A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars

by Yaba Badoe

  While the Old Ones finish packing, Cobra pressures me to change my mind. But the way I’m feeling today, not even the biggest scumbag in the whole wide world or the devil himself could make me do what I don’t want to.

  Within the hour everything’s packed, including Cat’s new Honda. She’s loaded it into Midget Man’s truck without Mama Rose noticing. Mama Rose is too busy, I suppose, seeing that Cobra and I have everything we need: enough money to keep us going for a few days and a roll of canvas for a tent.

  Mama Rose touches my cheek, lifts up my chin and, looks me straight in the eye: ‘Take care of yourself, you hear, Sante-girl,’ she says. ‘You’re my youngest, so don’t do anything foolish and make me old before my time. Don’t let my hair turn grey overnight.’

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ I tell her.

  I blink away tears, and when Redwood hands Cobra the keys to his bike with strict instructions that I’m not – repeat not – to drive it, I’m to be Cobra’s passenger at all times, I nod.

  Midget Man writes down the address of his friends in Granada, tells us the name of a pal in Cádiz, Imma, who’ll help us if we need her, scrawls down her number as well, and we’re done.

  Dusk falls and, as crickets start cranking out their love songs, Cobra and I wave goodbye. The trucks roll on to the highway and we’re alone with Priss.

  11

  ‘You don’t have to stay,’ I say to Cobra. ‘Priss and I can look after ourselves just fine.’ There’s no better way to begin, I reckon, than how I intend to proceed. Petulant.

  Cobra shrugs.

  We’re making a tepee, three poles and a roll of canvas to build a nest for the night. Bodies bend and stretch, tug and pull, cooperate instinctively. Yet the way I’m feeling, I’m likely to snap at Cobra’s heels at any moment, bite him even.

  ‘Sure as hell don’t need you,’ I tell him. ‘I can find those men and sort ’em out by myself.’

  ‘Sure,’ he says, positioning a pole.

  ‘Easy as pie.’

  A smile tugs at his mouth, and I decide that if he says ‘sure’ one more time, I’m going to go walkabout. Take off with Priss for the night; hunt till I’m too tired to feel angry any more.

  Cobra secures the tent’s canvas, squats on the ground, and smiles as slowly as a snail chewing a seedling. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Easy as pie to go back to the very same building we fled this afternoon. It’s so easy, in fact, I might as well leave you to get on with it by yourself, Sante.’

  I whistle for Priss. She flies down from a big avocado tree. I pull on my leather glove and she settles on my wrist.

  Cobra stares at us. At last, he says: ‘We have to make a plan, Sante. Work out how we’re going to do this without bumping into Miguel and his friends. We need to talk.’

  ‘Don’t want to. Don’t want to talk to you at any rate. Want to be with Priss.’

  ‘I know.’

  And he does. Fact is, if you love someone you’ve lived with your whole life long, chances are, if he likes you too, he knows you better than the palm of his hand. Cobra knows my highs and lows. So much so that even if I am inclined to snap at him, I allow Priss to fly back into the tree, and squat opposite him. Squat and face another problem. How can I stop wanting someone I can’t help but feast my eyes on?

  His black hair slicked up in spikes tickles the breeze. Cheekbones glint in the first flush of evening. Dusky skin glows. Above us, the sky’s the colour of slate, and the moon’s fighting for space with the last remnants of the sun.

  Green eyes quiz me. ‘Who’s put a bee in your bonnet, Sante-girl? What’s made you mean as a tick tonight?’

  Scarlett. I can’t bring myself to say her name, but she’s here, sitting between us. I feel like a fool reliving the hurt of how Cobra looked at her, when there’re so many other things I want to talk to him about. I want to tell him what was in my cradle. Tell him about the letter from my mother, that my real name’s Asantewaa Prempeh. And yet, just thinking about Scarlett thickens my throat with tears. After all the wailing I’ve done today, it seems unnatural that a girl can cry this much and remain standing. Truth is, I want to weep and howl and rant and rave, not just about Scarlett, but everything.

  Cobra’s palm grazes my wrist and his fingers garland it. ‘Don’t worry, Sante. We can do this. We’ll be OK.’

  He touches me, and my eyes begin to leak. Already lost one family. Can’t live if Cobra leaves me as well. Those voices in my dream can heap all the blessings in the world on me but, plain as the dirt on my hands, I don’t have the heart of a lioness or legs fast as a gazelle’s. I’m not a true warrior, valiant in the face of danger. I’m Sante, friend of Priss, adopted daughter of Mama Rose, a scraggy teenager trying not to cry in front of the boy I’ve loved for as long as I remember.

  Cobra folds the palms of my hands in his and fondles them. He holds ’em gently. Kindness loosens my tongue and I blurt out that name: ‘Scarlett. You don’t look at me like you look at her, Cobra, ’cause you like her more than you like me.’

  Green eyes blink, perplexed: ‘Didn’t know you were the jealous type, Sante.’

  He doesn’t say it; he thinks it.

  ‘I’m not jealous!’ I cry. ‘And don’t pretend you don’t like her!’

  He furrows his brow, squints at me, and he might as well tell me straight out that there’s not a single thing in the world worth knowing that I know about; not a single fact I can chew on for sure. Squints at me and sees an idiot. He shakes his head in despair and looks up at the evening star.

  ‘You do, Cobra, you do! I saw you looking at her the way Priss looks at a rabbit she’s about to eat.’

  He shakes his head again and grins: ‘I am not Priss, Sante. I looked. I was friendly. Girl doesn’t know if she’s coming or going. You can’t say just ’cause I look at Scarlett, I want her.’

  The hand holding my wrist tightens, till I feel the burn: a sizzle beneath my skin as Cobra’s eyes remain fixed on mine.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Sure as the feathers on your bird, the girl doesn’t like snakes. I showed her Scales and Bella and she freaked out. Can’t make sense of a girl who can’t touch snakes and let ’em glide on her skin.’

  So Scarlett failed the snake test. My pout eases into a smile that widens into a grin. If there’s one thing I know it’s this: to get close to Cobra, you’ve got to like his snakes. I cradle my hands in his and recite one of Redwood’s mantras: ‘Rattlers, roaches and rats.’ The three ‘Rs’. Just about everyone’s scared of one of ’em. Can’t stand roaches myself, but snakes? ’Cause of Cobra, I’ve no problem with snakes whatsoever. I laugh, and then Cobra and I talk late into the night. I tell him everything Mama Rose told me. Tell him about that strange language I’m hearing as well, the shuffle of ancient footsteps inching closer. And we make a plan.

  *

  Early next morning we ride into town for breakfast at the same seaside café I took Scarlett and Cat. The waiter recognises me, calls me ‘the black girl on a stallion’. I introduce him to Cobra, and he lets us sit in the same spot as yesterday – in the sun with a glorious view of the sea. I order scrambled eggs and toast and drink mint tea as Priss flies away on her morning ramble.

  Ocean’s calm today, black in places, with a dark undertow of ripples. On the surface it glitters bright as diamonds, bright as the ones on the dagger in my rucksack.

  I finger the weapon and the flute beside it. Touch the note I picked up on the beach from that policeman yesterday. Paper, smooth bamboo, a dagger with a serrated blade, handle studded with jewels. If the African is who I believe he is, he’ll recognise it. Feels strange to admit it, but all that loot in my cradle doesn’t mean much to me. I’d be tempted to give the African and Grey Eyes everything they want, if it wasn’t for my mother and that line she wrote in her letter: ‘Use her treasure wisely, for the riches of Africa are vested in the person of my little princess.’

  I don’t fully understand her meaning, but it seems to me she wanted me to have those t
hings. How was she to know I’d end up living off the grid where there’s not much I can do with a ceremonial dagger? Diamonds are another matter. A bit of money, at the right time, can make the difference between life and death.

  I’m trying to figure out the intention behind my mother’s words and what I should do, when Cobra returns with a phone from a shop opposite the café. Without the Old Ones around to enforce their rules, Cobra and I ogle it. We’ve always wanted a phone. We fondle the screen, take it in turns to hold it to our ears. Sniff its surface until we work out how to use it. Then we feed it with minutes, and make our move.

  We ride with Priss down the same road we travelled yesterday, from a wide, open boulevard in the new part of town into the narrow streets of the old city. We take a leisurely pace across San Antonio square to the street that sets my heart pounding. Sweat pricks my armpits. Breathing grows shallow, almost peters out, as I begin to grasp the enormity of what we’re doing. The building where Miguel and his thugs live, and kept Scarlett, is home to the African and Grey Eyes. They may not know each other, but what if the African and Grey Eyes are working with them? And what if we bump into Miguel?

  Cobra parks Redwood’s motor, and after we’ve checked out the street, we choose a hideaway in the shadow of a gloomy restaurant overlooking five, calle Horozco. We sit where we can’t be seen from the dazzling sunlight outside; yet not so far in the dark that we can’t keep an eye on the place.

  Priss perches on the roof, and while we wait, Cobra and I share a cola. Sip it slowly. Sit up when a van parks and unloads a cargo of food and drinks. Someone’s planning a party at number five tonight. Would take Mama Rose’s Family Circus over a month to eat that much food, though from the way the Old Ones behave on occasion, they could down that liquor in no time at all.

  The van drives away and moments later, Miguel, a jacket over a shoulder, strides out of the front door with his henchman, that barrel of a man. Three ragged lines of scratches run down the man’s face; three long lines of stitches. If he wasn’t ugly enough already, he’s now marked for life by Priss.

  Miguel’s jacket doesn’t quite hide the bandages underneath, the damage wrought by Cat’s knife. With a shoulder like that, he won’t be able to mess with anyone for a while.

  Barrel Man takes a few paces, looks up at the blue morning sky, and almost jumps out of his pants. Hitches them up, points to where Priss is, grabs a bottle and hurls it. Priss stays exactly where she is. Knows an object can’t fly high enough to touch her. Flaunts her wings and as she does so, Barrel Man screams obscenities.

  Miguel circles and scans the street. Looks every which way he can, and shouts: ‘Are those bloody gypsies still around?’

  Cobra and I shrink.

  ‘Damn them! Damn those gypsies!’ Miguel kicks a tyre and keeps looking around cursing us, as he ambles into an alleyway with Barrel Man.

  I don’t speak good Spanish, but like I’ve said already, I’ve learned the slang words for money and police in just about every language you care to mention. I recognise the words for gypsy as well. Always helps to know what people are saying when they’re insulting you.

  We wait patiently. Drink one, then two colas. Halfway through the third, the person we’re waiting for emerges: the African in jeans and a gleaming white shirt. He walks fast. Cobra nods and we follow him. He buys a newspaper, and then saunters into a café. Orders brandy, coffee. Sits down, flings open the newspaper and starts reading.

  Cobra nods again. I take a deep breath, then with most of my heart in my mouth, step up and tap the African on the shoulder: ‘Pardon me for interrupting, but I understand you’re looking for me, mister.’

  He stares at me with muddy, red eyes. Folds the paper, folds his arms: ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ he says.

  I do as he asks and Cobra takes a seat beside me.

  12

  Before I fell asleep in Cobra’s arms last night, I made a list with his help, of all the questions I want answers to. First off, facts about my mother and father: the place they came from, what sort of people they were, and why they were on a boat heading for Europe. There’s a barrel-load of questions I want to ask. For instance – how did the African manage to survive when everyone else on the boat, except me, drowned? Last night questions swarmed in my head. Truth is, soon as I sit down opposite him, my mind empties, and I just gape at the bloodshot eyes of a middle-aged man. Round, heavy face, skin as dark as my own, and on the table, the hands of a working man: oil-stained, etched with lines. Hands with large, bulbous fingers, which, even when daintily leafing through a paper in a café in Cádiz, are rough and tough. I know this before he takes hold of my fingers and folds them in his.

  ‘Allah be praised! You survived,’ he says. ‘Our hope for a better future lives!’ His mouth jerks in a nervous smile that doesn’t light up his eyes, till he downs his brandy.

  I take the dagger out of my rucksack, the flute as well, and push them over to him. ‘Are these yours?’

  He nods, covers the dagger with the newspaper, hands the flute back to me and says: ‘Not here, my child. Not while the eyes of the world are on us. Let’s go to my home.’

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned on the road, it’s that you don’t go home with strangers. In any case, going into that building isn’t part of the plan I devised with Cobra. I may have dreamed about the African again and again, but dreaming’s not the same as knowing someone. ‘Mister,’ I say to him. ‘I want to talk to you in public.’

  Makes no difference what I want. He gets up and folds the paper, the dagger inside. ‘What we have to say to each other is private,’ he tells me. ‘I can’t talk to you in a place where even the walls have ears. You may bring your friend with you if you want, but I’m going home’

  I wasn’t born an idiot. Don’t want to die one either! But then it’s not as if I’m completely on my own. The African beckons, and Cobra and I retrace our steps and enter the building we hoped never to set foot in again. We trail him up the narrow staircase, round and round, into an apartment on the fourth floor. He opens the door and – wham! – it hits you: a place designed to salute the sea and revel in its beauty

  White walls, beige marble floors and on the balcony, terracotta pots filled with bay and orange trees. Yet the apartment is eerily quiet. On the floor are Moroccan-style carpets in teal and beige, turquoise and white. Rattan furniture, the same sort I spied years ago in one of Lizzie’s magazines. She keeps ’em hidden to remind her of how her life used to be. I once flicked through ’em with Cat, and wondered aloud how Lizzie and Redwood could give up a life of luxury to run away to join the circus.

  Some things in the world, I shall never understand. But this I know for a fact: the African and Grey Eyes, his friend, are rich; stupendously rich. Got to be ’cause of the size of that television pinned on the wall. Never seen a TV my whole life long as big as that one! Wouldn’t mind perching in front of it for a week to see what comes out.

  On another wall, paintings. Not too many, mind you, just enough to draw the eye to the balcony, and beyond that, a view of turquoise sea.

  The African disappears. He returns in five shakes with a tray piled high with food: shrimps, slices of ham, strawberries. Drinks too. Lays the food on the table, invites us to sit down and eat, and then pours himself a large brandy.

  Cobra rolls a strip of ham and drops it in his mouth. Chews, watching the African. The African stares back. Looks from Cobra to me and then asks the very question I want to put to him:

  ‘How did you manage to survive, child?’

  If I were wiser perhaps an answer would trip off my tongue. As it is, I can’t say whether it is sheer luck or those prayers they mumbled over me in the boat that protected me. I shrug, go to the balcony, and call Priss. Bird flies down, and I say to the African: ‘My bird Priss helped me. But before she found me, those people in the boat prayed over me, gave me their things.’

  ‘We asked Allah to guide you and he did. You remember?’

  ‘Yes, I remember
.’

  I can tell from that look in his eyes he doesn’t believe me. He sniffs and snorts, unconvinced that the shock of a cataclysmic event can stay lodged in a body for so long. ‘I dream about what happened,’ I say. ‘I dream the same dream again and again. The dream won’t let me forget.’

  One mention of it and goosebumps freckle my arms. I fold ’em to keep warm as the sumptuous hush in the room deepens and the drag of the past flips me back to a place before memory. They’re here with me again. Those ghosts from my sea-chest cradle, who want to be heard, but speak a language I don’t understand. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, mister, you were there as well.’

  The African can feel them too. The spooks.

  ‘I can’t forget either,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. I was the ship’s engineer. We were supposed to take her in before they sunk her out at sea, but the owner brought the date forwards.’

  ‘But why? Why sink a boat full of people?’

  He stares at me with dead, leaden eyes. Shakes his head and whispers so quietly, I have to bring my ear in close to hear him: ‘To claim insurance. One day later and we’d have got very little. As we both know, my child, if you’re not white, your life is cheap in this world.’

  He looks over his shoulder, places his hands over his ears and begins to pant and shiver like a puppy taken from its mother. Shivers and sighs in such a way that I’m convinced he’s hearing them too: the gentle scuffle of feet as they begin to circle us, coming ever closer to warm themselves on our breath. Invisible fingers reach to touch, to prod, to linger a while longer in the sun.

  ‘What’s your name, mister?’

  ‘Isaka.’ Hand trembling, he adds more brandy to his glass. Downs it. Pours another slug.

  If he carries on like this, he’ll end up worse than Redwood when he’s flat out after one of his binges. Bemoans the state of the world, the state we’re in. Moans and groans till Lizzie sings him a lullaby to help him feel better. Redwood’s what Mama Rose calls a Binge Drinker. From what I’m seeing in front of me now, Isaka is steady as he goes, an all-day drinking man.