Song Beneath the Tides

by Beverley Birch

  Next thing is ‘Sherehe ya Kwazi’ on Kisiri, once the rains finish. First, a big boat procession round the island. My guess is that the festival this year will go on for weeks and weeks. And oh, will there be dancing now!

  One last thing – but v important: Makena just gave me the enclosed folder to read myself first, and then send on to you. Also she’s written to you, Ally, because she showed you some lines from this document when you were in Shanza, and she wants to tell you more now.

  I’ve just finished reading – v startling and puzzling! I’ll say no more, let it speak for itself!

  More news soonest,

  C xxxxxxx

  Ally reread the last few paragraphs. She pictured the hundred expressions that would colour Leli’s face as they debated all this together. Then she firmly blocked them out, and opened Makena’s folder, taking out the envelope tucked in the front, her name scribbled slantwise across it.

  Makena wrote:

  Dear Ally,

  You kept asking me to explain about the writing I gave you and I promised I would when I could. Here at last is that explanation! I am sorry to be so secretive!

  This folder contains a translation of papers donated to a museum in Portugal just two months ago. The three lines I gave you in Shanza come from the very beginning of it.

  An old friend of mine at the museum is studying the papers: as soon as she realized what they are, she began to translate them from Portuguese into English for me to see. When I showed you those lines, I had only received a few pages. The rest arrived just today!

  The original papers were wrapped in several layers of leather. They were found in the belongings of a very old lady who died in Lisbon nearly one hundred years ago. Her name was CATERINA JORGE PEREIRA.

  Remember that name, while you read!

  Till now, her relatives have not investigated the contents properly. They do not know of any definite family connections with Africa. But there is one very vague family story of an ancestor who arrived in Portugal, as a tiny girl. This was (they think) some time in the 1600s. This little girl was orphaned, possibly in Africa. Some suggestion too that she was in the company of another small child, a boy, and also a much older youth.

  You will see these papers are a kind of diary, though the entries are not dated and seem to record only a few days. The writer says he has just turned sixteen.

  Also in the Lisbon woman’s belongings when she died were letters (in a different writing), addressed to ‘My Brother’ and talking of events described in the diary. I have not seen translations of these yet, but my friend says the letters are in Portuguese, though it is clearly not the writer’s native language. He is a person of some rank, possibly royal – he refers to ‘my father’s court’ and signs himself, ‘Your Brother, J’. These letters are dated 1667 and 1670 so we conclude the diary probably dates from before.

  When you have read, you will make your own guess who wrote the letters! And what happened to the writer of the diary too!

  Ally, some of these pages are strange, strange! This diary person was having big, strange hallucinations. He sees visions. He believes he encounters the Spirit of Hope. This spirit appears to him as a person, a girl. He believes he travels to places on the mainland he would not, in truth, be able to reach if he is trapped in the circumstances of siege and imprisonment and illness he describes.

  My museum friend says the handwriting begins unsteady, broken. It wanders about the page. Then it becomes firmer. Towards the end it is very bold, and as if made at great speed.

  Ally, in my bones I know this was all written in Kisiri’s fort! This diary never names it, though the captain, Dom Alvaro, is named. We are trying to trace records of the fort commanders, to see if we can prove it.

  Of course, from the inscription on that stone you found, we know which fort it was. There are documents in the museum here in Ulima that say it had a garrison of about one hundred and ninety. There were twenty Portuguese with one hundred and seventy African slaves and soldiers. It was a half-way port for Portuguese ships travelling up the east coast of Africa to the Persian Gulf and India.

  There is also a reference to a very long siege by an Omani Arab force. They sailed down from the Persian Gulf to help the African coastal cities fight the Portuguese invaders. It is recorded that these Arabs blockaded the fort till some terrible sickness killed everyone inside. Possibly it was the bubonic plague – of course we cannot definitely know now.

  The thing is, Ally, you will see that the diary talks of such events!

  Think how terrible – at first they feel a duty to defend the fort for Portugal. Then they understand that Portugal has abandoned them! The chance to escape has gone – they have no ships, no help from outside, until . . . well, read for yourself!

  The diary even speaks of what I think is the treasure you found! And other, FAR STRANGER things.

  The last page is most exceptionally odd. It is clear to me that the writer is no longer in his state of feverish, delirious dreaming. He is stronger, excited, alert, intent on escape. And yet . . . and yet!!

  And I remember another thing. That you asked me about the Portuguese word for hope. I thought you had seen it in the inscription on the stone, and did not enquire. Now, when I read this diary, I wonder, and wonder . . . !

  And I wonder also about something your auntie has told me. We were discussing the shortening of names in your country – it is not often done here – and she says your given name is not Ally, but Elidi. People called you Elly, and as a little child you insisted you were not Elly, but Ally, and so it became, for ever more!

  Somewhere in the untidy jumble of my head, a little bell of memory rings, and so I went and checked. Ally, you never told me you share a part of your name with our warrior sister, Zawati! I find that Elidi – your full name – it is an old Greek name meaning ‘Gift of the Sun’! And I am struck again by how things, the strangest things, have bound us all, one way and another, to Kisiri and its fate!

  If anything more arises, I will send news through your dear auntie!

  Go well, my young friend.

  Your friend,

  Makena

  P.S. Read the papers WITH GREAT CARE. Most particularly read the last page!

  Twenty-seven

  The last page, Makena said. Ally turned to it.

  She didn’t see the lines of neat, impersonal typing in front of her. She imagined them as they were found in Portugal – bold, hand-written at great speed. The writer was sixteen, Makena said – like Jack. Only a year older than Leli, two years older than her.

  Trapped, maybe dying, in an ancient fort, on Kisiri.

  She was afraid to look.

  But in the end he was no longer in his state of feverish dreaming, Makena said. Stronger, excited, intent on escape . . .

  Escape.

  She made herself see.

  Short sentences, one below the other. Like little stabs.

  Am I robbed of my reason?

  My heart knows truth.

  Not dream.

  Not fever.

  Not madness.

  No fort or ship or cannon here.

  Calm waves, empty sands.

  You. Your hair like the rising sun. On your brow the talisman of Jabari, the mark of Fumo and Zawati, the founders of this place, that I hold against my heart now.

  I know that in some place I too inhabit, is your life.

  Hear me. Carry my words with you.

  I write to fill the waiting time, and for you.

  I pray that you know of our hope.

  That you know that in the darkest of hours you gave this gift.

  That you know all is not lost, that we are not in vain – I, Rubairo de Brita, and my friends, Bwana Jabari, Prince of Mwitu, Badru, Rahidi, who chose to share this destiny, my countrymen, Diogo and Paulo, and those of this land whom Fate brought to
this place, Saaduma, Chane, Winda, Omar, Goma, Neema, with the children, Caterina, Jorge, Sefi. All.

  In the refuge of this cave we wait together now for the shelter of the night, from which we will take the tide to our true freedom.

  I, Rubairo de Brita, know this.

  Line by line, word by word, line by line again, she read it. Then she tried out his name: Rubairo. And with it the word Makena had taught her. Esperança. Hope.

  Ghost?

  No. He’s there, she thought. Really there! On the island. Still.

  I saw you. You spoke to me.

  You are there, and also you’re long free of it. And you’re in the forest, the village, on Kisiri’s cliffs and beaches.

  It couldn’t make any kind of sense. But it did.

  She replayed his words: in the darkest of hours you gave this gift. We will take the tide to our true freedom.

  She wanted to say to him, do you know you gave freedom back? Not just the ammunition, as Makena called it – the fort and the treasure that could save Shanza and Kisiri from being wiped away. It was how all that ripped away the barriers people tried to throw between Leli and me.

  Even if it’s over now, it was real then.

  The day before she left for London, they went alone to Fumo and Zawati’s clearing. It was rinsed by days of rain. The black pillar gleamed. New grass speared through the mud. Butterflies flickered through purple flowers. As if every live thing worked busily to erase the horrors of what had been there.

  She saw it so clearly, reliving it, moment by moment. Leli walking the boundaries, making sure, listening for Fumo. Then he grinned, as if apologizing for being ‘foolish’ as he called it, and came to sit beside her. They leaned against each other and breathed the solitary, warm peace of the place.

  ‘It comes to my head, Ally,’ he said, ‘that in Kisiri there are many roads that cross, and many journeys and many lives that meet? I am thinking that maybe this is what is Kisiri’s life.’ And that was strange, because she was busy hunting down an elusive thought; as he spoke, it came sharp into focus. About time – that on Kisiri it was like the tides around the island, ebbing and flowing. And looping, like the tracks of the birds, so that Fumo and Zawati’s time, and the time of the fort, had ebbed and flowed and looped through theirs – hers, and Leli’s.

  Or was that just foolish too? It didn’t feel so, now, sitting in the kitchen with the words of the Portuguese boy in her hands; she had a name for him and a name for the time of the fort – Rubairo’s time, and she was meandering through another memory, too. Just before she saw Rubairo, as she went down to the sands from the camp on Kisiri, she passed Mzee Kitwana.

  ‘Sherehe ya Kwazi,’ he murmured, though like a little sigh to himself, not to her. ‘Bwana Fumo, Mwana Zawati.’

  She’d glanced back to see where he was gazing. She saw the bustling excitement, the air wisping blue with woodsmoke as it might be for festival cooking. She heard the women’s gales of laughter, as if the chance to shout advice to each other across the camp was enormously funny, as if some weight pressing down on them yesterday in Shanza was tossed aside by coming to Kisiri.

  ‘The soul of Shanza flies to Kisiri to be safe,’ Kitwana said, and this time it was to her. Then he threw her a glance full of questions – the kind that said there was more to be said and more to be asked. But he only moved away among the shelters, slowly, seeming smaller and older than ever before, and not once looked back.

  It was all true, Leli and me. It was, it was. I mustn’t let it be not true, just because it’s over.

  She looked down at Makena’s folder. In a minute she’d read it all, from the beginning. But there was a rattle at the letterbox – leaflets probably, and she got up to go and look. Then, she thought, breakfast, and after I’ve read, I’ll begin a letter to Makena and Carole, and – a new, firm thought – I’ll just write, even if he doesn’t answer. A card, a picture of London he could put in his room. Happy wishes for his future. No room for bleakness – throw off the bleakness! Not fair to him for me to be bleak—

  Envelope on the doormat. Small, blue, stripey coloured border. Airmail. Her name, and above, postman’s scribble. Sorted it to wrong bundle, sorry!

  No sender’s name or address on the back. Just fat and crackly with paper: she ripped it open – newspaper cuttings – and tissuey blue paper – writing crammed into every space, even sideways up the page and curling over the top—

  My dear very good friend Ally!!!!!

  I greet you from the high place where the land fell down and we saw the old stones and the treasure. They have finished putting wood into the hill to hold it safe and now they look inside to see what is hiding there. They make a strong roof in the cave, which is difficult because of the sea underneath, but now nothing will fall down if rain wants to wash it away.

  Is it well with you and Jack and Ben? Huru greets you. Today he is going with Saka to the lobster fishing place. Every person in Shanza sends greeting. My mother says she will very welcome you in our house every time. She has specially given the money to buy the paper and the stamp for this letter, and I am very happy she has done this!

  I send you the newspapers about our island and our forest which will be a Protected Site of National Heritage. It is very exciting for us all! It is very exciting that we did this, Ally, you and me! I am proud! We all did this, even my brother, Shaaban. He is just now taking his first mechanic’s tests, which is very important for him. When he is finished, in four days he will be here for a holiday and I will tell him how it all was, everything, and all the village will thank him!

  I am content because we can do many things in Shanza now and not let these people take our island. We will welcome all visitors who do not spoil it. We have many friends who are working with us. Perhaps I will not be a doctor but an archaeologist! That is a joke, I will be a doctor, but truly, Eshe says she will be an archaeologist. She takes all her time to help them there. She is running about, below where I am sitting, and Collins also. They are putting the big ropes to mark the next place to look into. Eshe says I must become a lawyer to keep Shanza and Kisiri safe. But Lumbwi will be the lawyer – he is very impressed with this man who is helping us, Mr Kamusi. Maybe he is only impressed with his good suits! Lumbwi is a chameleon, like his name. But he is a good person. Sometimes I am angry with him that his brain jumps about with big ideas, but now I thank him with everything in my heart that he came to fetch me so fast to speak on the telephone and I thank Eshe with all my heart that she took my letter fast to my brother, so we learned about these cars quickly and we did ‘make a join of the dots’ as Inspector Rutere calls it.

  The newspaper and radio and television came here. They made pictures of Collins and Dedan, also me and Huru, Jela, Lumbwi and his father, and Saka, and Thimba too, in the place of Fumo and Zawati, and the killed lion and cheetah. I told them about you and Ben and Jack, and that you nearly died when the cliff fell down, Ally. Maybe they telephone you there in London City and ask about it.

  Mr Kamusi has won that Fumo and Zawati’s place is sacred. It will be allowed to stay always the way it is now. Soon it will be Sherehe ya Kwazi there. We will say thank you for all things! There will be Makena and Inspector Rutere and Dr Carole and Mr Kamusi in the festival. They will come on the journey in the boats round Kisiri too. All Shanza made a vote about this. Inspector Rutere sometimes has gloom because of the feet tramping about Kisiri, but it is only because he does not want it to be spoiled.

  We will stop it being spoiled, this we will do!

  Today there is even a new thing! There are some students at the university where Makena works. They like to dive to look for old wrecks. They have been here this week to dive round Kisiri. Today they came in from the water very excited! They think they have maybe seen a part of a Portuguese ship sticking from the sand. Makena says this is maybe very important, and I must specially tell you.

  Now, Ally, Mak
ena has shown us strange things about Kisiri. It is like that writing she gave you, before. She is sending the writing to your auntie for you to read. She says your given name is Elidi. It is like Zawati’s – it means Gift. You did not tell me! Gift of the Sun, like the sun of your beautiful hair. And I remember all the strangeness about Kisiri. I remember Fumo’s warnings and now I think it is Zawati who speaks to you too! I remember the silver thing of Fumo and Zawati that Mzee Kitwana gave to me and I gave to you and that is now under the earths of Kisiri when the cliff fell down. I remember what you said to me when you go climbing there! I think and think and do not know what to believe. It is even more what I said to you before. Many paths go across each other on Kisiri. Why do they cross? When you receive this writing, tell me what YOU think. You must read it very quickly and tell me quickly.

  Today I made a promise. It is to myself. I will visit you one day, in your place, Ally. I will see you! Perhaps you will visit us again in our place, and we may dance together in Shanza to celebrate! I hope you will maybe think of this. I am hoping and hoping and hoping. I am very very very happy if our journeys will meet again.

  Go well, my very good friend. Write to me soon, if you can find the time.

  Your friend for ever, Leli.

  P.S. You do not have a free choice! Write to me STRAIGHT AWAY about what Makena sends, and about everything about you. Makena says she thinks a little door opens in your soul when you came here. I hear her say this and I see that a door is open in my soul when you are here. It is in my soul and my heart. It is painful if you do not write and the door is closed. It will burn me away. Write quickly! Write to me about what Makena says. I must understand what happened to you on Kisiri. It is the thing that makes me unhappy, that I do not really understand what you had there. You must tell me. Read everything quickly, Ally. Tell me everything, everything, everything about your life! You are not allowed to be too busy!