King Peggy Read online

  Nurses also treated diarrhea, stitched up small cuts, and set simple fractures. Saltpond Government Hospital, a forty-five-minute drive, had X-rays and sonograms, which the Otuam clinic did not, and treated compound fractures, cancer, and heart disease.

  “Pregnant women are encouraged to come by for prenatal care,” Isaiah continued, “for checkups and vitamin packs. And women have babies at the rate of one or two a day here.”

  “But there’s no doctor to deliver the babies?” Peggy asked.

  “No, there’s a very good midwife, though. Sometimes she delivers the babies on the floor because there are only a few forty-year-old beds, rusty and corroded from the salt air, which have a tendency to collapse when the patient is thrashing around.”

  Peggy tried to picture this, but then her thoughts went to a more frightening place. “But some births are so complicated that a midwife, without being able to perform surgery, could very well lose both the mother and child. In the U.S., many women have the babies cut out of them or else they might die.”

  Isaiah the Treasurer nodded. “If a woman is having a difficult delivery, she is put in a taxi to go to Saltpond. But sometimes she can’t even be put in the taxi right away; her family members run through Otuam trying to raise the cab fare from friends and neighbors. Some women and their babies die while waiting for the cab fare, or die in the backseat of the cab bouncing down the rutted road to Saltpond. It’s the same thing for those suffering from heart attack or stroke, Nana; they often die in the taxi.”

  “But it doesn’t happen very often that someone gets that sick,” Tsiami interjected, studying his fingernails. “If Otuam people survive childhood, they live into their eighties and nineties. I had forty-one children with my two wives; twenty-five of them died before the age of five. But my great-aunt, who never saw a doctor in her life, lived to be one hundred and two.”

  “Five of my ten children died young,” Uncle Moses chimed in, “but most of my aunts and uncles lived to be in their eighties and nineties.”

  Yes, Peggy thought. The lifestyle keeps them healthy, with fresh fruit and fish, and hours of exercise every day. Thank God for that, at least. She knew that the 50 percent childhood mortality rate of Uncle Moses’s generation had dipped to somewhere between 12 and 17 percent due to the national effort to vaccinate infants. But even the death of one child with whooping cough, of one woman in labor, of one heart attack victim who could be revived was too many for her town. An ambulance would save lives. With the necessary equipment, a nurse could stabilize patients and keep them comfortable on the rough ride to the hospital. Peggy knew she could never afford a new ambulance, which must cost tens of thousands of dollars or more. But how much did a used one cost, and where would you get it?

  Peggy noticed that Uncle Eshun’s teeth, those few that remained, looked like the sarsen stones of Stonehenge, long and dark and widely spaced, leaning toward or away from one another at crazy angles. And one of Baba Kobena’s front teeth had snapped off near the top, with a dark gray cavity spreading over what remained. Uncle Moses, too, was missing a few, and those that remained were stained and decayed.

  “Does the town have a dentist?” she asked. She had been blessed with strong, white, even teeth, which she flossed and brushed with great care.

  “I think there’s one in Cape Coast Hospital,” Eshun replied. “But most people can’t afford the fees.”

  Peggy would need to bring doctors to Otuam, and a dentist, and an ambulance and some sturdy hospital beds. It suddenly occurred to her that perhaps her husband could help with the beds, and maybe he even knew a hospital that was looking to get rid of an old ambulance. But it would be much harder to find qualified medical personnel. Most Ghanaian doctors and dentists left the country soon after medical school. Working in the UK or America they could earn many times a Ghanaian salary and help support their extended families by sending home substantial portions of their paychecks.

  Now Kwame Lumpopo spoke. “I suppose you know from corresponding with your uncle, the late king who is in the fridge, that in Otuam there is no mail delivery,” he explained, “since there are no addresses. People expecting mail rent a post office box in Winneba, which is where they also have bank accounts, since there is no bank in Otuam. And there is no trash pickup, not that Otuam really needs it. Being from a big city myself,” he said, smiling at her, “I know how we throw things away. But almost everything in Otuam is used and reused until it falls apart. What little waste remains is burned outside.”

  There was a cave on the beach, Kwame Lumpopo continued, connected to a passage that led to the dungeons beneath the ruins of the old slave castle, Tantumquerry, built by the British in the early eighteenth century. Years earlier the people of Otuam had crammed the cave full of trash bags since it seemed a good, tucked-out-of-the-way place to hide garbage.

  Peggy could picture the cave as it once was, with slaves stumbling out from the dungeons in chains and coming onto the beach, where they got into canoes and rode out to slave ships bobbing a mile or two offshore. She reflected that the cave was a sacred space, a point of no return for those thousands who left Africa forever. Maybe I should have that trash cleaned out, Peggy thought, hire a truck and cart it off to the dump in Cape Coast and make the cave a shrine to the memory of those enslaved. She sighed. Of course that wouldn’t do any good at all because people would be delighted to find there was room once more to put trash.

  Uncle Moses was next. He reported that Otuam had three schools that went from kindergarten to ninth grade. Two of them were public, state-run schools, and one of these had no toilet facilities; teachers and children alike either had to wait to get home or use the bushes behind the school. But in 1998, one of Peggy’s cousins, Kobina Mensa-Yorke, with his own hands built a simple open-air school, the International School, to improve the educational opportunities for local children. Though it was a private school, the fees were very modest, and the education was far better than that offered in the public schools. Born in Otuam, Mr. Yorke, as everyone called him, was highly educated, having won a high school scholarship and obtained his diploma in accounting at Kumasi Polytechnic.

  Peggy remembered Mr. Yorke. He was one of the children of the Other Cousin Comfort. He was a dark-skinned, birdlike man with tiny bones. Mr. Yorke spoke English with a perfectly crisp British accent and was extremely precise in everything he said and did. His words were like the slices of a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through all nonsense and getting directly to the point. Despite his delicate build, Mr. Yorke’s ramrod straight posture and precision demanded instant respect. He had a way of fixing his dark eyes on you as if he were silently determining what grade to put on your report card. Yes, Peggy could see him as an excellent principal.

  “Mr. Yorke’s school fees are very low,” Uncle Moses said, “considering how much the kids learn there, and soon after his school opened, those families that could afford it enrolled their children. And, Nana, he’s brought educational innovations to Otuam. Three computers from the 1990s are used to teach word processing, and he started night classes to educate kids who had to fish or farm all day with their parents. His night classes are always well attended because otherwise those kids would never learn how to read or write.”

  Mr. Yorke wanted to bring a high school to Otuam, Uncle Moses went on. Most parents couldn’t afford to board their kids in other cities, or if there was some money available, they would send only the oldest boy. Some of the girls fortunate enough to go to high school returned home a few months into the school year shamefaced and big bellied as the nearby cities were full of men who preyed on fresh-faced country girls. These men waited outside the school gates for the girls to come out. They flirted with them, took them to dinner, and gave them cheap presents. The next thing you knew the girls were pregnant and went crying to the men who, they found out, were already married. Though abortion was illegal in Ghana, a girl could have a dangerous back-alley operation. Most Otuam families, however, no matter how poor, preferred to we
lcome another child rather than get rid of it. So the girls came back to Otuam and had babies, and that was the end of their bright future.

  “It’s a shame,” Uncle Moses continued, “that Otuam has no library. There is nothing for kids to read for fun in English to improve their language skills. In the two public schools, they even share their tattered, ancient textbooks with other students, though Mr. Yorke’s school provides every student with his or her own books. And because their English is so poor, and school is taught in English, they don’t learn much in the way of math, science, or social studies, either, at least in the public schools. Mr. Yorke’s students’ command of English is somewhat better.”

  As they discussed Otuam’s ever-lengthening list of needs, they heard the crunch of tires against sand as a cab rolled up out front. A car door slammed shut, and a few minutes later Peggy’s nephew Ekow stood at the door of the parlor holding a suitcase in each hand. Ekow was the son of Peggy’s late sister Charlotte and lived in Accra.

  Ekow had never been completely right in the head. A gentle, self-deprecating soul nonetheless, he had always tried to be helpful. But these days he seemed to be living on the fringes of life, borrowing money, doing odd jobs, living in someone’s spare room. It wasn’t that he was stupid. His English was excellent, a remarkable accomplishment for someone who had only completed elementary school and had never left Ghana.

  For a while Ekow had worked as a car mechanic, and he had been a good one. But when in September 2004 he had lost his mother, father, sister, and eleven-month-old son, he had also lost his mind, descending into an alcohol and marijuana fueled mania. He had always reacted very badly to alcohol of any kind—much the way normal people might react to PCP—but his reaction became even more severe after the death of so much family. And it was heightened by the fact that the causes of three of the four deaths were never fully explained. His father had been elderly, but his mother had evidently died of nothing more than an aching leg, his sister of a bad stomach, and his son of a boil on his neck. At least, that’s what the doctors had said. Had the deaths been caused by witchcraft? Medical incompetence? Bad luck? Ekow couldn’t stop obsessing over it, and it had derailed him completely.

  His family had tried several times to take him to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, but he refused to go, howling that doctors would do terrible things to him. Peggy wondered if he had developed a touch of schizophrenia. Possibly he had been bewitched, which was probably the true cause of schizophrenia, but he likewise refused to see a traditional doctor, claiming to be a devout Christian. Whatever was wrong with him, nowadays he seemed to be living in his own world, muttering strange things.

  Some three years earlier, when Peggy’s relatives had called her about Ekow’s steep decline, she thought maybe a year in school would help him. She agreed to send money to a trade school so he could get a higher-level mechanic’s certificate. But then a cousin called her to say that she was wasting her money. Ekow had convinced the school that he was transferring elsewhere, and they gave him his money back, which he promptly spent on booze and pot. He hadn’t worked a day since his mother’s death, Peggy heard. The relatives were afraid to ask how he got his money. Sometimes he showed up at family events with a black eye or cut lip.

  Peggy hadn’t seen Ekow since well before his parents’ death, and now she was surprised at how thin he was. At forty-one, he had the slender arms and undeveloped torso of an adolescent boy. His face appeared older, however, like a narrow squeezed prune, and his ears stuck out at right angles from his head.

  “Mama, Mama, you are my mama and I am here for you,” Ekow said as he entered the parlor, pushing Aggie aside. She cried, “Hey!” and raised her spatula threateningly.

  Ekow dropped his suitcases, threw himself on his knees, and slid across the floor toward Peggy. Oh boy, she said to herself. Being a mother to Ekow might prove more challenging than being a king.

  Who had told Ekow that she was in Otuam for her enstoolment? The last thing she needed was for him to make trouble at the solemn ceremonies. Peggy decided a strict approach would be best. “Ekow,” she said, the k sound coming from the back of her throat as if it were a cough, “if you are going to stay here, you must behave. I will not put up with any nonsense. No alcohol, no smoking any dope or whatever you smoke.”

  “Yes, Nana Mama. No alcohol. No dope. I promise. Now, which one is your bedroom?” he asked, looking toward the hall. “I will sleep in there.” The aunties were all shaking their heads and waving their hands in protest.

  “Not a good idea,” Kwame Lumpopo whispered in Peggy’s ear. “The men will need to keep him in line at night.”

  Peggy nodded emphatically. “Ekow, you will sleep with the male cousins in the front room, with Kwame Lumpopo and Cousin Charles.” Then she added as majestically as she could, “And if you don’t behave, I will throw you on the first tro-tro to Accra.”

  Everyone chuckled, even Ekow. “I will be nice,” he said, “and very, very fine.” It’s what Ekow always said when told to behave. But from what Peggy had heard, he usually wasn’t nice or fine.

  After the meeting, Peggy retired to her room. If she had felt giddy about becoming royalty, riding high on her new status as King Peggy, the meeting had sobered her up and brought her down to earth. Wife beating, poor medical care, few educational opportunities, no trash pickup, no running water, and no money. She had been aware of all this before she accepted the kingship, but now, face-to-face with the harsh realities of life in Otuam, she found herself coasting downward, her initial optimism punctured. In accepting the kingship, she believed the ancestors would help her to be a good leader of her people. Had this been a mistake? What had she gotten herself into? How on earth was she going to help these people?

  Years earlier, the most important thing in the world to Peggy was to become a mother. She had done everything humanly possible to achieve that goal and had still proved a barren and useless wife. Now that kingship had been dropped into her lap, she had the incredible opportunity to give life not to a single individual, but to an entire town. If she couldn’t help Otuam, if she were to prove a barren and useless king, her heart would surely break.

  Again.

  8

  If you want the ancestors to bring you blessings, Peggy knew, it is important to thank them for blessings they have already bestowed and not take for granted anything they have done for you. Peggy and the elders needed to thank them for choosing her as the new king, and for her safe arrival in Otuam after a long and potentially dangerous journey. This offering of thanks would be combined with Peggy’s first town meeting, where any resident of Otuam could meet her, ask questions, or make their complaints known.

  The following morning, as Peggy, the elders, and aunties prepared to walk from the house to the palace, a taxi rolled up. Out jumped a tall, well-built man, who greeted Peggy and introduced himself as her cousin, Kwesi Acheampong, known as Nana Kwesi out of respect for his position as head of the family branch in Winneba. Peggy had never met Nana Kwesi but had heard about him from various cousins over the years. She was impressed that his taxi driver hauled out of the trunk cases of beer and Coke for her enstoolment and a nice robe for her. No one else had given her anything.

  Nana Kwesi was fairly well off by African standards. He had been divorced from his wife for four years and lived with his four school-age children in a modern, comfortable house with running water, a widescreen television, and beautiful furniture.

  At fifty-two, he had smooth skin the color of milk chocolate. He was completely bald, and his head had a pleasing shape. His ears were small and tucked neatly against his skull, while his lower lip stuck out farther than his nose. As they chitchatted, it was Nana Kwesi’s smile that caught Peggy’s attention. It was most unusual, like the smile of a sweet child, a smile of genuine, innocent happiness. It was a contagious, angelic smile that lit up his whole face and radiated out until everyone else could feel it, and you just had to smile back for the sheer joy of it.

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nbsp; As the group walked over to the royal palace, Peggy noticed that Uncle Moses and Isaiah the Treasurer had their heads together, like children telling secrets, while Uncle Eshun trailed behind in the dust, leaning heavily on his cane. Approaching the courtyard, Peggy squinted at the patches of palace she could see behind a large, many-trunked tree, its enormous roots buckling the earth around it. The building had once been white, she recalled, but large chunks of plaster had fallen off, revealing the sandy-colored concrete blocks beneath, and wide vertical streaks of black mildew ran from the old tin roof—which had several large holes in it—down to the ground. As they approached, she could see that the ancient louvered windows were corroded and broken.

  Suddenly, Peggy stopped walking and simply gasped at the hulking mess now in full view. The palace looked much worse than it had in 1995. “It will be all right,” Cousin Comfort said, taking her by the elbow. “You know the ancestors wouldn’t have put you here if they weren’t going to provide you with the means to do the work.”

  Peggy nodded miserably and willed herself forward. They approached a long concrete patio in front of the main entrance, where her elders sat down on benches and plastic chairs. A stool had been provided for Peggy, with a tiger carving supporting the seat, which was covered by a brown and white goatskin. The stool’s white paint was faded in some patches, peeling off like dry skin in others, and the tiger looked as if it might collapse in exhaustion. She frowned as she looked at it, realizing that her public stool was as old and as rotten as her palace, and cautiously sat down.

  Uncle Moses had the royal cow horn wrapped in a piece of fine red flannel. Now he unwrapped it, puffed up his large walrus cheeks, and blew short shrill toots. This was the call for everyone who heard it to come to a town meeting.