Butler, Octavia - Wild Seed

But the man left without coercion.

Anyanwu coaxed Okoye to swallow some of the liquid. It made him cough and choke at first, but he got it down. By the time Doro came to the cabin, Okoye was asleep.

Doro opened the door without warning and came in. He looked at her with obvious pleasure and said, “You are well, Anyanwu. I thought you would be.”

“I am always well.”

He laughed. “You will bring me luck on this voyage. Come and see whether my men have bought any more of your relatives.”

She followed him deeper into the vessel through large rooms containing only a few people segregated by sex. The people lounged on mats or gathered in pairs or small groups to talk—those who had found others who spoke their language.

No one was chained as the slaves on shore had been. No one seemed to be hurt or frightened. Two women sat nursing their babies. Anyanwu heard many languages, including, finally, her own. She stopped at the mat of a young woman who had been singing softly to herself.

“Who are you?” she asked the woman in surprise.

The woman jumped to her feet, took Anyanwu’s hands. “You can speak,” she said joyfully. “I thought I would never again hear words I could understand. I am Udenkwo.”

The woman’s own speech was somewhat strange to Anyanwu. She pronounced some of her words differently or used different words so that Anyanwu had to replay everything in her mind to be certain what had been said. “How did you get here, Udenkwo?” she asked. “Did these whites steal you from your home?” From the corner of her eye, she saw Doro turn to look at her indignantly. But he allowed Udenkwo to answer for herself.

“Not these,” she said. “Strangers who spoke much as you do. They sold me to others. I was sold four times—finally to these. She looked around as though dazed, surprised. “No one has beaten me here or tied me.”

“How were you taken?”

“I went to the river with friends to get water. We were all taken and our children with us. My son …”

“Where is he?”

“They took him from me. When I was sold for the second time, he was not sold with me.” The woman’s strange accent did nothing to mask her pain. She looked from Anyanwu to Doro. “What will be done with me now?”

This time Doro answered. “You will go to my country. You belong to me now.”

“I am a freeborn woman! My father and my husband are great men!”

“That is past.”

“Let me go back to my people!”

“My people will be your people. You will obey me as they obey.”

Udenkwo sat still, but somehow seemed to shrink from him. “Will I be tied again? Will I be beaten?”

“Not if you obey.”

“Will I be sold?”

“No.”

She hesitated, examining him as though deciding whether or not to believe him. Finally, tentatively, she asked: “Will you buy my son?”

“I would,” Doro said, “but who knows where he may have been taken—one boy. How old was he?”

“About five years old.”

Doro shrugged. “I would not know how to find him.”

Anyanwu had been looking at Udenkwo uncertainly. Now, as the woman seemed to sink into depression at the news that her son was forever lost to her, Anyanwu asked: “Udenkwo, who is your father and his father?”

The woman did not answer.

“Your father,” Anyanwu repeated, “his people.”

Listlessly, Udenkwo gave the name of her clan, then went on to name several of her male ancestors. Anyanwu listened until the names and their order began to sound familiar—until one of them was the name of her eighth son, then her third husband.

Anyanwu stopped the recitation with a gesture. “I have known some of your people,” she said. “You are safe here. You will be well treated.” She began to move away. “I will see you again.” She drew Doro with her and when they were beyond the woman’s hearing, she asked: “Could you not look for her son?”

“No,” Doro said. “I told her the truth. I would not know where to begin—or even whether the boy is still alive.”

“She is one of my descendants.”

“As you said, she will be well treated. I can offer no more than that.” Doro glanced at her. “The land must be full of your descendants.”

Anyanwu looked somber. “You are right. They are so numerous, so well scattered, and so far from me in their generations that they do not know me or each other. Sometimes they marry one another and I hear of it. It is abomination, but I cannot speak of it without focusing the wrong kind of attention on the young ones. They cannot defend themselves as I can.”

“You are right to keep silent,” Doro said. “Sometimes ways must be different for people as different as ourselves.”

“We,” she said thoughtfully. “Did you have children of … of a body born to your mother?”

He shook his head. “I died too young,” he said. “I was thirteen years old.”

“That is a sad thing, even for you.”

“Yes.” They were on deck now, and he stared out at the sea. “I have lived for more than thirty-seven hundred years and fathered thousands of children. I have become a woman and borne children. And still, I long to know what my body could have produced. Another being like myself? A companion?”

“Perhaps not,” said Anyanwu. “You might have been like me, having one ordinary child after another.”

Doro shrugged and changed the subject. “You must take your daughter’s son to meet that girl when he is feeling better. The girl’s age is wrong, but she is still a little younger than Okoye. Perhaps they will comfort each other.”

“They are kinsmen!”

“They will not know that unless you tell them, and you should be silent once more. They have only each other, Anyanwu. If they wish, they can marry after the customs of their new land.”

“And how is that?”

“There is a ceremony. They pledge themselves to each other before a”—he said an English word, then translated—“a priest.”

“They have no family but me, and the girl does not know me.”

“It does not matter.”

“It will be a poor marriage.”

“No. I will give them land and seed. Others will teach them to live in their new country. It is a good place. People need not stay poor there if they will work.”

“Children of mine will work.”

“Then all will be well.”

He left her and she wandered around the deck looking at the ship and the sea and the dark line of trees on shore. The shore seemed very far away. She watched it with the beginnings of fear, of longing. Everything she knew was back there deep within those trees through strange forests. She was leaving all her people in a way that seemed far more permanent than simply walking away.

She turned away from the shore, frightened of the sudden emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. She looked at the men, some black, some white, as they moved about the deck doing work she did not understand. The yellow-haired white man came to smile at her and stare at her breasts until she wondered whether he had ever seen a woman before. He spoke to her slowly, very distinctly.

“Isaac,” he said pointing to his chest. “Isaac.” Then he jabbed a finger toward her, but did not touch her. He raised his bushy pale eyebrows questioningly.

“Isaac?” she said stumbling over the word.

“Isaac.” He slapped his chest. Then he pointed again. “You?”

“Anyanwu!” she said understanding. “Anyanwu.” She smiled.

And he smiled and mispronounced her name and walked her around the deck naming things for her in English. The new language, so different from anything she had ever heard, had fascinated her since Doro began teaching it to her. Now she repeated the words very carefully and strove to remember them. The yellow-haired Isaac seemed delighted. When, finally, someone called him away, he left her reluctantly.