Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [282]
‘Thurso was another who talked about the real world,’ Paris said after a moment and as if to himself. He looked at Kireku and attempted a smile. ‘Funny ting,’ he said. ‘Dey talk bout real worl’, dey never mean real worl’ where man help adder man or spend him life do good for people, dey allus mean real worl’ like rat in de cellar or dung-heap cock try git on top.’
Kireku said nothing to this and it was clear from his face that he thought it not worth answering.
Paris too sat silent for some time. It was not so much the force and penetration of the other’s argument that daunted him, considerable as these were, but the certainty and finality of the tone. He sought for a memory of Kireku aboard the slaveship, as if some clue to their present impasse could be found there. But no such memory was available to his mind. That shuffling, clanking dance to the sound of Sullivan’s fiddle, the mass of listless limbs and faces in the shadow of the awning amidships, the terrible cries from the fetid darkness of the hold, the stench of defecation, the corpses one so like another … Somewhere among those herded, brutalized people, featureless, indistinguishable in misery from the rest, this drive to power still dormant, undeclared. Perhaps it could only have declared itself here, he thought, with a painful sense of paradox. His mind staggered suddenly at the thought of what manifold talents, what capacities for good and ill, had been thrown from the deck of the Liverpool Merchant to feed the sharks. The moral argument, he now saw, had been a mistake, they were both trapped in the same bog. Perhaps all that was left was the argument of expediency. He thought of Delblanc and his doctrine of necessity. Even freedom and equality might be seen as necessities of survival …
‘My life in dis place, jus’ like you life,’ he said, in low tones. ‘Some man weak, some man not clever, I same mind wit you ’bout dat. But suppose I use weak man make me strong pas’ adder people an’ you do same-same ting, den we go fight, dis place altagedder finish.’ But he knew as he spoke that he had failed, that the discussion was over.
‘You wrong.’ Kireku smiled, a genial smile of complete equanimity. He now wore the same air as when Paris had first arrived: unruffled, sure of himself and his world. ‘Barton,’ he said, ‘I cold, go git my jackit.’
‘Aye-aye.’
Kireku nodded humorously at Paris. ‘Barton no slave,’ he said. ‘Barton too close me, he too bad man for slave. Poor Paree, you no sabee nottin’, no sabee de shit of de fire from de burnin’ of de fire. I no ask come here. Now I here I fight for place. Strong man get rich, him slave get rich. Strong man make everybody rich. Everybody dis place happy an’ rich come from trade. Some man not free, nevermind, buggerit, trade free. Dis palaver finish now. Barton, take Paree show him way along.’
It was a dismissal. Kireku looked austerely away while Paris rose and barely acknowledged his departure. As instructed, Barton walked some way with him.
The former mate seemed disposed to say something on his own account and they stood together for a few minutes some way beyond Amansa’s cooking fire. The last of the sunshine lay over the settlement and there was no breath of wind. Smoke from the fires rose in slow plumes and the cabbage palms outside the stockade stood motionless and stiff, the dead, withered lower fronds bright rust-colour where the sun caught them.
Barton’s face still bore some traces of the amusement which the recent conversation seemed to have afforded him. ‘Kireku is in the right of it,’ he said. ‘He hasn’t had the benefits of a lib’ral eddication, but he got the better of you. Stands to reason, you will not stop men of talent from risin’ up, any more than you can stop cuddies like Iboti from sinkin’. You will never