Michael felt his heart quicken.
She spoke softly. ‘I would’ve had to break the tradition of my people, marrying you instead of Stanley’s brother, or some other member of his clan. But with Zachye as he was, I had some hopes that my family would give my relationship with you their blessing.’
‘And when Zachye sought forgiveness you gave it. I would’ve liked to have had the same chance.’
‘How, Michael? My explaining the problem? How would I have known that you were sincere?’ Her voice was now so quiet that he hardly heard her say, ‘But now I understand you. If only I had known these things before.’
She looked at him as if waiting for him to respond.
‘Can you break your engagement?’ he murmured.
She shook her head with finality. ‘No, I cannot. I have vowed.’ She seemed to be concentrating on controlling her breathing. Of course, she would not be the Felice he loved and admired if she were to break a vow.
‘Felice,’ he said, his voice uncertain.
‘Yes?’ She was almost inaudible. Her eyes were searching his again.
‘I’m staying at the Baobab Hotel. I’ll leave tomorrow and will not contact you again, but . . .’ He paused. She still held him with her eyes; she appeared vulnerable, sweetly so. ‘Please come to me this evening.’
She broke away, looking out at the ocean for what seemed to Michael to be an age. Then she moved her hands lightly onto his.
‘I’ll come, Michael. After that you must promise to leave me to my duties. I’ve eternity to think of.’ He saw that she attempted a smile for him. ‘I mean – a greater good.’
He nodded once and smiled back, but when he tried to take her hands she said, ‘I must go. I’m expected back at work.’ He stood up with her but she motioned him to sit down. ‘Let me go. I’ll see you this evening at about sundown.’
Back at the beachfront, outside his hotel, Michael walked along the shore, curiously carefree – as if there was no tomorrow – feeling the sand as soft as ground almonds beneath his bare feet, hearing the tender rustling of the palms in the light breeze off the ocean, breathing in the dream-filled air. He thought he caught the scent of cloves from the island of Zanzibar, out to sea. The tide was turning, the sea drawing up its lacy skirt to reveal the bejewelled garter of the coral reef. Paradise on earth. She would be giving herself to him at last. He could not think of afterwards. Carpe diem.
The beach became narrower as a low coral cliff from a past age rose along the shoreline, overhanging the sand. A jumble of dead roots, white as bleached bones, formed an untidy meshwork under the overhang. Something red, like a splash of blood under the roots, startled him, making him stop and bend down to investigate. It was just a bright strawberry-top shell; he laughed at himself, at his vivid imagination.
He returned to sipping at his thoughts of the evening to come, but finding less pleasure – even a trace of sourness – he turned up a path that cut up into the cliff, hoping to get a view along the coast. At the top he found himself entering a remnant of forest. He took off his sunglasses to see into the foliage. Large trees had created a dense canopy, protecting each other from onshore winds and laying down thick humus on the forest floor. The path looked ill-frequented and he was barefoot, and he was about to turn back when he noticed slabs of stone, at angles, in the undergrowth. Behind the stones, almost hidden by a bougainvillea bush long gone native, he saw the remains of a small building and, around its crumbling brick walls, blackened tiles from what must have been its roof: an old cemetery with a chapel in a neglected grove; fallen headstones; the dislocated limbs of crosses. Curious, he pulled aside the vegetation to read a faded inscription, now just a darker staining of mould from that on the rest of the stone, the sea air having corroded away the relief. Ghosts of an inscription: ‘. . . loving memory . . .’ Then below: ‘1898 . . .’, the rest indecipherable. There were more headstones: ‘Beloved mother of . . .’, ‘With Christ, which is far better’, ‘Aged 31’, ‘Loving father’.
It struck him: this was the coast where his great-grandfather Thomas Price had come ashore. Wading ashore when his boat sank. Buried in this country, he didn’t know where. Were his bones here? Unlikely; but somewhere in this land – not far. And his grandparents, his father and his mother in the same African soil. All gone. His ancestors, all forgotten. Cut off. He bent down and touched the stone.
‘. . . loving memory . . .’
It came to him then – the long suppressed grief, like a wave from the sea, in that broken garden. He sank to his knees and remembered, and wept. Wept for his childhood loss. Shafts of light moved amongst the splintered stones and traced the passage of an hour. He supported himself on the limbs of a cross. Later his breath, hard, hungry at first, grew stilled.
When he was spent, emptied of sorrow, relieved of his burden, the ghosts of his ancestors spoke to him at last and he listened. Sweat formed sticky as blood on his brow. He gripped a headstone as they came to him one by one: Thomas, his great-grandfather; Arthur, his grandfather; Bernard, his father; and lastly, so near now that he could see her face for the first time since her death, his mother.
After the ghosts had finished talking he unbuttoned his shirt pocket and took out two small envelopes, one containing his mother’s ring and the other the ring that he had bought for Felice. He returned his mother’s ring to his pocket, then scooped away the soft earth at the foot of a gravestone with his hands; he kept going until his fingers were mirey and chafed. Taking Felice’s ring from its envelope, he buried it deep in the soil.
He stood, unsteadily, and returned to the beach, struggling to make progress against the hot shifting sand under his feet, staggering like a man concussed towards the water. Near the water’s edge the beach became as hard as cement. His ancestors had spoken: he could no longer meet Felice in the hotel. It would be an act of violation against her; against her faith, which required fidelity in all things; an act of neocolonisation. If he loved her he should leave her. Now.
Small waves broke around his ankles but he did not feel them. He saw a break in the thin white line of the reef where a channel led to the ocean beyond. A kind oblivion. The water flowed around his knees with such tender ease. Soon it would bear him out from the same shore that his great-grandfather had waded in on.
It took time for the scream behind him and the shouts that followed to reach him, but when the shouts persisted he turned his head distractedly and saw two children in the shallows nearby. The younger, a girl, was crying loudly, and the other, a boy, was calling to him, waving at him to come. Michael turned back towards the ocean. The boy stopped shouting but the girl continued sobbing. Michael saw a dhow in the gap in the reef, its age-stained sail billowing in the wind. Still the child cried. He heard again his ancestors speak, showing him the letter his grandfather had given him as a child concerning his great-grandfather’s death: how he had stayed. With the reluctance of driftwood lumber turned by the tide he faced the shore, and waded towards the children.
The girl was sitting on the sand now, holding her foot, still crying.
‘Amekanyaga kishimba,’ the boy said.
Michael saw black sea urchin spines in the pink sole of her foot. They had broken off and would dissolve, but he knelt down, rinsed the soil from the graveyard off his hands, gently lifted the child’s foot and blew on it. She stopped crying with a final shudder.
‘Where’s your home?’ he asked.
The children stared blankly at him.
‘I’ll take you to the hotel.’
He held out his hand. The girl looked at the boy, but he nodded to reassure her and Michael helped the child up.
Along the beach two people approached: a woman, her blue shawl and kanga flapping as she hurried towards them, and a long way off, a man, walking with purposeful gait. The woman stopped, breathless, in front of Michael and lifted the child, said ‘Asante’ and bowed her head appreciatively. She took her children and returned along the beach, leaving Michael looking out to sea again.
He watched the ever-roiling surf on the reef, felt the moon’s rhythmic suck and release of the helpless waters; saw his body fall like a slowly revolving black feather into the impassive depths. The ocean did not care. He turned away.
Setting his face, he walked briskly away from the water to go back to his hotel. To pack and leave for London.
He took a line along the beach so that he would give the man coming the other way a wide berth, but the man turned to intersect him. Michael prepared to fend off a hawker, but saw that his hands were empty (no pink-lipped shells or silvery fish hanging from a string through their gills) and that he was well dressed: a flashy blend of bright colour and good fit.
‘Greetings, Dr Lacey! Do you remember me? I’ve been looking for you.’
Michael stopped and stared. Zachye appeared larger, more substantial than the sly and sinuous man whom he remembered, and carried an aura of wealth, from his pointed red-leather shoes to his multicoloured collarless shirt, to the heavy gold chain around his neck, to his wrap-around sunglasses. Even his voice sounded richer – deeper and more resonant.
‘You’ve changed,’ Michael said flatly. ‘It’s a surprise to see you.’ And very unwelcome, he thought.
‘I should be in Kampala, but came back earlier today.’ Zachye spoke in a relaxed manner, as if passing the time of day with a friend.
‘So why are you looking for me?’
‘When I got back I visited my fiancée and saw she had been weeping. I asked her why. She told me she’d seen you. She asked my forgiveness.’
Michael waited for him to go on but Zachye was nodding at him, knowingly, but without menace.
‘And did you give it?’ Michael asked.
‘Yes, I gave my forgiveness.’
‘Then there’s no need to say any more. I’m leaving now for London.’ He made to move past.
Zachye did not attempt to restrain him, but said, ‘Do you love her, Doctor?’
Michael stopped, looked beyond Zachye down the beach and said emphatically, ‘Yes, enough to leave her – to let her keep faith with the life she’s chosen. I’m going back to Britain.’
Zachye nodded again as if this was not a surprise. ‘Do you believe a man can be saved, Dr Lacey?’
Michael hesitated. Only that morning he would have considered such a question meaningless. He said, ‘Yes. From himself.’
‘Now I’m peaceful too, Dr Lacey. My father – my ancestors – I’ve honoured them.’
Michael met his eye and said, ‘It seems neither of us can escape our family heritage, our past.’
‘On the matter of my past, Doctor, I have some information for you that is between you and me alone. I’ve been to Kampala to meet my agent, but I also visited a clinic. I’ve taken a test for HIV, thinking of the future. You’ll not be surprised to hear that I’m positive.’
It should not have surprised him, but Zachye had delivered the news with such calm that it took Michael some time to feel its impact.
‘I’m not long for this world. Sometime soon Slim will find me,’ Zachye added, as if he needed to make himself plain.
Michael took in Zachye’s strong shoulders, full frame and firm stance. It was hard to believe that before long the disease would take hold.
‘I had it coming, you could say. But for now I’m still fit.’
‘Does your fiancée know?’
‘She does not.’ A question went unasked, but Zachye answered it. ‘She’s free of HIV. You see, I have not been with her. I have respected her wishes during our betrothal. Those missionaries were a bad influence, don’t you think?’ He chuckled. ‘I hope you, yourself, are free of HIV, Dr Lacey. Those beautiful ladies at the truck-stops were not too careful in those days.’
Michael found himself saying, ‘Can I help in any way?’ although his words sounded like a social nicety, rather than a genuine offer.
Zachye threw back his head and laughed. ‘Dr Lacey! I’m not looking for your assistance. No – my songs are on the radio. I’m bold. I tell the young people about AIDS. My rhythms are from the old Bahima recitations that I knew as a boy. I never forgot them. They speak to the new generation. While I’m able I’ll play.’
‘Very laudable,’ Michael said, his comment a little barbed, unable to give Zachye credit.
‘But I must think of Felice.’ Zachye took off his shades and looked intently at Michael, as if he wished to see into his soul. ‘I’m going to break my engagement to her.’
For a moment Michael believed he had misunderstood him, Zachye’s accent making ‘break’ sound like ‘back’. But the way Zachye was looking at him now, watching for his response, told him he had heard right.
‘That’s a bit extreme. I thought you’d forgiven her.’
‘You’re not understanding me. I love her as you do. I loved her before you. I’m breaking because it will free her of her obligation.’
Michael looked down at Zachye’s red shoes, unable to speak; giddy from Zachye’s words.
Zachye spoke again, but with less self-confidence. ‘On the night that Stanley died I entered his room through the window. He was conscious. You may believe, Doctor, that I harmed him, but it is not so. I could not speak for shame, but Stanley had words that our father had spoken to him. Our father said that we must walk a new walk.’ He paused. ‘At that time I was not ready.’
Michael looked up at Zachye. Although he remained steady in his stance, Zachye was looking beyond Michael, dreamily.
When his attention returned Zachye said quietly, ‘Let’s shake hands on our deal, Doctor. We’re brothers now.’
Zachye stepped forward and extended his hand, gold rings catching the sun. Michael took his hand. They stood there for a long time, each feeling the weight of the other’s soul.
Zachye spoke once more before they parted. ‘You should go back to London first. Give Felice some time. Let her determine her own heart. No doubt she will consult with Ruhanga and with her ancestors.’
Michael dozed on the aeroplane, breathing easily, remembering; opening a channel for love that had nothing to hide, a channel to receive the love of the dead, that he might find a love for the living. Then he turned to practical matters: he must start that link between his own department and the Ugandan surgical students. He opened his eyes as it struck him that he might help sponsor a surgeon at Lwesala – even visit again to help set up the arrangement. And he must contact Rachel . . . get to know his nephew.
He settled back and fell asleep, dreaming of a woman with cowry-shell earrings and perfect white teeth. She had a diamond ring on her finger. It was natural and right that it was his mother’s.
Far below him the bones of his ancestors lay in the red earth; lay with the bones of Zachye’s ancestors; in the same soil. Their ghosts whispered over the grasslands, lakes, mountains and cities; casting small bright patches, seen by those who cared to look.
Quotations
‘What a friend we have in Jesus’, Joseph M. Scriven (1855)
‘All good gifts around us’, Matthias Claudius (1782)
‘Jesus bids us shine’, Susan B. Warner (1868)
‘When he cometh, when he cometh’, William Orcutt Cushing (1866)
Ugandan National Anthem, words by George Wilberforce Kakomoa
‘To Hope’, John Keats (1815)
Extracts from the Authorised Version of the Bible (King James Bible), the rights in which are vested in the Crown, are reproduced by permission of the Crown’s Patentee, the Cambridge University Press.
Table of Contents
Author’s Note and Acknowledgements
1983
Kaaro Karungi – The Beautiful Land, Rift Valley: 1958
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Rusoro Town, Uganda, Independence Day:1962
Rusoro Town: 1957
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
/> Seven
Kampala: 1962
Kampala: 1983
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Quotations
The Ghosts of Eden Page 36