A Distant Hope

by Ellin Carsta

  “We don’t want to leave you out, Georg, but we’re afraid the opportunity will be lost if we wait too long,” Karl added. “If you’re not convinced, Robert and I will leave the Hamburg office to you and help pay off the bank debt. We’ll still be brothers, as we’ve always been. But we may be going separate ways in our future businesses.”

  The children exchanged uneasy looks. Everyone in the room sensed that a course into the future was being fixed at that very moment.

  Georg looked at Robert, then Karl. “You’re that sure about it?”

  Robert nodded. “No doubts whatsoever. I’ll go to Cameroon and would be pleased if you’d come with me on this first trip, Elisabeth, and see your new home along with me and the children.”

  “Not under any circumstances!” Elisabeth replied vehemently.

  “Well, then you won’t see it until we move.”

  “I don’t want to go to Cameroon either,” Martha said clearly. “All my friends are here.”

  “You’ll make friends there if you want to,” Robert said.

  Luise, unsure, looked first to her mother and then to Martha before finally turning to her father. “I would love to go with you to Cameroon on the first trip.”

  “You shall not do that!” Elisabeth threatened.

  “She’s going to be living there soon, Elisabeth. You’d be well advised to follow our daughter’s example.” Robert smiled at Luise. “Then go pick some light clothing, my little girl. It’s warm in Cameroon.” He winked at his daughter, raised his glass, and waited for the others to do the same. “To new times, and the hopes that they bring!”

  “To new times,” the others echoed—except for Elisabeth, who didn’t give her husband so much as a glance. She pushed her chair back noisily and stood up.

  “Excuse me,” she said angrily. “Come, Martha. We won’t find a sympathetic ear here.”

  Martha stood up, casting an uneasy glance at her father. Then she followed her mother out the door.

  Luise’s eyes followed them. She felt bad about how things had gone. It wasn’t right for her father to simply ignore her mother’s concerns the way he had. But he had final say in their family, just as Georg did in his. And Luise was excited about being en route to Cameroon in just a few days.

  “May I be excused for a moment?” she asked.

  Her father looked surprised. “Certainly, Luise. Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be right back,” she replied. She returned momentarily with the large globe, which normally stood on a wooden pedestal in the study. She lifted it with some effort onto the little sideboard at the end of the room. Then she asked, “Where’s Cameroon?”

  Robert stood up with a smile, went over, and turned the globe. The others were curious, too, and stood up to see better.

  Robert put a finger on a spot.

  “Here, little one, is Hamburg.” He drew a curved line downward. “We’ll take a ship past here to West Africa. And here,” he said, tapping on another spot, “here is Cameroon. Our new home.”

  Chapter Three

  Cameroon, 1888

  The journey to Cameroon took exactly twenty-eight days. Luise used the time to review her final hours in Hamburg. The gulf between her and her mother seemed to have widened. Elisabeth had hardly spoken to her since that dinner when she decided to go to Cameroon with her father. Luise had often felt she couldn’t do anything right in her mother’s eyes, but it had gotten considerably worse.

  Every time she went to see the rabbits, she wore one of Anna’s aprons so she wouldn’t get dirty. She did her chores diligently and didn’t ask for her mother’s help in preparing for the trip, to avoid reopening the wound. It was all for naught. If Elisabeth paid attention to her at all, it was only with disgusted looks and angry comments. Luise didn’t know what she’d done to deserve them, apart from agreeing to go with her father.

  She had begged Martha to take care of the rabbits, feeling a bit guilty, though her sister should have shared in looking after the rabbits. She hoped Martha would keep her promise. Just to be sure, she asked Anna to feed them regularly. The housekeeper’s assurances relieved Luise far more than the promise she’d wrung from her sister. Though Anna’s responsibilities at the villa left her little free time, Luise knew the rabbits wouldn’t starve during her absence.

  She wrote all these things down during the voyage. And she experienced new things daily; Luise was bursting with thoughts during the trip and worried she hadn’t brought enough writing paper. She’d never been away from Hamburg before and had seen her cousin’s trip to Vienna as a grand adventure. She could scarcely believe she was heading for an infinitely more distant place by her father’s side. For all her excitement, she felt a little anxious about what to expect in this new world, which would be her home for the next few years.

  “Look over there!” Her father pointed out something as their ship glided into the bay. “The German flag.”

  Luise nodded and smiled. She sensed he was trying to share a feeling of their homeland. She did not tell him that it was precisely the sense of the foreign, the unknown, that amazed her. Everything looked completely different, and yet, as the steamer anchored some distance from shore, she had the feeling that everything was strangely familiar, as if she’d been there before.

  Several wooden huts stood on the left, above a long bay and beach that culminated in a huge forest. In Hamburg, ships moored directly against the imposing quay walls, but here passengers and cargo had to be ferried to land in smaller boats. From the beach a road led up into an interior that remained obscured when seen from the water. A distant mountain towered behind the forest, its highest peak touching the clouds.

  “Is that Mount Cameroon?” Luise asked her father.

  “The great Mount Cameroon,” he corrected her. “The local people call it Fako. It’s an active volcano.”

  Luise nodded and craned her neck landward again. Several smaller mountain ranges covered by tropical jungle crisscrossed the landscape in front of Mount Cameroon. The trees were 150 feet high or higher. She’d never seen anything so beautiful, not even in the picture books about foreign lands her grandfather used to show her. She felt, no, she knew that she wanted to belong here. Right here, in this faraway place, she would find home. The feeling overpowered her, filling her eyes with tears.

  “What’s the matter, little one? Don’t you like it?”

  Her father put an arm around her shoulders and gently drew her to him.

  “I can’t describe it,” Luise began in a small voice. “But it’s . . . it’s so . . .” She stammered. “It’s as if I’ve been here before. Everything seems strange and yet familiar.” She looked up to her father. “I know that’s nonsense, I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t think so, Luise.” He drew her toward him more closely as he looked over the railing at the land spread before them. “I feel the same way. Maybe where we ought to belong in the world is right here.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, then swallowed. “That’s the way it feels to me.”

  Several small, brightly painted boats approached to ferry them onto land. All the dark-skinned men were naked above the waist, which Luise found disconcerting. She’d never seen a man like that at home, certainly not in public. They climbed into the boats and were on the beach a few minutes later. Luise was somewhat shaky on her feet after the long voyage, but she climbed out of the little boat, taking the hand a man offered to steady her.

  “Thank you,” Luise said, nodding at him. He let go of her hand when he saw that she was firmly on the ground, and paid her no further mind. Luise wondered if she’d done something impolite, and wanted to apologize if so. But the man had already turned away and picked up a package that another boat had brought from the ship.

  “Do you understand my language?” her father asked another native, who was busily unloading the boat.

  The man gave him a brief look and resumed his work without answering. People swarmed everywhere, unloading, but nobody seemed to notice Robert and Lui
se Hansen standing helplessly on the beach watching the commotion. Robert spoke to several more people but got no response.

  “Where want go?” a voice asked suddenly, and Robert turned around.

  “Good day. My name is Robert Hansen, and this is my daughter Luise. We’d like to go to Johann Meyerdierks’s plantation.”

  The man nodded and called to two other men, who hurried over and picked up Robert and Luise’s luggage.

  “Walk,” the native said, turning away.

  “We’re supposed to follow them. Come on, Luise.”

  The two men with their luggage waited uphill and indicated that the Germans were to get onto a kind of stretcher—a piece of cloth between two poles. Four men stood ready to carry them to their destination.

  “I would prefer to ride,” Robert stated. “Horse!”

  He waited, then pointed at a half-dozen horses he’d spotted and made a whinnying sound. One of the men gestured toward the stretcher again, but Robert shook his head, pointed again to the horses, and tapped his chest. The man understood and soon returned leading one of the horses by the reins.

  “Thank you.” Robert mounted the horse and motioned to Luise that she should sit on the stretcher. Two men immediately lifted her up. For a moment she was afraid she’d fall, so she clutched the cloth. She quickly regained her balance, though she felt uncomfortable being carried by the men. But she kept the thought to herself. Her father had repeatedly told her during the voyage that everything would be different in Cameroon. And he said she should try to adapt to the people and understand their way of life. They would be dependent on the labor and experience of the locals for growing cocoa. Luise promised to do her best to learn, but even without her father’s request, she would have done the same.

  The stretcher swung back and forth as the bearers walked along the uneven path. The rocking of the ocean had bothered her much less. They’d been traveling for a good hour when the men shouted to each other and lay down the stretcher. At first Luise thought that they were taking a break; after all, they’d been carrying her the whole time without rest. But the men ran ahead, and Luise saw that a tree had fallen across the path.

  The two men tried with all their might to push the trunk away, but it didn’t budge an inch. Then one of the men came back, pointed to the horse, and said something to Robert that neither he nor Luise understood. But it quickly became clear that he wanted to use the horse to help drag the tree off the path. Robert dismounted, and the man skillfully tied one end of a rope around the trunk and the other around the horse’s neck. As the animal pulled, the men tried to shove the trunk aside. Robert hurried over and pushed as hard as he could, too, and together they managed to clear the path enough for them to be able to pass. The native in charge bowed several times before helping Robert remount, lifting Luise up again, and continuing on their way.

  Perhaps an hour later the path widened into a road that turned toward a stone house and farmland. Luise was overcome with amazement as they approached the buildings. The house was built wider than higher. The main building—a white stone two-story house—was flanked by single-story extensions. It had three bay windows on the front and a bright-red tile roof; the additions were covered with straw or something like it. A wooden veranda ran around the entire building, and the front was lined with square pillars that appeared to support the roof. She gaped at everything until the bearers set her down directly in front of the main house. Robert dismounted, and a white man in light-colored clothing emerged from the building.

  “What a welcome surprise,” he said in a friendly voice.

  “Herr Meyerdierks—how very nice it is to see you again,” Robert said, shaking the man’s hand. “May I introduce my daughter Luise?”

  The plantation owner offered her his hand. “Welcome! We Germans here in Cameroon all go by our first names. Please call me Johann.”

  Luise smiled, but avoided addressing him by his first name so soon. That was not how she was raised.

  “I’m Robert.” Luise’s father’s face reflected his pleasure at seeing the plantation owner again.

  Meyerdierks reached into his pocket for a few coins and said something to the bearers that Luise interpreted as a thank-you.

  “Come and sit on the veranda, and we’ll have a drink. Was it a good trip?”

  “Time passed faster than we expected. And the view here is really overpowering.”

  “This way, please.” Meyerdierks led the way and gestured to a table and some woven chairs.

  As they sat down, a servant quickly appeared and put a glass carafe and three glasses on the table, while another man watched.

  “Thank you, Mojo,” Meyerdierks said. Then he nodded toward the man standing behind Mojo.

  “That’s Malambuku, who’s been with me from the start. He’s the overseer and supervises the servants. You won’t find a better man if you decide to settle here.”

  “Thank you, sango.” Malambuku nodded and left the veranda.

  “He speaks German well enough, and he understands it entirely. His son, Hamza, is exceptionally gifted when it comes to cocoa trees. He’s just turned sixteen but is already so skilled that I couldn’t do without him.”

  “You’ve chosen a very beautiful spot to live,” Robert marveled.

  “When you’ve freshened up a bit, I’d like the pleasure of showing you around the plantation.” Meyerdierks gazed out across the land. “It will be hard to leave all this behind—the breadth of the landscape, the people, the climate. It’s like . . .”

  “Like a melody,” Luise chimed in for the first time and finished his sentence.

  Meyerdierks looked at her in surprise, and the girl immediately apologized. He smiled.

  “Yes, that perfectly describes Cameroon. Thank you, Luise. You’ve summarized my feelings for this wonderful spot in a single word.”

  Luise smiled, somewhat embarrassed. “Thank you, Herr Meyerdierks.”

  “Johann,” he corrected her. “Even if you’re younger—that’s the custom here. There are just under two hundred Germans living in Cameroon, and we all use first names.”

  “Two hundred?” Robert seemed surprised. “And are there regular meetings?”

  “Church on Sunday is as important here as it is in Germany. After the service we get together and discuss current events, and of course catch up on the latest gossip. Not very different from home.”

  “And yet you want to sell?” Robert swung his arm around. “We’d be satisfied to lease it for a time.”

  Meyerdierks shook his head.

  “If I’m finished with something, then that’s the end of it.” He took another look at the surroundings. “I may come back to Africa someday.” He took a sip. “My mother won’t live forever, and I’ve grown to love this country. But in my experience, either you do something with all your heart or not at all. I can’t go back home to take care of Mother and leave part of myself here. I’d do neither very well.”

  “A courageous decision,” Robert remarked. “And the conditions we discussed in Vienna are still acceptable?”

  Luise’s pulse sped up when Meyerdierks paused.

  “Not quite,” the plantation owner finally said.

  “What do you mean?” Robert asked, with more of an edge than intended.

  “We didn’t discuss the labor force in Vienna, which was an omission.”

  “Which means?”

  “I would be prepared to give you more time to pay off the plantation if you would agree to keep all the workers in your employ.”

  Robert breathed a sigh of relief. “That is certainly possible. Unless you hire people to lay out your socks in the morning.”

  Johann laughed heartily. “No, no. You’ll need every last one of them. But there are rumors about other plantation owners, and there’s no way I’d want that for my people here.”

  “What sort of rumors?”

  Meyerdierks grimaced. “They show no respect for the locals, and some treat them worse than animals.”

 
Robert shook his head. “That won’t happen when I take over the plantation. Never!”

  “That’s just how I sized you up. That is why I want you to guarantee to keep all my people and not force them to find work elsewhere.”

  “How much do you pay your men?”

  “They get room and board and ten marks a month as well.”

  “German marks?”

  “Yes. The currency was introduced here last October.”

  Robert reflected for a moment. “I admit that’s more than I’d expected. But back in Hamburg an employee makes a hundred marks a month and has to pay for rent, clothing, and food out of that.”

  “People don’t need much here. They live in huts, a bit away from the house and near the cocoa trees. Food costs are almost negligible, scarcely worth mentioning.”

  “How many do you employ?”

  “Twelve men and four women, that’s a firm number. But of course the women aren’t paid. Malambuku gets twelve marks a month. Hamza and the other men ten marks. Malambuku’s other children are thirteen, twelve, ten, and eight and are unpaid as well. The same for children of the other workers. They’re given food, that’s all.”

  “What are the total expenses?”

  “If you reckon two hundred marks, that should be sufficient.”

  Robert quickly calculated that he could hardly take care of his own family with that amount.

  “And how much time would I have to pay off the plantation?”

  “If you take over all the workers and don’t cut their wages, I’ll offer you eight years.”

  “And the ten thousand marks you asked for in Vienna still stands?”

  “Agreed,” Meyerdierks confirmed.

  Robert leaned forward. “We will have to put it in writing, but a handshake can confirm the deal right now.”

  Johann leaned forward as well.

  “I feel reassured that I’m placing the plantation in the best of hands.” He grasped Robert’s hand and shook it. Then he stood up. “We should drink to this with something stronger,” he announced, and went into the house. He returned with a crystal carafe containing a copper-colored liquid and two glasses. “I assume you won’t join us, Luise?”