Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [111]
He looked dully about him at his mates from the big canoe; they all seemed unseeing, unhearing—drawn within themselves. Kunta turned his head to study the five who were in the room when they arrived. They wore ragged toubob clothing. Two of them were of the light brown sasso borro skin color that the elders had said resulted from some toubob taking a black woman. Then Kunta looked at the newcomer who had been brought in during the night; he sat slumped forward, with dried blood caked in his hair and staining the toubob garment he wore, and one of his arms hung in an awkward way that told Kunta it had been broken.
More time passed, and finally Kunta fell asleep again—only to be awakened once more, this time much later, by the arrival of another meal. It was some kind of steaming gruel, and it smelled even worse than the last thing they’d set in front of him. He shut his eyes not to see it, but when nearly all of his mates snatched up the containers and began wolfing the stuff down, he figured it might not be so bad after all. If he was ever going to escape from this place, thought Kunta, he would need strength. He would force himself to eat a little bit—but just a little. Seizing the bowl, he brought it to his open mouth and gulped and swallowed until the gruel was gone. Disgusted with himself, he banged the bowl back down and began to gag, but he forced it down again. He had to keep the food inside him if he was going to live.
From that day on, three times a day, Kunta forced himself to eat the hated food. The black one who brought it came once each day with a bucket, hoe, and a shovel to clean up after them. And once each afternoon, two toubob came to paint more of the stinging black liquid over the men’s worst open sores, and sprinkled the yellow powder over the smaller sores. Kunta despised himself for the weakness that made him jerk and moan from the pain along with the others.
Through the barred window, Kunta counted finally six daylights and five nights. The first four nights, he had heard faintly from somewhere, not far away, the screams of women whom he recognized from the big canoe. He and his mates had had to sit there, burning with humiliation at being helpless to defend their women, let alone themselves. But it was even worse tonight, for there were no cries from the women. What new horror had been visited upon them?
Nearly every day, one or more of the strange black men in toubob clothes would be shoved stumbling into the room and chained. Slumped against the wall behind them, or curled down on the floor, they always showed signs of recent beatings, seeming not to know where they were or to care what might happen to them next. Then, usually before another day had passed, some important-acting toubob would enter the room holding a rag over his nose, and always one of those recent prisoners would start shrieking with terror—as that toubob kicked and shouted at him; then that black one would be taken away.
Whenever he felt that each bellyful of food had settled, Kunta would try to make his mind stop thinking in an effort to sleep. Even a few minutes of rest would blot out for that long a time this seemingly unending horror, which for whatever reason was the divine will of Allah. When Kunta couldn’t sleep, which was most of the time, he would try to force his mind onto things other than his family or his village, for when he thought of them he would soon be sobbing.
CHAPTER 41
Just after the seventh morning gruel, two toubob entered the barred room with an armload of clothes. One frightened man after another was unchained and shown how to put them on. One garment covered the waist and legs, a second the upper body. When Kunta put them on, his sores—which had begun to show signs of healing—immediately started itching.
In a little while, he began to hear the sound of voices outside; quickly it grew louder and louder. Many toubob were gathering—talking, laughing—not