CHAPTER THIRTY
IN THE END, it took even longer than Little George predicted to clear the field, in part because Yasmine spent the next three days in their shack, burning with fever. The children feared the African illness that had already claimed so many of the colonists, but Yasmine’s aching breasts told her otherwise. “I got milk sickness,” she told Big George. She pulled him close so she could see his eyes. “You and your brothers and sister got to keep working that field. You make this our land, you hear me?”
He did hear her. For three days, Big George led his siblings out to work their land while their mother sweated and dreamed.
Sometimes, the wildness called to her children, and she was powerless to pull them back to her. In her dreams, she could only watch.
Little George sat, watching men walk to and fro carrying wood or tools or munitions and the women gathered in the streets discussing domestic issues and trying to feel normal. He spied the shifting length of a chameleon tumbling down a tree branch off the side of the road. In a single motion, he was in the road, almost knocking over a man carrying two shotguns from the munitions locker and speeding into the bush. Lani, stumbled behind him, eager to keep up with her big brother.
“Be calm in your haste, boy,” the man called after him. “Else you gonna find yourself dead in the street before you grown!”
Little George spotted a small opening between the hanging vines of the mangrove tree that the chameleon was racing past and hid in it as quietly as possible. All the children knew chameleons were sensitive beasts, and the slightest rustle or sound could send them scurrying. Luckily Little George was light on his feet and could skillfully maneuver into spaces that his brothers could—or would—not. In a flash, Yasmine saw the secret he had told no one: his dream of becoming a great hunter in this country one day—perhaps the best that the colony had ever seen. He would hunt hippopotami, apes, even crocodiles, and would share all his spoils with everyone.
Little George lagged a slight distance, trying to spot the chameleon and anticipate its next move. “Stay here!” he hissed to Lani, who had finally caught up to him and was crouched beside him. She nodded vigorously, but Yasmine knew as well as Little George did that that did not necessarily mean she would do as she was told. Ah! This girl hardheaded! Yasmine would complain at least five times a day.
Little George was poised behind a towering fern and ready to spring into motion when he heard a rustling in the grass ahead. He froze and maintained his position. To be so close and come home empty-handed! He could not allow it. The chameleon was directly on the other side of the tree, he sensed. This was his chance! Little George pounced.
Darkness would come, and with it her children, dragging one another back from the field. Someone fed Yasmine liquids and kept a steady stream of cold cloths on her forehead until finally she slept soundly.
It was no chameleon’s tail Little George caught, but a hand. A black-black hand, attached to the arm of a girl about ten or eleven, her hair shorn to the scalp and various necklaces and shells hanging from her neck.
“Kuo!” Little George exclaimed.
He knew this creature!
The girl’s skirt had been whipped about in the tussle, and she turned away from him for a moment to fix it.
He took the hint and looked down. Just then, Lani came thrashing through the underbrush toward them. “Jo Jo!” she yelled.
“I’m here!” he yelled back.
The black-black child waved her right fist at him and turned to walk away, just as Lani reached them. She was triumphant, took her brother’s hand, and would not let go. “Black-black,” she said, pointing at the girl. “Black-black” had been Lani’s first words only a month or so earlier.
The girl looked from Little George to Lani and then held out her hands. Without hesitation, Lani took the girl’s hand, and in a moment George took the other. “Black-black,” Lani said again.
Fever held Yasmine tight through the next day. Again, she felt water on her lips and gagged at an offered bit of food, the smell of palm oil overwhelming and threatening to bring up her stomach. She heard sounds that had the timbre of soothing words, but she could make no sense of the words themselves. Soon she slept and dreamed again.
The black-black child led Lani and Little George deeper into the bush. They pushed through a curtain of trees and saw, curiously, a bright red door. They had finally found it!
“Humph,” Little George said, and he had walked up to the door and knocked on it three times.
Lani still held the black-black child’s hand and bounced on the balls of her feet in anticipation.
The door flew open, and a short, middle-aged black woman with a small and worn piece of cloth wrapped around her stood before them. She had a kind face and warm eyes. She spoke as though to welcome the three children, and they seemed to understand, but Yasmine could not.
The woman stepped aside, and through the door they could see a clearing filled with huts made of what looked to be mud. Dried palm fronds served as roofs, and there were no doors. Women kneeled over fires, stirring soups and adding leaves and spices, while a group of men sat around talking and chewing kola nuts.
A small child, who looked like he had not only been playing in the dirt but eating it as well, ran up to Lani and began pulling at her leg. Lani screamed and tried to shake him off, without success.
The boy responded by jabbering something rapid in his language to Kuo, who responded with a series of harsh words that shut him up. The boy let go of Lani’s leg, which sent her stumbling to the ground. Then he frowned as if he were going to cry and turned back to Little George, opening his palms toward him in supplication.
Finally a woman who seemed to be a little younger than Yasmine looked up from the soup she was seasoning and shouted at the boy. Her cornrows shone in the sunlight, as did her black-black skin, which glistened with sweat. The suppleness of the natives’ skin was a subject that the Wrights had discussed on more than one occasion, as their skin and those of the other settlers seemed to be constantly drying and cracking. Little George wondered if they had a secret or if they were simply born that way in this land.
A group of men stood together by one of the other huts, talking animatedly about something. Like the women, they wore nothing on their torsos and covered their private parts with a cloth.
One man, spitting kola nut pieces, approached the three of them and laid one wide hand on Kuo’s shoulder and the other on Little George’s. The man’s tone was amiable, and he laughed a few times while a flurry of strange words tumbled out of his mouth, mostly directed at Kuo. Kuo interrupted the man a few times and gestured at Little George. Then the man awkwardly patted each of them on the back, saluted to Little George, and walked away.
Again, Kuo took Little George’s right hand and Lani’s left and led them to a circle of about five women and two children squatting around a bowl.
Kuo squatted beside the others and gestured for him and Lani to do so, as well. A greenish-yellow glob sat in the center of the bowl, and the women and children reached in and took handfuls to eat.
Little George groaned. But he allowed himself to be pulled down anyway. Lani, already so close to the ground, squatted easily next to him.
Kuo reached her hand in and scooped up a glob of whatever it was. She seemed to be showing them how to eat it.
Yasmine could see Little George’s reluctance in his expression, but Lani dug in immediately and without reservation, grabbing a clump of the mixture in her small palm. Then she brought it to her open mouth and shoved in as much as she could reasonably fit, the rest falling down the front of the worn little dress. George shook his head, but after a moment he too reached his hand in the bowl and took a very small amount of the goo in his hand. He put the strange food in his mouth and began to chew.
Little George nodded at Kuo, who by this time had reached for another mouthful of the soup. “It’s not bad,” he said. “Not bad at all, really.”
It was like they understood him, because the women smiled and gestured for him and Lani to take more.
Lani grinned and grabbed another handful in her other fist.
Little George reached his hand into the bowl and collected a bigger scoop this time. All unease was gone from his face, and Yasmine watched as her children ate their fill.
After they finished, Kuo walked them away from the others, toward a spot in a clearing where they were alone. The whole village’s eyes were still on them, of course, but they could sit down for a moment, a few feet apart. It was the hottest part of the day, and, with his full stomach, Little George began to feel drowsy in the sunlight. His baby sister staggered up from the now-empty pot, and came and curled up in his lap.
Kuo gestured to his neck and turned up her hand questioningly. Little George felt his face flush. He touched the space where the magical pouch she gave him had hung from twine around his neck. The place from which Yasmine had ripped it. He looked down apologetically.
Kuo pulled out something shiny from behind her skirt. It was a pouch—but finer than the first one—made of what looked like leopard skin and fashioned with a metal clasp at the top.
He gasped.
Kuo laughed. She made a series of gestures with her hands that he didn’t understand and then placed the extraordinary object in his hand. When she looked back up at him, her eyes were shining that same bright way. Yasmine knew what her son was feeling better than he did. He would kiss the black-black girl if he knew how.
In his lap, Lani had begun to snore contentedly.
“Yours,” Kuo said, the word not fitting in her mouth quite right, but discernible to Yasmine as a thunderclap.
Little George closed the pouch in his hand. “Mine.”
“I’m so tired,” she called out to James, who was still not there. “And so fearful.”
She could see him, seated on a small stool he had carved for himself, just out of her reach. He looked older, lines on his face deepening. He shook his head at her, smiling.
“Well, what that mean?” she demanded. “You never say anything that help me find my way anymore. You never there for me to lean on.”
He was hazy, but he was still there with her, looking her steady in the eyes, unblinking. “Just relax, Ma. You gonna feel better soon, I promise,” he said.
Her brow furrowed. Why was he calling her that? “What? I’m your wife, James, not your damn mama! After all we been through, you don’t know who I is?”
Small, rough hands placing a cold cloth on her forehead. “It’s gonna be okay, Ma. We here.”
Yasmine breathed in deeply, and then realized she was awake. She’d thought that her eyes were open before, but now, as she pried them open with much effort, she realized that had only been a dream. Little George leaned over her, worry weighing his otherwise youthful face. Lani was beside him like always, holding fast to his pant leg. In the corner, Big George and Nolan were hunched over a Bible, Nolan scribbling words in the dust as his oldest brother pointed them out.
“My babies,” she whispered. Then she smiled at Little George, though she found it exhausting.
“Mama,” Little George said excitedly, worry evaporating from his face. “You’re back!” He turned to his brothers and said, “She’s back! I think she’s okay now.”
The heat of the afternoon wafted through the small window her pallet was pushed up against, and made Yasmine sigh. It had also created small beads of sweat on her forehead and above her lips. She vaguely wondered what day it was and how long she had been so out of it. Little George handed her a cup of water and she leaned up to take a sip. She was surprised by how good it tasted and kept drinking until it was gone. Nolan and Big George had come over by this point, examining her anxiously.
“She look good. She look good,” Big George said.
Nolan took hold of her clammy hand for a moment and then set it down. She tried to squeeze his hand back but found she was still too weak.
Yasmine lay back down and gingerly touched a breast under her blanket. With a start she realized that they were no longer filled with too much milk, that they no longer ached. It appeared that her children were right, she was well on her way to healing. She frowned, however. “Where is she?” Yasmine scanned the room, looking for any trace of the black-black girl.
“Who?” Big George asked. “Where is who?” He looked to his siblings in confusion.
Yasmine sat up once more, this time pulling her legs up in an effort to begin standing up. “The village girl. The heathen one that you love,” she told Little George, who looked more confused than ever. “The one what gave you the charm.” She tried to push herself up with her palms, but it was futile. She was still too weak and fell back down again.
“No one here but us, Ma,” Big George said, gesturing around the tiny room they called their house. “Has been the whole time you was ill.”
Yasmine blinked in confusion, remembering the strange food they had eaten together in the dusk of the village, and the elusive smile that had so enchanted her second child. How could she just have disappeared? “I know she’s here,” she said. “Even if she still hiding.”
“You still tired, Ma,” Little George told her. There was no mistaking the tenderness in his voice. “You need to rest.”
She wanted to tell him she knew all about it, that the charm was still there, exerting its power on all of them. Its black magic sucking all the light out of the room. But she found she could no longer keep her eyes open. The exertions of consciousness and wakefulness had taken their toll. No matter what her mind and heart wanted, her body would not comply. She retreated, grudgingly, to the haven of sleep once again.
“Just let her rest,” was the last thing she heard. “She be well soon enough.”