The wooden shack measured four metres in length and width. More or less. In the furthest corner was the last shallow hole she had dug. Soon the space for relief holes would run out.
Susanna wiggled herself deeper into the soft sand as the roar of a lion tore through her, deep, thunderous and angry. A few shots rang out. Then there was silence.
The sun filtered through the thin slits of the rough wooden beams as a new day broke but its feeble rays were not a match for the icy draught from the sea that penetrated her wooden structure. She shivered as it sliced her skin, chiseled through every bone and froze the blood in her veins. The wind whipped up the sand and settled in every crevice. The voices of the soldiers stationed outside were audible. She pressed herself deeper into the sand upon hearing the familiar jingling of keys at the door.
A barefooted woman entered when the door flung open. For a few brief seconds she took in the scene that met her eyes. In one hand was a bucket and in the other a blanket. She put down the bucket half-filled with water.
"I am Maria." She surveyed Susanna's surroundings. Avoiding eye contact, she put her hand in the pocket of her apron tied across her long dark dress and pulled out a tiny bundle. She put down the coarse dress, wash rag and head scarf on the folded blanket next to the bucket on a spot close to the door.
"Wash," she instructed and stepped to one side.
Susanna moved towards the water, cupped her hands, scooped up a handful and watch the water trickle through her dirty hands. Eyes shut she put her hands into the water and splashed it over her face. Slowly she stepped out of the filthy, tattered sailor's outfit and tossed it aside.
When she was done she pressed her nose against her upper forearm and sniffed it. "Do you smell that?" She asked Maria who had been watching in silence.
"No," came the response, abrupt and spoken in a manner which signalled that further conversation was not an option.
She wiggled into the coarse company-issued sack dress that irritated the skin at the back of her neck. "Thank you for the blanket," she said while scratching her neck. She picked up the blanket. It was grey threadbare. She unfurled it and wrapped it around her body while eyeing her unresponsive onlooker. "And the clothes and the water."
Maria nodded and stepped closer. She bent to collect the bucket and the clothes.
"Talk to me." Maria did not react. "Please." She put her hand on Maria's shoulder. "At least tell me what happens next."
"Convicts work on the island."
"Island?"
"Yes."
"Why an island?"
"As punishment."
"Is it good or bad?"
"Not good"
"How long have you been here?"
"Four years. Five. I lost track."
The evasive eyes and dead expression unsettled Susanna. "You are from Bengal, like me," she tried once more.
"I must go."
"Talk to me..."
"I am not allowed to talk. Not to you. I must go."
"This ear will not heal if I do not keep it clean. I used my urine... Please, I need more clean water. For my ear."
"I must ask Catrijn." She picked up the dirty water and the clothes. "I will be back."
"Thank you."
She knocked on the door and a soldier let her out.
After a while she returned. "Sorry. Not one drop more."
"This ear... I must clean it."
"Groote Catrijn said not one drop more. Sorry-"
"That's okay, but promise me one thing-"
"Slaves make no promises to slaves."
"And slaves do not apologise on behalf of Catrijn either. Who is Catrijn?"
"The fort's washer woman."
"She is a slave?"
She nodded and studied Susanna from head to toe. "You deserve a better name than One Ear."
"One Ear?"
'Groote Catrijn said she heard from the soldiers you are a runaway and a thief and that's how you lost your ear."
" Do you believe everything Catrijn tells you?"
"She knows everyone, and she hears stuff from the soldiers. They tell her things."
Susanna touched the side of her face and ran her hands over her unevenly shaved head. "That is not my name, and I am not a thief." Her face was a mask of disgust. 'They are the thieves. They stole my freedom... my youth, everything. I will not allow them to steal my name.'
The slave's rebellion unsettled Maria. 'You must not talk like that. We have rules and they will flog you in public if you call our masters thieves.'
Susanna's facial features transformed into pain and anger. She was a tigress stuck in the merciless teeth of a trap, tugging, and pulling without any chance of freeing itself. Her resistance ended as abruptly as it started. 'Yes. Their rules to keep us in our place... Barefooted. Aproned. Forever bowing to them and forcing our eyes on our filthy feet.'
'Please, do not say such things. You will get me into trouble, and I do not want any trouble. I live in hope, every day. Hope keeps me strong...'
Susanna, ignoring the anguish in Maria's trembling body, continued. 'What is your favourite memory? Before they stole you from your home?'
'I am not allowed to keep things from my masters.'
Susanna shook her head. 'You cannot get into trouble if you keep your memories for yourself.' She put her hands to her head. 'What is up here,' she said barely touching Maria's temple with her finger. 'Belongs to us. That is ours. Till we die. Your masters cannot own that. They can take your freedom, your life, everything... But your memories belong to you.'
'Master Riebeeck is good to us, his wife too, and if I behave and keep the rules, I will get my freedom. He will find me a husband and baptise me. Like Catharine I will eat at his table with the other wives of the Colony.'
Susanna turned the piece of red cloth around and around between her fingers. 'Is it against their rules to tell me where you were born in Bengal?'
'The coast. In Coromandel.'
'Then I will call you Coast.'
'Why not Maria?'
'That is not your name. It is the name of your madam, is it not?'
'Call me Maria like everyone else.'
'I am not everyone else.'
'Coast is not my name.'
'I can live with that name on my lips.'
The young woman stepped up and stood close to her. Defiance had taken the place of the staid countenance. 'Denial will get you nowhere. My old life in Bengal is gone. This is who I am... a slave named after my madam.'
'That is not who you are.'
Susanna was surprised at the sudden turn in Maria's demeanour, and even more surprised at the wry smile that began to form at the corners of her mouth. 'For a long time after I stood up there on that auction table in Batavia, half naked, chained, prodded, and ridiculed...I cried. I opened my eyes, every morning, hoping it was a dream. For years I relived the day I was taken from my home by those slavers. Over and over. Blaming myself for being where I was, for not running faster, for stopping to taking the stuff they offered us.' She swatted away the teardrop that had managed to escape. 'And for months I vomited whenever I thought I smelled that ship and the breath of the sailors on me.' Their eyes locked. 'Memories fade, Susanna. Then, one day, you open your eyes in the biting frost of yet another winter, and you cannot remember anything. Not the faces around the auction table. Not the voyage. Not the smell...not even your dear mother's face or the sound of her voice.'
Maria turned her back on Susanna, ready to exit.
'You didn't forget.'
Maria scoffed. 'I chose to. This place is home. To me. Here I am Maria van de Cust. That is how I will die.'
Susanna shrugged her shoulders and held out the cloth to Maria. 'Will you wash this for me?'
'If Catrijn allows it.'
'What does this Catrijn have to do with you washing this?'
'She is the washerwoman.'
'Forget it.'
'I can ask-'
'You want to go through that again?' Susanna snickered. 'Asking favours for a fellow Bengal slave could spoil your chances for freedom. Not to mention that seat around the master's table with that husband you are hoping for.' Susanna folded the dirty rag into a small square. 'This,' she said and squeezed the rag in the palm of her hand. 'Is not worth risking that hope.'
Maria ironed her apron with her hands. A lingering glint had settled in her eyes and a feint smile smoothed the hard lines on her face as she pondered on her response. 'Things will work out for me. As it did for Catharine who got married to mancke Jan and now lives on the island. As it did for Groote Catrijn who arrived as a convict and now works for the Commander. Inside the Fort. As it did for Angela.'
'Not all of us are destined to munch on the crumbs of our masters.'
'Maybe not but take a good look at me, One Ear.' Their faces were close, almost touching. 'This slave standing in front of you is protected. Warm. Fed. Clean. My hope is worth holding onto. Can you say the same?'
'Hope is an unreliable walking stick. It abandoned me a long time ago. We must take back our lives. And sometimes, Coast, it starts with the sound of your name.'
'Those words can get you flogged. Or worse-'
There were voices outside. The door flung wide open, and a huge, dark-skinned woman entered. A scarf, draped around her head, was tied into a bow in the middle of her forehead. She wore a long dress that hid her feet, and over it a sleeveless white apron with two square pockets in front. It was wet.
She glared at Maria. 'I searched for you all over. Be gone or you will get into trouble.' As Maria scurried off the imposing figure's attention turned to Susanna. 'You, follow them.' She pointed to the soldiers at the door, their hands over their noses. 'Go.'
'Yes, madam Riebeeck. I am on my way madam Riebeeck.'
She leaned into Susanna's space, her huge body towering over the petite slave woman.
The soldiers laughed, loud and amused. 'You, an off the boat nobody of a convict mock me?' She thumped the straight-faced Susanna a few times on her chest.
Susanna grinned. 'There she is... You are the other convict slave, I presume? I heard a lot about you.'
'I see you, One Ear. Oh yes, I see you.'
Susanna lifted her head and met Groote Catrijn's cold stare. 'I am sure that you do... For only those desperate to satisfy the favourable glances of their masters, will stoop so low as to bully their own.'
Groote Catrijn lifted her hand and smacked Susanna across her injured ear. 'Read these lips, One Ear. You will regret this day until the day that you die. That is a promise.'
Susanna's ear started bleeding at once. She got up, looked at the big woman's toes sticking out, and shook her head. 'Just some shoes. A dress... and the husband. Keep it up, you will get there. I hope you get a space at your master's table soon.' She brushed past the big slave and shuffled to the door.
Once outside, she covered her eyes against the sudden surge of light with her hands and fell in line with the few awaiting slaves. The shackles and the thick sand held her back. She fell and her clumsiness was corrected with the whip. One or two slaves helped her back on her feet. They, too, got a taste of the vicious lashes amidst the loud, aggravated shouting and swearing of the two young soldiers ordering them to stay away from the stinking one-ear convict. In the thick mist they escorted the bare-footed slaves along the sandy path, all the way to the patch of ground mapped out as the Company Gardens.