The Barefoot Sergeant
Page 2
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I do not know when Edo died. Maybe later in life in Burma, where a lot of soldiers under British rule went from Africa, probably much earlier, because nobody lives long in Nigeria, and it is very unlikely that Edo ever saw the Queen of England visiting his regiment. His family was dispersed, and the British uniform became a sign of shame in a country all entranced by the idea of independence. My husband used to say this: “Some of us die along the path of history, some of us die across it.” When you die across the path, you are soon forgotten. Hence, Edo's statue was sold to an art dealer who was buying anything he could find to fill a whole container. The dealer hoped to make a fortune in Europe.
The statue came to London and was bought as part of a lot by an antique dealer. It is where I saw it, in 1972, for the first time. My mother and I had come from France on a shopping trip. We entered that dark place, which was huge and filled with furniture, stuff too big for us to transport, so we were disappointed and heading out when I noticed a bizarre object holding a door open. I picked it up; it was a heavy statuette, almost black in color, portraying a young African. I had never seen anything like that. I went to the dealer and asked what it was. He looked embarrassed.
"O this? This is nothing, really. It is a statue from Benin, but it has no value. They are only valuable if they were made before 1897."
I did not know it at the time, but this is when the British took several thousands art pieces from the King's palace and sold them at an auction in Germany to pay for the expenses related to pacifying the country. It is exactly what we wanted to do in Iraq: the population always needs to pay for unrequited pacification.
I said that I liked the statue, although it was difficult to see the details of it. "It is not for sale, said the shy dealer, nobody would be interested in it, we sell them to a foundry for the price of bronze". You would think that the British have some respect for the people who fought for them, but they don't. Nor do the French who are more embarrassed by - than proud of- the Algerian Harkis who fought by their side. Foreigners are always foreigners.
My mother and I thought that it was very sad to have the statue destroyed and melted again. We asked if we could buy it. As I said before, bronze alloy is expensive, close to 10 dollars a pound nowadays. The dealer put the statue on a scale and told us the price, and my mother and I had to combine our British shillings and dimes to complete the sale. It was heavy. I carried our suitcases to the boat, and my mother carried the statue and complained all the way. Once at home, we washed the statue with soap and water until it looked golden again and I waxed it lightly. The statue had been left unfinished: all the little defects that come from the lost wax process had not been smoothed out, maybe by lack of time or money. Maybe Edo was so impatient that he took the statue with him immediately.
Here was our Edo, with real big eyes and the most beautiful smile you could see: the smile he had when he was made a sergeant. And one could see that the uniform was carefully done, and that Edo posed with his hands just as the army requested them to be. He had long limbs and a surprisingly large butt, the kind that is called callipyge (beautiful one) by the dreamers and steatopyge (fat one) by other people. Partly, it was a decision of the artist to create these details: large eyes, long torso, big smile. The artist wanted everything bigger than life. Most of the bronze must have been used for these features, because there was little bronze left for the feet, which appeared thin and porous.
The little sergeant had no shoes. Most of the black members of the British army (this must have been the West African Frontier Force) had no shoes until the Second World War. Some say that the local British officers stole the shoes' money, some say that the white officers wanted to humiliate the black soldiers, some say that the black soldiers did better without shoes, because they were not used to wear shoes or boots. And as you surely know, it was tough leather that was used at the time: the American army has had to soften the soldiers' shoes several times in the last fifty years, because modern little soldiers are used to soft shoes and blister easily.
Who is to know precisely how come Edo had no shoes, while according to army regulations, he should have had them? All I know is that this part of the British army went without shoes until the Second World War, when Emmanuel Cole, a civil rights hero similar in many ways to Rosa Parks, revolted. While he was a gunman in Sierra Leone, in 1939, he refused to serve until he had boots like the white soldiers.
It was timely: who would want to go barefoot to Burma?
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Edo's statue came with me to live in America. For a chance encounter, it would have been melted and forgotten, but here is the barefoot sergeant of a disbanded army, fighting forgotten wars in a forgotten country where they do not even teach his language any more.
Some people still discuss how many treasures were taken from Benin in 1897. I do not know of anybody who cares how many 20th century Benin statues were discarded and melted. There is not much left of their century: millions of deaths, ethnic wars, AIDS, children sold as slaves, - no, there is not much left of them, not much art either. Behind this, there are many stories of cruelty and injustice.
But Edo was lucky: his image lives in America. He had his day in a dog's life, just like we all do, and now he smiles his beautiful smile and if you come to our house, we will show him to you.
THE END