Eddie Signwriter (25 page)

He found the entry he was looking for, dated 7 March.
Global Travel Agency
—two months or so before his nephew’s disappearance.

He saw that his nephew had been billing in foreign currency. A
hundred dollars U.S. He turned over the page, added up the numbers to the last entry. The amount was considerable.

Though if his nephew had traveled by plane, he’d have needed papers, which takes money. And friends.

The money at least was no longer a mystery.

He flipped again through the pages. In the last few weeks business had been booming, until two days before the fire. Then nothing.

“Clever boy,” Festus Ankrah said under his breath, “though not clever enough.”

Festus Ankrah scanned again through the last three months of entries. Telecentres. Beauty salons. Restaurants. The inside of a bar, which Festus Ankrah happened to know from his younger days and wasn’t aware still existed. The Lebanese Club around the corner—150 dollars U.S. for “mural of Scene With Cyprus trees and mountains based on a Postcard.”

In the last few weeks the jobs had gotten larger, judging by the prices, except—Festus Ankrah noticed—for a few small jobs.

Eugenia Unisex Beauty International
in Asylum Down—this a month before his nephew’s disappearance.

Selma’s Clothes Shop, Perfection Guaranteed
—with an address in Nima.

Ibrahim’s Snack Shack on Farrar Street
.

This one was familiar to Festus Ankrah. He followed the ruled line to the left-hand margin of the page, where the owner was identified: Ibrahim Momo.

Outside the weather was looking threatening. Festus Ankrah got his umbrella and headed to Farrar Street.

He did not find Ibrahim Momo at the Snack Shack.

Two days later he did, at the beauty salon Ibrahim Momo owned on Afram Street. It was a tin shack, with windows cut out of the corrugated walls, strings of beads hanging over the doorway, and a fabulous sign along the top of the roof, by which Festus Ankrah knew he had the right place.

There were two work stations on either side of the room, at which
attendants were braiding hair. Large women reclined in the easy chairs, heads in the laps of the attendants, necks bared.

Bob Marley was wailing on the radio about how he never shot the deputy.

Festus Ankrah came through the doorway, strings of beads parting on either side of him. He took in the sight in front of him. Everyone carried on about their business. After a while, one of the attendants, looking up casually, nodded towards a door leading out the back of the room.

Festus Ankrah went through.

He recognized Ibrahim Momo. Festus Ankrah smiled involuntarily. He’d seen him around the Snack Shack. It had never occurred to him that the place was his.

Ibrahim Momo was sitting at a desk, reading the paper. He looked up. He didn’t seem surprised. He looked like somebody not easy to surprise.

“Good day,” Ibrahim Momo said into the silence.

Festus Ankrah said, “Good day to you.”

Ibrahim Momo smiled. In a voice that was not unfriendly he asked, “Do I know you?”

“No,” Festus Ankrah said, “you know my nephew. He painted the sign out here on your shop.”

“Ah. Yeeesss,” Ibrahim Momo replied. “So. I am pleased den to meet wit you. I beg siddon.”

The accent was unmistakable. The pidgin phrases stuck out from his English like sharp rocks in shallow water.

Festus Ankrah sat down.

Ibrahim Momo waved his hand, as if to say: You are welcome all the same.

Festus Ankrah said, “I am hoping you can tell me where he is.”

“How I suppose know?” Ibrahim Momo replied.

Festus Ankrah said, “I have done my homework.”

He noticed that Ibrahim Momo’s fingernails, though not long, were manicured. He was very well turned out. Generous collar. Shirt all starched. Gold hanging down to the second buttonhole. He was dressed for the night in the middle of the day.

“I see,” Ibrahim Momo said. “But dis is confidential. You understand. I no fit disappoint my clients.”

“I understand,” Festus Ankrah said.

He took out a twenty-dollar bill and put it on the table.

Ibrahim Momo’s eyebrows turned down.

Festus Ankrah said, “I am not asking you to talk to me. But perhaps you can tell my friend there.”

“Eeeeh. But I don’t tink dat poor ting will ever talk to me o,” Ibrahim Momo said.

Festus Ankrah put a second bill on the first—this time a hundred dollars.

Ibrahim Momo sighed. He pocketed the bills. He said, “I liked dat boy. You only had to ask.”

“So now I’m asking. Where did he go?”

“Tsk tsk,” Ibrahim Momo said, shaking his head. “Where he go? He go Dakar now.”

“Why Dakar?”

“To get to Paris.”

“How?”

“On his own. My people waitin’ for him in Dakar. From then on I’d like to tell you but no know. He journeyed by aeroplane. He flew. Dat’s all.”

Festus Ankrah reached for his wallet.

“No,” Ibrahim Momo said, raising his hand, “stop dat now. You tink I don’t have enough of dat ting myself?” And before he could receive an answer, “I no know precisely who he went wit. Nobody knows anybody else. Dat’s how it is.”

“Do you know if he got to Paris?”

“I no sure.”

“Could you find out if you wanted to?”

“E go hard.”

“Could I find out if I wanted to?”

“Everyting is possible if a person tries well well.”

“All right,” Festus Ankrah said, making his mind up immediately, and he told Ibrahim Momo that he too now needed to go to Dakar and Paris. “Can you arrange this?”

“It wouldn’t be my firs’ time,” Ibrahim Momo said, shrugging. But he could see immediately that Festus Ankrah was not a humorous man.

“When?” he asked.

“Whenever you can,” Festus Ankrah said.

“All right. I will organize.”

Festus Ankrah took a calling card from his jacket and put it down on the table. He said, “Contact me here when you have a proposal. My friends”—patting his jacket—“will take care of it.”

“I’m tired of your friends,” Ibrahim Momo replied—it seemed—sadly, and put the card into his desk drawer without looking at it. “You can tell dis boy of yours he can pay me wit paint when he come back. Business is good. Business going to be good a long time.”

FESTUS ANKRAH
received two personal calls in the weeks before he closed up his house and left town. Both visits took place early in the evening, just after supper. The first visit was only a few days after his trip to Afram Street. He had not expected Ibrahim Momo’s people to call so soon, and so was caught by surprise when he saw through the mosquito mesh of the front door somebody he did not know standing on his balcony.

The man on whom Festus Ankrah opened the door was neatly dressed, in a checked shirt with a bow tie, and smelled of soap and looked like a seminary student.

Festus Ankrah invited him in.

He offered the man some Star beer, which he’d been drinking alone at his dining room table. The man said he didn’t drink. They sat down together at the table.

Festus Ankrah took out a cigarette.

He gave the man some water and a straw.

Ibrahim Momo had done some research, the man said, the results of which he related to Festus Ankrah.

Festus Ankrah let the man finish. Then he said, “It’s not very much.” It was the name of a hotel in Dakar and a number of possible contacts.

No, it wasn’t very much, the man agreed politely, but it was what it was, and did Festus Ankrah require any further services of Mr. Momo?

Festus Ankrah told the man that he did.

The man asked for two photos, Festus Ankrah’s passport, and a thousand dollars.

Festus Ankrah told him the dollars would take a little time.

The man nodded. He said he would take the photos and the passport now. Festus Ankrah should have the money at delivery.

Festus Ankrah left the man in the dining room and went into his bedroom. He retrieved his passport from where he kept it, under a floorboard in the doorway between his bedroom and the hall, along with cash, some gems, a few photos and a small Russian-made pistol he’d once bought off an army captain in less stable times.

He and the man went round the corner to the pharmacy to get the pictures taken. The man waited on a bench on the balcony outside, in the orange light cast by the mosquito lamp above the pharmacy door.

Inside Festus Ankrah sat on a chair with a broken back, against a sheet hung up against the back wall.

The flash of the camera left two white squares over his sight.

He and the man stood outside on the verandah while the pictures were developed. Across the bar was a hotel. There were some guests gathered around a table on a tiled patio, whose voices drifted over. They seemed to be talking about, at the same time, a female judge who had been murdered some years before and the cost of a guided tour to the forts along Cape Coast.

Festus Ankrah and the man listened without comment.

The pharmacist came out, shaking the photographic paper to make the colour set. There were six identical photos on the paper, three by two, like a slab of chocolate. The pharmacist handed the photos to Festus Ankrah.

“Give them to him,” Festus Ankrah said to the pharmacist, gesturing to the man with his head.

The pharmacist gave the man Festus Ankrah’s photos and went back into his shop. Festus Ankrah and the man shook hands on the street. The man told Festus Ankrah he would be contacted in time. Then the two went their separate ways.

The next day Festus Ankrah sold a small piece of property of his in Nima, and called in a few outstanding debts. It was a lot more cash than he needed for the passport, and the month or so of travel that he reckoned would be necessary, but he was too old to travel as rough as he had as a younger man. Nor was he sure he could predict anymore what the price of information would be once he reached Europe.

At the same time he began to put his affairs in order for a protracted absence. He organized for a friend to run his business, another to move into his house at a day’s notice.

Then he waited.

The second visit, also unannounced, was at more or less the same time in the evening as the first, two weeks later—not an unreasonable length of time in which to obtain the necessary papers, Festus Ankrah judged.

It was a different man this time, which Festus Ankrah saw immediately from the shape through the mesh when the knock came. Festus Ankrah opened the door to a tall elderly man with spectacles and a small bag in his hand.

“Good evening, Mr. Ankrah,” the man said before Festus Ankrah could address him.

“Good evening,” Festus Ankrah said, then turned into the room, adding over his shoulder, “Please sit”—he gestured towards the table—“I will be a moment.”

When Festus Ankrah came down from his room with the envelope of cash, the man was seated at the table, his hands folded neatly over themselves on the tabletop.

He had a dignified face. Not a face for this business.

Festus Ankrah sat down opposite the old man and pushed the envelope across the table. The man calmly picked up the envelope, lifted the unsealed flap, and looked inside.

Festus Ankrah said, “Fifty times twenty U.S. dollar bills. Count it.”

The man’s top lip slipped beneath the bottom, the corner of his mouth turned down.

“Hmm,” he said, impressed.

Then he smiled.

He said, “If I were really smart I would take this money and never come back.”

He slid the envelope back across the table to Festus Ankrah.

He said, “Regrettably, I think this is for somebody else.”

Festus Ankrah leaned over the table, retrieved his envelope and pocketed it in a single motion. He smiled back. Who then did he have the pleasure of addressing at his dining room table?

The elderly man said, “My name is Dr. Kwaku Wilkins-Adofo.”

Festus Ankrah waited. He did not know the name.

“I am a friend of John Bediako,” the doctor said.

Festus Ankrah raised his eyebrows in enquiry, although already he had begun to suspect, from the elegance of the Twi that the visitor spoke, and the man’s old-fashioned dignity.

“I am glad to have caught you before your travels,” the doctor said.

Festus Ankrah said, “What makes you think I am going somewhere?” realizing as he did that he sounded like a caught-out school-child.

The doctor smiled in a way that Festus Ankrah believed was intended to put him at ease. No doubt it had many before him.

He said, “Mr. Bediako told me.”

“What makes him think it?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” Festus Ankrah said.

“It is not a mystery,” the doctor said. “Mr. Bediako expected you would. In addition, the father of an ex-student of Mr. Bediako, Simon Dankwa, with whom Mr. Bediako has recently been in contact, confirmed it to Mr. Bediako.”

“So what does my old friend the teacher want?” Festus Ankrah asked.

The doctor stopped smiling. In reality it pained him to smile. He had not been in the mood to smile since his old friend had called him
to a dinner that past weekend, and told him what he was now about to tell Mr. Ankrah.

The doctor said, “He wants me to tell you a story.”

“Another story,” Festus Ankrah said wearily, determined to show as little interest as possible. “Why?”

“Because he knows what you’ll do with it.”

Festus Ankrah shrugged. He said, “What is this story?”

“Mr. Bediako wants me to tell you how Nana Oforiwaa died.”

“Everyone knows this already,” Festus Ankrah said.

“No,” the doctor said gravely.

And when Festus Ankrah did not respond, and the doctor knew he had Festus Ankrah’s attention, he said, “Everyone remembers the heat, and then the rain,” and with these words began to recount the story of the last day of Nana Oforiwaa’s life, just as he’d started it so many years ago on that starry night on the grounds of the Methodist church, when he stood before the people gathered there, and told it as then the story was known.