The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi: A Novel (4 page)

The crowd thickened as the day wore on. Men accompanied by veiled wives treated themselves to morsels of roast beef, monkey, wild boar or antelope at the meat stalls, gave a pittance to a band of street singers or mocked them and told them to make way for the people parading past: tall, shuffling men from the east, shaven-headed girls from across the river, slave traders’ wives from Mali who even veiled their eyes, naked huntsmen from the savannahs around Damongo.

The Twi language was suddenly alive with accents from every corner of Ashanti: the sharp consonants from the north, which must make themselves heard over sandstorms, the lisp of the Volta fishermen, the nasal singsong of the forest-dwellers in the south. And there was the Twi that provoked laughter among the pure Ashanti, spoken by the conquered tribes across the river who had been taken by their masters to be sold as slaves in Kumasi. One could hear the drawl of the Ga, the effeminate cheep of the Ewe, and the voices of the dwarfs from Talenso, defeated weaklings from Dagoma, Dagaba, Fra Fra and Kusasi, who were unable to pronounce the sound
ouè
.

It was this cacophony that kept us awake all night. When Kwame and I grew tired of our games I drifted off, only to be rudely awakened by the bickering of a couple of drunk priests. My head ached and I cursed the language of my birth. Little did I know that I would have lost the ability to speak it a few years later. I put my fingers in my ears and buried my face between Kwame’s shoulders.

Before dawn our servants came to clothe us, and in the gloom we were led outside to the city gates of Kumasi, where the forest path to Accra begins. We saw a great mass of people advancing over the hills. The moisture exuded by the tightly packed bodies hung like a mist around the city.

My father, the Asantehene Kwaku Dua I, sat on his throne before the great crowd, shaded by parasols of gold brocade. Wearing a red cloak edged with silver, his arms and legs weighed down by ornaments, he stared into the distance. Next to my father, on an ivory seat encrusted with diamonds, sat Kwame’s mother, my aunt. She was the sister of the Asantehene and consequently the paramount woman.

To her left sat the bejewelled members of her lineage: the
oyoko
, family members connected by the red female bloodline, which governs succession. Each mother and grandmother had gathered her
yafunu
around her, the “children from one belly.” To her right, sitting in a wide circle on gilded stools and richly worked carpets, were those who were related to our royal family by way of the
ntoro
, the male kinship, which was the white lineage of the seed whereby the soul is transmitted.

Close to my father sat Badu Bonsu II, king of Ahanta, who was one of his closest friends. Around him were gathered the council of wise men: astrologers, judiciaries, fetish priests, diplomats, keepers of customs, symbols and traditional music, magicians, architects and physicians. A place of honour was reserved for the geomancers, who knew where to look for the gold and precious stones embedded in our soil. Before them kneeled young slaves, their heads bowed and their hands brimming with white-gold pendants and fetishes of amethyst and emerald. Flag-bearers formed a guard of honour for the late arrival of dignitaries. There were skirmishes between the bands of musicians, buffoons and dancers, each claiming what they considered their rightful places. In the thick of it all, four black-suited Europeans with heat-stricken, drawn faces were working their way towards the front: they were the Reverend Brooking, an English missionary, and envoys from Britain, Portugal and the Netherlands. The latter was Jacob Huydecoper, a stout, red-faced fellow, who had served as assistant in the city since 1836. Bowing deeply, he greeted Kwame and me with the title of “Prince,” although it was obvious that there was some confusion in his mind about our identity and the precise nature of our link to the throne. We did not return his greeting. These men were underlings, condemned to spend their lives in a place forsaken by their own god. When they were not felled by the climate, they were drunk on palm wine.

On either side of our family, as a sign of honour to Ashanti unity, stood battle formations drawn from all the states of the Union of Ashanti: Kumasi, Juaben, Bekwai, Nsuta, Mampong and Kokofu. Each
asafohene
, wearing the commander’s fighting tunic decked with gold-inlaid amulets and
grigris
to ward off evil, headed a squad of 200
akwanrafo
with cocked rifles. In addition, each was flanked by a close array of 150 fighters attended by dozens of
asansafo
, the “empty-handed,” whose task was not to carry provisions but to see to the swift removal of booty. The
kyidom
bringing up the rear were recognizable by the plumes tied to their spear-points. Altogether there were six full armies: thirty-seven regiments in seventy-seven subdivisions. On platforms strung across the hillsides a dense multitude had assembled, in which 120 golden parasols betokened the presence of the same number of village chiefs. Each of these had brought, in addition to the village elders and their women in all their finery, 400 armed troops, 200 slaves and 100 gifts. A vast assembly of functionaries, a full
oman
of each state headed by its
omanhenes
, accompanied by all those who had earned the honour of joining the excursion to the capital, occupied the outermost reaches of the city. There they mingled with the wholesalers and heads of village clans who had gathered together. The Asantehene himself was too far away for those at the back of the crowd to even catch a glimpse of him, which gave rise to widespread grumbling. There was some scuffling and molesting of beer girls. They had no idea of the ceremonies taking place on the other side of the sea of people.

On this day Kwame and I, both of us named, in keeping with tradition, after the Saturday and Sunday of our respective births, were in the tenth year of our lives. We were positioned among our families: I to the left of my father, while Kwame, being the eldest son of the queen mother and heir apparent to the Asantehene’s throne, was directed to the right. Our shoulders were elaborately draped with the colourful
adinkra
cloths, after which we were told to sit still. Both of us failed to do so, which earned us each a box on the ears from my father. We had to be patient. To while away the time storytellers were summoned to do their work in the oppressive heat.

“Osei Tutu broke two branches off the kuma tree . . .” one of them began. I shot a look at Kwame, who collapsed into nervous giggles when our eyes met.

We had heard the story of the founding of our native city too often: the battle Osei Tutu had fought to throw off the yoke of the Denkyira, his shrewdness in allying himself to five other rebel tribes so that he might later subdue them and thus forge the different domains into a single nation with a common language and common religion—it had all been subsumed into the legend of the archetypal founding father and his kuma tree. Every child in Kumasi imbibes the story of the fruitful branch and the withered branch with its mother’s milk.

Kwame Poku was the only son born to the Asantehene’s eldest sister. His father was the famous Adusei Kra, the
atene
akotenhene
, commander of all the warriors of Ashanti. Adusei Kra was seen in public only at official events. Severe and menacing in full regalia.

Seven years before Kwame’s birth, Adusei Kra had led the Ten Thousand southwards on a legendary campaign. Upon his arrival at the coast he had defeated the English, one of those European peoples who had given the Ashanti kingdom and the outlying West African states the name
Gold Coast
. Adusei Kra sent the white men scurrying back to their fortresses, after which they only ventured outside to bring gifts and to grovel.

In his forty-second year the great warrior fell ill. He called for the fetish priest to conduct the ceremony whereby his strength and bravery would be passed on to his son, my cousin Kwame, who was designated to be the future king of our people. When he had done this Adusei Kra drifted into a sleep resembling death.

In those days the palace children avoided Kwame. They were alarmed by the severity of his expression, which his father seemed to have vested in him along with his other qualities. Kwame spent much of his time in our wing of the palace in order to prepare himself for the throne that he would occupy once my father had died. I ran into him from time to time, but he always kept his eyes fixed on the floor and I did not venture to speak to him. Besides, I had my own reasons for sadness.

I missed my brothers Kwadwo and Kwabena, the only two who had the same mother as I. She was my father’s first wife. My brothers were a little older than me and they were dearer to me than anyone else in the world. They were the only children who had free access to my room. One day I could not find them anywhere. I had three sleepless nights before someone dared reveal the truth to me. My father had handed over his own sons to the British envoy, who was to conduct them to Fort Cape Coast.

I was inconsolable. Never before had an Ashanti prince left our territory. How could my brothers be obliged to travel the same jungle paths that the slaves conquered by my father had been forced to tread before? Were Kwadwo and Kwabena to be given to white men in exchange for Dutch gin and muskets? I had horrible visions of their plight. Eventually I was issued an official statement to the effect that the two princes would return within a few years as grown men; they would have amassed large fortunes and would come with beautiful wives, but I felt they were lost to me. Less than a month later news came that they had been ambushed on the way by Abyssinian caravan drivers and killed for their golden ornaments.

I could not comprehend why my father had sent his sons to their deaths in this way and wished to hear some explanation, some remorse—just a cry of grief, if nothing else—from his own lips. But he did not show his face in the family circle for weeks, probably out of shame, and whenever I did set eyes on him the circumstances were too formal for me to approach him. My mind reeled with questions, but an Asantehene does not speak for himself. From the time a new king has been pressed three times on the Golden Stool—the repository of the spirit of Ashanti which was made to appear out of the sky by Osei Tutu’s priest—he employs the services of a speaker, who never leaves his side. The speaker is deputed to communicate the Asantehene’s opinions, thoughts and feelings. And although it still happened, albeit rarely and only in the most private quarters of the palace, that Kwaku Dua became once more the father he had been before his accession to the throne—when he was called simply Fredua Agyeman and would draw me on to his lap or take a stroll in the street holding my hand in his without this attracting any attention—I could never trust him again. I became apprehensive. My love was numbed by doubts. From then on, if my father happened to see me red-eyed, and sank down on his haunches to comfort me, I would brace myself and say it was nothing, just some grains of sand that had blown into my eyes. An Ashanti knows the salutary power of taboo: grief that is unspoken does not exist.

In the old days I used always to be bathed together with my brothers. It was great sport. We wrestled with each other, splashed and drove our servants to despair. From now on I was bathed alone. I tried to put a brave face on it, but one morning a sudden douse of cold water unleashed my grief. The sense of loss was like a blow to the stomach. I fled to the dressing room, sobbing, and sent everyone away.

There I was, huddled in a corner, when Kwame came in. He had seen my servants leave and thought the place was unoccupied. I raised my head and our eyes met. I saw at once that his reticence was not inspired by arrogance. He immediately dismissed all his attendants and sat down by my side, consoling me by breaking into sobs himself. I told him about my own sadness and asked him to tell me about his.

“You know,” he said, “the family of a brave man always has some reason to weep.”

From that day on we bathed together.

Not long afterwards Kwame visited me in my apartments. He had never done so before. The tuition he was receiving brought him into contact with many of those who were close to the throne. He had plied them with questions as to the motives underlying my brothers’ departure, and had come up with the following explanation.

Kwaku Dua, my father, had developed a keen interest in all things European. He was the seventh Asantehene of the Union of Ashanti, but he was the first to view the old contacts as more than a means of acquiring alcohol and arms. He was seized by the notion that the science and knowledge of white men might well be of service to our people, especially now that the European nations had, for reasons incomprehensible to us, abolished slavery. The trade in slaves had not been wholly wiped out by the abolition, but it had declined so dramatically that the prosperity of our outlying regions was at risk.

The Reverend Brooking, who strutted around Kumasi wearing the regulation high black collar of the Wesleyan Missionary Society even in the midday heat, encouraged my father’s interest. He proposed sending my brothers to London for a spell, no doubt with the aim of converting them, and eventually, through them, our people as well. My father liked the idea of an English education for his sons, even though the religions of Europe struck him as absurd. He did not tolerate Christian worship in his realm. Indeed, some years later he even had Brooking’s head, complete with collar, impaled on a stake in front of his palace. Religious teaching of any kind was the least of his concerns. The Asantehene’s interest in this venture focused on science and progress, on his relations with the British government and on the expansion of trade. However, the murder of my brothers had nipped all these ambitions in the bud.