Blonde Roots

by Bernardine Evaristo

  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:

  Yu iz we sunshine

  We onlee sunshine.

  Yu mek we happee

  When skies iz gray.

  You neva know, Bwana

  How much we loves yu.

  Please don’t tek we sunshine away.

  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.

  Ye Memé kicked up her heels and drank more rum than anyone more quickly than anyone and spun herself into such a sweaty, wild-eyed frenzy of flapping white cotton that she soon collapsed onto the ground.

  Two men carried her inside.

  I went to say good-bye.

  She was out for the count.

  I kissed her cheek and told her I’d “mek damn shure Magik come a-callin fe yu an yu pikney when dey iz olda.”

  UP AT THE GREAT HOUSE a more sedate party would be in full swing. The local slave owners and island dignitaries had been arriving in their carriages all afternoon.

  I could just imagine it: tinkling goblets, dainty finger food before the evening sit-down feast, the delicate chords of a quartet of koras, a humming chorus, a Bedouin-style pavilion, discreet two-faced chitchat among the ladies, competitive ribaldry among the men, flirtatious gestures between those already betrothed or married to another.

  Bwana would have no choice but to play host to his most esteemed guests.

  The audit would have to wait until the festivities were over.

  Nonso would be crapping himself.

  LOLLI STUFFED HERSELF WITH so many gizzadas she vomited.

  I picked her up and carried her inside.

  My fragile sunflower of a child was so light, damp and limp in my arms.

  I laid her down to sleep next to her mother and kissed my little darling good-bye.

  When I left that hut for the last time, I caught Ma leading the other kids on a rumba through the quarter.

  Before they turned a corner, she turned her head and saluted.

  I saluted right back.

  And then there was just me.

  I sat sober and quiet outside the hut in the dark, away from the lamplight and noise of the partygoers.

  I sat on the plain, solid, practical bench that was all Frank’s handiwork.

  I ran my hands over its smooth, worn, splinterless surface as if it were a lover.

  Qwashee was nowhere to be seen.

  Damn you, Qwashee. Damn you!

  After an age of waiting, King Shaka ambled past.

  I slipped away unnoticed by the partygoers, provisions strapped to a cloth on my back as if I were carrying an infant.

  Tucked into my skirt was a leather pouch containing oleander sap.

  I followed King Shaka at a distance up the deserted pathways that ran by the river and fields, keeping to the bushes, aiming for the edge of the estate.

  The old man went so fast that I struggled to keep up. With each step he shed years. The utter determination in his walk gave me confidence.

  It was chillier beyond the quarter, away from the heat of buildings and bodies. I looked forward to the cooler climate of the mountains and for the first time wondered what kind of life I’d have up there.

  If I made it.

  If we made it.

  We passed the shrine that normally rocked with the frenzied outpourings of its congregation.

  It was now a tomblike catacomb.

  I walked as if I was invisible.

  Aware that any heavy breath or clumsy s
tep might alert one of the few guards not given time off.

  Thank God the moon was a no-show that night.

  King Shaka reached the perimeter fence, two planks of which he easily uprooted. Once we’d passed through, he set the planks back down again.

  We were now beyond the borders of the plantation.

  I was officially a runaway, an absconder, someone to be made an example of.

  I walked side by side with King Shaka, who had not yet said a word.

  Some distance in, he collected a sack from under a bush and scooped out a handful of ground red chilli pepper, which he began to scatter behind us, handing me some to do the same.

  It stung my hands, but I wasn’t complaining.

  On and on we went, keeping close to foliage, to trees, sometimes leaving the river before picking it up again.

  Eventually we came to a low range of foothills where, hidden behind some bracken, was a cave.

  King Shaka crawled inside and I followed.

  He pulled the bracken back behind him.

  I could hear breathing, sense the warmth of human bodies.

  Yao rushed into my arms, and I held his trembling young body.

  Dingiswayo came over to sit at my feet. I patted his head.

  King Shaka lit a candle.

  Both boys were shaken, although Dingiswayo kept his head down.

  I had thought about their rescue but not their losses—family, home, the known.

  To be honest, I hadn’ t thought any of it through.

  When Dingiswayo tried to restrain a whimper, I gathered him close to me too. He tried to pull away but I was insistent.

  I held one boy under each arm.

  Soon we heard the sound of bracken brushing against the ground.

  Ndewele crept in on his knees, looking more alive than ever he had.

  Terrified, the boys scuttled to the back of the cave.

  It was Ndewele, the slave driver.

  He reassured them that everything would be fine. They must think of him as a big brother from now on.

  He would take care of them.

  I felt grateful.

  I told them he was my sister’s child.

  I wondered if I could love him—my nephew.

  Next came another man who was so light on his feet we barely heard him before he ducked into the cave. It was Qwashee.

  I muffled a laugh and slapped him playfully on his backside.

  He grinned bashfully, whispering, “Yu tink say dis man cyant mek up his mind?”

  King Shaka addressed us all:

  “Ndewele has instrukshun on where Maroon will meet yu. It tek two nite and a day, so pray to de gahds nobuddy notice yu missin an if so, dey keep schtum. Mebbe Bwana notice Ndewele gone but him have so much a-do wid sortin out Nonso, mebbe he let it slip.

  “Furzlee, yu must be careful of de man-trap, nyot just Massa nastiness but Maroon clevaness, what dey call ‘five finga wiss.’ It a vine stretched ova a hole in de ground wid stakes comin right up so yu git impaled.

  “Secundlee, all-a yu have to bush-up. Outside yu find leaves an branches wid string attach so yu can git disguise.

  “Now—tek dis.”

  He handed us each a bundle of large, heavy leaves that I didn’t recognize.

  “One leaf store enuf rain wata to drink fe one day. Yu will need it when de route divert from de riva.

  “An dis too.”

  He dumped the sack of pepper onto the floor of the cave.

  “Lastlee, if yu git kaptcha?”

  He seemed to shout the following words without actually raising his voice:

  “KEEP—YU—DAMNED—MOWTS—SHUT!”

  At that, he crawled back out of the cave.

  And was gone.

  STUNNED, WE SAT THERE a few moments.

  A tight family unit now, relying on one another for survival.

  I expected Ndewele or Qwashee to take control, then realized it was I who should assume leadership. Ndewele knew the route and Qwashee was a strong male, but I had made this happen, for myself, for the boys, for the friends I’d left behind.

  I felt so calm, so level-headed, so powerful.

  We left the cave, bushed-up as directed, and headed for the river.

  Ndewele asked, with surprising deference, if he should walk in front to test the best way over the riverbed.

  I nodded.

  He kept to the shallow edge, careful with each step.

  Dingiswayo followed him, trying on Ndewele’ s manly walk for size.

  I gripped Yao’ s clammy hands, remembering how Garanwyn had once gripped mine.

  Qwashee brought up the rear, carrying the sack of pepper.

  When I stepped into the river, soft sludge seeped through my toes and the rush of cold water invigorated my hot, dirty feet.

  It was coming all the way down from Freedom Country.

  POSTSCRIPT

  Nonso was banished from the plantation by his father and died a few years later at the Port of Mo Bassa from syphilis. He left behind one estranged wife and five legitimate children.

  Bamwoze turned the plantation into the most prosperous in West Japan, and the most fortified. When emancipation arrived, fifty years later, he was renowned worldwide as the most venerable Chief Katamba II.

  Bwana died peacefully in Londolo, surrounded by various wives, children and grandchildren. In the last issue of The Flame he wrote that he’d had a good life, but only because, “Dear Reader, I was willing to roll up my sleeves and work bloody hard.”

  King Shaka was implicated in Yao’s and Dingiswayo’s escape but blamed Ndewele, in whom he’d confided their whereabouts. Sharon corroborated his story.

  She got away with it. He didn’t.

  King Shaka escaped physical punishment but was put out to pasture. He was forced to subsist on the goodwill of the slaves’ quarter—which was bountiful.

  Sharon remained Bwana’s favorite until her heart finally gave up the ghost—eight months after she lost her son and her sister.

  Ye Memé was subjected to the thumbscrews. When this didn’ t break her, she was flayed with a thorny switch until her back was a mess of bloodied flesh. When she still refused to talk, Massa Rotimi sawed off her tongue.

  Frank was not the quiet man I had once known. He was an angry man, a warrior man, a married man. He took care of the love of his youth, but was never again my companion.

  In the Maroon camp, Qwashee wasn’ t fierce enough to stake his claim—to land, to rank, to the woman he loved. He took to palm wine, until palm wine took him.

  Lolli had her first child at thirteen and died giving birth to her seventh at twenty-three.

  Ma Marjani raised the ones who survived.

  Dingiswayo went down as the most fearless Maroon guerrilla leader in history. Many times he tried, and many times he failed, to rescue his family enslaved in the valley.

  The Maroons never trusted Ndewele. I was his only advocate. He took off for the port, hoping to pass as free. If he succeeded, we never found out.

  Yao grew up a kind man, a thinking man, a free man. He taught his kids to read and write. After emancipation, his eldest son, Dingiswayo II, became the first whyte schoolteacher on the island of New Ambossa.

  As for my three lost children—they never found me.

  When freedom came, an elderly man called Pa Yao and a very old woman called Miss Doris trekked down from the mountains to Home Sweet Home.

  The pathways were exactly the same, even the red gingers, purple bougainvillea and the golden heliconia.

  Sleeping in a hammock slung between the sprawling branches of the silk cotton tree was a shrunken old woman with sucked-in cheeks.

  Her bones were still those of a Viking.

  When she opened her eyes and saw us—she was speechless.

  In the twenty-first century, Bwana’ s descendants still own the sugar estate and are among the grandest and wealthiest families in the United Kingdom of Great Ambossa, where they all reside.

  The cane workers,
many of whom are descended from the original slaves, are paid.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to remember and thank my wonderful agent, Kate Jones at ICM in London, who sadly passed away a few months before this book was published.

  Also, my heartfelt thanks to my editor Megan Lynch and the team at Riverhead, and to Simon Prosser and the team at Hamish Hamilton, London; and, for getting this book on the road, to my American agent Kate Lee at ICM and Karolina Sutton and the team at Curtis Brown, London.

  To my early reader Jacob Ross and my later reader Jason Todd—tank yu.

  For reading, encouraging, teasing and always supporting me with my writing, my life and everything—a big hug for my partner, David.