Tales Through Time: The African in Europe
I did not see my first white man until I was half-way to becoming a man. Now I am fighting his wars for him.
We had heard the stories of our ancestors. Pale from being in the earth, coming back to drag the worst of us back to the underworld with them, these ghosts would give magical weapons to those who pleased them. In exchange for the weapons, the tribes would provide their enemies as payment. The ghosts would load these payments onto their incredible ships and disappear back into the earth.
These stories were handed down by our elders as a way to scare kids from straying too far from the villages. That’s what some people thought. Stay close or the Bubi will carry you off and sell you. Scarier to me were stories of spiders and snakes. Dangers that existed in the real world, that we would touch and feel.
Standing on the beach, watching one ship disappear against the setting sun, my ancestors don’t seem so foolish. These men who have claimed ownership over me might not be dead, but they are certainly punishing us.
* * *
This is the worst place in the world. I shiver and blow into my hands. The ground is too frozen to dig a grave so the body lying next to me has been keeping me company the last three days. The rats have eaten his fingertips and flies swarm the giant wound in his stomach. I’ve named him Francois. He doesn’t look so happy now.
* * *
‘You must run.’ Papa has his stern look on as he sits across from me and my brother. ‘You have the skills to live in the bush for a time. When the French come looking for men to fight, you have to run.’
‘But, what if the neighbors tell them and you get in trouble?’ Aku asks.
‘Don’t talk back to me, boy!’ Papa thunders. ‘I did not become one of the leaders of our village by being questioned by children. Now, do as I say!’
Without waiting for an answer he gets up and leaves our mother’s hut. When we awake the next morning, a satchel of yams is waiting for us by the front door along with a bow and several arrows.
The message is clear. We sneak into the forest before anyone else realizes we are gone. What they do not know, they cannot tell.
* * *
The boat is crowded. They have been for centuries now. Bobbing across the narrow Atlantic. Our journey is not so far as those before us. Our services are needed closer to home, this time.
Stripped of our traditional clothes, my thighs and armpits chafe at the stiff material le frances forces us into. I am clumsy in my boots, my feet being used to feeling what is underneath them. The French laugh and call us mallards. It calms me to know that some of these men will have to die with us. From what we hear, it is bad.
I am surprised to see how normal everything looks as we get off of our boat. From the way people described it, we were going to the worst place in the world.
* * *
A pillar of black smoke calls us back to the village a week later. The French had, in fact, come looking for men to fight in the Great War. They also knew about us. Villages are small. When two out of ten fighting aged men are missing, it is noticeable.
They make an example of us. Their war must not be going well. Aku and I were a day behind the French, so we saw the aftermath. Father with his hands cut off, tied to a stump and beaten, and mother…she is no longer Father’s first wife anymore. She must live in a hut at the edge of his wall, shamed.
We are not human to them. We never were. Tools, only.
***
As I sit in my trench, I hum a song father sang to us, when he had hands.
We are tired of living under this tyranny.
We cannot endure that our women and children are taken away
And dealt with by the white savages.
We will make war
We know that we shall die…
We want to die.
We want to die.
* * *
The first time I killed an animal I used a sling. A bird, too slow, distracted. It hit the ground with a thud as its feathers fell after. It twitched on the ground as it tried to fly away. It knew it was in trouble and it was scared. I felt sorry for it. I knew it was hurt. I knew it was suffering. But I didn’t want to kill it. Aku snapped its neck for me. It still counts as my first kill.
* * *
Francois keeps saying ‘Mama’ over and over again. I hand him my canteen but he won’t take it. He knows he is in trouble and he’s scared. I knew he was suffering. I knew he was in pain. But I didn’t want to kill him.
‘You burned my village and tortured my family,’ I said to a confused Francois in Igbo. ‘You brought me here to fight your war. This is what you get.’
I eat a can of peaches as I watch Francois breathe his last. Then I take his pack of cigarettes and his watch. It will be my turn soon enough.
© Alan Foster 2020
