Ama (10 page)

When she was together with her fellow slaves, Nandzi felt hidden in anonymity. But here, as she wound her way through this great seething crowd of people in Akwasi Anoma's footsteps, it was obvious that she was the man's creature. It was obvious; yet it was so commonplace that nobody noticed. Nandzi and her master might just as well have been invisible. Of that she soon became aware, and so doing, turned her attention elsewhere.

The first slave compound they passed at once impressed itself indelibly on Nandzi's mind. Many years later, in another continent, she could still recall every precise detail of the picture. There must have been as many as three hundred slaves. They were confined within a fenced area, on one side of River Road, together with horses and asses, oxen, cows and goats. The livestock wandered freely within the kraal, seeking pasture in the overcropped bare surface. The slaves were chained in groups of ten or twenty. Some were young boys and girls. They squatted morosely, most of them practically naked, exposed to the pitiless malevolence of the sun. At night, she could see, they would have to sleep on the bare ground without mats, many without even the meanest cloth to protect them from the cold and damp. They were clearly underfed.

She struggled to catch up with her master.

Touching his arm, she said, “Papa!”

Akwasi Anoma was wondering where in the Upper Town he would locate the inn where he had once before lodged for a week. He could picture the Gonja landlord's face, but, for the life of him, he could not remember his name. Without the landlord's name, he could hardly ask for directions.

He stopped and turned.

“What?” he asked irritably. He was upset by the failure of his memory.
I must be getting old
, he thought.

With a silent movement of her head Nandzi drew his attention to the scene before them. She could not find words to express her dismay.

He looked but saw nothing unusual.

“What?” he asked again.

Near the fence sat an emaciated woman. A chain joined the manacle on her right ankle to the others in her circle. A child, a thing of skin and bones, lay on her lap, too ill or listless even to cry. Flies buzzed at its eyes and nostrils. The mother saw Nandzi looking at her and caught her eye. Without releasing her gaze, she lifted her flat, empty breasts. Then she held out both palms.
That woman could be me, it could be my mother,
thought Nandzi. She spread her hands in a gesture of impotence and despair and dragged her gaze away.

A little further off sat a tethered ring of men, quite immobile, their nakedness exposed, their eyes glazed and dull.

As she watched, one skeletal man rose slightly and, resting his elbows on his knees, lifted his bare buttocks clear of the ground. Then he began to shit. Nandzi averted her eyes.

“Come,” ordered Akwasi Anoma, “I don't have all day.”

A guard, with a whip in one hand and a heavy cudgel in the other, walked by on his rounds.
He looks like a slave himself,
she thought,
a callous man who has bartered his humanity for some small improvement in his food ration
. The man noticed that she was watching him. Raising the butt of his whip in a lewd gesture, he screamed an obscenity at her in a language she did not understand.

* * *

The room was barely furnished: just a low bed of millet stalks and a few mats, cowskins and stools.

Akwasi Anoma stretched himself out on the bed and shut his eyes. Nandzi squatted on a mat.
What next?
she wondered.

Presently a servant brought a brass basin of hot water. She helped him to set it down on the polished clay floor.

“Papa, the water has come,” she said.

There was no answer. She tried again. Then she grasped his shoulder. Akwasi Anoma woke up.

“I was sleeping,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Why did you wake me?”

“They have brought the water,” she replied.

He sat up.

“I was tired,” he said, examining the room for the first time. Then, “Open my bundle. Take out the soap and the sponge.”

She put them down on a stool next to the basin and moved towards the door.

“Stop,” he ordered. “Where do you think you are going?”

“I was going outside to let you take your bath,” she said.

He looked her in the eye and smiled. Guessing the import of that smile, she dropped her gaze.

“Oh no,” he laughed. “Why did you think I brought you with me? I have been working hard these past days. Now that the Vulture has left me in charge I am going to relax.”

He stood up and removed his cloth and dropped the drawers which were his only undergarment. He was naked. Nandzi looked away.

“Eh, young woman,” he said, “Are you shy? Have you never seen a man's thing before? Look, it is even standing for you.”

He washed his face in the warm water. Then he gave her the loofah and the ball of black soap.

“Start with my back,” he said. “Rub hard. It is days since I had a good bath. You know we Asante are not like you northerners. It is our custom to bath twice a day.”

As she scrubbed his back, Nandzi considered her position. She felt no attraction for this man. She had not been with any man since Abdulai had raped her. That rape had killed her desire. She flinched at the thought of being penetrated. But she could see no way out. Run away? To where, to what sanctuary? She knew no one in Kafaba. The man would set up a hue and cry for her and she would soon be caught. It was hard to be a slave. She had no choice.

He turned round.

“Now the front,” he said, holding up his arms so that she could soap his arm pits.

She bypassed his erect penis.

“Here too,” he told her, “But gently, mind you. Use your hand, not the sponge.”

He pulled off her cloth and grasped a breast in each soapy hand. She flinched.

“You are covered in dust,” he said. “Just rinse the soap off me. Then you had better bath too. Use my sponge.”

As he dried himself, Nandzi turned her back to him and soaped herself. It was a long time since she had had a good bath and she took her time, enjoying the warmth of the water and scrubbing the dust out of her skin. Then the man came from behind and took a breast in each hand. She felt the end of his instrument against her backside. Again she flinched. He rubbed his palms over her soapy nipples. She forced her mind away.

“Itsho,” she said in her own language, “There is nothing I can do. He is going to take me against my will. Help me if you can.”

“What is that you are saying? Have I not taught you Asante? Speak a civilised language to me,” Akwasi Anoma said to her.

When he had finished, but before he had withdrawn, he said, “What is the matter, child? Do you dislike me so much? This is a small thing between a man and woman. You must try better next time.”

Then he turned his back and soon he was snoring.

Nandzi was exhausted but she could not sleep. She felt humiliated and dirty.

“Itsho,” she whispered, “I could not help it.”

CHAPTER 7

The next day, while Akwasi Anoma was in the Upper Town eating his fufu, Damba's caravan entered Kafaba from the east and passed slowly down River Road.

Damba rode ahead, scanning the compounds left and right.

Nandzi was the first to see them. She was struck at once by the condition of her fellow slaves. They were clearly much the worse for wear: emaciated, dirty, exhausted and, so it seemed to her, desperately low in spirit. She searched the column for Minjendo, but the three hundred faces were mostly obscured by the bundles and baskets on their heads.

Damba found Nandzi before Nandzi could find Minjendo. He dismounted at once.

“Nandzi,” he asked, “How are you?”

Struck by the contrast with his own ragged, ill-clad charges, he continued, “You look well.”

As he spoke the words, he felt suddenly ashamed, ashamed of his slaves' condition and ashamed that, in spite of his affection for Nandzi, he had not had the courage to attempt to save her from servitude.
This commerce in human beings is a bad practice
, he thought.
When the Ya Na put me in charge of the caravan, I felt honoured.
Now all my ambition has gone sour: all I want to do is to go home and purge my memory of these bitter days, as I might scour my dusty body with caustic soap.

Nandzi had not answered.

“What! Have you lost your tongue?” he jested and then, examining her face more closely, “Is there something wrong?”

What sort of answer does this man expect of me?
Nandzi wondered, as she inspected her torn toe nails.
He saw me raped. He bound me to a pack horse. It is true that he permitted me to bury Itsho and kept me in his mother's house: for that I owe him; but if he and his fellows had never set out on their nefarious hunt for human beings, Itsho would still be alive and I would still be with my family.

She was in a dark mood. The business with Akwasi Anoma had upset her. The thought that Damba might be persuaded to help her to avoid having to spend another night with the coarse bird man flitted through her mind. She dismissed it. Damba took his orders from the Asante. Even in the remote event that he might succeed in rescuing her, she would then, more likely than not, end up having to sleep with him instead.
Men are all the same
, she thought.
Only Itsho was different. And Itsho is dead
.

Damba tried again.

“Where is Koranten Péte?” he asked.

“Kumase,” she answered curtly, raising her head and looking him straight in the eye.

“And who is in charge then?”

Akwasi Anoma had been sent for. Now he was approaching them.

“That man,” she said, pointing at him and spitting out the words as if they were some rotten food.

Akwasi Anoma saw and heard her.

“Bush woman,” he said. “You forget your status. Just remember that you are a slave. Point at me like that just once more and I will have some civilised manners whipped into you.”

Nandzi turned, expressed her contempt with a hiss, and went to search the column for Minjendo.

* * *

Minjendo was in a bad way, haggard and evidently ill.

She did not acknowledge Nandzi's greeting. Nandzi led her to the makeshift shelter by the cooking place. Her head load removed, Minjendo sank to the ground. Nandzi had to drag her into the shade. She sat with her head hung down between her knees. Nandzi brought her a bowl of water and helped her to drink. She spread one of her two cloths on the ground and made Minjendo lie on it. She took the corner of her other cloth, which she wore around her waist, dipped it in the water and wiped Minjendo's face.

The days which followed were a time of unceasing labour.

The three hundred slaves who had travelled on foot from Yendi had to be fed. The sick had to be nursed; wounds had to be dressed. Water had to be fetched from the river. Baskets of millet had to be carried down from the market. The shit of the chained men had to be collected and buried. Firewood had to be collected. The gruel which was the slaves' principal diet had to be cooked. The dying had to be comforted and the dead had to be buried.

Akwasi Anoma, nominally in charge, was of little help. He visited the encampment in the morning principally to give orders to the guards. The welfare of the slaves was of no concern to him. He regarded the responsibility which Koranten Péte had laid upon him as a license to indulge himself. He was often drunk by noon. Every afternoon he selected a different girl to service him.
At least
, thought Nandzi, resisting an impulse to intervene,
he has lost interest in me
.

Of Damba there was nothing to be seen.

The weakest of the slaves, the oldest and the youngest, died. The survivors responded to rest and to more regular meals, inadequate, unappetising and lacking in nourishment as they were. As the women regained their strength, more of them were able to share the work. There was no one to give them orders. The women who were willing, seeing Nandzi's example, came to her to volunteer their help. The men were a problem. She bullied the guards, persuading them to unshackle them in batches to let them have some exercise; but they were not allowed to help with the heavy work, for that would mean leaving the camp.

As darkness fell, Nandzi would wrap herself in her cloth and instantly fall into a deep dreamless sleep. At the first glimmer of light, she would be back at work.
I am working
, she thought with a grim smile,
like a slave
; but as the work force grew, she found that she was spending much of her time giving orders, not by choice, but simply because there was no one else to do so.

One day, when the sun had reached its zenith, she called a halt to all work and told her fellows to find some shade and rest until it was cooler. The guards did not interfere.

Minjendo watched her.

“Once you ran away. Now you are doing our masters' work for them,” she teased Nandzi.

She was stronger now, but Nandzi would not let her work.

“What else can I do? Our men are in chains. If we women do nothing, we shall all perish from hunger and thirst,” she answered.

She was secretly astonished at the role which circumstances had laid upon her shoulders. She had never before had to give orders, except to children.

“What are you thinking of?” asked Minjendo.

“Nothing, nothing. At least, nothing important,” replied Nandzi. “Perhaps some day I will tell you; but not now. Rather there is something you should tell me. I have not wanted to ask until now because you were not well. But now you seem much better.”

“What is it?” asked Minjendo.

“What happened on your journey to this place? You were quite strong and well when we parted outside Yendi; yet when you reached Kafaba you were so weak and ill that you didn't even recognise me.”

Now it was Minjendo's turn to be silent.

“You don't have to tell me. But maybe it will do you good to talk. We are all in this together now. None of us have family. We have to rely on one another.”