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White Man’s Grave
- University of Wisconsin Press
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White Man’s Grave G ranny says, Beware and take care of the Bight of Benin, Where few come out, though many go in. My father says, “You make the best kippers I have ever tasted.” The whole house smells of buttery smoky fish. I say, “What’s the Bight of Benin?” “The sea along the coast of Nigeria,” says my father, “but it means the land too.” “When I went to the Gold Coast,” Granny says, “people called West Africa ‘the White Man’s Grave.’” “Where’s the Gold Coast?” “Ghana now. The old hands liked to scare the new ones with stories of blackwater fever and men going mad and men going native. The worst part was the loneliness. Most wives didn’t accompany their husbands. Nobody ever took children to West Africa . They stayed at home with their mothers. I was lucky. Your father,” she looks at my mother, “your father wasn’t service. He 195 196 was there on contract to build a bridge. About a year after I had you the contract ran out so he came home.” I eat the last flake of yellow fish. I think about the White Man’s Grave but all I can see is the giant billboard outside of Lagos airport . It is a picture of a huge black man with white teeth. He is looking straight out at you, holding an enormous glass. Most of the glass is dark brown like his skin but on top is creamy foam which looks like any minute it’s going to run down the sides of the glass. Underneath in big red letters it says, Guinness Gives You Power. Granny gets up and leaves the room. Bill mixes the ketchup on his plate with the juice from the kippers then he dips his finger in it. His finger goes from his mouth to the plate to his mouth. He looks as calm as the grandfather clock in the corner. Granny comes back in holding a thin grey book. It is the book she found in the trunk. “I thought you’d be interested,” she says, handing it to my father. He looks at the spine and then he opens it. “Nineteen twenty five. An official guide, no less.” “We read it cover to cover,” says Granny, “trying to find out what we were in for.” My father coughs and holds the book out in front of him. He reads, “To anyone about to visit West Africa, the first thing to remember is to discount the tales one hears about the coast, whether before the start, or on board the ‘monkey-boat,’ as the West African liners are euphemistically termed. Do you know where the word ‘posh’ comes from?” He is looking at me. I shake my head. “Listen. If possible, get a cabin on the port side going out, as in that case one has the advantage of the night land breeze from that side along the coast. Now do you know?” I shake my head. “Port Out Starboard Home. POSH. The posh people got the best cabins.” C y c l e 3 [52.90.40.84] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:50 GMT) “Did you?” I ask Granny. She shakes her head. “Listen to this. Always wear a wool cummerbund at night, always wear wool next to the skin and put on a big sweater after polo, tennis, and all hard exercise.” “No wonder they died like flies,” says my mother. “Can you imagine? Wool next to your skin in that heat.” “From dawn to about 4:30 pm a sun topi (hat) must be worn.” Granny says, “Ladies then didn’t run around trying to turn their white skin black. We did everything we could to keep our complexions.” I never heard her voice like that. It is pointy. My mother looks as if she is going to cry. My father says, “It’s all fashion.” My mother says, “But white legs look so dreadful.” Granny says, “Ladies didn’t show their legs either.” She is going to say something else but my father says, “Listen to this. Examine often your cooking utensils and cooking place. Allow no native ‘chop’ to be cooked in your pots. Throw it away when you find it therein. Therein! Do not flog your boys if you can possibly avoid it. Be firm about their mammy-palaver, but be charitable to the native erotic temperament in doing so. Explain everything over...