21

The monkeys started coming into my house as though it were an extension of our home tree, which, from their perspective, I guess it was. They’d beg for scraps and help themselves to my food when I wasn’t looking. My larder consisted of two large baskets I’d woven, like the ones we used on the farm back home. I covered one with the other and tied them together with tree vines. But the monkeys always managed to breach my system no matter how well I secured it.

We were one week from Christmas if my calculations and tree notches were accurate, and I was wondering how to celebrate it, or if at all. I thought back a year ago, to our last Christmas with Togbe—the faces around the table, the meal we’d shared, their joy at my simple gifts—and the breath caught in my throat. But there was no point dwelling on what had been. I needed to focus on the here and now and find a way to pull off Christmas on this island. Perhaps with a special meal. I liked the idea of planning ahead as we did back home. It made things more festive. But laying in supplies might not be possible with these little rascals around.

They used their cheeks like pockets and would stuff food into them till they bulged, while still begging for more. They teased and squabbled and chased each other, jumping over my sleeping mat and a little table I’d made. I grew used to talking to them and imitating their sounds. Sometimes my voice would suddenly do that squeaky thing that had happened to the other boat master’s boy that day, and I knew that meant it was changing.

There were times they’d just laze around, grooming each other. One would part the hair on another’s arm or leg or back, looking for insects. They continued whether or not they found anything. The one being groomed would stretch out with a look of bliss on its face. Star was the first to start grooming me, but others soon followed. One would work on my arm while another sat on my head, going through my hair. Their tiny hands were ticklish at first, but the movements were soothing, and gentler than I could ever have imagined. I learned to groom them back, and it made them so docile, it seemed like the thing they loved most in the world.

I came to know them all individually and named more of the troop. I followed them most days when they went foraging. It was hard to keep up, but I’d hear their cries if I lost sight of them, and if I lagged behind, Star would run back and sit on my shoulder or on my head, and if I walked in the wrong direction she’d jump down and lead me the right way. Her tummy was beginning to look a little rounded, and I wondered if she might be pregnant.

When they climbed large trees, I’d climb with them. Of course, I couldn’t go as high as they did, and it took a few accidents to gauge which branches could support me. As my injuries from my fishing work began to heal, I acquired a new set of scratches and bruises, and after one fall I was limping for days. I also learned to be watchful while climbing the day I got too close to a beehive. While the bees chased the monkeys into nearby treetops, I was forced to jump down, run, and dive into the lake. But I learned fast and treated my stings and other wounds with the herbs I found on the island.

On Christmas Day I made my green palm nut soup again because it was my star meal here so far. I was pretty sure it was Christmas, and if it wasn’t, then I could only be a day or two off. I shared scraps with the monkeys while cooking, all the while picturing Ma, Klenam, and Mawuli preparing their own Christmas meal.

Mawuli would probably pound the fufu this year. I hoped they’d be able to have a chicken again. I pictured them celebrating with Uncle Koku and maybe even Auntie Kafui and Enyonam. No doubt those guys would bring along lots of food to make a real feast. I tried to wish my fantasy into reality so I wouldn’t feel bad for not being there myself. If only I could send them a message, at least! This was our first Christmas apart, and for all of us, our first without Togbe.

Before beginning my meal, I said a prayer, thanking God for keeping me alive and safe on the island, for my health, my new friends, and my new life. I prayed for the wisdom to stay alive and find my way back home. As I ate, I pictured myself back home next Christmas. I had no idea how, but I had to make it happen, because I needed to pick up all the different threads of my life—family, school, exam results, Keli, my future…

I took the white heart out of my pocket and rolled it around in my palm. In my mind and in my heart, I wished her a Merry Christmas, and imagined giving her back this eraser, and telling her how it was the one thing I’d been able to keep with me through all the craziness. Surprise would widen her eyes, delight would break out that smile, and, who knew… before I could say a word, she just might fling herself into my arms and give me a big kiss!

My thoughts were interrupted by a chattering sound. Star was staring curiously up at me. I realized it was my face that wore the blissful grin. “Mind your own business!” I tossed her a piece of fish. The others ran up hopefully, and I shared the remnants of my meal. Afterward I marked the day on the tree trunk with a star—crudely scratched out—rather than an ordinary notch as usual.

A few days later I was carving another notch when Star came and grabbed the stone out of my hand. The monkeys were heading out and she didn’t want me left behind.

“Just a minute, Star!” I held out my hand. She dropped the stone reluctantly back into it, ran off a distance, and looked over her shoulder as if to say, “Come on, then!”

I finished scratching and quickly added up all the notches. Thirty. I’d been on the island a month!

We caught up with the rest of the troop in a large tree on the other side of the island. It was the same species as our home tree, but bigger. Star shot to the top to join the others picking seedpods while I made my way steadily up, trying to find the sturdiest branches to support me. I stopped to rest, realizing in a dizzying moment that this was the highest I’d ever gone. I stopped myself from looking down. If I fell now…

I braced myself with my left arm and carefully stretched my right up to the next branch, but at that moment Star dropped onto my shoulder, screaming so loudly that my eardrum vibrated in pain. I steadied myself with a pounding heart and clapped my left hand over my ear as my eyes focused on something stretched along the branch I’d been about to grasp—an enormous python, so perfectly camouflaged in the dappled shade that I’d stared right through it! The rest of its massive coils were piled up in a fork of the tree branch.

It raised its great head, looked at me, and its body expanded as it gave a warning hiss. The other monkeys started shrieking too, and I leaped onto a lower branch, almost falling, my heart thumping like a pounding drum. The snake was thicker than my thigh, but I knew from Togbe that these giants weren’t poisonous. They killed their prey by trapping it in their coils and suffocating it before swallowing it whole. I was too big to be swallowed, but it might still inflict a nasty bite if it felt threatened. The monkeys screamed louder, aware that they were in more danger than I was.

The python decided the commotion was too much. It turned away and began to slip down a different branch, but there was a decided lethargy in its movement, and I saw a bulge halfway along its body as its coils unfurled. It must have eaten already and been quietly digesting its meal up here. I wondered what the bulge in its belly was. A rabbit or wild duck, or monkey perhaps. I watched its hefty coils undulate down the tree trunk with astonishing grace and disappear into the bushes.

The monkeys gradually settled down, and I hoisted myself into the fork of the branch where its coils had been, sitting back to catch my breath and slow the painful beating of my heart. I was relieved we were all safe, and grateful there had been no other humans present, because they’d only have thought of killing the snake, endangering us all despite the fact that it was I who had invaded its territory.

Scary though such moments were, it was a thrill living out the things Togbe had taught me about nature—how it was possible to understand other creatures and live in harmony with them instead of assuming they were always out to attack us. I thought of the human brutality I had fled, the greed that stripped away all respect for life. And yet we called decent behavior humane, and acted as though animals were the brutes! Everything on this island was slowly showing me how distorted such perceptions were; slowly teaching me that the earth was not just for us but for all the creatures on it.

Star came and sat by me and started to groom my arm. I closed my eyes, soothed by the gentle brush of her tiny fingers, but she stopped suddenly, and I opened my eyes again. She was sitting upright facing the other way, listening to something. She got to her feet and walked to the end of the branch. Higher up, the others also stopped what they were doing and looked at each other, chattering softly.

I pulled myself quickly up and looked down to check if the snake was returning. But the monkeys all ran to the outer branches of the tree, and I realized it couldn’t be the snake because they were peering into the distance—out over the lake.

And then I heard it. A faint sound growing louder—a distinct hum. I followed their gaze and gasped. A boat! Cutting a small white trail on the lake, heading in our direction!

It was the first mechanical noise I had heard, and the first sign of human life I’d seen since arriving on the island. At my reaction the monkeys grew more agitated and called to each other, watching it advance. My thoughts flew into turmoil, my instinctive fear of the master taking hold, but as the boat came closer, I saw that it was no canoe but a proper motorboat.

I backed into the leafy canopy, and Star came and sat on my head. The monkeys all watched intently as I studied the boat, not moving a muscle. It circled within a few hundred meters of the island, slowing a bit, and I saw writing on the side of it, too far off to read, and what looked like one or maybe two people on board; then it sped off to the other side of the island and disappeared.

As I prepared my supper that night, I questioned myself, trying to make sense of my own actions and reactions. Why had I shied away from human contact? Shouldn’t I have been jumping for joy, scrambling down the tree, diving into the water, and swimming back to my own kind to be rescued and taken back to… civilization?

Why was I clinging to this island, feeling safer among monkeys? I buried my head in my hands. What exactly was civilization, anyway? I thought back again to how I’d been treated by humans—people like Mr. Dowuona, Jack of Diamonds, Mr. Dovlo, the boat master… I had no idea who was on that boat! What if they tried to force me to work for them? What if they thought I was a criminal in hiding, or some evil spirit of the bush or water, and didn’t believe my story? What if they trapped or killed other creatures on the island, like the monkeys, or my lake friends?

And, anyway, would I even have succeeded in attracting their attention if I’d tried? There certainly had been a chance, but I didn’t feel regret. What I did feel was muddled and unsettled. Togbe had said I’d been brought here because I needed it, and that when I was ready, I’d find a way to move on. But what if this was it—this was the way? After all, I couldn’t stay here forever, no matter how much I… loved this island. Yes, I knew that now; I loved it, and my life on it, and the person it was making me into. But that didn’t mean I didn’t think daily about my family and about the future.

That night I dreamed of home. We were celebrating New Year’s together on the veranda. Ma held out a packet of sparklers and we each took one. I struck a match, and she held the tip of her sparkler into the heart of the little flame. It burst into a flare of shooting stars, lighting up her smiling face. I held mine to hers, and it did the same. Klenam and Mawuli lit theirs from mine, the two igniting at the same time. We all cheered, and Ma watched, chuckling as the three of us ran into the compound, drawing sparkling circles in the night, shouting Happy New Year!

I woke up disoriented as the crackle of shimmering sparks turned into the dawn chorus of birds. Where were Ma and Mawuli and Klenam? Why couldn’t I hear or touch them anymore? Memory returned, and I lay back with a sigh, adjusting to the reality of my surroundings. The events of the previous day came next, and I began thinking clearly again.

If a boat had come all the way out here, then there had to be a human settlement at least within motorable distance. I had no idea what had brought them to these parts, but if they’d come once, then they could come again. If I stockpiled more firewood, I could light a fire quickly, the next time I heard the boat. Or… try swimming out to look for the settlement. That seemed like a long shot, because there was nothing but water beyond the horizon on all sides, but I was a strong swimmer now, and the things I’d been through in the past few months had redefined the possible to me.

After breakfast I went to collect firewood. I had not yet made any firm decision about leaving the island, but it couldn’t hurt to have extra stocks. When I got back, I decided I might as well begin the epic swim to search for lakeside settlements. I waded into the lake and launched into the water, but I’d only swum a few strokes when there was a splash close by. Star! To my amazement she swam up to me, then three more from the troop did the same. I didn’t know monkeys could swim! But it seemed an individual thing, because the others stayed on land. There was another surprise when I dived underwater because Star joined me again, swimming as expertly as she did above the surface.

Once underwater, my lake friends also came looking for me. Senior and Junior—I thought—like the Adjoyis! They were calm about Star and the other monkeys, and soon they were all playing together. We stayed in the water a good while, and when we got back to shore, I realized the rest of the monkeys were still there, paddling and splashing and chasing fish in the shallows. It was fun to watch, and I abandoned my plan for the day and set about helping them fish. I caught some, but when I handed them to the monkeys the fish jumped and wriggled clean out of their hands. I laughed till I cried watching the monkeys hop and flop about trying to catch them.

The next morning, I entered the lake when the sun was barely a glimmer on the horizon. The splash of my strokes was the only sound I heard as the water began to turn a blush gold and I left land behind. Once again, Senior and Junior swam up underwater to join me. We moved slowly and companionably together for close to an hour, finding nothing but a couple of tiny islands. I went ashore and looked around, but all I saw were plants, insects, and waterfowl.

On the way back I began to tire, and my strokes grew labored. There were no submerged trees in this part of the lake, so I trod water to rest. Suddenly I felt myself rise effortlessly. Senior had swum up below and was bearing me up! She moved gently on, toward our island, propelling me forward. The sensation was familiar, and at that moment I realized—this was how I’d reached the island! This was who had saved me!

I whooped into the water. Here I was swimming with Mami Wata, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world! I thought about villages I’d heard of, where people lived in harmony with animals, as I was doing on the island, regarding them as good—and often ancestral—spirits. As we swam on, it struck me how we humans always found things mystical till we could explain them. Perhaps magic was nothing more than the other side of the frontier where our knowledge ended.