I rose and took his hand. “Yes, I am. My name is Desire Mensah.”
“I’m Gerald Amponsah. But you call me Gerald, okay. You’re very pretty.”
“Thank you, Gerald. It’s nice to meet you,” I said, and sat.
“It’s my pleasure,” he said licking his lips. “Desire ampa.”
I smiled with my lips only and looked down at my books.
But he sat on the edge of my desk and crossed his legs. “So, you’re from Accra, I hear.” He opened his bag and brought out a sachet of yogurt, bit the edge off, spat it out onto the floor, and proceeded to drink. Beads of condensed water dropped on my desk and books.
“Yes, I am,” I said, slowly.
“And you were a teacher there?”
“Yes, I taught at Cantonments International School.”
“Wow! CIS paah. So why did you leave?” He was chewing noisily on the frozen yogurt through the sachet now.
“The school board and I didn’t see eye to eye on certain issues.”
“What issues?”
I almost sighed out loud.
Fortunately, the door opened and in walked two people. One was a lanky, stern-looking man and the other an even sterner-looking woman. I recognized the man from my interview; he was the HR. The woman was new to me. She looked masculine, with her natural hair shaved low, square shoulders, and severe expression. I wondered if these were my executioners.
“Mr. Gyamfi!” exclaimed Gerald, jumping up off my desk and wiping his wet palms on his trousers. “Good morning.”
Mr. Gyamfi’s eyes roamed about the room. “Morning, Gerald. The others are not in?”
“No, sir. It’s just me, sir. Me and Miss Mensah.”
Mr. Gyamfi’s gaze fixed itself on me. “Ah, Miss Mensah. How are you settling in?”
I stepped forward and shook his hand. “Just fine, sir.” I nodded in the direction of the woman, but her hard and set expression remained unchanged.
“Good,” he said. “Anyway, Mr. Addison unfortunately suffered a heart attack on Saturday night, if you haven’t heard already.”
Gerald covered his mouth. “Ow!”
My heart started to pound through my ears.
“Yes, it’s unfortunate. So he has to go on immediate retirement. It’s overdue anyway.” He turned to the woman beside him. “So the school board has selected Mrs. Providencia Anaglate here to take over as headmistress.”
The woman nodded.
“You’re welcome, madam,” said Gerald, shaking her hand.
The disdain in the woman’s eyes was evident as she observed Gerald from behind her bifocals. After a moment, she said, “Thank you.” She then glanced at her wristwatch. “It’s half past eight, right?”
“Yes, it is, madam,” said Gerald, oblivious to what she actually meant.
Providencia Anaglate then made it clear to him. “We’ll fix the tardiness. Anyway, that will be all for now. Nice to meet you, Mr. Gerald, and welcome, Miss Mensah.” I was too nervous to speak, so I just shook her hand as well. Her grip was firm. “I hope you enjoy working here.”
I mumbled my thanks as they left the room.
Gerald turned to me and started to talk, but I didn’t hear a thing he said. The relief was incredible. I found myself grinning.
“. . . it happens to you too, eh?” Gerald said, and laughed.
He hadn’t noticed my mind was elsewhere. My grin turned into laughter, and I nodded in agreement to whatever he had said.
“Can I drink some of your water?” he asked, his eyes on my water bottle.
I smiled and shook my head.
The other teachers arrived not too long after that, and the news of Mr. Addison’s heart attack spread through the common room like wildfire.
After one teacher asked what happened, Mr. Baiden, the RME teacher, got up with a roguish look on his face and said, “Hmm, mmaasεm oh. You know Papa Addison already.”
Everyone erupted in raucous laughter. Everyone except me. I just tried to look amused.
Baiden continued, “I heard he was at the resort with a woman, some fine woman bi like that.”
“Ei Baiden,” cried someone.
“Oh true thing I de talk,” he protested. “They said eh . . .” He then lowered his voice after glancing around. “They said Papa Addison and the girl went to chill and he spread the girl fine fine. And when they went inside for the dessert, then he had the heart attack.”
The ensuing laughter was even louder than the first. “Ei Baiden!” someone exclaimed.
“He couldn’t handle it, eh?” came Gerald.
Baiden returned to his seat. “E no be easy koraa.” He then pretended to zip his lips. “But me I didn’t say anything oh.”
I pretended to laugh along with everyone, although I was horrified at how much they knew.
Fortunately, the topic switched to Providencia Anaglate. Baiden apparently had a friend whose brother-in-law’s cousin had worked with someone who taught under her at her previous school. And according to that person, she did not play around at all. They called her Madam Fire-Eater. They said when she discovered her husband in bed with a level 100 girl, she whipped the two of them with a belt and sent her husband howling down the street naked.
At the moment, I didn’t care about her. I didn’t even care that Gerald had perched himself on my desk again. I was just glad I had my job and that my identity as the mystery woman from that infamous night remained secret.
3
MY WALK HOME TOOK ME THROUGH THE PRIMARY section of the school. Consisting of six classes as opposed to three forms, it was obviously much bigger than the JSS section. But it wasn’t just the size that caught my attention. Both the lower and upper primary blocks were nicely painted. They were beige with brown strips around their base. The administration block, a gleaming white two-story building, had sliding glass windows, and the air conditioners behind the block whirred away in the afternoon heat. In front of the block was a magnificent statue of a child gazing off into the distance with a book in hand. The lawns around all the blocks were actual lawns. They were neatly kept carpets of luxurious green grass, not the dirty brown patches of weeds we had at the JSS section.
Although it was an hour after their closing time, there were still quite a number of pupils about, chasing each other up and down corridors and playing in the grass or the jungle gym or seesaws and slides.
Under an old mango tree near the wire fence which marked the edge of the school compound, about twenty children were standing in four columns. They seemed to be reciting something while a solitary kid paced in front of them. I assumed they were playing, perhaps reenacting a classroom scene.
As I drew closer to them, I realized the child in front was no other than that weird kid I had found on my porch. On cue from him, the others raised their arm to shoulder level with their palms and hands straight out. Then they all began to chant, “Heil der Wolf!”
The salute must have been the end of their meeting, for they began to disperse. By the time I arrived at the mango tree, only the brat stood proudly in his spot.
“Herh! What was that?” I asked him, hands on hips.
“An assembly of my little sheep,” he replied with a smile. “We do this at the beginning of every week