Tangled Passion (10 page)

Ashana had crumbled to the ground on her knees, her head buried between their legs. “What are we going to do now?” she asked, her head still buried between her trembling legs, her heart still free falling down the bottomless hole that was created the minute Jonah announced that the wall was solid.

Silence

‘How do I know?’ Jonah wanted to scream but simply said, “We’ll keep looking, there has to be a way out.” His head was bowed, his deportment was that of defeat and his tone was sad. Slowly looking around, Jonah noticed that the road split in two from where they stood; one to his left and the other to his right. He peered into the road on his right; it was dark but he felt an urge to walk into it. Ashana followed from a distance and they walked cautiously and quietly until they ran into another wall.

“Another wall!” he said exasperated and turned around.

“Touch it,” Ashana encouraged gently.

“Why? It’s the same like the last one,” he replied giving the wall a hard slap before turning around to return to the other road but a load of dust and debris rained down on him before he took his first step. He swung around immediately and gave the wall a hard kick and it budged.

“It’s moving,” he shouted excitedly. He expected Ashana to join his excitement but she was quiet, quietly praying for a miracle and saving the excitement for later. Jonah’s kicks intensified and soon enough, the wall collapsed and an opening a little shorter than his six-foot height and just wide enough for a person with his slender size to fit through, was revealed. A flood of light rushed into the tunnel and the two stood staring at the opening with mouths agape.

PaNene smiled easily as the exact sequence of events that would take place at the discovery of the missing slaves played in his head over and over again. “May our ancestors save this day,” he mumbled and took the first step of his daily around-the-hut walks. “And may they save us too,” he added.

In the seven years that he’d run the Fort, Longstands had never had a worse night; all night, he tossed and turned on his bed like a boat lost at sea without crew or captain. Most of the time he spent staring at the ceiling, marvelling at the ingenuity of the design and construction carried out by a bunch of uneducated slaves—it was the only way he could keep his mind from jumping over the cliff into the pit of insanity that his wife and son had dug for him. He counted the logs that interlocked to produce the web of a ceiling that he was starring at—one hundred and seventy five—“Magical,” he whispered in admiration.

He considered the mosquitoes darting about angrily, he didn’t like them; their song irritated him and all night he listened to them humming like the grumpy old lady. But he was safe from their bites; enveloped in the huge mosquito net that hung from the ceiling and engulfed his bed. He thought about the cry of the mosquitoes and compared it to the sound that came from somewhere deep down his wife’s throat as she snored away. He concluded that if he had to choose, he’d go for the mosquitoes.

After many hours of allowing his attention to dart from one object in the room to the other, and a vigorous attempt to discourage his mind from considering the matter that he must face soon, he noticed the approach of dawn and his head ached instantly. How was he to put out the fire in his camp, without leaving anybody in the cold, he wondered. His wife would not accept anything short of sending Ashana and her mother away. Nathan, on the other hand, had made it abundantly clear that he was in love with Ashana and wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of his plan to be with her. “When it rains it pours,” he said, slipping into his slippers. It was time to take a walk around the quarters; he needed to think and clear his head before the Fort woke up.

A feeling of deep satisfaction overtook Nathan as he took a second look at the piece of paper in his right hand; he repeated the words on the list and nodded; satisfied.

“Come.”

“Go.”

“Sit.”

“Wait.”

“Eat.”

“Play….”

He’d concluded his compilation of a group of English words he intended to teach Ashana. He too hadn’t been able to sleep; he’d been very excited about teaching Ashana English words and couldn’t wait for the night to give way for dawn so he could begin his classes. By this time next year, he thought, Ashana would be speaking very good, if not very fluent English.

The day before, he’d sent Edwards to Ashana’s hut, specifically instructing him to inform her once again that she was no longer permitted to go to the plantation or engage in any form of menial work and neither was her mother. “Tell me Edwards, what was her reaction? Was she happy?” he asked Edwards when he returned.

“Massa, yes, Ashana excellent happy,” Edwards lied. Edwards had made it a point of duty to watch Ashana for any signs of gratitude on her face when he informed her of Nathan’s gesture of kindness but there was really nothing to write home about. She had merely told Edwards to convey her appreciation to big Massa’s son for the kind gesture, but it was flat and completely devoid of any emotion.

“That’s it, surely she must have been elated and joyful; tell me all and more,” Nathan said excitedly.

“She say Massa very excellent good,” Edwards said, struggling with his translation as much as with the lies he had to manufacture on the spot. “Ashana Massa love, plenty happy,” he added.

“She said that?”

“Yes Massa.”

“I mean, did she ask you to tell me that?”

“Yes Massa.”

“In those exact words?”

“Yes Massa.” Edwards agreed to all Nathan’s questions, fully aware that he was digging a hole big enough to swallow him.

“She must be feeling surprised,” Nathan said, almost to himself.

“Yes Massa?”

“No, not you Edwards. Thanks much, you can go, I was just talking to myself,” Nathan said, smiling at Edwards. He knew how Ashana probably felt; she must have been not only suspicious, but scared and confused.

“I’ll have to go slow with her,” he said to himself again, something he had caught himself doing a lot more often since he’d arrived at the Fort and laid eyes on Ashana. “Allow her to fall in love with me naturally and without any form of coercion.”

On many occasions, he had struggled with the possibility that the girl mightn’t be as much in love with him as he was with her. He was taking a lot at risk, engaging in an all-out war with his parents over a girl he wasn’t sure loved him or would ever love him.

Blackmailing his father was a very heinous offense; something he didn’t know if his father would ever forgive or forget. He sincerely hoped that his father would stop the hypocrisy and allow him to lead his life the way he wanted, to avoid the unnecessary fight they were engaged in. He still loved his father though he had lost some respect for him after he discovered the diary. But he’d lost even more when Longstands decided to side with his mother to stop him from being with a girl no more different from the girl Longstands had an affair with and for whom his diary was full of confessions of love, praises, and admirations. The reality was that Nathan didn’t care if his father forgave him or not; the man’s hypocrisy simply disgusted him. And he was aware that his father was spending a great deal of his time trying to figure out where the diary was hidden and most likely plotting ways to retrieve it. But he knew his father very well—the man was a successful war strategist, recognized and respected by his country so Nathan had taken all precautions in advance. Even though he’d never expected to use the diary as a tool for blackmail, he knew that it was something to be handled with care. Way before the trip, he had deposited it in a safety box in a bank out of town under a different name. He’d torn out a page only at the last minute because he simply wanted a friendly discussion with his father about his half-brother or sister.

“Son, all I want to know is that the diary is safe and in a place where it is not likely to fall in the hands of people that might use it to gravely harm me,” Longstands had pleaded with him on one occasion.

“Yes Father, it is safe but I am not telling you where it is,” he’d replied.

“I am sure you are aware of the kind of danger you could expose me to by even the slightest carelessness with that diary, Nathan.”

“Please Father, you were careless enough not know where it was for all these years and it didn’t seem to bother you, so why do you want to make me feel guilty now? Besides, why is it such a dangerous book? After all, the contents are genuine confession of feelings you felt for a human being, not an animal; I don’t see any problem with that.”

“Very well then,” Longstands barked and stormed out of his son’s room. The boy was simply impossible and he was determined to try another strategy.

Barely two days after the conversation with his father, Nathan returned from the beach earlier than usual only to find three slaves standing in his room. They were startled by his presence and made to leave immediately but he ordered them to sit down. It was totally suspicious that three men were needed to clean his room; something that took a female slave less than twenty minutes to do. In less than ten minutes, Edwards joined them. “Ask them what they are doing here and tell them that I already know what it is and who sent them. If they lie to me they’ll receive the worst punishment they could ever imagine but if they tell the truth, I will let them go and never mention it ever,” Nathan said to Edwards. Then he sat down and watched Edwards struggle to translate.

When Edwards was done translating, Nathan watched the slaves consult each other and then give Edwards their response.

“Yes?” Nathan said, feigning impatience.

“Massa, tell us look for book,” Edwards told Nathan; fear evident in his eyes. The last thing a slave wanted to do was cause a squabble between a Massa and his son and Edwards definitely didn’t want to be part of it.

“It’s okay; tell them they can leave now.”

The slaves scrambled to their feet even before Edwards finished his translation and vanished from the room.

“Edwards, quickly go and tell them that I said when they see my father they should not tell him what happened. They should simply tell him they didn’t find the book. Go quickly Edwards,” Nathan added.

“Yes Massa.” Edwards nodded and scurried out of the room. Nathan lay in his bed and laughed quietly, deciding that he’d pretend not to know about his father’s latest attempt to find the diary in his room.

He was still thinking about his parents and how funny they could be when a knock on his door paused his thought. “Yes, who is it?”

“You have mail Nathan.” It was his father’s voice.

“Mail?” he replied jumping to his feet and snatching a nearly battered brown envelope from his father’s hand.

“Thanks!” he said and locked his door. His name was handwritten on the envelope and the writing looked awfully familiar but his brains were still in disarray, trying to figure out who could possibly have his address in the West Indies. He sank into his bed and tore open the envelope.

How do you do Nathan, I hope that my missive does not meet you in surprise. If you were wondering I am perfectly okay, a bit lonely and bored but okay. How are you down there in the West Indies, having loads of fun I suppose, I hope you are keeping a diary, I need all the gist when you return and I mean everything.

Suppose you were wondering how I got your address, it was from my father, she would not stop bugging me, I think it is about time we told them that we are not in love with each other, I am totally sick of it, my father and your parents trying to set us up, what shall I do? Christian is tired of hiding in the dark and is threatening to call it quits if I don’t do something about it. I honestly think that the sooner we let our parents know that we are not in love, not in a relationship and have no such intentions the quicker I can introduce Christian to them.

Write me soon, tell me what you think but use Jennifer’s address, I don’t trust my father to not snoop on my mails.

Be good and write soon.

Victoria.

After a third read, Nathan finally laid the letter down on the bed next to him. He was convinced that his parents had a hand in making sure that his address in the West Indies somehow found its way into Victoria’s hands.

But he was happy; there was now a way to communicate with his best friend; the only person who knew him better than anyone else. Victoria Shillingford and Nathan had realized from the word go that their parents were trying to set them up and that the move was purely politically-motivated. On that same day, they also realized that they were more interested in each other as friends and nothing beyond that. At the time, Nathan was seeing a girl called Clara and Victoria was seeing a guy called Christopher but they had managed to keep their relationships secret and successfully fooled their parents into believing that they were seeing each other.