Ama (39 page)

De Bruyn had said that he could never give her children. He was ageing and his eyesight was declining. In Holland or in England, he might go blind and she would have to look after him in an environment which was completely strange to her. Then he would die and she would survive him, alone, childless, without friends. Who would believe that he had given her her freedom then? She would be at the mercy of any white man who might decide to commit her again to slavery.

She thought of the Irishman Brew. Mijn Heer had said he had offered to send her to Kumase with his nephew. She had dismissed the idea and never given it another thought. Strange how it came back to her now. She stretched out on the bed.

Dressed in one of Elizabeth's dresses, she led the young white man whose linguist she was, into the Asantehene's court. As they made their entrance, she paused and laughed out loud, but no one seemed to notice. Koranten Péte looked closely at her. Her face was familiar. The white man spoke to her in English and she replied in the same language. Koranten Péte appeared to be astonished.

“Could this young woman who speaks the language of the whites possibly be the Ama whom I gave to Konadu Yaadom as a gift?” he was clearly wondering.

Then she noticed that Koranten Péte was not the one in charge. Sitting on the royal chair was Osei Kwame, Kwame Panin, her boy lover.

“Chief Executioner!” called Konadu Yaadom.

“No,” said Osei Kwame, “I love her and I always will. Ama, please believe me: I had nothing to do with your banishment. Will you marry me? With your knowledge of the white man and his language, you will be able to keep Konadu Yaadom in check. I shall make you my principal adviser.”

“I shall agree to be your wife only if you promise to give up your other wives, all three thousand three hundred and thirty three of them, set them free from the harems and find suitable husbands for them. And you must compensate them all for the years you have kept them locked up. You must free all the slaves in your Empire. The annual tributes from the subject states must no longer include slaves. You must agree that no one except convicted criminals will ever again be put to death by the executioners.”

She was teaching school. All the royal children sat at tables busily writing. Osei Kwame himself sat in the front row and Konadu Yaadom and Koranten Péte were there too. Esi handed each a copy of Goody Two-Shoes.

Ama and Osei Kwame sat side by side, each in a hammock. Then they were riding on horse back at the head of a great caravan. Nowu, playing outside Tigen's compound, looked up and saw them. He rushed inside to warn Tabitsha. Ama ordered Damba to gallop forward to tell them not to be afraid. She dismounted and embraced her mother and then Nowu and then all the other children. Then she knelt before Tigen.

“My father, this is the Asantehene, Osei Kwame. He is my husband.”

She was woken by repeated knocking at the door. It was the steward, bringing her lunch from the Governor's kitchen.

As she sat picking at her food, she tried to make sense of what she could remember of the dream. She had been thinking of Brew as she fell asleep: that is what must have set it off.

Her writing was making good progress. She was sure that she could write a letter to Brew.

“Richard Brew, Esquire,

“Governor,

“Castle Brew,

“Anomabu.”

Anomabu. Bird's nest. She wondered what sort of a town it was that could have been given such a name.

“Honourable Sir,

“I hope you will recall having made my acquaintance during your recent visit to Elmina. Mijn Heer, the Director General, has told me that you might wish to employ my services as a guide and linguist for your nephew during his forthcoming proposed visit to the Asante King in Kumase. I should be pleased to accept your invitation. Please keep this matter secret from Mijn Heer and burn this letter as soon as you have read it.

“(signed) Pamela.”

She wondered whether she should write
“Pamela De Bruyn, Wife to the Governor of Elmina,”
but decided that that would be untrue.
“Pamela, Consort to Pieter De Bruyn, Director General of the Dutch West India Company, Elmina Castle”
might do better.

She went to wash her face.

“Ama,” she told herself, “you are still dreaming. Wake up.”

* * *

Every day Ama scanned the seas with Mijn Heer's telescope, searching for the Admiraal de Ruyter; but the day the brig returned she was engrossed in a book and it required Rose's repeated banging on her door to alert her to its arrival.

She rushed down to the quay. The brig's sails had already been furled. The breakers were sweeping the vessel towards the narrow canal entrance. As it passed the end of the breakwater, ropes were hurled out onto the quays. Slaves grabbed the ends and strained to slow the ship down.

There was no sign of De Bruyn. Bezuidenhout had the brig made fast alongside the quay.

“The Governor is ill,” he told Ama in Dutch, “He has a high fever. We will put him on a stretcher and carry him up to his apartment.”

Ama climbed the plank gangway. She knocked gently on the door of the cabin. There was no reply. She opened the door and went inside. De Bruyn lay on the bed which occupied most of the little room. His eyes were closed. He was bathed in sweat and his bed clothes were soaked. She wiped his forehead with the corner of her cloth. He opened his eyes and stared at her.

“Pamela,” he whispered.

“Mevrou,” Bezuidenhout addressed Ama politely, asking her to move out.

Bezuidenhout grasped De Bruyn under his armpits and a seaman took his legs. They manhandled him through the door and laid him on a rough improvised litter. Bezuidenhout bound him down with canvas straps. Four slaves lifted the litter with its passenger and passed it over the railing and down to six more who stood waiting on the quay. These raised the cross members to their shoulders and set off at a fast walk, up the hill and into the portal of the castle. Bezuidenhout followed.

All this time Ama had been hovering about, not knowing what to do, her mind confused by the sudden turn of events. Mijn Heer appeared to be seriously ill. She felt that she was, in fact if not in law, his wife and responsible for him. There was no surgeon in the castle garrison. She needed help and advice. To whom could she turn? Bezuidenhout was a stranger and, with only a few words of Dutch, she found it difficult to communicate with him. Jensen was not to be trusted: he would be happy to see De Bruyn dead. Rose was no more than a child. Van Schalkwyk was totally lacking in practical skills. Suddenly she was aware how isolated she was.

As they passed through the courtyard and up the stairs a silent crowd assembled to watch them. Death was no stranger to the castle but the usual victims were new arrivals from Europe. De Bruyn had been Director General for a long time. If he were to die there might be unwelcome changes in the administration. Few had any love for Jensen.

Ama caught hold of Vroom.

“Vroom,” she said, “go and call Madam Augusta. Ask her to come at once. Tell her it is urgent.”

She overtook the stretcher party on the last flight of stairs and, catching her breath, hurried down the wainscoted corridor to open the door. The doorway was not wide enough to allow the litter to pass. The slaves set it down outside. Ama pushed them aside and untied the straps which bound De Bruyn. He opened his eyes.

“They have tied you up like a rebellious slave,” she told him.

He tried to smile but the effort was too much. His eyes closed and at once she regretted her weak joke.

The slaves lifted Director General, three on each side of him.

He has lost so much weight,
Ama thought.
It is like lifting a child
.

She pulled aside the curtains of the four-poster and they laid him on the white sheets.

“Thank you,” she told the six castle slaves in Asante, “you have been very good and gentle. When Mijn Heer recovers, I will ask him to reward you all.”

“Yes, madam. Thank you madam,” they chorused as they withdrew.

They had entered the most secret domain of the Dutch governor. There was a story to tell around the fire tonight.

De Bruyn's eyes were still closed. Ama looked at him. His face was flushed, his lips swollen. She felt his forehead. He had a high fever. She pulled the cord which would summon a servant. As she did so there was a knock on the door. It was the hot water she had intended to order. She poured some of it into the basin of cold water to take the chill off it. The water which they drew from the brick lined caverns was always cold, as cold, Mijn Heer would say, as ice. There was a foul smell about him. She stripped the shirt off him. It was covered with dried vomit. He opened his eyes. She saw now that the whites were bright yellow and streaked with blood. He retched. The spasm shook his body. He tried to raise himself but he was too weak. Ama put her arm under his far shoulder and helped him. A spurt of dark vomit, streaked with blood, soiled the sheet. He lay back exhausted and closed his eyes.

There was a knock on the door. It was Van Schalkwyk.

“How is he?” he asked.

Ama shook her head. She was near to tears.

“May I?” asked Van Schalkwyk .

“Of course,” she whispered.

The Minister took a quick look at his friend. Then gripping the edge of the bed, he lowered himself to his knees and prayed silently.

“There is a ship in the roadstead,” he told her when he had regained his feet, “a Dutch ship. The surgeon has come ashore to inspect . . . you understand? Jensen will bring him to examine Mijn Heer.”

As he left, Augusta came waddling down the corridor, Effibaa in tow.

* * *

“Wait outside,” Jensen told them in Dutch.

“Wait outside yourself,” Augusta told him.

Jensen glared at her but said nothing. Ama rejoiced at Augusta's confident rebuff.

Augusta had nothing to fear from Jensen. She was a free woman. Ama had never seen her so angry.

She spoke to Ama in Fanti, knowing that Jensen would understand.

“Will the man nurse the patient, wash him, change his clothes, feed him, sit with him day and night? This one would be only too happy if Mijn Heer were to die. ‘Wait outside,' he tells us. Foolish man.”

She blew a rude noise through her lips.

The ship's surgeon was looking at De Bruyn's tongue. It was bright red.

“Are you in pain,” he asked.

De Bruyn nodded weakly.

“Where?” asked the surgeon.

De Bruyn lifted an arm and pointed to his forehead.

“And my back,” he whispered.

When he had finished his examination, the surgeon took Jensen aside.

“It's the Yellow Jack,” he said.

“That's what I thought,” said Jensen. “I hope it is not contagious.”

“Some say it is but my experience tells me they are wrong. I understand that he caught it in Axim. He must have visited some place there where there was a miasma, a poison in the air. Perhaps a marshy area.”

“No doubt. We have cotton plantations there and I believe we grow some swamp rice too. Is there a cure?”

“None that I know of. Regular doses of lemon juice will do him no harm. If you have any grains of paradise or cardamom seeds, you might soak them in the juice. I will bring him an infusion of chinchona bark and orange peel in brandy when I come again in the afternoon. If there is no improvement in his condition by tomorrow, I might decide to bleed him. Otherwise there is only prayer.”

When they had gone, Ama pulled up her armchair and went to sit by the patient. She took a book but when she came to the end of the page she found that she had no recollection of what she had read. De Bruyn twisted and turned and sometimes called out in his sleep.

“Pamela.”

De Bruyn spoke with difficulty. She leaned over him.

“What did you do while I was away?” he asked her.

“Don't speak,” she said, “I see how it exhausts you. You must rest.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, the day after you left, I decided to give this room a thorough cleaning. I got some of the guards to help me and we moved all the furniture to the middle of the room. I swept and dusted and polished. Then I took everything from the cupboards and drawers and gave it all a good airing. I washed all your clothes and the bedding and the curtains. That took me a couple of days. Then we moved all the furniture back again. Are you listening?”

He opened his eyes and moved his head in the slightest of nods.

“Next I sorted out all your books. I wrote down their names and the names of the authors. And do you know what I found?”

His eyes were closed again. She squeezed his arm.

“Do you know what I found?” she asked again.

Again he opened his eyes.

“I feel so weak,” he said.

* * *

De Bruyn's fever fell and his face was less flushed. Ama began to hope for a recovery.

He was pale. His gums were swollen and bleeding and he was still vomiting black vomit streaked with blood; yet he felt a little stronger. He knew how ill he was. His inability to urinate in spite of drinking so much lime juice disturbed him. He got Ama to send for Van Schalkwyk.

“Hennie,” he whispered, “I want you to help me make my will.”

Van Schalkwyk nodded sagely.

“Pamela, do you have ink and paper?” he asked.

He helped Ama drag the escritoire to De Bruyn's bedside.

“This is the last will and testament of me, Pieter De Bruyn . . . Hennie you know what to write. I appoint you my sole executor.”

When Van Schalkwyk had finished writing the preamble, he raised his head. De Bruyn was waiting for him.

“To the female slave, my dear Pamela, who has lived with me as my wife for the past two years, I give her freedom.

“To the said Pamela I give also all the clothing of my deceased wife Elizabeth, all my English books, all my furniture and china and silverware, my gold ring and five ounces of gold dust.