Ama (71 page)

“Now we have shown your son to the ancestors,” Josef told them, “you are free to bring him out of doors.”

The slaves lined up to shake hands. Then the bell rang.

“Just in time,” said Josef. “I am sorry we had to rush it so.”

* * *

Life at the Engenho de Cima was little changed. The annual cycle of the
safra
, of St. John's Day and the feasts of the Virgin Mary and the other saints, of Christmas and Easter, continued in an unbroken succession. Slaves worked the ten years, more or less, which fate had allotted to them, died, and were replaced by fresh purchases from Africa. One year slipped into the next.

In spite of their good intentions, Senhor and Senhora Williams visited the Engenho de Cima only at infrequent intervals.

Williams' expanding business interests kept him occupied and Miranda, encouraged by an indulgent husband, became increasing involved in the high society of Salvador. When they did come, they never brought Elizabeth or her younger brothers and sisters.

“The journey across the bay is too dangerous,” Miranda told her parents.

The Senhor became increasingly frail but steadfastly refused to follow his chattels to the grave. The Senhora's hair turned white and she spent more and more of her time in prayer and reading the lives of the saints, leaving the day to day running of the
casa grande
to Ama and the other domestic slaves. Increasingly Jesus Vasconcellos took over the running of the business, although the Senhor, in spite of his decrepitude, never allowed him an entirely free rein.

Kwame's early years were carefree. Ama's access to the kitchen stores ensured that he seldom went hungry. For his first six years he ran naked with his fellows, watched over during the day by ancient Esperança and a band of assistants who were scarcely older than their charges. He was invariably asleep when Tomba arrived at night, so it was only on Sundays and saints' days that he saw his father. The three of them often spent that day working in Ama's allotment. Almost before he could walk, Tomba started to take him to the forest to hunt and trap and fish.

The Christmas after he turned seven Kwame was issued with his first dress, identical to those given to the girls. He wore it with great pride for an hour and then, suffering the discomfort of the coarse cloth in the heat, he threw it off and went to play hide and seek, marbles and horseshoe pitching in his normal state of undress. Ama began with the best of intentions: she would teach him to speak Asante and to read and write Portuguese as well as speaking it; but as time went by her remaining eye began to lose its strength. The stresses of her earlier life were taking their toll on her and she often felt tired. So she told him stories instead. Stories from Africa. Stories of her own childhood. But never stories of the harsh episodes of her journey into servitude.

“Tell him,” urged Olukoya.

“Later,” she insisted. “He is still too young to understand.”

But by the time he was old enough to understand it would be too late to tell him.

Ama never did conceive again: Kwame was her only child.

Tomba seemed to shed his own frustrations during his nightly run from the Engenho do Meio to the Engenho de Cima and remained a kind and supportive husband and an indulgent father. Kwame's fellows were not as lucky. Their fathers, subjected to the constant humiliation of slavery, often found temporary relief in beating their wives and children; or they escaped from the real world with the aid of
garapa
.

They rationalised the beating of their children thus: “In order to stay out of trouble when he grows up, he needs to learn to respect the whites and to obey them without question. Absolute obedience to his father is a first step in that direction.”

Olukoya, sustained always by an unwavering conviction of the value of what he had brought with him from Africa and by a vision of a better future, was a continuing source of strength, advising, arbitrating, leading by example; but in spite of Josef's best efforts as a courier, his grand plans came to little.

Old Benedito, on the other hand, was confirmed in his faith by the steady growth in the number of converts. Olukoya was intolerant of human failings, particularly those that caused pain to others; on the other hand Father Isaac, behind the curtain of the confessional, casually dispensed total absolution from the most abominable behaviour at the price of a few Hail Mary's and the admonition to go and sin no more.

The Senhor could no longer walk from his bedroom to his rocking chair on the veranda. Bernardo and Tomás the Hausa blacksmith fashioned a simple wheelchair for him. Then he became too weak to sit up and lay all day and night in his darkened bedroom. Ama fed him, washed him, changed his bedclothes and treated his sores as best she could. The Senhora visited him once a day, prayed, and then left him to the tender mercies of his female slaves. Father Isaac said a perfunctory Mass in his bedroom once a week. Then the Senhor became incontinent. Ama wiped him and washed him and dried him; but try as she might she could not clear the pervasive smell of piss and shit from his room. The Senhora stopped coming to pray by his side. Ama sat down at his desk, found quill and ink and wrote to Miranda. Josef took the letter to Salvador. Miranda sent her reply by word of mouth: she had one or two urgent matters to attend to; she would come as soon as she had dealt with them.

The Senhor was dying. He had not eaten for several days and his breathing was irregular. Ama called the priest. Father Isaac administered the extreme unction, fanning his own face while he did so in an attempt to dissipate the foul smell of illness and death. A pale wraith appeared at the door but did not come in; it was the Senhora. Ama was alone with the old man when he died.

“Senhora,” Ama told her, “the Senhor is dead.”

She did not appear to hear, so Ama repeated the words, loudly, in her ear.

“I heard you. I may be old but I'm not deaf,” she replied and crossed herself three times.

The priest, on hearing the news, made the same sign.

Ama went down to the carpentry shop.

“Bernardo,” she told the carpenter in Fanti, “dust off his coffin and send it up. I'm worn out. I'm going to tell Josef to take the news to Salvador and then I'm going to sleep. I'll wash his body when I wake up.”

* * *

By the time Miranda and her brothers arrived, everything was ready: the grave was dug, Ama had dressed the Senhor's shrunken body in the uniform of a colonel of the militia which she found in his trunk; the coffin had been placed on the veranda under an awning to keep off the sun, the kitchen staff had made their preparations to cope with the mourners expected from the surrounding districts.

Miranda lifted her veil and kissed Ama on both cheeks.

“You don't know how grateful I am for all you have done,” she told her.

Williams silently nodded his concurrence.

“Elizabeth, dear,” said Miranda, “this is Ama. Remember I told you her son is just a week younger than you are? Ama where is Zacharias? I would love to see him.”

The girl was dressed elegantly in black, a miniature copy of her mother. Ama knelt down and took her hands.

“Elizabeth let me look at you. You are so pretty. How old are you now?”

But the child ignored her.

“Mama,” she said, “I want to see the horses and the sheep and the pigs.”

CHAPTER 35

The family met to read the Senhor's will.

Policarpo was given his freedom. But Policarpo was already dead.

The Senhor's property was to pass to the Senhora. The children would inherit only after their mother's death. The Senhora crossed herself and took no further part in the proceedings. It was decided that the eldest son would administer the
engenho
, but since he was running a sugar plantation of his own, and running it successfully, it was necessary to appoint a manager. Jesus Vasconcellos was the obvious choice.

The Senhora would go to live with her daughter in Salvador. The
engenho
would no longer require the services of a resident priest; but fortunately for Father Isaac the
senhor
of the Engenho do Meio was looking for a chaplain.

“Ama, come with me to Salvador,” Miranda offered.

“What about Zacharias, Senhora? And João?”

“Of course you would bring Zacharias. But João doesn't belong to us. I would have to talk to Senhor Williams about him.”

Williams made an offer to Tomba's master at the Engenho do Meio, but the
senhor
refused to sell. Tomba had become a key man in the running of his mill.

* * *

Jesus moved into the
casa grande
as soon as the family had left.

His first action was to have everything removed from the Senhor's room. He set the domestic slaves to scrubbing the floors and whitewashing the walls and ceilings. He consigned all the pictures and mattresses and curtains and upholstery to an outside store. Meanwhile Bernardo scraped every piece of furniture down to the bare wood.

Jesus treated each room in like manner, sending even the cooking utensils to the store. When he had finished, no trace of the Senhor or his family remained in the
casa grande
. He brought his own personal possessions up from the small house he had occupied for so many years. From Salvador he ordered the few things he needed to complete the change, nothing extravagant, just plain cotton curtains and a new mattress.

Next he cut the domestic staff by half, sending maids and seamstresses back to the cane fields or the mill from whence they had once been promoted.

The Senhor's eldest son had set him a target, the net income achieved in the last year of the Senhor's regime. Any surplus he could keep. Jesus leapt at the chance. He knew how inefficiently the business had been run; by tightening up on discipline and implementing a program of austerity, he knew that he could put aside enough in five years to buy the young Senhor out. That was his private dream.

He instructed the overseers to make more liberal use of the whip. He extended the working hours. Saints' days passed unobserved. Sometimes, at the height of the
safra
, he decreed that the next Sunday would be a work day. Children were set to work when they turned nine instead waiting until they were ten. Kwame joined the weeders.

Jesus rearranged the fallow fields so that at the next planting the area of each
tarefa
was increased. He trimmed the slaves' food ration. He cut the prices he paid for the produce which they grew on their allotments. He bought the cheapest supplies in the market, fly-blown meat and grain infested with weevils.

At the same time he carefully favoured the slave drivers, deliberately driving a wedge between them and the other slaves. If anything, the drivers were better off now than they had been in the Senhor's days.

Funerals became more frequent but Vasconcellos would not allow time off for the slaves to bury their dead so they often had to do so late at night. Bernardo was instructed not to supply free coffins, so the dead were buried in cloth.

Jesus kept all the keys himself. He stood by when anything was removed from the stores. Ama no longer had the opportunity to pilfer food from the kitchen. Kwame, now working a full day in the fields, was often hungry.

The talk around the fires on Saturday nights became more and more bitter. Plots were hatched.

One Saturday Jesus announced that the next day would be a working day. That night some person unknown dosed the boiling kettle of
melado
with lemon juice. The syrup failed to crystallise. The day's
tarefa
was wasted. Jesus harangued the mill workers but the direst threats failed to persuade them to point a finger at the culprit. They spent Sunday scrubbing out the kettles. With the mill idle, no cane could be cut; but rather than give the cane cutters the day off, he set them to weeding.

Often hungry and ill, the slaves adopted go-slow tactics. They sabotaged the ox-carts and poisoned the oxen. They adulterated the sugar with sand, knowing that the inspectors in Salvador would reject it.

Jesus berated his overseers. One tried to reason with him and was sacked. Another resigned. Ignacio Gomes, the
cabra
tanner and leather worker, who was a free man, decided at last to abandon the ancient spirits of his land and seek his fortune in the capital.

* * *

The field workers returned after dark.

Kwame was so exhausted that he would have fallen asleep without eating if Ama had not forced him to stay awake. She had stopped delivering the produce of her allotment to the
casa grande
: the money was too small and there was invariably an argument about payment. The meat allocation was so worm-ridden that she refused to use it. Tomba brought them whatever he could spare from the slightly better rations at the Engenho do Meio. It was this and the yield of his trapping and fishing that kept them going.

Ama watched over Kwame as he fell asleep. She covered him and rose to return to the
casa grande
to serve Jesus his evening meal.

Leaving the cabin, head bowed, preoccupied with concern about her son's future, she heard the cry, “Fire, fire.”

Looking up, she saw a red glow in the sky above the cane fields. Then the work bell rang: the slaves were being summoned to fight the inferno. Undecided as to what to do, Ama went back into the cabin and looked at Kwame's sleeping form. It would be at least an hour before Tomba arrived.

“Kwame, wake up!”

The boy resisted, pulling the blanket back over his head. She grabbed him under the armpits and pulled him to his feet.

“Mama, what is it?” he asked groggily.

“Here take your blanket. You are going to sleep in the cave tonight.”

There was a small crevice in the rocks on the hillside where, in earlier days, Ama would go to read. Kwame still loved to hide in it: it was his secret refuge, the only place he could call his own. She pushed him before her, threading her way past the field slaves as they came stumbling out of their cabins in the dark.