Ama (45 page)

“Here,” said the white man, steering her in the right direction, “make yer way across to yonder platform. Orders is: new arrivals on the upper deck.”

He followed her across, but she had already put a knee up and was levering herself on to the platform. She was on her hands and knees.

“Down ye go then,” said the man, giving her a gentle push on the buttocks and pointing the way.

As she crawled, Ama wondered why he had spoken at all. He could hardly know that she understood English. Was she the only one, or were there others who also knew the white man's language?

She crawled towards the women on the far end of the shelf.
Like some four legged animal in the bush,
she thought. She stopped to peep through a vent hole.

“Ama, this way,” said the woman who had been before her in the line.

“Ei, my knees,” said Ama.

“
Kòse
,” said her friend, “Sorry. Human beings were not created to walk on their knees like that.”

“All right, you lot. Out,” called the white man, gesturing to those whose presence they had come to meet.

There was a rush towards the narrow doorway. Each woman, Ama saw, was clad in a narrow strip of the same blue cloth which had been given to her.

“They are going for their food,” said Ama's new friend.

“How do you know?” Ama asked .

“One of them was complaining that we had delayed them and she was hungry.”

“I don't know how anyone could develop an appetite in this stench. It is enough to make one vomit,” said Ama.

Now the floor of the hold was empty. Ama jumped down and started to explore. At least here she could stand upright. The floor sloped away from her and then back again as the ship rolled in the light swell. She pressed her palms against the boards of the ceiling just above her head. Then she danced a few steps of adowa. It was strange the way the ground was constantly rising and falling beneath her feet as she danced. Her stomach seemed to be rising and falling inside her too. For a moment she felt she must throw up. But the nausea passed. She took off her cloth and holding one end in each hand she traced the graceful movements of the dance, celebrating the departure of the terrible darkness which had afflicted her.

“Take care, my sister,” warned her friend.

Ama wrapped the cloth around her waist.

“Take care of what?”

“The white man showed us our place. He will punish you if he finds you walking around.”

“Oh, don't mind him,” Ama replied.

The room was bare. The principal feature was a round wooden pillar. Nearby stood several wooden buckets, narrower at the top than at the base. She went to examine one and withdrew quickly, holding her nose. It was full of shit.

Near the back of the hold there was a heavy door. She gripped the bars of the grating and tried to shake it. There was a steep stair leading down on the other side.

“
Àgòo
,” she cried, “Is there anybody there?”

A reply came in a language she could not make out. Then the head of a child appeared. There were others behind him.

“Small boy, I greet you,” she said, smiling. “How many of you are down there?”

The boy spoke shyly, but she could make nothing of what he said.

“Stay well,” she told him and took her leave.

“There is a room there, with young boys inside,” she told her friend who was sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of the shelf. “Poor things.”

The woman's head was wedged against the boards above.

“This place stinks,” said Ama. “I pity those who have to sleep next to the latrines. I wonder how we shall ever get used to this smell.”

The woman grunted, “It will get worse, mind my words.”

“I'm sorry, I forgot to ask your name,”

“I am called Nana Esi.”

Ama was silent. Following her example, several other younger women had jumped down.

Ama had a thought.

“My sisters,” she called out, “if you want to go somewhere, you had better go now. You may not get a chance when the others return.”

“I had a friend called Esi,” she said to Nana Esi.

Nana Esi waited to hear more, but Ama was in a brown study.

“What happened to her?” she asked at last.

“I don't know. I wish I did. She was my best friend. Excuse me, I am going to take my own advice before the others come back.”

She hadn't given Esi a thought since Mijn Heer's death and what came after. The poor girl must have gone through this same experience. She too had been raped by that monster Jensen. Now Ama felt a pang of guilt. Perhaps she would meet Esi again in the white man's country. She held her nose and tried not to breathe as she sat on the bucket.

The older woman who had used her only garment for a head cloth was standing nearby. Suddenly she began to shake violently. Almost at once she fell to the floor, twisting and turning. Other women came to look at her but did nothing.

“Hold her,” cried Ama from her seat. “She will hurt herself.”

She looked around for something to wipe with but there was nothing.

Lucky it was a firm shit
, she thought.

The convulsions stopped and the distressed woman rose to her feet. Now she started to laugh, a wild, animal, incoherent laughter. From time to time she paused to take a breath or was overcome by another shaking fit. Then the laughter resumed. It went on and on and on. At last she began to cry out.

“Fools, fools,” she cried again and again, gripping the grating on the outer door.

The noise drew the surgeon, Butcher.

“What's going on here?” Ama heard him ask.

The door opened. The woman was dragged out and the door closed again with a bang. Ama went to it and looked through the grating. The woman lay on her back on the deck. Two seamen sat on her, fixing manacles and handcuffs.

“Send her back with the first canoe,” said Butcher. “There's no way we're going to give this one a free trip to Barbados.”

* * *

The other women returned from the deck.

They were followed by the surgeon and six white seamen, who hung lamps on the bulkhead.

Butcher addressed them in a loud voice, “Soon this hold will be full. It is time that you learned how we want you to arrange yourselves. The men will show you how you are to lie.”

They began to line the women up according to Williams' plan. Their first customers were confused. The men spoke to them, then used sign language and finally man-handled them into position, each lying on her right side, facing into the back of her neighbour. Once they realised what they were required to do, the other women complied without resisting, as if this were some kind of game they were playing.

“As for the mind of the white man, it is a mystery,” said one.

“
Me broni
,” said another to a young seaman, “
wo ho ye fe se anoma
,” meaning, “My precious white man, you are as beautiful as a bird.”

There was an approving roar of laughter from those who understood.

Ama watched, wondering again why the white men bothered to speak to them at all. She vowed to keep her mouth shut: there was no way that she would become their
okyeame
.

Then the white men left and the women rearranged themselves before they settled down for the night. There was still plenty of space to stretch.

* * *

The next day was a Sunday. Williams would have liked to continue loading his ship, but the Dutch company's rules about the observance of the Sabbath were inflexible.

The women were allowed out onto the quarter-deck soon after dawn. An awning had been rigged for them and they were not uncomfortable in the shade. Tomba's people sat to one side. Ama greeted them with the formal morning salutation. They replied with smiles in a language which was totally strange to her.

“Do none of you hear Asante?” she asked.

One older woman raised her open palm to her ear; another spread her palms and cocked her head. There was laughter and some animated conversation.

Ama tried her mother tongue, Lekpokpam, without much hope and with a similar result. She looked over her shoulder. None of the Elmina party appeared to be watching her and none of the crew were nearby.

“What about English?” she asked in a whisper.

“English,” came a loud reply.

Ama's heart gave a leap. If one of these women understood English the two parties would be able to communicate. But who had answered? She raised herself to her knees. The English speaker was waving to her. She was a slim young woman with a mischievous smile. Her companions paid no attention to her. She moved aside to make room for Ama.

“You hear English?” Ama asked.

“English,” she replied with a grin.

Then she pointed to the crew on the main deck.

“Man,” she said.

Then she pointed to herself and said, “Wo-man.”

Inspired by a sudden thought, she pointed to Ama and said, “Wo-man, A-fri-ca wo-man,” and laughed.

“You must know more?” Ama asked.

“Man,
Ing-lish
man,” she said, pointing as before.

“Wo-man,” she said again, pointing to herself; and then after a pause, added with a sly laugh, “Fokkie-fokkie. Man, wo-man, fokkie-fokkie. Ing-lish man, A-fri-ca wo-man, fokkie-fokkie.”

And she laughed yet again. The woman sitting next to her looked at her with disdain. Ama rose, disappointed. This was not her hoped-for linguist.

Then, as one person, the women around her suddenly rose to their feet.

“Tomba, Tomba,” they cried.

Tomba, who had been led out, shuffling the irons which held his ankles, turned and raised his manacled hands up high, acknowledging their greetings. He spoke a few words and at once his guard flicked his cat at him. They saw the lacerations from the beating he had received and there were cries of sympathy. Then the guard forced him on his way to the forecastle, where he and the boys took their food. The boys came out of the door below and followed.

“Kwaku, Kwaku,” called Kwaku's mother, struggling forward to the edge of the quarter-deck.

The boy is barely ten years old
, thought Ama. She saw him respond to his mother's call and begin to sob. The guard flicked his whip and the boy withdrew. He was the only Akan. His mother had not seen him since they had been brought on board. The others were all Tomba's boys. They turned to wave to the women as they passed and there were calls to them too.

The food was in large round trays. As they settled down in a circle around the two trays, Ama heard the voice of the surgeon, Butcher.

“For what you are about to receive,” he intoned, “may the Lord make you truly thankful. Amen.”

The boys knew what was expected of them.

“Amen,” they chorused.

* * *

The men were brought up from the bowels of the ship and chained to iron rings.

They looked around, bewildered, as they ate.

Once, back home, long ago, Itsho had hacked off the top of a termite mound. Ama was reminded of the confused panic of the subterranean insects, suddenly exposed to the light and to the appetites of the compound chickens.

Of each pair of men, one had a right hand free and the other a left hand.

“These white men may know how to make ships, but their customs are uncivilised. It is bad enough that they keep us in chains, but to force us to eat with our left hands, that is the ultimate humiliation. It is against all custom,” Ama heard one of them complain.

When they had herded the male slaves back into their dark abode, the crew assembled on the main deck.

Captain Williams emerged from his Cabin and Arbuthnot called for silence.

“Our Father,” Williams intoned.

“Which art in heaven,” responded the crew in their various accents.

Silently Ama mouthed the familiar words; but when she came to “as we forgive those that trespass against us . . .” she stopped.
Why should I forgive them when they persecute us so
? she wondered. She loved the music of the words, but the sense offended her.
They say their god is all powerful. If that is so he must have ordained what they are doing to us.

Then the service was over. Half the crew jumped down into a waiting canoe. Amongst them Ama recognised the ones called Knox and Knaggs.

* * *

Ama woke early the next morning. It was dark in the hold but she could see a glimmer of dawn through the barred door.

She slipped off the platform and picked her way through the bodies. She wanted to piss but the thought of the smell of the buckets put her off. It pervaded the hold; but when you were sitting on the bucket it was overpowering. She would wait. On Sunday afternoon she had watched the man they called Chippy busying himself with the construction of a platform cantilevered from the side of the ship. There were steps up to it and then a wooden seat with holes in it. Ama guessed that this was to be a latrine: you would sit over the hole and your shit would drop straight down into the sea.

Butcher passed by the door, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

Catching sight of Ama, he asked in dialect, “What, missus, so eager t'be let out of yer prison?” and unlocked the door.

“
Owura, medaase
,” she thanked him in Asante, wondering what his reaction might be if she said, “Thank you, sir,” instead. Then she improvised sign language to ask him if she could use the Chippy's new facility.

“Sure, sure. Go ahead,” he said, “but take care you don't fall through the hole!” and laughed at his feeble joke.

Ama climbed the steps up over the gunwale cautiously, nervous of the height.
What would Butcher do
, she speculated,
if I should suddenly fall into the sea and start swimming for the shore
? Williams had spoken of sharks. She looked down to the waters below. She had never seen a shark but Mijn Heer had told her what damage they could inflict.

Amongst the canoes which had hoisted their sails to catch the morning's offshore breeze, she picked out one with white passengers. It was the crew returning from their night's carousing ashore. They were evidently somewhat the worse for wear. Two were bare to the waist.