Ama (60 page)

Josef nodded.

Then he said, “I think I can read your thoughts.

“But that is nothing. One evening, when you have picked up enough Portuguese, one of the old hands will tell you the story of the great
quilombo
of Palmares. They always tell that story to the new arrivals, to keep the memory alive. They say that Palmares kept its freedom for a hundred years and that it is nearly a hundred years since it succumbed. That means that it is at least two hundred years since the first slaves were brought here from Africa.”

Ama shook her head slowly.

Then she asked, “Has Maame Esperança no family? Did she never have children?”

“They say she had three husbands, five children and many grand-children and great-grand-children; but they are all either dead or were sold long ago. Now she is all alone. She shares her cabin with Jacinta. Have you met Jacinta yet? She must still be sleeping.”

“Maame Esperança, where is Jacinta?” he shouted.

He bent first one and then the other lower arm. Each time he touched his elbow. The old woman bent her head to one side and put her hands, palms together, to her cheek.

“Wake her then. She can't sleep all day. It is not good for her.”

Esperança went to call Jacinta. Josef dropped his voice.

“Jacinta is from Kongo,” he said. “She had a terrible accident; she was still new and young and inexperienced. They put her to feeding cane at the mill. One of her hands got drawn between the rollers. In trying to free herself, she put her other hand in too. By the time they were able to stop the oxen. . . . Well, you will see for yourself. Esperança helps her. When you see how difficult things are for her you realise how much we depend on our hands. She can't wash or dress herself. She has to be helped to eat. I hope you will be patient with her. She doesn't endure her fate with resignation.”

“Ah, Sister Jacinta,” he greeted her in Portuguese, “this is your new cabin mate. She is called Ama. She had just arrived from Africa.”

Jacinta emerged from the cabin. She wore a simple shift which hung from her shoulders by two straps. Ama smiled a greeting, studiously avoiding looking at the stumps of Jacinta's lower arms. But Jacinta held up her stumps for inspection as if to say, “Here, take a good look.” Then she saw the hollow which had once held Ama's right eye. Ama thought she sensed a softening in her expression. She held the right stump out for Ama to shake.

“Esperança,” she shouted at the old woman, lifting her stumps to her mouth, “where is my food?”

* * *

The accountant was a mulatto called Vicente Texeira.

“Be careful how you answer his questions,” Josef warned her as they approached his office. “He is the Senhor's creature.”

Texeira was a small wiry man. He had inherited his broad nose and fleshy lips from his African forebears, but his skin was as pale as the Senhor's.

“Name?” he asked, looking at the waybill which Josef had brought from Cardozo.

“They gave her the name Ana das Minas,” Josef said.

Texeira made a tick against the name.

“We already have one Ana das Minas,” he said. “We can't have two of the same name: it will confuse the records. I will enter her as ‘One-eye' for the time being. When she is baptised she will be given a proper Christian name.”

Josef was silent.

“Tell her what I said.”

“Senhor Texeira says I am to tell you that until you are baptised with a proper Christian name, you will be called ‘One-eye.' I am sorry. The man is like that.”

“It is nothing,” Ama replied.

“What does she say?”

“She says she understands.”

“Ask her what happened to her eye.”

Josef translated.

“Tell him it was an accident.”

Texeira wrote a chit authorising the store-man to issue Ama with a length of coarse homespun cloth.

As they came out of the store, they met a tall, muscular white man.
A giant
, Ama thought,
like an executioner
.

“Who is this?” he asked Josef.

“The new woman I spoke to you about this morning, Senhor. You told me to take the morning off to show her around the engenho.”

“Don' you tell me what I told you, boy,” Senhor Vasconcellos replied. “You didn't tell me that she is missing one eye.”

Josef said nothing.

“We celebrate the start of the
safra
tomorrow. The day after she will join the cane gang. Today you can keep her with you. You may spend the morning showing her around. In the afternoon I want you in the mill. Bring her with you. The sooner she gets to work the better. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Senhor.”

“Who is he?” Ama asked when they were out of hearing.

“Jesus,” replied Josef.

“How?”

“His name is Jesus Vasconcellos. He is the
feitor-mor
, the general manager. We say that on this engenho the Senhor is God. Senhor Vasconcellos, who sits by his right hand, is Jesus. I am talking about his power, mind you, not his compassion or his mercy. It is he who runs this place and he does so with an iron fist. If you want to live a peaceful life keep on the right side of him. If he takes a dislike to you, for whatever reason, he will make your life a misery. What Senhor Jesus demands is subservience. If you grovel before him, you will have no trouble.

“They say that once, before I came here, he was seen to smile. I can't imagine what might make him do that. The truth is, I believe that he hates all slaves, and particularly those of us from Africa. I thank the gods and our ancestors that my work takes me away from this place so often. But today we should be grateful to the man. He has allowed us the morning off to let me show you around the
engenho
and introduce you to some of our people.”

* * *

It was dark when the bell rang.

Still exhausted from the previous day's labour, Ama slept on. Old Esperança, who had risen earlier, prodded her awake. She washed her face and drank a mug of the maté which the old woman had prepared. At the assembly ground Benedito, the old Crioulo catechist, led them in a brief prayer to the Virgin Mary. Then they trooped down the familiar path through the swirling mist.

At the yard they formed into their gangs.

By the light of an oil lamp Texeira took the roll call. Then Vasconcellos assigned the day's tasks. Ama wondered whether the General Manager could read. It seemed not.

The carters inspanned the oxen in pairs and the cane field gangs climbed onto the carts. A crack of the whip set the oxen lumbering out of the yard and onto the rutted track. Mounted white and mulatto overseers followed, their dogs snapping at the horses' hooves. As they entered the copse at the bend before the cane fields, the birds in the trees began to serenade the approaching dawn. The clearing gang fell out first to; soon afterwards the planters and the weeders also jumped down from their carts. The cutters were last.

When they reached their field the women made a fire and put a kettle on to boil. One man unsaddled the overseer's mount while the carters offloaded the carts and drew the first two up into position. The men passed a stone from hand to hand and honed their blades

The oxen settled down to graze in the firebreaks which divided the cane fields into
tarefas
, each seventy paces square. The cane from one
tarefa
could keep the mill working for twenty-four hours.

The men flexed their muscles and swung their scythes. The overseer assigned work partners: a man to cut, a woman to bundle and load; and staked out each pair's task for the day. As soon as there was light enough to see by, he cracked his whip as a signal to start work. The first heavy scythe whistled through the mist:
swish
! Then
thunk
! as it struck home. The women moved in to gather the fallen canes. They bound them into bundles and loaded them onto the carts. The sun rose and drove the mist away. The overseer strolled up and down, watching, playing with his whip. Time passed. The cutters established a rhythm. There was nothing for the overseer to do. Bored, he lay down, rested his head on his saddle, drew his hat over his face and slept.

Swish
!
Thunk
!
Swish
!
Thunk
!

Ama's partner quickened his pace, building up a stockpile of canes. She knew what he was about and made no effort to work any faster. Then he paused, untied his headband and wiped the sweat from his face. He walked across to the barrel, dipped the mug into the water and took a deep draught. Then he poured a mugful over his head. As Ama lifted the last cane, he was at it again.

Swish
!
Thunk
!
Swish
!
Thunk
!

Now Ama quickened her own pace, struggling to discipline the recalcitrant canes. When she had cleared her backlog, she went to attend to the fire. The lid of the kettle was bouncing.

“Water's boiling,” she called in Portuguese.

The overseer lifted his hat and stood up. He wiped his eyes, stretched and yawned.

“Right,” he called. “Breakfast.”

Ama ladled water from the butt into a basin and carried it across to an empty cart. The women queued to wash their hands.

The men talked quietly amongst themselves.

“Speak Portuguese,” the overseer insisted. “I want none of your pagan languages in my gang.”

He watched them take their food, cold jerked beef, manioc meal and beans. When they had finished eating he handed over authority to his underdriver and ordered his horse saddled. As he mounted, the first two carts were turning off into the track on their way up to the mill.

“Good appetite,” the wag of the gang shouted after him.

They went back to work. Ama started to chant.

“Twelve canes to a faggot, bind them tight.”

The other women joined in the chorus, “How many canes to cut today?”

“Ten faggots a finger, five fingers a hand.”

And then the chorus again, “How many canes to cut today?

Another woman offered a line, and then a third took her turn.

“One fifty faggots fill a cart;

“How many canes to cut today?

“Twenty four cart-loads feed the mill;

“How many canes to cut today?

“Send more canes, the mill must run;

“How many canes to cut today?”

“Ring the bell; crack the whip;

“How many canes to cut today?”

“The furnace burns, the kettles boil;

“How many canes to cut today?”

“Eight loads of firewood, stacked to burn;

“How many canes to cut today?”

At each line the scythes swung. Then the men began to improvise.

“Pity the downtrodden African slave;

“How many canes to cut today?”

“Curse the ships which brought us here;

“How many canes to cut today?”

“Senhorita Miranda, open your legs,” sang the wag.

“How many canes to cut today?” came the automatic reply, but it was interrupted by laughter.

They all straightened up and took a short rest to applaud the man's impudence. The song was over.

“What did he say? Why are you laughing?” a woman asked Ama.

Warming to the applause, the wag spread his arms, looked beseechingly up at the heavens and mimed himself wooing the Senhor's precious daughter.

“Ah sweet, white, beautiful, innocent, virginal Miranda,” he said, adding more emphasis to each successive hosanna, “I beg you. By Saint Gonçalo, I beg you. Let Luis dos Santos make you a fine mulatto baby!”

“Heh, enough of that,” interrupted Pedro the underdriver, trying to suppress his own laughter, but scared that he might have some explaining to do if any of this reached the
casa grande
. “Back to work.”

At midday they stopped to eat the food left over from breakfast. A returning cart brought enough
garapa
to give each man a swallow. They took off only just enough time to down the food; then they were back at work.

Swish
!
Thunk
!
Swish
!
Thunk
!

Now the sun was hot; the sweat flowed; backs ached and the pace flagged.

Pedro flicked his whip. He had only recently been plucked from the ranks of the cane cutters and given a pair of leather boots, a whip and a bottle of
garapa
twice a week to mark his new status. But that was not all that had changed. His former mates now treated him with reserve. He sensed that an invisible barrier separated him from them.

He regretted the loss of companionship. Yet he certainly did not regret his release from the grinding hard labour. He was getting special food rations too; those frequent pangs of hunger were a thing of the past. But it was not selfishness, he persuaded himself, which had led him to accept promotion. His wife had a baby daughter. He had made a sacrifice; and it was for the child's sake. As if he had had a choice anyway! Yet he was ill at ease. He was drinking too much. Most nights now he got drunk. And he had started to beat the woman. Afterwards he would be sorry; yet a few days later he would do it again.

In the early afternoon they heard the approaching hoof beats of the overseer's horse. They saw him stagger as he dismounted and exchanged knowing glances. This was not the time to trifle with the man.

The first cutter completed his row and went to help the slowest member of the gang. No one would leave until the whole
tarefa
had been levelled. As the western sky turned crimson they regained a little energy and drove themselves to finish the work before sundown. As the men helped the women to load the last cart, their evening meal arrived. It was the same bland stuff they had eaten before.

They filed back to the yard in the dark, dragging their heavy legs, tripping over the ruts in the track, too weary even to talk. By the light of a brazier they handed their tools in at the store. Senhor Vasconcellos ordered them to report at the mill. Ama asked for permission to go and relieve herself. At the back of the kettle house, the furnaces roared, sending great orange flames flickering upwards, silhouetting the glistening naked bodies of the stokers. Ama stopped for a moment to watch the inferno. There was a terrible beauty about it.
Like the Christian hell
, she thought.