by Tim Jeal
‘I’m afraid it is. But imagine you were illiterate and saw people reading. Wouldn’t you think it a kind of magic? A scary ability, but very desirable to possess. Many villagers think white men own wagons and horses because they can read. So they weigh up the dangers and advantages, and some of them decide to risk letting their children come here to learn.’
‘It’s sad to think of parents worrying about your bewitching their children.’
‘I know.’ He sighed. ‘Before the children come here, lots of parents tell them. “Keep to the old African ways. Don’t pray in school; just pretend to. Don’t let the white man steal your heart and make you despise your mother and father.” It takes a long time before the children trust us.’
‘Poor Robert. It’s not easy, I can see that.’
Her sympathy brought a lump to his throat. He managed to smile as he said, ‘I hope I didn’t give you the impression that they don’t enjoy it here. The boys love using carpentry tools, and the girls are very keen to sew and bake.’
Later that morning, as they were walking to the mission, Robert and Clara passed a boy of three or four with a bloated stomach and a weeping sore on his leg. He was sitting listlessly in the dust, watched over by an older boy.
Clara’s dark eyes sought Robert’s imploringly. ‘How awful. What can we do for him?’
‘Nothing at all, unless his mother brings him to the mission. Imagine the row if we kidnapped him. And suppose I succeed in persuading her, and the boy dies anyway – it’s a deep ulcer, so he probably will. What do you think will happen?’
‘You’ll feel all the better for knowing you did what you could to save him.’
He shook his head sadly. ‘You’re wrong, Clara. I’ll feel worse. People will say he died because I took him; and children with better chances of recovery won’t be brought to me by their parents.’
Robert braced himself for a fierce argument over the child, but she surprised him by walking on in silence. When they reached the mission, she merely announced that she felt tired and was going home to rest.
On Robert’s return in the early evening, he found Clara reading in the dark little sitting room. She had put on a red satin dress, and he was touched that she had taken this trouble for him. She looked so sadly out of place that he was momentarily speechless. His back ached from too much digging, and his feet were leaden. Dust was sticking to his sweat-soaked skin, and he felt too messy to kiss her. So accustomed was he to seeing no faces but black ones that Clara’s skin, with its subtle gradations of pink and white, and its frame of raven hair, made him think of an exotic bird or flower. Her presence in this dingy little room became miraculous.
‘My darling,’ he groaned, holding out his hands to her. ‘If you only knew how much you mean to me …’ As he thought of Ruth’s death and the long years of loneliness afterwards, hot tears blinded him, and he felt such a fierce longing for future happiness that he was terrified by the possibility of losing Clara’s love.
‘What is it?’ The look on his face startled her.
‘Forgive me,’ he choked. ‘You’re unhappy. I should have prepared you for life here. Everyone’s depressed at first in Africa.’ He smiled lovingly. ‘Our labours sometimes seem fruitless, but they never truly are. Even when we fear failure most, a hidden power is at work. Conversions often appear to arrive out of the blue, but really it’s thanks to this heavenly power.’
Clara looked at him and shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I think a hidden power may give us the strength to persevere, but it is thanks to our efforts that success finally comes.’
Upset to have offended her so soon after a moment of tenderness, Robert replied in a voice that was furry with emotion. ‘You’re right. None of our efforts are vain in God’s sight. Will you help Paul with the school? Please, say yes. They’re our seed corn, the children … our best hope.’ He broke off awkwardly but saw at once that he had affected her.
‘Oh, Robert, I’ll certainly try. Of course I will. But don’t expect too much, and I’ll have to learn the language first.’
She stepped a little to one side to make room for him to come up beside her in the cramped little room. As she held out her arms, he marvelled at her grace. Every turn of her head, every movement of her shoulders, was lovely to him. He embraced her in her red satin dress, dirty as he was, and thanked God for their love.
CHAPTER 8
In the hot and dusty months before the rains, many people came to the mission suffering from sore eyes. Robert treated them all with a weak solution of nitrate of silver, which cleared up cases of ophthalmia but was useless against serious conditions such as glaucoma. Lacking any formal training, he had consulted widely among medical men, but his own observations had taught him most. He warned everyone he could against the dangers of hookworm. Make yourselves sandals out of bark or leaves, he told them. But hardly anyone did, although he explained over and over again that hookworm larvae entered their bodies through the soles of their feet. Like many parasites, they bred in human excrement, but all his urgings to villagers to dig latrines had fallen on deaf ears. Among his many anxieties was the fear that Clara would think he had never tried to change the insanitary conditions.
As Robert approached the veranda, where Philemon had lined up the patients, his thoughts were focused upon his wife rather than upon the diseased bodies awaiting him. Of course age-old African attitudes could not be altered in under a generation, yet because Clara had thought him a mover of mountains, he knew she was secretly disappointed. But today, as ever, the trusting hopefulness of the waiting sufferers touched him deeply. God’s power to breathe faith into deformed humanity never failed to give him joy. Grateful patients accounted for half his Sunday congregation.
Robert applied a watery solution of opium to the vast distended breast of a woman afflicted with elephantiasis. This would do nothing to cure her but might give relief for a while. Nashu, the tribe’s nganga, knew as much as Robert about local anaesthetics and a great deal more about poisons and their antidotes. But the nganga infected wounds by plastering them with dung and made deep incisions with a dirty knife to let out spirits. The breast that Robert was examining had been lacerated in this very way, and the skin was still tight and red around the scars. In time, it would become coarse and wart-like, and the swelling would harden. Robert knew of no cure. His next patient was a boy with yaws. His skin had erupted into a mass of pimples, exuding a yellowy viscid fluid. As Robert sprayed carbolic acid over the boy’s infected groin and armpits, he praised him for not crying out.
To his right in the line stood a woman who had recently threatened the mothers of several of his schoolchildren. Robert squared his shoulders. Most patients showed respect by covering themselves with a kaross when coming to the mission, but this dyed-in-the-wool pagan was completely nude except for a tiny apron and a felt hat. She was holding a rusty machete, as if expecting an attack. Robert pointed angrily at the weapon.
‘Never bring such things to the home of God’s children.’
A frightened little boy was hiding behind her. Shock gripped Robert’s stomach. This was the very child Clara had begged him to help. When the boy died, as he soon would, Robert feared that Clara would see it as grounds for a more general pessimism about the mission. Robert bent down to examine the child’s diseased limb. The smell was so nauseating that he gagged. What he had at first considered to be a single sore was part of a chain of ulcers of the kind that often turned cancerous. Attempts to dry them out were usually futile. A better diet and frequently changed dressings could help; but the ulcers were just as likely to grow larger. The boy’s eyes were dim, and his skin had that peculiar dull and crepey appearance usually present in hopeless cases.
Before starting to wash and bandage the leg, Robert said a prayer. Why this boy, when so many others, with better chances of recovery, might have been brought to him? God’s will be done, of course, but it was difficult to see how anything good for Christianity could arise from this little chap’s arriva
l.
Last in the line was old Footman, still alive but, as long as he refused an amputation, doomed to get steadily worse. The poor man was clutching a square of dirty cloth as if his life depended on it.
Philemon said reverently, ‘Mrs Robert gave it to him … her handkerchief, master.’
‘I see,’ murmured Robert, moved by Clara’s gesture and not at all surprised that she had never mentioned it.
*
Since shortly after breakfast, sweat had been running down in the small of Clara’s back and between her breasts like tickling insects. By midafternoon the heat was even greater, and although there was nowhere to escape it, something hard and obstinate in her nature saved her from self-pity. But nothing had staved off her misery after Robert walked away from the sick boy. Could she even continue to see him as the man she thought she had married? Despite feeling so wretched, she had not spilled out her anger and unhappiness in case he would think her too frail to be told the truth about her new surroundings. To live in ignorance would be the worst fate of all.
When Clara calculated that school would be ending for the day, she set out to meet Paul, for her first language lesson. She had paid a secret visit to him the day before, shortly after the encounter with the sick child, since the young teacher had seemed the obvious person to approach for help. So while Robert had thought her resting at home, Clara had been urging Paul to persuade the boy’s mother to bring him to the mission. Today, of course, Clara was eager to find out what had happened.
When she reached the school, Paul was playing a game with his pupils. They stood in a line, holding on to one another’s waists. A child with a cloth in her hand was pretending to be a parent or a teacher. A boy standing slightly apart from the line was a wild beast – for what else could his aggressive lunges mean? He too had a cloth. Each child in turn left the line and tried to fetch a pebble from near the beast without allowing him to flick them with his cloth. Meanwhile the mother did her best to protect her children, and the beast himself was soon leaping around trying to avoid being flicked by her cloth. The game proceeded, with terrific shrieks and yells.
Paul came up, smiling broadly. Clara found herself smiling too.
‘Do you want to play with them, Mrs Robert?’
‘Is it a lion they’re running away from?’ she asked.
‘No, no.’ He laughed. ‘A crocodile. You didn’t see his teeth go snap-snap-snap? The children must fetch water from the river without being eaten. If the mother hits the crocodile with her cloth, he must let that child go, even if he has caught him.’
So Clara took the mother’s cloth and darted back and forth, flicking and lunging in defence of her charges. She was soon breathless and red-faced, but she kept going even after several children had been snatched and dragged off to the crocodile’s lair.
When the game was over, the children remained in line, singing and shuffling along like a snake.
Clara dabbed at her moist brow and gasped, ‘Did you manage to see the sick boy’s mother?’
‘Yes, I did, Mrs Robert, and she agreed to take him to the mission. I think he will be there now.’ Paul looked sadly at Clara. ‘He is very sick, Mrs Robert. Maybe too sick.’
Though disappointed by Paul’s prognosis, Clara still found his calm, unhurried manner soothing. After he had given her twenty basic words to learn and explained their meaning and pronunciation, Clara asked him to tell her the words for ‘get better soon’. She repeated these several times. He’s not going to die, she told herself, not if I can help it.
As she was leaving, it suddenly occurred to her to ask him if, like Simon, he too had enjoyed being taught by Ruth.
‘Mrs Ruth was a very good teacher.’
Clara smiled wryly. ‘That’s not what I asked you.’ She leaned closer. ‘I won’t tell anyone what you say.’
‘I enjoyed her lessons till she became sad.’
‘What changed her?’
His eyes followed a line of ants crossing the floor. ‘Her baby died, Mrs Robert.’
‘Did she die giving birth?’
‘No.’ His reluctance to say more disturbed her.
‘How did she die? Was she ill?’
‘You must ask master, please. I am sorry, Mrs Robert.’
At these words, a peculiar unease took possession of her. She found it hard not to run in search of Robert the moment she was outside. She had to know what had happened. But if she took to her heels, these superstitious people would probably suspect her of hurrying away from the scene of some evil deed. So she forced herself to walk at an even pace.
Waiting for Robert to return home, Clara felt unpleasantly sticky after playing with the children. She summoned Simon from the kitchen and told him she wanted a bath, but to her amazement the boy was grumpy and put out. After a long wait, she went to look for him, without success. She was lying on her bed when he returned at last. He was breathing hard and staggered under the weight of a large jug. After bringing in two more, he poured them into the tin hip bath at the end of the bed. When Clara thanked him, he did not even nod an acknowledgement. Still worried about Paul’s refusal to tell her how Ruth had died, she shrugged off his behaviour and got into the bath.
Simon heard his master first and ran out to greet him. When Clara came upon them, Robert was showing the boy an insect in a glass vial and they were talking animatedly. Robert was explaining how this tiny creature distilled water in the bone-dry atmosphere. Clara, who had no interest in insects, suspected that Simon’s fascination might be put on to please his master.
She was in the sitting room when they both came in. Simon set down a bowl of water and began to wash Robert’s feet, his manner quite different from his earlier gracelessness.
Desperate to question Robert about Ruth’s death, Clara turned to Simon. ‘Leave us,’ she cried, more sharply than she had intended. The boy did not obey at once but waited for Robert’s confirming nod. Even when he got it, he paused at the door. Suddenly Simon began gabbling in Venda. His anger was remarkable. Robert replied gently, also in Venda, and at last Simon went out. Believing that she had been the butt of his complaints, Clara felt her cheeks glowing fiercely.
‘My dearest,’ Robert said hesitantly, ‘it’s my fault for not saying anything … but you really shouldn’t have asked Simon to fetch water in the afternoon. He and Hannah, the girl who helps him, must be told how much is needed before they go down to the well in the morning. A young man is humiliated if he has to draw water alone.’ Realizing she was angry, he attempted a placating smile. ‘When my dam is finished, we’ll have piped water for all our needs.’
Clara shook her head impatiently. What was all this rigmarole about something as trivial as fetching water? She said briskly, ‘I’d have been perfectly happy to wait till tomorrow for a bath, if Simon had explained things. Instead he was rude and complained to you.’
Robert’s mouth hung open for a moment. ‘Simon rude? I hope when you get to know him better you will …’ His voice trailed off as he saw how strangely she was looking at him.
Clara’s eyes were very bright as she whispered, ‘You never told me what happened to Ruth.’
Robert sat shocked and dumb, his feet still in the bowl of water. At last he murmured, ‘We lost our newly born son. Ruth had fever at the time. She was unhappy afterwards … no, worse … I mean despairing. Malaria makes everything seem so dark and grim.’ Tears stood in his eyes.
Clara blurted out, ‘You mean she killed herself?’
He said rapidly, ‘She took the Cape cart and drove off towards Belingwe. The cart was found a few days later on the road … one of the mules too.’
‘And Ruth?’
‘Not a trace.’ He gazed down at his feet and spoke awkwardly and yet as if he had often rehearsed his answer to this very question. ‘Sadly, it’s not uncommon to get lost. I’ve heard of a dozen people straying from the track in search of water or guinea fowl.’ His eyes met hers briefly. His voice shook as he continued: ‘Two months later, some Bushme
n came to Mponda … not at this kraal, but the old one. They’d found a white woman’s skeleton in the bush. They showed me some hair and a few rags of clothing. They were Ruth’s. She’d died of thirst, they thought.’
Clara felt sick. ‘You’re sure they didn’t murder her – the tribesmen?’
Robert shook his head. ‘If they had, they’d have stolen the cart and never come near the village.’
‘Did you find her body and bury her?’
‘Yes.’ He stood up, blinking away tears, and began to dry his feet, balancing awkwardly all the while.
Clara imagined the distraught woman blundering into the bush, deliberately walking on until lost. ‘Did she leave any kind of message?’
‘Nothing at all. God knows what went on in her mind. She never kept a journal.’
Clara was too overwhelmed by the horror of Ruth’s death to give him the sympathy he deserved. She said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this before we married?’ Her voice was breathless and accusing.
He raised his hands in entreaty. ‘She didn’t kill herself, Clara. I swear to God she didn’t.’
‘She must have been at her wits’ end to go off like that – on her own, Robert, without a word to anyone. What am I meant to think?’
‘That grief makes people do mad things.’ He stared at her with suffering and contrite eyes. ‘I couldn’t bear to tell you.’
Her brow darkened. ‘If lovers can’t trust one another, who can?’
‘Be fair to me, Clara. What would your father have said if he’d known?’
‘Damn my father! Ruth killed herself or died trying to run away from you. That’s more than a social blot to hide from Papa.’ She was shouting and could not stop. ‘It was monstrous not to tell me.’
‘But you knew she died out here. I told you that.’ His attempts to mitigate his obvious fault only fed her anger.
‘Yes! But not that she’d gone dashing into the bush on her own. And that isn’t all you failed to tell me.’ Her words were racing now. ‘You said the chief was virtually a Christian.’ A stab of anger goaded her. ‘Christian, my foot. That old pagan! And as for the mission … it’s just a soup kitchen for derelicts.’ She rushed into the bedroom and slammed the door, shaking the whole house.