Tangled Passion (4 page)

Jonah closed his eyes once again and prayed; beads of perspiration covering his forehead, defying the chill in the air, while he prayed that he woke up one morning to find that all of his worries had been but a bad dream–that the Massa’s son was gone and everything was back to being as is was before he caught Nathan looking at Ashana in a way that stripped him of sleep and changed his dreams into nightmares. Looking for a way to distract himself from the thought that scared the daylight out of him, Jonah turned his attention to the sky, searching for the constellation he and Ashana had once discovered sitting at the same spot. He stared at it for a long time, as if waiting for a sign from it and suddenly wished that he could escape to the stars with Ashana.

“Alone with you, without any fear of being separated from you and without any need to hide from anybody, just the two of us,” he thought out loud. Ashana would arrive any minute now, he thought, looking in the direction of the foot track that led to their rendezvous point. “I have something to tell you,” she had whispered into his ear at the plantation earlier that day. Jonah spent the rest of the day wondering what it could be that Ashana had to tell him and even though on many occasions he promised himself not to worry about what Ashana could possibly have to tell him, he had been unable to keep that promise. His thought oscillated from the possibility of good news to the possibility of bad news; lingering longer on the possibility of bad news. To make it worse, the look on Ashana’s face and the tension in her voice didn’t suggest anything good or very far from bad news.

His impatience metamorphosed into fear after he woke from a brief snooze, only to realize that Ashana had still not arrived. He stumbled up to his feet, dusted himself, and hurried towards the quarters, wondering for how long he had dozed off. His heart was racing as fast his pace and his head was overweight with fear. What could have happened to Ashana, he wondered. She was aware they had to meet that night; she had to be; after all she made a point to remind him that they had to meet and even warned him to be sure to be on time. Listening to the crickets, Jonah could tell that it was late; it was about the time when he and Ashana would have been heading back to their quarters, had she come. He walked the stretch of the footpath and back, there were no signs of Ashana. “God!” he uttered, mentally exhausted, then he returned to the same spot where he had been sitting; confused and fighting the not-so-pleasant thoughts that zapped in and out of his head at lightning speed.

Minutes later he decided it was time to head back to his quarters, but first he’d have to stop by the female quarters and ask around for Ashana—he had to know something or he was guaranteed to be denied of any form or amount of sleep. He walked with his head bowed, his pace as slow as that of an overfed tortoise with an oversized shell and his mind as blank as a recently erased chalk board. Then the sound of crushing dried leaves reached his ears, he came to a sudden halt, listened attentively, and concluded that somebody was heading his way, in a hurry. His first instinct was to jump into the bush and hide but the heavy breathing and panting suggested that the person approaching wasn’t an attacker—an attacker would approach slowly and quietly.

So he stood his ground, looking around for anything he could use as a weapon in the event that he needed to defend himself. He was just about to reach for a dry branch to his right when he heard his name.

“Jonah!”

He recognized the voice and froze. It was Ashana’s.

“Ashana!” he called out and it was with such intense excitement that his lungs suddenly emptied, sending him into a brief coughing bout.

“Yes, Jonah!” she screamed out and crashed into his arms, sending him crashing to the ground along with her. He hugged her so tightly the perspiration on her body instantly seeped through his shirt and sank into his pores. She hugged him back, but this time Jonah could feel a difference in her hug; it was strong and tight, as if she was scared to let go and Jonah could not help but feel the occasional shudder that travelled down her body.

“Ashana,” Jonah called softly, he wanted her to say something; anything would do, he needed to feed something to the monster of suspense that was threatening to tear him apart. But when she opened her mouth and barely whispered his name between gasps for air, he felt a bitter and chilly wind of fear hit him right across the face and his heart somersaulted.

“What is the matter Ashana?” he asked, completely drained of strength before gently guiding her towards the tree under which he had been waiting for her all night.

“No! I must return immediately,” she said, resisting very gently and still fighting to regulate her breath; she had run the whole way to meet Jonah.

“Ashana please tell me now, don’t wait one breath longer, I beg of you. What is the matter?” Jonah said, holding her hands and looking straight into her eyes. She slowly bowed her head and then opened her mouth. He looked as if she waited a breath longer his breath would be cut off. “Please,” he begged, a chilly feeling beginning to crawl up his trembling legs.

“It’s the Massa...” she said, coughing out the words as if they were about to choke her, tears swelling in her eyes and then overflowing onto her cheeks.

The word ‘Massa’ hit Jonah like a ton of bricks; his knees begged to buckle and his grip tightened on her shoulder. “Wha...wha...what did he do to you...?” Jonah stammered, interrupting any further utterances from her. Air gushed out his rib cage like air from a punctured balloon and soon his formidable shape was reduced ten times less than its original.

“No! No! No! Wait!” she said, bending over her knees, still trying to catch her breath and at the same time bracing herself for what she was about to tell him. He held her up gently and felt the warm tears from her eyes as they fell onto his wrist.

“Ashana...” he cried, tears welling up his eyes. “Please tell me what he did to you,” he pressed. She sank to the ground and he followed.

“It began with the Massa's son...” she started very reluctantly.

“Yes? What did he want?” Jonah interrupted, a little impatient.

“He visited our quarters two days ago to see Mama,” Ashana said and waited for the reaction she was sure would come from Jonah.

“Mama! What for?” Jonah asked, almost yelling and completely lost as to why the Massa’s son would visit Ashana’s mother.

“He was there to…,” Ashana began, then paused to swallow; what she was about to say had suddenly caused her mouth to become completely dry and her voice to squeak like wheels in a terrible need of greasing. Jonah waited patiently, he couldn’t do otherwise, his voice seemed to have briefly deserted him and his entire body felt like it had been drained of the last drop of energy. “He told Mama that he wants me,” Ashana added and broke down.

“He told your mother that?” Jonah asked very feebly, his heart already in excruciating pain.  Ashana nodded slowly and Jonah nodded in return, urging Ashana to continue.

She went ahead to tell Jonah how Massa Longstands took offence to his son’s interest in her and about the young man’s stubborn refusal to let go. “Now they have ordered me and Mama to get ready to be sent to a different plantation in three days…” she added, her body convulsing uncontrollably as she wept.

Jonah was already on his feet; he was pacing back and forth like a desperate lion in a cage. “How did you find out all this?” He stuttered, his mind was completely fogged, and he hadn’t the slightest idea what to do. As a matter of fact, trying to figure out what to do was beginning to make him dizzy.

“Edwards brought my mother home,” Ashana said, still trembling, her tear glands unrelenting in pumping tears. “Mama fainted after Massa told her to get ready to be shipped to another plantation with me; she is still lying in bed and hasn’t eaten anything since she was brought back.”

Jonah paused for a minute, his mind had suddenly gone completely blank and his body unresponsive. When he recovered, he sat next to Ashana and enveloped her shivering body in his arms. He understood how she felt and how her mother, Marecia must be feeling. After all it was her transfer from a previous plantation to the Fort that had caused her to become separated from Ashana’s father.

According to Ashana, when the plantation where her parents used to work shut down and the slaves were sold off to different plantations across the island, her parents had begged the slave master to send them to the same plantation so the family could be together. But their request was bluntly turned down. Marecia and Ashana were sent to the Fort while Ashana’s father was sent to a different plantation. Ever since, Marecia had neither seen nor heard from the man she loved so much, worse still, the mother and child were completely oblivious as to which plantation he was sent and sometimes feared he might have passed away.

So many times when Jonah visited Ashana on a Sunday, which was a day of rest, Marecia would engage the two with the story of how she met Ashana’s father as if it was the very first time she was telling it. This removed all doubts in Jonah’s mind that even though it had been many years since the separation and even though she was now in her old age, Marecia still thought a lot about her husband and he admired her for that.

“When they took him from me, I left my heart, my soul, and spirit with him and since then I have never felt, seen, heard or smelt anything—ever,” was how she always ended the story. When she spoke of her husband, her words were overloaded with emotion and anyone could see in her eyes that if she had one last wish it would be to lay eyes on Ashana’s father once again.

“We leave tomorrow night!” Jonah blurted suddenly, jumping to his feet then helping Ashana to hers.

“What?” Ashana queried, her eyes wide-open and fully stretched out. It was only one of a million questions that had been automatically generated by her head in response to Jonah’s statement.

“Tomorrow night, get a few things and meet me here after we return from the plantation– don’t be late and don’t tell anyone,” Jonah said like a captain issuing instructions that could not be questioned but only obeyed.

Ashana went quiet, not bothering to vocalize the questions that flooded her mind as she and Jonah started heading back to the quarters. It was a long quiet walk; they held hands and squeezed them occasionally as if transmitting secret messages that couldn’t be vocalized.

At the intersection where they must part, he turned around and held her face in his palms. “Tell your mother,” he said, looking into her eyes. “She must know, please tell her we will send messages to her as soon as we reach safety, but tell nobody else.”

She nodded, he let go of her face and wrapped his arms around her. She did the same and they hugged for forever, then slowly he let go and watched her half walk-half run towards her quarters. She glanced back at him a few times and when she got to the corner, she halted, turned, and waved slowly.

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Her oversized body was spread out like a blanket on a bamboo-tree, lazy chair, which squeaked with every move she made. She quickly rested the cup of coconut jelly on the bamboo side table next to her as the sound of her son's feet crashing onto the wooden floor reached her ears. The sound of Nathan’s footfalls crossing the living room spelt anger and the boy wasn’t one to make any bones of his feelings. Suzanne pushed the slave girl aside and staggered to rise to her feet as if bracing up for a fight.

“Nathan!” she thundered but he was already in front of his father's door by the time she was able to mobilize her over two hundred and eighty pounds of flesh and bones onto her feet.

The sudden and continuous banging on Master Longstands’s door jolted him and made him wonder if a French war ship had been sighted—it was surely the only excuse anyone could possibly have to even think of banging on his door in such a disrespectful manner. When the second round of banging began, Longstands jumped to his feet and made it to the door in two long strides; he yanked back the latch and pulled in the door, only to be staring at Nathan’s knuckles just a few inches from his nose.

“What is the matter, Nathan?” he uttered in complete shock. When the boy delayed in responding, Longstands poked his head out of the door and the angry voice of his wife hit him and bounced off the walls of the house. He retrieved his head immediately and pulled in the door a little wider. “What is going on with you two?” Longstands snapped.

Nathan stepped into his father’s office without waiting for an invitation and slammed the door behind him, just as his mother approached, narrowly missing her face by a few inches. “Nathan!” her voice rang through the walls.

“What the bloody hell is the matter? Nathan what has come over you?” Massa Longstands blurted, his face suddenly exhibiting a different color of tan that certainly wasn’t from the sun. He couldn’t understand what was going on, his son had never been disrespectful to him or his mother in the past.
If this was about the slave girl, the whole issue had really affected the young man badly,
Longstands thought.

Nathan shoved the bolt back into place, locking his mother out of the room and then he turned to his father and locked his eyes into his as if to scrutinize them for any signs of objections to his action. When his father didn't seem to object to him locking his mother out, he slowly walked past him and took a seat at the edge of the bed.

“Longstands, I demand that you open this door right now!” Suzanne’s voice came roaring from the other side of the door.

“Nathan!” Longstands called out to his son very quietly. The boy ignored the banging on the door and pretended he didn't hear his old man, instead he reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

“This might be familiar,” he said, handing his father a piece of paper that appeared to have been torn from a diary. Nathan opened his mouth again, but this time he spoke very slowly and very clearly, in a tone that bordered between a definite threat and a plea.