Ama

by Manu Herbstein

  The music stopped. Outside a man’s loud sing-song voice repeated the same phrase over and over again, accompanied by the jingling of a small bell.

  The crowd of buyers and casual spectators thickened. The hall began to fill with the noxious smoke of many pipes.

  An old white man with a walking stick and two personal slaves in attendance, stopped in front of Ama. He wore a white beard and moustache and in one eye, a monocle. He stared down at Ama, evidently intrigued by her missing eye. Then he removed the pipe from his lips and silently crooked a finger to summon an usher. The usher forced Ama to her feet. Tomba protested but two more ushers came up at once to suppress any trouble.

  “Tomba, it is all right,” Ama told him.

  The old man stretched out over the barrier and, putting his hand under her chin, drew Ama’s head forward. When he had examined her eyeless socket to his satisfaction, he turned aside and moved on. Ama felt totally crushed. Not for a moment had the old man looked into her seeing eye. Neither had he spoken. He had treated her as if she were no more than a tethered one-eyed goat up for sale in Yendi market.

  The usher pushed Ama down to the floor. Now it was Tomba’s turn. He refused to rise and the two ushers had to force him to his feet. They held him, one at each arm.

  “Tomba, Tomba,” said Ama, “it is no use fighting here. You cannot win.”

  The old man extended his stick and tapped the muscles of Tomba’s arm. He turned and nodded his approval to one of the slaves who accompanied him, a grey bearded black man, as old as he, neatly dressed, but bare footed. Then he pointed with his stick to the cloth which Tomba wore around his waist. Before Tomba knew what was happening, one of the ushers had grabbed the cloth, leaving him naked. Tomba swore violently and struggled to free himself, but the ushers knew their job. Calmly the old man extended his stick and used it to lift Tomba's penis, adjusting his monocle with his free hand. Then, without another look at Tomba or the ushers, he passed on to the next slave.

  Tomba recovered his cloth and turned on the ushers with a look of hatred and contempt. They paid no attention. This was all in a day's work for them. He sank to his knees, elbows and forehead on the floor, his head grasped in his hands.

  Ama hesitated.

  “Tomba,” she called, “bear up. It is all right. We are all in this together.”

  * * *

  Once they had completed their inspection, the purchasers made their payments to the clerks.

  The clerks issued a numbered token for each hundred and twenty Milréis paid. The total number of tokens sold was marked up on a chalk board. When the number of tokens sold equalled the number of slaves on offer, the ‘scramble’ would start. Some wandered back to take another look at the slaves, pointing out their preferences to their agents or employees. Others sat and drank the free rum and maté which were on offer and chatted quietly amongst themselves or just listened to the music.

  At last an announcement was made. The ushers forced the slaves to their feet and drove them to the centre of the hall. Some marched around them, threatening any who were stupid or brave enough to step out of line. Others removed the barriers. The slaves huddled together, murmuring apprehensively. The purchasers or their agents took up positions on a line which had been painted on the floor from column to column.

  Ama saw them fiddling with lengths of ribbon and handkerchiefs knotted end to end. She felt that something momentous was about to happen. Was this the ‘scramble’ she dreaded?

  Kwaku pushed his way through the crowd to greet her.

  “Kwaku,” she told him urgently, “go straight back to your mother and stay with her. Hold her tight. Do not let go of her.”

  As she was saying this the trumpet player blew a fanfare. In the ensuing silence the master of ceremonies spoke a few words in Portuguese. Ama saw the surrounding host stiffen. Then there came a short count followed by the single shrill blast of a whistle.

  At that signal, the eager horde of buyers rushed at the slaves. Some of the men stood firm, ready to fight. There was pandemonium. The band blasted out on its kettle drums and brass; buyers shouted and screamed. And the women and children shrieked in terror

  Then the enemy was upon them, grabbing at their arms, their cloths, pulling them to one side, throwing them down to the ground, tying them with their ribbons and handkerchiefs.

  Suddenly, almost as suddenly as it had started, it was all over. Only the few stragglers who had paid for five and only managed to capture four were heard to complain as they sought to identify those who grabbed more than their entitlement.

  The band played soothing music, strings. One of the musicians sang a plaintive song.

  “Kwaku, Kwaku,” came a desperate cry.

  Ama found herself in a group of ten, some of whom she knew by sight, but none well. Tomba was not amongst them. Her good eye searched the little groups of slaves but she could see no sign of him.

  Their herder, a black man, fussed over them. Apprehensive that they might try to run off, he forced them to sit on the floor. The two of them who were women were sobbing. A man sunk his head between his knees.

  Then the white master appeared and spoke to his black minion.

  “Roberto,” Ama heard him call.

  Roberto ordered the slaves to stand. First he spoke Portuguese but it was clear that none understood.

  “Mónsoré-o, get up, get up,” he tried in Asante.

  Uncertain, a man rose. Ama and the other Akans did so too and the rest followed their example.

  “Brother, you speak Asante?” Ama asked Roberto.

  “Don't call me brother, woman. I am not an unseasoned guiney bird like you,” he replied. “Now stand in a line so that master can look at you properly.”

  The master examined and counted them. He seemed satisfied with his prize.

  “Vamos. Mma yeñkô. Let's go,” Roberto told them.

  At the door they paused. A clerk checked them off against the tokens which the slaves’ new owner returned to him.

  Ama caught a glimpse of Captain Williams, glass in one hand, cigar in the other, in earnest conversation with Butcher and Cooper. And then she was blinded by the bright sunlight.

  * * *

  Ama found a place and sat down with her back against the wall.

  Suddenly she was very tired. She closed her eyes, the good one and the empty socket.

  When will this humiliation cease? she wondered.

  She tried to conjure up a vision of Itsho.

  Itsho. She concentrated fiercely. Itsho, I have crossed the great water. Today I set foot in another country. They call it Bahia. There are many of our people, black people, here. They are all slaves of the whites. Itsho, I pour libation to you and the other ancestors. I have nothing, only my one cloth from home. I have no drink to give you, but I know you will understand. I don’t know what will happen to me. I am tired and hungry and thirsty. Itsho, come to me, help me.

  But Itsho did not come.

  Perhaps he has forsaken me, she thought. Perhaps the ancestors have no power in this country. Perhaps they cannot speak to us here.

  She tried again, forcing all other thoughts out of her mind and summoning up Itsho’s image. At first she could not recall what he looked like. Then, all at once, he was there, a careless smile on his handsome face, just as he had looked when they were young lovers so many years, it seemed, so many years ago.

  She opened her eye and looked around. The master was still recording details of the new arrivals in his book. Morose slaves lounged against the walls. A woman lay next to her, her head hidden in her cloth. On the wall opposite there was a gaudy coloured poster of Mary the mother of Jesus Christ. Ama recognised the word Madonna, spelled out in ornate letters. Next to it there was a picture of a black man with his arms raised. He wore white robes and there was a shining golden ring floating over his head. To one side there hovered two black cherubim with white wings growing out of their shoulders. At the man’s feet sat two smaller black men in attitudes of Christian prayer.
Ama read the title. The words were not all that different from English. She thought they meant ‘The miraculous Saint Benidito, Protector of Angola.’ She wondered why Van Schalkwyk had never mentioned this black saint to her.

  * * *

  It was dark and cold when she awoke.

  Roberto came in, clapping his hands to wake up late sleepers. Ama went out to the back and stood in the queue that had formed outside the latrine. When she returned to the hall, a young girl was sitting in her place.

  “Good morning,” Ama greeted her.

  The girl was examining her reflection in a small mirror. Her reply lacked the customary courtesy.

  “Fanti, eh?” was all she said.

  “Fanti, Asante, I hear both,” Ama replied patiently.

  “They call me Ama.”

  “Luiza Fernandez,” the girl replied casually.

  Cardozo, the master, came in at the front door. He paused to genuflect and cross himself in front of the picture of the Madonna; then he went to his desk, opened a ledger and prepared a quill. Luiza got up and went to stand before him. Others fell in behind her.

  Luiza untied a knot in one corner of her cloth and poured coins out onto the desk. One fell to the floor. She retrieved it. The master counted the coins. Then he spoke to her brusquely in Portuguese. She pouted her lips, untied another knot and added two coins. He made an entry in his ledger and dismissed her with a curt nod.

  When she returned to Ama’s side, she poured a heap of silver and copper coins onto the floor before her, arranged them in heaps and counted them, murmuring the numbers as she did so.

  Ama was curious.

  “May I look?” she asked.

  Silently Luiza gave her a silver coin and one of copper. Ama examined them. On each there was a picture of a man’s head and some writing around the edge. She spelled out the words.

  “You can read Portuguese?” Luiza asked in astonishment.

  “No,” Ama replied, “only English. I can make out the letters on the coin but I don’t understand the meaning.”

  “You must be bluffing. I don’t believe you. I have never met an African who can read. Certainly not a woman. A few mulattos, yes. An occasional black Creole, Bahia-born, perhaps. But a black African woman?”

  She shook her head and used tongue and teeth to make a sound of disbelief. Ama turned the coin over.

  Luiza just shook her head again. Ama returned the coins to her.

  “Where did you get the money? Are you not a slave, too?”

  “Of course. Everyone here is a slave, even that scum Roberto. The master sends some of us out to work. Every day I have to give him one Milréis. Whatever else I earn he lets me keep. If I can save two hundred Milréis, I might be able to buy my freedom.”

  “And how much have you saved?”

  Luiza shook her head and sighed.

  “Only five. I have too many expenses. At this rate it will take me ten years.”

  “How come you work at night? What work do you do?” Ama asked, wondering if she, too, would be given a chance to work to buy her freedom.

  Luiza looked at her, astonished at her naïveté; but she saw that the question had been innocently put.

  “I am a prostitute,” she said.

  She used the Portuguese word.

  “A prostitute?” Ama asked, repeating the word. “What is that?”

  “A whore,” Luiza explained, using another Portuguese word.

  Then seeing that Ama still did not understand, she tried again.

  “I sell my body to men. I let them fuck me and they pay me for it.”

  Ama turned to her, baffled.

  “What kind of men?” she asked.

  “What kind of men? What do you mean: what kind of men? Black men, white men, mulattos, Indians. They are all the same. Any man with some money in his pocket and a standing prick between his legs.”

  Ama turned the situation over in her mind.

  “Is that what he will do with me?”

  Luiza took her pocket mirror and gave it to Ama.

  “Look at yourself,” she said. “You are lucky. No man would look at you. You couldn't earn one Milréis in a week, let alone a day.”

  Ama hesitated. She hadn’t seen her face since losing her eye. Then she clenched her teeth and raised the mirror. She took one look and put it down again. Sitting quite still, she closed her eye. Luiza was watching her.

  “I’m sorry . . . I didn't mean. . . . ”

  Ama pulled herself together and wiped her face with a corner of her cloth. Then she raised the mirror again.

  “It’s nothing. It’s not your fault. Only this is the first time. . . . ,” she said and broke down again.

  “Tell me,” she asked when she had recovered. “How long have your been doing this?”

  “Oh, three, four years now.”

  “But,” Ama looked at her, “you can’t be more than seventeen?”

  “I think I’m sixteen, but I’m not sure. I came with my mother. She was already sick when we got off the ship. She died soon after the master bought us. He said he had been cheated; that he had wasted his money and that he would make me pay back every Milréis he had spent on her. He used to take everything from me. It is only since last month that he has let me keep anything I earn above six Milréis a week. Now I am saving up to buy my freedom.”

  * * *

  During the week there was a constant coming and going of customers. Again and again she was examined and inspected. She dealt with the humiliation by blanking her mind or focusing her thoughts on something far away and pleasant.

  The customers made their notes. Afterwards they sat and talked with Cardozo, drinking rum or coffee. Sometimes money changed hands.

  On Friday morning when Ama woke up, Luiza was huddled by her side, her head under her cloth as usual, fast asleep.

  Roberto summoned her. She rose and went to the master’s table, expecting to be inspected by an early morning customer. Cardozo identified her from her number. He found her name and number and ticked if off in his ledger.

  There were six of them. She was the only woman. A stranger was waiting for them, a black man, a slave judging by his bare feet, but dressed in neat, clean working clothes, trousers and shirt.

  Cardozo wrote a waybill and the man made his mark at the bottom.

  “You have been sold,” Roberto announced. “This is Josef Vellozo. He will take you to your new master.”

  Then he spoke to Ama.

  “You are lucky. He is a Fanti man. He will look after you.”

  * * *

  Every step required an effort. When Ama put a foot down, the heavy clay seemed to embrace it; when she tried to lift it the clay sucked it down; when she pulled it free it carried a sticky load. From time to time she found a small patch of grass and stopped. Balancing on one foot, she used the other to scrape off some of the accretion.

  Josef slowed down to let her catch up.

  “Massapé,” he said.

  “Massapé?” she asked.

  “That’s what we call this clay. It’s good for the cane, but the devil to walk through when it’s wet; and worse still for carts.”

  Massapé. Ama concentrated on the word.

  “Sister Ama,” Josef called back, disturbing her reverie, “do you know what this is?”

  He was pointing to the plants on either side. They grew thick and green, twice as tall as a man. It was like walking through a green tunnel.

  “Sugar cane?” she guessed.

  She had interrogated Josef relentlessly during the journey across the bay.

  “Clever! Right first time. You must have seen it before.”

  “No, never. This is the first time. It looks so beautiful, swaying in the breeze.”

  “Beautiful? Yes, perhaps, but you will soon learn to hate the sight of it. You see these, with the purple flowers and the seeds just beginning to form on top? That is the sign that it is ready for cutting. If they leave it much longer it will start to dry up and the juice will turn
sour. That’s why the safra is about to start. The big rains are over and the cane is ripe.

  “Once the cane is cut they must take it to the mill and crush it without delay or it will spoil. That is why you will learn to hate it. Our lives are ruled by this beautiful cane: clear the land for it; hoe the massapé for it; plant it; weed it; cut it; send it to the mill; mill it; boil the juice; turn it into sugar; pack it; send it to Salvador and from Salvador to Portugal. And then start all over again. Day in day out; week in week out; year in year out. Sugar cane and sugar until the day you die.”

  * * *

  An ox cart blocked their passage.

  It had overturned, depositing its load of firewood in the road. Josef stopped and he and his five men helped the carter and his mate to tip the vehicle back on to its wheels. They gave it a push to help the four oxen on their way. The carter cracked his whip.

  Ahead of them three more carts, their axles creaking, lumbered slowly through the mud. The wheels were crudely fashioned out of solid wood. The oxen seemed to be fighting an unequal battle. Ama gave them a wide berth. She feared them but she pitied them too.

  They look as if their hearts will break, she thought.

  The drivers greeted them with a crack of their whips.

  “They are from one of our outgrower plantations,” Josef explained.

  A white man approached them down the track, followed by an emaciated, mangy dog. Ama had never seen a white man like him before. He was dressed in ragged pants and a dirty shirt open at the front. He carried a half empty bottle and from his gait appeared drunk. Josef’s party stepped aside to let him pass.

  “Good afternoon, senhor,” Josef greeted him politely, but he paid no attention.

  “Who is he?” Ama asked when he was out of earshot.

  “I’ve never seen him before, but I know his kind. He probably owns a small engenho but has run it so badly that he has had to sell all his slaves. Now he has none left. He is too lazy and, like all the whites, too proud to do any physical labour himself. God knows how he lives. He probably begs from his neighbours or steals from the vegetable plots of the slaves on nearby plantations. But he has a white skin; so we must call him senhor.”

  As the sun went down the track took them right through the yard of a ruined engenho. The buildings were dilapidated. The front wall of one had collapsed, bringing down the roof. An emaciated dog barked at them. Josef picked up a stone and it retreated. A scrawny hen scratched at the ground, surrounded by miserable chicks..