Tangled Passion (25 page)

Everybody in the Fort already thought that Jonah was selfish for not giving up the fight and letting Ashana marry the Massa’s son and enjoy the life that awaited her and her mother. Even Ashana’s mother, Jonah was told, wanted Ashana to be with the Massa’s son. If all these people wanted him out of the picture, how much more did the Massa’s son? “Maybe I should just disappear,” Jonah said. PaNene remained silent.
That is exactly what I’d have done a long time ago but then unlike you I am a coward,
PaNene thought. He knew the young man was a fighter and he feared that Jonah was incapable of giving up a fight and this worried him very much. How would Jonah handle rejection from Ashana, he wondered. He was very certain that Ashana would choose Nathan over Jonah; there was simply too much at stake for the young woman—especially her mother.

“But she abandoned her mother here and ran away with me even though she was fully aware of the risks involved,” Jonah said, as though reading PaNene’s mind.

“Hmm!” PaNene sighed, nodding to the reason in Jonah’s claim. “Let’s just wait Jonah, we cannot change anything . Only the gods can tell the future. I have to go see Marecia, she requested to meet with me.”

“Why? What does she want from you?”

“That is what I intend to find out.”

“Can I come?” Jonah begged like a child.

“You know you can’t, I am not even sure if I and her are allowed to meet but I shall let you know what we discuss.”

“I know what she wants,” Nathan said, his tone laden with bitterness.

“Well then tell me and maybe save me the journey,” the old man replied mordantly.

“She wants you to convince me to leave Ashana alone, she wants you to talk to me, maybe even pressure me a little,” Jonah said but the old man had started walking away after Jonah’s first few words.

“Nathan,” Longstands began as his hook travelled down the water. He’d been waiting for a perfect time to speak to his son and when the boy agreed to go fishing with him, he was overjoyed. He had a well-rehearsed speech to give and only hoped that the boy would listen; his son was just as unpredictable as his father was predictable.

“Yes Father,” Nathan replied in the most humble manner Longstands had heard in recent times; it reminded him of the same person several years ago. That tone reminded him of Nathan when he was only five or six years old.

“First I would like to apologize for what you discovered in my diary…”

“Is it true, did you love her and was she pregnant?”

“Hmm!” Longstands sighed heavily; men looked forward to doing a lot of things with their sons but discussing an outside woman was definitely not one of them and Nathan’s questions were not exactly easy to answer honestly.

The fishing rod in Longstands’s hand shook slowly; he wanted to be completely honest with his son but he feared how the boy would receive it and mostly he feared the questions that might follow. Besides, if he told the young man anything but the truth, then he’d only be contradicting everything he wrote in the diary. “I suppose I did,” Longstands replied reluctantly and braced up for another possibly intense question.

“What about mother?”

“Hmm,” Longstands sighed again. He was expecting tough questions but not in the order that Nathan was dishing them out to him. He’d expected them in a different sequence and had prepared his answers accordingly but Nathan was unpredictable in every way.

“I used to love your mother, used to love her a lot but she suffocated that feeling a long time ago and the more I tried to revive the feeling that I once had for her, the more her fingers tightened around the neck of my love for her…” Longstands struggled but Nathan stopped him halfway.

“I understand!” Nathan interrupted very softly causing Longstands’s head to twirl sharply and his eyes to examine the young man very closely.

“You understand?” Longstands asked, not sure what to make of Nathan’s sudden tranquillity.

“Yes I do and I mean it,” Nathan replied.

“Very well then, many thanks but I must also apologize about the letter to Bushwacker, I was under a lot of pressure from your mother and…”

“That I am still unable to digest and still not yet ready to forget because mother did not advise you to have them eliminated; she only asked for them to be removed from the Fort but you decided on your own to take the lives of two innocent people and fool me into a wild goose chase that almost cost me my life.”

Longstands was as silent as the surface of the water in front on them–the boy was right and he was overwhelmed with shame. “I am sorry son,” he said dejectedly but Nathan remained quiet. “I sincerely wish I could take it back but I can’t and all I can hope for at this moment is that you someday forgive me such an atrocious act.”

“Look!” Nathan exclaimed, pointing at his fishing pole–it was jumping.

“Pull, pull Nathan,” Longstands yelled excitedly like a little boy.

A tense moment of excitement-filled silence descended as father and son gently extracted the hook from the fish’s gill.

“No!” Nathan said as his father made to throw the fish in the bucket.

“No?”

“No, let it go, throw it back in the water,” Nathan said; a few moments of watching the fish gasp for air had Nathan near tears. The thought that the fish was to become food simply because it went out in search of food, didn’t seem fair.

“Okay son,” Longstands said, gently placing the fish back in the water; the fish splashed happily near the surface for a while before diving into the deep. Another brief moment of silence descended and lingered, then Longstands began to speak again. “About Ashana,” he said and then paused for a few seconds. “I see that you truly love her…”

“I do Father.”

Longstands nodded and continued, “But you do agree that me forcing her to be with you would only be doing you a disservice.”

“I agree,” Nathan said nodding like his father.

“My advice then is to let her make a choice on her own,” Longstands advised very cautiously–he was on a very delicate subject and needed to be careful.

“But Father, is there a way to make her choose me without applying any force?”

“A mild threat, a gentle pressure, a harmless suggestion from me would go a long way but they just amount to the same thing; they all fall under the same umbrella and that umbrella is called influence but I will think of something that might be harmless.”

“Really? Is there a possibility of coming up with something completely harmless?” Nathan asked childishly.

“I can’t promise Nathan but I will spend some time thinking about it, maybe I’ll come up with something,” Longstands replied feeling terribly sorry for his son. Suddenly the boy’s strength and stubbornness had vanished, only to be replaced with the kind of helplessness and hopelessness a grounded child resorted to.

At the end of the day, Ashana had received and given hugs or handshakes to most of the residents of the Fort but when Edwards showed up and informed her of the Massa’s desire to see her immediately, her heart skipped a beat. It was the third time her heart had been disturbed that day.

The first time was when her mother informed her that choosing Jonah over Nathan might actually be putting the young man’s life in danger.

“How?” she asked her mother reluctantly, she didn’t see how that was possible. Besides, the old woman might be making a last minute effort to convince her to choose Nathan over Jonah—she was desperate..

“Because I just spoke with PaNene and he informed me that there might be plans underway to get Jonah killed if you choose him over the Massa’s son,” Marecia lied.

“What? And this is whose plan?” Ashana asked, bewildered.

“Whose? Are you blind, do you think that the Massa would sit and watch his son be humiliated by a slave like you and Jonah? What do you think Ashana—that the piece of paper makes you one of them? The Massa has planned to kill you and Ashana once and failed but he has learnt from his mistakes and this time will not fail.”

“Oh, dear God! I am tired and losing my mind, I don’t know what to do!” Ashana said through clenched teeth; what she really wanted to do was to yell as loud as her lungs could bear but even that she lacked the strength to do. “First I had to choose the Massa’s son for you, Ma. Now in addition to that, I have to choose to live with a man I do not have any feelings for just to ensure that the safety of the man I really love is guaranteed,” she added, tears flowing down her cheeks freely.

“My daughter,” Marecia began with pain in her heart; a pain that had roots in the fact that she had to lie to her daughter and a pain that also emanated from the fact that at a time like this in the life of a young woman, her right to chose whom to love and be with was stained by the demands of many outside circumstances and the desires of other people, including her very mother. “Many times in life, we are required to make sacrifices and are called to do things that benefit other people and not just us,” Marecia added remorsefully.

As she walked with Edwards towards the Massa’s quarters, Ashana’s mind pounded heavily and her head swirled slowly. She feared the reason for such an urgent summons by the Massa. Too many things were happening to her on the same day. The very last day before she faced her destiny was supposed to be quiet and peaceful but instead she’d been bombarded by so much information that her head had become just as cluttered as it was from the very beginning.

Earlier that day, just before her mother returned to inform her of the possibility of Jonah’s life being in danger if she chose him over Nathan, her new best friend who had all along stood by her side and encouraged her to follow her heart visited her. Although it was a brief visit, her words left a mark on Ashana.

“Milka, are you really serious?” Ashana had asked in utter shock, after Milka uttered her reason for the visit.

“I am as serious as the burning sun, Ashana. I think you should marry the Massa’s son; it is the most reasonable thing to do, in fact it is the only thing for you to do.”

“Why did you change your mind? Just the other day you advised me to follow my heart, what must I do with that advice now?” Ashana queried.

“Ignore it, trash it, or simply erase it from your memory but at this moment, listen to what I say to you and if you like take my advice. If you don’t, then do what you choose, I have to run,” Milka said and disappeared through the door before Ashana could say another word. This caused an immediate storm to sweep through Ashana’s head the second time, decimating every reason she had built to support her decision.

“Please wait here,” Edwards said, bringing both Ashana and her thoughts to a sudden halt. Ashana nodded and smiled at Edwards; it was more of a scolding type of smile that vehemently objected to Edwards’s display of unusual, and what Ashana considered excessive, respect.

“Please come this way, Ashana,” Edwards called out to Ashana in a tone overloaded with respect as he beckoned her towards him. Ashana responded immediately, standing by Edwards in four strides. “The Massa will see you in his chambers.”

‘In his chambers?’ Ashana’s eyes queried Edwards.

‘I am just following orders, my dear Ashana,’ Edwards said with his shrugged shoulders.

“Ashana! What honour, please sit,” Longstands greeted her, slapping the bed very gently, Edwards translated and Ashana took a seat on the edge of the bed. “I imagine that these few days have been really tough for you Ashana, especially considering the weight of the burden you bear.”

“Yes Massa,” Ashana replied, bowing slightly.

“I know, trust me, I do,” Longstands said. “And that is why I have called you here, I will make the meeting brief because I don’t want Nathan running into you over here.”

Ashana nodded.

“Do you remember what I and you discussed on our way back from Bushwacker’s place after my men found you?”

“Yes Massa,” Ashana replied after a brief moment of hesitation.

“Great, I just wanted to let you know that the option was still available, think about it tonight and if you decide to go for it, it will be there tomorrow. Don’t forget, it’s no pressure; do whatever your heart tells you,” Longstands concluded.

“Thank you Massa,” Ashana said and listened to Edwards interpret her words.

“You are welcome Ashana, now you must hurry back to your quarters and may you have peace with any choice you make tomorrow,” Longstands responded as he rose to his feet. Ashana joined him in rising and Edwards opened the door.

“What other option?” Edwards joked with Ashana; he did not expect Ashana to reveal the secret she had with the Massa and wasn’t upset when Ashana only smiled and continued to walk without saying a word.

Trekking back to her quarters, Ashana’s heart travelled in several directions and fear dictated her pace; she wanted to cry or scream but neither held any promise to calm the storm that fomented deep down her heart. She wished there was one single person that she could really trust—someone whose advice wasn’t influenced by what they stood to gain. “Jonah!” she whispered to herself out of frustration. “Where are you, what should I do?” Jonah was the only person she could trust. If only she could find a way to get to him and get his advice, she would be fine and be able to sleep, otherwise a night of sleeplessness and nightmares awaited her.

The sun was beginning to retire but Jonah was still seated at the same spot; the same spot where he used to wait for Ashana in the days that he now considered good old days. It was his fourth hour there and he still hadn’t arrived at any conclusions as to what to do or how to handle whatever life threw at him the following day. He wanted to be able to genuinely understand and forgive Ashana if she chose to go with the Massa’s son; he now knew that there could be very many reasons why Ashana would choose Nathan over him. “Hmm!” he sighed and looked up to the myriad of leaves that overlapped to provide him the shade he’d enjoyed earlier on. But he longed so much to see Ashana, to hold her in his arms, to hug her and inhale the smell of her hair and it frightened him that he might never enjoy those privileges again.