Anansi Boys

Daisy’s father was born in Hong Kong. Her mother came from Ethiopia, of a family of wealthy carpet exporters: they owned a house in Addis Ababa, and another house and lands outside Nazret. Daisy’s parents met at Cambridge—he was studying computing before that was something that was seen as being a sensible career path, and she was devouring molecular chemistry and international law. They were two young people who were equally studious, naturally shy, and generally ill-at-ease. They were both homesick, but for very different things; however, they both played chess, and they met on a Wednesday afternoon, at the chess club. They were, as novices, encouraged to play together, and during their first game Daisy’s mother beat Daisy’s father with ease.

Daisy’s father was nettled by this, enough that he shyly asked for a rematch on the following Wednesday, and on every successive Wednesday after that (excluding vacations and public holidays) for the next two years.

Their social interaction increased as their social skills and her spoken English improved. Together, they held hands as part of a human chain and protested the arrival of large trucks loaded with missiles. Together, although as part of a much larger party, they traveled to Barcelona in order to protest the unstoppable flood of international capitalism and to register stern protests at corporate hegemonies. This was also the time they got to experience officially squirted tear gas, and Mr. Day’s wrist was sprained as he was being pushed out of the way by the Spanish police.

And then, one Wednesday at the beginning of their third year at Cambridge, Daisy’s father beat Daisy’s mother at chess. He was made so happy by this, so elated and triumphant that, buoyed and emboldened by his conquest, he proposed marriage; and Daisy’s mother, who had been, deep down, afraid that as soon as he won a game he would lose interest in her, said yes, of course.

They stayed in England and remained in academia, and they had one daughter, whom they called Daisy because at the time they owned (and, to Daisy’s later amusement, actually rode) a tandem—a bicycle built for two. They moved from university to university across Britain: he taught computer sciences while his wife wrote books that nobody wanted to read about international corporate hegemonies, and books that people did want to read about chess, its strategies and its history, and thus in a good year she would make more money than he did, which was never very much. Their involvement in politics waned as they grew older, and as they approached middle age they had become a happy couple with no interests beyond each other, chess, Daisy, and the reconstruction and debugging of forgotten operating systems.

Neither of them understood Daisy, not even a little.

They blamed themselves for not having nipped her fascination with the police force in the bud when it first began to manifest, more or less at the same time that she began talking. Daisy would point out police cars in the same excited way that other little girls might point out ponies. Her seventh birthday party was held in fancy dress to allow her to wear her junior policewoman’s costume, and there are still photographs in a box in her parents’ attic of her face suffused with a seven-year-old’s perfect joy at the sight of her birthday cake: seven candles ringing a flashing blue light.

Daisy was a diligent, cheerful, intelligent teenager who made both her parents happy when she went to the University of London to study law and computing. Her father had dreams of her becoming a lecturer in law; her mother nurtured dreams of her daughter taking silk, perhaps even becoming a judge and then using the law to crush corporate hegemonies whenever they appeared. And then Daisy went and ruined everything by taking the entry exams and joining the police force. The police welcomed her with open arms: on the one hand, there were directives on the need to improve the diversity of the force, while on the other, computer crime and computer-related fraud was on the increase. They needed Daisy. Frankly, they needed a whole string of Daisies.