Tía Aurelia says I am a fool for believing the admiral will honor his word regarding my freedom. And she is right; the admiral is a man with small, soft hands and a hard, cruel heart, and no court or contract will change either. But regardless of how she feels, Tía gives me salves for my palms, and ointments for my feet, and if she gets an extra peseta for her healing, or the men she offers comfort, she gives me that toward my coartación. My manumission date is in a month’s time—I have five pesos left to pay. From sunup until the stars are twinkling I slash, and carry, and peel, and boil, and churn, turn my arm around the molasses vat, and heal the broken, and dream and dream and dream of belonging to no one but myself.
The boy was never a factor in those dreams.
For the last few months, we’ve heard rumors from other ingenios that new enslaved people have been brought over by the hundreds. Black like us, who unlike us do not speak Castilian, are not Christian, have never set foot on the Iberian Peninsula. Since the first, the admiral’s ingenio has been toiled over by the ladinos—those who lived in Sevilla and served the admiral’s father before being brought here—and me. But today a group of five men show up. I hear the metal when they are still half a league away; it rings louder than the admiral’s gold rings, louder than the horses’ shoes. This metal is not from here, and I almost drop my stirring spoon into the boiling molasses.
The men appear at the ingenio in a straight line, all of them with ankle shackles hindering their steps; thick chains around their waists connect them to one another, and their garb is unlike any I’ve seen before. Of the five men, it is a young man my age, a boy with a proud forehead and fearless eyes, a brass collar around his neck, it is he who for a second stops my arm from stirring, and perhaps my heart from beating.
I drop my head, and the metal in my hand pulls slowly through the thick, dark sugar. Yet from the corner of my eye I see the admiral address the young man, and then motion with his bejeweled hand for him to explain to the others. I cannot make out the boy’s words, but his voice is lower than I would have imagined for such a young man, and I know he is someone who is used to giving orders. The admiral yanks the chain that binds the men together and pulls them like a pack of dogs behind him. His treatment is not unusual, but it makes me want to snarl with my teeth. Just before they leave, the boy looks over his shoulder, and his eyes find mine.
Tío Prieto and Nana Silvia are gathering leftover bits of cane to dry in the sun, and they begin whispering like a chorus of crickets; soon the other ladinos join in. The same word erupts from their mouths: Bozales. Bozales. The muzzled ones are here.
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A week after the bozales arrive, I exit Tía’s bohío to see the five men in the fields. Every morning since the day they arrived, I find them like this: kneeling and genuflecting and rising, and doing this time and again as they chant. I stand at the edge of the field with a hand shading my brow so I can watch them. When they have finished, the youngest stands up, and his head swivels toward me as it has done whenever we are in the same vicinity. But today he does not move deeper into the field and instead walks my way. I do not smooth the linseed cloth of my skirt, although my hand itches to do so. I am glad Tía ran her fingers through my hair last night, and rubbed the part neatly with coconut oil before plaiting a tight coronet around my head and saying, “You will be your own woman soon, Eula. But I can mother you for a little bit longer.”
She greased my scalp, and I nuzzled into her hand. Outside our bohíos, the ingenio is a place of fear and shadows, stone and sweat, blood and raised voices. But in the circle we’ve built, and in Tía’s bohío, love is the fixed sunrise.
“Eula, I’ve heard whispers that one of the new men keeps finding his eyes on you. You’ve always been something to look at, but I have a sense this one will be different.”
I groaned when Tía said that. But maybe she wasn’t wrong.
The boy’s long strides shake me out of my reverie. He soon stands before me and dips his head into a slight bow. I do not return it. Instead I scan the sky, I read the colors cast by the sun. If we are not at the cutting site in ten minutes the admiral will be told we were tardy. He will not take kindly to stolen minutes. I take a step from Tía’s bohío, and the boy walks beside me.
“What are you called?” he asks me, and I jerk back when I hear the passable Castilian come from his mouth.
He must see my astonishment. “I was translator for my father. He was ruler of our village. For the past five years I have spoken to the pale men on our behalf and convinced them to look elsewhere for what they sought.” His accent is boiling sugar, sweet and thick, but his next statement is burned bitter. “These last men who came used their swords in place of their tongues.”
I do not know why he is telling me this. Perhaps because he has taken stock of the ingenio and seen I am the only person near his age. Or perhaps because he sees I hold a place outside the ladinos. Even though we have not been introduced by any elders, I decide we do not have to stand on formality.
“What happened?” I ask.
“My father, he was on the same water vessel as me, but he did not survive. None of my kin did. The four other men here with me are all that is left of my village.” He runs his fingers against the calluses on his palms.
“Eulalia.” I answer what he first asked, to avoid any more discomfort being brought on by my ignorance. “Before she passed my mother named me, but she is the only one to ever utter my full name. I am simply called Eula. Your name?”
He shakes his head as if shooing away a thought. “The pale men had us stand at the shore, and a bald man in a frock sprinkled us with water and told us we are to have a new name and a new god. But I renounce neither of mine. My god is still yàlla. And my name is still Khadim.”
I have never heard this name before, or anything like it, but my body responds like a well-strung lute; this name is a song, and I love to raise my voice in melody.
Khadim works side by side with me. I show him how to hold the machete, which is shorter than any sword he would have been familiar with, but also heavier. I move slower than usual to ensure he can copy my moves and that he swings his machete in such a way as to fell the stalk without injuring his wrist. As we work, I fill the silence. I tell him how I was born here, how my mother died before I was a full day old, but it is when I say this next bit that his head swoops up: “I am almost done paying for my freedom. In a fortnight, at the Christmas Day celebration, I will receive my manumission papers.”
A frown wrinkles Khadim’s forehead. “How can you pay for a thing that you should not owe? It is . . .” He waves his hand in the air, a mosquito trying to land on the right word. “Nonsensical.”
I use my sleeve to wipe the sweat that covers my forehead. The front of my chemise is soaked and sticks to my chest, but Khadim keeps his eyes on mine, unlike the admiral when he speaks at me.