Bakhita

by Veronique Olmi

  “There,” he says. “Clementina gave it to me for you can you see it’s a crucifix it’s our Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins he is the Son of the Father the Son of God and through him we will all be saved of course I know that Parona Michieli refuses to let me talk to you of religion which is why you need to keep this a secret but I can’t hold my tongue any longer you see because if you are left in ignorance of faith I’m so afraid for you you’re not even baptized what will become of you I mean I’m not saying this to worry you that’s not my intention but here this is Clementina’s crucifix it was given to her by her father who is now dead God rest his soul but she is happy I mean really really happy to give it to you.”

  He puts the small wooden and metal crucifix in her hand. Then jumps to his feet and bellows with completely uncalled-for vehemence, “Melia, I’ve told you a thousand times not to make your sister climb this tree, mamma mia!”

  Bakhita watches this clearly emotional man who has just told her something incomprehensible but apparently very important. Something he could not keep to himself. And has given to her. A secret. She understands this much. He has given her a secret. She looks at the crucifix in her palm. He said “Clementina” several times. It is a gift from Clementina. She has seen this before, in Italian homes, at crossroads of country lanes, in the cemetery where Parona Michieli’s babies are buried, seen this cross with this man on it. She once stopped beside a stone cross at whose feet a faded little bouquet provided a slightly mournful splash of color. She looked at that nailed man. Did not know they did this to slaves in Italy, too, and wondered why this particular man was depicted more than others. And she now wonders why this same man is nestled in her hand. Is it a warning? A protective talisman? She looks at it and then touches it with one finger, the small wooden cross and the metal body, such a thin man, with his head tipped skyward. She remembers the slaves who were nailed to trees as punishment or to stop anyone else profiting from them. This man is white. He is Italian. She is suddenly choked with sobs. She has abandoned everyone she loves. Kishmet will never be saved, and Binah could have died during a beating or been shut away in a harem. Tears spill down her face, her well-fed servant’s face. She swears to herself that when she returns to Suakin, because they will go back there soon, she will help her people, she does not know how but she will do more than love Mimmina and be loved by her. More than serve men in the bar and hand out bread to street children at the hotel’s gate. She is nineteen, she has been an adult for so many years! And she has done nothing in reciprocation for what she has been given, for her life that has been saved. Stefano sits back down beside her. He looks at her and cannot help kissing her, two kisses, resounding kisses of gratitude, one on each wet cheek of his little Moretta sister.

  * * *

  —

  “She was illuminated!” he will tell Clementina that evening.

  “Illuminated?”

  “Indeed she was! There she was in tears, holding her breast with one hand and your crucifix with the other!”

  “What on earth did you tell her?”

  “Everything! I told her everything!”

  “What about her, what did she say?”

  “What did she say?”

  “Yes, what did she say?”

  “Well, she…she was crying, she didn’t say anything, she just cried! She’d had the revelation!”

  * * *

  —

  She had not had the revelation. An intuition, at the very most. The feeling, once again, that she was standing at a door and could not open it. She hides this object whose purpose she does not understand. It is the first time she has hidden anything, that she has a sense of possession. She is sure the parona would take it from her, cannot explain this, just knows it, and that is enough for her to hide the thing among her shawls and take it out only once Mimmina is asleep. She takes out the crucified slave and talks about him to the darkness, but the darkness does not reply, it is filled with the song of courting toads, the brawling of drunks outside, and the whickering of horses from the stables under her windows. The horses will soon be sold. Like the property and the land along with it. She will leave all this. This Italy of extreme poverty, whose peasants barely live beyond the age of thirty-five and whose young flee in their thousands for countries farther away even than Sudan. Giuseppe, Stefano’s eldest son, explained this to her. Just as the consul once had, he spread out a large sheet of paper with lands and seas on it. That is how he is trying to teach her to read, with the letters for the countries. It is very difficult. And she has not managed to remember A for Australia, B for Brazil, or C for Canada, these places of exile for Italians without work. She is as black as ink. But cannot write. And everyone around her speaks new languages, their words like the countries on the map, shifting and far away, she cannot associate them with any of the feelings inside her, and shuts herself away in this uncertainty.

  * * *

  —

  It is August, the parona is in a terrible mood, Stefano comes almost every day to conclude the sale of the estate with her. Negotiations with the buyer drag on and on, and the whole thing regularly goes back to the drawing board. Maria is tearing her hair out and telegraphs frantically to Augusto, who is growing impatient back in Suakin. The suitcases and trunks are ready. The furniture covered with white sheets. The paintings and better sets of porcelain sold. There are no curtains at the windows now. The floors are bare, the carpets rolled up at the far end of rooms. And the months go by. It is nearly fall. The buyer is always contesting some figure, some document, asks to speak to the master of the premises and not to his steward or his wife, this is a serious matter, involving substantial sums, the climate shifts, winter comes early, the carpets are unrolled, firewood is brought in, the negotiations have come to a standstill. Toward the end of the year, in November 1888, Maria Michieli decides, on Stefano’s advice, to set off for Suakin and put the papers before Augusto so that he can sign the most important of them. The trip is expensive, she will leave alone with Mimmina, who is nearly three and coped well with the first crossing. She cannot decide whether to sell Bakhita to a wealthy family in Mirano, Zianigo’s nearest small town. Bakhita is well-known there and widely admired, having been seen with Mimmina so frequently, serious and hardworking, a gem who needs no salary, never takes leave, even works at night and, as she speaks little Venetian, is as discreet as a stuffed squirrel, and tough with it, as these Negro girls always are. But it is precisely the instant enthusiasm of Mirano’s bourgeoisie that persuades Maria not to sell the Moretta. Still, what is she to do with her during her absence?

  * * *

  —

  She puts the question to Stefano, who cannot believe his ears. Providence has come knocking at his door! His prayers are being answered! Bakhita will at last be delivered from la Michieli’s clutches. He has a window of opportunity and feels like a little boy about to catch a rare butterfly, it takes a great deal of skill and speed, a great deal of calm and assurance. In the first instance, he suggests the Moretta comes to stay with him, Clementina and the children would be thrilled at the prospect, she will sleep with the youngest two, Melia and Chiara, who know her so well. He asks for no money for her keep, and when Maria returns to sell the estate once and for all, she can simply come to fetch her slave from him and take her with her. Maria has complete faith in Stefano. And says yes.

  * * *

  —

  But Stefano lied. He does not intend to take Bakhita into his own home. He lied but does not feel he has committed a sin. An evil for the good. Because what this man wants, this man who is as pious as he is stubborn, what he wants is his little Moretta sister’s salvation.

  * * *

  —

  It is a serious matter. What Bakhita needs is specialists. People who know what they are doing. Giuseppe can keep on about A for Australia and B for Brazil, but she has never written a single letter nor read a single word. As for the crucifix, t
here is no knowing what influence it might have over her. When they recite the Benedicite before meals, she waits patiently, head bowed, for them to finish, and however many times he ends with a flamboyant sign of the cross, she never makes the connection with the crucifix he gave her. Worse than that, he is being taunted! His daughters burst out laughing when after his “Amen” last Sunday he made such an expansive emphatic sign of the cross that he jabbed Clementina in the eye with his elbow. Yes, specialists, that’s what she needs. He immediately thinks of the Canossian Daughters of Charity who run the Institute of the Catechumens in Venice. Like other Italian congregations, these nuns teach adults and prepare them for baptism, and take in abandoned children. Sister Magdalene of Canossa, who founded the order, was born a marquessa at the turn of the nineteenth century, and opened the institute in Venice to its congregation in 1831. The institute is as old as La Serenissima itself, having been set up to pass on the Catholic Truth to tradesman and soldiers who reached its shores, and to baptize them.

  * * *

  —

  It is here, then, in the Canossian institute in Venice, that Stefano would like Bakhita to live, for as long as it takes Maria Michieli to travel to Suakin and back. So when Bakhita herself returns to Sudan, she will be catechized and baptized, and he will be able to sleep in peace. Like his plan for adoption, he becomes obsessed with, tormented by this idea of baptism with the Canossians, particularly as he knows how averse Maria Michieli is to all things religious. He decides to lie once again.

  “Something has occurred to me, signora…On the subject of the Moretta—”

  “Won’t you have her now?”

  “Yes. Of course I will. But I was really thinking of you. You are such a worthy woman.”

  “Yes.”

  “An exemplary mother, and so brave—”

  “What are you saying?”

  “The Moretta…Is she useful to you at the hotel, over there in Africa?”

  “I’ve already told you I won’t burden myself with her on this journey, it’s too expensive, I’m leaving her here.”

  “What I mean to say, signora, is when she returns to Africa, the Moretta will help you in the hotel again, won’t she?”

  “Very much so!”

  “Mimmina will grow up. The Moretta will become more and more useful to you in the bar.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Well, believe me, a little education will be essential.”

  “Education? What education?”

  “Um…Being able to read. Write. Count.”

  “Why does a waitress need to be able to read?”

  “When you receive mail, orders, deliveries, if the Moretta could read, it would be more helpful than you can imagine.”

  “Listen, Stefano, I’ve known you ten years, so tell me what you’re really thinking, because I have a lot to be getting on with. And much more important things to think about than whether Bakhita will ever be able to decipher an envelope or a case of whiskey.”

  Stefano then broaches the subject of the Institute of the Catechumens, a place where the Moretta would not only be instructed but also overseen, unlike in his household, where she would be coveted as a servant, well, he and Clementina would not be able to watch her night and day, she is nineteen, it really is a bit of a risk, Lord alone knows what might come into her head, thoughts of freedom, who knows? People are not as submissive as all that, and neither is the Moretta, she might be subject to all sorts of influences. He cannot quite forgive himself this last argument. Once again he allowed himself to get carried away. Well, if it struck home that’s all that matters…But Maria Michieli is no fool. Stefano’s arguments may be fair, but she knows that the sisters in this institute in Venice will talk to the Moretta of religion from morning till night. She also knows that, apart from the most elementary aspects of everyday life, the girl still does not understand Venetian, she can scarcely run an errand and recites her prayers like a list of vegetables for a recipe. Even so, it would be tempting to keep the girl shut away somewhere during her absence. She asks for a few days to consider the idea, she will telegraph Augusto. And give it some thought.

  * * *

  —

  Against all expectations, she agrees. Stefano, for once, is at a loss for words. Asks her to repeat herself. She repeats herself. She agrees for the Moretta to be placed with the Canossian sisters in Venice for the duration of her trip to Suakin. But on one condition: that he himself takes responsibility for the process. And quite a process it is. Bakhita is an adult but, as a slave, has no status, no papers of any description, not even a purchase receipt because she was a gift to Maria Michieli. For administrative purposes, there is nothing to prove she exists. Stefano will have to go to the highest level, to his most influential connections to plead her case. He speaks of the need to convert the infidels, of how Africa can be saved by Africa, a slogan that is en vogue. He speaks of the prodigal son, the black Virgin, writes to wealthy ecclesiasts and high-ranking local government officers, reestablishes contact with a cousin whose sister took holy orders, and eventually secures the agreement of the institute’s prior and meets Mother Superior, Madre Luigia Bottissela.

  * * *

  —

  Nothing is explained to Bakhita. Melia and Chiara keep telling her they are going to take her to the collegio, to school, but this word means nothing to her. She knows she is not to be included in the trip to Suakin but will soon be living there, and for the rest of her life. She will go to join the Michielis. She also knows that Mimmina will grow up, and she is bound to change masters then. This period without violence is surely only a respite in her life as a slave. She obeys, without knowing where she is being taken, and even with the people she loves, she is always a little lost. She lives in the elastically expanded time of uncertainty, which is both very slow and very concentrated, time that lurches forward in successive leaps, like a rutted path, and then stretches out into uncharted monotony. She can see that Stefano is happy, happy for her. He loves her and is protecting her. But she does not know from what.

  * * *

  —

  All six of them go to Venice: Maria Michieli, Stefano, Melia and Chiara, and Mimmina, in Bakhita’s arms. Venice is not far from Zianigo, some twenty miles, they take a sluggish train that stops wherever a passenger requests it to and makes so much noise there is no point trying to talk, and they all keep up the restrained, slightly aloof behavior of major outings. They travel through the countryside like six peasants in their Sunday best who have never taken the train before. Mimmina has fallen asleep on Bakhita’s lap, and Bakhita protects her head from the train’s jolting, thinking she will soon say goodbye to the child when she leaves for Suakin with her mother. “A few days is very soon, there will be no more Sundays together,” is how Stefano explained it to her, Sunday being the only point of reference on which he alighted. Mimmina is breathing against her chest, her deep inhalations, her abandon, these are the true rhythm of Bakhita’s life. This symbiotic, trusting love. She has taught her everything a mother teaches her child, they have contemplated beauty together, watching the new day dawn and the old day finish, gazed at the sky as if it were some superior being, watched from the safety of their bedroom as the fury of storms transformed the landscape, then they opened the window when the sun came back out and the smells were as keen as a piece of fruit sliced open with a knife. Bakhita has taught Mimmina to call animals with brief noises and clicks of her tongue, and when horses and donkeys come over to her, she puts her hand on their submissive heads and says, “Grazie,” just as Bakhita does, because we must always thank animals that work for men.

  * * *

  —

  In the train on the way to Venice, neither of them has grasped that they are to be parted. This is an outing together, to Venice, where Bakhita came once long ago, when Mimmina was six months old, she remembers the train across the sea, the desperately poor streets, fishermen’s boats, and
women drawing water from wells on small squares where people sold herbs and bread. Poverty is the same everywhere. She soon recognizes it. It is a look in people’s eyes that nothing can shift, a great weariness. Barefoot children. Women carrying too much and men who keep their anger locked away. And in Venice, as in Zianigo, people were afraid of her, and in the stinking backstreets that never saw the sunlight, she held little Mimmina tightly to her and breathed in her sweet baby smell.

  * * *

  —

  Stefano rings the bell at the institute, a long yellowish two-story building with low windows, right at the far end of Venice, at 108 Dorsoduro, on the left bank of the Grand Canal. Bakhita is holding Mimmina’s hand, the child woke the moment the train stopped, and together they crossed the wooden bridges of this city set down in the middle of the sea like Suakin, with its skies torn open by domes and the masts of ships.