He worked his mouth into a grin. ‘Gentlemen,’ he began, voice hard as rope. ‘When Mr Macaulay asked me to speak here tonight, I wondered what I should speak about. Something that would make me more than your pet nigger, more than your entertainment. Just some black you managed to get up onto his hind legs to play tricks.’

Titters burst into pops of laughter, and they exchanged nervous looks. His words went inside to my weak spots. I sat up, jolted. Beside me, Madame shifted her hands in her lap.

‘Casting about for a topic,’ he said, ‘I remembered an Igbo tale my mother had told me. The only thing I remember about her. It was about the Asiki.’ He paused. ‘The Asiki were human children, stolen by witches and taken deep into dark forests, where the witches cut out their tongues, and changed every hair on their heads, from wool to silk. Changed their skin, too, from black to gold. Next morning the Asiki woke without speech or memory, their mothers and their fathers forgotten. Their homes as well. Full of questions they had no way to ask. If you ask one of them, “Who are you?” they cannot answer. They cannot speak at all! They make ugly barking noises, rolling the stubs they have in place of tongues.’

They sat quiet, tugged forward in their seats. ‘All speakers,’ he continued, ‘at the end of the day, speak about men. What men want. Or don’t.’ He shrugged. ‘But . . . the Asiki are not men. They are changelings. Men who have no memory. Men kidnapped into silence. Men whose value is measured in beads and brass pans and guns. What would they tell us if they did have tongues? What do they want? Would they tell us they love the back-breaking work of gathering in your cotton? And your cane?’ He shrugged again. ‘Would they tell us it is for their own good?

‘Isn’t that what the European himself has told us? That the European’s pleasure is the African’s pleasure? Aren’t we supposed to take the European’s word for it? Because who would ever dream of asking the African what he wants? It’s the European who marches across this little globe, measuring everything, writing it down. Adam. God of all creatures, great and small.’

He made his voice quieter. ‘Here’s the rub. You asking me to speak for them. How can I? Why have you asked me? Because you look at a single black man and see all black men. As if one black man is a representative of every other member of his race. Allowed neither personality nor passion. Not allowed to love anybody, or anything. It is for this reason there are so many dead men inhabiting the new world, drifting through cotton and cane. Zombis. Men who were left enslaved, even after the trade had been abolished. You abandoned them. Yes, you, with your good intentions. Even abolitionists succumbed to the idea that a man couldn’t be stripped of his own assets without compensation. By that equation, those men you left behind are property. Machines, not men.