The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi: A Novel Read Free

past?”
    “Those are heathen practices.”
    “And making heads roll isn’t?”
    I shrugged. “It is you and your constant harassment that make me think of such things in the first place.”
    Ahim responds to criticism like another man to a pat on the back. He just smiles and tilts his head like an old spinster. It gives him an infuriatingly condescending air.
    “Well, what shall it be, cards or tea leaves?”
    I was not in the mood for either.
    “I’ve had enough of the past,” I said. “More of it keeps coming.”
    “We are old,” said Ahim. “That’s what happens with age.”
    “My head has been pounding all day with the sound of the knives chopping down the coffee plants. Each blow triggers a memory.”
    “The plantation. Yes, it is sad. Now all we have left are paddy fields.”
    “Because you are too damn idle to work, that’s the trouble. Am I to be pestered with your visions of the future on top of everything else? Bring me some writing paper. And tell them to stop chopping for the day. I cannot abide it any longer.”
    Ahim shuffled to the writing desk, brought me a sheet of paper and demanded to know who was to be the happy recipient this time.
    I said nothing, and to mislead him I scrawled on the paper, muttering under my breath, “My very dear old friend . . .” But he interrupted me.
    “The grand duke of Saxe received a letter not long ago.”
    “How would you know? It is quite possible, probable even, that you mislaid it somewhere. Deliberately. Get out of my sight or I’ll have you flogged.”
    “And who do you suppose would cook for you tonight, tuan?”
    It was not, as it happens, my intention to write a letter. Since yesterday’s visit I have been tormented by the notion that, when the worthies of Buitenzorg dance the polonaise at my jubilee or on my grave, they will think of me as an endearing little old man with tightly curled grey hair they cannot resist tweaking. I am filled with the desire to confront Willem Gongrijp and his cronies with the man I once was. But I lack the strength. Realizing how feeble I have become made me wish to put some order into the thoughts that are still harboured in my soul. I set about arranging them into a speech, which I hoped would make my jubilee audience sit up and listen. So as soon as Ahim left I started off with the facts, as follows:
    I am Aquasi Boachi, born prince of the kingdom of Ashanti on the Gold Coast of Africa. I was educated at Delft, but have lived in Java for the past fifty years and at Suka Sari since 1888. The said estate, which I run, having an extent of 89 bahu or 630 hectares, is located in the residency of Batavia, section and district of Buitenzorg, east of the main road to Gadok, two and a-half posts south-east of Buitenzorg station at an altitude of 959 Rhineland feet. The owner is Mrs. M.C. van Zadelhof, née Tietz. She leases me her land for an annual sum of 21,800 guilders. The population living on the estate, which counted 804 souls upon my arrival, has more than doubled in the past twelve years: there are now 1963. They are content, which is no mean achievement considering that the profits have not increased during that time, indeed in some years they have decreased. I have had to desist from the cultivation of tea. My production nowadays consists of rice and, until recently, also co fee. Whereas in 1889 my co fee yield still amounted to 51 picul, two years later it was only 30 and, because of unseasonable rains and the poor quality of the soil, that figure has dropped to 1½ picul, being a mere 63 kilograms, for the whole of last year. Consequently I have been obliged to discontinue co fee planting altogether and consider expanding the area under paddy, which crop seems indestructible. It is not a rosy picture I paint, but I am proud to say that not a soul on my estate has su fered from these setbacks. Not a soul, I say, except myself. I find consolation in the love of my children. Of the five I have fathered, three