Kuukuwaa returned to her room but she was restless and strangely unfulfilled.
She kept glancing through one of the windows in the room where Zack was being kept.
Scared her father might see her, she put off the lantern and stayed in the shadows and wondered what he was doing and why he was taking so long.
Anxious, she laid down on the well-dressed bed, but she did not sleep.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she heard her father’s door squeak, and she got up quickly and peered through the window, wanting to make sure if her father was going back inside, or her stepmother was coming out.
From the light filtering from her father’s room, she could see her father’s figure entering the room, and a moment later the door swung shut.
Kuukuwaa waited for several minutes. And with a tied cover cloth around her now, went out silently and crossed the yard to the stranger’s room.
The lantern was burning low on a short table in the room.
Kuukuwaa stood in the doorway and looked at him. He appeared to be sleeping, and his hands were folded across his chest.
Suddenly he lifted his right hand and held it out towards the door without moving his head, and spoke softly. “I see you.”
Kuukuwaa crossed the room quickly and took his hand as she slowly sat on the edge of the bed. Her face was soft and very tender. And in the light of the lantern, she cut a very beautiful figure indeed.
“And I see you…”
He pulled her arm, and as she leaned forward, he brought the back of her hand to his lips and brushed his lips across it.
Once again, her whole body vibrated with sudden excitement.
“I’m glad you came back. I wanted to say goodnight, Kuks.”
She bit her lower lip and gently disengaged her hand from his, sat regarding him for a long time, and then she sighed and stood up.
“Goodnight, Zack. Till the next dawn.”
“Till the next dawn, Kuks.”
Then, she headed towards the door, then she stopped, and spoke without turning.
“You’re a very dangerous man, Zack, whoever you are.”
He did not speak, but she heard his low, resonating voice as he laughed and then she smiled to herself as she crossed the yard quickly to her room.
She did not see that her father was staring at her from the dark porch of his room, and in the darkness, he had a very disapproving look on his face.
Back in her room, Kuukuwa fell on her bed, and she was asleep almost instantly.
And there was a smile on her face.
***
Over the days, Zack got steadily stronger.
There were some days that he was very cheerful, and there were some days that he became very quiet and reflective, almost sad.
Kuukuwaa understood that, but she soon began to realize that she did not like it very much when he became so silent and sad.
The wound in his head began to heal rapidly, and yet he still could not remember his past.
One Saturday afternoon, Kukuuwa came back from the market and went to the kitchen and prepared some soft banku and delicious groundnut soup with goat meat. Then, she laid the table and packed the stranger’s food and carried it to his room but found the room empty.
She stood there, absolutely aghast as terrible thoughts ran through her mind.
Where was he?
What had happened to him?
“Dear Lord, please, let him be safe,” she whispered.
And then from behind, she heard the derisive titter of Kobby.
“Waaa look at the look on your face, Kuukuwaa! Why, do you think your boyfriend is dead? Don’t worry, he’s in the bathroom! The old man has invited him to dine with us, so you better send his food back to the dining room.”
For a moment, Kuukuwaa could not speak. She was flooded with such relief that she felt herself shaking.
She knew she could not allow Zack to see her like this; feeling so emotional, so sentimental!
It is not like anything she had ever felt before.
Her first thought when she did not find him in his room had been that he had died suddenly. That was the thought that had entered her mind, unbidden, and she had not been able to get it out of her system.
Quickly, she took the basket back to the dining room and set up a place for him, and then she fled into her room and sat down on the bed until her body stopped trembling.
She was wearing a simple tie-and-dye dress that still managed to enhance her incredible figure and skin tone when she went back to the dining room.
Her family was seated.
Her father, who preferred okra stew, was busily eating and her stepmother was also chewing meat when she entered. That woman loved meat.
And Kobby was scooping groundnut soup into his mouth with an outrageously huge spoon he had bought three months previously when he visited the city.
Kuukuwaa did not fail to see that Zack had not made an appearance yet, and strove to keep the worry off her face. She sat down and reached for a bowl.
“This food is delicious as always Kuukuwaa! Your husband is going to be a very happy man someday. But you didn’t put enough wele in the soup, dear,” her stepmother said with meat in her mouth.
“Husband you say. I think that day is coming faster than anybody thinks. That prince is quite taken with my daughter,” Opanyin Amoah replied as she rolled a piece of banku into his mouth.
“Ei! Really? I won’t be surprised! Nowadays he’s been coming here on the least pretext! Ei, soon we will be having royal babies here! I’ll be the most revered mother-in-law in this town!” Obaapa hooted with happiness.
Kobby cut a big ball of banku with his fingers, immersed it in soup, and swallowed it in a gulp.
“Bush boy!” his father said as he looked at him with displeasure.
Kukuuwa and Obaapa both chuckled.
“You be there, old man! You and the Prince. You better find him a new bride. Little sister is not the least interested in the prince. All she wants is the ‘I see you, I see you, I see you’ nonsense!” Kobby said mischievously and waved a soup-smeared hand at his father.
Kuukuwaa gasped and looked over at her brother with stern eyes, but he intentionally ignored her warning signs.
Their parents looked from one to the other.
“And what, if I may ask, is that all about?” their father asked.
Kobby swallowed another huge cut of banku.
“Oh, your daughter and that accident man, the man with no brain, have been doing that. When they see each other, they say ‘I see you, I see you’. Most nonsense thing I ever heard in my life!”
Obaapa chuckled, but Opanyin looked at his daughter thoughtfully.
Kuukuwaa was burning under her father’s stare, and she sent a scathing look toward Kobby. She was searching for something to say to diffuse the sudden tension when the flap opened, and the man entered slowly.
They all looked at him, and for a brief moment, the four of them actually stared at him.
He was wearing a black pair of trousers that Opanyin had given him, and a batakari.
Because he was tall, the trouser legs don’t really reach to his ankles, so they looked short but the batakari was better.
It was big, and stopped just on top of the waistband of the trousers.
He had shaved and left a thin line of moustache and even though there were still bandages around his head, he had shaved.
And he had changed so much!
He was a complete transformation from the fully-bearded, moustached and unkempt man on the bed. That face that looked silently at them was a most handsome face.
Kuukuwaa thought that she had never seen a more handsome man in her life than her father’s patient.
Even her father was staring at the man as he walked forward slowly, still weak.
“Good evening,” he greeted in a soft, wonderful voice; well, that was how it sounded to Kuukuwaa anyway.
They all responded, and Opanyin quickly gestured to the chair next to his.
“Sit down, please. Take the weight off your feet. You’re not out of the woods yet, Zack.”
The man sat down beside Kobby, facing Kuukuwaa and washed his hand in a bowl of water that Kuukuwaa had passed to him.
They did not look at each other’s face.
“We have peanut soup and we have okra stew. Which do you prefer with your banku?”
He smiled, and it was a most incredible smile, dimpling his cheeks and making his eyes dance. It transformed that face again, and for a moment their eyes met and held.
Kukuuwa was barely breathing, thinking how handsome he was and he, on the other hand, was thinking about how amazingly beautiful she was, and wondering why he suddenly wanted to hold her hands.
Kobby looked from one to the other and then he shook his head.
“What now? You two have now turned to trees or what?”
Kuukuwaa sat back, startled and suddenly piqued at her brother.
Zack, who was washing his hand, turned and smiled at Kobby. “Well, I think if you hadn’t broken the spell I might have actually turned into a tree, Kobby. The beauty of your sister is more astounding than the glow of the sun.”
Both he and Kobby chuckled, but Opanyin and his wife did not utter any sound.
Kuukuwaa felt her face burning from emotions and wondered, not for the first time, why his words flustered her so, whereas she would have been very offended if someone, like the prince, for instance, had uttered the same words.
She stood up, put a ball of soft banku in an earthenware bowl, scooped soup on it, added three pieces of goat meat, and put it in front of him.
Kobby looked at Zack’s food and looked at his sister with widened eyes as he feigned shock and dismay.
“Ei! Gods of our ancestors! She gave him three pieces of goat meat! Even Agya also got three! And you gave me, your only brother, two!” he said.
Kuukuwaa looked at her brother, utterly flustered as Opanyin and Obaapa began to laugh, and the young man also laughed as he began to eat.
“I’ve been sick, Kobby. I need more protein to replace the weight I’ve lost.”
Kobby chuckled at that.
“My friend, if you want meat protein you better go to the bush and hunt for your meat. You can’t come here and eat meat my father has toiled to get by heart like that.”
Everybody burst into laughter, including the patient. And his rich soft laughter, so masculine, so beautiful, surprised them all, and it made the Medicine Man look at his daughter thoughtfully.
The patient ate with gusto, very obvious that he was enjoying the food very much.
“You seem to be enjoying your dinner, Zack!” Obaapa, watching him, said with a laugh.
Zack scooped some soup into his mouth with his fingers and licked his lips as he smiled at the woman of the house.
“Best food I ever tasted, ma’am.”
Opanyin Amoah, sucking the marrow from a bone, again looked at the patient thoughtfully.
Soon the Medicine Man was done. He got up and left the table with his wife following him.
The patient leaned back and looked at Kuukuwaa.
She had finished eating, washed her hands, and was waiting patiently to clear the table.
Much against her will, she looked back at him, and then she smiled sweetly at him.
“Are you done, Zack?” she asked as she looked at his empty bowl.
The man looked a little bit uncomfortable, and then he gave a shaky laugh.
“Can I please have a little more soup, Kuks?”
“Hmmm. Where did you come from, Zack? A stranger never asks for more food. Are you not aware of that?” Kobby, who was washing his hand, paused and looked at him. Then, he shook his head with a look of disapproval in his eyes.
“Kobby! What’s with you?” Kuukuwaa reprimanded her brother sharply.
But, instead of taking offence, she saw that the stranger was smiling broadly at Kobby.
“The stranger who refuses to ask for more food is either full or the food tastes really bad!” Zack replied.
“And what is it in your case?” Kobby asked with a chuckle.
“Well, I’m full, I think, but the soup tasted so good that I really care for more. Just a little bit of banku and a lot of pea soup, with more meat, if it is available.”
Kobby leaned back in his chair, his face scandalized, and regarded the patient with fierce eyes.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait. So, in other words, you’re full, but you still want to eat more, is that it?”
“I couldn’t have put it better!” Zack said with a laugh.
“Do you know that the incorrigible pastor in this godforsaken village always preached that gluttony is a sin?”
“And I’m sure he’ll also tell you that everybody has sinned and come short of the glory of God!”
Both of them burst into laughter at the same time, and Kuukuwaa slowly relaxed as she became aware that they were operating at a level she had not understood all along.
She was aware that this was a boys-boys sort of thing, and as she watched her brother and the patient, she realized that indeed, for some rather strange reason, Kobby was not really antagonistic, but he also liked the patient.
Kobby got to his feet and yawned.
“I think I like you, Senseless Man!” he said with a goofy smile.
Kuukuwaa gasped and looked at her brother, aghast. “Koooooooobby!”
But Zack was laughing, incredibly. “I like you too, Drunkard!”
They were both laughing as they shook hands, and then Kobby headed for the door.
“Going to hit the village for a while and come back. Feel like tagging along, Zack?”
“Maybe some other time. Right now, I’m still hoping I’ll get some more soup to drink.”
“Oh, sorry, yes, of course!” Kuukuwaa said in a rush as she took his bowl and put a ball of banku in it. She scooped more soup and meat and filled his bowl.
As Kobby went out, Kuukuwaa began to clear the table.
She put the dirty dishes into a cane basket and took it outside, and then she came back for more bowls and saw him eating with passion once more.
She smiled and filled the basket again.
“You’re an incredible cook, Kuks.”
She stopped and looked into his eyes. “Thanks, Zack.”
He licked his fingers quickly to stop a trail of soup heading down his arm, and Kuukuwaa laughed.
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