Gold of Our Fathers - [18]

She shook her head. “No.The week before.”

“Thank you.” George turned back to Dawson. “There you have it, Mr. Dawson. Or what was it-Inspector, anaa?”

Dawson waved it away. “It doesn’t matter. ‘Mister’ is okay. One other thing: Mr. Liu’s brother, Wei-do you know anything about him?”

George turned the corners of his lips down. “He was always in the background, very quiet the one or two times I saw him here in the shop-always looking at his phone. So no, I don’t know much about him.”

“We have him at the police station and we need to ask him some questions. Do you know a Chinese person who can help us with that?”

George thought for a moment. “There’s this one guy named Mr. Leonard Huang who has a hardware store in the Sofo Line area of Kumasi. I trust him. He’s been here for years and speaks quite good English. The only problem might be that he won’t want to come down here all the way from Kumasi.” He picked up his mobile from the table. “Let me see if I can get him for you.”

While George was dialing, Dawson looked around the store. A number of plaques and framed documents on the wall made it evident that the store and its business were licensed and certified by the PMMC-Precious Minerals Marketing Company, the government’s trader in gold, diamonds, and precious stones.

George had apparently gotten through to Leonard and from this side of the conversation, it seemed to Dawson that George was having a tough time persuading him to act as a translator.

“Oh, no, no, Leonard,” he was saying in reassuring tones. “You won’t get involved at all. You will be a neutral translator for Inspector Dawson to help him obtain some information. Can you do it for me, please?” George looked over at Dawson after a moment’s pause in the negotiations. “He will do it. What time?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Leonard-how quickly can you be at the police station? One hour? Okay, that will be very good. Thank you very much, my friend.” George ended the call and smiled at Dawson. “Done. We are very lucky that he happens to be in Dunkwa right now.”

“I appreciate it, Mr. Danquah.”

“No problem. He was trying to get out of it by saying he speaks a different kind of Chinese from Mr. Liu, but I know that’s not true. He’s forgotten I’ve seen the two of them conversing before.”

“There’s more than one kind of Chinese?” Dawson asked, feeling ignorant.

George shrugged. “So I’m told. Mandarin and, em… another one I forget.” He called out again. “Efua, what are those different China languages? Mandarin and what again?”

“Cantonese,” she supplied.

“Yeah, that’s the one.” George winked at Dawson. “That woman is a walking encyclopedia. That’s why I married her.”

Busty and brainy, Dawson thought. “One other thing, Mr. Danquah, what is your view of the illegal Chinese miners?”

“Ah,” he sighed, leaning back again. “This is complicated.” He snatched a piece of scratch paper and drew two circles on it. “The Chinese are here in this circle, and we the Ghanaians are here in the other. Where the circles intersect is where we trade in some fashion, or work together and so on. Other times, it is a clash of cultures. Did you hear about the shooting at Aniamoa several months ago?”

“No,” Dawson said.

“A gang of Ghanaian boys waylaid some Chinese guys who were walking to a mining site, and the boys demanded gold from them. The Chinese said they didn’t have any and the boys should go away, which they did. But then, they returned with some macho men to beat up the Chinese people at their mining camp and presumably steal some stuff. One of the macho men was armed, but so were the Chinese. The two groups exchanged gunfire and one Chinese and two Ghanaians were shot dead.”

“It sounds like it was a critical scene,” Dawson said.

“But wait,” Danquah said, holding up a finger, “that wasn’t all. When the police arrived to investigate, one stupid Chinese man started firing his weapon and wounded a sergeant. You see, Inspector, some of these Chinese are criminals-no good, worthless, low-life people in their own country. Now, I don’t deny that we have the same good-for-nothings here in Ghana. I’m saying, please, China, keep your offenders and convicts in your own country.” Danquah shook his head grimly. “It’s just too bad. You see all this destruction of land around us and the pollution of the rivers? They have done this to us.”

“But Ghanaians are engaging in the same illegal mining, aren’t they?” Dawson said.

“Oh, yes!” Danquah exclaimed spiritedly. “We Ghanaians, the fools that we are, are in bed with these people. Why? Because we see a little money waving in our faces and we want to grab it at once without thinking of the consequences. And me who has been in the gold business for so long, I don’t like what these foreigners are doing to the country, but I have a wife and kids to support. I would be a fool to turn them away at the door. You know, it’s like taking bitter medicine.”

“So what do you think is going to happen?” Dawson asked, feeling depressed.

Danquah shrugged. “Well, you see how the government is now chasing them out. Some of them are leaving voluntarily to go back to China because of these raids and so on, and their share of the gold has been diminishing. To be honest, some of them are in poverty. Some have money but are by no means rich. So, in the end most of them will leave, but by then they will have torn the Ashanti and other regions apart.”