by Tim Jeal
As his warriors crept through the sleeping village, Makufa knew that he could not rely upon their silence any longer. It would raise their spirits if they could sing and make a noise. Great courage was needed to attack people who were protected by powerful fetishes. On entering the lane where the white man lived, Makufa ran out in front of his warriors and raised an accusing finger.
‘Mfiti,’ he growled, pointing at the missionary’s house. And again he uttered the terrible word meaning witch: ‘Mfiti’.
A long hiss of execration arose, and the members of the surrounding circle spat several times over their left shoulders. Now they were ready.
*
Clara had first stirred shortly before dawn as a wedge of pale light was thrusting itself under the bedroom door. She was eager to make one last appeal to Robert on Herida’s behalf; but since he had been tossing and turning for most of the night with a raging toothache, she knew she would have to wait. His renewed groans suggested that oil of cloves and brandy had finally failed him. He had been suffering for weeks, delaying in case the abscess healed. The tooth in question was a front one, and Clara had been surprised to hear that he had struggled to save it in case its loss made her think him ugly.
The worsening pain sent him stumbling out into the storeroom where he kept his box of tools. He returned with some nippers, like those employed by cobblers to pull out brads from the soles of workmen’s boots. She took them from him and said a silent prayer as he lay down on the bed and braced his head against the backboard. His gum was discoloured and swollen, and she feared that the doomed tooth could not be shifted without her jarring its neighbours. To get more light, Clara unpinned the calico in the window and lit a lamp.
She tightened the nippers on his tooth, but he roared so loud that she let the tool fall from her hand. He yelled, ‘Pull, woman! Don’t stop, for the love of God.’
Before trying again, Clara was aware of shouts outside. With a knee jammed hard against her husband’s ribs and her left hand clamped on his brow, she squeezed and wrenched with all her strength. Eyes starting from his head, he flung out an arm and caught her in the stomach. Falling, Clara kept her grip on the tooth, and a pistol seemed to detonate in her hand. She lifted the lamp and peered into his mouth. The tooth had splintered, leaving half its root behind.
Robert groaned as blood leaked from his damaged gum. Again she was aware of unfamiliar sounds coming from the lane, a strange hissing or spitting, as if angry geese were being driven past. But her need to stop his pain as quickly as possible prevented her from looking out. She forced back his head and was thankful to find enough tooth sticking above the gum to give her a purchase. This time she yanked from side to side, making no attempt to spare him, risking all on haste. His jaws champed on the metal, but she did not stop. At last a fierce rotation of the wrist met with no resistance, and her hand flew up.
Tears stood in Robert’s eyes as she exhibited the stump. She was trembling too much to trust her legs. Her nightdress was liberally splashed with blood. And as she stood towering over her husband like an avenging spirit, she did not see the awestruck black faces at the window. Nor did she register the witnesses’ terror as they dropped to the ground and made their escape.
A lopsided smile parted her husband’s lips. ‘Bless you, my angel. Bless you.’
Just then they heard a loud roar, apparently coming from the village. Simon entered without knocking.
‘They attack the mission, master,’ he gasped. ‘Many men. You must come.’
As the boy ran out again, Robert sprang up from the bed and started to pull on his trousers. Clara stared at him in horror. ‘Are you crazy, Robert? You’ll only be killed.’
He did not answer, but prayed for a moment and then picked up his shoes and ran barefoot into the lane.
*
Before opening the school each morning, Paul went to the mission to help Philemon with his minor jobs. Today he had been asked to burn ticks off the mission’s few surviving sheep. The poor creatures looked like diseased puffballs, with their dusty, matted coats. Paul hated the way they struggled to escape his hot iron and was sickened by the unpleasant smell of burning wool; but he never complained. As the light grew brighter, he thanked God for another day. When he had first learned about heaven, he had wondered what held it up there in the sky. Surely it must rest upon a pole like the centre post of a hut.
Because the sheep were penned at the back of the mission, Paul saw nothing when Makufa burst through the boundary fence at the head of a gang armed with spears and knobkerries, but he heard the angry roar and ran inside to help block up the doors and windows.
Old Philemon had also heard the yelling. Telling himself that Christ had never shown fear, he walked out on to the veranda, closely followed by Mabo. As she limped up beside him, he ordered her to go back in. Makufa’s men were surging across the deserted vegetable garden, raising a great cloud of dust. They were shaking their weapons and chanting so fiercely that for a moment Philemon’s courage failed him. To his amazement, the crippled Mabo lurched forward, gesticulating wildly at the advancing rabble.
‘Jesus, Jesus, come quick!’ she screamed.
‘Keep quiet,’ begged Philemon.
‘I not afraid. Jesus goin’ punish these pagans.’ She darted forward with her usual uneven gait: one shoulder dipping down level with her waist and then, with her next step, jerking up again. ‘Jesus has stopped your rain. Wait and see what he’ll do next. He’ll burn you all.’
For a moment the advancing men wavered, astonished to see this ungainly figure defying them. Philemon took advantage of the respite to shout, ‘Go away from here. Do not desecrate the home of God’s children.’
An eerie silence followed, then the chanting started again, much louder than before. A thin, wiry man ran forward, brandishing a long spear. His mouth gaped open and his eyes squinted upward as if he had been smoking dagga. He took long strides, and arched his back to cast his weapon. It rose high in the air. Philemon dragged Mabo towards him. The spear thudded into the earth and vibrated where she had been standing.
Bundling Mabo in front of him, Philemon hurried back into the mission and bolted the doors. He and Paul barricaded the window with a table and ran on through the mission building and out through the kitchen, taking Chizuva and Herida with them, hoping to hide them in the grain store. Philemon called out to the boys Serame and Matiyo to run into the bush. Herida argued with him, angrily insisting that Makufa was her father’s friend and could not intend to harm her.
‘He thinks you betrayed your father by coming here,’ cried Philemon, seizing her arm. But she pulled away and ran out. Chizuva and several other women went to the grain loft, to hide behind the sacks and baskets, but Herida was not among them.
Philemon ran back into the house and cannoned into Paul, who was dragging Simon along with him. The boy was holding a gun.
‘Little fool,’ snapped Philemon. ‘They’ll kill you if you fire at them.’
‘They’ll kill us anyway,’ screeched Simon.
‘Then face your Maker without blood on your hands.’ Philemon wrenched the gun away from him and sent the boy after the others, who were already streaming past the cattle kraal. Philemon shouted, ‘Think of master’s grief if you’re hurt.’
A splintering crash resounded through the building as the long-room table was flung away from the window. Paul and Philemon stood frozen. A scream seared the air behind them. Paul spun around. Herida was struggling in the arms of two men. Philemon jerked the gun barrel in their direction but turned so rapidly that he fell over his own feet. The discharge of the gun in the confined space stunned him. He was choking on powder smoke and could see nothing. Someone was moaning.
Paul watched little dolphins of blood leaping up from a hole beside his navel. He knew he was making a strange sound but could not stop it. He called out, ‘Master, help me!’ but it was only Philemon who bent over him. ‘Master is coming,’ he soothed, kneeling beside the wounded teacher. Tears were fl
owing from the old man’s eyes. ‘In Christ we are made new again,’ he sobbed.
A warrior with black ostrich feathers on his head burst into the passageway from the kitchen. Makufa was carrying a knobkerrie and a spear. The unexpected sight of the two traitors on their knees amazed him. They would try to enchant him as the white man had done in his spirit house. Best kill them before they could.
As he leapt forward, Philemon tried to shield his dying friend with his body. ‘Christ forgive you,’ he croaked. Makufa avoided Philemon’s eyes as he raised his club. The old wizard might still try some magical trick. Philemon’s last sight before the club struck the base of his skull was of Makufa’s strong white teeth and shining skin.
*
Robert knew the chapel was on fire long before he reached it. As he came up to the burning building, he did not stop to look. The plume of smoke drew his eyes skyward. Rain clouds were gathering. Running towards the mission, he prayed that no storm would break; not yet; not even to save the chapel. Rain was to have been God’s reward for Mponda’s conversion. The continuing lack of it was his punishment for delaying.
The gate loomed ahead, and Robert darted through it. At least the building itself looked unharmed, but the absence of any people was sinister. In the compound, a vulture hopped a few yards and scrambled into the air. A body was spread-eagled on the veranda. Robert heard footsteps and turned. Clara was not far behind him.
‘Go back,’ he shouted, touched but dismayed by her rashness.
On the veranda, Robert gaped in horror. Paul’s stomach had been ripped open and his eyes gouged out. The missionary flung himself on the ground and howled. As Clara recognized the body, she also screamed. Paul could have gone away with Bullock. Could have been safe and prosperous all his life. Through a fog of grief, she recalled her lessons with him, the night they had been to the dancing, how gullible and kind he had been.
Please God not a massacre, moaned Robert, staggering to his feet. The long room was deserted. In the storerooms, he stumbled over someone on the floor. It was Chizuva, not dead but cradling Philemon’s head in her lap. He had been brutally beaten but was still breathing. Robert heard someone vomiting on the veranda. Clara, he guessed, feeling sick himself.
‘Where is Herida?’ he gasped, shaking Chizuva.
‘Makufa took her.’
‘Was she alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where are my poor boys?’ He stared at her beseechingly. ‘Where is Simon?’
‘Matiyo and Simon are hiding in the bush. Mabo and the others too.’
Robert bowed his head and wept with relief over Simon. He wrapped Philemon in a blanket and made sure he was no longer losing blood. Then he covered Paul’s body. Ants were already swarming into the dead youth’s mouth and nostrils.
The sky grew darker as rain began to spit. Gusts of wind agitated banana fronds and dried grasses. Robert yelled at the sky. ‘No, rain. Not yet. Please God.’ His words vanished on the strengthening breeze. Clara clutched his hand.
‘I must see Mponda,’ he told her.
‘You’ll leave me alone here?’
‘Makufa won’t be back.’
‘How do you know?’ she shrieked. ‘Don’t baptize Mponda. I beg you. Herida must remain his wife. Don’t …’
But already he was running towards the gate. ‘Go back,’ he roared. ‘Go back.’
*
When Robert returned from the chief’s crag later that day, he was transformed. There had been a brief shower, and he was wet and dirty, but his face was radiant. Clara guessed at once that Mponda had agreed to be baptized. Nothing else could explain how the haunted man of three hours earlier had been replaced by one serenely sure of himself. She thought of Herida and wanted to weep. Nashu would never forgive Robert or Mponda for the insult about to be done to his daughter. Makufa would try to oust his father afterwards. But when Clara said all this, Robert shook his head vehemently. ‘These murders would never have happened if Mponda had accepted Christ six months ago.’
‘Oh, Robert,’ she wailed, ‘they happened because people feared he would convert.’
‘Once the thing is done, they’ll have no further use for intimidation.’
‘They’ll fight one another instead.’
‘Nonsense. They’ll respect Mponda for getting off the fence. If I don’t convert him now, the time may never come. Can God want that?’ His face was very close to hers; his eyes were glittering and angry. ‘The early fathers were imprisoned, spat on as the lowest of the low. But the highest prince of all, the Roman emperor, became their brother in Christ.’
Robert dug Paul’s grave alone as his final service to his young disciple. He sweated heavily, and another brief rain shower wet him more, but he was too exhausted to change his clothes. Paul’s funeral took place at dusk, as bats skimmed above the huts. The theme of Robert’s address was: ‘He did not die in vain.’ ‘At last, dear friends,’ he declaimed, ‘the chief has decided. Tomorrow he will wash away his sins.’
A cheer went up, followed by loud hallelujahs. Never had Simon been more excited. Clara wondered what he expected from the ceremony itself. That God would come down and speak? And yet, as always when the converts sang, she was moved. They had suffered and endured pain and terror, but they had not lost hope.
Above them, the Southern Cross shone brightly. The clouds had thinned to raglike streamers, and the threat of rain had receded. Robert pointed to the gleaming cruciform pattern of stars.
‘Like the cross on Calvary. See how our blessed Saviour watches over us.’ Paul’s death, he told them, had convinced the chief that further delay would only incite the enemies of Christ to bloodier acts. ‘This is our great day.’
In the early evening Simon found a club and several spears on the ground outside his master’s bedroom window. When Robert was shown these weapons and the marks of many feet, he thanked Christ for saving him and Clara. ‘Poor pagans, they think their spears scare us.’
‘Jesus is our rock,’ agreed Simon with shining eyes.
That night, Clara was awakened by a terrifying dream. Paul came towards her, his face thick with ants. She reached out for Robert, but her hand encountered emptiness. A dim glow came from the next room. Her husband was measuring medicines by lamplight on his small set of scales. He was shivering so much that his teeth chattered. After mixing quinine with water, he added chlorodyne and drank it down.
‘Pile up blankets to make me sweat. I’ll need plenty of water to drink. It’s only fever.’ She led him back to bed. His skin felt very hot. He held his head in his hands and said, ‘If I don’t baptize him tomorrow, they’ll say Nashu stopped me with his spells.’
Soon he was dozing, but as she turned away, he began muttering to himself. Clara piled up blankets, aware that Nashu’s best chance to stop the baptism would be to kill Robert tonight, while he lay helpless. Moment by moment, she expected spears to thrust aside the calico windows.
As time limped on, her hopes revived a little. If Robert was too weak to baptize the chief in the morning, public faith in him would collapse and Makufa would no longer see him as a threat. An unconverted Mponda would stay wedded to Herida, leaving nothing for Nashu to avenge.
At the base of the lamp by the sick man’s bed, a circle of singed moths struggled to resume their quest for death. Robert tossed and turned, as if he too were struggling to keep a fatal tryst. Clara prayed that his strength would fail him.
After one of the incoherent outbursts that punctuated Robert’s sleep, Simon came and sat with his master. Clara went into the neighbouring room and, against all odds, fell asleep soon after sitting down. She dreamed that Paul was dancing with Makufa, who held a knife behind his back, but Clara could not cry out a warning. When she woke, the cicadas had started their endless shrilling. A knot of fear gripped her stomach. Please God let me find Robert delirious.
But he was propped up in bed, looking pale and emaciated, and would crawl to the khotla, she guessed, if he had to. His sunken eyes burn
ed with resolution. After Simon had shaved him, Robert stood unaided for a moment, then swayed, and would have fallen without the boy’s steadying arm. Clara looked away in anguish.
‘I’ll have to be carried in a chair.’ His lips formed the ghost of a smile. ‘They’ll think it’s part of the ceremony.’ He lay back and closed his eyes.
Before the chief came to escort Robert to the khotla, a bizarre figure limped up the lane, so heavily bandaged about the head as to be scarcely recognizable. Clara identified Philemon only by his old swallowtail coat. He was hobbling on two sticks and was followed by Mabo, Matiyo, Serame, and all the other mission ‘children’. The women wore white dresses, and the boys and men white shirts. They sat outside on the dusty path and began to sing:
A re binelung Yesu,
Hoba ke eena Moloki.
Sing the praises of Jesus,
He alone is our Saviour.
As Robert called out a greeting to his people, Clara’s heart opened to him against all logic. She thought him a gambler with the tribe’s future, but his faith had never faltered. No danger had diverted him from his purpose. ‘We are all immortal till our work is done,’ he liked to say, really speaking of himself.
When Mponda’s bodyguards carried Robert on to the khotla, no women were pounding grain or sweeping their yards, no men were making baskets under the trees. Those who had not had the heart to come out and witness their chief’s apostasy remained in their huts. According to Philemon, Nashu had put it about that the chief would drink a male child’s blood. Those who knew that some magic liquid would be poured on the chief’s head were puzzled that he had not shaved off his hair. How would the medicine reach his brain? Wouldn’t it run down his temples?
Clara stood close to the mission party, whose members were singing more joyfully than ever. Jesus had exalted the humble and meek. The proud had been cast down. The ‘dogs’ and outcasts had become the chosen ones. While they sang, many old men in the crowd wept with grief.