“Monsters, they are, devil’s children,” sighed Van Bemmelen. “There’s nothing to be done against them, because they’re working with black magic.”
After Mr van Omhoog had discussed a few formal details of the loan with his client, the group departed. Mr van Omhoog went upstairs, and Rutger stood a while deep in thought near the window. Alex came in to clear away the used cups and heard Rutger talking to himself. “Boni, always Boni. Why don’t they make sure they get him first?”
“They can never catch Boni, masra,” said Alex. “Never. He has an enormous tapu140. No bullet can touch him and no person can catch him.”
“It would seem that you’re right,” said Rutger. “Who is this Boni, anyway? I’d very much like to know from which plantation he came.”
“Boni does not come from a plantation, masra. He has never been a slave. He was born free in the bush,” said Alex. “I could tell you everything about Boni.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Rutger. Alex smiled. “I listen, masra,” he said. “I listen when others speak. Would masra like to hear about it?”
“Of course I’d like to hear it,” said Rutger. “Tell me, tell me everything about Boni.”
Alex recounted.
“Boni was not born into slavery. He is proud to be able to say that he is a genuine bush-negro. Boni’s mother was a slave on the plantation of a rich Jewish family in the time of Governor Mauricius. This family was very well known in Paramaribo. They belonged to the top of the Cabal141, the group of wealthy people who had given Governor Mauricius so much trouble. They owned various plantations on the Boven-Cottica. The wife was a cruel and merciless person. The husband was a lecherous type who often misused slave-girls. Now, it happened that his eye had fallen on a pretty young slave-girl, who would later be Boni’s mother.
“When it later turned out that she was pregnant, the jealous and brutish wife began to scheme revenge. She bided her time until her husband was away on a journey for a few days, and then had the slave-girl come to her, remarking, “I see you are pregnant. Who is the father of your child?” When the girl answered that she had a man-friend and that he was the father of the child, she had the man in question sent for.
She asked him, “Is this your woman; have you made her pregnant?”
The man answered that this was indeed the case, and the mistress then said, “She is my slave-girl. Who gave you the right to use my property like this? I’ll teach you a lesson!”
And with those words she took a razor-sharp knife and cut off the man’s genitals. To the woman she said, “You’re pregnant. Your breasts are so large and beautiful that one will certainly suffice to feed your child.”
With the same knife she cut off one of the woman’s breasts. She then said to the heavily bleeding couple, “Now get out of my sight. I never want to see you again!”
She was reckoning that they would not get very far with such injuries. When her husband came home two days later and at lunch lifted the lid from the plate that was set before him, he was confronted with the breast of a negro woman, and his wife said, with a mean laugh, “You obviously find negresses’ breasts so tasty: bon appetit!”
“In the meantime, the two slaves had left and had fled into the bush, where the man died from his injuries. Helped by some other escapees, the woman ended up in the negro camp in the Cottica region. There she gave birth to twins: two boys.
“The children realized soon enough that they were different from the other negroes. For a start they were not black, but brown, and they had red curly hair. They asked their mother why they were different and why she had only one breast. Time and time again their mother told her story, and time and time again the brothers swore revenge: for their mother and for the man who should have been their father. When one of the boys died at the age of twelve as a result of a shot from a soldier’s gun, this gave the survivor Boni all the more reason to seek revenge.”
Alex fell silent. Rutger gazed into space, deep in thought.
ELZA
Paramaribo was buzzing with rumours. Governor Crommelin wanted to quit. He had been governor of the colony since 1748. Because he had taken the governor’s side in the struggle between Governor Mauricius and the Cabal, he was certainly not loved by many of the more prominent residents, and these people had made life difficult for him once he himself had taken over as governor. For a year now, Crommelin had been requesting the governors of the Society in the Netherlands to allow him to retire. He wanted to travel to the Netherlands and thereafter enjoy a well-earned rest. This would now be permitted, but the governor did not leave immediately, remaining for some time in Suriname as a private citizen, while Jean Nepveu was appointed interim governor.