The Cost of Sugar(20)

In the days that followed, Elza and Sarith indeed had much to tell each other. About the earthquake, about Sarith’s latest admirers. Did Elza remember the Jewish teacher who was with them at the wedding, Abraham Cohen? He was also present at Joden-Savanna for the recent Feast of Tabernacles. He was a little shy, but Sarith had clearly seen that she had made a considerable impression on him. Did Elza know that the slaves had not worked for a whole week after the earthquake? They were terrified that if they were working in the fields a huge crack would open up and swallow them. Uncle Levi had not forced them to work, even though overseer Mekers would have had it differently. But on many other plantations where the slaves also were scared, they had been whipped back to work. What kinds of things did Elza do all day? Did she and Rutger go out a lot? Just like old times the two had again chatted and laughed together, and Rutger had often looked on amusedly and listened to the merry chatter. He was the complete host, so attentive to both Elza and Sarith.

As always, there were in December and January many feasts and parties, and several times each week the three of them walked off somewhere to a feast or a sociable evening out, always preceded by Alex with a lamp in his hand.

A few weeks later – it was early February – Elza sat one morning in the dining room near the window. Amimba was busy rubbing the floor and wall with bitter oranges, cut in half.29 That happened once a week in all houses. The floors then remained nice and shiny, it was a tried and tested remedy against pests, and there was always a fresh ambience in the house.

Elza looked towards Amimba without really seeing her, for she was deep in thought. She had every reason to be. Something had gradually changed. At first she had thought that it was just an idea of hers, but now it was so patently obvious that with the best will in the world she could not pass it off as a delusion. Rutger and Sarith were getting involved. Oh, Elza had seen it coming. The attentions that were first directed towards both her and Sarith, but of late more towards Sarith. The way he sometimes took Sarith’s hand or arm if they had to step up or down along the road. And she, Elza, then walked behind and seemed to have been forgotten. And Sarith, no longer at parties the butterfly flitting from one man to the other, but staying constantly in their company. At first Rutger had always danced with both of them, but recently he had been dancing much more frequently with Sarith, and she had sat there ignored, or to be eventually invited by some other man to dance.

And now Sarith was suddenly interested in serious conversations. She, who previously had not concerned herself with anything outside her immediate field of vision, was suddenly interested in all kinds of things and even wanted to read in order to be able to converse with Rutger. On the evenings when they weren’t going out, the three of them would sit for hours in the front room talking. It was often getting late and then Rutger would say, “Elza, if you want to go to bed, do go, and I’ll be along shortly,” and she had understood that he wanted to be alone with Sarith. Without speaking another word she would get up and go upstairs. When Maisa had undressed her and had helped her into bed it had sometimes been more than an hour before Rutger had joined her.

Yesterday evening had been such an occasion. Rutger had said that she should go upstairs, but after Maisa had gone to her own room, Elza had got up quietly and had gone downstairs again; very carefully, so that no tread would creak. On the rear veranda where a lamp shed light up to the staircase she had seen Mini-mini sleeping on the ground. That poor child, Elza had thought, for of course Mini-mini had to remain up all that time in order to help her mistress undress before she herself could go to her room in the grounds.

Elza had crept on tiptoe to the back room which Rutger had furnished as his office and where a writing bureau and his bookshelves stood. Without making a sound she had leaned forward and had looked through the keyhole of the door between the front room and this back room. And she had seen what she already had suspected. In the clear light of the large crystal chandelier she had seen how Sarith sat on the arm of Rutger’s chair and stroked his hair. He had looked up and there followed a long, loving kiss. Oh, appalling! Elza had left, running up the stairs, now not worrying whether a step creaked or not. Tears streaming over her cheeks, she had lain on the bed and had pretended to be asleep, her back turned towards Rutger as he came to lie next to her half an hour later.

How could Sarith do such a thing? Sarith, of all people! How could Rutger do such a thing? What was happening? She must and she would talk about this with Rutger. But how? There was hardly a moment when she was alone with him. She could not talk alone with Sarith, either, for she had noticed for quite a time now that Sarith always saw to it that she wasn’t alone with Elza. In the morning she slept on, and Mini-mini often had to bring her breakfast in her room. When, and when, around ten o’clock, she was dressed and ready, she would go out – Elza often not knowing where to – and she would always come back late when it was time for lunch and Rutger himself was just home or would be coming home. After lunch everyone went to rest, and Rutger always fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow, to wake again at half past three, in time to take his bath and so be fresh and alert at the office with Mr van Omhoog at four.