Drum (23 page)

Alix must be sleeping in her bedroom on the second floor. He hoped. He went down the ladder and out into the alleyway. M'dong and Omo were tying the horses and he summoned them inside to wait. With Omo's help, he divested himself of the heavy boots he had been wearing in the fields, apd in his stocking feet he passed into the kitchen. Lifting

the drapery, he noted that Rachel's room was vacant, the sheet smoothly stretched on the bed. Good! This indicated that she and Tamboura must be together on the third floor. His feet made no noise on the tiles of the patio or up the first flight of stairs. The door of the sola was open and he slipped in, avoiding the little tables fiUed with bibelots, until he came to Alix's bedroom. Much to his surprise, he saw Rachel, laying out a dress for her mistress on the bed. She looked up at him and her face blanched with fear, but he did not question her,

"Keep quiet," he warned her. "Do not move from this room. Make the slightest sound and I'll send you to the whips."

So, it was truel Instead of Rachel and Tamboura on the floor, it must be Alix and Tamboura. He raced up the stairs, along the balcon to the back and flung open the door of the rear chamber. For a long moment he stood there, transfixed in horror. Even though he was conscious of what his eyes saw, his mind refused to believe it. They were sleeping; Tamboura snoring flat on his back, his skin dewed with sweat, while Alix lay cuddled in the crook of his arm, her hand resting in bold whiteness against the black of his belly. How long he stood there he did not know, but each moment served to imprint the picture more indelibly on his mind in every startling detail. Now he knew who had sent the picture. It was Rachel, consumed by jealousy because Alix had taken Tamboura away from her. The shock that had swept over him when he first saw them gave way to a violent paroxysm of rage, but he managed to restrain himself.

Alix moved in her sleep, snuggled closer to Tamboura and her hand slid down his belly. She opened her eyes slowly, her lips seeking the piuple paps of Tamboura's chest. She raised her head, shifting her position to shake her hair from her face and saw don Cesar in the doorway. For a second that seemed like eternity, they looked at each other; then she was out of the bed and across the floor, on her knees before him, her arms wrapped around his legs.

"Cesar, you have answered my prayers. You have comel Oh, querido, if you could but know what I have suffered, the agonies I have endured from that brute. He lured me up here, Cesar, and then," she lost her words in hysterical sobs, "and then ... he raped me."

"No, Alix." Don Cesar spoke calmly though it cost him an effort to do so. "A woman who has been raped does not lie in her rapist's arms and try to excite him by further en-

dearments to a second ravishment." He pushed her away from him but she still clung to him.

"I was out of my mind with fear, Cesar! Mad! I was afraid. Fighting for time! I knew he would kill me if I didn't play up to him. He threatened me, Cesar."

He ignored her.

"Tamboura!" His shout at the still sleeping Negro was heard by M'dong and Omo in the stables. 'Tamboura!" He walked towards the bed, dragged the clinging Alix along the floor.

Tamboura jerked upright to a sitting position. He was too stunned to speak. He saw don Cesar towering over him and Alix on the floor, her hands clutching like talons at don Cesar's legs.

"Amo." Tamboura did not realize that he spoke.

"You are going to die, Tamboura. Do you know that?" An ominous tranquillity cloaked don C6sar's anger. His words were no more impassioned than if he were telling Tamboura he was to go to the stable and saddle the horses.

Tamboura hung his head; he could not look in his anto's eyes.

"Must I, amo?"

"You must, but first I would know one thing and you must tell me the truth, Tamboura, for you do not want to die with a lie on your spirit."

"No, amo."

"Then tell me, how long has this been going on?"

"From the first day I came here, amo."

"Did you force your mistress to submit to you?"

"No, amo."

Don Cesar shoved Alix away from him so violently that she fell back on the floor. He looked at her lying there, her hair spread out on the tiles, her face puffy from tears, and that white flesh which had once seemed so desirable now repulsed him. Her lips had tasted a Negro's lips. Her hands had caressed a Negro's flesh. During all these past months, the same lips had touched his, the same hands had fondled him.

"Get off the bed, Tamboura. Stand up!"

Slowly Tamboura rose. "What are you going to do to me, amo?"

"EventuaUy I am going to kill you, but not now." He whipped the pistol from his belt and fired at Tamboura.

fe sharp crack of the explosion brought a shriek from Alix.

A small hole appeared in Tamboura's belly and a red gush of blood spurted out onto the bed.

"You have hurt me, amo." Tamboura gave Don C6sar one anguished look, then clutched his belly and howled in pain.

"You will be hurt more. Walkl" Don Cesar pointed to the door. Tamboura stumbled, crouched low, his hands encar-mined from the wound in his stomach. He managed to reach the door, then fell across the threshold.

"Rachel 1" Don Cesar had caught sight of her face peering through the balustrade from the staircase below. "Summon M'dong and Omo. Quickl" He straddled the figure of Tamboura on the floor and reloaded his pistol. He turned to Alix.

"I shall not kill you. You are not worth the lead in this bullet and it would only be wasted. There are no words to describe what you are. The most disreputable white whore on the streets of the city, who spreads her legs for a couple of copper centavos, is better than you for even she would not take a nigger. You deserve to be shot more than this poor boy here for you knew what you were doing and the poor, stupid slave did not. But I shall have to make an example of him so that every other nigger in Havana will know what it means to lie with a white woman." He aimed the pistol slowly at Tamboura again. There was another shot and another spurt of blood came from a hole in Tamboura's arm.

M'dong and Omo had heard the shots and came running up the stairs. Rachel did not return with them. They stopped short at the sight of don C6sar, astraddle Tamboura, calmly loading his pistol while Tamboura howled and the naked white woman on the floor shrieked and sobbed. i

"Take himi" don C6sar said. "Put him on a horse. Tie, his hands to the pommel of the saddle. Prepare to ride with! me. '

"He has no clothes on, amo." M'dong with one eye on the pistol stooped down to raise Tamboura.

"He is dymg, amo." Omo helped to lift the moaning Tam-i boura;^ho was writhing in pain.

"He will not need clothes where he is going and he will live until we get there. Take him!"

With Tamboura's arms over their shoulders, his feet drag^ ging on the tiles, they supported him along the balcony leaving a red trail behind them. Don Cesar started aftet them.

"Cesar!" Alix struggled to her knees. "Cesar, Cesar, he<

lieve me, he lied. Believe me, Cesar, believe me! Do not take a slave's word against mine. Oh, what will become of me?"

"That, puta, is the least of my worries. I shall return here in an hour or so. Do not force your presence on me then. If I see you I shall surely kill you and I would not have it said that I murdered a woman, regardless of how low she was. Have your maid attend me when I return."

Step by step, Omo and M'dong, their own hearts heavy, carried Tamboura down the stairs. At the foot, they waited for don Cesar. He preceded them across the patio, into the stable door and with merely a nod of his head, he indicated one of the stable horses. "Put a bridle on him, Omo, and ride him bareback."

He watched as they carried Tamboura outside and hoisted him into the saddle of Omo's horse. Don Cesar tore one of the reins from the harness on the wall and handed the leather strap to them to bind Tamboura's wrists to the saddle. Tamboura, slumped over the horse's neck, had fainted. Don Cesar picked up a bucket of water and sloshed it over him. He revived and resumed his howling. Don Cesar mounted his horse, M'dong his, and Omo jumped up onto the imsaddled carriage horse.

They rode slowly down the alley, don Cesar first, then the three abreast with Tamboura in the center. His screams continued and he had now reached a delirivmi of pain in which he reverted to Hausa.

"Oh ray spirit, my spirit! Come to me and give me strength 1 Come to me and save me! My spirit that I left in Africa, join my spirit here and help me."

They turned from the alley into the street. Passersby stopped to look at the grim face of don C6sar and the three Negroes behind him. Their attention was focused on the naked slave in the middle, tied to the saddle, blood pouring from the wounds in his body, his head slumped to his chest, his howls now losing their high-pitched intensity. Ay! here was a spectacle they did not see every day! They followed the procession and were soon joined by more of the curious, the idle, and the morbid thrill-seekers.

Tamboura's howls ceased. He had fainted again, and now his body slipped from the saddle, turning it with his weight. M'dong made to lift Tamboura back but don C6sar would not allow it and for the rest of the way to the waterfront, his half-dead body dragged on the cobbles. The hours of the siesta were over and the crowd continued to

grow until by the time the gruesome cavalcade had reached the public whipping yard, a Une some two blocks long extended behind the four horses. Don Cesar paused at the gates of the yard and turned in his saddle, raising himself high in the stirrups.

"Men of Havana, regard this slave," he pointed to the body of Tamboura, covered with blood and the filth of the streets. "And you slaves of Havana, regard him and remember him. He raped a white woman."

A slave inside the walls had heard the commotion outside and opened the gates. As don Cesar, followed by the three horses, rode through, the slave would have closed the gate but don C6sar stopped him.

"This is for the public," he said. "Go, tell the azotador to bring his heaviest whip. He is to whip this slave to death.

"He is not dead now, amo?" The slave regarded the battered form of Tamboura.

"I think not. Omo, M'dong, cut him free and carry him to the post."

Tamboura was not dead. He whimpered as they lifted him and his eyes opened.

"M'dong." Tamboura's voice was scarcely audible.

"Adios, Tamboura."

"Adios, Tamboura," Omo repeated.

They dragged him across the courtyard and with the help of the slave, they fastened his wrists in the manacles high ui on the post and then stepped back. Another slave appearec an enormous black, with both ears cut off close to his hea In one hand he carried a coil of black whip. He regardec the crowd and then don C6sar.

"On whose orders do I whip this slave?"

"On the order of C6sar Montalvo."

"He will not survive the whip, senor."

"He is not supposed to. Whip him until you are svu^e thertt is no life in him." I

"And then?" I

"Dispose of his body as you do others who die under the whip."

"There is a charge for disposing of the body, senor.

Don Cesar reached in his pocket and flipped a piece ot silver to the whip-master.

The big black strode to the platform where Tamboura hung from the post. His huge right arm was lifted high over hisi head. Then the coils of the whip snaked out to wrap around

Tamboura's back. He was alive but the scream that came from him was weak—a feeble falsetto.

Slowly Tamboura sank into a vast red cobweb of pain. The pain in his belly and the pain in his arm were as nothing compared to the pain that was eating into his back with slow, regular bites that were ripping his flesh away. Everything turned red—a brilliant flaming scarlet. He struggled to open his eyes and even the wooden post glowed like a piece of red-hot iron. He closed his eyes, never to open them again. The pain had become a living thing, tearing his flesh, penetrating his every fiber. He tried to scream but no sounds came. Again and again and again the whip caught him and in his pain, he saw the wide, sunburned savannahs of Africa, glowing red under a dying sun. A lion, vermilion bright against the red plains, stood poised. The lion leaped. Tamboura knew that the lion had seized his spirit and that he was dying. He welcomed death for he knew that his spirit had returned to the lion. There was no strength left in him to take another breath. He was dead.

Tamboura was dead but the blows on his back did not stop. They continued until don Cesar Ufted his hand.

"He is dead?" he asked the whip-master.

"He cannot be alive, but I will make sure." He coiled the whip and walked over to the bloody mass of meat that had once been Tamboura. His fingers clutched Tamboura's wool and pulled the head back. Tamboura's eyes were closed and the black fingers opened the eyelids. Then he wrapped one mighty arm around Tamboura's neck and twisted. When he released it, the head dangled awkwardly from the shoulders.

"He is surely dead now, senor."

Don Cesar turned his horse and motioned to Omo and M'dong to follow him. The crowd parted silently to let them through and don Cesar led M'dong and Omo along the waterfront. He dismounted in front of a cantina and went into the back of the wine shop where they could see him talking to a man inside. In a few moments, he reappeared.

Again M'dong and Omo followed him, back to the house on Colon Street. This time they halted their horses before the main entrance. Don Cesar dismounted and spoke to Omo.

"Go to the stable and bring the other carriage horse here. We lead them both back to Montalvo." He entered the unlocked gate.

Rachel was waiting for him, standing stiff and straight in the middle of the patio.

"Madame craves a word with you." She looked directly at him.

"If she values her life, she will keep out of my sight." He looked up to see a billow of skirt retreat from the railing of the balcon. "You will both quit this house and this city before night. You are free to take your clothing. There are two ships sailing from Havana at sunset. One goes to Vera Cruz in Mexico, the other goes to New Orleans in Louisiana. It matters not which one you take, your passage is guaranteed on either one of them." He reached in his pocket and emptied it of all the money that was inside. There were several gold pieces, some silver, and a few copper coins. He handed them to Rachel.