by Kira Saito
“Let me explain it to you in a way that you’ll better understand, Erzulie is playing the role of some innocent loa who happened to regret being involved in the great revolution, but she is far from innocent. She was the one who started the revolution! The one who gave us all hope and the one that created Him!”
“I already know all of that. She told me herself. She’s not playing some role. I know that she is genuinely sorry for what she did.” I wasn’t going to let Marinette rob me of my convictions. “You’re on His side, aren’t you?”
“Oui!” She slurped on the gasoline and blew out a giant flame of fire from her mouth. It lit up the night sky and the beautiful flowers that surrounded us started to burn. “And so is Erzulie! You can’t see that, can you? You’re so blind! Unlike her, I don’t deal with riddles and manipulations. I only speak the truth! So, as another act of mercy, He is asking you to join Him and be His Queen.”
“Please stop,” I pleaded, as the flames continued to rise, and the smoke began to engulf us.
“Only if you agree!” She placed her machete to my neck and began to draw blood.
“I can’t do that.” I stood my ground. Of course, He wanted me to be His Queen. I was stubborn as hell, and He knew that using Emilie would only get him so far.
“You’ll fall in love with Him, once you get to know Him. I promise.” Her voice softened as she retracted her blade.
“Nope. I don’t think so.” I coughed, as the smoke grew thicker and my eyes clouded with fog.
“That’s been her plan all along, you stupid girl! If you’re too blind to see, I’ll show you.” With those words, she placed her gasoline-laden bottle to my mouth and forced me to drink the burning liquid. My head spun with confusion, and I gasped for air as the smoke closed up my lungs. My eyes were closed, and I felt my spirit drift to a land that I had once caught a glimpse of.
Chapter Twenty-One
Le Cap, Saint-Domingue, 1726
Sweet as Sugar
My eyes opened, and I was Kandal once again. The blistering sun and fester of wounds, lashes, and heavy chains that I had once desperately rebelled against were nothing compared to the sweetness I had just experienced. The flame that had been lit within me was unlike anything I had ever felt before. I wanted her. I would do anything to find her and be with her. I suppose it was silly of me when I didn’t even know her name. Frustration arose within me as slaves, buyers, horses, ships, crates and a multitude of other distractions obscured her from my view. Fury burned within my chest as she strolled off the dock and into the muddy, manure filled street on the arm of a man whose face or color I could not see.
In my homeland, I would have sent one of my servants after her, but now, I was bound in captivity, in chains that stopped me from pursuing her and asking her to be my wife, my bride and my queen. Over the rot and manure that lingered in the air, I could smell her sweet scent; it was sweet as sugar and as rich as the expensive wine I had indulged in back home. Despite the fact that I was covered in sweat, human excrement and blood, I clung to my dignity and the whispers of promises that I would be the king of this island and the New World. I knew Erzulie was near. I could feel her watching me, but she was silent and cold. Perhaps, she knew that my heart had already betrayed me and foresaw that love would be the end of her great plans for my future.
“Get up, you worthless slave.” The rough boot of the slave trader dug into my once muscular stomach which was now emancipated due to the long, treacherous journey over the sea. I rose from the filthy floor of the wooden dock and was smart enough not to argue. What good would my fancy education do for me in this strange land where the average slave lived for eighteen months at the most? For the first time, I finally took in the island that was now my home. The air was different, more humid, full of a vicious energy that was ripe for revolution, for rebellion, for freedom.
Mountains around me rose as high as 6,000 feet. In the distance, I could see an incalculable number of streams and rivers which smoothly meandered between the lush valleys and plains. Fields upon fields of light green sugar cane danced and rippled in the tropical breeze and contrasted beautifully against the cloudless blue sky. Low banana trees, branches of stately palms and vast groves of golden and red mango trees dotted the landscape as did thousands of trees that provided the bitter nectar called coffee, which the world was increasingly growing addicted to.
So this would be my future? A future that would consist of providing vast amounts of wealth to France in the form of sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton, indigo and cocoa. A brutal slap interrupted my analysis of my looming fate. "Open your mouth!" ordered a colored man who was dressed in fancy black trousers, a crisp white shirt with lace cuffs that was unwrinkled and unspotted, despite the heat and filth. I glanced at his shiny pair of perfectly polished black shoes with low heels and felt disgusted. I did as I was told, and he inspected my white teeth one by one. Once satisfied, he pinched my skin and tasted my sweat, undoubtedly, to see if I was as healthy as I appeared. He squeezed the muscles in my arms and calves and continued to poke and prod my body until he was fully satisfied that I was perhaps a good investment. His distrusting brown eyes watched me carefully as if I were about to transform into a lizard, or he may have been merely assessing if I was worth the price the seller was asking. “There is something strange about his eyes,” he said to the red-headed seller who was busy indulging in whiskey and counting the number of prostitutes he would bed later that night.
His green eyes looked at me in disgust, and he flashed me a diseased smile consisting of rotting brown teeth. “Oh yes, they are quite rare, aren’t they? That shade of blue is one that I haven’t seen before on a slave or a white man, but again he claims that he comes from nobility.”
The colored buyer raised his heavy eyebrow in mistrust and irritation. “Don’t they all?”
"Yes, but this one is rare in the sense that he can read, write and recite poetry."
“And how do you know that?”
“The little show off understands and speaks at least five different languages, so I assume he’s telling the truth about reading and writing. I know his skills will turn off a lot of buyers, but some might find them useful.”
I remained quiet as the buyer and seller discussed my worth and calculated the number of months I would survive in the most brutal slave colony in the entire world.
“Do you speak French?” asked the buyer.
“Oui,” I responded.
“Impressive. This will cut the need for laborious translations. I’ll take him,” said the buyer. “My master is looking for a new slave driver now that I’ve been promoted to the position of manager. I’ll start him off in the fields. If he obeys and does as he is told, maybe he’ll be promoted to driver and that act of kindness will extend the years of his life.”
I watched as they closed the deal and shook hands. The buyer clapped his hands, and a flaming iron rod was given to him. He proceeded to brand me with an unfamiliar logo and my body and soul screamed out in wretched pain as the hot iron scorched my skin. I was officially bought, marked, owned property that would be subject to my master's every whim.
A ghostly white monk with red hair and bright green eyes dressed in a heavy black robe and thick metal cross then proceeded to baptize me in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit while making me vow to renounce my heathen faith. He ripped off the cowry shells that hung around my neck but left the silver cross that had belonged to my mother.
“Do you understand that you are no longer to engage in anything that reminds your master of your home country? You are now a new creature, a new creature in Christ our Lord and Savior.” He glared at me with his piercing eyes trying to gauge if my seemingly inferior mind was able to understand what he was saying. His skin reminded me of a roasted pig. My underfed stomach howled in hunger. The colored buyer stood next to him with an equally stern expression, and I could see that he had long ago abandoned the faith of his forefathers and had embraced the God of the new world.
I simply nodded in agreement not because I wanted him to stop his preaching, but because I, unlike the rest of the world, had no faith in a higher power. If this god did exist, He was weak and pathetic and wasn’t worthy of my worship. I didn’t have a savior complex. I had made my peace with those delusions long ago. I had miraculously managed to remain calm while enduring horrific humiliation because I knew that vengeance was mine. Erzulie had promised that all of this wealth would be mine for the taking. After I had taken it all, I would find her, the one who had stolen my heart, soul, and spirit with her mere presence. The one who was as sweet as sugar and as intoxicating as a desert rose. The buyer continued to inspect the other slaves, but he didn't find one that impressed him as I had. He shook his head in disgust as he poked and prodded the other property for what seemed like an eternity. In the end, he settled on buying only me.
Breda Plantation – Saint Dominque, 1726
The crack of a whip, stifled cries, and weary groans echoed throughout the clayey baked tropical soil with its earth fried hard by the unforgiving sun. Around me, hundreds of men and women of all different ages and shapes were naked or covered in nothing but filthy rags. Sweat slid off their tired bodies as they battled fatigue, sunstroke and a desperate hopelessness that was thick as the humidity that clouded the Caribbean island. The silence was mournful as they went about their daily routine of digging ditches, cutting cane, cleaning the rough stalks, chopping them in gigantic claw-like machines, and boiling the final juice in large pots to transform it into a thick syrupy liquid that would eventually become the sweet white powder which the world could not live without.
The hawk-like gaze of the manager who had purchased me watched over us as did his gang of slave drivers who patrolled the field with whips in hand, ready to lash out at any slave who had the courage to take a quick rest from their labor. I kept my head down and used my powerful body as an effective machine that pleased the manager to no end. I was a patient man, willing to bide my time until the opportunity would come when I could carry out the plan Erzulie had laid out for me and set all these poor captives free.
She had visited me once since I had gotten here. She told me that she was searching the island, conducting research and making allies. As a spirit, she had far vaster knowledge than I did, and I knew that when the time was right, she would come to me with advice. Why she had chosen me was still a mystery. She told me that I was born for a time such as this. She had questioned me as to why I had shown a sign of weakness on the dock by dropping to my knees. I told her that I had been tripped by a jealous rival slave. I wouldn't tell her about the beautiful creature who haunted my dreams every night and fueled me with the energy I needed to survive this temporary torment.
I wasn't blind to the fact that I was handsome, and my physique along with my knowledge made the slave women howl with desire. I had gained a reputation of bedding various slave women on a nightly basis. It wasn't my fault, they knocked on my cabin door and would bring me their portion of cassava, salted fish, coarse flour, rice, and beef. They went hungry for half of the week just to spend a night with me.
Hell, regardless of its perceived benefits was still hell. I had been living in this hell for less than a month, but I already had a firm grasp on how society on this island functioned. At the top of the chain, there were the grands blancs who owned a majority of the plantations on the island and often hailed from European nobility. Then, there were the petits blancs whose only resource was the color of their white skin. They had no title or considerable fortune and hailed from all over the globe. They held positions of artists, merchants, civil officers and a variety of other jobs that needed to be filled. The affranchis were the free people of color who were split into at least a hundred different categories based on the color of their skin, and the amount of white blood that ran through their veins. They didn’t have political rights, but they did have vast amounts of wealth and prestige which should have placed them above the petits blancs. At the bottom of the ladder, were the slaves, this pitiful class who was doomed to death. I would change that, or I was constantly reminded. I could already see what the poor inhabitants of the island were too blind to see; their endless divisions would eventually bring their downfall. Those who had wealth were under the foolish impression that they held the most power. This was a grave mistake on their part as the number of slaves vastly outnumbered them.
After the sun had gone down, and the cool of the night and the fresh ocean breeze brought some minimal relief, the time had come for another sleepless night. I walked back to the housing square with the rest of the slaves who were not only worked like animals, but were also housed like animals. Plots of vegetable gardens, wild chickens, and clusters of fig, cashew, banana, and mango trees were the only beauty that was to be found. My pitiful hut which was no more than 20 to 25 feet long was divided by flimsy partitions and shared with three other people. I entered the windowless room with its beaten earth floor, straw bed, the stench of misery, and for the first time in my entire life wondered if death itself was better than life. Suicide was a common occurrence on the plantation, and many slaves preferred death to life because they claimed that it meant they would be able to return to Africa.
“I know what you’re thinking,” a familiar voice said. “I told you never to think those thoughts. That is not your destiny.”
I closed the rickety cabin and turned around. My mouth opened at the sight of her in human form. She had never appeared to me this way before. Dressed in an elegant pink silk gown, large gold hoop earrings, and a green headdress, she was vastly younger than I had calculated. Her hazel eyes shone in pleasure as they rested on me. It was as if they held some secret that would never be revealed to me.
“Island life is treating you well I see,” I said taking in her radiant caramel skin which boasted a flawless complexion.
“Don’t mistake my vanity as weakness. I am here to tell you what you need to do. Come here and listen carefully,” she said, as she motioned for me to join her on the bed. The golden bracelets on her arms clinked together, and I noticed that she was holding a silver dagger in her left hand. Her demure had changed, and I could tell that she was no longer going to be peaceful as a dove.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Le Cap, Saint-Domingue, 1726
Plans gone astray
My weary body collapsed on the bed. I stretched out my long sinewy legs and was amazed at how hard labor had made them more muscular than the training I had received at the King’s Academy. “So tell me what you know. How exactly do a handful of whites dominate the entire black population? What have you learned? What have you seen? Have you met any useful humans or spirits who are willing to join your cause?" My tone had a half mocking ring to it, and I realized that maybe I was losing hope without fully knowing it. Since I had been here, I hadn't met a single spirit which made me think that I was suffering from hallucinations rather than supernatural visitations.
“You haven’t fallen in love, have you?” She ignored my questions. Her beautiful eyes pierced mine, and I felt a sudden and inexplicable connection to her. Would she be able to tell if I was lying?
I avoided the question. “What is your vendetta against falling in love?” I asked the question that had hounded me since she had made the odd request.
“It will make you weak and distract you from your destiny. Gods don’t fall in love. They rule and judge.”
“God? Have I gone from a king to a god? When did this happen?” I asked perplexed by her increasingly grand design for my future.
“You’re avoiding the question,” she scolded me in the same tone my grandmother had used on me so many times when she was frustrated. “I see how many women you’ve bedded, don’t think that I don’t watch your every move.”
“If you watch my every move, then you can clearly see that these women come knocking on my door and offer me food. My liaisons are nothing more than simple transactions which are beneficial to both parties. In case you haven’t noti
ced, there aren’t any grand libraries here in which I can pass my time. I’ve answered your question, now answer mine. What is the method?”
“Terror,” she said simply.
“Terror?” I asked in confusion.
“You remember slavery in the Kongo, don’t you? The wars between the tribes, and the selling of innocent souls at the slightest accusation that they were plotting against the king?”
“How can I forget,” I said sarcastically.
“Here it is much worse. I have been around this entire island, and I can confirm that this regime is one of carefully constructed terror and brutality. I’ve seen slaves receive more whippings than food, irons on hands and feet, blocks of wood tied to slaves to increase the burden of their work, awful metal masks specifically designed to stop them from eating sugar cane, hot ashes, pepper, salt among other things poured on festering wounds. I have seen more amputations of limbs than I can count and have witnessed humans being roasted alive and being boiled in sugar cane.”
Anger gripped me as she continued to discuss the graphics of what she had seen and how these atrocities were being conducted in organized and carefully carried out patterns. “How can I stop it?” I asked perplexed as to how I would be able to end such horrific practices.
“You have to be more terrible than the enemy,” she said simply.
“How?”
“I’ve made allies, other spirits who have been murdered brutally. They will help you exterminate the enemy and release all of the captives. I have also convinced the Maroons to accept you as their leader. They’ve heard legends of the coming king and are certain that you match every one of the qualifications,” she said referencing the band of black rebels who were famous for their attacks of terror. The group made up of runaway slaves, lived on the highest mountain peaks of the island and carried out their attacks with deadly surprise under the cloak of night with savage weapons such as machetes and knives. It was a well-known fact that they were waiting for a leader to stop the practice of slavery and provide equality, liberty and fraternity for all.
