Loved By Another Chapter Six

AUGUST 4th (FEBRUARY 28th)

When I first came here, I was scared, but exited. I think this is what accounted for most of my nausea on the ship. I did not want to leave the known, but I understand that I had the potential to create something new entirely. What I found has now begun to define my existence rather than me of it. Oliver, borrowing some slaves to complete some garden work, has instructed me to begin design plans for the garden some spring. I do not know why he has released me. He had tightened the noose on my life so quickly that I barely left my quarters. I cannot assume it was my ambivalent attitude that has made him notice. He actually tried to visit me in the night not long ago, but I asked Cover to turn him away, too many memories of those early times. Even more since he has forced me back into undignified society, Clover has been running errands between us. Our communication directly is forced and edited, especially since he has relinquished the forced means and we no longer eat together. Clover says he spends most of his time in either his study or out on his mare.

I am still made to attend Wednesday, Friday and Saturday social events, as well as other miscellaneous social events throughout each month. On those days, I give Coquen the lessons. Oliver allows him an hour to attend me in my quarters. Coquen’s eyes are startling; they are silver lined glistening coal colour. His skin the colour of unrefined honey, a deep Caramel colour. It is always glowing by the time I get to see him, having worked the morning in the fields. Although Oliver wanted one of the workers to be a supervisor, he passed over Coquen for Ammie. For the education program, this was good, but Coquen was disappointed. He works so hard, knowing that he missed an opportunity to be better in a world where nothing could be his. Because of my negligence, he was punished. He said to me last week, God bless him, that he didn’t mind Ammie taking the supervisors position, because her simply being a supervisor “proves that we are capable to supervise, even though the lord could have hired a Master as a supervisor, but he didn’t.” He always calls me Lady Biaah, although I have told him many times to call me Hallie. He told me not much later that the education program allows him to feel important. This is not a consolation, but it fills me with warmth anyway. I enjoy his company, he is a perfect gentleman, there is a beauty in his personality where Oliver has only hate and prejudice. Coquen sees the beauty within everything, and he notices everything in minute detail. Nothing passes him by, like he remembers my favourite flower to bring it to me (poppies so red that they bleed into the black centre is intoxicating) even if I only mention these details once.

March 10

Oliver is on the war path. All of the wives have been commenting to Oliver the spectacular recipes I supplied. Ever since the Boxing Day party, Delilah, April, Carla and the recently returned Sarah asked me for the recipes. I asked Clover if it was ok. She asked the others. From what she told me, it was a cornfield labourer, Senanoa. Clover said house politics were fragile and structure like a card building: a small gust and it falls. Coquen, Ammie, Kary (the wheat field supervisor) and Sascha (the sugar field supervisor) are regarded with mistrust and supervision. Although, according to Clover, they all know that these four would not betray them, they all knew what torture, sleep and sleep depravation could cause. I am not sure I understood, because all that Clover said further was that Coquen, Ammie, Kary and Sascha were considered effectively as closer pawns to the lord. I asked about Senanoa. Clover said that they had assumed that his last place was horrific, as he had never spoken previously. Apparently he never communicated anything. I asked if Oliver had ever noticed. Clover’s smile tightened as she answered, “Of course not, he barely knows we are breathing, let alone anything else.” Senanoa had stood up and had said, Clover relayed that “they judge us without seeing us, they are blinded by what they fear and cannot accept anything outside of their locked souls and minds. Well, this is a key. There may be a thousand doors to them, and this is one of them.”

Clover said that Mischa had argued: “Why must they have all the doors and we have none.” Senanoa replied “Because life is a barter, we must find our own term through theirs. We have found something that we can use, our food. They cannot see all the way through us like air anymore. They have to find blinkers to us in another way, but this is still giving us an advantage, a small one, admittedly, but what is more intimate than eating?” I asked Clover how he spoke if he had never before. Clover said “He speaks softly, but rigidly; He said that, before he was sold here, he worked for a professor. Actually, he was the product of the professor and an upstairs maid. He was educated by the professor. Once the wife, and then the professor died, their legitimate son sold both Senanoa and his mother, separately. He hated the status they suggested, the family abomination.”

I did not know what to say, how to react. But this news also came with the gifts from Grace. Only 20 of the forty eight recipes were allowed, but there they were in Graces jaggared, messy script, bound by cinnamon scented cloth. With Senanoa still guilted in my head, I will preserve these in here and pass only my own copy’s on. These are to be kept. The tea ladies love this, and have been asking me for these recipes, Caitlyn Mue (wife of one of Oliver’s horrendous friends, Jack) and Millicent Cyme, (Another of Oliver’s Fiends, Ralph) came to me asking for these. Both of them suggested that they were not the only ones wanting these, but we would all be attending Aleesha and Syrone Muae’s Party the next week, these recipes to be shared then. I have heard of this couple, but until this proposed patry, have not met them. They are the type of people whose status a socialite would only dare to dream of. They have power and influence, and the ability to sabotage any one of us by implication and innuendo rather than by rumer and suspicion. They rarely attend parties but once a month, host one. Oliver met Syrone at a market a few months ago and this is the first invitation that we have received. Clover, whose dry sense of humour never fails to amuse me, commented that they must need new blood upon which to feed. Attendinng this party, the recipies were asked for. Given out, they have spread out from here, this sole party opening the darkness to just that sliver of light. Aleesha asked why I was so compliant with the other women, thinking that there recipies were old family ones, rather than hijacked from people my husband purchased. I responded by telling her that food just doesn’t nourish us, but can make us feel so many things, sensual and evocative. Aleesha invited me for tea the following Tuesday, and although Oliver was no where near me, I understand that had I rejected this offer and Oliver found out, the consequences would be miserable for me.

There are lives that are wrapped around and between each other, there is little separation anymore from the powerful from the powerless, that thin blood line that is drawn within the mud, ignored but yet still awake like a serpent beast between us. This is not yet one nation when all we do in our paths is lay hatred down and support basic instincts. Of all the places that are the embodiment of the Devils playground, this is the one, this is the place, where blood is as thin as daybreak ice, all watered down from the glaze of untropical wasteland. That blood can define us as much as our skin, that ownership is based on blood within the law, that all of this is destruction and hatred and waste. What fundamentally went wrong here to have now become this quagmire of desperation, mistrust and hatred. There is not hope here, there is no light at the end of this long and dark tunnel, there is only darkness that is consuming us all.

March 14th

Aleesha is fabulous. I have me someone so. I don’t know how to describe how she is. Aleesha and Syrone supply a small wage to all staff, irrelevant os colour. I asked her how she handles this abhorrent situation. She told me one of the best things that I have ever heard from one of the society crowd: “Hallie, equality starts within your own home. You have the ultimate control within your own home, so control that. You can only hope to influence others outside your control, but by being an inspiration, you become a leader. And you have to be willing to concede defeat with some people, especially ones whose minds are already lost into darkness. God will judge those for himself, it is not for us too do, but be wary of those who do the right thing in fear and believe in another. Syrone and I pay our employees because that is exactly what they are. I will not have anything indentured to me because it is socially acceptable rather than morally acceptable. Slavery is not morally acceptable. Everyone here is free.”
I, still naive beyond measure, asked why they don’t leave. Her laughter tore at me like shards of glass, but she offered me an explanation. “All of there lives are one juxtaposition against our bipolar belief structure. Freedom papers apparently can be forged. Don’t be mistaken child, Oliver has blinded you to the reality of the world here, while at the same time, showing you the abject cruelty of it. Freedom only means something here, on this farm. As soon as they leave, they will no longer be free as we are, as they are here.” It was here that I realised that Aleesha recognised the recipes for what they were and knew that I could be trusted with her beliefs.
I felt violated and hurt. Yet, still, truth is truth. It cannot be enclosed in sweetness. Slaves in society means just that, irrelevant of how myself or Aleesha is within our own gates. Our employee’s inside out homes will still be slaves outside our estates. They can still be stolen, taken, sold and beaten again, in spite of papers that give them the right to be. In spite of having to have papers to let them be. I am still blinded and Oliver took advantage of my compassion and youth, and has destroyed even more of what makes me what I used to be. I can believe he is crueller than I initially thought. Aleesha has made these Tuesday afternoons a permanent appointment. I must end this now; Coquen is due to attending me.