My Name Is Not Angelica Read Free Page B

you think, Jenna?"
    "I think it's a bargain at three thousand rigsdalers," she said. "The man's worth that much alone."
    "He's a little overpowering," the man said. "It would take a strong hand to control him."
    "You have a strong hand, Jost."
    Someone shouted an offer of two thousand four hundred rigsdalers. The auctioneer repeated the offer and gave the stone a blow.
    "I like the girl, too," the woman said. "She has a nice smile."
    It was the same smile I had learned on the ship, as if I had just received a gift I had always wanted. My face hurt from smiling and I felt like letting out a hair-raising scream. The deep blue eyes of Master Jost, blue as the sky, examined me from head to foot.

    Offers were coming fast, a few rigsdalers at a time.
    The woman said, "Don't be niggardly, Jost. We will be here all day. The sun is hot. Philippe Horn is over there writing on a piece of paper. He wants them badly. Get rid of him with an offer he cannot match."
    Jost cleared his throat, cupped his hands, and shouted,"Three thousand rigsdalers."
    The crowd fell silent. Men I took to be plantation owners, who stood down in front in big straw hats, looked at each other and shook their heads.
    The auctioneer shouted, "Three thousand rigsdalers. Do I hear three thousand, one hundred?"
    The silence grew. Master van Prok lifted his hat and put it on again. He seemed ready to make a higher bid.
    "Three thousand," said the auctioneer, glancing down at the planters, calling each by name. "Gentlemen, what do I hear?"
    He heard nothing. His hammer came down with a bang. "Sold, sold to Master van Prok of Hawks Nest for the sum of three thousand rigsdalers."
    From the shadows a black man crept out and climbed the ladder to the platform where the three of us stood. He was tall but bent over by some misfortune, so that he shifted crablike from one side to the other as he moved along.
    "Come," he said. "I will take you to the boat thatwill take you to Hawks Nest on the island of St. John. St. John is only four miles away. It will be a pleasant voyage on this sunny day."
    He took us past the pen that held the rest of the slaves that
God's Adventure
had brought to St. Thomas that day. Midnight black though they were, they looked like ghosts and were ghostly silent. My heart went out to them.
    "What is your name?" Konje asked.
    "Nero," the man said.
    "What work do you do at Hawks Nest?"
    "I am the bomba, Bomba Nero. I oversee what goes on at Hawks Nest. You can also call me Sir Bomba."
    He talked out of the side of his mouth. His arrogance and cold, darting glance made Konje clamp his jaws.
    At a shack by the wharf, the bomba took Konje inside. Two blacks put manacles on him. I saw them take a red-hot iron out of the fire and stamp a number on Konje's back. He made not a sound. They stamped Dondo, too.
    We waited on the wharf for Jost van Prok and his wife. They came with two boys, good for running errands, Master van Prok told Nero when the bomba gave them a surly glance.
    "I have two servants," Jenna van Prok said. "You will be my third. You will like that, I am sure."
    "Oh, yes," I said.

    It was the task I had worked for from the day Captain Sorensen had told me about it, that it was much better than working in the fields, out in sun and storm. It was why I had learned to be docile, to say nothing unless asked, and to smile even though it hurt.
    St. John is a beautiful island, just a few miles from St. Thomas, across pale blue water. At dusk our small boat came to Hawks Nest, the van Prok plantation, and moored in the shallows. From here we all walked ashore, except Jenna van Prok.
    She was carried to the beach on Konje's broad shoulders. As he bent to set her down on the sand, Bomba Nero glanced at him. It was a searching glance, little more than a lifting of an eyelid, but in it was hatred.
    I told Jenna van Prok that Lenta, my friend, was a good cook and would be very helpful at the house.
    "I bid for her," she said, "but the Haugaard brothers