22

I celebrated New Year’s with a midnight swim with Mami and Baby. I was grateful to have lived to see it, and to be alive and well on the island with all my new friends. All the same, my New Year’s resolution was to find my way home, no matter what. I might have learned to survive in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, but I couldn’t let another year pass without seeing my family.

I spent the first few weeks of the year on my epic swimming quest, venturing out into the lake in different directions. I’d always find Mami and Baby swimming by me, and I covered much greater distances with them than I could have on my own. I didn’t find any human settlements, but I did find more islands, though none even a third the size of my home island. Clearly it would take a feat of endurance, even with their support, to swim that far.

But my time and effort were not wasted, because all that swimming was making me stronger. Each time I could swim a little farther and stay out longer. My shoulders were starting to look like those of an athlete. I thought back to the best swimmers I knew—Yao, Tseko, and, with a twinge of sadness, Abu. I could rival any of them now in the water.

The boat didn’t come back, but I was as prepared for its return as I could be, and in the meantime, I settled back into my island life. Each morning I was awoken before dawn by birdsong. I was starting to know the different kinds of birds on the island, and to distinguish their calls. There were tiny kingfishers with bright orange bills that were as long as their bodies, and metallic plumage in shades of blue that made them glint like jewels in the sun. There were larger, black-and-white ones too. I loved watching them hover over the water, their wings a furious blur, then dive suddenly with their wings flattened like lethal arrows, and rise back in a shower of droplets, flashes of silver wriggling in their beaks.

And I was amazed one day to see an eagle swoop down to the water. It was a mighty bird with a white head, chest, back, and tail. Its open wings were like majestic fans with tan feathers at the base overlapping black ones, and its wingtips were silhouetted on either side like open fingers against the brilliant blue sky. It flew toward the water, reaching down fully outstretched talons, and I gasped as it snatched up a huge fish and lifted it into the sky, countering the weight with powerful wingbeats. The fish thrashed frantically this way and that as they rose all the way to the top of the silk cotton tree, where the eagle perched on its nest. I made out distant activity—the vast wings being folded and, perhaps, chicks being fed.

I saw waterbirds too, different kinds, nesting in a marshy area on the island. I watched them walk on water plants as Togbe had described. One in particular, with a brown body and white throat, fascinated me with its long, spidery toes that looked as though they should belong to a much bigger bird. With these it balanced itself boldly on lily pads and waterweeds. That reminded me of Togbe’s story about the moorhen. I saw those too, and once in a while I’d take a fresh egg from one of their nests as a special treat to boil in my clay pot or bake in a wood fire.

Every now and then a kite would swoop down over the waterfowls’ nests, causing a commotion as the parents tried to protect their hatchlings. The kites soared high above the lake with the eagles. I’d watch them glide and circle as I floated on my back, the water bearing me up as the wind bore them, and wonder if they saw me too, down below.

After the flowers of the silk cotton tree were gone, it grew beautiful brown pods that began to burst, showering kapok all over the island and into the lake. Countless tufts of floaty fluff drifted in the air and water around me like downy little showers of blessing.

I gathered them up to use as stuffing for a new mattress and pillow. I had already added a separate bedroom to my little home, and now I made myself a luxuriously upholstered bed worthy of the new space. That night the dream came back, as I’d half expected it to. It wasn’t exactly the same because it took a different form each time, but it was always about those I had left behind, especially Baby Joe.

But I had good dreams too, and sweet ones, especially about Keli. I’d begun to think of our stolen glances again. Her eraser was still in my pocket, safe from the monkeys. I wondered what she looked like now. I thought of Togbe’s story of Dodzi and the clam pickers—the ones who had led him to Grandma Edem. And I pictured Keli the way he had described Dodzi’s crush, a girl they’d called Dzifa the Divine. That morning, after the bad dream, it was soothing to lie back and recall his voice, telling the story.

One day, when Dodzi’s father was away, Dodzi convinced the boy to accompany him somewhere in his father’s canoe. He wouldn’t say where, but they paddled for a good long time, then he said they should come out and tie up the canoe; that they’d have to swim the rest of the way.

“What!” The boy was alarmed.

“Shh!” Dodzi held a finger to his lips. “Relax! You’re going to love this.”

He waded into the creek, dived in, and swam underwater. The boy kicked himself for following blindly into whatever this was. Dodzi surfaced slowly behind a thick bed of reeds. A murmur of voices drifted over toward them, from a canoe floating on the water. Inside it were three women in wet clothing that clung to their bodies, outlining every curve. They were talking, laughing, looking over the edge of the boat into the water.

Clam pickers! The boy could see why men weren’t allowed to watch them at work. The water around him felt like cold sweat as he remembered tales he’d heard of clam pickers turning male spies into river animals. Slowly, he placed a hand on Dodzi’s shoulder to try to pull him away, but at that moment a fourth woman surfaced, and the sight of her lifting herself against the canoe made Dodzi oblivious to everything else.

Dzifa the Divine! She was younger than the others and wore nothing but a loincloth held in place by strings of beads above her hips. A net pouch full of clams hung from her slim waist. As she shook water off her body the other women leaned away, but behind the reeds Dodzi leaned forward as if in a trance, to catch the precious shower. The boy pulled him back sharply.

“I’m going in again, Ma!” they heard the girl say. She added her clams to a bucketful in the canoe, secured the empty pouch back at her waist, held her nostrils closed with one hand, and dived back in.

Dodzi turned to the boy with a grin that said, You see!

The boy grinned back. Yes, he saw; he saw a whole lot, but they needed to get out of there! He signaled urgently, but Dodzi was determined to wait for the return of his dream girl. Her mother was the only person left in the canoe. It couldn’t be long before she resurfaced. But then, things took a completely unexpected turn. The girl shot to the surface screaming,

“CROCODILES!”

and disappeared again, hands over her head, as if dragged below.

Dodzi and the boy looked at each other in horror, but before they could move, they felt something slice into their legs. They screamed and flailed, slamming into each other; thrashing and crashing through the water.

A peal of giggles arrested them. There in the canoe were all four women in fits of laughter. Two held up empty clamshells in both hands, snapping them like jaws. It was they who had swum up under the boys in the water, using the clamshells as crocodile teeth.

That story always made me laugh, but this time it had a different effect on me. I pictured Keli emerging from the lake right here, Keli the Divine, with water streaming off her perfect, near-naked body, and only me to watch. I imagined all the movie stuff we’d do, out here alone together. Being on my own for so long had made me bolder in my fantasies, and it was not just my mind that seemed to be taking on a new life, it was my body too.

My stomach was flattening down, and my limbs were filling out as they’d been before, only bigger and stronger. Muscles all over my body were beginning to bulge to match those on my shoulders. My skin was mostly healed up, and my ears didn’t bother me anymore. My nails had grown back, and whenever I brushed my face with my fingers, I could feel hair pricking through the skin on my chin and cheeks. I could tell from my reflection in the water that my hair was going back to its normal color. I’d started twisting it into locs because there was no way to cut it out here, and it was growing rapidly. My shorts were tattered and straining at the seams, and I had to keep the top button open to be able to breathe. I knew I was getting taller because I was able to reach branches that had been too high for me when I’d first arrived on the island.

This time the changes didn’t make me feel estranged from my own body. They made me feel like a new version of myself. I wondered if my family would recognize the new me. And Keli. And Bright! I wondered where he was now. I hoped he’d escaped from fishing bondage too. I started to wish I could see all my old school friends again. And I thought about my exams. Had I passed? What would it be like to go to senior high? The pull of my old world was growing stronger.

And yet, the next time I heard the boat I still wasn’t ready. It came at night this time, and I might have missed it if Star hadn’t jumped onto my pillow and chattered into my ear. The moon was full, and I saw other monkeys run into my bedroom, looking scared. Star was still on my pillow, and I could see the silhouette of her round tummy. I rubbed my eyes, wondering dazedly what was happening, then froze, hearing the hum. In a split second my mind grew lucid, and my heart started thumping.

It was unmistakable, and growing louder, which meant it was still advancing. All I had to do was rush outside and start a fire with all that firewood I’d stockpiled. Even a small one, even a spark in the dark would be the most effective signal of all! But that also made it scarier. If I did that, I’d give myself away before I could figure out who they were. But… what if they stopped of their own accord? What did they want here, anyway? Was I safe?

I told myself I needed time to think, but in that time the boat rounded the island as before, and its hum began to recede. There was still hope if I acted now. A fire would be visible for miles and might still get their attention even going in the opposite direction. But my body felt as though it had been glued to the bed. My limbs wouldn’t obey my confused thoughts, as if they trusted themselves to be better judges of what I needed.

I slept fitfully for the rest of the night and woke up in the morning with more relief than disappointment, glad I hadn’t tried to make contact with unknown people at night. There was still a chance they might return by day, and also that I might yet find a human settlement.

The days began to cool again, and the wind brought the scent of the first rains. The trees and bushes on the island were exploding with flowers, and little birds flew past with blades of grass in their beaks for building their nests. My favorite season was beginning, and I longed to be a part of it on the island.

But at the same time, it was getting harder to stay at peace with myself. The stubborn nightmares, the strange boat from the outside world, and the mere passage of time as my mind and body healed and grew stronger—all these things were making the call of my old life impossible to ignore. With each day I thought more about my family, and about the children I had left trapped in the life I’d escaped, and of others like them.

I continued my swimming excursions, going farther from the island each time. The lake seemed boundless, but I was not yet ready to give up. I pictured the map as we had studied it, Togbe and I, and, vast as this lake was, I knew it led south all the way to the river, the Lower Volta, my home. It was the same water that had taken me to the master’s place, and then enabled my escape. It could carry me forward from here too, I knew it. I still trusted in our road through time, and in its mysterious way of joining up all the different universes within this crazy world of ours.