Halted by Carole’s hand on her arm. ‘Hey, don’t wander off, Ally. Jack, find Benjy, will you? We’ll get back to the house. I for one need a shower – the drive back’s a nightmare with those works splitting off the new road to Tundani. Longer, dustier by the day. Come on, let’s leave Shanza to discuss all this – we’re intruding,’ ignoring Ally’s protest, steering her purposefully to the car. ‘I’ve got a really bad feeling about all these comings and goings. Not surprising people are worried. There’s a report in the newspapers today that the government’s selling off bits of coast for more hotels. I gave the paper to Mzee Shaibu to show the Elders’ council. There’s a sketch of the design. You can guess the type of place, gated, exclusive, expensive. From now on local people can go there by permission only. And pay for the privilege! Pay to put one toe on land that’s been part of their lives as long as anyone can remember—’
‘That couldn’t happen here!’
‘Couldn’t it?’ Carole eyed her quizzically. ‘Ally, you keep looking round. Who are you searching for? Jack’ll find Benjy . . .’
‘No one!’ Ally protested, for some reason.
Her aunt gazed at her for a moment. A sideways, unreadable look that nevertheless brought a flush to Ally’s cheeks.
Leli, still talking animatedly, only looked up as the car engine kicked into life. She saw him start towards her, but the car was already moving away and she found herself watching him with a bleak fear of being without him blurring his dwindling figure.
*
‘What did you feel, on the island?’ she asked Jack later. They were cooled from a shower, sitting on the veranda, watching the last light fade from the sea.
He shrugged. ‘A thump – vibration, maybe, like I said. Something to do with the tide turning. Bit stupid to let it spook me like that!’ He half-grinned, sheepish.
‘But didn’t you feel . . . oh, I don’t know . . . a jump – like everything jerked, and then it was dark and the sun going down much sooner than we expected?’
‘What, like time jumped, you mean? Ally! Seriously! Huru and Leli probably just got the tide times wrong. It was a big tide, and we all wandered around on the island longer than we thought.’
‘They wouldn’t get the tides wrong! And Leli knew there was something strange—’ She stopped. Jack was rolling his eyes, deliberately Ben-like.
‘Don’t do that!’ She pulled a face back. ‘I’m not being stupid.’
‘There’s something strange going on with these Land Rovers and maps and boats and stuff – that’s for sure,’ he conceded.
It wasn’t what she meant. How could she say? Anything she tried would sound daft.
Her aunt, standing on the roof with her in the late evening, sniffed the air.
‘It’s a brooding night, isn’t it? The rains’ll break early.’ She pulled her shirt away from her skin and flapped it, letting air in against the stickiness. ‘Maybe that’s really why we’re all so bothered. Maybe there’s nothing particularly going on and we should just ignore these rowdy boaty louts and the wandering cars, and after a while they’ll push off and leave Shanza in peace. The Tundani hotel will bring changes, but maybe some’ll be good.’
‘No one seemed to think so today,’ Ally pointed out. ‘Everyone was really upset.’
‘True, but there’ll be some jobs, a market for selling more fish, tourists spending money on the baskets and mats people make. It’s all money for Shanza, isn’t it? Till now there’s been a fair amount of talk about that. People need the work. Easy enough for us to dismiss it, Ally, we’re not struggling with almost nothing to live on—’
‘But Shanza people are worried,’ said Ally. ‘Leli – I mean – everyone, they’re all talking about it!’
Her aunt contemplated her; then, for some reason, shook her head with a small smile.
‘What?’ Ally demanded.
Carole just put her arm round Ally’s shoulders, and they stood looking out at Kisiri riding the moonlit swell of the sea.
Then she kissed Ally’s cheek. ‘Don’t be too late, you. Remember, I’ve got a day off tomorrow. Got something special lined up for you all.’
But Ally stayed where she was. She heard her aunt’s bare feet pad down the roof stairs. She heard Ben chattering at Jack below. They’d dragged their mattresses out onto the veranda to catch the night breeze.
She didn’t move, though. She was caught in a memory. Of Leli. Of the island. That suspended, breath-holding moment on Kisiri. The undertone in the return of the wind. Like a voice. Like words. As she closed her eyes and tried to draw the memory back – heard it, felt it, saw it, even smelt it, that heady fragrance of ferns and honey and flowers and salt-sea – it became the strangest sense of something – someone – beyond view drawing closer.
More than anything, she yearned to talk to Leli. In that peculiar moment, he had looked at her, that eye-holding glance of his that had the power to make her feel as if everything around her stood still.
It told her that in this strangeness, whatever it was, whatever it was going to become, she wasn’t alone. He was there too.
Leli sat with his mother and father. The lamp was lit, and people drifted by outside, talking about unwelcome visitors in boats and cars, whether the D.O. would be brave or like the government people in Ulima, getting fat on doing nothing except being rich with other people’s money.
His father had walked in from visiting Shaaban in Kinyangata. He had also passed the Land Rover that Saka talked about. In the dusk light the men had not known he was going by until he greeted them.
‘Eh, they were troubled to see me! They did not like me hearing their words! It was about where to put something in the water. One man returned my greeting, but the other did not. I did not like this man’s look.’
‘He is not eating enough!’ Leli’s mother interrupted, meaning Shaaban. ‘You hear, Leli? Your brother sleeps in a store room! He leaves a good bed in his home and goes away to do this! How can he be happy? You tell me!’
‘Tabia,’ his father intervened softly, ‘I have told you and told you. Shaaban is happy. He is learning. Many, many interesting things about engines. He—’
‘How can he go where we cannot see how he is? Just a boy!’ She got up and turned her back, crashing the cooking pots about.
His father rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. ‘Soon Shaaban will be a young man. In time all young creatures leave the nest! Listen to me, my wife! I have been travelling since very early. Do not torment me with this temper. Read our son’s letter to you. Let me sleep and tomorrow I will tell you everything. Our son has a good heart. He has friends. He is learning from a clever man—’
‘Huh! Did you meet this person?’
‘Of course! But also I trust what my son says. You must trust him, Tabia. We will go together to see him. Leli, read your brother’s letter to you – do not listen to your mother’s foolishness.’
Leli went into the room he shared with his brother. His mother’s grumbling tones continued in the next room, and his father’s answers. But growing quieter.
He sat on Shaaban’s bed. From the thickness of the envelope, he could tell there were many pages in it. He savoured the feel of the stiff blue paper marked with his brother’s square writing. It was the first letter he had ever had.
What would he write back to Shaaban? About the D.O.’s words. About Kisiri. About Ally. About his feelings about what happened there on the island today.
Yet he could not, now, be certain anything truly happened. There was the look Ally cast him as she left the village with her aunt, finding him with her eyes. But too late to speak, she was already in the car.
A look of enquiry, he decided. Perhaps of pleading. It was to do with the island. It was to do with more than the island. Part of him felt he knew this girl well. Thinking about her now gave him a knot in his stomach, like nerves.
How could he wri
te to his brother about this? What could he say to someone who had not been on Kisiri to feel this strangeness, or met Ally? Shaaban only trusted what could be properly explained. Like an engine.
His brother’s absence was suddenly a gap in the room. Ally saw that. ‘You miss him,’ she’d said, when he started telling her about Shaaban going away. She understood part of him envied Shaaban, the new places and people his brother was seeing; part of him just wished Shaaban was here now, to share everything.
Then he understood that he wanted her here now; her absence was also a gap; he wanted to share the pleasure of Shaaban’s letter with her.
He peeled back the flap of the envelope, taking care not to tear it. Four pages inside, folded twice. Inside them, a crisp new five-hundred-shilling note.
Five hundred shillings!
He put it safely in the wooden box his father had made for him to store important things.
At the top of his letter, Shaaban had written:
Breezy Point Garage
P O Box 21007, Kinyangata
Coast Province
24 March 2019
My brother,
I greet you from afar! I hope it is well with you, as it is with me. Actually, at first I wished to be there, with you and our father and mother. But I cannot be a baby! Now I learn fast. My boss is a good teacher.
The other apprentice is John. He would like to do no work and be many hours lying in the sun. He tells jokes and makes me laugh when I should not. He is like Eshe’s grandfather, I think, when that one was young! He comes from the hills near Kinyangata, where I am now.
Kinyangata is on a creek with a ferry to go across. To go north or south on the big road you must cross by this ferry. All buses pass through, many people from many places! We have a post office, market, places to drink and eat, a cashew nut factory to make oil for waterproofing and brake linings for cars.
But everyone here is very worried! There will be a new bridge to cross the creek. The government says the ferry is too slow for foreign tourists. The bridge is going to be three miles away with a new road to it. What will happen to Kinyangata? No one will come by our road or want our ferry! What will happen to everyone who works here? I tell you, it is a big problem for us.
Now, my brother, I send you money for when our mother and father cannot pay school fees. I will send more when I can. In one month, if my work is good, my boss will increase my wages. I will find a room to share with John. He has a good heart. People warn us of the sharks who swim in these waters and grow fat on other people’s money. These are the words of the widow Jane Ntula, who has the tea stall by the garage. Her husband worked in the city and was killed by a machine. She tries to be mother to us.
Even today two men bring their lorry to the garage because they fall in a ditch and break an axle. Jane Ntula just looks at them and says, ‘They are evil. I smell it. He who walks with a mangy dog becomes mangy.’ These men tell John if he works with them he will make more money in one month than he earns in a whole year here! John pretends he is impressed, but he is too clever. He says they are soldiers or smugglers, or poachers. There are men in his village who help kill elephants to take the ivory, and suddenly they build a new house and buy shoes for everyone, and these men who come to our garage are like that.
Leli, I pray such people never come to our Shanza! I tell our father, so he knows that I hold my thoughts firm. Try to help him make our mother not be angry with me for coming to learn here.
I will write again, but stamps cost much money, so it will not be often. If our father or mother visits me, come with them. I will show you Kinyangata!
Write, Leli! Greet our friends. I will be happy to receive them here.
Shaaban
Leli examined every word again, and thought about it. He heard his father go to bed. He sensed his mother in the dark outside.
He went out.
She was looking into the trees, motionless in the hot, close night. ‘It will storm soon. The bird is silent. The rains come early. We must do the work in the field quickly.’
‘You have read your letter?’ he responded.
‘We will try to save money for the bus, and go to visit your brother,’ was her only answer, turning to go into the house. At the door she paused. ‘Be early for school tomorrow. Then you will learn to write a good letter like your brother.’
He could not help smiling at her retreating back. Yes! I will ask Teacher for some paper. I will tell Shaaban everything – Ally, Dr Carole, Ben, Jack, the Land Rovers, the boats around Shanza and Kisiri—
He paused. There were also the strange thoughts of Bwana Fumo since Ally came. The dreams. And again since going on the island today, as if Fumo’s voice echoed in the eagle’s cry and the running tides round the island.
Do I tell Shaaban?
Tomorrow, I will tell Ally.
*
Am I truly mad? I call for Hope and there, she comes among the souls of the island. Her footprints mark the shore. Her voice lifts on the wind, She speaks to me, I answer. Hope, give us life, give us life!
But then I am alone on empty shores. No ships anchor in deep waters, no cannons fire, no fort rises above the trees. Only the clamour of seabirds, the drum of waves in the cliff. I feel my spirit wander between life and death. This is the silence beyond hope.
Yet again, sand soft beneath my feet, leaves brush my skin, I look in the light of Her eyes, touch the warmth of Her life, and she is real, and I thirst for Her life to touch ours and save us.
And then I am suddenly within these death-stalked walls again and the soldier Diogo is speaking to me!
Fernando is, within the hour, become very ill. Theresa sickens with him.
Terror blinds me. I cannot see Diogo’s face. My lost father seems to stand at Diogo’s shoulder. I reach for him. He fades. The court fills with shadows and murmurs – everyone we have lost, all who have died. Fernando and Theresa are with them. I cannot look, I cannot.
They died before dawn, Fernando, and Theresa following him within hours. I stayed with Fernando as the darkness shadowed his skin. Coughing racked him so cruelly I feared he would die from that alone. He begged me to leave lest the illness take me too.
Diogo tried to bar me from Theresa. When I reached her, already she did not know me.
Seven other men died with them. We carried their bodies to the court and Diogo said the prayer. We mourned our friends as the earth took them. But I could think only that it is my dream! My dream is truth! Even the last moments of Fernando’s life are as my vision. With his last breath, Fernando gave command of the fort to me. To me! I trembled! I protested. He said, so quietly I almost could not hear, ‘My boy, you are next in rank. It is your duty now. For Portugal. Hold this fort for Portugal.’ And he was gone. I am hollow, can think only of his love and wisdom lost to me, to all of us.
This fort and all who live – in my hands! Twenty-one lives weighed in my weak, ignorant useless hands! We fifteen men, three women and three children – all that is left of the fort’s garrison and all who serve it, slaves and free.
No courage, only mad visions fill me! I flee to my visions and Hope. I will the glow of Her life to enter this dying world. Help us! I pray and pray. To Her, to God, to Her, I no longer know to whom I send my call!
third day
invaders
Eight
Ally looked across at the map propped on Jack’s knees. ‘Are we going round the mangrove swamps? To that hotel place – Tundani?’
Their aunt just smiled, eyeing them in the rear-view mirror, weaving the car cautiously between potholes on the crumbling tarmac. ‘Heading north, yes. There’s something I want to show you, something you should see,’ was her only answer.
‘Bet you are taking us to the hotel! Lumbwi says it’s already looking like a palace!’ declared Ben from the front seat.
‘A palace, yes!�
�� Carole slowed the car and turned onto a grassy track towards the sea. They bumped along till it petered out in drifts of sand. ‘Everyone out,’ she ordered. ‘Picnic, drinks – bring everything.’
Each slung a bag over shoulders. Jack took charge of the binoculars. They left the car, walked on down soft paths, between high grassy dunes.
Then Carole halted. Banks of shining white sand masked the sea, though Ally could hear surf breaking beyond the dune-ridge. A large hill climbed to their right, clothed in tall grasses and scattered trees, and topped by a massive, spreading baobab. Everywhere, the shrill of birdsong, the click of insects, the skim and whirr of small creatures. Sunlight burned, dazzled.
She pivoted. A full circle . . . turned on . . . and on . . .
Then she swung back, looked again. On the hill. Stone? Peeping through the arms of the baobab – she saw it just as Ben whooped and clambered up to it, Jack in pursuit. She chased after them, sidestepping with a yelp as something small and brown shot between her feet and chattered angrily from somewhere low and out of sight among bushes.
Closer, what she’d seen as a lone pillar became one leg of an arch, high and pointed, set in a vast facade of carved geometric patterns, mottled with russet lichen, golden in the midday light. Climbing plants veiled the other leg, giving it the false look of a tree trunk wound with leafy growth. Its feet were lost in blankets of yellow flowers. Adjacent walls had long since tumbled to hillocks of broken stone knitted with grasses, as if the land battled to reclaim them. Fingers of sunlight felt their way through the arch.
‘Entrance to a palace, see?’ Carole gasped, breathing hard from the short, sharp climb. ‘Remnant of an ancient Swahili city. Well over six hundred years old.’
Ally peered through trailing creepers. Beyond, air glowed and shimmered. As if she’d step through the arch into another world.
‘Close your eyes, Ally,’ her aunt went on. ‘Imagine! Courts, streets, houses, mosques, orchards, palm groves. Harbours packed with ships!’ She picked her way through fallen stones. ‘Watch for holes! There are hidden wells here and there . . . This wasn’t just a city, these were city states, with their own kings or sultans – all along this coast, prosperous and powerful. Hundreds of dhows, thousands of merchants, trading up and down. From here across to the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, Arabia, India. Back and forth, sailing here on the north-east winds, the Kaskazi monsoon, October to March; back on the south-west monsoon, Kusi, April to September. Picture the rainbow markets – gold, copper, ambergris, ivory, gum copal, silks, satins, pearls, silver, perfumes, spices – cloves, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon—’ She broke off as a man’s deep voice sounded below them.
Song Beneath the Tides Page 6
