The Missing American Read online

  “Within two weeks,” the priest declared, “you will see the money start to flow.”

  ELEVEN

  January 18, Washington, DC

  Gordon Tilson was on Facebook Messenger with a man called Frank, who, like Gordon, was a widower. But unlike Gordon, Frank’s loss was recent—only a month or so—whereas Gordon had lost his Regina to cancer thirteen years ago. The Facebook page, Widows & Widowers, was a forum and support group.

  Gordon had never loved a woman more than Regina—except his mother, that is. He had met her while on Peace Corps duty in Ghana in the 1980s when he was twentyish and both black and white Americans were flocking to that West African country for entirely different reasons.

  Gordon fell for Regina hook, line, and sinker. Her skin was a deep, resilient black while he, a redhead, invariably turned an uncomfortable pink in the pitiless equatorial heat and humidity. She wasn’t that impressed with his overtures at first. Culturally they were miles apart, but his comical antics (he was quite the prankster) and his decent attempts at speaking Twi, Ghana’s most commonly spoken indigenous language, amused and intrigued her. She enjoyed his deep interest in Ghanaian culture and his fervor to learn as much as possible about it. When Gordon’s Peace Corps assignment was up, he told her he wouldn’t leave without her. Besides, it turned out Regina was pregnant, and Gordon was certainly the father. Nine months later when the baby emerged crying at the top of his lungs, they christened him Derek with the Ghanaian middle name of Yaw, for Thursday. He was to be Gordon’s first and only child.

  Regina’s slow, anguished death from ovarian cancer reached into Gordon’s soul and ripped out his beating heart like a bloodthirsty warrior. He didn’t think he could live without the woman he had called his Old Faithful. Now his Facebook friend was going through the same experience, and so Gordon was kind and supportive to Frank, who had just typed on Messenger: I keep waking up at night and looking over at the empty space in the bed expecting to see her. But she’s not there. It leaves me so desolate. Did that ever happen to you?

  All the time, Gordon wrote.

  How did you deal with it?

  I won’t pretend it was easy.

  A few moments passed before Frank said anything. Then, Sometimes I don’t want to get over it.

  Yes. Guilt over starting to feel okay. I had that too. But it does get better. In fact, it will pass.

  Gordon’s WhatsApp line on his phone rang and he felt a surge of eagerness as he saw who it was. Helena.

  Among the features of a beautiful African woman, it was the space between the eyebrows and its transition to the nose that beguiled Gordon most. Its unromantic medical name is the glabella. In a white woman, the glabella is forced into the narrowness of the nose, but in an African, it remains open and subtle the way a smooth plain dips gently into a shallow valley. The eyes of an African woman appear uncluttered by the dictates of a high nose bridge.

  Helena Barfour, the woman messaging Gordon now, was a picture-perfect example of that feature he loved so much. It was last year—he remembered exactly when: two days before Thanksgiving—that she had sent a friend request to him. His breath had caught at the sight of her image. He wanted to trace his fingers lightly over her glabella and soft eyebrows. Her coloring was on the dark side of medium, which Gordon also liked. He had little interest in light-skinned black women, or “copper colored,” as they say in Ghana, where fair skin is highly favored.

  On Messenger, Helena had related to Gordon that she was a widow, hence her joining the Facebook group. She was a new member at the time, but her husband had died four years before. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known about the Widow & Widowers page. Rather, it was that she had had little or no interest prior to now.

  Why now, if I may ask? Gordon wrote.

  I felt I will never find another David, my late husband, Helena replied, and Gordon recalled with nostalgia how Ghanaians use “will” and “would” interchangeably. It made him miss Regina, and indeed Ghana.

  I isolated myself, she continued. But then I realized that what my youngest sister had told me repeatedly was true. No, there will never be another David, but that doesn’t mean there are no more worthy men in the world to meet. No one is talking about marriage. It’s about companionship with someone you like and may grow to love.

  A very wise younger sister lol, Gordon responded.

  Yes, she is—Stella, my favorite. She’s very dear to me.

  That’s wonderful. How many siblings do you have?

  Three sisters and two brothers.

  Do they all live in Accra?

  Except one brother in Takoradi. He works on an oil rig.

  Ah, I see. May I say something, Helena?

  Of course, you may, Gordon.

  You are breathtakingly beautiful.

  Thank you so much, my dear.

  You’re very welcome.

  And you too, she added, your pic on Facebook is very handsome.

  You’re kind, but I’m just a guy getting old. Gordon added a regret emoticon.

  Don’t say that. You’re in your fifties, right? That’s not old at all.

  Fifties! Lol, I wish! I’m sixty-two.

  Age is just a number. To me, you don’t seem like sixty-eight at all.

  Thanks, Helena.

  Do you know what I would love? she wrote. It’s just an idea—maybe you wouldn’t like it.

  Tell me.

  I was thinking if we can Skype one of these days. I will like to see you and we can chat.

  But of course! I would love that too.

  My laptop is not working so well, but my brother is fixing it so in a couple of days we can do it. I will let you know.

  What about doing some video calls on WhatsApp?

  Oh, sorry—my camera phone is very bad, so you won’t see me well. I’m saving up for an iPhone, but for now I think Skype will be okay.

  Sure, Gordon wrote. I look forward to it.

  That was how Gordon remembered his last Thanksgiving as so special. It marked the beginning of his profound love affair with Helena. Since then, they had been in almost daily contact with each other through a combination of WhatsApp and Skype. The video connections were often unreliable, given Ghana’s network challenges, and sometimes the audio and images were out of sync. Nevertheless, Helena enchanted Gordon and continued to do so. And now that she was calling, he needed to cut his Messenger chat.

  Gordon picked up the line. “Hi, Helena. Can you hold on one second? I’ll be right with you.”

  Can I catch up with you later? he typed to Frank.

  Of course, buddy. Thanks for having my back.

  Gordon went back to his phone. “Sorry about that. How are you, love?”

  “Something terrible has happened,” she said, her voice trembling. “Stella has been in a bad accident.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Last night while coming home with some friends, a drunk man came driving on the street the wrong way and hit the car. One friend died on scene and the other one survived okay, but Stella is hurt very badly, in the ICU right now. The doctors have done one operation to stabilize her, but they say she has internal organ injury, so they need to go back for a second operation.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Gordon said. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m okay. But the problem is the doctors need to get paid first before they do the second operation.”

  “What? How so? Isn’t it an emergency?”

  “You don’t know how Ghana is now, my dear. You knew the old Ghana, now everything is money. These hospitals and doctors are not in the business of charity.”

  Gordon was about to get on a moral high horse about the Hippocratic oath and all that but quickly checked himself. It was a separate discussion and unhelpful besides.

  “So, are you going to be able to pay?” he asked. “How much?�
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  “Five thousand cedis to start. My extended family are trying to scrape the money together.”

  About a thousand dollars, Gordon thought. Not pocket change, but not that much by American standards either. “Let me help, Helena.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to use you that way. That’s not fair.”

  “How is it using me?” he said, but gently. “It’s not as if you’re asking me to buy you jewelry. This is a matter of life and death. This is your beloved sister, worth every penny and much, much more.”

  “God bless you, Gordon.” He could hear she was holding back tears.

  “But of course, Helena. And I’ll send you the full amount.”

  Internet scams had made money transfer companies like Western Union suspicious of large sums wired to Ghana and Nigeria. They would likely decline Gordon’s transfer, so an interbank transaction was the only way to do it. Helena texted him the details of her account in Accra and then began getting dressed to go out to his bank. As he changed into his long johns, he heard the door of his townhome opening downstairs. That would be Derek paying one of his semi-regular visits.

  “Dad?”

  “Up here.”

  Derek walked in and they gave each other a manly bear hug. At forty-three, Derek was a younger version of his father although his skin tone was a golden brown (paler in the wintertime) against Gordon’s white, and Derek’s curly hair was an espresso color where his dad’s was ginger red. Most of the similarity was in the sharp jaw and their eyes, both possessing greenish irises and heavy lids people sometimes called bedroom eyes. They bore an implied suggestion of languid sex on a lazy Sunday morning. That was what initially got the attention of Claire, the woman Derek eventually married and later divorced.

  “What’s up?” Derek asked, plopping his long frame onto Gordon’s recliner and pushing the seat back. “Were you going out?”

  “Just some errands,” Gordon said, sitting down to put on his socks. “Nothing special.”

  Derek scrutinized his father a moment. “You okay? You seem a little preoccupied.”

  Gordon shrugged and made a show of nonchalance. “Not really. I’m okay.”

  Derek nodded. “What you been up to?”

  “Nothing much. I was online with Frank a little while ago.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  Gordon shook his head. “Very rough for him right now.”

  “How about you, Dad?” Derek said, his forehead creasing. “All this helping people stress you out any? You know what they say—the caregiver needs care too.”

  “True.” Gordon shoved his feet into his shoes. “It’s not too intense, though. I can always pull away from it if I need to. It’s not as if Frank lives next door and comes running in every minute. He lives in California, for God’s sake.”

  “Yeah. Funny you’ve never even met him in person. The Facebook definition of ‘friend.’”

  They went on to talk about other matters. Claire, Derek’s ex-wife, was being “difficult,” as he put it. But Simone, their daughter, was doing well in school. Derek wished she could be with him all the time, but he had to be content with the present arrangement and the uneasy truce with his ex-wife.

  At length, Gordon looked at his watch. “I’d better get moving. You wanna stay till I get back?”

  “Nah,” Derek said. “I need to get going myself.”

  Gordon went to his bank and set up the wire transfer to go out that afternoon. On Massachusetts Avenue at Dupont Circle, he cast a look, with a touch of wistfulness, at the bookstore he used to own up until eight years ago, Tilson Books. Dupont Circle had always been expensive over the two decades that Gordon ran the store, but it got even more so as the coffee joints, Shake Shacks, and Krispy Kremes of the world moved in. The 2008 economic crash was a death knell and Gordon sold out for a respectable amount. His investments had been good, and he was comfortable—very. Now, under new management, Tilson Books included the obligatory café with high-priced, frou-frou drinks, something Gordon had eschewed. If he had acquiesced to that kind of stuff, who knows? He might still have the bookstore. But no regrets, no looking back.

  Gordon had come to know a lot of influential people in the city. Before Amazon became the juggernaut bookseller, readers came in seeking books of all kinds—sometimes rare—and Gordon would either have the works in stock or could get a hold of them. That fostered friendships and great conversations. The most celebrated of writers had made appearances at Tilson’s, including Toni Morrison, making the bookstore a very big deal. Now the place was perhaps less “serious.” Some of the writers who came through would not have been Gordon’s personal choice, but times had changed. A lot of heat and noise—like an ephemeral fireworks display.

  TWELVE

  January 19

  Through his marriage to Regina, Gordon Tilson had come to know quite a few of the many Ghanaians living along the east coast, particularly in New Jersey, New York, and Washington, DC. Regina had kept company with a well-connected clique of them, like those in the diplomatic corps. It meant getting invited to embassy parties and somewhat more obscure bashes like the Ghana Physicians and Surgeons Foundation of North America inaugural dinner and dance. The events had been more important to Regina than to Gordon, but he had almost always tagged along and gone with the flow. If she was happy, Gordon was too.

  Regina had been a terrific entertainer herself. In the good old days, she had orchestrated buffets and dinner parties at home, bringing together a good mix of her friends and Gordon’s. After her death, he remained on many invite lists, and that’s how, even without Regina, he continued to be a guest at many Ghanaian-flavored events.

  Saturday afternoon, Gordon went to one such party at the Ghana Embassy on International Drive, NW. Several other embassies sat along that opulent stretch of real estate. The Ghanaian Ambassador, Herbert Opare, was holding a cultural event, which, as far as Gordon could gather, aimed to attract more investment in Ghana.

  The embassy’s winter room was the venue—swank décor, irresistible finger food with an African touch, and well-dressed people. The crowd was mixed—American and Ghanaian, white and black. Gordon’s gaze tended toward the Ghanaian women, who, hands down, wore the best outfits. Their artful headdresses fascinated him especially.

  “Gordon!”

  Like a speed bump, the voice jolted him out of his distracted state. Ambassador Opare was in front of him with an outstretched hand. He was tall with broad, flat facial features, gold-rimmed glasses, and a suave navy blue suit.

  “Good to see you again, Ambassador Herbert,” Gordon said. “Thank you for having me.”

  “You know it’s my tremendous pleasure,” Opare said. “A gathering here is nothing without you.”

  “Thank you—nice of you to say,” Gordon said. “How is Angelina?” Angelina was Opare’s wife.

  “She’s very well, thank you for asking. She’s somewhere around here—I’m sure you’ll meet up with her shortly. Great to see you again. You’re looking well.”

  Opare moved on to other guests. About thirty minutes later, he made an introductory welcoming speech, and then a Ghanaian guest professor at Howard University’s Center for African Studies gave a riveting demonstration of the fine art of Ghana’s traditional talking drums. It reminded Gordon of festivals he had attended in small Ghanaian towns where the infectious singing and drumming had brought him to his feet, but he had never realized that in a pair of talking drums, the one with the higher octave was the “female” and the other was the “male.” A conversation, like in a marriage—a good one, at least.

  The entertainment portion over, it was time for the feast. The guests attacked the buffet table with the ferocity of invading bees. A woman next to Gordon was helping herself to kebabs. He caught just a hint of perfume from her—something classic and understated. He took her in without staring. In iridescent blue and
pink that only a Ghanaian woman would dare sport and make it work, she was almost as tall as he.

  “Looks impossibly delicious,” he said to her, referring to the food and realizing the double entendre too late.

  She smiled at him. He thought she was in her late forties, although she could have been older. Her lipstick was ruby red. She had a small gap between her front teeth. He found her unconventional beauty wildly alluring.

  “It certainly does,” she responded. He immediately recognized the class of Ghanaian accent well—educated and well-traveled.

  “I’m Gordon, by the way,” he said.

  “Hello, Gordon. I’m Josephine. It’s a pleasure.”

  “Likewise. Is there any shito?”

  “Oh!” She looked both surprised and rather delighted. “You know that word.”

  “I spent years in Ghana in the Peace Corps,” he told her, “and ended up marrying a Ghanaian woman, may she rest in peace.”

  “Oh, my condolences,” she said, her expression taking on real sympathy.

  “Thank you,” Gordon said. “Anyway, all that said, I love hot pepper—especially kpakpo shito.”

  “Wow,” she said. “Hard-core.”

  They laughed together as she found the shito and dabbed about half a teaspoon onto his plate. “Is that enough?”

  “A tiny bit more,” he said, inclining his head. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, and I’m impressed.”

  “But I promise you, I will turn red as a tomato as I eat it.”

  “I would like to see that,” she said, laughing. “Would you join my friends and me at our table? Or are you committed elsewhere?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “Happy to.”

  She was with two couples, one Ghanaian and the other black American. Gordon wondered where Josephine’s husband was, safely presuming she had one. It was rare for a Ghanaian woman of her age to be unmarried. Gordon turned out to be right. In the following hour or so of conversation, he learned Josephine was married to Ghana’s inspector general of police, the highest law enforcement position there. No wonder she frequently went on trips to Europe, Canada, and the United States. Such perks came along with that kind of status in Ghana.