Under African Skies

by Charles Larson

  The other children were still playing in the field when Tekayo returned with the liver in his bag. He roasted it in his hut hastily and ate it greedily. And alas! it was what he had been looking for for many years. He sat lazily resting his back on the granary, belching and picking his teeth. The hungry children, back from their play in the fields, sat in the shade eating sweet potatoes and drinking sour milk.

  The older people came back in the evening, and the children ran to meet their parents. But Apii was not among them. In great desperation they asked the grandfather about the child. But Tekayo replied, “Ask the children—they should know where Apii is. They were playing together in the fields.”

  It was already pitch-dark. Apii’s younger brothers and sisters sat in front of the fire weeping with their mother. It was then that they remembered their grandfather sending Apii to fetch water for him. The desperate parents repeated this information to the old man, asking him if Apii had brought water for him that morning.

  “She did,” Tekayo replied, “and then ran away after the others. I watched her go with my own eyes. When they came back, I was asleep.”

  The grief-stricken family sat near the fireplace, their heads in their hands. They neither ate nor drank. Outside, the little crickets sang in chorus as if they had a secret to tell.

  For many days Apii’s parents looked for their child, searching every corner and every nook. But there was no trace of her. Apii was gone. Months went by, and people talked no more about the disappearance of Apii. Only her mother thought of her. She did not lose hope of finding her child alive one day.

  Tekayo forgot his deed. And when he killed a second child in the same way to satisfy his savage appetite, he was not even conscious of what he was doing. And when the worried parents asked the old man about the child, Tekayo wept, saying, “How could I know? The children play out in the fields—I stay here at home.”

  It was after this that Tekayo’s sons said among themselves, “Who steals our children? Which animal can it be? Could it be a hyena? Or a leopard? But these animals only hunt at night. Could it be an eagle, because it hunts during the day? But no! Father would have seen the eagle—he would have heard the child screaming.” After some thought, Aganda told his brother, “Perhaps it is a malicious animal brought upon us by the evil spirits.”

  “Then my father is too old to watch the children,” put in Osogo. “Yes, Father is too old, he is in danger,” the rest agreed.

  And from that time onward the sons kept watch secretly on the father and the children. They watched for many months, but nothing threatened the man and the children.

  The sons were almost giving up the watch. But one day when it was the turn of Apii’s father to keep watch, he saw Tekayo sending away the children to play in the field—all except one. He sent this child to fetch him a pipe from his hut. As the child ran to the hut, Tekayo followed him. He clasped the frightened child and dragged him toward the fireplace. As Tekayo was struggling with the child, a heavy blow landed on his old back. He turned round sharply, his hands still holding the child’s neck. He was facing Aganda, his eldest son. The child broke loose from the limp hands of Tekayo and grabbed Aganda’s knees, as if he had just escaped from the teeth of a crocodile. “Father!” Aganda shouted.

  Seeing that the child was not hurt, Aganda pushed him aside, saying, “Go to your mother’s hut and lie down.”

  He then got hold of the old man and dragged him toward the little windowless hut built for goats and sheep. As he was being dragged away, the old man kept on crying, “Atimo ang’o? Atimo ang’o?”?—What have I done? What have I done?

  Aganda pushed the old man into the little hut and barred the door behind him, as you would to the animals. He went to the child, who was still sobbing.

  The rest of the family returned from the fields, and when Apii’s father broke the news to them, they were appalled. The family wore mourning garments and went without food.

  “Tho! Tho!” they spat toward the sun, which, although setting on them, was rising on the ancestors.

  “Great-grandfathers, cleanse us,” they all cried.

  And they lit the biggest fire that had ever been lit in that village. Tekayo’s eldest son took the old greasy drum hanging above the fireplace in his father’s hut and beat it. The drum throbbed out sorrowful tunes to warn the clan that there was sad news in Tekayo’s home. The people who heard the drum left whatever they were doing and ran to Tekayo’s village, following the sound of the drum. Within a short time the village was teeming with anxious-looking relatives.

  “What news? What news?” they asked in trembling voices.

  “And where is Tekayo?” another old man asked.

  “Is he in good health?” asked another.

  There was confusion and panic.

  “Death of death, who will give us medicine for death? Death knocks at your door, and before you can tell him to come in, he is in the house with you.”

  “Listen!” Someone touched the old woman who was mourning death.

  Aganda spoke to the people. “Men of my clan. We have not called you here for nothing. Listen to me and let our sorrow be yours. Weep with us! For several months we have been losing our children when we go to work on the fields. Apii, my own child, was the first one to disappear.” Sobbing broke out among the women at the mention of the children’s names.

  “My people,” Aganda continued, “the children in this clan get sick and die. But ours disappear unburied. It was our idea to keep watch over our children that we may catch whoever steals them. For months we have been watching secretly. We were almost giving up because we thought it was probably the wrath of our ancestors that was upon us. But today I caught him.”

  “What man? What man?” the people demanded angrily.

  “And from what clan is he?” others asked.

  “We must declare war on his clan, we must we must!”

  Aganda stopped for a while, and told them in a quavering voice, “The man is in that little hut. The man is none often than my father.”

  “Mayo!” the women shouted. There was a scuffle and the women and children screamed as if Tekayo was around the fire and they were afraid of him. But the men kept quiet.

  When the commotion died down, an old man asked, “Do you speak the truth, man?”

  The son nodded. Men and women now shouted, “Where is the man? Kill him! He is not one of us. He is not one of us. He is an animal!”

  There was nothing said outside that Tekayo did not hear. And there in the hut the children he had killed haunted him. He laid his head on the rough wall of the hut and wept.

  Outside the hut the angry villagers continued with their demand, shouting, “Stone him now! Stone him now! Let his blood be upon his own head!”

  But one of the old men got up and calmed the people. “We cannot stone him now. It is the custom of the clan that a wicked man should be stoned in broad daylight, outside the village. We cannot depart from this custom.”

  “Stone me now, stone me now,” Tekayo whispered. “Take me away quickly from this torture and shame. Let me die and be finished with.”

  Tekayo knew by the angry shouting of the men and the shrill cries of frightened women and children that he was banished from society, nay, from life itself. He fumbled in his leather bag suspended around his waist to find his hunting knife, but it was not there. It had been taken away from him.

  The muttering and shouting continued outside. There was weeping, too. But Tekayo was now hearing them from afar as if a powerful wave were carrying him farther and farther away from his people.

  At dawn the villagers got up from the fireplace to gather stones from nearby fields. The sun was not up yet, but it was just light enough to see. Everyone in the clan must throw a stone at the murderer. It was bad not to throw a stone, for it was claimed that the murderer’s wicked spirit would rest upon the man who did not help to drive him away.

  When the first rays of the sun appeared, the villagers had gathered enough stones to c
over several bodies. They returned to the village to fetch Tekayo from the hut, and to lead him to his own garden outside the village. They surrounded the hut and stood in silence, waiting to jeer and spit at him when he came out.

  Aganda and three old men tore the papyrus door open and called Tekayo to come out. But there was no reply. They rushed into the hut to drag him out to the people who were now demanding, “Come out, come out!”

  At first it was too dark to see. But soon their eyes got used to the darkness. Then they saw the body of Tekayo, hanged on a short rope that he had unwound from the thatched roof.

  The men came out shaking their heads. The crowd peered into the hut in turn until all of them had seen the dangling body of Tekayo—the man they were preparing to stone. No one spoke. Such a man, they knew, would have to be buried outside the village. They knew, too, that no newborn child would ever be named after him.

  —1968

  Ama Ata Aidoo

  (BORN 1942) GHANA

  In her major drama, The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), Ama Ata Aidoo examines the quixotic relationship that sometimes exists between Africans and African Americans. Ato Yawson, a Ghanaian student educated in America, returns home with his Harlem-born wife, Eulalie Rush. The play deftly probes the question of heritage at a time when many black Americans were confronting Pan-Africanism because of their firsthand experiences of living on the continent. Perhaps the most interesting character in Aidoo’s play is Nana, Ato’s mother, who wrestles with the issues of fertility and procreation from her traditional animist perspective. As Karen C. Chapman has noted of The Dilemma of a Ghost, “the ancestors … are not only alive and in possession of great wisdom, but they are also, from time to time, rather intimidating as they hover protectively over the heads of those still on earth.”

  Aidoo’s own background is cosmopolitan. She attended the University of Ghana at Legon, graduating in 1964; in the summer of 1966, she participated in the Harvard International Seminar at Harvard University. She has taught at the University of Nairobi, and at University College, Cape Coast, Ghana, as well as at a number of American universities. She has spoken out eloquently on issues of cultural hegemony.

  Writing about her compatriot Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Ms. Aidoo had this to say about Ghanaian women: “ … especially in the area of what exactly the African woman is, the assumption on the part of most Westerners [has been] that the poor African woman was a downtrodden wretch until the European missionary brought her Christianity, civilization and emancipation. This may apply in certain areas of Africa, but certainly, for most Ghanaian women, the question of their emancipation is not really a problem to discuss since it has always been ensured by the system anyway. Nor is this an idealized view. It is there for anyone to see who is prepared to observe a society instead of imposing on it his own prejudices … .”

  Ama Ata Aidoo’s lengthy writing career bridges the genres of fiction, poetry, drama, and criticism. “Two Sisters” is from her short-story collection, No Sweetness Here (1970). Her two published novels are Our Sister Killjoy (1977) and Changes (1992).

  TWO SISTERS

  As she shakes out the typewriter cover and covers the machine with it, the thought of the bus she has to hurry to catch goes through her like a pain. It is her luck, she thinks. Everything is just her luck. Why, if she had one of those graduates for a boyfriend, wouldn’t he come and take her home every evening? And she knows that a girl does not herself have to be a graduate to get one of those boys. Certainly, Joe is dying to do exactly that—with his taxi. And he is as handsome as anything, and a good man, but you know … Besides, there are cars and there are cars. As for the possibility of the other actually coming to fetch her—oh well. She has to admit it will take some time before she can bring herself to make demands of that sort on him. She has also to admit that the temptation is extremely strong. Would it really be so dangerously indiscreet? Doesn’t one government car look like another? The hugeness of it? Its shaded glass? The uniformed chauffeur? She can already see herself stepping out to greet the dead-with-envy glances of the other girls. To begin with, she will insist on a little discretion. The driver can drop her under the neem trees in the morning and pick her up from there in the evening … anyway, she will have to wait a little while for that and it is all her luck.

  There are other ways, surely. One of these, for some reason, she has sworn to have nothing of. Her boss has a car and does not look bad. In fact, the man is all right. But she keeps telling herself that she does not fancy having some old and dried-out housewife walking into the office one afternoon to tear her hair out and make a row … Mm, so for the meantime it is going to continue to be the municipal bus with its grimy seats, its common passengers and impudent conductors … Jesus! She doesn’t wish herself dead or anything as stupidly final as that. Oh no. She just wishes she could sleep deep and only wake up on the morning of her glory.

  The new pair of black shoes are more realistic than their owner, though. As she walks down the corridor, they sing:

  Count, Mercy, count your blessings

  Count, Mercy, count your blessings

  Count, count, count your blessings.

  They sing along the corridor, into the avenue, across the road, and into the bus. And they resume their song along the gravel path as she opens the front gate and crosses the cemented courtyard to the door.

  “Sissie!” she called.

  “Hei Mercy.” And the door opened to show the face of Connie, big sister, six years or more older and now heavy with her second child. Mercy collapsed into the nearest chair.

  “Welcome home. How was the office today?”

  “Sister, don’t ask. Look at my hands. My fingers are dead with typing. Oh God, I don’t know what to do.”

  “Why, what is wrong?”

  “You tell me what is right. Why should I be a typist?”

  “What else would you be?”

  “What a strange question. Is typing the only thing one can do in this world? You are a teacher, are you not?”

  “But … but …”

  “But what? Or you want me to know that if I had done better in the exams, I could have trained to be a teacher too, eh, sister? Or even a proper secretary?”

  “Mercy, what is the matter? What have I done? What have I done? Why have you come home so angry?”

  Mercy broke into tears.

  “Oh I am sorry. I am sorry, Sissie. It’s just that I am sick of everything. The office, living with you and your husband. I want a husband of my own, children. I want … I want …”

  “But you are so beautiful.”

  “Thank you. But so are you.”

  “You are young and beautiful. As for marriage, it’s you who are postponing it. Look at all these people who are running after you.”

  “Sissie, I don’t like what you are doing. So stop it.”

  ‘Okay, okay, okay.”

  And there was a silence.

  “Which of them could I marry? Joe is—mm, fine—but, but I just don’t like him.”

  “You mean …

  “Oh, Sissie!”

  “Little sister, you and I can be truthful with one another.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “What I would like to say is that I am not that old or wise. But still I could advise you a little. Joe drives someone’s car now. Well, you never know. Lots of taxi drivers come to own their taxis, sometimes fleets of cars.

  “Of course. But it’s a pity you are married already. Or I could be a go-between for you and Joe!”

  And the two of them burst out laughing. It was when she rose to go to the bedroom that Connie noticed the new shoes.

  “Ei, those are beautiful shoes. Are they new?”

  From the other room, Mercy’s voice came interrupted by the motions of her body as she undressed and then dressed again. However, the uncertainty in it was due to something entirely different.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you about them. In fact, I was going to show them t
o you. I think it was on Tuesday I bought them. Or was it Wednesday? When I came home from the office, you and James had taken Akosua out. And later I forgot all about them.”

  “I see. But they are very pretty. Were they expensive?”

  “No, not really.” This reply was too hurriedly said.

  And she said only last week that she didn’t have a penny on her. And I believed her because I know what they pay her is just not enough to last anyone through any month, even minus rent … I have been thinking she manages very well. But these shoes. And she is not the type who would borrow money just to buy a pair of shoes, when she could have gone on wearing her old pairs until things get better. Oh, I wish I knew what to do. I mean, I am not her mother. And I wonder how James will see these problems.

  “Sissie, you look worried.”

  “Hmm, when don’t I? With the baby due in a couple of months and the government’s new ruling on salaries and all. On top of everything, I have reliable information that James is running after a new girl.”

  Mercy laughed. “Oh, Sissie. You always get reliable information on these things.”

  “But yes. And I don’t know why.”

  “Sissie, men are like that.”

  “They are selfish.”

  “No, it’s just that women allow them to behave the way they do instead of seizing some freedom themselves.”

  “But I am sure that even if we were free to carry on in the same way, I wouldn’t make use of it.”

  “But why not?”

  “Because I love James. I love James and I am not interested in any other man.” Her voice was full of tears.

  But Mercy was amused. “Oh God. Now listen to that. It’s women like you who keep all of us down.”