THE BOOK OF NEGROES by Lawrence Hill Page A

the man issuing orders like a father. “Without the helper listening. Gather information and bring it to me. I am Biton, Chief of Sama. I too am Bamana. Speak to me. Tell me everything. Do not forget. Do you hear me, child?”
    I gulped and nodded. “I was not supposed to be stolen,” I blurted out. “I am a freeborn Muslim.”
    “We have all been stolen,” he said. “When the time is right, we shall rise up. But for now, child, you must get us water.”
    “We leave soon,” I said, pleased that I could offer him something.
    “How do you know?”
    “I heard, outside. We leave very soon.”
    “Good,” he said. “Some of us have been in here for moons, and we are dying of the heat. Do you speak the toubabu’s language?”
    “No. But I speak Fulfulde too and know some prayers in Arabic.”
    “Learn the toubabu’s language,” he said, “but do not teach them ours.” The medicine man was pushing me from behind. Biton spoke once more: “Eleven Rains. Aminata Diallo! Remember your Bamana chief.”
    We struggled ahead. It was slow-going in the dark. After a brief spell, another hand reached out and took my wrist. I was about to slap it off, but when I turned, I saw Chekura.
    “Aminata,” he whispered.
    “Chekura,” I said.
    “You do not hate me for bringing you here?” he asked.
    “It is too hot in here for hate,” I said.
    “You will not tell anyone what I did? Before they trapped me?”
    “No. I want you to live.”
    He repeated my name over and over, and then added, “I must hear you say it. Please. Say it. Say my name.”
    “Chekura,” I said.
    “Someone knows my name. Seeing you makes me want to live.”
    I wondered if there was a way for me to bring him water. “Now we must all live,” I said. “Who wants to die in the anus of a lion?”
    My expression,
anus of a lion
, raced through the stacks of men. Biton heard the phrase and gave off a deep, booming laugh that echoed inside the hold. He shouted out the phrase, and the man next to him repeated it. Those who spoke Bamanankan called out. One man asked the question, and all the others answered.
    “Where are we?” the one said.
    “Sister says the anus of a lion,” two men called back.
    “I say where are we?” one called.
    “The anus of a lion,” more men called back.
    One man asked, “Who is the sister who visits us?”
    “Aminata. I am from Bayo, near Segu on the Joliba.”
    In the darkness, men repeated my name and called out their own as I passed. They wanted me to know them. Who they were. Their names. That they were alive, and would go on living.
    “Idrissa.”
    “Keita.”
    And so it went. I looked for Fomba, and finally saw him. I called out his name. He stared at me blankly. Not a word escaped his lips. “It’s me, Aminata,” I whispered. Nothing. He would not speak. I touched his cheek but he did not even blink. I wanted to lay my head down beside this great, strong man who had turned silent and empty, but the medicine man grabbed my arm and pointed ahead.
    The helper unlocked a wooden partition and slid it back, revealing a new room filled with about twenty women captives and a handful of infants. The women were not chained, but they had little room to move. In the middle of the hold, there was more headroom, so the women were standing there, although the taller ones had to stoop. I had to edge and twist myself about to get through the group. Women whispered their names to me and asked where I was from.
    A hand gripped me firmly by the elbow. It was Fanta’s. “Stay away from those toubabu, for they will eat you,” she said.
    I wriggled free and spun away from the crowd. I heard a baby begin to wail and I moved through the cluster of women until I found Sanu. She held my arm. “I need water or there will be no milk for the baby,” she said.
    I touched my fingers to hers.
    The medicine man pushed past me and headed up the stairs. The helper stopped, turned with his burning light, and said, “This is where you