MULATTO (Iyila) (Editing)

chapter fifty seven

Not once . . . not one time. . . not ever, not even in the most bizarre moments of her life or in any of her starry-eyed mind engaging actions had Iyila featured Mr. Gabriel Jacob John Martins in her scheme of things. Unremittingly, she had always thought her life deducible. Always knowing that she was the handiwork of a libidinous man (deemed as superior by the skin he carried exercising his rights of a man of more authority, with the law as his backbone, over a vulnerable woman termed as coloured due to her beautiful dark skin. She had always known her mother's harsh treatment was only retaliation for the soul-paining hate that her believed father's wickedness at her conception had inculcated. Though sometimes she had sought to loathe her mother, reason had never allowed her to, knowing she was a reminder of a White man's brutality.

Her grotesque dissimilarity - her nearly white skin at her birth, that over the passage of time in the burning cotton fields had turned tan - her ever flowing dark brown hair that almost resembled the master's own - had, at a tender age, commanded acute resentment and suspicion from the mistress, repugnance from the black community, and mostly disgust from her dear mother. It confused Iyila of her place as woman lower than the dirt in the field. Albeit, sometimes in her childish fantasies she termed herself as higher than black folks, but maturity, common sense, and proper reason had flown in over time, coaching her that despite her nearly white skin, she was she a Negro ... not a person like them ... not a White, only a Negro.

Not once had she needed advice on the effect of her skin on the White man and the consequences surrounding such colour. Be that as it may, she had accepted it. Not with a full heart, sometimes with a hint of resistance which was constantly and promptly righted by the whips of the master. She all the same performed her duties with all diligence and to the best of her capability. All chores, harsh treatment, injurious words, whippings, even before she picked her first cotton, she knew were an essential part of the skin she had. No special tutoring was needed to enlighten her on the norms and culture of a Negro since it was encrypted in their skin and passed from one generation on to another.

Their lives had been naturally devised - to marry at a certain age and fill the master's flock with children to be slaves, or invariably sold later and perhaps die at a certain age naturally or shot by the master when perceived useless and end of tale. Then, just like a thief in the night, Gabriel had appeared and disrupted all the rules. A man whom she had initially seen as the same as her father. A man she had never planned for or imagined to like or even love. A man with the reputation of chronic debauchery that caused societal uproar, forced mother's to guard their daughters like lionesses and their cubs. A man with a dangerous relationship with women, whom reason would send every prudent woman running in the opposite direction, was the very man she loved so dearly.

Like the courtier, she had unceasingly suspected him to be, he had gradually tamed her hate for his race. Carefully, yet unconsciously, had he educated and eradicated any category of prejudice in her. Each of his actions, driving away every bit of anger, burnishing from her heart every figment of resentment and bitterness that she had through her existence harboured for his people.

Not once had she thought of joining his harem of wild women, or even as a lover, or even a woman he had only on some days confessed an interminable love for -- the time she had chanced upon him at the emporium during spring. And before she could understand the depth of her feelings he had just like a brash man, mindlessly, took her lips, seized her breath and again mindlessly stole her heart, leaving her with nothing but the beautiful memories of their oneness. Memories she so desired that only thoughts of it made her eyes glow with warmth, her knees turn feeble and her stomach churning with flux caused by the memories of his hands on her thighs; gentle, demanding, possessive and giving. The depth of his dark green eyes she had once doubted and connoted as charmingly dangerous, shimmering with satisfaction as they soared to her face. The twitch at the sides of his lips when he complimented a part of her and the perfection of his dimples when he snickered. His thin velvet lips fiercely possessing hers, capable of flushing every pain and catapulting away all fears, the smoothness of his delicate hands, dumbing her body with lovely strokes as well as explosives plunging through her. The heat of their bodies in motion, the mildness yet intensity of his propulsions. Her slender body in the embrace of his strong warm hands after each liaison reassuring her of a love he was eager to protect.