Ama

by Manu Herbstein

  “This place stinks,” said Ama. “I pity those who have to sleep next to the latrines. I wonder how we shall ever get used to this smell.”

  The woman grunted, “It will get worse, mind my words.”

  “I'm sorry, I forgot to ask your name,”

  “I am called Nana Esi.”

  Ama was silent. Following her example, several other younger women had jumped down.

  Ama had a thought.

  “My sisters,” she called out, “if you want to go somewhere, you had better go now. You may not get a chance when the others return.”

  “I had a friend called Esi,” she said to Nana Esi.

  Nana Esi waited to hear more, but Ama was in a brown study.

  “What happened to her?” she asked at last.

  “I don’t know. I wish I did. She was my best friend. Excuse me, I am going to take my own advice before the others come back.”

  She hadn’t given Esi a thought since Mijn Heer’s death and what came after. The poor girl must have gone through this same experience. She too had been raped by that monster Jensen. Now Ama felt a pang of guilt. Perhaps she would meet Esi again in the white man’s country. She held her nose and tried not to breathe as she sat on the bucket.

  The older woman who had used her only garment for a head cloth was standing nearby. Suddenly she began to shake violently. Almost at once she fell to the floor, twisting and turning. Other women came to look at her but did nothing.

  “Hold her,” cried Ama from her seat. “She will hurt herself.”

  She looked around for something to wipe with but there was nothing.

  Lucky it was a firm shit, she thought.

  The convulsions stopped and the distressed woman rose to her feet. Now she started to laugh, a wild, animal, incoherent laughter. From time to time she paused to take a breath or was overcome by another shaking fit. Then the laughter resumed. It went on and on and on. At last she began to cry out.

  “Fools, fools,” she cried again and again, gripping the grating on the outer door.

  The noise drew the surgeon, Butcher.

  “What’s going on here?” Ama heard him ask.

  The door opened. The woman was dragged out and the door closed again with a bang. Ama went to it and looked through the grating. The woman lay on her back on the deck. Two seamen sat on her, fixing manacles and handcuffs.

  “Send her back with the first canoe,” said Butcher. “There’s no way we’re going to give this one a free trip to Barbados.”

  * * *

  The other women returned from the deck.

  They were followed by the surgeon and six white seamen, who hung lamps on the bulkhead.

  Butcher addressed them in a loud voice, “Soon this hold will be full. It is time that you learned how we want you to arrange yourselves. The men will show you how you are to lie.”

  They began to line the women up according to Williams’ plan. Their first customers were confused. The men spoke to them, then used sign language and finally man-handled them into position, each lying on her right side, facing into the back of her neighbour. Once they realised what they were required to do, the other women complied without resisting, as if this were some kind of game they were playing.

  “As for the mind of the white man, it is a mystery,” said one.

  “Me broni,” said another to a young seaman, “wo ho ye fe se anoma,” meaning, “My precious white man, you are as beautiful as a bird.”

  There was an approving roar of laughter from those who understood.

  Ama watched, wondering again why the white men bothered to speak to them at all. She vowed to keep her mouth shut: there was no way that she would become their okyeame.

  Then the white men left and the women rearranged themselves before they settled down for the night. There was still plenty of space to stretch.

  * * *

  The next day was a Sunday. Williams would have liked to continue loading his ship, but the Dutch company’s rules about the observance of the Sabbath were inflexible.

  The women were allowed out onto the quarter-deck soon after dawn. An awning had been rigged for them and they were not uncomfortable in the shade. Tomba’s people sat to one side. Ama greeted them with the formal morning salutation. They replied with smiles in a language which was totally strange to her.

  “Do none of you hear Asante?” she asked.

  One older woman raised her open palm to her ear; another spread her palms and cocked her head. There was laughter and some animated conversation.

  Ama tried her mother tongue, Lekpokpam, without much hope and with a similar result. She looked over her shoulder. None of the Elmina party appeared to be watching her and none of the crew were nearby.

  “What about English?” she asked in a whisper.

  “English,” came a loud reply.

  Ama’s heart gave a leap. If one of these women understood English the two parties would be able to communicate. But who had answered? She raised herself to her knees. The English speaker was waving to her. She was a slim young woman with a mischievous smile. Her companions paid no attention to her. She moved aside to make room for Ama.

  “You hear English?” Ama asked.

  “English,” she replied with a grin.

  Then she pointed to the crew on the main deck.

  “Man,” she said.

  Then she pointed to herself and said, “Wo-man.”

  Inspired by a sudden thought, she pointed to Ama and said, “Wo-man, A-fri-ca wo-man,” and laughed.

  “You must know more?” Ama asked.

  “Man, Ing-lish man,” she said, pointing as before.

  “Wo-man,” she said again, pointing to herself; and then after a pause, added with a sly laugh, “Fokkie-fokkie. Man, wo-man, fokkie-fokkie. Ing-lish man, A-fri-ca wo-man, fokkie-fokkie.”

  And she laughed yet again. The woman sitting next to her looked at her with disdain. Ama rose, disappointed. This was not her hoped-for linguist.

  Then, as one person, the women around her suddenly rose to their feet.

  “Tomba, Tomba,” they cried.

  Tomba, who had been led out, shuffling the irons which held his ankles, turned and raised his manacled hands up high, acknowledging their greetings. He spoke a few words and at once his guard flicked his cat at him. They saw the lacerations from the beating he had received and there were cries of sympathy. Then the guard forced him on his way to the forecastle, where he and the boys took their food. The boys came out of the door below and followed.

  “Kwaku, Kwaku,” called Kwaku’s mother, struggling forward to the edge of the quarter-deck.

  The boy is barely ten years old, thought Ama. She saw him respond to his mother’s call and begin to sob. The guard flicked his whip and the boy withdrew. He was the only Akan. His mother had not seen him since they had been brought on board. The others were all Tomba’s boys. They turned to wave to the women as they passed and there were calls to them too.

  The food was in large round trays. As they settled down in a circle around the two trays, Ama heard the voice of the surgeon, Butcher.

  “For what you are about to receive,” he intoned, “may the Lord make you truly thankful. Amen.”

  The boys knew what was expected of them.

  “Amen,” they chorused.

  * * *

  The men were brought up from the bowels of the ship and chained to iron rings.

  They looked around, bewildered, as they ate.

  Once, back home, long ago, Itsho had hacked off the top of a termite mound. Ama was reminded of the confused panic of the subterranean insects, suddenly exposed to the light and to the appetites of the compound chickens.

  Of each pair of men, one had a right hand free and the other a left hand.

  “These white men may know how to make ships, but their customs are uncivilised. It is bad enough that they keep us in chains, but to force us to eat with our left hands, that is the ultimate humiliation. It is against all custom,” Ama heard one of
them complain.

  When they had herded the male slaves back into their dark abode, the crew assembled on the main deck.

  Captain Williams emerged from his Cabin and Arbuthnot called for silence.

  “Our Father,” Williams intoned.

  “Which art in heaven,” responded the crew in their various accents.

  Silently Ama mouthed the familiar words; but when she came to “as we forgive those that trespass against us . . .” she stopped. Why should I forgive them when they persecute us so? she wondered. She loved the music of the words, but the sense offended her. They say their god is all powerful. If that is so he must have ordained what they are doing to us.

  Then the service was over. Half the crew jumped down into a waiting canoe. Amongst them Ama recognised the ones called Knox and Knaggs.

  * * *

  Ama woke early the next morning. It was dark in the hold but she could see a glimmer of dawn through the barred door.

  She slipped off the platform and picked her way through the bodies. She wanted to piss but the thought of the smell of the buckets put her off. It pervaded the hold; but when you were sitting on the bucket it was overpowering. She would wait. On Sunday afternoon she had watched the man they called Chippy busying himself with the construction of a platform cantilevered from the side of the ship. There were steps up to it and then a wooden seat with holes in it. Ama guessed that this was to be a latrine: you would sit over the hole and your shit would drop straight down into the sea.

  Butcher passed by the door, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  Catching sight of Ama, he asked in dialect, “What, missus, so eager t’be let out of yer prison?” and unlocked the door.

  “Owura, medaase,” she thanked him in Asante, wondering what his reaction might be if she said, “Thank you, sir,” instead. Then she improvised sign language to ask him if she could use the Chippy’s new facility.

  “Sure, sure. Go ahead,” he said, “but take care you don’t fall through the hole!” and laughed at his feeble joke.

  Ama climbed the steps up over the gunwale cautiously, nervous of the height. What would Butcher do, she speculated, if I should suddenly fall into the sea and start swimming for the shore? Williams had spoken of sharks. She looked down to the waters below. She had never seen a shark but Mijn Heer had told her what damage they could inflict.

  Amongst the canoes which had hoisted their sails to catch the morning’s offshore breeze, she picked out one with white passengers. It was the crew returning from their night’s carousing ashore. They were evidently somewhat the worse for wear. Two were bare to the waist.

  “Where’s yer shirt?” asked Arbuthnot of one as he clambered over the gunwales.

  “Sold it,” came the mumbled reply.

  The Mate shook his head wearily.

  Then he grabbed the last man aboard by his wrist.

  “Where’s Knaggs?” he asked.

  The seaman looked around for support.

  When none was forthcoming, he said sheepishly, “Arrested.”

  “Arrested?” asked the mate. “For what?”

  “Murder,” said the other grimly.

  “Murder, is it?” asked Arbuthnot. “Then hadn’t ye better be reporting to the skipper?”

  Ama tried to conceal her interest, but her dissimulation was unnecessary. The white men spoke as if the blacks did not exist.

  The women began to come out of the hold in ones and twos, making their way up to their customary places on the quarter-deck.

  Captain Williams emerged from his cabin with Butcher.

  “Bloody Jensen,” he said. “In De Bruyn’s time this couldn’t have happened. His men were never allowed out into the town after dark. Jensen is unpopular and he is canvassing for support amongst his garrison by relaxing the rules. We’d better go ashore and find out how bad things are with the Dutch sergeant. Bring your instruments: you may need of them. And that demented woman: bring her along too. But truss her well: I don’t want her causing any trouble. Jensen will have to give us a marketable replacement.”

  * * *

  When Williams and Butcher returned in the late afternoon, they had Knaggs in tow.

  “Get to work, you rapscallion,” Williams told him as they came aboard, “or I’ll be docking you a week’s pay rather than a day’s. And hear me well. I am tired of your villainies. Test me once more and I’ll clap you in irons for the rest of this voyage. You’re a bad influence.”

  As soon as the Captain and the Surgeon were out of sight, Knaggs was surrounded by his minions.

  “What happened, Knaggsy, ole feller?” asked one.

  They were standing just below the quarter-deck. Ama moved closer so that she could hear.

  Knaggs was swollen with pride.

  “There was this ere Dutchy,” he told them. “Said e were a serjeant. We was drinkin punch together, nice an friendly like. Well, then e teks it into is ed to say sommat nasty bout our King George.”

  “Whatid e say, then, Fred ole chap?”

  Fred scratched his head.

  “Don’ rightly know,” he replied. “Twere in is lingo. But twere insulting, take me word fer it.”

  “Whatid yer do then?”

  “I tol’ im where ter get off, course.”

  “An then?”

  “Silly fool challenges me to a jool, wit swords, min’ you. I grees an we goes roun the back.”

  “Someone gives me this sword and says ‘one-two-three.’ But Fred Knaggs din wait fer ‘three.’ No, not Fred Knaggs. At ‘two’ I drives me sword strait inter the fool’s belly. Then e falls on is back, grievous wounded, blood an intestins flowing from a ole in is ernatermy. An Fred Knaggs standin oer im wit me sword. ‘Teach yer ter insult King George,’' says I.

  “Then e begs me not ter finish im off.

  “ ‘Release yer sword, then,’ says I, an e lets it go.

  “ An I does the same. Thas me, Fred Knaggs, magaminous. I coulda killed im right there, but I lowed im is life, misrable Dutchy bastard.”

  There was applause from the sycophants.

  “Three cheers fer Fred Knaggs,” said one, but Fred put his finger to his lips, said, “Shh,” and pointed in the direction of the captain’s cabin.

  “What happened then, Fred?”

  “Silly Dutch buggers assaults me. Like ten of em, all together. But Fred Knaggs gives em as good as e gets, e does. Only I were overcum by strength o numbers. By rights, King George should give me a medal, fer defendin Is Majesty's honner.”

  “ Ear, ear. A medal fer Fred. But what’d they do wi you, Freddy boy?”

  “Stuffd me in a filthy, smelly dungeon. Fit ony fer niggers, it were. An it were full o darkies too. Not a honnest Hinglishman hamongst them. I thought they’d slit me throat, bot they din do me no arm. An there I stays till Doc Butcher cums ter fetch me.”

  “What’d e say?”

  “'E says Ise lucky ter get orf. Dutchies woulda put a nalter round me neck, e says. Them were is very words. E says Ise lucky cos Dutchy serjeant’s wounds is suprafishul an e were able ter sew is belly up, like.”

  “Knaggs!” came a roar from the first mate.

  Fred Knaggs was in trouble again.

  Ama had got the gist of all this. She was bursting with the news but in order to tell the story to her friends, she would have to admit to understanding English. And if the slaves knew that, it would only be a matter of time before the English, too, knew. So she bit her tongue and kept her counsel.

  * * *

  Ama kneeled against the gunwale and rested her elbows on the rail. Overhead the gulls screamed and wheeled. Beyond the breakers and the rocks lay the mass of Cape Coast Castle. The latest arrivals had told of the terror in the dungeons there, underground, damp, dark, unventilated and infested with rats. Like Elmina, only worse, she guessed; if that were possible.

  It was Sunday. She had been aboard The Love of Liberty for over a week. On the second day she had persuaded one of the canoe-men to take a message from her to August
a.

  “Tell her, I beg you, that Ama has been sold to the English and is on this ship. Tell her that I beg her to buy me back.”

  “Ama? Every seventh woman is called Ama, my sister. How will she know you from every other Ama who has been unlucky enough to fall into servitude? What makes you think that she will remember you at all?”

  “Oh, she will remember me. Just tell her that I am here, I beg you. Tell her, Mijn Heer’s Ama.”

  “Mijn Heer’s Ama, you say?”

  Once he had caught a glimpse of the late governor’s almost mythical consort. She had been dressed in one of Elizabeth’s gowns. A fabulous beauty, he had thought then.

  “How I’d like to get my prick between that one’s legs,” he had told his mate; and they had laughed at his bawdy fantasy. Now here was this slave woman with her shaven head, wearing only a narrow piece of coarse blue cloth.

  “You must be joking, my sister.”

  “I was never more serious. Please, please, tell her.”

  She had watched out for him the next day. Now he looked at her with more respect.

  “I told her. She said she wondered what had happened to you. She thought you might be dead. She is pleased to hear that you are still alive. She says to tell you that she has heard that it is the new Director himself who ordered that you should be sold. She says that you know that she and the new Director are not on good terms. It will be very difficult, but she will see what she can do.”

  Every day he had come with another message. She was doing her best. It was extremely difficult. There were problems. Jensen had granted her an interview only to shower her with such insults that she had walked out on him.

  “Tell Auntie Augusta that the Captain of this ship is an old friend of Mijn Heer’s; that the last time the Captain was here she took him to see the King. Perhaps if she could get a message to him, he would do her a personal favour.”

  Then Williams had decided that he had had enough of Jensen’s arrogance. Perhaps he would get a better deal from his own countrymen at Cape Coast.

  The women had been sent into their hold to give the sailors room to work on the deck. Ama had felt the ship heave and creak as the wind filled its sails. That was in the morning. The same afternoon Williams dropped anchor off Cape Coast. When they were allowed out on the deck again the sails had all been furled as before. They were anchored opposite another, different, castle.