Dial - Season 2 - Episode 22

4 years ago

Dial - Season 2 - Episode 22

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She reached out for a cloth on the bed and without looking down there or at me she draped it across my lower body. She put the towel back into the bucket of water and carried it outside.

I thought she was gone, and I was about to lie on my stomach when she came back. She sat down on the edge of the bed, took a container of pomade, and then she began to pomade my body, and she never looked into my face, not even once.

She stood up and went outside, and a moment later Tawiah entered the room, and smiled at me.
“Oh, I thank the gods!” he said with a smile. “Today you have fully opened your eyes. Here, let me help you into your shorts.”
She picked up a pair of baggy shorts, made from flour sacks and absolutely horrendous, and helped me get into them.
“How long have I been sick?” I asked quietly.
“Oh, almost two moons, Opanyin,” he said, startling me.
“Two months?” I asked, horrified. “That’s impossible! Surely I couldn’t have been delirious for that long!”
The doorway darkened, and Maame Ntiriwaa came in, her face excited.
“Oh, Yao, Yao, Yao!” she said, her face elated. “Oh, I didn’t think you would make it!”
I smiled at her as she hugged me gently.
“I’ve been told I’ve been out for almost two months,” I said with horror.
“Oh, yes, you have,” she said with a gentle smile. “That man, the one who cursed you…”
“Nana b0s0mba,” I said softly.
“Yes, he came back, and gave me some herbs to mix with your food. He said it would keep you sedated for two months, and by that time the wounds in your back would’ve healed to give you no pain. He didn’t want you to walk around with much pain.”
I nodded gratefully, aware that Abena Adobea had come to stand in the doorway and looking at me with a funny kind of look.
“Funny man, isn’t he?” I asked bitterly. “Cursed me to die slowly, and yet takes it upon himself to help me deal with the pain.”

I sat up fully, and I didn’t feel that much pain in my back.
“Seems like his medicine worked,” I said softly.

All three of them made a strange gesture then, flicking their hands across each shoulder once.
“And what was that?” I asked, amused.
“Oh, a gesture that keeps evil away,” Tawiah said with a giggle. “We’re scared of that man. The medicine he gave us for your back…the one in the gourd, it never got finished no matter how much we poured out. He told us it would get finished yesterday, and it did get finished yesterday.”
“And he said you would wake up fully today, and you have,” Maame Ntiriwaa said with joy on her face. “Are you feeling hungry?”
“I can eat an elephant,” I said with a smile.
“Ah, I prepared mpotompoto for you, with rabbit meat!” she said. “Well, actually, Adobea prepared it.”
“Adobea?” I enquired with raised eyebrows. “She can cook?”
Maame Ntiriwaa and Tawiah laughed, but Adobea scowled darkly at me.
“What do you take me for, old man?” she asked icily.
“Actually, I didn’t think you could use your hands for anything else except for slapping people,” I said.

She glared at me, and then she turned and left the room in a huff, and we all giggled.
“Come, I’ll serve you,” Maame Ntiriwaa said. “Come for fresh air.”
I looked at Tawiah with puzzled eyes.
“Remember seeing you here, Tawiah,” I said. “The last time I remember you were scared to come down here.”
“Oh, they’re all here now,” Maame Ntiriwaa said sadly. “They were banished. Tawiah and his daughter were banished because he came here the other time. The two guards who helped to carry you from the palace have been banished, and they are also here. Prince Kwamepia and his mother have also come here. You remember them, don’t you?”

I nodded. Of course, the rightful heir to the throne who had been accused of killing his own father, and banished out of the village to settle in another village.
“Two friends of mine didn’t come looking for me, did they?” I asked carefully.
“Oh, they had been coming,” Tawiah said. “They are city people, and we were scared of them. Scared that maybe they might get us arrested if they saw how badly you were wounded. We told them you travelled out of the village but said you would be back, so they said they would come and check up on you from time to time.”

And then Adobea came hurrying back into the room.

“The two men that came the other time,” she said with a worried voice. “They’re here! They are coming again!”
I stood up and took a shirt from a peg on the wall, and put it on. It irritated my back a bit, but it felt okay. I was very grateful; it meant the wounds on my back had healed considerably.

When I got to the veranda I saw Brian Acquah and Kuuku Dawson in the yard, both of them dressed nicely. Their faces had been worried, but when they saw me they hurried over with smiles.

Brian reached out to hug me, but Abena Adobea quickly stepped forward protectively and put a hand on his chest, her face concerned.

“Please, don’t hug him…he…he hurt his back, please!” she said hurriedly.
We all stared at her, most of all me. Her mother and I exchanged sudden glances.
“Oh, okay, alright,” Brian said, smiling with puzzlement as he reached out his hand. “You okay, Boss?”
I smiled as I shook his hand.
“Told you about the ‘boss’ thing, Brian,” I said, and shook Kuuku’s hand too.
“Hello, Yao,” Kuuku said.
I saw that five wooden rooms with palm fronds and grass as roofs had been put up in the yard. I smiled ruefully. It seemed the nsamanpowmu community was growing.