Ama (28 page)

Jensen stopped and turned.

“I hope it's nothing serious,” he said.

You bloody hypocrite,
thought De Bruyn.
If I were afflicted with a mortal ailment your fondest hopes would be realised.

“No, no, just a slight touch of fever,” he said aloud. “I shall try to sweat it off. Not to be disturbed, please,” he said, adding, as an afterthought, “but you might remind Van Schalkwyk to come in as usual in the evening.”

* * *

De Bruyn locked the door. He intended to devote the afternoon to the undisturbed fleshing out of his morning's fantasies.

He made Ama lie naked on the four-poster bed. Keeping his eyes averted, he covered her from head to toe with a clean white sheet, as if she were a corpse. Just as she was beginning to become concerned, he drew the top of the sheet back, exposing only her eyes and her small, broad, slightly upturned nose. He met her look of surprise with amusement. Guessing that this was some sort of game, she responded with a smile. He spoke to her quietly in Dutch, words of praise for her beauty and of his devotion to her, words that he would never have had the courage to speak if he had thought she understood him, words he had never spoken before, not to Augusta in their youth, never to holy Elizabeth. He devoured her with his eyes, her shaven head, her small ears with the modest gold earrings which Konadu Yaadom had allowed her to keep, the sweep of her dark eyebrows, the upward curve of her eyelashes. He bent to kiss her eyelashes, first one eye and then the other, gently, controlling his passion, suppressing the consciousness of the weathered naked body beneath the night-gown he had put on. He stroked her cheeks, tickling her with the hairs which grew luxuriantly on the back of his hand. All the time he spoke to her. He called her
Princess Pamela
; he repeated the name he had given her again and again; he would have sung to her if he had had any confidence in his croaky voice.

He exposed one small part of her at a time, a shoulder, a hand, examining it, exploring it. He hardly touched her and when he did it was with the gentlest of contact, sometimes with his fingers, sometimes with his lips. Ama began to bask in his adoration, watching his eyes as they surveyed the contours of her body, meeting them with wonder as he returned from each excursion.

When he uncovered a nipple, she moved, with instinctive modesty, to cover it. He took her hands away and kissed her palms. When he reached her most private parts, he did the same.

Ama was astonished at this performance. No man had ever treated her like this before. Even Itsho, kind, gentle, passionate as he had been, had never worshipped her as this peculiar white man was doing. She was afraid.

When De Bruyn had completed his mapping of her thighs, her legs, her feet and toes (hardened these, by a life time of walking barefooted), he rolled her over and began his exploration of the other hemisphere. He was completely possessed. His entire consciousness was concentrated on this fragile creature.

Ama turned her head on the pillow to watch him. She felt desire rising in her. She was his slave, his property, but, for the moment, she had lost her will to be free. She wanted him to possess her.

As he ran the surface of his finger nails down along her vertebrae, she spoke for the first time.

“Mijn Heer, Mijn Heer,” she whispered.

* * *

When they had spent their passion, De Bruyn looked into her eyes again and they laughed together.

He brought a basin and wiped their parts. Then he sponged the sweat from her body and wiped her with a clean towel. They lay naked together under the sheet, her head on his chest, and spoke to one another, neither understanding a word of the other's language and laughing at their mutual incomprehension.

When they awoke, he took her again, astonished at a capacity he thought he had long lost.

The sun, setting far along the line of the coast, sent slivers of orange light through the jalousies, making patterns on the far wall. They bathed and dried one another. Ama replaced her beads and wrapped her cloth around her.

De Bruyn dressed in a casual shirt and trousers. Then he went to the cabinet which held the books. Opening a drawer, took out a brass key. With it, he unlocked a wooden cabin trunk, elaborately carved with scenes of Dutch landscape.

“Pamela, come,” he called her as he raised the lid. There was a smell of naphtha and a hint of stale perfume. He drew out a lady's dress in the European style, shook it, and held it up for her to see. Then he took her to the standing mirror which had been the scene of their battle the previous afternoon and, standing again behind her, held the dress up against her front. Ama recalled the picture she had seen in the book which Augusta had shown her. She was about to tell him and to fetch the book; but then she wondered how she would explain and whether Augusta had not perhaps exceeded her authority in showing her Mijn Heer's possessions.

“Try it on,” said De Bruyn.

Ama feared the strange garment. But before could react, De Bruyn had lifted the skirt over her head. He pulled her arms through the sleeves. There was no turning back. She looked at the mirror and was flabbergasted at the transformation in her appearance. The hem fell almost to the floor and the skirt was wide enough to conceal her bare feet. The waist was a little loose, but otherwise the fit was perfect. She was still wearing her cloth underneath and it showed at the low cut neck.

“Remove it, remove it,” said De Bruyn and when she didn't understand, lifted the skirt and tugged the cloth until it fell around her feet.

“Ah that is better,” said De Bruyn, admiring the swell of her breasts which was now visible in the décolletage.

“Not too loose?” he asked, squeezing her waist, and buttoning her up. “If it is, we shall just have to fatten you up. You
are
a bit lean. Now let me have a good look.”

“Amazing,” he said as he took her hand and turned her round. “But your bald head!”

He rubbed the stubble which was beginning to emerge upon her scalp.

“I am sorry we had to shave you like this, my love. If only I had known. What cruelties you have suffered at my hands.”

These thoughts were uncomfortable and unwelcome to him so he changed the subject of his conversation.

“Let me see if Elizabeth has a bonnet which would fit you,” he said and bent to search the contents of the trunk.

Speaking his late wife's name aloud set his thoughts off on another disturbing track, but they had not travelled far when they were interrupted by a knock on the door. It was the steward to take the order for dinner.

* * *

An hour later, there was another knock. When Hendrik Van Schalkwyk, Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, Preacher and Chaplain of Elmina Castle, entered, the candles had been lit and the table had been laid for three.

Ama was sitting in a high backed armchair near a window, looking out over Edina and the ocean. The moon had risen early and over the shoulder of the massive castle it shone on the town.

“You have another guest this evening, Director?” Van Schalkwyk asked, pointing to the table and raising his eyebrows just a little.

“What, has the Castle Intelligence failed?” De Bruyn asked with a chuckle.

There wasn't much that happened in the small European male society of Elmina Castle that did not come to the Chaplain's attention. Besides rehashing old sermons for the twice weekly compulsory church services he had little else to do but collect idle gossip.

“Well, I must admit I have heard rumours. Unconfirmed, mind you,” Van Schalkwyk replied with mild embarrassment, “but they certainly did not lead me to expect . . .?”

“Expect what, my good Minister?”

Apart from Jensen, De Bruyn and Van Schalkwyk were the only educated men in the Castle. For years the two of them had been meeting every Monday evening to dine, drink, smoke and indulge in the civilised pleasure of conversation. They invariably spoke their native Dutch but their talk was liberally laced with Latin, French, German and English. They had heard each other's stock of anecdotes and witticisms time without number but, since neither had any alternative, they exercised a mutual tolerance of repetition. When the conversation ran dry, as it usually did after some time, they would suck their pipes and settle down to a leisurely game of chess.

“Ah, Director, you have me in a corner,” replied Van Schalkwyk. “I concede defeat.”

“What will you drink, Hennie?” asked De Bruyn, knowing well what the answer would be, but asking all the same. In private, he called the Minister by his first name. Since his childhood, no one, except Elizabeth, had called De Bruyn Pieter. He had considered extending that privilege to Van Schalkwyk but had never got round to making the suggestion. After all these years, it would be a little strange.

When they were comfortably settled, with drinks and pipes lit, Van Schalkwyk returned to the subject.

“Where . . . ?”

He hesitated and made another attempt.

“Where is the . . .?” but was again unable to complete his sentence.

“You are singularly inarticulate this evening, Hendrik,” said De Bruyn. “What was the word you were looking for: wench? woman? lady? Wife, perhaps?”

Without waiting for a reply, he indicated the back of Ama's chair with a nod of his head.

“Miss Pamela,” he said, “Is contemplating the beauty of the African moonlight shining on the noble city of Edina and on the Atlantic Ocean beyond.”

Ama heard her name, the name De Bruyn had given her. They must be discussing her.
How am I going to manage this meal?
she wondered. Eating alone with one white man had been difficult enough; eating with two promised to be infinitely more complicated. They would surely talk about her in her presence and she would not understand a word. She would guess what they were saying, of course. But what
would
they say? Would Mijn Heer describe their afternoon's lovemaking to his friend? Or would they just ignore her presence? She wished she could eat apart, but De Bruyn had made it quite clear, with the assistance of the Fanti steward who had laid the table, that he insisted on her presence.

She looked out. Cooking fires twinkled dimly in the town. Flickering shadows played on the mud walls. Dark figures went about their business. A woman sang. Another shouted an admonition to a child. Indistinct conversations floated up over the roar of the surf. All over the land black people were preparing and eating their evening meals in similar manner. So it had been in Yendi and Kafaba and Kumase and in all the small villages where she had spent a night on her long journey to the coast. So it was in her father Tigen's hamlet and all over the Bekpokpam country.

She had been thinking in Asante but when she thought of Tabitsha, she began to think in her mother tongue.
I will forget my own language,
she thought.
It will die in my mind from disuse.

“Pamela,” called De Bruyn, “Will you not come and join us?”

Ama rose slowly. She had rejected the bonnet which De Bruyn had offered her and instead tied a silk
doek
which they had found in the trunk to cover her shaven scalp. The dead woman's dress (for such she took it to be) smelled slightly of mould and naphtha, but the smell was obscured by the civet he had sprinkled on her. Several visits to the looking glass had left her feeling more at ease with her new appearance. De Bruyn had tried to fit her feet into a pair of his late wife's shoes, but the foot of a female slave who has walked many weary miles on her own tough soles is very different from that of the idle lady wife of a Director General of the Westindische Compagnie; and so, under her spreading skirt, Ama's feet remained unshod.

Sensing her diffidence, De Bruyn approached her and presented his elbow for her to grasp. However, he had not yet taught her that particular trick and he had to show her how to take his arm. The Minister watched with some amusement,

“May I present,” De Bruyn said to her, “Mijn Heer Hendrik Van Schalkwyk, Minister of Religion in the Dutch Reformed Church and Chaplain to the European residents of this Castle?”

Van Schalkwyk wondered whether his part in this charade required him to kiss the hand of this slave girl. He decided against and merely bowed slightly from his ample waist. The girl's appearance was undoubtedly striking, he thought.
De Bruyn, you lucky old lecher, how did you find such a jewel in amongst all the dross and dregs of dark humanity which enters these walls?

“Hendrik, this is Miss Pamela,” De Bruyn continued with the introduction.

Van Schalkwyk bowed again. For a moment they were at a loss for conversation.

“Please be seated,” said De Bruyn and drew a chair for Ama, indicating with a movement of his head that she should sit.

They were beginning to understand each other's body language, he noted with satisfaction.

When the first course had been served and the wine had been poured, he said, “As yet, the wench neither speaks nor understands a word of Dutch, nor, so far as I can judge, any other civilised tongue. You need not, therefore, inhibit you sparkling conversation in any way.”

He turned to Ama.

“Pamela, I am telling the reverend Minister that we do not share a common language and that he may speak without fear of embarrassing you.”

Ama sensed that they were playing a little game and that the game was being played at her expense. She caught his eye with a look that mixed appeal and mild reproof. They had made love together that afternoon, she told him. Twice indeed. In their passion they had been equals. He should not mock her now before a third party. De Bruyn read her message and dropped his eyes. She was right, he had betrayed her. He looked up and apologised. She read his silent message and nodded her head ever so slightly in acknowledgement. De Bruyn felt profoundly excited. They needed no words to communicate. He wanted to be alone with her, to embrace her, to kiss her on the lips.

Van Schalkwyk busied himself with his food and wine, attempting to convey that he had observed nothing of this. In fact he had witnessed the confidential eye contact and was attempting to fathom its meaning. His dissemblance was unnecessary for his two dinner partners had for a brief moment been unaware of his existence.