Our monkey still skittering, scratching, tugging the little collar out away from he neck what’s worn right raw. Nobody sees the three prettyish princesses what got dragged up here. No trace of our high-breasted sisters what tried to do pleasing things, tried so hard to stay alive they probably didn’t have no pride left to stay alive with. Not a sign, and us not daring mention it among ourself. We studying all round for them, not wanting anybody else from home to see us scouting. Odd, to feel ashamed, like this sin were someway ours.
One smooth new Bleach-head must of slunk aboard last night. He young but wearing this old-seeming long black robe. It fall over he feet, trips him sometimes. Have on a high stiff collar so full of white paste, seems it cinching off the blood to he long blinky face. He got sky eyes so sky they purple. Soon as we been dragged hissing into sun, hands shelling eyes, this fellow in black start milling round among The Tribe That Answers.
He soon moved everywhere with two long sticks tied crossways, a staff like Reba’s missing walking pole. He wore other little sticks crossed on a belt, trapped to a leashing chain of beads. He keep smiling/signing in this tender careful way. He the first one seem to know he dealing with the royal sixteenth of a good tribe. Eyes closed, he somewhat talking to heself. Keep stooping before each one us thirsty folks. This boat mighty low on sweet water. We ain’t had no drop to drink for three days. You know how long three days can run without one drop of wet floating anywheres in it? Fancy you own thirstiness while hearing the splash of all them Tears you sailing through. Our lips feel made of salt. This black-dress drags among us. He child-looking, hid in such long robes.
Then he whips out a little silver bowl, pours water in it. Well, when us spied that cold-looking drink, we took proper measure of this sad-face, sure. We now seen how the crossed sticks have one tiny clay man nailed to them. Being earth color, this toy person look somewhat less Bleach than our sailors. Clay man been caved in, skin-and-bones as us after long weeks’ floating noplace and eating just oatmeal. Seem a good omen, earthware man arms out on the stick, even with him tacked there. Plus, oh listen at that black-dress’s cool blue water sloshing in he silver bowl. He pulls each us off aside. Reba among the first he notice. Her lung-unravel cough seem to draw him, like he gots to work fast. He dip three fingers into wet. Reba point at Reba mouth hole, proving where that water oughts to go. Black-dress bend right over her but his fingertips, dainty-like, press just a few sample drops on top her nappy gray hair. Quick, Reba wags her head, pokes out a extra-long brown clever tongue and, sly, catches wet flung off her shooken scalp. Others oohed, admiring. Reba holler over at us, “Sweet water, sure. Get ready.” My practical old Auntie pats stray beads off she pate, then quick scoops damp to her few-toothed mouth. Seeing this, the Bleach boy slap Auntie a good one down side her head. Hollow-gourd thwak. He then seem to feel half bad, instead he stroke her old noggin. But when the next thirsty person tried Reba’s stunt, why that one got cuffed way harder. That cousin’s nose done bled from it, Mrs. Pisscopalian.
All during, Reba told us, “My baby snakebite on the ankle, the one I got when both me and the snake was babies, say Bleaches is a superstitious race. Believes in spirits, all like that. But, listen, they religion just going to make them riper for finally obeying our will and lessons. They ain’t yet got no codes, no true rules. We they living help. That one sprinkling us, with black tent trying and stretch long enough to hides he feets!, he remind Reba of how back home, we sometimes got that hunger what’d drive us to rush downriver and eat a good piece of soft clay. Remember? That like what’s forced these palenesses clear cross Tears to us. We bout to fill that deep white maw what’s felt real empty way too long. You think it a accident how that spirit-minded Bleach boy be wearing black? It the hue of mysteries. We the very nourishment-answering earth they lack so bad. They ready. Kinfolks? Listen up. Prepare your color, prime you starting talks.—We on a mission to civilize.”
2
NEXT DAWN, with us stretched across the deck, scent of it woke us long before the sun done let us peek. Dirt, a campfire, the sweet smell of one mild flowering hedge blown this far out into the night’s last scrap. Your head be turned in the exact right direction—your eyes both knows right where to wait so—working—you could help hatch land out of wishing and into plain holy sight. Even us little ones perked like old animals at the smell of remembered earth, our new home.
We runs to the rails, least so far that way as chains’d let us. There! Where sky and water meet—a gray line soon say, “I here all right. You ain’t making me up.” It start so blue, next dip more grayish till final daylight sharpens land to being bitter parrot green. The King (what’s acted so sulky-quiet for some days) finally speak up in he finest purple-black grapey voice. He claim Reba been wrong all along. “Where the white village she kept telling us gone be here?” King swear that this boat just turned around, this be our home again. “Full circle,” he go, trying and sound wise. Soon, Poppa promise that our own fierce warriors gone paddle dugouts into view. Old Reba don’t even speak, just rest on she back, flat as her crook neck gone let her lie. Aunt’s front side spread open to the sun, her breaths frizzing/crackling in her (the damp, weeks of it, so little food/drink, why it hadn’t agreed with the old lady). Reba shake her head No, onct. Us look at her, at King, and then to bleachnesses—their boat’s red sails rain-washed cream pale as them.
They guides this thing direct towards one new speck cut from the strung-along green. A little rain come up, cooling us, making our irons wear better but stinging cuts hid festering underneath. Now, in light, some our folks tried peeking under metal to see how bad them hurt spots be. Reba, sensing this, screams mean as ever, “Keep every eye on shore, don’t piffle with you nearby no-count woes. Do what Auntie say do, you.”
Folks did.
Sailors grown busier after spying a far-off fleck the same no-color as them. White birds give louder hoots, wing-spinning, like glad we here.
Bleachnesses start washing us in sweet water, they heaves buckets of it our way, laughing to see how good us like it. Ain’t we river people! (Why is sailors wasting good water for this after keeping us so thirsty for so long?) Once our bathing’s done, suet-faces pass us coconut butter (the home smell!). They shown us how to rub it on our bare legs and arms and chests, all into scalps. It lets us look somewhat like the healthy gleaming crown-heads we once been a goodly while ago.
Our sailors then make another of Reba’s promises come true. Out pulled bananas in huge bunches (baby-sized to rotten ones, all tribal in a single shape). Came halfs of coconut, fruit, cooked meat what must’ve slipped on board last night when that young mumbler-in-black did. First, gobbling, our throats closed up. Strange to find, it takes practice even to learn eating anew. Then we got a few morsels down but spit them up. Food seem scared of being sent down to dark belowdecks but got sent anyhow and learnt to stay. Flat on she back, Reba—like the rest of us—just stuffing it in, laughing, she crackling bad.
Whitenesses start jattering, excited, pushing each other, pointing. One young one seem near crying, clutching a small picture. Some us peeked—it looked to be a female Bleach. (Hair piled up, face even more lizard-belly white than him. Make us sick!)
Boat soon drift close enough so us seen a settlement sharper. Glide near, glide nearer. Be truly something. White houses and white temples maybe built to honor made-up sad white sky gods. Seem like Reba done announced it right. We been brought here as a bridge between all-color in our world (home/mud/orchid/mud/jungle/free food) and this blank polished port, this lack of anything but pure space waiting to be filled/drummed/scribbled right. We feeling proudened, ready. Every texture what’s been missing, it done finally turned up. It have arrived at last—it here, in us.
Steep village sent more white boxes creeping onto hills piled round the harbor. You eyes just smarted from how much white aches here. Great cubes, columns, blocks, all painted bright, rising high and sure off ground, not once falling. No end to how these waterside huts could add up an
d up and link in rows. Like chains. This much seem clear—bleachnesses’ favorite shape is—chains.
Kinfolks lift Reba so she can see more good. Heaven’s village appear to be missing everything cozy (no straw, no color, no mud, no dogs) but it still must mean home to sailors. Too weak on deck, Aunt been peeking out twixt slatted rails. Now Reba (in air) spreads wide her wobbly arms to greet the holy city.
Reba’s either hand ease open, snakebites’ knots shown pearlish double fang marks yet sunk into each palm. Legs and arms be all uncrossed in open sun, but each still dangling chains what hooks her firm to us.
She hoist she head, she greeting imagined on-land whitenesses. With all her strength, Reba now grinning a grin ain’t none of us ever seen out her before. Be a smile that almost scared us. Her face alone won’t grinning—the whole head, whole top half of she crinched body beaming. If anybody’d ever doubt Reba’s plans for us, the truth of all she prophesighed—doubts ended with a face this lit.
Our wide-backed King heself be among gents not hoisting, holding her. With both hands braced under Aunt’s sharp shoulder blades, maybe King were spooked to feel this brittle witch, most blinded but squinting so at shore. (Who among us last touched Reba?) Did it scare Poppa King to know that Aunt, for all her power, only weighed bout as much as a good-sized jungle mantis? Now he craning hard to see her strange smiling face hooked to a twiggish spine he helping to uphold. While pale birds circle and air-oar, King announce in a voice not like his usual bass boss, “From now on, I just another kinfolk of this woman. Reba stay lighter longer than I ever hope to. I only proud to be so full she blood. What her say do, we do. Or I do … cause I no longer gots the right to boss no soul but mine alone, if that.”
Reba, not seeming to notice, stare off towards the waiting white village, she now hoarsely speaking to it. “We here. Not to worry no more. We done gots to you in time, you lucky. And after us have taught you, you ain’t never gone look so cold nor strange nor dead again. You watch.”
The monkey, swallowing same foods as us, still keeps chittering a coded monkey warning at us all. Reba cough/say, “First they done bathed us, they then anointed us with coconut oil. Nextly we been fed a feast prepared by our own enemies. Soon they gone lead us off of waterland and onto shore and towards our rightful thrones. So carry on like who you be by birth.”
Our folks now treating Auntie roundbout like a river goddess. All Auntie done said, its every particle keep coming true. The sassy princess look right bothered in her face, maybe dreaming she might one day turn out a third as smart as this woman what foretells worlds. Once the old one is lowered onto deck, the princess squats at Reba’s left hand. Be three princes per Auntie foot. Our boat drift near to boats way bigger. They all rope-chained onto land. At harbor’s edge, a thousand white faces start slow-turning our way.
“Prepare,” breathing hard, our old one ratchets, “your subjects waits you. Be ready … to answer, but … do it slow. They gone need time to learn … what a real language sound like. You bout ripe for you shackles to be shed? … Our time’s at hand, my blood kin. We here. We done got Heaven early, but we been let to stay alive to notice it.”
OUR SHIP got drawed in by ropes, then was boa-ed around with chains even thicker than our own. Past the docks, we seen strange animals—brown-black, as us—but long-nosed beasts pulling carts they strapped to, eyes eclipsed by shells, and some was being whipped to make them move. At the gangplank’s end, we got greeted by twenty mens in white hats, white tunics, holding whiter papers. They stand looking honored to come out and welcome us proper. We all yet linked—ankle, wrist, and neck—one group.
Our sailor Bleaches led us—naked, shining, our metal knocking out a kind of music down the plank wood. Long the shore, great crowds of idlers turn. “Hold up them heads. Look to it. I done tolt you,” Reba screeing shrill at us. She fighting for air but smiling down on dockside Blanks. She nodding while bossing us out one side her mouth. “Don’t stare back at them, fools. Square them shoulders, stick out you bellies. Act proud as you feels, Regal Teachers of the Law.—We done brung them answers cause it us they axted.”
Quiet onshore water-bodies studied us all over (which won’t too hard). Two sailors lug Reba on a stretcher. She too frail for walking. Weeks in wetness sure have made a dent in such wiry health as our oldest started with. Not caring, she yet grinning in her wild-eyed way. Three brown teeths shown, proud. She just laying back on that stretcher, hands behind she head like some great dying queen—long expected. Auntie wave, cackling down, nodding Yes to this brute’s face and that’s. Reba signal greeting at ten little boy Bleaches now trotting beside her stretcher and hollering up salty-sounding words. (Auntie just love them for knowing who she is.) The plain sight of her royal extra-ugly self seem to fill Blanks with such pleasure, made some nearbout hoot with joy. Some pointed, grinning, laughing at our Reba. Already, bleachness heathens learning joy!
Then, like Aunt vowed, us got led into a little toolshed and, magic, off them chains did fall. Ooh, the sound of so much weight dropping! Once unlocked, instead of running off apart, everybody clumple gainst each other. Grinning so, eyes wet, you gasping at this feel of semi-free. Arms and legs seem so light, you was like a pile of feathers what might blow clear home cross all them miles of Tears. We keep rubbing wrists and ankles and expecially round our blistered necks. Did I say, Lady Fair? how all the grown folks had steel hoops clamped round they necks. Should of. Did. (Boss, you see how strange the sun looks through third-story windows? Fires. You gone soon be running out you mansion in the next six, eight minutes. Trust me in this.) Feeling free air move once more gainst all parts, we got readier to forgive Bleachnesses, forgive them just for undoing some the pain they’d put to us.
Sky-eyes eased out vats of black tarry paint. Brushed this mess at chain sores on our wrists, ankles, necks, at fever blisters on you lip. Paint hid the damage but it sure did hurt way worse to have you open cuts so smothered. “Medcine,” Reba speak from her pallet on the floor. “Damn crude, but medcine.”
A heavyset Bleach what’d greeted us now counted heads. Made sure he didn’t get tricked out of even one rich-blooded royal. He helped squire us into the palm-high teeth-white room. Hall be so huge you didn’t know how it could hold itself up. Us—all fed, looking sleeked with coconut grease, our hurts sealed under paint too dark to match us but still covering wounds—we now got nudged up onto a platform. (Only somebody strong as Reba could keep from calling out, after foresaying so much, “I done told you so!”) The stage it sunk inside a pit, seats curled inside a fancy funnel boring down on us. All high up around, many empty chairs was lined—some paradise council hall.
We known now, sure. We here to offer solid teachings to these watered ones.
Each of us got busy—unchained, finally fed—memory-mapping our first real talk. Reba’d warned, be patient how we starts off telling. Take it slow. They dim.
Whitenesses what’d sailed with us now got paid many yellow tear-shaped bits of metal. They rush off, doing jigs. The tree-legged one was leading our chained monkey, he done a joyful spin on he wood foot. Ape’s leash wound partway round it, little creature shrieking. Off went our tall yellowhead with the chained spare heart. We watch sailors march away from us, arms ropey round each other. Our sailors didn’t even look back to thank us proper or say bye. Odd, but we already almost missed them. See, Lady, we had knowed them ones the longest. We all loves what we knows because we knows it.
Greeters start to opening our mouths, fingertipping all round. We turn towards where Reba lay smiling yet, shaking her grizzledy head Yes, yes. We seen how Aunt’s black skin had growed right ashy, bad sign in somebody she old. Though it hot as anything here, Aunt’d pulled the stretcher’s sour blankets all up round her, shaking bad. We heard how much it cost her, trying and explain, “They studying how teeths should be. Maybe … gone copy ours for ones on they idols. They a bit too eager in learning. Try and act patient with them, friends.” After hearing Reba’s news of what this mean, w
hy even the King open he mouth full wide, acting proud to show off royal molars to these glum-faced fuzz-cheeked grubs. The plump-set boss one kept tracing down messages bout us in long snaking lines.
I clung on to my mother—watching everything. One un-dark, he eased my beautiful Queen and me, plus four my younger aunts, into a side room. He pull a curtain behind us. Six young bleachnesses stand waiting there, grinning, they white hats tilted fancy to one side. They have on fine pale suits what make their faces glow a riper pink. One these Bleach bucks just rubbing hands together, that pleased to finally spy he race’s new Queen. Next, us got led to the mens, mens begins touching our sassy princess all over she. Her go stiff as dead, unsassy, lost to who she been. Mens even starts handling my mother’s breasts. Milk got on the fingers of one bleachness. He joke and shown this milk to others, seem to dare he friends to lick it off. Momma, a-scared, call through the curtain loud at Reba. Tell Auntie that, uh-oh, the young whitish ones seem to be prodding, uh-oh, sad to say, opening the Queen’s nearest and most, uh-oh, herself-type body places. One the Queen’s new pupils now be down on he knees and peeking up and under, oh such cold-fingered studying. It hurt the person.
“They just trying and learn what real womens should be. Behaves strong, beautiful child, forgives a bit more. I know it hard, but remember—being so famous a beauty do have its duties to it. You the first queen them unsouls done ever met. You a model, royal one, so be it, full.” Then Momma just suck in air, brace both legs. But all while chewing she lower lip, fighting not to cry out none. I felt her straining to act worthy of all tributes what these many chilly hands keep paying her and paying her.