Being with her loved one in these circumstances wasn’t how Mini-mini had seen it in her dreams. She slept in a small room that she shared with three other young slave-girls who were the children’s nannies in the house. Fortunately, you couldn’t see anything in the dark, but from all the shuffling and bumping on the floor, it was obvious to them what was going on, and they kept making derisory remarks to Mini-mini, who they had always regarded as a quiet, retiring type. If you were a slave, something like privacy just didn’t exist. And everything had to happen in such secrecy because he was a free man. None of the whites in the house except for her misi knew that Hendrik was spending the night there. Mini-mini lay on the mat. She could not sleep, feeling the child moving within her. Hendrik was asleep next to her.
Mini-mini dreamed of her future as a free woman with Hendrik. How she loved him, and he her. And now they would soon have a child. It would be a long time before he had saved up enough, but she would be patient and would save up, too. She was so thankful that not a single masra had had her before Hendrik. Didn’t that always happen with pretty slave-girls? And she was pretty; she knew that. From her earliest years she had always heard people saying so. She understood that ‘beautiful’ was used mainly when someone had white blood, and after all she had a white father. Her mother had told her that both Masra Jacob A’haron and his eighteen-year-old son had been sleeping with her at that time. One of the two was her father, but it didn’t make any difference to Mini-mini: she was simply a slave-girl. What did being beautiful matter if you were a slave, anyway? And it was certainly not only her light skin that caused people to remark on her beauty; she had a good figure, small round breasts, finely cut features, pure white teeth and large dark-brown eyes. Her hair was black, with curls, and hung to half way down her back. She usually had it in a plait. How often had men, white and coloured, gazed at her hungrily. But fortunately, due to the fact that she was Misi Sarith’s property, not a single man had ever been able to take advantage of her. At least for that she was thankful to the misi. This could have changed, of course, now that the misi had a masra, but he was a good and fair person. He loved his wife so much that he would certainly not interfere with a slave-girl. And luckily she now had her Hendrik.
Mini-mini heard the carriage ride into the grounds and realized that the family was returning home. She got up quickly, fastened a shawl around herself and hastened to the house, where her misi and masra were just going upstairs.
Misi Sarith was so happy. She told Mini-mini that she was dead tired. She had danced so much. It had been wonderful, everything so beautiful, and everyone had found her so beautiful and she had had so many compliments about her ingenious hair-do. Mini-mini had done that so beautifully. She would reward her for that in the morning. Masra Julius looked smilingly at his wife, who was so content and happy, felt in his pocket and gave Mini-mini a coin, saying, “Here Mini-mini, your reward, because the misi might well forget it in the morning.”149
When Mini-mini returned to her room in the grounds Hendrik wasn’t there. Perhaps he had gone to the loo in the grounds? But when he still had not returned a while later, she went looking for him.
“Are you looking for your boyfriend?” asked Nestor, the slave who functioned as coachman and was busy unshackling the carriage. “He left.”150
Mini-mini went inside again. Why had Hendrik gone? Just like that, in the middle of the night? Oh, well, perhaps he was afraid of oversleeping the next morning. She would ask him tomorrow.
But Hendrik did not come the next evening, or the evening after. Mini-mini sent an errand boy to his home with the message that he must come to her quickly. The boy said that he had delivered the message to Hendrik’s mother, but still Hendrik did not come. The following Sunday Mini-mini decided to go to the house herself. She knew that his mother was usually away on Sundays. When she arrived at the house she found everything shut. There was no-one at home.
A neighbour who was sitting at an open window and had seen her walking around the house asked amicably, “Who are you looking for?”151
“Hendrik,” replied Mini-mini.
“Oh, he has just left with his woman,”152 came the answer.
“With his woman? Perhaps misi means his mother?”153
“No, not his mother, but Hendrik now has a woman, Misi Meta, a nice mulatto girl. They went that way.”154
Mini-mini felt as if she had just received a punch to the face. Did Hendrik have a partner? Since when? She was his woman. She walked slowly away from the house and in a trance walked back to the Saramaccastraat, tear after tear rolling down her cheeks. The whole day she just sat with her head in her hands, just staring ahead, in such a way that even Misi Sarith asked her, “What’s the matter, Mini-mini, are you ill? Go and sleep for a while.”155