The following day, KK went back to the office and insisted that Billy accompanied her to the hospital for the pregnancy test results. She told him that in order not for anyone to claim that she had gone for an unreliable test, it was only just and proper that he went with her.
”Let not anyone come and say that the result is fake,” she said, beginning to create a scene.
Mr Dorkenoo, quite fed up with the woman’s unreasonable attitude, offered to take them to the hospital in his car.
They got to the hospital in no time but met the absence of the lab technician and so had no option but to wait.
Maame Konadu had gone to the hospital for her monthly BP medications and went over to Billy when she found him waiting with his Boss.
He did the necessary introductions and explained their presence to her.
”Billy, I am disappointed in you. So if Mary is not talking to you, does it mean that you have to abandon your own kids?” she said, aware that Prosper knew of the situation.
”It’s hard Maame Konadu. It’s hard being around her without being with her,” he said in a shaky voice.
Prosper placed a comforting arm around his shoulders to strengthen him. He, more than anyone else, knew the pains of unrequited love.
Silence reigned as they waited. After almost an hour of uneasy waiting, Kutorkor appeared clutching a brown envelope. She walked purposely towards them but her confident steps faltered when she saw Maame Konadu but she continued nevertheless and cheekily handed the results to Billy when she got to them without acknowledging the elderly woman’s presence. With a deep sigh, he slit the envelope open and read the contents. Without a word, but with a strange expression on his face, he handed it over to Prosper who after reading it smiled and looked at the gloating look on Kutorkor’s face and proffered the sheet of paper to her.
”It says you are not pregnant, Madam,” he said with a gleeful look.
She gasped and snatched it out of his hand. She looked into it as if it could change anything already written in it.
”This is not true. It is a mistake,” she screamed at them and sat on a nearby bench with disbelief akin to dejection as other patients looked in their direction drawn by the commotion.
Everything she had planned. Every step she had taken was based on the supposed pregnancy. It was the foundation upon which everything else rested. Without it, everything was sure to come crumbling down. She was tensed out, her whole being one of defeat she hadn’t even considered.
The tears began to flow even as she stared defiantly at them demanding a proper and better pregnancy test.
She angrily brushed away Mr Dorkenoo’s hand away when he tried to draw her attention to the scene she was causing
”Leave me alone, leave me alone,” she screamed at them shrilly and threw the slippers she was wearing at them and anyone who dared go near her.
She cast a tragic figure as she sat, her arms around herself, rocking from one side to the other. The nurses’ attention was drawn to her screams and approached to calm her down but she fought them all away.
When Nurse Akos saw what was going on she went to the raving uncontrollable woman with fearless determination borne out of her hatred for her and gave her two quick resounding slaps in the face that shook her to the bones.
Kutorkor immediately became as docile as a reprimanded child and clamped up. She stood still, her fists balled up tight, and then with puckered lips began to cry loudly. It was a keening type of cry that aptly described the torturous mental state she was in at that material moment.
Akos, rather unwillingly led her to a hospital bed and got her to lie in it which she humbly complied without question. She was bereft of any more strength to refuse or fight.
She lay quietly with her eyes open, just staring at the ceiling without saying a word.
After lying silently in bed for some two hours, she began screaming again and Dr Nat who was believed to be the only person who could calm her down was summoned.
He immediately ordered a new test to be done. It was as if he was angry for her sake.
He was also disappointed with the possibility of her not being pregnant. He had wanted to use it to completely get Mary to break off with Billy. He comforted Kutorkor and held her hand as they waited for the second test results.
”Kutorkor, you are not pregnant” he told her plainly when he received the new one.
”Nat, I don’t understand. How can I not be pregnant? I haven’t seen my flow for months,” she said shakily.
”It’s known as Amenorrhea.”
”Ameno what?” she asked with creeping fear.
”Amenorrhea. It’s not a disease but a lot of factors contribute to it. It could be due to too much fat or a lifestyle,” he explained to the now tongue-tied KK.
”I’ll prescribe some drugs and you’ll be as good as new.”
She had already shut him off in her mind and didn’t hear any of what he said. Her mind was in turmoil and it seemed to her as if there was an ongoing din in her head created by a tempest storm. She stared straight at him but unseeing as he rambled along. He left when he was done explaining it to her.
It was Akos who despite her resentment cared for her beyond her professional call and checked on her constantly.
In the morning, just before 5:00 am, KK woke up and cleaned herself after which she quickly left her hospital bed with renewed determination to right the wrongs committed against her.
”I am going, I’ll go and demand justice from the gods. They have done it before and would do it again,” she said as she boarded a taxi to the bus station.
”They’ll pay for this humiliation. They will see. He who laughs last laughs best.”
***
It was wonderful how focused Billy was with the upright life he had reverted to. He went to visit Mary and the boys upon the persistent urgings from Maame Konadu.
Even then, he wouldn’t have gone if she hadn’t accompanied him. She had practically dragged him to her daughter’s home to visit his own sons.
It was a tongue-tied Billy who looked down at the twins as they kicked excitedly at his outstretched hands in their cots; something Mary hadn’t seen them do for a long time. The presence of their father seemed to have energized them. He looked down in awe as both of them took hold of each of his fingers.
He saw Mary from the periphery of her eyes. She had offered to serve him something but he had declined. He was feeling too much of an outsider to accept the gesture.
She had then left him alone in a world that belonged to only him and his sons. She looked at him, marvelling at how well he bonded with his sons. They hadn’t cried once since he arrived. He was so well connected with them that he hadn’t noticed Maame Konadu had long left.
Time stood still for him. It was only when he saw that it was getting dark that he bade his farewell to them.
”You can visit anytime you want,” she said when he was leaving.
”Huh?” he said, not quite sure of what he had heard.
”I meant you can visit your sons anytime you want,” she said lamely.
He nodded, once, and left.
She looked at the closed door long after he had left before she got up to prepare supper for the boys.
Billy, as much as he was glad that his issue with KK had proven to be a non-issue wasn’t entirely relieved with the outcome.
From the way she had reacted to the test results, he began to feel sorry for her and prayed for her mental well-being.
Kutorkor meanwhile was breathing fire and brimstone as the rickety bus cruised towards Mantsekrom.
”They don’t know the one they are playing with,” she thought with venom. She was going to ensure the total annihilation of them and their descendants
”Destruction and obliteration: that’s going to be their lot.”
The journey came to an end and she quickly left for the Shrine.
She expected that she as the Komfobaa would be greeted with reverence by those she met on the path.
That did not happen. They rather looked at her with shifty eyes. It also surprised her that a small crowd was following her, though at a safe distance. The crowd kept growing as she got nearer and nearer to her abode. She made no issue of it until they got rowdy and abusive so she turned around to face them. When hitherto they would have refrained from looking at her in the eyes, they now returned her gaze with defiance and refused to give ground.
She turned and continued to where she was going, wondering what was going on.
She quickly went indoors but the crowd refused to leave the house, using her name in a derogatory manner to sing Asafo songs.
Needless to say, she was extremely confused. She had no idea that Safoa had arrived the day before to spill the beans to the Chief and her own father about how she was responsible for hers and Amerley’s recent problems. They were incensed. Outraged even. Egya Mogyahyew was so angry that he began to sing a war song as he cleaned the double-barrel gun he had just recently vowed not to ever touch again.
”How dare she. To think that I foolishly confided in her, not knowing that she was the real perpetrator. And she had the audacity to threaten me when she was the guilty party all along,” he said with unbridled anger.
He reassembled the gun and loaded it with the high calibre bullet it uses, and with furious determination, walked along the path that led to Kutorkor’s home.
The Chief of Mantsekrom was much calmer. His was a sanctimonious outrage of the just. He, haven heard that the Priestess had arrived, sent some palace guards to have her brought in for questioning.
The guards were on their way to her home when they heard a loud gunshot noise in the direction of Kutorkor’s house and rushed in to see a gun-brandishing Safohene struggling with some men. It was the struggle that got the gun to let loose a cartridge. They went in and found the priestess hastily wrapping a white cotton cloth around herself.
”Nana says we should take you to him,” the leader amongst them told her.
”Okay. Let me just go and say farewell to the gods,” but before she could finish what she was saying, she was bungled out and dragged along the path that led to the palace.
The crowd that followed them was a sight to behold. It was as if the whole village was following them. The brave ones among them even dared throw rotten oranges and tomatoes at her.
She meekly allowed herself to be led to the palace. It was as if she was resigned to her fate to be judged by the Chief and her Elders who had already gathered at the Forecourt in readiness.
Her crimes largely bordered on the spiritual and could have been a hard-on to crack in a court of law. She cut a tragic figure as she stood in front of the Chief and the people of Mantsekrom to respond to the accusations.
She was made to swear to tell only the truth or suffer death for it.
That was exactly what she did. She told them in a clear voice how she had placed a curse on Safoa, poisoned Amerley and cast a spell on Billy the Agric Officer to make him be with her only.
”For this amazing body, I wouldn’t mind being a zombie,” Kofi, who had also gone to the palace to see what was going on said to himself. He was utterly disappointed with the turn of events that made it impossible for her to fulfil her earlier promise of spending a night with him on her return.
The Chief’s verdict, as per custom, was brief.
She was stripped of her position as the Komfobaa thereby losing all privileges associated with it.
In addition, she was banished from the village for life.
”Ohh no!” Kofi exclaimed, ”There goes another Bush Allowance out of reach!”
***
Dr Nat had found out that without the excitement of the chase of the unaccessible, it didn’t feel like he and Mary could be a couple.
She had beforehand told him in simple language that she was no longer with her son’s dad and he could see that she expected him to act in on it but he didn’t. Her being single again wasn’t exciting anymore.
He knew in his heart that what he felt for her wasn’t really love. It was the thrill of the unavailable that had goaded him on.
”Ɔɔyɛ asɛm o,” he said to himself as he sipped lime juice from a glass in the kitchen.
He had recently discovered something strange about himself.
He liked pregnant women. He found them so sexy, and that was what led him to get close to her in the first place. Same with Kutorkor also. It turns him on whenever he saw a young pregnant woman so since they both weren’t pregnant anymore, their attraction to him was gone. The thrill was gone.
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