“What can I give you? What can I do for you?”224
A faint smile appeared on Kwasiba’s face as he said, “I want nothing. Where I’m going you can’t take wealth along. Misi, I want nothing, but you and Masra Julius, you care for my child, care for my Mini-mini. Let her stay with you, look after her well. That’s all I want.”225
Sarith reflected that this was no reward for what Kwasiba had done for her, for it would be not the slightest trouble to keep Mini-mini. She would never be able to do without Mini-mini, such a loving and good person, so devoted to Jethro. No, she could have no better person than Mini-mini. Once Jethro was grown up, she thought, and she no longer needed Mini-mini, then she must certainly give Mini-mini her freedom. But only later, of course, for giving a slave freedom cost money, and that they didn’t have right now.
A few days later Kwasiba died. Julius was not there when it happened. He had gone to the town to fetch the new slaves. When he returned and Sarith told him that Kwasiba had died, he said despondently, “And she never got that reward.”
“She wanted no reward,” said Sarith. “I asked her, but she didn’t want anything, only that Mini-mini would stay with us and that we should be good to her.”
The plantation was operating again. The new slaves were set to work. In the house there was more for Nicolette to do. She was one of the slaves who had returned, because she was expecting. The father was a slave who lived not far from the De Ledesmas in the Saramaccastraat. The cook, Freda, and Nicolette’s sister were also in the house.
It was New Year. Sarith did not ask to go to town. She wanted to, but dared not ask for anything, and Julius paid hardly any attention to her and said only what was strictly necessary. Since the raid he had always slept in his office. Sarith mainly remained in her room, where she lay in bed or just hung around, now her body was becoming ever greater with the child she was expecting.
It rained a lot. Julius arrived home after sitting half a day in the tent boat. He was tired and stiff and longed for a firm massage from Kwasiba, but Kwasiba was no more. He paced restlessly up and down the rear veranda and asked Sarith, who had just come down the steps, “Is there a slave-girl who can massage? I have back-ache.”
“Mini-mini knows how to massage. Let her do it,” said Sarith, and to Mini-mini, who was playing with Jethro on the front veranda, she said, “Mini-mini, go and massage the masra’s back.”226
It feels very different from what Kwasiba did, thought Julius as he lay on his stomach on the couch and felt Mini-mini’s fingers on his back. Pleasant and much softer. He relaxed. He did miss Kwasiba’s voice – she always spoke as she massaged – and he said to the girl, “Your mother always talked as she massaged. Tell me something.”227
“I don’t know what I could say, masra,”228 said Mini-mini.
“Mini-mini: that is surely a name from the story of Koprokanu?”229 remarked Julius.
“Yes, Mini-mini was the name of one of the children,”230 agreed Mini-mini.
“Well, tell me that, then,”231 said Julius.
Mini-mini laughed and with her soft, melodious voice she began to tell the Cinderella tale of the mother who had four children: Mini-mini, Fremantania, Fremanbonia and Koprokanu. She loved the first three, but not the fourth one, because she was not beautifully brown like the other three, but was more yellow in colour and had copper-red hair. And when Mini-mini sang the song that the mother would sing when she came home, her voice sounded so sweet that Julius felt a wave of happiness engulfing him. The tender fingers on his back, the lovely voice that narrated and sang so beautifully: oh how fine this was! This Mini-mini – how sweet she was. When the massage was over, he spent the rest of the evening thinking back on how wonderfully those fingers went over his back and how sweet her voice had sounded.
The next day he went into the fields on horseback. He came home wet through from the rain and again Mini-mini had to massage his back. Again he asked her to speak and sing to him. The next day, too. And so it continued, every day, so that it became a routine. But Julius noticed that he longed the whole day for that one hour that he would be lying alone with Mini-mini on the couch in his office, feeling her affectionate fingers passing over his back and hearing her soft, melodious voice. This was no massage, this was a caress, a delightful, fantastic caress that he hoped would never end. And then that voice, that sweet, soft voice.
Mini-mini knew no more stories, so he asked her just to sing. The songs she also sang to Jethro, so sweet, oh so sweet! Sometimes he turned over and asked her to massage his shoulders from the front. Then he would look at her. How beautiful she was, so delightful, so soft. He looked at her mouth, her large, dark eyes. Sometimes the headdress fell from her head and he saw the lovely thick plait that moved along with her. He could not help stretching a hand out and caressing her face and her bare shoulders.