The Cost of Sugar

by Cynthia McLeod

  200 “Ma mi e taigi yu. Efu m’e miti nanga wan bakra pikin, m’o meki a m’ma luku, en dan m’e e teki a pikin, koti wan finga kmopo, dan ete wan finga, ete wan, dan en hanu, dan wan futu, tra futu, dan so mi e koti en na pisi-pisi, na en m’ma fesi.”

  201 “Wakti m’e kon.”

  202 “Mi Gado, un tantiri, un tan drape!”

  203 “O na so no? Pe a pikin bakra disi kmopo?”

  204 “Libi en poti, libi en.”

  205 “P’e en m’ma de?”

  206 “A no abi m’ma, en m’ma dede keba.”

  207 “Mi ben taigi yu san mi b’o du, nanga wan bakra pikin?”

  208 “Luku, efu yu du wan sani, dan yu kra e go libi yu, yu habi yu kra fanodu fu feti. Libi na pikin, m’e begi yu, libi na pikin.”

  209 “Agosu, hesi hesi, kon un gowé, boto e kon, boto lai nanga surdati, den e kon na syoro keba, kon gowé, ala trawan gowé keba, Agosu, kon!”

  210 “Pe a misi de?”

  211 “O mi Gado, mi masra, mi Teta!”

  212 “Masra, ke masra, opo; den busi nengre, den teki Klein Paradijs!”

  213 “Den frufruktu, den didibri!”

  214 “Masra keba, keba! Den busi nengre no kiri en, dan yu wan’ kiri en? Yu law no, yu wan’ koti strafu?”

  215 “Kon masra, kon. Kon nanga mi, yu weri ba, luku fa yu lon kon dyaso, yu musu fu weri, kon mek’ mi masi yu baka gi yu.”

  216 “Prakseri den pikin baya, prakseri den.”

  217 “Masra no sabi dan, a misi habi bere?”

  218 “Wan surdati pikin dan.”

  219 “No no masra, na yu pikin, mi sabi taki na yu pikin.”

  220 “No go feti nanga en. Masra ke m’e begi masra.”

  221 “No, no mi no feti.”

  CHAPTER XII

  JAN

  When Lieutenant Andersma had left the military post, announcing that he was on the track of something special and would be gone about three days, the subalterns had had a good laugh behind his back. “Something special,” Officer Bels had said, scornfully, “A special woman, no doubt?” The lieutenant must think they were mad. Perhaps he really did believe that no-one knew that he was carrying on with that little thing there on Klein Paradijs; and weren’t they just a stone’s throw away from the plantation? The soldiers had their own views on the matter, too. But all right, it didn’t really matter to them one way or the other, and the longer they could stay on the post the better. They could at least sleep under one shelter in a hammock and make a smoke pot against the mosquitoes.

  Jan was sorry that Lieutenant Andersma was leaving, even if it were for only three days, as he himself had said, for then the group was left to the mercy of the ruthless officer Bels, whom Jan regarded as the lowest of the low. And the subaltern had it in for him especially: he knew that all too well. That had all come about when they were only a few days away from the town, several weeks ago now.

  After ten days some of the soldiers were already seriously ill. The negro porters had now to carry the sick men and their baggage as well as everything else. At a certain moment Officer Bels had forced yet another backpack on a porter who could even then hardly walk with everything he already had on his back. When the negro porter’s knees collapsed under the weight, the subaltern had kicked him.

  Jan, who had seen all this, had flared up at the subaltern, saying, “One man can’t possibly carry all that.”

  “You carry it, then,” replied the subaltern, and Jan had taken the extra pack over from the porter without further comment and had slung it over his shoulder. Lieutenant Andersma, who by chance had followed the whole incident, had said to the subaltern, “You can still learn something from a simple soldier about good army practice, Officer Bels!”

  The subaltern had given Jan a look that could kill and had muttered a curse. From that moment on the subaltern had had it in for Jan. He had even almost pushed him in the creek, ostensibly by accident, and recently when Jan had stumbled over something, as far as he was concerned it wasn’t over a sharp stake but over an extended foot: that of Officer Bels.

  When the lieutenant had not returned after three days, the porters became worried. There were murmurings about a raid on Klein Paradijs. Officer Bels went there with two soldiers. They returned with the news that Lieutenant Andersma was dead, shot by the Bonis during a raid on the plantation. The plantation owner had not been there at the time. When he returned the next day he had found Andersma’s body.

  The group was therefore now under the command of Officer Bels. They must press on, more towards the Marowijne. After several days on the go they came across another commando at a post. This was a group under the command of Captain Mayland. They had discovered the Boni’s village ‘Gado Sabi’, which was surrounded by agricultural land. The entrance to the village had been found by a few negroes from the Free Corps, but they had not been able to capture the village or take the Bonis prisoner, for as soon as the negroes had seen the military approaching, one of them had set fire to two houses at the front. The military fired, but the Bonis fired back, and while the military had been halted by the rain of bullets the Bonis had been able to get away. Then the fire had spread over part of the swamp and the military had had to withdraw. The Bonis had fled into the bush and the military had been unable to follow them.

  It was, however, suspected that there were several other small villages. It was now the task of Officer Bels’ commando to look for them. Captain Mayland’s group, already three months on the go, would carry on to ‘Devils Harwar’, where there was a military hospital. More than half the soldiers were on the verge of exhaustion.

  The group under Officer Bels’ command pressed on northwards. Jan was increasingly the object of the officer’s bullying. He was often given all kinds of stupid tasks and dare not refuse, knowing that Bels would report him as a mutineer or objector. Now they came to a swamp. Would they have to go through it or try to walk round it?

  “We need to send someone to find out whether we can get through,” said the officer. “Go on Jan, you go through!”

  “Me, why me?” Jan looked fearfully at the swamp. Wasn’t that a crocodile? Some anacondas?

  “Jan, come on, are you afraid?” The officer gave him a push in the back, and the next moment he was standing up to his knees in the swamp. The thick mud sucked at his feet so that it was with the utmost difficulty that he could make any progress, hoping that his mates on the bank would make enough noise to frighten away any crocodiles or snakes. He sunk ever deeper. He was now fifty metres from the edge, with no end in sight. Now the mud came up to his chest. He looked round. No-one was following him. Then he saw the officer signal left, and a soldier shouted, “Don’t go any further, Jan, we’re going round it.”

  He understood that this was yet another of the officer’s tricks. He was probably never intending to go through the swamp in the first place. The whole day Jan had to struggle on further in his stinking, muddy clothes. Once again he had ulcers, wounds and blisters everywhere. He felt shivery, too, as if he were developing a fever.

  Excitement in the vanguard. They had come across a field of food crops. Ripe corn, cassava and bananas. The soldiers plundered the field and they stopped for a while so that everyone could take enough for his own consumption. Then the crops were completely destroyed. Jan did not participate in the destruction. He tried to keep out of the way, noticing, however, that Officer Bels was keeping an eye on him. He pretended to be busy with his gun, which had got wet. He wanted no part in ruining the bush-negroes’ produce.

  During his time in the negroes’ village, he had continually wondered why they had to be hunted and destroyed. It was so obvious that the Maroons really wanted peace and asked only to be allowed to live free in the bush. Jan could not understand what was so wrong with that. Now he understood that, if the government gave in to the bush-negroes, that could signal the end of slavery, for then even more slaves would flee. The plantations could not operate without slaves, and so they must stay, must be exploited, must be too scared
to escape. Without the plantations there would, after all, be no coffee, cotton or sugar and therefore no wealth for the planters. The captured Boni-negroes had to serve as an example, frightening other refugees, and therefore they had to be punished severely. What a system! What misery! And to cap it all, the planters were convinced that they were good people. After all, they went to church on Sunday, praised and glorified God, who was so bountiful to them.

  The next day they had to go looking for the village, which had to be nearby. Jan felt so sick that he had difficulty moving at all. At a certain moment they halted. The group had to spread out, everyone in a different direction. Jan went about a hundred metres through thick brushwood, saw fallen tree trunks and was about to climb over them when he saw a village, perhaps a hundred and fifty metres in front of him. Through the bush he saw roofs, women working outside the huts. He could picture the scene there: women preparing food, children playing. He had to get away, quickly, and no-one must come this way, no-one must see the village.

  He went back as fast as he could, already shouting that there was nothing there, that it must be in the other direction, certainly in the other direction. The officer and other soldiers looked in amazement at the quiet, timid Jan, suddenly so talkative and insisting that the village was certainly on the other side. But then a few other soldiers came up who had gone in the same general direction as Jan. One of them had climbed a tree and had seen the village. There it was, and they would have to creep up on it and attack. And so it happened. A quarter of an hour later the women and children and a couple of old men were taken by surprise by a group of wild soldiers, shooting and hacking at everything in sight. A complete bloodbath followed. All fourteen villagers were murdered. Soldiers ran eagerly to and fro to hack off hands and so collect their bonuses in due course.

  Jan did not take part in the massacre. Despondently he sat down by a tree, head in his hands. Was this really necessary? A group of excited soldiers had just returned from the village, swords and hands smeared with blood, when a faint cry was heard in the distance. The cry of a child. So there was still a child somewhere: find it and kill it; that was good. The soldiers set off again, and Officer Bels, who was still watching Jan, called, “Go on Jan, go for it, you can do it!”

  “No,” screamed Jan. “No, no!”

  “Why not, Jan – are you scared?” shouted the officer.

  Jan said nothing, putting his arm in front of his face and laying his head on his knees. The other soldiers had gone. Jan heard cries and muffled blows. “No,” he choked into his arm, “No, oh please not this.”

  Then it was quiet for a while and he heard the officer saying, “Look Jan, look in front of you.” When Jan looked up, he saw the bloody, smashed head of a small child. With a scream he sprang up, only to fall to the ground again the next moment. His head in his hands, he could no longer contain himself and started weeping uncontrollably, howling like a child.

  The soldiers first stood watching, but then Officer Bels started laughing out loud, “Ha, ha, ha,” and in no time the whole group was laughing, “Ha, ha, ha,” and from left, right and centre, “Are you scared Jan? Jan, are you frightened? Are you afraid, Jan?”

  From that moment on he was the laughing stock of all the soldiers. Everyone made him look stupid. Any moment a frog or a snake would be thrown at him, and if it startled him there came from all directions, “Are you frightened, Jan? Jan, are you scared?”

  They forged ahead. The success had encouraged them. Perhaps they would find more villages. When Jan wanted to sleep at night, his hammock had disappeared or he found a snake on the spot. When he sat eating, a hacked-off negro hand would land in his bowl of peas. On one occasion it was the hand of that child. And every time there would be the laughter and the cries of, “Jan, are you scared?”

  Jan felt increasingly ill. Sometimes he had fever and lay shivering on the ground. The next day the fever had gone, but he was so weak, he could not take a step further. And all the time he thought how stupid and naïve he had been, believing back home in Holland that could just go to Suriname to catch negroes and then simply find some gold and return wealthy. He would be lucky to get out of this green hell alive.

  Finally, he could do nothing more. Now he was carried. The negro porter whom he had once helped was the only person to pay any attention to him, now and then giving him something to drink. The doctor in the group had already realized that Jan would not make it by a long chalk. Jan became delirious and started talking all kinds of nonsense. About gold, about peace, about good negroes, about grandma’s shawl and a warm skirt. Before dying, he said to the porter who came to give him a can of water, “Tell them that there was no gold – no, no gold.”

  JULIUS

  Sarith had decided to reward Kwasiba. She did not yet know how, but a reward she would certainly get. However, when the family returned to Klein Paradijs, Kwasiba was sick. She had high fever and chest pains, her cheekswere sunken and her eyes dim. “Kwasiba, what’s wrong?”222 asked Sarith, shocked. “Oh misi, I’m old, I’m tired,”223 came the answer, weakly.

  “What can I give you? What can I do for you?”224

  A faint smile appeared on Kwasiba’s face as he said, “I want nothing. Where I’m going you can’t take wealth along. Misi, I want nothing, but you and Masra Julius, you care for my child, care for my Mini-mini. Let her stay with you, look after her well. That’s all I want.”225

  Sarith reflected that this was no reward for what Kwasiba had done for her, for it would be not the slightest trouble to keep Mini-mini. She would never be able to do without Mini-mini, such a loving and good person, so devoted to Jethro. No, she could have no better person than Mini-mini. Once Jethro was grown up, she thought, and she no longer needed Mini-mini, then she must certainly give Mini-mini her freedom. But only later, of course, for giving a slave freedom cost money, and that they didn’t have right now.

  A few days later Kwasiba died. Julius was not there when it happened. He had gone to the town to fetch the new slaves. When he returned and Sarith told him that Kwasiba had died, he said despondently, “And she never got that reward.”

  “She wanted no reward,” said Sarith. “I asked her, but she didn’t want anything, only that Mini-mini would stay with us and that we should be good to her.”

  The plantation was operating again. The new slaves were set to work. In the house there was more for Nicolette to do. She was one of the slaves who had returned, because she was expecting. The father was a slave who lived not far from the De Ledesmas in the Saramaccastraat. The cook, Freda, and Nicolette’s sister were also in the house.

  It was New Year. Sarith did not ask to go to town. She wanted to, but dared not ask for anything, and Julius paid hardly any attention to her and said only what was strictly necessary. Since the raid he had always slept in his office. Sarith mainly remained in her room, where she lay in bed or just hung around, now her body was becoming ever greater with the child she was expecting.

  It rained a lot. Julius arrived home after sitting half a day in the tent boat. He was tired and stiff and longed for a firm massage from Kwasiba, but Kwasiba was no more. He paced restlessly up and down the rear veranda and asked Sarith, who had just come down the steps, “Is there a slave-girl who can massage? I have back-ache.”

  “Mini-mini knows how to massage. Let her do it,” said Sarith, and to Mini-mini, who was playing with Jethro on the front veranda, she said, “Mini-mini, go and massage the masra’s back.”226

  It feels very different from what Kwasiba did, thought Julius as he lay on his stomach on the couch and felt Mini-mini’s fingers on his back. Pleasant and much softer. He relaxed. He did miss Kwasiba’s voice – she always spoke as she massaged – and he said to the girl, “Your mother always talked as she massaged. Tell me something.”227

  “I don’t know what I could say, masra,”228 said Mini-mini.

  “Mini-mini: that is surely a name from the story of Koprokanu?”229 remarked Julius.

  “Yes, Mini-mini wa
s the name of one of the children,”230 agreed Mini-mini.

  “Well, tell me that, then,”231 said Julius.

  Mini-mini laughed and with her soft, melodious voice she began to tell the Cinderella tale of the mother who had four children: Mini-mini, Fremantania, Fremanbonia and Koprokanu. She loved the first three, but not the fourth one, because she was not beautifully brown like the other three, but was more yellow in colour and had copper-red hair. And when Mini-mini sang the song that the mother would sing when she came home, her voice sounded so sweet that Julius felt a wave of happiness engulfing him. The tender fingers on his back, the lovely voice that narrated and sang so beautifully: oh how fine this was! This Mini-mini – how sweet she was. When the massage was over, he spent the rest of the evening thinking back on how wonderfully those fingers went over his back and how sweet her voice had sounded.

  The next day he went into the fields on horseback. He came home wet through from the rain and again Mini-mini had to massage his back. Again he asked her to speak and sing to him. The next day, too. And so it continued, every day, so that it became a routine. But Julius noticed that he longed the whole day for that one hour that he would be lying alone with Mini-mini on the couch in his office, feeling her affectionate fingers passing over his back and hearing her soft, melodious voice. This was no massage, this was a caress, a delightful, fantastic caress that he hoped would never end. And then that voice, that sweet, soft voice.

  Mini-mini knew no more stories, so he asked her just to sing. The songs she also sang to Jethro, so sweet, oh so sweet! Sometimes he turned over and asked her to massage his shoulders from the front. Then he would look at her. How beautiful she was, so delightful, so soft. He looked at her mouth, her large, dark eyes. Sometimes the headdress fell from her head and he saw the lovely thick plait that moved along with her. He could not help stretching a hand out and caressing her face and her bare shoulders.