Aluta Read online

  “I swear, I thought Judgment Day had come upon us suddenly, like a thief in the night,” Sylvia said. “I startled right up and couldn’t sleep again. In fact, I checked to make sure Juaben was still in bed and not raptured.” She raised her hands to the sky.

  We all burst out laughing. Sylvia could be so dramatic.

  “The girls can preach, eh? I repented right there on my bed,” Juaben admitted. “I need a message like that from time to time, to remind me that life is not all about boys and clothes.”

  “You mean books and degrees,” said Sylvia.

  We often talked about those things — boys, degrees, marriage, careers and, occasionally, living to make a difference. Sylvia was all about fun. Juaben wanted a man like Mr. Opoku and an early marriage right after school.

  I was never sure exactly what I wanted. I guess I wanted to be popular, and beautiful, and smart, and in love.

  “Let’s resolve to serve the Lord better. As a junior in secondary school, I was in the Scripture Union Club,” said Juaben.

  “I used to be the president of the Catholic Students Association but I think sleeping during the hours of darkness has to be a fundamental human right. I hope they don’t preach us awake every week,” I said, gathering some courage to speak my mind.

  “Charlotte the lawyer,” Sylvia chuckled.

  “I didn’t know you were Catholic. You don’t even have a rosary,” said Juaben.

  I thought about the black velvety pouch in which I kept my Book of Prayers and my rosary.

  “I’m just lazy about saying my prayers,” I replied.

  Books, degrees, clothes, boys and now religion. Everything was competing for our attention.

  3

  I was among the first to arrive at the lecture hall for political science. I squeezed into a chair in the front row — the kind with a writing board attached to one arm. Then I settled down to wait for Dr. Ampem.

  He came in close to the hour and took some time to arrange his papers on the table.

  He looked up, caught my eyes and smiled.

  “How are you today, Charlotte?”

  “Fine, sir.” I was surprised that he knew my name.

  In the next five minutes, the class filled up quickly. Dr. Ampem was one of those lecturers who always started on time. A very smooth speaker, he delivered his talks powerfully and fast. And his face was animated behind small black round spectacles.

  I was an avid note-taker and I was torn between keeping my eyes on my notebook and watching his gestures and expressions.

  We were studying the politics of the 1950s. I had studied much about the colonial history of Ghana in secondary school. I knew that our country had been called the Gold Coast. It had been ruled by the British as a colony from 1902 to 1957, when our people had demanded their independence. We always made much of Independence Day and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, our first president. As Ghanaians we held on to the pride of being the first of the colonized countries of Africa to win our independence. For this reason, Nkrumah was a great hero, but his legacy had ended in shambles when his government was overthrown in a coup d’état in ١٩٦٦. My father thought of that coup as deliverance from Nkrumah’s growing tyranny. But there were others like Dr. Ampem who blamed all of Ghana’s current problems on that coup.

  Dr. Ampem had a passion for the late Dr. Nkrumah and his grand plans for Ghana and Africa. He would pause from time to time during a lecture to deride several heads of state for running down Nkrumah’s legacy.

  Someone made a comment that Dr. Limann and the People’s National Party had returned the nation to Nkrumah’s socialist ideology.

  “Pretenders,” said Dr. Ampem with a snort. “This current government is weak. And there is no change without societal grassroots involvement. That is more important than those prayer meetings people attend so vigorously on this campus.”

  “This morning I heard my first Dawn Broadcast,” I said.

  “Tell us about it,” he said.

  “I woke up to the sound of women singing in the darkness. They were shouting from the porter’s rooftop about salvation in Jesus Christ.”

  Several other girls had heard it, too. Soon the discussion transitioned into opinions on human rights, religious rights and common nuisance laws. I realized for the first time that there were some Muslim men in my class.

  “If we’re to insist on nuisance laws, then what about those night-long Saturday parties held at many halls?”

  I turned around to look at the speaker. He was a lanky young man wearing a starched white shirt, simple black trousers and sandals one might buy at Makola market.

  He looked like someone who might give a Dawn Broadcast someday.

  “Can you tell us your name when you rise to speak?” said Dr. Ampem.

  So the young man told us his name — Jordan Braimah. And I gave mine.

  “Our Saturday jams are too much fun to give up. So I guess I’ll just have to give up my morning sleep to allow the lax state of nuisance laws to persist,” I said.

  The class applauded.

  “Good one, Charlotte,” said Dr. Ampem.

  “We are generally a loud people. For generations we have been awakened by traditional drums on traditional rites days, and also by the Muslim prayer call in the Zongos at dawn,” said Jordan mildly.

  “Don’t forget the church bells calling the Catholics to mass,” said Dr. Ampem.

  Jordan laughed. He had won the argument, and Dr. Ampem picked up the thread of his lecture once more.

  Dr. Ampem revealed that Nkrumah had cut his political teeth during his student days in America where he organized the African Students Association of America and Canada, and became its president.

  “Many more of you should become interested in the Student Representative Council and the National Union of Ghana Students, here on campus,” said Dr. Ampem. “If you’re going to be great, it starts right here in college. There’s no better way to understand politics than to engage with it. When I look around, more often than not I see medical students and architects in student political positions. I ask myself, Where are my students? Show me by hands those of you who might consider student politics?”

  Three hands went up. They were all males. One of them was Jordan.

  “What about my ladies?” Dr. Ampem looked around and settled on me. “What about you, Charlotte?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “What’s there to know?” he demanded.

  Thankfully the hour was up, and people were already gathering their books. I pushed my chair back against the hard concrete floor.

  “We’ll talk about it next time,” said Dr. Ampem, looking directly at me.

  I couldn’t very well say politics was not my thing. I was a student of political science, after all.

  ‹•›

  I loved the weekends. I would sleep in two extra hours to make it to breakfast by nine. In Africa Hall our mornings were marked by the shrill shouting of women from one block to the other, as friends conducted conversations by bush telephone. I would rest my arms on the balustrade in front of 803 and talk across to Emily, a schoolmate from Accra. It was our way of catching up on each other. Nobody wanted to walk down and up eight floors.

  Jonas, my small-boy, would run errands for me. Nimble small-boys made quite a bit of money as Africa Hall ladies sent them back and forth on errands.

  First, I would send Jonas to buy some tomatoes, eggs and a can of mackerel from the small market in a corner of our car park. Then I would engage him to do my laundry.

  I thought he had a special affinity for me, but Mary was skeptical.

  “Don’t get taken in by that rascal. He treats everybody the same way,” she said, warning me not to tip too much.

  Mary always preferred to hire one of the cleaners to do her laundry. But adult cleaners were more expensive, and they turned thei
r noses up at first-year students.

  Mary chose a Saturday to relax my hair for the first time. Jonas had just finished doing my laundry on the balcony, and I got him to fetch extra buckets of water. I had bought my hair relaxer kit in town on Mary’s advice, and I trusted her utterly, even though I knew my mother would disapprove.

  Mary had urged me to relax my hair. She said there were so many more ways to style longer hair than I could ever dream with my natural hair. So I sat quietly on the chair as she parted lines in my thick springy hair. She smeared my scalp with dabs of Vaseline petroleum jelly. Then she carefully spread the barrier jelly right around my hairline and over my ears to prevent any burns.

  She told me that the worst thing that could happen was getting relaxer cream in my eyes.

  “When I get to the front, just close your eyes, Charlotte.”

  She opened the jar of Ultra Sheen Relaxer and began to apply the chemical with the handle of a comb. She was quick, and all I had to do was hold the two ends of the towel together at my neck.

  She began to work my hair in little tufts, and the strong scent of lye stung my nostrils.

  “You can open your eyes, roomie,” she said. Whenever she called me roomie, I felt especially close to her.

  I stared at myself in the mirror. My entire head was covered with white cream.

  “When shall we wash it out?” I asked.

  “We should let it stay on as long as possible because your hair is coarse virgin growth. But if your scalp begins to burn, we shall wash it off at once. Don’t worry,” she said.

  Jonas had fetched six buckets of water to rinse out the lye, shampoo and conditioner in their turn. Mary organized the hair-washing process in the bathroom. I sat and waited until she came back.

  I began to feel some spots on the back of my head stinging, and I told Mary.

  She checked the clock. “Wait a while longer.”

  I tried to focus on other things — a timetable on our notice board, three party invites stuck next to each other, the photograph of Mary and Mr. Opoku on the table, and even the detail on our curtain fabric.

  But the stinging got worse, attacking me all over my head.

  “Mary, that’s it. I am on fire!” I said.

  “Okay, let’s go to the bathroom,” she said.

  I was so grateful for the coolness of the water on my head, as she carefully washed the lye out. Mary neutralized the alkali with a special shampoo. Then she conditioned my hair, rinsed it and patted it with a towel. She took me back to our room and sat me in front of the desk.

  I stared at myself in the mirror. My hair felt strange on my scalp, tangled up like a miserable mop, and longer than I’d ever seen it.

  What was it about long hair that made us submit to harsh chemical treatment? My mother believed only in natural hair, never having used the pressing comb even when it was popular in her day.

  “Length softens a face and adds a touch of mystery,” said Mary, as she combed through my hair gently. Then, parting small bits at a time, she inserted pink rollers. Afterwards, she fished a hand-held dryer from one of her drawers and plugged it in.

  It roared to life and she said, “This will take forever, Charlotte, because we don’t have a real salon dryer.”

  I was impressed. How did Mary know these things?

  “If you couldn’t do anything else in this world, you could run a hair salon, Mary. You are amazing,” I said.

  We talked above the roar of the dryer, and I told her how mad my dad would be at my straightened hair.

  “Too bad for him. You’re a big girl now, and you have your own bangla money to spend,” said Mary.

  “Getting a government allowance is the best thing about university,” I said.

  I told Mary about my dad, Mama and my younger sister, Sarah. I had lived my entire life in a bungalow on the grounds of a boarding school because my father was a secondary school biology teacher.

  While I was in secondary school, I spent full weeks of long vacation indoors reading. I could not get enough of Sidney Sheldon books — thrillers with strong and beautiful female characters, which I borrowed from my cousins.

  And Mama would complain that I’d changed.

  “Why do you brood so, Charlotte?” she would say. “You used to play all day with the neighborhood children. You were always going to one birthday party or another.”

  What could I say? It all began in Form One in Achimota Secondary School, where Dad taught. At age twelve, I had been as excited as anyone else to head off to boarding school. I was particularly thrilled to get into Achimota. All my life, I had seen students pass back and forth along the pathways of the school, and I couldn’t wait to be one of them. I wanted to escape my home and my parents’ tyranny to reside with other girls. I wanted to experience those adventures I had read about in Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers series.

  But it took only the briefest of introductions to Slessor House for me to realize that first formers were the scum of the earth. We were sent about on endless errands and made to entertain all seniors at their whim, day or night, whenever we were not at class.

  I was picked on doubly. I discovered too late that my dad had a reputation for harsh punishment, and I became the scapegoat for his crimes.

  Dad gave difficult biology tests and was much disliked for his rampant use of detentions. The students had given him the name Tension, which they tried to pass on to me. For seven years I tried not to let his reputation rub off on me. I could only look ahead to university to experience total liberty.

  Once I settled into Tech, I began to realize the advantage of distance. It would take very lovey-dovey parents to drive the five to seven hours from Accra just to visit. It would also take a lot for news of my activities to travel from Kumasi.

  With each day that I lived on campus, I seemed to grow a little larger in my heart and a little freer from restrictions. I was ready to turn into that cool, smart person who lived life with panache. And so I was happy to sacrifice one week’s feeding allowance to buy the hair-relaxer kit. I guess I was hoping that Mary’s regularly missed meals at the dining hall would be enough to feed me for that week.

  ‹•›

  My new hairdo transformed me totally, and it was hard for even me to take my eyes off the image in the mirror. Fresh and floppy, I gave my loose curls some additional bounce by passing my fingers through them, fluffing them up.

  That night we had a party to go to at Queen’s Hall. I couldn’t wait to show off my new look. I loved my sleek Huggers jeans with the golden zippers on every pocket — a gift from my cousin when she traveled to England. Silver glitter outlined my back pockets. I tucked in my white body-hugging shirt and borrowed Mary’s belt, which had a fancy buckle. I exchanged necklaces with Sylvia. There was so much activity between our eighth-floor rooms as we primped and fussed, helping one another to dress just right.

  Juaben shared her makeup with a bunch of us — eye shadow, mascara, lipstick and blush. We sprayed perfume, one on another. There was much giggling. Then, close to midnight, we left the hall, a bevy of females dressed to kill.

  From his desk, Porter Afriyie watched us with judgment in his eyes.

  “We’ll be back soon, Mr. Afriyie,” I said.

  “The hall will be closed very soon,” he replied.

  We didn’t care. No cool chick went to parties earlier than midnight.

  ‹•›

  How we danced that night! We danced to hot pop, and we swayed to slow music. We danced to the Commodores, Michael Jackson and Barry White.

  I fooled around with my girlfriends on the dance floor, doing crazy new steps from Accra. There were wild cheers, down-low movements and swirling hip circles. There were screams of delight as we danced to the groove.

  I did not believe it could get any better.

  After that party, traffic to our floor increased thre
efold. Mary said the October Rush had begun. So many boys wanted to be friends with us. Sometimes I had to escape to the library to finish off my class projects and assignments.

  I knew my parents. There would be absolutely no grace for me if I showed up at home with poor grades.

  4

  Asare — with his dramatic American accent — was one of those who chased me relentlessly after I straightened my hair. I marveled at how he could use the word fuck like a sort of garnish on his frustrations.

  Mary coerced me into another group date, saying Asare had harassed Mr. Opoku into arranging it.

  The truth was that Asare wasn’t bad looking. He had beautiful skin, a hawkish nose and a wicked grin. There was something high in his look— royal genes, possibly. He seemed well aware of his charms, but it was a poor choice to drip a pretentious American accent all over his speech.

  “I feel yuh, babe. A-betcha. You gonna do righ’ by me, mehn?” he would say, stretching out his vowels endlessly. His compliments after a pint or two of beer were outrageously overdone. Shiee!

  We sat outdoors to escape the thick cigarette smoke. Outdoors was also easier for talking while loudspeakers blasted music in the dance hall.

  We had returned to that same club at Nhyiaeso. Mary and Mr. Opoku had gone inside to dance, and I suspected that they were trying to give us some privacy.

  Asare turned to me. “Babe, you know I admire an intelligent woman. Just looks and boobs ain’t enough. I’m looking for more lasting treasure.” He tapped at his temple with one finger.

  I could have laughed, but I held it back. “I would have thought that more lasting treasure lies in the heart.”

  “See, you’re smart, babe! That’s what I’m getting at.”

  “This baby’s got teeth, Asare, and she’s watching you,” I said, wagging my finger in his face.

  Asare chuckled, took my hand in his and kissed it.

  I had to admire his tenacity. I ordered a plate of chicken and fries and declined the Gulder beer he offered.