Chapter 1
He managed to sit on a well-crafted stool. Awo Serwa looked at him very amazed as he examined the contents of a very old hunter’s sack.
“You’re not moving an inch into the forest because the sun will disappear any moment from now. Have you heard the last cry of the dove and the first hoots of the devil’s owl? Were you not the one who groaned in sleeplessness throughout the night with groin and heart pains? Don’t let me believe, death has closed your aged ears”, she looked so worried and kept on staring at the owlish oldie who looked as tough as old boots.
”Listen to that, a woman’s talk”, he blurted out. “By the way, were you commanding or advising me? Don’t grow wings in my house, if you do, I’ll be compelled to pull your feathers”.
Everybody in the big compound could not help but laughed after he asked very funny questions.
“A jester, you people think I am. You will one day notice something about women. Their always-demanding mouths enjoy nothing else but honey and they are only good for...“. He stopped as something prickled his mind about children and obscene words.. Like the Smoky Mountain, he puffed some smoke from his pipe which was so firm between his lips, while relaxing on his stool. Random coughing was usual with him but this time, an audible sound, which could be heard usually at a permitted place, followed the cough sound he made.
“One’s stomach decides to retort instead of the mouth when one hears and swallows rubbish from a woman”, he said angrily but quietly to himself.
The sound could have attracted laughter but they were all feigned deafness to maintain peace in the house.
Nana Amponsem had witnessed over four scores of new-yam festivals. He had so many children with his three wives and a good number from concubines. Awo Serwa, his only surviving wife had only one child. Strangely, he usually responded to the greetings of his own children with a funny question:“Which of my wives is your mother”? His friends and everybody around would laugh anytime he asked that question. The fact was, he could not make a distinction between his children.
He was a hefty man with a powerful physique. Even at his very old age, his intimate friends affectionately called him epom-gyata: area-lion. In his heydays, women rumored about the size of his manhood and many of them dared his prowess in the one-to-one night game. Indeed, he was a titan in that act. His conspicuous belly gave a vivid picture of the size of his evening meal; fufu, that was usually served in a very big earthenware bowl. When eating, a kind of whirlwind followed the soup he could whisk with his palm to his mouth and he had a sizable rag always on his shoulder for cleaning sweat and whisking flies away. To him, drinking of water was an exercise that wasted the capacity of a man’s belly because it had no intoxicating effect. Odoka; the raffia-palm-wine was his favorite because it had the dual effect of quenching his thirst and making him feel a man.
Undoubtedly, he was a gourmet whose gourd was never empty. In his good mood, he sang in a deep bass tone, an old military song that was so popular with soldiers of the Gold Coast Volunteer Force. It was in Twi, his native language. The beat was close to that of an English marching song and the words were:
Barima eee, yenkoo!
Barimaeee, yenkoo!! Barima East Africa!!
Barima besen yenko!
The lyrics, teased cowards to enlist in the army so that they could go to East Africa en route for Burma and India.
After the song, he narrated unfounded and never-ending stories about his exploits in Burma and India. The stories became popular as Booma-news. The Booma-news, everybody knew was a pack of lies because Nana Amponsem never travelled beyond the frontiers of Adansi; his native land. His ignorance about the two world wars could not be mentioned anywhere.
because almost everybody feared him and always wanted to avoid his anger.
With the aid of his walking stick, he went through an onerous exercise of standing upright. His left armpit firmly held a cutlass as he made staggering steps to the main entrance of his big compound.
“Ampofo, Ampofo eee! Where are you”? He shouted in anger.
“Dad, here I am”, replied the young boy who was a few steps in front of him.
“Look at him! I tell you to get closer to me always, our elders say; the chick that follows the mother closely, enjoys the thigh of a grasshopper”.
“But Papa, that chick, don’t forget, suffers the hardships of errands”, he replied his father’s proverb quickly.
As if amazed at the wisdom in his son’s statement, he shook his head, stood quiet for some time and said; “I was once like you, an errand boy, ready to serve with two strong legs, not three as you find me now. Like the piglet, you will surely grow to have a long snout. One day, I’m sure, you’ll be confronted with the wisdom in what I said, I mean the proverb. Let’s go”, he ordered his son.
“Eei! Bona, Great god! Who created this man at all? He does not heed to advice. The stern hands of temptation and stubbornness will one-day sink some lessons into his amorphous head. He is nearing his grave but feels he is as young as he was. Ah! Let him go, for a pig is always a pig. No matter how well you clean it, the mud is its friend”, Awo Serwa showed concern for the poor health of her aged husband.
