So while my boss Bwana and his family are out clinking rumand-
coke glasses and shaking their wobbly backsides at fancy
parties down the road, I’ve been assigned duties in his office
to sort through his ledgers. I used to hope that the celebration
of Voodoomass would be the one day off in the year for us
slaves – but oh no, it’s business as usual.
Outside the window the palm trees which line the avenues
are decorated with gold and silver streamers. They are tall,
sleek, snooty with the deportment of those who grow up
balancing the precious milk of coconuts on their heads; and
dangling from their glossy green fronds are flickering oil lamps
sitting in red-painted cassava gourds.
The cobblestone pavement has been swept smooth of yesterday’s
sandstorm and the hawkers selling takeaways have been
sent packing.
Frogs and crickets provide a drunken night-time chorus
while camel-drawn carriages deliver stoosh party guests to
our neighbouring compounds. The men wear flamboyant
kaftans and their glamorously fat women try to outdo each
other with peacock-print headscarves tied up into the most
extravagant girlie bows.
All the houses are freshly whitewashed, with stained-glass
windows depicting the gods: Oshan, Shangira, Yemonja. Stone
sphinxes guard porches and stationed by doorways are torch
lamps on tall marble plinths – their flames are slippery blue
fingers grasping out at the sticky night-time air.
From the upper rooms of the houses blast the hectic
electronic beats of the young, and from downstairs comes the
mellow music of the marimba, amid the laughter and bantering
of people who have every reason to celebrate this season of
goodwill, because they are free men and free women in the
heart of the most expensive piece of real estate in the known
world: Mayfah.
Chief Kaga Konata Katamba I is the Bwana in question. He
made his fortune in the import-export game, the notorious
transatlantic slave run, before settling down to life in polite
society as an absentee sugar baron, part-time husband, freelance
father, retired decent human being and, it goes without
saying, sacked soul.
My boss is also a full-time anti-abolitionist, publishing his
pro-slavery rants in his mouthpiece The Flame – a pamphlet
distributed far and wide as a freebie.
In spite of myself, I’d just begun to flick through the latest
godawful issue, feeling my stomach constrict and my throat
tighten, when a hand shoved a folded note through the open
office window and vanished before I could see who it was
attached to.
I opened the note, read the magic words and felt my head
suddenly drowning.
Waves crashed and thundered inside my skull.
I let out the most almighty, silent howl.
Then I passed out.
How long for, I’ve no idea, maybe a few minutes, but when
I came to I was slumped in my seat, my head dropped forwards,
the note still in my hand.
I read it again through a film of water.
It was real and it was true – I was being given the chance
to escape.
Oh Lord.
After so many years on the waiting list the thing I most
desired was in the palm of my hand. Yet it was all too quick.
I sat there frozen. A thousand what ifs ran through my mind.
In returning my life to its rightful owner – me – I would also
be putting my life at stake. If I wasn’t careful or lucky I’d end
up at the local whipping post or chopping block.
Then my survival instincts kicked in.
My head cleared.
I was back again.
I ripped the note to shreds.
I stood up and looked at the wooden mask of Bwana’s face
on the wall.