The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi: A Novel (54 page)

The note had been lying on the table all that time. At last van Drunen picked it up. He unfolded the sheet, folded it again and then held it up briefly between his fingers, where it shook like a leaf. I was impatient and about to take it from him when he broke the silence.

“The first step was simple. I requested a meeting with Governor-General Duymaer van Twist. He was aware of your case, and had already received several complaints about de Groot’s treatment of you. Those complaints had, he assured me, resulted in an official reprimand. I retorted that in my estimation you were too highly placed regarding both training and social rank to serve under de Groot. I proposed that you should be released from his employ and granted licence to work independently as you had been promised. When I pressed him for further details of the arrangement he changed the subject tactfully but firmly.

“Later that day I asked to see your dossier at the head office, as I still had the authority to do. I expected to find a handful of reports, but to my surprise I was presented with a bulky portfolio which, although the contents referred to a period of less than four years, was so heavy that it took two men to carry.

“In addition to the usual conduct records, salary lists and quarterly reports I came across memoranda giving detailed accounts of your day-to-day activities. De Groot, for instance, not only reported on all the expeditions you undertook together, but also included a record of each and every private engagement, complete with dates, times and durations. Appended to these papers were notes submitted by others, often with suggestions of such an intimate nature that I felt obliged, contrary to my code of honour as a civil servant, to remove the offending items from your dossier before returning it to the records officer.

“The seriousness of your situation became fully apparent when I attempted to discover the reason for collecting such a mass of information. I broached the subject with the governor and his close associates, but met with only prevarication. After a while I realized that the gentlemen concerned had agreed among themselves not to reveal any further details to me.

“Towards the end of January 1855, after I had spent several weeks delving into your case, something remarkable happened. One night a native boy came to my door saying I was urgently needed by one of my colleagues. I hurried to his house, which was in one of the more disreputable parts of the city, only to find him in bed and quite content. We laughed at the misunderstanding, and I returned to the main road to call a rickshaw. At that point some beggars emerged from the gloom. They bore down on me and robbed me of my small change, pocket watch and meerschaum pipe. I pretended to be knocked out and cursed myself for being so heedless in a neighbourhood where such attacks were frequent, when suddenly I heard one of the men mention my name to his cronies—how could he possibly have known who I was?

“The very next morning my department received a visit from your superior, Cornelius de Groot himself. He had come for a drilling licence, he said. Hearing of my accident he made a show of concern for my injuries. He advised me in a genial tone to be more careful about where I went at night. He sat down as if we were old friends and assured me that he remembered me well from a visit I had paid to the boarding school when you were young. He told me he was your friend and protector and that he had great plans for you, despite your occasional disagreements. He was sorry to say that you had applied for relocation to Holland, presumably because you were homesick.

“I suggested that your request for relocation might have been inspired by the inequality that had arisen between him and his ‘old friend.’ Cornelius said it was regrettable but impossible to avoid ‘given the mandate.’ He refused to expand on this, saying the matter was confidential. I did not press him further and we turned our attention to administrative affairs. No more than two days later I received orders to join a military expedition to Borneo, where I was to stay for nine months.

“I received assurances that your relocation was being taken care of, and as there were no official grounds for refusal I left for Borneo confident that all would be well. When I returned in October 1856, I learned that your situation was unchanged and that you had put in a request for a furlough so that you might put your case before the authorities in Holland.”

While van Drunen was holding forth, I watched my children out of the corner of my eye. The flames of Ahim’s bonfire leaped up now and then in the wind, which frightened my youngest and made him cry. Ahim soothed him, and set about folding scraps of old paper into butterflies and birds, at which he was remarkably adroit. He let the children throw them up to be wafted away by the hot air, but most of them caught fire and fell to the ground blazing. When it was Aquasi’s turn he looked round to make sure I would see the flight of his bird. I waved at him.

“At that time,” van Drunen continued, “my department was in disarray due to complications arising from the Lebak affair. The situation became chaotic in April of 1855 when the governor-general was about to be replaced. His rooms were cleared and refurbished for his successor. In the ensuing commotion the civil servants performed their respective tasks without supervision. I took an enormous risk: I contrived to forge a special licence permitting me access to the classified dossiers, in which I came across several statements and some correspondence dating from 1850 between Governor-General Rochussen and Minister of Colonies Pahud, who was eventually to take over from Duymaer van Twist. Those letters sealed your fate, and I hastily copied out the most important passages.” Van Drunen indicated the note lying on the table.

“The investiture of the new governor-general took place on the 22nd. I sent a message saying I was unwell, for I was plagued by a guilty conscience. I was to escort Duymaer van Twist to the docks two days later, and as you were travelling on the same ship to Holland I could have revealed my discovery to you on that occasion without our meeting raising any suspicions, but I did not dare.”

I took the note and unfolded it. Van Drunen spoke rapidly now, as though afraid that I was not yet sufficiently prepared for what I was about to read in black and white.

“I was afraid,” he said, “that this knowledge would discourage you at the very time that you were about to sail to Holland to take matters into your own hands. You needed all the strength you could muster. What good would it have done to know how the odds were stacked against you? Most important of all, however, was the deep anxiety I felt about the similarity between the situation you were in and that of your deceased cousin prior to his final act of desperation. Like him, you were at the mercy of the powers that be. I was fearful that, should you notice the similarity, you might even be moved to follow Kwame’s example. That would have been more than I could bear.” He fell silent. Then he turned his gaze on me, adding: “You see, once again my actions were not unselfish.”

Since the matter was evidently of the utmost importance to him I ran my eyes down the page. My attention was caught by a few lines from a statement drawn up by Pahud on 24 July 1850.

“The principle of ‘
noblesse de peau,
’ of the pre-eminence of a white skin over black and of the moral and intellectual supremacy of the white race over all others, upon which our domination in the Indies rests, would be seriously undermined if Aquasi Boachi were appointed to any post of authority which is the preserve of white men . . .”

“Noblesse de peau!”
I spluttered.

“Yes, nobility of the skin!” van Drunen echoed weakly, and I could sense that he was keeping a watchful eye on my reaction. I laid the letter on the table in front of me, and folded the paper lengthwise.

“Once I had seen the evidence I could not countenance serving under Pahud, who had after all been the cause of my misfortune. So I handed in my resignation. In later years I had the opportunity to make up for my past ineptitude by standing up for the
blanda hitams
, my black Hollanders.” He leaned forward. “Long ago, when I took you and Kwame away from your parents, I told you that the Dutch realm would be your new mother. Little did I know that she would cherish only her own sons and make foundling orphans of all others.”

I made two diagonal creases at the top of the sheet.

“Your news, sir,” I said, “is stale after fifty years.” I folded the paper to make two wings and a tail, took aim carefully, and to my intense satisfaction my missile struck Ahim on the back of the head. Stung, he turned round but when he saw my amusement he joined me in my laughter. I put out my tongue and waved at him with both hands. The children were delighted that I was willing to play with them at last, and pounced on the paper bird. Quamina sent it sailing through the air to catch the warm current. The note fluttered upwards, circled and as it spiralled downwards it was singed by the flames, then shot up again to be suspended for some time in the smoke.

I excused myself and left van Drunen behind with my children, because I wanted to make some additions to my journal. Then I took a brief nap, after which I set about preparing for the fête. I stood in front of the large mirror in my room and rehearsed my valedictory speech. It was not an expression of thanks, for I did not feel grateful and besides, I am too old for pretence. Just a few sentences so as not to disappoint the assembled guests. I had merely planned—and Adeline thought it was an excellent idea—to entertain my guests with a personal recollection of Africa: some snatches of that nursery song which I had never totally forgotten. I began by tapping out the rhythm and then tried to hum the tune. I opened my mouth to sing, but had to give up after three words and just stood there, rocking from side to side.

That is how Ahim found me a few moments ago: in front of the mirror, swaying on my feet. He came to tell me that Mrs. Renselaar has come for me in an open landau. She has brought a photographer with her, to take a picture of me with my children, and has ruled that Aquasi is to wear his velvet breeches and Quamina her new collar. What a fuss and commotion. Am I to have no say in anything at all?

Ahim undressed me, helped me to wash and shaved my cheeks. He cut my nails and trimmed my beard. He laid out my best suit of clothing, helped me into my trousers, shirt and starched front, laced up my shoes and knotted my bow tie. He handed me my gloves and spat on my top hat, once for luck and a second time to make it shine. I felt uncomfortable in my tight, scratchy clothes, but Ahim ignored my grumbling and drew me to the mirror again, beaming at my reflection over my shoulder.

“Perhaps the song wasn’t such a good idea after all,” he whispered in my ear in a conciliatory tone. I cannot abide him fawning on me! When he even had the cheek to suggest an alternative conclusion for my little speech I snapped that I would dock him a week’s wages for impertinence.

“Nothing take away nothing leaves nothing,” he chuckled, and before I could give him a kick in the seat he had gone. Still, his suggestion was not bad at all. I might even follow it up. Why not? Tonight I’ll tell them how two twigs were taken from the kuma tree.

Afterword

After the bankruptcy of the Suka Sari plantation, Prince Kwasi Boachi settled in the village of Bantar Peteh. He died after a long illness in the Military Hospital at Buitenzorg on 9 July 1904.

A memoir entitled
Notes on the Black with the White Heart
appeared in the
Freiberger Anzeiger
, in which several citizens of Weimar described how the Prince of Ashanti let them sit on his lap and allowed them to “feel his woolly hair and his fine, velvety skin.”

Kwasi Boachi’s personal possessions were confiscated by the authorities prior to his funeral. His eldest son Quamin spent four years in Delft at the same boarding school as his father, but upon his return to Java was able to find employment only as a foreman at a tea estate in the Preanger district. Aquasi junior and Quamina Aquasina lived modestly. After the Indonesian proclamation of Independence in 1948 their children moved to the Netherlands.

The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi
is a novel, but the main characters are based on historical figures. I have reconstructed their lives around the facts I encountered in official and private documents.

Most of Kwasi’s personal effects are kept in the municipal archives of Delft, including his “Book of Friends,” the daguerreotype, photographs and silhouette portraits, his notes and sketches, numerous letters and the speech he delivered at the Five Columns student club. The Algemeen Rijksarchief in The Hague constitutes the chief source of official documents, the majority being kept in the archives pertaining to the Ministry of Colonies, the King’s council-chamber and the Dutch territories on the coast of Guinea.

My research also took me to the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, the Sächsiches Bergarchiv in Freiberg, the Sächsiches Hauptstaatarchiv in Dresden, the Hochschularchiv of the Freiberg Bergakademie, the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, the Royal Tropical Institute of Amsterdam and the Asante National Archives in Kumasi, Ghana.

Two eyewitness accounts of Verveer’s expedition to Kumasi survive: by van Drunen and J. Doorman respectively. All the facts about that expedition, even the most improbable, are mentioned therein. My understanding of the Ashanti history and culture owes much to
Ancient Ashanti Chieftancy
by E. Obeng,
The Akan of
Ghana
by D. Warren,
The Akans of Ghana
by N. Kyeremateng,
The
Fall of the Asante Empire
by R. Edgerton,
De oorsprong van de wasdruktextiel op de kust van West-Afrika
by W. Kroese and The Language of Adinkra Symbols by A. Wuarcoo. René Baesjou of Leiden University kindly shared his notes with me and answered my questions. Thanks are also due to Professor Larry Yarak of George Williams College, Texas, whose monograph
Kwasi Boakye and Kwame Poku:
Dutch-educated Asante Princes
offered a valuable framework.