Chapter 28
How dare you?
“It’s only temporary, Mother.”
Mother looks ghostly here in the senzala.
I pull the blanket up to her shoulders. I set the book beside the oil lamp on the wooden table.
All of which I brought down from her room.
It took me a while to carry everything down here, not least carrying Mother herself.
I even brought down her singing bird box to play the chirpy tune from time to time.
She doesn’t need a sponge bath today, just the exercises, and then I’ll continue our reading from The Three Musketeers.
This is undignified. Hiding me in the slave quarters to fester along with the mice and spiders.
“I have no choice, Mother. I have no wish for further visits from the police, nor the spying eyes of servants.”
I can hear my own voice so much louder here than in her room.
The senzala was the slave quarters decades ago, back when this farmhouse was an operational sugar mill.
Since then, it has been forgotten. Yesterday I spent the whole day cleaning it, mopped the floor and scrubbed the cobwebs and mice droppings.
I brought down a chaise longue from upstairs for her to lie on, a comfortable antique one, and padded it with two large pillows.
But even with the oil lamps, it still feels dim here. Haunted. I can understand why Mother wouldn’t like it, but this is a necessary evil.
Darkness aside, the senzala is perfect, and I feel much better having Mother here than in her room upstairs.
No one ever comes in here. It is only accessible from the exterior entrance, and does not connect directly to the interior of the house.
Everything about it was built with the intention of keeping the goings-on here private.
I can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve been in this room, despite living in this farmhouse my entire life.
I look down at her. Mother’s eyes are shut.
Her lips are thin and rest in a slight frown, as if her life’s discontent is etched into her skin.
Sometimes if I stare at her eyes, I can almost see them open.
They stare back at me like two shiny moonstones.
Then I blink and see her unmoving, slumbering face again.
Mother fell ill with yellow fever several weeks ago.
There was a brief recovery, but this was followed by a terrible relapse.
Her condition deteriorated until she fell into this deep sleep.
I place my finger underneath her nostrils often, to feel the light air and reassure myself that she isn’t dead.
Not fully dead nor alive nor asleep. But here in this senzala it feels as though we are both inside a coffin, a dark damp box, might as well be, and if something were to happen to us here, no one would ever notice.
Not for a long time, at least. It would be the last place anyone would think to check.
It’s a dungeon. You’re keeping your mother in a dungeon. There are still torture devices lurking in the corners. How could you do such a thing?
I glance over my shoulder at the iron shackles and chains in the corners.
The instruments lie in the edges of my vision, and though I have been ignoring them, I’m always aware that they’re there.
They have a gravity to them, a dark aura, like a demon hovering in the corner, watching me.
I shudder at the horrific cruelty of slavery that so recently touched this land.
“It’s only temporary,” I repeat as I turn up the dial on the lamp, and the flame grows.
You’re not sorry. You like it here.
I am silent. Because she’s right. I do. I can speak without risk of being overheard. I like the isolation. I can even spill the water without worrying about making a mess.
And what if I wake up in this dungeon? I shall be terrified.
“The door is not locked. There is no need to lock this door since no one ever comes in here. You could simply walk out.”
You should have told that chambermaid about me. You keep me hidden from everyone, as though to erase me from the world. Are you ashamed of your mother? Will you be glad when I die?
Sometimes—and guilt overcomes me at the confession—I want to shut off her voice, but I can’t.
“It is only that the servants can be such little spies,” I say. “The thought of telling them about your condition makes it so permanent. And why should I? It’s none of their business.”
I remember the exact moment when the chambermaid saw us.
I was speaking with Mother while giving her a sponge bath.
The door was only slightly ajar. I thought the maid was gone for the day.
I saw, out of the corner of my eye, movement from the dim corridor.
When I looked up, I saw a figure staring.
Eyes blazing gold, shoulders raised to her ears, mouth agape, and a feline posture.
She was so still, she looked like a painting on the wall.
A vicious creature. I almost dropped the rag.
I didn’t say anything, and a moment later she vanished.
That was it. When she did not show up to work the next day, I had a feeling that she had misconstrued what she saw, but I did not imagine the degree of her error. Nor that she would go to the police about it.
That chambermaid is going to tell everyone that you kidnapped a woman and are keeping her a prisoner in the house. And that at night you strip her naked and do unspeakable things to her.
“But that’s not true. It’s not true!”
For a moment I can only hear my own shaky, unsteady breathing and the faint crackling of the flames. Then Mother’s voice comes again, low as a whisper: But it’s not so far off from the truth, is it?
I clamp my hands over my ears, shake my head.
Because deep down you want to do terrible things.
You heart is darkened by sinful cravings.
You’ve even imagined yourself carrying out heinous acts.
You think that God doesn’t know or doesn’t see it, but He does.
Sinful thought always turns into sinful action.
You nurse these thoughts before bed and upon waking.
And one of these days, you’re going to do it.
“No.” I shake my head. “No, no…”
One of these days…
One of these days…
That night, lying in bed, I think of the terrible things.
It is the only way I can sleep these days, by imagining myself doing terrible things and how good it would feel.
I am not the one thinking the thought; rather the thought is thinking me, seizing me until it wears itself out.
At times I am shocked at myself and how I could entertain such wickedness—other people do not, I am sure—but I would never act on it.