The Call of Zulina (36 page)

Tungo glared at Cabeto. His face contorted in anger. “Do you justify this white man's actions? If there is any true defense, speak it quickly! I ask to hear it now.”

“I cannot say one word in his defense,” Cabeto replied. “There is no way to justify his actions. And so I do not ask for justice. Instead, I plead for mercy … for Grace's sake.”

Sunba stepped forward. “I do not wish to disagree, my brother, nor do I wish to dishonor Grace. But there can be no mercy for this man. Too much evil stains him. Such a one requires justice.”

Joseph's whimpers turned to wild sobs and then disintegrated into blubbering. “Ye is me daughter, Grace, me darlin’ girl. ’Twas always me what pertected ye from yer mother's whip. Me what bought ye dresses from London and taught ye to be a lady. Don’t ye remember, Grace? Don’t ye remember yer pap?”

Grace's face was set. She showed no emotion for her distraught father, yet neither would she move from her position as his shield.

“He has nothing left,” she stated. “Isn’t that punishment enough?”

Tungo turned on Grace. “No!” he exclaimed. “It is not enough! How can you even suggest such a thing? You of all people. He deserted you into our hands! He gave you up to die!”

Joseph heard the angry tone, and he saw the threatening gestures, yet he could not understand a word being said. In frustration, he yelled, “Stop yer ’eathen blabber! Cain’t any of ye talk like ’uman bein's?”

“Grace argues on your behalf, Joseph Winslow,” Pieter said. “Even though you left her to die, and then you tried to burn her to death in the dungeon. Despite all that, she argues for mercy.”

Lunging toward Grace, Joseph cried out, “No, me darlin’! ’Twern’t me wot done them thin's, I swear it! ’Twas yer ’eathen mother! Not me, darlin’! I wouldn’t a let ye die ’ere! I would’ve saved ye, is wot!”

Grace ignored her father and said to the Africans, “From the beginning, your desire was to go back to your homes and live in freedom. Now you can do that. Now we all are free to go where we want and live as we wish.”

Joseph's eyes darted frantically from one face to the other as he struggled to understand. Suddenly, he spied Yao, and new excitement rose up in him.

“Ye tell ’em!” he exclaimed. “Tell ’em how I risked me ’ide to save ye from me woman's whip. Ye done me wrong, boy, tryin’ to escape and causin’ all kinds o’ trouble wi’ ’er. Yit I kep’ ’er from beatin’ ye clean to death. An’ when she turned murderous toward ye, I brought ye up ’ere to Zulina to ’ide ye away fer yer pertection, I did. Tell ’em that, boy!”

“Yes, I will tell them—Father!” Yao said in English.

Joseph recoiled as though Yao had slapped him across the face. He opened his mouth, but no sound did he utter.

“I will tell them how you took your son, born in the African village to a woman you stole from another man and forced to be your own, branded him with your brand, and kept him in bondage as your slave. I will tell them how you never dared to let your African wife know your blood ran in his veins because she was your master as surely as you were master of the slave boy and his mother.”

“Now see ’ere!” Joseph sputtered.

But Yao wasn’t finished: “I’ll tell them that you so feared Lingongo that you chained and shackled your son and bolted a yoke around his neck. That you forced him into this slave fortress and locked him away with the rats. Yes, Father, I will tell them how you left me—your own son—with no food to eat and no water to drink. I will tell them how you deserted me to die alone.”

Yao paused, and in the moment of silence that followed, Grace breathed in wonder, “Yao! My brother?”

“And so you agree,” Tungo pressed impatiently. “He deserves to die!”

“Yet you did not deprive me of life when I was first born as you could have done,” Yao continued. “You let me live. And you did not sell me to a slave ship. And it was by watching you in your weakness that I grew strong.”

Yao turned to Tungo and said, “Everything you say is true, Tungo. Joseph Winslow is a white slave trader who deserves to die. But I say, listen to Grace. Send him back where he came from and let him live. Let him forever be haunted by his memories and his deeds.”

“The offspring have spoken,” said Ikem. “There be no more killing.”

“So be it,” Cabeto decreed.

The next day, Pieter DeGroot rowed Joseph Winslow out to the double-masted
Mourning Dove
, which Pieter himself had stocked and made ready to sail. Only after they were on board the ship did Pieter unlock Joseph's chains.

“I cain’t sail th’ bloody ship by me'sef!” Joseph protested angrily.

“You best thank the good Lord above that you get a chance to try,” Pieter said. “And thank your daughter that she was willing to place herself between you and the sharp side of the knife.”

Joseph glared at Pieter and spat in his face.

“May God have mercy on your soul!” Pieter called out as he rowed back toward shore.

As Joseph Winslow went about the work of setting sails, Grace stood alone on the rocky bluff that overlooked the harbor. Billowing wind dusted her face and whipped at her clothes as she kept silent vigil. Joseph was well aware that she was watching him, yet he refused to acknowledge her. Finally, he hoisted the anchor and brought the
Mourning Dove
about.

As he sailed out of Zulina harbor, Joseph refused to give so much as a backward glance at his daughter who stood alone, dirty and ragged in the remains of her once exquisite bird-wing blue day dress. Instead, he raised his clenched fist high in the air, and turning just enough so that Grace would not miss a single word, he bellowed in angry defiance, “Good riddance to this God-forsaken continent o’ devils an’ demons. May it an’ ever’one on it burn in everlastin’ damnation!”

T
he harmattan winds, which at long last had calmed into a cooling breeze, pushed an entirely new drumbeat through the air. “I wish I could understand the talking drums,” Grace said to Yao. “Their beat almost sounds like singing.”

“Ivory horns—that is what you hear,” Yao told her. “They call everyone to listen carefully because the drums have a very important message to tell.” Yao paused and lifted his head high to listen. Then he said, “The talking drums tell of a parade in honor of a new ruler for Lingongo's people. Even now the men carry him through the kingdom on his golden chair. And the drums say a
kyinie
waves over him so that heaven cannot see the crown on his head.”

“Oh,” said Grace. She had heard her mother speak of those enormous parasols—beautiful, they were, woven of the finest silk and intricately embroidered with thread spun from gold. “He rides between heaven and earth. The new ruler must be very great indeed.”

Grace closed her eyes and lifted her face to the gentle wind.

“Come, Grace,” Yao said. “Our father is gone. All that was inside the stone wall is no more. Everything is different now— for both of us.”

The sun that had shone gigantic and golden red as Joseph Winslow sailed from the harbor had all but sunk into the sea, yet still Grace gazed out across the endless ocean. For a long time Yao had watched her from the charred balcony above, but finally, he came down to keep silent vigil at her side.

“The London house is gone,” Grace murmured.

“Yes,” Yao said.

“My mother was in it.”

“Surely she was,” Yao said without emotion.

Grace could not bring herself to speak of her pain over Mama Muco.

“What you and Tungo did—I don’t know anymore what is wrong or what is right,” Grace said. “If I was truly African, perhaps I would hate Joseph Winslow and want him dead. And maybe I would detest Lingongo and call her a traitor. If I was truly English, perhaps I would look at you and call you a murdering savage. But I am neither African nor English, Yao, so I just don’t know.”

“What you are is a free woman,” Yao said. “Leave this place and live in freedom.”

Yao reached out his hand, and Grace took it. Together they made their way around the blackened stones of the fortress, struggling and stumbling over piles of strewn rubble.

As Grace and Yao rounded the far corner—Grace doing her best to avoid the charred remains of piled-up brush and bushes— they stepped into a joyful celebration. In the fiery sunset, the entire front of Zulina rang with shouts of jubilation. Around the scorched remains of the gate and spilling out across the face of the fortress, people laughed and chattered happily in many different tongues. Grace watched as strangers discovered others who spoke their language and knew their ways, as they found familiar faces from neighboring villages. She broke out laughing. She couldn’t help herself. Slowly at first, then more quickly, people gathered into small bands to laugh and dance and celebrate together, and then to start back home.

“What will you do now?” Grace asked Yao.

“Go back to my village,” Yao said. Then he paused and touched Grace's arm. “And you? Will you come with me?”

Hot tears filled Grace's eyes. She shook her head. “I don’t know the ways of Africans,” she said. “I only know the ways of the London house.”

“But there is no London house anymore,” Yao said. Grace nodded. “Still, it's all I’ve ever known.”

“I will show you the ways of Africa,” Yao said. “My mother and sisters will teach you. They will welcome you, my sister.”

“No, Yao,” Grace said. “You go to your village. You go home.”

“And you?”

“I must make a new way.”

Yao argued and he reasoned and he pleaded, but all to no avail. And so at last he turned away from Grace and set his face toward his village. Grace stood silently and watched him go. Long after he had disappeared around the bend, she stared down the road after him.

Cabeto, leaning heavily on his crutch, limped up behind Grace. He, too, looked out over the scorched savanna, now blacker in the setting sun, and he shook his head sadly. Group after group of jubilant people wound their way down the road, unwilling to wait any longer to begin their trek back home.

“What do you see when you look down there, Grace?” Cabeto asked.

“The end of my world,” Grace said. “I’m happy for all those who can go back to their villages. And I wouldn’t want to go back to my old life even if I could. Still …” Her voice trailed off, and tears filled her eyes.

“Do not be so quick to envy these people,” Cabeto said. “Many of them will also find that everything they knew has come to an end. Even in the best times, things do not stay the same. And the best times are no more.”

“What about you?” Grace asked. “When will you leave?”

Cabeto shook his head. “I cannot walk that far. Nor can Sunba, with his arm and shoulder wrapped up. We will have to stay here for a while.”

That night, Grace found it impossible to sleep. Early the next morning, as she made her way out of the fortress, Pieter DeGroot called out, “Grace! Come with me. I have something to show you.”

Pieter led Grace through the winding passageways and off to a remote cluster of rooms deep in the heart of Zulina. “These were your parents’ private quarters,” he said. “Anything you find here is yours.”

“No!” Grace exclaimed. “I don’t want any of it! I will never be anything like either of them.”

“Of course you will,” Pieter said, “because they are the ones who made you who you are. Lingongo made you strong and independent and decisive. Joseph Winslow made you adventurous and curious about the world. It doesn’t have to be the weak and wicked parts of them you follow, Grace. It can be what was strong and successful and determined and beautiful. It's up to you to put aside the evil and find the good.”

And so, in the golden beams of morning, Grace wandered alone through the private rooms, captivated by the excitement of discovery. High on a shelf she found a folded garment made of brightly colored fabric. She pulled it down and carefully unfolded it across the floor. The long fabric strip was pieced together out of thin bands of the finest imported silk. Each band had small designs woven into it with strands of pure spun gold—cubes in one, triangles in another, diamonds in another, birds in yet another.

“An
asasia
!” Grace gasped. “A real
asasia
!”