Frozen Lips

Beryl

1

HE HAD BARELY thirty-five minutes to reach the check-in counters at the newly crowned swankiest airport terminal in the world: Heathrow’s Terminal Five. He jumped from the Piccadilly Line, a train he boarded at Finsbury Park in the early hours of the morning. Terminal Five was the last stop for the train so there was no need for him to rush out, but time was against him so he ran towards the shiny double doors of the elevators. The red lights were blinking, a signal that the machine was about to depart.

A sympathetic woman already in the lift pressed a knob to hold the machine in check till he got in. He thanked his benefactor profusely as he tried to remain calm, but the darting eyes regularly on his wristwatch prompted unsolicited compassion from the fellow passenger in the lift.

‘I am sure you will make it, try to stay calm,’ the woman encouraged smilingly. For the first time, he looked at the woman’s face with a smile in return.

‘You are very kind, thank you …’

A ding-dong bell sounded to announce the departure lounge to the two travellers. Quickly, he wheeled his two heavy bags, a traditional mark of African travellers, out of the lift and momentarily lost his bearings when one of the wheels got trapped. He managed to release the entrapped wheel, cursing for allowing himself to be loaded with that many parcels from friends to relations back home, but he also knew he couldn’t have refused to accept any of them. Rapidly, he wheeled them to the new spacious and ritzy lounge.

The surroundings seemed different and thought he did not see that much beauty when he passed through the previous week. He ran to the check-in lounge to one of the monitors with departure schedules and scanned the list of flights.

His destination was missing!

He went through the list again, this time with a thorough comb, and still could not find his flight schedule.

How is that possible, he queried himself and walked briskly to one of the check-in attendants, to a tall beautiful lady whose face was plastered with perpetual disarming smiles.

‘Excuse me Madam, please where is the counter for Accra? I checked the monitors but I couldn’t find it.’

‘May I see your ticket, please?’ The lady requested still smiling.

The traveller dipped his hands into his breast pocket and quickly produced his ticket to the attendant.

The lady went to one of the computers and punched the keyboards furiously with skilful fingers, moments later she turned to look at the traveller. This time the smile was not so disarming, but plastic and meaningless; widened lips with no delight.

‘Your flight is at Terminal Four sir. This is Terminal Five; go out and turn right.’ She pointed to the gates ahead. ‘There are coaches shuttling between here and Terminal Four every ten minutes.’ She looked at her watch as she spoke. ‘The gate for your flight will close in fifteen minutes;’ she warned with finality.

The traveller ran outside to find a young woman shivering in the uncompromising cold weather with a fag between her two fingers as she inhaled the noxious fumes with relish.

Ironically, where she stood had a No Smoking sign boldly written.

So much for the law-conscious Britain, he thought.

‘Please, where can I find the buses to Terminal Four?’ He asked the lady. When the woman turned to him, he saw she was an official of the airport authority; the top left of her uniform had the BAA logo.

‘Here,’ she said curtly, and resumed her romance with the fumes.

The traveller released his grip on the luggage for the wait and stood in the murderous British cold weather perspiring. A couple walked in leisurely to join him but his thoughts were not in London and his immediate environs and so did not hear when they greeted him. He had to be in Accra at all costs. He thought of other possibilities of getting to Accra, should he miss his flight. Could he fly to Lagos, then what?

He dismissed that idea immediately. Even if he should fly to Lagos, the probability of getting another flight to Accra that very night was doubtful.

The all-important interview was at 9:30 in the morning for his show: At the kitchen of public conscience, the program that earned him many enemies and few friends.

He couldn’t and should not miss the opportunity; he reminded himself to be in Accra at all cost.

For weeks, he had rehearsed a strategy to confront the man who potentially could be the next president of his country.

The political party the candidate was representing had done a good job in marketing him as the best there was. What many didn’t know, or knew and turned a blind eye for various reasons, was his job as the host of that program to bring to the fore for national discourse. He had made it his duty to inform the electorate before they made a choice.

It was his style of uncompromising confrontation and dissecting guests on that program, which earned him many enemies and few friends.

‘That’s your bus,’ the BAA lady who had finished dating the groom-smoke brought him back to London and pointed to an approaching coach rolling slowly on the corridor in front of him. It was exactly three minutes wait, but perhaps there never was any three minutes that long in history. He pushed the two heavy leather bags towards the coach. As he did so, the lady driver who had just jumped down and who he assumed was a Caribbean, came to his rescue and lifted the two bags effortlessly; one in each hand to the booths. The performance of the driver prompted him to resume his work-out routine when he was back in Accra.

He jumped to the seat behind the coach driver as if the front seat would get him to Terminal Four faster. When the coach began to roll slowly, he decided not to look at his watch any longer. It changes nothing anyway except to heighten the palpitating throbs of the body clock known as the heart, he thought.

How could I have made such a damned mistake? He questioned himself when the coach took off and blamed his predicament on BBC World Service Radio broadcasting in Accra.

Prior to his departure from Accra, the network bombarded his eardrums incessantly on catastrophic aviation errors at Terminal Five, insisting that the new terminal was specifically for all British Airways flights. He assumed wrongly that it included flights from Accra, which was not the case.

Ghana, being HIPC—Highly Indebted Poor Country, the new label designed by rich economies for poor nations seeking for support, had not sufficiently upgraded herself to enjoy such a swish display of British affluence. He rebuked the president of his country for that singular decision he indulged himself.

When finally the coach rolled to a stop, he quickly jumped down closely after the lady driver who looked at him quizzically, but all he needed was his bags.

‘This is the last call for flight BA 081 to Accra.’ He heard the speakers at the airport announcing.

Laboriously, he slugged one of the bags over his shoulders and wheeled the other and made his way towards the check-in counter where the long snaking queue had no head or tail. He approached one of the gentlemen conducting the queue.

‘I am sorry sir, my flight is about to depart; could you please … ?’

‘Mr. Yaw Asante … Mr. Yaw Asante travelling to Accra, you are delaying the flight; this is the last effort to reach you. Mr. Asante travelling on flight BA 081 to Accra you are delaying the flight …’ The speakers interrupted his pleadings.

‘That’s me,’ he pointed out excitedly to the official, his voice an octave higher than he had intended.

‘Have you checked in already?’

‘Yes I have,’ he replied promptly.

‘Come with me,’ the officer announced.

He followed him avoiding the winding queue to the counter. ‘Drop your bags in here,’ the officer said.

When he dropped the bags they were over-weight but the officer only looked at him with a silent warning.

‘Let’s go,’ said the officer. They went through the security checks to the last end and he thought he was going to have his way through security with the officer leading the way, but no!

‘Remove your jacket, belt and shoes for me, please,’ an Indian security officer announced. He looked at him and felt like throwing a punch at the officer but he also knew that even an argument would eat away the precious seconds he didn’t have. He removed his shoes, belt and jacket and threw them on the conveyor and run through the scanner machine. The sensitive machine triggered off an alarm; there were leftover British coins in his pockets, he took them out as another bulky security officer came over to frizzle him thoroughly. When it was finally over, he collected his clothing hurriedly and ran towards gate E5, with his belt, shoes, and jacket in hand. Passengers with time to kill looked at him improbably, but he kept on running till he got to gate E5 which was already closed.

Desperately, he banged on the steel doors while strange looks still stared at him, obliviously, he continued banging till the door was eventually opened by a wide eyed security buff.

‘Yaw Asante,’ he shouted breathlessly as he panted.

The obviously irritated security officer managed a dry smile and inched aside for the passenger. Quickly, he ran through the long passage to the aircraft. As he did so, he heard the security operative announcing him on his communication gadget in a cracking voice.

Once in the aircraft, he sat droopily on his seat, his brain blank as he watched the polluted grey clouds delivering and swallowing huge man-made metal birds beyond his optics to the unknown.

* * *

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are waiting for traffic control to clear us, there seems to be a little bit of traffic ahead of us.’ The smooth voice of the pilot sounded through the aircraft speakers.

Fortunately for the exhausted passenger, the seat next to him was empty. He adjusted the bulk of his weight to one side, his head to the other and was gone so fast that he did not notice when they were airborne. When he came around, he had already done almost three hours of sleep, but his metabolism did not go to sleep. He felt the familiar sensation he knew was hunger; he was also aware that he had missed the meals already.

Well, I paid for it, so it is only fair that they give me something to eat, he reasoned and buzzed a button on the left armrest of his seat.

Soon, another smiling hostess came over. Do they look for people who could smile this easy to employ or what? He wondered.

‘I am sorry to bother you madam,’ he began, ‘I know you have already served lunch but I was asleep and I am starving …’

‘No problem sir, you will be served,’ the lady cut in before he could finish and walked away. He smiled nostalgically and felt lucky for having so many cheerful ladies attending to him on such an eventful day.

The traveller attacked the meal ravenously when the lady served him. This reminded him of his dead father, who, always insisted that the only genuine love that ever existed is the love for food. A sudden smile cracked on his face but not enough to halt his attack, he continued the assault on the defenceless chicken and had taken the third or fourth morsel when he felt a soft tap on his shoulders. He turned to look at a towering figure in the isles smiling at him. He thought the man was rude but managed to smile back at the stranger.

He had to be polite even if the man was discourteous. In his profession he had the misfortune of meeting so many people that, it was difficult to keep up with the art of recognition.

He judged the man towering over him to be in his late thirties. His bearings created the impression of an athlete in a previous life and wore a smartly tailored suit that he thought was handsome.

‘Mr. Asante, may I sit down while you work on this?’ The stranger asked and pointed to the food before the traveller.

Yaw Asante appraised him and before he could reply, the man had taken the vacant seat, uninvited.

‘You must be very tired,’ the man said in his bid to be solicitous.

Yaw Asante noticed that the man was American from his accent and continued eating, ignoring the question from the invader.

‘My name is Jim … Jim Moses.’ Yaw lifted his eyes and looked at the rude intruder again as he swallowed the morsel in his mouth.

‘And how may I help you sir?’

‘In many ways Mr. Asante, but I’d rather you finish your food first, and sorry for the rude invasion.’ He said with a smile, but the smile prompted a pause from Yaw Asante when he noticed the stranger’s dental formula and thought he had seen that smile somewhere before; not in the long distance.

‘Have we met?’ He asked the man who called himself Jim Moses.

‘Yes we have, but that is another matter.’ He paused as if he was looking for the right phraseology for his next delivery. ‘I believe you have been receiving materials through a courier from me!’

Yaw Asante nearly choked on the food in his mouth as he lifted his eyes to look at the uninvited guest again. Someone had been sending packets of documents through a courier service to him regularly for the past two months, initially the materials came through e-mails and when he ignored them, the fellow began sending hard copies to his house through courier services.

It was an emerging craze in the social fabric in Accra, which started when the government introduced what she called the Whistle Blower’s Act—WBA ; designed for individuals to expose corrupt practices and malfeasances in public and civil service. Since then, those with personal vendettas at work places against perceived or real enemies cooked up stories through the media instead of the channels instituted by the government. A colleague journalist who carelessly followed one of such trails eventually had to box his way out of a muddy corner, which left ugly bruises on his face.

He, Yaw Asante, wasn’t going to be anybody’s whipping boy and refused to be enticed.

When later the materials started coming to the house through courier, he still ignored them but the inquisitive modern daughter of Eve—Fafa, his girlfriend, began reading the materials and would come to talk to him about the subject.

Eventually, he read part of the materials, and not only were they serious allegations, they were also outrageous, which could potentially land him in deeper troubles than he was prepared for.

The organisation and the people the writer sought to malign were society’s untouchables. Not only were they well connected, they also had impeccable records and profiles with what they did.

No sir, I want no part of it; he had told himself and never replied any of the mails.

Now, suddenly, at thirty-seven thousand feet above sea level in the blue skies, this time not through electronic mails or courier service but physically invading his thoughts, time and meal, was the same accuser of society’s ‘faithfuls.’ He dropped the plastic cutlery in the plastic bowl and looked at the man, not hiding his astonishment.

‘How did you know who I am?’ He asked the intruder called Jim

Moses as his temper welled up within.

‘Is there another Yaw Asante in Ghana?’ The man countered with his own question and went on.

‘Listen Mr. Asante, please let me impress on you to take a second look at the materials before you completely close your mind …’

‘Impress me?’ Yaw Asante interrupted him distastefully. ‘You did the opposite; you are not doing a good job if you thought of impressing me; you rather succeeded in confirming my earlier estimation of you …’

‘Which is what?’ The man asked coolly.

‘I thought of you as someone who is used to having people do his bidding; always in control to get things done his way.’ Yaw Asante mildly responded, muting his real feelings. ‘Therefore, it is difficult for you to accept the fact that I am not interested in your project …’

‘Mr. Asante, you are very dismissive and I can understand that, in your trade you get lots of hoax and that means to be a sceptic …’

‘Mr … what’s your name again?’ Asante asked the man.

‘Call me Jim,’ the man calmly responded.

‘Okay Jim, why haven’t you gone to the police?’

‘The police?’ He asked in astonishment, ‘this is not a matter for the police and also I don’t trust the police.’

Yaw Asante exploded in anger on the single statement ‘I don’t trust the police,’ but he fought himself to stay calm. ‘Be civil; be civil,’ he kept repeating to himself.

Nothing in Africa is good or respected by these arrogant westerners, almost all the social institutions on the continent from the days of old when the missionaries brought their Bible to the present day, everything; music, religion, clothing, language, politics and governance … everything was either heathen, fetish, backward or some derogatory fanciful labels were employed as a tag. He kept quiet for some time to bring civility to his language and when he thought he had lifted himself above such foul sentiments he asked, ‘Do you trust the police in your country?’

‘What country?’ Jim Moses asked wearing confusion in his demeanour.

‘In the United States, where you come from.’

‘I am not American.’

‘Canadian?’

‘No, Mr Asante I am not a Canadian either, I am a Ghanaian just like you.’

Asante looked at the man again, not with surprise but disdain; a minor part of Africans who live part of their lives abroad are even worse than the westerners. They copy blindly and when they are back to Africa, they want everyone to bow down to their wishes, and who would blame them? This is a continent where the national psyche is eroded to the lowest denominator, that anything and everything authentic is considered inferior, particularly in his country, Ghana. It is the only country he knew on God’s earth, where the colonial master’s mistakes in pronunciations are accepted and authenticated to replace the pristine.

In that country, a trace of foreign accent in speech making is supposed to win an instant respect to the extent that those who dare speak mother tongues in pure idiomatic forms are looked on as villagers or uncouth—okuraseni, to the extent that people who have not been to neighbouring Republic of Togo, fake foreign accents to attract respect, and this is not the preserve of the young and exuberant alone.

People who should know better are even worse offenders—politicians, lecturers, and the new breed of radio broadcasters all fake accents on the airwaves. He looked at the Jim guy one more time.

The undaunted Jim Moses had opened his brief case and had taken a white envelope containing several 4 x 8 colour photographs and gave them to Yaw Asante, who took them reluctantly. He looked at the back of the prints and saw dates on each of them with descriptions of where they were taken. The backgrounds were very dark, they were obviously taken in the night from the impressions the images presented.

‘Do you carry these pictures with you everywhere you go?’ Yaw Asante asked him.

‘No, just on this trip.’ He answered.

‘Who else knows about this … your project?’

‘No one sir, but you.’

‘How about the reason for bringing the pictures on this trip?’

‘Mr. Asante, you are the reason I made this trip.’

‘What … !’

2

THE MEETING WITH his boss had dragged on unnecessarily. Yaw Asante kept on looking through the windows as the meeting progressed; the atmosphere outside was very dark even though it was only 5:30 in the afternoon. It was not the time for the night to drop her curtains in the atmosphere, he knew, but the overcasting clouds threatening imminent rains had changed the visibility. His amateur meteorological readings of the clouds predicted cats and dogs rain.

There were not many rains at that time of the year. It was a period that was supposed to be part of the dry Harmattan season; not much rains came during those periods but when they did, they poured very heavily.

The good thing was, rainfall at this period was predictable; the cloud promised and delivered, especially when it threatened from the eastern part of the city.

In such conditions, he never drove till the rains had come, stopped and cleared up, but he had no choice that late afternoon than to go home.

Fafa, his girlfriend, was leaving for Johannesburg that evening and he had her ticket and passport with him. He checked the time for the tenth time and knew he had only an hour and half to get home; and home was far away, located on the notorious traffic-prone Spintex road.

‘I expect all of us to come back here when the press conference is over,’ his boss said, and paused briefly before resuming.

‘Do you have questions?’ No one responded.

‘Right! See you in the morning’. The meeting was over.

As soon as the pronouncement was made he ran to his car, ignoring protests from Anita, his producer, who thought he was nuts for daring to drive in such weather conditions.

A combination of earth-quaking thunders and swift sparkling lightning confirmed to him that the rain was going to be heavy.

Regardless, he started his car and the turbo engine of the Mercedes car responded to the soft provocations of the accelerator with throaty revving which elicited a smile from him; thinking the car was behaving like an infatuated lover. He engaged the gears and reversed the machine onto the streets but the rear wiper was not keeping up well with the boisterous pouring. He stopped and squeezed himself through a tiny space between the two front seats to wipe fog that had collected on the rear screens from within. When he thought it was visible enough, he pushed the motor onto the roads and headed towards the eastern part of the city; from the Ring Road through Kanda estates. The traffic was light from Kanda till he got to Kaokudi junction where it was horrendously packed.

He did not anticipate such traffic and wondered what might have caused the go-slow. Commuters typically did not drive in rains due to the city’s open drainages and the gaping pot-barrel-holes on the roads which could swallow a whole wheel and still have enough space to smile; you drive in such rains at your peril and that is a lesson most city dwellers have learned. So why the traffic jam today? he wondered.

He tried to reach Fafa on his cell phone to assure her that he was on his way, and as usual, the stupid automated voice from the mobile company responded, ‘The number you just called is either switched off or out of coverage area.’

‘Crap!’ He cursed softly and threw the instrument on the passenger seat and tried to suppress his irritation.

Gradually … slowly … but progressively, the traffic started to ease from the Gold House junction heading towards the airport. When he got to the Aviation Street end of the road it was much better than the Kaokudi area. He turned off to the Spintex Road bypassing the Tetteh Quarshie interchange.

‘Thank God!’

He said as he blessed his sense of goodness; he had anticipated a heavier traffic on the Spintex road which was gradually gunning for the converted prize of the most notorious traffic jams in the city.

Fortunately, he was almost alone except for few vehicles on the road.

The rain was still pouring and had gathered a higher momentum, that notwithstanding, he pushed the speed up and increased the frequency of the windscreen wipers and kept the pace by complementing the wipers with a duster to make sense of the road.

Behind him was a vehicle which seemed eager to overtake him.

He reduced his speed for whoever was behind, but the driver slowed down as well, he was no longer interested in passing him by. He decided to ignore him and kept his pace. He checked the driving mirror the third time and realised that the vehicle behind had employed dimmed fog lights for the night and rainy drive instead. The strange behaviour prompted Yaw Asante to regularly check if he was still behind him. It occurred to him that the driver was using his tail lights to navigate the road and yet wanted to dictate the pace of speed.

Yaw Asante pressed the pedal a little bit more when he got to the undulated part of the road after the Action Chapel. The road there seeped down before rising up again just before the motorway underpass to East Legon. That steeping road increased the speed a trifle more but he kept his controls in check.

Yaw Asante did not see it coming.

He only saw a vehicle that was coming from the opposite direction and judged it to be a heavy truck from the headlights.

No problem.

He thought as he calculated the distance and continued the drive at the same speed. Suddenly, another vehicle entered the road from the East Legon underpass, cutting across the oncoming truck’s lane on his left.

It was so sudden that he lost a heartbeat. He heard efforts of brakes and horns, followed by screeching tyres.

The reaction from the truck was swift and sudden when it swerved into his lane. Yaw Asante watched helplessly as the truck treacherously came towards him.

Undaunted, he measured the spacing available to him on the right, it was a big enough space: a road which led to the airport landing strip but only used by the aviation staff mostly on emergency duties. He was momentarily relieved as it was large enough for him to avoid the truck if only he could reach it in time, he floored his pedal determined to reach the space and avoid the truck.

The vehicle behind was now dangerously close, as if that was not enough, he tooted his shrill horns to add up to the chaotic cacophony.

Yaw Asante pressed the pedal again but it had reached the limits, desperately he pushed all his weight on it to reach the open space.

‘Oh nooooo … !!!!!’

He screamed, the vehicle behind abruptly had come at par with him as if it was overtaking his vehicle from the right side.

He was trapped in the middle and had nowhere to go.

The impact was deafening mingled with the shattering wind screens, crashed metals against bare hard surface of granite. The Mercedes spanned and rolled several times and came to a stop, topsy-turvy.

Then it was quiet.

Very quiet except for the rhythmic sounds of the rains on uncomplaining metals.

3

DR. ISAAC AMUZU lived on St. James Hospital campus, he was forty-five, unusually lanky in height and seriously underweight, and yet was an incessant smoker who was not given to making many friends even among his colleagues, a trait which was attributed to his love for the bottle.

He wasn’t on duty that day and expected no interruptions from the hospital for the rest of the evening. Lazily, he lay on his sofa and listened to the beatings of the rains on the galvanized roofing on the top of his bungalow, courtesy of the hospital. In the background was a movie he purchased in the morning; a series on extra-terrestrial invasion on planet earth. It was a favourite subject of his and spent hours almost the entire day to watch the series with a plan to take his evening walk later, but when the rains began to pour, he crossed it out in his mind and resigned to the sofa.

There was only one obligation he needed to attend to and that was to call his sister to apologise. He was supposed to visit her and spend the night at her family home in Kumasi.

Dr. Amuzu had cancelled the trip at the last hour when one of the few friends he had, called with news that the film he had been waiting for was now available on the market.

He dialled the sister’s number from the house phone, again, there was no response. He put the phone down and continued watching the film.

When he felt tired, he got up from the soft chair and thought he had to find something engaging to do in order not to sleep before he spoke to his sister.

When the phone rang he assumed it was his sister in Kumasi until he heard the familiar voice of the hospital administrator which irritated him.

‘Doctor, thank God you are here …’

‘What is it Madam? I am not on duty today …’ he responded defensively.

‘Yes I do know that,’ the woman said quickly, ‘I checked the roster when I heard the disturbing news.’

Dr. Amuzu did not inquire what the disturbing news was, preferring to stay away from whatever it might be.

‘Doctor, are you there?’

‘Yes, am listening Sister Ruth.’

‘Oh good, we have an emergency on the way to the hospital right now, a critical case I must say involving Mr. Yaw Asante the broadcaster.’

Doctor Amuzu had not met Yaw Asante before in his life, but he knew him very well from television and the programs he hosted, of which he was a fan, although he perceived the broadcaster differently from others.

‘Did you say Mr. Asante is at the hospital seeking for me?’

‘Well yes and no; Mr Asante is right now on the way in an ambulance to the hospital. He’s in a critical condition from what I gather …’

‘What happened?’

‘Motor accident Doc, motor accident, we need you here please …’

‘Won’t be a minute,’ the doctor said and meant it.

The distance from his residence to the emergency ward was not far, it was a walking distance and started moving hurriedly to the ward.

* * *

In the ambulance of St James Hospital were three solemn looking paramedics who continued to talk to their superiors as they blared sirens in the rains towards the hospital. But the ride was persistently hampered not only by the drainages which at the time had flooded onto the roads to check smooth drive, there were also broken down vehicles with no indicators and chaotically parked on the roads. The driver, still braying the sirens, manoeuvred with checked speed toward the hospital.

Once at the hospital, the attendants rushed to the ambulance before it came to a complete stop. The patient, still unconscious, was swiftly loaded onto a stretcher equipped with various drips and rushed to the emergency ward.

To the staff and attendants at the hospital, wheeling accident victims were regular occurrence and shouldn’t have caused even a stir, yet when the man on the stretcher’s identity was announced to them and few must know individuals, pandemonium broke out within the vicinity.

Mobile phones and emergency alarms were activated; soon the best surgeons the hospital could boast of were assembled, led by Dr. Isaac Amuzu.

The good doctor’s love for the green bottle and chain smoking, was a concern for many. Despite this weakness, Dr. Amuzu had made quite a name for himself as the best surgeon in Ghana, if not West Africa. His success rate was so high that, some of his country men and women attached mystical powers to his success and speculated that he performed surgery with ‘external help’ for his achievements. The rumour maintained, but the good doctor wouldn’t deny or confirm any of the wild stories and kept doing what he knew how to do best.

All the medical staff rolled up their sleeves and went to work; sparing nothing humanly possible to save the life of the famous Ghanaian broadcaster.

After several hours of relentless effort, the team of medical experts realised the patient was slipping away. This prompted them to vigorously employ resuscitations including defibrillator to pump his chest and repeated the exercise several times. At last, Dr Amuzu after checking all physical indications for life, gave up and regrettably pronounced the nation’s broadcaster, Yaw Asante dead.

On the corridors were staff members of the hospital, relatives and some members of the public who heard of the accident and anxiously waited for news from the emergency ward. They needed no formal announcement to know what had happened, sombre faces of nurses and doctors trooping in and out of the emergency ward were enough for conclusions. Soon the city of Accra was lighted with news of the demise of Yaw Asante, the wonder boy.

* * *

Jim Moses finished his morning workout at the house gym and went to the patio where Laura, his wife, was reading the morning’s newspapers.

Jim hadn’t been fond of the local media since he came back to Ghana.

Laura, on the other hand, had been scanning every newspaper there was in the mornings, sometimes contributing articles on decor and fashion. She had background in journalism, but her first love was fashion, being a fashion victim herself. Jim was about to go to the bathroom after performing the mandatory morning ritual of pecking his sweetheart on the cheeks when a large picture at the front page of the Daily Graphic, the premier and authoritative newspaper in the country, caught his attention.

He snatched the paper from Laura.

‘Oh! That’s rude,’ Laura protested.

Jim ignored her and continued to read the article impervious to the protestations. Laura looked at him with contempt at first, but the expressions on her adored husband’s face alarmed her as she watched his lips twist in anguish and his body frame visibly quivered.

‘What is it, Jim?’ Laura asked alarmingly.

Jim did not answer and continued to read till he had enough and dropped to the seat opposite Laura flaccidly.

Laura took the paper from him and read through the article that had brought anguish to her home.

The article was mournful indeed; the writer painted a picture of a young talented life cut short the previous night. The reporter traced the history of a brief but eventful life of a young patriot, who, at a precarious age of nineteen, stopped his university education to join a revolt against a military junta. As if that was not enough, he fought every day since he completed his university education against what he referred to as political armed robbery and debauchery at the highest levels of national life … Laura stopped reading the paper and stared at Jim again.

‘Did you know him?’ she asked wonderingly.

‘They killed him … Laura, they killed him,’ Jim wailed.

‘Who killed who, Jim? The man drove through the rains and could not get his bearings properly …’

‘I know what I am talking about, Laura. I know what I am talking about.’ He cut her in mid-sentence.

Jim sprang up from the chair abruptly and dashed to his bedroom, when he came back he wore a never used 38 calibre revolver hanging from his armpit from an antique brown leather belt.

‘Jim … darling … talk to me.’ Laura, who was now up from her seat held Jim by the shoulders. ‘How does this relate to us, Jim? Why have you gone for a gun? Who was he?’ Laura lamented the questions rapidly.

‘Listen Laura, stay here I am going to the city to find out what I can.

When I return I will let you in so we both take a decision. Please stay here; I won’t be long.’

‘God damn you Jim! You can’t treat me like a child, telling me to sit and wait with no reason!’ Laura exploded and folded her arms on her chest defiantly and waited.

When Jim spoke Laura could feel the pain and anger mingled with disappointment and fear in her husband. Her man was not one of those who entertained emotions easily at all. Laura immediately mellowed.

‘Laura, there is no time for this … believe me. Let me go and find out what I can and I will come back to you … please.’

The drenching speech laboriously delivered stifled the I know my rights diatribe from Laura. When she responded to her man again, it was with compassion.

‘Jim dear, please be careful and don’t go get hurt …’

‘I will not Laura; I promise I will come back to you.’ With that he jumped into his Rover and sped away.

* * *

Laura watched the Rover till the distance distorted her vision from the motor carrying her husband. She took the newspaper that carried the story about the dead broadcaster and read it thoroughly. Almost all the papers carried the story at the front pages and Laura scanned the papers one by one.

One paper had a short story on the subject flanking on speculations and rumours, not of much substance, Laura threw it aside. The third paper dealt extensively on the fallen hero and his life, but in all nothing suggested to Laura that Jim was involved in any shady activities. Even if he was in any way associated with the broadcaster, the dead man by all the accounts seemed to be a national hero. So why would anyone want to kill such a person? Jim was physically affected and had mentioned that they killed him How does that affect us? Laura lamented silently.

She thought hard to get some inkling of what that meant to her personally and her ‘heartbeat’—Jim. As far as she could remember, Jim had been very clean since they came back home. She could not remember Jim straying away for anything against the law. His second love has been his work on the farms and his obsessions with hunting in the night.

Laura put a pause on her train of thoughts.

Had Jim been doing something else in the nights when he went on hunting? She ran to his computer to check the inbox of his mails. She could not find anything incriminating. What is this? Why should a remote event come to hunt our peaceful life? She thought very hard, but could not come up with anything tangible. That kind of life was long gone and forgotten in faraway lands, they were now in Ghana, West Africa, not on the streets of Texas, she consoled herself and decided to wait for Jim. Since that day he promised to come clean some fifteen years ago, he had kept that promise as far as she knew.

4

DR. AMUZU WAS walking dismally to his office to collect a document after the fiasco, he hated days like that; losing cases especially high profile cases of national interest such as this. Yaw Asante should not die, he lamented within and could not bring himself to think that the broadcaster ‘checked out’ of this world at the prime of his life; a life lived so enviously.

He wobbled on heavily towards his office as he chain-smoked on what was left of his cigar. A habit he acquired raucously at a precarious age of twenty-two in Bulgaria of which he swore everyday to dispense with. The emergency ward at St. James Hospital was strategically located at the same block as the Out Patient Department (OPD). He had wondered why the emergency ward was thus located; his only answer was that, perhaps, the immediacy of attending to patients overrode the design decisions; still, it could have been somewhere a bit more private, he argued several times.

His office was at the east wing of the facility but on impulse, he turned west towards the administration block. The area was unusually quiet and dimmed that night for some reason, he observed and thought it was perhaps due to the rains.

He checked his time, it was only 9:15pm.

He shrugged carelessly and marched on. His thoughts still on the dead broadcaster as his head slumped on his chest.

He wasn’t looking ahead till a flash of light nearly blinded him.

When he lifted his head for a better view he saw a strange sight; far away in the middle of the walkway, about 15 metres ahead, were astounding brilliant lights of various colours burning like stars in the skies. The lights were infinitely brighter than anything he ever saw, yet each colour burnt with unique effulgence. He blinked to lose the hallucinations he thought was playing on his optics using the back of his palms to rub his eyes. When he looked again it was still there but dying off gradually.

In his confusion he turned to look behind him if anyone saw what he had just witnessed.

No one was there except a nurse coming from the direction of the emergency ward running toward him. The nurse was frantically gesturing and calling his name as she approached him.

‘Doctor Amuzu … Dr. Amuzu, is that you? Doctor, please come back; he’s not dead!’

He turned and looked at the nurse.

‘Please come and see,’ the nurse continued to call in exceptional hysterics. For a moment, Dr. Amuzu did not know what the nurse was talking about. Obviously, it couldn’t be the broadcaster who just died.

He however waited till the nurse came closer and was about to ask the question but inexplicably, he couldn’t; his lips and tongue felt heavy as if he was gagged. He looked at the nurse again and saw radiantly brighter facials and thought those were not human.

It was unnaturally arresting almost angelic. Her form was slender and striking in grace with a complexion he could not place: brown, chocolate, ebony … all the hues fused together in magnificent radiance as her voice resonated like vintage bells in his ears.

The physician looked at the nurse again and knew she was not at the operating room, neither had he seen her before at the hospital.

Obediently, the good Doctor followed her without any further attempt of questioning the strange woman on how a dead body could come back to life. At the emergency ward, the nurses and other physicians were still there and were not surprised to see Dr. Amuzu return. They would later say they roamed the corridors aimlessly the entire period after the physician’s solemn pronouncement of Yaw Asante’s death and the period he came back. Amuzu first checked the pulses again, at first, it was imperceptible, but the body had become warmer for a dead body. He held the wrist again and there it was; the vital indicators of life were reactivated and functioning normally. Quickly, everyone was re-assembled and went to work again and within three hours they had finished and dressed up the broadcaster to the ward.

The doctor knew better than to ask of the whereabouts of the nurse who came calling.

5

WHEN JIM MOSES was about a kilometre away from the hospital, he parked the Rover and walked the rest of the way. Aware that his mission was awkward as he had no defined role to conduct the affairs he was about to initiate. He tried to think about believable by-lines as a cover and abandoned them one by one as clichés. During the drive to the hospital, he tried vainly to push negative thoughts away but guilt insistently knocked on his doors. Had he indeed caused the death of this young man? He could not face the question and felt as if he had pulled a trigger to kill and destroy the hope of millions of his countrymen.

Nonetheless, he continued to push all sense of guilt away to the back burners of his thought and took consolation that everything he did was in the interest of everyone. There was nothing personal and continued the walk to the car park of St. James Hospital.

The environs of the hospital were quieter than he expected, he had anticipated a sea of mourners from all walks of life taking over the area by now knowing how his compatriots loved funerals and the dead, but it was uncharacteristically placid. There were few men and women in mourning cloths around, but nothing pronounced.

Am I in the right hospital? He wondered and looked around and saw signs announcing St. James Hospital.

It was the first time for him at the hospital although he had pencilled somewhere in his mind to seek medical check-up in the future from there. Jim Moses moved quickly and activated his plan into action if he was to survive the deadly assailants who had killed the broadcaster.

The geography of the hospital was the problem he had to contend with, when he saw the OPD written in large black letters up the facials of one block he quickly went there. A nurse was rapidly walking away towards the administrative block. Jim bucked up his strides to cut the nurse before she could vanish and offered her a winsome smile; the lady smiled back dropping her brows for recollection.

Jim had offered his hands in handshake as if they were parted twins just re-united. The nurse took the hand still baffled and not able to place the stranger.

‘How are you doing this morning, sister?’

‘I am blessed by his grace.’ The nurse answered.

‘Oh right, let me inherit part of your blessings this morning …’ Jim responded and as he did so, he saw a lady coming from the hospital blocks to the car park. She had empty baskets with a large napkin in them. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, he conjectured.

‘It’s yours for the asking my brother, God is for everyone if you know him or not.’ Jim’s attention was brought back to the nurse as she responded and continued. ‘Have we met somewhere before?’

‘Not exactly, I am on a rather awkward mission this morning sister;

I am wondering if you know any of Mr. Yaw Asante’s relatives around here?’

‘Oh, that’s his sister getting into that car.’ She pointed to a white saloon car at the car park.

‘Thank you,’ Jim said, and turned towards the Toyota saloon car about to leave and made frantic efforts to attract the attention of the driver with hand clapping.

The first effort yielded nothing. The lady was busy engaging the car ready to move away. He had to buck-up if he was to succeed at signalling her to stop. He began to run and repeated the hand-clapping for her attention. The lady turned to his direction and looked at his frantic efforts to stop her.

At last, she responded by applying her brakes. She was the same lady who just attracted his attention while talking to the nurse. She is attractive but she bears no resembling features of Yaw Asante if she is a sister, he wondered.

‘Pardon my intrusion and sorry to bother you on a day like this. My name is Jim Moses, I knew your brother fairly well, please do accept my condolences.’ Jim said almost pleading.

Fafa, on her part, looked at the man dwarfing her car, and thought of him as a soldier or someone who indulged in some form of sports daily.

She could sense violence beneath the man’s charm façade but his face bore grief and seemed to be genuine from the heart. She debated for a moment either to tell him the truth or not.

Since the premature news of Yaw’s death broke, she had not had peace, calls from all corners of the globe, from total strangers, acquaintances and friends including long forgotten ones jammed her phone.

Those who did not call invaded the house taking every inch of space available. The man before her was a total stranger too; should she or should she not, she debated and continued to look at the man before her and thought it would be unfair if she denied him of the facts. The man was hurting for some reasons she could not understand.

‘Sir, condolences are not necessary, the newspaper articles were not accurate; Yaw’s not dead.’

Momentarily, Fafa saw from the face of the man a sudden transformation take over his demeanour; excitement and relief.

Then suddenly, very suddenly like a heartbeat, it was gone as quickly as it appeared and was replaced this time with fear. For a moment, Fafa thought the man was overreacting. She had told few people about the hoax and had gotten various reactions, but this one was different, yet genuine.

‘Is he here?’ Jim asked breathlessly.

‘Yes, but he’s still unconscious he won’t be able to speak to you.’ Fafa answered calmly.

‘Please take me there!’ It was an order more than a request.

‘What! Why should I do that?’ Fafa asked not hiding her outrage.

Jim Moses took a deep breath before speaking. When he did, it was more of a prayer to some unseen presence, to make the lady understand what he had to say than explanations.

‘Sister please listen to me, your brother’s life is in danger …’

‘Yes I know,’ Fafa answered quickly. ‘Is there any better hospital in Ghana than St. James, even if you are a doctor what makes you think so …?’

‘I am not talking about that kind of danger, Madam.’ Jim fought hard to keep his cool and took a deep breath again before explaining himself.

‘Please listen to me, it’s a blessing that we have the hoax in the media, have you spoken to the press yet?’

The man was complicating the situation as Fafa listened to him.

‘No,’ Fafa answered reluctantly.

‘Good, let’s keep it that way,’ Jim answered and paused briefly to look around worriedly ‘We have two options sister …’

‘Fafa,’ she corrected.

‘Ok. Fafa, we have two options.’

‘I am sorry, Mr. Moses …’

‘Call me Jim, please.’

‘Alright Jim, I don’t understand any of what you’re talking about, my Yaw had a motor accident and not a gun fight …’

‘Fafa, please we don’t have the luxury of time believe me. Let me briefly explain why I am saying all these. I am the individual who was sending courier service to your home, Yaw told me you read most of them and that was the reason he got part of what I was talking about in the documents. I met with him on a British Airways flight from London a month ago and succeeded in impressing on him to investigate the case. We travelled to the scene where the criminals operate and lost one member of our team, a young life was snuffed out before our very eyes in the middle of the night in the jungles. Yaw and I swore to get to the bottom of it and this is the result …’

When Jim saw fear and confusion in Fafa’s eyes, he cursed himself for not doing a good job and procured one of his winning smiles to re-assure her but fear had gripped and taken over her faculties to be amused by a smile.

‘No need to fear I will explain in details to you what we’re going to do to protect him. Let’s go, I will continue talking to you.’

Before Fafa could respond, Jim was ahead taking double steps towards the wards.

St. James had various levels of facilities and services for patients.

The commoners and those not endowed with high level of resources made do with the general facilities: ten to sixteen people in a ward and middle class facilities with four or two sharing. Then there were the private wards which were more luxurious than some highly rated hotels with everything at the patient’s disposal. This included a twenty-four hour private nurse and a doctor, a dietician on request if the patient’s case demanded and host of other trappings reserved for the economically endowed, and the men and women with political power at their disposal. As expected, the price tag to access that facility was also frightfully high.

Yaw Asante was in one of the private wards located at the extremely clean and posh wings of the hospital. And this was not at the request of any family member of the incapacitated broadcaster. Fees for the private ward were to be prepaid or what the hospital referred to as cash and carry. Family members or people responsible for patients were required to pay before they access the facility. But on this occasion, the hospital administrator, a Dutch national and nun, ordered that Yaw Asante be hospitalized at the private ward even before any family member arrived.

The ward was at the last end of Wing 16.

Wing 16 had the privilege view and access to the famous St. James gardens and as such had entrance which led to the garden where the nearly recuperated patients could enter and avail themselves with the enchanting view.

Jim was ahead hopping instead of walking although he didn’t know where they were going. It was to impress on Fafa the urgency of the situation and it helped to quicken the pace. Abruptly, he stopped his strides and turned to his companion.

‘Ok Fafa, let me explain this to you,’ Jim said, picking his choice of words carefully in order not to scare Fafa unduly. ‘We have two options at the moment; either we move him from here to my place away from the city. It’s fairly protected and I could hire more hands to keep watch.

That, understandably, would be difficult for you to take, since you have not met me before. Besides, I guess his condition right now is not good for such a movement. The second is easy but a bit dicey; we keep him here and stay with him, I mean trusted security stay with him around the clock …’

‘I’d rather we keep him here and have security if you insist.’

‘Fair enough; that’s what I thought,’ He obliged her.

Jim had thought about the second option for a period before he brought it out for discussions. The gang whose toes they had stepped would stop at nothing to eliminate them one by one unless they carried the fight to them but not until Yaw Asante was well.

Jim and Fafa by now had reached the ward where the broadcaster laid, his feet hung in the air, and the rest of his body was cast in P.O.P and covered with light white cotton sheets.

Jim looked at Yaw Asante for a brief moment, his sense of urgency running like a clock and rushed out of the ward without offering any excuse. Fafa on her part had noticed a speck of whitish substance on the forehead of the patient and attended to it. Jim jumped into the garden and walked around for some minutes, scanning and noting all the possibilities the enemy could exploit and after a short reconnaissance, he returned not happy with the location of the ward; it was the last room before the gardens.

He made his reservations known to Fafa. ‘We have to talk to the hospital authorities now, would you be able to introduce me as a brother, please?’

Fafa nodded and the two proceeded to the administration block. It was time to find out what Yaw’s sister knew before last night’s incident and decided to be cautious in probing for information.

‘Fafa, let me ask you, when was the last time you spoke to your brother yesterday … ?’

‘My husband,’ Fafa corrected with ballooned exaggeration and regretted, wishing she had said boyfriend instead of husband.

‘I am sorry the nurse thought you were a sister.’

‘Not to worry,’ Fafa said trivializing the issue, ‘I spoke to him about three hours before the accident.’

‘What did you speak about … please, if you don’t mind?’ Jim added.

‘Nothing really, I was schedule for Johannesburg last night, Yaw had my travel documents so he called to say he had collected them.’

‘You wouldn’t remember the time would you?’

‘It was around 3:00pm or a little earlier than that.’

‘How did he sound, I mean was he cool or agitated?’

Fafa paused for a moment and said: ‘I didn’t notice anything.’

‘How about at home, did you notice anything unusual?’

‘No, nothing at all’

‘Did he talk about something or warn you to be careful?’

‘That’s his nature; he’s overprotective, I’ve lost count of such warnings.’

Jim wanted to ask further questions but they had reached the Administrator’s office door.

They knocked on the door and entered. A woman was seated in a chair, she wasn’t the Dutch administrator Fafa was seeking, this was a Ghanaian. She remembered her from the previous night in the thick of affairs, although by far, the most instrumental personality in her estimation was Sister Ruth; the Dutch administrator.

‘Madam,’ Fafa began, ‘we are looking for Sister Ruth …’

‘She is not on duty right now.’

‘Oh I thought I saw her around moments ago?’

‘Yes, she came around to see Mr. Asante; you are his sister aren’t you?’ Fafa hesitated before responding. ‘I am his wife.’

‘Ah, I didn’t know he had a wife, anyhow, what can I help with?’

‘Yes, this is Mr. Moses, a cousin of my husband. He’s not comfortable with the ward where his cousin is presently …’ Fafa rattled her lines as Jim directed and continued. ‘Is it possible to change him from there to a more secured place, please … ?’

‘Please sister,’ Jim added pleadingly before Fafa could finish.

‘Why Mr. Moses? This hospital is the safest place anyone could be, we have twenty four hour security patrolling …’

‘Oh I am sure of that sister, St. James is very reputable.’ Jim said factually, ‘this is not about the security system at the hospital at all. It’s because of the hoax in the newspapers today. I am sure there could be pandemonium when news get out that my cousin is actually not dead.

You know these press men and city gossips …’

He left the statement hanging and smiled for emphasis more than amusement. ‘If only we could change him and have someone to be at the door.’

When he finished, he held his breath and waited for the verdict from the matronly figure that filled the entire space of the chair.

The woman hesitated a minute too long to give Jim the opportunity to add his icing on the cake. ‘You know any rascal could walk in wanting to prove to the world that he had seen the broadcaster, I mean my cousin alive, so he should be crowned as the best journalist there ever was.’

The woman looked up at the masculine figure towering over her and still remained pensive.

‘The problem is, Sister Ruth insisted last night to have that particular ward for Mr. Asante and she is not here to make the change herself …’

‘I am sure she will understand when we explain the reasons to her on her return.’

‘Hmm, my second worry is the special detailed security you talk about, we’ve never had any reason to worry about security at St. James, not even at the private wards and therefore we never provided patients with private security …’ the woman went on pensively as she spoke.

‘I doubt if we have the personnel for such assignments.’ She concluded pessimistically.

‘Would you mind if we get someone to be at his door?’