That bright day at the palace, her babies came back to her, glorious in the light, speaking the tongue she’d taught them. They ate from her hands, led her past the swirling activities, past the guards they’d left temporarily blind and into the waiting arms of the day, touching the promises of the future.
And so the small procession of dead babies continued to cluck on the long, dusty trails they followed, telling Filo about the parts they’d played in the fall of a kingdom, changing into their chicken guises when Kalu’s whistles became warning winds.
Benin
“How far are we now?” I asked, pushing snapping branches away from my face.
My armpits were damp and the ache in my stomach had only intensified over the lengthy walk we’d had across seemingly acres of, rough, sprawling terrain. Two jagged people the Gods had carved in a hurry, crossing dense, wild forests that threatened to swallow us. We’d left the car parked on a thirsty, empty stretch of road. The small plastic man Nosa jokingly named Baba dangled from the rear-view mirror knocking against his reflection after I’d spun him one last time. A faulty water pump by our parking spot had given me nothing but hot air.
“Nearly there.” Nosa answered, talking through a stick of sugar cane. His long strides ate up the ground. He carried a shovel in his left hand as if it weighed nothing. The thwack thwack of the cutlass in his right hand cut a path for us. “The ground’s changing, this is royal land,” he said, slowing down a little for me to catch up.
The black bag slung over my shoulder bobbed against my side. Since the accident, most people either acted awkwardly or didn’t quite know where to look. Not Nosa though. “What happened to you, lion fighting?” he’d commented that first time I’d met him playing cards outside the Western Union stand by the bus depot. And somehow his lack of concern at offending me was refreshing.
Nightfall arrived. A flock of birds shaped like a plane’s wing flew ahead, calling out to their two-legged relatives. I knew when we got there because the air changed. It was thicker somehow. Dead kings had drained all the water pumps, which hissed in the heat. Nosa fished a torch from his pocket. Anon began to lead the way. She guided us to the gutted terracotta palace, glimmering in the night. The hairs on my neck stood to attention. We passed through old ghosts wandering the grounds, touching walls that resurrected under our curious fingers. Anon took us past the palace walls, past its chattering rooftops, waiting to tumble into the vast sky. We trudged deep into the dark, into a clearing in a hidden forest. Anon began to dance and cry over the land, her feet softening the soil. I knew then that she was dancing over her grave.
I fell to my knees, digging beneath her footsteps. Nosa had lost his sugarcane stick to a lonely ghost who was using it as an instrument, playing a melancholy tune into the lost kingdom. He followed suit, sinking the shovel into the ground. My hand grew bolder in the soil. We dug until my fingers ached and the past scenes from the palace became tiny broken objects in my peripheral vision. We buried the brass head deep in the ground. When we came up for air, Anon had stopped crying and was offering her limbs to the torchlight.
For the first few weeks, I slept like a baby. I felt human again. I’d gotten a one-way ticket so took my time rambling about. Sometimes in the early afternoon, I’d walk up to the local bus depot; weave my way between the vans and street vendors brandishing magician’s tongues, darting around in every direction, unwittingly chasing the journeys of hands at the wheel. I’d catch a bus to one of several bustling markets. There, I’d barter with sellers to buy material and small wooden figurines I didn’t need. I’d stand at the edges listening to the din, pidgin in the punishing heat, sandals covered in dust, waiting for my mother’s tongue to migrate into the noise, bending in the light; moist with all the half-truths she’d told me.
I learned how to make goat pepper soup from Mama Carol who ran the boarding house I was staying at, a ramshackle white building where clusters of mosquitoes shaped like small countries sang on the netted, peeling green door before dying mid-conversation. I attempted to make the soup one day, but the goat’s head pressed its mouth into the gap, telling me the stones in Africa tasted different. Sometimes, on his way back from a run, Nosa would stop by. We’d sit out in the breeze drinking palm wine, discussing the house he wanted to build and how he found himself visiting the scene of his near-death, collecting his organs again and again as if they were passengers. We’d watch the scrawny local dog chasing its tail in front of other houses, before dragging random things to the side of the road.
I accidentally got a job helping the local tailor. It started when I sought advice about making items from the materials I’d bought. She let me use her back room. I began making curious things; small market scenes, interactions of people I’d spotted in the day, headless creatures stumbling towards a sun. It became a kind of therapy, producing objects in the hot back room with the fan blowing on my skin. And the yellow and black butterfly fish swam in the window as though it would survive in any surface. News spread. In town, people started to call me the one armed wonder.
London seemed a world away.
On the last day of my first month, I phoned Mervyn from a call centre. I told him that sometimes, when the electricity stopped, I traced the things I’d built to the sound of the generator, that those small figures with unfinished stories carried them into the dust. He didn’t laugh. Instead he said I’m glad you called, you’re like a daughter to me. I’m happy you’re okay. Call again sometime. Let me know when you’re ready to come home.
In the evening, I tucked a leather bound book under my arm, dragged a small stool out to the front of the boarding house. I got comfortable cutting old newspaper clippings; drinking cold bitter lemon and watching car headlights become spotlights for things in the dark.
At first I thought it was a trick of the light when I spotted it but the scrawny street dog stood on its hind legs barking, and then retreated back in alarm. It appeared in a trail of exhaust pipe smoke from a black jeep groaning past. A clay baby stumbled in the middle of the road, clucking then mumbling about the kingdom, clucking then spilling yellow grains out of its mouth, holding the blue flame from my kerosene lantern.
Its gaze was fixed in the distance, at the sprawling, dense lands beyond, where the terracotta kingdom once glimmered. It’s small chest rose and fell as we shared the night’s heartbeat. Transfixed, my eyes followed it all the way down to the end of the street, till it disappeared from my vision, shattering in the white. I waited for it’s clucking once again but the small chasm in the air closed and the crickets wanted to be heard.
I rocked back on my heels, listening for the dog on the tin roof next door to make it’s way back to the blue flame. I thought of Anon losing her limbs, her mouth now silent in my hand. On the plot of land tucked behind the boarding house, right arms grew in soft soil, rising amidst yams, cassava, bitter leaf, waiting to bend in the afternoon light, catching fragments of their various lives. I listened for the ripple a butterfly fish made in glass. I held my father’s diary, stroked the warm leather. Grappling with his legacy, I opened the pages and sat under water, waiting to begin again.
THE END
Acknowledgements
My gratitude and thanks to the extraordinary Alex Wheatle; top corner stone, literary co-conspirator and friend, thanks for believing in me during hard times and offering invaluable support. To my lovely agent, the inimitable Elise Dillsworth, thank you so much for being passionate about the work, steering me wisely, all the things an agent does quietly, cups of tea and phonecalls! Big thanks to the dedicated Jacaranda team, Valerie Brandes and Jazzmine Breary for taking a risk on a plucky outsider and all your hard work. Once again thanks to my editor Valerie Brandes for sharp eyes and brilliant guidance and thank you to Rukhsana Yasmin. To Julian Brown for the years and encouragement. Maggie Gee for reading that second draft. The wonderful Yvvette Edwards for support, advice and lots of laughter. Malaika Adero for championing me Stateside. PR extraordinaire Sue Amaradivakara for excitement and belief in the project. My first and unforgettable mentor Donna Daley-Clarke for wit, patience and understanding. Spread The Word for the Flight programme and their continued support, Words of Colour and Black Book Swap for providing platforms for writers. And Jenneba Sie-Jalloh for seeing something in my writing years ago, thank you, I’ll never forget.