“Look at that place over there,” Darko said, pointing in the distance.

It looked particularly different from the other houses they had been seeing. It sat within a grove of trees, a comparatively large abode subdivided into three with a courtyard formed by an encircling wall.

“I wonder what they do in there,” Darko said.

“They live there, of course,” Cairo said.

“Here we are,” Mama said, at length. “That’s Auntie’s house over there.”

It had a rusted tin roof. The walls were marred with gashes and trailing cracks. A crooked screen door hung open with ragged mosquito netting curling off the frame.

Mama announced their arrival. “Kawkaw-kaw!”

Seconds later a woman came to the door. Darko could immediately tell she was Auntie Osewa, just from her resemblance to Mama.

“Woizo, woizo!” she cried in welcome.

She kissed Mama and then Darko and Cairo over and over again. She was younger than Mama by a few years and not as tall. Both were pretty, with heart-shaped faces and lovely skin. But to Darko, his auntie was only a close second to his mother. No one was prettier than Mama.

“How are you, Sis?” she said to Mama. “It’s been so long-too long.”

Darko felt the silken quality and the musical lilt of Auntie’s voice. He had always had a peculiarly heightened sensitivity to speech. Not only did he hear it but he often perceived it as if physically touching it. He had on occasion told Cairo or Mama that he could feel “bumps” in a person’s voice, or that it was prickly or wet. They were mystified by this, but Darko could not explain it any better than he could describe the process of sight or smell.

“Come with me,” Auntie Osewa said. “Let’s go and fetch Uncle Kweku. He went to the farm to get cassava.”

They followed her around the small house to the back. The “farm” turned out to be a tiny plot of land. Uncle Kweku was bent over using a hoe to dig up the soil around the cassava plants.

“Kweku!” Auntie called. “Come along, they’re here!”

He looked up, put down the hoe, and dusted off his hands as he approached. He was average in build, but his right hand and forearm were disproportionately large from years of wielding farm tools. Close up, Uncle Kweku seemed to Darko quite a bit older than Auntie Osewa, or maybe just more worn down. He was sweating profusely in the heat.

“Woizo,” he said, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. He gave Mama a hug and lightly patted the boys’ heads.

“How was everything? The journey was fine?” His voice was quiet, the texture of a wet loofah sponge lathered with soap.

“It was very good, thank you,” Mama said, and Darko and Cairo secretly exchanged amused smiles because she had failed to mention how petrified she was of traveling in tro-tros.

“Come on,” Auntie Osewa said. “Let’s go inside now.”

The house had only two rooms, a table and a stool and chairs in one, a bed in the other. It was hot and airless, and the two windows let in very little sunlight.

They sat down to chat, but Mama and Auntie did most of the talking. Uncle Kweku didn’t say much, merely nodding and smiling at intervals.

Darko noticed a bundle of straw in the corner of the room.

“What’s that for, Auntie Osewa?”

“I’ll show you.” She took him by the hand. “Pick a straw out. Any one, it doesn’t matter.”

He pulled one of the long filaments from the bundle.

“We get these off the tops of elephant grass,” Auntie Osewa explained.

“Why’s it called elephant grass?”

“Because it can grow as tall as this house.”

He looked disbelievingly at her.

“I’m serious,” she assured him.

“Really? I’ve never seen grass that tall.”

She chuckled. “People use the pieces of straw to make rope and baskets.”

“Can you do that, Auntie?”

“Of course. Watch.”

Auntie bit the end of Darko’s straw into two and split it along its length. She twisted each half of the split straw on the other by rolling it against her thigh, and then she combined the two strands to create a length of rope thicker and stronger than the original filament.

“There,” she said, smiling. “See how we do it?”

“That’s clever.”

“You can have this piece. That’s my little gift to you.”

“Thank you, Auntie.” Darko folded it carefully and put it in his pocket.

After that, Darko and Cairo began to get restless as Mama and Auntie Osewa conversed nonstop. Uncle Kweku excused himself for a moment and went outside, which led Cairo to ask Mama if he and Darko could do the same.

“Yes, but stay where Uncle Kweku can see you. And don’t get dirty because we’re going to eat soon.”

There were a few huts nearby, and Uncle was standing next to one of them talking to a neighbor. Noisy weaverbirds were building their upside-down, trumpet-shaped nests in the trees.

“Let’s go into the forest,” Cairo said.

“But Mama said not to go far,” Darko said.

“I know. We won’t. Come on.”

They passed several large mango trees just beginning to bear the season’s fruit and then clusters of pawpaw and banana trees until they were in the forest proper. The ground here was thick with dead leaves and fallen branches, in the midst of which sprouted virgin palms and brand-new ferns and creeping plants. Cocoa trees here and there were not very tall, but the forest giants towered over them and let in only dappled sunlight. Darko loved it. There were no forests like this in Accra.

“Cairo,” he said, “do elephants live in the forest?”

“Yes, and if they get you they’ll pick you up with their trunks and throw you into the trees.”

Darko cackled. “No,” he said, but he half believed it.

A millipede crossed in front of his feet, and he knelt down to touch it. It rolled into a tight, impenetrable ball, and its million legs miraculously disappeared.

“Cairo! Darko!”

Mama was calling. They ran back out of the forest and saw her at the front of Auntie Osewa’s house looking around for them. Uncle Kweku had gone inside.

“We’re coming, Mama!” Cairo yelled.

Dinner was delicious. The soft plantain fufu Osewa had prepared was arranged in a bowl like a row of smooth, rounded pillows too perfect to be disturbed. Steaming, fluffy white yam was piled high on another plate. Chunks of goat meat, okro, and aubergine lay in rich palm nut soup like islands in an ocher sea.

As they ate, Mama and Auntie Osewa talked back and forth and laughed together. Uncle Kweku joined in a little, but the conversation still belonged to the women. Cairo and Darko sat next to each other and were mostly quiet, the way children were supposed to be in the presence of their elders, but they slipped each other a few inside jokes and giggled in secret.

A call came from outside the house, “Kawkaw-kaw!”

“Come in,” Uncle Kweku said.

A man entered. He looked about Auntie’s age-around twenty-four or twenty-five. His physique was thicker than Uncle Kweku’s by far. His face was angular, with high cheekbones as sharp as mountain ridges, and his smoky black skin was as smooth as a woman’s.

“Woizo,” Uncle Kweku said, getting up to shake hands with him.

“How are you, Kweku?”

“Fine, fine.” Uncle Kweku was beaming. “Come and eat with us.”

“Thank you, my brother. I was passing by and wanted to greet you.”

Darko listened to his speech. It had an uneven rhythm. His voice was not exactly rough, but it had cracks in it like the surface of a badly tarred road.

“Woizo, woizo,” Auntie Osewa said.

She made space for him at the table and then introduced Mama, Cairo, and Darko. His name was Isaac Kutu. He was one of the local healers. He smiled at everyone. His eyes were dark and deep, and sometimes he looked to the right or left without turning his head.

“Mr. Kutu has been helping us,” Auntie Osewa said, looking from her husband to her sister. Darko didn’t know what she meant.