by Arthur Japin
One night I suffered an especially severe attack, during which I coughed up blood and feared that the congestion in my lungs would stifle my breathing altogether. The doctor who had been summoned in all haste removed some viscous slime from my throat with a spatula. He acknowledged that I had been a hair’s breadth away from death by suffocation.
The doctor’s treatment left me exhausted, and I soon fell asleep. I was roused some time later by a searing pain in my throat. My sudden awakening took Kwame by surprise. He was sobbing quietly by my side—the first and only time I ever saw him cry. But as soon as he noticed that I was awake he regained his self-control, so as not to worry me unduly. He was quite certain I would get better, he said, and he repeated this assurance so many times that I realized he was in terror of losing me. He rocked me to sleep in his arms, and I do not believe we were ever closer together than we were then. As I drifted off to sleep I realized once and for all that he truly loved me and that he was the only person in the world I need not fear. The next morning I tried to feel the same profound contentment, but did not succeed.
Sourdough paste and Spanish fly were applied. Professor Everard told me that a severe attack always marked a turning-point, either for better or for worse. And thanks to hot compresses, inhalations of herbal vapours, treacly cough-mixtures, and last but not least to Kwame’s loving care, I was on the road to recovery. My appetite improved and I regained my strength little by little. By mid-February I was well enough at last to return to the classroom, and also to resume the sittings for Raden Saleh’s portrait. There was just enough time to include our new Ashanti ornaments in the painting.
However, my respiratory problem never cleared up completely, and as long as I lived in Holland I was laid low by bronchitis each autumn.
Princess Sophie’s fifteenth birthday passed without our receiving the invitation we had hoped for. It turned out that the royal family was in a turmoil. Anna Pavlovna had done everything in her power to prevent Prince Willem Alexander from marrying his beloved, but the fiancés seemed determined to press ahead. She stormed through the corridors of the palace. Her eldest son’s bride-to-be was his cousin Sophie von Württemberg, daughter of her least favourite sister Katerina Pavlovna. She was a girl in whom, according to Anna Pavlovna, all the most unstable traits of the Romanovs, which were already troubling her eldest son, had come together.
Worse even than Willem Alexander’s imminent marriage was the scandal surrounding King Willem I, Anna Pavlovna’s father-in-law. After two years of mourning for his dead wife the old king had had enough of solitude. He had now taken a fancy to countess Henriette d’Oultremont, who was not only Belgian but also Roman Catholic, and a lady-in-waiting to boot!
In the circumstances the palace had thought it wise to reduce the number of social events for a while. Naturally Kwame and I had no idea of all this, and were sad to have been overlooked. As it was we sent Sophie a birthday gift—the collected works of Voltaire specially bound in the finest green leather—with our congratulations and good wishes. In return we received a polite thank-you note, which contained no personal messages or tokens of friendship.
On the afternoon of 24 April, however—the day that had been picked as my birthday—Kwame and I were driven in a carriage to Hellevoetsluis, where the mayor received us at the town hall. He led us into a room where the huge canvas that was to be sent to my father was displayed. Although I thought Kwame’s likeness convincing enough, I was at pains to recognize myself in the timid lad averting his eyes from the viewer. It was not so much that my head was raised to our “benefactor” as that I appeared somewhat embarrassed about meeting the gaze of others. On the whole our portraits showed us to be in good health and exemplary of African wholesomeness.
The “March for the King of Ashanti” was played in our honour, and Crown Prince Willem Frederik entered with Sophie at his side, followed by Major-General Verveer, Commissioner van Drunen and Raden Saleh. While we enjoyed an elaborate tea party, the picture was taken to the quay and loaded on to a ship upon which the major-general was set to embark that very afternoon for the voyage to Elmina.
The prospect of returning to Africa was so repellent to him that he could barely keep up a civil conversation. Even while the crown prince was speaking, Verveer’s thoughts kept wandering, and he prodded his slice of cake at length, without ever tasting it. His mission this time was to conduct a punitive expedition from Fort Elmina to Badu Bonsu II, king of Ahanta. The latter had ordered a Dutch trade delegation be put to death in retaliation for a crime against local court etiquette: two ignorant soldiers had held their rifles at the ready during a royal audience. Adjutant Tonneboeijer had subsequently set out with forty men to seek retribution from Badu Bonsu, but they had all been killed in an ambush.
After tea we all trooped to the quayside. Major-General Verveer promised to see to the delivery of our portrait in good condition at Kumasi, and went on board. We wished the vessel and her crew a safe voyage.
Two years had gone by since Kwame and I had left the Gold Coast, and now we were returning as a portrait. My heart lurched at the idea that my father and our mothers would soon set eyes on us, but I had the comfort of Sophie standing beside me. Kwame and I waved at the ship carrying our images until it gained the open sea. I gripped my friend’s hand. We would have loved nothing better than to change places with the portrait. But we were civilized and held our tongues.
PART THREE
DELFT 1839–4 7
1
Happy are those who have never set eyes on the feasts of strangers and have only sat at the tables of their fathers.
—François-René de Chateaubriand
“It was she,” Kwame said, pointing to the sun. Sophie imitated his gesture. It was Kwame’s birthday: 21 June. The three of us were lounging on the curved bench under the almond tree in the park behind Het Loo palace. It was the first occasion, after a cold spring, that the sun’s rays were strong enough to warm our cheeks.
“She was the one Spider Anansi fell in love with. He was consumed with desire to be with her. The earth was still bare and infertile in those days. He spun a web between two stones and climbed up to the highest point. But he could not reach her. He spun another web between two boulders, but still he could not reach her. He climbed to the top of a hill and attached his thread to the summit. He had never been as high as this before. What was he to do now? Where could he anchor the far end of his huge web? On the horizon Anansi discovered a mountain range. He set off across the plains until he reached a river bank. He turned to look back. He was far from the land he knew. But his love was greater than his fear. Although he could not swim, he managed to cross the river, and waited on the other side for his body to dry in the sunshine. Beyond the salt flats he travelled onward, all the way to the mountains dividing the plain from the coast. He climbed the highest peak of all, and saw how long his thread had grown. Imagining how vast the dimensions of his web would have to be made him dizzy. The journey had exhausted him, and still he had spun just a single thread. It dawned on Spider Anansi that he had set his sights too high and that his love was impossible, for he would never reach the sun with his web. No, he would never get any closer to his love than he was here, on this mountain top. So he decided to make it his home. Grief-stricken, he watched his beloved sun sinking out of sight in the evening. He wept all night. But in the morning his hopes rose again, because she had not forgotten him. He no longer ate or drank. All he did was dream. A breeze started blowing. Puffs of sand blew across the plains in the distance. The wind gathered strength, became a gale. Anansi dug his heels in. He had no intention of leaving this place, which was the closest he could be to his beloved. He held on for dear life, clinging to the ground beneath him, but his strength failed him. The wind lifted Anansi up and, with only his long thread linking him to the mountaintop, he came closer to the sun than ever. If only he had let go sooner! He soared higher and higher still, while his thread grew longer and longer. Soon he was ablaze, ablaze with love,
and overcome with joy. The heat scorched his legs, but he didn’t mind. The flames singed the hairs on his belly, his protective shield burst into flames, but he took no notice. He was alight with love and cried out in ecstasy, and at the very moment his beloved engulfed him with her flames, he died of sheer happiness. Like a smoking flamelet on a wick his charred corpse slid down the thread he had spun. His ashes fell to the earth. The wind scattered them across the barren fields and desolate plains. And his ashes made the earth fertile. The sun sank below the horizon and rose again to see tiny blades sprouting from Anansi’s remains. She beamed at them to make them grow. She gave them such vigour that they spread all over the earth. And from that green wilderness animals emerged, and the first humans. And from them came you and me and Kwasi and everybody. Born of Anansi’s love. That is the origin of all life. Unfulfilled desire.”
I screwed up my eyes against the glare, but through my blood-red lids I could see Sophie’s shadow. She drew up her knees, wrapped her arms around them and rested her chin on top.
“You can’t have made it all up yourself!” she said. I opened my eyes, but had to shut them at once. I tried peering through my eyelashes to make out her face amid the clusters of fiery dots.
“Is that the sort of story your mothers used to tell you?”
“I don’t remember anything about my mother,” I replied. I preferred discussing things that were new to me. “Well, I know she used to sing.”
“Kofi was the one who told us the stories,” Kwame said, and he went on to describe our old slave with his watery red-rimmed eyes and ancient wisdom. He gave an imitation of the old slave’s spindly-legged gait, and explained what he had taught us.
“Was he blind?” Sophie asked, sounding almost hopeful. A velvet pearl-studded headband held the ringlets away from her oval face. They bounced and caught the light.
“Kofi—blind? What do you mean?”
“I thought he might have been. It’s not unusual for a sage to be blind, you know.”
“Not unusual, is it?” Kwame said in a mocking tone, which vexed her. She wandered off in search of wild flowers, which she pulled up root and all. When she had gathered an armful she scattered them over our heads, by way of reprisal. Petals and grains got under my shirt, and my skin itched for the rest of the afternoon.
Sophie plied us with questions. About Kwame’s mother, and about mine. About when we were little. Kwame did not seem to mind at all. He talked at length of customs, idols and myths that no one in Holland had ever heard of. He glowed, and the princess was enraptured. Her enthusiasm was contagious. So I put aside my dislike of reminiscing, and soon Kwame and I were vying with each other to tell the next anecdote. Sophie was especially interested in hearing confirmation of certain notions she had taken into her girlish head with regard to the circumstances of our birth. She was so excited that I did not have the heart to disappoint her, and eventually I conceded that my cradle had indeed been lined with moss and that it had been suspended from the branches of a blossoming maple tree, where it swayed in a gentle breeze among nests with baby birds. Descriptions of this nature made her cover her face with her hands to hide her emotion. Such scenes, which she herself had prompted me to describe, made her shiver, as though they were familiar to her. I could not help noticing that Kwame did not approve of my white lies. He resumed our true story, but the princess kept interrupting him with the oddest questions. She demanded to know if Kwame had ever seen a white hind in his dreams, and pressed me to say whether the trees in the secret valley gave me advice in matters of love. Kwame began to think she might have been in the sun for too long.
The marriage of the heir apparent Willem Alexander to Sophie Mathilde von Württemberg had taken place three days before Kwame’s birthday. King Willem I travelled to Stuttgart to attend his grandson’s wedding. He was accompanied by all the princes, including the groom’s father, Crown Prince Willem Frederik. Crown Princess Anna Pavlovna, however, was absent. Her refusal to attend her eldest son’s wedding was to be the first of many slights to her daughter-in-law. Sophie had to stay behind to keep her mother company and, in the hope of some relief from the grim ambience, she insisted we should celebrate Kwame’s very first birthday at Het Loo palace.
After a tiresome journey we alighted from the stagecoach to an atmosphere of despondency. The crown princess had retired to her private quarters on account of swollen eyes from crying. “Well, you might as well go straight back,” Sophie lamented, “because Mamma has refused to call the musicians. And what sort of a birthday is that, if there is to be no dancing?”
But there were cakes, and lemonade in three different colours. One of the conservatories was decked with flowers. Sophie’s tutor Monsieur Cavin, a Swiss, was the only other guest. He sat in a corner, immersed in The Genius of Christianity. Its author, Chateaubriand, was held in high esteem by Sophie’s mother, because he had sided against the new regime after the French Revolution.
At long last the crown princess herself descended the staircase. She was very grandly dressed, and her large skirts seethed with exasperation. To everyone’s surprise she wore, on top of her plaited hair, a felt circlet sewn with pearls and around her neck some of her famous jewels.
“What are you staring at? The whole country is celebrating the heir apparent’s wedding, and you would grudge his own mother a bit of finery?” Aware of the awe her appearance inspired, she took a seat, graciously allowing the folds of her trailing robe to be adjusted by a footman. I was so incautious as to congratulate her.
“Ah well, of course you are right, Master Aquasi, let them be married. Why strive after happiness, anyway?” she said disdainfully. Monsieur Cavin shut his book and withdrew discreetly.
“After all, what could be wrong with a young man taking his cousin from the mad side of the family to be his wife? That is the modern way, it seems. There will be children—but never mind about that. Who knows the lot of them may even render madness fashionable! I for one have no intention of letting it stop me enjoying myself.” Having made her point, she ordered her Russian singers to assemble. She was brought a tray laden with sweetmeats, which she pounced on like a vulture on market offal. Sophie took us out into the park.
“What on earth are you doing?” she cried.
In my eagerness to engage her with yet more folklore, I had broken two twigs from the almond tree.
“My mother brought that tree with her from St. Petersburg. Whenever she’s sad she has tea served here from a samovar. Then she sits with her eyes shut for hours, pretending she can hear the ripple of the River Neva.” We could hear the splash of Neptune’s fountain in the rond-point where the avenues met. “Have you ever seen it? The Neva?”
“No,” replied Kwame.
“No,” I said. “I only know my own country.”
“What about Holland?” protested Sophie. “You know Holland, too.”
“I meant Holland,” I said.
Kwame stared at me, aghast.
The sun faded early. At dusk we gathered around the stove in the conservatory with the ladies-in-waiting. Several visitors were announced. They had come to congratulate Anna Pavlovna on Willem Alexander’s marriage, and she thanked them civilly, raising one eyebrow. Although her low opinion of her son’s new consort was widely known, she spoke in company as if the heavens had parted to let Sophie von Württemberg down in our midst.
The ease with which she lied fascinated me. She had the ability to rise above her deepest emotions, to transcend them. I envied her self-discipline. I studied her diplomatic talents, and decided that self-abnegation was something you could learn.
That Anna Pavlovna had deigned to show her true feelings to us earlier struck me as a sign of friendship and trust. But Kwame took it amiss, thinking she didn’t care what we thought because we were mere Africans. His dark moods shocked me, but they troubled him even more. At such times he would withdraw into himself, fall silent, and make himself impossible by sulking for hours.
Kwame’s glumness did not esc
ape notice. Fortunately Bernhard of Saxe arrived, accompanied by Hermann and Gustav. Not one of the guests neglected to wish my cousin a happy birthday, but they soon gave up trying to engage him in conversation and turned to me instead. I took it upon myself to entertain the company by making sums in my head from numbers called out by those present. Then I quoted Lamartine’s poem “Le Lac,” and after that I was handed a sketch pad upon which to draw the profile of any guest who cared to be portrayed. Everyone demanded to be sketched by me, and I was showered with praise. Both Kwame and I were commended for our diligence, and I found the applause deeply gratifying, more so indeed than the high marks we earned in class. To me it was the first true acknowledgment of how hard we had studied since arriving in Holland.
But Kwame persisted in his gloom. It was exasperating. Just as I was being vindicated! At the very time when I was demonstrating that our dedication and studiousness had gained us acceptance as equals in the highest society imaginable, he was choosing to behave like a savage. At first I was merely irritated, but soon my gorge rose.
For the first time in my life I was ashamed of him. Of his stubbornness. Indeed, of his presence. How many times hadn’t I felt ashamed of myself, but such mortification is not half as painful: yes, you break into a sweat and feel weak at the knees, but you can absorb the pain because it is your own. Feeling shame for someone you love tears you apart like a predator clawing its way out of your breast.
