NYU Black Renaissance Noire NYU Black Renaissance Noire V. 16.1 | Page 9

But there was a less soft side to
shadows, we soon realized. One day
my brother and I met a man on a
bike. He wore glasses with aluminum
rims. He decorated his bike with
aluminum-lined mirrors and gadgets
that made strange noises against the
wind. My mother was alarmed when
we reported our encounter. Next time
we sighted him, we should run into
the shade of the nearest bush and
make sure our shadows were fully
covered by those of the bush.
We soon learnt he was the most feared
figure in the region, because of his
command of shadows of humans.
The man was employed in a nearby
shoe factory, but, on the side, he
worked as a consulting magic worker,
and, for a fee, he could capture a
client’s enemy by trapping his shadow,
and then scratching it with a knife.
Wherever the evil doer resided, he
would bleed to death, that is, if he did
not give up himself or give up his evil
ways. Some even claimed that the
captive shadow in the mirror would
bleed blood. My mother did not think
we were evil doers but she could not
rule out an accident or sheer malice on
his part.

This confirmed what we already knew:
there was, indeed, something to
shadows. But we also wondered and
argued about this, the ontology of the
shadow. Was the shadow in the mirror
or under the water the same as the ones
that followed us? No, no, they could
not be the same, I argued. The ones in
the mirror looked exactly like our faces;
the shadows that followed us were not
an exact replica. The same for the ones
under a clear water. My brother said
they were really the same: water and
mirrors were their real home. When we
didn’t see them in the dark, it was
because they had jumped inside their
mirror and water residency. We did not
see eye to eye over this, but we agreed
we should try out the magic ourselves.
Instead of trapping them in a mirror,
we would go at the shadows directly.
We borrowed a knife, but we did not
want to stab a human shadow, least of
all, ours, not even those of animals,
because really we did not want
anybody or any animal to die. Shadows
of insects proved impossible to stab;
they moved too fast for our hands. But
we reckoned that those of plants and
trees were fair game: their shadows
were stationary, and really plants did
not feel pain, although we had heard
some trees scream, as they fell after
adults cut them down with axes. To a
mix of disappointment, and also relief,
no amount of stabbing would make
the shadows or the plants bleed. Well,
trees and plants differed from humans
and animals: they did not have blood
to bleed.

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

It was not only telling the time and its
divisions. When it was very hot, we sat
under the shade of trees, and it felt cool
and good. When my mother roasted
some potatoes in open fields, we
preferred to eat under the shades of
Mbariki plants. We soon realized other
aspects of the shadow, the artistic.
Storytelling was more profound and
more enjoyable against the background
of the playfulness of the shadows.
Shadows created a magic softness
around us.

Sometimes we made our shadows
wrestle with each other, obviously in
imitation of our own wrestling.
We tried other games with shadows.
We turned our calico sheets, our sole
items of clothing, into some sort of
curtain by tying them between two
poles against a light. One of us would
stand stark naked behind the curtain,
make faces, try many poses and posture,
while the other, again stark naked,
sat in front of the curtain and enjoyed
the antics of the other that came across
as shadows. We would change places,
and continue the show.

7

We changed tactics or rather, our
attitudes. Instead of capturing or
escaping them, we found uses for
shadows. We demarcated the passing of
time by the length of our shadows.
In the mornings, they were long on the
ground. After the noon of day, they
lengthened again, almost in the
opposite direction. They were at their
shortest in the noon of day. Rain and
clouds ruined it for us, otherwise,
when the sun shone evenly throughout
the day, we were nearly always accurate
about the time of day. We even made
appointments accordingly. Let’s meet
when the shadow is shortest. That
meant noon. Let’s meet before or after
the big shadow has swallowed all the
other shadows. Really, we did not
miss the fact that we had no watch on
our hands or clocks in our house.
Amazingly, we carried divisions of time,
day and night even, in our shadows.