The Book Of Negroes by Lawrence Hill Page A

spoke a few words in the language of the captors.
    I caught Chekura’s eye, and when he came up beside me, I asked, “Where is the toubab from?”
    “Across the big water,” Chekura said.
    “Is he a man or an evil spirit?”
    “A man,” Chekura said. “But he is not a man you want to know.”
    “You know him?”
    “No, but you don’t want to know any toubab.”
    “My papa said, fear no man, but come to know him.”
    “Fear the toubab.”
    “How can he breathe, with a nose so thin? Do those nostrils admit air?”
    “Do not look at the toubab.”
    “He has many hairs.”
    “To look directly at the toubab is a mark of defiance.”
    “Chekura! There are even hairs growing from his nostrils.”
    “Walk carefully, Aminata.”
    “Are you my captor or my brother?”
    Chekura shook his head and said no more. I had heard that toubabu were white, but it was not so. This one was not at all the colour of an elephant tooth. He was sand coloured. Darker on the forearms than on the neck. I had never seen wrists so thick boned. He didn’t have much of a backside, and he walked like an elephant.
Thump, thump, thump
. His heels struck the earth with the rudeness of a falling tree. The toubab was not barefoot like the captives, nor in antelope-hide sandals like the captors. Thick shoes rose past his ankles.
    The toubab kept a chain about his neck, and at the leather belt around his waist he had an object covered in glass that he often consulted. He shouted and waved his hands angrily at our two lead captors. Under his supervision, the captors promptly brought the women and me back into neck yokes. Fanta was placed directly ahead of me in the coffle. One end of a wooden yoke was fastened around her neck and the other around mine. The yokes were bound fast at the back of our necks, and no amount of tugging could get me free, or accomplish anything other than to rub my skin raw.
    While the toubab watched, our captors led three more captives into the coffle. A new woman was brought to us. She too was big with child. She was placed between Fanta and me. It wasn’t a bad change. Fantaoften muttered complaints, which made the days seem long, and the new woman was shorter, closer to my height, so it was easier to walk with my neck attached to hers. That night, when I came to rest under a tree, she lay on her side and I could hear her laboured breathing.
    I settled in beside her.
    “I ni su,”
I whispered, Good evening. These were my first words to her, in Bamanankan.
    “Nse ini su,”
she replied, in Bamanankan.
    I asked if she would have her baby soon. Very soon, she told me.
    “This is a bad time,” she said. “I wish the child would wait.”
    “The child doesn’t know our woes,” I said. “Do you think it will be a boy?”
    “Girl. And she doesn’t want to wait.”
    “How do you know it’s to be a daughter?”
    “Only a petulant little girl would come at such a bad time. Only a girl would defy me. A boy would not defy me. He knows that I would beat him.”
    This woman made the time pass. I liked her. “And you would not beat a girl?”
    “A girl is too wise. She knows how to avoid a beating.”
    “Then why is she defying you now?” I asked.
    “You are very clever. What is your name?”
    I told her.
    “I’m Sanu,” she said.
    “Sleep in peace, Sanu,” I said, yawning.
    “Yes, girl woman. Sleep in peace.”
    In the morning, we were yoked again. Once more, I was placed behind Sanu. She moaned as she walked, and I could tell, by the way her soles slapped the ground, by the way she pushed in her backside to relieve the tension in her lower back, by the way she let her hands ride on her hipswhile she walked, that before long, she would have her baby. As the afternoon progressed, she began to slow the coffle.
    “She will have her baby soon,” I said to Chekura.
    “What do we do about that?”
    “I have helped at births. My mother and I bring babies to the light. It is our trade. Our work. Our way of