The Boni-negroes raided more and more plantations. Often they murdered all the whites and set all the slaves free. It was really frightening. Sarith wanted to go to the town. She was scared. When she told Julius, he answered that she need not be afraid. These Bonis raided only those plantations where the masters mistreated the slaves. He had the reputation of being a good master. His slaves were faithful to him and no-one wanted to escape from the plantation. And even if there were a raid, all the slaves would fight for him. Furthermore, there were so many military posts in the neighbourhood. No Boni would ever dare come so far. Wasn’t there even a military post near to their plantation?
When, however, it became known that the nearby military post had been raided by the Bonis, that five soldiers had been killed and others had fled, Sarith was no longer open to persuasion. She wept, wrung her hands and accused Julius of not loving her otherwise he would not expose her to such dangers and especially now that she was pregnant. All right: she could go to the town, and just for a few weeks, because the government would be sure to send reinforcements and set up a larger, stronger military post there. He himself could not go at this time, but he would send Benny with her. And so at the end of June Sarith left for the town, with no intention of returning to Klein Paradijs in the foreseeable future.
After six weeks or so, Julius did come to the town. He was missing his wife. Would she please go back with him? Everything was safe. The military had the situation well under control. Sarith agreed. She had come to the conclusion that she should be nice to him, for she had heard that the Jewish community would be holding a great feast at Joden-Savanna in October. This would be to mark the eighty-fifth anniversary of the synagogue, and the Feast of Tabernacles. Governor and Mrs Nepveu would be guests of honour. Well, Sarith must certainly be there, and so it was better to comply with Julius now and return to the plantation for a few weeks.
There she got bored, wandered around aimlessly, sat listlessly in an easy chair, while Mini-mini, Kwasiba and other domestic slave-girls were busy making clothes for the baby. Sarith looked at her body, which was swelling, and thought that having a child was nice, but it was all the same a bother that it had to grow in its mother’s body, with the ghastly things this did to her figure. To her horror she realized that in October, when the festivities would be taking place, her body would be even more gross and that she would then have nothing to wear. She must decidedly go again to Paramaribo to have gowns made that would to some degree disguise her condition. When she told Julius about this, he replied in amazement, “But Sarith, you’ve been back only three weeks. All that travelling to and fro can’t be good for you?”
“But I must have new clothes for the feast; nothing fits any more,” cried Sarith.
“Surely Kwasiba and Mini-mini can make something for you here?” remarked Julius.
“What? How could you dream for one second that I’d appear at the governor’s feast dressed in gowns made by slaves? Do you really want me to be mocked and ridiculed by everyone there?” And she burst into tears again, because Julius didn’t understand her and would have her be a figure of fun at such an important event. Julius could not cope with this feminine logic and gave in again.
And so Sarith went to the town again at the beginning of September and installed herself at her sister’s, this time to have the best dress-makers create gowns. In the last week of September Julius also came to the town, to travel to Joden-Savanna with his wife and in-laws, but first to Hébron, where they would spend a few days before travelling on.
It was inevitable that Sarith and Elza would meet, now that they were all staying together at Hébron, but Sarith managed to arrange things so that she was never alone with Elza and Rutger. Although Rutger and Julius often spoke with each other, Sarith always had something else to do if Elza came into the front room or on the front veranda. If Elza came through one door into the dining room, Sarith would leave by another door. If Elza was with her children in the summerhouse, Sarith would be in her room or somewhere else indoors. Elza noticed all this, but said nothing. In fact, she would not know what to say to Sarith.
The families had agreed not to take the very little children to Joden-Savanna. Only Esther and Jacob’s twins, who were now seven, went along. Esther’s two other boys, as well as Elza’s Gideon and Jonathan and Rebecca’s Zipporah, stayed with their nannies at Hébron. In Elza’s opinion that was more peaceful and certainly safer.
What superb festivities there were at the Savanna! After the service in the synagogue there were sumptuous meals and ball after ball. Despite her condition, Sarith managed to join in with nearly all the dancing. The seamstress had done her work well and had made marvellous gowns with full skirts or a satin jacket dropping over the hips, so that it was almost impossible to see that Sarith was seven months pregnant. She enjoyed herself and was still the desirable woman with whom all the men wanted to dance. In the governor’s party there were several handsome captains and lieutenants who were paying her so much attention that Julius would now and then intervene and dance with her, to make it clear to everyone that she was his wife.
Elza and Rutger had wandered hand in hand through Joden-Savanna, recalling memories from five years previously when they had first met each other. “Do you still remember how annoyed you were when I said that you were really quite wise for a young girl?” asked Rutger with a laugh. “Yes, but you said it in such a way as to suggest that only men could be wise,” answered Elza.
“Where has the time gone? Oh, yes, did you ever imagine that we would some day stand here again as man and wife?” asked Rutger again.
“Father and mother and two sons!” Elza laughed. She stopped and looked out over the valley. Rutger took her in his arms and gave her a kiss. As they walked back, Elza heard Sarith’s laugh ring out. That was five years ago, too, she thought, but what has happened between us in the meantime no-one knows except the three of us.
After the governor and his entourage had departed, the feasting went on for another week at Joden-Savanna, but Elza and Rutger did not stay to the end since Rutger’s duties did not permit such a long absence from the office.
Sarith and Julius did stay until the end, at Sarith’s insistence, and it was the last week of October when they arrived back in Paramaribo. After a few days at the De Ledesmas’ in the Saramaccastraat Julius said, “Well Sarith, it’s time for us to go back home.”
“We?” asked Sarith, surprised, “Not we, Julius, because I’m not going!”
“What do you mean, you’re not going? You surely cannot stay here? Your child will be born soon, and then you will certainly need to be at home.”
“You can’t possibly want me to travel to the Boven-Commewijne!” exclaimed Sarith. “You yourself said that I must take things quietly, and now you want me to make that tiring journey for two days in a boat!”
“It will be less tiring than all that dancing you’ve been doing of late. I’ll have an easy chair with cushions installed in the boat,” said Julius.
“But I’m not going. It’s far too dangerous with all those Boni-negroes raiding plantations.”
“They will certainly not raid our plantation.”
“I don’t want to go. No, no, no, I won’t go. What if something goes wrong? There’ll be no-one to help me!” By now Sarith was screaming.
“You don’t need to worry about that. After all, you have Kwasiba and we also have an excellent midwife at the plantation – Nene Trude, who helps all the slave-girls with their births and everything always goes well.”
“So you want her to attend to me, do you? What is good enough for slave-girls is good enough for your wife, too. I don’t want that, I don’t, I want my mother with me when that moment comes. Oh, you see, you don’t love me or you’d never treat me like this.” Sarith began to wail with rage.
“But oh my darling,” Julius couldn’t console his little woman quickly enough. “Of course your mother can come to you at Klein Paradijs. As far as I’m concerned she can stay with you,
if that’s what you want.”
“Is that what you think? Do you think for one second that my mother would want to come to such a faraway place? My mother always wants to be in the town in December. Here in Paramaribo. She’s here every year around this time.” Sarith was now sobbing loudly, for she thought of all the parties that took place around New Year, and she would just die of misery if, as last year, she had to be on the plantation again in this period while everyone in the town was feasting away. “Don’t you see,” she wailed, now stamping her feet and thumping various objects around, “I won’t go to the plantation, do you hear, I won’t go. You never let me do anything; you don’t even want me to be with my mother right now. You don’t really love me.” Sniffle, sniffle. Wailing and stamping and shouting “I want, I want” had always been tried and tested ways for her. As a thoroughly spoilt child she had always got her own way with such tantrums, and now, too, all this wailing and screaming worked, for Julius, totally put out by this outburst, knelt next to her and said soothingly, “No, dearest, I hadn’t thought of all that, but you’re right. Stay here if you wish. But aren’t we putting too great a burden on the De Ledesmas? They might be family, but is this all all right?” Esther, however, said that they certainly had no objection to having her sister there. This house was after all almost like Sarith’s parental home. They would look after Sarith well. He did not have to worry. And so Julius left for his plantation, thinking dejectedly that this was all turning out very differently from how he had imagined it.
On 4 December Sarith’s baby was born. It was not an easy birth, mainly because Sarith herself was exceptionally scared of the unknown and behaved as if she was the first woman in the world ever to give birth. The whole house was in uproar that night. Kwasiba, who for safety’s sake had also been sent by Julius to Paramaribo, was continually running up and down the stairs with hot water and complaining about this misi who was making everything so much worse by not being able to relax. Mini-mini knelt next to the bed, mopping her misi’s forehead, holding her hand and speaking comforting words.
Only when the boy was born and had had his first good cry was Sarith finally at ease, and when she had the child lying next to her on the bed and Mini-mini had washed her face and combed her hair, she said, “He’s beautiful, isn’t he, Mini-mini?”159
And Mini-mini said quietly, “He is beautiful, yes misi,”160 thinking sadly about another little boy who had been born a few months earlier and had not been granted an earthly existence.
Jacob de Ledesma ensured that his brother-in-law heard as quickly as possible that he had a son, and within just four days Julius was in town. He gazed happily on his wife. He was so pleased that he had a son again. “We’ll call him Jethro,” he said.
“Jethro, why Jethro?” asked Sarith. She was wanting another, much more modern, name.
“That’s a really nice name from the Torah, full of significance,” Julius replied. “You surely know that Jethro was the father-in-law of Moses, one of the founders of our people? And Jethro means great and wonderful, and that our son certainly will be.”
Sarith was in total disagreement with that name. She regarded it as a stupid custom in many Jewish families, burdening all their children with all kinds of names from the Torah. Jethro! What a name! Almost as stupid as her own name, Sarith. Who was ever called Sarith?
When she had once asked her mother how on earth she had arrived at that name, her mother Rachel had explained that Sarith was called after her mother’s sister, Sarah, and her little sister Judith, who had died young. Combining these two names had given rise to Sarith. Stupid, in fact. And now her own child, too, had been given such a name. Jethro, and that while therewere somany nice names such as Edward and Arthur and Cedric. But well, she could not be opposed to everything her husband said, and so the child was given the name Jethro.
Following Jewish custom, the circumcision took place on precisely the eighth day. The rabbi came to perform the ritual, which took place in the large front hall. As with many Jewish traditions, this was predominantly a male happening. An uneven number of men stood in the room, all with their heads covered and looking towards the east. After various prayers had been said or sung and the rabbi had prepared everything, the child was brought in. The little Jethro lay on a white lace cushion with the lower part of his body uncovered and was brought in like this by Kwasiba. She lay the cushion on a small table in front of the rabbi and then went to stand outside the room. Jethro screamed really hard. His little face turned all shades of red and small drops of sweat appeared on his forehead. He had deliberately not been fed that morning. After the circumcision he would be very hungry and would suck away lustily. Exhausted and with a full stomach he would fall asleep, which would be best for the healing of the wound.
And of course all this was accompanied by a party. The De Ledesmas’ house was full of people. Everyone was coming and going, and Sarith was really disappointed that she had to lie upstairs in bed. Elza and Rutger were also among the guests. Of course, the men did not have to visit the new mother’s room, and Rutger could congratulate Julius downstairs on the birth of his son. For Elza it was more difficult. She could not stay away from Sarith’s room, and in fact she wanted to get a good look at the little boy. She went in along with many other ladies, looked briefly in the cradle and remained standing by the wall while she placed a gift in Gideon’s hands, with the instruction to give it to aunty in bed and to say, “Very best wishes.” Gideon, now almost three, did this very nicely.
Julius understood full well that his wife could not travel, and he himself remained in the town. In the meantime it was the end of December. Sarith could get up, and at the New Year’s celebrations she was already well enough to be able to dance, happy that her figure had not suffered and that she looked good again.
She did not feed the child herself. She didn’t want to spoil her beautiful breasts with the suckling of a child. Luckily, the De Ledesmas had a slave-girl who herself had a baby and could therefore look after this. Around the middle of January Julius decided that it really was time to return to the plantation, but Sarith refused.
Julius did not understand this at all. She was surely strong enough. Everything was fine: look how she had been able to do all that dancing the past weeks. Sarith said that everything was well with her, but he obviously wasn’t thinking of the child. Who would dream of undertaking such an arduous journey with a six-week-old child? And just look at all that rain. The child would most surely catch cold. Did he really want the child to catch cold and die?
“But we can pack him in well and he’s lying in a cradle,” Julius proposed.
“And feeding, then, the wet nurse? After all, that is Esther’s slave-girl. How will the child be fed?” asked Sarith.
Julius thought that maybe he could buy the slave-girl.
“That won’t be possible,” answered Sarith. “Esther will never sell her; she needs her too badly herself.”
Julius could not quite see how, in a household with perhaps thirty slaves, one slave-girl more or less would make a big difference, but all right, if Esther did not want to sell her, perhaps he could borrow her for a while. That was also not acceptable to Sarith, who began crying plaintively that Julius was really such a tyrant and always wanted to get his own way, never taking her into account and not even thinking of his own child. Julius therefore gave in yet again and travelled back alone to Klein Paradijs, leaving Sarith and Jethro behind.
Sarith continued her life just as in the past. She went out to feasts, to parties. Her child was fed by the wet nurse and further cared for by Mini-mini. But Esther, too, felt that Sarith’s behaviour was not as it should be. She noted with some consternation how her sister was going from the one party to the next and seemed to have forgotten completely that she was now a married woman. When she remarked on this, Sarith thought that it was certainly better being in town than at Klein Paradijs, but having your sister’s eye on you was not ideal, in fact. No, she would have to get her own house in P
aramaribo. Julius would have to arrange this for her. A house of her own, with furniture and slaves. Then she would not have to rely on the hospitality of others and would be free to stay in town as long as she wanted. She would now have to be really sweet to Julius, and around a month later, when he visited the town again, she immediately agreed to return with him to Klein Paradijs.
138 The Licensed Society of Suriname (Geoctroyeerde Sociëteit van Suriname) was established in 1683 by the Dutch West India Company, the City of Amsterdam and Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck to manage the new colony, which had been exchanged for Nieuw Amsterdam (later New York) through the Treaty of Breda, 1667. The society was disbanded in 1795 and a colonial government was instituted.
139 ‘No meri mi’, ‘Kibri mi’, ‘Holi mi’, ‘Gado Sabi’.
140 Protection through magical forces.
141 In Suriname, Cabale.
142 The river running past Amsterdam and into the North Sea. It served as Amsterdam’s harbour.
143 “Misi, misi wan sani leki katun a fadon komopo na loktu, ai bron!”
144 “No wan bakra mus kon mandi nanga mi.”
145 “Fa den bakra disi morsu so dan?”
146 “No kon taigi mi dati bakra sabi wroko nanga den anu.”
147 “Mi? No no misi, mi no wani.”
148 In English this would refer to a common or village green.
149 “Kande a mise e frigiti tamara.”
150 “Y’e suku yu mati no? A gowe yere.”
151 “Dan suma y’e suku so dan?”
152 “Na di dyonsro de gowe, a gowe nanga en uma.”
153 “Nanga en uma? Kande misi mene en m’ma?”
The Cost of Sugar Page 18