14

Barely had my eyelids descended than I was slapped awake—“New boy, get up!”

Still in the stranglehold of sleep, my mind struggled to make sense of it. Where was I? And who was shouting at me and hitting me on the leg like that? Another slap, on my chest this time, and it came to me. Yao. I was in my new home—where exactly, I had no idea. I looked around. The hurricane lamp was lit, but it was still pitch-dark outside. All the boys were jumping up from their mats and heading out of the shack. Was there some emergency?

“What’s happening?” I croaked.

“Work!” barked Yao. “That’s what’s happening. I told you, get up!”

He couldn’t be serious. At this time? And how were they all up like this when they’d been passed out like the dead a few moments ago? I wondered what the time was, but from Yao’s tone I knew it didn’t matter. I had to get up.

I forced my limbs into motion and trotted behind them, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. My T-shirt was damp with sweat, and I felt the night chill of the advancing rainy season pierce through me as I stepped outside. More boys were coming out of the other shack. Some were going into the front room of the master’s house, while others were untying the canoe from its mooring post. I joined those going into the building. Yao was already heading out with the motor as others were holding bundled-up nets and fish traps. Two held flashlights, switched on. I quickly grabbed hold of a paddle and followed, stumbling in the dark and trying to keep up with the moving beams as they headed for the boat.

We piled into the canoe, me copying what everyone else was doing because no one paid me any attention. It was as if I were invisible. On the one hand, it made me feel lost and uncertain, but on the other, it gave me hope that I wouldn’t be called on yet, because more than anything I was terrified of going into the water. But they barely spoke and just got on robotically with the work at hand.

Yao yanked the string of the outboard motor, and its roar split the night while its prow cleaved the water ahead of us and its rear left a trail that glimmered in the flashlights’ beams. At one edge of the lake an arc of lights twinkled at a fair distance over the black water—a village, maybe a town. I folded my arms to try to warm myself. I noticed other boys do the same as our speed whipped the wind past us. Most had nothing on but the shorts that were like a uniform around here. Some didn’t even have those, and just sat in their briefs.

The engine was deafening, but I was still overwhelmed by exhaustion, and its steady din together with the boat’s motion made me start to feel drowsy again even through my fear of whatever was to come. All of a sudden Yao cut off the motor, and we came to a stop. I couldn’t see the lights from the lakeside settlements anymore, but I dimly made out dark shapes sticking up through the water—submerged trees! My thoughts went immediately to Togbe and his stories. It was haunting to see them for the first time, stark evidence of the forests in which they’d once stood, and the villages they had shaded.

I tried not to panic as some of the boys got up, grabbed nets, and dived over the edge, those left in the boat training the flashlights on the water for them. I guessed they were going to fix the nets. I couldn’t imagine how they found their way in the dark between the tree branches and back up again before they ran out of air. It seemed hard enough just doing that without having to do anything else.

The wind raised goose bumps on my skin, and I shuddered at the idea of going into the water, though the cold was the least of my fears. Water was leaking into the boat, and a couple of boys grabbed cut-off plastic gallon jugs and started to bail. Gratefully, I spotted one under the plank I was sitting on, pulled it out, and did the same—anything to look busy.

When the divers climbed back aboard, Yao started the motor again, and we moved to another part of the lake. As he switched it off a sound lingered, the shadow of a hum—like another fishing boat in the distance. Again, some of the boys went into the water. Some dived below, while others swam toward floating jerricans that served as buoys on a fishing net. They seemed to be working together, the ones below trying to free the net from tree stumps. Then they started pulling it in. As the boat bobbed on the gentle current, I began to feel nauseous, and a cold sweat broke out on my brow. Yao was calling directions to the boys in the water:

“Tseko, Abu, over here!” He caught sight of my face as he leaned over to reach for the net rope being held out by the boy he’d called Abu. “New boy, you’re seasick ehn!”

I avoided his eyes.

“Get in, that’s how to make it stop!”

Oh God, no, please! I who couldn’t stay afloat in a little creek in broad daylight, dive into this lake in the middle of the night? But I sensed a response like that might make things worse for me, so I just shook my head and said timidly, “I’m okay!”

Luckily Yao was distracted by Abu thrusting the rope into his hand. Meanwhile Tseko did the same with another boy, and I saw that the net had formed an arc in the water on one side of the boat. The boy beckoned me to help pull, and I tried at least to look as if I were helping, but it was taking all my willpower not to throw up as the canoe swayed with the activity going on, and I feared it would keel into the water.

We pulled—me just pretending because every shred of strength had deserted me—and the boys in the water pushed from below until the net tipped into the boat, full of wriggling fish. The others poured them into buckets while I sat faintly down again, trying to contain my churning stomach. I asked myself how I was going to survive. I hadn’t done any real work yet; I hadn’t even got into the water, and already I felt like I wanted to die!

Dawn was breaking as we headed back to shore, bailing all the way, and I realized I must have slept for at least three hours that night, though it hadn’t even seemed like three seconds. If this was life here, no wonder the boys had been passed out on their mats like that.

The sun was marking out the horizon, staining it a pinkish gold above and below, but I barely noticed its splendor in my relief at finally being able to see where water ended and sky began. Water had always filled me with awe in its majestic settings, its cool repose, but everything about this lake was a terror to me because I couldn’t admire it from any place of safety. I could only guess at the horrors in store that were going to turn me from the seasick wretch I was right now into one of the work machines sitting silently around me.

It wasn’t until we got back that I realized my new home was on an island. Long-necked waterbirds flapped around the canoe as we pulled in, trying to pick off fish, and I realized they were nesting near our mooring post. The island was tiny, not more than twice the size of my school compound if you included the games field. I had never even imagined being in such a remote place. Without the boat we’d be trapped! That was when it hit me how utterly I, and these children I barely knew, were at the mercy of the master.

He was up now. Some of the boys brought out the ice chests from his front room, loaded them with the fish we’d brought in, arranged ice chunks over the top, and returned them to the room. Then we all headed to the open hut. The only thing in it was a small table that held a rusty two-burner gas cooker plate with a small gas cylinder attached. One of the boys set a pot on it and started cooking something—porridge for the master, I heard someone say—while another fetched a large bag of gari from his house, which turned out to be our breakfast. I noticed a little boy trotting around whom I heard the others call Baby Joe. He was helping fetch bowls and spoons. I wondered if he was the master’s son.

I also wondered what we were going to eat with the gari and was shocked to discover—only water! I didn’t come from a wealthy home, but I’d never in my life eaten gari with nothing but water, and lake water at that! If it wasn’t soaked with sugar and milk, then it was supposed to go with a bean stew or be made into gari fotor with cooked onions and tomatoes or, at least, served with a bit of tinned fish. I remembered how Togbe used to tell us we’d never grow strong eating cassava alone. But that was all gari was—dried, grated cassava.

We sat cross-legged on the floor and ate with our hands, and the gari wasn’t even fresh. Once we added water, little weevils started to swim around in it. The other boys didn’t seem to notice. I saw one of them take three grains of roasted corn out of his pocket and drop them into his bowl, and I realized he must have picked them off my sleeping mat. I wished I’d bought more corn or sneaked some food from home into my bag. If this was what meals were like here, things were going to be even tougher than I’d feared.

Baby Joe came and plonked himself next to me. I could see he was curious because I was new. I was beginning to doubt he was the master’s son because why would he be here with us, eating such food? But if he wasn’t, then what was a toddler like him doing here? He gave me a shy, hopeful little smile as he balanced his bowl on his lap, and it took me unawares because I was beginning to feel as though I’d left smiles behind for good. Plus, it seemed odd to smile in this grim place, but I tried to soften my expression, and nodded gently at the little face that reminded me of Mawuli as a little kid. Whatever it looked like, it was more than enough for him, because he beamed and stuck out his chest and tummy like a flower turning toward the sun.

The dog started barking and we heard the hum of an engine. A battered canoe arrived at the waterfront laden with jerricans, sacks, ice chests, and boxes, and a man jumped out. Some of the boys ran over, wiping off gari and water on their shorts.

“Morning, Mr. Kofigah.” They touched their foreheads respectfully. He supervised them briskly to unload things and take them into the master’s front room. The jerricans smelled of petrol, and I saw packs of batteries, bottles of oil, and cans of tomato purée in one box. The sacks seemed to contain more gari. The boys came out of the master’s house carrying the ice chests full of fish and loaded them onto the boat, then Mr. Kofigah sparked his motor and zoomed off.

After breakfast we swept the hut, our shacks, and the master’s house. My heart sank when I realized I couldn’t find my backpack. With trepidation I reported this to Yao, and he told me the master kept everybody’s belongings safely in his bedroom. He said I’d get it back when I left, but if I wanted anything from it in the meantime, I’d have to go ask him. The only thing I still had with me was Keli’s heart-shaped eraser, in my shorts pocket. I was relieved about that but didn’t relish the prospect of asking the master for anything. Perhaps if I tried to stay in Yao’s good books, he could get it for me.

Before our next round on the lake, we cleaned out the canoe and reloaded it. Baby Joe joined a boy picking out tiny fish caught in net filaments, while another boy set to repairing damaged nets. They stayed behind when Yao rounded us up to get back on board. As we moved back out onto the water, Baby Joe was sweeping the compound with a broom that looked bigger than him.

This time we were with the master, and the mood in the boat was different. There hadn’t been much talking before, but the silence hadn’t been as total or as tense. The only one who seemed at all at ease, and if anything, to have acquired a bit of swagger, was Yao. I dreaded the moment the engine’s hum would stop, because no one had to tell me there could be no escape for me now. Tree stumps came into view, with some of the long-necked waterbirds perched on them. They took to the skies as we went by, and I wished they’d take me with them.

It was the master himself who cut off the motor.

“Go!” he commanded.

Every single boy jumped into the lake, and there was no one left to blend in with, and nothing to look busy about. Yao stayed above water, supervising, while the others dived down. I sat miserably on my plank as the master watched them get to work, wishing I knew how to make myself disappear. He turned around. “Ah!” He spotted me. “And you, what are you waiting for?”

He peered closer. “New boy! Didn’t you hear?” He jerked his head toward the water. “In!”

“But…” I had no idea how to continue, what I could possibly say.

Anger gathered quickly in his face. “Are you disobeying me?” He poked at his chest on “me,” and, without waiting for an answer, stood up and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Stop wasting my time!” He shoved me over the edge.

I gasped as I hit the water, which made me inhale it and lose all control. I thrashed my limbs in desperate abandon as it streamed into my nose and mouth, stifling me, seeping into my very pores, weighing me down. For all my mad flailing I felt myself sink as surely as I was trying to rise.

A rough pair of hands pulled me up. Yao. He dumped me on the floor of the boat, where I convulsed, vomiting water, gari, and weevils as my lungs fought to expel death and inhale life.

“Massa, this one and the swimming… hmm,” I heard him say. “Maybe we can tie a rope…”

“Mtcheew,” went the master. “Who has time for that? D’you know how many other boats are out on this lake? Have you seen the Chinese trawlers? He’ll learn faster this way!” He grabbed me by an arm and leg and threw me back over the side. “Sink or swim!” he jeered.

I sank and was hauled out choking again. By this time some of the others had returned to the surface, and some were back in the canoe—a growing audience for my humiliation. As soon as I could breathe again, I felt a searing slap across my face.

“What is wrong with you?” bellowed the master. He stood over me, belly overhanging his shorts, hand raised, ready to slap me again.

I was stunned, speechless, blinded by the sting on my wet cheek.

“Don’t you want to swim?” he asked, as if I’d tried to drown for fun.

Incredulously, I detected mirth in his voice, and sure enough he started to laugh, cueing the others. Some joined in. It hurt more than the slap. I raised my shaking hand to my face. No, I don’t want to swim, I thought, I want to fly! Fly like a bird. Fly away from here, away from you, away from all the troubles of this life! I was glad my face was still covered in water so my tears were indistinguishable.

“Massa, abeg, give him a break,” said Yao.

I knew it was he who wanted a break from hauling me out, and also that it would only last till we moved to our next workstation on the lake. I crawled to my feet and huddled among them, taking refuge in the lonely space beneath their jeers.

That day I was thrown back in so many times I lost count. Each time I panicked and filled my lungs and stomach with what felt like half the lake. My insides burned from my nose and throat down to my lungs. The boys took turns hauling me out, dropping me into the boat like a bag of rubbish; never even making eye contact. When I finally passed out during a coughing fit, I was left alone, and when I came to, we were heading for the shore.

I stayed where I was, crouched at the bottom of the boat with my eyes closed. I couldn’t bear anyone looking at me anymore because even their glances felt like assaults. It didn’t help that I stank of the filthy, fishy water in the boat, which had dried and crusted over me. The horror of self-revulsion, of wanting to get away from myself, made me try to will myself out of existence.

What would my schoolmates think now? Sena the sprinter, Sena the striker, so useless in the water! I’d never be Sena the swimmer! As for Keli, I wouldn’t even allow my mind to go there. I tried to think of Togbe instead, but as my tears mingled with the water being bailed out of the boat, I felt as though shame too were oozing out of me, of the failure I was in this place, above all as the grandson of a fisherman.