Hold: An Observer New Face of Fiction 2018. Michael Donkor

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СКАЧАТЬ real woman, wanting a child like I. And I thought; no, they are lying about this one, it cannot be like that, you can’t take the mimicking so far. But on one afternoon, I saw him! Is like when you see a Father Christmas for the first time in the shopping centre. He was knocking on someone’s door to beg for change. Adjei, I never knew anything such as this, Belinda. More than six feet and with a dress for a nightclub with sparkles, only covering his buttocks and let you see all of the big legs – and his hair? A wig like he has fetched it from the roadside. Trampled. And a massive one of these dolls strapped to his back in our normal way as if he is a normal. We laughed! We. Laughed. My mum had been bedridden for weeks and moaning moaning, suddenly she is laughing so much we fear that she would urinate! All the little ones came with sticks and bad pawpaws to throw at the him–her, and as he is running away, the kwadwo besia cannot even get out quickly enough because he can’t walk in the women’s shoes!’

      Nana stopped to chomp and wipe away a pretend tear of laughter. Belinda wished that Amma hadn’t turned to the ceiling again, with her jaw even more fixed. Belinda wished Amma wasn’t closing her eyes, making her face so peaceful and breathing so steady when Belinda sensed that those were not the girl’s actual feelings.

      ‘I only thought kwadwo besia was on the television. For comedy. Not in real life. It must be very great to encounter one in the flesh,’ Belinda tried.

      ‘And why you so serious, Miss Otuo? I think that’s one of my favourite tales. Not even gonna do a little smile for me? Tough crowd here, innit?!’

      ‘Kwadwo be-sia. Kwad-wo be-sia,’ Amma whispered, before adding with force, ‘I’ve got memories of Ghana all of my own.’

      ‘Yes! Good! Share with your sister Belinda also. Excellent.’ Nana settled into one of the armchairs and invited Belinda to take the other. ‘Seem like you not interested in back home matters. You giving all your excuses not to come at Easter when you could have met Belinda at your Aunty’s fine place – some parts of Kumasi now are so beautiful you even feel as though you are in Los –’

      ‘I bet you don’t remember this one, Mum.’

      ‘We are all ears.’

      ‘I was in Year 2, or something. It might have been your hometown or Dad’s we were going to. And I insisted you gave me the plastic bag with all the money in for the relatives; there was tons of it. So we were, like, walking, and I was being all bossy with the bag and probably trying to show off with the, like, two words of Twi I’d picked up, because showing off was totally my thing back then.’

      ‘Back then?!’

      ‘We were getting closer to the actual village and I saw all these orange clay or mud or whatever houses next to each other. They had these slits for doors that I thought were really small, and I said to you something, like, about how Ghana was only for skinny people or something equally insensitive, I’m sure …’

      Belinda watched Amma stretch the ripped thumb-holes in her jumper.

      ‘We kept walking, and then this massive queue, like, appeared? Everyone in it was all, like, jostley and impatient. And facing the queue – sort of like everyone had come to see him – there was this little boy and he was crying. I think he was probably about four or five because I wondered if we could be friends. That’s when I noticed his hands and feet. They were tied up. And the dude at the front of the queue, like, whipped off his, his, flip-flop, his – challewate.’

      ‘We pronounce as cha-la-watt –’

      ‘And went completely psycho all over the little boy. Laying into him with it. Even when he screamed and shit –’

      ‘Amma –’

      ‘And then, like, yeah, I got that everyone else in the line was getting ready to do the same: they were all bending down to take off the one shoe. And we walked past and made small talk when all the uncles arrived, and they said nice things until you handed them cash.’

      ‘Amma.’

      ‘So that’s probably the thing I remember most about Ghana. Yeah.’

      ‘I don’t think that’s a very good story.’

      ‘No?’

      ‘Is it necessary, Amma? Eh?’

      ‘For, for the bofruit, I used a recipe I have known since I was a small girl. My trick is adding the vanilla. Is expensive, that’s why people they don’t like to add, but if you have only one pod, and you use only a few of the small small beans in it, is sufficient. It will give plenty of flavour. In your cupboards I noticed you have many vanillas. So. No problem.’

      Outside, the still, white sky seemed to be the sigh Amma released. ‘It doesn’t matter. Really. It doesn’t. None of it does.’

      The words travelled lightly from her, along with other, more muttered phrases. Amma stood, walked out, and Belinda’s hands flapped, forgetting how to hide in pockets. Nana’s head was bowed, and she let herself hang like that for a while, as if dragged by the small pendant at her neck, and Belinda reassured herself by looking at the exposed, biscuit-coloured nape, knowing how soft it must be to touch. Belinda wondered if Nana had ever found somewhere quiet and hidden to cry, like she had done in the early days at Aunty and Uncle’s. Crouching in the tool shed, with an oily rag in her mouth and the tears unable to come out was the worst one, on an airless Wednesday. She had ironed and stored Uncle’s handkerchiefs for three hours without stopping. The instructions were that they needed to be folded identically. After attending to at least fifty, it came on her: a falling, falling feeling that had her scuttling around until she found safety, away, breathing fast amongst spanners and wrenches and nails.

      It was difficult for Belinda to remember exactly what had brought on that sensation. If it was just the grinding nature of the work. Or a fear that she always had in those early days in Daban, that her dirty, village hands might leave a grimy trace or mark on the fine fabrics she was being asked to handle. Or fear that Aunty would ask her a question about Mother’s life and that Aunty’s clipped voice might make Belinda say too much. Or if the horrible feeling was prompted by the loneliness of being somewhere new, despite the small girl who shadowed her for most of the day. What Belinda could remember clearly was the pressure of the cloth in her mouth; the silencing, muffling force of the fabric on the back of her throat. Painful but comforting at the same time.

      Belinda wanted to ask Nana what she should do next but was interrupted by Amma’s return to the room – a swish of loosened plaits, sweep of sleeves, stomp of boots.

      ‘These are fucking delicious, Be.’

      Amma collected three more bofruit and swept away. Belinda’s stirring hands stilled.

       9

      Even though Amma found the idea of a ‘black Eve’ trite, and even though she didn’t want to be looked at, Amma had agreed to pose that Wednesday afternoon because it was Helena who had asked. Same old, same old: when they were at Prep School and Helena didn’t want to stand next to that girl in assembly or be the nurse again at playtime, there was a lilt in the enunciation of her requests or elegance in the fiddling of her fine, yellow hair that invariably won. So in Helena’s Dulwich conservatory, amongst arrayed yuccas, a coerced Amma found herself holding a Granny Smith at eye level, all for the sake of Helena’s Art coursework. Amma СКАЧАТЬ