by Sarah Lark
“You just want to show me your legs,” Doug tried to joke as she tore up her broad skirt. “You … you always do this. Re-remember the hurricane?”
Nora forced a smile. “I was and still am a flirt,” she said. “How could you have let yourself fall in love with such a frivolous woman?”
“I fell in love with a mermaid,” Doug whispered. “I saw you on the beach … with your horse. Did you know that I still have that horse? And a foal. If … if we get home, we can gallop along the beach …”
Nora stroked his face. She could already feel that he was feverish. “Aurora will just outrun Amigo again,” she said.
Doug shook his head. “But not her son. Not the Arab …” Doug’s voice grew weaker as he spoke of wild hunts in the saddle of the desert child.
Nora made him more comfortable and tried not to think about Simon. It was just like before. She was holding a man in her arms while he told her stories. She had no means of stopping death, only her dreams. Eventually she fell asleep. Perhaps this was also a dream, a nightmare, sent by a jealous spirit.
CHAPTER 9
The nightmare wasn’t over when Nora awoke. Doug was still in her arms, but now with a burning fever. She tried to give him water to drink, but he could barely swallow. The light was just beginning to filter through the walls of the hut when the simple bamboo door opened and the surly guard let Máanu in. She brought a pot of lentil stew, flat bread, and some ointment. Nora could immediately smell that Nanny mixed it. She had little confidence in it, but at least it had at one time helped against the worst of her pains.
“This is all I had,” Máanu said, apologetically. “I have no talent as a baarm madda, as you already know.”
Nora nodded. “We already owe you more than we can ever repay,” she said, stiffly. “What is happening with Nanny?”
Nanny would have had more medicaments. She especially would have been able to give Nora access to her own stores. Máanu shrugged in her characteristic manner.
“Nanny and Quao are still discussing what will happen to you.”
Nora raised her eyebrows. “If Akwasi will be permitted to continue what he started?” she sneered.
Máanu shook her head. There was sorrow in her eyes.
“Akwasi was banished from Nanny Town,” she said quietly. “I wanted to go with him, but he … he was so full of rage that I thought he would hurt me. And the children—” When she saw Nora’s horrified expression, she quickly added, “Jefe is with Nanny and Dede is with Princess, don’t worry.” “Nanny banished him?”
Nora could hardly believe it. Doug strained to open his eyes. Apparently, he was following the conversation — it was a good sign. During the night, Nora thought she had lost him to delirium.
“Banished,” Máanu repeated. “He may never return. Cudjoe and Accompong also won’t take him in, since the messengers are already on their way. But, of course, he can also survive alone, he—” she stopped short.
“Wh-why?” Doug strained to get the words out. Nora dipped a cloth into the water and moistened his lips.
“A thousand reasons,” Máanu answered, “insubordination, seizing power, threatening the peace … If the governor caught wind that whites were being tortured to death here, that would be the end of the Maroons being recognized.”
“Then I don’t understand why we are being left in here and …” Nora said no more, but her gaze at the severely wounded man in her arms spoke volumes.
Máanu shrugged again. “That’s what they’re still debating. It can be that they make you disappear.”
“What?” Nora asked, horrified. Doug grimaced in pain as she angrily sat up. “They want to kill us? After all this?”
“They can kill you or let you go. But it will make a bad impression if he arrives in Kingston like that.” Máanu gestured to Doug. “And if he dies, then they absolutely can’t let you go. Then it will just be that ‘Akwasi ran off with his white whore and Nanny Town has never heard a thing about Nora and Doug Fortnam.’”
Nora rubbed her temples. “Then why won’t they let me take care of his wounds?” she asked.
Máanu raised her eyebrows. “That’s what they’re debating now,” she repeated.
Nora sighed.
“But I would let you go,” Máanu said. “Those Muslims, that family you released, Doug, they would help you. At the risk of being re-enslaved and punished. But the man thinks he can support or carry you.”
Doug tried to sit up, but Nora shook her head. “Past the guards?” she asked.
“To Tolo — we could act like they were bringing an injured person to her. If the stretcher is covered it might work. And then you could get past Nanny Town—”
She broke off. Máanu did not care much for nursing, but she knew enough to understand Doug’s condition. On the direct route, it took one or two days to get to Kingston, but over the mountains it would take at least a week. And it was the rainy season. The patient on the stretcher would be soaked after a few hours, then shaking and feverish … Doug would never reach Kingston alive.
“It is pointless,” Nora said, quietly. “Go to your queen and tell her that we submit to her judgement. If we have to die, so that there is this agreement, then it must surely be done. But ask her if she really wants a contract that is written in blood. If this is to go well in Jamaica with freedom between the whites and the Maroons, then both parties must forgive. The whites have taken the freedom of thousands, whipped, and mutilated them. The Maroons have looted and pillaged and burned down plantations — and whipped and mutilated.”
“The governor,” Doug whispered, “is an understanding man. He … we …”
“We will explain to him what happened,” Nora finished Doug’s sentence, and dabbed the sweat from his face.
Máanu stood up. “I will see what I can do,” she then said. “Nanny is …”
Nora tried not to speak. She did not want to beg. She wanted to be proud like Doug had been when the whips were raining down on him. But there was nothing else for her to do.
“She is a woman,” she said. “Tell her that I won’t do anything that might harm her if she just allows me to have the man I love.”
Máanu smiled weakly. “She is a queen. They think differently. But she must have also been a young woman once. And maybe she even once stole a chicken for an Obeah man.”
Over the course of the next few hours, Nora waited as Doug grew weaker in her arms. The flesh around the edges of his wounds was swollen and inflamed. The fever rose. If Nora couldn’t do something soon, the wound on his foot would fester and then Doug could lose his leg. He was now already barely conscious — and Nora just hoped that that he was accompanied by sweet dreams. Like when she was in London, she conjured up the love, the beach, and the sea when she thought he could hear her. She spoke softly to her lover — and silently cursed Akwasi, the queen, God, and all of the spirits. Maybe there was some strange higher being spinning her life in circles; maybe she just couldn’t escape her fate. The cold East End of London and now, the sweltering air in that bamboo hut in Jamaica.
She had crossed half the world just to watch a life trickle away in her arms again. At some point, Nora didn’t even know if she was awake or dreaming, if the light that suddenly lit the entrance of the hut in the middle of the night was only imagined, or if it was really there. And if the black hands that lifted Doug’s feverish body and dragged him from her side belonged to the spirits or to real people.
“Is he dead?” Nora whispered, exhausted.
Someone comfortingly pushed the hair out of her face.
“No. But I want to get him out of here. It’s hot and stuffy in here and it stinks.
Tolo’s voice. Some part of Nora’s numbed senses was amused that the Obeah woman was talking about the stench of all things. But it was true — the cow dung that had been used to fortify Nora and Doug’s prison was still fresh and had a strong odor. Nora had hardly noticed it until then.
“Did Máanu call you?” Nora asked, wearily.
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She should have been standing up and following Doug, who was being carried away. But she didn’t know if she managed it. She had spent two days sitting there almost motionless to at least keep Doug from lying on the dirty floor. Now she was stiff and her limbs ached.
“Nanny called me,” Tolo said, and helped her up. “Come. We’re bringing him into your hut. It’s better there.” “Can you help him?”
Nora groped her way to the door on Tolo’s arm. It was night, but the moon was shining brightly and there was not a cloud to be seen despite the rainy season. Two men carried Doug on a stretcher. Nora saw that his eyes were open. He was looking up to heaven.
Tolo shrugged. “I’ll try to. You will try to. Nanny will try to. If the gods want it, he will live. If not—”
Nora had somewhat regained consciousness when she reached her hut. Princess, who had slept there with Dede, readily made space, and cleared the bed that Nora had constructed out of bamboo with great effort a few years earlier. She did not like sleeping on the floor on mats like the blacks and neither did Princess. But now she eagerly searched for additional pillows and blankets as the men put the injured man on the bed. Nora hugged her daughter and burst into tears — but pulled herself together immediately as Tolo went to smear a foul smelling ointment on Doug’s injuries.
“Clean them first, Tolo!” she said, firmly. “I know you don’t think much of it and maybe the water in Africa is also harmful, but this is spring water, it’s fresh and clean. And I have soap—”
“Can I help?” Princess asked. She looked sympathetically, and rather hopelessly, at the man on the bed who had been her last backra.
Nora nodded. “Make a fire and heat the water. We need soap. And tea … willow bark helps against a fever.”
She looked sorrowfully and questioningly to Tolo. Here in Nanny Town, she didn’t have any willow bark. In Cascarilla Gardens, she had sent for it from England.
“We’ll use bitter wood,” Tolo said. “I have something here.” She pulled a tincture out of her basket.
“And we probably have rum?” Nora asked.
It made her sick to think about the calabashes filled with rum in the mens’ hands as they watched Doug being whipped, but Dr. Mason’s remedy called for alcohol to be poured liberally over open wound, and it had proven itself dozens of times.
Tolo grinned. “I always do,” she said. “Nanny rations it out, but I distill my own stuff. The nights are very lonely otherwise.”
While Nora was still cleaning Doug’s wounds and Tolo was feeding him the bitter wood tincture, the queen arrived. Nora looked at her in surprise. Apart from the night of Jefe’s birth, she had never seen Granny Nanny anywhere other than in her hut or at the town square. She forced herself into a reverent bow.
“Queen, I thank—”
“None of that,” Nanny said. “I will help. The spirits say that I can heal him.”
Nora suspiciously observed the clay pot in which the African healer was now burning herbs while she muttered prayers to herself.
“We scatter the ashes to the wind and—” The queen leaned over Doug’s back.
“Nanny,” Tolo interrupted in a calm tone before Nora could cry out. “One of us should call the spirits. We need your strength. But the little one there can’t do it.” she gestured to Nora. “And I … well, I have heard the god Onyame talking to you. You have powerful spirits. The gods of your people have followed you over the ocean.”
Nanny smiled at the flattery. “I am only their vessel; I give them an earthly shape.”
“As we all are,” the Obeah woman said. “But they prefer to come to you. Please call upon the spirits for us, Nanny!”
And so the queen chanted in her monotonous way while Nora and Tolo fought for Doug’s life. They bandaged his wounds and bathed them according to Nora’s remedy. They lay compresses with leaves on him, the effects of which Tolo swore by. They also fed him the bitter wood tincture to help the fever and a tea from the bark of the allspice tea that would work like a tonic. Despite Nora’s protests, Tolo burned bitter wood and other herbs to drive away the flies that were everywhere, tormenting the ailing man. Nora had to admit that they worked better than Dede’s fan made of palm leaves, while Princess held the little girl out of the way.
“I also made fan when as small as you!” she told the girl.
Dede beamed at her. “Do all princesses make them?”
No one bothered to tell her that it was usually the first work that slave children were taught.
All of this was accompanied by Nanny’s summoning of the spirits and Princess’s no less soulful, but less noisy praying to the Holy Trinity. If it did nothing else, Nora was grateful that the background noise would at least keep her awake. Despite her utter exhaustion, she did not want to rest. Simon had left her while she was sleeping — and now that she finally had the feeling of being able to break the cycle, she did not want to take the risk.
Then Doug’s fever dropped. His wounds seemed to slowly be closing and the foot hadn’t begun to fester. At some point on the third day, as Nanny let out a particularly eerie cry to the heavens, Doug regained consciousness.
“This cannot be hell,” he whispered as he looked into Nora’s bright green eyes. “Even though it smells and even sounds like it—”
Nora smiled at him. “That’s just Tolo’s herbs and Nanny’s spirits. You shouldn’t discredit them — without those two, you would no longer be alive.”
“I dreamed that I was in our hut on the beach,” he said quietly.
“Do we have a hut there?” Nora asked, surprised. The hut on the beach had been Simon’s dream; Doug’s was the horses.
Doug nodded weakly, “If he will leave it …”
Doug lay two more weeks in Nora’s hut before she allowed him to stand and carefully put weight on his foot again. A few days later, he managed to get to Nanny’s hut in the middle of the village with Nora’s help. The queen had sent for them both. On the way through Nanny Town, they didn’t cross paths with anyone. Nora attributed it to the fact that all of them were at work, but the Maroons’ shame certainly also played a role. Their leaders had probably made it very clear to them that they would not have let Akwasi do as he pleased.
Nanny was waiting for Nora and Doug. She was chewing on a fruit again as she directed the two to take a seat on the cushions in front of her.
“I know that you’re still weak,” she addressed Doug without bothering with any sort of greetings or formalities. “But will you be able to go?”
“If I don’t have to struggle my way through the mountains,” Doug said before Nora could object. “I would make it to Kingston.”
“Then go,” the queen said. “I will send you as messengers to your governor. You both can tell him that we accept the contract. All of us, all of the Marooons in the mountains, at least those that follow me and my brothers.”
She didn’t speak Akwasi’s name, but there might also have been other people alone like him in the Blue Mountains.
“But there aren’t still differences of opinion?” Nora couldn’t keep herself from asking. When Nanny and Cudjoe went to summon the spirits together, it had been rumored in the village that not even that would change the fact that they couldn’t agree on the question of the slaves. Cudjoe wanted to send back the runaway plantation slaves like the governor demanded, but Nanny did not want to sign to that. Nanny town had always offered them all asylum. “Not any more,” she answered. “Not since …” she glanced at Doug and his bandaged foot. “Cudjoe was always of the opinion that a man who can be captured by slave hunters deserves his fate.” The queen looked past Doug and Nora pensively, as if she were conversing with herself. “But I—”
“Cudjoe himself was caught once,” slipped out of Doug’s mouth.
He was actually rather indifferent to this discussion; he just wanted to get out of Nanny Town, but the argument of the queen’s brother seemed too absurd to remain quiet.
“With us it was something else,” Nanny s
aid, still not looking at anyone. “The whites stormed our village. They took everyone: the slaves and the Ashanti. Cudjoe was almost still a child.”
Nora listened attentively. So, this was the origin of the frequently repeated rumor that Granny Nanny herself had been a slave trader before being abducted. Nora had considered it unlikely. Nanny had been too young. But it seemed that her village on the Ivory Coast actually had lived off of the slave trade. And then a few particularly unscrupulous whites hadn’t wanted to pay and just took them all instead: the hunters and hunted.
“So, everyone earned their fate aside from Cudjoe and his siblings?” Doug asked provokingly. “It seems like a peculiar attitude to me.”
Nanny nodded. “I also didn’t see it that way,” she admitted. “If one group has muskets and the other spears, then they won’t win the fight. That says nothing about pride and dignity. So, I took on the slaves. I want to give them back their pride and dignity. I want to revive Africa. But they …”
Nora nodded sympathetically. She suddenly understood Nanny’s desperate attempts to keep her Maroons away from the whites and return to the old customs — and her disappointment about the fact that they preferred colorful fabrics and ironmongery to hand-woven clothes and pottery. However, that was nothing compared to the disappointment that Akwasi and his men had caused her.
“After some time, Akwasi was like a son to me,” the queen said, softly. “I saw him as a great warrior. Naturally, he needed help to become what he was destined to be. I did not approve of everything that he did with his slave in the beginning.” She looked at Nora, but there was nothing apologetic in her eyes. A warrior had the right to have slaves, the queen didn’t question that. “But then it got better. We all saw him as a future king. Maybe there could have been an Akwasi Town somewhere in the mountains. And suddenly—” Nanny rubbed her eyes for a moment — no one was to get the impression that she could be crying — “Suddenly he was behaving like a backra! They all acted like the whites!”