“Afinɔ, let me do it,” Mawusi offered, but my mother swatted her hand away.
Mawusi flinched and looked at me with a mix of exasperation and pain. “Don’t mind her,” I mouthed. Three months before, I wouldn’t have been afraid to give sound to my words but now I dared not. This wedding was so important and my mother so anxious that all go according to plan that I expected her to throw a fit at any moment.
She wanted everything to work out perfectly: for Eli to be satisfied with me; for Eli’s mother, Aunty Faustina Ganyo, to get back her son; for us to enjoy the status that would surely come with being tied, by marriage, to the Ganyos. Aunty had done so much for us. When my father died ten years before, in 2004, we were forced out of the government bungalow and most of our valuables seized by those who claimed, without showing any proof, that my father owed them money. It was Aunty who offered us one of her properties, a two-bedroom house with an indoor bathroom and kitchen. Meanwhile, Tɔgã Pious had sat back, his gut resting on his thighs, lamenting the lack of rooms in our family’s compound and the tenants’ refusal to move out after their leases expired. It was also Aunty who gave my mother a job as a saleswoman in her flour-distribution depot, without my mother even asking. And the woman wasn’t even a relative or a friend! We, of course, knew of her like everyone else in Ho. We knew that she wasn’t the only rich businesswoman in town but was the most generous and never hesitated to help those in need. We were used to seeing her white Pajero drive down the main road, the driver in the front with her nestled near the door in the back. I had attended the Christmas parties she threw every year for the town’s children. The ones—initially held on the lawn of Parks and Gardens but later moved to the stadium when the regional minister timidly lamented the bald patches that our feet left behind in the grass—where you could drink as many cups of chilled leha, the sugary corn drink, as you wanted, and each child was sent home with a small transparent plastic bag of doughnuts, chips, and toffees. And my mother was a member of the Women’s Guild, of which Aunty had been president for so many years that no one remembered her predecessor or cared to schedule new elections.
“God bless her!” my mother would say as she admired a sack of maize or some other gift that Aunty’s driver had dropped off. Half of our morning devotion was spent entrusting Aunty into God’s hands and praying for her cup to overflow. When I was younger I would imagine, with great concern, Aunty neck-deep in supernatural water as a hovering golden chalice rained even more water down on her head.
“Father, let your blessings flow, overwhelm her with your love, overtake her with your grace,” my mother would plead, a tremor in her voice.
But my mother had never imagined that she, Afinɔ, Afi’s mother, would ever be able to repay Aunty’s kindness, until Aunty proposed marriage between our families. So now she carefully smoothed the sleeves of my shimmery boat-neck top, and directed Mawusi to hold up the slippery, cream fabric of my slit so that the hemline wouldn’t drag on the linoleum.
The cries of “mia woezor” rang out, an enthusiastic welcome that couldn’t have been for anyone other than Aunty. She and her entourage had arrived.
My mother shooed me into the bedroom before breezing out the door. “Don’t let anyone see you,” she warned before she shut the door.
I thought for a moment about my mother’s transformation. It was like she was a different woman. She had on a shiny black wig, styled into a bob, which she had bought on her shopping trip to Accra, her first since my father’s death. Her off-shoulder kaba and the fish-tailed slit were made of a white-and-blue wax-print fabric, which marked her as the mother of the bride. Blue clay beads, which had once belonged to my maternal grandmother, adorned her neck and wrists, and her kitten-heel slip-ons matched the white satin of her purse. It had been a long time since she had looked so elegant.
I could hear everything going on in the courtyard because Eli’s younger brother, Richard, had insisted on microphones. He’s also the one who hired the tsiami, the spokesman who came from Accra, along with the videographer and photographers who thrust their cameras in my face throughout the day to capture my every expression for Eli’s viewing.
The ceremony began with greetings; Eli’s older brother, Fred, who tirelessly campaigned with the president during the last presidential election and was now a deputy minister of transport and a real-estate mogul, sought permission to greet my relatives. After the greeting, he announced their mission.
“We have seen a beautiful flower in this house, a bright and fragrant flower that we have come to pluck,” he said to cheers. Of course, the guests would have cheered at any word that came out of Fred’s mouth. He was an important man, after all, and regardless of what he said, they knew they would be celebrating my marriage to his brother. The tsiami had to shush them.
“Yoo, welcome to our house,” Tɔgã Pious responded to the mission statement, his voice shaking with giddiness. It wasn’t a small thing to have a minister in your house, a minister who often appeared at the president’s side on the evening news. Now here he was asking something of us. The tsiami joked that prayers would have to be said before any flowers were plucked. One of the men from our clan, a calabash of palm wine in hand and his cloth knotted around his waist, poured libation to the gods. Father Wisdom, ever efficient, immediately followed with a short prayer. I’m sure the guests were grateful for the brevity. After the prayers, Fred presented two bottles of schnapps to Tɔgã Pious. Next, he gave gifts to my relatives, Tɔgã Pious first.
“Agoo,” the tsiami began, demanding everyone’s attention; we all wanted to see what the Ganyos, with all their money, would bring. We had given them a modest list of the gifts we wanted but there had been talk that instead of two bottles of schnapps they would give ten boxes of Black Label whiskey, and instead of a gift-wrapped suitcase stuffed with panties, bras, yards of cloth, nightgowns, necklaces and earrings, and the other basics that every woman needs when starting a new life, they would come with a gift-wrapped 4x4 vehicle, the interior of which would be a mini-boutique. I will confess that I broke into a wide smile at that bit of gossip.
“First, here are the drinks. Five more bottles of schnapps! Five crates of soft drinks! Five crates of beer! Five crates of Guinness! Two gallons of palm wine!” thetsiami boomed, as though he were announcing the prizes on a game show. He then invited my relatives to inspect the bride price that my soon-to-be husband, through his siblings, had brought and placed in another room in the house. My aunty Sylvia, who was my father’s only sister, and other women from my father’s side, went in to inspect the items. They came out about five minutes later and told the tsiami that all was in order, the Ganyos had not disappointed. In fact, they had done way more than requested.
“Papa, we know how you have suffered for your daughter, so we are not simply going to take her away like that. No, not at all,” the tsiami intoned. “We know that it is not a small thing to raise a good daughter in today’s Ghana. One who is respectful and humble, despite her looks,” he continued, to murmurs of agreement. “A daughter who has both school education and home education, a daughter who can read a book and cook a tasty pot of soup.” He paused for dramatic effect. “That is why we did not come with small gifts. We came with gifts that match the work you have done!” The tsiami’s voice rose to cries of “Yueh!” from the eager guests. “We came with spectacular gifts, magnificent gifts, gargantuan gifts,” he cried to fervid applause and ululation. “Shhhhhh,” he whispered halfheartedly. After the noise died down, there was the rustling of paper as the gifts changed hands and then TɔgãPious’s breathy “akpe, akpe, akpe” repeated until the tsiami interrupted him. I’m sure he would have continued thanking the Ganyos all day if the tsiami hadn’t stopped him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my dear uncle collapsed into a quivering mound of joy. Of course he was happy to receive a reward for work he had never bothered to do.