“Mini-mini isn’t here, my boy,” answered Julius, laying the child back on the pillows.
Only a groan, that seemed to emerge from the very core of that small body. Sarith got up from the chair near the window where she had been sitting and came to stand by the bed.
Again Jethro mouthed, “Mini-mini.”
Julius glanced at Sarith. “He’s asking for Mini-mini.”
Sarith nodded. Julius looked at her.
“I’ll go and get her,” he said.
Sarith nodded again. He could certainly fetch Mini-mini if only that would mean that Jethro would get better. Nothing mattered any more if only the child would recover.
Julius got up and walked slowly out of the room and down the stairs. But before he had reached the front door he heard a stifled scream from above and hear his name being called. His knees trembling, he walked back and came to a standstill under the stairs leading to the next floor, looking at his wife, there above on the stairs with a hand in front of her mouth. Sobbing, she called to him, “It’s no longer necessary, Julius, it’s no use anymore. He’s dead. My God, my Jethro is dead.”
JULIUS
Two weeks later the Klein Paradijs tent-boat was on its way to the plantation. Julius sat in the boat with Sarith and with little Eva. He had never imagined that this was how the journey home would be. What grief, what sorrow. His son, his bright, handsome son, was no more. What agony they were leaving behind them there in Paramaribo, where nearly every family now had someone to mourn.
In the Saramaccastraat seven of the twenty-two slaves had died, and with a heavy heart Julius wondered what he would find back at Klein Paradijs. At the plantations where they had to stop now and then there had also been people sick and dying, and everyone knew that their son had died.
Sarith said little during the journey. She was a downcast, sorrowful woman who was asking herself whether all this was happening because God wanted to punish her in this way for all the wrong she had done. She looked at Julius. In the past he had loved her, but now he no longer loved her. He loved Mini-mini. If only she could talk to him. But since the business with Rein Andersma such a chasm had opened up between them that there was no longer any question of their being husband and wife: they were just strangers to each other. Jethro had been the only link that they still retained, and now he was gone, too.
Two days earlier Julius had come to tell her that he was returning to the plantation, and she could see that he was surprised when she had said that they would return with him.
Julius stared ahead while the boat glided along. What was the use of all this? What dreams he had had twenty-seven years ago when he started the plantation. Everything had appeared rose-coloured. A lad of twenty, then. He had started with money from his father, and everything had progressed well and quickly. A coffee plantation. The area was not all that large, but the coffee fetched a good price. Then came the smallpox epidemic of 1764 that claimed the lives of his first wife, his son and many of the slaves. That had actually been the beginning of the end.
Arriving at the plantation, he looked around. Yes, everything indeed looked unkempt. There were not enough slaves for all the work. The harvest the previous year had not been all that successful. He had made less money than he had expected. He had repaid hardly any of the money he had borrowed three years earlier, after the Maroons’ raid. Before he had even set foot in the door the supervisor came up to him. He expressed his sympathy at the death of Jethro, but also came to say that twelve slaves had already succumbed to disease. It was almost impossible to work. Even if all the slaves were put to working in the field and in the coffee mill, even then there were too few, and there was no-one left for all the other things that needed doing, such as maintenance, weeding the grounds, keeping the canals clear, working in the carpenter’s and blacksmith’s shops.
Julius said nothing. What could he say? Hadn’t he foreseen all this? In the evening he sat in silence on the rear veranda. He really didn’t care any more. He wanted nothing for himself. He wanted only to be with Mini-mini. How he longed to be near her, to feel her comforting hand, to hear her voice. That alone was what he longed for: to be with Mini-mini. He could see her now in his mind’s eye, when he had gone to tell her that Jethro had died. He could still see that intense sorrow in her eyes, sorrow for the child she had regarded as her own, the child that had suffered in that way and was now gone for ever. If only he could be with Mini-mini for evermore. Never leave her again. And, in fact, why not? Why should he continue with this plantation? What was the use? He didn’t have the money for it. Should he just get deeper into debt? What for? In a few years’ time he would be dead, and what then? Jethro, who could have carried on running the plantation, was no more.