Comfort Opokua was the liveliest girl in school; a natural choice for class captain, and voted her most popular girl of the year twice. Perhaps she was not the most beautiful, she was certainly the liveliest. Like most boys, Kwame was captivated, but he felt he had little chance of befriending Comfort. Thinking of her kept other thoughts at bay and calmed her mind to study, but her casual greeting as they passed on the street could make her heart pound for an hour.
After leaving school, Kwame looked for a job at Suame Magazine, Kumasi’s huge informal industrial area. He set up a business selling market carts that prospered for a few years but declined in the mid-1970s. Sitting under a neem tree behind his neat row of elegantly painted carts, reading a newspaper, Kwame’s mind snapped back. when he heard a familiar female voice say, ‘Hey Kwame, what are you doing here?’ Looking up, he was shocked to see the sight that had enchanted his schoolboy dreams: Comfort Opokua.
In February 1980, Comfort gave birth to their daughter, Akosua, and a month later she married Kwame in a traditional ceremony in their hometown, Konongo. Kwame earned an engineering degree in June and worked at Kumasi University while looking for a way to continue her education. Entering the University of Warwick in England in 1985, he earned a little extra money as a translator for UK authorities investigating a Kumasi-based drug cartel. Although she began building a house in Kumasi, Comfort grew impatient for faster material progress and disliked Kwame helping foreigners against her own people. ‘Look at you, Kwame Mainu! You are 31 years old and you still don’t have a house or a good job. You have no ambition for your family. You can never make up your mind about anything. I’m tired of giving you excuses. I have been talking to your mother and she says that you are just like your father. She was forced to give up such a worthless person and I must do the same.
After leaving Kwame with Akosua, Comfort went into his shoe trading business and managed to acquire an impressive residence in the fashionable Garden City suburb of Nhyiasu. It was there that Kwame met her again eight years later and began to dream of a reconciliation. Arriving early one day and waiting for Comfort to come home, Kwame started reading through a shoe catalogue. ‘Which pair are you going to buy me?’ Comfort must have entered quietly, and leaned over his shoulder, enveloping him in her scented aura. He leaned forward even further to point to his favorite shoe and Kwame felt electrified as his hair brushed her cheek and his soft chest pressed against the back of his neck. “I like that style,” he said.
And no man could turn you down! she whispered in his ear.
Take it easy, Kwame Mainu, or you’ll ask me to come back.
I never wanted you to go.
“It was a big mistake and I’m sorry.”