The Covenant (30 page)
Authors: James A. Michener
They did not embrace, Karel was too studious of his position for that, but they did greet each other with unmistakable warmth. “I’m to be in charge at Java,” Karel said.
“Cinnamon, nutmeg, tin, cloves,” Jack recited, evoking the days when he had known the Van Doorn brothers at the Compagnie warehouses.
“All that and more,” Karel said proudly.
Blowing out his breath, Jack asked, “You got any cloves?”
“No,” Karel said with a thin laugh. Together they walked to the fort, where Jack asked, “Willem, he here too?” When the younger Van Doorn was sent for, with Van Riebeeck in attendance, Jack repeated the proposal he had made many years before.
“Time that you men, Hottentots work together.”
“Fine,” Karel said, sitting stiffly in his big chair. “If you trade us cattle, we’ll—”
“Not that,” Jack said. “We need our cattle.” He was speaking English with a heavy Portuguese overlay and occasional Dutch words acquired lately—that grand mélange which was on its way to becoming a unique language—but everyone in the room understood him and was able to respond in the same vernacular.
“What, then?” Karel asked.
“I mean, we come here. Live with you. Have pasture here, huts, run your cattle, our cattle.”
Willem broke in: “Nobody tends cattle better than a Hottentot.”
With considerable disdain Karel stared at his brother. “Live here? You mean … Hottentots living in this fort?”
“They learn trades very rapidly, Karel. Those who become carpenters might live in the fort, or bakers, or shoemakers. Look, he made his own shoes.”
With disdain Karel looked at the shoes, big, misshapen affairs, and they epitomized his view of the Hottentot: capable of mimicking
a few outward traces of civilization, but worthy of no serious consideration. He was dismayed at the way the meeting had turned, and without ever addressing himself seriously to Jack’s proposal, he returned to the problem of the runaway slaves.
“What you can do for us is organize your people for tracking down our runaways. We’ll give you weights of metal for every slave you bring back.”
Jack thought, but did not say: When we hunt, we hunt animals, not men. We’re shepherds and cattlemen, and we could help you so much.
“As to the possibility of your moving into the vicinity of the fort,” Karel said with a deprecatory laugh, “I fear that will never happen.”
“Commander …”
“He’s the commander,” Karel said, indicating Van Riebeeck. “I’m the commissioner.”
“Commissioner, sir. You white men need us. Not today maybe. Not tomorrow. But the time comes, you need us.”
“We need you now,” Karel said with a certain generosity. “We need your help with the slaves. We need your cattle.”
“You need us, Commissioner. To live with you. To do many things.”
“Enough of this.” Van Doorn rose grandly, nodded gravely to his one-time friend, and left the room. He left the fort and returned to the ship, where he penned two recommendations for the Lords XVII that became law at the Cape:
There must be no social contact with the Hottentots. The easy entrance that some have had to the fortress area must be stopped. In everything that is done, effort must be made to preserve the three distinctions: the Dutchman in command, the imported slave at his service, and the Hottentot in contact with neither. They are not to be used as slaves and are under no circumstances to be taken into any family. I would suggest that a fence be built around the entire Compagnie property. It might not be strong enough to repel invaders, but it would serve the salutary purpose of reminding our people that they are different from the Hottentots, and it would forcefully remind the Hottentots that they can never be our equals. It would also impress upon our people that their job is the replenishing of Compagnie ships and not the exploration of
unknown territories. If material for a fence is not available, a hedge of thorns might be considered, for this would keep our men in and the Hottentots out.
Already serious at this moment, and of the gravest potential danger in the future, is the fact that our Dutch are beginning to use the bastard Portuguese tongue adopted by slaves and idlers and petty traders throughout the Eastern Seas. During my stay I noticed the introduction of many words not used in Holland. Some were Madagascan, some Ceylonese, many were Malaccan but most were Portuguese, and if this were to continue, our Dutch language would be lost, submerged in an alien tide, to our detriment and the cheapening of expression. Compagnie servants at the Cape must address their slaves in Dutch. All business must be conducted in Dutch. And especially in family life, conversation must be in Dutch with children forbidden to speak the language of their amahs.
When these new rules were explained at the fort, Commissioner van Doorn judged his responsibilities discharged, and he instructed his captain to prepare the ship for the long trip to Java.
On the evening before departure, a gala New Year’s festival was prepared by Van Riebeeck and his gifted wife, Maria. It was attended by their two nieces, attired in the new dresses Kornelia had brought them, and music was provided by Malaccan slaves. Each item of food had come from the Cape: the stock fish, a leg of mutton, cauliflower, cabbage, corn, beets and pumpkin. The wine, of course, was provided by the ship, taken from casks being transported from France to Java, but as Karel said so gracefully when he proposed the toast: “Before long, even the wine will come from here.” And he nodded toward his brother.
“Now for the dessert!” Van Riebeeck cried, flushed with the good wine. Clapping his hands, he ordered the slaves to bring in the special dish prepared for this night, and from the kitchen came Deborah, heavy with child, bearing in her two hands a large brown-gold earthen crock, straight-sided and with no handles. Looking instinctively at Willem, her grave face expressionless, she awaited a signal from him; with a slight nod of his head he indicated that she must place the pot before Kornelia, and when this was done, and a big spoon provided with nine little dishes, everyone saw with pleasure that it was a most
handsome bread pudding, crusty on top and brown, with raisins and lemon peel and orange rind peeking through.
“Our Willem makes it,” Van Riebeeck said proudly as the diners applauded.
“Did you really make this?” Kornelia asked as she poised the spoon above the rounded crust.
“I had to learn,” Willem said.
“But what’s in it?”
“We save bits of bread and cake and biscuit. Eggs and cream. Butter and all the kinds of fruit we can find. At the end, of course …” He hesitated. “You wouldn’t appreciate this, Kornelia, never having lived in Java …” He felt that he was not expressing himself well, and turning to his brother and Van Riebeeck, he concluded rather lamely: “You Java men will understand. When the sugar’s been added and the lemon juice, I dust in a little cinnamon and a lot of nutmeg. To remind us of Java.”
“You’re a fine cook, Willem.”
“Someone had to learn,” he said. “You can’t eat fish and mutton four hundred days a year.”
At this curious statement the diners looked at one another, but no one thought to correct the speaker. At some spots in the world the year did have four hundred days, and even a small thing like bread pudding helped alleviate the tedium of those long, lonely days.
When the last wine decanter was emptied, two final conversations occurred. They were monologues, really, for the speakers lectured their listeners without interruption. Karel van Doorn told Commander van Riebeeck, “You must strive very hard, Jan, to comply with all Compagnie rules. Waste not a single stuiver. Make your people speak Dutch. Fence in the Compagnie property. Discipline your slaves. Get more cattle and start the wine flowing. Because if you take care of our ships, I can assure you that the Lords will reward you with an assignment in Java.” Before Van Riebeeck could respond, Karel added reflectively, “Didn’t the spices in Willem’s pudding … Well, didn’t they remind you of the great days in Ternate and Amboyna? There’s no place in the world like Java.”
At this moment Kornelia van Doorn was telling her redcomplexioned cousin, “Katje, help Willem grow his grapes. Because if he succeeds, he’ll be in line for promotion. Then you can come to
Java.” With a flood of gentleness and affection, she embraced her unlovely cousin and confessed: “We haven’t brought you to a paradise, Katje. But he is a husband and his hut is temporary. If you keep him at his work, you’ll both soon be in Java, of that I’m sure.”
When Willem saw how meticulously the vines from France had been packed and learned how carefully they had been tended on the voyage, he felt that these new stocks would invigorate the Cape vineyard; the hedge of young trees was high enough to break the force of those relentless summer winds and he now knew something about setting his rows in the right direction. Before Karel sailed on to Java the vines were well planted, and one of the last entries the commissioner made in his report to the Lords XVII commended Willem for taking viticulture seriously and predicted: Soon they will be sending casks of wine to Java.
His last entry was a remarkable one, often to be quoted in both Amsterdam and Batavia but never to be comprehended there or in South Africa; it dealt with slaves and their propensity for running away. In his stay at the Cape he had listened to three days of detailed testimony on the frequency with which slaves of all kinds—Angolans, Malaccans, Madagascans—ran away. It was a madness, he concluded, which no measures open to the Dutch could eliminate, and he reported to the Lords XVII:
Neither hunger nor thirst, neither the murderous arrow of the Bushman nor the spear of the Hottentot, neither the waterless desert nor the impassable mountain deters the slave from seeking his freedom. I have therefore directed the officers at the Cape to initiate a series of punishments which will impress the slaves with the fact that they are Compagnie property and must obey its laws. At the first attempt to run away, the loss of an ear. At the next attempt, branding on the forehead and the other ear to be cropped. At the third attempt, the nose to be cut off. And at the fourth, the gallows.
When the
Groote Hoorn
resumed its way to Java, it was decided that since the prompt production of wine loomed so important, Willem ought to have more assistance at the vineyard, so the slave Jango was excused from his duties at the fort. This was a happy decision, because he quickly displayed an aptitude for handling vines, and when
the new plants took root, Van Riebeeck felt that the pressing of wine would soon be a reality.
But Jango had the weakness of every man of merit: he wanted to be free. And when Willem recommended that the chains be struck off his slave, “so that he can move more freely about the vineyard,” Van Riebeeck reluctantly agreed.
“You may be courting trouble,” he warned Willem, but the latter said he felt sure Jango would appreicate this opportunity of working outside the fort and could be trusted.
He was partly right. Without chains, Jango worked diligently, but as soon as the new vines were pruned, he escaped into the wilderness. Two days passed before Willem reported his absence to the fort, where the news caused great agitation. Van Riebeeck was furious with Willem for having delayed the alarm, and in anger dispatched a field force to track down the escapee, but when a muster was taken he found that three other slaves had joined Jango, and their tracks indicated that they were heading directly into Bushmen country, where they would probably be slain. “And that’s the end of Compagnie property,” Van Riebeeck groaned.
But after a three-day search, Jango and the others were discovered huddled at the foot of a small cliff, cold and hungry. When they were roped together and on the march back to the fort, the soldiers began to speculate on how Commissioner van Doorn’s draconian laws governing runaways would be enforced. “You’re going to lose your ears,” they told the slaves. “You know that.” One Dutchman grabbed Jango’s left ear and sliced at it with his hand: “Off it comes!”
But when the lookout at the fort spotted the returning prisoners, and everyone gathered to see the mutilations, they were disappointed, for Van Riebeeck refused to lop off ears: “I do not disfigure my slaves.” Two assistants argued with him, citing both the new law and the necessity for drastic punishment, but the stubborn little man rejected their counsel. The slaves were moderately whipped, thrown into a corner of the fortress that served as a jail, and kept without food for three days.
Five days after they were released, Jango ran away again, and Willem was summoned to the fort: “We have reason to believe that the slaves have again made union with the Hottentots. Go find Jack and warn him that this must not continue.”
“And Jango?”
“We’ll take care of Jango.”
So Willem went eastward to confer with Jack, while the usual troop of hunters went after Jango, who this time had taken only two others with him. Willem found Jack at a distant site, unwilling to admit that he was in league with the slaves, unwilling to cooperate in any way.
“What do you want?” Willem, exasperated, asked his old friend.
“What I said at the fort. Work together.”
“You heard my brother. That can never happen.”
“More ships will come,” Jack persisted. “More cattle will be needed.”
Willem’s frown ended the conversation. There was no hope that the kind of union Jack was proposing could ever be effected; white men and brown were destined to live their different lives, one the master, one the outcast, and any attempt to bridge the gap would forever be doomed by the characters of the persons involved. The white men would be stolid and stubborn like Willem, or vain and arrogant like Karel; the brown men would be proud and recalcitrant like Jack …
A visible shudder raced over Willem’s face, for he had been accorded a glimpse of the future. Staring down the long corridor of Cape history—beyond the fortress and the branding of slaves—he saw with tragic clarity the total disappearance of Jack and his Hottentots. They were destined to be engulfed, overswarmed by ships and horses. Tears of compassion came to his eyes and he wanted to embrace this little man with whom he had shared so many strange adventures, but Jack had turned away, rebuffed for the last time. In his ragged English uniform and his big homemade shoes, he was walking alone toward the mountains, never again to approach the Van Doorns with his proposals.