Woman Overboard

Chapter 3 : Below (3)

Jaiye

August 21st, 1820

(1:56 PM)

Jaiye figured The Brookes hadn't been this full since her slave ship days.

It seemed that no matter where he looked, he would find a person. They were spread out in the dining hall, crammed in the hallways, splayed in the cabins of generous crew members. The healthy ones hung around above deck, talking. However, they fell silent whenever a Brookes crew member walked past, as though they were the ones intruding, not the other way around.

Jaiye still didn't understand Afiba's uncharacteristically charitable decision to take in a crew even larger than her own. Not only was space an issue, but Jaiye also wasn't sure there would be enough food to go around.

The Brookes herself had come with quite a bit of empty space. Below the cabins was a hauntingly vacant cavern, once used to transport hundreds of slaves from Africa to America. However, the crew never used the space for anything other than storage. It seemed disrespectful, unholy, even, to step foot downstairs without a somber tone about you.

Before they had left Williamsburg, Abigail had done a check on the ship's records in the Brodericks' library when she was supposed to be dusting the shelves. Among the ship's records, she found a copy of plans for The Brookes. "According to the Regulated Slave Trade Act," she had told them, and then after explaining what that meant, said, "The ship was only meant to carry around four hundred fifty slaves. But, in the records it shows that they brought over more than seven hundred slaves on the voyage that brought us here."

The terrible reality of The Brookes's previous occupation had proven difficult to swallow, once the initial euphoria of being at sea had worn off. Many times during the first few months, Jaiye had found Afiba lurking at the steps that lead down. She, most of all, had been deeply disturbed by her new home, and Jaiye had come to know that if he left her to stare at the abyss of dark history below them, she might loiter there all day without sleeping, eating, or even blinking. So he would let her stare for a minute or two before giving her hair a tousle and tugging her hand until she got up and followed him away.

Now, Jaiye wondered if they would give up the fight and open up the space below. With the sudden doubling of their crew size, he couldn't see how they would not. Unless Afiba was planning to maroon these people on an island soon.

In his heart, he knew she had made a gracious, even heroic, decision. If Afiba had not stepped up to the plate, every one of these people would have met a watery demise at the bottom of the sea. They were too far from shore to swim, and even the lifeboats had no hope of making it -- they would have had no navigation, no food, and no chance.

Jaiye had not seen the captain yet. He desperately wanted to see her face, to match her to the woman in the portrait. To hand her the sword and see a fond recognition settle on her face as she held it. He wanted proof that the person he had discovered through artifacts of a, now sunken, room was in fact real.

He had seen his own captain, but only in fleeting blurs. She couldn't be bothered to give him any more than a quick, "I'm alive!" and a far too rushed kiss before she rushed away again.

Jaiye sighed, turning the corner to find even more white men, but no Afi.

After years of wishing for her affection, he had resigned himself to a painful kind of relationship with her, in which he yearned with all his heart for her, and she had no idea. He knew he had become a special kind of pathetic, yet he couldn't change things. He saw his and Afiba's relationship as on balanced on a sensitive scale -- one wrong move and he would send her careening in the opposite direction, he himself left to watch from rock bottom.

Instead, he learned to savor what little she gave him: fleeting hugs, a friendly arm around his shoulder, the occasional kiss in dangerous situations. But it was never enough.

He had waited until he was nearly bursting at the seams with unrequited desire before he told anyone. And when he told, it wasn't Afiba that he spoke too. Instead, he woke Abigail up and fell apart in her arms.

Abby, he knew, was the safest option. She always had something practical to say, but she would be kind to him. Unlike his brother, she wouldn't tell anyone if he didn't want her too, and unlike Hany, she wouldn't hound him with millions of queries and demands.

That night, she didn't disappoint. Letting out a long, tired sigh, she told him, "Our Afiba, she is a strange one. And your love, Jaiye, is a very conventional thing. You are asking a chicken to give birth to a cow."

Later, he had wondered which of them was the chicken and which was the cow, but in the moment, he had found Abigail's advice incredibly profound. So he had stayed and cried a bit longer. When he left, Abby had left him with one more statement to sort through: "She is lucky to have someone who cares about her so much, even if she doesn't realize it."

Even with Abigail's advice (which Jaiye translated to "give up") he found it difficult to stop himself from imagining scenarios in which he spilled his hidden feelings to Afiba. In some of his day dreams, she nodded and told him she felt the same way. In others, she rebuked him and left him emptier than he'd ever felt. In others still, she launched herself into his arms and they fell into a long-awaited, immeasurably passionate kiss that lasted for hours.

Down the hall he walked, mulling over his pretty little problem. Afi, though a little rough around the edges, had her own bold kind of charm. Sometimes, he would be struck to silence simply by the aqueous way her hair moved, or the defiant flash of amber in her eyes during an argument. In those moments, Jaiye would remove himself from the conversation to watch her, committing her every movement to memory.

He felt paralyzed by his own attraction. He had never felt this helpless.

"Don't touch it, that will just make it worse," Jaiye heard someone say. "I know it hurts, but you can't keep picking at it."

He spotted the speaker: a white man with short, bristly hair, and heavy lidded green eyes. His words had be directed at a fragile looking girl with wavy brown hair, wet blue eyes, and an arm shredded with burns.

Jaiye blinked, returning to reality, returning to the bandages and water in his hands, returning to the imploring eyes of white men watching him. His sole purpose for being in this hallway, after all, was not to find Afiba, but to offer ointment and bandages to those will to accept.

"Ahoy," Jaiye said, squatting in front of the girl. She blinked, doe eyes cast bashfully down. "Say, your arm don't hurt now, do it?"

She nodded, glancing at him.

"Well, I got something that'll make it feel better, right quick, a'ight?"

"No!" the man barked, his angular body replacing the girl's. He glared at Jaiye until he backed away. "You will not touch this girl, you dirty negro."

He blinked, shocked. "Sir, she's got a real bad burn. If you jus' let me--"

The man unleashed a roar of contempt. "I said no! Don't try me, you filthy animal! If I see you touch her even once, you will not live to see tomorrow!"

Each word darted toward him like a dozen whips descending on his back. He looked from the man to the girl and back again, realizing just how long it had been since he had heard such cruel, unprecedented words. "B-but, I ain't done nothin--"

"You've done plenty!" shouted the man. "Now get out of my sight."

And Jaiye said, "Yes, sir," and hurried away as if he was just another slave, desperate to please his master.