Roots (28 page)

Questions, and responses to them, had begun spreading in the hold. “Where are we being taken?” That brought a babble of bitterness. “Who ever returned to tell us?” “Because they were eaten!” The question, “How long have we been here?” brought a rash of guesses of up to a moon, until the question was translated to a man who had been able to keep a count of daylights through a small air
vent near where he was chained; he said that he counted eighteen days since the great canoe had sailed.

Because of intrusions by toubob with their food tub or their scrapers, an entire day might be used up in relaying of responses to a single statement or question. Anxious inquiries were passed along for men who might know each other. “Is anyone here from Barrakunda village?” someone asked one day, and after a time there came winging back from mouth to ear the joyous response, “I, Jabon Sallah, am here!” One day, Kunta nearly burst with excitement when the Wolof hastily whispered, “Is anyone here from Juffure village?” “Yes, Kunta Kinte!” he sent back breathlessly. He lay almost afraid to breathe for the hour that it took an answer to return: “Yes, that was the name. I heard the drums of his grieving village.” Kunta dissolved into sobs, his mind streaming with pictures of his family around a flapping white cockerel that died on its back as the village wadanela went to spread that sad news among all of the people who would then come to Omoro, Binta, Lamin, Suwadu, and the baby Madi, all of them squatting about and weeping as the village drums beat out the words to inform whoever might hear them far away that a son of the village named Kunta Kinte now was considered gone forever.

Days of talking sought answers to the question: “How could the toubob of this canoe be attacked and killed?” Did anyone have or know of anything that might be used as weapons? None did. Up on the deck, had anyone noticed any carelessness or weaknesses on the part of the toubob that could be useful to a surprise attack? Again, none had. The most useful information of any sort had come from the women’s singing as the men danced in their chains: that about thirty toubob were riding with them on this big canoe. There had seemed to be many more, but the women were in a better position to count them. The women said also that there had been more toubob at the beginning of the voyage, but five had
died. They had been sewn inside white cloths and thrown overboard while the white-haired chief toubob read from some kind of book. The women also sang that the toubob often fought and beat each other viciously, usually as a result of arguments over which ones would next use the women.

Thanks to their singing, not much happened up on the deck that wasn’t quickly told to the men dancing in their chains, who then lay discussing it down in the hold. Then came the exciting new development that contact had been established with the men who were chained on the level yet below. Silence would fall in the hold where Kunta lay, and a question would be called out from near the hatchway. “How many are down there?” And after a time the answer would circulate on Kunta’s level: “We believe about sixty of us.”

The relaying of any information from whatever source seemed about the only function that would justify their staying alive. When there was no news, the men would talk of their families, their villages, their professions, their farms, their hunts. And more and more frequently there arose disagreements about how to kill the toubob, and when it should be tried. Some of the men felt that, whatever the consequences, the toubob should be attacked the next time they were taken up on deck. Others felt that it would be wiser to watch and wait for the best moment Bitter disagreements began to flare up. One debate was suddenly interrupted when the voice of an elder rang out, “Hear me! Though we are of different tribes and tongues, remember that we are the same people! We must be as one village, together in this place!”

Murmurings of approval spread swiftly within the hold. That voice had been heard before, giving counsel in times of special stress. It was a voice with experience and authority as well as wisdom. Soon the information passed from mouth to ear that the speaker had been the alcala of his village. After some time, he
spoke again, saying now that some leader must be found and agreed upon, and some attack plan must be proposed and agreed upon before there could be any hope of overcoming the toubob, who were obviously both well organized and heavily armed. Again, the hold soon filled with mutterings of approval.

The new and comforting sense of closeness with the other men made Kunta feel almost less aware of the stink and filth, and even the lice and rats. Then he heard the new fear that was circulating—that yet another slatee was believed to be somewhere on the level of men below. One of the women had sung of having been among the group of chained people whom this slatee had helped to bring, blindfolded, onto this canoe. She had sung that it was night when her blindfold was removed, but she had seen the toubob give that slatee liquor, which he drank until he stumbled about drunkenly, and then the toubob, all howling with laughter, had knocked him unconscious and dragged him into the hold. The woman sang that though she was not able to tell in any definite way the face of that slatee, he was almost surely somewhere below in chains like the rest, in terror that he would be discovered and killed, as he now knew that one slatee had already. In the hold, the men discussed how probably this slatee, too, was able to speak some toubob words, and in hopes of saving his miserable life, he might try to warn the toubob of any attack plans he learned of.

It occurred to Kunta, as he shook his shackles at a fat rat, why he had known little of slatees until now. It was because none of them would dare to live among people in villages, where even a strong suspicion of who they were would bring about their instant death. He remembered that back in Juffure he often had felt that his own father Omoro and yet older men, when they sat around the night fires, would seem to be needlessly occupied with dark worries and gloomy speculations about dangers to which he and the other younger men privately thought they themselves would
never succumb. But now he understood why the older men had worried about the safety of the village; they had known better than he how many slatees slithered about many of them in The Gambia. The despised tan-colored sasso borro children of toubob fathers were easy to identify; but not all. Kunta thought now about the girl of his village who had been kidnaped by toubob and then escaped, who had gone to the Council of Elders just before he had been taken away, wanting to know what to do about her sasso borro infant, and he wondered what the Council of Elders had decided for her to do.

Some few slatees, he learned now, from the talk in the hold, only supplied toubob canoes with such goods as indigo, gold, and elephants’ teeth. But there were hundreds of others who helped toubob to burn villages and capture people. Some of the men told how children were enticed with slices of sugar cane; then bags were thrown over their heads. Others said the slatees had beaten them mercilessly during the marches after their capture. One man’s wife, big with child, had died on the road. The wounded son of another was left bleeding to die from whip cuts. The more Kunta heard, the more his rage became as great for others as for himself.

He lay there in the darkness hearing the voice of his father sternly warning him and Lamin never to wander off anywhere alone; Kunta desperately wished that he had heeded his father’s warnings. His heart sank with the thought that he would never again be able to listen to his father, that for the rest of whatever was going to be his life, he was going to have to think for himself.

“All things are the will of Allah!” That statement—which had begun with the alcala—went from mouth to ear, and when it came to Kunta from the man lying on his left side, he turned his head to whisper the words to his Wolof shacklemate. After a moment, Kunta realized that the Wolof hadn’t whispered the words on to
the next man, and after wondering for a while why not, he thought that perhaps he hadn’t said them clearly, so he started to whisper the message once again. But abruptly the Wolof spat out loudly enough to be heard across the entire hold, “If your Allah wills this, give me the devil!” From elsewhere in the darkness came several loud exclamations of agreement with the Wolof, and arguments broke out here and there.

Kunta was deeply shaken. The shocked realization that he lay with a pagan burned into his brain, faith in Allah being as precious to him as life itself. Until now he had respected the friendship and the wise opinions of his older shacklemate. But now Kunta knew that there could never be any more companionship between them.

U
p on the deck now, the women sang of having managed to steal and hide a few knives, and some other things that could be used as weapons. Down in the hold, even more strongly than before, the men separated into two camps of opinion. The leader of the group that felt the toubob should be attacked without delay was a fierce-looking, tattooed Wolof. On the deck, every man had seen him dancing wildly in his chains while baring his sharply filed teeth at the toubob, who clapped for him because they thought he was grinning. Those who believed in the wisdom of further watchful preparation were led by the tawny Foulah who had been beaten for choking the slatee to death.

There were a few followers of the Wolof who exclaimed that the toubob should be attacked when many of them were in the hold, where the chained men could see better than they and the element of surprise would be greatest—but those who urged this plan were dismissed as foolish by the others, who pointed out that the bulk of the toubob would still be up on the deck, and thus able to kill the chained men below like so many rats. Sometimes when the arguments between the Wolof and the Foulah would reach the point of shouting, the alcala would intervene, commanding them to be quieter lest their discussion be overheard by the toubob.

Whichever leader’s thinking finally prevailed, Kunta was ready to fight to the death. Dying held no fear for him any more. Once he had decided that he would never see his family and home again, he felt the same as dead already. His only fear now was that he might die without at least one of the toubob also dead by his hand. But the leader toward whom Kunta was most inclined—along with most of the men, he felt—was the cautious, whip-scarred Foulah. Kunta had found out by now that most of the men in the hold were Mandinkas, and every Mandinka knew well that the Foulah people were known for spending years, even their entire lives if need be, to avenge with death any serious wrong ever done to them. If somone killed a Foulah and escaped, the Foulah’s sons would never rest until one day they found and killed the murderer.

“We must be as one behind the leader we agree upon,” the alcala counseled. There was angry muttering from those who followed the Wolof, but when it had become clear that most of the men sided with the Foulah, he promptly issued his first order. “We must examine toubob’s every action with the eyes of hawks. And when the time comes, we must be warriors.” He advised them to follow the counsel of the woman who had told them to look happy when they jumped on deck in their chains. That would relax the toubob’s guard, which would make them easier to take by surprise. And the Foulah also said that every man should locate with his eyes any weaponlike object that he could swiftly grab and use. Kunta was very pleased with himself, for during his times up on deck, he had already spotted a spike, tied loosely beneath a space of railing, which he intended to snatch and use as a spear to plunge into the nearest toubob belly. His fingers would clutch around the handle he imagined in his hands every time he thought of it.

Whenever the toubob would jerk the hatch cover open and climb down among them, shouting and wielding their whips, Kunta lay as still as a forest animal. He thought of what the kintango had said
during manhood training, that the hunter should learn from what Allah himself had taught the animals—how to hide and watch the hunters who sought to kill them. Kunta had lain for hours thinking how the toubob seemed to
enjoy
causing pain. He remembered with loathing the times when toubob would laugh as they lashed the men—particularly those whose bodies were covered with bad sores—and then disgustedly wipe off the ooze that splattered onto them. Kunta lay also bitterly picturing the toubob in his mind as they forced the women into the canoe’s dark corners in the nights; he imagined that he could hear the women screaming. Did the toubob have no women of their own? Was that why they went like dogs after others’ women? The toubob seemed to respect nothing at all; they seemed to have no gods, not even any spirits to worship.

The only thing that could take Kunta’s mind off the toubob—and how to kill them—was the rats, which had become bolder and bolder with each passing day. Their nose whiskers would tickle between Kunta’s legs as they went to bite a sore that was bleeding or running with pus. But the lice preferred to bite him on the face, and they would suck at the liquids in the corners of Kunta’s eyes, or the snot draining from his nostrils. He would squirm his body, with his fingers darting and pinching to crush any lice that he might trap between his nails. But worse even than the lice and rats was the pain in Kunta’s shoulders, elbows, and hips, stinging now like fire from the weeks of steady rubbing against the hard, rough boards beneath him. He had seen the raw patches on other men when they were on deck, and his own cries joined theirs whenever the big canoe pitched or rolled somewhat more than usual.

And Kunta had seen that when they were up on the deck, some of the men had begun to act as if they were zombies—their faces wore a look that said that they were no longer afraid, because they no longer cared whether they lived or died. Even when the whips of the toubob lashed them, they would react only slowly. When
they had been scrubbed of their filth, some were simply unable even to try jumping in their chains, and the white-haired chief toubob, with a look of worry, would order the others to permit those men to sit, which they did with their foreheads between their knees and the thin, pinkish fluid draining down their raw backs. Then the chief toubob would force their heads backward and into their upturned mouths pour some stuff that they would usually choke up. And some of them fell limply on their sides, unable to move, and toubob would carry them back into the hold. Even before these men died, which most of them did, Kunta knew that in some way they had willed themselves to die.