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

nearest kin. A dead infant will be spat upon and mutilated by its parents, and must be buried in the place where the women relieve themselves in order that the child’s soul may be dissuaded from returning. An advanced age attests to good behaviour. Old men with white hair and manifold children are cosseted and covered in gold. But Adusei Kra’s death was untimely, and dying at his age was suspicious to say the least. The ancestors might be summoning him so soon because he had committed serious misdemeanours. It was left to Kwame to produce an explanation for the premature departure of his father’s soul. The two of us fancied that Adusei Kra had lost his life to a host of vengeful spirits. For such is the fate of the warrior from the very first day he begins to kill: the more bodies he claims from the enemy, the more numerous the spirits massing against him. It was just as well, I reassured Kwame, that Adusei Kra had been able to avert the worst misfortune that can befall an Ashanti: dying childless. No one could accuse him of being kote krawa . He was no “waxen prick.”
    “The tree has fallen,” Kwame announced to the people. He assisted his mother in laying out the corpse; she used a large sponge to sprinkle water on Adusei Kra’s loins and cleanse them, just as she had done in the night when he had begotten his son. The slaves and private servants of the deceased were rounded up and sent to accompany their master with a single blow of the sword. In the meantime the ancestors had to be informed of the coming of the fresh soul. The heavy rhythm of sticks beating against the skin of elephants’ ears stretched taut over talking drums, the male and female atumpan , led the women and girls to begin a chant: they were glad the dead man had lived so well, glad the dead man had shared his life with them, glad he was setting out on his last journey, glad he was awaited, glad he would be there later to await them when their time came. Glad, glad, glad.
    That night I lay against Kwame and held him tight until the sobbing stopped. He told me the last words spoken by his father, with which he had revealed the secret of victory: each attacking phalanx of Ashanti warriors is tailed by a horde of sword-wielding afonasoato , ready to kill their own fighters at the slightest hesitation or attempt to flee.
    Kwame’s father had saved his final breath not to tell him he loved him, but to impress upon his son the Ashanti battle cry: “To advance is to die. To retreat is to die. Better then to advance and die in the jaws of battle.”
    In keeping with tradition, the body of Adusei Kra was laid to rest in a room, where it stayed until the flesh dropped from the bones. Only then would he be buried—in silence—beside the ancestors. It was in this period of waiting that Kwame and I paid a final visit to the deceased. This was no mean feat. Upon opening the door we found the corpse covered in flies. We flailed our arms to drive them away. When we set eyes on the body we saw that it had lost its pigment. It had turned white. To us, white was the colour of death, of the spirit world, the colour of all that is drained of life.
    In these hallowed months of mourning Kwame showed a growing interest in the rituals of maturity. Besides, there were new customs to be learned by us both, now that our budding manhood was visible when we were bathed. We were instructed by the fetish priest in the knowledge that is kept from boys until the pubic hair begins to grow. The gods, he assured us, looked kindly upon the promise of our bodies. Fertility prayers were to be recited in order to placate the spirits attending to adult functions of the flesh, which, far from being familiar, had seldom even entered our minds.
    But all this did shed new light on the nights we spent together, in which we found a certain consolation, and a closeness that was addictive and deeply reassuring. I sensed that it would be prudent to keep silent about the intimacy between