Blonde Roots (11 page)

One time he came to work so inebriated he bounced down the steps on his bottom. His hair was a matted frizz, his eyes bloodshot, his wrappa soiled. When he landed on the floor he slurred, “I used to be the personal witch doctor of King Wamukoto Landuleni Eze!”

Then he retched.

We saw less of him: three days, five, ten …

Surgeons on other slavers were paid Head Monev-pro rata pay for per capita delivery. A cash incentive to keep the cargo alive. But I don’t think performance-related pay was part of the deal with our drunken old ex-witch doctor.

IT WAS NEVER SILENT belowdecks. A cacophony of moans and groans, day and night, punctured by screams, which were contagious. If a screamer didn’t shut up, they were whipped until they did.

And if a passenger went insane, there really was only one solution-and it was final.

Bodies were tossed overboard and became dinner for the sharks.

They say the seabed of the Atlantic is paved with the skeletons of those who didn’t make it.

If they all got up and swam ashore, they could form their own country.

“Get them above hatches!” was always music to my ears. The fresh air made me so heady I’d almost faint. Some did. The ocean view was … dramatic and panoramic.

Buckets of salt water were thrown over us-a few moments of bliss.

We were forced to sing and dance in a circle, waving our arms vigorously, a cat-o’-nine-tails lashing at any feet that stopped.

The males of my species remained handcuffed and linked by a chain that was in turn bolted to the deck. Given the restrictions , their choreography was by necessity a flat-footed stomp. The deck shook.

It was almost as if they were angry.

UP THERE IN CLEAR,
clean, sunny daylight the sailors could see what was to their fancy.

It was expected.

A perk of the trade.

Were not their women in some distant land?

Was life not tough for them at sea too?

Were not the female captives compliant?

Easy, so to speak.

MOST NIGHTS THE WOODEN HATCH creaked open. Women were eased off shelves. At first a scuffle might ensue, but as the journey progressed few had the strength to resist. When the hatch closed, I’d hear the rumblings of men helpless to protect their own. Most women returned after a few hours, or a few days: crying, bleeding, furious, mute. Some were never seen again.

Hildegaard twitched like mad whenever the hatch opened at night.

Still comely, she’d soon be cherry-picked. We all knew that.

Then one night they came for her.

I watched as they tried to remove her from the shelf while she turned herself into a dead weight, forcing them to yank her off it.

The bones of Samantha’s skeletal arms tightened around me as we watched.

As they led her away, Hildegaard rolled her hands into fists and jerked them about. She twisted her naked body, kicked out, spat, tried to bite them.

She was formidable, but I was so scared for her.

I wanted to say good-bye but when I opened my mouth, only a croak came out.

IF I CLOSE MY EYES, I can still feel Hildegaard’s warm, maternal body; how when she smothered me in her arms, I slept as if I was free.

THE PERSON ALLOCATED HER SPACE had been sitting for weeks in a passageway so crowded she couldn’t even lie down. Surplus slaves were stored there, or in the nose of the ship or where there was space toward the rudder.

Let’s call it steerage class.

Jane was thirteen. She wept with relief the first time she got to lie down on the shelf and stretch her whole body out. (Little did she know.) A prisoner of war, she had been incarcerated in a fort on the coast for months before being shipped out. Hundreds of slaves had been stuffed into an airless, windowless dungeon. She said she expected special treatment on account of her condition-pregnancy. How she prattled on for hours. Maybe her own cabin? A bed? Dress? Basin? Soap? Washrag? Comb? Blanket? Chamber pot? Plate?

Yes, any day now.

Jane had traveled so deep into fantasy she had lost her way back.

GARANWYN LAY ON A SHELF opposite mine. We found each other’s voices only if we shouted above the discordant choir belowdecks.

When his voice started to break, he told me he was becoming a man.

We discussed our destination, but no one was really sure where we were going. Was it that place called the New World? But why? What lay in store for us?

We had no idea.

When I threw up, Garanwyn reassured me it wouldn’t last. (It didn’t.)

If someone died in the night, he’d tell me to thank God I was still alive. (I did.)

When I fell into depression, he told me freedom was just around the corner. (It wasn’t.)

I told him about my leg irons. He told Slade, who slept next to him.

Word came back that I should go up on deck that very night to locate the keys to the padlocks. It was not a request.

My ankles were now as thin as a duck’ s. How I willed them to swell up.

For the first time in my life people depended on me—not to collect eggs or stop milk from boiling over or to sweep out the yard—but to save their lives.

I slid out of my irons and crept up the hatch, watched by everyone who could swivel their heads to see me.

The sailors had become careless. It was unlocked.

I emerged onto the deck, my heart punching its way out of my chest cage.

Waves splashed against the ship.

The sky was the star-spangled blue of my homeland.

It was so peaceful and beautiful up there.

A full moon was passing behind clouds, providing enough light for the task at hand but not so much that I was in spotlight.

A single guard on watch was curled over a coil of thick rope. Snoring. Reeking of rum. They all did.

I crept over to a teenage boy so brown he really was almost blak. His lips seemed to spread from ear to ear. Several weeks earlier we’d watched him accidentally drop a sail while up the mizzenmast. The Chief Mate immediately ordered a flogging and he was tied to a post and got thirty strokes.

He must have been assigned the night duty no one wanted.

Keys to our chains dangled from a cord hanging around his neck. My fingers quaked as I went to work on the knot. Suddenly he shifted position and fell from the rope, landing with a jolt on his back. He lay there, dazed, looking up at the sky, blinking drunkenly. I had darted behind the rope and lay on my front, peering around it. He turned over onto his side and went back to sleep. The keys were now trapped underneath him. Damn! I thought of the community below stairs. I could not let them down.

I began to search the ship for something that could break chains or a padlock. I darted about in a panic. My hands became my eyes as they delved into baskets and boxes and came up with buckles, rigging tools and, finally, a mallet and a marlinespike.

It might just work.

I dashed hell-for-leather back to the hold with my implements of liberation and gave them to Slade, who worked with the spike, carefully, quickly.

Garanwyn ordered me back to my shelf, just in case.

I lay back down, put my feet back into the irons.

Each man in turn was unshackled. Four, five, six, seven. They worked smoothly, silently, no longer half-dead but invigorated.

I prayed so hard that they would succeed.

I watched Slade, light-footed, swift, make his way up the steps with the poise of a snake about to strike. My Garanwyn was right behind him.

Just as they reached the top, the hatch opened and they came face to face with two sailors coming down to pick someone for a midnight fuck.

They hadn’t even bothered with muskets—smug gits.

The moon shone down on Slade’s and Garanwyn’s faces. Frozen.

All hell broke loose. The sailors shouted for assistance. Our men scrambled up and overcame them.

We heard a call to arms, and the crew sprang into action. Feet trampled up above, muskets were fired, the hatch was slammed shut, and a few of the men tried using the mallet to hammer it open. It was useless. They tried to reshackle themselves. That was useless too.

Curses were flung down at us through the gratings. The skin would be filleted off our backs. We were to be buried alive. No food. No water.

Twenty armed sailors entered and took out all the men who were unshackled.

We fell silent.

And stayed that way.

Four days passed before the hatch was opened again.

We were weak; we were dehydrated; we were starving; we were going to die.

Samantha finally did.

She lay right up against me—rapidly decomposing in the heat—for three nights before they removed her.

There was no space for me to pull myself away from her body.

Her bowels had emptied. So did mine.

The maggots that crawled out of her mouth and nose and ears tried to crawl into mine too.

The smell was—unforgettable.

I went a little insane.

ON THE FIFTH DAY we were ordered to muck out the hold, we were allowed up for exercise, and we were fed. Women and children were now also chained to the deck.

They led the “rebels” out. A show was about to begin.

Slade was not among them.

Then I saw Garanwyn, dragging himself on the ground with one arm. His kneecaps had been smashed in. His eyes were buried beneath bruised swellings. The right side of his face was twice its normal size. His left ear had been severed. His right one a bloodied pulp. His chest had collapsed as if all the ribs had been extracted. One arm dangled from its socket. He had no fingernails. He had no toenails. His genitalia were a mess.

He was the youngest of the men. They had tried to make him talk.

Garanwyn’s eyes sought mine and when he found them he mouthed, “Shhhh!”

I thought he might be angry with me, but no, he was still thinking of my welfare.

They strung him up.

The cat-o’-nine-tails whizzed through the air, ripping open the skin on his back, buttocks and legs and slashing it to pieces.

The sailors charged with whipping him took it in turns. Four shifts.

They just wouldn’t stop.

On and on it went.

There was no need to see if he was alive before he was thrown overboard.

It was all my fault.

I would live with the guilt for the rest of my life.

THE OTHER MEN WERE let off with thirty lashes apiece. They had to heal by the time the ship docked, to be healthy bucks capable of fetching a good price.

There were four hundred slaves at embarkation, and two hundred and twentyseven survived.

Which was about the international average.

CAPTAIN WABWIRE PUT IN an appearance that morning. He hadn’t been sighted for ages. He watched the proceedings while rocking backward and forward on his feet. The canary-yellow caftan he wore that day was encrusted with food droppings. The plaits in his hair were dried up and coming undone. His eyes had lost their sheen. His skin was dulled. His expression, numb.

He staggered toward us captives as if to make an announcement, as if to lecture us on the futility of insurrection.

But when he opened his mouth to speak, he fell to the ground.

Two sailors rushed to pick him up and escort him back to the master cabin.

It dawned on me that he was drunk out of his head.

AFTER THAT, OUR SHIP sailed uneventfully toward its destination—the paradise island of New Ambossa on West Japan.

U
pon arrival at the port of New Ambossa, I was subjected to the traditional slave-market scramble. We were shoved into a holding pen until at the appointed hour the gates were flung open and a howling mob of men burst in like a pack of starving hyenas about to rip us to shreds.

They grabbed at the slaves they wanted, tied us up with rope or simply dragged us out of the pen by whatever limbs or body parts they could lay their hands on.

I collapsed in the middle of the scrum and was stampeded on. The man who pulled me up wanted me, but so did another, which resulted in a tug-of-war as they each tried to dislodge a shoulder from its socket.

The victor bound my wrists with rope so tightly that they bled, then dragged me out of the pen like I was a goat (not for the first time).

I wet myself, but I was used to that by now.

He tied me to a post, inspected my scalp and ears, pulled apart my lips and invaded my mouth with fingers that stank of tobacco and left their bitterness on my gums. I filled my mouth with spittle but the foul taste lingered for ages afterward. He cupped my chest, slapped my bottom like it was a cow’s shank and squeezed each thigh to test its musculature. Then he made me sit down and spread my legs so that he could “inspect” my vagina, pushing those meaty fingers of his inside my virginal self. I didn’t cry. I was determined not to cry. At the end, I had to stand up and bend over so that he could “inspect” my anus too.

I cried.

No one paid any attention.

Satisfied, he went off to purchase me from Captain Wabwire, who was dressed in a spotless cream linen gown with black tasseled borders. He sat straight-backed at a trestle table under a canopy of banana leaves, looking most respectable and dignified after his seafaring ordeal, although I did notice an imperceptible wrinkling of his nose, whereupon he would open a tiny snuff box and take a sniff.

I watched him count up the cowrie-pounds from my sale in little pyramids and enter the transaction in a ledger—no doubt with a flourishing, well-educated, calligraphic script.

Before we left the port, I was forced to my knees and branded on my shoulder with the initials for Panyin Ige Ghika—my new mistress.

It took weeks for the different layers of encrustations to shrivel up into scabs and drop off.

I was bundled onto the back of a cart, and a sack was put over my head. We traveled for hours over potholed roads. My branded shoulder hurt so much I almost bit through my bottom lip. My wrists and ankles were still bound and bleeding. And I was itchy with urine and feces (yup, that too), which attracted the attention of flies as my naked posterior was exposed to the indifferent air.