ANTICIPATION 2

Page 2

The women are going to perform the celebrated Adowa dance. The decorated calabashes make rhythm. The women run a few steps, one dancer look particularly enchanting in her green, blue and red square kente, moving with the simple, charming grace of a wild woodland creature. The Chief is stirred, and throws a handful of loose cash into the crowd of dancers; she smiles as the coins fall on her and tinkle to the ground. There is a rush; she makes no sign but keeps on dancing.

The Omanhene turns to his trusted linguist:

'Who is that beautiful dancer?"

'I am sorry, I do not know her.'

'I must have her as a wife.'

 Nana Adaku II was fifty-five, and he had already forty wives, but a new beauty gave to him the same new thrill as to the man who is blessed, or cursed, with only one better half.

Desire again burned fiercely in his veins; he was bored with his forty wives. He usually got so mixed up among them that lately he kept on calling them by the wrong names. His new wife cried bitterly when he called her Oda, the name of an old, ugly wife.

"This dancer is totally different,' thought the Chief, 'she will be a joy to the palace. He turned to the linguist:

I will pay the hundred pounds for her.'

She might already be married, Nana.'

I shall pay the husband any moneys he demands.' The linguist knew his Omanhene - when he desired a woman he usually had his way.

Get fifty pounds from the Chief Treasurer, find the relatives, give them the money and when she is in my palace to-night I shall give her the balance of fifty pounds. Give the linguist's staff to Kojo and begin your investigations now.'

Nana Adaku 11 was a fast worker. He was like men all over the world when they are stirred by feminine charm: sometime it is the shape of a leg, or the flash of an eye, or the quiver of a nostril, or the timbre of a voice, and the male species becomes frenzy personified. Many of them go through this sort of mania until they get to their dotage. The cynics among them treat women with a little flattery, bland tolerance and take fine care not to be seriously entangled for life. Women, on the other hand, use quite a lot of common sense, They are not particularly thrilled by the physical charms of a man; if their pockets are heavy and their income sure, they are good matrimonial risks. But there is evolving a new type of modern woman; hard-headed and masculine-hearted, she insists on the perfect lover as well as the income and other necessaries, or stays forever from the marriage ‘unbliss’.

Let us come back to Nana Adaku 11 getting bored with the whole assembly and being very glad to get into his palanquin again at six p.m.

The state umbrellas danced, the chiefs sat again in their palanquins, the crowd cheered wildly, the drums beat. . . 

soon the shadows of evening fell and the enclosures of palm leaves in the state park stood empty and deserted.

TO BE CONTINUE ......

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