Forbidden
by Tony
Williams
Copyright © 2011 by Tony Williams
http://www.caribbeanbookblog.wordpress.com
Smashwords
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To Augustine Joseph who ignited the first spark
and
Robert Lee who fanned the flame
Also dedicated to Robert J. Devaux, Mageesa Boudhar and Geoffrey Philp.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter
1
Chapter
2
Chapter
3
Chapter
4
Chapter
5
A New
Day
Chapter
6
Chapter
7
Chapter
8
Chapter
9
Chapter
10
Chapter
11
Chapter
12
Chapter
13
Chapter
14
Chapter
15
Chapter
16
Chapter
17
Chapter
18
Chapter
19
Chapter
20
Chapter
21
Chapter
22
Chapter
23
Chapter
24
When his father fell sick, Abiola promptly recalled the snake he had struck with a stone near his mother’s hut. His grandfather often cautioned him about harming snakes. As everyone in the village knew, serpents were more often than not manifestations of the ancestral spirits. Striking out at it had been a reflex action. He merely wounded it and then allowed it to slither away. Nevertheless, he was worried that he would be made to suffer the consequences. It didn’t matter that he was just twelve years old. He could fall sick and die and his soul could be doomed, especially as no ritual sacrifice had been performed to appease the spirits. This was because he never told anyone what he had done to the snake.
A few days later Abiola’s father, Olatunde developed a severe headache along with a high fever and aching joints, and his nose began to bleed. He was so weak he was unable to leave his compound. His two wives prepared him kolobé tea to help bring down the fever and his father and brothers prayed over him. He bore his affliction with courage and assured everyone in his household that he would soon be up and about. Abiola was relieved. He soon put his fears behind him when he realised that Olatunde’s illness presented him with an opportunity he had been longing for.
The village where they lived was called Ekitti and it was located in southwest Dahomey, a few miles north of the Avon and Denham lagoons. Olatunde owned a herd of thirty goats. Lately, he had taken to grazing them in the grasslands outside the village because of the sparseness of the grass in his compound, which had become parched due to an unusually long dry season. He usually took the goats out three days a week and brought Abiola along with him. Abiola was only too happy to volunteer to take them out on his own.
At first, Olatunde was hesitant until Abiola reminded him of how well he had trained him to take care of the herd. Besides, this was an opportunity to prove to everyone that he had inherited his father’s spirit, he added. Olatunde concurred, feeling proud. He agreed to let Abiola take the goats out to prove himself.
Early next morning Abiola made his way to the savannah and had quite an adventure steering the herd and watching them munch peacefully on tender shoots glistening with dew under the youthful sun. Later in the afternoon when he was returning home with them, he spotted a bongo antelope eating shrubs in the shade of a Baobab tree beside a track leading out of the savannah. It was a fairly young calf and seemed to have come out of the forest on the western edge of the savannah, a short distance away. It had a reddish-brown flush with narrow white stripes running down the shoulders, flanks and hindquarters. A furry, black-and-white crest ran down its neck and spine, and between the eyes was a pearly-white chevron. Abiola was fascinated. Although he had never seen a bongo antelope close up before, he could tell it was young and wondered what had become of its mother and why it was not with a herd. The calf left the grass and ambled unto the track directly in his path. Abiola’s curiosity got the better of him. He approached it slowly and tried to touch it. The antelope jumped out of reach and ran to the edge of the forest. It stood there watching him. It seemed to be urging him to come forward.
For some reason, Abiola felt drawn to the creature. He resumed walking towards it but, once again, it sprang out of reach. He followed it into the forest and kept it in his sight until it scurried behind a huge moabi tree. He tiptoed up to the tree and peeked behind the trunk but saw no sign of the bongo. There was no indication that it had moved away, not even the rustling of leaves, yet he was sure he had seen it run behind the tree. He was baffled. He searched among the trees but could not find it. Now that the antelope was gone and no longer a distraction, he glanced around him and realised that he was in the middle of nowhere. He had completely lost his bearings. It was then he heard the call.
It began as a hooting sound like that of a Pel’s fishing owl. Although he could hear it clearly, he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. At times it sounded more like a throaty grunt and then it started getting louder. His inability to tell where it was coming from was more frightening than the sound itself. Abiola was so disturbed, his heart was racing. Suddenly it turned from an owlish hooting to a deep guttural groan like a man being strangled. Immediately he recognised the call of the Kikiyaon, one of the most terrifying creatures known to inhabit the forests of Dahomey.
Everyone in the village knew about the Kikiyaon. It resembles an owl and has big glittering eyes, bulky wings and legs with long, raking talons that resemble human limbs. Its feathers are a sickly moss-green and it has a foul stench like a serpent that had been rotting for several days. An ephemeral being, it moves between the physical world and the realm of dreams and is seldom seen.
Growing up, Abiola had heard the eerie sounds of the Kikiyaon echoing across the savannahs several times, usually at nights. This was one of the reasons his parents often warned him about venturing alone into the forest. The spine-chilling cries resonated around him and echoed in his head until he felt it expand. He screamed in panic and lashed out wildly, trying to fend off the elusive aggressor. He ran like a madman deeper into the forest, stumbling among the trees. The sounds continued to stalk him in the gathering gloom. Suddenly there was silence.
Abiola slumped against a tree, trembling. He glimpsed a movement from the corner of his eye. Glancing around, he saw a man standing about ten paces away. He was tall and lean with a square, heavy-browed face and frigid eyes. Abiola did not recognise him. The figure stood watching him then smiled cryptically. Abiola screamed. Tears streamed down his face and he was trembling uncontrollably. Never before had he experienced such fear. He shut his eyes as if to try and wish it away. When he reopened them, the man was gone. The ordeal was too much for him. He slumped to the ground unconscious.
A search party from the village found him two days later cringing under a tree in a part of the forest that was about two days’ walk from the village. His father was forced to leave his sickbed and join the search. The goats were found wandering in the savannah and had to be rounded up. Abiola was taken back to his home barely conscious and incoherent.
He remained in a catatonic state for a week, during which time the elders and other members of the community gathered together with members of Abiola’s household in their compound to chant, drum and dance and offer libations to the ancestral spirits to seek their assistance in helping him recover. His mother and some of the older women plied him with herbal tea and broth made from a mixture of rooibos and neem plus other medicinal herbs used to relieve stress and nervous disorders.
When he finally mustered enough strength to speak, Abiola told them about the antelope that he had followed into the forest and the man that appeared out of nowhere. For some reason, he couldn’t recall the man’s face. His fear was so intense he hesitated to speak about the dreadful sounds he had heard. Eventually he told them, trembling. His father gaped wide-eyed at his wife. “The Kikiyaon!” he blurted out fearfully.
Two days later he took Abiola to see a shaman named Akin in the nearby village of Dunkwa. Like the inhabitants of the surrounding towns and villages, the people of Dunkwa lived in mortal dread of the Kikiyaon. Nearly everyone in the community, including the village elders, held Akin in high esteem because of his mystical powers and his ability to control some of the most malevolent human and animal spirits roaming the forests and savannahs. He was said to be so powerful, his inina could leave his body and travel great distances in the night sky. He also had the ability to cross over into the spirit realm. It was said that while there he managed to snare the soul of a wandering Kikiyaon and compel it to do his bidding, both on the physical plane and in the realm of dreams.
In explaining his invincibility, Akin said the Kikiyaon could not harm him because he and the owl were spiritually connected. Some of the villagers had experienced the creature’s horrifying presence at nights in their sleep. They believed it was Akin who had unleashed it on them to punish them for wrongs they had committed against him and his family, although no one dared to accuse him openly. Akin was also the leader of the village secret society comprising of the principal elders of the community.
Abiola’s father was confident that Akin would be able to unravel the mystery of his son’s ordeal and protect him from danger. Olatunde was desperate because Abiola was his only son out of the five children he had with Abiola’s mother. He had five other children by his first wife.
Abiola and Olatunde met with Akin at his compound in the hut that he normally used to welcome visitors who came to seek his counsel on social and spiritual matters. There were three other elders present, all members of the village secret society. Akin listened carefully as Olatunde explained what had befallen his son. He then turned to Abiola and asked him whether he had seen the bird that chased him. Abiola said he had not.
“You are fortunate. The Kikiyaon is a deadly avenger, a carnivore of the soul. It is usually heard before it is seen. Those who see it and live fall sick and linger until they die in pain and agony,” Akin explained. “Some die instantly from the shock.”
Abiola enquired about the man who had appeared to him. Akin peered searchingly at Olatunde. “It appears that you are too busy to instruct your son in the wisdom and protection of the ancestors,” he said reprovingly. Turning to Abiola, he said, “You saw an ibambo. The abambo are spirits of the ancestors or friends and members of your household who are dead. They appear anywhere at any time and to anybody and they seldom speak. You often see them on lonely paths and in the forest at nights.” He paused to confer with the elders. They spoke in hushed tones. Turning to Abiola and Olatunde, he enjoined them to be quiet. He got up and went through a door leading to an inner courtyard and entered a separate hut a few feet away. It was a circular structure made of adobe bricks and mud with a thatched, dome-shaped roof. This hut served as the dwelling of his spirit abode – a ceremonial wooden mask which harbours the spirit that imbues the oganga with supernatural power and insight. He remained there a long while.
Eventually he emerged wearing the mask, an artfully-carved, grotesque piece with blackened eyeholes, an elongated forehead and spiked teeth. Olatunde had to grab Abiola’s arm to prevent him from bolting, although he himself was very uneasy. Once again, Akin asked him what he wished to know. Olatunde asked him if he could request of the ancestors that they reveal the identity of the ibambo and why it had appeared. Akin stood in the centre of the hut and muttered a prayer. Then, raising his voice, he recited an incantation. He spoke with pure, heartfelt intensity as he proceeded to unite his life force with the nyama of the spirit abode. Once the unification of spirit was complete, he entered into a deep trance and became silent. He then squatted on the ground in the centre of the hut.
“The spirits have revealed that your son was visited by your dead brother, the husband of the woman who became your bwa by levirate,” said Akin. “One evening, many years ago, the king of Abomey sent his soldiers to invade your compound and they captured your brother’s wife and her seven children … The spirit says that you conspired with the invaders to sell them to the slave traders at Ouidah … That is not all … Before that, you approached the spirits to request a charm so you could become rich. In exchange you offered up the soul of your brother’s firstborn son. Since then he has disappeared and has never been found … While in the spirit world, your brother called upon the great god Guruhi to exact judgement on those who betrayed him and his family. He has been given authority to claim your son’s soul in revenge!”
Olatunde went down on his knees and swore on his life and the lives of everyone in his household that he was innocent and would never commit such an atrocity.
“Are you saying that the great Akin and the ancestors are liars?” demanded one of the elders. All three elders confronted Olatunde, their faces stern, their rebukes harsh. Abiola began to cry. Olatunde finally succumbed and confessed.
“It is my kinsman Jaja who influenced me. I was indebted to him. And, besides, with two wives and children to provide for, how could I bear the burden of another woman and her children even though they were the property of my brother. I was willing to perform my duty, but I am a poor man, my holdings are small and my livestock are few, and food supplies are short. I could not afford to further divide the little that I had.” Olatunde prostrated himself before Akin who was still under the influence of the spirit abode. “Have mercy on me! Tell me what will become of my son,” he pleaded.
“Great disaster will befall your household. I see darkness and I hear the sound of weeping and wailing. I smell the stench of death and I hear the jangling sounds of prisoners in chains,” said Akin. A hush came over the gathering. Akin sat in silence for a while, then rose abruptly and went back out to the inner courtyard. He returned without the mask and sat quietly among the gathering. He didn’t elaborate any further on his visions. Abiola slunk away to a corner of the hut and sat there trembling in fear.
Olatunde was getting increasingly anxious. He wanted to know what he could do to reverse the curse that had been placed on him and his son. Akin said he was prepared to petition the spirits on their behalf but it would require elaborate sacrifices, rituals and charms and they would be very costly. “This is necessary not just for your protection but also to protect myself from your brother and from competitive spirits who may challenge me,” he explained.
After Akin informed him of all that would be needed for the required charms and sacrifices, Olatunde realised that he could not afford the fifty Manillas it would cost to provide the necessary ingredients. Even if he sold his entire herd of goats it would not be enough. He would become a pauper.
Abiola sensed his father’s shame as they shuffled disconsolately out of Akin’s compound. He and Olatunde barely spoke to each other as they made their way from Dunkwa back to Ekitti.
Despite their predicament, Olatunde and his wife were reluctant to seek help from their kinsfolk because Olatunde feared having to disclose Akin’s revelations about his machinations to the villagers. Meanwhile, Abiola who was still traumatised by his ordeal was plunged into greater mental turmoil by the revelation that he had been cursed. He grew more despondent as he watched his parents struggle in vain to raise the money to provide what was required for Akin to neutralise the curse and redeem his soul. He became so dejected, he began to lose weight, and at nights he had difficulty sleeping. From being an energetic and sprightly child, he became aloof and withdrawn.
To his dismay, Olatunde informed him that he would be sent to live with his uncle who resided in a village south of Ekitti called Fa. Olatunde’s first wife had been pressuring him to send Abiola away for fear he brought calamity on her and her children. Abiola’s mother pleaded with him not to send her son away. She was Olatunde’s junior wife. Caught between her pleas and his senior wife’s nagging, Olatunde gave in and arranged for Abiola to live with his brother as a compromise.
Abiola’s uncle, Tobi was a man of humble means with four wives and fifteen children. This meant that Abiola amounted to an additional burden, although Tobi pretended otherwise. For the sake of the food and shelter afforded him, Abiola felt duty bound to everything that was required of him. Bright and early every morning he accompanied Tobi and his four older sons to their farm to hoe the ground, build yam ridges and plant grain crops. He was also responsible for cleaning the goat and sheep pens and feeding the animals. It was tiresome, back-breaking work that often dragged on from dawn to dusk.
The village of Fa where they lived was a small fishing and farming community hemmed in by mangroves and forests to the north and east, and on the west by the sea. The slave market at Ouidah was half a day’s trek away. For decades the people of Fa lived a quiet pastoral life on the bank of a swamp-watered river surrounded by lush woodlands and swaying palm trees, with the sound of the surf breaking restfully on the seashore and the twittering of birds swishing to and fro across the mangroves. Then came the slave trade and from there on their lives changed dramatically.
European traders lured by the promise of hitherto unimagined wealth and the prospect of achieving their supremacist dream of world domination, descended on the shores of West Africa like swarms of carrion crows, and proceeded to build fortressed temples wherein they sacrificed innocent souls, families and entire cultures to Mammon. Age-old values and traditions were consumed in the sacrificial fires of greed and avarice which swept through the surrounding towns and villages, stoked by the insatiable lust for the nefarious spoils of the trade exhibited by Europeans and Africans alike. The resultant wars and slave raids shook the kingdom of Dahomey down to its core and destabilized its communities, including the village of Fa.
For the first few years of Abiola’s exile, a deceptive calm hovered like a storm’s eye over the village, during which time he struggled to come to terms with his banishment and painful separation from his family. One day a group of men from the Fante, Abiola’s tribe and the predominant one in the village, got into a quarrel with an Asantehene clan from one of the allied states in the Asante Confederacy. The Asantehene clansmen came from a town ten miles north of Fa. They accused three Fante men of robbing the graves of their kinsmen and said the people of Fa had helped them escape justice by giving them refuge. The dispute escalated into a jingoistic row between the two tribes that came to the attention of King Agaja of Abomey. In retaliation he sent an army of one thousand men to attack the village.
Abiola and his uncle, along with Tobi’s sons were on their way to the farm when the Asante warriors struck. They descended on the village like ravenous predators and destroyed and pillaged it with a vengeance. Scores of people were killed and over three hundred men, women and children were captured. Those who resisted were slaughtered. Abiola and his relatives were taken captive and placed in a coffle with one hundred men and women and marched down like cattle to the city of Ouidah to be sold to French slave traders. It was suspected that the true motive for the attack was slave hunting rather than the alleged grave robberies.
After a gruelling march through deep forests and dense, humid savannahs which lasted five days, Abiola and the other captives finally reached the city of Ouidah bound in yokes and chains. They were sold to the slave traders and then taken from the city and transported in canoes across a lagoon to the seashore half a mile away.
While on the beach waiting to be transported with the others in a canoe to one of three European ships anchored about one and a half miles offshore, Abiola was shocked to see his sister shackled with a group of slaves in a separate coffle. They, too, were waiting to be ferried across to one of the ships. He waited till the foreman got distracted and tried to inch closer to her. He succeeded and they were able to speak briefly. She told him that the slave hunters had attacked Ekitti and their father was beheaded. The soldiers raped and killed their mother and abducted their other sisters. At that point the two coffles were pulled apart and Abiola lost sight of his sister forever.
The journey across the ocean was terrifying. Abiola prayed for it to end but it seemed to last forever. He became even more convinced that he was cursed as he watched the goddess Asase save many of the captives on the ship by snatching away their souls and setting them free to return to their homeland. He, along with the other survivors, was allowed to live and continue suffering.
The nightmare finally eased when the ship arrived in the West Indies and docked in the island of Saint Helen several thousand miles away. It was the year 1766 A.D. There Abiola was purchased by a Frenchman named Jean-Claude Isidore who owned a sugar plantation called Habitation du Paradis in the south of the island near a town called Soufriere.
Soon after arriving on the plantation, Abiola took ill with a cold which rapidly deteriorated into pneumonia because of his poor physical condition. It was the middle of the rainy season and heavy rains had been drenching the island for weeks. He would have died if it had not been for the intervention of an old woman named Chantal who offered to take care of him personally.
Chantal was the caretaker of an infirmary that the plantation owner, Jean-Claude Isidore, had built to provide medical care for his slaves. It was a modest-sized wooden structure built close to the slave huts and barracks. She also served as a midwife and looked after toddlers whose mothers could not spare the time to nurse them because of their obligation to toil in the fields.
She was assisted by two young women whom she called matrons, much to their delight. She wanted to impress upon them the importance of their function and to dignify their work. They also looked after the children newly arrived aboard the slave ships to face the horrors of plantation life. Chantal in turn helped them cope with the stress of learning the new language. Another helper named Remi helped train the older children to work in the fields. He was a middle-aged Asante who walked with a limp caused after he fell off a donkey-cart laden with cane stalks and injured his hip.
Chantal lived in a small hut next to the sick-house. She came to the island directly from France where she had been kept as a slave after being abducted from her tribal village in Guinea and given to a wealthy French damsel named Mademoiselle Marie-Jean de Bouvier as a gift. Bold and adventurous by nature, Marie-Jean first encountered Chantal after she was forced upon her by a doting slave merchant during one of her sojourns to the Gold Coast, a land she came to love on account of the savage beauty of its forests and rivers and the charm of its animistic-minded natives.
Prior to returning home to France, she had had misgivings about doing so with a black African in tow for fear it caused her family and friends discomfort on account of the decree which prohibited blacks from being kept in France for more than three years. But her audaciousness, coupled with the novelty of having such an exotic creature at her beck and call, quickly overrode her reluctance and she cheerfully sailed back to France with her newfound acquisition. She grew exceedingly fond of her and named her Chantal.
Chantal, for her part, was forced to spend her days in subservience to Marie-Jean who regarded her warmly as her pet Negro. She became Marie-Jean’s personal escort and accompanied her on her leisure outings, including her visits to reading-rooms and libraries and at musical soirées and dinner parties. Subsequently Marie-Jean fell in love with a military officer and wedded him. Soon after, she gave birth to a daughter and named her Marianne.
Two years later her husband died in one of the battles in the French and Indian War in America. In her grief, Marie-Jean turned to God. She said that she had received a divine calling to take up nursing at a regimental infirmary. She promptly embarked on her newfound mission, ignoring the protests of her family. Chantal had no choice but to submit to her Madame’s wishes and help her care for the patients who were mostly sick and injured soldiers coming in from the front.
Trapped in a frigid and alien world unlike anything she could ever have imagined, she managed to keep her sanity by surrendering to her maternal instinct which compelled her to show compassion to the soldiers and the wretchedly poor who came to the infirmary to seek medical treatment. Moreover, Marie-Jean’s affection for her fanned her waning spirit and kept her from losing the will to live.
Meanwhile, Marie-Jean’s daughter bloomed into an attractive teenager and married Jean-Claude Isidore, a naval officer twenty years her senior. Soon after, the couple joined an expedition commissioned by King Louis XVI to colonise the newly-discovered island of Saint Helen.
Chantal finally got the opportunity to leave France when Marie-Jean decided to travel to the West Indies to join her daughter Marianne and her husband Jean-Claude. They wrote to her extolling the pleasures of life in the West Indies and detailing the progress they had made in developing their sugar plantation, and urged her to join them. By then, they had been living on the island for sixteen years. Marie-Jean took Chantal with her, hoping to continue her mission by establishing a hospital in the colony.
Unfortunately, the heat and humidity of the tropics proved to be her undoing. Nearing sixty and frail, she died one year later from yellow fever. While on her deathbed, she granted Chantal full manumission from slavery.
Chantal chose to remain on the plantation although she was not obligated to. The Isidores and most of the townspeople had more or less acknowledged her status as a free woman. However, she saw no point in leaving and absolving the Isidores of their obligations to her, considering that they were just as complicit as Marie-Jean in uprooting her from her homeland and separating her from her people.
Besides, she was aging and there was nothing to aspire to or hope for in a colony founded on slavery and oppression. Having lost all hope of ever returning to the land of her ancestors, she resolved to do everything she could to make life more bearable for the slaves who were less fortunate than her. She considered her new role a blessing since, for too long, fate had condemned her to a life of loneliness and left her childless.
The slaves looked up to her and she was affectionately called ngwo (mother). They also deferred to her because of her ability to speak French fluently. What also distinguished her was her deep faith in Jesus Christ and the Christian message of divine salvation and the forgiveness of sins.
Back in France, as time and distance conspired to keep her separated from her kinsfolk, the light of their love began to dim and she became less open to the primal call of the ancestral spirits. Under Marie-Jean’s influence, she turned to the Church and found in the Cross the answer to the emptiness she felt inside, and a way of silencing her guilty conscience for not continuing to sit at the feet of the ancestors.
She was moved with pity for Abiola from the moment she set eyes on him. She could sense that he was deeply traumatised and because of that, she singled him out and kept him away from the other slaves as much as possible. Initially she was allowed to keep him to help take care of two provision gardens where she planted medicinal herbs, vegetables and a variety of root succulents. Much of it was used for the sick-house patients. Chantal also got permission to add a tiny room to her hut and Abiola was allowed to live there instead of in the barracks with the other slaves.
Often they would sit outside her hut on evenings sharing their painful experiences with each other and recalling their captivity and sale to the slave traders in Ouidah. Together they relived their mournful walk around the Tree of Forgetfulness and bemoaned the spinelessness of their captors who thought they could evade Chango’s judgement by erasing their captives’ memory to prevent them from returning to seek vengeance. They spent many such evenings together, consoling each other.
As he grew older, Abiola was sent to work in the animal pens to learn how to take care of the cattle and draught animals. In the midst of the strife and misery that constituted life on the plantation, he found in Chantal a devoted and caring mother, and it made him appreciate her all the more. She was like a ray of light brightening his path and helping to fend off the gloom which was stifling his spirit and making him feel that he was doomed. Most of all, she calmed him and kept him from succumbing to fear, and further strengthened him by introducing him to Christianity. She convinced him that the only way to free himself from the curse that had been placed on him was through the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
Despite the unending oppression and brutality around him, Abiola leaned on Chantal’s words and gradually began to see a sliver of light in the dark night that seemed to have settled permanently over his life.
Marianne Isidore also developed a soft spot for him, thanks to Chantal who spoke glowingly of him. His timid and fearful nature aroused her sympathy. Slowly he began to come out of his shell and he even started developing a relationship with one of the sick-house matrons. Her name was Annette.
Through his friendship with Chantal and Annette, Abiola began to feel his soul resurrecting from the torpor which had benumbed him from the day he was driven from his family and out of his village.
One day Chantal took ill with a high fever and chills. Within hours her condition deteriorated and she began having feverish convulsions and sweats. Over the next two days her health worsened. She was unable to get out of bed and she could no longer speak. Abiola was devastated. Marianne Isidore brought in a doctor to examine her. He said she had malaria.
Later, after nightfall, Chantal’s helper Remi and two other men came to visit her. They were among a select few whom the overseers had given leave to visit Chantal for brief periods. They decided to limit the visits to prevent the slaves from using her as an excuse to avoid work in the fields or to loiter outside of the barracks at nights. The three men and Abiola stood speechless staring down at the gaunt, lifeless form lying on a mat in the middle of the room.
Afterwards, they sat sombrely outside the hut trying to reconcile themselves with the obvious deterioration of a woman who had become a mother to all; a saviour who sacrificed her soul to help them hold on to the dream of freedom and the hope of returning someday to the land of their ancestors, whether in body or in spirit. Abiola wept uncontrollably. The other men were too despondent to feel embarrassed. The moon could not bear the spectacle. It hid behind a cloud. The men sat silently in the darkness for a long while. One of them eventually got up and suggested they should leave before the overseer made his rounds of the barracks and discovered they were absent. Remi told him and the other man to go on ahead then turned to Abiola.
“What will you do now? Where will you live?”
Abiola gaped at him surprised. “Here in Ngwo’s hut. Where you expect me to go,” he replied. The moonlight captured the frown on Remi’s face before it disappeared in the fading light. There was an uncomfortable silence. Suddenly they heard a hooting sound somewhere in the darkness. Gradually it grew louder and alternated between a tooting call like that of a mourning dove and strange woofing sounds. Remi and Abiola stared unseeingly at each other. They were both familiar with the call of owls, except that this one sounded very strange. Besides, since arriving in the colony they had never seen nor heard of any birds remotely resembling owls. The sound stopped abruptly. Remi glanced around just in time to see a shadow bolting towards the hut. He heard Abiola struggling with the door as if he was trying to break it down. Without hesitation he, too, hurried off limping into the darkness.
Early next morning, while it was still dark, Chantal’s soul slipped away while Abiola slept in a corner of the hut where he stayed to keep her company. She left him a corpse with a grotesquely twisted face as if to show how painful it had been for her to leave him so abruptly. When he awoke and saw the body stretched out on the floor on a mat, Abiola ran outside wailing and caused quite a commotion in the slave quarters. The yard quickly became filled with the mournful sounds of weeping and moaning.
Chantal was buried just as the sun began rising over the hills. It showered the valley with a golden glow, as if to salute her passing. For the first time, all the slaves were given one hour break before the start of work in the fields to attend the burial. Marianne Isidore had insisted on it, although her husband had voiced his disapproval.
There was no ceremony. Abiola and three other men carried the plain-wood coffin solemnly on their heads and disposed of it in an unmarked hole behind the sick house. Marianne was the only one among the Isidores who came to watch the burial. Afterwards, she stood over the grave and recited the Lord’s Prayer.
Abiola was inconsolable. Chantal’s death left him feeling vulnerable and defenceless. That morning he was supposed to help the head mule-man drive the cattle to pasture. He reported for work with great reluctance. The men seemed uncomfortable around him and some of them kept their distance. He went about his chores in a daze and was more taciturn than usual. At noon the field slaves broke for lunch and gathered in the yard. Abiola joined them but sat alone under a Glory Cedar tree, oblivious to their stares and whispers.
On returning home, he found Annette waiting for him. She had sneaked away from the sick house to come and find out how he was doing, and to warn him that he needed to do something to protect himself from evil spirits.
“What you mean?” Abiola asked, puzzled.
“Give your heart to Jesus. Only he can save you,” she replied and handed him a rosary. She hesitated a while then said, “Do you know down in the yard people blaming you for Chantal death? They say because of the curse they put on you, evil spirits now come to claim your soul. They say the curse so strong, not even the great Ngwo could escape it. It kill her because of you.”
Abiola gaped at her, stunned. He remembered the sounds he had heard in the bush the night before. He also recalled how the men in the pasture had kept away from him.
“What happen to you and Remi yesterday night,” asked Annette.
Abiola realised immediately that Remi had been gossiping about him. Suddenly he wanted to be alone.
“Go! Please, you must go,” he said and turned away. He didn’t turn around until he heard the door close. Annette had left the rosary on a bench near the door. He knew he had hurt her feelings but, for the moment, he couldn’t be bothered. All he could think of was his dear Ngwo. The idea that he could have caused Chantal’s death through her association with him seemed a real possibility and it was unbearable. To make matters worse, Annette’s words reignited his fears and, once again, the demons of his past began to haunt him.
The days and nights dragged on interminably, leaving Abiola feeling dejected by their bleak mundaneness and the stark reality of his enslavement. The powerlessness he felt was similar to his experience in the bowels of the slave ship which the gods had used to send him to his doom. It was obvious that he had no choice but to face the terrifying fate to which his father had condemned him. What made it even more agonising was that it seemed the slaves were now convinced he was cursed and they kept blaming him for Chantal’s death. Increasingly they kept away from him. Annette told him some of them, including Remi, were displeased that he was allowed to remain in Chantal’s hut and continue taking care of her gardens.
He was all too aware what could happen if their words reached the ears of the overseers or worse, Jean-Claude Isidore. By then they would be so exaggerated, anyone who did not know better would believe that he was involved in sorcery. He could be tortured and hanged. And if the other slaves genuinely believed that being around him endangered their lives, the more malicious ones would not hesitate to implicate him, especially the Creoles who tended to be mistrustful and even fearful of Africans.
He and Annette remained close. She visited him whenever she got the opportunity. It was easier for them to meet this way since her companion at the sick house, an older woman who, since Chantal’s death, took to asserting her seniority, no longer approved of him coming to see Annette.
One day, on impulse, he brought up the subject of Chantal’s death and told Annette, for the first time, about his horrifying ordeal back in his homeland when he was a child. Chantal and Remi were the only ones he had ever told about this dark aspect of his past since arriving in the colony. Annette understood his fear since stories about the Kikiyaon were not new to her.
“That is why you must turn to Jesus. Repent and give your heart to him. Only he can save you,” she urged him.
Abiola gave a wry smile. “Where was Jesus when the spirits came to take Ngowo’s soul?” he sneered. He thanked her for her concern but said he needed stronger protection.
The next day he went to see an old slave named Benedict who was known to have secret knowledge about charms and amulets. Because of his age, Benedict was given the light task of planting and trimming quick hedges around the cane and grass pieces. He used to visit Chantal when he was working around the sick house, and this was how Abiola became acquainted with him. To protect himself, Benedict always denied that he had any esoteric knowledge unless he was absolutely sure he could trust the person who came to seek his advice. If Jean-Claude Isidore or the overseer ever discovered that he dabbled in mystical practices, he would be hanged. It said a lot about Abiola and the pity he evoked that Benedict offered to help after Abiola explained to him the cause of his fears. He advised Abiola to get a batch of cotton seeds, Baobab leaves and incense.
“You must mix them together and burn them. Then you must spread the fumes around and inside the hut and inhale it. This will protect you from ibambo and unfriendly spirits,” he said. He also taught Abiola some mystical words and told him to use them before fumigating the hut.
Early next morning Abiola did exactly as he was told. Later, after sundown, to his surprise, Benedict paid him a visit. He pushed past Abiola and entered without a word. He sniffed around the room and nodded approvingly.
“I see you been appeasing the sprits, but it is not enough,” he said with a directness that was characteristic, and the tense look of one who had embarked on an errand at great risk to himself. “My guardian spirit give me a warning for you. He show me shadowy faces full of envy and jealousy. Then I took the smell of roasted meat and I heard the sound of people mourning. Evil spirits have been invoked against you. There is a uvengwa hovering around this area. Your soul is in danger. You have enemies in spirit and in flesh!”
Abiola was stunned. He was particularly disturbed by Benedict’s assertion that some people were envious of him. “I do not understand ... More and more, I see people around me who no longer wear the faces the Spirit gave them. They have put on new faces. Their faces are masks of evil and they have the appearance of death. Yet I have done them no wrong.”
“Fool! Mawu gave you eyes yet you do not see. Everything you have, they covet. Remi believe Chantal’s hut should belong to him. He also have eyes for Annette!” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a dasheen leaf rolled up like a ball. Handing it to Abiola he said, “Inside of it is special herbs. You must boil them in a pot, pray over it and bathe with the water. The nyama of the herbs will form a shield around you and it will protect you.” He paused a while then added, “You lucky. It is for Ngwo’s sake I risk my life to come to warn you. I don’t want her spirit to come after me because of you.”
After Benedict left, Abiola was so shaken he was afraid to sleep in the hut. He steeled himself and boiled the herbs Benedict gave him and prayed over the mixture as he was instructed. He then poured it into a bucket of water he had stored away and bathed with it behind the hut.
For a while he contemplated wearing the rosary Annette had given him around his neck and appealing to the Virgin Mary as Chantal had taught him, then decided against it. He was still not comfortable with the language of the white man’s deities as he was with the signs and language of his ancestors. Moreover, he was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of praying to the God of his oppressors for deliverance from the pain and suffering inflicted on him by the devotees of that very same God.
In his desperation, he tried to recall the incantatory words and prayers that his mother had taught him when he was a child as a way of combating fear. He kept repeating them over and over again. Gradually, he began to feel comforted and reassured.
The following week Annette fell ill. She deteriorated so drastically, she was unable to work and had to be admitted to the sick house. She was confined there for several days, her frail body wracked by convulsions, vomiting and high fever. Two other women were laid up in the sick house and they both displayed similar symptoms. They were admitted two days before Annette. Their condition caused much debate in the barracks as the slaves puzzled over the way all three of the women seemed to have fallen sick virtually at the same time, and displayed symptoms much like that of Chantal.
Three days later, on a Sunday afternoon, an incident occurred in the yard that threw everyone into confusion and caused the slaves to panic. One of them reported seeing a strange bird with an evil-looking face on the roof of the sick house. Later that night, one of the women died.
The following evening Annette passed away.
There was a sombre air over Paradise Estate. The two women were laid to rest within hours of each other. Marianne Isidore attended Annette’s burial. Abiola stayed away.
For several days an uneasy calm settled over the plantation. In the fields the slaves persevered as normal, even while they agitated over rumours that spirits of the undead were walking among them.
Now completely resigned to his fate, Abiola openly confessed to all and sundry that spirits had come to claim his soul. In the fields he went about his tasks with the mindless automation of a zombie. Twice he woke up in the middle of the night and ran out screaming. The second time he ran all the way to the barracks and caused quite a commotion. All the slaves rushed out of their rooms. They found Abiola on his knees in the middle of the yard, holding his head and moaning. He swore to them that he was being stalked by a Kikiyaon and it was even trying to prey on him in his dreams. He pleaded with Benedict to help him drive it away otherwise it would kill all of them like it did Ngwo and Annette. He caused such a tumult, Jean-Claude Isidore and one of his overseers turned up on the scene and they had to intervene to bring him under control. They came armed with pistols and accompanied by three white men who worked as artisans in the sugar mill and workshop. It took them a while to get the other slaves to compose themselves. Jean-Claude fired a shot in the air to force them to return to their rooms. The overseer and the other men abused and cursed them and threatened to have them horse whipped.
Jean-Claude glared malevolently at them as they scampered away babbling and shouting. He was quite gigantic and looked ominous in the darkness. A man stood next to him, holding a lantern. It was Remi. He was the one who went to alert Jean-Claude and the overseer to the ruckus in the yard.
“Where is Abiola?” Jean-Claude demanded.
“He run away and hide Misyé (sir),” said Remi. “Evil spirit and juju tormenting him, now everybody afraid it come after them too. You see, Misyé, is a mistake to let him live all by himself in Ngwo house. Who know what he does do and where he does go. Look now devil after his soul.”
“Silence! Ça suffit!” Jean-Claude snapped. “Go to your room.”
“Oui Misyé,” said Remi and hurried away.
Notwithstanding Jean-Claude’s irritation, Remi’s words resonated with him. Lately he had been disturbed by the rumours going around about ghost sightings and people being possessed by evil spirits. A devout Roman Catholic, it always infuriated him when his slaves began agitating over such matters which, more often than not, he dismissed as the irrational fears of uncivilised minds.
His instinctive reaction was to have Abiola hanged. However, in administering punishments to his slaves, he wished to be fair. Despite rumours to the contrary, he did not believe that Abiola was the sort to dabble in acts of sorcery, whether maliciously or otherwise. Through his wife and Chantal, he became aware of the youth’s deep psychological troubles and phobias. From observing him and noting his extremely apprehensive nature, he deduced that Abiola had undergone some kind of trauma and did not discount the possibility that he may have been the victim of witchcraft back in his native Africa, as his wife suggested. This was why he had not objected to him being placed under Chantal’s care since he believed she would do a good job of civilising him by instructing him in catechism.
Nevertheless, he decided to make an example of Abiola, if only to deter the other slaves from persisting in their pagan beliefs. As he and the other men left the yard, he gave the overseer an explicit order. Abiola was to be inflicted with one hundred lashes of the whip.
The whipping was carried out the next day in front of the overseer’s cottage during the lunch break with all the slaves present. Earlier, Jean-Claude had the sentence reduced to thirty-nine lashes on account of his wife who pleaded on Abiola’s behalf. Abiola was stripped naked and made to lie on the ground in scorching heat while two muscular commandeurs (gang drivers) took turns flogging him. He howled like a pig in an abattoir. He was left bruised and bleeding. The overseer supervised it all from the breezy comfort of his verandah where he reposed languidly on a rattan canapé. Satisfied, he ordered the commandeurs to stop, and had them reassign Abiola to work in the cane fields. They forced him to vacate Chantal’s hut and he was sent to live in the slave barracks.
Barely a week later, Abiola turned up on Jean-Claude Isidore’s doorstep out of the blue and demanded to see him. It was around six o’clock in the evening. He waited till Jean-Claude emerged from the house and moved closer to the steps.
“You say I am a slave, Jesus say he die on the cross for me and I am free. Who should I believe? Who is the liar!” he demanded, tears streaming down his face. “Madame and Ngwo tell me have faith in the Lord and he will protect me, yet the spirits still after me. Look!” He pointed to a Poinciana tree near the verandah and shouted, “The spirits are angry with you too Misyé! They come to take your soul! See for yourself, up there in the tree.” There was a large bird perched on a branch midway up in the tree. In the waning twilight it resembled an owl with the characteristic rounded head and large eyes. Jean-Claude ordered Abiola to calm himself, even as he wondered at the bird which seemed unusual for the island’s habitat. Abiola refused to be silenced. He warned Jean-Claude that he and his family were in danger. He said he was especially concerned about “Madame” who had shown him kindness over the years.
For Jean-Claude, it was the last straw. He told Abiola to wait outside and he re-entered the house. To Abiola’s shock, Jean-Claude returned armed with his musket and a pouch containing bullets. The bird flew out of the tree unto the cornice of the roof. It lingered there a while, then swooped down and flew in a broad arc in front of the house. Jean-Claude took careful aim and shot it. It fell to the ground with a heavy thud. He went across and took hold of one of its wings. He held the carcass up in the air so Abiola could get a good look at it. A wail of shock went up from the house slaves who had gathered on the verandah.
“As you can see, I am a stronger witch doctor,” said Jean-Claude jeeringly. He ordered one of the women to bring him a bottle of rum and a lighted torch. She obeyed and brought them to him trembling. He called Abiola over and ordered him to set the bird on fire. Abiola went down on his knees and pleaded with Jean-Claude not to force him to go near the bird. Jean-Claude reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out an iron crucifix. He handed it to Abiola and said, “Repeat after me, I believe in God the Father Almighty, in Jesus Christ the son of God and the Holy Catholic Church.” When Abiola hesitated he reloaded the gun and placed the barrel to his head. Abiola repeated the prayer and swore allegiance to God and the Church. Jean-Claude poured the rum on the carcass and Abiola set it on fire. He wept and wailed hysterically.
Early next morning Abiola was found hanging from a breadfruit tree behind Chantal’s hut. When he was informed of the suicide, Jean-Claude went to see the body but quickly returned and refused to speak about it with anyone.
One of the house slaves found the empty cartridge shell of the bullet that killed the bird and kept it. For her it was clear proof that Legba and the vodun had succumbed to the almighty rule of Jesus Christ and the superior power of the white man’s bullet. She punctured the cartridge, strung a cord through it and hung it around her neck as a fetish to protect her against any further manifestations of the “devil-bird.” Not to be outdone, another one began collecting strands of Jean-Claude’s hair from his comb and sold them as good-luck charms.
It was unusual for Jean-Claude Isidore to linger upstairs past eight o’clock and leave the house slaves fretting over his lateness for breakfast. His wife left home the day before with the children to visit one of her relatives in the nearby community of Bastille, and apparently decided to stay the night. This was uncharacteristic of Marianne and a sign that she was upset with him.
From the loft which served as his private retreat, Jean-Claude gazed distractedly at the swarm of black bodies moving around like ants in the fields as they worked their way through rows of sugar cane. It always disturbed him when his wife was displeased with him. She was offended that he did not grant her permission to exhume Chantal’s remains from behind the sick house where she was buried and have them reinterred in a more dignified spot with a tombstone. She said her mother had requested this of her after visiting her in a dream. Two years after their passing, Chantal and Abiola’s death still distressed Marianne terribly.
Jean-Claude was unimpressed by her assertion that providing Chantal with a better resting place would demonstrate to all and sundry that he was a man of civility and compassion. He found her reasoning puerile and irrational, although he dared not tell her so. She seemed to imply that there was need to improve his image and that irritated him all the more.
As far as his reputation was concerned, he didn’t believe there was any cause for worry since he was respected and admired by his peers, most of who looked up to him as a pillar of the community. Physically he was a tall, full-bearded, strapping man with a deep, booming voice, a ruggedly-handsome face and the authoritative air of one who was used to being deferred to. The very name ‘Isidore’ was imbued with power and authority and over the years it had become one of the most distinguished titles in Saint Helen.
There was hardly a soul in the colony who was unfamiliar with the name Jean-Claude Isidore. It was deemed a mark of status to be able to claim personal friendship with the Isidores. That privilege was reserved for only a select few. Even the Kalinago, the island’s indigenous settlers, some of who still clung stubbornly to scattered hamlets in the north where they had been shunted, were well apprised of the Isidore name. Generally, they were careful how they spoke about him, especially in the presence of the whites since they knew that his words weighed heavily on their ears, and they spoke highly of him.
Although he was not one to blow his own trumpet, Jean-Claude was proud that he had lived his life in a manner whereby no one could justifiable question the value of his contributions to the economic and social advancement of the colony. On that basis he believed his place in the annals of Saint Helen was assured. He had good reason to be confident.
He was related to Philippe Rousseau, the colony’s first governor and a man of noble birth. Rousseau was the son of Duc de Saint-Simon, a noblesse militaire and one of the privileged few chosen by Louis XVI to be keepers and protectors of his growing array of colonial spoils. The king had graciously bestowed the isle of Saint Helen upon the duke as part of a grant of territories which included four islands located in the Pacific. They were entrusted to him in appreciation of his bold and patriotic explorations, and in recognition of his ancestors’ loyal military service to the Crown over many decades. Saint Helen lay west of the French colony of Martinique.
Jean-Claude had accompanied Rousseau on his voyage to the West Indies in 1736 with a flotilla of seven ships and six hundred crew and settlers. He was one of the senior officers, a fact of which he was quite proud. He was also Rousseau’s uncle and his most trusted advisor.