I couldn’t explain it but I had this sudden urge to see the place where Ntiriwa had died. She’d been so excited when she started her swimming lessons at the university. She’d called me every single day to tell me what had been happening during their Hall Week celebrations. They had had a float through the principal streets of Accra to kick start the Hall Week celebrations. There had been different themes for the different week days and the different nightly entertainment. She loved the daily dress codes best—they had a day for executive wear, traditional, kwasasa, red and casual. The highlights of the Hall Week celebrations were to be the beach party and later that night a beauty pageant which she and her roommates already had tickets for.

I smelt the sea before we got to it. The driver took a turn and I heard it roar at the same moment that I saw it. I’d seen rivers before, but the sea was entirely different. I took off my sandals and walked down the warm coarse sand to the water. All I could think was Ntiriwa had been here. She’d walked here. She’d stood here. I stood by the edge of the water and let the cold surf surge around my feet. A group of children, maybe a little older than Sarfoa, were swimming in the water. Others were doing somersaults. Most were naked, others were in torn underwear.

How far had she swum before the waves carried her away? What had it felt like? Had she known she was drowning? Had her life flashed before her like in the movies? Had she been afraid? Had she called out for help? In the articles I’d read online, people had said death by drowning was often quick and silent and I was grateful that she hadn’t suffered long.

Chidi came to stand next to me and put his arm around my waist. He didn’t say anything.

I pictured my mom coming to this very spot, hoping for the sea to give up Ntiriwa’s body in the first few days after her death and then coming back months later to ask people if an amnesic girl had been found wandering the beach.

“Do you know the first thought that came into my head when my parents told me what had happened?” I didn’t wait for him to respond. “The first thing I thought was ‘Now I can have my own room’.” I turned away from him. I’d never told anyone that. My sister had died and all I’d been interested in was having her room.

“It wasn’t your fault she died.”

“But I didn’t do anything. There were people looking for her and everything. I didn’t even pray. I was just thinking that if she was really dead I could move out of the room I share with Sarfoa and into her room. Everyone was praying that she was alive and I had already given up. I didn’t even pray. What type of person am I? What type of sister am I?”

“It wasn’t your fault. And she was probably dead anyway.” I turned to face him.

“It’s God who heals, it’s God who saves. If you put your trust in the prayer and not in God you’ve missed it entirely.”

“You don’t understand,” I said and went to sit on a fallen coconut tree.

“Trust me, I do. Sometimes a negative response is still an answer to prayer.”

He sat by me and put his arm around me and rubbed my arm. We stared at the ocean together but each of us was wrapped in our own thoughts.

About thirty minutes later, Chidi told me we had to get going. I felt drained. He picked another taxi. We didn’t talk in the car. I didn’t feel like it and he probably realized it. The next thing I knew the taxi had pulled up in front of the National Theatre. There were a number of cars pulling into the parking lot. We got down and Chidi paid the driver.

“I don’t feel like crashing another reception,” I said refusing to move when he tried to lead me up the stairs.

“We’re not crashing a wedding reception,” he said.

I looked around the courtyard. There were posters everywhere. Funny, I hadn’t noticed them before. The posters were all of Ola Rotimi’s ‘The Gods Are Not to Blame’.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“You really don’t watch TV do you? It’s been advertised for the past two weeks. Four shows every weekend for the next two weeks. First show starts at 2:30. We only have ten minutes before it starts.”

This time I followed him up the stairs without any hassle. He bought two V.I.P. tickets and we went inside. I got us two bottles of coke. We found our seats just as the curtains went up.

I’d never been to a theatre production before. Never. Everything about the show was awesome. It was like we’d been transported to another land and were spiders in a corner of the chief’s palace watching what was going on. The costumes were excellent. The stage effects were out of this world. I felt goose bumps on my skin anytime the priest of the Ogun shrine spoke. There was thunder and lightning and fog and everything. It was as if the book had come alive right before our very eyes. The program said the production was by the University of Ghana School of Performing Arts and I had to double check the real names of the various actors to assure myself they were Ghanaians. They’d managed to fake the Nigerian accents perfectly.

I was surprised to find tears running down my cheeks when King Odewale gouged his eyes out and was led out of the palace by his children. It was awesome.

When the final curtain came down, I was on my feet along with the entire auditorium. We clapped for five minutes straight when the cast came for the curtain call. Chidi had to drag me out of the theatre and force me into a taxi. I’d have given anything to sit through all four shows. I couldn’t stop talking about it and Chidi just listened like he hadn’t sat through it all with me.