The day the women of Kofikrom killed Papa Laminu, the market had just burnt down.
The whole village had rushed to the site of the disaster with buckets of water and sand, but the fire refused to be contained, spreading its borders and threatening to latch onto anyone who dared to come too close. Very few of them cried as they watched roofs cave in and the sound of plastic bursting loudly over the flames that sounded like gunshots from the movies.
When the rain came down heavy and sudden an hour after the last piece of wood had turned to ash, many of them cursed loudly at God and his cruel mockery.
“So God didn’t hear us when the fire was burning our faces?” Mama’s voice had the tone she used when I was misbehaving in public. She usually accompanied it by lifting an eyebrow, which meant we will see when we get home, but today she simply adjusted the cloth she had tied around her midsection.
“No, don’t say that,” Grandma Ogrey chastised her. “God knows what He is doing.”
By the time we got home, you would have thought these women were strangers and not mother and daughter by how they were arguing, defending their points on God’s betrayal and His intentions.
I became a buffer between them as the evening meal progressed since neither of them wanted to address each other directly.
“Mimi, tell your mother not to pour too much salt into the soup. There’s already a lot of salt in the momone,” Grandma Ogrey said while I stood between them. Mama at this time had the sachet of salt turned over the boiling pot of palm nut soup.
“Mimi, tell your grandma I know how to cook,” Mama responded without even waiting for me to deliver the message. “If there’s too much salt, we will blame the one who taught me how to cook.”
Whatever retort Grandma Ogrey had was quickly drowned out when Mama Laminu started screaming.
We knew what it meant. Papa Laminu had arrived home after his long drive to the big city with his trotro. His fists meeting Mama Laminu’s face and her screaming had become a nightly occurrence that these days I stopped hearing it because it was always there. I only noticed when it stopped. Tonight it just kept going.
“Herh! The salt!” Grandma Ogrey shouted.
The look of horror on her face was directed at Mama, who, while listening to Mama Laminu plead for mercy, had forgotten she was still pouring. The salt had remained tipped over the pot and had almost formed a white mountain on the surface of the soup.
“Ah ah, does he want to kill her today?” Mama set the salt down loudly on the counter. She took a ladle and scooped a little of the soup to taste. She squinted, frowned and then shrugged at Grandma Ogrey before opening the cupboard underneath the sink. Mama pulled out a piece of charcoal. She blew on it to clear the dust and dropped it into the soup and lowered the heat beneath it.
Then she pulled the door where we kept the pestles and grabbed the largest one. She rubbed her hands around it, feeling its weight and then decided against it. She returned it to its spot and picked the slimmer one, nodding as her palms wrapped around it fully.
“What are you doing?” Grandma Ogrey asked.
Mama simply shrugged again.
“Mimi, keep an eye on the soup,” she ordered. Then she walked out of the house with the pestle.
Grandma and I stood in silence for a few moments. Then we heard Mama shout: “You like to beat women? Come and beat me too! Abi, you are mad? I will show you I am mad too. Come!”
“Which daughter koraa is this?” Grandma rushed out with a speed I had not seen her manage in years.
I considered staying still and doing what I was told. But Mama was shouting and Papa Laminu was shouting and Mama Laminu was screaming, and then I heard other voices. Some of which sounded familiar.
I turned off the stove. I don’t know why I did that first. Maybe because Mama had told me to watch the soup. Maybe because I didn’t know what else to do. What I knew was that I wanted to see what was unfolding outside so I ran past the kitchen doors.
There were many women racing toward the Laminus’ yard. I recognized some of them. Auntie Ama from the fabric store; her store had been the first to catch fire and she matched towards the Laminu’s with a wooden cane. Mama Kosi, the kenkey seller, was holding on to a thick branch. Adjoa the hairdresser had her hands empty but her face was like stone. Even old Mama Serwaa was there, hobbling fast with a walking stick that suddenly appeared like it had a different purpose besides walking.
Mama was already in the yard. Papa Laminu was backing away from her. He had his hands up and his mouth open. He was saying something but I couldn’t hear what it was but his voice was high. It did not belong to him. It was not the voice he used when he shouted at Mama Laminu or the voice he used when he greeted the other men in the village and laughed too loud.
Mama swung first. The pestle connected with his shoulder and he stumbled. He got up quickly and the brave bravado he had mastered while pulling himself up disappeared when the others arrived.
I don’t know how long it lasted. In my memory, it is both very fast and very slow. You know when you are in school and the lessons just drag on forever but when you try to remember it later, you can only recall small pieces.
I remember the sounds vividly. The way the wood sounded when it hit Papa Laminu’s skin. How he first started shouting at them and making threats, calling them foul women and then he started to beg, then he just kept crying before his words became animal noise.
I saw Mama Laminu standing in her doorway. She had one hand holding tightly to the doorframe and another covering her mouth. Her eye was swollen where he had hit her and she watched on without intervening.
I thought she might scream or tell them to stop but she didn’t. She only stood there very still and watched.
By the time the men came, Papa Laminu was on the ground. I don’t know if he was still moving because Grandma Ogrey found me and pulled me behind her.
The men started pulling the women back.
“What is this? What have you done?” Mr. Boateng shouted. His wife stretched her hand and wiped Papa Laminu’s body one last time with a belt as Mr. Boateng dragged her away.
Mama’s eyes found me across the yard. Her hair was wild. Sweat had soaked through her cloth, darkening it across her chest and back. I had never seen her eyes that way before and haven’t since that day. She stared at me for a long time before giving me one of her looks, the one that said we will see when we get home.
I ran back to the kitchen.
*
Grandma Ogrey and Mama returned long after I had fished the charcoal out of the soup. Mama told me to serve myself, and then she and Grandma Ogrey went to the bathroom. I heard the water running and them washing themselves. When they came out, they went straight to bed without eating.
I sat in the kitchen with my bowl of soup and rice. It was salty, but the charcoal had helped soak a little of the salt. I ate it slowly, listening to the sounds of the village outside. Everywhere was quiet. It was like nothing had happened.
The next morning, as I passed the Laminus’ house on the way to fetch water, I noticed Papa Laminu’s trotro was no longer parked in front.
It was always there in the mornings, leaning to the side with the words GOD’S TIME IS THE BEST painted on the back in fading letters.
Mama Laminu was sweeping her yard. She saw me looking and our eyes met. She shook her head and went back to sweeping.
A week later, two policemen came to the village. They had a little notebook they wrote in each time they spoke to someone. They told Mama Laminu that they had found her husband’s trotro abandoned on the road to Accra.
“He always went for days at a time”
“This is strange”
“Oh poor Mama Laminu, she loved that man so much.”
“He was talking about going to see his brother in Kumasi.”
The women all had reasons why Papa Laminu would be away for so long.
The policemen wrote things down. They asked more questions but they never got the right answer. They left soon after and never came back.
Mama Laminu didn’t cry. I watched her for weeks, waiting for her to break down the way women did in the films Grandma sometimes watched on the small TV in her room. After the market was rebuilt, she was one of the first to set up a stall. She sold plantain and yam and her voice was always loud and cheerful as she called out to customers.
She stayed out late now. She would sit with the other women after the market closed, laughing at their jokes. It was real laughter now, not that small, careful kind when Papa Laminu was nearby. One time, I even saw her head go back as she laughed so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes.
Grandma Ogrey saw me watching.
“Some tears have teeth,” she said as she nodded at Mama Laminu. Mama Laminu was showing her entire teeth as she held her belly in happiness.
*
I still think about that night and how the entire village came together to cover up their sin. The women of Kofikrom had killed Papa Laminu. The men had helped hide the crime. And in doing so, they had answered a question the village had been asking in silence for years. How long do we let this go on?
The answer, it turned out, was not one more night.
About the Author:
Yeayi Kobina has a background in journalism and history. His interest lies in stories that blend historical settings with fantastical elements. He was the joint recipient of the Tampered Press Manuscript Prize in 2025, longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2026 and the Gently Rippling Waves poetry competition (2024). His stories have been published by Flame Tree Press, Isele Magazine, Nenta, and Ubawli.