The Ghosts of Eden

by Andrew JH Sharp

  ‘Yes. Maybe she’ll have a daughter of her own one day and she’ll give it to her.’

  ‘If she doesn’t, do you think she’ll give it to me? I’m going to ask her.’

  Six

  As Arthur, Michael’s grandfather, remembered less of the events of the present, simple though they were, he found he could bring to mind more of the past. Sitting quiet in his cottage, he could return to a time when the giant landmass of Africa was still alone, following its own rhythms. A time when there were no highways into the interior and no wheeled transport. He saw again the tracks that crisscrossed the continent. Some were well worn by the Arab caravans that traded blue cloth and beads for ivory and slaves, but many were indistinct, dissipating in the grasses, smattered away by muddy rain, blown away as dust in violent stirrings of hot air, or broken up by animal tracks that had their own compelling destinations. The experienced traveller could distinguish animal track from human track for each had its own rhythm of line; its own cadence.

  It struck Arthur that the routes into the interior were not visualised in the vertical view, from the cartographer’s perspective, but by a journey re-enacted in the mind, a horizontal prospect: the scenes a traveller would see and remember as he walked the path.

  When Arthur was small his father would tell him of the first men from Europe to find their way along those tracks. They ventured in from the sea, sometimes breaking away from the path to reach some rumoured lake or river, intimated by the wave of a tribesman’s hand to the horizon. If there were many horizons to cross to reach this cryptic destination, the tribesman might repeat the gesture several times, clicking his fingers between each motion.

  The explorers discovered peoples living by the power of their imaginations; living not by the written word, the book, but by their speaking and hearing, by the histories of their ancestors told to them by their fathers. So, like the tracks, there was no vertical view, no library view. The people could only be known by travelling beside them, understanding the cadence of their lives, hearing the stories they told. It was a ground-rooted outlook and was limited by a horizon; beyond this were those times past which had not been revealed by the older generation to the younger. Those times were unknowable, lost to memory.

  Arthur’s father had told how the explorers pushed further and further inland, searching like Jason for a Golden Fleece: the source of the Nile. They disappeared into the blank places on the maps, striking into the interior in blind hope, forewarned by the ancient Egyptians and Romans that the treacherous swamps and hostile tribes of the Sud would block their way if they attempted to follow the Nile upstream. Men like Burton, fluent in twenty-five languages, expert swordsman; Speke, fervent to be the one to ‘settle the question of the Nile’; Livingstone, scourge of the slavers but having to depend on their assistance; Baker, finding a paradise to satisfy his lust for hunting; Rebmann, reporting snow on the equator to a disbelieving Europe. For months, sometimes years, Europe awaited news of their heroes. Until they reported back, wild beasts were drawn on the maps to fill the spaces: a vacancy at the heart of the globe waiting to be filled, the very blackness of the inhabitants nullifying them, thought Arthur, making them invisible – insignificant – to the European eye. The native population blended with the landscape too well; had not separated themselves from nature like the Europeans.

  Arthur’s father had spun out the stories he told of those men so that Arthur would wait anxiously for the next instalment (as fretfully as Europe had waited not many years before for news of their idols). Were they dead? And what was the manner of their death? A spear in the heart, blackwater fever, drowned in cataracts? And who would return triumphant? Would the source of the Nile be a trickling brook arising in pleasant upland meadows, or a mighty inland sea, or even the fountains of Am Kaam, King of Egypt, at the foot of the Lunae Montes?

  And then his father, Mr Thomas Price, had left home himself to go exploring, following hard behind those first adventurers and looking for a different glory, hoping to be feted on a different shore; wanting to draw marks on the map of the hearts of men. Arthur believed that it was the Robert Moffats, the David Livingstones, men like his father – the men of faith – who were most loved by the native peoples. That was their reward, and his own.

  Bending over his desk, Arthur looked through his old letters and diaries. In hands that shook he took papers to the light of the window, or the glow of the hurricane lamp, letting dates in diaries, jotted entries, or the text of letters open his memories. He had listed important dates on a sheet of paper at the front of a folder of papers.

  ‘January 19, 1890 – the last surviving letter from my father before his death.’ He recalled swinging his legs on the piano stool in the drawing room of the family home in Reigate in 1890. His sister sat beside him while his mother read the letter from their father.

  Arthur picked up the letter and read it again.

  My dear Ellen,

  This letter brings the joyful news that the Rev. T. Johnson and I, after all these months, during which we have learnt patience and to wait on the Lord, will be leaving Zanzibar island on January 5th for Bagamoyo on the mainland. Last night Johnson and I stood on a rock at the far end of the beach outside the town and looked out across the dark waters towards the unlit shores of Africa. What a great harvest of souls awaits us there. What light the gospel of Christ will bring to the poor peoples of Africa whom for so long have lived in the fear of death. I wished you were standing beside me, but I remembered that you are faithful in prayer, and that brought you closer.

  There was a stir last week when Mr Henry Stanley arrived in Zanzibar after travelling the entire width of the African continent from west to east. I did not speak to Mr Stanley myself but we had the good fortune to have an agreeable discourse with the reformed slave trader Juma bin Said, an occasional companion of that less than reformed slaver Tippu Tip. Juma bin Said has accompanied Mr Stanley on his expedition. What stories he has to tell of the distant lands so long unknown to civilisation. On the far side of the great lake they call the Victoria Nyanza, many weeks’ march from the coast, Mr Stanley received hospitality from a proud race that can raise over two hundred thousand spears in defence of their kingdom. They believe that their ancestors were divine, had pale skin and came from the north, so when Mr Stanley and his party marched through their lands they honoured them as gods.

  One of their princes was sent by their king to undertake a blood brotherhood ritual with Mr Stanley. Juma bin Said witnessed the ceremony in which Mr Stanley and the prince sat opposite each other on a fine rug clasping each other’s left hand, while the master of the ceremony cut their forearms, mixed each man’s blood with butter and rubbed the mixture into the forehead of the other. Stanley’s men fired a rifle volley and then the Maxim gun, creating quite a spectacle of ejected earth and splintered rocks on the opposite hillside. The prince was exceedingly impressed.

  By all accounts they are well disposed to the gospel and their kingdom is troubled little by the Arabs or other tribes. Their king sent greetings to Mr Stanley saying that no subject of Nkori would refuse him the right hand of fellowship.

  But I fear that the ground Johnson and I are to tread is of a more stony nature. Perhaps God will one day grant us the privilege of venturing into that region beyond the great lake.

  It is most likely that the next occasion I will have the opportunity to write to you will be on our arrival at the mission at Mwapa, three days’ march from the coast. There we will join Mr and Mrs K. Barnes. I will then make haste to submit a report to Bishop Green concerning the financial requirements for the school and for accommodation at the mission for yourself and the children. The bishop has told me that the Barneses have recently returned to Mwapa from Bagamoyo, and they consider the climate at Mwapa far preferable to the hot and fever-infested coastal region.

  My children are always in my thoughts. Arthur will find much to amuse him in these parts and Alice will find bountiful example of the delights of God’s creation.
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  Arthur looked at the next entry in his chronology: ‘January 26, 1890 – letter – now lost – from my father. His arrival on Africa’s shore.’ The letter had been misplaced, but not the image it evoked in Arthur – the strongest memory of his childhood even though he had been five thousand miles away. He saw his father wading ashore through warm surf onto virgin sand. Behind him the overladen dhow which had carried him from Zanzibar to Bagamoyo on the mainland was foundering in the blue water, the crew throwing off baggage to save their boat. Arthur’s mother, his sister and he, had laughed at the description of the Rev. T. Johnson’s attempts to retrieve a lost shoe.

  Then came an entry that he had returned to again and again: ‘May 24, 1980 – letter from the bishop concerning my father’s death.’ He did not keep this letter with his other papers: it lived in a pocket at the back of his Bible. He unfolded the heavily creased page; its black ink script was as clear as when first penned.

  Dear Mrs Price,

  It is my affecting duty but one which I pray will bring you godly pride and consolation, to give you a fuller account of your husband’s death than you have already received from the mission committee.

  The new mission at Mwapa presented a further threat to the slave traders and, wishing to prevent the mission taking root, the slavers stirred up the natives against the mission, making the most heinous threats. Your husband was sorely troubled by a recurring fever and I advised that the mission be abandoned until order and health could be restored. The Rev. T. Johnson and the Barneses arrived in Bagamoyo from Mwapa on February 8th, greatly disturbed, saying that Mr Price had declined to leave the mission. He had insisted on the others making haste to the coast but would not go with them, saying that he must not abandon the Lord’s call, at any cost. It appeared at first that this steadfastness by your husband so inspired the natives that they desisted from their antagonism, but it was a little later that the African chief Manwa conveyed to me, by his own mouth, that action by your husband which turned the hearts of the people.

  The chief’s son was ill and near to death. His medicine men had predicted the child’s demise and were powerless to ward off the powerful curse placed on him, so the chief brought his son to your husband to test the power of his God. When the chief returned with his men the next morning, prepared to pillage the mission and slaughter every soul if his son was dead, he found the child sitting up in bed, well and fully restored. Your husband was sitting beside the bed but, alas, had passed away by the fever. His hand still held the hand of the child. I think on the scene now, precious to me as I hope it will be to yourself, of your husband restrained from leaving Africa by the hand of a child.

  Arthur recalled the day his mother had silently given him the letter to read. When he had finished reading he had vowed that when he grew up he would go and work amongst the tribe of two hundred thousand spears.

  The night before Michael was to go to stay with Simon, his mother had told him he could have bedtime prayers with his grandfather. Michael paused in the half-open doorway. He wanted to go straight in but knew he had to ask first. Looking at his grandfather dozing in the chair, with his chin resting in the baggy knot of his tie, he felt sorry to have to wake him. He wondered if one day he also would have eyebrows like furry caterpillars that drooped down over crinkly eyelids. His grandfather’s mouth was hidden by his bushy white moustache; one long hair was trembling as he breathed as if it was a butterfly’s feeler. Michael couldn’t imagine how his own skin might one day hang in loose folds from his cheeks. His grandfather’s white shirt seemed too big for him as if his chest had sunk away. His large leather-bound Bible had slipped a little from his oversized hands. Michael thought he had hands like Jesus – so he could cure sick people.

  ‘Granddad!’ Michael said suddenly, in a loud whisper.

  His grandfather first lifted his eyebrows and then opened his eyes. He stared blankly ahead for a moment as if he was wondering where he was, as if he was not sure whether he was still in the world. Then, seeing Michael, he lifted his head. His moustache straightened and stretched as he smiled. His eyes welcomed Michael in.

  Before prayers his grandfather sometimes read to him – books like Montezuma’s Daughter or Call of the Wild. Sometimes Michael saw that he had his eyes closed behind his reading glasses as if he didn’t need to look at the words to tell the stories.

  That night he did not read, but talked of Africa. ‘It’s going now, Michael, that old Africa, but its echo will remain as a bittersweet legacy for tomorrow’s Africa.’

  ‘Oh,’ Michael said, ‘I see,’ although he didn’t.

  He lay back across a chair, legs over the arm, and rested his eyes on the line of the hill across the valley, clear against the star-pricked sky. While his grandfather talked in deep and cracked tones of those far-gone days Michael saw shapes on the skyline. At first the shapes looked like bushes and trees but then, as his grandfather spoke, they changed into men, some in robes, some carrying curving elephant tusks, some leading other men with chains. He saw tribesmen with spears, cattle swinging their long horns, men sitting listening to stories, kings with high hats, wise men gathering to talk.

  He pointed out a shooting star. ‘Oh no, you didn’t look quick enough. It’s gone now.’

  ‘Ah, tell me if you see another,’ his grandfather said, and carried on speaking of the old days, his eyes closed.

  On the skyline Michael saw thickset buffalos, creeping leopards, laughing hyenas. He saw queues of his grandfather’s patients, crippled and bent at first and then straight and tall against the sky.

  When his grandfather had finished talking, Michael sprung lightly from the chair and picked up a folded paper that had slipped out of his grandfather’s Bible.

  ‘You’ve dropped this, Granddad.’ He gave it back to him.

  ‘Ah, that. It’s something I’ve kept since I was a boy about your age. I’ll tell you about it another time.’

  When Michael had gone, Arthur closed his eyes. He saw again his father wading onto Africa’s shore at Bagamoyo. He wondered what shore his grandson would have to cross to find his path in the new world. He could not guess, and did not dwell on, for soon, very soon, he would meet his own father, Thomas, again; would tell him stories of the tribe of two hundred thousand spears that he never lived to see, but he, the son, worked among for forty years. Soon, very soon.

  Seven

  ‘Bloody hell!’ shouted Simon’s father. ‘Where are my cigarettes? Who tidied them off the sideboard? Rhonda?’

  ‘Shut up, Henry, the missionaries’ kid has arrived. Try controlling yourself for just a minute.’

  Simon’s mother, Mrs Adams, stood in the doorway, half turned away from Michael as she yelled back at her husband. She seemed to Michael to be all twisting curves, from her hip-tight skirt, to the swell of her breasts under her silky blouse (he tried not to think about the sherbet), to her flicked-out blonde hair. She turned back to examine him. First he noticed her lips which were as red as coral, and then he couldn’t not stare at her eyes: they were as pretty as a cat’s – but also scary. She was looking at him as if he was a mouse that someone had dropped on the doorstep. She bent over him, gliding her polished fingernails down the front of her thighs. He was reminded of something he had heard somewhere: nature, red in tooth and claw. Some sort of perfumed vapour fell heavily onto his face. It would easily kill mosquitoes.

  ‘Please forgive Simon’s dad. He’s a real devil sometimes,’ she said with a purry voice. Her fingernails twitched.

  Michael had not expected to have confirmation of Simon’s warning so early in his visit. He was thankful that his father had told him, that morning, that he was an Ambassador For Christ and this would be his first posting. He had prayed the previous night for Jesus to help him fight The World, The Flesh And The Devil. Here was the Devil bit. He would be strong.

  ‘You must be starving, poor waif. Boarding school is only one up from the workhouse. Come in and have some cake and ginger beer.’

  This w
as awkward; she didn’t know that missionaries didn’t drink beer. This was the World bit.

  While Michael wrestled with such closeness to sin, Simon pushed past his mother.

  ‘Hello, Father.’

  ‘Hello, boy. Have you seen my Players?’

  Mrs Adams said, ‘How can he possibly have seen your Players, Henry? He’s only just arrived.’

  ‘What? You’ve been away, son?’

  Michael was not sure if Simon’s father was joking.

  ‘Just got back from Lewis’s, Dad, and before that I was at school.’

  ‘Teaching you to bat, are they? Got to learn to impress the girls, son.’

  Simon had told Michael that his father used to look like a handsome airline pilot but then he had a terrible accident playing rugby which had smashed his face. ‘To smithereens’ was all Simon had said when Michael had asked exactly what had happened, leaving Michael imagining horrible facial deformities under the devil’s horns and the hyena hair. Looking at Mr Adams now, Michael was a little disappointed for although his nose was a distance from the midline, the rest of his face was not caved in at all and his eyes, lips and ears were exactly where they should be; in fact Michael hoped he would look a bit like him when he grew up. He had a black pencil moustache which he kept running his finger along, and if he wasn’t doing that he was stroking the tight ripples of his shiny, black, Brylcreemed hair. A manly chest was hinted at by the puff of hairs in the V of his unbuttoned safari shirt. Michael bet himself that he wore Aertex underpants.

  ‘Aw, can we play with these?’ Simon asked, picking up a heavy pair of binoculars from the sideboard.

  ‘Don’t get your grubby fingers on the glass,’ Mr Adams replied.

  Simon generously handed the binoculars to Michael who lifted them to his eyes. A milky disk bobbed about.

  ‘You’re looking at the ceiling,’ Simon said.

  Michael shifted his view and gasped. He was looking straight into Mr Adams’s face. Mr Adams was looking straight back but Michael could see behind the handsome mask. His squoncky nose was missing but there were openings in the centre of his skull for breathing and his eye sockets were stretched sideways. Dark cracks had replaced the whites of his eyes. His lips made a rude hole. A devil unmasked.