“Here,” I say, and press the cane to his lips. “Suckle the juice.”
He follows my directions, and I am close enough I can make out the wonder in his eyes as the sweetness covers his tongue.
“Do you know what it is like to covet such a honeyed thing your whole life, and to have tasted just enough to have the memory plague you, but also to know that you would be cut down if you ever tried to claim it as your own? You at least have walked before, knowing you were your own person. Perhaps with obligations, but not destined to slavery simply due to your birth. I just want to remove this yoke from around my neck, Khadim. I just want to possess something sweet, even if it is only my own life.”
I stomp the remaining cane into the ground.
Khadim takes a step back from me. “I will leave you out of this. If we are successful, I hope to see you in freedom. If we are not, I hope yàlla continues to watch over you.”
I nod. “I will tell you what I know, but I refuse to be involved.” I explain that the admiral and the viceroys of nearby mills get roaring drunk on Christmas Eve and the days that follow. I point to the mountains and tell him the rumors I have heard, that the Tainos have built a settlement there and welcome runaways into their folds. I tell him of the armory that holds weapons, and the stables where he can find the mill horses to take them swiftly away once the deed is done.
When I fall silent, we stand still for a long while, gazing at the sky. I wonder if the stars are configured the same where he is from. I wonder if anything feels familiar. I wonder what it must be like to have memories of a place that loved you; to have somewhere to return.
Khadim walks me back to Tía’s bohío, and it feels like we are saying goodbye. Because either he will die on Christmas Eve trying to cut down the admiral, or he will be caught and killed. And either way, I will keep my head down and hope to be free the day after.
For the next few days, in the fields and around the bohío circle, Khadim avoids me. I try not to feel bereft, but I am always aware of him, and always waiting for him to speak. Perhaps that is why I think it is him knocking impatiently on the bohío door three nights before Christmas Eve. I unlock the door to find it is one of his men. The tall and lanky one with a perfect row of teeth.
He speaks to me with unstrung Castilian words, using his hands where language fails. “They came for Khadim.” He mimes the admiral’s uniform. “They take him away. He stole machetes. And was caught.”
I take in his words and the gestures. The admiral will not allow even a hint of insurgency, and there would be no reason but that for a man to collect more than his own blade.
“And why are you at my door?” I ask. There is a knot in my stomach that is more vast than hunger, more painful than a blow.
“Khadim said if anything happened, to come to you. He said you are the key to all of the locks.”
And for a second I hate Khadim. I hate all the bozales. They who came here with their feral hearts and unbent spines. And as if the thought tightens my mother’s palm print on my own back, I straighten up. If I choose to help Khadim, I have three days to make preparations.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
On Christmas Eve, the night before I am to receive my manumission papers as a gift, I fold my knife into my hair and with Tía’s blessing slip into the darkness.
The dungeons are quiet, and I run my hands against the slick brick so as not to fall. I know Khadim is unguarded. I watched as the admiral’s men entered the house; they think lock and key is enough to keep Khadim restrained. Above me the admiral and his guests dance and sing and laugh, and the walls shake from their good cheer. I pray Tía Aurelia’s spiced wine is as potent and drowsiness-inducing as she promised.
“Khadim?” I raise my voice as much as I dare as I walk down the stone stairwell. “Khadim.” I can only hope they have not attempted to make a spectacle of him at the festivities.
The sound that reaches my ears is not his voice, but I follow it anyway to bars that have him encaged. It is the collar around his throat that has called to me, loud as a clarion. Although I do not have a key, the thick lock that keeps him barred warms under my hand. Come now, I coax the lock. Unhinge yourself. The lock gives way with a soft whistle that sounds akin to relief.
Khadim is slumped against a big stone wall, and he doesn’t move when I call his name. When I go to lift his head he flinches; the admiral has sharpened the collar placed around his neck and chained it to the wall. There is little slack, and blood is encrusted around the area where the metal has bit into his flesh; any pushing or pulling merely digs the metal deeper into him. I’m afraid that if I try to saw into the collar I might cause him to bleed out.
“Khadim, can you hear me?” I crouch so we are eye to eye and grasp his face in my hands. His left eye is swollen, and there are knots the size of eggs under his skin. Tears prickle my eyes at the sight, but I grit my teeth and do not let them fall.
“Eula.” Khadim’s throat sounds parched, and I wish I had a gift for water instead of metal, if only to relieve him of this one simple thirst.
I clear my throat and keep my voice firm, the way I’ve seen Tía do when someone comes to her with an incurable illness. “I’m here.”
Khadim opens his eyelids as much as he can through the swelling, and there is something in them I have not seen before and I can’t quite place. He slowly turns his face and places a kiss onto my palm. “You are here.”
Instead of answering, I guide my fingers to the chain in the wall and I coax the links open; when the collar is separated from the wall chain Khadim’s head slumps into my hands and he moves his fingers upward, trying to get them beneath the collar. Despite cuts that immediately appear on his hands, he tries again and again to pry the sharpened metal off his neck. His breathing grows labored, and I know it is despair building up beneath his skin. I move his hands away and run my fingers softly around the collar, avoiding the sharp edges that curve into his skin. I search for a clasp or opening, but it’s almost as if Khadim was born with the monstrous thing on. I grow still at the groan of the door that leads down the stairs. Khadim trembles but I keep my hands as steady as if I were sewing closed a wound. Come now, Eula. The metal wants to cooperate. Just teach it how.
A hollow sound makes the hairs on my arms stand. A Castilian is coming; they are the only ones with wood soles on their shoes. And only wood soles make this sound.
I take a deep breath and move my hands even slower. I squeeze and pray and coax until I can feel all the coils that have been melted to make this collar.
“Khadim. I don’t think I can take this off without it causing too much bleeding. I have an idea, but it’s going to hurt at first. Just breathe.”
He nods in my hands, and I am scared he is going to faint. I place my fingers on the collar again and use my gift to warm the sharp edges. When it is malleable I bend it inward toward Khadim so that it melds into his skin. Under my breath I utter Tía’s charms, but Khadim’s gasp of pain still fills the cell.