The Mole

‘Is that not a mole under his chin?’

‘Ah no Siwaa, he had a pimple. I scratched it. That’s why it’s looking like that. It will go. You know these newborns, that’s how they are.’

I’ve never been a good liar, but what was I thinking? Telling Siwaa Mampong that my seven-day old had a pimple…a pimple that I scratched yet managed to sit flawlessly on his chin. I was troubled, I sat through his naming ceremony restlessly wondering when I could put an end to this charade.  

That night I couldn’t sleep. The Man lay next to me. I lay still like a log, yet my thoughts wandered with shame and guilt mocking me and choking me. 

I was always taught to pray against my enemies, to rebuke them, to stomp on them and their master the devil… so I prayed. At my Pentecostal all-night services, I prayed fervently against my village people, against destiny stealers, husband snatchers, monitoring spirits, envious friends and anyone who wanted to dig a pit for me, I prayed against them. After each service I clapped and danced victoriously, knowing in faith that my prayers had been heard, accepted and answered. 

Yet, I was in a manhole, a pit not even my enemies could have dug for me, even they would have been shocked by the enormity of the quagmire that faced me, they would have pitied me. 

That night I decided to act, I jerked up with my head drowning in a sea of thought, I wrapped my cloth tightly across my waist, grabbed my baby and took him to the bathroom. There I peered at my sleeping son in the light, the most handsome boy I ever laid eyes on, full of peace and grace, he brought me more joy than I could have ever imagined.

I was in the bathroom for one reason, to see if the mole could go, maybe I could scratch it off. Cut it off, that way no one will ever suspect a thing. That way maybe I would be able to dig myself halfway out of the ten-foot manhole I was currently etched in. After getting rid of the mole, I predicted that the next question would be ‘why is he so dark?’ I would answer, ‘he took after my dad’, my dad wasn’t even as dark as my handsome boy, but that answer should suffice. 

I stared at my son so vehemently in the light, as if I could laser the mole off with my eyes. 

The more I stared the more tears streamed down my eyes. The mole wasn’t shaped in such a way that it could be tied with a string which was meant to cut off blood supply to the mole causing it to shrink and fall off within a few days. In fact, it was so flat that I couldn’t feel it when I ran my hands over it. It wasn’t even a mole; it was a birthmark. Any attempts to get rid of it would scar my handsome boy for life. 

I was running mad, I knew I was losing my senses. I dropped my son in his cot and laid next to the Man with the stillness of a dead body. I stared at the white wall with tears streaming down my eyes till daybreak, with the birds singing songs of mockery at me and the impending doom I faced. 

It was their fault. Her fault. If only I was allowed to follow my heart. If only so much hate did not exist, I wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t be a woman with a reputation marred with promiscuity. I stayed a virgin till marriage. They knew that, Selorm knew that, the Man knew. 

I cowered at the crossroad; I should not have. Surrendered my autonomy to my tribalistic classist family. Selorm was the one. The one my heart belonged to. I knew this and on the day of my engagement, I said it. I told my mother, she shrugged and said ‘What is done is done…They are waiting for you’. Words I will forever resent her for. I never loved the Man and I will never love him. He gave me and my family the prestige we had always longed for. A paramount chief from Manhyia, who could say no? His social standing did not allow him to court me the way normal boyfriends and girlfriends do, so when he came to ‘knock’ and officially ask for my hand in marriage my fate was sealed. 

Two months into my marriage, two months of fighting internal battles, forcing myself to live with a man I could not stand to look at, I found myself in my lover’s arms. Selorm loved me, looked at me like I was the only woman in the world. Yet I had traded his love to occupy a role as the wife of a paramount chief, thus there I laid, in the arms of a past lover with shame drowning me into its depths, staring at the birthmark my son was destined to inherit.

With the knowledge that my son belonged to another man, I tried to have children for the Man, to lessen the blow on the day my shame was exposed. But after my son, no other children came, so I loved him with my heart and nurtured him to grow into a man worthy of inheriting a stool. 

Twenty years passed, people pointed out a lack of semblance between the two, my son and the Man, but my son was loved in the palace, the baby of Mahnyia, the ‘Prince of Mahnyia’. I forgot it all, my years of haunting dreams and turbulent sleep seemed to vanish the year he turned twenty. Life was good after all.

Until the fateful day when dignitaries from Aflao came to see none other than my husband. The fateful day I died, but somehow keep breathing. My son was amongst those who were called to welcome the dignitaries alongside the Man, my husband. To this day I cannot bring myself to ask my son about the events that took place that day. What is known is that on that fateful day my son gained the acclaimed title of a bastard, the son of an Ewe. 

That day we lost our place in the world. I lost my place as a mother…here I stand clinging on to pieces of a life that was never mine.