Free Looking for Transwonderland by Noo Saro-Wiwa Page A

their heads deeper into the container. Shegu painted a picture of the rusty, sharp edges cutting their faces and chests, and blood flowing into the water, leaving a salty tinge for the other drinkers.
    The sadistic treatment of slaves is an eternal mystery to me. Surely it’s in every salesman’s interest to keep his merchandise in good condition? Car salesmen keep their vehicles gleaming; goose farmers fatten their fowl; London fruit sellers tell you not to ‘set those grapes down too hard’ after you pick them up for inspection. Yet these slave masters routinely beat the strength out of people whose very muscles lay at the core of their commercial value. Even if such treatment were designed to diminish the slaves’ spirit and mental strength, there’s a fine line between demoralisation and death; those slave masters tripped over that line so often, it seemed to defy business logic. Their profits, though healthy, could have been a lot healthier.
    When the slaves were ready to be shipped abroad, they were led out of the barracoon and onto boats that crossed the lagoon to a beach known as the Point of No Return. Shegu, Mabel and I retraced their steps and boarded a motorised canoe at the waterfront. Two others joined us: a young journalist called Success, and her lanky photographer, Sesi, who took a shine to Mabel. The pair were covering Badagry for a news feature.
    A few minutes later, the five of us climbed out of the boat onto empty, grassy land on the other side of the water.
    â€˜They should build a bridge across this lagoon,’ I commented.
    â€˜If they built a bridge, people would come and build houses here,’ Sesi replied. The land had a tranquil, bucolic atmosphere, its tall grass munched by a scattered herd of cows. About a kilometre
and a half ahead of us, a coconut tree grove rose from the soil. Shegu assured me that the Point of No Return beach from which the slaves departed was behind the trees, but I couldn’t envisage it, not when I couldn’t smell or see the ocean. As we walked under the raging sun, our laughter dwindled rapidly into grimaces and grunts, the stroll slowing to a pained stagger. Sandy soil swallowed my shoes with every step I took; Success struggled to move along in her tight skirt and corporate stilettos. ‘See your shoes!’ Sesi teased, as her heels sank into the sand.
    Designated slaves walked this very route in bare feet under the same merciless sun, weighed down by neck and ankle chains and handcuffs. The thought of it ought to have put my suffering into perspective, but it didn’t. I felt I was slowly dying.
    Shegu led us away from the main path towards a rusty old well. He told us it was once filled with a liquid that the slaves were forced to drink. It made them delirious and therefore easier to load onto the ship. ‘When they drank it,’ Shegu said, perhaps metaphorically, ‘they did not know who they were. They forgot their past.’
    â€˜They forgot so they can go to America and do their rap.’ Mabel smiled enviously. Her mind was firmly in the present, not the past.
    The five of us approached the coconut grove, the sea breeze cooling our faces. We emerged from the trees onto a wide, empty beach: the Point of No Return. Palm trees rocked in the wind against the gentle roar of the green-blue waves. Here, the slaves boarded a small schooner and were taken to a ship anchored further out at sea. My mind’s eye pictured them chained to the deck on their backs for months on end, squirming in tides of faeces, urine, menses, vomit and brine as the boat rocked along the Atlantic waves. On the other side, I imagined them getting washed down, branded with hot irons and displayed for sale at the slave market where – for one time only – their humanity and personalities were acknowledged: ‘ hardworking wench ’; ‘ insolent and untrustworthy young man ’. Survivors of this process went on to