Ama (35 page)

“Let me make a further proposal. I have decided to repatriate five of my men, all experienced soldiers, to Holland. They are afflicted with some sort of skin ulcer which refuses to heal here. If you would agree to carry them to England, I would pay their passages. Five English pounds a head. They're all good men. and all quite well enough to use a musket or a sword.”

Williams grunted.

“I must balance the pros and cons. Let us talk about it again in the morning.”

“Agreed,” said De Bruyn. “Now, Pamela, would you please ring for dinner, and I promise you that we will talk no more business.”

Throughout this conversation Ama had kept her eyes down and her face immobile. She always felt humiliated when De Bruyn discussed the business of the slave trade in her presence.
He talks about us as if we were goats or chickens in a pen at the market
, she thought. But she had taught herself to swallow her anger.
Be charming to this Englishman,
she commanded herself,
however much you hate and despise him and his trade. After all, his business is no worse than that of Mijn Heer. And it is Mijn Heer who holds the key to your fate.

CHAPTER 20

Ama awoke to find De Bruyn standing at a window, looking out to sea and breathing deeply as was his custom each morning.

“I drank too much,” he told her.

Ama went silently about her ablutions.

“What did you make of Williams?” he asked her.

“If he is your friend, Mijn Heer, I must like him,” she replied.

“That sounds to me as if you mean just the opposite. Yet he seemed highly impressed with you,” De Bruyn called from the commode in the alcove.

Ama recalled an English proverb she had come across in Goody Two-Shoes.
When a man talks too much, believe but half of what he says
. But she made no reply.

“This morning,” De Bruyn said, pulling up his trousers as he emerged, “I have promised to take our visitor on a grand tour of the castle and the town. Augusta has arranged for the King to receive us. Afterwards we shall lunch in the summer house in the gardens. Would you like to join us? I am sure Williams would be pleased.”

Ama concealed her excitement at the prospect of a temporary escape from the confines of the apartment.

“Certainly, if that is what you want,” she replied.

De Bruyn looked at her closely.

“Are you upset about something?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, “What makes you think that?”

* * *

“I have asked Pamela to join us I hope you don't mind,” said De Bruyn

“Of course not,” replied Williams. “She seems a sensible wench. However I must tell you that I disapprove in principle of teaching slaves and others of the labouring classes more than the bare minimum they need to perform their duties. It is in general prejudicial to their morals and happiness. It persuades them to despise their lot in life, rather than making good servants of them. Instead of wearing their yoke with patience, they become ill-mannered and intractable.

“But I must say that you seem to have trained her well. She appears to know where a woman's tongue is best kept.”

“And where is that?” De Bruyn took the bait

“Chained and shackled within her mouth,” Williams laughed; and then smiled at Ama.

Concealing her anger and acting stupid, Ama smiled back..

They began their tour on the flat roof of the West Bastion. De Bruyn gave Williams a lecture on the history of the castle, concentrating on the Dutch victory over the Portuguese. He explained the construction work in progress in the yard below; he boasted of the castle's fine brass twelve-pounders and other armaments; and with some pride described the orchards and vegetable gardens which lay behind Coenraedsburg.

They passed through the Council Chamber and then out onto an open gallery which ran round two sides of the Inner Courtyard. It was from this vantage point that De Bruyn had selected Ama from amongst the rank and file of her fellow slaves. Bringing up the rear, she paused and looked down. The deep arched recesses, filled with grilles of iron, looked familiar.

“Mijn Heer,” she called.

He turned back.

“What is down there?” she asked.

“Those are the quarters of the female slaves,” he replied. “Come, we are running late. Augusta will be waiting for us.”

He was anxious not to get drawn into an embarrassing conversation before his guest.

Ama lingered. She knew the insides of one of those quarters, as he called the dungeons. Did she see black hands gripping the iron bars in the deep shadow? She could not be sure. Then, afraid that she would lose the two men, she hurried on.

She caught up with them on the North Bastion.

“Well, Williams, there you see the
Love of Liberty
, out in the roadstead. Here, take my spyglass. Everything in order? Now look down: you see the beach below? Pamela, come and look. We generally bring ships' cargo through the surf with our own boats but if they are not free or if the sea is too high, we get our bumboy to hire canoes. We use the gantry which you see here beside us to raise the goods up to the level of the doorway beneath us.”

Intrigued by the wooden structure with its pulleys and ropes, Ama went to examine it.

“It is through that same doorway, of course,” De Bruyn said to Williams in a low voice, as he watched her, “that we dispatch our outgoing cargo.”

“How does it work?” called Ama.

“Quite simple, my dear,” replied De Bruyn. “You use this handle to turn the windlass. The rope runs over that pulley, down to the lower pulley, up again around the upper pulley, down again, and so on, four times. Do you see the hook attached to the lower pulley? The goods are hung from that hook. Turn the handle clockwise and the hook goes up, and the goods with it. Turn it the other way and the hook goes down. Try it.”

Cautiously, Ama turned the handle and saw the lower pulley and its hook move down. She opened her mouth in astonishment.

“Now turn the handle the other way.”

The hook rose. She tried it again.

“Inquisitive wench,” said Williams. “You wouldn't find an English girl asking such a question.”

“Do you disapprove?” asked De Bruyn.

“In an English girl, I certainly would,” said Williams. “Curiosity is unbecoming in the female sex. This girl's curiosity surely comes from your teaching her to read. An ability to read is prejudicial in any woman, in a slave doubly and triply so. It opens them to ideas unsuited to their station in life.”

“Oh, I do not agree,” retorted De Bruyn. “Teaching Pamela to read has certainly changed her; but it has also been a rewarding experience for me. Think of her as my Galatea and of me as her Pygmalion. You know the Greek legend, of course? She has become a better companion to me, better intellectual company, than any man in this castle. Your ideas on this issue are old fashioned, Williams. The times are changing, even in England; or especially in England. I get the sense of that from the novels you bring me. Think of Moll Flanders.”

“Moll Flanders is a shameless harlot. De Foe set her up as a warning, not as a model for female behaviour.”

“Richardson's women then. Anna Howe, Clarissa, the original Pamela Andrews herself.”

“De Bruyn, you know I share your love of books. I suspect, though, that you take literature too seriously. I can understand that, considering the isolation of your existence here. But books are not life, you know. They are not even a poor reflection of life. Books are designed by their authors as fantasies, fictions, diversions; as distractions from the harsh realities of everyday existence. They are so designed for the simple purpose of earning a profit for their authors. It is a dangerous delusion to imagine that you can mine books for lessons on life.”

“Do you include in that precept the Good Book itself?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. I suspect, though, that a thorough search of the Bible, would provide you with justification for almost any course of action, perhaps even murder.”

De Bruyn looked over his shoulder nervously.

“You English are outrageous,” he said. “That is blasphemy.”

They were descending the first of the three long open flights of stairs which led down to the main courtyard. Ama had been following the two men at a discreet distance, looking this way and that to disguise the fact that she was eavesdropping. She need not have bothered: they were so engrossed in their argument that they had forgotten the female person whose innocent inquiry had started it.

Ama's appearance, trailing behind the two white men, caused a stir in the busy courtyard. It was most unusual for a strange black woman to be seen emerging from the officers' quarters. The two men were paying no attention to her and her connection with them was not clear to the spectators. Her presence was an enigma.

Ama was concentrating on the steep stone steps and at the same time trying to catch the thread of the men's conversation. It was only when they reached the first landing that she lifted her eyes and saw the scene below. All activity had ceased. Every eye was trained on her. She stopped in her tracks. The two men, still arguing, were already on their way down the lower flight. Ama could not move. Her feet were glued to the flagstones. She wanted to scream, “Mijn Heer, Mijn Heer,” but the words stuck in her throat. Her legs turned to jelly. She felt she must sink to the ground. If only the flagstones would open and swallow her. She recalled the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. All human movement in the courtyard had been frozen, all, that is, except that of the two men who continued inexorably on their way down the stairs. She did not know which way to look. She closed her eyes.

De Bruyn and Williams reached the next landing. De Bruyn suddenly became aware of the silence in the courtyard. He raised his eyes and then turned round to look for Ama. She stood there like a statue, a Galatea turned back into black ivory, and rooted to the spot on which she stood.

“Pamela,” he called.

Ama looked at him appealingly. Still she could not move.

“Pamela,” came a whispered chorus, an astonished echo, from the courtyard.

De Bruyn climbed back up the flight of stairs and took her by the hand. The spell on her was broken. She wanted to hang her arms around his neck but the presence of the onlookers would not allow it.

“What's the matter? Are you ill?” he asked and turned to cast a fierce gaze on the inquisitive throng below.

That lifted the spell on the watching traders and soldiers and they began to go about their business again, taking care only to twist their necks to keep the curious couple in view, Director-General De Bruyn and . . . who? There was a hubbub of excited speculation. Was this the slave-girl country-wife whom, rumour had it, De Bruyn kept imprisoned in his room?

Ama dug her nails into De Bruyn's palms.

“No,” she said, “I'll be all right. Just stand by me a moment.”

“Anything wrong?” asked Williams as they rejoined him on the lower landing.

“Oh just a momentary dizzy spell,” replied De Bruyn. “My fault. I should have thought. The steepness of the steps perhaps. Ah, there is Augusta, now. Augusta, you have met Captain Williams before, not so?”

Augusta made the suspicion of a curtsey. Williams nodded to her.

“We will just take a quick look round the stores,” said De Bruyn, “and then we will be with you. Pamela, will you join us or will you stay and talk to Augusta?”

“Augusta,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

* * *

“What!” exclaimed Williams as the store-man opened the door of the commercial magazine, “Are all these for sale? A mixed lot, I'll warrant: muskets, carbines, blunderbusses, buccaneer guns, fowling pieces, pistols. What else, then? Do you sell cannon and mortars too?”

“What else? Elephant guns, dane guns, flints, fire steels, lead shot. Also swords. Gunpowder and cartouche boxes we keep elsewhere. Cannon, perhaps, on special order, but only to our closest friends,” chuckled De Bruyn.

“Does it not put you at some risk, selling these guns to . . . them?”

“Not really,” replied De Bruyn, “If you examine the weapons closely you will soon discern the reason. Warfare is endemic on this part of the coast. Most of the slaves who come to us are prisoners of war. If we did not sell arms and ammunition, there would certainly be less warfare and the supply of slaves might dry up. There is, however, a distinction between the quality of arms required for such local warfare as will ensure us a steady supply of slaves, and weaponry that might pose a threat to ourselves. Beyond that we do of course exercise some discrimination in the choice of our customers: we would not want even weapons of inferior quality turning up in the hands of potential enemies. I believe that the other European trading companies adopt a similar policy. We have no formal contract with them to that effect, but there does seem to be some sort of unwritten agreement of long standing.

“Let me illustrate. We have intelligence that the Asante, who are important customers for muskets, have recently made conquests in vast territories to the north of them; and that they are exacting large numbers of slaves in tribute. Pamela, though she is somewhat reticent about her origins, is evidently one of those. Some of those slaves they no doubt use for agriculture or mining, or as domestic servants; but many they send down to the coast in exchange for European manufactures, trade goods from the East and, you have guessed it, more arms and ammunition. So the wheel turns and turns.”

* * *

“Ah,” said Williams as they crossed the second bridge, “a pleasant breeze off the sea. It is hot and humid in your courtyard. But what is that nasty smell?”

The two men walked ahead, with De Bruyn's personal body guards, Kobina and Vroom, smartly dressed in uniforms, in attendance. Kobina carried a musket and Vroom a cask of brandy on his head and a parcel of tobacco under one arm. The two women followed a short distance behind. Effibaa, carrying Augusta's stool, brought up the rear.