Blonde Roots (28 page)

“Lissan hard, Sista. Trik to eskapin dis place is to avoid de forest becorze it like trap an dose hounds will sniff yu out. Yu hav to hed fe de riva when de festival iz in full swing an de gards slak becorze dem don’t suspect anybuddee be tryin to eskape. Moment yu start a-walk, scatta peppa to confuze de dogs. Den, hed fe de riva an keep to it. Wade in de wata, Doris, member to wade in de wata, becorze dat way dose bludhownds neva pik up de scent an yu larfin all de way to dat place call Freedom Kuntree.

“Whatever happen, Doris, member to wade in de wata.”

Adrenaline made me feel as if I’d slept a full night.

The first thing I did when I got into work, the office, was to sort out Nonso’ s accounts. Where money had been withdrawn and was unaccounted for, I entered it under a new heading—Gambling Debts.

That should do the trick.

I did follow one of his instructions to the letter. I made Yao and Dingiswayo disappear from the records.

Then I printed up a fake account sheet to show Nonso, although King Shaka told me that our boss was in such a panic about Bwana’ s visit he’d spent all night hitting the bottle again. He’d spend all day sleeping it off, I replied, confident that surrogate mummy was taking care of business.

Nonso needed me, the woman who had looked after him as a child, and in his fugged-up state he had no choice but to trust me.

Once I’d stitched the pair of them up, I realized I had to take the milky-white sap of the oleander plant with me when I hit the high road, because if my neat little plan went awry, nobody would get a chance to roast me over a fire, alive or not, thank you very much.

King Shaka was in and out of the office all day like a man on a mission. In between running errands for Massa Rotimi who was coordinating the welcome-home party, he’d been sorting out my Great Escape.

Magik’ s men had been contacted via talking bagpipes and responded. We were set to go at the end of the morrow.

Yao and Dingiswayo were to be taken to the mountain cave that night by King Shaka.

We agreed that when I finished in the office, I’d go down to the quarter to tell Ye Memé and Ma Marjani our plans, which I was dreading.

I’d then ask Qwashee if he wanted to come too.

(I hoped the Frank-Qwashee conundrum would sort itself out.)

I left the fake accounts information for Nonso on the desk, should he wake up and remember what he’d asked me to do before he drank himself into oblivion again.

IT WAS PITCH BLACK when I made the trip back down the logwood drive. I held a candle before me, flicking off a plague of irksome midges, and found myself entangled in the luminous blue threads of glowworms that hung from the trees to catch their prey. As I stepped on twigs, it felt like I was crushing tiny bird bones. I prayed I’d avoid an encounter with the snakes and poisonous spiders that crept freely around the grounds in the absence of human sound.

I was leaving Nonso’ s palatial quarters for the spartan world of the slaves’ quarter, and as I got nearer I could hear laughter and song: “Don’t sit unda de appal tree, Wid anyone else but mi, Anyone else but mi, anyone else but me.”

People were staying up late, enjoying the prospect of a three-day holiday.

They’d be so happy.

When I entered that intense, noisy, throbbing, overcrowded society, it was as a changed woman.

In less than two days, the inconceivable had happened.

I had found a sister.

I had become an aunt thrice over.

I was making my second bid for freedom.

I had carried out a serious act of sabotage, and I would soon meet the man I’d once truly loved.

Above all, I had discovered the fate of my family.

There would be no family reunion around the fire, no toasting muffins over it, no singsong and bashing of pans.

Now that it was gone, I realized how much I was embedded in the past.

I had to let it go because there was no future in it.

But to let go of hope? After so long?

I was tearing up inside, but I had to hold myself together.

For myself and the boys.

Until we were free.

Then, and only then, would I allow myself to grieve.

I FOUND YE MEMÉ and Ma Marjani waiting for me, both in their dirty work-a-day wrappas, sitting with King Shaka behind some bushes some distance from the silk cotton tree, which was noisy with revelers. As soon as I sat down, he slipped away to wait in the shadows.

This was my call.

After even the shortest time in the airy upper echelons of plantation society, my field worker friends suddenly seemed so downtrodden, so grungy, so deeply unpampered.

The quarter looked so ramshackle too, so damned poor.

“Hark! Look what de cat drag in!” was Ye Memé’s cut-eye greeting to me before she produced the loudest, most disgusted, most vulgar, most extended tchups ever directed at a human being.

I thought she was going to land one on me and was prepared to duck.

Instead she went to stand up as if to make a dramatic departure, changed her mind, sat herself back down again and with much arm-waving proceeded to get it off her chest.

“Yu iz one ungrateful woman, Miss Omo. Yu iz a lyar an a deceeva. Mi did tek gud-gud care of yu an mek yu mi speshal frend when all dis time yu been keepin big-big sekret. What!? Yu wurk in Bwana house as hiz pursonal hassistance bak dere ova de wata an neva did tell mi? How yu tink dat mek mi feel to hear from odder peepal when I should be de furz to know? Yu iz one snake in-a de grass, laydee!”

It was so good to see her again, in spite of her tirade. I knew that as soon as she let off steam, the valve would be just as quickly turned down and her rage would fizzle out. I had grown to love her and Ma so much. But I was afraid of what I had to tell them.

The bottom line was that they were about to lose their sons.

As best I could, I tried to explain myself to my two friends. How I didn’t want to be singled out as different. How I never thought anyone would find out about my past because I was consigned to field work forever. I even told them that I didn’t think they were interested in my life back in Londolo, because whenever I spoke of the capital city, they changed the subject. This had made me feel insignificant, I said, laying it on a bit thick. Worthless. Unaccepted.

The women, so used to occupying the moral high ground, were taken aback that they could be at fault here. While they were in this doubting state, I broke the news about Yao and Dingiswayo’ s imminent sale overseas and my plan to thwart it.

Ye Memé seemed helpless in the moments that followed. My friend, who was so powerful at times she almost appeared superhuman, could do absolutely nothing to alter the fact that two more of her children were going to be taken away forever.

Watching her break down was awful. Ye Memé, the strongest woman I had ever known, lost it. She screwed up her face and emitted a silent scream. She threw herself onto the ground, thumped it with her fists. She clawed at the soil and grabbed fistfuls and stuffed them into her mouth, spitting them out when they choked her.

Ma Marjani put a hand over her mouth and tried to restrain her. King Shaka and I joined in until she became subdued.

All four of us then wept.

King Shaka too, who, some sixty years after he had been kidnapped, still thought about his family back in Margate every day.

The revelers under the tree hadn’ t heard a thing.

Finally she sat up and spoke, looking as vulnerable as any adult could.

“Mi betta go say gudbye to mi sons. Miss Omo, yu tell Mista Magik to com fe mi an de rest of mi pikney when dey iz olda. Mi nyot stay here no more if mi can help it. Dis iz too much fe a woman a-tek. Iz time fe Ye Memé to find some freedom. Ma, yu comin?”

“No! Mi stayin” came the adamant, injured reply.

Ma’s whole world was falling apart.

“Ma Marjani ain’t climbin no mountanes or gettin tortcha if kaptcha. An mi tink it de best ting a-happen fe Dingiswayo, by de way. We lose dat bwoy but freedom mek a betta man out-a him, away from dose wotless gang boys he admire an aspire.”

She paused, muttering, “If him reach…”

I stood to go, never more energized, never more exhausted.

WHEN QWASHEE OPENED HIS DOOR, wading out of the stupor of sleep, the irritation that flickered across his features was quickly superseded by relief. When he saw me, he hugged me warmly but when I told him my plan, he held me at arm’ s length.

He then revealed a backbone I wasn’t, up to that point, quite sure he even possessed.

“Yu want me fe up stiks an go off on wild-goose chase? Yu expect me to mek instant desishun to risk mi life? Yu know how lawng it tek mi to aks yu to come a-courtin? Mi ponda it fe ova a year, dat’s how lawng. Mi need time to mull it ova but yu don’t give me time. Iz dat reasonabal?”

Nothing about our lives is reasonable, Qwashee.

WE SPENT THAT NIGHT as if it were our last.

Ripe, red pinches stained the glutes of his thin, hard thighs.

Crab-claw scratches ran down his bony back.

I sucked the blood out of his neck.

“Yu iz one pashanate woman dis nite,” he whispered.

“No—furious,” I grunted, leaving tooth marks on his shoulders.

MY LAST MORNING on the plantation arrived and Qwashee still hadn’t made up his mind.

I left him before he awoke, knowing that the boys were my priority.

Wotless man!

The whole quarter was awake before dawn, as normal.

Instead of the usual mass exodus up the hill, however, people pottered around their huts, the air bristling with expectation. After a late night, people were in conservation mode, saving their spirits for the drinking, dancing and loving-up that would last the next three glorious days.

Ye Memé didn’t emerge all morning.

I took care of Lolli, while Ma Marjani looked after Inaani, Akiki and Cabion.

BY EARLY AFTERNOON a messenger ran in announcing that Bwana would shortly enter the gates of the estate:

“Boss-man comin! Git in line! Boss-man comin! Git in line!”

I was playing hopscotch with Lolli, one of my steps equaling two of hers. I tried to match her shrill giggles as if I too was having the greatest fun in the whole wide world.

I dreaded to think what was going to happen to her when her bones stretched lengthways and female curves began to round off her vertical planes.

Would she even have that long?

YE MEMÉ STAGGERED OUT of the darkness of the hut into the glare, rubbing her eyes.

While Ma lined the children up, I snatched Lolli from where we were playing and put her down outside the hut. I held her tight against my legs, my arms clasped over her chest.

My peripheral vision registered Qwashee watching me.

Everyone wore Sunday best, which visitors to the plantation always found quaint. They kept readjusting their garments: realigning the waists of ruffled white skirts, smoothing down calico breeches, retying elaborate headscarves, wiping sweat off foreheads and upper lips.

The singing must have begun at the gates. We picked it up and amplified it—just as the chariot of the gods appeared over the hill:

Bwana was in a kind of gold-plated, open-top carriage more suited to the flashy metropolis than the outback. He wore a leopard-skin cape and feathered headdress. A heavy gold chain with a massive gold pendant in the shape of a ram’s head hung between his not inconsiderable breasts.

At his side was Bamwoze, who looked amused.

Sitting in the seat opposite was Nonso, who didn’t.

Walking in front were two Ambossan men who conducted a head count of the workforce.

The carriage moved at a trot to where I stood.

My arms tightened around Lolli.

Bamwoze was initially surprised when he saw his former nanny. This soon gave way to a patronizing shake of his head which read,
You certainly ballsed it up, didn’t you?

Nonso flashed me a look intended to reaffirm a contract he imagined we had agreed upon.

Bwana, who would have been expecting to see me, was nonetheless taken aback. He arrested a gasp just in time to keep his composure. Maybe it was that I looked so different? Or he suddenly recalled my flogging? Did he feel guilt? Sympathy? Doubt?

The chink in his armor encouraged me to look up at him with the kind of kamikaze boldness I’d last displayed when I’d had my final face-off with Little Miracle. While appearing to sing the welcoming song, I mouthed something so vile that even if Bwana couldn’t lip-read, he’d still get the message.

It worked. He looked embarrassed. Take that, bastard! He switched his attention onto Ye Memé, who stood at my side singing her heart out. He bestowed a flustered proprietorial nod of recognition upon my friend as the wheels of his carriage continued to roll on around a corner.

At which point there was a communal sigh of relief, people fanned themselves with their hands or sank to their knees to take five.

Not me, though. I wasn’t unduly sticky or hot, nor did I have the shakes.

I couldn’t afford to.

THEN THE FESTIVITIES BEGAN.

Barrels of rum and beer were rolled down the lanes, and carts of food arrived. There was so much of everything: conch soup with coco bread, rice with red kidney beans, chiken-a-palm-wine, mash-up sweet potato, Welsh rarebit, gizzada tarts filled with shredded coconut, duckanoo dessert.

Once people had stretched their guts to full capacity they began to work off the calories. They swayed hips and stamped feet, clapped hands and shook rattles, banged drums and played fiddles. They blew into raspy flutes made from reeds, and bagpipes made from leather, and trumpets made from metal tubes, and mouth organs made from wood. They thumbed the fingers of the mbira and ran sticks up and down the serrated grooves of washboards and started up line dances and “ole-kuntree” dances and supple-hipped Ambossan dances.