Ama (38 page)

In Yendi and Kafaba she had heard of a powerful god called Allah and of other gods who had their own shrines, priests and devotees. The Asante paid homage to their own ancestors, but also worshipped a supreme god, Kwame Onyankopon and an earth goddess, Asase Yaa, through a pantheon of minor regional deities who lived in rivers, rocks and mighty forest trees. And the people of Edina, as Augusta had told her, had seventy seven gods of whom the greatest was Tweneboa, spirit of the Benya river.

It seemed natural and proper to her that different peoples should each have their own gods. That applied, of course, to the Europeans as well. It would be strange if the whites were to worship Fanti gods. By the same token, she could not see why, far from home as she was, she should abandon the ancestors of the Bekpokpam for the god the whites called God or for the ancestor they called Jesus.

The chapel was a simple rectangular room, furnished with plain wooden benches. Two shuttered windows looked down into the inner courtyard of the female slaves and four more, two on each side, flanked the door which led out on to a landing with steps down to the roof of the North Bastion below and a view of the bay beyond.

The benches were already quite full when Ama arrived with De Bruyn. The Governor led her to the front of the room. They shook hands with Van Schalkwyk, who introduced them to his guest, the Rev. Philip Quaque, whom neither of them had met before. De Bruyn went off to look for the groom and Van Schalkwyk to attempt to explain to Kwesi Broni, now awake, but only somewhat sobered, what would be expected of him.

Ama was left with the Cape Coast Chaplain. They sat in awkward silence for a few moments.

Then Ama said, in Fanti, “You are welcome to Elmina, sir.”

“Speak to me in English, child,” the Reverend replied. “I neither speak nor understand that heathenish tongue.”

“Reverend Van Schalkwyk,” he continued. (She smiled at the peculiar accent with which he spoke the Dutch name.) “Reverend Van Schalkwyk tells me that you speak a passable English and that you have also acquired some skill in reading and writing. So speak to me in English, if you please.”

“Please, sir,” Ama replied in English, “I said that you are welcome to Elmina.”

“I know what you said, child,” he replied testily. “What is your name? Van Schalkwyk told me but I have forgotten.”

“Please, sir, I am called Ama.”

“Not your pagan name, girl,” said Quaque. “Do you not have a Christian name?”

“The whites call me Pamela,” she replied.

“Pamela?” he said. “That does not sound like a Christian name to me. I do not recall a saint of that name. Saint Pamela? No. My name is Philip, you see. I am named after Saint Philip who was one of the twelve Apostles of Our Lord. My late wife, my first wife, was called Catherine, after the holy Saint Catherine of Sienna. But Pamela has the virtue at least of being an English name. To have an English name is an honour and to have acquired a command of the language is a blessing, especially for a pagan. Now let me test you. Can you recite the Lord's Prayer?”

Ama looked nervously over her shoulder. The chapel was filling up. The ladies from Cape Coast sat chattering amongst themselves at the back. The Dutch officers, in their dress uniforms, had taken their seats nearer the front. Three of them sat immediately behind Ama.

She was shy.
Why does the man do this to me?
she wondered. But she had no choice. The world was ruled by men.

“Our Father,” she began, in a low voice, almost a whisper.

“Louder,” said Quaque. “You need not be ashamed of prayer.”

She began again, a little louder.

“Excellent,” he said, when she had finished. “I am most impressed. Reverend Van Schalkwyk is clearly a gifted teacher. He tells me that you read the Bible too. Which is your favourite book?”

De Bruyn had reminded her that it was Quaque who had sold him the children's books which had introduced her to English. Thinking to flatter the austere black minister, she flashed a smile.

“Goody Two-Shoes, sir.”

“Goody Two-Shoes! What kind of book is that?”

He laughed an outraged, humourless, laugh.

“A story book, sir,” she replied. “Mijn Heer, I mean the Director-General, told me that it was you who sent it, with many others, to help me to learn to read.”

“Ah, yes, I remember now. It must be one of the chapbooks that Catherine brought out with her. Catherine was my first wife, you know. She was an English woman, a white. But she died within a year of coming to Cape Coast. This is not a good climate for whites.”

For a few moments he was lost in thought.

“Goody Two-Shoes, did you say?” he asked, coming back to the present. “Well, I suppose if it was one of Catherine's there could be no great harm in it. But that is not what I meant by my question. For me there is only one book, the Good Book, the Holy Bible which contains the revealed Word of God. I see no purpose in delving into other books, except of course, the Book of Common Prayer. I advise you too to confine your reading to the Bible. I ask you again, which is your favourite book?”

Ama was saved from the necessity of a reply by the reappearance of Van Schalkwyk. Quaque, too, was not wholly displeased at the interruption of his conversation with Ama. He felt it his duty to raise with her the issue of her baptism and salvation from the sinful condition in which she was living with De Bruyn; but he was uncertain how to tackle the diplomatic problems which might arise. Now, with a clear conscience, he could set the issue aside for a more opportune time.

Soon the ceremony began. The congregation sang the opening hymn. Bombardier Trenks, who was the company map-maker, attempted an accompaniment on his old fiddle. His musical gifts, regrettably, did not match his cartographic skills. However the singing of the Dutch men made up in volume for what it lacked in grace, so Trenks' scraping was drowned out and little was lost. De Bruyn led Jensen in and, leaving him standing in front of the simple table which served as an altar, took his seat next to Ama. Jensen was resplendent in the white uniform with gold braiding and epaulettes in which Ama had first seen him. She remembered Esi and sighed. The
pig-god,
they had called Jensen. She squeezed De Bruyn's hand and looked at his profile. He did not react. She wondered where Esi was now.

Van Schalkwyk welcomed the visitors and announced the order of the service. Then, at a signal, Trenks led them into Handel's
Joy to the World
and Kwesi Broni entered, his suit a little the worse for the morning's wear, his deerskin hat perched jauntily on his wig and Rose clasping the extended crook of his arm. Rose looked beautiful in the late Elizabeth's reconstructed white satin wedding gown. Jensen, turning his head, saw the approach of the veiled apparition and for a moment swallowed his bile at having been forced into this ceremony. The Cape Coast women applauded and, forgetting where they were, broke into a rhythmic chant of praise, drowning out what remained of the hymn.

It was only when the bride and groom had been asked to sit and Kwesi Broni, too, had been shown to the seat reserved for him in the front row, that Van Schalkwyk managed, with some difficulty, to re-establish a semblance of order. Stung by the interruption, he chose to deviate from his prepared sermon, quoting, in both Dutch and English, John Knox's description of women as
weak, frail, impatient, feeble and foolish; unconstant, variable, cruel, and lacking the spirit of counsel
. However the censure was lost upon its target. The Dutch men, pleased that on this occasion at least, they were not the object of their predikant's invective, and without womenfolk of their own to intimidate them, murmured their agreement. Van Schalkwyk was flattered that they had heard him. All too often he suspected that he was preaching to deaf ears.

Ama wondered what Van Schalkwyk could be talking about. His sermon went on and on. She tried to recognise a Dutch word, any Dutch word, but soon gave up. It was muggy in the chapel and she began to feel drowsy. A fly buzzed at her ear and she lashed out at it. De Bruyn gave her a stern look. Her attention wandered and she dozed.

At last the preacher signalled the approaching end by summarising what he had said. De Bruyn screwed up his eyes in a conscious effort to focus his attention. If he remembered nothing else, the summary at least would allow him to make a respectable attempt at polite conversation on the sermon. He could not reveal to poor Hennie that he sometimes found it impossible to follow the thread of his tedious homilies.

When Reverend Quaque, in response to Van Schalkwyk's invitation, rose to read the lesson in English, there was another uproar. It was not that the Cape Coast women had much regard for the black minister; on the contrary they usually regarded him at best with suspicion and at worst with contempt; but he was, after all, a Cape Coast man; and he had not only mastered the white man's language and become ruler of the white man's church in his own home town, but he was now making his mark in the very den of their Edina rivals. They might understand nothing of what he said; after all he insisted on speaking only the
broni
language: yet they shared his triumph. And so they cheered and clapped, ignoring his withering glare.

The service proceeded slowly to its interminable conclusion and in due course gold rings were exchanged and Jensen lifted Rose's veil and kissed her, evoking ululations from the bored visitors.

Van Schalkwyk now brought the service to a close. As a challenge to the outrageous paganism of the visitors he led his countrymen in Luther's
A Mighty Fortress Is Our God!
which his compatriots, catching his crusading mood, sang with great gusto. The groom signed an improvised register and the bride followed with
Rose Thompson
, which was all she could write.

CHAPTER 22

A passing ship brought news that the Dutch factor at Axim was seriously ill.

“I'd have to go even if it weren't for this crisis,” De Bruyn told Ama. “It's two years since my last inspection.”

“How will you go?”

“Bezuidenhout will take me in the brig.”

“When?”

“As soon as possible. On the high tide tomorrow morning if the wind is right.”

“Well I shall just have to manage without you.”

“I'll come back just as quickly as I can. You will miss me, won't you?”

“Of course,” Ama replied, kissing him on the cheek.

“I'll tell you what. We'll ask Hennie to brush up your catechism while I'm away. As soon as I get back we can have you baptised. Then we can start thinking about a date for our wedding.”

* * *

The brig Admiraal de Ruyter was moored in the Benya lagoon.

Ama went on board with De Bruyn. There was only one cabin in the little ship and since De Bruyn would be using it Commodore Bezuidenhout would have to sleep on deck with the Europeans and company slaves who made up the small crew.

Though Ama had never been on a ship before, she had often examined the tall masts and the rigging through Mijn Heer's spyglass. Now she ran her hands over a hemp rope and revived the shine on a brass bollard with the corner of her cloth.

“What a tiny room!” she said as they entered the cabin.

It's almost as small as the little store under Konadu Yaadom's stairs where Esi and I hid when Osei Kwadwo died
, she thought. There was barely enough space for the two of them to stand beside the bunk.

“It's time to leave, Mijn Heer,” said Bezuidenhout. “The tide has already turned and there is no guarantee that this off-shore breeze will hold.”

Ama climbed down into the small boat and the bumboy rowed her ashore.

The brig weighed anchor, the draw bridge was raised and two canoes towed the vessel down the short canal to the sea. The seamen-slaves who were already up in the rigging unfurled the sails; the breeze caught them and as they filled, the ship became a living thing. The tow ropes were made loose and the paddlers swung their boats aside to make a way for the larger vessel.

Ama ran down along the rock quay, waving and shouting to De Bruyn. Then the brig had passed the end of the mole and was weathering the surf.

* * *

Ama threw herself into her favourite armchair. She needed to think.

Tonight, for the first time since she had slept in De Bruyn's bed, she would sleep there alone. Before his return she had some hard decisions to make.

Christianity, from what she had seen and learned of it, meant little to her. But did it really matter? She would say
yes
and
amen
at the right places and then Van Schalkwyk would agree to marry them. That was not what concerned her. Nor was it that she did not really love Mijn Heer in the same way as she had once loved Itsho; he was kind to her and, in spite of their differences she was genuinely fond of him.

What troubled her was the thought of what would become of her once she had married him. He talked of retiring after Captain Williams' next visit and possibly joining Williams in a business venture of some sort in England. What was England like and how would she be able to live there, a black woman in a white man's country? Apart from what she had read in books, she had no means of judging, no experience which was relevant, no one she could look to for disinterested advice.

She rose and opened a drawer. From the bottom of a pile of neatly folded cloths, she took one that was old and torn. She shook it open and spread it over her shoulders. This was her only material memento of home. It was the cloth she had been wearing when she had been abducted, when Abdulai had raped her. The strip missing from one ragged edge was what Abdulai had torn off to bandage the finger she had bitten. She smiled.
That brute will carry the mark I put on him all his life,
she thought.

She took the cloth off her shoulders, crumpled it and buried her face in it. She imagined that she could smell the sweet fragrance of home, the smoke from the fire on Tabitsha's hearth, the aroma of the stew she was cooking, the dust of the harmattan, the sweat on Itsho's body when they lay together after making love in Tabitsha's dark room.