Free The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi: A Novel by Arthur Japin Page B

yam. He did so without ceremony or untoward display, indeed as if he were accustomed to doing so.
    When the Dutch seized the fortress from the Portuguese a hundred and fifty years later, they laboured diligently to turn Elmina into the most important slaving post on the west coast of Africa. They reinforced the walls and expanded the storage spaces. They constructed a landing-pier and invented more efficient means of regulating the traffic of goods to and from Elmina. The walls of the dark cellars were fitted with iron rings, to which the merchandise was tethered. Here the odds were stacked against the men and women whom my father and his father before him had procured against payment. Many of them died an early death from exhaustion, starvation or injuries; others took their own lives in the putrid, writhing mass.
    Van Drunen pointed out a narrow slit in the wall, through which a man could only just wring his body. One by one the slaves wrenched themselves through the opening and stepped on to the landing-stage, where they were assessed and sorted, counted, branded and herded into the hold. In this way the whole of the Dutch colony of Guyana was supplied with slaves.
    The gallery over the women’s depot offered escape to a select few. The officers would gather there, accompanied on feast days by men of lesser rank, who had been away from home for so long that they could no longer control their lust. From the gallery they looked down on the female slaves, who did not cower and hide, but rather drew attention to themselves. In their despair they even jostled for prominence. The Dutchmen would make their choice from among these women, whereupon a rope ladder was lowered from the gallery. There was a scuffle to climb the ropes, but those who succeeded were thrown back into the crowd. Only the women who had been singled out were taken up on to the gallery. Such a woman would be taken to bed by the soldier, and as soon as he was done she would be lowered back into that sea of misery.
    Yet she was better off than the others. She had a glimmer of hope while she waited anxiously for the signs of pregnancy, for if she was with child her departure would be delayed until after the birth. If she was lucky enough to give birth to a half-caste, she would be freed and granted the use of a hut in the village and a little land. There she would live, among the Fante, together with her bastard child who was both her shame and her redemption. The child was baptized with the name of its father. This is why there are Africans in Elmina who go by Dutch names such as Bartels, Vanderpuye, Hensen, Bosman or Vroom.
    Van Drunen led us to our cubicle. We took our clothes off. They were our only possessions. He draped the robes carefully over the back of a chair. After he left we tried to sleep the way we used to sleep in Kumasi, but were kept awake for a long time by the pounding of the surf against the battlements and the memory of our elongated shadows against the subterranean vaults. We thought we heard echoes from the depths of that labyrinth, footfalls on the steps, which led from nowhere to nothing.
    That same night, 1 April, Major-General Jan Verveer wrote the following letter to the minister of Colonies:
    It is with the greatest satisfaction that I give Your Excellency the assurance that the reception accorded to me in Kumasi surpassed the most lofty expectations and notably that the entire attitude of the king of the Ashanti has been profoundly gratifying. The Dutch flag has become that of the Ashanti, and will fly from the king’s palace henceforth. It pleases the king to call himself the subject of our honoured Sovereign. And the unconditional manner in which he has committed his beloved son and his nephew to the care of Your Majesty’s Government with a view to their acquiring a Dutch education speaks volumes, in my humble opinion. Enclosed please find the contract signed by myself and by His Highness the Asantehene of Ashanti with a cross