My Name Is Not Angelica (6 page)

I hurried down the cliff to the beach and took my bath. The water was clear as air. I waded out shoulder deep, then swam back to the shore and put on the dress Mistress Jenna had given me.

I watched Preacher Gronnewold walk down the trail. I thought he would never reach the shore. He would take a step or two, then stop and read his Bible, then look at the sky and the sea, then take another step or two.

"Good morning," I shouted when he was only halfway down the trail. He didn't answer, but after that he closed the Bible and came fast. He had long thin legs like a stork. They straddled the rocks, leaped the bushes.

I met him at the bottom of the trail and fell to my knees, for Isaak Gronnewold loved all the slaves on the island of St. John, even the runaways, even black-browed Nero. It was strange to me that he could love everyone, good or bad, yet he did, he did.

Isaak Gronnewold put out a long, bony hand and got me to my feet. He didn't like my bows, what he called "prostrations," yet I made them anyway, I had to.

"Last night," he said, "you heard Governor Gardelin set down new laws?"

"I heard."

"The other slaves heard?"

"They heard."

"But do you believe, do the other slaves believe,
that the new laws are only threats to scare the timid, to warn the bold?"

"I don't know what the others believe. I believe that the governor is a cruel man. He is pleased to have an excuse to be cruel. The laws were cruel enough before he changed them."

"The new laws are not threats. They are real. You and all of Master van Prok's slaves must understand this."

"They understand. I understand."

"Before the new laws, when we had the old laws, I went from plantation to plantation. And I read from the Bible many Sundays during the last year."

"Yes, you read over and over, 'What doth the Lord require of thee but to walk humbly with thy God?'"

"That was not done. Slaves from Cruz Bay to Hawks Nest and from here to Mary Point and from there to Coral Bay and back did not walk humbly. Instead, many ran away and hid in the bushes. Now there are runaways scattered all over the island, three hundred of them. More than three hundred. And more flee every day."

"You read other things from the Bible, too. You read what Christ told his friends when he went into the mountain. He told them, 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' He said other things, but these are the words that you said every time you talked to us. You said them at every plantation on the island. 'Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth.' I remember that I didn't know what 'inherit' meant and you said, 'It means "own." ' The meek shall own the earth."

Minister Gronnewold pulled at his nose. "I remember," he said, as if he did not wish to remember.

"Is that what you are going to say to us now? Do you want us to obey the new laws?"

"The new laws are bad. So bad they will destroy themselves, one by one."

"But until that time, until they do destroy themselves, we should obey them?"

"You
must
obey them. There's no other choice."

"We can run away. Dozens have. Over two hundred are hiding at Mary Point right now."

"Yes, but they starve."

"Better to starve..."

Cannon shot rang out from Governor Gardelin's ship. It lay anchored far out in the bay, too far to be surprised by enemies. Puffs of dirty white smoke drifted up and floated toward us. A yellow flag fluttered in the wind. The deck swarmed with guards in bright red uniforms.

"That is true, dear Raisha." He and Konje were the only ones who ever called me by my true name. "It shall come to pass."

"When?"

He looked away, far out into the distance.

"When?" I asked again. "When will the meek inherit the earth?"

He shook his head. "It has been many years since Christ spoke these words. And it may be many more."

"While we're alive?"

"Alas, no. But never unless we are meek."

"I understand," I said, though I did not.

Cannon roared. Puffs of smoke floated up again. Governor Gardelin came down the ship's ladder. He scrambled into a boat draped with flags and was rowed toward shore. In the shallows he climbed on the shoulders of two guards. But after a few steps, as one of the guards stumbled, the governor fell into the water.

He came up shouting, waving his arms, and was rowed back to his ship. I didn't see him until nearly noon. They had a horse for him now. He came up from the beach surrounded by guards, with two musicians playing. Slaves were called from the fields to stand and bow. I was invited to join them. He talked to Isaak Gronnewold, who was going to Mary Point to talk to the runaways.

The governor gave him a paper with his new laws written on it. "Read to them," he said.

"They know about the laws already," Preacher Gronnewold said. "The drums have told them."

"Be sure to tell them again," the governor said.

"I will gladly do so, sir."

"And tell Konje that if he sends his runaways back to the plantations they have foolishly fled, I will forgive them despite the law. None will be punished except for two bites each from the tongs and ten stripes. They will lose no legs or arms or their lives."

"Yes, sir." Isaak Gronnewold said.

He put the paper between the leaves of the Bible and tied it on his donkey's back. The Bible had a wood and goatskin cover. The wood was splintered and the long goat hair was worn off. He got on his donkey and started up the trail for Mary Point. I ran along beside him.

"Please give all my love to Konje," I said.

"I will do so."

"But save some for yourself."

"I will."

He stopped when we reached the gully that swooped down, then up again. He was riding a gray donkey. He liked donkeys better than horses because he liked to swing his long legs and touch the earth.

"Shall I tell Konje to come back?" he asked me.

"Konje will not come back, whatever I say."

"Do you want him to come back?"

"No. I will be with him when there's enough food at Mary Point."

Isaak Gronnewold reached out with a bony hand and grasped my shoulder. "Listen," he said, "there
will never be enough food at Mary Point. The runaways only get what they steal and what the slaves give them. That will end with the new laws and the guards that will scour every hill and valley on the island, starting this very day."

I wanted to be angry with him but, though I stopped breathing at the awful thought, I knew that he spoke the truth.

As if he were a prophet speaking from the Bible, he said, "Unless Konje and his runaways give up, they shall be slain, man, woman, girl, and boy."

"Perhaps the Lord will think of a miracle, like the miracle when he parted the sea in the middle and walls of water were on both sides of the children of Israel and they went through on dry land and were saved from the Egyptians."

"The children of Israel slaved in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years before they were saved. The slaves of St. John have slaved on this island for scarcely ten years."

"Do we have to slave hundreds of years before the sea parts in the middle and we can go free?"

"I pray day and night that the sea will part much sooner. You must pray too, and ask the others to pray."

"I do pray. All the slaves pray."

"The Lord will hear us," said Isaak Gronnewold.

We came to the bottom of the gully. There was a hollow place to one side of the trail where a pool
of water had collected. Grass had started to grow around the edges. The donkey veered from the trail and began to graze.

Preacher Gronnewold pulled on the halter, but the donkey went on eating. He spoke to it, saying gentle words from the Bible. He sometimes spoke to the birds and animals as if they were people.

The beast went on cropping the grass. Preacher Gronnewold explained that they had miles to go and work to do. The beast pricked up its ears and listened but went on eating. I also had work to do.

"My friend," Preacher Gronnewold said to the donkey, "if you move on, I'll read from Exodus, your favorite part of the Bible. You can eat the rest of the grass when we return."

I searched around, as he kept up this conversation, and found a branch from a dead tree. With it I gave the beast a good whack, which sent them on their way.

"Give my love to Konje," I shouted again.

He didn't answer, but raised the Bible and waved. His legs were flying. It looked like a six-legged donkey plunging up the trail.

When I got back, running because I was late, Governor Gardelin and his red-coated guards, nearly fifty of them, were in front of the mill. He was telling the guards what he wanted that day. They were to divide into four squads, one squad going to the north, one to the south, one to the east, and one to the west.

"Stay on the regular trails, do not wander," he said. "Visit every plantation. I am giving the officer of each squad a list of my laws. Plantation owners will gather their slaves. The officer is to read to them every one of the new laws, slighting none."

The noonday sun seemed not to move in the sky. Drops of sweat formed on the governor's forehead. He stopped to rub them off.

"You are not to use your guns," he went on, "unless you are attacked, which is not likely. And you're to return to this plantation not later than Wednesday morning, this being Monday."

The guards rode off on their fine horses, straight in the saddle, laughing among themselves. They were happy, it seemed, to be leaving Governor Gardelin.

After I bathed Mistress Jenna, I brought her breakfast in from the cookhouse and food for Master van Prok's and Governor Gardelin's noonday meal. The governor had six guards standing watch outside the house. He worked on a paper as Dondo fanned him and swatted sand flies. Then he went back to his ship.

Master van Prok worked outside in the hot sun. He called the slaves down from the fields and had them gather bundles of pinguin. Pinguin has hundreds of crooked thorns that don't stick like cactus but tear your flesh. The slaves made pinguin ropes and tied them over the six windows of the house.

"Nobody will suddenly crash through a window," Master van Prok said to his wife, when he came in at dusk.

"Can't the pinguin be cut with sharp knives?" Mistress Jenna asked.

"Yes, but that takes time. It gives us a chance. We won't be surprised. We won't look up to see someone standing over us with a cane knife."

I was fanning the hot air, keeping the midges away from Mistress Jenna. At these words, a shudder ran through her body.

"I'm scared," she said.

She had been scared for weeks now. Master van Prok had heard these words many times. She was drinking a little more every day, which he did not like.

"You should go to St. Thomas," he said. "It's much safer in St. Thomas. They've had less than a dozen runaways and all have been caught and punished. You can leave with the governor when he leaves in a day or two."

She turned to me. "What do you think, Angelica?"

It was not an easy question to answer. I knew that she was in danger. All the white people were in danger. The danger grew more and more every day. I hunched my shoulders and said nothing.

"Speak up!" Master van Prok said.

"I don't know about the danger."

"You must know something."

At that moment, as the dusk deepened, the big drum at Mary Point began to talk. Another, a
smaller drum, south toward Cruz Bay, broke in.

"You know the drum talk, Angelica. What are they saying?"

"The small drum says that soldiers on horses have come and gone."

"The big drum says what?"

"It's jabbering."

"Jabbering about what?"

"Nonsense."

"What kind of nonsense?"

"It's just making a noise."

This was the truth but Master van Prok got up from his hammock and paced the floor. His heavy boots on the stones drowned out the sound of the drums.

He quit pacing. "Noise. Nonsense. Huh! You're the one making a noise. You're the one talking nonsense."

He pointed a finger at me. "You're lying, Angelica. Stop the fanning."

I put the fan aside.

"Look at me," he said.

I had never looked at Master van Prok, not since the first day on the plantation when he had reached out and touched my skin. I was angry then. I had looked him straight in the eye. He slapped me and said that I was not to look at him or at his wife or at any white person. I was to look up or down or to one side, but never straight into a white per
son's eyes. That was the custom on the island of St. John and the island of St. Thomas. If I ever did, I would be pinched with red-hot tongs.

Now that I had stopped fanning Mistress Jenna, she complained of the flies and the heat. Master van Prok asked her to be quiet.

"Angelica, look at me," he said.

I tried to look at him. But my eyes shifted about the room, at Dondo, at the house lizard stalking a fly, at Master van Prok's ringed finger, which he pointed at the ceiling.

"Look at me," he said, "not around the room. You have seen the room before. Look at
me!
"

My eyes felt heavy. I looked at the part in the middle of his wig. My eyes watered and tears ran down my cheeks. I could look no more.

He glanced at the whip that lay coiled beneath his hammock.

"Look at him, dear," Mistress Jenna said.

I lowered my eyes. I looked straight into his. It was like looking at the blazing sun.

"Good," Master van Prok said. "Now tell me what the drums talk about."

They boomed loud now that he had stopped pacing the floor. To the south a third drum had joined in.

"They talked noise and nonsense," I said. "Now they are talking about the day the revolt begins."

Mistress Jenna raised herself in the hammock
and put her feet on the floor. "The day? When is that?"

"The drums don't say when."

A small gasp caught in Mistress Jenna's throat. She flung herself back in the hammock. I felt sorry for her, she looked so pale and frightened.

Master van Prok said, "Gardelin's laws, once the runaways think about them for a day or two, will cool them down. They'll think twice before they attack the plantations."