The Akroma File

Chapter Twenty

117 The Akroma File Chapter Twenty (Wednesday, May 23rd 1984) I t took Akroma and J-P twenty minutes to find a taxi that would take them right to Nobem where J-P’s uncle lived. The taxi branched off the main road and then drove up a slippery but apparently much-used track that led to a half-broken gate. “Uncle Sabas lives here,” J-P announced. They paid the taximan, J-P lifted his valise and Akroma with his brief case in his right hand followed him up to the gate. There J-P stopped as if he was trying to recall some important detail. Because of the cypress trees that grew dottedly outside the cement blocks gate they were out of view of anybody standing in the veranda of the house. “You have forgotten what to tell him about me?” Akroma asked. “How can I forget,” P-P asked. But Akroma noticed that there was some uncertainty in his voice. He advised J-P to repeat the information. He started by saying: “Oga here is Mr. Akroma from Liberia…” Akroma corrected him and then they entered the compound. It was half past five and dusk was not far off. 118 Linus T. Asong 2 J -P entered the compound voice first. “Is pa in?” he called aloud. “Why don’t we go in quietly?” Akroma asked. “Pa has many many dogs…” J-P began when somebody rose to the veranda and inquired in an equally loud voice: “Who is talking there like my son Mombangui?” “I am the one, pa. Where are the dogs?” The man smiled to himself and said: “I cannot even feed myself, you are talking of dogs? Come you in.” The man waited on the first step of the veranda until they reached him. He tried to take J-P’s bag. “No, pa, I can carry it.” J-P was no stranger to the house. He walked ahead of his uncle into the parlour. “Where is mammy Anna?” he inquired excitedly. “Inside,” the man said. J-P put his bag and that of Akroma in the parlour and then went to the veranda behind the house and greeted his uncle’s wife. Akroma took one look at the man and concluded at once that he was a man he could use. He looked like somebody who had once tasted wealth. He could have passed for a man of eighty, but he must have been just about sixty years old and there was every evidence that although he looked thin he had once carried a large belly. He had a longish head with brown hair, evidence of continuous but unsuccessful use of dyes to keep the colour black. 119 The Akroma File He was slightly bald, with a flat forehead, a flat nose and a large mouth that reddened at the corners when he smiled. He wore his large khaki pair of trousers well over his navel which he held in place with a belt so old that it looked like a rope. His eyes darted suspiciously and there was a certain nervousness about him which Akroma could not explain. There was one obvious characteristic about his face: he did not look intelligent. The woman, probably in her late fifties, received the visitors with undisguised as well as unexplained displeasure. J-P felt particularly embarrassed. He remembered how very friendly the woman was when he was living with them some ten years ago. She would go down the road to receive visitors she had never met before, show them where to sit and offer them something to eat or drink while they waited for her husband. That was long ago when contractors and college proprietors were the hottest cakes in town, the only cocks to crow. The visitors would learn later that as soon as Pa Sabbas’s fortunes took a downward plunge, his relationship with his wife as well as her relationship with his friends and relatives took a different turn. Akroma had never met her before. Her reception caused him bitter pangs because it immediately warned him that to live with them he must work extremely hard and fast to win her to their side. People who used to visit them and spend weeks with them suddenly became debt collectors, ready to compel Pa Sabbas to sell his property to pay them. People who strolled into the compound as...