The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2010

eye on the 10 apprentices in her seamstress shop. Auntie had started her shop, “God Knows Best,” more than a decade ago. One side held 10 gig- gling neighborhood girls no older than myself hunched over clacking Singer machines or sewing patches of cloth two centimeters in front of their eyes, frowning and hissing at the needle between their teeth in concentration. The other side of her store sold long bolts of pagne cloth that she bought in the port from large containers originat- ing in Holland or China. “A one-stop shop for your cloth- ing satisfaction,” read the handmade sign in Auntie’s neat, slanted script over the front door. Her best customers were Ghanaian and Nigerian busi- nesswomen who spoke English, so she never bothered translating her sign into French or Ewe, one of the main dialects in southern Togo. Auntie spent her mornings teaching Joyce how to keep inventory records, track sales, and record salary payments in the green ledger. She’d then oversee the apprentices that she hired for three years, teaching them all the ins and outs of the seamstress trade in exchange for free labor. “Your sister is a real business- woman,” she told me more than once. Joyce spent the next day sleeping. I swept the house, washed my school uniform and made rice from the ir- regular, tooth-shaped pellets our mother had brought home from the market the day before. Mother came home and flopped on the mattress as soon as Joyce emerged in the kitchen in the late afternoon, sweaty and restless from the heat and lack of sleep. The electricity was off again, so the one fan we kept in the back room re- mained silent. I sat at the table and watched my sister get ready to go out with her friends. Joyce was beautiful, with short hair and luminous eyes. She scoffed at the girls from Auntie’s store who would spend their money on shiny extensions or wigs. Of the 25,000 CFA (approximately $50) she earned at Auntie’s store monthly, she kept roughly half for herself and never told me where she hid it. “You don’t have plans tonight?” Joyce asked me finally, while I flipped through an outdated fashionmagazine from the U.K. “What do you want me to do?” I asked interestedly. Joyce rarely askedme to accompany her downtown with her friends, say- ing I walked too slowly and giggled too loudly. “I told them you would come with me tonight,” she said finally. “That was part of the deal.” That’s when I was able to get more details about her meeting with the Ghana- ian students, and how it related to Joyce’s long quest to reach America. We had two cousins who were granted asylum three years ago and now lived in Jamaica, N.Y. Joyce planned to live with them until she could support herself independently. She just needed to figure out how to get there. She talked with everyone, from the grandmothers at our church to the boys who loaded the cargo ships at the port to the gendarmes at the Ghanaian border. Regardless of the route, she had to buy identity cards. One of the prob- lems she discovered early on was that we’d both been born in a now-defunct birthing center in central Ghana, and our births were never registered. Joyce shared only the necessary bits with me as we walked down the sandy road toward the sea. “Philip is the oldest,” she informed me. “Stubborn, honest, but has a temper. Kevin is his brother. I’ll tell you more later.” We spent the evening at one of the small cafés on Le Boulevard, sipping Cokes and beers. I could tell that Kevin was watching me, which made me nervous. After an hour of idle chitchat, Joyce stood up and told the boys that we had to go home. Philip immediately stood up and said he’d accompany us. Joyce’s smile grew tense, but she grabbed his hand and started teasing him, motioning me with her hand to walk ahead. “Come on,” I could hear Philip cajol- ing at one point. “We’re legal now, right? I told you this was also part of the deal.” When we got home Joyce told me to sit out front. She disappeared inside with Philip, who smiled at me as he followed my sister. The next morning Joyce woke me up at 5 so we could be among the first at the port. A ship was unloading, and we could buy shoes wholesale for my mother from the bales of used clothing. “Why doesn’t she go herself?” I grum- bled unkindly as we fumbled in the dark for our sandals. Joyce fastened Bana to her back with a bolt of pagne cloth, and we were off. It was a long walk, but we could be there One of the problems she discovered early on was that we’d both been born in a now-defunct birthing center in central Ghana, and our births were never registered. 30 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 F S F I C T I O N