The Devil that Danced on the Water

by Aminatta Forna

  ‘She just wants to show him what colour panties she has on . . .’

  And they were gone. The words floated on the air behind them, like an unpleasant odour, along with the sound of their laughter. Four of them swept off in the direction of the classrooms. I felt the heat in my cheeks; shame buzzed in my ears. I glanced at Eddie and our eyes met for a moment, then slid past each other. We sat there in silence. The bell went.

  ‘Come on.’ Eddie scrambled to his feet. ‘Let's go.’

  At home I had begun to watch my stepfather with growing interest. He was, in the main, a remote figure who left our day-to-day care to our mother and the servants. In turn I paid him scant attention, until one afternoon. The three of us were playing alone in the garden. A man slipped through the hedge. He wasn't young; he had skinny legs and leathery skin. In his hands he was carrying a large hoop and a gourd. He didn't appear to notice, or perhaps care, that we were watching him as he crossed the garden. At the base of one of a pair of palm trees he opened up his hoop and slipped it around the trunk and around his waist. Then, as we watched with growing wonder, he leaned back, pushed himself off and ran straight up the sloping trunk of the tree like a cat. At the top he took out a knife and cut a V deep into the bark of the tree, below which he fastened a gourd. He dropped down the tree even faster than he had climbed up. He loosened his hoop and clasped it around the second tree. When he came back down he was carrying a gourd: this one was full of palm sap.

  In the evening when our stepfather came home we told him what we had witnessed. Uncle Win said he was a thief. Our eyes danced with the thrill of it. A thief?

  ‘What will we do if we see him again?’ we asked all together.

  ‘You come and find me, and I'll shoot him.’ Upstairs in a drawer on the landing our stepfather kept a pair of muskets. Sheka found them and showed them to us one day. They had curved wooden handles, decorated with brass studs, and long, dark metal barrels. Each one was wrapped in a soft cloth. I picked one up; it was very heavy, a dead weight in my hands. I had a sense that our stepfather was telling the truth. I began to hope I wouldn't see the palm-sap thief again. I didn't want to be responsible for his death.

  From then on I watched my stepfather closely whether he was moving about the house or sitting going through papers from his open briefcase and drinking beer. I noticed that when he stood he put his hands on his hips, sometimes both hands, sometimes just one. He walked around like that, too, especially when he was looking for something. I thought it looked impressive, grown up. I practised walking the same way around the house; eventually I took my walk to school.

  At Corona the toilets were at the end of the walkway that ran alongside the classrooms. One afternoon I excused myself from class. As I walked towards the toilets I practised my new walk, keeping one hand on my hip, when I spotted ahead of me the four big girls who had been so nasty the day in the playground. They were standing by the cubicles. Determined not to show I was flustered, but that I meant business, I put my other hand on my hip and advanced. They began to laugh. At first a titter passed from girl to girl, like the crackle of a bush fire sweeping through grass, then someone snickered openly. I wanted to run, but I managed to keep moving, forcing myself to place one reluctant foot in front of the other. I kept my hands right where they were on my hips. I dived into the cubicle just as they began to laugh out loud and I sat there in the dark until the bell rang and the girls moved off to their next class.

  The next morning, as she rubbed lotion onto my legs, I told my mother what had happened. She picked up a wide-toothed comb and began to do my hair, working carefully through the tangles of my natural corkscrew Afro. Every time the comb snagged, I winced. My mother rubbed palmfuls of Vaseline hair oil into the mass to make it manageable. She reset my parting and combed each side, now shiny and slick, before plaiting it. All the while I described the unkindness I had suffered at the hands of the bullies. When I had finished she asked: ‘Were they African girls?’

  ‘Yes.’ Because they were.

  ‘I don't want you to talk to the African girls any more.’ She picked up a ribbon to finish off the plait.

  My back was turned to her and I couldn't see her face. I wasn't sure I understood. ‘The mean girls?’

  ‘None of the African girls.’ She tied the ribbon in a bow.

  I couldn't see at all where this was heading. I persisted: ‘Not to any of them?’

  ‘No, not to any of them.’ My hair was finished now. My mother turned me round to face her, and bent down placing her hands on my shoulders. She looked into my face. ‘I want you to remember that you're half white.’ She stroked my cheek. ‘You're better than those girls. Don't you talk to them or play with them. And don't let them upset you.’

  I had forgotten that morning until, years later, I came across a letter buried within a pile of documents in a drawer. The letter was from my mother to my father, written either shortly before or just after their divorce. ‘You accuse me of having a colonial mentality,’ she wrote, denying it angrily in the sentences that followed. Further down the page she charged my father, in turn, with hating white people. I read through the letter, and as I stood there with it in my hand I glimpsed for the first time the whispering spectres that crowded in from the edges of my parents’ marriage.

  No more brown bread, white bread. I was five. I was just beginning to understand, or rather to realise, what the difference was between me and the girls at school. And how that same difference separated me from my mother.

  In Sierra Leone my mother's white skin earned her deference and contempt in equal measure. The poor people looked up to her, for she was educated and white. But there was no place for a woman like her among her own people: a woman who had chosen a black husband and birthed black babies. Far away from the city, in the simmering tension of Koidu, her skin set her apart, glaring hopelessly, shouting her presence to predators like an albino deer, with none of the camouflage of the herd.

  In Nigeria her skin marked her as one of the elite, set her apart from the masses in the right way. It was like a protective barrier which diffused experience, allowed for adventures to be viewed as if from behind glass. She would travel the world by my stepfather's side, but never come close enough again to smell the rank sweat of humanity or suffer, like a contagion, the fear of the ordinary African who lives and dies at the mercy of his rulers and the elements.

  I went back to school and ostentatiously turned my nose up at the black girls. I soon got into a fight. In front of Mrs Sami I defended myself: the girls were mean to me, and besides, they were Africans. I uttered the word with contempt: I fully expected her to understand. I couldn't believe it when Mrs Sami sent me to sit on a bench outside the classroom for the rest of the day.

  In the months before Christmas rehearsals began at Corona for the end-of-term play. We were to perform The Pied Piper of Hamelin and the castings were held in the main hall. Everyone in the school would be given a part. It was to be a musical performance and Memuna and Sheka, who were in the choir, had the honour of being on stage the whole way through.

  Eddie and I and the rest of our class went along to see what parts we might be given. There was tremendous excitement for most of us had never acted in a play before. In the end we were all handed not one but three roles in the play and kitted out with our costumes. We had loose brown tunics which we fitted over our heads and tied at the waist with a piece of string. These were to be worn in the first act, when we played the townspeople as they complained to the mayor about the rats. To identify us by occupation we had a our props; I was a baker and mine was a loaf of bread. On the night I would have a real loaf, Mrs Sami assured me, but for the rehearsals I carried a couple of books inside a brown paper bag. In the next scene I played a rat, and the piece of string doubled as a tail. Mrs Sami pinned it to the back of my dress and it trailed after me as I followed the piper out of the village, wearing a pair of cardboard ears. In the final scene I was one of the village children who follows the piper's encha
nting melody into a faraway cave and disappears for ever.

  As Christmas crept closer our mother and Uncle Win were out almost every evening, even more than usual. If they didn't go out they invariably entertained at home. In the evening after the steward gave us our bath and once we were in bed our mother, dressed for dinner or cocktails, came in to say goodnight. She wore dresses in vivid colours – tangerine or lime – and carried tiny, matching handbags. Her tanned skin shone against her neckline and her jewellery sparkled.

  ‘Mummy, you look beautiful,’ we cooed.

  She kissed Sheka and Memuna first and me last because I was closest to the door, leaving us all with Careless Coral lipstick prints on our lips and noses. She sat on the low edge of my sofa and tucked me in. When the door closed behind her the scent of her perfume hung heavy in the air.

  Our mother accompanied our stepfather to luncheons, garden parties, cocktails, dinners. While she was out the servants were supposed to take care of us, but they were no more interested in us than we were in them. They had plenty of chores and when they weren't working they went back to their quarters, leaving us alone in the big house. We played on the kitchen roof and in the street, under the boots of soldiers, and we raided the little pantry off the kitchen on the eve of dinner parties, stealing fancy foods and dainties prepared for VIP guests.

  One afternoon Sheka called us out onto the upstairs veranda. On the green painted floor he had assembled a small pile of paper and twigs. In his hand he held a box of matches. Memuna and I knew what was coming; we knelt down, pushing our faces close to the miniature bonfire. He struck the pink tip of the match against the sandpaper and set the flame to the edge of a piece of paper. As it browned, a curl of smoke the shape of a question mark lifted into the air and released the delicious smell of burning. The smell was so good we sometimes lit match after match just to inhale it and my sister even ate the blackened ends afterwards.

  We watched in silence as paper and twigs transformed into a leaping crown of orange and yellow before deflating into a pile of black ashes. Afterwards Sheka brushed up the cinders, leaving another star-shaped scorch mark on the floor. My mother saw them, knew what we were up to, but she said nothing.

  On the weekend we went to the Yacht Club to visit Santa in his grotto. The temperature in Lapland was upwards of ninety degrees and the humidity caused the fake snow to slip down the window panes. I was wearing a skirt and so Santa gave me a blue plastic doll. Memuna, who happened to be in shorts, got a water pistol and refused to swap with me even when I pleaded. ‘But you don't even want to be a boy!’ I cried.

  On the night of our performance I danced after the piper and hid in the wings during the closing scene. On the stage the people of Hamelin searched for their children, wailed and screamed with despair when they realised they were gone for good. They were doing a good job. I wondered where the children went to after the cave door shut, and the one lame boy was left outside. I imagined they would grow up in some enchanted kingdom deep inside the mountain where they would remain eternally young. I imagined the piper's enchantment would last for ever.

  From where I was standing I could see all the parents watching their children. I searched for my mother's face. I wanted to wave to her, but we were supposed to be in the dark cave, the entrance of which had been sealed by a boulder. So I contented myself with watching her until after the curtain calls, when we all climbed down from the stage and ran into the audience to find our parents.

  Towards the end of the following term, one day after school, we were playing in our room when we heard a voice coming from downstairs. It was deep, mellifluous and as familiar as my own face. We leaned over the balcony until we could see through the open sitting-room door. I saw a pair of legs outstretched and crossed at the ankle, grey trousers, dark socks and polished laced shoes. Daddy! We ran down the stairs and hurtled into the room, throwing ourselves upon him.

  Our father was on his way through Lagos on an official trip. His position took him all over the world. In a year he had transformed himself from a medical doctor to a finance minister fêted as one of Africa's brightest and best. His speeches to the world banking conferences received massive ovations; he had spoken up for poor countries against the cartel of the World Bank, the IMF and the rich nations; he had been profiled in newspapers and West Africa magazine as the great black hope of our country and of our continent. We hadn't seen him for over a year.

  He had brought us comics – the Robin for me, and copies of Look & Learn. Afterwards we all went swimming together in the pool at his hotel. Much later, but still too soon, after soft drinks and ice cream, he brought us back to the house and kissed us goodbye, promising to return soon.

  My sixth birthday followed soon after. My mother pulled out all the stops and organised a celebration in the garden. It was the sort of thing at which she excelled. For my brother's birthday she had made a whole fire engine out of chocolate rolls. When it was my turn she asked who I wanted to invite and sent a card to every child we knew, including Eddie. She wrapped a parcel in dozens of layers of paper for a game of pass the parcel and hid bright boiled sweets among the colourful tropical flowers in the garden. From the moment I woke up to a pile of presents the day passed in a sugar-fuelled whirl until, at the end of the afternoon, for the finale, we were all sent scrambling in search of the sweets hidden in the borders. The next morning I found an orange drop, sticky from the dew, crawling with ants, but I brushed them off and sucked it all the same.

  Three days later, in the early afternoon, Mrs Sami called me to one side of the class. I was led out to the front of the building, where our stepfather's driver was waiting; Sheka and Memuna were already there. We drove slowly through the streets and turned into the gate of our house. This was not exactly unusual. Our mother sometimes organised trips for us and collected us from school early. But as soon as I walked through the front door it was apparent that something was terribly wrong. There was our father, standing in the hall. Upstairs in the bedroom our mother was packing three suitcases.

  The joy of seeing my father and the sight of my mother's tears overwhelmed me. Moments later she kissed me as she said goodbye. I nuzzled her neck, smelled for the last time the sweet, sugar scent of her skin, of face cream and perfume, tasted the salt of her tears. Then we climbed into the back of a large, open-top Mercedes Benz and I sat in between my brother and sister, my head tilted back to let the howls escape; tears flooded my eyes.

  My mother's lips were moving, but I couldn't hear what she was saying to me. Everybody around me was moving so quickly. Our father climbed into the front and we pulled out of the gate, leaving her standing alone at the porch. I didn't even manage to wave goodbye.

  As the car sped down the avenue the warm wind blew into my face. The sensation made me lift my head; briefly it chased away my misery. I stopped crying. Rows of trees, people, houses moved past. I looked around in silence and sat up properly, my tears dried on my face. I could see all around me, above and behind. I turned my head slowly and gazed at the disappearing road, looked up at the sky latticed with branches. All was forgotten for an instant. I was deeply, overwhelmingly impressed by the car.

  We stayed overnight in a hotel in Lagos, where we all shared the same room. Our father unpacked our pyjamas and prepared us for bed. In the white, tiled bathroom he wanted to help me clean my teeth, but I showed him I could do it myself now. After we said goodnight I lay quietly between the cotton sheets and watched my father as he rummaged about in his own small suitcase. He had his back to me and thought I was asleep. I could see his hands as he brought out his night things: strong fingers with slightly spatula-shaped ends. My eyes followed him as he carefully closed the suitcase and put it on the floor and then padded across to the bathroom, trying not to make any noise. My mind was free of thoughts. I was fixated, engaged in a simple process: I was committing my father to memory again, in the same way I memorised my letters and numbers at school, by staring at them until they were imprinted on my mind. I watch
ed him as he came back into the room dressed only in his boxer shorts. He didn't see me with my eyes open as he slipped in between the sheets of the bed next to mine and turned out the light.

  20

  The day hovered between light and dark, colour ebbed from the houses and trees. The yard slowly transformed into monochrome tones of grey. The sun's gold had given way to a lesser, silver light. And as daylight dropped away the subtle shift in the hierarchy of the senses began: the sounds of darkness. Somewhere close to me a solitary cricket whirred as loud as a football rattle. The hot air was noisy, turbulent with wings. Birds dropped down onto the branches just as bats rose from the same trees, butterflies sank to the ground and flew up again as moths. It was a humid evening, and the damp coated my bare arms.

  The voices of the evening traders drifted across from the streets. The sellers were all children and they walked round the houses at dusk, their bowls and baskets upon their heads, singing in recitative: ‘Ah get de fry fry!’ ‘Ker-o-sine-ay!’ ‘Mina ya, mina ya, mina ya!’ – fried akara, kerosene and minnows. Some of them were my friends, and they had been playing with me up until a few minutes ago, leaping across the piles of gravel. They had raced back home to fetch their wares and join the promenade; they walked slowly under the heavy baskets, kwashiorkor stomachs protruding, like pompous old men carrying their paunches before them.

  When he lived with Teacher Trye our father and the other wards used to sell wood in the hours after school. They were supposed to collect the firewood from the forest first, but one day they were too busy playing to be bothered with their chores. In the evening they had no wood to sell, and so they crept out and tried to steal a few bundles from the lorries that travelled down from the forest logging sites and parked up on the main road into town. The boys stripped bare so that they blended into the dark like eels at the bottom of the sea and smeared their bodies in cooking oil so they couldn't be caught. Even so they only narrowly escaped. When he told the story our father laughed out loud at the idea of them, scrambling up the bank, butt naked, chased by the furious driver.