The Map of Bones, page 3
‘Dank u,’ Suzanne said, as an official reached down to help her, remembering her grandmother’s advice. He nodded, assisted with her portmanteau, but said nothing.
She felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach. Though they were Huguenots too, they had paid their own way as passengers. She was young and unmarried, and the Colony was known to be lacking in suitable wives for VOC men. It should mean she would be welcomed with open arms. But then, Suzanne had not come to the Cape to be a farmer’s wife.
THE CAPE COLONY
They were instructed to walk to the end of the jetty and wait on the shore.
For a moment, Suzanne couldn’t move. She stood, with her legs braced, as the jetty beneath her feet seemed to sway, praying the sickness would pass. She shivered, soaked through by the spray. Her skin felt tight with saltwater and her head was spinning.
Though the waterside was noisy, everything was muffled by the low-lying grey mist and a drizzle that reminded her of the squares and cobbled streets of Amsterdam. The air seemed to glister white, like the shimmering over the canals in autumn. For Suzanne, though, everything was vivid and bright. The smells, the sounds, were all tantalisingly familiar, yet all utterly strange: the rattle of barrels over the wooden boards of the jetty; men’s voices raised in command or anger; gulls; sooty black wading birds with bright red legs and beaks, oyster catchers, she thought.
Suzanne was used to a stew of languages and mingling with travellers from all over the globe – she had always and only lived in harbour cities – but she was struck by the porters come to carry their luggage. Men with skin as black as ink, tall and majestic. Others were lighter skinned and dressed in working clothes, their features speaking of homes in Madagascar and Bengal and Sri Lanka.
The rumour was that the Commander of the Cape Colony himself was the grandson of a freed slave, and yet the captain of the China had boasted of how the number of enslaved people here was already twice that of the VOC employees settled at the Cape. Suzanne had held her tongue and tried not to let her revulsion show. Slavery was illegal in the United Provinces, though not in its overseas territories, and she was sickened by the thought of humans being bought and sold like cattle.
From the Van Raay archives in Amsterdam, she’d learnt that Louise herself, Louise’s great-aunt Alis and Alis’s companion, Cornelia van Raay, had spoken out against enslavement. But a few lone women’s voices had not been enough to sway the men who ruled Holland – the Lords XVII. They had adjudged that, with the trafficking of human beings, would come riches and influence. Time had proved them right. And Suzanne knew that the growing Cape Colony could not function without these stolen people.
Behind her she heard a smattering of applause. Suzanne turned to see the second of the rowing boats, carrying the first of the refugees, pulling up to the pier. The small crowd surged forward again, hoping to see the faces of long-lost family and neighbours. She saw their smiles of relief, hands reaching down, heard their prayers in French thanking God for their friends’ and relatives’ safe deliverance from the sea.
Once all twenty-eight passengers had disembarked, an official in the colours of the VOC stepped to the front of the crowd and clapped his hands.
‘This way.’
Suzanne moved forward, beckoning for others to follow her towards a large cavernous shed. Before being allowed to sail to the Colony, each of them – even paying passengers like Suzanne and Florence – had had to swear an oath of allegiance to the United Provinces, to obey Dutch laws, to be good and loyal subjects and to promise to remain at the Cape for a minimum of five years.
Having spent more than four months at sea with her co-religionists – and knowing their knowledge of Dutch customs was limited – Suzanne doubted if any of her fellow travellers had any idea of what they had committed to. They were masons and farmhands, weavers and coopers. They had grown up in the warmth and simplicity of Provence, among peach groves and vineyards and olive trees, where tiny interlinked hamlets nestled in gentle, green hills and river valleys, bound to one another by centuries of marriage and kin. Most of them had never even seen the sea before they boarded the China and few could sign their own names, let alone read the documents put in front of them.
‘In here, if you will,’ said the official.
Suzanne stepped through wide wooden-latched doors into a shed as large as anything at the shipbuilding yards of Amsterdam. A long and basic rectangular structure, fashioned from planks and sealed with tar, there were high open windows at the top for ventilation and long benches set down both sides. At the far end was a line of narrow trestle tables with oil lamps, resembling a court of justice where the officials, like a line of black crows upon a fence, sat ready to begin the process of registering the new arrivals. On the wall behind, the flag of the United Provinces hung between two larger pennants proclaiming the authority of the VOC. Suzanne gave a discreet smile. The size and positioning of the flags made it clear where the real power lay: with the merchants rather than the far-distant Lords XVII.
‘Sit,’ the official said, gesturing to benches on their left. ‘Wait until your name is called. When it is, make your approach to the desk and answer the questions put to you.’
The eight orphans sat down in a shivering huddle of grey, then stood up again, fearful of doing the wrong thing. No one else had moved. The official had spoken clearly, but Suzanne knew that most of her fellow passengers would struggle to understand. They had picked up very little Dutch during their time at sea, tending to remain in their own quarters and communicating mostly between themselves, even when Suzanne had offered to teach them. Now, they were weary and they were scared. Their relief at having survived the voyage had already given way to fear of a greater kind: the fear of the unknown.
‘Hurry,’ the official called impatiently. ‘You are all to sit.’
Suzanne stepped out of the line. ‘Mijnheer, perhaps I might help?’
He ran his eyes up and down her filthy, sodden clothes. ‘You speak Dutch?’
‘My great-grandfather’s family was from Amsterdam.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Yet you are a refugee?’
A shake of her head. ‘A traveller, mijnheer. We paid our own passage.’
‘We? Where is your husband?’
‘My grandmother and I,’ she replied in a level voice. ‘She is rich in years but yet, she too, wished to play her part in building this new corner of the Dutch Empire.’
She was aware of the picture she painted. A young woman in shabby travelling clothes, her bonnet stained and skirt sea-soaked. But the cloth was expensive, her cloak embroidered, her boots of soft Spanish leather, and she knew the man would recognise their worth. For all their formidable airs and graces, the VOC were traders above all else. They knew the market value of everything.
‘What do you want?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Merely to assist.’
Suzanne gestured to Judith and the other seven girls. ‘They are from the orphanage in Rotterdam, but most of my co-religionists do not speak your language. I could translate for them.’ She waited politely, hoping she had not been too forthright. Her time in Amsterdam had taught her that most of the minor officials within the VOC were easy to flatter. But perhaps the men of the Cape – pioneers, after all – were harder to please? ‘I consider it my duty to be of service,’ she added.
Duty. That he understood. He nodded. ‘Come with me.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘I have offered my services as interpreter,’ Suzanne whispered to her grandmother.
‘Do not be impertinent,’ Florence cautioned. ‘Men do not admire women with a sharp wit. They think it makes them look foolish.’
‘Most do not need our aid in that!’
‘Suzanne . . .’
She held up her hands. ‘Don’t worry, Gran’mère, I will guard my tongue.’
Suzanne kissed her grandmother, then hurried to follow the official. Her boots seemed over-loud in the echoing space despite the beaten-earth floor. The other clerks paid her no heed, but she was aware of the eyes of her fellow passengers tracking her with interest as she walked up the middle of the chamber. She smiled at Judith, standing with the other orphan brides like a mother hen, hoping to reassure her. An angular girl of nineteen years, her friend returned the smile.
The official came to a halt in front of the long trestle tables. Motioning to Suzanne to stay where she was, he stepped towards a man sitting in a high-backed chair. The regisseur, she supposed. His grave demeanour gave her an uneasy feeling of being judged, as if this was a tribunal rather than a welcoming committee. Which, in a way, Suzanne supposed it was. She and her companions were not individuals to this man and his officials, but numbers on a list to be processed and allocated to a parcel of land: labourers, farmers, vintners, breeders.
Suzanne did not imagine this was Simon van der Stel himself – the Commander would hardly concern himself with so mundane a task – but the regisseur bristled with importance all the same. A brass inkpot and quill in his hand, he was the twin for any of the VOC officials she had come across in Amsterdam. He wore a long black justaucorps, black breeches and stockings, a white flat falling collar, and his hair was combed back from his forehead. The only sign of flamboyance was a large, drooping moustache that framed his thin lips.
The official who’d brought her to the table was still whispering, and glancing back over his shoulder. The regisseur leant to one side, so they were both now staring at her. Suzanne did not smile, but remained standing with her hands folded in front of her, a picture of demure patience, until she was waved forward.
‘You speak Dutch, juffrouw . . .?’ the regisseur asked, leaving the question of her name hanging.
‘Joubert,’ she replied. ‘Suzanne Joubert. I have travelled with my grandmother, Florence Reydon-Joubert.’
‘But you are French?’
‘My family is of French and Dutch heritage and settled in Amsterdam at the time of the Alteration.’ She paused. ‘Indeed, my great-grandfather played a part in the liberation of the city from Catholic oppression.’
The regisseur raised his eyebrows, but Suzanne knew the comment would find its mark. A significant wave of Huguenot refugees had fled to the Netherlands after the Paris massacre in 1572, bolstering the Protestant resistance in the Netherlands to Spanish rule. Six years later, the town hall had been stormed by Calvinists and Huguenots, who took control of the council – and hence Amsterdam – without a single death.
‘Did he indeed? And why have you travelled here, juffrouw Joubert?’
‘Most of our relatives have been killed by the Catholics in the latest persecutions in my homeland.’ She gave the slightest of shrugs. ‘There was nothing left for me in France, nor any family remaining in Amsterdam, so . . .’
The regisseur looked at her for a moment longer. Suzanne could read his narrow mind in his eyes. Why would a woman, allegedly from such a well-born family, make the perilous journey to the Cape and without a male escort? But pragmatism overcame his curiosity.
‘Very well. You may assist.’
Suzanne smiled, understanding she was supposed to be grateful, despite the fact that he was getting the better of the bargain.
‘Dank u, regisseur.’
She approached the first family waiting on the benches: Jean Meinard and his wife Louise, who had lost two of their children during the voyage. They came from one of the tiny villages in Provence, Saint-Martin-de-la-Brasque. She explained to Jean, a gentle man of six-and-twenty years, what was to happen, and offered her services as interlocutor. His wife accepted on their behalf, and gave him a loving nudge in the back to encourage him forward. Meinard straightened his stained jerkin, rubbed his boots on the backs of his stockings, and stepped up.
‘Name?’
‘Ton nom de famille,’ Suzanne whispered.
The Frenchman nodded, and answered. Tall and bowed, he held his battered felt hat in his hand. His hair hung lank, framing a lean face. He showed no impatience. Suzanne knew this was what being a refugee meant, how a man’s independence and individuality were stripped from him. Those who had been leaders in their home villages were now reduced to the status of supplicants; always having to be grateful, never making demands, being obliged to wait for whatever scraps might be given. Suzanne’s heart broke for them, these men and women of Provence who found themselves in this alien country. It was a refuge, they were alive, but at what cost?
As the time passed, however, Suzanne had to admit that the process was thorough and, by its own lights, fair. Nothing was left to chance, there was nothing of favour or prejudice: each head of household was given a loan from monies raised by settlers, provided with tools and allocated a plot of land. The Colony needed people to grow fresh fruit and vegetables to supply passing VOC ships, men to establish wine farms and distil brandy and vinegar, and families to grow the population. The Company needed the refugees as much as the refugees needed a safe place to hang their hats.
After Jean Meinard, came the Jourdans and the Malans, the Courbons and the Goirands. The questions were the same each time, delivered in the same monotone by the official, who rarely lifted his eyes from the ledger.
Pierre Grange, a man of great dignity and gravitas, was one of the oldest of the refugees. The strain of the journey, and the insecurity of his position, showed in the deep lines on his face and the way in which his clouded eyes darted between Suzanne and the regisseur with every word spoken. Twice, she was obliged to ask him to raise his voice a little.
Suzanne requested that the girls from Rotterdam be called as a group, and that Judith Verbeek be allowed to speak for them all. Her petition was granted. To her great relief, for the first weeks at least, the eight girls were to be billeted together before being handed into the care of their new husbands.
‘I will come and see you as soon as I can,’ she muttered to her friend. ‘To make sure you are settled in appropriate lodgings.’
‘We will be all right for this first evening, I think,’ Judith replied. ‘It is what comes later, when we are separated. Catrina, Petronella, they are so young . . .’
‘Ik begrijp het,’ Suzanne said softly. I understand.
As the afternoon wore on, Suzanne’s voice grew hoarse with talking. Her legs began to ache and her stomach still felt uneasy. She gazed enviously at the jugs of brandy and sweet biscuits on plates set at regular intervals along the officials’ table, but no one thought to offer her any sustenance.
Finally, only one family was left to process. Pierre Jaubert came from the village of Motte d’Aigues. After a perilous journey over the mountains separating France from Germany, he had finally arrived in Rotterdam in the spring of 1688. He had joined the China with his new bride. Sweet and young, she had succumbed to a fever a mere week after boarding. With unseemly haste – or so it appeared to Suzanne – Jaubert had married another woman, who had also been widowed on board.
To begin with, Suzanne had avoided them. But as the weather changed, with the China leaving the Bay of Biscay and sailing down the Portuguese coast to the Islas Afortunadas, Suzanne found herself drawn to Jaubert’s company. Though he could not read or write his own name, he was an amusing storyteller and his tales of his escape from his home to Geneva, his flight along the Rhine and the Maas rivers, kept everyone captivated on deck at night. The story always finished with a flourish as Jaubert produced his New Testament from his jerkin, a bible no larger than a man’s hand, and brandished it above his head like a hell-fire preacher.
‘This book,’ he would say, ‘this holy book, has travelled with me the length and breadth of France. It is this book –’ at this point, Jaubert would press it to his chest – ‘it is this holy book that has kept me safe, kept the soldiers’ eyes averted.’
Though the details varied with each telling, the bare bones remained the same: unwilling to leave behind his sole family heirloom, but knowing that the possession of a French bible would mark him as a Huguenot and, so, hand him a death sentence, Jaubert had wrapped it in a waxed cloth and hidden it inside a boule of bread.
‘And so here I stand, on this good ship China, knowing that God’s light is still shining upon me. Amen.’
Suzanne had also come to admire his new wife, Isabeau. She was not given to words unless she had something of value to say, but she was steady and loyal. Suzanne thought she would be the perfect settler wife for the flamboyant and sociable Jaubert.
‘Juffrouw Joubert, alstublieft. If you please.’
The regisseur was waving his hand impatiently. Suzanne realised she had allowed her concentration to lapse. She invited her friend to stand beside her.
‘This is Pierre Jaubert. He is travelling with—’
‘Never mind that,’ the regisseur snapped, no doubt also thinking of his supper.
Jaubert, like most of the refugees, spoke Provençal rather than Parisian French, so Suzanne spoke slowly and carefully. ‘Pierre, you will be given, as head of the household, two hundred and ten eight-reales and a plot of land in a place they call Drakenstein.’
‘Where is that?’ he asked, but was silenced by a fierce stare from the regisseur.
‘I will tell you presently,’ Suzanne replied. ‘It is where most are being settled.’
‘Is the land good?’
‘I hope so.’
Jaubert nodded.
‘They will also give you,’ she said, as the regisseur read down his list, ‘an axe, a sickle, seven bags of corn, a spade, a pound and a half of lead, a flintstone—’
‘Good, good.’
‘– as well as a half-share in a cooking pot, a half-share in a chisel, a boring tool and a brace-and-bit.’
‘But what is my wife to do with only a half—’
