Josef saw Ama surveying the premises and laughed at her dismay.
“No,” he told her, “this is not our place. This is the Engenho do Meio. It’s a fogo morto, a dead estate.”
Small black children, naked, with swollen bellies, came out of a shed and watched them shyly. A pot boiled on an open fire, unattended.
The door hung on fragile hinges. Josef pushed it open and, announcing himself, went inside.
“Ama, come,” he said.
She bent low to let the basket pass.
In the gloom a woman and several children of various ages were sitting around a pile of cassava tubers, scraping away the poisonous skin.
A man came out of the darkness. Josef greeted him as he helped Ama to put the basket down.
“I brought you some fish,” he said in Fanti as he selected two. “I am sorry that is all I can spare.”
The woman rose, wiping her hands on her torn cloth. She bent a knee and bowed her head. Then she took the fish.
“My brother, I don't know how to thank you,” the man said. “You never forget us. If it weren’t for you . . .”
Josef stopped him.
“If I were in your place and you in mine, would you not do the same? Indeed it is little enough. How is the baby?”
The woman turned away. The man just shook his head.
“There was nothing we could do,” he said. “We buried him this morning.”
Josef put a hand on his arm.
“Perhaps it was for the best,” he said. “Now we must go. It is already dark. Please give us a torch to light our way.”
“There’s not far to go now,” Josef told Ama as they made their way out the yard.
He waved to his friend who had come to see them off.
“Fifi and I were captured together. When we first came here, this was a rich farm. I was happy to have a friend so close by. Then his master died. He had many mulatto children but only one son by his white wife. The boy is a spoiled good-for-nothing. The first thing he did was to sell his own half brothers. Then, one by one, he sold the livestock and equipment and the other slaves. Now none remain except Fifi, whom he left to guard the place until he can sell the land and the buildings. They say that in Salvador he lives a grand life. Who knows what he will do when he has sold the plantation itself and finished spending the proceeds?
“What I fear most is that they will sell the woman and the children first, leaving Fifi alone. I know my friend. That would drive him mad.”
CHAPTER 31
Two dark bundles came hurtling out of the night and almost bowled Josef over.
“Papa, Papa,” Ama heard, but the rest of their talk was in Portuguese and beyond her.
“My boys,” Josef told her proudly. “They were lying in wait for me.”
She heard him speak her name. The two small boys came shyly to shake her hand and then to greet the other newcomers. Then they led their father, one at each hand, through the gate and into the yard.
“Well, here we are at last,” Josef told Ama. “I will take you to greet the Senhor and then we’ll see if we can find something to eat.”
They had left the sticky massapé and were walking on sand. Ama paused to wipe away some of the mud. Somewhere in the darkness, dogs barked. There was no moon but she could see the outline of the double storied building silhouetted against the milky way. The rooms upstairs were dimly lit. By contrast, the downstairs veranda was ablaze with light.
Josef led them to the bottom of the steps and had them stand in line.
“Senhor, good evening,” he said and then helped Ama to set the basket down.
The Senhor was a large, untidy man. On his forehead his white hair was receding, but at the back and sides it was long, uncut and unkempt. His shirt was open at the front, exposing a large belly, fat breasts and a hairy chest. He sat in a rocking chair which he kept constantly in motion. On a table before him there was a chess board with a game half played. The player who sat opposite him in an upright chair was much younger. He was dressed in a severe soutane and his dark hair was sleeked back. A chandelier bathed them in candle light.
A mulatto boy sat on a stool behind the table. He had been watching the game but now he rose, took the three steps in a single jump and shook Josef’s hand.
At the Senhor’s feet three small children, two black and one mulatto, played with discarded chess pieces. In the gloom behind the circle of light Ama glimpsed a young black woman in a long skirt, apron and cap.
“My move,” Ama understood the Senhor to tell the priest before he gave his attention to Josef.
Josef made his report.
“Narciza,” called the Senhor.
“Senhor?”
The maid stepped forward. She was barefooted.
The smallest child, the mulatto, intercepted her at the top of the stairs.
“Mama,” he said and embraced her leg.
She lifted him to her hip. He grasped her ample breast and groped for her nipple; but before she had reached the bottom of the short flight of steps, he had fallen asleep. She shifted him onto her back and took the two largest fish from Josef. She held them by their tails and showed them to the Senhor. He grunted his approval without looking. His attention was back on the game. Ama craned her neck and saw him triumphantly capture a pawn with his white bishop. He picked up a glass and took a deep draught of the brown liquid.
Josef asked for permission to leave. The Senhor grunted again. The audience was over.
* * *
Ama was woken by a loud continuous clanging.
She heard people moving nearby but it was still dark and she could see nothing. She had no idea where she was. She rubbed her eye and sat up. It was chilly. She pulled the cloth around her shoulders. Now she had a dim recollection of the previous evening. She had already been half asleep as she ate the bowl of corn porridge which Josef had given her. He had put her in the care of an old woman who had led her into a room and spread a sleeping mat on the earth floor for her.
She rose and found her way to the door. Fires had been lit. Several small boys sat around the nearest, hugging themselves and shivering. The old woman was nowhere to be seen. In the first light of dawn Ama saw that the hut she had slept in was the last of a row built on the side of a hill. There was a bustle of activity on the rough roadway. Beneath them, on a lower terrace, there was another row of huts, and beneath that a third.
A harsh male voice shouted orders. Ama wondered what to do. She was relieved when Josef appeared.
“Where is the old woman?” he asked directly.
“I haven’t seen her this morning,” Ama replied.
“Do you want to go somewhere?”
She nodded.
“I’ll get one of the girls to take you.”
When she returned, Josef was waiting for her.
“Good morning,” he greeted her, “did you sleep all right? Good. This morning you can take your time. The field workers are going off now but there will be no work for you today. I've spoken to the General Manager and he’s allowed me to take the morning off to show you over the plantation.”
Ama squatted by the fire. The small boys stared at her empty socket and whispered amongst themselves. Josef spoke a single word to them and they got to their feet and ran off.
“Ah, there’s the old lady now,” he said.
Ama rose to her feet.
“Her name is Esperança,” Josef explained. “She was born in this country and she has seen many generations come and go. She was retired long before I got here. You will sleep in her senzala at least for the time being. She speaks only Portuguese but since she lost the last of her teeth many years ago no one can understand much of what she says anyway.”
“Maame Esperança,” he shouted into her ear, “this is the new woman who has come. Her name is Ama. She will be staying with you.”
Ama bent a knee and shook the old woman’s knarled hand. She was rewarded with a toothless smile.
“She is deaf. You will have
to shout at her.”
Esperança’s white hair was cropped close to her skull.
“How old is she?” Ama asked.
“Maybe eighty, maybe more.”
“And she was born here?”
Josef nodded.
Then he said, “I think I can read your thoughts.
“But that is nothing. One evening, when you have picked up enough Portuguese, one of the old hands will tell you the story of the great quilombo of Palmares. They always tell that story to the new arrivals, to keep the memory alive. They say that Palmares kept its freedom for a hundred years and that it is nearly a hundred years since it succumbed. That means that it is at least two hundred years since the first slaves were brought here from Africa.”
Ama shook her head slowly.
Then she asked, “Has Maame Esperança no family? Did she never have children?”
“They say she had three husbands, five children and many grand-children and great-grand-children; but they are all either dead or were sold long ago. Now she is all alone. She shares her cabin with Jacinta. Have you met Jacinta yet? She must still be sleeping.”
“Maame Esperança, where is Jacinta?” he shouted.
He bent first one and then the other lower arm. Each time he touched his elbow. The old woman bent her head to one side and put her hands, palms together, to her cheek.
“Wake her then. She can’t sleep all day. It is not good for her.”
Esperança went to call Jacinta. Josef dropped his voice.
“Jacinta is from Kongo,” he said. “She had a terrible accident; she was still new and young and inexperienced. They put her to feeding cane at the mill. One of her hands got drawn between the rollers. In trying to free herself, she put her other hand in too. By the time they were able to stop the oxen. . . . Well, you will see for yourself. Esperança helps her. When you see how difficult things are for her you realise how much we depend on our hands. She can’t wash or dress herself. She has to be helped to eat. I hope you will be patient with her. She doesn’t endure her fate with resignation.”
“Ah, Sister Jacinta,” he greeted her in Portuguese, “this is your new cabin mate. She is called Ama. She had just arrived from Africa.”
Jacinta emerged from the cabin. She wore a simple shift which hung from her shoulders by two straps. Ama smiled a greeting, studiously avoiding looking at the stumps of Jacinta’s lower arms. But Jacinta held up her stumps for inspection as if to say, “Here, take a good look.” Then she saw the hollow which had once held Ama’s right eye. Ama thought she sensed a softening in her expression. She held the right stump out for Ama to shake.
“Esperança,” she shouted at the old woman, lifting her stumps to her mouth, “where is my food?”
* * *
The accountant was a mulatto called Vicente Texeira.
“Be careful how you answer his questions,” Josef warned her as they approached his office. “He is the Senhor’s creature.”
Texeira was a small wiry man. He had inherited his broad nose and fleshy lips from his African forebears, but his skin was as pale as the Senhor’s.
“Name?” he asked, looking at the waybill which Josef had brought from Cardozo.
“They gave her the name Ana das Minas,” Josef said.
Texeira made a tick against the name.
“We already have one Ana das Minas,” he said. “We can’t have two of the same name: it will confuse the records. I will enter her as ‘One-eye’ for the time being. When she is baptised she will be given a proper Christian name.”
Josef was silent.
“Tell her what I said.”
“Senhor Texeira says I am to tell you that until you are baptised with a proper Christian name, you will be called ‘One-eye.’ I am sorry. The man is like that.”
“It is nothing,” Ama replied.
“What does she say?”
“She says she understands.”
“Ask her what happened to her eye.”
Josef translated.
“Tell him it was an accident.”
Texeira wrote a chit authorising the store-man to issue Ama with a length of coarse homespun cloth.
As they came out of the store, they met a tall, muscular white man. A giant, Ama thought, like an executioner.
“Who is this?” he asked Josef.
“The new woman I spoke to you about this morning, Senhor. You told me to take the morning off to show her around the engenho.”
“Don’ you tell me what I told you, boy,” Senhor Vasconcellos replied. “You didn’t tell me that she is missing one eye.”
Josef said nothing.
“We celebrate the start of the safra tomorrow. The day after she will join the cane gang. Today you can keep her with you. You may spend the morning showing her around. In the afternoon I want you in the mill. Bring her with you. The sooner she gets to work the better. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Senhor.”
“Who is he?” Ama asked when they were out of hearing.
“Jesus,” replied Josef.
“How?”
“His name is Jesus Vasconcellos. He is the feitor-mor, the general manager. We say that on this engenho the Senhor is God. Senhor Vasconcellos, who sits by his right hand, is Jesus. I am talking about his power, mind you, not his compassion or his mercy. It is he who runs this place and he does so with an iron fist. If you want to live a peaceful life keep on the right side of him. If he takes a dislike to you, for whatever reason, he will make your life a misery. What Senhor Jesus demands is subservience. If you grovel before him, you will have no trouble.
“They say that once, before I came here, he was seen to smile. I can’t imagine what might make him do that. The truth is, I believe that he hates all slaves, and particularly those of us from Africa. I thank the gods and our ancestors that my work takes me away from this place so often. But today we should be grateful to the man. He has allowed us the morning off to let me show you around the engenho and introduce you to some of our people.”
* * *
It was dark when the bell rang.
Still exhausted from the previous day’s labour, Ama slept on. Old Esperança, who had risen earlier, prodded her awake. She washed her face and drank a mug of the maté which the old woman had prepared. At the assembly ground Benedito, the old Crioulo catechist, led them in a brief prayer to the Virgin Mary. Then they trooped down the familiar path through the swirling mist.
At the yard they formed into their gangs.
By the light of an oil lamp Texeira took the roll call. Then Vasconcellos assigned the day’s tasks. Ama wondered whether the General Manager could read. It seemed not.
The carters inspanned the oxen in pairs and the cane field gangs climbed onto the carts. A crack of the whip set the oxen lumbering out of the yard and onto the rutted track. Mounted white and mulatto overseers followed, their dogs snapping at the horses’ hooves. As they entered the copse at the bend before the cane fields, the birds in the trees began to serenade the approaching dawn. The clearing gang fell out first to; soon afterwards the planters and the weeders also jumped down from their carts. The cutters were last.
When they reached their field the women made a fire and put a kettle on to boil. One man unsaddled the overseer’s mount while the carters offloaded the carts and drew the first two up into position. The men passed a stone from hand to hand and honed their blades
The oxen settled down to graze in the firebreaks which divided the cane fields into tarefas, each seventy paces square. The cane from one tarefa could keep the mill working for twenty-four hours.
The men flexed their muscles and swung their scythes. The overseer assigned work partners: a man to cut, a woman to bundle and load; and staked out each pair’s task for the day. As soon as there was light enough to see by, he cracked his whip as a signal to start work. The first heavy scythe whistled through the mist: swish! Then thunk! as it struck home. The women moved in to gather the fallen canes. They bound them into bundles and loade
d them onto the carts. The sun rose and drove the mist away. The overseer strolled up and down, watching, playing with his whip. Time passed. The cutters established a rhythm. There was nothing for the overseer to do. Bored, he lay down, rested his head on his saddle, drew his hat over his face and slept.
Swish! Thunk! Swish! Thunk!
Ama's partner quickened his pace, building up a stockpile of canes. She knew what he was about and made no effort to work any faster. Then he paused, untied his headband and wiped the sweat from his face. He walked across to the barrel, dipped the mug into the water and took a deep draught. Then he poured a mugful over his head. As Ama lifted the last cane, he was at it again.
Swish! Thunk! Swish! Thunk!
Now Ama quickened her own pace, struggling to discipline the recalcitrant canes. When she had cleared her backlog, she went to attend to the fire. The lid of the kettle was bouncing.
“Water’s boiling,” she called in Portuguese.
The overseer lifted his hat and stood up. He wiped his eyes, stretched and yawned.
“Right,” he called. “Breakfast.”
Ama ladled water from the butt into a basin and carried it across to an empty cart. The women queued to wash their hands.
The men talked quietly amongst themselves.
“Speak Portuguese,” the overseer insisted. “I want none of your pagan languages in my gang.”
He watched them take their food, cold jerked beef, manioc meal and beans. When they had finished eating he handed over authority to his underdriver and ordered his horse saddled. As he mounted, the first two carts were turning off into the track on their way up to the mill.
“Good appetite,” the wag of the gang shouted after him.
They went back to work. Ama started to chant.
“Twelve canes to a faggot, bind them tight.”
The other women joined in the chorus, “How many canes to cut today?”
“Ten faggots a finger, five fingers a hand.”
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