Homegoing(18)

“No, my stone!” Esi shouted, remembering the golden-black stone her mother had given her. She flung herself to the ground and started to dig and dig and dig, but then the soldier was lifting her body, and soon all that she could feel instead of dirt in her steadily moving hands was air and more air.

They took them out into the light. The scent of ocean water hit her nose. The taste of salt clung to her throat. The soldiers marched them down to an open door that led to sand and water, and they all began to walk out onto it.

Before Esi left, the one called Governor looked at her and smiled. It was a kind smile, pitying, yet true. But for the rest of her life Esi would see a smile on a white face and remember the one the soldier gave her before taking her to his quarters, how white men smiling just meant more evil was coming with the next wave.





Quey





QUEY HAD RECEIVED A MESSAGE from his old friend Cudjo and didn’t know how he would answer it. That night, he pretended the heat was keeping him awake, an easy lie for he was drenched in sweat, but then, when wasn’t he sweating? It was so hot and humid in the bush that he felt like he was being slowly roasted for supper. He missed the Castle, the breeze from the beach. Here, in the village of his mother, Effia, sweat pooled in his ears, in his belly button. His skin itched, and he imagined mosquitoes crawling up his feet to his legs to his stomach, to rest at the watering hole of his navel. Did mosquitoes drink sweat, or was it only blood?

Blood. He pictured the prisoners being brought into the cellars by the tens and twenties, their hands and feet bound and bleeding. He wasn’t made for this. He was supposed to have an easier life, away from the workings of slavery. He was raised among the whites in Cape Coast, educated in England. He should still be in his office in the Castle, working as a writer, the junior officer rank that his father, James Collins, had secured for him before his death, logging numbers that he could pretend didn’t represent people bought and sold. Instead, the Castle’s new governor had summoned him, sent him here, to the bush.

“As you know by now, Quey, we’ve had a long-standing working relationship with Abeeku Badu and the other Negroes of his village, but of late, we’ve heard that they have begun trading with a few private companies. We would like to set up an outpost in the village that would act as a residence for a few of our employees, as a way of, say, gently reminding our friends there that they have certain trade obligations to our company. You’ve been specially requested for the position, and given your parents’ history with the village and given your comfort and familiarity with the language and local customs, we thought that you might be a particular asset to our company while there.”



Quey had nodded and accepted the position, because what else could he do? But inside he resisted. His comfort and familiarity with the local customs? His parents’ history with the village? Quey was still in Effia’s womb the last time he or his mother had been there, so scared was she of Baaba. That was in 1779, nearly twenty years ago. Baaba had died in those years, and yet, still, they had stayed away. Quey felt his new job was a kind of punishment, and hadn’t he been punished enough?

—

The sun finally came up, and Quey went to see his uncle Fiifi. When they’d met for the first time, only a month before, Quey could hardly believe that a man like Fiifi was related to him. It wasn’t that he was handsome. Effia had been called the Beauty her whole life, and so Quey was accustomed to beauty. It was that Fiifi looked powerful, his body a graceful alliance of muscles. Quey had taken after his father, skinny and tall, but not particularly strong. James was powerful, but his power had come from his pedigree, the Collinses of Liverpool, who’d gained their wealth building slave ships. His mother’s power came from her beauty, but Fiifi’s power came from his body, from the fact that he looked like he could take anything he wanted. Quey had known only one other person like that.

“Ah, my son. You are welcome here,” Fiifi said when he saw Quey approaching. “Sit. Eat!”

Summoned, the house girl came out with two bowls. She started to set one bowl in front of Fiifi, but he stopped her with only a glance. “You must serve my son first.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled, setting the bowl in front of Quey instead.



Quey thanked her and looked down at the porridge.

“Uncle, we’ve been here a month already and yet, still, you haven’t discussed our trade agreements. The company has the money to buy more. Much more. But you have to let us. You have to stop trading with any other company.”

Quey had given this very speech or one like it many times before, but his uncle Fiifi always ignored him. The first night they were there, Quey had wanted to talk to Badu about the trade agreements straightaway. He thought the sooner he could get the chief to agree, the sooner he could leave. That night, Badu had invited all the men to drink at his compound. He brought them enough wine and akpeteshie to drown in. Timothy Hightower, an officer eager to impress the chief, drank half a caskful of the home brew before he passed out underneath a palm tree, shaking and vomiting and claiming to see spirits. Soon, the rest of the men also littered the forest of Badu’s front yard, vomiting or sleeping or searching for a local woman to sleep with. Quey waited for his chance to speak to Badu, sipping his drink all the while.

He had had only two cups of wine before Fiifi approached him. “Careful, Quey,” Fiifi said, pointing at the scene of men before them. “Stronger men than these have been brought down by too much drink.”