The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

some reason to weep.”
    From that day on we bathed together.
    Not long afterwards Kwame visited me in my apartments. He had never done so before. The tuition he was receiving brought him into contact with many of those who were close to the throne. He had plied them with questions as to the motives underlying my brothers’ departure, and had come up with the following explanation.
    Kwaku Dua, my father, had developed a keen interest in all things European. He was the seventh Asantehene of the Union of Ashanti, but he was the first to view the old contacts as more than a means of acquiring alcohol and arms. He was seized by the notion that the science and knowledge of white men might well be of service to our people, especially now that the European nations had, for reasons incomprehensible to us, abolished slavery. The trade in slaves had not been wholly wiped out by the abolition, but it had declined so dramatically that the prosperity of our outlying regions was at risk.
    The Reverend Brooking, who strutted around Kumasi wearing the regulation high black collar of the Wesleyan Missionary Society even in the midday heat, encouraged my father’s interest. He proposed sending my brothers to London for a spell, no doubt with the aim of converting them, and eventually, through them, our people as well. My father liked the idea of an English education for his sons, even though the religions of Europe struck him as absurd. He did not tolerate Christian worship in his realm. Indeed, some years later he even had Brooking’s head, complete with collar, impaled on a stake in front of his palace. Religious teaching of any kind was the least of his concerns. The Asantehene’s interest in this venture focused on science and progress, on his relations with the British government and on the expansion of trade. However, the murder of my brothers had nipped all these ambitions in the bud.
    Kwame could tell that I was not cheered by his information. Soon afterwards he came to see me again, and we took to playing together for a while each afternoon after his lessons.
    Gradually, as we listened to each other’s hopes and fears, I felt my loneliness ebb away. Kwame, burdened by the high expectations the court had of him, found consolation and sustenance in our friendship. He developed into a promising heir apparent, and in due course our people were convinced that the future Asantehene would know no fear.
    We became so inseparable that people said we were beginning to resemble one another. “As the dog-tamer resembles his dog,” Kwame said. When we finally asked if we might share the same room and the same bed, no one was surprised. My father was pleased with the positive turn our association was taking. So Kwame moved out of his room in the eastern wing and into mine, which was located outside the main building next to a spring where, by dint of an ingenious system of conical vessels, the water burbled into a small basin, even in the driest months of the year.
    Soon afterwards Kwame assumed his manly duties to general approval. Although his mother continued to be the head of the family, it was Kwame who led the elaborate farewell ceremonies when his father, Adusei Kra, was on his deathbed. He behaved in the most dignified manner and did not flinch once while the Asantehene’s eyes were upon him. Now and then I gave him reassuring signals that only we understood. Under the scrutiny of the other children and wives of the dying man, Kwame and the fetish priest conducted the rites at his dying father’s bedside: a burning oil lamp passed three times around the face about to lose its expression, water sprinkled on the hands about to abdicate their power and on the feet that need travel no more, and three final splashes of water on the tongue.
    An Ashanti does not fear his dying day. His death is merely the ultimate fulfilment of a promise made at birth. But the time of death is never without meaning. He who dies young is a curse to his