The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (44 page)

She surveyed us – there were eleven planters there – with apparent contempt. Rogét made a signal and the two slaves untied the shoulders of the white cotton dress she was wearing and drew it off. The sigh that went through the room seemed to stir the plant leaves. She was quite naked underneath, and she stood boldly, making no attempt to cover herself. She was shaped like an hourglass. Her breasts were the size of ripe mangoes, the thick nipples so pale a brown that the large aureoles shaded into pink. Her stomach was firm, deep-naveled, rounding down into the luxuriant bush of brown hair at her crotch. Rogét was giving her background – she was from St. Lucia, twenty-one years old, she could read – but no one was listening. The loudest sound was the saliva dripping on the floor! I thought I saw a spark of laughter touch her storm-gray eyes, and she pirouetted slowly. It was her derriere that enraptured and captured me: two high rounded globes, perfectly curved, twin-dimpled at the spine, flexing with knee-weakening ripples as she turned. Then she was facing us again, and the bidding began.

It was a frenzy. Every man there was thinking with his
tête petite
. I myself knew exactly what I was getting into. I knew that a female of such obvious charms could not have remained a slave without good reason. She could easily have married a free mulatto, even a professional white who did not abhor her one-eighth blackness. I also knew that my bank balance did not allow me to bid the sums we reached within minutes. All this I knew. I did not care. I could not leave such a woman in Rogét's untender mercies or to any other planter's touch. And I wanted her with an ache so strong I could feel it with every fibre of my being.

Eventually, I outbid everyone. There were three planters there who could have swallowed my purse without even gulping, but they had already disbursed considerable sums for the other slaves. Rogét had played his cards cleverly, though I only later realized that he always intended for me to have her. I would have to sell some animals below price, probably a few slaves as well. But I now owned her. Rogét, his bloodless pink lips curved in a rigorous smile, brought her across. Still naked, she looked at me coolly, grey eyes as hard as slate. ‘Her name is Ophelia,' he said.

It is late and I am tired. I shall finish this entry tomorrow. (NB: Reading over what I have written, I see that I must ensure that this diary is never seen by anyone, especially anyone white. They would surely hang me for treason, though the real crime would be my temerity in criticising them.)

September 10, 1828 —

Had a good dinner tonight – duck stewed in claret, roast turkey & ham & greens, plus fried ortolans, cheese, bread & a very fine shaddock.

It was on the way home with Ophelia that I encountered – or I think I encountered – the Shadowman. I took Ophelia out to my cart and put her in the back. Rogét came out with us, and when he saw me attaching the leg iron, said, ‘But that is not necessary, m'sieu .' His French is very precise, with a Parisian accent, so that although I speak French well, I nonetheless felt like a country bumpkin.

‘I prefer to be safe than sorry, Monsieur Rogét,' I replied. ‘It is the secret of my success. Besides, I suspect my purchase may prove... difficult.'

This was as close to impertinence as I dared come with a white man such as Rogét. He smiled his bloodless smile, and I mounted up and drove off. The sun was already low behind the trees and I whipped the horses to a fast canter, wanting to reach home before dark. I tried to chat with Ophelia. I said, ‘Did you know that your name comes from a play by a great English writer. His name was William Shakespeare.' She said nothing, and I said. ‘The play is called
Othello
. It's about a black general who is married to a white lady. Her name is Ophelia.' She was unresponsive, not even looking at me when I spoke. Some masters would have been angry, but I just smiled at her. She knew that I really wanted to make love, not conversation.

It was when we were halfway home, proceeding along a rutted road running within a large copse, that the Shadowman stepped out of the trees. The horses reared, startled, and I pulled back on the reins, swearing. I heard Ophelia tumble in the back, then a solid thud as she hit her head, and looked around to see her lying limp. When I looked back again, the Shadowman seized me by my lapels and flung me bodily off my seat. I flew through the air, hit the hard-packed earth already curled up, rolled, and came to my feet with both pistols in hand. He was already rushing upon me, face expressionless and eyes hooded. I fired right and then left. Then he had me by the throat, my back pressed against the bole of a tree, feet dangling. Not for the first time,
le savate
saved me. I kicked out, hitting him in the ribs and spine. My legs are quite powerful, and I have lost no skill since a childhood spent battling white boys. But kicking the Shadowman was like kicking a stone wall. I felt myself blacking out, and grabbed his wrists, drew up my right leg, and pushed hard against his chest. As soon as I got some leverage, I jerked up my knee, hitting him on the jaw. His grip broke and he staggered back.

I collapsed on the ground, heaving for breath, my vision clearing. When I looked up, although only seconds had passed, the road was empty save for my horse-cart, and the only shadows were the long ones of the trees.

I reloaded my pistols and checked on Ophelia. She had a nasty bump on the back of her head, but otherwise seemed unhurt. She awoke as I was checking her, hitting away my hand. ‘Wha happen?' she asked. I told her we had been attacked. ‘Who tack we?' she said. Her voice was husky, but very female. She spoke in patois, which I could understand only with some effort. I said, ‘You didn't see anyone?' She shook her head, looking at me suspiciously. I said, ‘It was three runaways. Don't worry. I fought them off.' She sniffed and looked off into the distance. I asked her how her head was. ‘All right,' she replied. I held up a finger in front of her averted face. ‘How many fingers do you see?' She didn't answer and I repeated my question. I said, ‘Look, I just want to make sure you are all right. Otherwise, I'll have to carry you by the doctor now.' She watched me. ‘Worrying about yuh property, eh?' she said. I said, ‘I paid enough for me to worry. Now how many fingers do you see?' She held up her own hand with the middle finger extended. ‘That many,' she said. I said, ‘Good' and jumped back up on the driving seat and went home. I realize now that my question embarrassed Ophelia, because she cannot count.

September 17, 1828—

Bought some personal items today. Jacket and breeches for £7, boots for £3 and a new carbine for £4, plus several hundred
cartouches
for it at £1. But I will have to somewhat frugal in my expenditures for a while – the purchase of Ophelia has put my finances under some strain. I admit that in the past week I have begun to reconsider the wisdom – no, I should not say wisdom – the MADNESS that made me buy her. But that has been a secondary issue, and I have not yet decided if I was right or wrong. My mind has been mainly occupied with trying to make sense of my encounter with the Shadowman.

I have decided that that encounter took place mainly in my own mind. Descartes says: ‘Dreaming and being awake are importantly different: the events in dreams are not linked by memory to the rest of my life like those that happen while I am awake. If, while I am awake, someone were to suddenly appear and them immediately disappear without my seeing where he came from or went to (as happens in dreams), I would justifiably judge that he was not a real man, but a ghost – or, better, an apparition created in my brain.'

(I think I must elevate Descartes even above Pascal. Never have I encountered a mind so perfectly lucid.)

So, even if I were indeed attacked on the road, I am sure it was by someone who may merely have resembled my dream-image, and it was only my imagination in the fading light that made me think it was he. True, my pistols were discharged. But my throat was not even sore, did not even have any finger marks, the next day. In fact, there may not even have been a real man upon whom I imposed my dream-image. After all, I did shoot my attacker point-blank twice, yet there was no body. A pity that Ophelia was knocked unconscious, for I can depend only on logic to figure out what occurred.

It occurs to me, however, that Ophelia herself may be a key factor in explaining why the Shadowman has so suddenly emerged from the shadows. In my entry of Sept. 2, I wrote: ‘I note that he always stays in the distance. In other words, I consider my own ideal to be unattainable.' I now think that my self-analysis was wrong. Why should the Shadowman have come close – let me rephrase that: why should my mind have brought the Shadowman so close that he seemed to me a real and solid human being? I believe the answer lies in the one significant change in my life – Ophelia.

I say Ophelia, but in fact it is not she, of herself, who is the change. We have as yet had no real communication. I have made her a house slave – my personal attendant. But I keep her still in hobbles, for I am certain she will run at the first chance she gets. No, the importance of Ophelia to my own mental state lies in the reason I bought her: to wit, a complete lack of reason.

As I noted in my previous entry of Sept. 9, my decision to pay such a huge sum for Ophelia was quite irrational. ‘The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know,' says Pascal. It is the first time in my life I have acted completely contrary to both reason and morality. I cannot claim a moral motive, since taking her away from Rogét was secondary. I cannot even claim a natural motive, since I am well supplied with sexual partners. Nor have I even got a good return on my investment, since it will clearly take much training before she becomes even a passable servant. Yet, if I had to do it over again, my actions would be the same. Of this I have no doubt.

Yet, if there is one thing I am, it is a disciple of reason. It is reason that lies at the root of man's most significant advances, and few in this part of the world are as committed to it as I. There is nothing strange in this, for this is a part of the world created out of science. What other society has been formed out of deliberate intent and formed, moreover, to make use of the newest technology of the world?

I am a pure product of this novel effort. Were I not dark in complexion, I think I would have found the 17th century to be my ideal era. It was then that the mind of man seemed to advance onto a new plane in all the sciences. The compound microscope was built in 1590, allowing man to observe a world that only the eye of God had so far seen; the telescope in 1608, extending our vision beyond that of the keenest hawk, so that even the heavens were brought closer; the thermometer and barometer; clocks so improved that we mark time better than the sun; Gilbert's wonderful book on magnetism in 1600; in 1614, mathematics, the original language of Nature, leaped forward with Napier's invention of logarithms, with coordinate geometry, differential and integral calculus invented independently by Leibnitz and Newton. Then Harvey discovered the circulation of blood in 1628, and spermatozoa, bacteria and protozoa were also discovered, unlocking the secrets of life. Newton published his
Three Laws of Motion
, unlocking the secrets of the heavens.

So I am both a disciple and a practitioner of reason. And, in giving in to my baser, irrational nature (which is part of all men) I believe I court destruction. That is why the Shadowman assumed such fearful reality in my mind, and why my hallucination took the form of an attack upon my person. It is why even my guns appeared to be ineffective, but why my own martial skills served to fend him off.

Should I, then, get rid of Ophelia? I can surely recoup at least some of my losses by selling her. But I think not. To do so would be to admit that my irrational self has triumphed. Rather, I believe that by conquering her, I can also conquer the Shadowman.

[Entries for October deal mostly with details of plantation life and scattered thoughts of no especial interest. Ophelia remains a house servant and gives no particular trouble. Continues reading
Meditations
. No more sightings/visions of the Shadowman. Intense dreams whose details always misty. – A.A.]

November 12, 1828—

I had a bottle of good ale, mixed with sugar and water and grated nutmeg over it. Very tasty indeed, and my head pleasant. Spent the day checking the books for the last quarter. I take great (but, I hope, not sinful) pride in my assets. There are few, if any, Negroes in the West Indies who can boast of the following:

An estate named Kush 100 acres in size – the average holding is usually quarter this. I have a boiling house, still house, curing house, and drying house. I own, at last census, 78 slaves, four horses and six oxen. The average slave-owner has only 7. I employ three servants – two mulatto, one Negro; an overseer, white; a doctor, white; a farrier and a carter, both Negro. Of my acreage, 40 is given to cane, 40 are fallow, 20 are for pasture provisions and the cane nursery. But I also grow ginger, cotton and coffee, because I do not want to keep all my eggs in one basket. (I also have hens, goats and some milk cows.)

I suspect that the West Indian planters as a whole underestimate the significance of the beet sugar extraction process demonstrated by the Prussian chemist Maggraf in 1747, their attitude being that the longer the process remains non-commercial, the less likely it is to become so. I have never fathomed the penchant of human beings to favour the obviously false premise that the longer something doesn't happen, the less likely it is to occur.

Today, I tried to kiss Ophelia. She scratched my face quite viciously and I slapped her. Since purchasing her, I have treated her with scrupulous courtesy. I have not overworked her, and she has eaten the same food as I. She sleeps in a comfortable cot in a room within the house. Her duties are quite light: to keep my bedroom and study clean and organized, to wash and lay out my clothes. Even my paid servants have never been treated as well. But she is an ungrateful wench, and if she is not careful I shall surely take the whip to her! In looking over my accounts today, I calculated that it would take me five months to make up the shortfall I incurred from her purchase. But thus far, I have got no return from her, unless I count watching her through the peephole I made in the wall of her room.