Anansi

Boy But Father, I still don’t see how all those people on the shore can be a cargo.

Captain Books or no books, you have a lot to learn on this voyage. Look to it and do not bother me with damn fool questions.

Boy But who are the people on the shore, Father?

Captain You are on a serious trading venture whilst you are on my ship, and as the ship’s boy you’ll address me as Captain, especially in front of the ratings. You’ll learn all about the cargo and such soon enough.

Boy They looked just like people to me. But they were tied together. They looked frightened. Why…?

Captain (cutting him off.) I do not have to give you explanations. I am your father.

Boy I thought you said your name was Captain.

Girl …Please come and hold me, Mama. Tell me this isn’t true.

Woman What’s true is true. Don’t fight it. You’re alive and it’s true. It’s true.

Girl Who are you? I can feel your warmth but I can’t see you.

Woman I am who I am, and you are who you are. No amount of fear and darkness can change that truth. Hold on to it! Hold on!

Boy Captain, what happens to the cargo when we get to Jamaica?

Captain We auction them, and if this fever leads to depreciation, it’ll be at a loss, though the insurance will provide at least some recompense.

Boy Who will be recompensed, sir?

Captain Our masters in London, so start praying they are merciful should we lose too many.

Boy Our masters, sir?

Captain Yes, boy, our masters. Do you think there is a man alive who has no master of one kind or another?

Woman Don’t tie yourself up with words like impossible. Ears can be better at seeing than eyes can, if you listen and don’t just hear. Now tell me: what is our Anansi doing now?

…

Girl Look at him! He can hardly get his web started! He scrambles up to that beam, and then falls, and then he creeps up again, then he falls back again, and each time he tries he can’t get a single thread to stick to that beam. Why doesn’t he just give up and start in a new place? Maybe he’ll just give up and die…

Woman But he is free, and you are not.

Girl But he’s so little and weak… He’s just trying and getting nowhere… Wait! He managed! He got one little thread onto the beam! A little, little spider with thin, thin legs. Ha! Anansi. Who gave him that name?

Woman You may think he’s too weak and small to have a name, but that little spider, Anansi, was once king.

Woman Listen! You must be strong the way Anansi is strong. Strong on the inside. And you do have a mother.

Girl But she isn’t here!

Woman Africa is your mother… I will teach you stories. They are a treasure no one can steal, even if they have stolen your body… Tell me what you see.

Girl No!

Woman Tell me, girl: tell me what you see.

Girl The beginning of a web in the dark. How strong those tiny threads must be for Anansi to swing from them.

Woman Strong enough, you see? From inside himself he finds the strength to make his web: just enough and no more. Enough is all he needs to catch a fly.

Captain A diary? That sort of nonsense is for lasses. Put it away and get on with your work.

Boy But you keep a diary, Captain.

Captain. These are the ship’s journals and accounts. The ship’s log.

Boy But they still tell a story.

Captain The only story that counts, young man. The story that says that money makes the world go round.

They go on their way, brushing aside a spider’s web as they pass.

Girl That one was just a boy my age.

Woman They don’t come in just one size, child. Even these great conquerors can’t build a person from nothing. They grow just like you.

Girl I know it, Mother. That’s our secret, like spinning a web.

Woman Now you’re showing strength. Weave your little web, like a dream in the dark, and wait, wait, wait.

Girl Why does Anansi keep looking for trouble?

Woman Because if you have wits like Anansi you have to use them. Like a knife, you have to keep them sharp. And like a knife, you can use them rightly or wrongly: to cut bread with, to live, to kill, or to harm yourself. One little knife against all these men: that’s all you’ve got. Keep it hidden!

Sailor No, no. you’re out of your depth there, boy. Slaves are different… more like beasts, or so they reckon.

Boy It isn’t true! I saw a girl today, down… down there…

Sailor Your trouble is too much imagination. You think too much and some thoughts is plain dangerous.

Boy But she wasn’t a beast! She was just like me!

Sailor I’ve no time for this. A man is a man and a beast is a beast. The good book says that men were given to rule over beasts as they see fit, and neither you nor I are free to question that. Now let me be. Beasts or no, I’m just doing my job, and if throwing away spoiled cargo is part of it, then who am I to argue? If you want to know more, young sir, ask yourself whose fiddle your father dances to and why he jigs at all. Aye, there’s a God to be reckoned with.

Woman Riddle me this, riddle me that.

Girl What is your riddle?

Woman So light you can barely see it. So beautiful no human being can hope to make one. Strong enough to hunt with, pure enough to see through, always being made again.

Girl Anansi’s web!

Woman Good. You’re growing. This is the little answer to my riddle

Girl And the big answer?

Woman The big answer is the soul.

Girl Are we going to die?

Woman I’ve told you once before, girl; you’re going to live.

Girl But I want you with me! You’re my mother now!

Woman I’ll be with you.

Girl How?

Woman Listen to my story.

Girl (Laughing.) I love that story! It’s the best!

Woman It’s all one story. Beginning, middle and end.

Girl But I don’t see an end.

Woman Young eyes don’t see an end. That’s as it should be.

Girl What do you mean?

Woman Where’s our little Anansi?

Girl I can’t see him now. The big man brushed him away. It’s just as if he was never there.

Woman But you can see it still, in your mind’s eye. Can you see it?

Girl Yes, I can. I will always see it, and I will always see you.

Woman Well, then. I have no more to say. (Coughing.) Good stories leave pictures in your mind, and they belong to you forever.

Sailor Well if it isn’t our young genius. Found out the color of God yet?

Boy Yes.

Sailor Now you should beware of blasphemy, boy. It’s bad for the soul.

Boy Is it?

Sailor Where is the captain? Are you doing his ledgers for him at the auction?

Boy He’s sick. Yes, I’m doing his ledgers.

The scene freezes. We are in the Forest of Stories again. The Girl steps down and begins to tell us a story.

Girl. Once upon a time there was a clever, tricksy spider called Anansi, who lived in the Forest of Stories. If he was hungry, he got what he wanted. So will I. And this is how… In the Forest of Stories there’s no such thing as time. And in that time, once upon a time, lived a mean old woman with a heart full of hate, a terrible thirst and a calabash full of other people’s tears to quench it. Nobody knew her name, except her children. Dog and Cat and Crab. Now these weren’t her real children, because her real children had run away from her long ago. And why? Because she treated them like slave. Now look and listen what happened to her.

Girl And she threw the empty calabash at Crab, and all the tears that all her slaves had ever cried made it stick, hard and fast, to his back. And hard work and a hard back have been stuck together ever since… That’s what my story’s going to be: a hard back, many tears and a name that nobody knows. A new story for a new world.

She steps back into the auction scene, which comes back to life. She doesn’t look frightened anymore

Auctioneer SOLD!

Girl Once upon a time there was a girl who got taken away. She lives in a story that never seems to end. Remember her.

Auctioneer SOLD!