1948

Disclaimer

The events in this story are based on a fictional interpretation of the true story of the shooting of the ex-servicemen; an important part of Ghana's history and fight for independence. I have no rights to the true story of the people involved . This is just a creative interpretation of Ghana's history.

The sun was not yet out when I rose from my tiny mattress and set it against the plastered wall of my tiny room. I shivered as I splashed water on my face to wake me up. Passing by his trunk of clothes, I realized it had been 10 years already.

People would not stop talking about a new hope and a new future. It was on the radio and on TV and today it was the topic of discussion in the bus. The man Kwame Nkrumah had brought hope to Ghanaians and now the average bus driver could dare to dream of a better tomorrow where he too could live in a white man’s house and eat like the white man.

I was happy because I knew if he was here, he would be happy too but all I had ever really wanted was him. I wanted him to be there for our daughter. I wanted him to take her to the beach and to play with her. I wanted him to teach her how to read and write because I wasn’t very good at it and above all I wanted him to hold me at night when it was cold or help me with my load from the market when it was too heavy. I just wanted to be a wife – his wife.

I alighted at my stop and the driver’s conductor helped me unload my bags. It was 6:30am and things had started to pick up at the market. “Good morning, Naa” Sister Akos greeted merrily. “Good morning, Sister Akos” I replied. I watched as the elderly woman set up her spices on her table.

That’s how we had met. It was one of those cold August days and my mother had sent me to get spices from the house down the street. Those things were quite expensive but it was my father’s birthday so the soup had to be exceptional.

I walked lazily down the road, skipping over potholes filled with the remnants of yesterday’s rain. The air was thick with the smell of salt water and I could hear the ocean waves beating against the shore. I got to the house and knocked on the door. There was no response and so I knocked again. After the third try I turned to leave when I heard the door creak open.

There in front of me stood a thick tall guy with broad shoulders. He had glowing, dark skin like ebony and he had his hair in a neat low cut. He was a standard seven graduate. I smiled nervously and he smiled too.

I stepped into a wet pile of black trash and winced. Sitting in front of my shop, I cleaned my foot with an old duster. Just like all the other traders I began to arrange my wares; wax print. The early customers had already started trooping in.

Troops.

He was lucky to land a job as a security man for one of those rich white men but he was never happy about it. He wanted an office job. I thought it was a great job because the pay was good and sometimes the rich white man would give him some of his fancy leftover food and he’d bring it home to me, but every night he would say “this is not the life I promised my wife”.

One day, he came from work animated. I hadn’t seen him so happy since we got married. “It has happened Naa Baby. I have found a way for us to get out of here” he had said. He said some country named Germany was fighting against the white man and that if they lost, we would all be in trouble and then he said that the white man had promised them a lot of money and a new life if they fought in the war. His friend Yaw had some connections and so the two of them could sign up.

“I don’t want you to go and fight any war. I am happy the way things are. We are okay. We have a house and food to eat.” I said. He wasn’t happy with my response and didn’t speak to me the rest of the night.

The silent treatment continued the next day and even his favorite dish of kenkey, fish and hot pepper did not change his countenance, so I agreed. I wanted him to always be happy and if becoming a soldier made him happy, I was happy.

“Good morning ma, please how much is this? Hello ma?” I looked up to a young lady pointing at one of the fabrics hanging on the wall. I mentioned the price and she agreed immediately. Usually, customers would bargain with me till they could get the cheapest possible price.

She pulled the money from her purse and handed it to me. I saw this as an opportunity and said, “this one too is same price. It is perfect for naming ceremonies and weddings” while picking out another cloth. “Okay. I will take it too” she said and then handed me the money. I thanked her and packaged the cloth for her.

The cloth looked far better than the one I had worn to my daughter’s naming ceremony. By the grace of God, my husband had returned from the war unharmed and he had a special position in the army. It was such a joyful day for me when he came home.

We were both excited to begin our new lives and when I became pregnant it was like a dream. But weeks turned to months and soon our baby was born but there was still no money from the government. In fact, things were worse off because he wasn’t finding work.

He had gone to see his old boss out of desperation but that man didn’t even remember his name. Can you imagine? How can you forget the name of the man who protected you for years? Powerful men can be so wicked and ungrateful.

His family paid for the naming ceremony and I had never seen a man so unhappy to be naming his first child. He was too ambitious.

After about a year of sulking and complaining, his friend Yaw found him a job at the railway. The pay was non-existent but my smoked fish business was booming so I encouraged him to accept it. At least if he had somewhere to go in the morning, he wouldn’t be so bitter.

Things did get better. He started to enjoy his daughter more; he would carry her around and take her to the beach. They both loved being around the fisherfolk. He’d keep singing their songs for her when they came home and she would giggle uncontrollably.

One evening he told me “The white man isn’t that strong. I saw them at war. They bleed like we bleed and die like we die. They fight for food like we do and they are afraid as we are”. He had this gleam in his eye as he spoke. The kind of gleam that kills a man.

I deposited the money safely into my money bag and watched the woman leave. She looked decently dressed. Perhaps she was one of the people who enjoyed a free and fair Ghana. Good for her. I closed my eyes and imagined. She could be living in an estate with the high walls and nice roads. Her Twi wasn’t very good so she may have just arrived in Ghana after studying abroad. Did she eat the same fancy food as the white man? Did she have fellow black men calling her madam?

He hated it. He hated the idea of a black man calling another black man “massa”. He hated how we would betray our own people if the white man asked us to. He couldn’t understand it. “My boss at the railway station is worse than a white but he is blacker than me. Why? They see the same thing when they look at us so why do we do this?”

It had been roughly two years since his return and now he and his soldier friends had started meeting together to talk about how to make things better for themselves and the country. They respected him and he enjoyed their attention.

After their meetings he would talk about politics with me and though I didn’t really care I listened because it was a topic that interested him. When you love someone the way I loved him, it is the best feeling in the world to hear them speak about things that interest them. The way his voice would go an octave higher and he would gesture wildly when he spoke was fun for me.

From the things he said, the country was becoming unstable. The ex-servicemen weren’t the only ones who were unhappy; cocoa farmers weren’t happy and traders weren’t happy either. The Lebanese and other foreigners had taken over trading, and things were becoming increasingly expensive. They had formed an association and forced conditional sales down our throat. Now, if I wanted to buy bread, I had to buy sugar too. It was our country and yet we had no say.

There were men who said they wanted Gold Coast to be independent within the shortest possible time. I think they were called UGCC or some name like that. They had started shifting things in the country and it felt like labor pains.

“There’s this man named Kwame Nkrumah. He’ll change everything I tell you. All hope is not lost. We can still get the money we were promised” he had said to me.

I don’t quite like the month of February. The weather is unbearably hot during the day but terribly cold at night. The harmattan winds have no mercy and will crack any skin that isn’t covered in shea butter. He liked that season best because we would snuggle together at night to keep warm.

One of his meetings was different from the rest. That was where he had met the man, Kwame Nkrumah, that he would not shut up about.

He was really happy in those times. One February night, the lights went out as they often did, and he gathered us all outside. It was me, my mother, his parents, his sister and our daughter. He lit a fire and we laughed and told stories. I looked into his eyes as the light from the fire danced across them. He had smeared so much shea butter on his skin that it had an extra glow.

Our daughter had his exact skin and face. I remember when she was born people would often laugh and say that I looked at my husband too much when I was pregnant and so my child looked nothing like me.

They were not wrong. I loved to look at his face and get lost in his smile. He had this way about him that I can’t explain. He was soft and yet firm. He could laugh and cry but I had seen him carry heavy logs of wood. He was really everything.

In hindsight, maybe it was wrong for me to put all my hope and joy in one man but that was how I was raised. I was raised to be a wife. I had no dreams, no ambitions or goals. All I knew is that I needed to be a good wife, married to a good man.

When we had started courting, I was the envy of the town. I was the lucky girl who was dating the handsome man who could read. My mother was beside herself; her only daughter had made a good marriage. She hadn’t expected it because she said I was too laidback but there he was at my house one February afternoon to ask for my hand in marriage.

I watched him as my daughter snuggled in his arms. Despite his bulging muscles he was so gentle with her. He hated for me to hit her and would often excuse her bad behavior. I felt he was too lenient but it was his first child, and a girl too. He said he wanted her to grow up feeling pampered and loved.

I picked up my radio from the corner of the shop and began to tune it. I smiled as high life music rose and filled the air. His favorite song would always play on the radio around 5pm and no matter what we were doing he’d stop and dance with me.

“I think I am pregnant again” I had said in his arms. He pulled me back and looked at me, eyes wide. “You think?” he had asked. I could see a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. I laughed. “I know” I said.

He hollered and swept me up in his arms as we danced across the hallway. When we were done, he rushed out of the house to tell his parents the good news.

“I hope it’s a boy” he said that night.

“I hope he looks like me this time” I replied. He laughed and pulled me closer. His lips on mine was one of the best feelings I had ever had.

Perhaps I should have never told him. I think that’s what pushed him and nothing I said could change his mind. It was the 27th of February and he said he was marching to the Christiansburg Castle with his friends to see some governor the next day. He said he needed to do it because the family was growing.

“I don’t have a good feeling, let the others go. These people are dangerous.” I had begged.

“What kind of man would I be if I let others fight my battles for me. Everything will be fine, I promise” he said.

As surely as a fish cannot live on land, a man cannot make a promise that is not his to keep.

The music faded away and I was in front of my fish. I had been smoking my fish when my mother ran to me. She was hysterical and I had to take my daughter away from her because I thought she’d drop her at any moment. I asked what was wrong but she couldn’t speak. She just kept exclaiming and pointing towards the house. I went with her back home to understand what was going on.

There were aunties rolling on the floor and screaming in anguish. Uncles sat around on benches letting out occasional shouts of pain. By this time, I knew but I did not want to know. A radio was on one of the benches and a crisp voice came through.

“It has been confirmed that three of the soldiers on the march to the Christiansburg Castle today have been shot dead…”

I sat down on the steps and I felt my son turn in my stomach. I believe that was the point that he left me.

I couldn’t shout and I couldn’t cry. Everything was just numb. I could see him walking out of the house that morning in his uniform with a broad smile on his face and then everything went black.

I don’t blame the white man for my husband’s death. I really don’t. I blame him for his death. He fought too hard. The world was against him but he refused to accept it. He had all a black man was entitled to have but it was never enough for him – I wasn’t enough for him.

I looked at the wares in my shop. After he died, I was given some money to do something for myself. It was good money that I’d never seen in my life.

The shooting sparked the 1948 riots and all the foreign shops were looted, so I figured that it would be lucrative to start selling cloth and be one of the few local people doing so. I was right.

They say the riot led to independence in Ghana. They say my husband is a legend and that his name will be recorded in the history books. They say a lot of things about our independence and our tomorrow and I think it is all just noise. It’s not that I don’t care that my country is now free, it’s that I would much rather have the man I love with me.