Chapter 19
“Grant me this request, Lord God of Israel. ”
W
hen Amir heard the door shut and the bar slide across, locking them in for the night, the conversation he'd had with his mother prior to leaving came to mind. She had told him that she prayed to the Lord God of Israel that he would be with Amir on his journey. She had said, “The Lord God doesn't guarantee you a life without trouble. He only promises to be with you and never leave you through whatever trouble comes your way. Trust him, my son.”
He closed his eyes and soon he was there, back with his mother, in their home. When he thought of her, he remembered that she had sacrificed her life for them. Tears filled his eyes and spilled out of the corners.
Amidst all the groans and agony that filled the prison he was in, he wept for his mother, who, he believed, had died a painful death for nothing. His mother had been good to him. She had taught him what real love was by sacrificing herself so that he could have the happiness she never had. The thing that bothered him most was that she didn't hesitate to die so that he could live; so that he could pursue the thing that he thought would bring him the most happinessâIbo Atikah Mustafa. But because he was careless, because he relaxed and allowed himself the luxury of a deep, satisfying sleep, her sacrifice was in vain.
As the
Windward
journeyed on, moving farther and farther away from the coast of Africa, memories of his betrayal washed over him like a great tidal wave. He remembered his brother's jubilant smile when he spoke of Ibo and his upcoming marriage. Adesola had called a great feast to celebrate and had invited all of his brothers. Amir attended the feast and had eaten with his brother, knowing he was going to take his bride and make her his own. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but the thing had gone too far. He had fallen for Ibo, and she for him.
He told himself that Adesola had other wives and that he didn't need another; especially one he didn't love and one who did not love him. Now, looking back on it, Amir was sorry for what he had done, wishing he could stop time and reverse it so that he and Ibo wouldn't be on a Dutch ship; so that his beloved mother would not have died in vain. But it was too late. Time stood still for no man, and what he set into motion would have to play itself out to the very end.
Even though he told Ibo to be strong and to survive, he didn't believe it himself. He realized that he had been stripped of everything, that he was powerless, that neither muscle nor pride would save him from the plight before him. That's when he thought about his mother's God and called upon him in his desperation.
With his eyes closed, he opened his mouth and spoke thusly: “Oh Lord God of my mother . . . hear me. Hear my prayer. From my youth I have heard of you from my mother's voice. She has read me many wonderful things about you. She has told me of your mighty power . . . your great wisdom . . . and your everlasting mercy. I do not know if I ever believed in you, but I know she did. I pray to you, if you exist, and I ask that you grant me my freedom and the power to take vengeance on the Dutchmen who brought me to this place.
“I know I have given you no reason to grant me such a request. I do not even expect you to do this thing for my sake. I ask that you do this thing for my mother's sake. It was she who told me you would be with me in times like this. I pray, therefore, that you honor my mother as she honored your word.
“Grant me this request, Lord God of Israel. Grant me this request and I will believe in you for the rest of my life. Free me and give me the power to make my enemies pay for what they have done to me, and I will give you my life.”
When he finished his prayer, a great calm came over him and he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 20
“I don't care what the other white men do as long as I kill this one. ”
S
tanding outside of the cargo hold, Ibo was conflicted when she left Amir in that awful place. She wanted freedom now; she wanted revenge now. However, in her heart, she knew Amir was right. Even though they vastly outnumbered the
Windward
crew, the men in the cargo hold were far too weak to overthrow them. It looked as if many of them were knocking on the door of death, waiting for it to open.
She locked the door and made her way back up the stairs where cool, fresh air lived. The passageway leading to Captain Rutgers' cabin was quiet now, as if everyone had fallen asleep.
Quietly, she crept down the corridor leading to Rutgers' quarters. Having reached the partially open door, she slowly pushed it open. Rutgers was still fast asleep, still on top of the girl he had raped. The girl's eyes offered confusion. Then she frowned. Ibo knew she was wondering why she hadn't brought help. She put her index finger to her lips, hoping the woman wouldn't speak.
Rutgers grunted and rolled off the woman and onto his back.
Both women froze. They were so afraid of him waking up that they didn't dare breath.
The girl continued staring at Ibo, wondering if Rutgers had opened his eyes and saw that she was no longer in the chair. Ibo's index finger was still at her lips. Then she raised both her palms to the girl, letting her know he was still sleeping.
When the girl heard Rutgers snore, her face contorted. Then she whispered, “What happened?”
“The prince says to wait.”
“Wait? For what?” the woman screamed a whisper. “For them to kill us all? To be thrown in the water and be eaten alive? To be forced again and again? Is this what we wait for?”
With strong resolve, Ibo screamed a whisper of her own. “If necessary, yes!”
“That's easy for you to say! You just sit there and watch! You don't have to worry about the white man forcing himself inside you like the rest of us!”
“Not now, no. But later, I'm afraid we will all suffer the same fate. We must stick together, or we will all die one by one.”
The woman swiveled her head to the left and looked at Rutgers. He was still asleep. She eased off the bed and started looking around.
“What are you doing?” Ibo asked. “Lay back down before he wakes up.”
“No. I will kill him now. While he sleeps.”
“Wait. If you kill him, what will the other white men do?”
“I don't care what the other white men do as long as I kill this one.”
The girl slid open a drawer, looking for a knife to plunge into his heart. Finding nothing, she eased open another and another, only to be disappointed again and again. Then she looked under the bed and found a case. She grabbed and opened it and discovered that it held the firearm that she had seen him use.
When she stood up, a triumphant frown covered her face; a look of murderous rapture sprang forth. She pointed the gun in Rutgers' face, right under his nose, determined to blow it clean off.
Ibo grabbed her arm just before the weapon discharged.
Ka-boom!
Sulfur filled the air.
A very naked Captain Rutgers woke up and saw the two girls struggling over the gun. When the woman realized that he had awakened, she dropped the gun, broke away from Ibo, and ran through the open cabin door. Rutgers grabbed his pants, slid into them as quickly as he could, and ran after her. Ibo stayed behind them and watched from the open doorway.
Chapter 21
Someone was about to die.
I
bo watched Rutgers run down the passageway, chasing the girl who had tried to kill him. The other officers came out of their cabins, shirtless, with their weapons drawn and pointed toward the ceiling. They were puzzled by the gunshot that woke them all. Suddenly, the corridor was filled with naked, hysterical women, screaming and running, trying to escape the men who had plundered them.
Rutgers told his men what had happened. He told some of the men to guard the cargo hold. They ran in haste down the stairs. The rest of the officers ran after the girl, who was on her way up the stairs to the deck. Evil covered their faces.
It was then that Ibo began to second guess herself. Standing there in the doorway, she began to wonder if she had done the right thing. Then she realized that if she had let the woman kill Rutgers, another officer would have surely taken over and he, given what was happening to all the women, would have forced her that very night.
On the other hand, she realized that by saving Rutgers' life, she had doomed the girl to death. They were going to catch her, she knew. There was no doubt about that. They were aboard a ship at sea. How far could she run? Where could she hide and for how long?
The
Windward
crew was going to be alert for the rest of the voyage. Security would be tighter. Freeing Amir was going to be nearly impossible now. She wished she hadn't denied the girl the satisfaction of killing Rutgers before her rendezvous with the grim reaper. If she had, at least one of the Dutchmen would be dead.
Then it occurred to her that saving Rutgers' life could play into her hands the way Amir had planned. She realized that even if he never acknowledged it, she had saved his life, and if he was any kind of man, if he was any kind of human being, he would be in her debt for as long as he lived.
When she realized this, she no longer worried about the fate of the girl, who would die any moment now. Besides, she rationalized that the girl preferred death to being raped every night. She had said as much herself. Saving Rutgers' life gave the girl what she wantedâdeath and the freedom that came with it.
Quickly, she left the cabin and made her way down the empty passageway. She climbed the stairs and went on deck. She had to see what was going to happen. She had to know how it would end for the girl who, without realizing it, had given Ibo the advantage she would need to repay those who had destroyed her romantic dream.
The darkness on deck was so thick she could feel it. It was so dark that she couldn't see her hand in front of her face. The officers lit torches. The crackling flame sliced into the night. The women were still screaming, still running around with nowhere to go but into the sea. Several of them jumped overboard, preferring a watery grave to becoming a bed wench and producing children who would be condemned to the same the moment they heard themselves cry.
She heard loud splashes along with ear-piercing screams as they plunged into the Atlantic. She saw Mr. Whitaker on the starboard side of the ship, using a torch as he looked around for the girl who had tried to kill Captain Rutgers. All of a sudden, the woman came out of the darkness and ran toward him at full speed from the other side of the ship. Mr. Whitaker didn't see her.
The woman hit him with enough force to take them both over the side. Two loud splashes filled the night. When Ibo saw it, a satisfied smile bubbled to the surface and remained.
Happy that she and the woman had both gotten a measure of revenge, she returned to the cabin. She covered her mouth so that her laughter would not be heard.
Chapter 22
“Am I to assume you will grant me anything but my freedom then?”
A
couple of hours later, she heard the cabin door open and close. After searching fruitlessly for the key that would unlock the chains that secured Amir and the other men, she had fallen asleep in the lavender velvet spoon-back chair. She opened her eyes. Captain Rutgers was staring at her. For a few unsettling moments, they just looked at each other, neither of them saying a word; both of them contemplating what had happened and what would happen next.
On the way back to his cabin, Rutgers thought about what had happened and knew he was lucky to be alive. He had raped a woman and was brazen enough to fall asleep on top of her. He had also been careless in that he left a loaded weapon in a place where the woman could find it and blow his brains out. If one of his men had done that, he would have stripped him of his rank and flogged him. Being the captain of a seafaring vessel, he knew he would have to set a much better example for his men.
The gun was still right where the woman had dropped it. He picked it up and looked at the instrument of death. He had used that very gun to kill a number of men. Most recently, one of his own who was about to shoot and kill Ibo Atikah Mustafa, the precious cargo that he had tried to procure from her father a number of times. The irony of her saving his life left him feeling totally indebted to her. Saving his life meant that anything he did, no matter how insignificant, would not have been possible were it not for her intervention.
He looked at Ibo again. She was still watching him. He got on his knees and looked under the bed. Then he grabbed the case that had been specially made for the weapon. He put the pistol in it and closed it again. The weapon had been discharged, so it could no longer be used to threaten his life. He slid it back under the bed.
He stood up and looked at Ibo again and said, “I suppose I owe you my life.”
There was no change in her expression when she said, “I
suppose
I owe
you
my virginity.”
Rutgers almost smiled when he heard her reply. “Tell me something,” he said sincerely. “Why? Why would you save the life of a man who snatched you from your homeland?”
Ibo raise her left brow before saying, “Why would you snatch me from my land, yet allow me to have my clothing, eat the same food you eat, and not do to me what you did to the girl I saved you from? And why were you staring at me while you . . . ?”
Rutgers sat down in one his chairs and ran his hand down his face and then fingered his beard. “One question at a time.”
Ibo nodded.
“Now, why didn't you let her kill me, your captor?”
“Because if she had killed you, how would I know whether the man who replaced you wouldn't do to me what you refused to do? With you, I was safe. With another, I do not think I would be.”
“So, self-preservation?”
“I do not understand the word
preservation.
What does it mean?”
“It is as you saidâto be safe.”
“Then yes, it is as you have saidâself-preservation.”
“I suppose you
think
I owe you something. Your
freedom,
perhaps?”
“You do owe me something, Captain Rutgers. You owe me your
life.
The only question now is how do you plan to pay your debt?”
“I've been thinking about that. I hate owing anybody anything, least of all my life. It makes people think they have something on you. That's why I always pay my debts! And I pay them on time! I make darn sure I owe no man anything, and I do everything I can to ensure that he owes me.
“Unfortunately, I do owe you my life, as you have said. So, tell me, what do you want?”
She wrinkled her forehead, stunned that he would ask her that. The question truly puzzled her because the answer was so obvious.
“What do I
want?”
she asked forcefully, on the verge of yelling. “I want what every
hostage
on the ship wants. I want you to turn the ship around and take us all back home where we belong.”
Rutgers laughed loud and hard. “Forget about it. That's never going to happen. You'll never see your home again. Get used to it. Stop thinking about it, because it'll never ever happen. Start thinking about building a new life in a new placeâAmerica. New Orleans, that's where you're going.”
“And then you'll set us free?”
“Us?
“The prince and me.”
Rutgers stood up and paced the floor. Then he stopped and looked at her again. “You're so beautiful. You're worth more money to me than all the others combined. I cannot let you go without getting something for you. That's why I have taken good care of you, to answer your question. Your value will be high in New Orleans.”
He quieted himself and thought for a few seconds. “How about this? Since I cannot let you go, I'll do everything I can to make sure that the man who buys you is the kind of man that will treat you well. How about that?”
“Do you have a family, Captain Rutgers?”
He shook his head.
“No wife?”
“No.”
“I see.”
After a long pause, Rutgers said, “You see what?”
“I see why you have no soul, sir. I see why you could do what you did to the girl you brought in here. I see why you can do what you did to us all. You can beat a man to death with a whip and toss him to the sharks. You can do the same to a woman and child because you have no soul, sir. You have no sense of family and the importance of it. You have no respect for others because you have no respect for yourself.
“I'm just wondering why you sold your soul. What happened to you? Who destroyed you? What could lead a man to do such things, and still be so deceived as to think that God is with you in such things?”
Rutgers found her words to be both penetrating and true, but he did his best to ignore her comments about his lack of a soul. He refused to let her see how on target she really was.
He remained stone-faced and said, “Here's what I'm prepared to do: I'll get a friend who I trust to buy the prince when we get to the Isle of Santo Domingo. There, the prince will have a chance to buy his freedom. You'll have the same chance for freedom in New Orleans. Now, it will take some years, but there is a chance that you and the prince can reunite. That's the best I can do.”
“That's not the best you can do, Captain Rutgers, and you know it. You can do a whole lot better than that.”
“What would make us even then? And again, forget about your freedom. You're going to have to earn that yourself.”
“Am I to assume that by saving your life you will grant me anything but my freedom then?”