La Blanche. That’s what they call me. What they say when they think I can’t hear them. La Blanche and a lot of other names, too. Words that soil, ruin my name, give them high airs when they have become nothing.
In the end, I couldn’t care less what they think. For me, I believe there are days when you just don’t have the choice. When a man who is living is a man who takes risks. And I, La Blanche, have decided not to die. That would be silly. Unfair. I’m not made for that. Never really suffered. Always took the best. They call that luck.
In the beginning, when I started hanging out with the sailor, I was afraid to touch. Afraid of being hurt. In my head, this White man was like a beast, a body without a body with something monstrous between his thighs. We don’t choose a man for his beauty. That’s what my mother had time to teach me, she who said nothing, did nothing when the eldest of her sons sold me.
She had no choice, either. You can’t feed children on nothing but roots. The other night, while dreaming of her, I vomited. There was an old woman sitting next to me, do you think she helped me? Huh. She pretended not to see a thing. I could have died; no one would have lifted a finger. No one wants anything to do with me.
That’s how it’s been since the very first day. All because one of the White men, looking me over, murmured something that made them all laugh. And I, instead of screwing up my face, I smiled at the man, seeming to agree, to say I had the same thought as he did. Other words were said, then the guy pulled me to him and asked me my name. Because I kept smiling, he said he would call me Felicity.
We say White men, White men, but man is man. A woman is all he needs to soften his heart. I knew that. Every evening, I went to offer him my joy.
The first night was well before the ship set sail. I think it was sprinkling outside. It was still raining on the coast. Seemed to be doing it on purpose. Soaked to the bones, I ran to the White quarters. It’s clean where they sleep, roomy, well-lit. Has to do with the flames they light and cover with glass hoods.
I knock. Their hut is always closed up. “Jan?” I call. In the doorway, a Negro woman with a fat ass looks me up and down, and asks, “What ship? Bo-at?” repeating impatiently, imitating the water’s dance. Just as she’s shutting the door, a man’s voice sounds from inside. I’m his Felicity, he says, so let her in. Each night. Every night until early morning. Until the day of the big departure.
“You don’t need anything?” the fat woman’s voice trails off as she disappears behind a curtain.
“You’re not afraid, are you?” The colorless man eyes me from the other end of the hallway, observing me. I smile. Walk toward him and follow him into a dark, empty room. I don’t know what to say, where to go or how to begin, I let him take the lead, my belly opens like a flower when it touches his fiery body. His thing burns inside me. I cry out. His thing burns me. Goes in and out down there. Fills me with dirty water. It hurts and then it’s over. I may even learn to love.
Later, the man gets up, spits smoke. And words, a lot of them. I’m no longer used to hearing so many.
Now, there’s sadness in his gaze. His eyes fill with water. My body closes up again, his own turns away. It’s time for me to go back.
Night has almost ended when I slip into back into the hut. I say “house” but that’s not the right word. The place where we are is unlike any I’ve ever seen. Nothing you can imagine. It’s damp. It’s dark. And I forgot: the mosquitoes! Vicious. Everywhere, all the time. Make sleep impossible. Seems they’re attracted to water, all these lagoons that surround us, the last hurdle between us and the sea. Some here fear the ocean. Think the Devil created it. For me, it’s just like land. I’m beginning to get used to it. It’s been like that, only that, since I left the village. Tomorrow will mark three months.
NOW THAT I’ve thought about it, maybe I always wanted to leave. As a child, I dreamed of it already. Take to the sea of sand. Live without hut or door. Do like the Arabs, live the world. Everything is so small where I come from. Scarcely room to grow dreams. And people talk too much. Who’s doing what, going where, all day long. Sticking their nose in things that don’t concern them. My mother claims it’s because they depend on one another. Whatever the reason, they’re not going to change.
In truth, I’m not unhappy to be here. For the first time in my life, I feel light. A feather in the wind. Back home, it’s different. A woman stays on the ground, only a man flies when he dies. What sense does that make?
As for the spirits and all that, I confess I’ve never really believed. Always just pretended, including that day in Ouidah, when we had to walk circles around the fetish tree.
They claimed it would make us lose our memory. So that when we died, our soul wouldn’t come back to the country to seek revenge. Right after being sold, we had to walk circles around it. Walk around it for good, until we were dizzy. Walk around it for fun: why would I want to return to the village?
After my mother was gone, something broke inside me. I had grown up brutally, and in pushing, shattered the last links that connected me to the country.
Must have showed on my face. It’s probably why the White man smiled.
Did that thing to me, then fed me in his room that same evening.
It was good, almost too much, but I still wanted more. Feel my belly full until morning, never feel hunger again. By eating, I wiped away my defilement. I was La Blanche. Not like the others. Half-captive.
Back in the warehouse, I tried to avoid the bodies. Dropped my eyes for fear of meeting a derisive grin. In the morning, I was the one who had betrayed. Until the end, they said that of me.
*
She arrived the next day, while I was fighting over a lemon with two girls who swore up and down they’d seen me steal it, as if you’re not given enough to eat there! I could have just let it go, but when they started off, claiming a young woman like me had to learn to keep her eyes down, I lost my temper. It all came out at once. I let loose all the insults my mouth could spit. Band of bitches, it was not their affair! They’d do the same, if they weren’t so ugly! Didn’t come to blows, I had no time for that. Afterward, I just felt exhausted. It was foolish to lose my head over that.
The little one and I quickly became friends. Which was perfectly normal, after all, I didn’t hold grudges. Ask the folks back home, they’ll tell you.
I’ve never liked scenes, but they shouldn’t have picked a fight with me. A real fury! Like my mother, every time some useless person came after her.
Our mother. What is she doing at this time of day? Is she already at the market or on her way to some other place, some corner to park her body, build a hut with all that cheap merchandise brought back from the slave market by her son?
How the old woman had laughed to see those pebbles. Beads from Venice! Oh là là! Wouldn’t she be pretty! So chic, an Afro-European! Before you knew it, she’d be marrying an important man. Would have enough assets to get hitched.
Hair always grows back when it’s cut.
Surely, with time, the mother would remember her daughter, think with shame of the one she had betrayed.
“What else could I have done?” she’d say, eyes red from sleepless nights wallowing in remorse. It was entirely possible that she’d end up forgetting the child. The day she’d come out, her smile, her name. Not remember. It’s possible . . .
That morning, on the path leading to the great water, I thought I saw her. I turned toward her, full of anger and hate. Begged her to keep me. “Take me back, buy me back. Don’t let them take me away!”
My cord is broken now. How will I knot it once more? Here is the broken cord of my life, the cord I used to draw water from the well is broken, how will I knot it once more? I can put tears into it, but tears are not enough. I can put money into it, nothing will work. My cord is broken now, how will I knot it once more?
She was about to open her mouth when, suddenly, her body was seized with trembling. My mother was laughing. I swear, I saw her laugh.
*
The little one has closed her eyes. Probably thinks that there will be nothing after. That all she left behind will come back one day. The little one still believes in miracles. I try to draw her a sun in the sand. A circle, with rays as long as locks of hair, a mouth saying hello, wide-open eyes, dimples in its cheeks. There, she’s taking a look at the picture. She finds the strength to lift her head and look at me. She has lucky teeth, I tell her. Teeth that will attract love and good fortune. She says those are just stories told to reassure, children don’t believe such things. Later, I make up an orange. Watch her trembling hands delicately peel the fruit. Her own. So real that she’s amazed, presses it to her chest like a baby. Eat, I tell her. You have to eat. Live in the present, tomorrow is another day. Her eyes thank. For the orange and for the stories.
“They’re not stories. That’s what people think.”
“Do grown-ups always think the wrong way?”
“It happens and sometimes it never happens.”
“Why did it happen?”
Near the tubs where we’re bathing, the little one, naked, hesitates. The buds of her breasts are hard. Her fingers knead the body of an imaginary doll. Behind her, a man eyes her. Thinks she won’t protest if he does it. Too little.
In a flash, I’m there to challenge him. Let him approach if he dare. Just let him try to touch her!
“What did he want?” She’s taken refuge in my arms, watches him walk away.
“What do you mean, what did he want?”
Is she feigning innocence, or does she really know nothing of men?
Suddenly, I want to be spiteful, stick my finger up into her belly and say, that’s what he wanted! Yes, this is exactly what he wanted!
Terror in the little one’s eyes. My own shame. I stink. The dirty water, the bitch, the woman. It’s because of them, their thing that I’m unhinged. A woman is not born, she becomes, through contact with them. The way they look at us, touch us, fill us. So much the better if she knows nothing yet. She’s right. We must never feel the way they want.
THE LITTLE one is sleeping, and the image of my own body comes back to me. At the age of ten, maybe twelve, when the juice of the belly was pure.
When I bled the first time, my mother started staring at me with suspicion. She was afraid, something to do with the old story I’d heard a hundred times.
In our family, one in four bellies is spoiled. That’s what everyone has always said. That’s how it’s been for a long time, ever since the day some woman did something bad. I’m not exactly sure what the sin was. My mother refuses tell me. Says I don’t need to know. It wouldn’t change anything, the evil is already within me. It’s she who confirms it: never will I give life.
When the blood came, at first I thought she had told a lie. There was so much of it in my belly that I thought sure something would end up growing in there. I hurt but at the same time was happy. I wanted to dance naked. Run from one hut to the next, announcing the good news to all. I had run out to the middle of the courtyard, was ready to open my mouth, when I heard someone scream my name. My mother. Behind. Stock still. Her hand gripping the ox nerve. No time to bolt, she was already upon me. Snap, she struck. Snap. All night it went on. Even though I was little, I shed no tears. I was hardheaded. Just like Obagadjou, they say. He’s my father. Was.
I HAVE only a fleeting memory of him. His broad, square footprints and his laughter. A funny laugh. That rose into the sky until the clouds cried. Watch for the rain, warned my mother each time he laughed. A great dry spell is coming, she sometimes said, when, wrapped in deep silence, my father refused to leave his hut, stayed busy with his night betrothed, as he called her. For a long time, I thought he meant a woman. A real woman of breathless beauty. How I longed to catch sight of her, hear her scratching at the door, telling him that, like love, she was only passing. I found out she was just wind one night, when crouched down behind the hut, I spied on my father. Lying naked on his mat, he seemed to be wanting her. The hard belly murmured her name. Called to her. In the morning, there was still nothing. Alone, Oba slept, embracing the emptiness. Chained to the spirit.
I was six years old when I learned that a man could be weak.
With my father dead, our hut started to smell like men. They were everywhere. All kinds. Old ones, widowers, crazy ones, sick ones. The head of the household ordered my mother to make up her mind, and a month later, he moved into the house.
Right away I hated him, him and his way of running his eyes over my body. Of burning my belly with his voice. Who did it, him or me? I don’t remember for sure. It was dark. Humid. Rain had been falling for weeks. I was out gathering wood, when we crossed paths one evening. He blocked my path. He was laughing, it was like a game, and I acted like I was trying to escape. When his hand reached out and grabbed my loincloth, I knew this was for real. There would be tears, when he planted his body in mine, did what he did with my mother each night, while Oba’s sex rotted away underground. I thought it would be good for my belly. I let him do it.
When I realized it was over, I felt water gliding down the length of my thighs. His juice. He had given me nothing.
The second time. We’re lying on the sand. I’m naked. He’s wearing a cloth around his waist. I don’t know what he’s got in mind. This time it’s different. I scream, I hate this way. Cry afterward and run to hide in my hut.
She knows as soon as she sees me coming across the courtyard. She says nothing, but that evening, shuts the door, barricades it with heavy wooden planks. The little ones cry, afraid that the spirits from the depths, the ones caught in earthenware jars before plunging them into the water, are going to come and devour us all. The bastard scratches at the door. The tension mounts. This goes on for four full days.
My mother no longer goes with the men. She has grown old. I’m sure she resents me for extinguishing her last hope. Her smile returns the day she hears cannons, the ones announcing the start of the sale. This day is a lucky day, she thinks. I’m selling my daughter to the White men. She will probably be of more use to them. A woman with no belly is worth nothing to us.
THE TRUTH IS, we knew little about the White men in our village. Still, that didn’t stop mouths from talking. Telling anyone who would listen a thousand and one versions of a story that amounted to little more than a handful of threads to hold it together. One day, fiery men had come up the riverbank. Two crab fishermen had welcomed them and taken them into the court of the chief of the land. Soon after, our kingdom lost its name. From then on, it was called Porto-Novo.
Our people have not always been so few. In the olden days, we brought together a whole variety of people. All lived together peacefully on the banks of the Mono River. I’ve never seen this river, they say it’s one of the longest in the world, and following it upstream will take you all the way to Arabia.
THERE WAS a celebration in the community the evening before I was sold. The rain had cleared out, smiles were back in place. Sitting around the fire, listened to the legend of the old Awanwa, the chief who had ended badly, who at death had turned into a pond.
The bastard was also there. His eyes glued to my mother’s broken-down body. He would never be over her, as long as he had that thing between his thighs. As I’ve already said, man is man, all it takes is a woman to . . .
To distract his attentions, I played the idiot. Pretended to be afraid of the wicked old wolf. Just a little, not enough to refuse to follow him behind the big mango tree at the end of our concession. Mosquitoes were out that day. Stung and circled and made my head buzz. A commotion that wouldn’t stop until dawn.
But we weren’t there yet. Still in the dark of night. Couldn’t see a thing, there was just enough light to do the thing. Atop the man, I couldn’t stop staring at his mouth. The pleasure flowed from there. The spasm that marked the truce, the end of his embrace. As I rode him, a parade of images. My mother’s large breasts. The blood in the earthenware jars. The room of the dead where my father lay in his stench.
Never has my heart pounded so. Not even on the day when we all jumped together, in one movement.
I waited for his mouth to open before cutting. The man groaned. My mother could sleep in peace.
Sometimes I think of him when I am with the White man. It’s so powerful that it almost seems real. The sailor also has his fantasies. A woman whose picture he stole, and sometimes talks to her in his sleep. The sailor dreams out loud. If I understood his tongue, I would know he was asking forgiveness. Pardon-me-Marie-I-love-you-more-than-the-sun. To calm his remorse, wipe away the wrong, he then tells her about little things. His mornings, his meals, the waiting. Thirty-three days more until we leave land behind and set sail for the colonies. Will he ever confess the inadmissible? His Negro woman is with child.
I have someone inside.
*
“How could you do that! The child of a White man is like a chain.” Sosi stares at me hard. Almost slaps me, but controls herself. She won’t hurt me, but it’s important that I think. Having a baby here means feeding slavery. Sosi is a warrior. No fear, no hunger, no pain. That’s why I’m telling her.
After making her swear to keep the secret, I looked out at the sea. What if I tried to escape? True, I would be unable to swim right, disappear like the sun behind the line. The child of shame in my belly.
Unless I can return to the village, to the old woman, the one who unstitches what the gods have sewn. The child of shame will escape with the blood. My dead belly will once again be flat. Like the beach that stretches out before our eyes.
Suddenly, something moves inside. A faint blow of a fist, a hand searching for mine. The child of shame does not want to die. Now that he’s there, I’m the one who no longer is. A stranger to myself, standing at the door of my own body. I grow tired quickly, vomit often, cry every time the sailor falls asleep and leaves me alone with his fantasies.
On this night, the woman in Nantes will not leave us in peace. Haunts him until he shouts her name. Late in the night, the man screams, “Woman overboard, woman overboard!”
NOT LONG after, Sosi tells me her plan for escape. To hear her tell it, it’s simple: jump, whatever it takes, as soon as the boat leaves the shores. Jump then make it back to shore, dead or alive. Free.
“How?” I find the courage to ask, her idea seems so mad. She cuts herself off, the door has just opened.
THE WARRIOR has not kept her word. The very next morning, she calls me over, claiming she can help me. She is not alone. Another woman is with her. “The one who knows the leaf,” she whispers before slipping away. Without a word, the healer lays her hands on my belly. From a sack, pulls out barks and plants that she slowly washes in rainwater. That is why she has come. To rid my body of the child of shame. Make it so that the tenth crescent moon will not appear in the firmament. When she’s preparing to recite her prayers, I run away from her. Would rather die.
“Be reasonable,” insists Sosi. “He has no chance. Don’t you see that the path out is arid? A child would never survive. And even if the two of you did manage to reach shore, who among ours will look at you? The child of a White man, do you have any idea what that means?”
Don’t care what they say or think. A stone in the water fears not the cold. It is man who is afraid. He alone spoils luck.
THE SAILOR no longer has dreams. I spend my nights in his arms, listening to his stories. Today, for the first time, he speaks of the island that lies beyond the line. It’s one of the most beautiful places on earth, he says—that’s what any sailor will tell you—a tiny slice of earth where everything grows, and no one goes idle. There is plenty of labor there. Men, beasts toiling in the fields, born for that purpose. In the way-over-there-country stand splendid buildings. Large-size huts with all you can imagine in them, made-up women, well-lit salons with parquet floors, balls all year long. They give at least one a day. Lively brooks and streams gallop through the island, overflowing with joy. People bathe there, in the way of the country, naked, like in heaven. When I ask him where heaven is located, he lifts his eyes to the sky, then replies that I’ll soon understand, a man of the Church will undertake to instruct us.
The next morning, I confide all that to the little one. The water, the flowers, the light, the balls, and also the finery. “If you saw that, you’d think you were in paradise!”
“Where is this country hidden?” asks the little one.
“Far away.”
*
Things started to sour in my mind on the day of the fire.
One evening, a night thick enough to stupefy any beast. Sleepless night, when you search for sleep. I had just about found it when I heard voices. Women’s voices coming from outside, from that hole, behind the storehouse, where they pen up the new ones before bringing them in here.
Then came a noise—hands digging, bodies crawling—and I knew they were coming closer. They were right underneath me, so close I could hear their voices. “Escape,” they repeated, “We must flee far from this quicksand where we will all disappear, swallowed up.”
I was tempted to follow. Was just about to, when the child who did not want to die moved inside me. Faced with the life that would soon come, I closed my eyes, deafened myself to the echo of the earth.
The odor of smoke awakened me. It was everywhere. We could see nothing until the door opened and they pushed us out. I didn’t need to walk around the storehouse to figure it out. They had burned, been devoured by fire.
No one says a word this evening. In silence, the mind rehashes. Those dead are not dead, they haunt us. Sometimes I even see them at night. Then I sob a long time without knowing why. I feel guilty. Even tell the little one that it is I who should have died that night.
But the child is here.
If it’s a boy, I will call him Oba. Like my father. Oba.
Like my dead, he will be proud and strong. Will know all that a man must not forget. The laughter of birds, the yellow of wheat, the dust of the earth after the war.
The child is here, and I need to see his father.
*
As usual, she was standing in the doorway. Her big ass, by some miracle, connected to the rest of the body. She was a force of nature, a woman-beast, was surprising that she understood, even spoke. I had no idea where she was from, she who made the White man’s cabin her fiefdom, a place where she exercised her tyranny with impunity.
When I said the sailor’s name, she burst into a kind of laughter I’d never heard. “He don’ want you no more,” she brayed, slamming the door. I didn’t expect to feel hurt. I knew men, had long known what to expect. I had loved no man but my father, but I’m his daughter and some things should just not be done. “He don’ want you no more,” as if I were rotten fruit, meat that stinks. He’d better not try to put his thing inside me, eat my mouth, ever again.
Back at the cells where they held the captives, I lay down and wanted to die. All around me, the women were laughing. They were jeering at me, La Blanche, alone and now ugly, pitiful. But Sosi shut them up. There is not one among them who doesn’t respect her. She held me close in her arms as if to contain my pain.
“It’s time. It’s time to choose,” she murmured. “My women and I are ready. All together we will jump. All of us. Know that and be ready.”
“But my child might . . .”
“You can’t think with your belly. Stand up for yourself, better to give death than to guard life jealously.”
I HAD to think. I needed a night, just one, to be sure the fat woman had spoken the truth. I had to see him. The eyes don’t lie. I had to. Touch him. All men like that. I’d find the courage to tell him and he’d smile, like before. Like he did when he left his juice inside me. Then maybe he’d take me far from here, to that country where men go naked with clear eyes, removed from sin.
The fat woman was supping, nose in her dish, backside flat on the bench. Silently, I crept up the staircase and found him stretched out. He looked surprised to see me, confused when I came toward him, daring to touch my thing. He stammered, and we took each other like animals.
When it was over, I guided his mouth to my belly. Whispered that from now on, we’d have to go gently. I wasn’t alone anymore, there was someone inside.
The sailor rose from the bed. His lips were trembling. He rushed from the room.
“Jan, Jan!” I shouted as he ran out the door. He did not look back. Spit. Did he feel dirty?
Then the fat woman came in, yelling every insult she knew, and threw me out like a dirty rag.
In the morning, I was empty. Tears, juice, had drained away.
That was the day I said yes to Sosi.
*
After we jump, the bell starts clanging, as we’re all looking for the coast.
The sea takes on life. What a racket! Sulking. Shows its fangs and comes after us. First, comes after the little one who valiantly abandons herself to death, almost serving as an example. In the chaos, I can just make them out, daughters of suffering and courageous mother. Bodies skinned. Shredded but free. Sublime, they laugh. Swelling the ocean with their own fresh water.
But now a sailor hauls me out, plants his mouth on mine and resuscitates me.
In the distance, blood. The sea has eaten. I count. Seven of us lying here.
After that, I went mad.
*
That fly again!
I knew it would come back for my too-sweet blood. They like blood, flies do, but also filth, pus, excrement. I don’t care if it comes back, it’ll get what it deserves. I’ll tear off its wings, stick them on my ears and fly away. Up there, I’ll have peace for sure. Won’t hear the sea whipping the hold, the whip whipping our asses. And so on.
Last night, I dreamed that I was traveling around the world. All was good until thunder started to rumble inside me. A hurricane in my head, snapping a forest in my stomach. It was so strong I had to get up to vomit. What a night. The next day, the sky was red. As if thousands of flies had killed themselves.
By the time I was grown, I had big breasts. One day, they almost smothered me. Between the thighs, I also remember that . . . There’s nothing left between my thighs, and it’s much better that way. Only I am allowed to enter there. Sometimes it seems like it’s talking inside. The voice is faint, but closing my eyes helps to hear it. The last time, I could even make out words. I hid them, fast; people are so jealous.
All this water surrounding us! We have to do something with it. Drink it or burn it, like the women devoured by flames the other day. Horrible. Nothing was left of them after that. I wonder where their souls have gone, the sea is so vast.
What if I just folded it up, chiche? Into little pieces? Then we could tuck it into an earthenware jar, put the jar down a well, the well in the courtyard, and we’d be done with it!
But that would require strong arms, and men lack courage.
By the way, I forgot to tell my mother where the blood was coming from. The blood in the sky. If she asks, tell her. She likes to make a fuss.
Every day I think of her because of the whip, as talkative as her cane. Wounds and tears open scars. See these two scars under my right breast? Yes, there! She’s the one who made them. Claimed I’d shown her disrespect. I, her own daughter.
Who’s going to tell me that I really came out of her belly?
My real mother died the same day as my father. I remember the loincloth, the fire, the prayers. That’s how those who love each other part. Together.
What’s wrong with the sun, all of a sudden? It’s going in circles, doesn’t know what to do. Because rain has started to fall. Already one million, four hundred thousand drops have fallen. I counted. Enough to drown the ocean.
We’ve been stepping over it for a long time. Two centuries already and always the same old story. The Negroes below, the sky above, sails everywhere, they look like skirts worn by the pretty ladies. I wonder how in the world they walk in them.
Sometimes, the whole boat celebrates. I like that. Dance bourrées, branles, the chaconne. The deck shakes, I love it. Alcohol flows. In my head, I sing, chew the refrains to the very end, then spit them overboard into the sea.
The sea is rising. Swollen with the saliva of Negroes.
THE EARTH has come back to us this morning. So vague, so thin, I hardly recognize it. Doesn’t matter, we have to disembark, pass through the gauntlet of whips, settle ourselves as we can. Observing the bodies, I realize how much the sea changes a person. Like a wall under the noontime sun, the sublime reflects and celebrates its shadow. In the bright daylight, I can barely identify faces. Who’s who? Now that the heroes are gone, only men under the uniforms.
Back to normal life, away from the fury of the sea, they lower their guard, doze, look like little puppets. For us, too, flesh has replaced shadows. Outside the hold, we recover our sight, the spoken word.
“Yes, yes, yes, we carry our rifles high! We are men, more cunning than hares, strong as buffalo.” Where have I heard that voice before?
Is it my mother, the one over there with big breasts who said nothing, did nothing when . . . When my traitor of a brother dragged me from my sleep? She was laughing. Noise everywhere. And beads.
Let them hang her, if it is my mother, let them deliver her corpse to the night. The bird of magic spells will take care of her. I lost my water. My heartstring is broken.
My mother who is not comes closer. Why is she staring at me? Has she seen a ghost? La Blanche, she calls me. La Blanche? But . . . How does she know who I was?
“Only six of us remain, the others didn’t survive.”
“It’s because of the rats,” I whisper, “They’re everywhere. Krikrikrikrikrikrikrik, can you hear them?”
“I, amazon, daughter and granddaughter of . . . , I speak the truth, Yovo has seen nothing yet. We will fight to the end to take back our freedom. We, sword-women, cannon-arrow-razor-women, we will massacre them!”
I put my hand on her thing.
“We are men!” Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
I touch. It’s hard between her thighs. Could she be speaking the truth?
SINCE WE landed, there’s meat in our dishes. No more fat. No more flavor. Don’t care, I’d rather eat lighter. Better for the heart and the eyes. I can’t stand fat bellies. I used to have one. Made me sick. Up all night, constant vomiting, swollen breasts. Lasted a while, then the illness left, I was lucky.
Chicken broth at noon. No, thank you. I might suffocate on the feathers. Before leaving the little island, I pick a flower with white skin. Call it Felicity. I like this name.
*
Up on the deck, it’s cool. I feel beautiful, with a smile on my face, a real black sun.
Today, I have forgotten what we ate. I can still taste it. Tastes like men’s entrails. Seeing sailors walk past, so ugly, pale, I’d swear it’s theirs. Must have been taken from them while they slept. The rats’ dirty trick. Here, the rats are princes, just like the flies.
The other day, I caught one. Taking advantage of my sleep, it was creep-creep-creeping. I didn’t have time to squeeze my thighs together before the beast entered. Since then, I have pain in my belly.
Like before, in the time of the sickness that makes you swell.
Must get rid of it, whatever it takes. Shit it out or vomit it up.
SOMETIMES WORDS come back to me in my head. I say “back” because I don’t remember what kind of life I led in the past, before the sea took us. They say I was proud and a man touched me. A big White man, a chief, who since then has turned his back, walks past without looking at me. I know the crazy, changing heart.
I’d love to ask him if what people say about me is true, I’d love to but can’t find my tongue. My rat must have eaten it. It’s also his fault if I bled recently. The flow was strong and thick. It burned.
This evening, I remember two words. Dress and stream. Not enough to form an idea. Too bad, I put them together anyway. I lift my dress and piss out a stream. I cut up the stream to make a dress. The dress flows like a creek.
At the end of all the nights, a day: land. It’s the island. Spread open on the water like my lily pad.
*
I felt a great lightness upon disembarking, probably because my rat had fled, sated, my thing in its jaw. I walked as though flying, without care for the irons, my gaze perched high, anchored in what was left of the sky. I smiled at the sun, such a beautiful star, as big as the one I had buried. That was long ago, behind my father’s hut, when my breasts were milk. Behind, there was also a serpent very much in love with me. One day, it slithered in. Like the rat. Like the chief. Like my finger that digs in my earth and almost stayed there the other time. Good thing Felicity was there. She helped me find it again.
I need to plant it before it wilts. Plant it before it wilts.
I have a secret under my tongue. So small that I sometimes swallow it. Doesn’t matter, it always grows again soon. All I have to do is dive into the river with my mouth wide open.
Yesterday, there I was in the water, beating Madame’s laundry to make it as bright as daylight. It wasn’t easy because of the stains. Looked like the earth seen from far away. I tore up a sheet to make myself a dress. I had always wanted to wear one. I made two holes for my arms, a third for my head, and then I danced, all day long I danced. Felicity was laughing, splashed me with her petals. When my skin was all wrinkled, I stretched out in the sunlight, rubbed myself against it. It was soft. It stung a little later on, but only because of all the salt on my scars. They had whipped me and tied me to a tree. They can always try, but I am immortal.
That is my secret.
FELICITY HAS JUST turned one year old. Doesn’t talk yet but understands everything I tell her. For her birthday, I promised to take her out to see the moon. She smiled then squeezed my hand full of gratitude. The evening of our celebration, I waited until the masters were dreaming before setting out on the path to the mountain. We walked straight through without resting, afraid we’d never arrive. At the end of the journey, I wakened Felicity. “Look!” I whispered, pointing at the sphere. She shivered. It was the last time I saw her alive. I buried her at the foot of the mango trees. The sky was spitting water, the toads pouring out their psalms. I put my forehead to the earth and prayed for her soul.
The cord of my flower is broken, its breath is escaping. Go off and chase, chase the wind! The bird of shadows and spells. The cord of my flower is broken. Already, the spirit is dancing wandering. Fall, rain! Wash.
In the morning, my body had returned to the house. It had not wandered. Had followed the path, the only one it knew. On this island of waters and hills, you don’t leave. You come back.
Now that my joy has departed, I don’t sleep, bleed again, scream in pain with each visit by the rat. He has found me again.
Inside my head, all kinds of noises come and go. Cut me in two, three, a thousand pieces, like a machete.
Moldy, me vomited, spoiled, thrown away. Me rancid. Dirty. Salty. Without. Alone.
My cord is broken, my water is draining away.
That night, it’s my own scream that awakens me, drives me out of my solitude-hut. I set off toward the river at a run. Shadows at my heels. Hands brushing me, wanting to puncture my belly. I will not let them do that, ever.
Hush, my baby, don’t be afraid, your mother is here, I won’t let them touch you.
I scream, my mouth open wide. Ah! Ahhhhhhhhhhh! I’m immortal-tal-tal.
Try it if you have any! Hush, Oba, hush.
“What? Don’t tell me you’re scared of water!” They crept close to me, but I didn’t let them off easy, I bit them as hard as I could. After, there was a wave. Sirens, water rats, who knows!
*
They found me at dawn. In the back of the workshop, in the big-room where they wring juice from the cane. They say it wasn’t a pretty sight, all that blood on the workbench, the hand-to-hand battle with the blades of the watermill. In the room where they had so often seen me dance, I was galloping, I-blanche, the body ravaged. A dress without ruffle or thread. Vast. Finally free. From my smile, which the unrooted head had somehow held onto, they figured I must have been happy. I had fallen asleep, surrendered to the monster, my little hands feeding him even more. Until the rollers had pulled me in and crushed me.
In the vat of sugar juice floated my thing.
I still don’t know what they did with it.