Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [185]
I had not thought to sacrifice to Agwé. One must prepare Agwé’s meal, his meat and drink and his cake, and put it on a little boat and sail it away on the ocean, with no one tending it. When no one is looking, Agwé will take the boat down under the waves and eat his food in his palace beneath the sea. But I had not made this sacrifice, and now I thought, what if Agwé takes La Liberté to be his own boatload of food? On land I did not think so very much about Agwé, unless he came to a ceremony. Now I was sorry I had not paid more attention.
Behind my closed lips and teeth I sang the song of Agwé.
Maît’ Agwé, koté ou yé?
Ou pa wé moin nan récif?
Maît’ Agwé, koté ou yé?
Ou pa wé moin nan lamè?
Master Agwé, where are you?
Don’t you see me on the reef?
Master Agwé, where are you?
Don’t you see me on the sea?
The men sailing the ship and arming the cannons did not hear, but Agwé must have heard, beneath the sea.
M’gagne zaviro nan main moin
Moin pa kab tounen déyé . . .
I have the rudder in my hand
I am not able to turn back . . .
Guiaou, who had been huddled on the floor of the boat, jumped up to his feet and stretched out his arms toward the two horizons. Then his eyes turned white and he fell backward, with his heels kicking the boards of the deck.
I put my body across his till he was quiet. My chest against his chest, holding him down. When he was calm enough to sit up, Agwé was in his head. I let go, but watched him carefully, because sometimes Agwé will jump into the water from a boat, and take the body of the one who carries him.
The sailors and gunners were looking at us out of the sides of their heads. They had despised us a little before because we were not sailors, the way our men with muskets and pistols, who were soldiers, despised the men who only worked in the fields with their hoes. The men behind the cannons were especially proud and haughty when we first got onto the boat, but now none of them wanted to offend Agwé.
Agwé spoke aloud only once, in words no one could understand. The voice was like water running over rocks, or water in a pot just as it boils. His face was grave and beautiful, and a little sad. The whole way, he sat very still in the front of the boat and looked down at the prow dividing the waters. All the way that we had to go the ocean was calm and still.
Along the Côte des Arcadins the water was pale bluish-green above the reef, and so clear that we could see the fish darting over the white sand. Men came out from the shore in dugout canoes to catch the fish on spears. Toward the ocean side was the island, La Gonave, coming up from the water like La Balène, the back-hump of a giant whale. At first we could see the white flashes of sail from the small voiliers of those people who lived there. Then nothing. La Gonave disappeared. The sailors said it was a mist, but Riau could not see any mist. It was like the sky or the sea had eaten the land and everything that had been on it.
We passed near enough to Port-au-Prince to see the low rooflines of buildings on the shore, and the tall masts of English ships, stripped of their sails, at anchor. None of those ships came after us, Grâce à BonDyé. As we went by Port-au-Prince, the sky came clear and the sun was yellow and warm again and the air all around was sparkling.
Dolphin were jumping on both sides of the boat, and Riau remembered seeing that before, at dawn when the ship of slaves from Dahomey sailed into the harbor at Le Cap. It was just sunrise, and the dolphins seemed to be bringing the ship in like pilots, while Riau stood watching, fingering the sore places the iron collar had worn around his neck. Some said the spirits of men were in the dolphins.
Then the ship docked, and they took Riau to the barracoons among the other slaves out of Guinée,