But after a week of eating and sleeping and staring, the children began to look around. The boy picked up his own spoon, and the girl scratched her nose, and the old man figured that was a good start. By the end of the month, they took care of their necessary business in the woods on their own, and they started helping to draw water and prepare dinner. The boy went with Caesar to gather wood.
Then the two children started to talk. They didn’t speak Caesar’s language, nor he theirs, so their attempts to communicate were halting, mostly overblown gestures.
Caesar decided to teach them his language, which would be useful here on the coast. (Their talk being unfamiliar to him, he guessed they’d lived far inland before they were kidnapped.) He’d also teach them English, the language of trade and of power on these shores. He began that evening, at supper, with the names of foods.
Within a year they were fluent in his language and as fluent as he (which is to say, pretty good) in English. But whatever life they had before they came to him was lost—as if it had never happened. They had no memory of the slaver that must have taken them or where they had lived before the slaver. They had no memory of the ocean or how they appeared in the surf that day. They only knew that they were twins and they were special and they were loved by this man, their uncle, who had always taken care of them and always, always would.
• • •
“WHAT IS YOUR POINT?” said Kinchen. “We know this story already, and it’s getting late.”
“Patience. These details are important to understanding what is to come.” Old Ren paused in a long moment of silence while Kinchen glared and Caesar sat perfectly still with her face squished up, as if trying not to wiggle were a painful experience for her.
“All right,” said Ren. “I’ll skip ahead to 1778. Three years later. The twins are living with their uncle Caesar in the Bight of Benin in the west of Africa, and they are learning to swim.” He cleared his throat.
• • •
WATER-DRINKER—THE GIRL who would become Venus—sputtered and squinted as her head resurfaced. Uncle Caesar thought that she and her twin brother should learn to swim (especially given her brother’s name, Swimmer), but despite three years of Uncle’s periodic tutoring from shore, neither of them had yet acquired the skill.
Water-Drinker (that is, Venus) disliked the lessons, as they made her uncle cross, but she loved her uncle so she kept trying. Still—
“Hopeless, isn’t it?” said Swimmer, spitting out a mouthful of water as he climbed on the sandbar next to her. His rare fountain of words showed his disdain for swimming lessons.
Uncle Caesar yelled from shore, “Back to the deep water, and paddle!”
They sighed and stepped off the sandbar again, flailed— and sank like stones. This time they walked back up together, and when their heads were above water, their uncle waved in resignation. “Come on in.”
At supper he shook his head, but his voice was kind. “We’ll try again in a few months. Meanwhile, don’t let anyone see you in the water. Your walking” (he gestured to Venus) “and your talking” (he gestured to Swimmer) “and how you twins share these gifts with each other—this is powerful magic—”
Swimmer grunted. “We know. Keep a secret.”
Water-Drinker (that is, Venus-to-be) was tired of this conversation—and tired of trying to swim. She said, “Who would see us, anyway? And who would we tell?” Her brother glared at her to stop her talking, but she didn’t stop. “Why must we live so far from everyone?”
Uncle put down his dish and cleared his throat. “You have me and your brother. Isn’t that enough?”
She hung her head. Of course. Of course they were enough—they loved her.
Then he said, in a softer voice, “Is there something that’s missing for you? Maybe you’d like to see another girl sometime? Talk with another girl?”
Venus nodded, still looking down at her calabash. She was something close to eleven years old now; another girl would be nice. But what she wanted wasn’t only another girl. She wanted people. She wanted to belong to a people. Not just a family, as good as that was. Something even larger.
“What else is wrong?” the uncle asked. Across the table she could see the concern in his deep brown eyes. “Tell me.”
“It’s just—I don’t—” But she couldn’t tell him exactly what she wanted. It would hurt his feelings, to know that he wasn’t enough, and not simply because he was a man. So she asked a question instead. “Why do we study languages if we aren’t ever going to live among other people?”
Uncle Caesar looked astonished, as if he were expecting a different question, and the boy stopped chewing to stare at her. The uncle said, “We speak my own language because it is mine, and you are my children.”
She nodded, and so did her brother.
“And we learn English because the Englishmen are the traders who visit the coast. It’s important to know how to speak to them.”
“Reading and writing?” said the boy. (He struggled with writing.)
“Reading and writing, too. If you can speak and read and write in English, you will be able to keep from getting caught; or, if caught, you can free yourselves. Now why don’t you open the book and study?” He grinned at their faces and took the dishes out to clean.
The children owned one book, an ancient primer, which Uncle Caesar had acquired on one of his trading trips. He kept watch for another book when he went trading, but so far he hadn’t found any. Thus the children knew “Through Adam’s fall / Sinned we all” as if it were engraved on their own hearts. But that wasn’t enough, not nearly. So the uncle, a good writer with a strong, clear hand, had penciled a story for them in English in the margins of the book. It was the story of how he’d found them. They often studied the tale.
Water-Drinker (Venus) didn’t like the story much, and Swimmer liked it even less. He thought it made him sound weak and babyish, and when he was asked to read the tale aloud, he’d often feign a sore throat. Water-Drinker read aloud when asked, but she disliked what she read. The story didn’t make sense. Not knowing the facts, Old Caesar had embroidered. How had she and her brother saved themselves, exactly? What had they done to end up walking in the surf? What had happened to the slave ship, if there really was one? Why couldn’t they remember the water, and the time before the water? The story leaked like a sieve.
Sometimes she would wake up at night with a jerk, recalling a piece of a dream. It was always the same dream. She was walking slowly, raising little clouds of sand with her feet, and the air was so thick and cool, it felt like a real living thing, like it was pressing on her, kissing her everywhere. Light drifted down from above, and everything around was green and deep. In her dream, she never had to draw a breath.
10
REN STOOD, stretched, and said, “Now, we need to meet my friend.”
Kinchen shook her head to clear the cobwebs of the story. “Where are we going?”
“What about Venus?” asked Caesar. “What happens next?”
Ren smiled. “I thought you knew the tale.”
“Yes, but I want to hear it again. Anyway, where did you get the details from?”
“From someone who knew.” Suddenly Ren was all business, packing a bag with dried food and handing them each a waterproof jacket (Caesar got Pip’s—and it was just about the right size). “But we really must get going. To the beach,” he added to Kinchen. “To the bay.”
“Oooookay,” said Kinchen. His answer didn’t mean anything to her. No one lived at the bay.
“Will you tell more of the story after we meet your friend?” Caesar begged.
“If we get there early enough, I’ll tell more as we wait for him to . . . show up.”
“Let’s hustle!” Caesar grabbed Kinchen’s hand and tugged her to her feet.
Kinchen rolled her eyes but allowed herself to be tugged. She wanted to hear a b
it more, too. And she wanted to meet this friend of Old Ren’s.
As the girls walked to the water, Ren following at his own pace, Caesar said, “I have a question. Your brother. He’s only a year younger than you, right? Eleven?”
Kinchen nodded.
“Then why did you say you need to take care of him? Can’t he take care of himself?”
Kinchen pursed her lips, thinking. She never told anyone about Pip’s strangeness with people; not wanting anyone to make fun of her brother, she covered up for him. But if Caesar was going to help rescue Pip, she needed to know. “He’s not stupid.”
“I didn’t say he was!”
“He—has a problem. He can’t see people. I mean, he can see them. He’s not blind. But he can’t recognize them. He doesn’t know who they are.”
“Not anyone?”
Kinchen shook her head.
“Is that why your hair?”
Kinchen stared at Caesar. No one had asked before—even Ren had never commented on her hair. She fingered the white stripe she’d bleached into it. “Yeah. So he’d always know me.” She shrugged. “My skunk stripe.”
“Well, I think it’s amazing.”
“My hair?”
“And Pip, recognizing your hair.” She fingered her own braids thoughtfully, then grinned up at Kinchen. “Amazing is a good thing, you know.”
At the bay, they looked out at the blue expanse, calm today. “Where is he?” Kinchen asked Ren when he arrived, panting a little. “Your friend.”
“We’ll wait.” Ren rested on a large rock that faced out to sea.
“And you’ll tell more about Venus!” said Caesar. She threw herself onto her back next to him. Kinchen perched on the other side. The sun brushed lazy late-afternoon fingers across her face. She closed her eyes to it and listened.
11
OLD REN’S STORY, continued:
Now it’s a few years later. The twins are about fourteen years old, adults in how they work but still children in how they daydream. Swimmer is tall—he has all the height in the family—and deep voiced, someone one would instinctively listen to, though he rarely speaks. Venus, still lean and small, now has a woman’s curves under her loose clothing. She wears her hair short and often dips her head, as if in doubt, before she talks. When she has a truly important idea, however, she lifts her chin high just like her uncle Caesar—and then her brother and uncle listen closely.
It’s 1781. Mid-November and getting chilly, and the two no-longer-children and their uncle are on a slave ship. The Zong. They are somewhere between São Tomé Island, Africa, and the island of Jamaica in the Caribbean, trapped in the hold of the boat as it takes the Middle Passage. They are enslaved.
None of the three had ever learned to swim—and none ever knew how to free themselves from chains—and now they are caught. Bound in iron. And afloat on a rancid bit of wood in the middle of the ocean.
At first, Water-Drinker, the girl who was immediately renamed Venus, comforted herself with the knowledge that they’d all been captured and traded onto the ship together; that way she and her uncle and her brother, though enslaved, would at least live and work together, and have a home together as before. And someday they’d escape.
That comfort did not last. She understood the slavers’ English—low-class as it was, spat out by the albino-skinned, hairy-faced sailors—and she quickly deduced that if she and her brother and her uncle survived the trip, they’d be sold separately. No respect for family ties.
She also discovered that she was the wrong age and sex to expect to be left alone for long. She could hear the sailors’ comments, and even though her ears were innocent, she soon learned the meaning of the words. The slave ship was a new kind of primer.
She formed a quick, sharp plan: to play ill. No one would want to mess with a sick girl, she reasoned, one who could infect you. Her decision was powerful: immediately she began to run a fever.
Most of the nausea she felt wasn’t acting, either. The hold of the slave ship was packed with bodies and even more packed with noxious fumes. Incarcerated in the main space, the men (including Swimmer) lay fettered to one another, left leg to their neighbor’s right leg, left arm to their neighbor’s right arm, like children in a handholding game. They each occupied tighter space than a man in a coffin, and to turn or scratch involved negotiations with the neighbors. No one sat upright, for the ceiling sloped too low and more men were bunked above.
The women and children huddled in a small room, just as crowded and smelly as the men but with slightly more freedom of movement—and more liberty for the sailors to take them off on their own, if they desired. They stuck together as if fettered. The necessary tub, where they relieved themselves, spilled repeatedly—and stank even when it wasn’t sloshing on the floor. The women and children were taken on deck only infrequently, and then they were forced to dance in the harsh sunlight or, worse, to witness someone being punished for refusing to eat or for acting rebellious. Venus saw a man—not her brother or uncle—lowered slowly into the water from a rope, as punishment for what crime she never heard. The sharks ate his legs before his chest was wet. His screams stayed in her ears for many days. There was no escape.
Not that she was afraid of the sharks. They circled the boat continuously, eating trash and the odd dead (or live) body that was heaved overboard. But she knew herself and her gifts, and the sharks didn’t scare her much. No, it was the white-skinned men and their whips and guns and ropes and manacles; it was their iron and their love for blood. That was what scared her. She’d never before thought that she wasn’t a person, but now she knew: to them, she wasn’t anyone.
Her uncle had told her that she and her brother must have been aboard a slave ship when they were little, before he found them coming out of the sea—a slave ship that sank, maybe, and they with their luck and their gifts had walked and survived. She didn’t remember. But now, on this ship, she felt as if certain moments were familiar, as if she’d had this nightmare before and even though she couldn’t recall it, it might come back to her waking memory at any moment. As if it were just barely out of reach.
And she didn’t want to have it back.
• • •
WHEN THE PRISONERS on the men’s side started to get sick (actually sick, not pretending like Venus was), the slavers worried. Then one of the white men died, and then another, followed by several African men. Soon the women were coming down ill, too, and a few of them died. The captain—until this voyage, a ship’s surgeon—and his friend Mr. Stubbs walked through the hold and scrutinized the ailing who lay in the women’s cabin (including Venus, still faking).
“More than one kind of contagion here,” said the captain. “Some have the bloody flux, some gaol fever, and this one”—he pointed at Venus—“this one is where it all started. I don’t even know what she has.”
They stood in front of her, the two white men, and peered through the stench as if she were a specimen. They didn’t know she understood English, and she wasn’t about to enlighten them. When Stubbs prodded her with his foot, she coughed and groaned obligingly.
“Number Eighty-Six,” said the captain. He coughed, too.
“I remember her,” said Stubbs. (She remembered him as well, with his groping hands and bad breath. She hacked again, and let the snot dribble out her nose.) “Venus. We all thought she was a pretty one till she took sick. That’s why the name.”
“I don’t know how you can tell ’em apart. All their faces look the same to me.” Swaying, the captain considered Venus. “Not much of a looker now.” His face glistened with a thick sheen of sweat.
Venus propped herself to almost sitting and threw up in the necessary tub stationed next to her. She had nothing in her stomach, so she heaved up drool.
Stubbs pulled a grimace. “Animals.” He turned to his companion. “I have an idea for this disaster. You’ve already lost seven. You
don’t want to lose the whole lot.”
“It’s a financial tragedy,” the captain agreed. “Once these diseases start, we can’t stop them spreading—not without quarantining the sick property, and that’s impossible to do on a ship this size.” He spat. “What a way for my first captaining to end.”
The men turned to walk out of the women’s cabin. “I know a good bit about the law,” Mr. Stubbs said. “Deaths from sickness aren’t insured. But other losses are. Come have a drink and hear my idea. There may be a way to save this voyage.”
They strolled out, trailing eddies of putrid air behind them.
• • •
THEY WERE on their way to the West Indies to be sold as slaves—but only provided they survived the Middle Passage. Venus paid attention to how time slid past, because things were bad all around her and she needed to think what to do and when. By the eightieth day, the captain staggered with fever, and seven crew and sixty slaves had died. Gaol fever, bloody flux, despair. Their bodies cracked open from beatings and malnutrition, and distempers slipped in and racked them quickly. When they expired, the crew were thrown overboard tied with weights to pull them to the bottom. The dead slaves were heaved without weights, whereat they served as shark food.
The ship stank like rotting meat.
There was more room in the slave quarters, but no one moved easier.
Her brother and uncle, she heard through passing of messages, were alive and still healthy. She sent intelligence to them: Act sick. Uncle Caesar complied and began to cough. Her brother refused. He would not pretend anything for the white men, not even when she told him to trust her, that she had the seed of a seed of a plan.
A Crack in the Sea Page 5
