Some days the
sun beats down like it never will rain again, and everyone tastes flakes of
rusty earth upon their tongues. My mother and I are hanging sheets we have just
washed in the Rio Doce. I yawn into the sunlight.
“Shola,” my
mother says. “Did I see you staring after Akin this morning when the men were
headed to the fields? You must not watch him, or he will get strange ideas, and
he is a good man but too impulsive. He may be trouble, Shola. Iranola is a
better match for you.”
She speaks in a
hushed tone in Yoruba, our language for secrets. Most of the slaves speak Bantu
at Fazenda Carvalho. The masters speak only Portuguese and with their whips,
not that they whip many of us in the big house—we are valuable and docile—but
when they thrash our men, they make us watch.
“Iya, I did not
even see Akin this morning,” I say, an automatic protest as I suppress the
memory of how his muscles bristled and the glistening of his skin. Oh, how I
could nestle in the crook of one of those thick arms surrounding me! And such a
shining smile, though I often wonder why anyone should smile when setting off
to harvest shriveled cane beneath a glaring sun and harsher overseer. Our work
is long suffering, but it’s not as awful as theirs.
I am fifteen
years-old. All my life I have belonged to Seu Francisco Carvalho and his
family. I toil for them, and they treat me well, so I have never dreamed of
fleeing. And even if I wished to run away, I never would. Families of escaped
slaves are beaten, and my two goofy brothers, Tayo and Folu, are so young.
Besides, Dona Maleficent favors my mother so the boys will work in the mill,
not the fields. In the meantime, they do chores while we wash the rusty dirt
from the sheets, towels, clothes, rugs, and curtains.
“I am not
blind, Shola,” my mother says, recalling me to the present. “You need a good
boy like Iranola, one who will not cause you trouble.”
Sometimes I wish I could disappear.
One starry
night I met Iranola, who always wears a silly grin. I was returning from the
house after scrubbing the patio, the same I am standing on now, and he was
coming back from the sty, where he tends master’s fat porkers. A gentle
creature, he has a way with animals. He stinks like them too. That night he
rushed past without looking at me. I stamped my foot and pointed to the sky.
“Do you see
that?”
He stopped at
once.
“It’s pretty,”
he said.
“Not my finger.
In the sky? Do you recognize it?”
I was pointing
at the harvest morning star, what we call the eagle star. I longed for him to
reply, “That is Oshun, a beautiful woman shining in glittering yellow, a dress
or a wide skirt. It doesn’t matter what she wears. She is the orixá of
love, beauty, and sex.”
“That’s a
star,” he said instead, and so I told him everything about her, how she rules
over marriage, making babies, and the essence of a woman. I took my time to
explain. When I finished he said, “It still surely looks just like a star,
doesn’t it?”
In our world,
family antecedents or characteristics dictate a child’s name. “Akin” means
brave or heroic, and “Iranola” implies he is from a wealthy family, and maybe back
in Africa he was. Also, Akin is a mulatto, but Iranola is all Yoruba.
His children will never be free.
I was big for
my age and have danced with the moon since I turned nine, another secret I was
never allowed to tell other girls until it was obvious. I did not understand
why I must be quiet, until Binta, a Bantu girl only a year older than I,
disappeared. My mother would only say, “The Moon’s path is full of thorns.”
A few weeks
later I overheard Bimpe, Iranola’s mother, our blabbermouth, telling Iya that
Binta now lived in the Casa Cor de Rosa, and how Seu Francisco bragged to Dona
Maleficent what a good price she had brought.
“They’ve ruined
her,” Iya said. She spat and cursed.
I regard Iya
now with my best imitation of her face then.
“I am not
afraid of Akin’s trouble,” I tell her and catch an ember of fire in her eyes.
My sister Ifedayo—love becomes joy—appears. The last few
days and nights they are tending Dona Maleficent, who has dengue fever.
“Iya, come quickly. She
is much worse,” Ifedayo says, and mother follows her inside. I lean against a
wall, watching the farm lulled by the sun into its sleepy rhythm. Iranola waves
as he heads off to feed master’s pigs. I yawn again, and Mother rushes back to
the porch.
“Don’t just stand there.
Fetch some water!” she says.
There are three fingers
of water in a glass bottle on the sill.
"Take this, Iya. I
will fetch more by the river."
"Bring a lot,
Shola."
"I will. I
promise."
She shakes her head.
“The poor thing won’t
last the night unless the fever breaks.”
By the well Akin stands
with the other men. He is the most handsome, tallest, and strongest too, even
though he is also nearly the youngest. Our gazes lock, and he sidles up beside
me.
“Oh, Akin,” I
say, feigning disinterest. “I didn’t even notice you.”
“Quiet,” he
says. “Did you ever hear of Cumbe?”
It is a word we
do not usually say, but somewhere in the interior, across the endless water,
Kalunga, lies a mocambo, a free village without white people and whips,
named Cumbe.
“No,” I tell
him.
“I want to take
you there with me. We will start a family and someday a tribe of our own. We
will be free, Shola. Do you want to be free?”
My heart races.
It was all I ever wanted to be free and belong to this wonderful man.
“Why me?”
He smiles a
fence of gleaming white.
“Because you
are so pretty. And I am also handsome. You will be a good mother for my sons.”
“But you do
love me?”
“I want you to
be mine.”
The briefest
second passes before I acquiesce.
“I’ll come with
you,” I tell him, and he lifts me off my feet, planting his lips upon mine. He
seizes my tongue and sucks it like a starving baby suckling. Then his tongue
passes through my teeth, digging into my mouth, as if he wants to lick my
tonsils. He wants me to suck back but I cannot even breathe.
“You must never
even look at another man,” he says once I am returned to the ground.
“I won’t. I
promise.”
A nervous
silence ensues. Several of the other field hands pass by, and one beats his
chest. I feel his gaze traverse my body, but he speaks to Akin instead.
“Akin! Akin!
You are our hero!”
My man beats
his chest in return and flexes his biceps.
“Yes, I am!” he
says.
The field hands
clap and sing a song praising him as they depart. We are left alone.
“When should we
run?” I ask him.
“Tomorrow
night. After the moon sets, wait for me by the stone bridge. I will be nearby
in the fields.”
“What about the
dogs?”
When slaves
flee, our master sets teams of ferocious dogs after us, along with hunters.
Nine times out of ten the fugitives return, badly bitten, their skin shaped
into bloody clumps by cats o' nine tails.
“Look at me,”
he says. “No, no. Harder. Do you see how I am? I am not afraid of dogs. I can
tear them apart.”
“But their
teeth—”
“I have teeth
too!”
His chest
pumps. He is pure muscle from shoulders to abdomen and further… All along his
legs lie muscles, drive, and a latent power that could awaken Exu himself. My
logic melts.
“I will be
there,” I say, and he nods and leaves me, headed back to the fields.
I pump the
water from the well and return with a big bucket to the house. As I pass by,
the doctor is speaking with my master. Lately, the doctor comes every day.
“But it is a
matter of life or death,” Seu Francisco says. “When the harvest comes I will
have money to pay you.”
“Can’t you give
some small token as a guarantee? It doesn’t have to be much.”
“I have no
money.”
“It’s no
problem. I will visit Dona Maleficent now. I trust you will find something.”
I waited for
them to enter, but they urged me forward, lingering behind. The doctor coughed,
my master grunted, and both laughed. I shivered as an icicle sutured my spine.
“She will need
a thorough examination,” he said.
“Of course,”
said Seu Francisco. “There are others too, but this one is prime.”
Dona
Maleficent’s room stinks of disease. The curtains are drawn, and a single
kerosene lamp burns on a night stand. She lies in a soaked sheet, eyes
unseeing, pale and exhausted, resigned to death.
I set the water
on a table by the door. One of my aunts wets a towel and lays it upon our senhora’s
forehead. The doctor brushes her away and fishes in his case for leeches, which
he applies to her forearms and thighs. He examines her chest. Her breath comes
in gasps, punctuated by trembling.
She is dying.
It won’t be long.
“She is much
better,” the doctor pronounces. “By tomorrow she will be well.”
Seu Francisco
smiles, and they talk a while about leeches and caring for them once they fall
off.
“Don’t worry,”
Seu Francisco tells him. “I will explain what they must do in simple words.”
The doctor
clears his throat.
“That small token?”
Seu Francisco drags
me by the hair out of the room. Iya looks up, eyes flashing, and Ifedayo’s do
too, hers expressing the pain I am feeling, as if she feels it herself. I am
taken into the master’s bedroom.
“You need to
see this,” he says, and tears open my dress. I cup one hand across my breasts
and the other across my toto. “What do you think of that?”
The doctor
touches my upturned nipple clinically, a fierce lust in his eyes.
“By the
prophet’s beard,” he says, amused.
“Please, no.”
My voice is the smallest protest.
Seu Francisco
slaps me across the cheek and shoves me away. My cheek burns and body tenses,
but I know better than to fight. I huddle in the corner, covering myself.
“Keep your
mouth shut,” Seu Francisco growls and turns to the doctor. “Would you like to
see more?”
“No, I am
satisfied,” he says. “If I don’t want her, I’ll send her to Cor da Rosa.”
“So, you will
return tomorrow?”
“Yes,” the
doctor says. “By then your wife will be fine. I will collect my leeches and
this tiny treasure too.”
They clomp each
other on the back, shake hands, and leave. When my sister and mother enter, I
stop my tears and keep quiet. Not only am I afraid of Seu Francisco, but I’m
also worried what my mother or Akin might do to avenge me, if they knew the
destiny those two white demons have planned. Besides, I still have plans of my
own. I am leaving tomorrow night with Akin. Soon I will be free.
I will tell of
my orixá now, Oxumaré, the trickster, who rules the rainbow and the
snake. When he dances, he traces rainbows in the air, gifts to the heavens and
the earth. He is about mystery, art, and motion, and I do not resemble him, for
I love things of substance, that which needs no explanation like the ecstasy of
water on a parched throat, a shooting star sent by Oxalá across the heavens, or
the way newborns cling to their mothers. I like what is real, but Oxumaré loves
playing games and making puzzles. He came to me. I did not go to him.
The overseer is
drunk, and most of the men are at Cor da Rosa, because Seu Francisco is
celebrating, confident Dona Maleficent will recover. The leeches are fat, but
when I last see her, she is paler than ever, and her breathing is labored. I
still believe she will soon be dead.
Our master is
Christian and would kill us if he knew we practiced worshiping our gods, even
if it were to help Dona Maleficent, so that night we gather secretly at the terreiro,
a place where we make promises and beckon to the orixás. It is a stone
building where cane is stored, but the harvest has been poor, so it is empty.
Inside, we have drums and smoke. I never talk to Naade, our guide, or our Pai
Santo, Abaiade, a slave who was once flogged to death after escaping, but
reborn the same night I entered the world. I love and respect all the orixás,
but I never ask for promises. All I do is dance, sing, and try to be one with
all.
Oxumaré had
other plans. He is together with me, closer than ever before. No, I am not
possessed, but he watches me, scrutinizing, wondering how he can play some
dangerous game, while all around me words swirl and colors dance. My people
appeal to Omulu, who cures fevers and vanquishes epidemics, but my contrary
mind is not with them. If Dona Maleficent is cured, Seu Francisco will give me
to the doctor, and I will never see Akin again.
But I do not
want her to die! She is the reason my brothers will not work in the fields, so
she must live, but not get better yet.
This is a
trick, I tell myself, but my voice is not
mine. This is what I do.
“No,” I say,
but I mean yes. Yes. YES.
Dance with
me then.
Surrender.
* * * * *
The next
morning while I sweep the patio, the doctor comes, but Dona Maleficent is
worse. The leeches are dead. Seu Francisco is furious.
“You promised!”
He shoves the
doctor against the wall. The little man blanches and mumbles gibberish. Seu
Francisco knocks him to the floor.
“My wife is
dying, and you are a useless turd.”
Our master
throws the leeches at him.
“Take your
fucking blood worms and leave.”
Seu Francisco
is halfway to the door when the doctor calls him.
“Tomorrow, she
will be better,” he says.
“I am done
listening to you.”
“Senhor
Carvalho, I have done my best for your wife. She will improve. Trust me.”
Seu Francisco
rubs his chin and looks away.
“I prayed for
her in the chapel,” the doctor says. “God is on our side, just as always.”
I keep
sweeping, half imagining rainbows left behind in my strokes.
See, you are
an artist, I tell myself, but again not in
my voice.
“You promised
to pay me,” the doctor says. “I have to buy new leeches now.”
Seu Francisco
does not even glance at me.
“Come collect
her tomorrow,” he says and shuts the door, leaving me outside with the doctor.
He approaches me, so close his stench wrinkles my nose.
“You will enjoy
living with me,” he promises. “I know you Africans fuck like bunny rabbits. You
will be my little heifer. My studs will keep you bred, and your children will
make me rich.”
I lowered my
head, the way I am supposed to do.
“You don’t say
much, do you? Are you stupid or just shy?”
I shake my
head. My tears are welling, but I must not let him see.
“It’s just fine
if you are shy. You will learn to scream in time.”
He pulls me
close, his hands busy on my body, his firmness against my belly, but Ifedayo’s
appearance saves me.
“Shola, you are
supposed to be working,” she says, grabbing my broom from where I left it
against a column. She swings it over my head, and I fall back. “Iya wants you
right now. And you better run, because she is so angry!”
I fly off the
patio into the house, but my mother is just sitting beside a raving Dona
Maleficent, cradling one hand. Her face is healthier, and it is strange hearing
our chants coming from a white woman’s throat, but I recognize our voice in
hers and Oxumaré’s too.
Tonight, you
must go to Cumbe. Or you will die.
That night I
wait for Iya to sleep before I tell her goodbye. She lies there beaming,
apparently careless, and I wonder about her dreams, how she always sees the
good in the world. My aunt once told me my mother watched father beaten to
death without once averting her gaze. He and four others had rebelled after the
Muslim uprising of 1835. (Oxalá, the greatest of all orixás, is also
Allah.) I kiss her once on the forehead and sneak away. Her voice arrests me at
the door.
“You are a good
daughter, Shola. May all the orixás protect you.”
An hour later I
am by the stone bridge, holding a tiny bag of my belongings: a spare dress, a
few colorful stones, a curious bone, a seashell I once traded for, and a hemp
rope. When the moon sets, the stars are blazing like a symphony of
will-o’-the-wisps.
Akin does not
come. My mother was right about him.
I stand by the
road choosing how I am to die. If I return to the farm, the doctor will take me
away, breed me, and sell my children, but if I walk down the road, the dogs
will tear me to shreds when they catch me in the morning. I take a few steps
and finally let the stored tears crest and roll down my cheeks. On the other
side of the bridge, I pause and glance back towards the farm. Someone is coming
down the road, but it is so dark I cannot tell who it is.
Of course, it
must be Akin. He has come to save me after all. He is just late. I hide off the
road, thinking of surprising him. He will get an earful from me.
But it is
Iranola. I burst from my spot and confront him. Stunned, his orbs are like two
full moons.
“Where is
Akin?”
“Akin?”
“He is supposed
to take me beyond Kalunga to Cumbe.”
Iranola nods.
“Dona
Maleficent’s fever broke,” he says. “The master’s house is a drunken riot. Some
of the slaves are there too. Akin was drinking cachaça with Seu
Francisco.”
I cross my
arms.
“I won’t go
back,” I tell him.
“I can’t take
you anyhow,” he says. “I am escaping to Cumbe myself. I am too proud to be a
slave.”
“You’re not
afraid?”
“It doesn’t
matter. It is my will to go. The voice of freedom sings in my head. My orixá
does not let me sleep anymore.”
“How will you
find your way?”
He chuckles,
and I can barely contain my annoyance.
“I will walk
away and let my path find me.”
I look skyward
and roll my eyes, but he does not see. He is walking down the road.
Akin is so
handsome. He is strong and tall. I belong to him. I am sure he will love and
protect me. I only have to wait.
Iranola does
not realize I am hurrying after him. When he pauses a few minutes later at a
fork in the road, I confront him again.
“I thought you
were waiting for Akin,” he said.
“I have decided
to wait for him in Cumbe. So I guess I will go along with you.”
He produces a
sweetsop, opens it, and hands me half. It is so luscious and soft, and I am
starving. We walk in the starlight, eating fruit and spitting seeds. We walk
all night long.
By noon, I have
been sleepwalking for hours. Sometimes Iranola guides me, but most often I plod
on behind him, watching his back. Storm clouds are gathering on every horizon.
The sky is pregnant with electricity and ozone.
The dogs are
approaching, along with their cacophony of exultation and promise of fangs.
Iranola smiles over his shoulder.
“You must be so
afraid,” he says.
“I am never
afraid.”
I glare at him.
“You are crazy
then. Those dogs would eat you alive.”
We hurry on a
while more. They are gaining on us. We both start to trot. I am just as fast as
he.
“Fine,” I
mutter between breaths. “I am afraid of the dogs.”
“You shouldn’t
be.”
“You just said
I should be.”
He laughs like
the fool he is and gives me a twisted grin.
“I have fed
those dogs for years,” he says. “They will never hurt me. And I won’t let them
hurt you.”
“I thought you
only fed the pigs.” I am gasping for breath now.
“It doesn’t
matter. All the animals talk. They tell each other secrets.” He does not speak
for a moment. “I am only afraid of the hunters, but they usually stay far
behind, letting the beasts do their dirty work, and now I am no longer afraid
of them. Not at all.”
My chest hurts.
I have to stop, but before I can, he seizes my hand and we plunge off the road,
through parched chaparral, a hundred meters of scrub until ahead of us a wide
stream of slow water rolls.
“Kalunga,” he
says.
The barking is
nearer than ever. A few fat raindrops fall, and then the sky opens like a
faucet.
“I can’t swim,”
I shout.
“You don’t have
to,” he says. “I have built a raft.”
He pulls it
from its hiding place. Astonished, I am without words for the first time since
I have known him, and I wonder now, if I ever have known him. Questions bombard
me, a downpour just like the rain, but I am mute until we are halfway across
the river.
“How did you
have a raft?” I ask him. “You’ve been able to escape? Why didn’t you go
before?”
Instead of
answering, he guides us with his oar. We are approaching a shoal around an
island. A custard apple tree growing there is loaded with fruit. Its beach is
bleeding. Transfixed, I watch a moment, and then the storm is spent. When he
answers my question, I have forgotten I asked it.
“Do you know
what this is?” he says, pointing at the water.
“You told me
it’s Kalunga. It’s just a muddy red river.”
“Ah, like a
star is just a star!”
I cannot resist
spearing him with my eyes, but they betray me, because I am crying. We catch
the current on the far side of the stream, just beyond the island. The river
moves faster here.
When I look up
again, he is smiling, so content and mockingly wise I could punch him.
“Did you think
I had forgotten that night?”
He sets his oar
upon the raft and takes my hand.
“This river
divides my life, Shola. Back in Africa, they say if you want to go quickly, go
alone, but if you want to go far, go together. I intend to go very far indeed.
Will you come with me, Shola?”
I see his silly
face above me and know he will never be strong, tall, or even serious. Nor will
he ever lead men or be heroic. I still smell pigs when he is nearby, but I am
certain, unlike Akin, Iranola cares about me, so I tell him yes. Yes. YES.
His kiss is
slow, tender, and too shy. A year later, when we first make love, he is the
same way, respectful and tentative. I want to be crushed. I want to scream, but
whenever I do, he stops and asks if he is hurting me.
Seven years
later, we own herds of beasts near Rio Preto. The praça is crowded, and
I am wearing a fancy dress, as I wait for my mother, brothers, and sisters. We
purchased them through a slave trader, the same we used for our own
manumissions. Iranola holds our daughter, Ana Carolina. Her real name is
Ifelayo—love is peace. She is the
best person in the world. My mother cries when he passes her into her arms.
That night I
ask my mother about Akin.
“Iya, is he
still strong and tall? Is he handsome?”
“Oh, yes,” she
tells me. “And well off too, at least for a slave. He betrayed the other field
hands. They were hiding machetes, ready to revolt and free us, but Alom told
Seu Francisco, so after the hangings, he made him the new overseer of Fazenda
Carvalho. You were right about him. He was successful.”
She waits for
me to say the same about Iranola, but he does nothing by himself. In Africa,
they say, you learn to chop down trees by chopping them down. That is what we
do every day. They also say dogs don’t love bones over meat; it’s just that no
one gives them meat. I am like those dogs, always hungry, yet ever filled to
the brim.
“I am so glad
Iranola was lucky enough to find me,” I tell her. “He needed someone to tell
him what to do.”
Then I lie back
on the tall grass, my mother beside me, and we gaze upon the stars. In a few
minutes the moon rises and bathes us in its sweet silver light.
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
