“I realized you left this behind,” he said with too straight a face.
“Thank you,” I murmured, taking the bag from him.
“No worries,” he said. Then, as he walked off, he added, “It happens to everyone. Just laugh it off and have a shower. Nobody will remember tomorrow.”
“Liar,” I said to his retreating back. “You will always remember.”
He turned and smiled.
“You’re right. I will always remember.”
‹•›
I thought I could never be friends with Banahene again, but I was wrong. The next night he came to visit, and he brought me a Mars bar.
“A peace offering,” he said, handing it to me.
“Where did you get that?” I asked. A long time ago my uncle had taken my sister and me to the diplomatic shop in Accra and bought us Mars bars.
“My dad brought a box of these from his last trip to England. I was saving the last one for a special day,” said Banahene.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to eat it?”
“Not now. I’m going to save it for a very special moment.”
“Come on, Charlotte. It’s a peace offering. It’s meant to be shared.”
And so I peeled off the wrapper, took a bite and held it to his lips.
“Just a tiny piece,” I said. Then we both began to laugh.
That was the night Banahene took me to the SRC meeting. He said he wanted to show me that there was more to life than parties, ponds and nightclubs.
So we walked to Independence Hall where the Student Representative Council meeting was being held. It was loud — boys shouting each other down and arguing about student loans and allowances. Still, I listened and observed, because Dr. Ampem had made a point of telling our class to engage with student politics.
There was one very colorful individual called Mensah, who kept shouting to intimidate the others.
“I have the floor!” he shouted, and his face was tight with anger. “I don’t know which of you can stretch that small amount of money to accommodate three meals in modern Ghana. Maybe some of you are bangla magicians but I am not. They are starving us. And they won’t take our protests seriously unless we demonstrate. Let’s teach them that a hungry man is an angry man.”
He really was angry as he stood there in a green T-shirt boasting the face of Che Guevara. There were fewer than twenty people representing the entire student body, and only two other women besides me. Mensah tried to get a motion on the floor but he could find nobody to second it.
Banahene whispered to me, “Mensah always complains about bangla. That’s why nobody has any more patience for him. It is the same story every day. Some of us call him Bangla Mensah.”
“Why is our food allowance called bangla?” I asked.
Banahene explained that it had something to do with United Nations Food Aid that Bangladesh had received in a time of crisis. Students made fun of everything.
I was surprised at how rowdy it was. Not boring as Mary had said. No wonder women stayed away. Still, I perked up at a discussion of student loans. The SRC president was hopeful of an increase in the loan amount, as they had been in talks with the government. Someone said that no amount of money could make up for inflation.
“The cedi is a useless thing now. Once upon a time students traveled chartered flights to England on those loans,” he said.
On the walk back, Banahene told me a little more about each of the SRC officers. The president was in the
School of Medical Sciences and the secretary was in architecture-design. The treasurer was a student of planning.
Dr. Ampem was right. There were no political science students among the executives.
“It’s not just political science students who don’t care about the SRC. Most students feel they have better things to do than come for a meeting,” said Banahene.
“I’m going to keep coming. At the very least, I may learn to argue down boisterous guys.”
“Go girl! Maybe you’ll be my aide-de-camp when I stand for SRC president,” he said.
“Really?” I said.
“I’ll only stand if I think I can win. I don’t like losing,” he said with a chuckle.
“Nobody likes to lose.”
“Some of us are really bad losers, though,” Banahene replied. And by the crooked smile on his face, I knew he had remembered my ponding.
“Nasty boy,” I said.
“You know I am your everlasting fan,” he said.
‹•›
The term rushed on as if on wheels. There were quizzes and projects, sports activities and gospel concerts, but there were also parties. Banahene and I attended SRC meetings whenever they were called.
Banahene always visited us in Room 803, so I was surprised one evening when he suggested that I go with him to see his hall.
“Let me show you the greatest hall of all,” he said. “Then we can go and buy kelewele.”
The promise of kelewele hooked me, but I also wondered how different the men’s hall would be from ours.
As we passed by the porter’s lodge I glanced at my pigeon hole. There was an envelope in it. I wedged the tip of my finger into the corner of the envelope and teased it open to find a folded note.
It read quite simply, Let’s meet tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the faculty. Ampem.
“Banahene, look at this. The only Ampem I know is my lecturer. Why is he asking me to meet him at Mecca?”
“You are learning,” said Banahene wryly.
“Learning what?”
“About life.”
“What does he want?” I asked.
“Maybe you’ll know when you see him.”
“I’m not going,” I said. “This could even be one of my course mates impersonating him.”
“It could be a trick, but I doubt it,” said Banahene.
“I’ll see him in class, and if he mentions it, then I’ll ask what he wants.”
“Okay.”
“Aren’t you going to give me any advice?”
“No. You’re a big girl,” said Banahene.
‹•›
Outside Republic Hall, where Banahene resided, a bunch of guys were passing a soccer ball around. Inside, a weight-lifting competition was going on and Banahene joined in with loud cheers for his friends.
Banahene was a guy’s guy, boisterous and full of fun. It was a side of him I had never seen. He introduced me around and before long I was chatting with the guys. Later on, when the champion weightlifter had been named, we left the verandah for his room.
“Your single room is bigger than mine,” I said in disbelief.
“This building is older than yours. In Ghana, things regress over the years and the same amount of money buys less space.”
“There is no equity in this arrangement,” I said jealously.
There were several hockey sticks leaning against the balcony wall, and a basketball resting in the corner.
“Do you play a lot of sports?” I asked.
“Half my life is spent at Paa Joe Stadium.”
“And you still have time to visit Africa Hall?” I teased.
“I am a sharp-brain when it comes to my studies,” he replied.
“I wish I was really good at sports,” I said, grabbing a hockey stick.
“You don’t have to be a star. Play for fun and exercise. I’ll be coaching women’s hockey this term,” he said.
I liked Banahene. I was impressed by his interest in a broad range of things. He seemed to have more of a balance than I had noticed in my girlfriends in Africa Hall.
I decided I would try more things at Tech.
5
I thought about the note while Dr. Ampem was teaching, but there was nothing odd in his manner throughout the lecture. He didn’t avoid me and neither did he fixate on me.
It had to be a course mate’s prank.
The class ended, and I was focused on fitting all my books into my bag. When I looked up again, Dr. Ampem was hovering over me with a roguish grin on his face. My heart sank.
“Charlotte, did you get my note?” he asked.
“I got the note, sir, but I thought someone was impersonating you.”
“It wasn’t a prank,” he said.
And I was at a loss for words.
Dr. Ampem was good looking in a careless way. He had a tired goatee and a thick untamed afro. He reminded me of the Nigerian novelist, Wole Soyinka — brilliant and handsome. His best features were his bright eyes which crinkled easily with humor. Laughing eyes.
“Well, Charlotte, can you meet me tonight at seven o’clock in my office?”
“Sir?”
“Well?”
“Okay, sir.”
Surely Dr. Ampem was not going to hit on me! For the first time, I regretted relaxing my hair. Perhaps I looked more mature than my age.
At dinner that night, we ate together village style in Room 803 — Sylvia, Juaben, Mary and me.
I dipped my right hand into the deeper bowl, made a small ball of gari with my fingertips. The other bowl contained shitor — spicy fried pepper — and corned beef.
We ate fast, tongues on fire and hands brushing each other’s impatiently. I told them about Dr. Ampem.
“Don’t go,” said Mary.
“I have to. He’s my lecturer and I don’t want to spend the rest of the semester playing cat and mouse with him,” I said.
“You’ll make things worse by having a confrontation. This man isn’t just anybody, and he can make you fail your exams,” she said.
“If he can make me fail for confronting him, then he can make me fail if I don’t show up. I have to get to the bottom of things.”
“I’ll go with you. He won’t be able to say or do much if there is a witness,” said Sylvia.
“That’s a great idea,” I said, relieved. “Thank you.”
Juaben wanted to go, too. But I thought one more person would be too much.
“With just Sylvia, I can say that walking to Mecca after dark frightens me. Let’s beat him at his own game,” I said happily.
‹•›
My slippers tapped hard against the soles of my feet, as we walked the paved road to Mecca. It was too dark for shortcuts. Sylvia was wiser, for she had put on a pair of canvas shoes and socks, which covered her feet completely — just in case there was a snake or scorpion hiding in the brush.
It was a warm night and quite bright, with a full moon hovering low in the sky. The pitter-patter of my heart was about defiance. Dr. Ampem had made his move and I had countered it by taking a witness. I remembered my mother upbraiding me for being too competitive, and not allowing my sister and cousins to win at Monopoly or Scrabble.
“They’re so much younger than you, Charlotte,” she would say, but it had never mattered one bit to me.
I loved it best when I beat my father at a board game. Then I showed him no mercy for all that I suffered in school because of him.
Dad, who was a poor loser, once said, “I wish you would use this same aggression to get good grades in school, instead of the mediocrity you have shown at important exams.”
That comment made my victory against Dad sweeter than ever. It would feel good to win against Dr. Ampem, too.
Soon enough, Sylvia and I arrived at the social sciences buildin
g. Our faculty was in a four-story building at the very end of Mecca.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs. My breathing was fast and shallow. We climbed up to the second floor and I held my breath, stilling a tremor in my belly.
Then I knocked on the door that had Dr. Ampem’s name on a metal plate.
“Come in,” he said.
I opened the door to the bright cool light of a fluorescent tube. Inside the room were six students, all male, staring at me. I recognized two of them from our faculty and Bangla Mensah from the SRC meetings.
For some moments, I stood frozen in the doorway.
Dr. Ampem was in his element, his face beaming.
“Come in, come in! Here is Charlotte, our first bold female!” he announced.
I took a small step in, pulling Sylvia behind me.
“Not one bold female, but two,” said Dr. Ampem, his grin as wide as the joker at our concert parties.
“Come in and join my special gathering of remarkable students, with whom I discuss the country and its politics in great detail. My hope is that I am influencing a new generation of highly intellectual and capable minds who might lead Mother Ghana to glory someday,” he said.
Dr. Ampem pointed Sylvia to an empty chair in the room. Then he gave me his seat behind the desk, choosing to stand against the wall where a white board hugged the wall.
It was a good thing I didn’t have to say anything, because I was absolutely speechless.
The discussion was on socialism, and from time to time Dr. Ampem read from a speech given by Dr. Nkrumah to university lecturers in 1963. From the speech it was clear that Dr. Nkrumah was concerned about the abuse of academic freedom. On the one hand he promised to protect it, while giving veiled warnings about suspected abuse of such freedom.
But it was a paragraph at the end that piqued my interest.
“You who pass through the portals of our universities should be constantly aware of your oneness with the people and your responsibility towards them. This is our challenge and opportunity, and all of us — professors, teachers, alumni and students alike — must strive to maintain this great heritage which has been handed to us.”
