“The snake was Baba Kaseko’s,” Husseina said. “He said he will hurt us even more for crossing him. Yaya, his eyes were red. Maybe he was the snake that came in here.”
“If he was the snake, he would be dead by now,” said Yaya. “But I should have known he’d sent it.”
“Maybe his spirit left the snake’s body before the drummer killed it. Yaya, everything he’s sent has involved pain or death. The ants… The rat was dead. The snake died. He said we’d fall sick.”
“Tell me everything he said again.”
Husseina did as told, then she said, “He said what he’s sending next, we wouldn’t be able to see.”
The old woman said, “I’m going to Bahia. I was going to leave you here and go and come back, but it’s not safe. It’s better if I take you to Bahia.”
She didn’t know what Bahia was, or what it would bring, but her heart swelled with impatient excitement. Anything to get away from that fearsome Baba Kaseko.
“To prepare you, from now on, Tereza is going to speak to you only in Portuguese,” said Yaya.
*
Husseina was glad to have Tereza teach her Portuguese. Tereza wasn’t serious like Yaya, and Husseina could ask her questions. There was an unspoken rule in Botu that children didn’t talk back to elders, and in Lagos, it was the same. Tereza was more like an older sister. She explained that once Husseina went away, she would become an Aguda like her. One who was taken away from home. Husseina wanted to retort that, in that case, she was already an Aguda, but she pressed her tongue between the blades of her teeth. Tereza said that Yaya was required by the British law of Lagos to have Husseina take English classes, but instead Yaya was sending her to Bahia because being able to receive Yemanjá was more valuable than knowing how to speak English. Tereza confessed to Husseina that she wanted to start a business selling goods between the Gold Coast and Lagos and was not really interested in continuing ceremonies while Yaya was away, but warned Husseina to keep this to herself. Husseina was glad to be confided in, but she also understood the keeping of secrets. She herself hadn’t told anyone about Hassana, because she didn’t want them treating her differently. After about a year of living in Lagos, she’d learnt that twins were revered—because of this, she was sure that if Yaya knew, she would tell her to go and look for her sister.
Yaya asked Husseina to dress in her sharpest gown and the two of them walked towards Campos Square and made their way down to a place called Marina. In all this time, Husseina knew they were close to water, especially when the rains came and people’s homes flooded. She just hadn’t realized they were completely surrounded by water. In the caravan heading to the Salaga market, there’d been a lot of talk of the big water, and then when Baba Kaseko had bought her, they’d travelled on what she thought was the big water, but from what Yaya had told Husseina, the big water was still ahead of her. It was what they would cross to get to Bahia. It seemed menacing. If there was one thing that made her clutch to her fear, it was deep and wide water. She wanted to go to Bahia with Yaya, but didn’t want to have to cross water.
They marched up a street with even bigger houses than on Bamgbose Street. These must have been six rooms wide and went up to four storeys. They passed by a box of a building, as white as Yaya’s clothing, then another that was smaller but coloured like a pale brown bean, and then a string of three identical blocks, until Yaya stopped and took a look at Husseina. Yaya dipped her finger in her mouth, and used the wet finger to wipe Husseina’s cheeks.
“Let’s go over the story again,” she said.
Husseina was Yaya Silvina’s niece, who had come from Ikere after she lost her mother. Her father went missing when she was a girl—at which point Yaya Silvina would suggest that, like her, he’d probably been sent over the big water, and when Yaya Silvina finally made it back to her village, Husseina was one of the only relatives still around.
The British authorities didn’t question their story and issued Husseina with a passport—a paper with her name, Vitória Silvina, and a picture of the Queen of England, sealed with a stamp.
Before they left for Bahia, a ceremony was held for Yemanjá, orixá of the waters, for safe passage.
The drums sing the same song. A call to come to them. She is overtaken, filled with their song, and her body shakes with their beat. Their music sends her body forwards and backwards, raises her limbs to the skies. She is free. She whirls, as if being pulled downwards, and then she rises. She is a spiral that never ends. She can do anything. She is ready for her journey.
Yaya Silvina warned that the journey would be one of the hardest things Husseina would suffer. She herself had been on those seas four times. The first time was as a girl, when she was snatched from her village and put in a barracoon for what felt like many moons before being forced on to a ship. At first, she was left to play around because she was a child. But when it was discovered that the slaves were plotting to jump overboard, everybody was chained to a post or to another person. She’d spent the whole journey plastered to the bodies of two other people. Too many bodies in one small wooden space. Hundreds of children, women and men. One person she was tied to didn’t make the crossing. It took days for the captain of the ship to come down and let his crew throw the body overboard. When they were allowed on the deck, they had guns constantly trained on them. Water and food were rationed. They arrived in Bahia and she was sold to a plantation owner.
It would be different for Husseina because she was going on the ship as a free person, with a British passport.
Husseina and Yaya set off early, crossed the lagoon in a canoe that Husseina had to be carried into, and arrived at the Lagos Bar, where a group of passengers had already gathered. It was a mix of brown-skinned people and some white men and women. In the distance, several large ships floated on the sea, and it astonished Husseina how these huge boats didn’t sink and seemed to lightly skim the surface of the water. Husseina had refused to deal with the fact that she was going to cross water, but now, standing before the big wide-open water, she couldn’t deny it any more. The lagoon was child’s play.
She’d had a terrifying recurring dream as a child, probably one of the only dreams she hadn’t shared with her sister. In the dream, very quickly, she was surrounded by water. It filled her throat and her lungs, bloated her and simultaneously sucked her into a vortex that spun and spun until she woke up choking. It always felt unending, and she’d told no one about the dream, because it frightened her lips shut. For days, she would walk around dazed, trying to make sense of it. It kept her out of water. It made her resent Hassana for being cavalier with water. Going down to the river with Baba Kaseko, she’d clutched his smock until they’d reached dry land. And now she had to cross this huge, unending lake.
A man sitting at a desk took their passports, examined the slip, wrote in a big book, then let them pass. Yaya Silvina climbed into a branch boat, where some of the gathered they’d seen earlier were seated. Husseina stood on the shore, rooted to the sand.
Come, beckoned Yaya.
Husseina shook her head.
“Stop being a child,” chided Yaya.
After a loud sucking of his teeth, one of the rowers splashed out of the canoe to hoist her into it. She was ashamed of her fear, so she looked down at her fist resting on her thighs. Another four people joined them and the canoe’s rowers, seated in the middle, pulled their oars towards their chests to get moving.