The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (21 page)

We have made and discarded hundreds of plans to escape. We have one hope: they have not killed us yet, so they may let us go free once they sight land. I hate the Egyptian and my greatest wish is to kill him in the most painful way possible. Let him read that, if he can read!

Feb 20
— Fuentes died last night. We were awakened by the screams of Delgado, who is chained next to him. We shouted that there was a dead body down here, but no one came. Fuentes's corpse lay there for the whole day. The sun's rays peeped across the hold as the day passed and we waited, with almost bated breath, for them to reach Fuentes's face. Tiny motes danced in the rays that shone briefly into his staring eyes. He did not blink. Our collective sigh drifted across the hold, like a gentle breeze. We rattled our chains. Some of the men wept. No one came.

Evening
 – The Africans came to feed us. We indicated the dead body and that they must take it away. They just laughed. Savages! When they were chained down here we were always prompt in getting rid of their dead. But I suppose I cannot expect them to understand the ways of civilised men. The Egyptian came later with my journal and lit my candle. ‘That man is dead,' I told him. ‘You must throw his body overboard.' He looked at Fuentes and looked back at me. He laid my journal and pen beside me, then turned and walked away. My curses followed him all the way up to the deck. I was resolved not to write a word. But the Egyptian did not return that night. I think I know why: he had left the lighted candle so we could see the body all night. I could not sleep with the light burning above my shoulder. Eventually, I took up the pen. If I die, this book shall be eloquent witness to the suffering these savages have brought upon us. If I live, I shall destroy these last entries.

Feb 21
— Delgado kept all of us awake last night. He is in a sorry state, poor fellow. He could not get to sleep for a long time with Fuentes's corpse beside him. I kept reassuring him that they would take it away, that they just wanted to terrify us, and that he should not give those savages the satisfaction. My word seemed to make some impression, for he managed to drop off. But in the middle of the night he brought us all awake with a yell of pure terror: he had heard a sound beside him and opened his eyes to find Fuentes sitting up. ‘He's come back from the dead! He's come back from the dead!' he kept shrieking. All our attempts to tell him it was just rigor mortis did nothing to calm him. I admit it was an eerie sight to see the dead man almost upright, his head pressed askew against the floor of the compartment above, the candle flame reflected in his bulging eyeballs so he seemed to stare accusingly at all of us. The corpse soon went limp again, but Delgado is now curled up and whimpering continuously. I think he has gone mad.

Midday
– We have been fed. But the corpse has begun to smell and most of the crew threw up their meagre meal. Some catch their vomit and drink it. These things we must do: we cannot afford to waste any sustenance.

Feb 22
— The corpse has begun to swell. I can see the manacles cutting into the wrists and ankles, which are now like bladders. The stench fills the hold – I do not so much smell the rot as feel it buzzing high in the bridge of my nose. No one kept down their food today. More of the men are feverish and their chains rattle continuously with their shivering. Delgado continues to gibber. I talk of escape to keep their spirits up but, with sickness and fear, apathy has begun to overcome them. Many of them have stopped even the daily stretches and just lie there in their narrow compartments. Never would I have thought I could come to such a pass! Only days ago, I was a content, free man, about to retire to a life of quiet prosperity. Now, I am a filthy starving prisoner who may be killed or fall fatally ill at any moment. But I am strong! I will not surrender to my fears! Even my nightmares help me to endure: last night, I dreamt I was a prisoner of the Inquisition. I was on the rack being tortured with hot pincers. When I awoke and found myself chained in the hold of my own ship, for a few mad moments I actually felt relief.

Evening
– Thank God! The Egyptian came and removed Fuentes's corpse. I feel almost grateful to him, which is foolish since, were it not for him, I would not be in this sorry state. The Egyptian seems inhuman. He unlocked Fuentes's manacles without a sign of revulsion and dragged out the rotting corpse by the hair. I wondered if he planned to preserve the body, as I had heard his people do. But we heard the splash soon after and I am sure all of us felt only relief that that loathsome thing was off the ship. But I know what is now also on everyone's minds: who will be next?

Feb 23
 — I have been dreaming of the Shadowman again. This has been going on for several nights now. But they are not the same dreams as before. The Shadowman is not chasing me. Instead, he is just looking at me from a distance. Last night I dreamed I was on a ship looking at an island and he stood half-hidden in the trees watching me as I left. Yet I did not feel as though the person looking back was really me. The ship was not my own, for it was rigged in a manner not used for the last three decades. The crew was Spanish, dressed in a similarly archaic fashion, but I was not one of them either. In the dream, they looked upon me curiously, as though I were some strange animal. I awoke disturbed. Mr. Cebola, who is chained next to me, asked me if I am feeling unwell. I told him I am as well as can be expected. He tells me that my skin is looking strange. I hope I am not getting scurvy or, worse, the jaundice.

Feb 24
— Two more men, Tavares and Vargas, have died. But there has been no panic from anyone. I suspect their calm comes, not from courage, but from resignation. The men pass most of the time in sleep now. Their limbs are clearly wasted. If all of us were freed right now, only two or three of us might be able to even stand upright. In all these years as a slaver, I never truly appreciated the animal vitality of these Africans (although, of course, I always treated them much better than they are now treating me). Still, it is amazing I did not always lose half of them or at least deliver them in much sorrier condition. For here we are, a handful of white men in an empty hold, and we are dying like flies. Even admitting the presence of sickness, we are pathetic. My own condition is fair, but I have always been more healthy than the average man and I have the diversion of this log to look forward to every day. Odd, how important these entries have become to me. I think if the book were taken away from me, I would become as apathetic as the others. Already, I am spending much more time sleeping. In all my life I have rarely slept more than four hours a night. Now I stay awake only a little longer than that in the whole day.

In my sleep, I have these vivid dreams, which are imbued with the same quality as my former nightmares of the Shadowman but which lack the terror. Perhaps it is because in these dreams I am not myself. The self in these dreams appears to be an Indian – a people once plentiful in the New World but who have died out with the coming of the Spanish. I feel an odd sense of loss at their passing, even when I am awake, for in my dreams they seem to have been a beautiful people. There were not even any slaves among them. I am convinced that my dreams are in some way a truth. I do not know how this can be, but many of the saints – indeed, even Jesus himself in his 40 days – have had their greatest visions in times of greatest suffering. Perhaps the Holy Spirit has come to me in this extreme! Hope blazes anew in my breast; maybe a miracle shall be wrought to free me. If so, I shall surely devote the rest of my days to spreading God's Word.

Feb 25
— My sleep becomes more real than my waking moments. Reality is this dark, stinking hold and the monotonous slapping of the waves against the hull. In my dreams – my visions – I walk through green forests, sport upon white sandy beaches and swim in blue waters as clear as the finest crystal. I tread the cobbled court of Spain and fight like the greatest warrior knowing I cannot be hurt because the Almighty Spirit protects me. I see the Shadowman always watching me, and I know now he and the Egyptian are the same. But I do not fear him, for now I also know I cannot die.

Mr. Cebola has begun to look upon me strangely and keep asking if I feel all right. I feel well, but I understand his concern. In the shadowed candlelight of the hold, the naked bodies of the other men remind me of underbellies of fish. But my own skin has become as tanned as if I had spent the past two weeks chained in blazing sunshine. Indeed, now that I look more closely at myself, my skin seems like polished wood in contrast to the black sweat-stained planks I lie on. I remember the white man in the African village who had turned. There is a certain beauty in the glossy brown of my skin. But I am beginning to worry. Has the blood changed in my veins, does some black disease course through them, so my flesh has begun to rot? I feel well physically, but I reread what I have just written: ‘I also know I cannot die'. What delusions of grandeur am I suffering? Might this feeling of well-being – indeed, of invincibility – not herald the onset of death, the exit of my immortal soul from the gross and dying clay of my physical form? It could be well be so; and I find I do not fear it.

The bodies of Tavares and Varga have been removed.

Feb 26
— Now the dreams become stranger, and even more vivid. I dream of the Shadowman stalking me through the forest. I dream of dying and I dream of waking from dying. Now I am a conquistador, but no longer a warrior. A loathsome life: such cruelty, such pain, such unhappiness! I see things that are evil incarnate: of unspeakable abuse given in childhood and then returned tenfold in adulthood; of torture for the sheer savage joy of it, and what kind of demon could take pleasure in such things? Murder most foul; and the killing of a mother I never knew – no, he never knew until he who is I slew her.

I awoke from this terrible dream, that seems so much like memory, with tears streaming down my face – I, who have never had cause to cry since I was a mere babe in swathling clothes. Surely this must be some sort of madness taking hold of me! Yet I am as clear and as rational in my waking hours as I have always been. And whatever disease I had has begun to retreat, as sickness always has with me, for my skin is now its usual pallor. Yet now I find that the yellowish cast of my skin, to which I have been accustomed all my life, itself looks sickly.

Feb 27
— I awoke, not because of a disturbance, but because of its opposite: an uneasy silence. I was dreaming of the conquistador and his tribulations under the Inquisition and thinking, in my dream, that my suffering now is truly as naught to what he experienced. And then something caused me to awake, and I found all the men sitting up in their compartments (as far they were able) and staring at me. The candle was lighted over my shoulder and I could see all their faces stiff with fear. They all seemed to be holding their breath, so the creaks of the ship's planks and the splashing of the waters beyond resounded in their silence. ‘What is wrong?' I asked. Mr. Cebola said, ‘Your hair, captain.' ‘What about my hair?' I asked. He hesitated, then said, ‘It has changed colour.' I could not see the hair of my head, but when I pulled my forearms close to my face I saw that the curls of my once-black hairs had become a downy yellow. I started to laugh at the impossibility of it, but then I saw the shock – and a burgeoning fear – in Mr. Cebola's gaze. I cut off my chuckle, suddenly fearful that it might sound like the chitter of a madman. At this point, the Egyptian stepped out of the shadows carrying my journal. He laid it down beside me and looked at me. His face was as expressionless, his eyes as hooded, as always. ‘What have you done to me!' I snarled at him. Or perhaps I screamed. He did not answer, just turned and climbed out of the hold. Yet I felt there was some satisfaction in him, and I wondered if he had worked some juju that was draining my colour, making me into a ghost, as the Africans believe, without my knowing it. As soon as I have finished this sentence I will douse the candle. I think the men will feel more at ease if they cannot watch what is happening to me.

Feb 28
— I am weary but I cannot sleep. I lie awake watching the unbelievable paleness of my body. My skin looks like milk. At the base of my stomach my pubic hair is now yellow-brown, like dying grass. I do not feel as if I am dying. In fact, I feel better than when I was first chained down here. But Mr. Cebola on my left and Alvarez on my right lie as far away from me as this cramped space allows. They probably think I am suffering from some strange plague. Yet I look healthier than them all. I have lost some weight, but they look emaciated. Although my skin now looks like that of a Swede, I have no sores or scales as most of the others do. It is just that I am so sleepy now. I have not rested since yesterday. How can I rest, when fear squats in my stomach like an old toad? My thoughts twist like fish caught in a waterspout. How can a man so easily change colour? It is impossible. I dream I am a brown man and I awake to find I am become brown. I dream I am a golden-haired Spaniard and I awake to find I have taken his colouring. How can this be? Is this a sign from God and, if so, what does it portend? Am I simply going mad? Even the humble shepherds were visited by angels to receive an explanation of strange portents!

Forgive me, my Lord. I am so confused. And I am so fearful: suppose I sleep and dream that I am become a black man? I am so tired. But I must stay awake. I must remember who I am. Antam Gonçalves, a Portuguese trader, a captain. I must repeat this to myself, read it over as long as the candle lasts. Antam Gonçalves, a Portuguese sailor, Antam Gonçalves, son of Juan Gonçalves, Adam Gonçalves, a conquistador, Antam Colon Adam Guiakan, a Portuguese taino, Adam Antam Guiakan Gonçalves [these last words are crossed out - A.A.]

March 3
— I have slept for three days. Mr. Cebola gave a glad cry on seeing me sit up – he was sure I had been dying. His relief moves me queerly. I had not known he had any affection for me, beyond the loyalty of a mate for his captain. But I feel sorrow, for he may be depending on me to bring us out of this and I do not think that I can. Mr. Cebola is so young, no more than 23 years of age, I think. And I have dreamed that I am more than a century and a half old. It is a dream that seems like knowledge. But how can it be knowledge? Yet I remember so many things – colours and sounds and smells that mere dreams cannot have. But no! I cannot have been a brown man, running almost naked through the forest, coupling with a girl, whose name was Nakana, as casually as dogs in the fields, unable to read or write or navigate at night. Perhaps the Egyptian has been putting strange medicines in my slop or my water, singling me out for this cruel revenge, trying to make me become a savage like himself! But then why do I dream I was a conquistador? He too is a savage, a barbarian worse than even those Africans who sell their own kind for a string of glass beads! I cannot have been a catamite, a torturer, a matricide. Truly the Egyptian must have the mind of Satan himself, to conceive a plan so devious. For surely he is keeping my body alive only because he wishes to slay my soul.