Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [75]
‘Now everybody, he wants the same,’ said Small Boy.
Head Office was closed. The bosses couldn’t get inside. The strikers encircled the building like a noose. That was why nobody answered Mr Blue’s calls on the radio. Small Boy said never mind. He had seen it all before. We only had to wait.
So we waited through that day and the next. Mr Blue lay in his bed and didn’t ask for anything. I looked at him. I thought about these people who had to be carried over rivers, who fainted in the sun, drank only boiled water and slept under nets. Their skin tore like old cotton, their flesh was soft as a baby’s. They were weak, but they were strong at the same time. We outnumbered them greatly and yet they ruled us.
The radio hissed and spat. Mr Blue sat bolt upright like a corpse struck by lightning.
In the empty compound Small Boy picked his teeth and hummed. Beyond the gates a centuries-old anger, pricked by a new pin, bubbled and burst.
Silence from outside. The singing had stopped. Then the blustering guns came and tore through the silence.
And that was that. Mr Blue told me he was being reassigned. He handed me my wages and five shillings’ ‘loyalty bonus’. I gave him my thanks.
So I packed Mr Blue’s belongings while Small Boy washed the pots and cooking things, folded the camp bed, the bed roll and the chairs. Packed them all up inside six wooden boxes. Into the boxes followed the tins of lunch tongue and sardines, jars of sandwich spread, bottles of grape juice, kerosene, matches. I heated the flat iron on the fire outside and pressed Mr Blue’s shirts one by one. Inside the trunk a fly’s corpse dangled from a web. Stains and rings of mildew patterned the bottom of the trunk. I laid the sheets and mosquito net on top of them. Then the newly ironed clothes. Shirts. Shorts. Socks. Then everything else. Belt. Brush. Boots. Gauntlets. Helmet. Helmet case.
Outside, Small Boy scraped the razor’s edge up Mr Blue’s neck, slicing the head off the ingrown hairs, leaving a trail of red spots welling in the white froth, reminding me of the splashes of red on the ground outside the fence. The rain had come and washed them into the ground. Small Boy had been right. We had only to be patient. Somehow news of the strike had reached the chief who sent his messenger to alert the District Commissioner. By the time the strikers arrived the next morning DC Silk was waiting in front of the compound with his soldiers, ready to arrest the ringleaders. A few were wounded in the scuffle. The leader was badly injured and might even die. Some were taken away — to jail, said Small Boy. The others would be fined. The chief had wanted them all put in stocks.
I set to work on the desk. Rolled the maps and dropped them into long cardboard tubes. The compass I placed inside its soft pouch. Underneath a bundle of papers lay the magnifying glass. I picked it up and held it out in front of me. A ring of shimmering light appeared, dancing upon the wall. I turned to it. Just as soon as I did it shifted to the ceiling. And next to the floor. For a few moments I fancied it was a spirit’s shadow. Then I realised that the movements echoed mine. A cloud passed over the sun, and suddenly it was gone. I gasped with disappointment, but only for a moment. The sun reappeared and so did the shining, dancing creature.
I begged Mr Blue not to forget me. I begged him to send for me as soon as he could. Mr Blue murmured, of course he would. But Small Boy’s face told me something different. I watched them leave. I went back into the hut and sat alone on the cold floor.
In the distance, like the humming of bees, I could hear the mine machinery. I wondered who the next master would be and whether he would be as good to me as Mr Blue. I decided to wait and see.
In the meantime I unwrapped the magnifying glass from the corner of my lappa and held it up high, where it caught the light and began to dance