Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [274]
‘You arm long nuff,’ Paris said, smiling in sudden relief. ‘You arm long pas’ anyone dis place.’ A surge of affection for Nadri came with the words. The use of pidgin often released feeling between them in this way. Between those men who shared a woman, which was still the case with most, feelings were rarely neutral. There sometimes grew enmity and sometimes a close bond. But Paris knew that the grace of the friendship came from Nadri and the sense of this, a feeling close to gratitude, pained his throat still when he thought of it. Now, true to the restraints of his upringing, he sought for a way to continue that would not betray his feeling. ‘Tabakali,’ he said, ‘dat one woman look good an’ good insai.’
‘Dat de perfec’ trut,’ Nadri said gravely. ‘She one fine woman.’
The two nodded together on this and the silence of total accord fell upon them, broken after some time by Nadri. ‘Time for Palaver,’ he said. ‘They are coming together.’
They left the sickroom and made their way across to the wide clearing before the stockade gates, where people were already assembled, men, women and children, seated on mats brought for the purpose, in two files facing inwards, separated by the space of a dozen feet or so. Paris noticed Hughes among them and Amos and Cavana – men often away from the settlement. Cavana, of course, would have returned for the naming. Tabakali and the youngest child were there already and Paris and Nadri joined them.
The beck-man, or holder of the stick, elected for this occasion, was Billy Blair, a man without discernible interest to serve save that of justice, having no cultivation in common or trade connection with either of the disputing parties. He sat between the files, at one end, holding the elegant, silver-headed cane that had once belonged to Delblanc; he it was who, a year or so before his death, had introduced this regulating device into the chaos of their earlier debates. No one could address the assembly unless he was on his feet between the files and holding the cane; and it was the task of the beck-man to make sure this rule was observed.
As was customary, the accuser spoke first. Hambo walked to and fro between the lines, gesturing fiercely with the cane. Iboti, he said, had tried to kill him by making a powerful fetish and attaching it to the roof of his hut. He had returned to his hut to find the fetish-bundle in the thatch. Danka had seen him find it. The bundle contained dried leaves, two sticks, one of them sharpened, and two cane whistles, one of them filled with dust. He knew Iboti had put it there because Iboti had threatened to kill him. He had threatened this in the hearing of Arifa, the woman they shared. ‘He say he kill me,’ Hambo said, with a prolonged flourish of the stick. ‘He say make me eye blind, gut rot, spit blood. Arifa hear him say it.’
‘Dat lie,’ Iboti shouted suddenly from his place beside Tongman. ‘Hambo, you say lie.’ He swallowed and the whites of his eyes showed prominently as he glanced from side to side of him.
‘You call me lie?’ Hambo stopped near Iboti and glowered down at him. ‘You pig Bulum, you call me lie I break you troat,’ he said.
‘Iboti,’ Billy said, ‘you turn come baimbai. Hambo got de stick now. Hambo, you talk badmowf, I take back stick, you altagedder finish.’
Sullenly Hambo gave back a little and after a moment resumed his pacing. He was shorter than the other Shantee, stocky in build and deep-chested. The column of his neck was not much narrower than the back of his head, which gave him the look of having been hewn from a single block. In contrast to his fierce gestures, he spoke rather slowly, pausing sometimes to marshal his thoughts. In these pauses, he made loud spitting sounds in token of the truth of his words. Arifa, he said, had not only heard the threats but had seen Iboti gathering dust from a footprint, as she would shortly be telling them. ‘Now I show fetish, you sabee I speak trut’,’ he said. He went to his place,