Ancestor Stones

by Aminatta Forna

  He did not ask me my name. Instead he told me he would call me Josephine. He said I looked like Josephine Baker. I did not know who he meant. Only that it was easier for him to remember.

  I liked my new job. Mr Blue had so many possessions. His brown leather belt with a brass buckle I kept polished with animal fat. The same with his boots, of which he had two pairs. I rinsed the dead bristles from his shaving brush, and wiped the bar of soap, set them both back out on a towel the way he showed me. I plucked the hairs from his comb. Long, transparent hairs the colour of sand.

  Papers covered in something I thought looked like centipede tracks. Writing. How could I have known? I had never been taught to read or sent to school. A Thermos flask that kept coffee hot the whole day long. Maps. Magazines. Books. Other things I had never laid eyes on before, whose purpose I could not imagine. On the green felt table-top: an instrument made of brass, with numbers and letters and an arrow that swung around towards the same point, wherever you directed it. A glass you could hold in your hand that made everything bigger. I stared through it at the hairs on the back of my hand, at a silverfish crawling out of his trunk. I could even see the lice swarming along the vane of a chicken feather.

  In that place I saw ice for the first time in my life. A great block delivered on the back of a truck. That evening Mr Blue told me to put chunks of it in his drink and in those of the others whom he invited around to his hut before dinner. While they were eating, I took a piece of it and sat at the back of the hut, feeling the unearthly coldness, holding it in the cups of my hands to try to stop it slipping away. Afterwards my fingers felt stiff, aching like I had been wringing clothes all day.

  Mr Blue found me playing with the magnifying glass. He said nothing. But watched me as I replaced it and continued wiping as I had been. From then on I carried the cloth with me whenever I went to look at Mr Blue’s belongings.

  Some days I watched Mr Blue. In the evenings, from the darkness outside the window while he was readying himself for sleep. He would sit down, his camp bed creaking under his weight, pull off his boots and his socks and throw them into the corner of the room. He would struggle with his braces and pull at the front of his shirt, trying to set the buttons free. His chest was covered in hair, like hog hair. Thick slabs of flesh on the sides of his body overhung his belt. He would loosen his trousers and lie down. There were times, when I was sure he was sleeping, I would creep in. The room was filled with his odour, even the walls sweated. Mr Blue slept on his back, one hand covering his penis. I stood in the darkness and listened to the sounds coming from him. Snorting as he breathed in, whistling as he breathed out. Sometimes I might stay there an hour or so. Before I went I moved his shoes, placed them neatly under his bed, picked up his shirt and vest and hung them on the peg.

  One day I found some shillings and other coins in the pocket of Mr Blue’s trousers. I set them aside while I worked and from time to time I glanced at the little pile of money. There was quite a lot, enough to buy half a bag of rice. When Mr Blue came back I fetched his drink and stayed there while he took his first sip. He waved his hand at me, but I didn’t move. I bent in front of him, put my hand out to show him the coins.

  ‘Master,’ I said, ‘look at your money I found today.’

  He took the coins and pocketed them, looking at me all the while. ‘Thank you, Josephine,’ he said. He reached out his hand and I stretched mine out to meet his. A coin dropped into the palm of my hand.

  Small Boy set a penny down on the dirt between us. From the pocket on the front of his shirt he took something gnarled and yellow and placed it next to the penny. He said I could have whichever one I wanted. I reached for the penny. Small Boy laughed. He picked up the small lump of metal and tossed it in the air.

  ‘Take the penny. But this is worth many hundreds of pennies.’

  Small Boy was the one who used to translate Mr Blue’s orders for me before I learned to understand, telling me Mr Blue was asking for this or that. He taught me everything I learned in that place. Every day Small Boy told Mr Blue that he needed four pence to buy the food, when I knew that what we bought could only come to three.

  He placed the yellow metal in my hand, I felt its weight for a moment, but before I could close my fingers Small Boy snatched it away again.

  The chief gave permission to the prospectors to come to our place. I was there when the chief came to the camp, accompanied by only two elders. I saw what happened.

  They sat outside Mr Blue’s house, refused his whisky, instead I brought them cups of water. Balanced on a metal tray, the way I had learned. After a short time they stood and followed Mr Blue inside. Mr Blue was laughing a great deal as though something was very funny. The chiefs and the elders did not laugh, nor did they speak much. Instead they sat down and waited. Mr Blue called for Small Boy who came in bearing a tin box. I had seen it two nights before. It was full of money. Mr Blue walked around the back of the chief and leaned over him, putting his hands on both his shoulders. My eyes widened to see him do such a thing. But if he had taken offence, the chief did not let it show. Mr Blue asked Small Boy to open the box.

  Well, to look at what was inside you would think it was more money than any of us had ever seen. And it was! All you could see was ten-shilling notes. The chief nodded and grunted. Waved for the box to be closed. Then he got up and left. Mr Blue said he would send the trunk down.

  ‘Josie! Come, come,’ he beckoned to me. I moved towards him. Mr Blue sat down on the seat vacated by the chief. He poured some whisky from the bottle into a cup and handed it to me. ‘Here you are, doll. Cheers!’ Touched the edge of his glass against mine and drank. I tipped the cup. The liquid burned my lips. I licked them and felt the heat transfer to my tongue. I stood holding the cup out in front of me. Mr Blue stared straight ahead of him for a few moments. He glanced my way, reached out and touched the back of my thigh, rubbing his thumb up and down. I did not move. Then he poured himself more and drank that, too.

  I gave my cup to Small Boy in the place where we sat behind Mr Blue’s house. Small Boy laughed as he described the trick Mr Blue had played on the chief. Placing a few ten-shilling notes on the top of the box. Underneath them nothing but two-shilling notes. It worked every time.

  ‘Too greedy,’ laughed Small Boy, tipping the liquid down his throat like a fire-eater. ‘Too greedy. All of them. They trip up on their own greediness.’

  Small Boy, who was the age of my uncles, arrived at the same time as the prospectors. He had travelled with them for many months, all across the country. Mornings, it was his job to shave Mr Blue, who sat in his chair with his head tipped backwards, coffee by his side, while Small Boy set to work lathering his chin and stroking the edge of the blade across Mr Blue’s face. I could hear the faint rasping noise of the hairs being cut, one by one.

  It happened that on certain nights the miners stayed up late drinking, playing games of cards, swapping lies and stories. When one bottle of whisky was finished Mr Blue shouted for Small Boy to fetch another from the store. Small Boy’s job was to stay awake to serve them, but on this one night he fell asleep and did not hear our master calling. Mr Blue’s voice became impatient:

  ‘Where the hell is he?’

  Footsteps in the dark. I reached across and shook Small Boy.

  ‘Get up!’ I whispered. ‘Mr Blue is calling.’

  Small Boy jumped to his feet, forcing his eyes open, wide and round as marbles: ‘Yes, master. Yes, master. Here I am. See me now.’

  Mr Blue waved the bottle in the air, jangled the store keys in his other hand like a bell. ‘Where in the hell have you been? Can’t you hear me calling you?’

  ‘I’m sorry, master.’ Small Boy reached for the bottle and took it from Mr Blue’s hand. He ran to the store and returned a short time after.

  ‘And ice. Bring ice.’ The truck had not delivered ice since two weeks before.

  ‘The ice is finished, master.’

  I heard Mr Blue throw curses at Small Boy. They boun
ced off the walls of the houses. Silence. Small Boy made no reply.

  ‘Dumb fuck.’

  ‘Leave him alone, Blue. How could it be his fault?’ The woman’s voice, soft as a moth’s coat. Another silence followed, a sort of stop-start silence. You could almost hear Mr Blue wanting to speak and thinking better of it. He told Small Boy to pour the drinks. The woman refused any more, saying she was tired. I listened as she wished them all goodnight and her footsteps faded away. Small Boy must have made a move to leave then as well, because suddenly came Mr Blue’s voice:

  ‘You stay right there!’ He said he was hungry and told Small Boy to fetch something for him to eat. Of course there was nothing. The food had been cooked and eaten. What was left was for Small Boy and me. There was no fridge. Small Boy replied he would have to light a fire. ‘Well do it, damnit.’ Then: ‘Jesus. Oh, don’t be so bloody stupid. Do you think I’m serious? Bring that bottle over here.’

  By now I was listening carefully from behind the hut, on the other side of the darkness. I heard Mr Blue’s voice: slack, slurred and yet stitched with something hard, as he set about provoking Small Boy. The other men laughed, enjoying it. From the manner of their laughter, I could tell this was something that had happened before. He instructed Small Boy to provide some entertainment, since he could produce neither food nor ice. Small Boy replied there were no entertainers to be found in the camp either.

  ‘Then you’d better entertain us yourself.’

  Small Boy asked how he was to do so.

  ‘Let’s have a song,’ said one man.

  ‘Yes. A song,’ came another and began to sing himself.

  ‘No, no. We’ll sing. He’ll dance.’ Mr Blue again. ‘You can dance, can’t you?’

  ‘No master.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You lot can all dance. You’re born jigging around. It’s in your fucking blood.’

  I imagined Small Boy standing there alone in front of Mr Blue and the other men. Alone in the middle of the night, underneath the stars. I wondered what was going to happen next.

  Mr Blue begin to sing and the other men joined in. I heard him order Small Boy to dance. There was a small sound. Thud. Thud. Like that, the double thud like a stone being thrown. The same sound again. And then a clatter as the stone ricocheted off something in the distance. I heard the sound of Small Boy’s feet shuffling in the dirt. Of his breathing. Of the men clapping and cheering.

  I stayed awake listening, for as long as I could. By the time I fell asleep Small Boy still hadn’t come back.

  The next morning I brought Mr Blue his second cup of coffee. His fingers trembled as he grasped the cup and raised it to his lips. The lump in the front of his throat moved as he swallowed, like a rat under a blanket. He leaned back in his chair and tilted his chin as Small Boy started to cover the bottom half of his face with lather. Sweat drops, glistening like insect eggs hung on his forehead. Small Boy jerked the leather strap tight across his forearm and stroked the blade of the razor against it. Then he stepped forward and drew the flat side of the sharpened blade across Mr Blue’s cheek.

  * * *

  Mr Blue complained the workers were always breaking things. The excavator in the first pit that scooped up giant mouthfuls of soil and rocks: three days’ work lost, he said. Just like that. Every day it was something. Shovels and hoes turned to chalk. Wooden handles snapped like dried grass stalks. Steel pick heads shattered. A sledgehammer cracked like an egg. The mining had continued through several seasons. At first Mr Blue had seemed pleased. But now he was always complaining. Always complaining. These Africans don’t know how to take care of their tools, refuse to learn how to maintain machinery, he said. This to the director and his wife who came to inspect the mines.

  In the clay oven Small Boy’s bread made with palm wine and baking soda swelled and rose. Small Boy fashioned chicken cutlets and sweet potato croquettes and made a salad of cucumber and tomatoes, which he dressed with oil and vinegar from the store. A table was set up in the middle of the camp. The woman draped a cloth over it, and we collected together every cup, spoon, knife and plate in the place. Small Boy showed me the bottle of wine the visitors had brought and I watched as he pulled the cork out of the neck.

  That morning the water pump had broken for the second time in a month, in the middle of the rainy season. The pits filled up with water and had to be bailed out by hand. There weren’t enough buckets. Half the men stood around idle, watching the other half work. Overnight the rain would come down and fill the pits again.

  The night was cool, but Mr Blue was twitching and sweating. Later, when the evening was through, I would watch him as he slept, hear the words he shouted. Orders. Names. That’s how the words sounded, anyway. I would watch him as he tried to turn in his too-narrow bed, while outside the rain subsided only to accelerate again, revving like the truck engine or a piece of machinery.

  The guests had been sitting for a long time, the canvas sagged beneath their buttocks. I had already cleared the empty salad plates. Small Boy was waiting to serve the main dish. Underneath the table Mr Blue’s knee jerked up and down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Above us dark clouds crowded together like a horde of crows under cover of the blackness. The candles on the table dipped in the breeze. Mr Blue shouted for Small Boy. Once. Twice. Small Boy was arranging and rearranging, with endless patience, a dish of cooling potatoes. Every time Mr Blue shouted he replied: ‘Yes, master. Coming, master.’ The third, or maybe it was the fourth time we heard Mr Blue’s voice, he waved at me to begin carrying the plates through.

  ‘At last.’

  ‘I could eat a horse.’

  ‘What is it about these people? Everything takes so long.’

  ‘Every day. Every damn day. Now you know what it’s like.’

  Somebody cleared their throat. That was the last thing I heard before the thunder tore out of the blackness.

  For me, I loved the night-time storms at the start of the rainy season. Always at the same time of night. I stood still and let the water soak my clothing until I felt it trickle down the backs of my legs. Mr Blue and the visitors scattered. Small Boy stayed with me and together we set about clearing up the remains of the meal.

  I was watching a fly. Smaller than a bluebottle and silent, a sort of tawny-orange colour. It was flying back and forth in a tight square, as though it was trapped, bumping into four invisible walls. Bump. Turn. Bump. Turn. On and on. I flicked it with the end of the cloth and missed. Mr Blue came in to tell me he was leaving. A few matters to sort out with Head Office. I nodded. I thought Head Office was another white man. When I went outside I discovered that all of them were gone, including the one with the woman’s voice.

  Life was easy. We did not worry about our chores. Mr Blue had left without giving us any instructions. Small Boy and I slept indoors taking turns on the bed. After a few days it was as though we had lived there for ever. In the corner of the room black and yellow mould grew on the soles of Mr Blue’s work boots and a greyish fur began to climb up the leather. Much later, when I picked them up to clean them, a shadow remained on the concrete floor that refused to wash away.

  Mr Blue came back, his chin stubbled with white. Small Boy went to heat water and fetch the razor and brush, but Mr Blue waved him away. Instead he sat in front of the camp wireless with the headset on his ears for many hours into the night. Listening to the voices that floated on hissing, bubbling waves. The voices carried news of the strikes into the camp.

  Later I heard people say those strikes were the beginning. First the strikes. Next the rebellion. Finally the end of the rule of chiefs. Maybe that’s the way it was. I don’t know. I only know what I saw.

  The voices issued Mr Blue with instructions. Flying pickets. Wildcat strikes. Trade unionists. Troublemakers. Refuse access, they said. Mr Blue was to issue notice of an epidemic if necessary and use the excuse to seal the area.

  Early the next morning Mr Blue went down to talk to the workers. Rows of faces, wiped clear of all expression, like sand a
fter wind. The men listened to the lies spilling over Mr Blue’s narrow lips: talk of quarantines and infection rates, instructions on how to avoid the spread of the pretend contagion. He gazed away above their heads at the tops of the trees as he assured them a doctor was on the way from Mile 47.

  Too late! Between the wireless and the bush wire, the bush wire was the faster.

  A man stepped forward and laid down his pickaxe. Others followed. A few anxious ones hopped from leg to leg, consulting the sky, not knowing what to do. But in the end they followed their brothers. Though some said: ‘Sorry, master,’ as they laid down their tools. I hid behind some fencing and watched as, one by one, the men turned their backs on Mr Blue. Barely a word had been spoken. I had never seen such a thing. Mr Blue stared straight ahead, not moving, not speaking, not blinking even. Refusing to watch them walk away from him. All the time his lips were set in a strange smile. He looked like a rongsho risen from the grave.

  They passed me, they did not notice me crouching there. Their leader came first. I recognised him from the pits, he was one of the men sent to work there by the chief that first week. I remember him to this day: a tall man, with a beard like a Muslim. Well, that could have been any number of men. But he had a patch on his lower lip where the brown gave way to pink. Like a stain or a splash.

  Later there was talk, scandalous talk. I was even told his name, though I don’t remember it now. And I was too young then really to remember the events of which they spoke, because those things had happened years before and the man had gone away and since returned. Later, when for a short while, this man’s name became known to all, people talked of some past disgrace. It concerned a woman, I know that much. A junior wife.

  Morning and the sun rose over silence. The mine machines were stilled, their voices quiet. It seemed there had been no other sound for months. Now it was as if the birds and animals were shocked into a silence of their own. The silence crept outwards, out until it stifled everything, even the humming of the forest.