by Yaba Badoe
His clothes may be spotless, but a pong of booze oozes from his pores as I slip closer to get a sniff of what’s eating him. I dip inside him and sense a deep sadness coiled around his heart. Shiver, ’cause underlying his pain, a trace of menace infests him like fruit flies hovering over figs. Could be those ghosts aren’t just haunting him, but riding him to wear him down.
Isaka rolls open the newspaper he’s placed on the dining table and picks up the dagger. Turns it around as tears roll down his cheeks. ‘This has been in my family for generations. What exquisite workmanship.’
He stands, walks to the balcony to admire his heirloom in sunlight. I follow and watch, enchanted by the flash of diamonds as he twists the dagger.
‘I was supposed to sell this to the highest bidder and send the money back home to my family in Mali. It was not meant to be. We gave you our most precious possessions, my child. Do you want to know why?’
From the tone of his voice, I reckon he’s going to tell me, whether I want to know or not. ‘We did what we had to, my dear, because we believed we were at the end of our journey and we wanted one of us, at least, to survive. We faced eternity and gave you the best of ourselves.’ He pauses and his mouth twitches in a bitter smile. ‘But I survived. I appreciate your gesture, my child, but I believe there was much more than this in your treasure chest.’
He walks back to the table and sits down. I pad behind him, take Mamadou’s flute out of my rucksack, place it on the table. Isaka looks at me with those weary eyes of his, rolls his brother’s flute back to me, and says: ‘The diamonds and gold. I … they want it back. All of it.’
It doesn’t seem right to take back gifts made on behalf of so many people. His intentions are clear enough, for those unseen entities lingering about us respond. A cloud covers the sun. A sea breeze slams a door shut and Priss hisses. The shadows deepen and converge as, almost imperceptibly at first, the diamond-studded dagger on the table starts to turn. Gently, then picking up pace, it moves faster and faster, until it’s a whirl of blinding, translucent light. Cobra stands up; his chair falls to the ground.
‘Stop it! Whatever you’re doing, stop it!’ Isaka shouts.
He leaps from the table the moment I do. The moment the dagger, twizzling in a luminous haze, rises shoulder-high, and then flashes past his ear into the wall behind. It judders, turns and drills deeper, until all that’s visible is its dazzling hilt.
Isaka crumples to the floor as though he’s been stabbed, shredded into tiny, irretrievable pieces. ‘Can’t you hear them?’ he cries.
I hear a noise like wind-tossed leaves in autumn, the light patter of invisible feet and with it the stench of rotting mangoes that always fills my dreams. Time stops, and we’re trapped in the slow-motion glow of a total eclipse.
Isaka crawls under the table. Legs hunched beneath his chin, he hugs himself tight.
Cobra takes my hand, squeezes my fingers as a question surfaces in his mind: ‘Is this what you were talking about last night, Sante?’
Doesn’t say it; he thinks it. My attention focused on Isaka, there’s no time to reply. I reassure the African before I do anything else. Crouch down to his level. My hand on his hand. My hand on his shoulder.
‘Can you hear them? Can you hear them?’ Isaka whispers.
‘I hear them,’ I reply. ‘They can’t hurt you. Ghosts can’t hurt anybody, ’cause they’re ghosts. Isn’t that so, Cobra?’
‘They can’t hurt you,’ Isaka wails, ‘because they’re after me.’
Somehow, though he grovels and resists, Cobra and I help Isaka out from under the table. Cobra sits him on a chair while I pull the dagger out of the wall. Tug and pull, till the spirits relent, and allow me to wrench it out. There’s a hole in the plaster. I try to give the dagger back to Isaka, but he shrinks from me, petrified. No way will he touch it. He won’t touch me either, won’t even look at me.
Cobra, about to flee, wraps the dagger in newspaper and dumps it on the table. Then he picks up my rucksack and takes my hand. I push him away. I haven’t come this far, defied Mama Rose and the Old Ones, withheld information from them, to leave without getting the answers I’m after. I have to know. I have to find out as much as I can about my first family.
I kneel in front of Isaka, grab hold of his chair and pin him down, so he has to look at me: ‘Tell me about my mother and father. What were they like? What were they doing on that boat?’
Isaka shuts his eyes. He covers his ears again and then lashes out. Hits me hard on the chin and I tumble to the floor. Priss swoops into the room. Slaps Isaka’s face with a wing, extends her talons to claw his eyes. I scream loud as a banshee: ‘No! Priss. No!’
Bird clucks over me as Cobra helps me up. ‘Go, Priss.’ I tell her. ‘Wait outside.’
‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ Cobra urges.
‘This is my call. My family!’
I defy him a second time and fix my gaze on Isaka. He’s shaking like a leaf. His fear’s contagious, for Cobra, voice shrill with tension, tells me to hurry it up. I can’t move. Can’t sever this last link with the family that brought me into the world.
‘Please,’ I say to Isaka. ‘Please tell me what you know about my parents.’
I’m on my knees, begging him for a few words, a few details to help me better understand where I come from, when Cobra puts my rucksack on his back. Tugs at me, tries to heave me on to my feet again, but I won’t budge. Not while Isaka’s rocking in his chair. Back and forth he goes, places a finger on his lips, starts to stutter.
‘Tell me. Tell me,’ I insist.
His eyes remain closed. Too scared to look at me, I suppose, in case the moment he opens his eyes, he sees those ghosts loitering, waiting for another chance to pounce on him.
‘You look like your mother,’ he says, his eyes still shut. ‘Amma. Her name was Amma. From Ghana. Your parents came from the Guinea coast, my child, and they brought with them everything they possessed to make a fresh start in Europe. Your father carried a pouch of gold dust and diamonds with him. By profession he was a goldsmith, a jeweller to an Ashanti king. Most of the treasure in your cot was your father’s. And they paid for it with their lives.’
Isaka opens his eyes, looks straight ahead, but instead of seeing me, fastens on a scene locked inside him. The scene tumbles into me, and I see what he’s seeing, feel the sharp twist of his emotions as he gazes on faces beaded with sweat, eyes bright with terror.
We’re in the entrails of the boat. People are stumbling, falling over, clutching each other. Men, women, children. The hull of the trawler crashes open, and torrents of water gush in. I see it and feel Isaka’s abject horror at the sudden rush of seawater sluicing underfoot.
Water’s rising, rising fast as he pulls a suitcase from a locker above. Gropes inside, finds the dagger and places it in my cradle. Says kind words to me, turns as his brother pitches forwards and slips the bamboo flute beneath my blanket.
‘Mamadou, stay with me,’ Isaka commands.
Mamadou clings to his brother. Blood with blood, skin against skin. A tangle of sound echoes through the boat: the clash of screams, breaking timber. Boom! Again and again. The sea swirls around Isaka’s thighs. Within seconds it’s lapping at his chest. And each time the trawler is rammed, Mamadou’s fingers slip and slide. He teeters, falls, is hurled into the night sky, and then crashes into the sea with a resounding roar.
‘My brother. My brother.’ Isaka whispers Mamadou’s name and a jumble of images and noises crackles though me. Broken bodies tossed by waves and then swallowed by the sea. And the wind! A howling wind that serenades the shrieks of the dying. Little by little it quietens. The sea calms and all that remains is the pitter-patter of the restless dead who insist on walking with us.
‘Forgive me, Mamadou! Forgive me! Leave me, my brother. Rest in peace. Perfect peace.’
I touch Isaka’s knee and his shivering stops. The cloud moves away and as sunlight sears the surrounding gloom, the shadows fade.
&nbs
p; Isaka is unsteady on his feet. The muddy sheen of his eyes begins to clear. The droop of his jowls seem to tighten, as from one moment to the next, his countenance changes from that of a middle-aged man to a younger, more hopeful version of himself. He touches the back of the chair, the edge of the table. He’s gradually finding his balance, when we hear a key turn in the latch.
Isaka tenses. ‘Get out of here! Get out quickly!’
The door opens. Cobra and I run at the same time. I head for the balcony; he races for the door. Trick is to divert whoever’s coming in while I slip away. Split up, then meet later. We’ve done it time and time again but today our strategy feels wrong: ‘Cobra! Come with me!’ I say.
Too late. Grey Eyes walks in and beside him is Barrel Man.
‘I told you those gypsies were still around. That damned bird goes with ’em everywhere.’
Barrel Man lunges at Cobra as I jump over the balcony. Ease myself down, swing my legs and drop on to the balcony below. Priss glides to a neighbouring roof and flaps her wings waiting for a signal. If she has her way, she’ll attack Barrel Man again, only this time she’ll pluck out his eyes.
I’m two floors down now. Only one more to go before I’m back safe on the ground, when Barrel Man leans over and bellows: ‘I’m going to drop him!’
I look up. He’s dangling Cobra from the balcony, swinging him back and forth.
‘You heard me,’ Barrel Man says. ‘I’m going to drop him to his death unless you climb back right away.’
We’re circus folk. Taking risks every day is what we do best. We know how to run and jump, dive and fall. Know how to do somersaults, stretch up to the sky as if we’re about to leap over the moon. We may have circus in us, but we’re flesh and blood as well. And though we can cheat it at times, there’s nobody in the whole wide world that I know of, can defy the laws of gravity.
I fix my eyes on Cobra’s greens. They’re telling me to keep on doing what I’m doing. Run, ’cause chances are Barrel Man won’t dare drop him to the ground. Not in broad daylight; not today.
‘I mean it! Get back up here, girl!’ Barrel Man lets go of Cobra’s wrist and then laughs as he catches him again.
In that instant, clear as if she’s standing beside me, I hear Mama Rose reminding me not to make her old before her time. Can’t risk breaking Mama Rose’s heart any more than I can bear to lose Cobra. Not in this life or the next. Slowly, carefully, I haul myself up, retracing my journey to the fourth floor. Whatever they want from me has to be a whole heap better than watching Cobra die.
13
Soon as I’m close enough, Barrel Man slams a hand on my shoulder, lifts me over the balcony and says: ‘Who do you think you are, girl?’ He pulls me by the hair and drags me screaming and kicking out of the apartment, up the stairs, on to the rooftop terrace. I’m in his clutches and he’s yelling at me.
‘Get off me!’ I cry. ‘Let me go!’
We holler at each other. He takes me by the scruff of the neck, shakes me till my teeth begin to rattle. Shakes and rattles me so hard, we soon have Priss’s undivided attention.
She flies from a neighbouring roof to a balustrade at the edge of the terrace. Hops closer on to the pole of a washing line. Yelps at the sight of me being mauled by a huge bear of a man. She’s about to attack, when I realise what Barrel Man is up to.
He slips a hand into his pocket and draws out a gun. Cocks it, but before he fires I’m on to him. I ram my head into his shoulder. Barrel Man stumbles, shoots into sky. Priss wheels away as I cry: ‘Go, Priss. Fly free. Stay away from me!’
Priss banks, gimlet eyes uncertain. ‘Go, Priss! Go.’
Barrel Man shoots a second time. Misses. Fires again as Priss soars and flies away. He fires again and again till there’s nothing left inside the muzzle but hot air. That’s when he points the gun at me and pretends to pull the trigger. ‘Pow! Pow!’ he mouths and looks me full in the face.
What I see is his rage. Rage big as a whale. Big enough to swallow me, break me and spit me out. Barrel Man’s crazy with anger.
‘Look what your bird did to me!’
He hates me. Hates Priss even more. So much so, that from the look of it, the only emotion restraining him from pulverising me on the spot is the conviction that one day soon his anger will prevail.
‘I’m going to get you, girl,’ he tells me. ‘I’m going to get you good for what your bird did to me. Then I’ll take out your bird as well. Shoot her out of the sky and feed her to dogs.’
There’s no arguing with him, so I don’t even try. I’ve seen first-hand what hate can do. Hate feeds on hate. Fires up in the belly, blazes through the throat and makes grown men psycho. It would be easier to teach Taj Mahal to spout poetry than get Barrel Man to like me. If he hates gypsies, he’s likely to hate illegals even more. Sees my colour, Cobra’s too, and wants to trample us. Man’s madder than a ravenous hyena.
‘Come here, little girl.’ His forefinger beckons.
I take a step back, bump into a flowerpot and he’s on to me again, a hand at my throat.
‘That’s enough, Pepe,’ a voice growls. ‘That girl belongs to me now and if you so much as harm another hair on her head, you’re out on your ear.’
Barrel Man loosens his grip, simpers and says. ‘Where do you want me to put her, boss?’
Miguel, Grey Eyes alongside him, Cobra in between, nods at the corner of the terrace where a studio room is isolated from the rest of the building by a wide expanse of roof. ‘The azotea,’ Miguel says, and shoves Cobra, wrists tied behind him, in the same direction.
Grey Eyes unlocks the door. Barrel Man hauls us inside, Miguel close behind, and we’re crammed into the room. On the right is a window, in the corner, a looking glass.
Miguel unties Cobra’s wrists, pushes him on a bed. Barrel Man plonks me beside Cobra.
‘You’ve got something of mine that I want back,’ Miguel tells us. ‘Scarlett. I want her back, you hear me? And until she returns, you belong to me.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you,’ Miguel replies. ‘I’m not going to let you go till Scarlett is back in my care. That’s what her parents wanted and, as a man of honour, I intend to comply with their wishes. In the meantime, you’ll stay here as my guest and fill in for her.’
‘Me?’
He must think I’m seriously dull-witted, daft as a dodo, for Miguel spells it out now, so Cobra and I know exactly what’s involved: ‘Scarlett belongs to me. Until you return what belongs to me, I’ll have to make do with you instead.’
Grey Eyes laughs, amused, no doubt, by the glaze of horror stealing over my face. ‘And it’s not just Scarlett we want back,’ Grey Eyes says. ‘I want those diamonds your father gave you as well. Indeed, young lady, I think it’s time you called that woman who goes by the name of Mama Rose. Call her. Let her know that if she wants to see you again, she’d better bring me what I asked for yesterday.’
Grey Eyes drops our new phone on my lap. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying, young lady?’
He says those words and I see red: red rag to a bull red. May be a scraggy teenager, but I’m nobody’s lady. Certainly not his! Before I can stop myself and start thinking rationally, strategically, I bounce off the bed and look him straight in the eye.
The cruel eyes of a famished wolf in winter glare at me. He’s tall, a full head and shoulders taller than me. Corpulent, face splattered with freckles. An Old One from the north, greedy for southern sunshine.
‘Who’re you calling “young lady”?’
He smiles. Can’t see beyond my size. I take a deep breath, still my vexation and pinpoint another irritation: ‘And how dare you talk about the woman who brought me up like that – that woman who goes by the name of Mama Rose! If you want me to talk to her, better respect her!’
Grey Eyes laughs at me. Laughs heartily till his face glows red and moist with sweat.
I’m not laughing. No, sir! Fold my arms. Hold my chin up high. May grumble about her, argue and backchat her, b
ut under no circumstances will I laugh about the woman who rescued me, taught me the sacred laws of the human heart and how to survive in the wild. Most important of all, the woman who trained me to hold tight to what I know is right.
Grey Eyes guffaws: ‘You mean you don’t know? My dear, that woman you call Mama Rose is an imposter and fraudster of the first order. And so is that man you call Redwood.’
*
Grey Eyes doesn’t provide the evidence for his words with yet more hilarity and sarcasm; he shows us instead. Sends Barrel Man downstairs to fetch his laptop, and when he has it, puts on a pair of wire spectacles and fires up the machine. Opens a box on the screen and finds a grainy image of Mama Rose and another of Redwood. The two of ’em are in the clothes they were wearing yesterday. Must have snapped ’em in secret, ’cause Mama Rose and Redwood hate to have their photo taken. One of the abiding rules of our family circus is: No Flash Photography Allowed. It frightens Taj Mahal, puts Cat off her stride. A sudden flare of light and there could be an accident in the ring.
Eyelashes flutter at the screen as I examine the images with Cobra. We peer at ’em. Mama Rose isn’t smiling, nor is Redwood. Both look angry, suspicious, and if we didn’t know ’em better, might consider ’em downright shifty, like villains in those mugshots in newspapers.
Grey Eyes drags the images from the left side of his computer to the right and millions of faces surface testing ’em against the photos of Redwood and Mama Rose. Eyes, nose and cheeks. Faces, endless faces. Noses too big in some, foreheads too narrow, too small. Mouths too prim and tight, too wide or thick-lipped, until – ping! – there’s a match for Mama Rose and, soon after, another for Redwood. Redwood is listed under a completely different name, while Mama Rose’s name, at least, is familiar. In both pictures they’re a lot younger.
I say Mama Rose’s name out loud: ‘Rosamund Annabel Williams, daughter of Lord Edmund James Hathaway-Williams of Brecon. Missing. Wanted for questioning.