Drum (15 page)

The sun on his back was warm like the sim of Africa, his belly was full, his body was strong, and now he was back in Mama Baba's hut where he felt at home and where, for the third time, he was bedded with Pia, who had now contributed two of his sons to the future prosperity of the Finca Montalvo.

Through the shimmer of heat waves, he saw a figure coming towards him on horseback, and as it came nearer he recognized don Cesar, riding alone. This was strange, for the amo always had a groom with him—a middle-aged Negro who seemed to have become a permanent part of the horse he rode.

Tamboura stood in the weeds at the edge of the road to let don Cesar pass, inclining his head as was the custom of slaves with the amo and mumbling the accepted phrase "A mo bendido." He glanced up from under his long lashes as he saw don Cesar stop.

"Lift up your head, muchacho. I would see who you are."

"I am Tamboura, amo."

"I thought as much. Valgame Dios! The broadest shoulders on the whole plantation! How many sons have you fathered for me so far?"

Tamboura ticked them off on his fingers and held up one hand with its fingers spread wide apart. The other hand was clenched with only two fingers upstanding.

"What, only seven? Nagao, the Fanti, has done better than you. He's given me thirteen."

Tamboura held up three more fingers.

"What are those for?" don Cesar asked.

The seven fingers appeared again. "These boys— mu~ chachos!" Tamboura closed his hands and then opened one to display only three fingers. "And these girls— muchachas." He grinned and held up both hands with all fingers extended. "Todo."

"Ten, eh?" don Cesar laughed. "Well, Nagao has still beaten you. Must be you Hausas are not as good as the Fantis."

The patron's laugh encouraged Tamboura to speak. "Nagao been more busy than Tamboura. He get more girls. I sleep all-a time in dormitorio. No get chance to work like Nagao. He siempre occupado in hut of La Viejita. I go hut of Mama Baba but Mama Baba not always have girls, then I sleep alone in dormitorio. Muy pocas muchachas!" He made a long face at don C6sar. "Pobre Tamboura! He like work more for amo but no can work alone."

"Well, I'm not complaining. You've done pretty well. That Arada I bought last year looked even better equipped than you but not a single pup out of him yet. Got to sell him — just no juice in him." Don Cesar leaned over in his saddle and cupped his hand imder Tamboura's chin, lifting his face up.

"You're a good boy, Tamboura. Gregorio says if we had another five hundred like you, we'd have nothing to worry about. You're a good worker, never complain, and you've never caused any trouble." He tipped back his big white straw hat and scratched his head. "I've got an idea, Tam-

boura. How'd you like to be my groom? Ever ridden a horse?"

Tamboura recalled the only time he had ever been on a horse, with his feet tied under the horse's belly and his hands tied to the saddle. That didn't count.

"No, amo, nunca."

'Time you learned. I'll have Ramon teach you. The blasted idiot managed to get hemorroides —^bleeding ones—and he can't ride any more. You haven't got them, have you?"

"No entiendo," Tamboura shook his head doubtfully.

"You'd damn well know if you had them, so I suppose you haven't." He looked straight down at Tamboura. "I'd like to show you oflf to my friends in Havana. You'll make an impression on them. All dressed up you'll be the finest-looking groom in Havana and I'll enjoy seeing my friends' eyes pop out when they see you. Go to the stables and ask for Ramon. Tell him I sent you. Tell him to take you to old Epifania and have her measure you for three suits of clothes, one of fine black moer and two of white cotton. Tell her to have the pants fit tight, like your own skin. Nothing worse than a wrinkle under your ass when you're riding all day. Then have Ramon take you to Carlos and have him make you a pair of boots and a pair of soft black slippers to wear with the black suit. Entiendes?"

"Si, amo. One black suit, two white suits with no wrinkles in the ass, one black boot and one black slipper for these." Tamboura held up one of his enormous feet.

"Itll take the hide of a whole steer to make a pair of boots for youl And tell Ramon to put you on a horse this afternoon—^the black stallion—and teach you which is its head and which is its tail."

"And this?" Tamboura held up the machete.

"What's that for?"

"I take it to storehouse to get new one. Don Marco sent me. Told me hurry back."

"m explain to Marco that you're not cutting cane any more. Vi te!"

Tamboura lingered. He knew he should be overjoyed at becoming don Cesar's groom. He would be the big man of the plantation—the most important of the slaves, outranking even the house servants. It was more than he had ever dreamed of. But one thing troubled him. He wanted to ask but he did not dare and yet he must ask. He must.

Don Cesar noted his confusion.

I

"Well, what is it, boy? What's bothering you?"

"A mo bendido. . . ." Tamboura searched his Spanish for the right words. "Does this mean I no more sleep in bohio of Mama Baba when she need me?"

Don Cesar slapped the smooth thigh-stretched cloth of his breeches.

"Ola! The young stallion already worries about his mares. No, Tamboura, your duties at Mama Baba's continue, only you'll be riding all day—and all night too." He roared out a mighty guffaw at his own joke. "Have no fear, Tamboura. You'll be at Mama Baba's as usual except for the nights that you accompany me to Havana, but Alix has a yellow girl and perhaps you can get a bright one out of her. Ya ve te!" He flicked his riding crop at Tamboura, who ran without knowing that his feet touched the ground.

Don Cesar was still laughing over his own joke as he trotted along. Perhaps he could improve on it—make it into a riddle. "What rides a stallion all day and a mare all night?" Pretty good. When he went to Havana, he'd have to spring the joke on some of his friends. And to substantiate it, he'd have his groom along to prove it. One look at Tamboura would convince them.

He'd tell it to Alix, too, in the intimacy of their bed. The thought of Alix was comforting. To think that he had a real French comtesse for a mistress! Aye de mi! She was beautiful. A little inconvenient perhaps to have to make the journey into Havana every time he wanted to see her. He'd take Tamboura and bed him with Alix's Rachel. It might be another week before he could go. Sometimes he wished that he could bed himself with a black wench but he'd never been able to. He liked his women white and soft and blonde and intelligent—like Alix. He preferred the scent of Alix's minoneta to Negro musk. Caramba! He couldn't wait a whole week to go. But then, she'd be all the happier to see him and, God knows, he'd be all the more anxious to see her.

chapter xi

Tamboura could scarcely wait for his new clothes to be tailored or the boots to be cobbled. He fretted over the seeming delay and every moment he could spare from Ramon's instructions or from his duties at Mama Baba's found him hanging around Epifania's bohio, watching the nimble fingers of her three seamstresses as they progressed, with minute Stitches, in the making of his new clothes. When old Epif ania shooed him out, he went to the hut of Carlos to watch his boots being cobbled, but Carlos was as slow as Epif ania. She had cut his clothes to the same pattern as don Gregorio's, but she had had to increase the measurements at every seam. Tamboura's big frame wzis something quite different from don Gregorio's slender body, although, much to Epifania's surprise, his waist was not much larger than his master's.

As the suits began to take shape and fittings became more frequent, Tamboura enjoyed standing on the wooden box in Epifania's bohio, accepting the admiring glances of the two ©Id crones who sewed with her and the openly adoring looks of the young girl apprentice whose duty it was to keep the needles threaded and snip out bastings. There was a certain sensual joy to slipping on the sleek, smooth new materials and feeling them cool and snug against his legs. The suit of shiny black mohair was his special dehght because this was a real suit, similar in cut and style to the Spanish suits that don Cesar and don Gregorio wore. The trousers, so high of waistline that they nearly came up to his armpits, curved in to fit his waist and then curved out without a wrinkle to cover his round buttocks, slimming over his thighs like the skin of a sausage, only to flare out in wider bottoms around his ankles. With this suit, he was to wear a shirt of white lawn—without the lace or embroidery that decorated the amo's shirts—and a broad sash of dull black silk. Over the shirt went a short jacket, cut high in the

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back and wide in the shoulders with no buttons in front, although it did sport tasseled frogs of black braid. Tamboura was glad there were no buttons on his coat. Those devilish little circles of black bone on the trousers gave him sufficient trouble, for his big fingers were clumsy and the only pantaloons he had ever had previously had been cinched around the waist with a length of twine. Try as he might, he was forever getting the wrong button onto the wrong buttonhole, which made poor old Epifania cluck with distress, undo all the work he had so laboriously done and then wait patiently until his thick fingers maneuvered the right button into the right hole and progressed upwards until the closure was complete.

The white suits were quite different—instead of being Spanish they were Cuban—with breeches that slipped into canvas leggings. These were designed for riding when he accompanied don Cesar to the city. Other suits, added as an afterthought, were of rough brown cotton which was quite good enough for riding on the finca and caring for the horses. The black suit, which was to be carefully creased and folded into a saddle bag, was only to wear after Tamboura arrived at don Cesar's destination, when he exchanged his duties as a groom for a degree of personal attendance on his amo.

Then came the marvel of the boots which Carlos had made for him. They were beautiful to look at but, ay de mi, how they pinched his feet, which had never known anything more constricting than the thonged sandals of thick steer-hide which all the slaves wore to protect their feet in the cane fields. Ay, si! They were beautiful to look at, so highly polished one could see one's face in them, but veritable pendejos to wear for even ten minutes. He couldn't move his toes in them and his feet felt more closely confined than they had ever been when he was shackled. The boots caused his feet to sweat and swell but Tamboura's pride in their possession conquered his discomfort. At first he hobbled around in them hke a spavined horse, but he persevered until the leather stretched and he could go for several hours with them on his feet, and then for all day. But it was always a relief to get them off.

All the while the clothes were being tailored he was having dawn to dusk instruction from Ramon, who, although now unable to sit a horse himself, managed to instruct Tamboura sufficiently well from the ground. Tamboura rode

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around and around the corral, getting on and off until he was able to place one foot in the stirrup and with a leap accommodate himself to the saddle. He learned the use of the bridle and how to guide his horse by the pressure of his knees. He learned how to become one with the horse itself and to adjust his movements to that of the animal, until he became a veritable centauro and it was difficult to see where one big black staHion ended and another began.

In addition to his lessons in riding, Tamboura was instructed in the care of don Cesar's person. He was taught how to lay out the amo's clothes and help him to dress, but he still had to learn the intricacies of shaving him and of tying his cravat However, don Cesar was willing to dispense with these services for the pride he took in Tamboura's attendance; it was something to have the finest slave in Cuba and a pleasure to show him off. He did as much credit to don C6sar as the fine Arabian horse he rode, as the big diamond that sparkled on his finger, as the lush acres and the prosperous finca of Montalvo. The big black fingers would eventually master both the razor and the cravat In the meantime, it would be enough just to have him along and have him admired. And don Cesar did not lose sight of the fact that Tamboura's presence would be very good propaganda for his pet plan for self-propagation of the slave population of Cuba.

During the two years that Tamboura had been at the Finca Montalvo, he had never been away from the plantation. His world had shrunk to the immediate locale of the finca and even more narrowly to his days in the field and his nights at Mama Baba's. The world of Africa, the barracoons, Yendo Castle and the long voyage of the Middle Passage had receded in his memory and now seemed like experiences in a dream, although he still retained a vivid memory of his one brief glimpse of Havana, particularly the white girl whom he had noticed on the street. He had seen no other white woman, as don C6sar was a widower and don Gregorio's wife a hypochondriacal invalid who rarely left her bed or room. Even those who had visited at Montalvo had remained invisible to him, as it was rarely that any but the house servants or the gardeners ever left the slave quarters to appear in front of the big house. The girl he had seen so long ago in Havana had become magnified in his dreams and was now somehow confused in his mind with the beautiful statue in the chapel. Whenever he thought of her, she appeared

with the same china-blue eyes and the long golden hair of the image he worshiped each Sunday.

Before going to Havana with don Cesar, Tamboura was taken along by his amo for an overnight visit at the Finca de las Delicias, owned by Raimundo Bustamonte, not far from the town of Cardenas.

Riding a length behind his master in the bright freshness of a Cuban morning, he marveled at the vista of the long road, the waving cane fields and the small pueblos through which they passed. In the villages he saw other white women but none of them compared with the image he cherished, for all those he saw were dark with olive skin. Most of them were elderly, their heads wrapped in black shawls, and the few that were young were far from the wonder he had imagined every white woman to be. Still, they were interesting to look at and he speculated on what the effect would be of his own black skin against the paleness of theirs. He even wondered if they were made the same as the black wenches with whom he was familiar and if they enjoyed men as much as the black ones did.