Afi nudged Amari and whispered, “Death has come for some of us.”
Amari stared as several bodies, stiff and lifeless, were pulled from the decks below. The sailors, again with cloths tied around their mouths and noses, unceremoniously tossed the dead men overboard. Amari was too numb to even remember the words of a prayer.
The male slaves, unlike the women, were not allowed to stay on the deck after they had been fed and made to dance. They were whipped and chained and led back to the fetid dungeon where they had been all night. Every hour a few more were brought up and put through the same routine, until at last there were no more.
The sailors cleaned up the deck and whistled cheerfully. Night was approaching. Amari looked at the sun as it disappeared into the sea; it burned coppery bright and beautiful. She tried to sear that beautiful sight on her memory as a shield to the ugliness that she now knew was about to happen.
9. LESSONS—PAINFUL AND OTHERWISE
WHEN NIGHT FINALLY ENVELOPED THE SHIP and only a wisp of the moon shone dimly, the deck was dark except for the light from the torches the sailors used. Like pigs in heat, they came for the women. One by one the women were unchained and dragged, screaming and kicking, to a distant area of the ship or a corner of the deck. Amari heard them plead for mercy, for understanding, but no one listened. Two men grabbed Afi and led her away. She lowered her head and did not cry out or try to fight them.
Amari huddled in a corner, trying to make herself look like one of the children, trying to look lame or stupid or unappealing. But then someone grabbed her arm. She looked up. It was the sailor with bright reddish hair. She moaned.
He pulled Amari to a small room that held nothing but a box made of wood and a sleeping area that seemed to be elevated off the floor somehow. These men don’t even sleep on mats on the ground? she thought briefly, but then the horror of what was about to happen overwhelmed her and she looked around wildly for a means of escape.
The man closed the door, and the room was suddenly very small. His large body took up most of the area and completely blocked the door. He pushed Amari roughly onto the floor. She could hear the cries and screams of other women as they were being attacked.
“Scream!” he yelled at her harshly.
Amari did not know what he meant, so she just sat there, about to faint from fright.
“Scream!” the redheaded sailor yelled again, and this time he raised his huge, hairy arm as if to hit her.
Amari screamed.
He mumbled some words and seemed to be pleased. Then he put his finger to his lips and whispered, “Shhh.” It was the same sound Amari used to make for Kwasi when she wanted him to be quiet. Her whole body shook with dread and fear. The sailor spoke more words, but to Amari they sounded like wooden buckets clattering together. She could make no sense of any of it.
His voice sank to just above a whisper, and he put his huge hand across Amari’s mouth so she could not make a sound. She could barely breathe.
He’s going to kill me! she thought with terror.
But he removed his hand and signaled for her to remain silent. She did.
He spoke more words that she could not understand, rattling on as if she understood. Amari had no idea what he was talking about, but he did not seem to be in a hurry to rape her, so she relaxed a little.
He grabbed a pouch around his neck, and Amari tensed, ready to cry out again. Slowly, he pulled an object from the pouch and handed it to Amari. At first she was afraid to take it, fearing it might be a means to poison her or put a spell on her. But he smiled as he handed it to her, so she took it hesitantly.
It was small, not much bigger than the palm of her hand, and made of wood. It was a carving of a child, a white child with long strands of hair. Amari looked at it in wonder, thinking it must be some kind of talisman. The sailor pointed to the carving and then pointed to himself several times. Then he took the small carving away from Amari, kissed it gently, and pretended to rock it. Either this is a madman or that is a likeness of his child, Amari thought.
“Child,” the sailor said.
Amari said nothing.
“My child,” the sailor repeated.
Confused, Amari had no idea what he was saying. She coughed a little.
He pointed to a bucket of water on the floor and made sipping motions as he lifted a dipper.
She nodded slightly, and very gently, considering the size of the man, he gave her a dipper of water. It was cool and fresh, and she drank it thirstily.
“Water,” he said, pointing to it.
Amari wasn’t sure what he meant.
“Water,” he said again. “Water, water, water, water.” He kept repeating the word and pointing to the liquid.
“Wa-ta,” she said slowly.
The large sailor slapped his thigh and laughed.
Amari looked at him cautiously, not sure what to say or do next.
“Water,” he said once more.
“Wa-ta,” Amari repeated.
“Bucket!” he said, kicking the bucket with his foot.
Amari thought once more that surely this man must be mad. Why would he do such a thing?
“Bucket!” he repeated, pointing to the wooden object now lying on its side.
“Buh-ka,” Amari repeated quickly, suddenly understanding. He was teaching her the language of the white skins! “Buh-ka,” she said again, more clearly this time. If he was going to teach her, she fully intended to learn it. She hated not knowing what the sailors were saying.
Amari thought briefly of her father, who loved meeting men of other tribes and learning their languages. Then she inhaled sharply and squeezed her arms around her body, the painful reality hitting her that her father would never again discover a new word or idea to share with her.
The sailor looked at her with what looked like concern and jumbled out words that seemed to be a question, but Amari just shook her head. She felt that her father’s spirit was there with her and that somehow he had protected her this night from the certainty of rape.
Hesitantly, Amari pointed to the door of the small cabin. He told her the word was “door.” She repeated it over and over until she could remember it.
The strange, redheaded sailor taught Amari the words “ocean” and “ship” and “man” and “floor” and “wall,” as well as many other simple words and phrases. She also asked him, through pointing and signs, to tell her the words for “chain” and “whip” and “shackle.” He frowned, but he told her.
Knowledge of the language of the white men was a powerful weapon that she could possibly use one day to her advantage. Coldly and thoughtfully, she listened and learned. After a couple of hours, when most of the screams of anguish from the women had long since ceased, he opened the door of the small room and led Amari back to the deck.
He made sure she had fresh water, let her relieve herself, and tied her gently to the deck pole, which he told her was called a “mast.” Then he disappeared.
Most of the women back on deck were curled into balls, shivering in the chill night air. Some rocked back and forth, trying to erase the terrible memories of the past few hours. Afi, wide awake as usual, waited for Amari. Her face was bruised, her upper lip bleeding.
“He did not take you?”
Amari shook her head no, almost ashamed that she had escaped the fate of most of the women.
“He was kind to you?”
Amari thought about it and realized that what had happened to her really was one drop of kindness in this huge sea of evil that surrounded them. She nodded her head yes. She was afraid to look Afi in the eye.
“Good. You were lucky . . . this night. But prepare yourself, child. One of them—probably many of them before this journey is over—will take you.”
Amari gasped. “How much longer can this journey be?” she asked Afi, suddenly very frightened again. “Surely the next day will bring us to our destination—wherever that might be.”
In spite of her injuries, Afi managed to twist her
lips into a rueful laugh. “No, child. This is just the beginning of many nights of horrible humiliation. I feel that this journey will be very long.”
Amari touched Afi gently.
“Many will die,” Afi said quietly. “Some will live but will die inside. Others will pray for death and be forced to live. But we all will be changed forever.” She did not cry or wail as some of the other women did, but Afi’s face was covered in tears, which mixed with the blood on her face and lips.
“What shall we do?” Amari said finally, burrowing into Afi’s arms—as much as their chains would allow.
“Find strength from within,” Afi told her, stroking her head.
“How do I do that?” Amari whimpered.
“It is there. You will know when it is time to use that strength as your shield from what they will do to you.”
Amari suddenly felt overwhelmed with powerlessness. “I want it to be like it was,” she sobbed. “I want my mother.”
“Oh, child,” Afi whispered gently. “I know you do.”
“It’s not fair,” Amari cried.
“Nobody promised us happiness or fairness, child. I have known much happiness in my life—the love of a good man, children, a village of friends and loved ones—and much sorrow as well. You have yet to find that, my child. Your destiny lies beyond.”
“Beyond what?” Amari asked.
“I do not know. Some things the spirits keep secret.” She chuckled, in spite of everything, and hugged Amari once more.
10. THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
AFI WAS RIGHT. THE NEXT NIGHT THE KINDLY redheaded sailor was nowhere to be seen. Amari was taken to a filthy corner of the ship by a dark-haired, skinny sailor who used her, hurt her, and tossed her back on the deck, bruised and bleeding, all of her dreams finally and forever destroyed. Afi said nothing but held Amari and rocked her until her tears stopped flowing.
The following night Amari was taken by two sailors. They took turns. She wanted to die.
The morning after that brutal assault Amari spotted Besa in a group of men who were brought on deck. It was the first time she’d seen him since they had been on the ship. He had lost weight, as most of them had, and his body was covered with welts and sores. He made brief eye contact with Amari, a flicker of hope in his eyes for a moment. The pineapple birthmark looked distorted and shrunken. But she could not face him, for she was no longer the innocent girl he had once loved. She no longer felt worthy of his admiration or even his friendship. Amari turned away from him in shame.
The routine of the ship took on a horrible monotony. The everlasting indigo blue of the ocean surrounded them day after day. The copper sun and the piercing paleness of the sky, which were so welcome in the captives’ homeland, imprisoned them each hour. Every morning the women were fed, doused with salt water, and made to dance. Oh, how Amari hated that drum! The men were then pulled from the hold, squinting in the bright sunlight—filthy, weak, and almost crippled from being tied down for almost twenty hours each day. More and more bodies were tossed overboard, where the huge gray fish waited hungrily for their meal.
Every evening the sailors prepared greedily for their night of pleasure. Sometimes Amari was rescued by the redheaded sailor, but on most nights she was just another female body to be used by one of the forty or so sailors on board that awful ship. A couple of times she had seen the large redhead climbing up the mast to do the night watch, so she figured that perhaps he did not always have the opportunity to save her from a night of defilement. Or, she thought, perhaps he just did not care that much.
Amari no longer smiled—ever. She learned to harden herself from feelings and emotion, as well as from physical pain. She was, however, grateful for any evening of escape from the other men and for the large redheaded man’s attempts to teach her their language.
She learned his name, which was Bill, and how to say “yes” and “no” and quite a few conversational phrases. He showed her how to count using the fingers of her hands. She learned the words “hungry” and “eat,” even though hunger was a constant and the food she was given was barely life-sustaining, as well as verbs like “try” and “cry” and “die.”
The language of the white skins was strange and fell heavily on her tongue, but she continued eagerly. She gathered words as weapons to be used later.
“What that?” she asked Bill one rainy night as she pointed to the rain slicker he wore. He told her the name for it, as well as the names of other articles of clothing. He taught her the names of the parts of the body, words for weather, and words for food. She pointed, he named it, she repeated it. He showed her how words connected into phrases. Verbs were difficult for her.
“I am Bill,” he explained.
“You am Bill,” she repeated.
“No, you say, ‘You are Bill.’”
“I not Bill. I are Amari.” She was often confused, but slowly, it made sense. Amari found that she could understand more than she could say, which she knew was an advantage. Sometimes she repeated words and phrases to herself as the men made her dance or while she was tied up for hours on the deck of the endlessly rocking ship. It kept her from going mad.
When Amari awoke one morning, the sky was thick with dark, ominous clouds. Cold winds blasted the deck. The ship rocked violently as waves splashed high over the roping on the sides. The women, drenched and terrified, were flung wildly about, held only by the ropes that tied them to the masts.
One woman, whose name was Mosi, screamed with desperation as her daughter, who was about four years old, was torn from her arms. At that instant another huge, foaming wave washed over the deck, and the child disappeared with it as it fell back into the ocean. Mosi pulled at her ropes like a crazed animal, broke free, and ran across the deck to the place where her child had disappeared. She looked over the side of the boat and, pointing to a spot some distance away in the water, yelled to the women, “I see her! I see her. Oh, my baby!” Amari pulled at her ropes, but she could do nothing.
A sailor had spotted Mosi and headed toward her. She took one look at him, one final look at the women—as if to say farewell—and leaped gracefully into the sea. Amari watched frantically, waiting for someone to rescue them, but the sailors, too busy with the sudden storm, never even bothered to glance overboard to see the fate of the mother and child. They were simply two more dead slaves.
They did, however, untie the women then and lead them to the lower deck. It had been many days, perhaps weeks, since they had been in this area of the ship—Amari had lost all count of days and time. The stench, which had been unbearable at the beginning of the voyage, was now almost unbreathable. It seemed that no one had bothered to clean out the lower deck since the voyage began. The men, tied there for over twenty hours a day, had no choice but to lie in the filth.
Many of the bottom levels of the shelving were empty, Amari noticed. That was the result of the constant stream of stiff, dead bodies that were tossed overboard each morning, she realized.
Amari and the other women splashed slowly though the slime of urine and feces and vomit that covered the floor. Rats, now grown huge and healthy, chewed on the emaciated bodies of some of the men chained there. Too weak or too tightly chained to shake them off, the men suffered in silent agony.
The women were chained to what the sailors called the “tween” deck. The door of the hold was closed behind them. Amari vomited, unable to fight the nausea. So did many others.
Hour after hour the ship bucked through the storm. Children clutched their mothers, women moaned, everyone prayed. At first Amari prayed for the storm to stop. Soon she simply wished that the ship would be taken by the storm and sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
But no relief was to come that night, nor the next day. The winds kept roaring, the ship rolled, and the slaves chained beneath the decks suffered endlessly.
Finally, finally, Amari realized that the movement of the ship had slowed. She could no longer hear the wind. Too weak to move, she lay huddled in a ball, bemoaning
the fact that she was still alive.
She heard the sound of a door opening. The sailors who entered began to curse at the sight before them. They unchained the women and led them to the deck. They did not bother to tie them, for they were too weak to even stand. Of the ninety women left on board, sixteen had died during that storm. Ten of the children had died as well. The women watched with empty eyes as the bodies were tossed overboard. Amari wished that she had been one of them.
11. LAND HO
MANY OF THE SAILS AND SEVERAL OF THE MAST poles had been damaged in the storm. Crew members scurried about making repairs. If she listened carefully, Amari could figure out bits and pieces of the conversation between the captain and his crew.
“Can you tell what they say?” Afi asked Amari.
“Not exactly,” Amari whispered back. “But they seem to be worried that the ship is damaged.”
“That I can see,” Afi said with a chuckle. “Perhaps destruction is the only thing these barbarians understand.”
“They are headed to something called Carolina,” Amari told Afi later that day. “What do you think that means for us?”
“It means that place is where your destiny lies, my child,” Afi said with assurance.
“And yours as well,” Amari added, almost as a question.
Afi gazed out upon the ocean.
“Afi! Your destiny is with me, is it not?” Amari pleaded desperately.
Afi did not look at Amari. “When I have an answer for you, I will tell you,” she said finally.
Amari stopped asking, but her heart was heavy.
For the next few days the slaves were treated a little differently. The men were brought up on deck more often and allowed to stay for longer periods. They all started receiving larger food portions and generous rations of water. The ship’s doctor checked each one of them carefully, applying salves to their many wounds and giving medicine to those who appeared to be sickly. The sailors were no longer allowed to molest the women at night. All activity seemed to indicate the end of their journey—crates and cartons were packed, sails were sewn and repaired, and sailors whistled as they shaved their beards.
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