The Cost of Sugar(88)

Day had broken. They heard Agosu talking again. They heard Kwasiba saying that she would get him something to eat, and some coffee. After that he paced up and down, looked out of the window now and then, sometimes shouted something below. In the cupboard they could see through a chink under the door that it had become light. Jethro woke up. Mini-mini whispered with her mouth right next to his ear that he still must be dead still. He badly needed to pee, but in that case how, and where? At her wits’ end, Mini-mini took one of Julius’ coats from the rack and rolled it up. Jethro would have to pee into that. In that way the urine could not stream out of the cupboard. Sarith was terribly thirsty. What would happen to them? Would they be saved? Would Agosu and his men leave of their own accord? Would he discover them?

The hours dragged by. In the middle of the day Kwasiba went again to cook something. Sarith, Mini-mini and Jethro could smell the food while Agosu was eating. Especially Jethro was very hungry, but most of all he was scared, oh so scared, and silently he cried with his face in Mini-mini’s lap, who was holding him fast and stroking his hair. How many hours had passed? How long had they been sitting in the cupboard? It became warmer and more stuffy. How long would this torment last? Such uncertainty, not knowing what would happen the next moment. Now Jethro needed to do more than a pee. He whispered in Mini-mini’s ear. She whispered back that it was impossible, he would have to keep it back. Sarith, too, hissed to her son that he must hold it back. But Jethro could not any more.

Then they heard Agosu shouting out of the window. They didn’t understand, but then they heard, “Wait, I’m coming,”201 and they heard the room door open and Agosu run onto the passage. Now Kwasiba was therefore alone in the room. Very carefully Mini-mini opened the door and whispered, “Psst.” Kwasiba came closer. “My God, be quiet, do keep quiet there.”202

Quickly Mini-mini whispered what the problem was. Now, quickly, then. Kwasiba took Jethro with her. He would have to be quick. In the small room where the chamber pots stood she took his trousers down and said, “Quick, quick!”

Jethro did his best and strained as quickly as possible on the night pot. Quickly she pulled his trousers up again and was intending to take him back to the cupboard, but she had taken just two steps into the room and there stood Agosu in the doorway. Kwasiba froze with shock and Jethro turned deathly white.

“Oh, so that’s it. Where’s the little white thing come from?”203 and he came towards Jethro. Kwasiba stood in front of the child and held him tightly behind her, saying, “Leave him alone, oh, the poor boy, leave him.”204

Agosu went towards the room with the chamber pots. “Where is his mother?”205

“He has no mother, she is already dead,”206 said Kwasiba, turning with the boy still behind her, so that she was constantly between him and Agosu.

In the cupboard Sarith hung semiconscious onto Mini-mini. She had heard so much about hell, but now she knew: this was what she was experiencing, this was hell, and it was all happening as punishment for all the wicked things she had done. Yes, so it was: she was in hell and this was her retribution. Now it was going to happen. Now this ghastly negro would cut her child in pieces. Mini-mini wasn’t even aware that her fingernails were biting into her misi’s arms from the fright. Then they heard Agosu say, “Haven’t I told you what I would do to a white child?”207

Jethro, pressing against Kwasiba’s legs, suddenly saw a knife and screamed, “No, no!”

Kwasiba held her arms out against Agosu’s approach, shouting, “Look, if you dare to do anything, then you will lose your kra. Surely you don’t want that! You need your kra to fight. Leave the child alone, I beg you, leave him in peace.”208

In the cupboard it felt to Sarith as if her heart had stopped. Mini-mini was ready to jump out of the cupboard. She didn’t care any more. That awful Agosu could cut her fingers off, but not Jethro, oh no, not Jethro. Agosu took another step towards Kwasiba, the knife raised. At the same moment voices and footsteps sounded on the stairs and someone shouted, “Agosu, quick, quick, get away, boats are coming, boats full of soldiers and they’re already at the jetty. Get away, all the others have already gone. Come on, Agosu.”209

Agosu glanced again at Kwasiba, then turned and hurried away. From the cupboard they could hear his bare feet taking leaps down the stairs.

Commotion, then, and noise at the front. Shots fired, cries, whistles, men running around the house and then men’s feet, fast, on the stairs.

“Sarith, Sarith, Jethro?” and a gasping Julius stood in the room. “Where is the misi?”210 he cried, and the next moment the screen was pushed over and a semiconscious Sarith fell from the cupboard, followed by Mini-mini.