Ama (67 page)

“Alexandre, stop that this minute.”

Ama spoke with authority. Alexandre let go of Miranda. She stumbled around drunkenly until the dizziness wore off. Then she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

“Alexandre,” Ama reprimanded him, “you have been eavesdropping again.”

“Eavesdropping? Me? Ama, I thought you were my friend. Why do you make false accusations which will get me into trouble? Eavesdropping on whom?”

“Why were you calling Senhorita Miranda Senhora Williams?”

“Oh that!” he replied dismissively.

“Yes, that! You were eavesdropping on the Senhor's conversation with Senhor Williams, weren't you?”

Alexandre pouted and said nothing.

“What is this all about, Ama?” Miranda asked.

“Senhorita Miranda, can you keep a secret?”

“Of course. Tell me, tell me. What is it all about?”

“If you give me away, the Senhor will send me back to the cane fields.”

“I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“This morning I took the Senhor's breakfast tray to him on the veranda. Then I waited in case he needed anything. I was tired and I sat down next to the cabinet. Senhor Williams came out to join your father. He asked for permission to discuss something very important with him.”

“This doesn't sound very interesting. They are always talking business. Something about the
engenho
, no doubt. Why are you telling me this?”

“Young lady you are too impatient. The important matter Senhor Williams wanted to discuss with your father was you.”

“Me?”

“Yes you.”

“What have I done now? I have hardly spoken to the visitor.”

“Can't you guess?” Alexandre chipped in.

“Alexandre be quiet,” Ama scolded him. “This is serious. Now listen carefully, Senhorita, and brace yourself for a shock. Senhor Williams was asking your father for permission to court you.”

“To court . . .?”

Miranda's eyes and mouth opened wide. Then she blushed deeply.

“He wants to marry you.”

A tear descended from each of Miranda's eyes. Then she began to sob. Ama put her arm around her shoulder.

“Don't cry. It is nothing to cry about. He is a fine man. You should be flattered.”

This only made things worse. Miranda bawled. She hugged Ama and sank her head into her breast. Ama did her best to comfort her.

The door opened and the Senhora entered.

“What's going on in here? The Senhor is complaining about the noise. He has a headache.”

Then she saw her daughter crying.

“Miranda, my child, what is the matter? Why are you crying? Alexandre, have you been teasing her again?”

Miranda looked up, speechless, and shook her head. Ama moved aside. The Senhora took her daughter's hands.

“There now. Surely it can't be bad enough to make you cry like that?”

Miranda burst into tears again.

“Ama, what is it? Do you know?”

Ama was silent.

You should have kept your mouth shut you stupid slave. Now you are in real trouble
, she thought.

Miranda looked up and wiped her face with her hand. Her mother helped her with a handkerchief.

“Tell her,” Miranda ordered Ama.

“Senhorita, you promised.”

“Tell her. I promise you on my honour that my father will not send you back to the cane fields.”

“Well?” asked the Senhora, losing patience.

There is nothing for it, I shall have to tell her
, Ama thought.

“Senhora, Senhor Williams, the Englishman . . .”

“Yes? What about him? Speak girl, or I'll have you given a good beating.”

“He has asked the Senhor for permission to pay court to Senhorita Miranda.”

CHAPTER 34

Overcoming his misgivings, the Senhor gave his consent to Williams' courtship of Miranda.

For practical reasons, he sent his wife and daughter to take up residence in the town house in Salvador. Miranda begged her father to join them, but the Senhor was wedded to the
engenho
and too lazy to make a move.

Ama had become the girl's favourite companion. Miranda wanted to take her as her personal maid. Ama was thrilled at the prospect. But the Senhor vetoed the plan. There was no way he would permit himself to be made a laughing stock in Salvador. Employing a one-eyed maid to serve his daughter! He would be the butt of malicious jokes. He had convinced himself that Williams would be a good match and had no intention of allowing the Englishman to slip through his fingers by presenting him with a scandal as a pretext for second thoughts. So Miranda gave in and Ama stayed behind.

Miranda had more success in persuading her father that Alexandre should go with them. The Senhor decided that it was time to send his mulatto son to the seminary in Salvador to prepare him to take holy orders.

Weeks passed. Josef brought regular news. Williams had been received into the Catholic Church. He dined regularly with the Senhora and her daughter. He showered Miranda with exquisite gifts. He escorted them to Mass every Sunday. He took them out driving in his coach.

It was still too early for him to make a formal proposal but the Senhora had sufficient confidence in his honourable intentions to start assembling her daughter's trousseau. Orders were sent to Lisbon.

Then the Engenho do Meio, the
fogo morto
which was the Senhor's neighbour, was sold. The new owner came to call on the Senhor. He brought in many new slaves. Fifi was made a senior driver by virtue of his local knowledge. Josef and Wono rejoiced for him and his family. They had been living in the direst poverty. Now things might be a little better.

Williams returned to the Engenho de Cima to make a formal proposal of marriage to the Senhor. He offered to forego his right to a dowry but the Senhor insisted. They compromised. The Senhor would make a generous settlement upon his daughter. A day in January was fixed for the wedding and Williams returned to Salvador. He bought a house in a quiet street in the
Cidade Alta
and his fiancée and prospective mother-in-law helped him to equip it.

The Senhor's two elder sons arrived at the Engenho de Cima, together with their wives and children, and began to make preparations for the wedding. The house was too small to accommodate all the guests who were expected. The neighbouring
senhores de engenho
would help, but tents would also be required; and a grand marquee for the reception. The sons arranged to borrow carriages and ox-carts and boats. They auditioned the slaves who could play musical instruments and sought out others in the neighbourhood. The Senhor decided to close down the mill for a month after Christmas. His sons needed the extra labour and it was not practical to keep the mill running with a skeleton staff. So a hundred slaves, men, women and children devoted all their energies for four weeks to the preparations for the festivities. There would be horse racing and cock fighting, hunting and cards to amuse the men. And eating and drinking, of course. On the night of the wedding there would be a great ball with an orchestra brought all the way from Salvador. The annual issue of clothes to the slaves was postponed until the eve of the wedding. Each male field hand would receive a pair of drawers that reached below the knee, a coarse homespun shirt and a bright head kerchief; each woman, a shift, a frock and an apron; and each child a shirt with long tails. And as a bonus, a new tin plate, a spoon and a mug.

The Senhor was beginning to receive subtle intimations of his own mortality. He was determined that no effort or expense should be spared on what might well be the last manifestation of his power and prestige.

* * *

Miranda returned with her mother a week before the date set for the wedding.

Williams came with them and immediately went to stay as the guest of the new owner of the Engenho do Meio. He brought an educated black Crioulo with him as his valet. Every morning he rode over to take breakfast with the Senhor. The valet followed on foot.

This man was the subject of animated conversation amongst the slaves. He did not speak the pidgin Portuguese which was the lingua franca of both slaves and many of the whites; no, this one spoke with the accents of an educated man. Williams dressed him in the uniform of an English butler. He wore shoes, polished shoes, which was unheard of for a slave. It was rumoured that he had travelled to Portugal; someone said that he had also been to England. No, said another, he
is
English, a black Englishman, specially imported by the consul.

Only the Senhor was not impressed.

“A monkey dressed in silk is still a monkey,” Ama heard him tell the priest.

As the big day approached the pace of work quickened. The glamour and excitement of it all affected the slaves, too. The Bishop arrived from Salvador, carried on a litter and surrounded by a retinue of his personal slaves. The slaves of the
engenho
lined up and watched the family and the guests kiss his ring. As each party of guests rode up the Senhor came out to welcome them formally. The yard was full of fine carriages, otherwise seldom used because of the condition of the roads. Strange horses raced up and down the paddocks. The estate was alive with strangers. They inspected the livestock and the mill. Some of them even toured the
senzalas
, poking their heads inside the cabins. The young men regarded the female slaves as fair game, squeezing breasts and pinching buttocks. Ama found her missing eye a valuable weapon. Assaulted in this way, she turned her remaining eye on the assailant with a fierce look and spat on the ground. Her victim warned his fellow rakes of her evil eye and they steered clear of her thereafter.

The unmarried sisters of these young men were kept in virtual purdah in the Senhora's quarters. Their time would come with the grand ball, an occasion to put their virtuous gifts on display for the benefit of prospective suitors.

The slaves had their own guests to accommodate and entertain, for every white family brought with it a retinue of servants.

“Maybe we can find you a husband, too, Ama,” teased Wono.

* * *

At ten o'clock precisely (more or less) on the big day, the bridegroom arrived.

A great cheer rose from the assembled slaves and the guests on the veranda as his carriage approached. It was drawn by four magnificent white mares and escorted by a mounted retinue of the younger male guests.

“Look,” said Ama, clutching Wono's arm, “Fifi. Doesn't he look grand?”

“Who is that beside him?” Wono asked.

Fifi, dressed in a red uniform with gold braid, held the reins. Beside him, bolt upright, sat a stranger in similar attire.

“It must be one of the new slaves at Fifi's place,” said Ama.

“Fifi, Fifi,” cried Wono, as if it were he who was the centre of all this pomp, rather than his passenger.

Ama looked again at the new man.

“Wono,” she said faintly, digging her nails into the flesh of her friend's arm.

“What?” asked Wono.

“I know him. I am sure I know him. He was on the ship with me.
The Love of Liberty.
He is my
malungo.
”

And then she fainted.

* * *

When Ama came to she was lying in the shade of a tree.

Wono was kneeling by her side. They were surrounded by a crowd of anxious friends.

“Move away, move away,” she heard Wono say. “Give her some air.”

She opened her eye and blinked.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You fainted,” Wono replied. “Are you all right now? Can you sit up? You wicked girl, you gave me a quite a start. For a moment I thought you were . . .”

“Dead? Me? Not yet, sister Wono.”

“Ah, here they come,” said Wono.

“Who?” asked Ama, sitting up.

“Fifi and Josef. And Fifi's friend, your
malungo
. I sent for them.”

Ama felt her heart pumping. She struggled to get up but she was too weak.

“Wono, help me,” she insisted.

Josef asked, “Wono, what is the matter? The lad you sent sounded anxious.”

Ama said, “It is nothing, Bra Josef. We just wanted to greet Fifi in his fine new clothes.”

Fifi greeted Ama in Fanti, “Sister Ama,
maakye
. How are you?” and shook hands.

When she had replied, he said, “As for these clothes, they dress us up like performing monkeys when it suits them. I would be happier in my working shirt, hot and itchy as it is. But I forget myself. I haven't introduced our new brother. João, this is Wono, Josef's wife. And this is Ama.”

Wono was about to add, “Who is looking for a husband,” but her friend's stern look shut her up.

Ama turned and looked Tomba straight in the eye. She would never let him forget the open-mouthed astonishment with which he recognised her. Recovering quickly, he took both her hands in his.

“Sister Ama and I,” he said to his new friends in Portuguese, “have met before.”

* * *

Ama and Tomba saw little of the wedding celebrations.

There were so many other slaves on hand to serve the masters that it was easy for them to slip away unnoticed.

They spent the time talking. They talked from dawn to dusk and half way through the night. At first they talked at random about what had happened to them since they had last been together at the slave auction in the
Cidade Baixa
. No slave caught up in the harsh reality of life in sugar Bahia was immune from bouts of self-pity; but it was not in the nature of either to dwell upon their troubles. As they talked they grew to know one another, confirming the impressions each had formed on board ship. They shared reminiscences of their journey across the Atlantic.

Tomba reminded her how she had brought him water to drink soon after she had come on board.

“What made you do that?”

“Huh? I don't know. I didn't think. I just did it.”

He took her hand.

“I never had a chance to say thank you. You cannot imagine how that simple act of courage and compassion sustained me through that voyage.”