The Old Drift

by Namwali Serpell

Nothing seethes the blood of most settlers more than the thought of racial contamination.

to err is human, and that is your doom and delight.

That tiny chaos, like one of our wings, sets in motion the unwitting cycle: it will spiral across families for generations to come, spurring Fate’s furious cataract…

The midwives were still circling the mother’s shipwrecked body, tending to her, murmuring like the sea, the child’s cries like that same sea breaking. Giovanna swaddled the baby in elaborate folds and handed the burden to its bearer. The mother, whose name was Adriana, looked down at the hairy little face and promptly fainted. Giovanna grabbed the baby just before it tumbled off the bed. The midwives laughed. Such drama! The wool would fall out. The whelp had just forgotten to eat it in the womb.

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They were both thrumming with joy. It was a relief to be in contact again – they had just reached that stage of love when bodies become mutually addicted.

During his time at university, Ronald had learned that ‘history’ was the word the English used for the record of every time a white man encountered something he had never seen and promptly claimed it as his own, often renaming it for good measure. History, in short, was the annals of the bully on the playground.