Hope upon hope
Photo: Victor Mhaka
If only you’d look past my legs and the knees that knock together. If only you’d wipe the pity from your eyes, replace it with awe.
Look up! Ignore the deformed arm. See my oval face, my thick lashes, my dimples.
Beat the drums, Kafui. Beat them hard. See, I too can jump and twirl like Mansa. I too can swing my hips and sing songs that will make you gaze at me in wonder.
Look at me as you look at her. Don’t leave me alone on this hard bench.
* * *
Friday evening. A week before final exams. I should be in my room studying, but here I am, the sole audience at a rehearsal of Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa. Watching Kafui on stage, all I want to do is reach out and stroke his jaw, to see if his cheekbones feel as angular as they look.
For months now, I’ve gone over what to say. I’ve pruned, uprooted, inserted words, and finally, I’ve decided that today is the day. It’s a good time too, this being month number three since we met. For me who was born on the third day of the third month, three is a special number, and as a physics student, I recognize the significance of triads: Newton’s three laws of motion, Efimov trimers, the three-body problem.
Even our first meeting was in the third week of the semester, at the third play Mansa dragged me to. The first two plays had been by fourth-year students, but that evening, a handful of the first-years had put on their own show. Next to me and our roommates, Mansa squealed as a short, thin boy clad in a brown batakari and kente print trousers appeared on stage and introduced himself as Kwaku Ananse. Kafui played the royal guard who apprehended Ananse for eating food offered to the gods, but on stage, his face was shrouded by strings of beads. So, it was only after the play, after most people had left the open-air theatre, that I noticed his droopy eyes and goatee. Afro comb stuck in his hair, he walked up the aisle, stopped where Mansa and I sat chatting with our roommates, Padiki and Donna, and Araba, Mansa’s and Kafui’s coursemate. He nodded at Padiki, then Donna, as Mansa introduced them. When she got to me and said, “Oforiwaa, my sister,” his smile wobbled. His eyes flitted to my right arm, to the stump that has sealed off where the elbow should curve into a forearm. He nodded, but the dip of his chin was rigid, not as fluid as before.
Later that night, I would remember how his eyes drilled into Mansa’s every time she spoke and the way he covered his mouth with his fist when he laughed. Mansa insisted they were not dating, and I, forgetting the last rejection, began to draft a casual invitation to the cinema at Accra Mall.
* * *
Two hours of starts and stops, and the rehearsal ends. Mansa, Araba, Kafui and seven of their coursemates jump off the stage and head in my direction. Their laughter reaches me at the back of the hall before their words.
“Kafui, abi we go go your momi in house?” The boy with the mohawk dreadlocks turns to look at Kafui and Mansa, the last in their procession.
Mansa raises her eyebrows at me. I shrug and look at Kafui, hovering on the edge of our amorphous huddle.
“Chale, she still vex sekof last time, so make we go my hall.”
While the boys hail a taxi, us girls stuff ourselves into Kafui’s Kia Cerato. AC on, Sarkodie blasting from the radio, we whizz through narrow, tree-lined streets towards the southern side of campus.
On entering his room, Kafui spreads his hands out and says, “Ladies, ladies, make yourselves comfortable.”
He straightens the dishevelled sheets on the bottom bunk bed on the left, then gestures to the bookcase hanging on the wall above the desk.
“There’s rum and vodka on the shelf, coke and beer in the fridge. Don’t be shy, ehn. No church tomorrow.” He grins, showing off the gap between his front teeth.
From the lower bunk, I inspect the room as Mansa and Araba pour rum and coke into three translucent disposable cups. On the bunk bed opposite ours, Tweneboah, with the mohawk dreadlocks, chats up a girl from the play. In between sips of his beer, he whispers into her ear. She giggles, glances at him through the corners of her eyes. Her self-satisfied smile makes me want to know what he’s saying to her.
Stonebwoy plays from Kafui’s laptop; the boys smoking weed on the tiny balcony yell “don’t call me name” whenever the chorus comes along. Beside me on the bed, Mansa and Araba wind their shoulders, their hands high above their heads. I wind my shoulders too, raise my cup to my lips. The rum burns a path through my chest. I struggle to hide my cough.
Bobbing my head to the music, I pout seductively like Mansa and Araba. Kafui dances in our direction and extends a hand. My stomach tightens, but Mansa gets up before I can. Araba joins them, and together with Kafui’s roommate, they dance in the space between the bunk beds.
Someone turns off the overhead light. The darkness that descends is thinned out by the white screen of the laptop.
The song changes. Now it’s Burna Boy calling for Angeli, Angelina. Mansa and Araba switch partners, and Kafui ends up behind Araba. He places his hands on her hips, as she winds her buttocks against his crotch. She leans into him, making it difficult for anyone to cut in. He buries his head into her neck while she angles her head up and holds onto his arms wrapped around her waist.
I gulp down my rum and coke until my chest hurts. The entire time Kafui has been looking at Araba, not Mansa, and difficult as it is, I can see why. In her skinny jeans and orange lace top, she’s striking in a way that Mansa and I cannot be in our shift dresses. She’s the type of girl our brothers would describe as having body—wide hips and heavy breasts spilling through the V-neck of her blouse.
Panic bubbling up my throat, I reach into my bag and pull out my phone. In an hour, this day will end, and a new one will begin. Would it matter if I waited till tomorrow?
* * *
I follow Kafui and Araba out the door and down the hallway. Outside, in the courtyard, it takes a moment to see they’ve entered Kafui’s hatchback. I rush into the headlights, blink at the lights stinging my eyes. I know what I look like, standing beside the passenger door, my legs bent in an X, the arm that refuses to grow dangling at my right side. All the same, I grip the window with my good hand and lean down.
“Where are you going? Can I come? I’m bored here.”
Araba looks at me like I’m some fly she wants to swat.
“We’ll be back just now. Go back to Mansa.” Kafui’s tone is that of an adult addressing a child.
In his face, I see another frowning at me. Dominic, my secondary school crush, the one I’d wanted to be my first boyfriend. Except for the gap in his teeth, Kafui resembles Dominic, with his lips parted in confusion, his nose scrunched up as if he’s caught a whiff of Korle Lagoon.
I let go of the window, and the car screeches forward. Neither Kafui nor Araba looks back as they turn left and disappear behind the dorm.
Far off towards Aburi, lightning flashes silver-grey across the sky. A car comes around the corner. I straighten my back, thinking it’s Kafui returning for me. The car continues past and parks in front of the adjacent dorm.
* * *
Back in Kafui’s room, Mansa is on the balcony, chatting with Kafui’s roommate. The dancing couples are glued to each other, gyrating to Ebony’s Hustle. I return to my spot on the lower bunk, scroll through Kafui’s photos on Facebook and Insta. No sign of Araba in any of the photos.
I search again the next day. Sure enough, there’s a selfie on his WhatsApp status:
green lights and a bar in the background
Araba’s head on Kafui’s shoulder
a smirk deepening the sharp contours of his jaw.
About the author
Priscilla Adipa is a writer from Accra, Ghana. Her short stories have appeared in Transition, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Brittle Paper and Resilience, an anthology published by Writers Project of Ghana in 2021. As a sociologist, she is fascinated by how we're shaped by people, places and things. Priscilla loves spending time with family, dancing and eating good food. She is currently working on her first novel.
