by Tim Jeal
As they returned home, Robert seemed almost cheerful, but Clara was very distressed by what he had just told her. How could anyone hope to make converts out of people who believed such nonsense? Although she already knew the answer, she braced herself to ask him whether the chief had converted. Suddenly the thought of hearing him tell her that he had suffered a crushing reversal made Clara feel ill. In addition, it occurred to her that if she pushed him too far, Robert would probably be tempted to give her answers that were soothing rather than truthful. Only by seeming undismayed by her new surroundings could she hope to be told what he was actually thinking; and openness between them would be vital for their future happiness.
*
As it happened, Clara did not have to wait long before Chief Mponda’s name cropped up. Later the same morning, a messenger visited the mission. The chief, he said, wished to make the acquaintance of his missionary’s wife. With a keen sense of anticipation and not a little nervousness, Clara put on a high-collared silk dress and helped Robert to press his ancient frock coat.
Mponda’s stronghold was at the top of a fortified crag a mile from the village. Its lower slopes were strewn with boulders and thick vegetation. All gaps and crevices between prominent rocks had been filled with dry-stone wall, forcing the chief’s visitors to ascend by a single winding path. The morning was very hot, and Clara was glad to be carrying a parasol. What she would do with it later, when the path became steep and she needed both hands, she had no idea.
Never having met an African chief, Clara was excited. She decided not to ask how Mponda might be dressed, since it would spoil her surprise. She imagined him in a leopardskin kaross, with a headdress of ostrich feathers, and he would also be wearing a necklace of rough-cut gems or tiger’s teeth; his hut would be as big as a barn.
Far below them, a procession of women was snaking along the same path, carrying earthenware pots on their heads.
‘The day’s supply of water,’ explained Robert. ‘There’s no spring on the hill.’
‘What an inconvenient place to live,’ she remarked, trying to imagine what it would be like to climb a steep hill with a heavy jug on her head. Not for the first time, Clara admitted to herself that the chief must be a frightened man.
As if reading her mind, Robert murmured, ‘Mponda’s father was butchered by his uncle. So one can’t blame him for being cautious.’
‘But that was years ago, surely. He wouldn’t live up here unless expecting an attack soon.’
‘You mean by the Matabele?’ Robert shook his head dismissively. ‘I very much doubt it.’
In fact, Clara had meant an enemy closer at hand – possibly the very one responsible for terrifying Simon. But she decided not to press the issue.
At the top of the scarp, a ridge stretched ahead. Immediately before them was Mponda’s compound, ringed about with a stockade of wooden posts and guarded by a group of warriors, who stepped aside to let Robert and Clara pass. Robert pointed out the chief’s hut in the centre and the surrounding dwellings of his wives. Stretching out along the ridge, behind this royal stockade, were the huts, granaries, and stock pens of members of his household.
Mponda’s hut, though larger than most, was, to Clara’s chagrin, like any other inside: the same circular depression where the fire burned, same beaten-clay and cow-dung floor, same soot-blackened thatch, mud chicken coops, baskets of grain, and bundles of skin bedding. The chief was sitting on a simple wooden stool, while a white-haired counsellor squatted in the dirt at his feet. In spite of the heat, Mponda wore a sheepskin skullcap and a tattered cloak that left his chest exposed. He was a large and muscular man of forty or so. His face was proud, sensitive, and wonderfully expressive. He was attended by a boy and by an old woman with breasts like empty seed pods.
What ought to have been the African equivalent of an English presentation at court was just a grubby hole-in-a-corner greeting. The dramatic pictures in old missionary magazines of encounters between Livingstone and Sekeletu, and between Moffat and Moselekatse, had led Clara to imagine heralds shouting, drummers drumming, and women and warriors lining up around the chief’s enclosure.
The only ceremony – if it deserved the name – took place outside, when they emerged briefly for Mponda to present a sheep to Clara. She in turn handed him a box of cigars, bought in London on Robert’s instructions. Then they trooped back into the hut, where Clara was soon coughing in the smoky atmosphere. Robert was offered a gourd filled with foaming millet beer, but Clara was given a tiny cup of undrinkable coffee. She felt more indignant when a boy brought in chunks of meat for the men and nothing at all for her. Venda men and women did not eat or drink together, but an exception ought surely to have been made in the name of hospitality for a missionary’s wife.
Robert sensed Clara’s feelings and was upset on her behalf. But since Mponda hated anyone to converse in a foreign language in front of him, Robert could not explain to Clara that an informal meeting was a greater honour than a ceremonial affair. Her lovely face looked sad and disenchanted – a pity, since Mponda was observant and very easily hurt.
‘My chief,’ Robert was saying in Venda, ‘how can I know that my people are safe?’
‘Umfundisi, do you speak of the boy Simon?’
‘Yes, great leopard. I fear that he will be threatened again.’
‘I have told Nashu I have eyes all round my head. He is placing himself in the path of a buffalo if he harms God’s children. I have said this to him.’
‘What was his answer, my chief?’
‘The old wolf obeys the leopard’s roar.’
The old man sitting at Mponda’s feet nodded vigorously, applauding his ruler’s omnipotence.
‘Will Makufa obey you too?’
‘We have not spoken. He has bought guns, Umfundisi … my own son.’ Mponda’s voice was thick with grief and anger.
‘Who would sell guns to him?’
‘Men who work for the white man’s company.’
‘Black men?’
‘Black policemen, Umfundisi.’
‘My chief, how many rifles has your son bought?’
‘Many.’
‘As many as there are huts on the plain?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do your spies know where Makufa will hide his rifles?’
‘At Mount Rungai. In the caves.’
Robert nodded, despite suspicions that these guns had been invented by Nashu and Makufa to terrify Mponda. They clearly hoped to delay the chief’s baptism by making him believe he would need to arm his warriors before he could risk inflaming his pagan opponents by converting. And what a clever hiding place they had chosen for their fictitious guns. Because the spirit of Mwari, creator of earth and air, was said to inhabit the Rungai caves, people would be far too frightened to go there, to look for guns or anything else.
‘My chief, will you seize the rifles?’
Mponda shook his great head sorrowfully. ‘They are guarded by Mwari’s priests.’
‘They are ordinary men.’
‘You think they are ordinary men. I think they are. But my people say they speak with Mwari’s voice. What can I do, Umfundisi? If a priest is killed while I search the cave, how many friends will I lose?’
‘Who has seen the guns with his own eyes?’
‘They are in the caves, Umfundisi. You must believe me.’ Mponda sighed aloud. ‘My headmen must have guns too. I cannot be washed by Jesus till I give them guns. My son Makufa is too strong.’
‘Each day you delay, great leopard, more people will doubt your strength. Give yourself to Christ now. Why did Nashu dare accuse Simon of witchcraft? Because he thinks you will not punish him. So who will suffer next? Paul or Philemon? Even me? But when you wash away your sins, what will people say? “Our chief is strong. The great leopard fears nothing. Lord Jesus is with him.”’
Mponda looked guilty and embarrassed. ‘I will send warriors to protect God’s children. No one shall harm them.’
‘My chief,’
urged Robert, ‘you must not send guards. Your friendship is the only shield we need. The moment you admit that you doubt our safety, we will be in real danger.’
Mponda smiled sadly. ‘There is a Venda saying: The ape denies his red bottom because he cannot see it. My friend, I cannot see my enemies, but I am wiser than the ape.’
As Robert was about to reply, the old courtier jumped up in alarm. A little snake was wriggling around the wall of the hut. Neither a puff adder nor a mamba, it looked harmless. But a snake entering a hut was thought to prove that a witch was present. With astonishing speed for a man of his bulk, Mponda seized a stick and flung it with deadly aim. The snake’s back was broken, and a second blow killed it.
‘Yebo, yebo, Ewe – E-hea!’ cried the white-haired counsellor delightedly, jumping up and down. The old woman joined in, her breasts flapping against her ribs.
Almost as fast as he had killed it, Mponda snatched up a knife and skinned the snake. He held up the dangling skin for a moment as if about to fling it from him in disgust. His attendants cheered, even the old woman. Then Mponda laughed loudly and tied it around his skullcap like a striped ribbon. With one compelling gesture, the chief had derided the very possibility that Clara might be a witch. Before Robert could offer his congratulations, a young woman burst into the hut and started to scream abuse.
Robert raised a ringer to his lips, then whispered to Clara, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll explain later.’
Mponda yelled back insults, but the girl was not cowed. Instead she eyed him with blazing reproach; and then, with a movement so swift and unexpected that Robert would have missed it had he turned his head for a moment, she prostrated herself at the chief’s feet. After a tense silence, she rose and left without another word.
Thankful that the young woman had gone – but shaken because it was she who had glared so strangely the day before – Clara was very curious to know what she had been saying to the chief. Was she his daughter or a concubine? And why was Mponda abjectly downcast now? Clara longed to be told at once, but Robert was doing all he could to cheer up Mponda – at least that was how it looked to her. But when a sad silence became embarrassingly prolonged, Robert admitted defeat and, to Clara’s delight, took his leave.
Outside, Robert held Clara’s hand. ‘You do see, my dear, don’t you, that I couldn’t explain anything in there? We couldn’t speak English in front of him. He may live in a hut, but he’s a king, and easily offended.’ Before the path began to drop steeply, he drew her closer to him. ‘I’ll tell you what happened when the snake came in.’
‘No, no,’ she cried impatiently. ‘Tell me about that woman.’
‘Her name’s Herida, and she’s Mponda’s third wife. If anyone can stop him converting, it’s her.’
So that was why she had stared at Clara with such hatred. Of course she would loathe the wife of the man who was trying to take away her husband. ‘What’s going to happen to her?’ murmured Clara.
‘When Mponda’s a Christian? She’ll have to go home to her father.’ Robert made this sound like a minor inconvenience.
‘Was Herida begging just now?’ Clara found this possibility very upsetting.
‘Demanding, not begging, I’d say.’
‘Lying in the dust … demanding? Oh, Robert!’
‘To put him in the wrong, don’t you see?’
‘I’d say she loves him.’
Robert said dryly, ‘There’s very little romance out here. Her father wanted an alliance with the chief. That’s the long and short of it.’
‘Maybe they fell in love later.’ Robert’s lack of sympathy astonished Clara. How could he not have been moved by the woman’s misery?
As if reading her mind, he said gently, ‘Don’t upset yourself by imagining that she feels as you do. Polygamy breeds envy and resentment … never love.’
‘There must be exceptions.’ Clara could feel her cheeks burning.
He shook his head. ‘Venda widows are always happy to be taken over by a dead husband’s brother.’
‘Always? How can you be sure?’
‘Because all marriages are arranged here. Herida’s family will find her a new husband in no time, and if she’s his only wife, she’ll be happier than before. She didn’t put on that act because she’s lovesick. She’s the witch doctor’s daughter. That’s why she’s so cussed. Mponda’s baptism will finish her father’s power. Of course she hates Christians and will fight to stop Mponda converting.’
As if the last word on the subject had been spoken, Robert resumed his descent, turning to help his wife when the path became precipitous. Going down was harder than coming up had been, but her aching muscles did not prevent Clara from brooding. How could he so lightly dismiss a young wife’s outraged dignity?
Near the bottom of the slope, they sat down on a large rock to rest their legs. Robert offered Clara his water bottle, which she took without a word. He told himself that her reluctance to accept opinions based on his long experience of Africans need not be a blow to his pride. Hadn’t he been drawn to her in the first place because she had known her own mind?
She was studying him closely with her bright, slightly quizzical eyes. ‘What were you arguing about? You and Mponda?’
‘Word for word?’ he asked, trying to sound lighthearted. ‘I can’t possibly repeat it all.’ However hard she might press him, he was determined not to frighten her. To tell her about Makufa’s rifles before knowing whether they existed would be cruel and pointless. He decided that he would relay to her an earlier conversation with Mponda. ‘The best of friends have their disagreements, you know. I think he should be baptized at once, but he wants to wait till after the rains … December or January. Of course I argued with him.’
Clara’s enchanting face expressed puzzlement. ‘He must have his reasons, surely.’
‘Oh, yes. He’s sure if the rains are late, his baptism will be blamed. They’ll say the ancestors are angry with him.’
‘So he’s being sensible?’
Could he detect a hint of gentle mockery? Robert’s eyes met hers calmly. ‘I’m afraid he isn’t sensible. The tribe’s female initiation rites take place soon. Girls are cut between their legs in a loathsome manner. A few will bleed to death. Mponda won’t ban these mutilations till he’s a Christian. Of course I want him to hurry up.’
Against her wishes, Clara found herself doubting this explanation. What if Mponda wanted to keep all his wives and had no intention of becoming a Christian? Would Robert still be crawling up the hill to plead with him three years hence? And would there be a single child left at the school by then? As if in a shaken kaleidoscope, her memories of Robert lecturing in England to adoring audiences became jumbled with recent vignettes: Robert chewing meat in a filthy hut, cajoling a half-naked autocrat, ignoring an unhappy woman. Clara knew she had upset her husband and longed to put matters right as soon as she could, but how could she possibly hide her feelings when faced with discarded wives and terrified houseboys?
*
That evening, after their return from the crag, dark clouds began to mass, and there was thunder and lightning at dusk. But after a loud blustering storm of wind and dust, only a light shower fell, and the following morning all the promising signs had vanished. By eight o’clock, the day was already scorchingly hot. Guilt gnawed at Robert as Clara dabbed her forehead with a handkerchief. He should have given her a better idea of what to anticipate, but he had expected their love to compensate for every discomfort.
As a young man in Africa, he had himself been shocked by the modest scale of many mission stations, so Clara could not be blamed for feeling the same. Missionary societies were the real culprits – exaggerating their successes in order to attract donations and so exciting unrealistic expectations. Yet Robert still felt wounded by Clara’s attitude. He had worked from dawn to dusk for four months to build their house. The chapel and the school had taken him as long again; and now he was labouring like a coolie to finish the village dam. Eventually, he told hi
mself, she would start to recognize his achievements. To have made converts as dependable as Simon, Paul, and Philemon was a feat most missionaries could not boast even after a dozen years in the bush. Yet in half that time he had also compiled the first Venda dictionary and translated the Bible. With a core of regular worshippers at the mission and a dozen children regularly in school, the mission’s prospects were outstanding. If Mponda would only embrace Christ, Clara would soon view everything in a different light.
In the meantime, if anything could get her involved, it would surely be the school. But as he led Clara in its direction, he froze. Ahead of him were two members of Mponda’s bodyguard. If the chief really felt obliged to protect his friends like this, his power must indeed be crumbling. It was now more urgent than ever to visit Mount Rungai. The sooner Robert could establish that the rifles were an invention of the witch doctor, the sooner Mponda would realize that Nashu and Makufa were making a fool of him. Robert dreaded telling Clara he must go away for a while; but he dreaded even more the consequences of Mponda’s vacillation.
Outside the school, an old man was sitting under a tree, smoking hemp or dagga. His pipe was a primitive hookah, with the stem attached to a reed going down into a cow’s horn full of water. As he sucked at the horn, he laughed and spluttered to himself.
The school delighted Robert. The transformation of wild and uncontrolled children into biddable pupils in a few months was a process he never tired of witnessing. Yet so long as the tribe’s initiation rites took place, the school’s civilizing effects would continue to be thrown away when puberty arrived. Only the chief’s baptism could change this.
‘Why do their parents let them attend?’ whispered Clara, plainly entranced by the children.
‘So they can steal the white man’s secrets,’ confessed Robert. He had decided to respect her eagerness to understand things; he would be honest whenever he could without alarming her.
‘Is that really why they let them come?’ Her disappointment was greater than he had expected.