The Captain grabbed her. “Sarah, hold on or you’ll fall in.”
Maybe Fatmata had been taken across the big ocean too. Was not that what Ma Ayinde had told her the first time the Minos, the King’s women warriors, had come for Seyi and Memuna.
“Where are they taking them?” she had asked as the two women, dressed in white, were dragged away, screaming, from the compound.
“They have been chosen as sacrifice for the ‘watering of the grave’ ceremony today,” said Ma Ayinde, her voice low.
“Why don’t they use goats and chickens?”
“To honour the King’s ancestors? No. When they put white on you, it means your time has come. All of us in this compound,” she said, waving her hand around, “will wear white one day and be sacrificed as part of the ceremony.”
“When King Gezo bought me from the Arabs, he said I was safe here.”
“Child, you have a lot to learn.”
“My sister will come find me.”
“You have been here three rainy seasons, has she come? When they take us as slaves, we are either killed, sold again and again to the Arabs or to the white devils. They take us across the big water, never to return,” said Ma Ayinde, with a bitter laugh. “Your sister is gone. If she is not dead or sold to the Arabs, she will be far away across the big, big waters. Don’t know which is worse.”
Salimatu had never seen the “big water”, the ocean, before and here was water as far as her eyes could see. As they sat in the canoe, the water raced towards them, attacking, roaring, hungry. Just as she thought it would swallow them alive, it backed away slithering and sliding, hissing, only to come rushing back with greater power. It was like an animal with two heads that went both ways. Water splashed her face, she licked her lips and her eyes widened with surprise. It tasted of salt. On the long journey to Abomey she had learnt that salt was important, not just for cooking but for buying and selling. Did the white man have so much salt they could put it in all this water? Another wave hit the canoe and she let go of the side. Her gloved hand plunged into the furious ocean.
Salimatu pressed her wet hand to her chest. Her inside beat fast and underneath all her English clothes she could feel her gri-gri pouch tied with a string, around her neck. Inside it was her blue glass and a piece of her “white cloth”, her ala. They will protect her. That’s what Fatmata had said. She wished she could remember more of the things her sister had told her as they walked through the forest after they had been captured. She had eight harvest seasons now but she had seen only four harvest seasons then. Everything was fading away.
Before she could think about it any longer there was a shout. She looked over her shoulder and the ship, a huge thing, was there rocking and swaying, as if trying to shake everything off, like a big dog trying to get a monkey off its back. Memories came then of Madu and Jaja, her mother and father, as the ship rose high above her head, its poles and ropes cutting the sky up into small sections. Did they reach right into the sky? Could she climb up, squeeze through a hole in the sky and reach Madu and Jaja? To ask them . . . what? Was Fatmata up there too? Before she could catch the memories and hold them, they drifted off like smoke. She bit her lips to keep the words in.
A rope-ladder was thrown down from the ship. The canoe danced as the Captain began to climb the ladder with her in his arms. Shutting her eyes and trying not to breathe in the Captain’s smell, she clung on, till rough, hard hands, reached down, grabbed hold and took her from him. She still was not used to wearing so many clothes or shoes that hurt her feet. The sailor put her down, her feet slid on the wet deck and she reached for a rope to steady herself.
Captain Forbes rushed away, waving his arms about, shouting, telling the sailors what to do. The men called and whistled, pushed and pulled, their bodies, shiny with sweat, hauling up boxes and barrels. There were many men, running all over the ship, fast and busy, like ants, pink ants, building a nest. She had to keep away from them. Ants can sting.
One man rolled a barrel close by and she jumped out of the way, falling into the side of the ship. It was wet and she wriggled as she felt the water soak through her clothes. The movement of the ship made her stomach toss and turn. Above all the noise of the ship the call of the Ochoema, could be heard.
The wind blew her hat back and stroked her face. She smiled for it felt like it used to when Fatmata blew on her face and said, “Salimatu, I’m part of you and you are part of me because we have swallowed each other’s air. We will never be lost to each other.” She knew then that Fatmata had travelled on these waters. Why else had she come to her like this? She put her hand to her face and through the thin, now wet gloves they had made her put on, she felt the markings that had saved her.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned around.
“Come, Sarah. You cannot stay here.”
She shook her head. “Not Sarah,” she said, tapping her chest, “Salimatu. Me Salimatu.”
“No. I’ve told you. Sarah.” He pointed at her. “You are now Sarah Forbes Bonetta,” and tapping his chest he said, “Captain Forbes, I’m Captain Forbes. You understand?”
She tightened her lips but did not reply.
Bernardine Evaristo
A British-Nigerian writer, she has published eight books of fiction and verse fiction exploring the African diaspora and numerous other performed and produced works. She is also a literary critic, editor and writer for BBC radio. Her many awards and honours include an Arts Council Writers Award and a NESTA Fellowship Award for her 2001 verse novel The Emperor’s Babe, which was also a Times “100 Best Books of the Decade”, and was adapted into a BBC Radio 4 play. Her 2013 novel, Mr Loverman, won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize and the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction in the USA. In the 1980s she founded Britain’s first black women’s theatre company, Theatre of Black Women, and has since founded many other important diversity arts initiatives. She is Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and she was made MBE in 2009.
On Top of the World
I flew in across a sea packed with ice floes, the sky overcast but the sun shooting rays through the clouds like the dawn of creation, and arrived at surely the smallest airport in the world—an outsized shed stuck in a clearing of slush and gravel. There was seating for five inside and a middle-aged Inuit woman with a smile that responded rather than offered. She didn’t ask for my passport. She knew for sure I’d be returning home. Everyone did. England was equatorial compared to this most northerly part of the world where summer stabilized at just below freezing and winters plummeted to minus twenty.
Soon enough the helicopter was ready to take me on the last leg of my journey to a village for which it was the only access to the outside world, storms permitting—it and a ship that arrived yearly to off-load essentials like pre-fab houses, satellite dishes, vitamins and dried fruit. Nothing grew there except summer berries. The diet was, by necessity, carnivorous: seal, hare, polar bear, narwhal, muskox.
We took off across the mountains, the propeller whirring noisily as its blades chopped up the sky. The other passengers’ chatter annoyed me. I scowled. They politely turned away. I looked down at the earth beneath my feet where snowy mountains dipped and peaked and I fought the urge to activate the emergency lock and make the most dramatic exit—to free-fall with an exhilarated, fading-away scream.
An hour later we landed on the top of a hill side. The small village of Ittoqqortoormiit swooped up from a frozen fjord, its wooden bungalows all bright reds and yellows, prettily offset by a whole winter’s-worth of snow.
I trudged to the waiting taxi—a skidoo, best suited to a village with no roads, just icy, undulating pathways. The young driver wore a padded orange jumpsuit and beckoned me to climb aboard. I sat behind as he hurled the beast bumpily along with no regard for his novice passenger. I tried to complain but he feigned deafness, which was the story of my life. It was mid-morning, the village was deserted. Packs of sledge
-dogs chained up outside houses started howling like wolves as we zoomed past. There was no market here, only one store, no bars, no cinema, no Internet café or bingo hall. Just a school, a hospital, a police station.
We quickly arrived at my guide’s house, Isa, he who would lead me out into the wilderness. A stout man, in his mid-fifties, he had deep-set eyes which required probing to see behind, something I wasn’t prepared to do. He spoke in broken English and I was soon attired in bulky Arctic fashion: size nine boots to accommodate four pairs of woollen socks, thermal leggings, two pairs of fleece trousers underneath sealskin ones, a fleece jacket, a sealskin parka with fur hood, earmuffs, hat, scarves, goose-down mittens, and goggles. I felt as clumsy and heavy as a yeti, yet never more ready for my journey into the greatest unknown.
Isa led me out to his sledge and thirteen dogs who were straining at the leash. I kept my distance, as instructed, as he began to untie them from a long chain and hook each one up with bright green rope so that they spread out before the sledge in a wide fan. They went wild then, barking, jostling for space, desperate to set off, the strongest dogs were tugging at the helm. The sledge had a low sloping backrest against which I sat on bearskin which covered luggage, tents and sleeping bags. Hooked over the back were grubby plastic buckets containing the kitchen which was, basically, a kerosene fire and a single saucepan. Isa sat up front, between me and a tiny white boat where our provisions were stored. I was exposed to the elements and the seating was uncomfortable, but I didn’t mind.
Very quickly Isa was issuing orders to the dogs who began charging off across a fjord that was as interminable as an ocean. I couldn’t believe I was there, finally, that for thousands of kilometres northwards, there were no other humans, only an ice cap three thousand metres deep which was pushing the land back into the sea with its weight. And beyond that lay the Arctic Ocean and the North Pole.
We travelled across the frozen desert and out onto the sea ice which resembled frosted glass. It was scary at first. Far below I could hear the hollow rumble of water. When the ice was flat, the dogs raced ahead, tongues panting, releasing themselves on the job. It was a vision of flying, smelly excrement and jets of urine which formed beautiful, fluorescent-yellow flowers in the luminous snow. Sometimes the snow was so deep the dogs almost slowed to a full stop, or we came upon frozen waves which rose up in large, jagged lumps where the tide had pushed up against snow and solidified. The sledge ran over them and landed with a spine-shattering bump.
Sculpted icebergs a hundred feet high were always somewhere to be seen on the horizon. Calved from glaciers years ago, they sailed slowly downstream in summer, getting trapped in ice in winter before the melting water released them again. I never got used to the crystal-clear visibility which made everything appear nearer than it actually was. Icebergs half a day away looked like I could sprint there in a mere twenty minutes. On sunny days the ice was so bright it was blue.
I drowned in the cold voluptuousness of it all, feeling the space in my head open up. I didn’t wash for five days but to my surprise I barely noticed. We boiled snow for drinking water. It was delicious. I didn’t miss anyone or anything. How could I? This was the world as it should be—without mankind. This was the trip of my life and I would never feel such harmony again. This was my new beginning. I would not crave an afterwards.
Back home I called my local high road “The River of Phlegm”. I needed a wet suit just to wade to the post office. I’d begun to wear surgical gloves to avoid contact with the sticky residue of soiled fingers on shopping baskets, toilet handles or café tables. Then I stopped using public transport altogether. I had a little run-around, for sitting in traffic jams, mostly, to and from work. For two hours every working day I’d be trapped behind smoking exhaust pipes, assaulted by a cacophony of impatient horns in the kind of free-for-all jazz improvisation designed to give you a major headache. I’d be hypnotised by the rain dance of my leggy, knobbly-kneed window wipers. My “not waving but drowning” window wipers. Left, right, squeak. Left, right, squeak.
That was life before the letter plopped harmlessly through my letter box one Saturday morning a month ago:
Elizabeth Ekundayo/ As you are aware/ complaints/ due process/ and so we have no option/ terminate your contract . . .
After fifteen years of seeing the same faces every morning. The same friendly faces, I later realised. The people who heard my words, if not my thoughts.
Liking the cold is not in my DNA, but I’d been drawn to Greenland for years, to its emptiness. It was so different to the England I knew, where nobody really knew me, and the Nigeria I didn’t know, where my father had returned before I was born, two years before my mother died. I was not protected from the people I was told to call my parents. A plaything. I escaped at sixteen. I made my way.
On the sixth day, Isa hunted seal at the tide-crack, where the frozen sea met the flowing sea. He waited patiently, lying prostrate with his rifle for the head of a seal to bob up. When it did, he shot it. A soft plop making it flip onto its side. Blood gushed into the water, staining it red. The Inuit believe that an animal agrees to be killed. They enter into a contract with the hunter.
He got into the boat, rowed out and brought the seal back. He gutted and skinned it, throwing chunks to the slathering dogs, who devoured it in seconds. He cooked seal-ribs for dinner, accompanied by powdered mashed potato, our staple vegetable. It was a fine meal.
There’s an extended twilight here. It won’t get dark now until winter, when it stays dark for months. In summer the sun doesn’t set for months. This is the in-between time. This is spring. I shiver in my silver bubble tent. It must be minus twenty degrees. Isa sleeps in his tent on the other side of the dogs who are chained in a long line which is staked at both ends to prevent their night-time inter-canine battles. They’re used to me now, so they don’t create havoc when I appear outside my tent. We’re camped in front of a glacier. Spread out before me is an Arctic beach, stretching out to infinity. The snow is so dry and flat it’s like sand. An iceberg shaped like a ship rears against the sky. This is how I imagine the moon to be—so isolated, so strange, so utterly devastating.
I have removed my sealskin outerwear and put on my trainers. I won’t get very far in them, but I want to walk awhile, towards the iceberg, which is miles away. My footprints will be a record of where I have gone. If the ice doesn’t melt they might still be here next winter, and the next one, and the one afterwards. There’s a thought. Still here, somewhere.
The cold will numb my feet first, then creep up through my limbs and freeze me in the act of walking. I will become the most extraordinary ice sculpture. I will become one with the planet I came from. This is how I’ve long imagined it.
Diana Ferrus
Her poetry collection, I’ve come to take you home, was published in 2010. She is currently working on three collections of poetry, two in Afrikaans and one in English. She has attended numerous festivals locally and overseas. She is well known for her poem, “I’ve come to take you home” which was instrumental in the repatriation to South Africa of the remains of Sarah Baartman, an indigenous South African woman who was taken to Europe under false pretences.
I’ve come to take you home
A tribute to Sarah Baartman (written in Utrecht, Holland, June 1998)
I have come to take you home—
home! Remember the veld,
the lush green grass beneath the big oak tree?
The air is cool there and the sun does not burn.
I have made your bed at the foot of the hill,
your blankets are covered in buchu and mint,
the proteas stand in yellow and white
and the water in the stream chuckles sing-songs
as it hobbles along over little stones.
I have come to wrench you away—
away from the poking eyes of the man-made monster
who lives in the dark with his clutches of imperialism,
who dissects your body b
it by bit,
who likens your soul to that of satan
and declares himself the ultimate God!
I have come to soothe your heavy heart,
I offer my bosom to your weary soul.
I will cover your face with the palms of my hands,
run my lips over the lines in your neck,
feast my eyes on the beauty of you
and I will sing for you
for I have come to bring you peace.
I have come to take you home
where the ancient mountains shout your name.
I have made your bed at the foot of the hill.
Your blankets are covered in buchu and mint,
the proteas stand in yellow and white.
I have come to take you home
where I will sing for you,
for you have brought me peace,
for you have brought us peace
Glossary:
Buchu—a herb used by Khoi-khoi people for medicinal purposes
Mint—a herb also used for medicinal and cooking purposes
Proteas—the national flower of South Africa
Veld—wide open space
A woman’s journey to sanity
Past Wellington, past Worcester and Wolseley—
the monstrous peaks loom openmouthed.
The faces in windows whisper and mock—
“I have his report”, she wants to scream,
but the wind in the fields
through the Soutpansnek
denounces the verdict again and again—
“It’s not what she says, but what she does.”
New Daughters of Africa Page 23