Tangled Passion (3 page)

Jonah knew that his old friend wasn’t going to give up until he told him what it was that his thoughts were momentarily wrapped around. The two had shared and discussed countless issues and topics in the past—both personal and sensitive. But Jonah was hesitant to share what had him so troubled; what was on his mind was a subject that they had never touched before, hence it was one he had no idea how to divulge.

“Ashana.” The name escaped his mouth before his heart gave approval—“These days have brought a lot of work for me...” he added very quickly, scrambling to change the topic.

“Really?” PaNene replied–he’d already heard the name and he noticed the effort the young man made to change the topic and decided that it was better to play along. He knew that his young friend was fighting harder than a drowning man to empty his heart of a weight that threatened to tear it apart. The least he owed him was to play along until he was ready to talk.

“Yes PaNene,” Jonah continued, relieved that he’d succeeded in redirecting the conversation. “The sun has never been hotter and the whips never cracked any harder on our backs than they do these days,” he added.

PaNene snatched his eyes from his wrinkled foot; his head had been bowed for a while and he’d used that opportunity to take notice of his own feet. The topography of veins and wrinkles that characterized their tops was something he had never taken the time to appreciate. He didn't need anyone to tell him just how long he’d lived; the number was spelt out in those veins and wrinkles. He looked up to his right at Jonah; once again as if the sudden silence had just come to his attention. “Jonah,” he said very softly, not sure if he should call the boy back to their present world—the real world, or let him wander a little while longer in the world where he was presently lost. The lack of response didn’t bother PaNene; Jonah’s face was securely fastened to a spot somewhere in the thick darkness of the forest sprawled before them. The young man’s mouth was slightly open and his brow contorted like that of a philosopher bent on unraveling an ancient mystery.

“Jonah!” PaNene called out in a sharp whisper. Jonah jumped and was instantly almost on his feet but the old man held him back.

“Pa,” Jonah uttered in protest, like someone who had been violently interrupted from a dream he was seriously enjoying.

“Yes son, are you back?”

“I was lost in thought for a minute,” Jonah said, a little embarrassed.

“I noticed, now have you found your way out of it?” the old man teased.

Jonah’s lips spread slowly and a smile appeared on his face; he had simply drifted away without excusing himself, caught up and lost in the wild wind of the thought of Ashana.

“Yes Pa,” he replied unenthusiastically. His response came with the same enthusiasm with which one would respond to a handshake offer from an opponent they’d lost to for the umpteenth time.

“Oh you mean that you have been lost in the thought of Ashana and the Massa’s son?” PaNene uttered very softly and in a tone devoid of any intentions to cause any kind of trouble. Jonah turned away, not only embarrassed that his attempt to conceal his problem had failed but mostly because once more, the old wise man had correctly read him and beaten him at his own game. “We are slaves,” PaNene continued. “Born or sold into it; either way fate decided our fates. So tell me young man, who are we to contend with fate?”

Jonah gave the old man a thoughtful look; he wasn’t sure to whom the old man’s last statement was directed. “Pa, I don’t unders….”

“If you choose to wrestle with fate, then you must first find out where he lives, then you need to find out when he’d be home, and even after that, you must be able to tell whether he stands on his head or legs,” PaNene interrupted without apologies.

Jonah had heard the same speech and several others of its kind so many times he could literally repeat them and often did recite them in his head, whenever the old man began to narrate them. His conclusion was that the old man was obsessed with fate; what other reason would make a man link everything to it? 

“Fate needs no permission, fate brought you into this world; why should you or anyone else claim the right to decide what happens to them? Be happy with whatever it hands you, my friend,” the old man had once said to Jonah. “Son, we must retire now, it’s late and you must rise early tomorrow to continue the harvest,” PaNene said very casually.

“Pa, I know he wants her!” Jonah blurted suddenly. “I saw it in his eyes, I saw the way his eyes calculated her every detail and followed her every move. I can tell he wants Ashana.” Jonah was severely rattled; the pain and fear in his heart reflected in his tone.

“Really?” the old man said, feigning a look of surprise.

“Yes!” Jonah replied with confidence. “I know what he is planning, he is going to take her from me! I am going to lose her! I don’t want to lose Ashana! I don’t want to lose her!” He wept softly, slightly embarrassed, yet unable to rein in his betraying emotions.

“Jonah, listen to me!” There was sudden sternness in the old man’s tone; the words seemed to have filtered through clenched teeth. “You won’t lose her,” he added reassuringly.

“What do you mean?” Jonah queried; his countenance suddenly hopeful.

“She was never yours Jonah; she was bought and brought here by the Massa, so how could you lose something that was never yours” In fact, it is safer to lose her now rather than later.”

“What?” Jonah whispered over and over to himself; he’d been repeating the old man’s statement long after PaNene was gone, in attempt to digest it but to no avail. Angry and exhausted, Jonah concluded that his old friend was mad; the old man had to be mad.

PaNene didn’t expect Jonah to understand, the boy was simply too young—who understands anything at that age? All PaNene wanted to do was to prevent his young friend from going through what he’d gone through at Jonah’s age. Although it had been many years, PaNene remembered everything vividly as he did every time he closed his eyes to sleep; a beautiful slave girl had just been brought to the Fort and she’d immediately stolen his heart. She too was heads over heels for him and they met secretly every night. The times they spent together kept them both alive and supplied the needed strength to survive the harshness of the days. PaNene was happy and content with his life until one night when he saw something that caused the blood in his veins to freeze first, and then shoot to boiling point.

PaNene had arrived at their rendezvous place a little earlier as usual and swept away dead leaves from the ground with his palm, clearing a spot for Neka to sit when she arrived. But after an hour of waiting, he became worried; not only was Neka aware that they were to meet that night, she was never late and it troubled PaNene. But he wouldn’t leave, he was determined to wait as long as it took; he wouldn’t dare to go to the female slave quarters in search for her, it was way too early and the women were still up sharing stories and gossip. He bowed his head and occupied himself with the thought of her warmth, her gracefulness, and the dreams they shared. Although she wasn’t a smashing beauty, her body was a work of art and her skin was the smoothest ever. “What is keeping you Neka?!” he’d said to himself after another hour rolled by. It was abnormal that she still hadn’t shown up and his anxiousness drove him to climb the huge boulder that was beside the tree, under which he was seated. It was a risky endeavor, the boulder was close to a hundred feet in height and got smaller the higher you climbed, but PaNene’s anxiety erased all fears.

At the top of the boulder, he’d be able to see the entire Fort and if Neka was on her way, he’d also see her. A few men were gathered outside the male slave quarters and a slightly larger group of women was gathered outside the female slave quarters. PaNene screwed his eyes tightly and angled his head in several directions but was unable to make out any shape that resembled that of Neka in the group.
She must have fallen asleep
, he thought, slowly shaking his head. “Sleep my dear princess,” he whispered into the wind. It had been a tough day at the plantation; harvest times were tougher still—a smile plastered over PaNene’s face, he was relieved and decided it was time to head back to the hut. It had occurred to him that surely Neka was sound asleep; exhausted from the day’s hard work. He adjusted himself on the boulder to begin his descent but as he turned to the left, his eyes fell on a woman struggling to keep her balance. It appeared as though she had been shoved through the door in front of which she now stood. PaNene’s heart stopped briefly as he watched the somewhat familiar shape bend over and reach for something on the ground—her wrapper. He watched closely as the woman picked up the wrapper and threw it over her naked body. His chest swelled and his heart raced as he blinked many times, trying to refuse the suggestion his eyes were offering. But a closer and more careful look forced him to accept the fact that the woman who was struggling to cover her nakedness in front of Assistant Massa Lionel’s hut was Neka. His muscles temporarily suspended every request to move, forcing him to remain frozen with anger that threatened to set him ablaze. A few minutes later, the door opened a few feet behind Neka and Massa Lionel stepped out, PaNene watched the end of his tobacco glow as he sucked on the other end, revealing his face and the satisfactory smirk it bore.

The following night Neka cried her heart out to PaNene, begging him to escape with her but he feared the risks of such a venture. “And where would we go?” he asked, promising her that the incident would never reoccur. But it never stopped; instead the frequency increase until a rumor went around that Lionel had been transferred to a different island, giving them relief. But soon after, another rumor travelled the Fort; Lionel had paid Massa Longstands enough money for Neka and he was taking her with him to his new post. PaNene couldn’t come up with an escape plan and Neka couldn’t bear the thought of being Massa Lionel’s mistress so she drew up her own plan; a plan that she kept from PaNene until one morning when he woke up to a crowd gathered around the well behind the female slave quarters.

“What is going on?” he asked apprehensively, as he approached the wailing crowd. None of them said a word to him but his head was already suggesting something that he refused to listen to until he peered into the well and confirmed his worst fear—Neka’s body was in it but it was lifeless; floating like a leaf in the sea. She had escaped to another world without him. In the dark of the night while everyone slept, she had found solace in the belly of the well.

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Occasionally they toyed with the idea of escape; there were rumors about a few islands where the slaves had become free and allowed to live side by side with their former slave Massa. The mere thought of the existence of such an island was as exciting as it was difficult to imagine for all slaves who had heard of it. But even slave Massas had confirmed the rumor, albeit very secretly and only to their favorite slaves.

This night, Jonah arrived at their secret meeting place earlier than usual; the excitement of seeing and being alone with Ashana filled his stomach and fought for space with the fear of losing her—a fear that had intensified since he caught Nathan devouring Ashana with his eyes. He cleared the dead leaves on the ground, making a place for Ashana to sit next to him whenever she arrived. His early arrival was not unplanned; he needed some time to clear his severly clogged head of all the confusion and fear that had collected since the arrival of the Massa's Longstands’s son. After sitting, Jonah rested his back against the huge and almost flat trunk of the flamboyant tree under which he was seated, closed his eyes, and slowly tilted his head backwards until it rested against the trunk and then drifted away. He wondered if the Massa's son was in love with Ashana or was merely lusting after her. “Nonsense,” he whispered, shaking his head slowly. Either way, what was Nathan planning on doing? There was no doubt that Jonah didn't stand a chance if Nathan wanted Ashana.

The slave Massa’s son could have the love of Jonah’s life whenever he wanted and however he wanted. The thought of such a possibility numbed Jonah’s feet like poison in his bloodstream and caused an uproar in his head like something that only a hundred out-of-control children, jumping around, throwing down things and screaming at the tops of their voices could cause.

He knew what it meant for a girl as pretty as Ashana to be on a plantation; there were countless stories of Massas simply storming into female slave quarters, dragging a slave girl away, and tossing her out of their room minutes later, like a piece of used hand towel.

“Hmm,” Jonah exhaled then shrugged at the thought of such thing happening to Ashana. He also knew that if a Massa liked a slave girl he had previously been with, he could make a routine of it; sending for her every night or every other night. Worse still, the Massa could simply get the slave girl to move into the house slaves’ quarters, which were away from the regular slaves’ quarters—If that happened to Ashana, he would hardly ever see her again and there was no doubt he would not be able to bear it. None of the options appealed to Jonah; he didn’t want Nathan sleeping with Ashana and neither did he want Ashana moved away from within his reach; but what could he do if it happened, if Nathan wanted Ashana?

The problem wasn’t so much what Jonah would do if his fears became real, as it was what he
could
do and what he could do was limited—so limited it was the same thing as being unable to do anything whatsoever.