The Devil Has His Money

Episode 6

We dined like royalties throughout the month. The five ‘ God sent’ guys kept bringing us food items, at a point Nma got scared because times were hard for everywhere but i easily assured her that all five of them were bachelors with no responsibility. Seyram, the government worker took it upon himself to register little Pam in the Catholique beginners school in my home town, he bought her all the necessaries she would need.

NPA( Father) is still not talking to us, when i greet him he doesn’t respond. These days all he does is to drink to stupor and curse everyone from the government down to us. Sometimes he would sing Lucky Dube’ s prisoner at the top of his lungs. One night i saw him in pants dancing and singing ” I am a prisoner” at the top of his lungs, Afine came out of her hut and tried to take him inside but they both ended up on the floor. I couldn’t resist laughing, i laughed so hard that I didn’t know when Nma walked behind and slapped me on my back.

The next day i went to the Lecee (Poly) Gate and waited for Albert. He walked up to me under the tree i stood.

” Charley wassup? He said in English.

” I see you learnt English today. “

He shrugged ” Yes. What are you doing here? “

” When are you coming home?”

” I don’t have a home, is Nma alright? “

” She is okay but she is not happy with you staying at cousin Mensah’ s place you know.”

” As long as she is okay i see no reason to come home. What is going on with you? I heard you stopped schooling”

I looked away. It was a very sunny day, beautiful birds were chirping all around us .
Albert sat on the grass and I followed suit. ” Listen to me Kojo, i want you to go back to school and i want you to be a good boy for Nma….you hear me? tell Nma that i love her and i want you to promise to take good care of her and little Pam when am………”

” When you are what Efo( bro) ?,” I suddenly became scared. ” Efo what is going on? “

” Ah Kojo! I don’t know! I …..can’t talk to about it. ”

” Does it have anything to do with those guys feeding us?”

He suddenly looked sick. ” Just do what i told you, there’s nothing like a good education “

” Will you at least tell me about Afine? I know about her, you talked in your sleep “

He sighed and got up. ” She was in my class, her family moved here last year. She’s the …..the first girl my heart ever beat for. I dreamt of her all the time, I wanted to be her all but i get tongue tied whenever i see her. My friends advised me to brag about my father’ s farm, our large barnyard, how my father had millions stashed away somewhere. Unknown to me, her family was going through a rough time and somehow my bragging got to her family but they felt why marry the son? When you can Marry the father and inherit it all. Only thing is the joke was on them! Turns out our father is a stingy poor man. “

I stood up. ” Why didn’t you discourage her from marrying him?”

” I tried Kojo, God knows i tried. “

” I promise to go back to school if you promise to give up whatever it is that you have gotten yourself into now”

” Kojo…..have come so far, I …..I can’t. Let me tell you a story. ” He sat down once again and I did same too. ” Kojo, there’s a man who sent his daughter to the university, this man spent all the money he made from tapping wine on his beautiful daughter. One day a bad powerful man came to the school. ” he paused for effect and looked at me.

Is this Bella’ s story? I nodded and he continued ” The powerful man cast a spell on the palmwine tapper’ s daughter and carted her off to join his legions of wives. When the mother of the girl heard it, she was heartbroken. She went to the bad Man ‘ s house, do you know what he did to her?

I shook my head no and he went on ” He cast a spell on the mother too. In fact he got the both of them pregnant”

This man is so evil. How could he commit such a taboo? ” what happened next Efo ( bro)

” The palmwine tapper went to his house to demand for his wife and daughter but he cast a spell on him too and made him his gate keeper. “

” The man is so terrible!” i said in anger.

” There are other families that he has done terrible things to too, what would you do Kojo? if you were the palm wine tapper’ s son, what would you do?”

” I will try to get my family back”

‘” That is not an easy feat boy, not easy, the evil man also cut off the manhood of a young man who fell in love with one of his daughters. He sent it to the young man ‘ s family. See I could go on but time is against us and you have to go home to help Nma fetch and carry.” We both stood up.

” Who is this powerful evil man bro? “

Albert acted like he didn’t hear me ” Give this chalks to Pam” he brought out some colour chalks from his bag and handed them to me ” Remember to tell Pam i love her too”

My eyes filled with tears. What is going on? should i speak to Nma ( Mother) about it?