Blonde Roots Read online

  When I lay on my left, my nose prodded Samantha’ s spinal column.

  Hildegaard came from a nation that was not my own. I never worked out which one because we never got past the hold’s lingua franca of sign language.

  She had two long blonde plaits that wrapped around her head twice. Lice crawled all over her scalp, as they did all of ours. We scratched our heads until they bled and became infected. The men were shaved but a woman’s locks raised her market price. We picked out the lice of the head in front. Behind the ears were favorite breeding grounds. It was quite effective as displacement activity.

  It was a shock, though, to discover your neighbor had died during the night and the lice were still burrowing.

  Like the time I woke up.

  And Samantha didn’t.

  Samantha had been a milkmaid on the Throgmorton Estate, some distance south from my family home.

  She was bony where Hildegaard was fleshy, freckled where Hildegaard was unblemished, had a head of shoulder-length auburn coils compared to Hildegaard’s endlessly circumnavigating plaits.

  Samantha told me that she was seventeen and had been married a year with a one-month-old daughter, Rosie-May. Her husband, Wilf, had been hired out by their master to a neighboring farm, but walked over to see his wife and daughter every Sunday after church. He’d gather them both in his arms and hold them for the longest while.

  With the advent of summer, the master, Lord Thurston Throgmorton, began his seasonal visit to the hovel she shared with seven other women on the estate.

  Those who resisted were no match for his strength.

  But Samantha was now married; a wife and mother.

  She left him rocking on the ground cradling his crotch, sending the foulest curses out into the night.

  A few days later she was on her way to the dairy, Rosie-Mav strapped to her back, whistling the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” noticing that the moss on the heath had turned the loveliest shade of green, marveling at how the days were warming up very nicely indeed, when two six-footers appeared around the bend, wearing brown capes and high leather boots. They blocked both her path and the sunlight.

  Their eyes were flint in the act of ignition.

  They ripped Rosie-May from her back and dropped her. Just like that.

  Samantha was dragged away toward the valley at the foot of the hills.

  When she managed to look back, there, standing in the middle of the track, was Lord Throgmorton.

  Triumphant.

  The lump at his feet was her little girl.

  IN THE FOREST they took it in turns—although she never felt a thing.

  Spent, her kidnappers rearranged themselves, bound her with twine, set her on a horse in front of the rider, his arms around her waist as he made haste for the coast.

  She could feel him up against her, hard, and every few hours he set her down to relieve himself in her.

  They took it in turns.

  And so it went on until they reached the coast.

  AS THE SLAVER PROGRESSED toward the tropics, it became unbearably hot. Fresh air entered through the wooden gratings and air vents but there was never enough of it. When it rained, we heard the dreaded shout, “Batten down the gratings, fore and aft!”

  If a storm raged for days, my bruised lungs wheezed like an asthmatic’s.

  Mealtimes we were fed pulped horsebeans with yam mixed with slabber sauce.

  Women and children were allowed to sit on the floor and eat from a communal tub, each with our own wooden spoon.

  Samantha didn’t have much of an appetite.

  She gave me what she didn’t eat herself.

  I counted more of her bones becoming visible.

  Her eyes never traveled far from that warm English morning.

  I was the girl her child might have become.

  When she stroked my cheek, it was her daughter’ s.

  When she looked into my eyes, she didn’t see me.

  When she spoke, it was to Rosie-May.

  In the absence of family, we all became surrogates.

  HILDEGAARD PILED SO MUCH FOOD onto her spoon it teetered toward her trembling, puckered mouth. Her moist pink tongue slid out and guided it in without spillage. When she dipped in for a fifth or sixth helping, her adversary, a woman called Bethany who matched Hildegaard for size and voracity, flicked the offending spoon away from the pot.

  Slaps, punches, pulls and kicks turned into a free-for-all among the women. The crew crowded into the hold, cheering, goading and roaring as Hildegaard head-butted Bethany so hard her forehead split open and Bethany wrapped her fists around Hildegaard’s plaits, trying to pull them out.

  I wished the food Hildegaard put in her throat would catch and choke her.

  We were all starving.

  I BEGAN TO REGURGITATE what I ate.

  I was becoming a sliver.

  One day I slipped my feet out of my irons.

  I put them back in and looked around to see if anyone had noticed.

  THE CREW TOOK ASIDE those observed to be not eating.

  The punishment was to place hot coals so near the offender’ lips that they blistered.

  It didn’t always do the trick.

  The males of my species were kept shackled for their gourmet experience. Food was fed to them from a ladle. If they were too weak to lift their heads, they had to eat prone and sometimes choked, a couple of times to death.

  When we were good, and the weather was stable, we ate up on deck.

  WE FOULED OURSELVES. Of course we did. It ran between the slats onto the people lying underneath.

  Large, conical buckets at the end of the platforms filled up quickly.

  If there was a terrible storm, we weren’t able to muck out the hold. (You can imagine.) One gale lasted eighteen days.

  Just as well we’d been stripped naked after the first week.

  Fresh water became my new god.

  And where was He when I needed Him?

  We prayed and sang hymns and hoped for the miracle that never came.

  BEDSORES, CUTS, MAGGOTS, HUNGER, dehydration, asphyxiation, my own filth-I disgusted myself.

  In the early days I tried holding my breath in a childlike attempt at suicide.

  MY DREAMS WERE FILLED with wintry breezes.

  My dreams were filled with tumblers of homemade lemonade.

  My dreams were filled with the laughter of my sisters, who had lost all irritating personality traits.

  My dreams were filled with my mother and father’s love.

  My dreams were filled with the aroma of honeysuckle and baking bread and the lavender bush behind the cottage from which we made mothballs and the sharp, refreshing aroma of grass after a night’s rain.

  When I took a trip into my dreams, I didn’t want to come back.

  DR. NWONKOREY, THE SHIP’S SURGEON, was the oldest person on board. He had white froth over his patchy brown pate, white foam for a mustache, white weeds for a beard and remarkably white teeth. A layer had formed on mine that only a shovel could scrape off.

  Dr. Nwonkorey worked his way through the nauseous fug of the hold with a strip of lime-soaked muslin tied over his mouth. He complained that the hold looked like a slaughterhouse with slicks of blood, watery shit dripping everywhere, slimy mucus running down the noses of men who could not reach up to wipe them-and the sweat, the fever, the dysentery, the vomit, the despair, and a floor so treacherous with human detritus he had to be careful not to slide from one end of the hold to the other.

  He had a soft spot for us children and at first would practice a hearty laugh on us. When we merely stared back with dead-fish eyes, he dropped the act and met us with the same.

  When he spooned vinegar into my mouth to prevent scurvy, he would pat my forehead with a damp cloth, and sigh, his boozy breath lingering as he moved on.

  Up and down the aisle he’d go, naked belly wobbling over his white cotton wrappa as he brandished scissors and blades and cotton thread and poultices and
potions and delivered magic spells and incantations, all the while muttering, “It’s hopeless! Useless! What can I do? What the hell can I do?”

  One time he came to work so inebriated he bounced down the steps on his bottom. His hair was a matted frizz, his eyes bloodshot, his wrappa soiled. When he landed on the floor he slurred, “I used to be the personal witch doctor of King Wamukoto Landuleni Eze!”

  Then he retched.

  We saw less of him: three days, five, ten ...

  Surgeons on other slavers were paid Head Monev-pro rata pay for per capita delivery. A cash incentive to keep the cargo alive. But I don’t think performance-related pay was part of the deal with our drunken old ex-witch doctor.

  IT WAS NEVER SILENT belowdecks. A cacophony of moans and groans, day and night, punctured by screams, which were contagious. If a screamer didn’t shut up, they were whipped until they did.

  And if a passenger went insane, there really was only one solution-and it was final.

  Bodies were tossed overboard and became dinner for the sharks.

  They say the seabed of the Atlantic is paved with the skeletons of those who didn’t make it.

  If they all got up and swam ashore, they could form their own country.

  “Get them above hatches!” was always music to my ears. The fresh air made me so heady I’d almost faint. Some did. The ocean view was ... dramatic and panoramic.

  Buckets of salt water were thrown over us-a few moments of bliss.

  We were forced to sing and dance in a circle, waving our arms vigorously, a cat-o’-nine-tails lashing at any feet that stopped.

  The males of my species remained handcuffed and linked by a chain that was in turn bolted to the deck. Given the restrictions , their choreography was by necessity a flat-footed stomp. The deck shook.

  It was almost as if they were angry.

  UP THERE IN CLEAR, clean, sunny daylight the sailors could see what was to their fancy.

  It was expected.

  A perk of the trade.

  Were not their women in some distant land?

  Was life not tough for them at sea too?

  Were not the female captives compliant?

  Easy, so to speak.

  MOST NIGHTS THE WOODEN HATCH creaked open. Women were eased off shelves. At first a scuffle might ensue, but as the journey progressed few had the strength to resist. When the hatch closed, I’d hear the rumblings of men helpless to protect their own. Most women returned after a few hours, or a few days: crying, bleeding, furious, mute. Some were never seen again.

  Hildegaard twitched like mad whenever the hatch opened at night.

  Still comely, she’d soon be cherry-picked. We all knew that.

  Then one night they came for her.

  I watched as they tried to remove her from the shelf while she turned herself into a dead weight, forcing them to yank her off it.

  The bones of Samantha’s skeletal arms tightened around me as we watched.

  As they led her away, Hildegaard rolled her hands into fists and jerked them about. She twisted her naked body, kicked out, spat, tried to bite them.

  She was formidable, but I was so scared for her.

  I wanted to say good-bye but when I opened my mouth, only a croak came out.

  IF I CLOSE MY EYES, I can still feel Hildegaard’s warm, maternal body; how when she smothered me in her arms, I slept as if I was free.

  THE PERSON ALLOCATED HER SPACE had been sitting for weeks in a passageway so crowded she couldn’t even lie down. Surplus slaves were stored there, or in the nose of the ship or where there was space toward the rudder.

  Let’s call it steerage class.

  Jane was thirteen. She wept with relief the first time she got to lie down on the shelf and stretch her whole body out. (Little did she know.) A prisoner of war, she had been incarcerated in a fort on the coast for months before being shipped out. Hundreds of slaves had been stuffed into an airless, windowless dungeon. She said she expected special treatment on account of her condition-pregnancy. How she prattled on for hours. Maybe her own cabin? A bed? Dress? Basin? Soap? Washrag? Comb? Blanket? Chamber pot? Plate?

  Yes, any day now.

  Jane had traveled so deep into fantasy she had lost her way back.

  GARANWYN LAY ON A SHELF opposite mine. We found each other’s voices only if we shouted above the discordant choir belowdecks.

  When his voice started to break, he told me he was becoming a man.

  We discussed our destination, but no one was really sure where we were going. Was it that place called the New World? But why? What lay in store for us?

  We had no idea.

  When I threw up, Garanwyn reassured me it wouldn’t last. (It didn’t.)

  If someone died in the night, he’d tell me to thank God I was still alive. (I did.)

  When I fell into depression, he told me freedom was just around the corner. (It wasn’t.)

  I told him about my leg irons. He told Slade, who slept next to him.

  Word came back that I should go up on deck that very night to locate the keys to the padlocks. It was not a request.

  My ankles were now as thin as a duck’ s. How I willed them to swell up.

  For the first time in my life people depended on me—not to collect eggs or stop milk from boiling over or to sweep out the yard—but to save their lives.

  I slid out of my irons and crept up the hatch, watched by everyone who could swivel their heads to see me.

  The sailors had become careless. It was unlocked.

  I emerged onto the deck, my heart punching its way out of my chest cage.

  Waves splashed against the ship.

  The sky was the star-spangled blue of my homeland.

  It was so peaceful and beautiful up there.

  A full moon was passing behind clouds, providing enough light for the task at hand but not so much that I was in spotlight.

  A single guard on watch was curled over a coil of thick rope. Snoring. Reeking of rum. They all did.

  I crept over to a teenage boy so brown he really was almost blak. His lips seemed to spread from ear to ear. Several weeks earlier we’d watched him accidentally drop a sail while up the mizzenmast. The Chief Mate immediately ordered a flogging and he was tied to a post and got thirty strokes.

  He must have been assigned the night duty no one wanted.

  Keys to our chains dangled from a cord hanging around his neck. My fingers quaked as I went to work on the knot. Suddenly he shifted position and fell from the rope, landing with a jolt on his back. He lay there, dazed, looking up at the sky, blinking drunkenly. I had darted behind the rope and lay on my front, peering around it. He turned over onto his side and went back to sleep. The keys were now trapped underneath him. Damn! I thought of the community below stairs. I could not let them down.

  I began to search the ship for something that could break chains or a padlock. I darted about in a panic. My hands became my eyes as they delved into baskets and boxes and came up with buckles, rigging tools and, finally, a mallet and a marlinespike.

  It might just work.

  I dashed hell-for-leather back to the hold with my implements of liberation and gave them to Slade, who worked with the spike, carefully, quickly.

  Garanwyn ordered me back to my shelf, just in case.

  I lay back down, put my feet back into the irons.

  Each man in turn was unshackled. Four, five, six, seven. They worked smoothly, silently, no longer half-dead but invigorated.

  I prayed so hard that they would succeed.

  I watched Slade, light-footed, swift, make his way up the steps with the poise of a snake about to strike. My Garanwyn was right behind him.

  Just as they reached the top, the hatch opened and they came face to face with two sailors coming down to pick someone for a midnight fuck.

  They hadn’t even bothered with muskets—smug gits.

  The moon shone down on Slade’s and Garanwyn’s faces. Frozen.

  All hell broke loose. Th
e sailors shouted for assistance. Our men scrambled up and overcame them.

  We heard a call to arms, and the crew sprang into action. Feet trampled up above, muskets were fired, the hatch was slammed shut, and a few of the men tried using the mallet to hammer it open. It was useless. They tried to reshackle themselves. That was useless too.

  Curses were flung down at us through the gratings. The skin would be filleted off our backs. We were to be buried alive. No food. No water.

  Twenty armed sailors entered and took out all the men who were unshackled.

  We fell silent.

  And stayed that way.

  Four days passed before the hatch was opened again.

  We were weak; we were dehydrated; we were starving; we were going to die.

  Samantha finally did.

  She lay right up against me—rapidly decomposing in the heat—for three nights before they removed her.

  There was no space for me to pull myself away from her body.

  Her bowels had emptied. So did mine.

  The maggots that crawled out of her mouth and nose and ears tried to crawl into mine too.

  The smell was—unforgettable.

  I went a little insane.

  ON THE FIFTH DAY we were ordered to muck out the hold, we were allowed up for exercise, and we were fed. Women and children were now also chained to the deck.

  They led the “rebels” out. A show was about to begin.

  Slade was not among them.

  Then I saw Garanwyn, dragging himself on the ground with one arm. His kneecaps had been smashed in. His eyes were buried beneath bruised swellings. The right side of his face was twice its normal size. His left ear had been severed. His right one a bloodied pulp. His chest had collapsed as if all the ribs had been extracted. One arm dangled from its socket. He had no fingernails. He had no toenails. His genitalia were a mess.