The Cost of Sugar

by Cynthia McLeod

  That evening Sarith waited for him and led him to the grounds behind the house where the slave quarters were. The door opened and Mini-mini saw the misi standing there in the light of a lamp that was held up high by an errand boy. Next to her stood an obnoxious, fat man with protruding belly. She saw the raunchy expression on his face, and the misi said, “You must go along with this masra!”247

  Mini-mini’s knees knocked as she stood up. No further words were necessary. She knew what was going to happen to her.

  When he awoke the next morning, Jethro found Nicolette, not Mini-mini, next to his bed. “Where’s Mini-mini?” he asked.

  “Mini-mini isn’t here,”248 answered Nicolette.

  “Go away,”249 cried Jethro. “I want Mini-mini,” and then louder, “Mini-mini,” but there was no answer. Again he yelled, “Mini-mini.”

  “She isn’t here,”250 Nicolette repeated.

  Jethro jumped out of bed and ran barefoot downstairs and out to the slave quarters in the grounds. He thrust open the door of the hut where Mini-mini always slept, and called out again and again, “Mini-mini!”

  One of the other slave-girls said gently, “She’s not here, little masra, she’s not here; she’s gone away.”251

  Jethro simply did not understand. Mini-mini was always around, wasn’t she? He went back into the house, up the stairs and into his mother’s room, and shouted to Sarith, who was still in bed, “Mama, where is Mini-mini? Akuba says that she has gone away.”

  “Yes, she’s left, and she won’t be coming back. Have Nicolette help you.”

  “No,” screamed Jethro, “I want Mini-mini. Where is she? I want Mini-mini. Mini-mini!”

  “Don’t scream like that, lad, she is not coming back, never ever. I have sold her.” Sarith’s voice was very calm. “You can scream from morning to night, she’s gone for ever.”

  “No, that’s not right, I want Mini-mini, Mini-mini.” Jethro was now howling with every breath in his little body. Just like his mother did in her childhood, he started stamping and throwing things. “I want Mini-mini.”

  “Now, shut up, Jethro, and get out of my room.” Sarith was beginning to lose patience.

  “I want Mini-mini, I want Mini-mini. I’ll tell papa, I’ll tell papa,” Jethro screamed again.

  “You must do just that. Papa can’t do anything, anyway. Mini-mini belonged to me. I have sold her and she’s not coming back, however hard you scream,” said Sarith calmly.

  But Jethro simply started screaming and yelling ever more loudly, “Mini-mini, Mini-mini.”

  Esther and two of the cousins had come upstairs to see what all the fuss was about, and saw Sarith sitting up calmly in bed, with Jethro behaving like a little savage. “What on earth is happening?” asked Esther, looking in surprise on this scene. “Oh, he’s screaming for Mini-mini, but she has gone, I’ve sold her. He’ll simply have to get used to the idea.”

  “You’ve sold Mini-mini? No, surely not,” said Esther, startled. “Why have you sold her, Sarith? Just look what you’re doing to that child!”

  “She’s expecting Julius’ baby, that’s why,” said a now angry Sarith.

  “But that’s no reason to sell her, and certainly not in Mini-mini’s case,” said Esther. “So many slave-girls have babies by their masters. Mini-mini herself was such a case.”

  “You don’t understand, Esther,” Sarith had got out of bed. “She is no ordinary slave-girl, she is his concubine, his love.” For that was now clear to her: that is what she had noticed. The way Julius looked at the girl. She knew for sure: this was not a passing fancy, this was true love.

  “But selling her?” Esther asked again. “Who knows where she’ll end up, poor child.”

  “Poor child, my foot!” screamed Sarith, “Can someone think of me for a change? Am I supposed to accept that my husband’s concubine, his truelove, is living in my house? Is that what I’m supposed to do?”

  “No,” Esther shook her head, “No, of course that’s not possible. No woman must accept that. But was there no other solution?”

  “No, I’ve sold her, and that’s it. I want to hear nothing more about it. I can do what I want with my property. Jethro, shut up now. Nicolette, go and wash him.”

  But Jethro began wailing even more loudly, as if that were possible, “I want Mini-mini,” and when Nicolette brought her hand towards his nightgown, he bit it so hard that blood began to well up in the bite marks.

  “Oh, just leave him alone, then,” Sarith decided. “He’ll calm down, and, oh, in a few days he’ll have forgotten all about it.” And so everyone left the room, leaving Jethro behind. He had not understood exactly what his mother and his aunt had been discussing. He went and sat on the floor, desolate and despondent, his head against the knees that he had drawn up towards his chest, and he wept, and wept. For if there was one thing he had understood very well, it was that Mini-mini was gone, gone for good.

  JULIUS

  Julius would never be able to say later what it was in those days that had given him such a funny feeling. Was it premonition, telepathy, a sixth sense? From the very moment the tent boat was leaving he had wanted to shout, “Mini-mini, come back; don’t leave!” He had to console himself with the thought that she was going away for only a week, two at the most, and was going because she had to care for Jethro, so he should stop being childish. But still he felt so strange, so restless. He couldn’t manage to stay in one place for any length of time, but found himself pacing up and down, going through the house from the front veranda to the rear one, from his office to the next floor, always with the same thought: nothing must happen to Mini-mini. But what could happen to her? This same response always came to mind. Hadn’t she been to town so often? And Sarith was being exceptionally kind and calm since making that terrible scene. Was she no longer angry? Or was she planning something? Surely she would do nothing to Mini-mini? And then he suddenly remembered an incident he had heard about.

  Long before they were married, Sarith had had the slave-housekeeper at Hébron whipped to death. No-one had ever found out exactly why, but it had been a terrible shock for the family, for the slave in question was the most trusted of them all, the one who had in fact raised the children. But surely Sarith would not be thinking of something like that with Mini-mini? They had known each other from their earliest years, and there was even talk that Mini-mini was the child of the older or the younger A’haron. He tried to console himself, but at the same time had to admit to himself that he simply did not know what Sarith might be capable of. He really did not know her at all.

  Even the day after Sarith, Mini-mini and Jethro had left, it was no better. He was still ill at ease and wandered restlessly through the house. On the third day, during his ride through the fields, he decided that he must act quickly. He had been planning to buy Mini-mini free. That would be in about three months’ time when the coffee had been harvested and sold. But now he changed his mind: why wait? Why not borrow the money from someone, to be paid back in three months’ time, and begin the process immediately? Yes, that is what he would do: wait no longer, go straightaway, the next day, to the town, borrow the four hundred and fifty guilders somewhere and submit the application to the court. She could then already be free when the child was born. Then the child would also be free. Where could she go once she was free? She would not be able to remain at the plantation. But he felt at ease now he had made his plan, and resolved to go to town at the end of the week.

  Returning home, he went to his office and opened the drawer where the slaves’ papers were kept. He could see immediately that someone had been rummaging around. The papers were not in their usual order. A terrible suspicion began to arise in his mind. Frantically he searched through the deeds of ownership. Where was Kwasiba’s? He was sure it had been there at the back. It was gone. So that was it! Good God! Was that what Sarith had been planning? Was she going to sell Mini-mini? The thought sent a chill through his whole body. He called, “Benny, Benny!”

  When B
enny came, he ordered him to get the small boat ready immediately. “Take twelve oarsmen, so that they can row in two shifts, and straight to the town.” Benny wanted to complain that they had to wait for the tide, but Julius had no time for that: they must leave immediately, against the tide.

  The boat stopped nowhere along the way. Now and then Julius himself grabbed an oar to help out, but that didn’t amount to much, and he therefore had to make do with wringing his hands nervously while the oarsmen rowed with all their might. The whole afternoon and all the night they rowed without stopping, by ebb and by flood, and it was about half past nine the next morning that they reached Paramaribo.

  In the Saramaccastraat Jethro had howled the whole day. He had eaten nothing, but had sat all the time in his nightshirt in the corner of his room, shouting for Mini-mini. During the evening he had eventually fallen asleep. Nicolette had put him to bed, but when he woke up and saw that Mini-mini still wasn’t there, he went downstairs, dragging his pillow behind him, and sat near a window at the back of the house, asking each slave who went by, “Do you know where Mini-mini is?”252 Everyone was full of pity for him and they all would answer gently, “No, my little masra, oh dear, no, I don’t know.”253

  Jethro had started crying again, silently, when suddenly he stopped. Wasn’t that his father’s voice? He listened: yes, that was papa! In a few leaps he was in the front room standing with his father. “Oh papa, papa!” He stretched both arms out towards his father, who picked him up. With his arms around his father he screamed, “Mini-mini has gone, papa. Mama, mama has sold her!”

  Esther had wanted to have a quiet talk with her brother-in-law, but he wasn’t listening to her. He put Jethro down and ran up the two flights of stairs with Jethro on his heels. Once in Sarith’s room, he stood in front of her and his voice was hoarse with rage as he shouted, “Where is she? What have you done with her?”

  If Sarith was surprised to see her husband suddenly standing in front of her, she didn’t let it show, and answered, “I have sold her. She is my slave-girl. I can sell her whenever I want.”

  “Whom have you sold her to – tell me who.”

  Julius grabbed his wife by the arm. She pulled herself loose and said, “I don’t know. To a trader. He would sell her on. She’s probably already on some far-flung plantation or other.”

  Julius was beside himself. “What kind of person are you?” with trembling voice, “You’re a monster, a monster! Her mother saved your life and you promised her on her deathbed that you’d look after her daughter, and then you go and sell the girl! You’re a wretch, that’s what you are! Julius shook his wife through and through. “A wretch, that’s what you are!”

  “Do I have to take it lying down that your concubine is in my house then?” screamed Sarith. “Wretched monster!” cried Julius again, grabbing Sarith by the throat. But Esther came between them and pushed him aside.

  “Julius, control yourself, control yourself! What Sarith did wasn’t right, but indeed a man really can’t keep his concubine in his house along with his wife, now can he?”

  “No, a man can’t do that, eh?” answered Julius cynically. “Not that, but he’s supposed to accept that his wife has someone else’s baby. That’s all right, it seems!”

  Esther was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say to that. “Julius, calm down now, go and freshen up and take a rest, and then we can always see this afternoon what’s what.”

  She pulled his arm and drew him out of the room, but not before Julius had turned to his wife, saying, “If anything’s happened to her, then I swear I’ll strangle you with my bare hands!”

  Jethro, who had followed all of this in sheer terror, now grabbed his father’s hand and said, in tears again, “Will you find her, papa; where is she, papa?”

  “Quiet now, Jethro, quiet. I’ll bring her back. I promise you she’ll come back!” He left the house. Esther wanted to remark on his unshaved face, but he was already gone.

  Of course all the slaves in the house knew what was going on, and while his master was inside, Benny had heard in detail how Masra Beunekom had arrived the day before yesterday with Misi Sarith and how he had taken Mini-mini with him. When Benny saw his master come out of the house, he said only, “Masra Beunekom took her with him.”254 To the stock-exchange, then. He would be sure to be there at this time of the morning.

  Everyone knew Masra Beunekom, a trader who sold mainly salt-water negroes. These newly arrived negroes were first put in a slave depot until they could be sold. The sale was a public affair, usually a few days after the ship had landed. The slaves had to stand on a table and they were examined and pummelled from all angles. But in most cases the more significant transactions had already taken place at the stock-exchange.

  Mr Beunekom was, however, not in the stock-exchange. Well, perhaps he was at the slave depot. Julius and Benny hurried to the depot on the Kleine Combéweg, but Masra Beunekom wasn’t there, either. The slave who was there at the shed said that Masra Beunekom would certainly not be coming there today, for after all there were no slaves to sell right now: only a few decrepit negroes were there in the depot. Julius wanted in any case to look inside, just to be sure that Mini-mini wasn’t there, so the slave opened the door for him with a large, rusty key. She wasn’t there. Julius was becoming increasingly nervous and frightened. Every minute that passed without his finding her could mean something terrible happening to her. All right, so now to Masra Beunekom’s house. He lived in the Jodenbreestraat. Julius ran there with Benny on his heels.

  MINI-MINI

  When the misi had suddenly come up with the plan that they should all go to town, Mini-mini had already had serious misgivings, and when the man stood at the door that evening she had immediately understood what the score was. It was over; everything was finished. How could she have ever thought that she would sometime be free, living her life with a man who loved her and whom she loved, too? That was just a dream, never reality for a slave-girl.

  The man had taken her to his home and had locked her in a room. Thank goodness, she had thought at that moment, for she had been afraid that he would take her to some brothel or other. At that stage she did not know what was in store for her, for Beunekom was busy considering how this beautiful slave-girl could make him the most money. But in the meantime he would make the most of her himself. So when, a little later, he had entered the room with bare chest and a lamp in his hand, she had understood completely what he was after. She had resisted, punched, kicked, scratched. But that served only to make him more eager, and in the end he had hit her a few times, forced her against the wall and raped her. When it was all over, he had left. The key had ground in the lock and she was alone again in the darkness.

  Mini-mini wept. Oh, that this should be her fate. Could the masra know what had happened to her? The following day an old slave had come along with a bucket of water for her to wash herself, a gourd with a few vegetable roots and some salted fish, and another with some water to drink. With pity in his eyes he had murmured, “Oh, poor thing.”255

  The whole day she had sat miserably in a corner of the room, rubbing her ankle, for she had twisted it during the fighting the previous evening. That evening Beunekom came again. He was clearly blind drunk. Mini-mini felt sick with disgust for the man, but she didn’t resist this time, knowing it would be no use.

  She looked for a way to escape. If only she could do that, and then go into hiding. But the door was locked and the windows had locks as well as grills. She could only open the blinds and just get a hand through, nothing more. Exhausted and miserable, she went and sat on the floor again. And then suddenly she heard something! Wasn’t that Masra Julius’ voice? Oh, perhaps she was just imagining things. She limped to a window. But the room’s windows looked out onto the grounds and the negroes’ entrance, not onto the street. She heard how the old slave closed the front door again and she heard departing footsteps on the pavement. With all her might she screamed, “Masra, help me, I’m here. Get me away from h
ere, I beg you, get me away!”256

  Outside on the street Julius heard this, and with a single leap he was back on the pavement, banging on the door. “Open up, open the door!”257

  The door opened. Julius pushed the old slave aside and with huge strides he was at a door near the back of the house.

  “Mini-mini,” he called.

  “Yes, masra,” came the voice from inside the room.

  “Open up,” commanded Julius.

  But the slave shook his head, scared, “I don’t have a key,”258 he said.

  Julius asked no more. He threw his weight against the door, which burst open.

  The next moment he had Mini-mini in his arms. “Oh, Mini-mini, dearest, my love, my treasure, what’s been happening to you? Forgive me for your having to suffer like this for me!”

  Mini-mini could only sob. Julius wanted to get her outside, but when he saw that she could hardly walk he picked her up and carried her through the door. To the frightened slave he said, “Tell your master that I’ll bring the money this afternoon, and I’ll pay for the door, too.”259

  When they were a few doors further, he suddenly realized that he had no idea where he could go with Mini-mini, and he couldn’t carry her much further.

  He set her down on a doorstep. She was still sobbing, and he stroked her hair. Frantically he looked for inspiration. Where could they go? The De Ledesmas’ wasn’t an option. Then he suddenly thought: his daughter, Miriam, was married to one of the tradesman De la Parra’s sons and lived in the Molenstraat. Yes, Miriam. She would have a room in her grounds where Mini-mini could stay. But she wouldn’t be able to walk that far. Benny would have to hire a carriage, and quickly. In the meantime Julius went and sat next to Mini-mini on the doorstep.