dial episode 56

DIAL
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Sequence 56
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It was the next evening – when I could barely move, and she was cleaning me gently while tears streamed down her face – that I coughed, and a wad of bile mixed with thick red blood spewed out of my mouth.
Abena Adobea stared at that wad of horror, and then she gently wiped it off and cleaned around my lips.
“I’ll tell Brian,” she spoke quietly, but I could see the torture tearing that beautiful face apart. “Tomorrow, we’ll send you to Wowo to marry Dede.”
And, when she said that, when I heard that note in her voice, a note that suggested she had just given up on me, my weak heart thudded with sudden trepidation, and that was the moment my fear of the impending death ended.
I had been ready to go to Wowo and marry Dede, just to break my curse. The fear had almost made my heart stop beating. It had been unbearable and scary, and I had been willing to go against her will to Wowo and claim my life back.
But hearing her voicing it out, deciding that indeed she wanted me to go to Wowo and marry another woman…well, it shattered me. It dawned on me, with the force of a derailed train, that I loved this girl with every drop of blood in my ailing body.
I reached out weakly and touched her hand, and when she smiled, through her pain, I saw her resolve to make a sacrifice, and that alone hurt me more than any effect of the curse ravaging my body.
“I’ll go with you, my love,” she whispered quaveringly. “I know Nana wants you to go alone, and so I’ll be with you as far as the last town or village to Wowo. And there I’ll say goodbye to you.”
Tears bubbled in my eyes as I croaked in that horrible whisper-like voice of the old.
“No, no, no, Maa Abena, please! I don’t ever want to say goodbye to you!”
She didn’t say anything, but helped me to get into my pyjamas. She then lay down by my side, and put a head on my shoulder, then kissed me gently.
I put an arm around her, and we shared a gentle night together, just holding and cuddling.
I was in pain.
Oh, dear!
This was what I wanted…but I had found it too late.
***
Early the next dawn they put me on a stretcher and carried me to the Regera. The whole village was gathered, even at that ungodly hour.
My voice was now closed over, and I couldn’t even speak. I had just about three teeth in my mouth, and I was so wrinkled up with age that my eyes were rheumy and glued up, needing Abena Adobea’s constant wipes to keep them open.
Maame Ntiriwaa was inconsolable.
She was weeping so hard that Tawiah had to hold her firmly from falling down. They were all weeping, oh dear! It was just like witnessing my own funeral, and the distress I felt at that particular moment in time was gargantuan.
Abena Adobea sat in the spacious back with me, cradling my head in her laps, and I shut my eyes tightly to stem my tears as the show of love and grief from the faces surrounded the car.
Even when Brian drove they followed the car till he gathered speed and drove out of the main gates, and I wondered if I would ever see them again. The journey through the villages was a bit slow and arduous because of the bad nature of the roads, and the low-slung nature of the car.
But, when we gained the main road almost two hours later, Brian made good time. I slept most of the way, waking up occasionally to take a leak, and once to eat sweet honey-laced porridge which Abena had prepared for me.
We hit the Eastern Region in the late afternoon. I drifted off to sleep again, and when Abena gently shook me awake, I realized we had come to a stop.
“Where are we?” I asked weakly.
“Deep inside the Eastern Region,” she said gently. “Seems this is where we part, my love. There’s a lake, and across the lake is Wowo. Brian has already spoken to one of the canoe operators and given them money. It’s time, my love.”
And that was that.
I just began to weep pathetically.
She held me gently and lovingly and rocked me, making no sounds, but her tears washed my face. Brian soon opened the car door and looked down at me with tears in his eyes.
“Time to go, buddy,” he said, and then he turned away, put his head on the roof of the car, and began to weep pathetically. Other men had come around the car, fishermen, I guessed, or canoe operators.
Abena Adobea dropped her head and kissed me fiercely, and I clawed at her with my feeble hands.
“Please, Maa Abena, wait for me, okay? Whatever happens, I beg of you, wait for me before you take any decisions, I beg of you!”
“Yes, yes, my love,” she whispered.
And from there it was a hazy recollection as I was lifted out of the car gently, and carried to a canoe. I was put across some blankets, and then an outboard motor started, and slowly the canoe moved away from the banks of the lake. I could see Abena Adobea’s weeping face, and a moment later Brian came to stand by her side, his hand across his lips, as the canoe gathered speed.
And then I could not see them any longer.
I was weeping too hard.
***
The sky was almost dark as I became aware of many male voices speaking a strange language, the language I had heard Nana Bosomba speak with Dede, and I knew I was in Wowo, finally.
I was dimly-aware of being carried on a stretcher, many voices accompanying me. Brian had told them about sending me to Nana Bosomba, and had even written a short explanation in case I couldn’t speak.
A cacophony of voices, drumbeats and singing followed me. I was transferred to a sort of moving cart with four wheels, and pushed not so gently along the paths of Wowo. It reminded me of Etwe-Pe-Kote, but the buildings in Wowo were nicer, mostly painted, and nicely-spaced.
I was in a myriad of physical and emotional pain, but I endured, and finally they pushed me through the gates of a huge place that looked like a palace. The drawings on the white walls, however, depicted hideous creatures and caricatures. There was a shrine of sorts in the middle of the yard. It consisted of black and white pots, shells and other articles smeared with blood.
I was lifted off the cart and carried into a room lit brightly with candles and lanterns. They placed me on the floor first, and then I was lifted up and put in a chair, where I sagged weakly.
There were many people in the room. The men had all wound white pieces of clothes around their waists. The women, mostly aged, had red cloths around their middle, covering breasts and thighs. They were sitting around me in a circle, their faces dark and impassive.
The young men who had carried me inside were speaking excitedly to a slim, elderly man with a bald head and a huge moustache. The man was wearing a white smock over his white cloth, and he had a white horsetail whisk which he tossed lazily against his shoulder once in a while.
They gave him the letter Brian had written and he read it slowly. He looked very familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him. I wondered briefly if he were Nana Bosomba’s brother.
He carefully folded the letter, raised his voice, and spoke in his native language. Suddenly, the people gathered began to make great lowing sounds of distress and mourning, which I found quite confusing. The man with the great moustache then approached me, bowed low and looked into my face.
“Yew speeking the Eeenglish?” he asked coldly.
I nodded, but responded in the Fanti language.
“I can speak Fanti too, if you can,” I said.
“Yes, I can,” he replied in the Ashanti Twi language, his accent passably good. “So, you’re Biko Yao, the man my daughter was seeing? The man who caused her to die?”
I stared at him with incomprehension, my brow puckered.
Could he be referring to himself as Akos’ father because of the custom of referring to all girls in one’s family as daughters?
“Well, I came here to speak to Nana Bosomba,” croaked softly. “If he’s around, I would like to see him, please.”
His eyes narrowed sharply.
“I am Nana Bosomba of the Wowo Ritual Astral Clan!” he said sharply. “I am the father of Akos, the one who died! Your people stole the chain I gave her, and I killed them all! I killed the driver who knocked her down! I’ve tried to kill you several times but to no avail! But now, you have come here, to the lair of the lion!”
“What are you talking about?” I asked with sudden terror. “I want Nana Bosomba! He’s Akos’ father! I spoke to him, I’ve been seeing him! The bearded man, the one who flies on cloths…Nana Bosomba of Wowo! The one whose sister is Dede!”
“I’m Nana Bosomba!” the man shouted angrily.
He pointed to a picture on the wall, and I looked.
There were several framed pictures on the wall, and the one he was pointing to showed him and Akos in a happy mood as they held each other and hugged.
“That is Akos, my daughter Akos, my third daughter!” he said fiercely. “I have three brothers, and one sister called Salormey! I don’t have a sister called Dede!”
And that was when I became frantic and so disoriented!
I shook my head with pain.
“You don’t understand!” I said weakly. “Akos is an only daughter of Nana Bosomba. She…she had a chain. She wrote to Nana Bosomba not to kill me! Nana Bosomba came to Accra to see me! He put a curse on me that is making me grow old till I die! I…he told me to come here and marry his sister Dede or I’ll die! I also came to say farewell to Akos, because I treated her badly! Please, stop doing this to me!”
The man stood up and barked out an order.
A woman scurried out of the room, and presently returned with a box.
The man opened the box.
Inside was a letter and the ring I had given to Akos!
He snatched up the letter and showed it to me.
“Yes, this is the letter my daughter wrote to me, explaining everything!” he hissed dangerously. “How you promised her marriage, how you made love to her, how she found out she was pregnant! Read the letter! She begged me not to kill you, but I wanted to kill you, every day I tried to kill you but something…some strange power always stopped my spiritual arrows! But now you have been delivered to me!”
“I don’t understand!” I screamed loudly. “The…the Nana Bosomba came for Akos’ body in the city! He said she was buried in the cemetery of the humiliated souls! Alright, alright, how did you get the body of Akos?”
“An ambulance brought her to the lake, and then a canoe brought her over, with her possessions! A stranger, a policeman, came to explain what happened! I never went to Accra!”
“And you never put this…this spell of growing old on me?” I asked with real fear now.
“No!” the man screamed. “I am Nana Bosomba! You killed my daughter! Why would I want you to grow old? I want you dead, dead, dead and dead! Like all your other accomplices whom I killed, Mr. Yao Biko!”
And then he drew wicked-looking knife from a scabbard at his waist and pressed it against my throat, nicking the skin so that blood stained its edge!
My heart raced with uncontrollable terror!
What was going on?
What was the meaning of all this? If this man was indeed Nana Bosomba, Akos’ father, which I could clearly see, who was the man with all those incredible powers who had forced me to eat with him, put a curse on me, and done so many things?
Who was Dede if she were not a part of the setup here?
Oh, dear Lord!
What was this? What was going on? Who was the real Nana Bosomba? Who was that man, where did he come from? Why had he directed me here into this trap? What kind of deception was this? What had I been going through?
And the real Nana Bosomba pressed the knife harder into my throat, drawing a little bit more blood!
“You killed my daughter, a girl of the shrine of Wowo, the daughter of mine, Nana Bosomba of Wowo…I’m going to cut off your head like a chicken!”