Chapter Seven
“Mati! Mati!” The excited shouts jolted Kimberly out of that world between sleep and wakefulness. She felt the beginning of a slight headache from the jolt. She had just been about to cross the border into sleep. She found her flip-flops under the bed and put them on before she headed outside to see what all the yelling was about.
From the top of the stairs, she saw Jessica hunched on her knees in front of a frail old woman in wheelchairs. Hussein was standing behind the wheelchair looking extremely pleased with himself. Kimberly had never seen Jessica as happy as she was now hugging the little old woman and speaking and laughing at the same time. As she watched, Hussein looked up and met her eyes. He beckoned for her to come down and join them.
Kimberly hesitated. It looked like a family reunion and she did not want to intrude, but when Hussein looked like he would come and get her himself, she obliged. As she descended the stairs, Ladipole and Emma walked in from the door and Rueda emerged in her apron.
“Mati!” The housekeeper exclaimed. She quickly wiped her hands on her apron and hugged the old lady. “I’m so happy to see you again.”
“Me too,” the old woman smiled, revealing a set of impossibly even white teeth. “I brought some new recipes I’d like to share with you.”
“Oh, that will be wonderful. I have your favourite tuozafi with tubaani on fire. I will go back and check on it now.” She hurried away.
“Promise you’ll never leave again, Mati,” Jessica said, still holding on to the old woman.
“But you are never here, my darling, and Rueda goes home too. Who will I talk to?”
“I won’t go away ever again, I promise. I’ll stay with you forever.”
“If you say so, my dear, but first I want to know who these two fine gentlemen are.”
Jessica got up as Ladipole and Emma neared them.
“These are my friends from work,” she said, “Aryetey Ladipole and Emma Kuma. This is my great grandma, Mati.”
“Nice to meet you ma’am,” they said.
“Call me Mati,” Mati said. “It’s good to have people in the house again. When my Mubarak was –” she stopped suddenly and blanched as if she had seen a ghost. “Annie Smith” the old woman exclaimed at Kimberly and made to stand up. Then she remembered her condition and collapsed back into her chair. “By all the stars, it is Annie come back from the dead,” she finished.
Kimberly stood rock still in confusion. Who on earth was Annie Smith and why was Jessica’s great grandmother referring to her as Annie smith from the dead?
Hussein stepped forward and settled the confusion. “Mati,” he said, “this is Kimberly. She is also a friend of Jessica’s. Her name is Kimberly Greene. Kimberly, this is my great grandmother that I was talking to you about.”
“Nice to meet you,” Kimberly said shakily, not quite recovered from being referred to as a dead woman come back from the grave.
“Come closer girl,” Mati said. “Unless my eyes are beginning to fail me, I say you look exactly like my dead friend Annie before she eloped with her chauffeur some ninety something years back.
Kimberly saw from the corners of her eyes that the people around them could barely contain their laughter as she obliged Mati.
The old woman scrutinised her some more before saying, “no, my eyes are as sharp as they were in my youth. You are the spitting image of my dear friend Annie, God bless her soul.”
“Annie was Mati’s best friend,” Jessica explained. “She was white.”
Ladipole and Emma burst out laughing.
“I always suspected that you came from white blood,” Emma said, “and now it has been confirmed.”
“There has never been any Annie in my family,” Kimberly said, “neither have there been whites. It’s just a coincidence.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mati said, “but I know my memory is as sharp as it was ninety years ago. I’m very tired and I’ll like to rest now.”
“I’ll take you to your room,” Hussein said.
“Let me,” Jessica said quickly. She took the wheelchair from Hussein and pushed her great grandmother away.
“Are you sure you are not of mixed blood, Kimberly?” Ladipole laughed. “Or maybe you have come back to find your chauffeur”
“Say another word, either of you,” She threatened.
“Mati is usually never wrong about these things,” Hussein said. “If she says you look like her long-dead friend then you must.”
“That does not make me family with a white woman who has been dead for hundred years.”
“Of course not,” Hussein said, “it is just a coincidence, but knowing my great grandmother, she will probably wake up with the story of her friend’s elopement at the tip of her tongue.”
“Elopement,” Emma chuckled, “that is one thing that even a sensible man wouldn’t mind doing with you, Kimberly. Anybody will understand why a chauffeur would want to elope with a woman who looked like you.”
If looks could kill, Emma would have fallen dead from the one Kimberly aimed at him, but it was the expression on Hussein’s face that shut him up.
Rueda was in her glory cooking and dishing out food to the growing group in the hall. Word had got to town that Mati was back home, and every now and then, one or two people from town came to greet her and welcome her back. What had been intended as a short visit was soon a full-fledged party as more and more people arrived at the Big House. There were Mr Quansah, the manager of the newly opened micro-finance company and his wife Dorothy. There was also the marshal Abdul Razak. He had left his deputy in charge to visit. Reverend Thomas who had been posted to the town from Kumasi just a few months before Mati had left was also in attendance. And among the lot were Fatimatu and her sister Salamatu who made everybody’s business their business. Grace who was also present with her mother offered to help Rueda in the kitchen but the older woman shooed her away saying, “this is my territory, miss, now come on go inside and let me handle things.”
Mati was also in her element telling one tale after another to her audience. It was not always that she had such an eager crowd. The people gathered in the hall were simply delighted to hear her tell her stories. It was not always that they were in the presence of a legend like Mati who in her youth had told stories in palaces and mansions and in ships to traders who had come from all over the world to do business on the shores of the Gold Coast. They listened in rapt attention and burst into laughter when she said something that had them roaring with laughter.
“Years ago, when I could still do the dance at the Bugum Chuku, I had a friend called Annie smith,” Mati said. The audience grew quiet at her solemn tone. “She was the best friend any person could ever have. Annie was very kind and treated everybody with respect, even her servants. Her father was not so kind. Sir Smith, they called him because he had served in the army before retiring with a great fortune. Annie was in love with her chauffeur but her father would not tolerate it. He threatened to have the chauffeur arrested for crimes he had not committed. So, on the evening before he could put his words to action, Annie succeeded in convincing the chauffeur, James, to elope with her. It was the talk of town for years. The rich white girl and her father’s Dagambge chauffeur.”
“What happened to them?” Salamatu asked eagerly.
“Were they caught?” Her sister chipped in.
“No, they were not caught. My friend Annie had a will of steel and she was bent on making it South. Poor James who was madly in love with her was willing to follow her to the end of the world.”
“Did you hear from your friend?” Ladipole asked.
“Yes, she wrote to me a few times after she made me swear not to reveal anything to her family. After the birth of their first daughter, the letters became few and far between till there was none.”
“You said first daughter. Did they, Anna and her husband, did they have more children?” It was the first time Kimberly had spoken up since Mati started her story.
“None that I know of. I never heard from them again.”
Hussein had been watching Kimberly throughout the story. He noticed that the more Mati spoke, the whiter she turned. And when Mati had mentioned James, he had nearly jumped out of his seat to hold her from fear that she was going to collapse. But she had recovered quickly and he thought he had only imagined the shock on her face. He wanted to hold her hands now, but he could not because she was sandwiched between Emma and Ladipole and he was sitting far from her, between Grace and Reverend Thomas.
“I still have a picture of her,” Mati said. “It was taken the day I went to tell a story for the first time in their mansion. Like I said earlier,” Mati said to Kimberly, “she looked exactly like you.” The old woman took out a small shot from a book she had been holding. She looked at it before passing it to Jessica who was sitting directly at her side.
“My God!” Jessica exclaimed. “It is Kimberly.”
“Pass me that photo,” Salamatu demanded.
“You will get it when it is your turn,” Jessica said without batting an eyelid. It was no secret that she could not stand the two sisters who had appointed themselves as models of virtue in the town just to get their noses in everyone’s business.
She passed the photo to the person sitting next to her. It was Reverend Thomas. He took a look at the photo and glanced at Kimberly before looking back at the photo. “My word!” The Reverend said, “If she wasn’t white, I’d say she was your twin.”
