I continued to drift in that boat. Time was no longer of any importance. I think the boat trip lasted three days and three nights. I only rowed in to shore the few times I passed a small village and wanted to buy some food with the last of my money. In one of the villages there was a black man in the market that I had decided looked as if it sold the cheapest food. This was the shop I always looked for, the one with the dirty façade and the broken sign. He looked at me with serious eyes but when I smiled he smiled back. He said something to me that I did not understand. But when I answered him in my own language, the language that was already beginning to feel foreign to me, he jumped up from his rickety chair and answered me in the same language.
‘My daughter!’ he said. ‘You come from my country. What are you doing here, who are you, where are you going?’
I thought it was best to be careful in my answers. This man was one of my people, but he sat on a strange chair in a foreign land. Perhaps he would contact the police who would come down with their dogs and make sure I was thrown in jail. I did not know. But it was as if I had no more energy for subterfuge. I couldn’t run away or even give false answers. All of my lies felt meaningless, as if they were simply going to bounce back into my mouth and choke me. I decided to tell this man the truth.
‘I have escaped from a Spanish refugee camp.’
He frowned. I could see in his face all the lines and scars he had received from many dangers and sorrows.
‘How did you get here?’ he asked.
‘I walked.’
‘My God! You have walked from Spain?’
‘I have also drifted along the river in a boat.’
‘How long have you been travelling?’
When he asked me that question, I suddenly knew the answer. I thought I had lost all sense of time, but suddenly I could see the long line of white stones in my head. I counted them all.
‘Three months and four days,’ I said.
He shook his head in disbelief.
‘How have you managed? Where have you found food? Have you been alone? What is your name?’
‘Tea-Bag.’
The man was tall and strong, but his hair was already starting to turn white. He leaned forward and looked me in the eyes.
‘You have been alone for a long time but now you are my daughter. At least for a while. Soon Monsieur Le Patron will be back and then you can’t stay, since like the white man that he is he has explained to me he can only tolerate one black person at a time.’
