Two
Two
I met my enemies on a chilly autumn night. November 8, 1850. I would never forget it.
“What a pretty little thing.” The noblewoman refreshed herself in the humid air with an antique French hand fan. Even to my
young eyes, she was clearly showing it off.
This was her drawing room and she seemed proud of its decorations—carefully curated French décor from the Napoleonic era.
She was the only woman of the group, and clearly obsessed with her own wealth. Traveling across shores to an unfamiliar country
stretches one’s sense of self into a million distinct pieces, all of which mock you with their grotesqueness. Yet nothing
was more grotesque than this room: the ugly mismatched colors of the walls, the gaudy chandelier hanging too low from above
our heads. Two couches the color of blood and a rickety wooden sitting chair enclosed the confined space, each piece of furniture
blocking the open-door exits, and thus my escape.
I knew then it was too late for that anyway.
It was my first night in England. At seven years old, I stood alone among strangers, barefoot on a scratchy carpet painted in frightening patterns. I was supposed to be asleep in preparation for my first meeting with Queen Victoria. But too many had wanted to see me before I was officially presented to the royals.
I counted six frightening creatures in those couches and chairs, their hollow eyes gobbling me up with at an excruciatingly
slow pace, as if these predators didn’t have the decency to finish me off in one go. They looked like monsters to me. These
must be the eseku my late mother warned me about when she told me tales at night. Of course, they had to be—they were too hairy and too ready
to abduct me. They had to be evil spirits. That’s what my mind decided.
Their figures loomed close, watching, observing, dissecting every inch of me with grins as hot and seething as coals. I could
see my impending death and a part of me welcomed it.
“You don’t see any of those jarring features you often find in females of the African race,” came the raspy voice of the man
seated in the chair directly across from me. “You know, the ones that make them look so ferocious .” The vile words had come from Captain Frederick Forbes of the British Royal Navy. My captor and self-proclaimed savior.
Lieutenant and commander of the HMS Bonetta .
He was in awe of me. So too was his brother and accomplice, Captain George Forbes. Like Frederick, George was a noble descendant
of the Pitsligo and Culquhonny branch of the House of Forbes. He’d helped retrieve me from the Dahomey Kingdom.
On the other end of the circle, the woman tilted her head and tapped her stupid French fan against her hawklike nose.
“Oh yes, I know,” she said. A lie. As blatant as all her other lies would be. She hadn’t noticed. She was too preoccupied with studying me. “My husband’s father once saw the Hottentot Venus in Piccadilly,” she said, and I couldn’t understand then why some of the adults rolled their eyes at the mention of her husband. They knew then what I knew now: this woman’s obsession with the Phipps family pedigree was as embarrassing as the funnel shape of the brown hair atop her head. “The Colonel Phipps found that African thing such a horrendous sight. But this girl is almost... ladylike .”
She said the word ladylike as if it were a wholly foreign concept for one who looked such as me, with my low brow, flat brown nose, and large red lips.
I should have been enraged, but though I could understand English, her words came out a jumbled mess to my ears. Hottentot?
Piccadilly? Were these foods? Creatures of some sort?
But the words, strange as they were, carried an unmistakable venom in them that crossed the boundaries of language. My little
body shook. I knew I would die that day. I could feel it.
Ladylike. To say I now understand the word would be an understatement. Its meaning, its idiosyncrasies and patterns, have
been engraved without my approval into my very flesh, my very bones. The word is a weapon, a sword meant to cut flesh. And
ever since I understood that, I began to wonder: Was that what had made me so different from Ade? Did it come down to simple
features, the reason why they let me alone live?
In the drawing room, on one of the blood couches, the lone Scotsman of the bunch glanced at me with his sunken eyes, a scarecrow
in a kilt. And at the end of their circle, the photographer in their midst laughed. “Thank goodness her buttocks isn’t nearly
as large. I won’t have to feel so disgusted capturing her likeness.”
There was a hum of agreement among the group. My gaze shifted across each of them. And in my terror, the piercing image of
them, of that moment, was etched into my memory: the hawklike woman, sneering beside the photographer. The Scotsman and George,
both scheming and churlish. Captain Fredrick Forbes. And next to him, equally as taken, was Mr. Bellamy.
Six fiends in all.
They spoke of my cranium. The vagabond races, you see, according to these ilk, were less intelligent, and this was biologically evident by the size and shapes of their heads. Not the gentle oval patterns of the settler, no, but the protruding face bones of the vagabond. They needed to be sure. The photographer had brought into the room a tool that could measure the size and width of an animal’s skull, and the brothers used it to measure mine. The sharp, curved tongs pinched my skin, drawing blood from my temples and tears from my eyes. What were they doing? Why wouldn’t they stop? They didn’t even notice my whimpers. They had to be demons.
Of course, demons come in all forms. Everyone had their obsession. The obsession Mr. Bellamy had frightened me. Even as a
child, I sensed it, tightening my whole body whenever our eyes would meet. Once the brothers were done confirming that I did,
in fact, have the kind of oval-shaped head characteristic of civilized men, Mr. Bellamy fidgeted in his seat near the Scot.
Something illicit slithered behind his gaze like minnows. I could see it in those hungry eyes.
“Her buttocks are quite shapely... ,” he whispered, though he quieted himself quickly.
“I’m not surprised she seems exceptional from the rest of her tribe. The girl is a genius,” Frederick Forbes added, perched
on his couch. “I didn’t know what to expect of her intellect after I saved her from that barbarian King Ghezo. But she learned
English in a year and is already on her way to mastering French.”
He said this with pride, as if he hadn’t slapped me every time I recited the words incorrectly. I could still feel the hot
sting on my right cheek.
“Never did I expect your diplomatic voyage to the Dahomey Kingdom would yield such an unexpected result.” The Scotsman’s unkempt red beard made him look like a man born of the woods despite his proud and pompous attire, courtesy of his gains as a merchant. “Saving a slave girl from human sacrifice and convincing Ghezo to give her as a gift to the Crown—how did you put it?” He tapped his wrinkled forehead. “‘From the King of the Blacks to the Queen of the Whites.’”
“Perhaps we simply couldn’t resist those docile eyes.” George Forbes swirled a glass of brandy in one hand. And when his eyes
met mine, I shivered. “McCoskry, you should understand better than anyone the allure of saving such children from the evils
of slavery.”
McCoskry, the Scotsman as I now knew him as, remained silent. I didn’t realize it then, but the man would soon be on his way
to my continent. There, he would become the Acting Consul of Lagos—a rather forgiving way of framing his rule over the Yoruba
people.
“You did well in bringing this child to England.” The hawklike woman nodded to Captain Frederick Forbes, who beamed with pride.
“Queen Victoria will certainly accept her tomorrow.”
And then, with a cavalier grin, Bellamy asked me to dance for them. “Yes, little Sally. Dance for us! The dance you Africans
do!”
My heart refused. I am a princess , I wanted to tell them, but my blood pumped with fear. The eseku were wily creatures. I could grab a knife and try to stab
one. It was what my instincts told me to do. Defend myself and escape. But cutting the eseku would only make them multiply.
Could there be more of these beasts?
“Dance for us!” The Scotsman began clapping. The woman joined in, though the crack of her palm was muted by her fan.
I was sure they would kill me if I didn’t. But I wouldn’t let myself. Not at first.
I am a princess! I wanted to scream at them as my little languid body eventually succumbed and began to obey their command, twitching with sheepish movements.
“Have her take off her clothes too,” the woman said with a flippant wave of her finger, crossing her legs shrewdly. “I’d like to see how different she is from the Hottentot. I will not have you send an unshapely girl to Her Majesty.”
My name is Omoba Ina, princess of the Yoruba tribe’s Egbado Clan! How dare you demand this of me, this insult? Biting back my tears, I stripped off my clothes with shaky hands and danced indeed, for this was to be my new life in England.
Like the Hottentot Venus, I was in a cage surrounded by them.
I learned very quickly. They were not eseku. They were British—demons, perhaps, of a different sort. This land, England, was
a liminal space between heaven and hell where all sorts of monsters roamed. The Queen of this monstrous empire at least should
have had the humility to acknowledge her own monstrosity. But that was the great irony, wasn’t it? The truly monstrous never recognized themselves as such.
The next morning, on a cold day, I was presented to the Queen. Inside the stateroom of Windsor Castle, a frigid, haughty chill
pricked my skin and knocked my bones as if to tell me to stand up straight. It was the grand meeting of two queens, leaders
of mighty nations... but I quickly realized only one of us thought of it that way. Queen Victoria saw it quite differently.
There, in the vast marble hall decorated in velvet and gold, in front of a crowd of waiting staff, servants, secretaries,
and other persons of interest, she looked down piteously at me. It made me quake with anger, but I kept still. I knew the
price of showing my true emotions.
“What a curious gift the Captain has given you from the jungles of the dark continent,” said Mrs. Phipps, that frumpy, dreary-haired
brunette with her French antique fan flitting away, and she was not alone in the illustrious marble halls. Bambridge, the
ghastly photographer, was with her. And so too was Bellamy, McCoskry, and both Forbes—Frederick and George.
“A curious gift,” George Forbes said, “but an amiable, suitable one.”
And I can dance too , I thought bitterly.
Curious. Yes, I was a “curiosity.” Those six villains made sure I knew it too as they debased me the night before. The memory of writhing naked in front of them would not be so easily erased.
But no moment was more debasing than this.
Queen Victoria rubbed her filthy hand across my shaved head, just beginning to prickle with woolen black hair, and laughed
as my stomach churned. She delighted in her gift.
“Tell me, what is this child’s name?” she asked Captain Forbes.
I opened my mouth to speak for myself. But the words Omoba Ina never had the chance to slip through my lips.
Forbes answered for me. “Sarah Forbes Bonetta,” he told her proudly, the name he’d dreamed up to foist upon me without my
consent. Three words that sounded like whimsical rubbish, but Queen Victoria sparkled at the sound of it.
“Amiable and moldable,” the Queen said, approaching me slowly, like a leopard stalking its prey. She soaked in the sight of
my modest white dress and perfectly learned courtesy. “So very clearly moldable .”
The gears were turning in her head; I could see it then. Despite the softness of her small features, Queen Victoria had always
held her back pin straight: a young mother not only of her children but of an empire with an appetite insatiable enough to
devour the world. I could see that appetite in the sinister flicker of her lips, the glint of those piercing blue eyes.
I knew it then. She was the seventh villain. The most dangerous of them all, for she had the most power.
Without wasting a minute, she turned to one of her ceremonial officers. “Send word to all the newspapers: Britain’s African Princess. And my new goddaughter.” She lifted her pale hands as if she could see the headlines materialize in the air before her very eyes. “Britannia under Queen Victoria has indeed become the most developed country in the world. We are mankind’s very moral fabric with the Crown standing upright as the head. We have shown countless pieces of proof of this over the years.” She bent down until we were at eye level. “But perhaps none sweeter than this poor little Negro child. She is exemplary amongst them.”
Our eyes were locked. I remembered then the steely determination of my parents. Their gazes that didn’t waver even as they
were cut down by the Dahomey. I felt that same fire in me as I aimed my glare to set fire to this rival queen.
“Don’t worry, Your Majesty,” said Captain Frederick Forbes with a quick nod, giving me a too-hard slap on the back. “I’ve
already ensured Mr. Bellamy will keep up a steady stream of stories. The other editors will follow suit in no time at all.”
“Very good.” And shamelessly, infuriatingly , she rubbed my chin with her finger as if I were a dog. “Even a slave can be transformed into a lady through Britain’s compassion.”
A child tabula rasa. England’s great civilizing project. I’d been reduced to propaganda. My body went stiff from the cruelty
of it all. I could tell that she wanted to “save me.” How else to prove Britain’s superiority? The name they gave me was proof
of it. Abram and his wife had been given new names too after being saved by divinity.
I suspected the Queen thought herself a god too. With a stretch of her hand, she’d saved a little African princess from death.
The Queen of the Whites, others called her, and she relished it. The Savior of Barbarians around the Globe.
No one had wanted to save Ade. Not when the seas dragged his wretched body down to the depths of the Atlantic. No one cared,
because he wasn’t exemplary in their eyes.
Ade was Yoruba, like me, and of the same Egbado Clan. But unlike me: sickly. Slow of intellect—or so they accused him. He just didn’t pick up English as quickly as I did. And he was malnourished. No matter what they gave him, his body remained deteriorated. He wasn’t a “handsome Negro.” He was not “sweet” or “good-natured” like I was seen to be. He didn’t smile when told to; in fact, he was rather partial to a nasty scowl whenever strangers spoke to him. He wasn’t suitable at all as a present for the Queen. Deadweight. Nobody would miss him.
That’s what the Forbes brothers decided before they tossed him overboard. Ade. Another freed slave of the Dahomey Kingdom.
My confidant. My only friend.
None of that mattered to them .
After witnessing Ade’s murder, I’d curled up in the dusty sack they’d given me to sleep on the ship floorboards and held my
breath for as long as I could before passing out, thinking of his last words to me.
Their “love” for you is conditional, Ina.
And when I thought of that very dark truth, as Queen Victoria stretched out her hand to welcome me into her royal family,
I suddenly wanted to destroy her.
Their “love” for you is conditional, Ina. Never forget that.
Ade’s ghost would never let me forget it.