Chasing Freedom Home (Malinding) (7 page)

14

Ed-Lamin Ceesay walked down the gangplank onto his native Gambian soil: should he drop to his knees and kiss the ground? He kept going. He had his discharge note as identification and nothing else. Two uniformed policemen stood chatting at the dockyard gate. Who else might be watching, he wondered. Watchers were everywhere; trust nobody. The guard simply waved him through. It must be a trick. He forced himself not to run; the last time he thought he was escaping a priest was killed alongside him. No shot came. He was jostled by the crowd pushing and shoving their way off the Barra ferry. People with handcarts, donkey carts, bicycles laden with bulging sacks, boys carrying crates of live chickens, women with bales of cloth on their heads; all rushing about their business. He stood aside to let them pass. He had become invisible; he blended into the scenery; it was a good feeling. Ed-Lamin had come home.

He found a cafe in a quieter side street and sat at a table shaded by a fine mango tree. He fumbled with the money the crew had collected for him as a farewell gift. The waitress smiled;

'Hello, sailor. You want a drink? Malta, makes a man strong? I can change money for you. Good rate, fifty to the pound, OK?' He nodded. She took the money, returned with his drink and disappeared with the twenty-pound note. He looked anxiously after her.

'No worry, sailor; she's my sister, a good girl. Her other brother is an exchange man. He give her good rate. Here she comes.' She deposited a heap of Dalasi notes on the table beside his drink.

'Count it; one thousand Dalasi. You owe me fifty for the drink. Count it, don't be shy!' He counted the notes, some dirty, almost unrecognisable, some fresh as paint. They smelled of dust and sweat and threatened to blow away in the breeze. He handed the girl a fifty and added three well-worn five Dalasi notes as a tip.

'Thank you brother; they pay for my taxi home tonight.'  He sipped his drink from the bottle and tried to plan his journey home to Malinding. Banjul to Serrekunda; Serrekunda to Lamin; Lamin to Mandinari, Mandinari to Malinding. Four bush taxis. The last time he had travelled by bush taxi - ten, twelve years ago - each trip had cost five Dalasi; it must be double that now. Say fifty for the whole journey. Less than a pound. Time for something to eat; he called to the girl and asked for a bread roll filled with fried onion. He was pleased that she answered him in their tribal language, Mandinka. He smiled, another step in the homecoming. The waitress smiled back. He leaned back in his cheap plastic chair and became part of the picture.

It was as if he had never been away. He finished his meal, paid, tipped the waitress again and thanked her for her help, and stepped out into the street. He hesitated, asked directions to the nearest taxi garage and found a seat in a waiting mini-bus. He had been attracted by the sign-written slogan on its side - 'God helps the poor struggler!' - and thought it appropriate. The seats gradually filled. Chattering schoolboys, stately matrons with mountains of baggage, smartly suited office girls all packed together to fill the twelve seats with fifteen or twenty passengers. Each in turn greeted the rest with wishes that there would be peace and received reassurance that there was indeed peace.

That bus took him to Serrekunda, the next to Lamin taxi centre where there was a long wait till the bus for Mandinari filled and overfilled. Now people were returning from market and the bus stopped repeatedly at small hamlets, isolated compounds and at junctions where narrow sandy tracks led to homes invisible in the scrub. The last taxi dropped him off near the market place in Malinding. Home. Home at last.

He stepped out of the bush-taxi, and stood, trying to recall the last time he had been here. Ten, twelve years ago?  The road had been surfaced recently. Electric cables slung between concrete posts branched off into some of the compounds. That building was surely the school, smart in white paint, a new corrugated iron roof gleaming. Just beyond the school the village clinic was surrounded by a mud brick fence. Money had arrived in Malinding during his absence. The afternoon was baking hot and he walked from shade to shade, occasionally tripping in the deep sand. A bicycle bell warned him of danger and he stepped aside as a teenaged girl rode past him and turned her head to smile at the stranger. Ed stopped at the gate of a compound he recognised. He walked slowly towards the place where he had spent his childhood, and pushed open the iron gate, still painted black. His father had once painted these gates, messily. The mechanical girl had taken over the task and done a much better job. How many times had they been re-painted since then? He called a greeting and waited. A woman's voice answered him.  He expected to see his mother but saw a stranger. The woman looked at him, smiled. She bobbed a curtsy.

'Welcome home, Ed-Lamin. Do you not recognise me?' He looked again, stared for a moment. It was Binta, his father's second wife, his mother's co-wife. He laughed aloud and embraced her.

'Ed-Lamin, you are welcome. I am sorry for your troubles, and your losses. But come and meet your mother. She is there, in her new husband's house; you remember Ebou?' Stepmother and stepson walked hand in hand across the road; Sirra was waiting at the gate to her new home.

'God is good; he has returned you to me as I prayed. The entire village has been praying for this day.' She was determined not to weep. What reason could there be for tears? Mother and son embraced and their tears mingled and dried salty in the heat. Binta saw this and walked back to her own house. Sirra and the son she had supposed to be dead walked hand in hand to the shade of the veranda. They sat close together on the veranda, not speaking. He is so like his father, so like my father, she thought. Ed was trying to think when he last smiled. It was something that happened in a long ago time in a far away land. There had been a beautiful funny white girl who laughed and teased him and had rolled him into her bed and promised him her child. She was a girl who made him smile, who loved him as much as he loved her.

They had joked about the baby she carried, until that day when the joke faded into darkness. His mother would never know the girl, or the baby.

'Atayah, Ed-Lamin. Time for Atayah. Can you still cook it, do you think?' She brought him the tray with the small metal teapot, the glasses and the gunpowder tea and packet of sugar. The charcoal burner was already in position on the floor of the veranda. He closed his eyes for a moment, envisaging his father attending to the same task, then started to measure the water, tea and sugar into the pot before putting it onto the burner to cook. He sat back on his heels, watching as the steam started to rise.

'Breathe, my son, breathe. Relax your shoulders, think only of the Atayah. What is past is gone, you cannot revisit it and change its pattern. It is not given you to punish the wrongdoers, it is for you to move into the future. The love that you gave still exists, it cannot be diminished. You can perhaps in time give it again to some one deserving but for now, you have need of it for yourself. Love will heal you. God gave you the gift of life and you did nothing to abuse that gift. We cannot see the future but there is hope that one day you may find happiness again. Work may help; it will show you that you have a purpose in life. The nursery school where your father taught is now used in the evenings as an adult education college. That was the work you hoped to do in England? So, you do it here in your homeland instead. No, say nothing yet. Do you think that I was calm when your father died? Do you think that I accepted the death of the one man who loved me, treasured me, fathered my children - do you think I calmly accepted his death as if it was of no consequence and that I went serenely on with life? No. And you have seen greater evil in one year than I have dreamed of in all my nightmares. Remember, before your father became your father he too lived through horror and despair. He too lost a wife he loved and a child. He told me that if it had not been for the words of a girl in a cafe  and the kindness of a young family in a guesthouse he would never have arrived in this village and in my bed. God sends signs so tiny you may not even notice them at the time, but they are there. This is what I believe.'

Her son sat silent. It was all very well for his mother to preach. She had a successful, respected, life. 

True, she had to bear the death of his father and there was no shred of doubt that she had loved  him deeply. But she had found another love. He remembered Ebou, her new husband. Ebou had been a friend of his father, a hard worker, a trustworthy though poor at the time, young man who had stepped into his mother's life when the moment was right. She might well see the hand of a compassionate god in her life. He could not. He had seen men die for no other reason than the god-given colour of their skin. He had been ripped from the side of the woman he loved, and did not know whether she lived or died. He had not held their child, had not seen its birth, heard its cry, nor watched it feed. He respected his mother, naturally; he could not contradict her or show her that he did not, could never, respect her beliefs and her god. He nodded, slowly.

'Sirra, I hear your words. I am glad to be in my place at your side.' He attended to the ritual of pouring the brew from glass to glass till it had the required head of froth, and passed the first glass to his mother.

  He slept that night in a room in the house his mother shared with Ebou. There was an element of luxury; electricity powered the fans and lighting; there was running water and his room, the guest room, had an en suite shower and toilet. The tiled floor throughout the house was cool and even and unblemished. It could have had its place in any wealthy first world country. Ebou had greeted him respectfully, assured him he was welcome to stay under his roof for as long as he wished; Ed did not doubt his words or question his kindness. His mother had found a good man.

Next morning he was up, showered and dressed early. He moved quietly, not wishing to disturb the other members of his family, and walked in the silence of the morning down to the river. The old wooden jetty had been replaced by a modern concrete and steel construction. He walked to the end and sat, dangling his feet over the water. Across the other side of the river, just visible in the morning mist, he could see a family of hippos, diving, remaining submerged for impossible lengths of time, surfacing, diving again. The most feared of the African creatures were at peace in their native habitat.

He was alive.  He was safe. He was in the company of his extended family and their battalion of friends. And for the moment, he was at peace with the world.  The momentary realisation stirred him.

'There is no god! There is no justice or fairness or anything good. Life is shit and Earth is hell.' There, in a picture postcard setting, he cursed his fate and there, a few moments later, he gave way to tears as he grieved for his lost world of love and certainty. There Binta found him and had the wisdom to let him exhaust his sorrow before she took hold of his hand and led him back to his home.

15

Jane woke, blinking in the morning light. She was still in the narrow bed, but there was a difference. She was not strapped in. She tested her feet. They too were free. She raised her legs; they appeared before her, free. She stretched her arms to the side, as wide as possible and shrivelled when she felt a glass of water on the side table totter, fall and smash onto the tiled floor. She instinctively pulled the sheet over her head as the door to her room opened.

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please, I'll pay for it and the cleaner too. I'm sorry; please don't...'

'Jane, you mustn't worry about little details. Look, I've brought you breakfast; there's another glass with fresh orange juice. The orderly will clear the broken glass away before you get up.' She stared fearfully at the white-coated doctor. A doctor bringing her breakfast? Impossible. Then she remembered a rumour she had heard when she was first sectioned. If they're going to kill you they treat you very nicely; breakfast in bed, a bath, a clean dress. Then you go quietly with them for the injection.

'Jane, I've got great news for you; you're going to leave here; your father has found you a job on the staff of a lovely facility, a rehabilitation centre. You'll have accommodation, a contract and a very good wage. You're cured. No more nasty medication, no more restraints. Your dad's found you a job, honestly! Don't look like that; trust me. You'll live in, all found; it's at a real rehabilitation unit. Come on, finish your breakfast. There's a good hot bath waiting and one of the nurses has found a lovely dress and coat for you. Hey, don't cry - you're cured! No more medication, no more restraints - you're better. Honestly - trust me; this time tomorrow this will all be like a bad dream. Eat up!' He left the room without locking the door.

So; it's true. I'm going to die today. At least I'll die with dignity. I'm ready. I've lost everything. Right, girl, eat up and head on out. An orderly came and cleared the broken glass and took her tray away. Another, a woman, a young woman, led her to a tiled bathroom, smiled, and left her to wash. She relaxed in the hot aromatic water. Way to go, girl, way to go. She stood up and soaped her body, lingering as she stroked her sides and bent to wash her feet. Ed-Lamin used to do this for me. He'd pretend that his fingers accidentally slipped into me here, and here. I'd throw water at him and he'd jump into the bath and we'd love and love until the water ran cold then we'd towel one another dry and then love again. Now it's going to be my blood that runs cold. She pulled the plug and the water ran away, ready to join the river on its way to the sea. She stared as it circled and disappeared, then stepped out onto the white bathmat and dried herself with a big blue towel.

'Come on, Jane; we've got some new clothes for you, love. You'll look gorgeous in them.' Jane wrapped the bath towel round her body and followed the woman back along the corridor to her room. The curtains were drawn across the window and there on the bed were her new clothes. She stared. This is where they're going to kill me and they really want me to dress up and look like a fashion plate? She dropped the towel.

'Look; won't I do like this? Do we have to go through this pantomime? '             

'Nice tits, Jane. I'm sure they'll come in handy in your new job. Pop them into this bra for now though. Good girl, I got the size just right.' Jane dressed. The clothes were good quality, the sort of things she might have worn to impress someone on a first date. She turned and caught her reflection in a mirror. There hadn't been a mirror there before.

'Cup of tea before you go?' So, that's how it was done. Nothing so crude as an injection. A nice cup of tea then off you go. How very English.

'Yes please. I don't suppose you've got a biscuit as well?

'Of course, dear; what sort do you like?' Oh, God; my last wish is for a biscuit.

'Digestive, chocolate digestive, please?'

'Of course, anything. Anything at all.'

'A biscuit's fine.' The orderly brought a tea tray; China teapot,  China cups and saucers. Milk in a pretty jug. Biscuits on a plate.

'I'll be mother' said the young woman. 'How do you like it?'

'Milk, no sugar, please.' I bet the poison's in the sugar. Or, maybe it's already in the pot.

'Just as I like it.' She poured the tea, using a silver mesh tea-strainer. 'Take your pick.'

'It's in the tea, it has to be. Whichever cup I take she'll not drink hers.' The nurse picked up her cup and took a mouthful. Jane stared at her. Maybe it's the biscuits. The chocolate must disguise the taste. The nurse took a biscuit and bit it in half. How does it work, then? Not the tea, not the biscuits. I'm sitting here wondering how they plan to kill me, and this woman is drinking her tea and eating her biscuits as if it's a pleasant break from normal duty. Jane started to drink her tea. Earl Grey, she thought. There's posh. I can't dunk biscuits in this. She took a biscuit and dunked it. Delicious; really delicious.

'Your car's here, miss' the orderly told her. 'No rush, he'll wait.'

They finished their tea. No ill effects. Jane was, perhaps, free. She had work to go to, she felt relaxed, fresh, not a single ache or pain. She wasn't truly free; there was a place she had to go to but probably that was normal.

'What exactly is this job I'm going to? Do you know anything about it?'

'Some sort of social work, I think, love. We've sent a few girls on such placements and they've none of them had to return so it must be good. Never been any complaints that I know of. Finished with your cup?'

Time to go. A quick visit to the lavatory, a final look in the mirror, a door open to the outside world and she had a choice of sitting in the front or back seat. She chose the front, beside the middle-aged driver. Jane fastened her safety belt, leaned back in her seat and the car drove off and away from the clinic.