Mini-mini decided she just had to speak to Hendrik, and the next day she waited for him in the Steenbakkersgracht, where he worked at the cabinet maker’s. When he came out to go home, she was suddenly there in front of him. “Mini-mini,” he exclaimed, alarmed. Her voice soft, Mini-mini asked what truth there was in what the neighbour had told her, and why he was no longer coming to her.
Hendrik gave a sigh. Yes, it was true. He loved her, but she was a slave-girl. When would he ever get enough money together to buy her freedom? It would take years, and what would he do all those years? She on the plantation, now and then in the town for a week, and he alone here. He omitted to tell her how much his mother had been objecting and had told him how stupid she found him to have fallen in love with a slave-girl. Even if she was beautiful and a mulatto, she was still only a slave-girl, and he with his light skin and almost smooth hair could certainly attract so many other beautiful girls. It was his mother who engineered his meeting Meta. It wasn’t long before she had come to live with them.
With downcast eyes Mini-mini heard what Hendrik had to say to her. She knew full well that any other woman would not have accepted this. She would have screamed, fought, gone to that Meta and slapped and hit her. But she, Mini-mini, could not do that. She was so timid and soft by nature and had never been able to cope with violence. She just turned and went away. So that was that. Exit Hendrik! Exit freedom! Everything had been just a dream. On her mat that night she wept. Yes, everything had been a dream. Except for the child. That was no dream; that was reality! She placed her hand on her stomach and felt the child moving. She resolved that, whatever it might take, she would ensure that that child would not be a slave. He or she would be born a slave, that was inevitable, but she would save every cent, and when the child was grown up she would buy his freedom to spare him all the humiliation and misery of slavery. For that is why Hendrik had rejected her. Because she was a slave-girl. Mini-mini thought back to what Hendrik had told her and to what the misi had said about the ball at the governor’s, where all the whites had glistered with their gold and jewels, where the tables had groaned under all the food and drink. All the fantastic mansions in the town, carriages, expensive furnishings: everything obtained through slavery.
Slaves: people who were the property of a group of whites and who had to work and toil for them in order to produce these oh so necessary commodities. And Mini-mini asked herself whether these whites realized what they were drinking when they lifted that cup to their lips. Whether they ever for a second realized how costly this all was – what a price was paid for the coffee and for the sugar!
Julius had wanted to return to Klein Paradijs after the party, but Sarith did not want to. They couldn’t possibly leave yet. On 16 March the new governor had been honoured at public worship in the synagogue in the Heerenstraat. This happening was specially in honour of Governor Nepveu, who was kindly disposed towards the Jews, in contrast to so many other whites who regarded Jews as second-rate citizens. The whites who had more recently arrived in Suriname appeared not to realize that it was precisely the Jews who had been the driving force behind the blossoming of this colony. They were the first substantial group to come here. They had settled here, mostly in the upper reaches of the rivers. They had started plantations, and with the money earned had paid huge sums to the government to provide for the colony’s upkeep. Now things were going less well for the Jews. The land at their plantations, often in use for a hundred years or more, was becoming exhausted and infertile, and when they asked for land on the lower reaches of the rivers, where many plantations were being established, they were refused purely and simply because they were Jews. The whole Jewish community hoped that this would all change with the appointment of Jean Nepveu, and they very much wanted to demonstrate that they had every faith in him. The service in the synagogue was taking place in this context. Everything was beautifully decorated, including the complete entrance right down to the street. The whole coloured population stood once again to gape at this display of opulence. Carriages drove to and fro; pedestrians arrived, attended by slaves, all in their finest clothes.
Three weeks later, on 4 April, there was a reception at the house of Abraham Cohen, the Jewish teacher and assistant rabbi, in his house on the corner of the Klipstenenstraat and Heerenstraat. Now, Rebecca was after all Sarith’s sister, and of course she and Julius could not possibly leave before the reception. They would really have to attend. Julius gave in to his wife, but then they really had to return. He must definitely be back on his plantation before the heavy rains set in.