floor and washed her mother-in-lawâs hair. She separated her squabbling sons. Her older children came home from
school. She cooked them jollof rice and red-pepper sauce. Her husband came home from the fields and put his mobile on the shelf, where it always sat. Grace came home, her books under her arm. She didnât say a word. Ernestine caught Grace looking at her and Kwomi with an odd expression on her face. Did she know something was up?
The days passed. Ernestine went out selling her wares but she avoided Adwoaâs house, she couldnât bear to see the woman. On Wednesday the girlsâ football team played a match and Ernestine, working the crowd, made a number of sales. Grace had backed out of the match, saying she didnât feel well. She was nowhere to be seen, and wasnât at home when Ernestine returned. At the time Ernestine thought nothing of it, presuming Grace was menstruating. She had too many other things on her mind.
The next morning, needing to replenish her stock, she rose early to travel into Oreya with her husband. It was hard to believe that only a week had passed since her last visit.
The sun was rising as they climbed into the bus. It was just pulling into the road when someone yelled, âWait!â
Ernestine looked out of the window. Adwoa hobbled towards them, one hand clutching her long, tight skirt, the other hand waving the bus to stop.
Adwoa squeezed herself into the seat behind them. She was dressed in an orange and green batik outfit; her hair was embellished with one of Ernestineâs gardenia clips, and she was perspiring from the unaccustomed exercise.
Ernestine froze. The harlot greeted Kwomi politely, as if she hardly knew him â she nodded to him as she nodded to the other passengers from the village. Her mascara was smudged and she was breathing heavily.
She leaned forward to Ernestine. âMy dear, Iâm spitting mad,â she muttered. âIâve got a bone to pick with my brother, the good-for-nothing drunk.â
Ernestineâs head span. She glanced at her husband but now the bus was moving he appeared to have dozed off. It was all a pretence, of course.
Adwoa was jabbering away. It seemed to be a family quarrel about a will: â⦠left him some land but he canât farm it, the rascalâs a cripple!â The words seemed to come from far off. Ernestineâs mind was busy. Was this a prearranged tryst between her husband and Adwoa? After all, it was unusual for her, Ernestine, to go to Oreya two weeks running. The two fornicators were certainly playing a clever game, Kwomi feigning sleep and his mistress engaging Ernestine in some incomprehensible story about a drunken cripple.
When they arrived in town Adwoa pushed her way to the front of the bus. Ernestine watched her big, gaudy body work its way through the crowd. She was heading for the phone-charging booth.
And now Adwoa was standing there, shouting at Asaf, the man with the mobiles, the man who never moved. The man who, it turned out, happened to be her brother.
People said it was Godâs will that Asaf was born a cripple. People said it was an ancestral curse. People said it was just bad luck. Some people had shown him kindness; some had bullied him. Mostly, however, people had ignored him. When he was a child he had begged at the crossroads outside Oreya, where the traffic streamed between Assenonga, the big city, and the north. Every day one of his brothers or sisters would push him along the central reservation and leave him at the traffic lights. He sat on his little cart, his withered legs tucked beneath him. This was a prime spot for the afflicted and fights would break out between them as they jostled for the best position.
But the worst fights were with his sister, Adwoa.
Adwoa, who throughout his childhood bullied and teased him. Who stole his sweets and ran away on her strong, healthy legs. Who ridiculed him to the girls. Who left him on his