by Wole Soyinka
If I could meet with Alú today, or with his mother or his father, I would ask. I would ask the question because it is rare to come across an African child with an African name. The men who arrived on our shores were white – I forgot to mention this earlier – white men with thick beards. Whether because it was the fashion or whether it was for want of time or want of a pair of scissors, the white men all had beards. They claimed they found the Negroes naked but for animal hides covering their private parts. But these men themselves were not wearing suits by Cristian Door, Sahara, Bescha, Luis Buitoton, Maximo Dutin, Atmosfera, or whatever they’re called . . . No, they were not wearing anything of the kind.
The years passed, the travellers left us their languages, their cross, their diseases . . . and what else? We fought in order to gain our independence only to become prisoners of our own brothers as dictatorships flourished in abundance. All these things Alú knew. All these things he shared with his little friends. Years passed, some dictatorships fell and others appeared dressed in other colours, other smells, propped up by the West and by feeble citizens. Little by little, people began to believe that everything that was imported was good. They began to abandon their own names; this was why Alú’s friends had names like Giovanni, Ronny, Frank, Charlis, Yarni, Jerry, Mark, Robert, Richard, Efren, Nick, Eduard, Aitor, Michael, Steyci, Ares, Cris, Cristian, Axel, Yanick, Edgal, Andy, Aaron, Brus, Dona, Leyre, Eiza, Shakira, Melc, Nancy, Nurcy, Soraya, Dalia, Leyda, Marylin, Dorothe, Gimena, Sandra, Leonel, Leny, Fructu, Simpático. We could fill pages and pages with imported names. None of Alú’s classmates had African names though all of them were black – well, there were a few half-castes. Alú took pride in his name and when his classmates mocked him, he would tell them his name was unique, that it was his. Once, the children here were called Boiye, Besaha, Besako, Bohiri, Rihole, Ribetaso, Boita, Riburi, Wewe, Motte, Rioko, Wanalabba, Sipoto, Bula, Laesa, Bosupele, Borihi, Rioko, Bosubari, Mome, Rimme, Momo, Obolo, Moretema, Sobesobbo, Bosope, Nta, Pudul, Zhana, Zhancuss, Tenzhul, Mafidel, Masse, Pagu, Massantu, Madesha, Madalam, Guttia, Magutia, Chitia da boto, Obama, Ada, Chicanda, Abuy, Mokomba, Masamdja, Molico, Ichinda, Ulangano, Mondjeli, Eboko, Beseku, Upinda, Motanga, Ikna. These days, you could count the number of children with African names on the fingers of one hand. I don’t think I mentioned: the name Alú means ‘night’. Poetic, isn’t it?
Nothing and no one could stop the takataka of time, no event, no eruption; it moved on, sometimes listlessly, with Cyclopean strides. It walked, it swam, it flew. Days drowned in the torrent of time, and the nights drew in, filled with mystery, with silence, with sound, and left again. Still Alú lived in his neighbourhood; still he had a particular way of seeing, of thinking about things. Every day, he tried to savour a sawa-sawa, his favourite fruit. Alú kept growing.
Alú grew out of his bostololo trousers, so too did his curiosity. Though, like his parents, he had never left his island, he could not understand why in this town people had cut down the trees despite knowing full well that the opportunistic sun would make the most of this to rain its fire upon the earth. From November to March, the heat was stifling. Successive mayors had brazenly ordered the trees felled. This was something Alú knew because he had been told. And it made him think, think, think, ponder, ponder until a wave of sadness flooded his being. One of the mayors with a very particular approach to civil hygiene went from barrio to barrio in a hard hat carrying a chainsaw. Every tree in the town was felled.
But this affront to life on the island did not change the fact that every day, every hour, a new baby was born and, although it should have been cause for celebration, often the birth of a child was tinged with sadness. Though Alú tried to paint a smile on his lips in spite of this paradox, his heart bled to see mothers and fathers break down at the loss of a child, to see grandmothers shattered by grief when a grandchild died of typhoid fever, of mosquito bites and tropical diseases that had been eradicated in other tropics.
From the outset, we have talked mostly about Alú, but the boy also had a mother and a father. A mother like so many others in the town who would have put her hand in the fire for her children. One of those mothers who would do anything, give anything, so that her children did not have to bear the burden of everyday life. Do not think that all of Alú’s little friends lived with their parents. Some lived with uncles, aunts, with stepmothers, stepfathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, with older brothers or sisters. In some cases, they lived with people with whom they had no blood ties.
Alú’s mother was not a poet or a witch doctor, a teacher or a nurse, but she was an inspiration to her children and her neighbours. Sita Konno was a woman with great charisma; a good person prepared to shoulder every burden life put in her path. To Alú, his mother’s commitment to the community seemed magnificent; it inspired him. Sita Konno helped to build the community. Engraved on Alú’s memory was something that his mother had once said to him and to some other friends his age.
It happened on an afternoon not unlike yesterday afternoon when the sun sank slowly to hide behind the mountain. It was one of those afternoons when Sita Konno invited children in to eat fuludum. And when the boys’ bellies were full, she began to feed their souls. Knowing his mother as he did, Alú could tell that something was amiss. Though she tried to hide it, he could see her face was lined with worry. Secret thoughts teemed inside Alú’s head but he did not have the courage to ask his mother. Sita Konno had decided to speak; she had been waiting for her son to grow so that she could tell him what she had never dared to relate. For many years, the boy had been curious to hear about his grandparents. On that afternoon, Sita Konno said this:
‘Our ancestors never learned to read or write; they taught us through stories, through fables and legends. I did not have the good fortune of growing up with my grandparents. Time was, people would sit around the kitchen hearth and tell children fables, legends and stories to teach them the difference between black and white, good and evil. They told their children stories in order to feed their souls, so that they might grow to be competent human beings. Then, as now, in our towns, our neighbourhoods and in our houses the voices of women went unheard. Many women’s voices were stifled. If I dare to speak today it is because I remember that I was once a girl, because I know that one day you will be fathers and grandfathers. I want my mother’s story to help you open up new pathways, help you to move always towards the horizon. I want you to fight to be happy; I want to shrug off the weight of this ghost that is devouring me. And so, for the first time, I want to tell my story because in the village where I come from, when a tree falls we use it to make firewood.
‘My mother was scarcely older than a child, she was living happily with her parents in a tiny village. They had nothing but my mother told me that they were happy nonetheless. As a girl, I often asked my mother how she could have been happy if they had nothing, if she never even had a doll. And my mother would always say that happiness does not depend on whether or not you have material things. She used to say that happiness was an act of will repeated every morning, every evening, every night. That it was a daily struggle unrelated to the waves we had to face.
‘My mother was only fourteen when she lost her parents to an epidemic of cholera that swept through her village. My mother told me it was a miracle that she survived. I don’t want to upset you, so I won’t tell you the devastation my mother saw with her own eyes, but I will tell you that she lost her parents, my grandparents. Can you imagine how many people lost their parents, their children, their mothers to diarrhoea? Countless.
‘My mother told us that she was forced to move to the big city, there to weave new dreams. She had to move to the big city where everything was different, where there was no sense of community, where there were big cars, big houses, where people had learned to live with rats and cockroaches. She had to fight off her old ghosts, had to forget the love of her parents if she was to fashion new paths, new dreams.
‘Make no mistake, even my mother had dr
eams.’ Sita Konno picked up a plastic cup, opened a plastic bucket, dipped the cup into the bucket, drew out water and took a sip. The sun by now was fading; tik went the light switch that Sita Konno flicked and the bulbs began to glow.
Translated by Frank Wynne
Mama’s Future
Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond
Mama was on her deathbed. She had been there for nearly a century, and for almost as much time, a cavalcade of PhDs and MDs had theorised about what exactly was killing her.
Some said poverty. Others, corruption. Another strand blamed her penchant for foreign lovers.
If only she hadn’t been so easily flattered, was the prevailing prefix to a frustrating ellipsis of what ifs. Yet another school posited, She never got over the loss of her kids.
The only thing they could agree on was that her time was near. And so, her children – the ones who had been taken, and the ones who had left – were located and summoned to say their goodbyes.
They came from North, South and Central America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania, joining the only sibling who had stayed home. For the first time since their youth all eight of them were in the same room, and as they waited to be invited into their mother’s chamber, the interaction between them was wary, competitive, and nostalgic.
‘Six hundred years and nothing’s changed,’ Musa said to none of them and all of them, when they had run out of catching up.
‘Well, there’s a new jet,’ Aesop quipped. They all had to laugh.
Their mother had sent a private jet for those who had been able to catch the ride from London. Currently, it stood parked on the dirt road outside, dwarfing the now crumbling mansion they had grown up in and drawing squatters seeking shady respite from the sun.
‘Vintage Mama.’
The laughter faded to wheezing sighs of reflection. Oh, Mama.
At her height, Mama had been the richest, most sought after woman in the world. Suitors would come from China, Vijayanagara, Arabia, England, Portugal, the Netherlands and France for the privilege of a glimpse, and she would keep them waiting in the courtyard while she and the kids spied them from her window.
What do you think he’s brought me this time? She would ask the children, excited.
Silk! Spice! Horses! Jade! Velvet!
The kids were her audience and her wardrobe attendants.
Yauwii would make a mess; strewing embellished caftans next to silk robes on top of yards of kente. Mama would slip into or wrap herself in each swath and prance in front of them. The look that received unanimous approval graduated to the consideration of jewellery.
Heben would bury her arms in Mama’s trinket box and pull out fistfuls of gold, diamonds, ivory, jade, amber and garnet for Mama to try. When the decision had been made – and Mama’s White Crown had been fitted on her head, her arms weighted from shoulder to wrist, her fingers glittering, her ankles tinkling with charms – she would sink on to her gold palanquin, rising on the shoulders of her slaves to be carried to her guests.
Now that she was among the poorest on the globe, Mama had not adapted to her changed station. Her home was a shrine to the past, the fossils of her youth poorly preserved, but displayed all the same.
Mama still wore only custom-fit, painstakingly loomed ensembles; imported, mass-manufactured pieces were cheap to her. She ate free-range, cage-free, organic-fed, fresh-killed meat for breakfast. ‘Eating out’ meant food that had been flown in. Chicken from the United States. Rice from Thailand. Luncheon meat from Japan.
She bled what money was left, after her lovers had stolen what they hadn’t been able to dupe her out of. And she had become a flagrant borrower. When she came around, people either scattered – not wanting to be guilt-tripped into giving – or they made an ostentatious show of their charity.
For her part, Mama did not consider one penny of it to be aid. Those who gave her could call it what they like, but as far as she was concerned, it was owed. They had built empires on the backs of her children and the bulk of her wealth. Anything they gave her was remittance.
‘Your mother is ready to see you.’ An aide emerged from the carved wooden door that shut them out of Mama’s room, not moving to the side to give them way. ‘She wants to meet with you individually, before she speaks to all of you.’
Apprehension knotted Ananse’s stomach. Mama had not seen all of her kids in millennia, and he feared emotion could confuse his promised place as her sole heir. A promise he had earned.
He was the one who had kept vigil with the flies at Mama’s bedside when Johan, Elizabeth, and Philip had kidnapped Aesop, Temisha, Xiomara and João. He was the one who had nursed Mama from the brink of death after Victoria, Jules, Alfonso, Luís, Vittorio, Léopold, and Wilhelm had carved her up at the Berlin Conference, leaving her for dead.
Ananse had watched Mama drop to her knees when she was forced to sell herself at whatever price buyers set for her bauxite, cocoa, copper, diamonds, gold, rubber and oil. And he had colluded with Mama to hide a reserve of her commodities in the Future, where only they could find it.
His brothers and sisters had left.
Ananse started to push past the aide, but the young man stopped him. ‘She wants to see Temisha first.’
Temisha swallowed the spit of insecurity as Ananse and the rest of their siblings watched her disappear behind Mama’s closed door.
Temisha gasped. No child should see her mother like this.
The old woman lay in between states, a shrunken memory of herself. A brigade of flies covered the mosquito net that shrouded her bed like so many polka dots, as if they could smell her impending death.
Despite the gruesome scene, Temisha sniffed a smile at her mother’s stubbornly fabulous presentation.
Mama was pancaked and rouged. False eyelashes fluttered from her kohl-rimmed lids and a wig that appeared to be from the private collection of Diana Ross and the Supremes sat on her head.
She wore a robe with an elaborately embroidered neckline that managed to complement and mock the necklace her jutting collarbone had become, its pattern in eerie harmony with the lesions tattooed all over her skin. Someone had adorned her with the few gems she hadn’t sold off, gold cuffs exploiting what was left of her wrists, the diamonds at her lobes threatening to split the skin in two.
‘Aminatu.’ Mama whispered the name she had given Temisha at birth. The one her captors had added to their booty the day she stepped on to the ship.
Temisha’s voice wavered. ‘I’m here, Mama.’
‘Yes. You are.’ The old woman drew a laboured breath that said more than words. ‘I never asked what happened when you left me.’
When you left me?
The first time Temisha had returned home, her mother had put it the same way, casting herself as some kind of jilted lover. Mama had also criticised her hair – then it had been dreadlocked – and berated her name.
What kind of name is Temisha? You Black-Americans and your Shanequa, Shaqueeda. Sha. Sha. Sha.
Mama was so focused on the ‘sha’ she didn’t hear the ‘Temi’. Temilade. Ifetemi. Eyitemi. She expressed zero desire to know or understand what happened then, choosing instead to pick out the differences between them.
Now, in what could be the last moments of Mama’s life, Temisha didn’t want to dig up the bodies. She had written spirituals, poems, books, scripts and essays about all she had been through. Mama could check her website for the details.
But of course, Mama prodded. ‘Aminatu, I’m waiting.’
‘I didn’t leave you, Mama.’ Temisha heard the Boulie in her voice, when she wanted to sound like the High Street Mama respected. Why, at this stage of her life, did Mama’s acceptance still mean so much?
‘I was plucked, Mama. Like a grey hair. And I was raped. Passed from one man to another from the centre to the coast, from the ship to the other side.
‘I was flogged and I was lynched. I was bred and I was brainwashed.
‘I broke tools and fell sick, prayed for we
evils and locusts to destroy their precious cash crops, and I started insurrections to survive. I founded advancement associations and advocacy groups. I joined fraternities and lodges. I sat in at lunch counters and marched up and down streets.
‘I filed lawsuits and I wiled out. I rotted in prison for crimes I committed and offences I was framed for.
‘I went to war for my kidnappers, and went to war on myself. Shot heroin. Smoked crack. Sniffed coke. Numbed the pain with Mary Jane. Ate and drank myself to diabetes.
‘Climbed corporate ladders and rose through Union ranks. And each time, I hit my head against their glass ceilings, suffering concussions with the contusion-marred egos to prove it.
‘I led gangs and menaced streets. I minded my business, and I was shot for standing my ground.
‘I gave my life to Jesus. Studied the Quran. Recited mantras. Practiced Baha’i. Sacrificed to Yemaya. Created my own holidays and traditions.
‘I’ve had so many names, Mama. Nigger. Nigra. Coloured. Negro. Black. Black-American. Afro-American. African-American. Nigga. Now, the only one I answer to is Survivor.’
When she finished speaking, the room was a balloon of saudade; and Temisha felt deflated. ‘Did you make me come all this way to tell you what happened, Mama?’