“It is how it is done,” I say. “I am lucky to have been offered such a contract. Not everyone has the chance.”
Khadim drops his arm to his side, his machete loose in his fingers. “Lucky to be complicit in laying the rabbit trap that snares your own foot?”
Unlike him I don’t stop moving. “Pick up your machete,” I say between clenched teeth. “The admiral punishes idleness.”
We thwack at the cane in silence. The machete in my hand hums, and I have to calm down my breathing or I might hurt myself.
“You don’t know the life I’ve lived. What would you have me do? Work these fields forever? And when I am too old, clean and cook and scuttle in the admiral’s house? And when I am too old for that—led out into the fields like a lame donkey and shot with an arrow between the eyes? Would you have me run into the trees, where the admiral will send a pack of hunting dogs to eat me alive?”
This time when Khadim shakes his head, there is sadness in the gesture. “I would have you do none of those things, as I will not be doing them. This is not a life I will submit to. All I know is that if they keep putting this machete in my hand it is not their cane I will cut down.”
I believe him when he says it. The metal in his hands murmurs, blood blood blood.
We do not speak for the rest of the day, but when the sun dips behind the hills, I stoop to shoulder the long canes and gesture for him to follow me to the mill. I am strongest when at the vats, but when cane must be cut none of us can shirk our duty, especially not the one who catches the admiral’s eye. Khadim looks at me intently as if he would shoulder my cane for me, but I shake my head: he would be doing me no courtesies. There is something brewing in his eyes, and Tía Aurelia would say there is something brewing between the two of us, too.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Five nights later, a soft tapping on the wood of our hut wakes me from my slumber. Tía Aurelia is not in the bohío, and whomever she is with must not be a nice man, since I see she has brewed herself a tisane, something she only does to help calm her spirit.
Tap. Tap. Tap. I raise myself from bed and shuffle to the opening.
“Tía?” I ask quietly.
“It is Khadim.”
I hesitate for a second and ensure my sleep shift covers me wholly. I pull back the cover of the entryway. And sure enough, Khadim stands before me, half his face cast into light by the candle in his hand. My heart thumps wildly in my chest.
“Will you walk with me, Eula?” He offers me his hand, but I turn and pull down the opening, working a complicated knot that keeps animals from wandering inside. When I turn again, Khadim has dropped his hand, and I am glad for it; the only time I have ever held a man’s hand is when I am using my ability to heal him. I would not know how to hold his hand for the simple sake of touching.
“Khadim, if word reaches the admiral of us taking a midnight walk, we will be punished, or my coartación might be docked.”
I keep to the shadows as we walk.
“Eula, I come to your door with ulterior reasons than to walk beside you.” He takes a deep breath. “My men and I are planning an uprising.”
My feet stutter at his words. I have never heard of an uprising happening at any of the ingenios. People run away. And sometimes the admiral’s dogs catch them. Rumors abound that sometimes they make it far, far west to safety in the Bahoruco Mountains. But no one has ever attempted to overtake an ingenio. I tell Khadim this.
“No other ingenio has had me. And no other ingenio has had you.” He takes my hand in his and turns it so my palm faces the sky. I am glad we are in the fields, where the tall cane shades us from prying eyes, where no one can see me shiver on a warm night.
“I have been watching you. At first I thought it was because you are lovely. But, there is something uncanny about you.”
I do not flinch at either the compliment or the insinuation that followed. He continues before I can unravel the meaning of his words.
“And then I realized your machete never slows down, it never stops, and you never have to clean the stickiness from it or sharpen its edge. Even back there, at your hut, the hook that held your doorway closed twisted in ways that were unnatural. And when that old man cut his hand a few days ago, everyone else turned to you, although I have been assured you are not a healer.”
I pull my hand from his. If he accuses me of witchcraft out loud it could cost me my life.
Khadim leans in until his breath is by my ear. “You know more than we do about this area, about finding help at the other mills nearby. I think you are highly favored. I think we will only succeed if you help us. And convince the others to help us, too.”
An ache spreads in my chest. I cannot do this thing he asks of me. “Khadim, I have not known you long. I will tell you about the area and wish you well. But I cannot convince the only family I’ve known to join you in this ill-conceived dream. And I cannot be a part of this. I have worked relentlessly to earn my freedom, and if your uprising were to fail, even if they do not slaughter us all, I could not live knowing I had a chance at manumission and I cast it away.”
Khadim makes a sound low in his throat. “Could you live knowing you had a chance to free many more than yourself, but you refused?”
I want to swat away his words like the pest they are, but they bite me nonetheless. If I could build a world of metal to protect me and my kin, I would do it without question or regard to my own safety. But here we labor until we die. They rely on me to buy my freedom and then help make the settlement better for those who remain. I am giving the people of the ingenio a better chance at some small freedoms. How could he possibly understand? I wish I could explain to him that there are nights when Tía’s breathing is slow and steady that I let myself imagine walking into the woods of my own accord, living off low-hanging fruit with the hummingbirds as my only companions. That there are days when my arm feels like it might fall out from overwork, and the only thing that keeps me from dropping my face into the boiling molasses is the belief that soon I will ask no one for permission to eat the grains I harvest, or to rest when I am sick with fever. I want to explain that I have seen mules walking alongside the roadway who know freedom in ways I have never known.
But I do not have the language to explain this. So instead I ask, “Have you ever tasted sugarcane, Khadim?”
I cannot see his brow but I imagine it is furrowed. “I have not. We do not grow this where I am from, and here the admiral’s men are always watching.”
I reach into my head wrap and pull out the slim knife I always keep tucked under there. I curved it to fit like a half circlet beneath my hair. I slice a chunk of cane, easily skinning the bark from the flesh. It is a reckless thing to do, and if I were caught I cannot even fathom the punishment for enjoying the admiral’s crop without his permission, but it seems suddenly as urgent as taking in breath to teach Khadim this lesson.