Chapter 2 — Red Sand and Old Memories
1668 Words
Perry Mensah had imagined his return to Ghana a thousand times.
He had imagined breathing in the thick humid Accra air and feeling like himself again. He had imagined the noise, the color, the chaos of Kotoka International Airport wrapping around him like a warm familiar blanket.
He had NOT imagined this.
The man was leaning against a sleek black Mercedes, arms folded, dressed in an immaculate white kaftan that somehow managed to look both traditional and terrifying. He was somewhere in his late fifties, broad shouldered with silver at his temples and eyes so sharp they could cut through steel.
He was looking directly at Perry.
Perry’s feet stopped moving on their own.
Around him the airport buzzed with life — reunions, arguments, taxi drivers shouting destinations. But in Perry’s world everything had gone completely silent.
How??
How did he know??
The man smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes.
” Perry Mensah,” he said, his voice deep and unhurried like a man who had never once been rushed in his entire life. “Welcome home son.”
Perry’s throat went dry.
” I… I don’t…” he started.
” You don’t know me?” The man tilted his head, almost amused. “No. You wouldn’t. But I know you very well.” He gestured toward the Mercedes. “Get in. I have a proposition for you.”
” I’m fine thank you,” Perry said, gripping his duffel bag tighter. Every instinct in his body was screaming.
The man’s smile didn’t waver.
” You have £23 in your pocket, Perry. You have nowhere to stay, no job and no plan.” He paused, letting every word land like a stone. “Get in the car.”
Perry got in the car.
The building was somewhere on the outskirts of Accra.
Perry didn’t know exactly where — he had been too busy trying to control his breathing during the forty-minute drive to pay attention to the route. The Mercedes had rolled through increasingly empty roads until it stopped in front of a skeletal concrete structure, half built and completely abandoned.
No workers. No neighbors. No witnesses.
This is how people disappear, Perry thought wildly.
” Come,” Nana said simply, already walking inside.
The interior smelled of dust and damp concrete. Exposed rods jutted from unfinished pillars like broken bones. Their footsteps echoed in the emptiness.
Nana stopped in the center of the first floor and turned to face Perry, clasping his hands behind his back like a man conducting a perfectly ordinary business meeting.
” I hear you need work,” he said pleasantly.
” Who are you??” Perry’s voice came out smaller than he intended.
” Someone who has been watching you for a very long time.” Nana began walking slowly around Perry in a wide circle. “Seven years in London. Nothing to show for it. Ran away from a woman who was too good for you. Came back with nothing but a borrowed bag and desperation.”
Perry’s back was drenched in sweat.
” I can give you a job,” Nana continued. “Accommodation. Money. A fresh start.”
” What’s the catch??” Perry whispered.
Nana stopped directly in front of him, close enough that Perry could see the cold calculation behind those sharp eyes.
” The catch,” Nana said softly, “is that you stay away from Abena Asante.”
The name hit Perry like a physical blow.
” How do you—”
” Stay away from her,” Nana repeated, his pleasant tone never shifting, which somehow made it infinitely more terrifying. “Stay away from her daughter. Stay away from everything connected to her. Do we understand each other??”
Perry’s back hit the concrete wall behind him. He hadn’t even realized he’d been backing away.
Nana smiled again — that cold, controlled, dangerous smile.
” You look frightened Perry,” he observed almost tenderly. “Good.”
He straightened his kaftan, turned and walked back toward the Mercedes like a man who had just concluded a perfectly pleasant afternoon meeting.
” Think about my offer,” he called without turning around. “You have 24 hours.”
Perry slid down the wall until he was crouching in the corner, his duffel bag clutched to his chest, sweat soaking through his shirt despite the evening breeze drifting through the unfinished walls.
His hands were shaking.
Who WAS that man??
And how did he know about Abena?
Abena Asante had faced armed robbers, hardened criminals and men twice her size without flinching.
But the road to Obuasi village still made her stomach turn.
The trotro rattled and groaned over another pothole, sending everyone lurching sideways. Myra, squeezed between Abena and the window, giggled with delight at every bump like it was a carnival ride.
” Again!! Do it again!!” she squealed as the vehicle dipped into another crater in the road.
” It’s not a game, Myra,” Abena said flatly, though her lips twitched.
Outside the window, the landscape had slowly transformed from Accra’s chaotic concrete jungle into something rawer and older. Red dusty roads stretched endlessly ahead, flanked by deserted grasslands that shimmered gold in the afternoon heat. The occasional mango tree stood alone like a forgotten sentinel. Goats wandered unbothered across the road, forcing the driver to brake sharply every few minutes.
Abena pressed her head against the warm window glass.
How long had it been??
Eight years. Eight years since she had looked back at this same landscape from the opposite direction — running away instead of returning.
Her mind drifted despite herself…
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FLASHBACK — Eight Years Ago
She was seventeen and her whole body was shaking.
Not from cold. Obuasi was never cold. She was shaking from the kind of rage that lives in your chest like a hot coal — the kind you can’t speak out loud because nobody will believe you anyway.
” THIEF!!” Auntie Comfort’s voice still rang in her ears. “You think I don’t know?? You think I’m stupid?? Seventeen years in this house eating my food, wearing my children’s clothes and THIS is how you repay me?!”
Abena had stood in the middle of the courtyard, her hands clasped in front of her, her jaw tight.
She had not stolen anything.
They both knew who had stolen the money.
Kwaku — Auntie Comfort’s precious seventeen-year-old son — had been eyeing his father’s room for weeks. Abena had seen him slipping out that morning with his friends, pockets suspiciously full, laughing too loudly.
But who was she??
A dead woman’s daughter. A charity case. A nobody.
” Pack your things and get out of my house,” Auntie Comfort had hissed, low and final. “Before I call the police.”
The irony of that threat wasn’t lost on Abena now.
She had packed everything she owned into a single bag — which didn’t take long because she owned almost nothing — and walked to the roadside without looking back at the compound she had spent four miserable years in.
The first car heading to Accra was a rickety old trotro already packed beyond reasonable capacity.
” Accra — two cedis!!” the mate had shouted.
She had exactly three cedis and forty pesewas to her name.
She paid and squeezed inside.
Her seat — if you could call it that — was wedged between two market women of considerable size who had clearly just come from a very long day at the market. The smell of smoked fish and sweat was immediate and overwhelming.
They talked. Endlessly. Across her. Over her. Around her. Their conversation was punctuated generously with flying saliva that Abena dodged with increasing desperation.
” …so, I told him, if you think I will sell my tomatoes for THAT price you must be dreaming…”
Splat.
Abena wiped her cheek silently.
” …my sister’s husband’s cousin did the SAME thing, and you know what happened??”
Splat.
Abena turned her face firmly toward the window.
Outside, Obuasi was disappearing behind her — the red roads, the dusty compounds, the mango trees, Auntie Comfort’s green gate growing smaller and smaller until the road curved and swallowed it completely.
She didn’t cry.
She had decided somewhere between being called a thief and packing her bag that she was done crying.
Accra would be different.
She would MAKE it different.
She pressed her forehead against the rattling window and made herself a promise — the same kind of iron promise she would spend the rest of her life keeping.
Nobody would ever make her feel like nothing again.
Nobody.
END FLASHBACK
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” Maa!!”
Myra’s voice snapped her back.
” Maa we almost there?? My yams are paining me from this seat!!”
” MYRA!!” Abena hissed, horrified, as the surrounding passengers erupted in laughter.
Myra blinked innocently. “What?? It IS paining me!!”
Abena buried her face in her hand, trying to decide whether to laugh or cry.
This child.
This impossible wonderful, embarrassing child.
The driver announced they were thirty minutes from the village and Abena straightened up, smoothing her dress and pulling Myra’s wandering ribbon back into place.
Grandma Efua was waiting.
Whatever memories this road carried — she was going back anyway.
Because Abena Asante had never run from anything twice.
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