Ama (33 page)

He opened his eyes. Ama had moved to the other side of the table and was watching him warily, ready to slip away should he pursue her.

“Pamela, forgive me, I beg you. I don't know what came over me. I lost control of myself. Forgive me, please. I promise you that that will never happen again. I beg you. Please tell Mijn Heer nothing of this. I promise you, in the name of God I promise you, it will never happen again. I will do anything you ask of me.”

Keeping her eyes on the man, Ama retrieved her chair and carried it to the opposite side of the table from Van Schalkwyk. She sat down. She was feeling calmer. What had he meant to do, she wondered. To rape her? He could never have succeeded. As a man, she had never given him a thought. Now she saw him for what he was, a lonely, ugly, pitiable old priest, without wife or family, far away from his own country. She stretched out and took the book, turned it round to face her and began to read again from where she had left off.

“And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

CHAPTER 18

Although De Bruyn had been brought up within the narrow Calvinist conventions of the Dutch Reformed Church he was not a religious man.

He read the English Bible because he loved the poetry of the language, not in expectation of some revelation of divine intentions, nor indeed as a duty or a penance for his sins. So when he had finished Genesis and Exodus, he did no more than skim the boring passages of Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Then he started reading Genesis again, this time with Ama, his pleasure increased by her wide-eyed enjoyment of the magic of the stories: the Creation, the Fall, Cain and Abel, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, Abraham and Lot, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Esau and Joseph and his brothers.

By the time they had finished Genesis together, Ama was reading fluently, even when she didn't understand all the words. De Bruyn's eyes were troubling him so he decided to rest them and let Ama read to him. He asked Van Schalkwyk to confine his lessons to writing and arithmetic; to which the chaplain insisted on adding the catechism.

So it was that the Director-General of Elmina Castle, Pieter De Bruyn, who had in his time bought and sold tens of thousands of slaves and even now had six hundred locked up in dark and filthy dungeons, which he never himself deigned to visit, this same Pieter De Bruyn sat down each evening and listened to his own private female slave reading to him the classic story of all times of delivery from slavery. If the irony of the situation had struck him, if he had had any inkling of it, he might have skipped the whole of Exodus. It did not strike him and he had no such inkling. The slaves of Elmina were one thing; the Children of Israel, slaves of Pharaoh, quite another.

* * *

Ama had finished her domestic chores; no speck of dust was to be found upon the furniture; the bed was made; the laundry hung upon the line to dry; Augusta had sent a message to say that she could not come today; the fat Predikant had sent another: he was confined to his room with fever, nothing serious, but bad enough for him to cancel the day's lesson.

Ama hummed a tune she had learned in Kumase. She grabbed a damp handkerchief from the line and danced a few steps of
adowa
. She was free. Nothing to do. She would choose a brand new volume from Mijn Heer's library and settle down to lose herself for a couple of hours in the doings of the curious and wonderful people who lived their lives in books.

She took up the telescope and glanced out of an east window. There was nothing new to see. She went over to a west window and sat herself on the broad cill. She aimed the instrument at the enormous canoe that was being carved on the far bank of the river and focused the lens. Progress was slow: the carvers had made several fires again, gradually burning away the heartwood of the log. Then she heard a noise, a great hubbub, shouting and laughter, the firing of muskets. Climbing down from her perch, she stretched out of the window and looked towards the hill of St. Iago and the Benya bridge.

Approaching the bridge from the north was a long procession. Slaves! In the lead were musicians, beating drums to the slow rhythm of the march, blowing horns, singing and chanting. They were followed by the merchants, responding in a condescending manner to the greetings of the townspeople who lined their route. The male slaves wore only loin cloths. Ama could see the dust-streaked sweat on their naked torsos. They walked in pairs, shackled, chained and heavily loaded, taking one deliberate, painful step at a time, driven by the beat of the drummers and the occasional flick of a manatee-skin whip. The female slaves followed, their condition much the same as the men's. Next were the children, boys and girls, stolen from their parents or forfeited by them, the unredeemed security for some trivial debt.

Ama closed her eyes. She went to the basin and washed her face and arms with cold water as if she was also covered with the dust and sweat and grime of the journey. She rubbed herself vigorously with a towel. Then she went back to the window and aimed the telescope at the procession.

Ignoring the musicians and their masters, she captured each slave in turn in the telescope's circular frame. Their necks were not bent, but it was only the need to support their head loads which kept them erect. She searched each face for some sign of dignity and courage, for some pride which had survived the suffering; but all she saw was sullen fear, despair and an infinite weariness; or, worse, a blank, devoid of expression, as if drained of all humanity. Face after face was the same.

Only once, in response to the flick of a whip on a naked back did she see a man turn his head towards the oppressor with a flash of hatred in his eyes. She tried not to think. She shivered as if she had fever. Perhaps she would recognise a face, a face from Kumase or from home. She started to look at the female slaves. Their expressions were no different from the men's.

Van Schalkwyk had painted for her a vivid picture of hell, the destination of all unreformed sinners when they died, he said. These slaves were clearly all in hell already; and yet they were still alive.
The living dead
, she thought.

Ama went to the tall mirror. She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at her image. She kicked the soft leather sandals from her feet. She pulled the doek from her head and threw it to the floor. Staring at her own eyes, she unwrapped her body cloth folded it in two and wrapped it around her waist. Then she examined the image of her body, the round limbs, the full breasts, the healthy glistening black skin.

She went back to the window. The procession had reached the parade ground, but instead of swinging left to enter the castle, it bore right and headed towards the market square. She caught a last glimpse of each face as they turned.

She knew now what she had been searching for: it was her own face, hers and Esi's. They had come to Elmina in just such a procession as this and she had forgotten, she had buried the unpleasant memories. And yet she was a stranger to nothing she saw down there.
What have they done that their lives have been taken from them? What sin could merit such a punishment? The god of the white man must be without mercy, without compassion
, she thought. And yet that same god had led the Children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt.

Then she wondered,
Why am I here, up here, and they down there?
She heard a noise at the door and thought it might be Mijn Heer, but it was nothing.
Mijn Heer is guilty
, she thought,
and Augusta too. Konadu Yaadom is guilty and Koranten Péte and all their people. Abdulai is guilty. And I am guilty, too, because I have been living a life of quiet comfort here, preoccupied with my lessons and my reading, and all this while my sisters and brothers have languished in the dungeons below my feet. Perhaps I am most guilty of all.
Then the thought came to her,
but what can I do? I am powerless
. She thought of the child in the bulrushes.
If I should become pregnant and bear Mijn Heer's son,
she thought,
I would call him Moses.

She got down from the window, sank onto her haunches and, holding her head in her hands, dropped her forehead onto the wooden floor. Closing her eyes, she summoned Itsho.

“Itsho. Come to me. Tell me what I should do, what I can do, to stop this evil. Itsho come.”

She remained there immobile for several minutes. When she rose, she was more at peace. She took up the telescope again and went to the window. The procession had wound its way into market square. Elephant teeth were lifted from the heads of the fettered slaves, who sank to the ground where they stood, rubbing their limbs. Young women of the town circulated amongst them, giving them water from their calabashes. The King emerged from his palace, surrounded by his elders and the noble ladies of the state, to survey the scene. Through the telescope, Ama saw Augusta amongst them.

Ama read nothing that day. She was preoccupied. She paced up and down the room. Real life had intruded upon the fantasy world in which she had been living. That night she turned away from Mijn Heer's advances.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked.

“It is nothing,” she replied, turning over on her side, hugging herself and pressing her face into the soft pillow.

* * *

De Bruyn and Ama were taking a light lunch.

De Bruyn had been to church that morning, leaving Ama behind as usual. She was curious to see how the whites worshipped their god, but Van Schalkwyk had not yet been able to convince the Governor that regular church attendance would be a good preparation for her conversion.

There was a knock on the door and Bezuidenhout, the new Commodore, entered. The Commodore was responsible for the management of the port at the mouth of the Benya and for coastal shipping. He bowed silently to Ama and apologised for interrupting the Governor's meal. A brig had anchored in the roadway and was signalling a request to send a party ashore. It flew the British flag and bore the name
Albany.

“Albany? Albany? That must be that Irish blackguard Brew from Anomabu. What can the scoundrel want here? Signal back to ask if Brew himself is on board and what his mission is.”

Two hours later Richard Brew, self appointed Governor of Castle Brew at Anomabu, was shown into the Governor's apartment.

“Ah, Brew,” said De Bruyn, speaking English, “you must forgive me for not according you a more formal welcome, but your visit was quite unexpected. And on a Sunday, you know. This, by the way, is Pamela. Pamela shake hands with Mr. Brew.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Brew,” said Ama.

De Bruyn had been schooling her in European etiquette.

Brew did not release her hand. He looked her over frankly. She had put on one of late Elizabeth's less formal dresses. He looked her straight in the eye. She returned his stare for a moment.

“A pretty wench,” he said, to no one in particular, “and you speak a tolerable English. What did you say your name was?”

Ama could scarcely make out his strong brogue. He paid no attention to De Bruyn who stood watching them.

“Mijn Heer calls me Pamela,” she replied.

Still he held her hand. She stole a look at him. He was a large man, well dressed, too well dressed perhaps, in a laced coat and waistcoat, a shirt with a velvet collar, a silk cravat and patterned silk breeches. His eyes were bloodshot. He was not as old as Mijn Heer but his face had an unhealthy pallor.

“Where are you from?” asked Brew.

“Kumase,” she replied.

“Kumase, eh? What is your language? Do you hear Fanti?” He gave her hand a final squeeze and returned it to her.

“Please, yes,” she replied.

De Bruyn intervened to offer his visitor a seat.

When he was comfortably settled with a glass of port in his hand and the bottle on the table beside him, De Bruyn asked him, “To what do we owe the honour of this visit, if I may ask, Mr. Brew?”

“Just a social call, Governor, just a social call,” replied Brew, “to strengthen the bonds which unite us African Europeans, marooned as we are here on this godforsaken continent.”

“Come, come, Brew,” replied De Bruyn, “I do not want to appear inhospitable, but your history and reputation hardly suggest that you would sail this distance just to pass the time of day with me.”

“Good port, this,” Brew nodded to him, sniffing the wine.

“Well, I will not deny that I have had my little differences with you Dutch in the past. But so have I had with the English Company.

“I am a man of principle, Governor. The principle I hold to most dearly is freedom, particularly the freedom to profit from my own God-given intelligence. I am not a company man, I admit it: I worked just long enough for the English Company to cure me of that affliction.”

He paused to savour the port.

“Governor, I am by profession a trader. I do not have to tell you that if the trading paths to the interior are closed, there can be no trade; and if there is no trade, there can be no profit. And that is against my principles. So what I say is this: let the natives of the far interior make war; but on the coast there must be peace. It is to the achievement of that objective that I have devoted my energies. If sometimes that has meant stepping on your toes, Dutch toes and English toes, so be it. Do I make myself clear?”

“I recall, and no doubt you will too,” said De Bruyn, “that soon after I took up my present office here, you detained a messenger of mine and placed him in double chains at your Castle at Anomabu. I had to suffer the indignity of requesting the intervention of the Governor at Cape Coast to secure his release from you.”

“Oh that was a long time ago, Governor. Surely you do not bear me a grudge for that trivial misunderstanding after all these years? We are both old coasters, are we not? In these difficult times we need to pull together, not to drag dead horses from their graves. Your predecessor and I did good business together. The Governor at Cape Coast even had the cheek to reprimand me for selling slaves to you Dutch and importing goods from Amsterdam. I told him to go and fuck himself.