20

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—I was counting on my fingers—no, seven—I went back.

I was trying to figure out how many days I’d been on the island. I was going to have to find a way of marking time if I wanted to keep track. Perhaps I could use seeds from the pods in the tree as counters. But no, the monkeys might take them. I could try carving notches into the tree where I slept. But I’d need something to do it with, like a sharp stone.

I decided it was time to explore the island fully. Now that I had survived a week and made friends on the island, I was less scared. As I advanced into the interior, parting bushes and brushing branches aside with trepidation, I discovered a rocky landscape covered in vegetation. I pictured it as it must have been decades ago—a mountaintop. Maybe even one Togbe knew, would see as a child, looming in the distance. Doves flew up from their perches, lizards darted out of the way, a squirrel with a striped tail leaped up a branch, and a bush fowl took to the wing from out of nowhere. I came to a standstill at the sight of a scaly tail a few feet away, but it turned out to belong to a huge monitor lizard hiding in the undergrowth.

I walked the length and breadth of the island and was delighted to discover oil palm trees and wild cocoyams, both exciting new food sources, as well as different species of wild grass, some that I had never seen before, and lemongrass—which would help keep mosquitoes and other insects away. There were wild herbs too, some of which I knew from Togbe and could use to treat the sores on my body that were a constant reminder of my fishing work. The cocoyam leaves were massive, like green elephant ears. I used sticks to dig out some of their tubers to take to my hideout for planting.

It began to drizzle, fast turning into a downpour. I ran back to my tree home and tried to take cover under the leaves and branches, but within seconds I was soaked. As lightning flashed and thunder growled, I heard the monkeys moving above me, also trying to find the driest spots. Water dripped from the leaves onto my face and trickled off my skin. I watched the landscape turn into a misty blur merging lake and sky, and I realized I could no longer delay building myself a proper shelter. The night was cold because everything was wet, and I huddled in my nest, tossing about.

I dropped down from the tree at the crack of dawn. The first thing was to gather some tools together. I began a rudimentary collection of rocks, stones, sticks, shells, and even fish bones. It included a sharp stone for scratching notches in the tree trunk, a flat piece of rock I could use as a grinding slab, and a heavier, rounded one I’d found near the lake that could serve as a grinder.

Then I went foraging for fronds from the different palm species on the island, as well as for vines and reeds, dragging my harvest back and piling it into a heap. I dismantled my sleeping nest to repurpose its branches and hewed off additional ones from nearby trees. I began constructing a shelter below my home tree like the one I’d shared with Togbe at the creek.

It took the whole day because I was working alone, and everything was more laborious than it would have been with proper tools, plus I needed to make it more protective than our creek one because I was going to live here. I constructed a framework with a sloping roof. Next, I wove mats from dried grass for the floor, and then the walls and the roof from coconut and oil palm fronds, overlapping them at the top so the rain would trickle from layer to layer instead of seeping inside. The finished product was not fully waterproof, and it was going to need regular maintenance, but it was a huge improvement. It felt amazing to settle down for the night in something that felt more like a human home, and I was finally able to stretch out properly, exhausted and relishing the prospect of a good night’s sleep.

But perhaps it was precisely because I slept deeply that I found myself in the middle of a nightmare. I was back at the master’s, instantly recharged with the familiar, unrelenting tension and the need to escape, but this time I was plotting it together with the other boys. We took the old canoe and stole away at night, paddling as silently as we could. But we soon heard the hum of the outboard motor, and there, speeding after us, was the new canoe with Yao and the master on board! We rowed for dear life, Baby Joe clinging to me in terror, but they caught up easily and bumped our stern hard with the prow of their boat.

In a flash I hoisted Baby Joe onto my back, and we all dived into the water and swam for it. But in the chaos, he lost his hold, and I turned around to see him thrashing alone in the choppy waves churned up by the boat’s motor. As I tried to get to him, they surged between us and carried him away, screaming, “Bra Sena! Bra Senaaaa!” His shrill cries ended in a horrid gurgle as he disappeared underwater. I jerked upright in a cold sweat, shouting his name.

It was close to dawn. As my panting subsided, I could make out the faint texture of the woven walls around me and smell the still-fresh scent of the green fronds from which they were plaited. Reality came hurtling back, and I dropped my head into my hands, feeling wetness on my cheeks. My feelings were a tangled mess. I was flooded with relief, but also with a sharp sense of guilt at being safe here while the others still suffered at the hands of the master.

It was the thought of Baby Joe that was worst. Baby Joe with his plump cheeks, whose refuge I’d been when others had no time for him, who had tended faithfully to me when I was sick, might even have saved my life! I tried to shake off the guilt, remind myself that I’d only just got here and was hardly in a position to help others. But I knew in my heart that I had to. Somehow, some way, I had to.

My new home made me feel much more settled on the island. Its shade was a great relief, especially in the middle of the day, as was its warmth at night. The harmattan was intensifying, and the wind sweeping across the lake could make it quite chilly, especially since I had no clothing other than my shorts, and no bedding, either. A week after my bad dream I woke up in the night again, this time because I was cold. That morning I added a fourteenth notch to the tree trunk, yawning and rubbing my eyes. It was time to make myself a better bed.

I constructed a frame for it from tree branches and wove a mattress cover and pillowcase from the softest grasses I could find. I stuffed my mattress and pillow with dried grass and used the rest to weave a rough tunic for myself, and mats to cover myself at night. My new bed was crude, but it felt like luxury. That first night I slept on it the nightmare came back, as if my conscience wouldn’t permit me to find rest while my mates still suffered.

The harmattan wind parched my throat, and I had to keep going to the lake for water. I wished I had something to store it in, like the pots we made at home. And then it struck me—I was by a lake! There should be a chance of finding clay. After years of helping Ma and Togbe, I was an able potter. I walked all around the lakeshore and was delighted to discover a patch of clayey soil at one end that would almost certainly be suitable.

First, I dug a shallow pit, laid firewood at the bottom, and lit it. I covered my oven with palm fronds to heat up. Then I fashioned a collection of pots, bowls, cups, and crude spoons. I arranged them carefully inside the makeshift oven and closed it up again. I left them inside for hours while I fished in the lake and gathered wild cocoyams. I chuckled to myself as I prized my new crockery out of the ashes with sticks. A few were broken, but the clay was viable, and most of the items were intact. Now I could cook properly!

I removed the embers from the oven and used them to start a cooking fire. I would prepare soup with the cocoyam leaves and the bright orange palm nuts I’d picked from an oil palm tree the day before. I reached for one, tore its outer pulp off with my teeth, and sucked the oily juice. It reminded me of home because we all used to do that whenever there were palm nuts in the kitchen. Suddenly, a couple of monkeys appeared, snatched up nuts, and ran into a tree. I saw them tear the pulp with their teeth just as I’d done, chew it, and drop the hard black nuts to the ground. I shook my head, chuckling.

When the cocoyam leaves were soft, I mashed them up on my grinding slab. Then with a clay spoon I carefully extracted the orangey-red palm nuts from the boiling pot, used my sharp stone to scrape the softened pulp off the shells, gathered it together in a fibrous ball, and dropped it back into the soup. It thickened the broth instantly, tinting it orange and infusing it with oily richness. After a while I removed the faded fiber and added fresh fish and river prawns to the pot. It was a concoction somewhere between green soup and palm nut soup, two favorites of mine; much closer to home food than anything I had tasted since I left. I boiled cocoyams to go with it and had a feast.

The palm nuts looked so different stripped of their fibrous orange coat, but there was goodness still left inside them. I laid them out to dry, and a few days later, tried to crack them open to eat their kernels. I placed one on my rock slab and used the grinding stone to hit it. It was a tricky business because the black shell was so hard. The nut kept flying out of place, but when I tried to hold it fast, I brought the stone down on my finger.

I yelled in pain and put my bleeding fingernail into my mouth. I’d have to make a paste for it with some of my herbs. As I cursed under my breath, I saw the monkeys watching me with great interest from the lower branches of our home tree. One dropped down and came and sat a few feet away as if in solidarity, and again I had the feeling it was the same one that was always bolder than the rest. By now I could tell the males and females apart, and this was a female.

I went back to my task and finally succeeded. I crunched the hard kernel while I cracked another. I threw it to the monkey, and she grabbed it and ran immediately up a tree a little distance away. The others watched agitatedly, as if preparing to go after her, and I quickly cracked another and threw the kernel to distract them. Two more monkeys dropped to the ground, and one grabbed it while the other gave chase. I worked as fast as I could to get kernels for all of them, but I wasn’t fast enough, and I found myself laughing out loud as I watched them chase each other and squabble like mischievous children.

It was good to hear my own voice again, though a little startling at first. It was also good, and surprisingly comforting, to have their company. I was grateful they’d accepted me in their territory, and for the trust they’d shown me, especially the friendly one who’d taken the first kernel. I thought about how humans responded when animals came into their space, and how they kept monkeys and other wild animals as “pets.” I’d seen them pace up and down all day in tiny cages or at the end of chains, imprisoned for no crime in a human world, taunted by people who would blame and punish them if they tried to defend themselves. How different it was to share space peacefully with them, and watch them move around with all the freedom and dignity we took for granted!

I began sharing my food with the troop regularly, and they too helped me find food, because when I followed them, they’d invariably lead me to places where there were fruits or berries. I couldn’t identify all the trees and bushes they led me to, but seeing them eat gave me the courage to try things I wouldn’t otherwise have dared to, like a sweetish orange berry I’d never seen before.

One day I was sitting on the ground while they fed on palm nuts high up in the branches of an oil palm tree. They were great at getting the orange nuts out of their tight, spiky casings, and some were falling to the ground around me, mostly stripped of pulp, but intact ones were being dropped too by accident. I was chewing the fiber off them when a shower of plump orange nuts suddenly fell all over me, some knocking me on the head. I looked up, and the monkey I’d learned to recognize was looking down at me as if to check if I’d received them. That day, I named her Star.

When the silk cotton tree opened its flame-red flowers we had a new source of food. The monkeys led me to them, but I already knew from Togbe that they were edible. I harvested the fallen ones from the ground below and removed their green calyxes at the base of the petals. I dried them, ground them up them on my rock slab, and made another delicious soup.