My dearest family, I am leaving. Maybe forever.
No!
I can’t write that. I need to write what I want them to read, not what fear is screaming inside my head.
I try to block it out and focus, but I can hear them around me. Ma, dear Ma, calling to us, her squad of three, soon to be two.
“Coming!” call Klenam and Mawuli.
It sounds like Kle is in front of the bathroom mirror again. That’s where she practically lives these days. Mawuli’s kicking a ball around the compound, letting off steam after school as usual. They don’t come for me because I’m supposed to be studying for my final exam tomorrow. If they knew what I’m actually doing in here!
I hear them hurry to Ma from different directions, to help her prepare what they have no idea will be our last supper together. If only I could tear up this piece of paper, run over too, and say,
All done! How can I help?
If only acting normal made things normal! But the paper stares back up at me, blindingly blank like the terrifying unknowns of my new fate. And Mawuli could run in here at any minute.
I must do this thing now; write the words that will mark the end of everything I have ever known.
The pencil weighs heavier than my farming tools as I begin,
My beloved Ma, Klenam, and Mawuli, by the time you get this I will be far away…
***
PART ONE — BEFORE
It was hard to believe we hadn’t always lived with Togbe. Klenam barely remembered the days when we lived with both our parents in Sogakope, seven years before, and as for Mawuli, he didn’t even remember our father. But maybe that was a good thing.
Our father worked in Sogakope, and that was where I started school. I never had to wear a ragged uniform back then, and school was the only work I did, but life was hard in a different way because Dad could be so mean. He shouted a lot, and Ma always looked sad. I heard our cotenants whisper that he had girlfriends, but what I hated most was when he got drunk and hit Ma. I was only six or seven, but I’d try to defend her, and he’d beat me off. That was why I was happy when we left. Ma never said anything about it, but one day, while he was at work, she just packed our bags and took us to the bus station, her mouth set in a firm line.
I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I trusted Ma despite the sad, lost air she had about her. As we headed upriver along the Volta it was soothing to look out the window and see the sun bounce off its ripples. I gazed at its marshes and rice fields, at kingfishers hovering to dive, cattle egrets dotting the landscape with white, and weaverbird nests dangling from trees like Christmas decorations. I hadn’t travelled much, but the few times we’d ever gone anywhere the river would always appear at some point, like when we visited our father’s relatives. That time we went in the opposite direction, following it all the way down to the sea. It was like a kind of travel buddy, always there no matter where we were going or what we were leaving behind.
Togbe came to fetch us from the bus stop at Mepe. Back then his hair was grey, and there was a lot more of it. He was tall and looked fit for his age in a light cotton smock and trousers. We’d only met him a few times before, but Klenam was too young to remember, and Mawuli hadn’t yet been born. When the bus arrived, Ma woke me up and asked me to take the lead. She handed me her big bag with the broken handle. I carried it carefully, and as soon as I got out of the bus, Togbe took it from me and lifted me off my feet. I was surprised he recognised me straightaway like that because it was at least a couple of years since we’d last seen each other.
“Vinye!” he said, and there was so much warmth in the word— “my child”— and in his embrace, that I immediately felt I was exactly where I was meant to be. I had no idea how that worked— feeling more at home in a new place than where I’d lived all my life— but his welcome just seemed to gather up all my anxiety and toss it away like trash. And his smile was what I remembered best about him because it felt like something his childhood had accidentally left behind. His lips would twitch and pucker for a second before they stretched into a curve, like someone who had just done something naughty and wasn’t going to tell you what it was.
He took Mawuli out of Ma’s arms as soon as she emerged, and when he started crying, he made a funny noise like a birdcall. Mawuli went quiet and looked at him, puzzled. Then he wiggled his moustache and started playing peekaboo. Mawuli started to giggle in that out-of-control baby way, hiding his face against Togbe’s shoulder. After that Klenam happily took his other hand, skipping along with her purple plastic doll clutched to her chest, while Ma and I loaded our things together with the driver of the rickety taxi Togbe had hailed.
By the time you get this, I will be far away. It is cowardly, I know, but I cannot see your faces and walk away. Please forgive me, knowing that I have gone to make a better life for us all.
Sena lives his life in rural Ghana as many teenagers do: going to school, playing football, and working on the family farm. But as poverty slowly pushes his family to the brink, he’s ready to do almost anything.
When a larger-than-life stranger arrives in town to lure young people away with the promise of a better future, Sena is tempted. What follows is a journey that will take him far from home and those he loves, where he’ll need to use everything he’s ever learnt if he’s going to make it back alive.
Mamle Wolo is an award-winning Ghanaian-German author who studied at the University of Cambridge and Lancaster University in the UK and is an Honorary Fellow in Writing of the University of Iowa. She is a director of the Writers Project of Ghana. She writes fiction, poetry, and screenplays, and lives in Accra, Ghana. She is also the author of The Kaya Girl.
ISBN: 978-978-62033-9-3
Order link: https://www.narrativelandscape.com/product/flying-through-water/
Page Count: 288 pages
