Kwei Quartey - Gold of Our Fathers

Dawson was satisfied. “Okay,” he said to Huang. “Thank you. How do you say that in Chinese?”

“Xièxiè.”

Dawson looked at Feng. “Xièxiè.”

Feng smiled and gave an appreciative, phlegmy laugh.

•••

They took Wei back to the Dunkwa station and locked him up. Dawson, cognizant of how much of Huang’s time he had taken up, asked him to please bear with him for just a little longer, and Huang graciously agreed.

Dawson took Kobby aside. “I have been telling the Chinese man that we will be prosecuting him for the assault, but I don’t think it’s worth it, the way our courts and remand prisons are already clogged. So, unless you insist that we proceed, I intend to have the charges dropped and release him. Are you okay with that?”

“Yes, sir,” Kobby said, nodding. “What he did is not worth so much palava. Thank you, boss.”

Getting started on the paperwork, Dawson decided he would carry out what the GPS sometimes did for offences it decided to overlook. Before release, Wei would be asked to sign a warning letter that said if he ever were to repeat such behavior, he would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. That was about as far as Dawson wanted to go.

Freed from jail, Wei had the task, along with the police, of notifying Bao’s wife that her husband had been murdered, but everyone including Wei agreed that the burdensome duty shouldn’t be done over the phone. Besides, for Dawson, it was always helpful to witness the reaction of the family member receiving the bad news, because those closest to the victim were so often involved in his or her murder.

Huang drove back to the mining site so that Wei could retrieve his pickup. Dawson thought about Bao’s vehicle. It shouldn’t be left alone for too much longer, as it was potentially a piece of evidence. “Does Wei have a spare key to Bao’s truck?” Dawson asked Mr. Huang.

Wei took out a substantial bunch of keys from his pocket and looked through. He found one and tried it in the door of the red pickup. It opened up.

“Thank you,” Dawson said, holding out his hand. “May I have it?”

Wei handed it over and Dawson gave it to Obeng. “Drive it to Obuasi for now,” he told the sergeant, “and then we’ll transfer it to Kumasi HQ when they can take it.” Dawson had no idea how packed Kumasi’s MTU was, but if it was anything like Accra’s, it would be jumbled and overflowing. Sometimes crime-related vehicles sat there for years.

With Dawson in the passenger seat, Wei took the lead to Kumasi, followed by Mr. Huang, whom Dawson had persuaded to help with translation when they paid the fateful visit to Bao’s wife. Wei drove like a maniac, even over the punishing Dunkwa-Obuasi portion of the journey. Dawson thought his internal organs were being rearranged. After a two-hour drive, they were back in Kumasi.

“Where do you live, Mr. Liu?” Dawson asked.

“Kwadaso Estate,” Wei responded, looking at him with a smile. The Chinese man seemed friendlier now that he was free and the stress had abated somewhat.

Dawson had heard the name, but wasn’t sure exactly where it was. At any rate, he thought he should know where Wei lived in case of an emergency. They were now on Melcom Road in the Ahodwo section of the city, passing The View Bar & Grill and a few hundred meters from that, a bed and breakfast called Four Villages Inn.

Wei turned right at J. Owusu Akyaw Street and pulled up to a black and gold metal gate three houses down on the right. He pumped his horn and a young watchman in a tattered pinkish T-shirt opened up and directed them to go through into the yard shaded with mango trees, where Wei picked a good spot to park behind a black late-model Kia SUV and a sleek silver Mercedes- Benz.

The front door was some kind of metal painted to vaguely resemble wood. The Ghanaian housemaid let Dawson and the two Chinese men into the air-conditioned house. She looked as if she never got enough to eat.

The sitting room was full of overstuffed shiny black imitation-leather sofas and chairs and black glossy tables with gold trim. In fact, gold seemed to be everywhere-a kind of assault on the senses. The dining area and kitchen were comparatively small, both with a lot of gleaming plastic and glass.

“Please, you can have a seat,” the housemaid said softly. “I’m going to call her.”

Wei and Huang sat on one sofa, but Dawson took a look at some framed family photographs on a black-lacquered sideboard. One was a posed color portrait of a twenty-something man in a suit and tie and a woman with a frilly lilac blouse standing close together and smiling out at the camera-Bao and his wife, Dawson guessed, perhaps fifteen to twenty years ago. Another was an old sepia photograph of a large group of what Dawson imagined was extended family, with all the little ones in the front. It struck Dawson that no one was smiling in the photos. Everyone appeared stiff.

Dawson turned to Huang. “What is Bao’s wife’s name?”

“Lian,” he replied.

“Does that mean something in Chinese?”

Huang thought about it for a moment. “Something like graceful flower.”

As he said that, a woman appeared at the doorway leading farther into the house. She was tiny, girl-like, and pretty, with dark hair pulled back from her face to accentuate her defined cheekbones. She looked puzzled at the sight of the three men in her sitting room.

Wei stood up, appearing nervous. “Lian, nǐ hǎo ,” he said, coming forward to clasp both her hands.

She seemed to sense his edginess and responded uneasily. “Nǐ hǎo, nǐ hǎo,” she replied, smiling uncertainly.

Wei began talking to her in Chinese, and even to Dawson’s ears, it was clear how halting and tentative his speech was, as if he were trying to choose his words as carefully as he could. The more he spoke, the more Lian’s face clouded over, and when Wei was done, she regarded him with an expression somewhere between incredulous and affronted. She took a step back, and for a moment Dawson thought she was about to retire to some internal chamber of the house, but instead she began to shout questions at Wei in a disturbing barking manner. He seemed to be trying to answer, but he never got very far, and after a while, overwhelmed by emotion, he covered his face with his hands and began to take deep, heaving breaths.

Lian staggered past him, looking confused, lost, and bewildered. Dawson watched as she swung around and shouted something else unintelligible at Wei, and then bolted for the door. Wei caught her before she got there, trying to hold her without hurting her as she struggled, screaming.

My God, Dawson thought. Worse, much worse than he had imagined, but then it often was.

Wei was trying to talk to her even as she was flailing. Then, like a light switched off, the energy left her and she collapsed into a ball on the floor sobbing in a strange braying fashion. The housemaid, who had appeared in the sitting room in alarm, knelt down by Lian, gently patting her back. After some moments, Lian’s crying lost strength, but quiet episodes were interrupted by bursts of more grief.

“Can we help her to get up and sit down?” Dawson suggested.

Huang asked her, and she agreed. Wei assisted her to the sofa.

“Please,” Dawson said to the maid, “can you bring her some water?”

She hurried then to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water. Lian took one sip and gave it back, staring ahead blankly with swollen eyes.

“What was she saying when she first heard the news?” Dawson asked Huang.

He shrugged. “Something like… not believe it. How Bao dead?”

Dawson nodded. He’d seen the broadest range of emotions in his time. This was only one of the many.