OVER A BOX of dusty sculptures on the following Monday, I shared my thoughts with Emmanuela about the weekend visit to Cape Coast. Surprisingly, she’d never visited either Elmina or the Cape Coast castle.
“Why do I need to visit a place to know its history?” she asked. “History is carried in the minds and souls of people.”
Her words echoed my own thoughts before I stood on old stones in sunless rooms and let my imagination run wild. Not my memories, but the thoughts and ideas my mind conjured up about experiences I never had.
I touched the miniature sculpture in my glove-covered hand, running my finger over her curves and pointed breasts. Picking up my notebook, I wrote down the catalogue number and set aside the sculpture to be photographed.
“Dr. Elmore?”
“Yes?”
“What is it about these sculptures that speaks to you?” She frowned, looking down at an Akuaba fertility figure I’d set aside earlier.
“Humans have the same genitals and secondary sexual characteristics no matter where on the planet we live, yet each culture depicts them differently. Or fetishizes them different, I should say.” I pointed at another fertility doll. “This is for fertility, right?”
She nodded.
“Yet what’s the biggest thing on the figure?”
“Her head.”
“Shouldn’t it be her breasts or hips, the typical symbols for female fertility?”
She shrugged.
“Her head resembles the round moon, another representation of fertility, but I’d prefer to think her big brain is the focus.”
“And this interests you?” Doubt and confusion tinted her question.
“It does, very much.”
“But many of them look silly.” She held up a male figure with a long penis pointing vertically down.
“Exactly the same as real humans,” I said with a straight face. I held up another fertility doll with a large, round bottom and pointed at my own hips. “See? Even in something fairly abstract, we can find ourselves.”
She giggled. “Are your students very interested in your classes?”
“I think most take it to look at naked bodies. A few are serious about studying art, but not many.”
“Most people do not realize the importance of museums.” She gestured around our cramped workspace, lit from older lamps and a single dusty window high in the wall. “The same as the castles, they’re important for our history.”
“Even if no one visits them?”
“Yes. We know they exist and the objects exist. That’s enough to remind us of our history. We don’t need to live in the past to remember.”
EMMANUELA’S WORDS ECHOED through my mind while I walked down the road to Kai’s hotel. He’d returned earlier in the afternoon and invited me for drinks.
I sat in the shade by the pool, sipping an icy cold orange Fanta with real ice cubes. Entitlement had its perks. A warm hand lifted my hair from my neck and lips brushed the exposed skin. I jumped even though I’d know his touch anywhere.
“Did you think your waiter was acting fresh?” His voice sounded light, jovial.
“The waiter smells of musk and peanut butter.” I leaned up to kiss his cheek, but he moved to kiss my lips instead. A week apart had only deepened my hunger for him. Apparently, the same was true for him.
Kai glanced around the patio. “Should I order a drink?”
“Unless you want to skip the drink and go directly upstairs?”
The words had barely left my lips when he tossed too many cedis on the table and grabbed my hand, lifting me out of my chair.
Alone in the elevator, he pressed against me, kissing me breathless. His spicy scent invaded my senses. When I reached for him through his pants, he arched his erection into my hand.
“God, I’ve missed you,” I whispered into his neck, nuzzling the curve where it became his shoulder, the place where his pheromones were strongest. “You were wrong, you know.”
He buried his nose in my hair. “About what this time?”
“About absence.”
Leaning away, he stared down into in my eyes. “It took only a week?”
“A week was enough.”
Once in his room, I knelt at his feet, tugging at his belt and unzipping his fly. I hungered for the feel of him, the taste of him on my tongue. He stroked my hair and tucked a strand behind my ear. Lust and passion reflected back at me. I pushed his boxers down over his hips, exposing all of him.
Kneeling allowed my hands to be free to roam and explore his skin. One hand snaked around to squeeze his ass. He moaned and tightened his muscles. My other hand encased his cock at the base, stroking in rhythm with my mouth. I explored him with a single, slick finger, finding the hidden place to drive him wild. Instantly, his fingers tightened in my hair, making me hum at discovering another way I could excite him.
It didn’t take much before he warned me, “I’m close.”
Heady with the power of pleasuring him, I continued, rather than pulling away, until he stilled and exploded down my throat.
His shuddering breath and unsteadiness on his feet made me smile.
“Where did you learn to do that?” he asked.
“I have secrets of my own.” I stood and headed to the bathroom to clean up. I didn’t mention Quinn told me about prostates years ago during one of his “how to please a man” speeches over cocktails—emphasis on cock.
He kicked off his pants and boxers, then trailed behind me wearing only his shirt, which he unbuttoned along the way.
“What kind of secrets?” he asked, starting the shower while I washed my hands.
I smirked. “Girl secrets.”
“I’ve told you mine.” He pretended to pout while his hands reached for the zipper on my dress.
“And I’ve shown you mine. Or one of them.”
After removing my dress, he slapped my ass. “What are we going to do with you?”
“Have sex with me in the shower?”
“I meant in general.”
I laughed and stepped into his oversized shower, away from his swatting palm.
“I have ways of making you share.” He towered over me, trapping me against the cool tiles.
“Oh, I’m counting on it.” I kissed him, knowing soon it would be my turn to reveal my skeletons.
KAI MOVED OUT of his hotel into a rented house shortly after our return. Located inside a gated community, the nondescript house could have existed in Florida, or any other suburban sprawl with a warm climate. Houses of variations on a theme lined a newly paved street, alternating between one and two stories, each with a gated, short driveway and yard. By standards at home, some of the homes even qualified as McMansions. TNG owned the house and provided it for employees during their tenure in Ghana. It would be home for Kai for the next two months.
I kept my room at Ama’s in name only, slowly filling a drawer or two in the bedroom at Kai’s and keeping a second set of bathroom supplies under the sink. However, my need for alone time hadn’t disappeared. When Kai traveled to Volta or other areas of Ghana, I slept in my little room and had dinner at Ama’s.
Everything fell into a happy routine.
Until Kai took me to visit the Ga coffin makers in Teshie.
A stranger date never happened.
Unless a dating site for single morticians existed. Even then, would they bring a date to the office, so to speak?
I balked when he told me his plans.
“This is the worst idea for a date. Ever.”
“Is it a date?” He grinned at me from behind the wheel of his Rover.
“You asked me to join you, it’s a date.”
“Excellent point.” After parking on the shoulder, he pointed at a row of carnival animals and decorations lined up along the railing of a second story veranda. Past the cheetah, monkey, elephant, and lion, I spotted a shoe.
Shoe?
Carnival shoe?
“Is that a shoe?”
“Yes, it’s a shoe
.”
“Wait! Are those the coffins?”
He grinned. “They are indeed. Come on.”
I scrambled out of the car and followed him up the steep wooden steps to the veranda. At the top, rows of fantastical sculptures, I mean coffins, filled the open space. Airplanes, Star beer bottles, peppers, and even a cell phone—each colorful creation designed to hold a body.
“What the actual hell?”
“Not hell, heaven, Mah mee,” a young man said from his chair in the corner. “These are the best coffins for the best kind of people.”
He reminded me of my friend Abraham Lincoln. I blushed, embarrassed he’d heard me.
Kai greeted him with an expert handshake, snap and all. “My friend has never seen these types of coffins,” he explained.
Our young guide, Kojo, described how the Ga tribe used these fantasy coffins to represent an aspect of a person’s life, believing they helped transport the spirit to the afterlife.
“If you had to choose one coffin, which would you pick?” Kai asked.
“Are we buying my coffin today?” I looked at him from the corner of my eye while Kojo revealed a hot pink satin lining inside of a chicken. “Cause that’s really morbid.”
“Not if you believe in the afterlife.”
“I’m not sure if I do.” Talk of death and afterlife sent a shiver down my spine, like someone walking over my grave. I knocked on the wood top of a pepper casket for luck. “What would you chose? Perhaps the black dress shoe?”
“It can also be a vice or a passion, not someone’s profession.” He opened a beer bottle and slipped inside.
The image of him inside a coffin, even a ridiculous one, sent another cold chill down my spine. If you could taunt the universe, lying down in a coffin had to be one of the biggest no-nos.
“Get out,” I whispered down at him.
Opening one eye, he peered up at me, arms crossed in Dracula pose. “I want to suck your blood.”
“Stop. Please. Get out,” I begged.
Seeing my discomfort, he hopped out of the bottle faster than a genie, engulfing me in his arms and pressing my cheek to his chest.
“Oh, sweetheart. It’s silly. It’s only fun.” He hugged me tighter.
My breath caught in my throat, causing me to hiccup. “I know.”
Warm hands rubbed along my back while I composed myself. “I didn’t mean to upset you. For the record, I’d never be buried in a beer bottle. Hideous really.”
I hit his chest with my fists while he shook with laughter. “I hate you.”
“No you don’t. If you did, you’d be fine with burying me in a coffin in the shape of a tilapia.”
“True. Although, I think a rooster might be more appropriate.” I stepped away from his embrace.
The question in his eyes meant he’d missed my joke.
“Because you’re cocky.”
He grinned, puffing out his chest. “Yes, and for good reason.” He rubbed his thumb along his lower lip.
Cursed Dutch charms.
To make up for my panic attack, I bought a model of a pepper coffin for my kitchen. Kai tipped Kojo a few cedis when we left.
In the car, he turned to me before he started the engine. “What happened back there?”
My cheeks heated with a blush. “Same thing that seems to happen whenever we take one of your adventures. I got overwhelmed.”
“That was it? Are you planning to faint again?”
“I only fainted once.”
“True, but you acted woozy after Elmina. I didn’t figure you for the fainting damsel in distress type.” Beneath the teasing ran an undercurrent of concern.
“Me? Damsel in distress?” I scoffed. I might have snorted for emphasis.
“Maybe you don’t see yourself clearly. You obviously need a man to come to your rescue.”
Now he was really pushing my buttons. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to slap him or kiss him. Or both.
“Maybe you aren’t good for me if these things only happen when you’re around.” Crossing my arms, I stared at him.
The eye crinkles appeared and his lips twitched, fighting a smile.
“Fine,” I huffed. “Want to know what happened? You climbed into a coffin and pretended to be dead.”
“A beer bottle coffin.”
“Still. You can’t taunt death that way.”
“I wasn’t taunting death. Provoking death is doing something dangerous, like skydiving or climbing Everest.”
I glowered at him.
“Wait, you’re superstitious!” he announced as if he’d guessed the right answer in a pub quiz.
“Am not.”
“You are. You, Selah, believe in juju, spirits, and black magic.”
“I believe you put something out there and the Universe listens. Even when you’re joking.”
“Did you have a Ouija board when you were a kid?”
I did, but wouldn’t admit it.
“You did. Let me guess, tarot cards in college?”
Damn him. I nodded.
“Aha, you were one of those girls.”
“What kind of girls?”
“The ones who flirted with the occult enough to scare themselves and give their black clothing, Goth, club kid vibe some authenticity.”
“I was never a club kid.”
“But the rest is true. I should have known when you said you hung out in San Francisco.”
“Way to stereotype a city.”
He started the car. “I have the perfect solution for any bad juju I created with the coffins.”
“Where are you taking me now? A graveyard?”
“No, we’re going to Kofi’s house.”
A SHORT DRIVE later, we arrived in a smaller village outside Accra’s ring road. Kai stopped to buy a bottle of schnapps at a tiny shop. Outside the store, he phoned Kofi and spoke briefly in a mix of Twi and English.
Kofi’s sedan sat parked in the driveway of a yellow stucco house with a mango tree out front. After Kofi and his wife greeted us with handshakes and big smiles, Kai presented the bottle of schnapps. Grace invited us to sit at a table in the shade of the tree, then headed inside. She returned with an older man, who held onto her arm while she slowly walked him over to the table. I couldn’t tell his age, but his hair was nearly completely white and his eyes milky in a way that suggested cataracts. His wide smile revealed several missing teeth, but the gaps didn’t detract from the joy on his face.
Kofi introduced us to his father-in-law, Solomon, an elder in their village. Even without traditional dress, Solomon created a demand for respect in his colorful short sleeve shirt and faded blue pants, loosely held up by a thin belt.
“Maa ha. Eti sen?” Solomon greeted first Kai and then me.
“Eh ya,” we said at the same moment.
Holding my hand he asked, “Ye fro wo sen?”
“Dr. Selah Elmore.” I smiled at him and was rewarded by a pat on the arm with his boney hand.
He asked Kai something I didn’t understand, which made Kai laugh. “No, not married.” Both men looked at me. The older man frowned and Kai’s eyes crinkled before he winked.
Winking Dutch. Fuck me.
Please.
Grace brought out a tray with small glasses and a bottle of water.
I leaned over to Kai. “What’s happening?”
“I told Kofi you hadn’t witnessed a libation ceremony yet. Thought you might enjoy seeing another side of how Ghanaians acknowledge death.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “This isn’t a social call?”
“Oh, it is, but one with some ancestors invited to join us,” he whispered.
I concentrated my attention on Solomon and Kofi, who explained we’d brought the schnapps as a gift to the family. Solomon held up the schnapps with its elaborate label and bowed his head to give thanks, then opened the jade colored cardboard.
What followed surprised me with its simplistic ritual, seemingly ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. Not
unlike giving thanks at a meal, we focused our attention on Solomon, who said a prayer, pouring a meager amount of schnapps into one of the glasses. He lifted it up to the sky and spoke quietly.
Kai leaned over and explained while Solomon acknowledged the spirits of his ancestors, all of our ancestors, inviting them to join us. “He first praises God and the ancient gods of Africa.”
Solomon touched the glass to his lips, and then poured liquid on the ground three times ahead of swallowing some.
“And finally the earth, honoring those who have come before us,” Kai continued. “Giving blessings to their memories, and in return, asking for their blessings and protection.”
Solomon then passed the glass to Kofi, who poured another shot of schnapps into it. Kofi repeated the process, quietly speaking when liquid hit dirt.
Kai would be next, and then me. “What do I say?” I asked, nervous but mesmerized.
“Acknowledge, bless, and ask for blessings.” He touched my arm. “Speak to your ancestors as you would a good friend.”
If the friend were Quinn, we’d be thinking old school about homies and forties. I wondered about the origins and correlations between the two. I would have to mention it to Quinn and find out if he agreed.
Kai handed me the glass. I’d zoned out and had no idea what he spoke during his turn.
“Me daa see.” I thanked him, then took the glass and exhaled to focus my brain away from rappers and gangsters. Clearing my mind, I remembered my grandparents and then Lizzy, picturing her smiling face while laughing at my brain’s weird ability to jump from serious to trivial and back. While the dirt darkened with schnapps, I asked for strength and clarity. Finally, I sipped from the communal glass.
Ghanaian schnapps tasted of gin and strong moonshine, not the peach schnapps of my teen years. And it was warm. I forced myself to swallow, knowing spitting out a libation would be frowned upon by not only those present, but by generations of ancestors. My throat tightened, but I managed to swallow it.
After I passed the glass to Grace, Kai poured me a glass of water, which I gratefully accepted. “Thank you,” I mouthed.
He rubbed my shoulder, watching me from the corner of his eye.
When Grace finished, Solomon sat down and the conversation turned to my visit, Kai’s work, and how the local football teams were playing. I listened mostly, my mind still processing the libation. A handful of chickens scratched at the packed dirt, and a rooster crowed from somewhere behind the house.
Missionary Position Page 14
