Free THE BOOK OF NEGROES by Lawrence Hill Page B

said.
    “Walk long time?” he asked.
    “Three moons,” I said.
    “Where mother?” he asked. I said nothing. He pointed at Sanu. “Mother?” he asked again. I shook my head from side to side. He pointed at Fanta, who stood next to Sanu. “Mother?” Again, I shook my head.
    “What are you saying to him?” Fanta called out. I tried to ignore her, but she shouted out that I must not speak with the evil man. The helper took a step in her direction, but the toubab inspector pulled him back.
    “No mother?” the inspector asked.
    I stood silently and said nothing.
    The helper and the inspector examined Sanu. She and her baby, who was now sleeping, were sent off. I wished I could go with them.
    While toubabu men led Sanu away, the helper pulled me over to Fanta and let me go. I stood, with no arm or foot held, bound or clasped in irons, and looked out over the side of the ship. I could have run and jumped, but I weighed my fear of the water against my fear of the ship, and stood motionless.
    “Open your mouth,” the helper told Fanta. The inspector stood there waiting.
    She mumbled in Fulfulde that the helper was a horse’s ass. He sensed the insult and drew back his hand. She stood before him, unflinching, defiant.
    “No speak Maninka,” I said.
    “Tell her to open her mouth, and no biting,” the helper said.
    I told her.
    “Never,” Fanta said to me. “They are going to eat us, anyway.”
    I did not want to see Fanta beaten, and I feared that they would punish me for her disobedience.
    This time, I did not plan the words. They just came out of my mouth. “He says he will hurt me if you don’t,” I said.
    Fanta opened her mouth. The inspector looked at her teeth, poked at her round belly and told me to tell her to open her legs.
    “They say to open your legs,” I said.
    “Never,” Fanta said.
    “Baby soon,” I said to the toubab inspector.
    “Baby when?” he asked.
    “One moon,” I said.
    The inspector hesitated. He made noise when he breathed. It was a whistling, wheezing sound. I wondered if his small nostrils were blocked. His mouth held black teeth, and I caught a glimpse of his gums, flaming red like turkey wattles. He was an ugly man who seemed to be rotting from the inside out, but I spotted no hurting intentions in this man’s eyes. I took another chance.
    “Baby one moon,” I repeated. I rolled my hand over Fanta’s big belly. “Big mama. Big mama. She say you eat her.”
    The toubab inspector did not understand. The helper explained.
    “No eat mother,” the inspector said. He and the helper held their bellies and laughed. “Work. Work toubabu land. No eat.” The orange-haired toubab man lowered his hands. The inspection was over.
    The helper jumped in again. “He is not going to boil her. She will work for toubabu. All of you will work.”
    It struck me as unbelievable that the toubabu would go to all this trouble to make us work in their land. Building the toubabu’s ship, fighting the angry waters, loading all these people and goods onto the ship—just to make us work for them? Surely they could gather their own mangoes and pound their own millet. Surely that would be easier than all this!
    I pointed at the toubab inspector and asked the helper, “What does he do?”
    “Medicine man,” the helper said.
    “You talk too much to them,” Fanta said.
    “He says they won’t eat you,” I said.
    “Who says?”
    “Toubab.”
    “What did he say?”
    “That you will have to work.”
    “Why should I work, if they will eat me anyway? Listen to me, child. We will all be boiled and eaten.”
    More toubabu men took Fanta away. But I was made to stand next to the medicine man, and to explain the helper’s instructions to Fulbe captives. One by one they were sent below. When I was the last captive on the deck of the ship, my bravery left me. The toubabu had used me, and now they were going to kill me. I could barely keep myself from fallingto my knees, but I thought about my