Brave Music of a Distant Drum

by Manu Herbstein

  “Kwame, my son,” he tells me, “calm down. I am sorry. We should not have brought you here, but your mother insisted, and there would have been no one to stay with you at the Engenho.”

  We are back at the first clearing. He calls for a bowl of cachaça and forces me to drink. It burns my throat. I feel the warmth of it in my stomach.

  “Come,” he tells me, “we need to talk.”

  We sit facing one another on smooth rocks by the side of the stream.

  “Look around you,” he says, pointing. “Almost every one of us here was born in Africa, born free. We were all brought to this country by force, against our will.

  “Those who brought us here were Christians.

  “Like every other African in Brazil, we have been enslaved; and most of the children born to us in this country, crioulos like you, have been slaves from birth. Who owns us? Who are our masters? And our mistresses?”

  He waits for my answer. I have to say it: “Christians.”

  “Before your mother lost her sight, she would sometimes read to us from the Christian Bible. Christians claim that what is written there is the word of God, the god of the Christians. Yet she found there passages justifying slavery. So the Portuguese believe that their god has authorized our enslavement.

  “Many years ago, in the time of the old Senhor, there was a priest living here. Father Isaac was his name. His homilies exhorted us to be hardworking, loyal and obedient to our masters, and to suffer our servitude meekly. He supported each admonition with a verse from the Bible. That is the Christianity we know.

  “I have never met, in Africa or Brazil, any black man or woman who does not believe in God, whatever name we give him. We come to this forest from time to time to worship our god in the different ways we remember from our own people in Africa. It is a comfort to us. The words we use are full of poetry; the music we play to accompany our prayers is our own music, played on instruments that we ourselves have made. Whatever the Christians tell you, there is nothing sinful or evil about our worship.

  “That is all I have to say to you, my son. Do you have any questions?”

  I shake my head. I must not reply. An inner voice warns me that the Evil One has taken on the guise of Olukoya, speaking sweet words to undermine my faith. I concentrate my mind on a vision of Our Lord Jesus in the desert, resisting temptation.

  “Come with us tomorrow. You need not participate. Just listen and watch,” I hear Olukoya say.

  The cachaça puts me to sleep. I dream of a man and a boy. They are in a forest. The man is teaching the boy how to set a fish trap; they sit side by side on the bank of the stream, on smooth rocks, fishing. The boy catches his first fish.

  On Sunday afternoon my mother is exhausted. When she has fallen asleep in her cabin, I ask a lad for directions to the chapel. I find it, but the door is locked.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Zacharias

  I tell my mother that our stock of paper is running low. She says to stop writing and just listen. She tells me about the rest of their journey in Captain Williams’s prison ship, The Love of Liberty.

  “For weeks and weeks,” she says, “we lay becalmed in the middle of the ocean.”

  Food and water ran low, and every day more slaves were thrown overboard, dead, “to feed the sharks,” she says.

  She says that once she had made a partial recovery from the whipping, she vowed that she would never again speak to a white man, but that Senhor Gavin (“your Senhor Gavin,” she calls him) broke her resolve by reading aloud to her.

  “What did he read?” I ask her.

  “I forget,” she says. “Some English novel. Tom Jones, perhaps. Have you read Tom Jones? Senhora Miranda told me once that Tom Jones was her favorite.”

  I tell her that the only book I read these days is the Holy Bible. She says she knows it well, in English and in Portuguese. She says that when she has finished telling me her story, I should read the Book of Ruth to her. I may not be able to do that. I have only brought the New Testament with me.

  Then she tells me how a great storm in the Atlantic broke the main mast of their ship and drove it into Salvador.

  “São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos, the city of the Holy Savior of All Saints Bay,” she says. “Your city.”

  Ama’s story

  With the crippled ship at anchor in the bay, they brought us soap and buckets of hot water. Soap, mind you, and fresh water, not sea water. They gave us more food and the quality improved. They let us shave our heads. For the first time since leaving Elmina, I was free of lice. They gave us palm oil to rub into our skin and returned our own old cloths to us and let us wash and iron them. I began to feel human again, but I was haunted—we all were—by a sense of foreboding.

  After ten days, they ferried us ashore, all of us, women and men. I was with the boy Kofi and his mother. I remember our being led in procession down a long, narrow street, the Rua São Pedro (do you know it?), at the end of which there was a large stone building. When we reached it, Captain Williams and Dr. Butcher stepped out of the cadeira in which they had been riding. An official in a fancy uniform was waiting for them. We followed them up a flight of steps into a spacious hall. As the last of us marched in, the great wooden doors closed behind us with a resounding bang. I clapped my hands to my ears. Since the canon of Elmina and The Love of Liberty, I have always hated loud noises.

  Feeling confused and giddy, I closed my eye and stood quite still. Someone pushed me and spoke harshly. It was a black man. I noticed that he was wearing boots, and that he wasn’t averse to using them. I know now, as you do, too, that we slaves are not allowed to shoe our feet, so this one must have been a free man.

  He herded us like sheep, pushing and pulling and abusing us loudly in a language none of us understood. I suppose it was Portuguese.

  I looked around, trying to get my bearings. Four massive columns rose to support a dome, unlike anything I had seen before. High windows lit the square hall.

  Ushers shepherded us into the central arena and forced us to sit down, facing outwards. Williams and Butcher and two other white men watched from a platform on one side. When they were satisfied with the arrangements, the two strangers led Williams and Butcher on an inspection. Together, they counted each one of us and, as they did so, an usher hung a board with a chalked number around that person’s neck.

  I twisted my board and read the number: 117.

  I had become separated from Kofi and his mother. On my right sat one of Tomba’s womenfolk, a stranger. Though it was hot, the woman was shivering. I took her hand and spoke to her.

  Trying to comfort myself, I told her, “My sister, everything will be all right.”

  The woman squeezed my hand.

  I looked to my left. Sitting two men away was Tomba himself. He had been watching me. He smiled. Then he showed me a clenched fist. It was our first communication since the rebellion.

  He put his finger to his right eye and shook his head sadly.

  I mouthed a silent reply, knowing he would understand: “It is nothing. It was not your fault.”

  The bells of a nearby church rang out. As the last echo died away, a band of barefooted black musicians began to play fiddles, guitars, and drums. Then the doors were opened once more. A crowd of men, mainly white, but with a sprinkling of mulattos and blacks, poured into the room.

  A large signboard showed the day’s asking price: 120 milréis. The purchasers strolled around, viewing us and making notes. A customer called out in Portuguese, pointing to a man sitting behind me. An usher prodded him and pushed him forward to allow the senhor to take a closer look.

  The music stopped. Outside the hall, a man’s loud sing-song voice called out the same word over and over again, accompanied by the jingling of a bell.

  “Escravos, escravos.”

  That was the first Portuguese word I learned.
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  The crowd of buyers and spectators thickened. The hall began to fill with the smoke of many pipes.

  Now it was Tomba’s turn. He refused to rise and two ushers had to force him to his feet. They held him, one at each arm.

  “Tomba, Tomba,” I called, “it is no use fighting here. You cannot win.”

  An 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 gray-bearded black man, as old as he, neatly dressed, but barefooted. 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. I saw the hatred and contempt in his eyes. They ignored him. He sank to his knees, elbows and forehead on the floor, his head grasped in his hands.

  “Tomba,” I called to him, “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, who issued a numbered token for each one hundred and twenty milréis paid. The total number of tokens sold so far was marked up on a chalkboard, together with the number of us slaves on offer. Some buyers wandered back to take another look at us, pointing out their preferences to their agents or employees. Others sat with the drinks which were on offer and chatted quietly or just listened to the music. We sat and waited, scared, unable to guess what would happen next.

  At last an announcement was made. The ushers forced us to our feet and drove us to the center of the hall. Some marched around us, threatening any who were stupid or brave enough to resist. We huddled together. The purchasers took up positions on a line which had been painted on the floor from column to column.

  I saw them fiddling with lengths of ribbon and handkerchiefs knotted end to end. Kofi pushed his way through the crowd to greet me.

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

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

  At that signal, the buyers rushed at us. There was pandemonium. Some of our men stood firm, ready to fight. The band blasted out on its trumpets and drums; buyers shouted. Some of our women and children shrieked in terror.

  The enemy was upon us, grabbing at our arms, our cloths, pulling us to one side, throwing us down to the ground, tying us 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 had grabbed more than their fair share.

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

  “Kofi, Kofi,” I heard a desperate cry.

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

  Our herder, a black man, fussed over us. Apprehensive that we might try to run off, he forced us to sit on the floor. The two other women amongst us were sobbing. A man sank his head between his knees.

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

  “Roberto,” I heard him call.

  Roberto ordered us to stand. First he spoke Portuguese, but it was clear that none of us understood.

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

  Uncertain, a man rose. I did so, too, and the rest followed our example.

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

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

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

  “Vamos. Mma yeñkô. Let’s go,” Roberto told us.

  At the door we paused. A clerk checked us off against our new owner’s tokens and recovered our chalk boards.

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

  Zacharias

  She tells me how Josef collected her from a slave merchant in Salvador and brought her across the bay in the old Senhor’s boat. The old Senhor, who bought her, died years ago. He was Senhora Miranda’s father. At that time she understood no Portuguese, so it was a great comfort to her, she says, that she and Josef had a language in common. She tells me of the years she worked in the fields, back-breaking work, loading sticks of sugar cane onto the ox-carts. When she begins to tell me about her work in the mill, I interrupt her. I have seen the hell of the sugar mill with my own eyes and I have no wish to be reminded of it.

  She agrees.

  “Now I must explain how I came to be transferred to the casa grande,” she says.

  “I would like to hear that,” I say. “Shall I write this down? I still have a few pages to fill.”

  Ama’s story

  There was a vacancy. One of the house slaves had died in childbirth. This time, the old Senhora was determined not to recruit another candidate for the bed of the old Senhor, who had so often in the past been the agent of her shame.

  She told Jesus Vasconcellos, the manager, “Bring me the six ugliest wenches you have.”

  Of course, the news got round; there are few secrets at the Engenho de Cima. When I learned that my name was on the short-list of the ugly, I felt crushed. I ran to my cabin, buried my head under my blanket, and cried until I could cry no more. I suppose it was vanity. Men had admired me—two kings of Asante and a Dutch governor, amongst them. Now I had to come to terms with my disfigured appearance.

  Jacinta, who shared my cabin and who had lost both her lower arms in an accident in the mill, tried to console me.

  “Look at me,” she said, holding up her stumps.

  But that only set me off on a fresh fit of sobbing.

  Then old Benedito took up his Christian duty and came to visit me, misquoting Ecclesiastes on vanity. I bit my tongue, thanked him with the humility and respect due to his years, and sent him on his way.

  It was Wono, Josef’s wife, who at last brought me to my senses.

  “Don’t be stupid, sister Ama,” she said. “After all, who cares about what Vasconcellos or the other whites think? In a way, you are lucky—at least Senhor Jesus might keep his hands off you if that is what he thinks. And if the Senhora selects you, just think, you will be better fed and better clothed and you won’t have to work so hard. What is more, you will keep us informed about what is going on up there.”

  Now I must tell you how ... no, let the story speak for itself.

  Late one night, Josef returned from Salvador.

  The next morning, he brought the mail to the kitchen and I took it out to the Senhor with his breakfast tray.

  He glanced at the first letter.

  “Girl, what’s-your-name?” he said. “Go and call Father Isaac and tell him I want to speak to him. Father Isaac, the priest. Do you understand?”

  I said I understood. By that time I had mastered Portuguese.

  “Sit down, Father,” the Senhor said when the priest came. “Girl, pour the Father a cup of coffee.”

  “Father, do you know any English?”

  �
�English? No, Senhor,” Father Isaac replied. “Latin, yes. A little Spanish, but no English. If I may ask, Senhor, why?”

  “Look at this letter from the Governor. The English Consul in Salvador wants to do me the honor of being my guest. His Excellency has authorized the visit. There is no way I can refuse. Please draft a reply for me to sign. Tell them that he will be welcome but that there is no one here who understands the man’s language. If he does not speak Portuguese, he will have to bring an interpreter with him.”

  Please Senhor, I imagined myself saying, there is no need. I know English well. I could act as the Consul’s interpreter if you would permit me to do so. But, of course, I held my tongue.

  “What does it say? When will he be arriving?” the Senhor asked.

  “Next Friday, subject to your agreement,” Father Isaac replied.

  “Make a list. We’ll invite all our neighbors to a banquet on Saturday night. And their wives, too. They can sleep over and attend Mass on Sunday. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

  He rubbed his hands together.

  “We’ll show this Englishman the meaning of Brazilian hospitality,” he said.

  Additional slaves were brought in to help with the preparations. The seamstresses worked long hours, repairing the uniforms of those who would wait at table. The best plate and silver was washed and polished. Linen was aired and ironed. Bernardo, the Fante carpenter, made new beds. Even the workers in the mill and in the cane fields felt the excitement. It was almost as if the expected visitor were the Governor of all Brazil himself.

  I was kept busy in the kitchen. I hadn’t seen so much food since Kumase. Wono was there, too. And Josef would be serving at table.

  The Senhora was flustered.

  “We are short one server,” she said. “Ama, do you think you could manage?”

  “Of course, Senhora. At least, I shall do my best.”

  “I hope the guests won’t be frightened by your bad eye; but there is no one else. Go to the seamstresses and get yourself fitted.”