‘So the mate consented to take us to the master of the Indiaman. We followed him to a coffee-house, where the master sat huddled with two merchants. After a long wait we were presented to him. Again I related the story of Friday and his desire to return to Africa. “Have you been to Africa, madam?” asked the captain. “No, sir, I have not,” I replied, “but that is neither here nor there.” “And you will not be accompanying your man?” “I will not.” “Then let me tell you,” said he: “One half of Africa is· desert and the rest a stinking fever-ridden forest. Your black fellow would be better off in England. Nevertheless, if, he is set on it, I will take him.” At which my heart leapt. “Have you his papers of manumission?” he asked. I motioned to Friday (who had stood like a stick through these exchanges, understanding nothing) that I wished to open the bag about his neck, and showed the captain the paper signed in Cruso’s name, which seemed to please him. “Very well,” said he, pocketing the paper, “we will put your man ashore wherever in Africa he instructs us. But now you must say your farewells: we sail in the morning.”
‘Whether it was the captain’s manner or whether the glance I caught passing between him and the mate I cannot say, but suddenly I knew all was not as it seemed to be. “The paper is Friday’s,” I said, holding out my hand to receive it — “It is his only proof that he is a free man.” And when the captain had returned the paper to me, I added: “Friday cannot come aboard now, for he has belongings to fetch from our rooms in the city.” By which they guessed I had seen through their scheme (which was to sell Friday into slavery a second time): the captain shrugged his shoulders and turned his back to me, and that was the end of that.
‘So the castle I had built in the air, namely that Friday should sail for Africa and I return to London my own mistress at last, came tumbling about my ears. Where a ship’s-master was honest, I discovered, he would not accept so unpromising a deck-hand as Friday. Only the more unscrupulous — of whom I met a host in the days that followed — pretended to welcome us,· seeing me, no doubt, as an easy dupe and Friday as their God-sent prey. One of these claimed to be sailing for Calicut, making port at the Cape of Good Hope on the way, where he promised to set Friday ashore; while his true destination, as I learned from the wharfmaster, was Jamaica.
‘Was I too suspicious? All I know is, I would not sleep easy tonight if Friday were on the high seas destined a second time, all unwittingly, for the plantations. A woman may bear a child she does not want, and rear it without loving it, yet be ready to defend it with her life. Thus it has become, in a manner of speaking, between Friday and myself. I do not love him, but he is mine. That is why he remains in England. That is why he is here.’
III
The staircase was dark and mean. My knock echoed as if on emptiness. But I knocked a second time, and heard a shuffling, and from behind the door a voice, his voice, low and cautious. ‘It is I, Susan Barton,’ I announced — ‘I am alone, with Friday.’ Whereupon the door opened and he stood before me, the same Foe I had first set eyes on in Kensington Row, but leaner and quicker, as though vigilance and a spare diet agreed with him.
‘May we come in?’ I said.
He made way and we entered his refuge. The room was lit by a single window, through which poured the afternoon sun. The view was to the north, over the roofs of Whitechapel. For furniture there was a table and chair, and a bed, slovenly made; one corner of the room was curtained off.
‘It is not as I imagined it,’ I said. ‘I expected dust thick on the floor, and gloom. But life is never as we expect it to be. I recall an author reflecting that after death we may find ourselves not among choirs of angels but in some quite ordinary place, as for instance a bath-house on a hot afternoon, with spiders dozing in the corners; at the time it will seem like any Sunday in the country; only later will it come home to us that we are in eternity.’
‘It is an author I have not read.’
‘The idea has remained with me from my childhood. But I have come to ask about another story. The history of ourselves and the island — how does it progress? Is it written?’
‘It progresses, but progresses slowly, Susan. It is a slow story, a slow history. How did you find your way to me?’
‘By good fortune entirely. I met your old housekeeper Mrs Thrush in Covent Garden after Friday and I came back from Bristol (I wrote you letters on the Bristol road, I have them with me, I will give them to you). Mrs Thrush directed us to the boy who runs errands for you, with a token that we were to be trusted, and he led us to this house.’
‘It is excellent that you have come, for there is more I must know about Bahia, that only you can tell me.’
‘Bahia is not part of my story,’ I replied, ‘but let me tell you whatever I can. Bahia is a city built on hills. To convey cargoes from the harbour to their warehouses, the merchants have therefore spanned a great cable, with pulleys and windlasses. From the streets you see bales of cargo sail overhead on the cable all day. The streets are a-bustle with people going about their business, slave and free, Portuguese and Negro and Indian and half-breed. But the Portuguese women are seldom to be seen abroad. For the Portuguese are a very jealous race. They have a saying: In her life a woman has but three occasions to leave the house for her baptism, her wedding, and her burial. A woman who goes abroad freely is thought a whore. I was thought a whore. But there are so many whores there, or, as I prefer to call them, free women, that I was not daunted. In the cool of the evening the free women of Bahia don their finest clothes, put hoops of gold about their necks and golden bracelets on their arms and ornaments of gold in their hair, and walk the streets; for gold is cheap there. The most handsome are the women of colour, or mulatas as they are called. The Crown has failed to halt the private traffic in gold, which is mined in the interior and sold by the miners to the goldsmiths. Alas, I have nothing to show you of the craft of these excellent smiths, not even a pin. All I had was taken from me by the mutineers. I came ashore on the island with nothing but the clothes I wore, red as a beetroot from the sun, my hands raw and blistered. It is no wonder I failed to charm Cruso.’
‘And Friday?’ ‘Friday?’ ‘Did Friday ever grow enamoured of you?’ ‘How are we ever to know what goes on in the heart of Friday? But I think not.’ I turned to Friday, who had been squatting all the while by the door with his head on his knees. ‘Do you love me, Friday?’ I called softly. Friday did not so much as raise his head. ‘We have lived too close for love, Mr Foe. Friday has grown to be my shadow. Do our shadows love us, for all that they are never patted from us?’
Foe smiled. ‘Tell me more of Bahia,’ he said.
‘There is much to be said of Bahia. Bahia is a world in itself. But why? Bahia is not the island. Bahia was but a stepping stone on my way.’ ·
‘That may not be so,’ replied Foe cautiously. ‘Rehearse your story and you will see. The story begins in London. Your daughter is abducted or elopes, I do not know which, it does not matter. In quest of her you sail to Bahia, for you have intelligence that she is there. In Bahia you spend no less than two years, two fruitless years. How do you live all this time? How do you clothe yourself? Where do you sleep? How do you pass the days? Who are your friends? These are questions that are asked, which we must answer, And what has been the fate of your daughter? Even in the great spaces of Brazil a daughter does not vanish like smoke. Is it possible that while you are seeking her she is seeking you? But enough of questions. At last you despair. You abandon your quest and depart. Shortly thereafter your daughter arrives in Bahia, from the backlands, in search of you. She hears talk of a tall Englishwoman who has taken ship for Lisbon, and follows. She haunts the docks of Lisbon and Oporto. Rough sailors think her a blessed simpleton and treat her with kindness. But no one has heard of a tall Englishwoman off a ship from Bahia. Are you on the Azores, gazing out to sea, mourning, like Ariadne? We do not know. Time passes. Your daughter despairs. Then chance brings to her ears the story of a woman rescued from an island where she has been marooned with an old man and his black slave. Is this woman by some chance her mother? She follows a trail of rumour from Bristol to London, to the house where the woman had briefly taken service (this is the house on Kensington Row). There she learns the woman’s name. It is the same as hers.