by Yaba Badoe
Priss glides down and settles in a home in a forest glade. In the middle of a courtyard, surrounded by rooms with white-washed walls, is a fruiting mango tree. The fruit is unusually large, spectacularly golden in hue. I see them and a spasm of fear stabs me from head to toe. I shouldn’t be here. There are sacred spaces in the wilderness, places bathed in the dreams of the dead, which should be left untouched. This is one of them.
I should turn and run as fast as a gazelle chased by a cheetah. I would if I could, but under the tree is my mother, Amma Serwah, a mango in one hand, while in her other arm, she holds a baby. I step closer. Blink twice. Blink again.
It’s strange to see myself as I was: bare-chested in a nappy, my neck beaded with sweat. Feels weird. Weirder still when my mother lifts me up, burps me and hands the baby to me.
Can’t say that I’ve ever held an infant as small as this before.
The baby cleaves to me and her flesh becomes my flesh, and I see my mother as she does: large eyes smiling down at me, fingers tickling ribs, while the sun shines through the leaves of the magnificent tree. Leaves glimmer bright, a halo of dappled light around my mother’s head. And dangling from a branch, a golden mango shivers, ready to drop.
I reach and try to touch it. Wriggle my fingers and toes. Gurgle in greedy contentment. I should be happy, and yet the moment I smile, my eyes start to leak tears, and my chest heaves with a jangle of emotions that erupt in sobs.
Priss. I want Priss. Her fragrance, the familiar shelter of her wings. I need her right now because every little bit of me, inside and out, is hurting and breaking into pieces.
My mother lifts me up, and in a flutter of an eyelash, I’m fourteen again. She wipes the tears off my face. Flicks a feather from my neck, rubs my shoulder, teases a finger through a lock of my hair. And all the while, as she caresses and folds me gently in her arms, the look of love on her face takes my breath away. And my tears flow, a never-ending river into a sea of sorrow.
My mother holds me, gazing at me with brown eyes as dark as my own. She holds me until, of all the questions I’d like to put to her, one I never thought to ask slips off my tongue: ‘How could you throw me into the sea? How could you leave me?’
Without hesitation she replies straight from the heart in a language that needs no translation. ‘I didn’t leave you. Your father had to tear you from my arms to save you. We travelled because of you, my child, to find a better future. We paid for our passage in full. Paid in dollars. Thousands of dollars. But when that iron ship ploughed into our boat and shattered our dreams, your father and those around us answered my call to save you.’
‘My father. Where is he?’
My mother looks up at the mango tree, gazes anxiously at the ripe mango above her, the sap seeping from its stem.
Wants to pluck it, I reckon. Eat it before it falls splat on the ground.
Tears her eyes away, then nods in the direction of a white-washed room. Nods and a door swings open. In the cool cloistered shadows, a man sits at a workbench smelting a strip of gold. He registers my presence and beams at me with a smile that reminds me of Cobra: a sunshine smile that encircles my heart and lights me up from the inside out.
The tall man in my dreams.
A lion of a man in a tawny robe. Broad-chested, skin the dark brown of a polished conker. Straight nose, generous mouth, blue-black eyes in a face lined by laughter.
Smiles at me, then glances at the same ripe mango my mother did.
Hurriedly, he picks up a pair of pincers, lifts the gold. Taps it into shape with a dainty hammer and rushes out. Slips a bangle on my wrist and as I admire it, he says: ‘My gift will protect you, Asantewaa. It will help you walk with your feet firmly on the ground in step with our ancestors. You should go now, my daughter. Be lucky. Walk good!’
‘But I’ve only just arrived.’
‘So it seems. And yet before that mango drops, you must be gone from here.’
This is indeed a sacred place for the dead. Even so, I don’t quite believe him when, to underline the danger I’m in, my father adds: ‘A delay could cost you your life, Asantewaa. Be on your way.’
Can’t be right to leave when I want to linger and get to know ’em better. Taste the food they like to eat, learn to speak their language. There’s a bundle of things I want to find out about them as well. I want to hear stories about the queen I was named after. Hear tales of belonging, tales about my grandparents, tales only they can tell me. And after they’ve told me everything they know, when it’s my turn to fill the silence between us, I’ll tell ’em about Mama Rose and her Family Circus. Tell ’em about dancing on Taj Mahal. That back in real time, they call me Sante, and Priss is my friend. Might mention Cobra, given half a chance. Most important of all, I’ll let ’em know about the scam that got them killed. There’s so much that I want to say, and yet when I open my mouth all I can do is whimper: ‘Don’t you want me to stay?’
‘Of course we do, but this is not your place, Asantewaa,’ says my father. ‘The moment that mango drops, you’ll be trapped here with us.’
Seems he’s speaking for the both of ’em. His face is resolute; my mother’s is tormented.
Then I hear it. That rustling again. The soft shuffle of footsteps inching closer. Shadows flit and flutter around the tree, murmuring approval.
Amie! Yo! Amie!
My voice trembles: ‘Can’t I do anything for you? Help you somehow?’
Even before he replies, the set of my father’s jaw is answer enough. My heart lurches, skips a beat as it dawns on me that I shall never call this man ‘Pa’, never rest my head on his shoulder and snuffle up the fragrance of cedarwood on his clothes. I’m a trespasser here. But having lived without them for so long, the sight of my parents mesmerises me.
Feet freeze, fingers stiffen.
Mind slows to a trickle, wits scatter, and for the life of me, I can’t find the strength to leave ’em.
I’m spellbound. Must be, ’cause I find myself forgetting how the evil eye of that storm pursued me and almost did for me. Instead I’m thinking: Of course I can get back! Never been trapped in a dream yet. Might as well pluck that mango now; get this foolishness over and done with!
My father, catching my drift, shakes his head. And as my mother reaches out to me, he slips a hand around her waist and pulls her close.
‘This is not your place, Asantewaa,’ he repeats. ‘This is a place for unquiet spirits of the drowned; a place of shifting sands for restless souls trying to find a way home. Leave us, before it’s too late. Wake up! Wake up quickly.’
Amie! Yo! Amie!
I hear them, sense them circling me as the putrid touch of death by drowning splashes my skin. I feel them and taste their wrath. But truth be told, I’d endure anything, the kiss of death itself, just to be with my parents a moment longer.
‘This is our home,’ I insist. ‘This is where I was born.’
‘This is a dream, my child. A precious interlude to thank you, encourage you. Take heart, all will be well. Walk good!’
My father’s grip around my mother tightens as her eyes devour my face, taking note of every feature, the twist and turn of every lock on my head. She savours me and then trembles when a breeze shakes the branch and the mango sways. The leaves of the tree hiss.
Amie! Yo! Amie!
‘Are you going to leave me again?’
‘Asantewaa,’ my mother replies: ‘If you joined us in our watery grave, they will have won.’
‘Who are they? Tell me! Tell me what to do to help you!’
Her brown eyes twinkle, brimful with love. Her shoulders slump, as my father stands firm: ‘You already know who they are, Asantewaa. And you know in your heart that every day you’re alive, you’re helping us.’
‘I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll do it straightaway.’
A nerve twitches at the side of my father’s mouth. ‘Go, Asantewaa! No more questions. Time has run its course and you know what to do. The answer to every challenge lies wit
hin you already.’
Could be Redwood speaking. Old Ones! Give ’em a chance and they spout riddles at you. Yet there’s truth in what he’s saying.
The breeze gathers and whistles through the leaves of the tree. The tree shakes. The ground tilts and I stagger. Eyes swivel. Mango drops.
My father leaps and catches it before it touches the ground.
Leaps as he cries: ‘Wake up, Asantewaa! Wake up!’
I hear insects first: screeching cicadas followed by the piercing shriek of monkeys and cormorants and an insistent beating of wings. A slow drum roll of sound, as shadows surround my father and shout with one voice:
Amie! Yo! Amie!
I call Priss, try to wake up.
Sunlight dazzles my eyes. I stumble. Hit my head on the ground.
My mother folds my hand in hers and for a second that seems to stretch for eternity, I’m a baby gurgling on her lap again and she’s polishing off that mango. Sucks it dry. Throws it on the ground. Grins at me, jiggles me on her lap and with arms flailing I start to laugh. And with the scent of mango on her breath, she kisses me. She kisses me again and again and each time she kisses me, I know I shall never let her go.
19
‘Wake up, Sante! Wake up!’
Cobra’s voice.
I grapple, manage to grab hold of it, cling on with all my might as it hauls me out of dreamtime.
Cobra; my lifeline.
I say his name, but the only sound that comes out of my mouth is the grating of chattering teeth.
‘Sante? Are you OK?’
I take a gulp of air and snatches of memory stick to me like grit.
The tree. The bump on my head. The light within me snuffing out as a gossamer thread of life snapped. The curious sensation of drowning, before others lap at my feet. My mother and father and then the rest of ’em. The unquiet spirits of the drowned: passengers and crew of the bulky trawler we travelled in, an elderly man, Mamadou with his flute. They gather around me dripping puddles of saltwater. Hovering, murmuring.
‘The ancestors answered our prayers,’ the old man whispers. ‘They can’t deny us now. The girl must live.’
‘Will she be all right?’ someone asks. ‘Will she wake up before it’s too late?’
Deftly, quickly, my mother rubs my hand. The old man pats my back as my father places a chip of kola on my tongue and urges me to chew.
A sour taste floods my mouth and a burst of energy galvanises me. I try to sit up to shake the fuzziness out of my head, but the shadows won’t let me. They hold me down. Whisper hocus-pocus in my ear as my mother says: ‘Husband, our daughter is every bit as obstinate as you are.’
‘And whose eyes encouraged her to stay? Mine or yours, dear wife?’
My mother thumps my chest, rubs it hard.
I drift in and out of consciousness, and as I slip and slide between this world and the next, I think: So this is what it’s like to die. The thought lights a flame within me and straightaway I remember my promise not to make Mama Rose old before her time or turn her hair grey overnight.
I try to sit up again. This time it’s my mother who holds me down.
‘Close your eyes, Asantewaa,’ she says, and her breath changes. The scent of mangoes disappears, replaced by the bitter salt tang of seawater.
Water’s deep, so deep the smell of it tells me it’s pitch-dark; cold as the grave.
‘Close your eyes,’ she says. The shadows croon with her. Mamadou taps his flute with a shell to keep time as my mother sings me a lullaby that makes me yearn to stay in her arms for ever:
‘Go back to sleep, little babe,
You and me and the devil makes three.’
I shut my eyes and she sings some more:
‘Don’t you weep, pretty babe,
Come lay your bones on the alabaster stones
And be my everlasting baby.’
My mother continues massaging my chest, teasing tension out of my muscles. Long, deep breaths set my heart pumping again, while the world around me slows to a crawl.
‘Go to sleep now, Asantewaa,’ my mother says. ‘Close your eyes.’
My eyes flicker open. Can’t close ’em yet. Not until I see her face again. As the tide of my dream retreats, my mother shrinks from me and takes on another form.
The whites of her eyes sparkle brighter than diamonds.
Coils of seaweed loop through her hair.
She gasps, and what was once her mouth erupts, teeming with tiny, writhing fish.
She touches me and I cringe, for her hands are as cold as marble, fingertips wrinkled from brine. And her robe, encrusted with mother-of-pearl, shimmies with the bloom of jellyfish. What should be a smile blisters into a mask of pain as she returns to her watery grave.
I scream, lay my head down, and wake to Cobra shouting my name.
I hear him, feel him shaking me.
Eyelids flutter open. I want to obliterate the last image of my mother’s face while I attempt to retrieve the best of her – eyes as dark as my own, rib-tickling under the tree, the scent of mango on her breath.
‘Sante?’
My vision clears and I see Cobra.
I collapse in his arms and hug him with all my might at the thought of how close I came to never seeing my circus family again. Never caressing Priss’s feathers, going walkabout with her. Never walking hand in hand with Cobra, paddling fingers with his, or sampling the different flavours of his mouth. My heart aches and I tell myself that as surely as the night sky glitters with stars and I burn at Cobra’s touch, I’m going to see this through. Going to claim justice for my parents and those who drowned with them. And as for those lowlifes who would have me dead, they are not going to win.
‘Were you dreaming again, Sante?’
He wipes the sweat off my face, plucks a tail feather out of my hair, and when I start twizzling the golden bangle on my wrist, his greens light on me. Looks at me strangely and says: ‘You’ve been travelling at night again. What happened this time?’
Words won’t come. I roll my tongue in my mouth. Flex it, tap it against my teeth, but when I try to talk, I stutter and start crying instead.
‘Slow down,’ Cobra says, rubbing my arms.
He wraps his tuxedo jacket around me and takes me in his arms, the way Mama Rose does when I’m spooked. Says the same things as Mama Rose as well: ‘Easy, Sante. Relax. Everything’s going to be fine.’
He rocks me in his arms and when my tears have dried and my chattering’s over, I tell him.
‘I travelled with Priss last night. Travelled to Ghana-land and met my parents. My father gave me this.’ I turn the bangle around. Twist it and smile as it shines.
Cobra knows me better than the lines on the palm of his hand. Knows that though at times I may skirt around it, may even try and avoid it if I can, I always end up telling him the truth.
Cobra’s cheekbones glint. Fear sparks on his face. He’s even more alarmed than I am.
He drops my hand, stands up. Starts pacing the floor like I did yesterday. I guess it’s his turn to feel jittery.
‘What’s going on, Sante?’ he says. ‘Why’s your pa come back now to claim you?’
I roll his tuxedo into a pillow. Lay my head down and yawn: ‘He gave me this gift to keep me safe, is all.’
Seems the bangle means a whole heap more to Cobra than to me: ‘Don’t know why any better than you do. I wanted to tell ’em about you, but there wasn’t time.’
‘Had time enough to make you that thing you’re worrying on your wrist…’
Cobra circles the room like a trapped puma. As he turns, I sense what may be bothering him. The tall man in my dreams. ‘My pa’s dead,’ I whisper. He’s stone-cold dead in a watery grave, Cobra.’
He walks three paces, turns, and stops bang in the middle of the room. Stops and it overwhelms him. Fever. High fever. ‘Cat,’ he says. ‘Cat’s here.’
We scramble on to the bed, look out of the window.
It’s early morning, the sky a
pearly grey with ripples of herringbone-pink splashed across the heavens. Another hot day. Slumped on a chair, asleep in a corner of the roof terrace, is Barrel Man, rifle at his side. Head nodding, mouth drooling spit. Dreaming, I guess, for suddenly he jumps, opens his eyes.
We duck. When we look out again, Barrel Man’s dozed off.
Then I see a flash of golden feathers, a stretch of wing and Priss lands at the edge of the terrace. Behind her is Cat. Didn’t hear her jump on the roof, but I saw her leap, catch hold of a line of cable and haul herself up. Quiet as a cat she is, stealthy. Slung over her shoulder is a blowpipe, a pouch at her waist with darts. Sometimes uses ’em when we go hunting with Priss in out of the way places. Poisoned darts kill fast. Could be she’s only drugged ’em today – dipped ’em in one of Midget Man’s potions. Could be she aims to maim and not kill. Never quite know with Cat.
She climbs on to the roof terrace, crouches behind a potted palm tree and looks around. Sees us watching her.
Cobra points at Barrel Man, puts a finger to his lips.
I signal to Priss. Tell her to hold back, keep still.
Priss throws back her neck and, with a gimlet eye fastened on Barrel Man, opens and closes the razor-sharp tips of her talons.
Cat inches closer, is about to take aim when Barrel Man opens his eyes with a start. His rifle drops to the ground and he jumps. Sniffs trouble. Stoops to pick up the weapon and spies Cat. Sees her, then feels a stab of pain in his neck. His eyes dim. Right hand flops to his side. Rifle clatters to the ground again as his left hand gropes his neck. He pulls out the dart. And as he stares at it dazed, Barrel Man sways, and crumples to the floor.
In a twinkling, Cat pounces on him and rummages through his trouser pocket. Pulls out a rosary, a phone, a strand of string.
‘Where’s the key to your place?’ she mouths.
Cobra slaps his chest and thighs and mimes: ‘Look in his other pockets.’
Cat rolls Barrel Man over, pats her hand down his thigh. Pulls out a battered pack of cigarettes. No key.
Fumbles through his jacket. Finds a flask of whisky. A wooden crucifix. Still no keys.
