The first time the agent took me to that house to meet the landlord, I told him I didn’t want a house that the landlord lives in it. He told me the landlord was a kind woman. I asked, “She’s a woman too? No, I won’t live in such a house. I don’t like the place so let’s skip.
“But you haven’t seen the place yet. At least see the place and meet the woman before you conclude.”
So I followed him as he took me to this beautiful house I thought I wouldn’t be able to pay the rent. When we sat with the woman, she spoke to me like I was already a tenant there. She was a woman in her late fifties. She spoke softly but was very firm. She told me, “You’ll be my third tenant. Those here are good tenants. I see some goodness in you too. You won’t give me problems, I know. You’re welcome.”
The room available to me was very close to her hall. When she sits in her hall, she sees me entering and leaving my room. The price was good for such a beautiful house, so I took a leap of faith and paid the rent. When I finally settled, she invited me to her hall and gave me food to eat. She asked about my work, my church, my upbringing and we had a lengthy conversation.
She told me about her life, her children and how her husband died abroad and was brought home for burial. She told me about her second son; “He’ll come to Ghana very soon. You’ll like him when you meet him, Elvis. He took after his father. Very noble and smart.”
In my mind, he was pitching her son to me. It made me happy that my landlord would think of me in such a way even when she didn’t know me enough.
She started pampering me. When she doesn’t see me in the morning, she’ll come and knock on my door and ask if I slept well. On weekends when I have nowhere to go, I spend the day with her, helping her to cook and clean just to keep her company. The vibe was so good I called my mom and teased that I’d found a better mother than her. “Come and see how this woman pampers me, like I’m her only daughter. You see me and treat me anyhow. Come and learn how to treat a daughter.”
But one day, things changed. I noticed it from the way she responded to my greetings. At first, she did it from the heart but now, she would respond nasally while looking away. She no longer came to knock on my day. I tried helping her one weekend and she said she was alright so I shouldn’t bother.
I was worried. “What did I do to this woman? Have I said something that didn’t please her? Is it about something I did? Why is she treating me this way?” I didn’t have answers. I called my mom and discussed it with her. “My landlord. I don’t know what I did wrong but these days she’s giving me a cold shoulder.” My mom asked me to engage her and apologize first. She might open up about what I did wrong.
I knocked on her door and she came out. She didn’t let me in. Right in front of the hall, she asked what my mission was and I told her, “I’ve come to apologize to you. Things have changed and I believe I did something you don’t like. I don’t know what that is but I’m here to ask you to forgive.” She turned away and left me there. While walking away she said something like, “It’s your life. Live it the way you want.”
She didn’t engage. She wasn’t even ready to look me in the eye. It got me scared. I thought of looking for a new place to rent.
I returned home one late night and saw a guy in her hall. She was also sitting there. She had stopped responding to my greetings but I greeted anyway. The guy responded. She didn’t. I entered my room but eavesdropped on what she was saying. She said, “That’s all she does. Leave at dawn and come home another dawn. Liar!” I heard the guy defending me. I heard her asking if he knew me better than she did.”
The next morning when I went to work, I called the agent and told him I needed a new place. He was shocked. “You need a new place? It’s not even up to a year so why are you moving?” I told him about the challenges with the landlord. He advised me to ignore her but I insisted I needed a new place.
Each night when I returned from work I saw that guy in the hall and I greeted him. One night he came out to see me. He said, “You always greet me when you come but I don’t even know your name.” I told him my name and he told me his name was Elvis. “Oh, that’s him. The son she spoke to me about? The noble one?”
I wanted to leave quickly before his mom comes out but he was in the mood for a conversation so I stood there and listened to him until we heard his mother’s footsteps and dispersed.
I saw him every night, no matter how late I came home. One night he told me, “Now that you’re here, I can go to bed. I hope you had a good day.”
When he got my number, he called and asked what was keeping me in the office. When he got to know my office, he came there to pick me but he didn’t take me home. We hung around in town until it was very late. We built a good friendship on the blind side of his mom. I told him how good we used to be and how things changed suddenly. I even tasked him to find out what changed and what I did wrong. He told me to ignore his mom. “It’s menopause. She’ll come around someday.”
The day he proposed to me, I told him, “Your mom spoke to me about you long before you came. That was when things were good between us. She was selling you to me but now that things are bad between us, I don’t know how she’ll take it if she gets to know. Can you talk to her first? Before anything, can you get her consent? So we don’t invest in futile labour.”
One day in his mother’s presence, he called me. He told his mother, “Mom, see my new friend. We are getting along fine for some time now.”
She sprung up from the sofa and asked him to repeat what he just said. She started ranting; “What do you mean by getting along? Getting along with who? This prostitute? Why didn’t you ask me about her before thinking about getting along with her? Do you even know her? Do you know how many men come for her from this house? Kwame takes her out and Kojo brings her in. What do you mean by getting along?”
Elvis was like, “I only said we are getting along. Why all this history? Why all the name-calling in her presence? Is it even necessary?”
It turned into an argument while I stood there shaking. What did I do that makes her think I’m a prostitute? I’ve been in her house for over nine months and not a single guy has visited me so what is she talking about?”
While they stood there exchanging words, I rushed inside the hall and sat down. Her attention came to me and started speaking to me harshly. I don’t know where the tears came from. When I opened my mouth, the tears followed. I asked what she saw that made me a prostitute in her eyes. She was brushing me aside but I insisted; “Mom, ever since I came to live here, no man has come around. I spent my days with you until you changed. Maybe somebody lied to you about me. You know my work. I don’t even have the time for men, that’s why I’m still single at thirty. What are you talking about?”
Elvis was also pushing her. “Now talk. Explain let’s all resolve the issue. What did you see? What did you hear? I’m here. I’m going to be the judge.”
She took her time enumerating all the times she had seen cars come for me early in the morning and a different car brought me back late in the night. “Red car in the morning. A green one in the night. And then you come and tell me you go to work. What work can that be if not prostitution? What work closes at midnight that a car would bring you in that late?”
I was in tears but I nearly burst out with laughter. She was talking about the times I brought Uber or Bolt home. It wasn’t even every day. I didn’t have the money but when I’m getting late for work I would call an Uber and when it was too late to come home, I checked the two services and picked the cheaper one. I didn’t know she was monitoring me. She saw me in those cars and concluded I was sleeping around.
I explained myself. Softly. Meekly. I told her what those cars are and Elvis backed me up. I guess she was too ashamed to accept she was wrong so she insisted I was lying. I left the hall with a happy heart. Knowing she was wrong about me put my heart at ease. That night I slept very well. I woke up late so I had to call Bolt. Elvis saw me and he was like, “Your boyfriend has come again. I’m jealous.” We burst out laughing.
A few weeks later, Elvis left. He didn’t stop talking to me. He didn’t stop trying to make me his girlfriend. I asked him about his mother and the next thing I knew, he sent me money and asked me to leave their house. “If that will make you happy, get a new place and forget about my mom.” I told him, “I can’t forget about the woman who’ll someday determine our future. If there’s something I have to do, I have to do it now.”
I didn’t leave. I stayed to get her on my side. It was slow. Maybe guilt was preventing her from coming around but slowly she did. One day she asked me, “Have you been talking to Elvis? Are you two still good?”
The next time Elvis came back to Ghana, he came because of me. He came because of our marriage. My landlord became my in-law and she’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever known. Good people get it wrong sometimes. That’s what happened. She got it wrong but when she understood me, she became the person she used to be. A little thing like picking an Uber nearly cost me a husband but all is well that ends well.
—Sekyiwaa
