Then I saw Kassila seize the flimsy chain in his huge hand. He twisted his great body and spiralled back down below.
And only the tip of his tail cut through the surface of the water.
8 Hawa, 1955: Josephine Baker
They wanted water. So much water! The headwoman organised us to fetch it from the stream and we carried it up in buckets on our heads. They were using up all the water from the stream near the work site. The water we brought was for them, for baths and washing. That was the first time I saw inside the compound. A boil had welled up under my eye, tight and shiny, close to bursting. I set my bucket down and felt it with my fingertips. I saw a man looking at me, who turned away when I looked back. After that they didn’t want me to carry water again.
The men slept in tents instead of houses. And mostly washed themselves out of doors. All except one who came and went, who wore long trousers but spoke with a woman’s voice and bathed in another tent some distance from the camp. The chief assigned three dozen men to work for them. They began collecting the mud from the bottom of the river bed. We used to creep up to watch them, two or three of us hiding behind the big boulders. The white men stood on the shelf of the river bank and watched the men from the village digging, loading pans with gravel and rocks which other men carried on their heads and dumped into wooden boxes running with water. That was where all the water was going. There were times the one with the woman’s voice called for a bucket of earth to be brought over, which he spread out on a canvas cloth, inspecting the mud and rocks, crushing some and weighing the powder on a set of brass scales.
What they were looking for nobody knew, but the day they found it — what a commotion! I was washing clothes at the stream. Ever since the men had arrived the water flowing downstream from where the work was going on was too muddy to use, so we had to walk much further upstream to a place where the water was still clear. When I heard the shouts I crept along the waterside and crouched down below the river bank.
The men in charge were behaving like children. Hugging each other, punching arms and slapping backs. The one with the woman’s voice, who I now realised had breasts, they did not slap and hit, but carried on their shoulders singing a song: ‘For she’s a jolly good fellow.’ Then they set her down and spun her around between themselves, dancing like crazy people. All the time watched by the men who did the digging, who were silent, while they waited to be told what to do next.
The white men gave everybody the rest of the day off. As they made their way back along the path to the encampment, I followed them, staying parallel to their position, blending myself into the shapes of the trees, stepping from shadow to shadow, treading lightly so as not to disturb the leaves on the forest floor. It was easy. They made a great deal of noise as they went. The path was narrow and they walked in single file. I recognised the one at the back as the same man who had sent me away that first time.
He was carrying a heavy bag on his shoulders. It caused him to walk at a slower pace than his companions. I watched as the gap between them widened. For a moment he stopped, set down his bag, and wiped his brow with a cloth. Then he blew his nose on the cloth, folded it up and carefully replaced it in his pocket. At that moment I stepped out on to the path behind him, treading on a small twig to catch his attention. Naturally, he swung round, startled to see me there.
We faced each other. He did not recognise me. The boil was gone. I told you I had been washing clothes. I had stripped to enter the water, keeping just a cloth tied around my waist. Now I was wearing only this same cloth. I saw his eyes drop from my face and move down my body, like a slow dribble of sweat. I stepped forward and picked up the bag. It was heavy, but I did not let that show. I placed it on my head. And in that way I walked in front of him, all the way to the camp and back inside.
The tents were taken down, replaced by low buildings with zinc roofs. I had a job in the camp. I worked for the man, who was called Blue by his companions or Mr Blue, like the colour. In the mornings I boiled coffee and eggs for him. He would sit outside the door in front of a table that afterwards I folded and put away, on a chair that did the same. At first I went back to the village every evening, but after some time Mr Blue said this did not suit him. And so I slept on a mat at the door of the hut. In the evenings I heated water for him to bathe and in time I learned how to pour the whisky he liked to drink and how to wash his clothes and tidy them away in his trunk. In the mornings he sat with his legs stretched out in front of him, with nothing to do but watch me work.
He did not ask me my name. Instead he told me he would call me Josephine. He said I looked like Josephine Baker. I did not know who he meant. Only that it was easier for him to remember.
I liked my new job. Mr Blue had so many possessions. His brown leather belt with a brass buckle I kept polished with animal fat. The same with his boots, of which he had two pairs. I rinsed the dead bristles from his shaving brush, and wiped the bar of soap, set them both back out on a towel the way he showed me. I plucked the hairs from his comb. Long, transparent hairs the colour of sand.
Papers covered in something I thought looked like centipede tracks. Writing. How could I have known? I had never been taught to read or sent to school. A Thermos flask that kept coffee hot the whole day long. Maps. Magazines. Books. Other things I had never laid eyes on before, whose purpose I could not imagine. On the green felt table-top: an instrument made of brass, with numbers and letters and an arrow that swung around towards the same point, wherever you directed it. A glass you could hold in your hand that made everything bigger. I stared through it at the hairs on the back of my hand, at a silverfish crawling out of his trunk. I could even see the lice swarming along the vane of a chicken feather.
In that place I saw ice for the first time in my life. A great block delivered on the back of a truck. That evening Mr Blue told me to put chunks of it in his drink and in those of the others whom he invited around to his hut before dinner. While they were eating, I took a piece of it and sat at the back of the hut, feeling the unearthly coldness, holding it in the cups of my hands to try to stop it slipping away. Afterwards my fingers felt stiff, aching like I had been wringing clothes all day.
Mr Blue found me playing with the magnifying glass. He said nothing. But watched me as I replaced it and continued wiping as I had been. From then on I carried the cloth with me whenever I went to look at Mr Blue’s belongings.
Some days I watched Mr Blue. In the evenings, from the darkness outside the window while he was readying himself for sleep. He would sit down, his camp bed creaking under his weight, pull off his boots and his socks and throw them into the corner of the room. He would struggle with his braces and pull at the front of his shirt, trying to set the buttons free. His chest was covered in hair, like hog hair. Thick slabs of flesh on the sides of his body overhung his belt. He would loosen his trousers and lie down. There were times, when I was sure he was sleeping, I would creep in. The room was filled with his odour, even the walls sweated. Mr Blue slept on his back, one hand covering his penis. I stood in the darkness and listened to the sounds coming from him. Snorting as he breathed in, whistling as he breathed out. Sometimes I might stay there an hour or so. Before I went I moved his shoes, placed them neatly under his bed, picked up his shirt and vest and hung them on the peg.