The Cost of Sugar

by Cynthia McLeod

  “Is that all right, then, mother? Can a slave insult me? Are you going to allow that? What will become of us if that can just happen?” Sarith screamed, shouted and stamped her foot. “Go inside, mother, and don’t interfere.”

  Mother Rachel thought that this might indeed be best. She had never been a match for her daughter, and of course Sarith was right: as a white you could certainly not permit a slave to insult you. Just imagine!

  The basya took Ashana outside and took her to a tree. The small errand boy had to get rope from the warehouse to tie her so that she would hang with her feet just above the ground.

  Sarith herself began to tear the clothes from Ashana’s body, so that she ended up standing in front of her in just a small loincloth knotted round her waist.

  When Mini-mini saw that Ashana really was tied up she threw herself weeping at her mistress’ feet, threw her arms around her legs and sobbed, “Oh no, misi, I beg you, don’t whip Ashana, don’t let Ashana be beaten.”117

  But Sarith remained adamant. She tried to kick Mini-mini, and when she didn’t let go of Sarith’s legs, Sarith took the whip from the errand boy’s hand and gave Mini-mini a lash in her face. Mini-mini let go, covered the bleeding wheal on her face with her hands, and turned away to avoid seeing how the elderly Ashana was whipped.

  From the kitchen in the grounds, Kwasiba and the cook gazed in silence on the scene, lips pursed and looks that conveyed nothing but disgust. The basya began to whip. By the tenth lash Ashana’s back was cut completely open and blood was streaming from the wounds. Sarith watched and counted the lashes herself. When she had reached twenty-eight, Ashana collapsed, and the basya, totally desperate, threw the whip down and threw himself on the ground, shouting, “I can’t do this any more; whip me if you must, misi.”118

  Sarith decided that enough was enough. “Untie her,”119 she said. She turned and went into the house, followed by Mini-mini, still weeping.

  When she had gone, Kwasiba and the cook ran to the tree to help the basya untie Ashana. The errand boy was sent to fetch the medicine woman. Still unconscious, Ashana was laid on the ground. The medicine woman washed her face and her back, and another woman fetched water from the well.

  When Ashana came round, the women wanted to take her into the house, but with a faint voice she said, “No, don’t take me into the house; take me to the slaves’ quarters.”

  FATHER LEVI

  Levi Fernandez returned home that afternoon. He was tired. It had rained. He had got soaking wet while riding through his friend’s fields on horseback. He had pain in his back and was stiff from sitting so long in the boat with his wet clothes on. He was so looking forward to a warm bath and a sturdy massage from Ashana, who could get rid of his back pain with her nimble fingers. When he went through the house to the rear veranda, where he always found Ashana waiting for him in the old rocking chair, she wasn’t there. “Where is Ashana?” he asked his wife, surprised.

  “Ashana is ill,” came the answer.

  “Ashana ill?” That never happened. He started to walk towards Ashana’s room, which was next to the kitchen, but Rachel said, “She isn’t there. She’s in one of the slave huts. Kwasiba has seen to your water and towel and if you want she can give you a massage, too.”

  “No, don’t bother,” said Levi. It was Ashana’s massage that did him good, and if she was ill today he could wait until tomorrow. He asked no more questions, and went to bed early that evening.

  The following morning he was up early. He noticed that it was not Ashana but Kwasiba who brought him his coffee. Later he would go and see what was the matter with Ashana.

  He walked towards the waterfront, and his own slave, Sydni, who was always at his side, came and stood next to him. Sydni said softly, “Masra really doesn’t know what has happened to Ashana?”120

  “No, what has happened?”121 asked Levi. He had thought that Ashana simply did not feel well.

  “Misi Sarith has had her whipped. The basya had to tie her up and whip her. The basya didn’t want to do it, but Sarith whipped him, too.”122

  “What!” cried Levi. “Where is Ashana now?”123

  “She is at the medicine woman’s.”124

  As quickly as his feet could carry him, Levi went to the medicine woman’s hut, threw open the door, and went into the small room, where he saw Ashana lying moaning on a mat in the corner.

  In one step he was at her side and knelt down. He saw the totally raw, bloody back and whispered, “Ashana, oh Ashana.”

  Ashana, who had been lying facing the wall, now turned her head and said softly, “Masra, you’ve come to me, masra.”125

  The medicine woman had left the room silently.

  “Ashana, why has she whipped you? What have you done?”126

  “Leave it, masra, it is done. Water, I need water.”127

  Levi looked around and saw in another corner a gourd containing some water. With a smaller gourd he took some of the water and gave it to her to drink. With his hand covering his mouth he looked at the terrible wounds covering Ashana’s back from top to bottom. All kinds of thoughts and emotions raced through his mind as he stood there. He felt confused, but above all he was angry with that child, that Sarith, who had done this, and with his wife, who had told him nothing but had just said, “Ashana is ill.” He called the medicine woman and said to her, “Do everything for her and make her better.”128

  The medicine woman bowed and nodded, “Yes, masra, I will do whatever I can.”129

  Levi went into his house. With great strides he went up the stairs and burst into Sarith’s room, not stopping to knock.

  “Why have you done this?” he shouted at Sarith, who was still in bed.

  A shocked Sarith realized immediately that this was about Ashana. When she gave no answer, he grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her, shouting, “Why, Sarith, why?”

  Rebecca came hurrying in, and Sarith screamed, “Let go of me! She insulted me. That’s why. She insulted me!”

  “What insult can possibly be so bad that you need to have her thrashed like this? Tell me, what insult?”

  He still had Sarith by the shoulder, shaking her. The top of her nightdress slipped from her shoulder.

  “Levi, stop it, stop it!” Rachel stood in the doorway.

  Levi suddenly realized that he was in his stepdaughter’s bedroom, with her almost half naked in bed. Shaking his head, he went towards the door.

  Sarith called, “She’s a slave. I won’t be insulted by a slave. Just know that. And if it were to happen again, I’d do the same thing again. Then she’d realize that she’s a nigger woman, a slave, no more and no less!”

  Levi went past his wife out of the room. Ashana was a slave. Yes, a slave. Could he ever have explained to someone else what this slave had meant to him throughout his life? How she had loved his children, cared for his wife; how she, despite her own sorrow, had consoled him when his wife died; how she had cared for his children with all the love that was within her, and how she was always there for them, from early morning to deep in the night? He could still see her, sitting there with his son Jonathan in her arms, trying everything to prevent his passing away. How he, Levi, eventually had to take the dead child from her arms.

  Downstairs on the rear veranda he looked at the old rocking chair. How many nights had he heard the sound of that chair, because, for instance, Elza could not sleep and lay in Ashana’s lap on that rocking chair. And Ashana just rocking and singing songs. How on earth could he ever explain all that to anyone else? Ashana the slave. Elizabeth’s Ashana. Ashana who was love personified for his children, now lying there in the slave hut with a totally lacerated back. Levi Fernandez had never in years felt so lonely and abandoned. He walked to the waterfront and sat on the bench by the water.

  Sydni came to him and asked gently, “Has the masra seen Ashana?”130

  Levi gave a slight nod. He remained the whole day sitting there by the water. Now and then Sydni poured him something to drink. Ashana would die.
Had he ever let her know how much he valued her? No, of course not: she was just a slave! All slave labour was simply taken for granted. Not working was a misdemeanour. But all that love, that warmth, that consolation, Levi wondered: was that work, too? Was that to be taken for granted?

  During the afternoon an errand boy came to tell him that the medicine woman was asking if he could come to Ashana. When he was sitting next to her in the hut, she asked whether he could have the package brought to her that was in an old case in her room. Sydni fetched it. Ashana told the masra to open it. It contained two necklaces, one of red coral, the other of pomegranate pearls. Both necklaces had belonged to his wife, Elizabeth. One she had given Ashana herself and the other he had given her when Elizabeth died. Ashana gave him the necklaces, saying, “Masra, you must give one to Misi Elza and one to Maisa. Tell Misi Elza to look after her child well and her husband, too.”131

  “This money you must give to Maisa.”132 She pointed weakly to a little money wrapped in a cloth. She had saved all the money that she had ever received from the masra. “Masra must give my regards to Misi Elza and Masra David and Maisa.”133

  “Ashana, oh Ashana.” Levi didn’t know what more he could say. “No, Ashana, you’ll get better.” 134

  But Ashana shook her head and said, “Don’t be sad, masra, I’m going home, and in my home there is no slavery; don’t be sad.”135

  That was the last time Levi saw Ashana, for she died during the night and he was not there when the slaves took their leave of her with their own traditional ceremonies and rituals. And there was certainly no-one from the Grand House there when a small procession took Ashana to her last resting place. A nameless grave in an opening in the rainforest next to the other graves of hundreds of nameless slaves.

  A few days later, Levi Fernandez was at his daughter’s in the Wagenwegstraat. He had come specially to Paramaribo to tell Elza and Maisa that Ashana had died, and he intended to continue on to Suzanna’s Lust on the Para River, to spend a few days there with his son David.

  Elza was pleased to see her father, but when she saw his grave expression, she realized that something was wrong.

  “Ashana is dead,” said Pa Levi simply.

  Elza took hold of his hand and said, “No papa, surely not. How can Ashana have died? She was never ill.” She understood the sorrow this must be causing him and thought immediately of Maisa, too. Maisa would have to be told that her mother had died.

  When she went into the kitchen and saw Maisa sitting at the table, weeping, she realized that she already knew. “Oh Maisa, she is dead, eh; oh Maisa my dearest.”

  Elza put her arms round Maisa and lay her head on her shoulder. Maisa nodded and cried out suddenly, “That devil, that damned, foul devil. Just wait: she’ll be punished.”136

  Shocked, Elza lifted her head and looked at Maisa. Why was Maisa saying this? Why was she talking about Ashana like this?

  Maisa, seeing Elza’s amazed expression, cried, “Oh misi, you don’t know, do you? It was Misi Sarith that killed Ashana. She had the basya tie Ashana up and whip her ‘til she passed out, the vampire.”137

  “No, no!” With her hand over her mouth, Elza started backwards. “That can’t possibly be true?” With a scream she stormed into the dining room and shouted, “Papa, it can’t be true, say it’s not true, that Sarith has done this, that she had Ashana beaten?”

  “Yes, my child, yes.” Pa Levi shook his head and said to Rutger, who was looking in amazement from his wife to her father, “Sarith had Ashana tied up and whipped, and she died from her injuries.”

  Elza now sobbed out loud, her head in her arms on the table, weeping uncontrollably.

  “How could Sarith do such a thing?” said Rutger, softly. But Elza raised her head and screamed, “She had her beaten to death.”

  And as she looked at him so completely wretchedly, he understood that others might ask the whys and wherefores, but they both knew why Sarith had done this. Elza just wept and wept as the realization grew that Ashana was dead: the person from whom she had had the most love in all her life. The person who had cared for her, who had cherished her, for whom nothing was too much. This Ashana had died, not surrounded by love and affection, but rather as she had been all her life, a slave. She could forgive Sarith many things, but this, no, for this she could never forgive Sarith.

  100 “Yia misi Sarith, yu moi ba.”

  101 “Afanaisa, tyari a yongu masra kon dya, a musu kenki en pisiduku.”

  102 In Creole folklore the belief is held that arguments between parents and/or relatives can influence a child’s health.

  103 “Misi Elza, luku dya: Efu yu no wani yu pikin kisi fyo-fyo, nomeki na uma fasi en.”

  104 “Pe masra Gideon de?”

  105 “Misi Sarith teki en tyari go na mofodoro.”

  106 “Tyari en go na sodro.”

  107 “Misi Sarith seni aksi efu masra Rutger kan kon yere wan sani.”

  108 “Mini-mini taigi misi Sarith mek’ a kon dyaso.”

  109 “Hai hai, kisi en moi. Misi Elza kisi na sakasaka.”

  110 “Agu, taki, tyakun tyakun, fu yu na fu yu.” These last words (tyakun …) are in fact a saying: “That is the nature of the beast.”

  111 “San wan taki dati?”

  112 “Mi breti dati misi Elza kisi en srefi, yagi na kruktutere na en hoso, tyakun tyakun fu en na fu en.”

  113 “Du ogri noiti no bun.”

  114 “Boi kari a basya kon, esi esi.”

  115 “Basya tai a uma disi n’a bon, dan yu fon en.”

  116 “Fon en, basya, du san mi taki, noso mi o meki wan tu basi nengre fon yu.”

  117 “Ke poti, misi, mi e begi yu, no fon Ashana; ke, no meki Ashana kisi fonfón.”

  118 “Mi no man moro, we misi fon mi dan.”

  119 “Lusu en.”

  120 “Masra no sabi no san pasa nanga Ashana?”

  121 “No, san pasa dan?”

  122 “Misi Sarith meki a kisi pansboko, a basya tai en na wan bon, dan a fon en, a basya no ben wani, ma misi Sarith fon en tu.”

  123 “Pe Ashana de now?”

  124 “A de na a dresimama.”

  125 “Masra, yu kon no, ke masra.”

  126 “Ashana, ke Ashana, san hede a fon yu, san yu du dan?”

  127 “Libi en masra, a pasa kaba. Watra, mi wani watra.”

  128 “Du ala san gi en, meki a kon betre.”

  129 “Iya masra, m’e du san mi kan.”

  130 “Masra si Ashana?”

  131 “Masra yu musi gi misi Elza wan, nanga Maisa wan. Taigi misi Elza a musu sorgu en pikin nanga en masra bun.”

  132 “A moni disi yu musi gi Maisa.”

  133 “Masra musu taigi misi Elza nanga masra David nanga Maisa adyosi yere.”

  134 “No no Ashana, y’e kon betre.”

  135 “No sari masra, m’e go na hoso, mi hoso na sabi katibo, no sari.”

  136 “Na didibri, na frufruktu, a saka-saka, ma watki a o kisi en strafu.”

  137 “Tan, misi, yu no sabi no, na misi Sarith kiri Ashana, a meki a basya tai Ashana na wan bon, fon en te a flaw, na takru asema dati.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  RUTGER

  It was happening more frequently that people in the town were shocked by the news that yet another plantation had been raided. It appeared that the escapees were becoming increasingly bolder. Rutger wondered whether one could still talk of escapees. In his view they were well-organized groups.

  On every occasion you heard that the group was led by a certain Boni, and in the town people were already using the term Boni-negroes.

  There were already more than eight hundred military personnel in the country, sent by the Society138 in the Netherlands at the repeated request of the colonial government. In addition there were at least three hundred men of the colonial troops. But even so, this relatively large army had not succeeded in defeating the Boni-negroes. Now and then a group of militia managed to capture a few. These would then be taken into captivity and brought to the town
with appropriate pomp and circumstance. But after that it seemed that the Maroons were attacking with still more violence and getting closer. The colonists were getting increasingly scared. The devils would soon be in the town itself! Most of the plantation owners were also angry and indignant. Each year a hefty sum had to be paid into the escapee fund, and in recent years this sum was increasing regularly. So much money for nothing, since all those soldiers who were costing so much money were obviously able to do nothing against the bunch of wild savages there in the bush.

  One morning three gentlemen came to the administrator’s office. They were officer candidate Goedkoop, a sub-lieutenant serving in Captain Joo’s regiment, the planter Van Bemmelen, owner of the Groot-Vertier Plantation, and his white overseer. The three visitors looked extremely dejected. After sitting down and being given drinks by Alex, Sub-lieutenant Goedkoop began to describe how the Maroons had raided the Groot-Vertier Plantation and had taken everything as spoil. Van Bemmelen, his family and his white overseer had fled and had been received on a nearby plantation. Because they were so afraid, they had had a military escort to the town. Van Bemmelen was at his wits’ end. His wife did not want to return to the plantation. He had come to the administrator’s office to request a loan. The plantation had to be re-established. Otherwise, how could he live with no plantation and no slaves?

  Mr van Omhoog expressed his amazement at how it was possible for a handful of wild negroes to get the better of the soldiers. Sub-lieutenant Goedkoop explained that the colonial government could no longer think of the bush-negroes as a group of negro savages hiding in the jungle and now and then raiding to get what they needed. In the town, the government had thought that the escapees would be forced to give themselves up. If the military forces did not succeed, then hunger would drive them from the bush. But it was turning out to be quite the opposite.