Jamari

Manure and ash caked Ife’s forearms. She clawed the dirt, digging furrows into the earth beside Omotola. Sweat stung her eyes. She blinked against it, smearing soot across her lids with a muddy knuckle. She planted the cane tops into the trenches end-to-end and patted wet earth over the soil. When she stood, a dull ache gripped her spine.

Oar splashes cut through the heat. Down on the beach, the surf pushed a longboat to the sand, bringing replacements ashore.

Whistler pried open the first man's jaws, inspected his teeth, then slammed his chin closed. He circled the line of new captives. Stooping low, he hauled up their heels one by one to check their soles, handling them like a blacksmith shoeing a mule. He groped their arms, pounded a fist against a hollow chest then pointed a finger toward the Narrows. The line of men stumbled away from the water, churning a path in the sand until they disappeared into the thicket of cane.

Ife spread aloe sap over her face then walked down to the surf and swam out past the foam.

She faced the shore, treading water with ease. Men cast nets for mackerel in the shallows and further up the sand, a mother sat in the surf, bathing her child. Ife turned her back to them, looking across the bay toward the coast of the next island. Out there, away from the canerows, she imagined a place where the cooking pots boiled over with yams and no one knew the names Eban or Whistler.

She turned back toward the beach. Near the shallows, the child with wet hair chased a receding wave, but something else caught her eye. Through the glare bouncing off the water, two arms waved at her from the surf. Ife raised her own hands, mimicking his double greeting.

The young man waded out and dove through a breaking crest. When his head resurfaced, he spat a mouthful of brine and called out, “Habari, habari!”

She wiped the salt from her eyes and grinned at him. The sun beamed off his shoulders as he floated closer.

“Jina lako ni nani?”

Ife squinted, shaking her head.

The young man spoke slower, “Mimi Jamari . . . Wewe ni nani?”

She touched her collarbone. “Ife.”

He repeated, "Ife."

She raised an eyebrow and splashed him.

“Jamari,” he said, floating, smiling.

She pointed toward the beach. “I go ashore now.”

Jamari leaned in. But she splashed him in the face again, then dove under, gliding through the water toward the shore with her braids flowing behind her.

She found Jamari the next morning running a whetstone down his blade, then he thumbed the steel. Ife matched his stroke, sweeping the stone over her own curved iron and blowing away the dust. Hhooo. Jamari nodded with a smile and Ife winked. Jamari’s smile vanished. He recoiled, staring at her closed eyelid as if she’d cast a spell, then scampered away like a feral cat into the stalks. Ife, shrugging, slashed some nearby weeds. The blade hummed and dry grass scattered into the wind.

Her muscles strained and her bones ached alongside Jamari. A trickle dripped between her legs. She needed to wipe, but stopping was not an option. Jamari lowered his blade to wipe his brow and Eban snapped a lash inches from his ear. He flinched and muttered with a closed mouth. “No brute speak here!” Eban barked, without breaking stride.

Jamari’s eyes followed Eban all the way to the mule cart. He paused and skimmed his finger across her machete blade, and gave Ife a nod. She returned a smirk. Pulling a mango from his pocket, Jamari split it and offered her half, whispering, “Nitamuua.”

Ife slurped the fruit, cocked her head and held her palms out. Pointing to the island across the bay, Jamari pounded his chest, “Hhmmph.”

Ife shook her head with a squinted brow. Jamari shrugged, holding his hands out and tapping his foot as if to demand a response. She slid her forefinger across her throat.

But Jamari didn't give up. He hugged his machete across his chest, swiped a finger across his throat and pointed towards the English house. Ife rolled her eyes and pulled at her breeches.

Shadows rose between the crops. She shifted down the row until she sidled near Jamari. When their eyes met, she flicked an eye shut, a gesture that before made Jamari flinch as if she’d cast evil upon him.

His eyes widened into panic-stricken alarm, but before he fled, Ife caught him by the wrist. His pulse jumped under her palm, sending a sharp prickle across her skin. She locked his gaze. Jamari tried to wink back, but his nerve failed him, his eyelid quivering. Ife mocked him with her other eye, her grip tight on his wrist. They stood close, trading half-blinks and hidden laughter.

Suddenly, Ife froze. Over Jamari’s shoulder, Auntie and Omotola gawked from the back of the mule cart. Ife snatched her hand back from his wrist and turned away, her skin flushed. Omotola and Auntie pointed from the cart, their low giggles cutting through the heat. Jamari smiled. Ife’s face burned with shame.

Machetes sheared in rhythm. The children and older women trailed behind with the mule wagon. Sweat slicked Ife’s handle. Rubbing a wet palm against her breeches to keep her grip, she swapped hands. The blade struck a hardened knot of cane.

Ife’s face slammed against the dirt. A dizzying starry cloud blurred her vision. Her body curled in on itself and went cold. She bit her lip. A sharp pain in her foot shot a dull throb up her leg. Choking back a scream, she coughed dust with her forehead pressed against the earth. Her machete handle swayed; the knife embedded in the trench.

Jamari dropped his blade, hauled her up by the arms, and carried her out of the row. Along the line, heads popped up, their eyes fixed on the young man running with Ife in his arms. Omotola marched toward them but Eban barked across the field, “Keep there! Work!” Then he lashed the horse reins and chased.

Hoofbeats thundered directly behind them. Jamari’s every stride agonized her pain. Ife clung to his neck, her face buried against his chest.

Eban’s horse crowded Jamari.

“Stop at once!” Eban shouted down from the saddle.

Jamari didn't look up. His feet kicked up the dirt, sprinting, blind and deaf to the horse at his side.

“Damn you, boy! Stop, I say!”

The leather hissed and caught Jamari square across the shoulder, slicing a clean red line into his skin. He struck the ground hard, spilling Ife from his arms as they tumbled.

“What the devil is this!” Eban yanked the reins, his horse reared back with a snort. In the dirt, Jamari pressed a hand to his bleeding back, huffing in ragged gasps. Ife clutched her leg, her voice cracked, “Eban . . . ah, my foot.”

He lifted the brim of his hat and squinted. Ife's foot was split open—a deep, yawning cut, the skin mangled and weeping red where her smallest toe had been sheared away.

“Aye,” Eban grunted. “I see . . . hmph.”

He coiled his whip, “Bind the wound,” he said. “Work on the morrow.”

Ife nodded.

Then he turned to Jamari and pointed his finger right at him, “You! Fall to work.” Eban pointed at the canerows, cocked his thumb upward and fired, “Chop . . . chop.”

Jamari glared at Eban as he rose, his red staining the grass. Then he pulled Ife up. Through the dust, with their hands still clasped to one another, she winked.

“Away!” Eban shouted, “Now for god sake!”

Ife limped to the beach alone, walking on her heel. She dragged her foot into the surf and dropped into the knee-high water. Saltwater bit the bone. She sneered at the oozing hole where her toe used to be.

Footsteps crunched the sand. Omotola and Auntie reached her, splashing into the foam to haul her up. Omotola grabbed her waist, then froze. A darker stream of blood bloomed from Ife’s wet breeches, separate from the bright red weeping at her heel.

Ife slouched. But Omotola grinned wider than ever. “You are woman now.”

Omotola embraced her, “Oh, child. Do not be afraid. You are woman. Remember, we women are powerful creatures. You will see, Ife mi. You will see.”

Ife slumped her chin on her mother’s shoulder. Omotola gleamed with pride, skipping over to Auntie shouting, “Oh Auntie . . . you will never believe my child . . .”

Her mother’s words fell on deaf ears. Tears welled up in her eyes. Before she could scream, Auntie burst into the surf and wrapped both arms around Ife, “Oh child, your mama told me . . . here child. Oh what a blessed day, Oh!”

Ife put a flat hand to the old woman’s back and pulled at the breeches clung to her legs.

Auntie gifted her a new piece of cotton linen and told her to wash it every day. She took it trembling, drawing a deep sigh to keep from crying.

“It will follow the moon,” Omotola said, walking Ife out of the surf.

The moon could fall from the sky for all she cared.

The mackerel hissed near the fire. Ife dabbed her eyes with her new linen square.

“We must burn the foot,” Auntie bent to the cooked mackerel in the fire.

“For what we burn mi foot?” Ife jerked her chin back, staring at the old woman.

“If we do not, the rot may take you.”

Omotola nodded. Ife crossed her leg and unwrapped the cloth from her foot. The firelight caught the stump. The hole where the toe had been seeped dark blood. Ife leaned back and swung her leg toward Auntie, planting her heel into the old woman’s lap. Her braids fell behind her shoulders.

“She is brave, mi Ife,” Omotola said.

Auntie laid the machete blade in the flames. Ife kept her heel jammed into the old woman’s lap and gripped the cloth in her sweaty palm. The steel in the fire heated itself grey. Omotola stepped between them, “We see you with the boy in the field, Ife mi. Maybe that is why the knife slipped.”

Auntie let out a sharp laugh under her breath. Ife scowled.

“And what a handsome chest he has,” Omotola said while Auntie turned the machete handle. “But his tongue is of the other side.”

“He took the whip.” Ife raised her brow.

“Aye, he shall not leave you in the dirt. Just do not fill your head with air,” Auntie pulled the sizzling knife out of the flames, its tip—solid orange.

The two women had gone mad.

“Hold her leg.”

Omotola stooped to her knees and gripped Ife’s leg with both hands. Smoke rose from the machete. Firelogs cracked. The old woman grabbed Ife’s ankle and pressed the flat side of the ember hot blade onto her open wound. It hisssssssed. Ife flexed, cocked her head back and grunted, “Ooof.”

With her mother holding her leg down, she squeezed her eyes tight. The glowing metal seared her flesh shut and cauterized the nub. Panting fast and shallow, her nose filled with the stench of her own roasting skin.

Auntie wiped her greasy hands on her frayed skirt and picked up her basket. “I must go to the English house.”

“For what you go there?” Ife pointed four toes and a scorched nub to the stars.

“The English girl. Tonight for her baby comes.”

Mother and daughter stayed by the fire as Auntie waddled away into the dark toward the English house.

Ife jammed her new linen in her pocket. The fire logs popped over a steady ensemble of crickets.

“‘Tis a strong moon, Ife mi,” Omotola said. “For it has made you woman now and new life for the English girl.”

Ife stared forward, stoking the fire with a stick.

“I see the new boy follows you, Ife mi.” Omotola's voice trailed off into a low smile.

Ife side-eyed her mother.

“And the boy gives you mango.”

Ife fought the smirk cracking on her face. She poked the fire.

“And you like mango, Ife mi.”

“Mama, stop.”

Ife battled with the smile. She lost. It widened across her face, but she kept poking at the fire.

“Oh child, you are woman now. Men follow and bring food. They bring beads.”

“Did men bring you beads?”

“Phew,” Omotola sighed. “No child. I come to the island not long after I become woman. There was not a bead for Omotola. They took me from Dahomey. My mama and papa pass in the war there.”

Ife threw her stick in the fire. Sparks rose into the night.

“Who was my papa?”

“A handsome man, but I do not know what they call him. The English they . . . they make us lay together for making the baby. We lay together thrice before he got the fever. He was strong but the fever ’twas more. Still he gave me Ife. My Ife.”

Omotola fanned her face. “Oh, the fire is strong tonight.”

Ife fingered the new linen in her pocket, the coqui whistled from the grass.

“Did you fear, Mama?”

“No child,” Omotola shook her head. “But the pain is much.” She grinned, staring into the fire. “Ife mi, strong even in my womb.”

<--- III Storm

V Timber --->