Under African Skies (17 page)

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Authors: Charles Larson

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The next day I went to Mrs. Plum and told her I was leaving for Phokeng and was not coming back to her. Could she give me a letter to say that I worked for her. She did, with her lips shut tight. I could feel that something between us was burning like raw chilies. The letter simply said that I had worked for Mrs. Plum for three years. Nothing more. The memory of Dick being sent away was still an open sore in my heart.
The night before the day I left, Chimane came to see me in my room. She had her own story to tell me. Timi, her boyfriend, had left her—for good. Why? Because I killed his baby. Had he not agreed that you should do it? No. Did he show he was worried when you told him you were heavy? He was worried, like me as you saw me, Karabo. Now he says if I kill one I shall eat all his children up when we are married. You think he means what he says? Yes, Karabo. He says his parents would have been very happy to know that the woman he was going to marry can make his seed grow.
Chimane was crying softly.
I tried to speak to her, to tell her that if Timi left her just like that, he had not wanted to marry her in the first place. But I could not, no, I could
not. All I could say was, Do not cry, my sister, do not cry. I gave her my handkerchief.
Kate came back the morning I was leaving, from somewhere very far I cannot remember where. Her mother took no notice of what Kate said asking her to keep me, and I was not interested either.
One hour later I was on the Railway bus to Phokeng. During the early part of the journey I did not feel anything about the Greenside house I had worked in. I was not really myself, my thoughts dancing between Mrs. Plum, my uncle, my parents, and Phokeng, my home. I slept and woke up many times during the bus ride. Right through the ride I seemed to see, sometimes in sleep, sometimes between sleep and waking, a red car passing our bus, then running behind us. Each time I looked out it was not there.
Dreams came and passed. He tells me he says, You have killed my seed. I wanted my mother to know you are a woman in whom my seed can grow … Before you make the police take you to jail make sure that it is for something big you should go to jail for, otherwise you will come out with a heart and mind that will bleed inside you and poison you …
The bus stopped for a short while, which made me wake up.
The Black Crow, the club women … Hei, listen! I lie to the madam of our house and I say I had a telegram from my mother telling me she is very very sick. I show her a telegram my sister sent me as if Mother were writing. So I went home for a nice weekend …
The laughter of the women woke me up, just in time for me to stop a line of saliva coming out over my lower lip. The bus was making plenty of dust now as it was running over part of the road they were digging up. I was sure the red car was just behind us, but it was not there when I woke.
Any one of you here who wants to be baptized or has a relative without a church who needs to be can come and see me in the office … A round man with a fat tummy and sharp hungry eyes, a smile that goes a long, long way …
The bus was going uphill, heavily and noisily.
I kick a white man's dog, me, or throw it there if it has not been told the black people's law … This is Mister Monty and this is Mister Malan. Now get up you lazy boys and meet Mister Kate. Hold out your hands and say hallo to him … Karabo, bring two glasses there … Wait a bit—What will you chew, boys, while Mister Kate and I have a drink? Nothing? Sure?
We were now going nicely on a straight tarred road and the trees rushed back. Mister Kate. What nonsense, I thought.
Look, Karabo, Madam's dogs are dead. What? Poison. I killed them. She drove me out of a job, did she not? For nothing. Now I want her to feel she drove me out for something. I came back when you were in your room and took the things and poisoned them … And you know what? She has buried them in clean pink sheets in the garden. Ao, clean clean good sheets. I am going to dig them out and take one sheet, do you want the other one? Yes, give me the other one I will send it to my mother …
Hei
, Karabo, see here they come. Monty and Malan. The bloody fools they do not want to stay in their hole. Go back, you silly fools. Oh you do not want to move, eh? Come here, now I am going to throw you in the big pool. No, Dickl No Dick! no, no! Dick! They cannot speak do not kill things that cannot speak. Madam can speak for them she always does. No! Dick … !
I woke up with a jump after I had screamed Dick's name, almost hitting the window. My forehead was full of sweat. The red car also shot out of my sleep and was gone. I remembered a friend of ours who told us how she and the garden man had saved two white sheets in which their white master had buried their two dogs. They went to throw the dogs in a dam.
When I told my parents my story Father says to me he says, So long as you are in good health, my child, it is good. The worker dies, work does not. There is always work. I know when I was a boy a strong sound body and a good mind were the biggest things in life. Work was always there, and the lazy man could never say there was no work. But today people see work as something bigger than everything else, bigger than health, because of money.
I reply I say, Those days are gone, Papa. I must go back to the city after resting a little to look for work. I must look after you. Today people are too poor to be able to help you.
I knew when I left Greenside that I was going to return to Johannesburg to work. Money was little, but life was full and it was better than sitting in Phokeng and watching the sun rise and set. So I told Chimane to keep her eyes and ears open for a job.
I had been at Phokeng for one week when a red car arrived. Somebody was sitting in front with the driver, a white woman. At once I knew it to be Mrs. Plum. The man sitting beside her was showing her the way, for he pointed toward our house in front of which I was sitting. My heart missed a few beats. Both came out of the car. The white woman said Thank you to the man after he had spoken a few words to me.
I did not know what to do and how to look at her as she spoke to me. So I looked at the piece of cloth I was sewing pictures on. There was a tired but soft smile on her face. Then I remembered that she might want to sit. I went inside to fetch a low bench for her. When I remembered it afterwards, the thought came to me that there are things I never think white people can want to do at our homes when they visit for the first time: like sitting, drinking water, or entering the house. This is how I thought when the white priest came to see us. One year at Easter Kate drove me home as she was going to the north. In the same way I was at a loss what to do for a few minutes.
Then Mrs. Plum says, I have come to ask you to come back to me, Karabo. Would you like to?
I say I do not know, I must think about it first.
She says, Can you think about it today? I can sleep at the town hotel and come back tomorrow morning, and if you want to, you can return with me.
I wanted her to say she was sorry to have sent me away, I did not know how to make her say it because I know white people find it too much for them to say Sorry to a black person. As she was not saying it, I thought of two things to make it hard for her to get me back and maybe even lose me in the end.
I say, You must ask my father first, I do not know, should I call him?
Mrs. Plum says, Yes.
I fetched both Father and Mother. They greeted her while I brought benches. Then I told them what she wanted.
Father asks Mother and Mother asks Father. Father asks me. I say if they agree, I will think about it and tell her the next day.
Father says, It goes by what you feel, my child.
I tell Mrs. Plum I say, If you want me to think about it I must know if you will want to put my wages up from £6 because it is too little.
She asks me, How much will you want?
Up by £4.
She looked down for a few moments.
And then I want two weeks at Easter and not just the weekend. I thought if she really wanted me she would want to pay for it. This would also show how sorry she was to lose me.
Mrs. Plum says, I can give you one week. You see you already have something like a rest when I am in Durban in the winter.
I tell her I say I shall think about it.
She left.
The next day she found me packed and ready to return with her. She was very much pleased and looked kinder than I had ever known her. And me, I felt sure of myself, more than I had ever done.
Mrs. Plum says to me, You will not find Monty and Malan.
Oh?
Yes, they were stolen the day after you left. The police have not found them yet. I think they are dead myself.
I thought of Dick … my dream. Could he? And she … did this woman come to ask me to return because she had lost two animals she loved?
Mrs. Plum says to me she says, You know, I like your people, Karabo, the Africans.
And Dick and me? I wondered.
 
—1967
(BORN 1930) KENYA
According to Lee Nichols in
African Writers at the Microphone,
Grace Ogot has “managed boutiques in Nairobi, conducted her own radio program and engaged in other activities … .” One of these other activities was serving as Assistant Minister in the Kenyan Government. She has also written for the BBC, worked as a Public Relations Officer and as a Community Development Officer, been a midwifery tutor as well as the Headmistress of the Kisumu Homecraft Training Center, taught at Makerere University College in Uganda, and served as a delegate to the United Nations. And she is a writer. Of the last, she mentions her daughter's remark to her brothers: “Hey, you guys, keep quiet, Mommy's writing.”
Besides numerous journalistic pieces, Grace Ogot has published many short stories which have been reprinted in international publications. Her collected stories appeared as
Land without Thunder
(1968); a Swahili translation of the volume was published in 1979. Her novels include
The Other Woman (1976), The Island of Tears
(1980), and
The Strange Bride
(1989). The last was originally written and published as
Miaha,
in Dholuo, her first language, in 1983.
Luo mythology is at the center of
The Strange Bride
, which begins: “In the distant ancestral days, our god, Were Nyakalaga, lived on the earth with his own people. But no one could see him because he was a mysterious being whose essence spread all over the surface of the earth.
“However, even though people could not see Were Nyakalaga, they were
aware of his closeness to them. They saw his hand in lightning and heard his voice in thunder and the winds that blew around them.
“People believed that Were Nyakalaga liked to live in the mountains. They therefore built him a small shrine—with a roof thatched with the
buoywe
grass—at the peak of Got Owaga. From there, they believed, Were Nyakalaga was able to look after all his people who lived in the big village that surrounded the mountain.”
Much of Grace Ogot's writing career has involved a successful attempt to straddle the question of language: African or European? She confesses: “I love writing for myself. I read them [my stories], I cry over them sometimes.”
The period of short rains was just starting in a semi-arid part of the Sudan. The early-morning mist had cleared, and faint blue smoke rose from the ground as the hot sun touched the surface of the wet earth.
“People in the underworld are cooking.
“People in the underworld are cooking!”
The children shouted, as they pelted one another with wet sand.
“Come on, Opija,” Tekayo shouted to his son. “Give me a hand, I must get the cows to the river before it is too hot.”
Opija hit his younger brother with his last handful of sand, and then ran to help his father. The cows were soon out of the village and Tekayo picked up the leather pouch containing his lunch and followed them.
They had not gone far from home when Tekayo saw an eagle flying above his head with a large piece of meat in its claws. The eagle was flying low, searching for a suitable spot to have its meal. Tekayo promptly threw his stick at the bird. He hit the meat and it dropped to the ground. It was a large piece of liver, and fresh blood was still oozing from it. Tekayo nearly threw the meat away, but he changed his mind. What was the use of robbing the eagle of its food only to throw it away? The meat looked good: it would supplement his vegetable lunch wonderfully. He wrapped the meat in a leaf and pushed it into his pouch.
They reached a place where there was plenty of grass. Tekayo allowed the cows to graze while he sat under an
ober
tree watching the sky. It was
not yet lunchtime, but Tekayo could not wait. The desire to taste that meat was burning within him. He took out the meat and roasted it on a log fire under the ober tree. When the meat was cooked he ate it greedily with millet bread which his wife had made the previous night.
“My, what delicious meat!” Tekayo exclaimed. He licked the fat juice that stained his fingers, and longed for a little more. He threw away the bitter herbs that were the rest of his lunch. The meat was so good, and the herbs would merely spoil its taste.
The sun was getting very hot, but the cows showed no desire to go to the river to drink. One by one they lay down in the shade, chewing the cud. Tekayo also became overpowered by the afternoon heat. He rested against the trunk and slept.
While asleep, Tekayo had a dream. He was sitting before a log fire roasting a large piece of liver like the one he had eaten earlier. His mouth watered as he watched rich fat from the roasting meat dropping into the fire. He could not wait, and although the meat was not completely done, he removed it from the fire and cut it up with his hunting knife. But just as he was about to take the first bite, he woke up.
Tekayo looked around him, wondering what had happened to the meat. Could it be that he was dreaming? “No, no, no,” he cried. “It was too vivid to be a dream!” He sat upright and had another look around, as if by some miracle he might see a piece of liver roasting on the log fire beside him. But there was nothing. All he saw were large roots of the old tree protruding above the earth's surface like sweet potatoes in the sandy soil.
The cattle had wandered a long way off. Tekayo got up and followed them. They reached the riverbank, and the thirsty cows ran to the river. While the cows drank, Tekayo sat on a white stone cooling his feet and gazing lazily at the swollen river as it flowed mightily toward the plain.
Beyond the river stood the great Ghost Jungle. A strong desire for the rich meat came back to Tekayo, and he whispered, “The animal with that delicious liver must surely be in that jungle.” He sat there for a while, thinking. The temptation to start hunting for the animal nagged him. But he managed to suppress it. The afternoon was far spent and they were a long way from home.
The next morning Tekayo left home earlier than usual. When his wife begged him to wait for his lunch, he refused. He hurried from home, taking his hunting spears with him.
Tekayo made it impossible for the cows to graze. He rushed them along,
lashing at any cow that lingered in one spot for long. They reached the edge of the Ghost Jungle and there he left the cows grazing unattended.
Tekayo could not see any path or trail leading into the Ghost Jungle. The whole place was a mass of thick bush and long grass covered with the morning dew. And except for the sounds of mating birds, there was a weird silence in the jungle that frightened him. But the vehement desire within him blindly drove him on, through the thick wet grass.
After walking for some time, he stood and listened. Something was racing toward him. He turned round to look, and sure enough a big impala was running frantically toward him. Warm blood rushed through Tekayo's body, and he raised his spear to kill the animal. But the spear never landed. He came face-to-face with a big leopardess that was chasing the impala. The leopardess roared at Tekayo several times, challenging him, as it were, to a duel. But Tekayo looked away, clutching the spear in his trembling hand. There was no one to fight and the beast went away after her prey.
“What a bad start,” Tekayo said slowly and quietly when his heart beat normally again. “That wildcat will not leave me alone now.”
He started to walk back toward the plain, following the trail he had made. The roaring leopardess had taken the life out of him.
He saw another trail that cut across the forest. He hesitated a little, and then decided to follow it, leaving his own. The trail got bigger and bigger, and without any warning Tekayo suddenly came upon a baby wildebeest which was following a large flock grazing at the foot of a hill. He killed it without any difficulty. He skinned the animal and extracted its liver, leaving the rest of the carcass.
Tekayo returned to the herd, and he sat down to roast the meat on a log fire. When the meat was cooked he took a bite and chewed it hurriedly. But he did not swallow it: he spat it all out! The liver was as bitter as the strong green herbs given to constipated children. The back of his tongue was stinging as if it had been burned. Tekayo threw the rest of the meat away and took his cows home.
He arrived home tired and disappointed; and when his young wife set food before him, he refused to eat. He pretended that he had stomachache and did not feel like eating. That night Tekayo was depressed and in low spirits. He did not even desire his young wife, who slept by his side. At dawn the young wife returned to her hut disappointed, wondering why the old man had not desired her.
The doors of all the huts were still closed when Tekayo looked out
through his door. A cold east wind hit his face, and he quickly shut himself in again.
It was getting rather late and the calves were calling. But it was pouring with rain so much that he could not start milking. He sat on the hard bed looking at the dead ashes in the fireplace. He longed to get out to start hunting.
When the rain stopped, Tekayo milked the cows in a great hurry. Then he picked up the lunch that had been left near his hut for him, and left the village. His disappointed wife of the previous night watched him till he disappeared at the gate.
When he reached the Ghost Jungle, it was drizzling again. The forest looked so lonely and wet. He left the cows grazing as usual, and entered the bush, stealing his way through the dripping leaves. He turned to the left to avoid the thick part of the jungle. Luck was with him. He spotted a family of antelope grazing not far from him. He crawled on his knees till he was quite close to them, and then threw his spear, killing one animal instantly. After skinning it, he extracted its liver, and also took some delicate parts for the family.
When he sat down under the tree to roast the meat, Tekayo was quite sure that he had been successful. But when he tasted the meat, he shook his head. The meat was tender, but it was not what he was looking for.
They reached the riverbank. The cows continued to graze after drinking, and Tekayo, without realizing it, wandered a long way from his herd, still determined to discover the owner of that wonderful liver. When he suddenly looked round, the herd was nowhere to be seen. The sun was sinking behind Mt. Pajulu, and Tekayo started to run, looking for his cows.
The cows, heavy with milk, had gone home without Tekayo. For one day when Tekayo's children got lost in the forest, the cows had gone home without them, following the old trail they knew well. On that day the whole village came out in search of the children in fear that the wild animals might harm them.
It was getting dark when Tekayo arrived home. They started to milk and Odipo remarked, “Why, Father, you are late coming home today.”
“It is true,” said Tekayo thoughtfully. “See that black bull there? He went to another herd across the river. I didn't miss him until it was time to come home. One of these days, we shall have to castrate him—he is such a nuisance.”
They milked in silence until one of the little girls came to fetch some milk for preparing vegetables.
At suppertime the male members of the family sat around the log fire waiting and talking. One by one, baskets of millet meal and earthen dishes of meat and vegetables arrived from different huts. There was fish, dried meat, fried white ants, and herbs. A little food was thrown to the ground, to the ancestors, and then they started eating. They compared and contrasted the deliciousness of the various dishes they were having. But Tekayo kept quiet. All the food he tasted that evening was bitter as bile.
When the meal was over, the adults told stories of war and the clans to the children, who listened attentively. But Tekayo was not with them: he was not listening. He watched the smoky clouds as they raced across the sky.
“Behind those clouds, behind those clouds, rests Okenyu, my great-grandfather. Please! Please!” Tekayo beseeched him. “Please, Father, take this longing away from me. Give me back my manhood that I may desire my wives. For what is a man without this desire!”
A large cloud covered the moon, giving the earth temporary darkness. Tears stung Tekayo's eyes, and he dismissed the family to sleep. As he entered his own hut, a woman was throwing small logs on the fire.
He offered many secret prayers to the departed spirits, but the craving for the mysterious liver never left him. Day after day he left home in the morning, taking his cows with him. And on reaching the jungle, he left them unattended while he hunted. The rough and disappointed life that he led soon became apparent to the family. He suddenly became old and disinterested in life. He had nothing to tell his sons around the evening fire, and he did not desire his wives. The sons of Tekayo went to Lakech and told her, “Mother, speak to Father—he is sick. He does not talk to us, and he does not eat. We don't know how to approach him.”
Though Lakech had passed the age of child-bearing and no longer went to Tekayo's hut at night, she was his first wife, and he loved her. She therefore went and asked him, “Man, what ails you?” Tekayo looked at Lakech, but he could not look into her eyes. He looked at her long neck, and instead of answering her question he asked her, “Would you like to get free from those heavy brass rings around your neck?”
“Why?” Lakech replied, surprised.
“Because they look so tight.”
“But they are not tight,” Lakech said softly. “I would feel naked without them.”
And Tekayo looked away from his wife. He was longing to tell Lakech everything, and to share with her this maddening craving that was tearing his body to pieces. But he checked himself. Lakech must not know: she would not understand. Then he lied to her.
“It is my old indigestion. I have had it for weeks now. It will soon pass.”
A mocking smile played on Lakech's lips, and Tekayo knew that she was not convinced. Some visitors arrived, and Lakech left her husband.
Tekayo hunted for many months, but he did not succeed in finding the animal with the delicious liver.
One night, as he lay awake, he asked himself where else he could hunt. And what animal would he be looking for? He had killed all the different animals in the Ghost Jungle. He had risked his life when he killed and ate the liver of a lion, a leopard, and a hyena, all of which were tabooed by his clan.
A little sleep came to Tekayo's heavy eyes and he was grateful. But then Apii stood beside his bed, calling: “Grandpa, Grandpa, it is me.” Tekayo sat up, but the little girl was not there. He went back to sleep again. And Apii was there calling him: “Can't you hear me, Grandpa?”
Tekayo woke up a second time, but nobody was there. He lay down without closing his eyes. Again the child's fingers touched his drooping hand, and the playful voice of a child tickled the skin of the old man. Tekayo sat up a third time, and looked round the room. But he was alone. The cock crowed a third time, and it was morning.
And Lakech died without knowing her husband's secret, and was buried in the middle of the village, being the first wife. Tekayo sat at his wife's grave morning and evening for a long time, and his grief for her appeased his hunger for the unknown animal's liver. He wept, but peacefully, as if his craving for the liver was buried with his wife.
It was during this time of grief that Tekayo decided never to go hunting again. He sat at home and looked after his many grandchildren, while the younger members of the family went out to work daily in the fields.

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