—
Evening came. Torchlights burned. The entire village, including all the members of Henry’s caravan, assembled at the village center before a platform stage. Drums were beating in anticipation of a big event. The faces of men and women were beaming. Children smiled. Everyone from Wanyamwezi knew what to expect.
Goma was propped up to a standing position near Janet, who sat close to Baraka. The rest of the girls sat in front, giggling and pointing to the Wanyamwezi girls they had befriended earlier. Mkati, the porter with bulging muscles, sat next to Ferrari and Asmani. Saburi sat next to Selim. The rest of the porters and guards sat in small groups scattered throughout the audience. Henry stood up in the back behind everyone else. The audience grew restless as the minutes passed and there was no sign of the impending show. Janet, who was growing a little impatient, turned to Baraka and smiled.
“Wapi?” She asked Baraka when the performance was coming.
“Hivi karibuni” Baraka replied. “Soon.”
The drums stopped beating. The audience became silent. After another minute or two, Zaid emerged on stage with ceremonial headgear draped around his face and a blue calico robe that covered his entire body. Behind him flowed a blue cape that fell to the ground. As soon as he stepped out, the audience exploded with applause. He smiled and stepped toward the crowd.
“Wakey, wakey, wakey!”
The audience shouted back, “Wakey, wakey, wakey!”
“Waku, waku!” he shouted, and the audience repeated again.
He stopped for a moment to collect himself. He spread his arms wide and walked to the center of the stage. He turned to face everyone and came even farther down. After another moment, he began to speak softly in Swahili.
“A lonely, isolated man, not yet human, carved himself a female and placed her upright in the sun.” He mimed the action of a man carving wood.
“And so she came to life, but when night came, she died. Twice he conceived her, and twice she died.” He mimed the motion of a child being born and a child dying.
Janet sat with Baraka in rapt attention. She couldn’t understand everything he was saying, but through his actions on stage, she got a basic understanding.
“And so he moved to higher ground,” Zaid continued. “From the lowlands in the south, he walked to the Mbariki Mountains in the north.” Zaid mimed the action of a man walking. “And then he carved a third female, and this time she lived.”
Zaid continued to narrate his creation tale, not unlike Adam and Eve, and how the Wanyamwezi people were formed and how they grew and developed in the early years of their inception. Janet was drawn to the story because he emphasized the survival of women, and he never mentioned slavery.
After the performance, the entire village came out to party in the same area where Zaid’s performance took place. On the platform stage, instead of Zaid, a lively band of musicians played bamboo flutes, banjos, and reeds. Surrounding the musicians, everyone danced to the sound of drums, whistles, and tambourines. Men and women were drinking beer. People were getting drunk. Even the women and children danced. Chichi was shaking her protruding belly, Shali lifting her long legs. Baraka also danced, though somewhat modestly. She kept looking over at Janet, who stood by herself, watching them.
As the party got wilder and more raucous, Janet remained on the sidelines with a drawn face. Even from the beginning, she refused to dance. It wasn’t because she frowned on dancing from her religious beliefs. She simply did not know how to dance and was self-conscious about it. In her lifetime, she had attended very few parties, and so she never learned, and even if she had learned, the kind of dancing in Scotland that she knew differed from what she saw here, where bodies swayed and flowed so naturally like the currents of a river. She wanted to dance, but her pride held her back. No, I can’t go out there. I’ll just make a fool of myself.
The Africans wouldn’t have it. A group of men, including the young man whom the caravan members first encountered before they entered the village, came over to her and pulled her in. She resisted by insisting, “I cannot dance. I couldn’t. I really don’t want to. I can’t.” The more she resisted, the more they pulled her. She would dance. She must dance.
Everyone was dancing. More relaxed now, Janet moved with the beat. The pent-up emotions so carefully held down inside her came bursting out. The porters, the guide, the cook, and the guards, they, too, were dancing as if there were no tomorrow, sometimes alone, sometimes in a group, sometimes with one of the African girls. Even Goma, propped up on the side, rocked his head to the rhythm of the beat.
Everyone danced, deep into the night, except for Henry. When a group of African women tried to pull him in, he, too, resisted. Unlike Janet, he wasn’t afraid to make a fool of himself. He had danced before when he was younger in America and England. If he wanted to dance, nothing could hold him back. As the African women kept pulling and pushing, trying to get him into the fray, he stood firm. He would not dance no matter what, simply because he didn’t want to. And if he didn’t want to do something, no one was going to force him. After a while, the women backed off, realizing he was hopeless. Everyone in the village was dancing except him, and Goma, of course. He stood off, looking lonely and unhappy, the way he always looked.
***
Morning soon came again. The cock crowed; the village stirred. Stiff and bleary-eyed, people rose from a night of joy and celebration. Ferrari awoke to make breakfast and coffee. The caravan slowly began to assemble. Today was the day.
Janet got up as usual and had her coffee. She had eaten so much the day before. She wasn’t hungry. Instead, she sat by the campfire, twirling the polished stone around her neck. She rubbed it.
Maybe it will bring us some good luck, she thought.
She looked at the girls. They were rolling up their blankets. Their faces looked sad because they had to leave. They had to go back and face the unknown. Henry was up as usual, talking to Zaid. Both of them strolled over to Goma. Their faces dropped as they talked to him.
What’s going on? Janet asked herself. She strolled over.
“Good morning, Goma,” she said in a cheerful tone, the lingering effects of last night’s festival.
He barely smiled. Zaid and Henry looked away.
“What is it?” she asked. They wavered. Her heart jumped. She sensed bad news was coming. “What is it?” she said again, louder this time.
“Goma is staying here. He wants to stay.”
Janet suddenly jolted. “What?”
“Like I said,” replied Henry, “he’s not coming with us to Kilwa.”
At first, she didn’t believe it, so she looked at Goma. His eyes avoided hers. She wanted to ask him directly, but his answer was written all over his face.
“But why?” She kept looking at Goma.
“Zaid has offered him medical attention. He really shouldn’t be traveling. It’s the right decision,” said Henry.
Zaid also spoke up. “Goma stay. Goma heal.”
Janet froze all emotions and went back to her tent. She had to get ready for the journey ahead. The full import of Goma’s decision had not made any impact yet. She continued to believe he was coming with them.
By late morning, Henry’s group was on the move, laden with packages and parcels, boxes and bags of all kinds. The porters put their packs on their heads and lined up to march. Janet and the children walked up front, just behind Zaid, Henry, and Ferrari. Henry gave the order, and they started to march down a steep path, dozens of villagers following behind them. Two young men carried Goma on his litter. They proceeded down the path to a small rivulet lined with a fleet of canoes. The people from Wanyamwezi said their goodbyes with last-minute hugs and handshaking. The girls clapped and sang goodbye songs. Then, the caravan boarded four large canoes. Some of the village men got in with them to paddle.
Janet was now about to board, but she stopped and looked back at Goma. His stretcher was lying on the ground, lifted up by the steep incline. She walked back to him. She reached out to shake his hand. Her heart raced as she drew closer. She could feel him pulling her.
“Thank you, Goma. I owe you my life.”
He reached out to her, tears forming in his eyes.
And then a strange thing happened. Just as their hands touched, Janet felt as if someone pushed her from behind, and she fell on top of him. Some huge uncontrollable force pulled her down, and she couldn’t get back up. She grabbed his head and kissed him hard on the lips, kissed him like she had never kissed anyone before. She pulled back, gasping for air. She grabbed his head and kissed him again and again, but this time much harder, her fingers buried inside his dreadlocks, and she began to sob, so loudly that everyone could hear.
“I’ll never forget you! I’ll never forget you!”
She felt love for a man other than her brother, love for a man for the first time, the kind of love that makes you dumb, that renders you helpless in its grip.
“I’ll never forget you! I’ll never forget you!” she kept repeating over and over.
She collected herself and got inside the canoe.
Then it was Henry’s turn to say goodbye, so he gave Goma a hug, fighting to hold back any display of emotion, and yet, under the watchful eyes of everyone, they could sense his voice cracking as he spoke.
“I’ll see you again, ol’ buddy. When you get better, I’ll be back. We’ll do another march together.”
The caravan shoved off, Zaid’s canoe leading the way. Inside were Henry, Janet, Baraka, Chichi, boxes of supplies, and two village men paddling. The rest of the girls followed immediately behind in the second canoe. Everyone was silent except for Janet, who was weeping uncontrollably, filling the dark forest with her echoes. The girls stared at her, watching her every move. Henry kept turning his face away, struggling to hold back tears.
As the caravan moved farther from the shore, the Wanyamwezi people shouted after it, waving their arms and yelling goodbye. “Kwa heri! Kwa heri!”
Goma stood up, lifting himself from the stretcher. He couldn’t speak but flapped his arms back and forth. Then, the canoes rounded a bend and the Wanyamwezi people could no longer be seen, but their voices still cried out.
“Kwa heri! Kwa heri! Bye-bye.”