The Book of Negroes

by Lawrence Hill

  Fanta kicked over the bucket. "I was not to be a captive," she muttered. "I am freeborn."

  A BUNCH OF US HUDDLED together to sleep on the cold, hard sand. Biton. Fanta. Chekura. Fomba. Oumou. A few others. And me. Never in Bayo had I seen numerous men and women all sleeping together. It never would have been tolerated. But here on this island, pooling our warmth in a nest of bodies gave us comfort.

  I awoke one night to see the stars on fire. I missed the feel of Oumou's warm leg over mine, and the sound of Biton snoring. Chekura was there. Fomba was nearby. Fanta, unfortunately, was right beside me. But Oumou and Biton were gone.

  I rolled over and sucked in my breath. There they were. Biton and Oumou! Just a few steps away. They were riding each other, gasping, thrusting their loins one into the other. They were locked together like dogs. I heard the sound of wet flesh slapping. It made me think of the medicine man taking the women always at the same time of day: after eating and after firewater, but before sleep. At home with my parents, sometimes I had to rise in the night to relieve myself. But first, I had to look. Mama and Papa might be together, rocking and heaving just like Oumou and Biton. Now I couldn't get up. I would have to lie still. I would shut my eyes and hope they would stop soon, and wish I never saw it again.

  In the morning, when I awoke, Oumou and Biton were back among us, and nobody said a thing.

  A SHIP CAME TO THE ISLAND. The toubabu began to round us up, starting with those of us who still had fluids draining from our bodies. My body wanted to drop. It wanted nothing other than to spread out and be cradled by the earth itself. Straw. Grass. Earth. Sand. I was beyond caring. Any sort of bed would do. But they forced me up on my feet and made me bend over. I feared that they would burn my flesh again, but lacked the strength to fight. They pushed my head lower, pulled out my hips and slid a plug of grass deep into my anus. It stung and brought on sharp cramps, but I could not expel the thing. I was made to stand straight again. They made each of us remove the rough cloth we had been given and throw it into a raging fire. We were led onto a ship and sailed across the water, toward the land that was in view.

  An unmistakable stink blew in with the wind. I smelled it before I turned around. Another ship from my homeland. I could barely make out the people bunched together on the deck. Their ship drew slowly toward the island we had just left. I felt relieved that I would not have to look into their eyes, or to confront their misery. I hoped I would never meet them.

  The toubabu gave us each another bit of cloth, just as rough as the first. I put my arms through it and pulled it down over my head. The coarse material scratched my skin, but it didn't hurt as much as the white rope that they bound around my wrists. Planks were laid from the ship to a wharf, and we walked down into the toubabu's land.

  Never had I seen a place so crowded or strange. I saw toubabu boys and toubabu men, straight-haired and yellow-toothed, walking, riding horses or sitting in carts. Some wore rags and others fine layers of cloth with thick boots.

  Strangest of all, I saw homelanders everywhere carrying goods, sweating and shouting. In their voices I sometimes heard notes of joy and play. No shackles bound their wrists or ankles, but not one of them fought or tried to run away. Some of the working homelander men wore nothing but breeches. The homelander women took their time on the streets, parading their backsides and sporting coloured head scarves. I could not take my eyes off the reds and oranges and blues that ran and swam in those scarves. Some of the women laughed with the toubabu. I saw one toubab man place his hand on the backside of a homelander woman. She smiled at him, open mouthed.

  Toubabu boys laughed and threw pebbles at us. On the street, on steps, on porches, on top of wooden buildings and on horse-drawn carts, people yelled and stared. The world had gone mad.

  I saw a toubab woman. She held a round object over her head for shade. Her hands were as white as bones. No. Not bones. Not possible. Her hands were the colour of scrubbed elephant teeth. I looked again. That wasn't skin. It was something else, covering her hands. It looked soft and delicate. How I longed for that material. Perhaps it would save my fingers from feeling cold and swollen through the nights.

  The toubab woman looked straight at me. Cheeks, pink and fat. Lips, thin and pale. Her eyes made me think of a rock-strewn river, with deep, dangerous water calling out to me, Jump in, child. Jump right in. It won't hurt.

  Our eyes met. The woman's hand flew up to her mouth. I could feel my scalp itching where the hair had fallen out, the running sore on my knee and the plug of grass that choked my backside. I wished to become the woman who was growing inside me, to find my dignity and never have it stripped from me again.

  I stepped in a hole and lost my balance. Even with his hands bound, Chekura managed to use an arm to keep me from falling. "Aminata! Walk correctly. Walk!"

  Everywhere I looked, I saw goods. Sacks of grain, stacks of corn, hay for horses, piles of nails, cows and pigs being led across streets. No goats. But chickens everywhere, bunched together five or more, feet strung, hanging upside down from the same rope, carried along by boys or by homelanders.

  The streets and gutters were filled with waste. Rotting fruit, dead cats, human feces and green meat, all of it picked over by fat-bellied, big-winged birds of death that circled and spun and looped in the air. I thought they eyed me too as they flew past, and I imagined they were thinking, In good time we'll get you too.

  In my homeland, the towns I knew were set up in a circle so everybody could be together. In this place, people walked off in all directions, taking dusty roads running either side by side or at sharp angles to one another. I didn't believe I could ever find my way in such a place.

  We were herded into an open space in front of a building made of wood, built to the height of five grown men. So many people were packed into the space that I thought it was a market. I looked around for piles of squashes, salt or shea nuts, but saw only people—my people—bound and roughly clothed. Chekura was pulled away from me, and so were Fanta, Biton and most of the others. I called out to Chekura, but the sounds of shouting men drowned out my voice. The healthy captives were shoved into one large circle, and into another circle went the rest of us—those who limped or bled or had gone blind or had ribs protruding like half-built ships. Somebody nudged me. I looked back. It was Fomba. His eyes were glassy, and he walked off balance, head cocked far to the side. It seemed that the toubabu already knew that Fomba was not quite right.

  "Fomba," I said. He looked at me. He raised his tied wrists so he could nibble a fingernail. His mind had left him, but I could bring it back. "Don't lean like that. Straighten your head." If he looked valuable, perhaps he would be spared a beating, or worse.

  Two toubabu men stood on a platform. The healthy captives were led up to them, one by one. Most of them stood with shoulders slumped and heads down while the toubabu shouted. When the shouting stopped, they were taken down from the platform and led out through the crowd.

  When Biton was brought up onto the platform, he held his chin up. He had a cut on his shin and a scar on his face, but he stood tall and straight. His skin was oiled and shiny. I hated that he had to stand there like that with all eyes turned on him. A toubab lifted up Biton's cloth to look at his shrivelled penis. He dropped the cloth back into place and tested a biceps. When the shouting grew loud, Biton looked around and caught my eyes. He opened his mouth. Aminata Diallo, he said. I couldn't hear a thing over the noise of the crowd. But I saw his mouth move and I knew he was saying my name.

  Two toubabu stepped up on the platform, prodded Biton's cheeks, made him open his mouth, and stuck their fingers inside. They poked him everywhere, and then left the platform. The din increased. One toubab broke into nasal singing. He stopped as quickly as he had started. A man in the crowd shouted, and the first toubab picked up where he had left off. More men shouted. The song stopped and started, over and over, and so it went until Biton was led off the platform, into the thick crowd.

  One by one, the captives we
re brought up on the platform. I called out to Chekura when he stood before the crowd, but he could not hear me. I hoped that he would stand as proudly as Biton, but he couldn't manage. He stumbled. He reared back when someone reached into his mouth. The toubabu roared in laughter. After more shouting, Chekura was dragged off the platform and out of my sight.

  The toubabu men used the same quills and inkpots that the medicine man had shown me on the boat. I stared at one man as he wrote. Left to right. Left to right. Others did it the same way. Had they all learned to write backwards? The man caught me looking at him, stared at me hard, for a moment, and turned away so that I couldn't see. Other men passed rounded pieces of metal back and forth. Some were shiny, others dull. They didn't look as attractive as cowrie shells or copper manillas.

  In the dirt by my feet, I noticed a glittering piece of metal, about three times the size of my thumbnail. I managed to squat, get it between my fingers, and stand up again to examine it more closely. I saw a man's head on one side—the same head I had seen in the medicine man's room. I put the metal between my teeth. Too hard to break. Perhaps it could be pierced. If a hole could be made, through it, perhaps a tightly woven thread of grasses could be slipped through, so that the thing could hang off a wrist, or a neck. Still, it would be ugly. I could not imagine what gave this thing value.

  I heard more shouting and looked back to the platform. Fanta was now up before the crowd. She spat when they made her open her mouth, and kicked when they tried to inspect her womanhood. The people laughed and threw pebbles. When Fanta cried out, they stuffed a rag in her mouth. She choked, and they pulled it out. She screamed again and they stuffed it back in. A man cupped her breast. She scratched his face and drew blood. Her hands were tied behind her back. I hoped that she would stop resisting before somebody hurt her badly. When she kneed another man in the face, the crowd roared again. He smacked her cheek, and somebody else bound her ankles. Of all the homelanders brought up to the platform that day, Fanta was the only one who had her mouth stuffed, wrists bound and legs tied. She seemed to be begging them to kill her, but they were having too much fun for that. When the toubabu finished laughing and shouting, they carried Fanta off the platform.

  All the healthy captives were gone. Many of the toubabu were gone. Under the guard of clothed homelanders who didn't speak our languages, the rest of us waited in the square. The sun moved a distance across the sky, and we had no water or food or place to sit. There were about fifty of us: older captives, younger ones, the sick and the frail ones, the ones with broken limbs and missing teeth and watery, whitened, useless eyes. Some of us could stand on our own. Others couldn't, and either leaned against the building or fell down. While we waited, a homelander released my bound wrists, but Fomba remained tied up. Fomba managed to sit down, push his back up against a tree and fall asleep. I sat too, but was sure I would not be able to sleep with the toubabu circling around me.

  The next thing I knew, I was awakened by a young homelander who was prodding me with a stick. With his thumb, he signalled for me to get up. Now there were far fewer toubabu and captives in front of the building. All of the captives around me were sick, bleeding or blind; one or two, like Fomba, were glassy eyed and with minds gone. There were only about thirty of us. There was far less noise than before. None of the toubabu were shouting or laughing. There were no toubabu women left watching.

  Two young homelanders, each holding the end of a thick wooden pole, pushed us apart, separating us an arm's length from each other. We were refuse captives, and we were lined up in one long row. The space in front of us was cleared away. Toubabu and working homelanders stood to one side of us or the other, except for a group of five toubabu men who stood facing us at a distance of some thirty paces. The five toubabu formed a row, and were separated by equal distances. Each man was holding a rope and standing behind a line that had been scratched in the ground.

  A toubab to the side shouted out a few words and held a firestick above his head. He pointed it up. We, the refuse captives, were spread just a little farther apart. The toubab with the firestick would have to kill us one by one. Please let me go first, I prayed.

  The toubab let off a report so loud that it made me lose control of my bowels. I had not even a moment to ponder my own humiliation as the grass plug and my own waste flowed out of me. The toubabu raced forward, ropes in hand, pushing and shoving as they tried to grab captives and sling ropes around them. A man grabbed me. He tried to tie me up. Another man knocked him back, and tied his own rope around my waist. He pulled me closer to his stinking chest and tightened the rope, which bit into my skin. Fixing a knot, he stepped on my toes, set all of his weight down on my right foot. I shrieked. He stepped back. I wondered if my bloody toes were broken. Now that a rope was fastened around my waist, I was left standing alone.

  An old homelander woman—I saw her, and wondered how she had survived the crossing—was knocked down. I caught a glimpse of Fomba, sitting on the ground, elbows around his knees, palms over his ears, eyes shut, rocking back and forth. The same man who had tied me up was tightening a rope around Fomba. It took three men to get him up. He sagged in their arms. Dead weight, but not dead. A man ripped Fomba's hands off his ears and screamed at him. Others crowded in. I couldn't see him any more. We, the refuse captives, were now all roped and bundled.

  The toubabu men with ropes began moving away from the building with groups of two, three or four ailing captives. A toubab grabbed the rope around Fomba's waist, pulled him to me and led us both away from the building and down a dusty lane. I looked left and right for Chekura, Biton and Fanta, but could catch no glimpse of them or any of the healthy captives.

  Fomba walked just a few steps to my side. His eyes were open, but he didn't see me, or anything, or anyone. The toubab stepped on my toes again. I cried out. Fomba's head swivelled around. His eyes came alive, and he stared at me. Now he saw me. My voice seemed the only thing that could pull him from that trance. Now I felt shame. In Bayo, he was meant to serve us. But now he needed me.

  "Are you all right?" I asked.

  He smiled.

  "If I find any water," I said, "I'll give you some."

  Fomba opened his mouth, but nothing—not one sound—came from his lips.

  After walking for some time, we were brought to a young working homelander who was standing by a horse and cart. Waiting with him were two bound captives—one man and one woman. I didn't know them. They had not come off our ship, and looked stronger and healthier than I. I whispered a few words to them, but it was clear that they could speak neither to me nor to each other.

  The toubab rearranged us, placing us in single file, separating us by five paces and attaching us with new ropes, waist to waist. Fomba, in the front, was attached to the back of the cart. The second man, who looked like he wanted to run, was placed behind him. The young woman was placed ahead of me, and I saw her looking left, right and behind as I was tied up in the last position. The toubab climbed up on the cart and tapped his horse with a rod. The horse began walking, the cart started moving, and we had no choice but to move forward.

  WE WALKED ALL DAY. No water. No food. No breaks to pee. If you had to go, you had to do it and keep walking with the urine running down your sore legs and burning your broken skin. Sometimes to one side, I glimpsed the big water. But mostly it was trees, and land, and the endless path, and swamps on my left. I had not seen such wet ground, with grasses and reeds growing straight out of the water, in my homeland.

  Moss draped from the trees like loose clothes. The wheels on the back of the wagon turned, and I watched them for hours, turning, moving, not breaking, not giving. The wheels fascinated me, and I tried to imagine my legs were like that, rolling on and on and on in the sun. The working homelander walked near to us with his head down, like a beaten dog.

  When we stopped at night, they left the ropes knotted around our waists but let us lie on the ground. I took the space next to the woman who had been walking in front of me. We loo
ked freely into each other's faces, and I felt relieved to find friendly eyes. The homelander working for the toubab got a fire going and boiled up cornmeal mush. He ladled it out in calabashes that made me ache terribly for my homeland, and gave us water. We were pointed to the open ground. I sat down and stretched out.

  The woman and I lay down beside each other, and she put her arm around me. I felt grateful for her warmth and comfort even though I never could have asked for it. Her language was unfamiliar, so we pointed to exchange names. Tala. That was her name. We pointed at the bucket, and traded words for food. And water. And the moon. And the stars. To learn the woman's language, I had only to lie down with her.

  I dreamt that I was walking through a forest in the toubabu's land. The toubabu and their working homelanders were taking me far away from the town. We walked through the early morning mist. Rabbits cut across the path. Hurry, I thought, speaking to them in my mind, or somebody will catch and cook you. I called out the warning to one passing rabbit, which was heavily pregnant. Rather than slipping into the bushes, the creature stopped and turned and stared at me long and hard, until I saw that she had my mother's eyes. For some time, she hopped along ahead of me, showing me the way, letting me know that I should stay on the path, reassuring me that I was travelling properly. I walked on and the toubabu transformed into hunters from my village. We heard drumbeats from the forest, shouts from the village women washing clothes by a stream. The rabbit turned into my mother, balancing a slain rabbit on a platter on her head. We had just caught a baby and we were returning home.

  When I awoke the next morning and our march continued, I looked left and right for signs of people from my village. On the beaten track and in the fields, there were homelanders everywhere. I had never imagined it would be so. I had expected that I would be all alone, one homelander in a sea of toubabu. But everywhere I looked, homelander men and women passed us. Some were in chains. Others in ropes. Still others walked free, entirely unescorted. With all these homelanders about on foot—I could see that they outnumbered the toubabu—surely my captivity would not be allowed. Someone would come to rescue me. But this was a strange, strange world. I could not make any sense of it. Not a single homelander fought or shouted or ran. They showed no resistance at all. Not one of them took any notice of me.