by Tim Jeal
One white-haired veteran shouted, ‘We did not steal the teacher’s ox or fuck his wife, so why does he hate us? Why does he shit on our customs?’ Another cried, ‘We worshipped Mwari before the white man came. We never asked him to come. Did we force our ways on him?’ These speeches were greeted with sympathetic groans.
Robert sat slumped in his chair, as if too weak to respond. Then very slowly he raised himself. ‘God, whom you never cease to injure, is merciful even to the worst of His children. He will forgive your sins, if you repent.’
‘Hallelujah!’ shouted Philemon through his mummy-like covering of bandages.
Then Mponda strode into the khotla. Cries of greeting rang out: ‘Ete, Baba.’ The chief wore a lion’s skin slung across his broad chest and shoulders. His stride was leisurely, and when he halted, he looked around as if inspecting soldiers.
‘Ngikubona,’ he said in his low, rich voice. ‘I see you.’ Clara loved this ancient greeting. ‘My friends,’ he asked, ‘will you be converted today? Do you dare run as fast as me?’ He smiled. ‘Or do you want to see what happens first? That’s what baboons do. When they find a promising place for food, they push ahead a young one in case there are snares. If the child is caught, they run. If he finds honey, they grab it from him. Will you grab Jesus from me, my friends?’ A long moan of dissent greeted his words.
Robert sat swaying in his chair. ‘You must begin, master,’ begged Simon, splashing him with water from the baptismal ewer.
Like a boxer who has taken a heavy punch but still wants to fight, Robert staggered to his feet. Neglecting to command the chief to renounce the devil, he gasped hoarsely:
‘Peter Zacchaeus Mponda Ngombe, I baptize thee in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. And I mark you with the sign of the cross …’ He scooped a cupful of water on to Mponda’s head and traced a cross. ‘Be not ashamed to confess the faith of Christ.’ Robert tottered, before collapsing on to his chair.
So it was done. The chief had been baptized; and as if to emphasize the dangers now facing Mponda, his bodyguards raised a wall of oxhide shields between his royal person and his grieving subjects. The mission party sang the hymn ‘In Christ I’m now a man!’ With nothing else to do, Clara followed the Christians home. Half-naked men with angry faces were pressing in on her. She was kicked and jostled, but she kept walking.
At home, she shed tears of frustration. If Herida was still alive, where was she, and what would happen to her now? How long would Makufa and Nashu hold off before making a second murderous attack?
That evening, Mponda placed armed men outside his missionary’s house. Robert was racked by fits of shivering so violent that at times he could scarcely breathe. Again Clara piled blankets on him, and again Simon came to help when she was exhausted. The boy administered a dose of quinine, but Robert had difficulty keeping it down. His face was greyish yellow and his breathing very shallow. Clara knew that if he died, Nashu’s magic would be given the credit for a great triumph. Mponda would be ousted, as the creature of a defeated deity, and all the Christians would be driven out or killed.
Robert’s next bout of sweating left him weaker than ever. Clara longed to ask Simon if he thought his master was sinking, but her fear of what he might say dissuaded her.
Shortly before midnight, she heard shots and shouting coming from beyond the khotla. She peered out and was relieved to find everything peaceful in the moonlit lane. The chief’s guards were smoking together, apparently unconcerned.
Much later, Clara was sleeping in her chair, when Simon touched her on the shoulder. ‘The chief is here, mistress.’
She woke up to fear. Mponda stood and watched over Robert for a few minutes and then came into the room where Clara was sitting. His authority seemed to fill the little house.
‘Soon we will have rain,’ he announced, rubbing his hands, then sat in the chair that Clara offered. ‘I said to Umfundisi long time ago, “These people will never believe by just talking to them. They will stay pagan unless I use a whip to make them believe!”’ He chuckled at the memory. ‘Umfundisi was angry. “Christians don’t thrash people,” he said.’ The chief chuckled again, but almost immediately became solemn. Clara could not fathom him. She was about to ask about Herida, when distant shooting began again.
‘Are you safe from your enemies, sir?’ she blurted out.
‘A chief is always safe.’
‘Is Herida safe too?’ she whispered.
Mponda’s face suddenly became grave. ‘She will marry my brother.’
‘But she is not in danger now?’
‘She is in my kraal.’ His displeasure was obvious.
Clara longed to question the chief about Herida’s feelings towards his brother, but his expression persuaded her instead to ask why he had suddenly decided to be baptized. He looked at her sorrowfully, as if to say: Can a man speak of such things to a woman?
A long silence followed, and Clara had all but given up hope of a reply, when he said, ‘We Venda have a legend. God commanded the chameleon to save human beings from a bush fire. “Lead them across the river,” ordered God. But the chameleon was too slow, and the fire burned all the people black. When they reached the river, they found only a few drops of water left. The most selfish people had used it all and become white, so the rest were left with just enough to wash their palms and the soles of their feet.’
‘What a bitter legend.’
‘Wait, Mrs Robert. In the beginning I believed Umfundisi wanted ivory like other white men. When he was kind and did not ask for anything, I guessed he hoped to cheat us more easily later. Then, when he built houses and a dam, I thought: Perhaps he truly likes us. But is he mad? His Jesus story is so strange. Yet he owns wonderful things: a magic lantern, a telescope, a music box. Can anyone be mad who has so much? Would he come all the way from his own country just to tell us lies?’ He gazed intently at Clara. ‘Sometimes he begged me with tears in his eyes to believe him. He said I was like the suspicious dog in our proverb that ran away when a man threw a bone, fearing it was a stone.’ He fixed an eye on her. ‘Now I will no longer run. I trust him.’
So faith in Robert, rather than faith in Christ, explained his conversion. Clara felt intensely anxious on the chief’s behalf. He had split his tribe and gambled everything on Christ’s magical protection.
‘Were your men shooting earlier this evening?’ she asked.
‘Some bad men were trying to scare me. Pah! My mother frightens me more.’ He laughed and then looked sad. ‘Even to my face, people have said things I used to kill for. One man said, “I have seen chiefs like you eat grass from the anus of a goat.” He meant: Mponda will lose everything. Another man said, “A toad does not run in the day unless something’s after it.” Meaning Baba Robert had scared me into his church.’ Mponda lifted his large hands. ‘I will not harm them for words alone. But for deeds, they will bleed.’ His clipped enunciation gave his words a biting emphasis. Just as Clara was expecting more anger, he flapped his lionskin cloak like tawny wings. ‘Chizuva says you can sew with a machine. Will you make me a coat and trousers from this skin?’
She smiled uneasily. A lionskin suit would be as hot and bulky as an Eskimo’s clothes. But he was looking at her with such eager anticipation that she felt obliged to say yes. He clapped his hands with delight. The finished clothes, she sensed, would matter less to him than the fact that she had made them.
He looked her up and down. ‘You are too thin, Mrs Robert. I will send you some breast of zebra. You will tell me what else you need?’
‘Other people need more.’
He grinned. ‘But are they so nice to talk to?’ Clara found herself smiling back. She could not help being charmed by the unexpected compliment.
Robert was still sleeping when Mponda rose to leave, but the chief stood by his bed for a while.
‘Our friend will be better soon,’ he whispered, ruffling Simon’s hair.
Passing through the sitting room on his way out,
Mponda pointed to various items, mentioning with pride that he possessed a set of teacups and a Staffordshire jug shaped like the Duke of Wellington’s head.
It came to Clara only after he had gone that this man, with his few pieces of china, also owned several thousand head of cattle, a large cache of ivory, and the mineral rights to a wide territory. All this he had put at risk for Robert’s sake.
*
In the morning Philemon hobbled over from the mission to warn Clara against leaving the house. Mponda was confronting his enemies on the khotla. What Clara ought to do if matters went badly was not discussed. The old man looked at her sadly from under his wreath of bandages.
‘Will you take Paul’s place in the school now, Nkosikaas?’
‘I don’t know yet. I’m sorry, Philemon.’
He sniffed sadly, as if he had expected this answer, and then tottered away towards the mission.
At midday, Herida burst in on Clara. Her eyes were streaming. Her father was being humiliated on the khotla and had been forced to confess his fraudulence.
‘He never lies or cheats,’ cried Herida in a choking voice. She spoke so fast that Clara could understand only isolated sentences. ‘The spirits chose him as an nganga. He could not refuse … Please, my missus, you will save his life?’
With Robert too ill to help, did she have any choice but to try? Clara was followed into the lane by Simon, who caught at her dress. ‘Don’t go, Mrs Robert. Nashu deserves to die.’
But Clara had made up her mind. Herida had lost her baby and her husband. She must not suffer the loss of her father too. On the khotla, the crowd was so thick that Clara was soon separated from Herida. As she pushed forward, people moved aside, afraid of her. The heat was unendurable, and the crowd clustered most thickly under the few acacias that dotted the open space.
Mponda sat beneath the tall kachere tree in the middle. In a semicircle behind him stood men with guns. At first Clara was uncertain whether he was their prisoner or their commander. But as a man was dragged out from under the shade of the acacias and flung down on the burning earth in front of the chief, it was clear where authority still lay. Two men leapt on the prisoner and tore off his clothes. Stripped naked, he was forced to squat like a toad in the sun. Headmen came out from the throng and abused him, pointing with their fingers, threatening him with whips and spears, before ranging themselves behind the chief’s tree. Others came forward, but more reluctantly. Loyalty was being coerced under threat of execution.
As she came closer, Clara recognized the naked man as Makufa, the chief’s handsome son. Philemon blamed him for Paul’s murder; but though Clara had loved Paul and hated his killer, she felt nauseated as she watched the young man’s limbs being stretched out on the burning soil and tied to wooden pegs. She had heard of bound men being covered with black ants. A fire was burning nearby, its flames scarcely visible in the sunlight. Heated blades came to mind. But the chief’s attention shifted to another figure pegged out on the ground.
Clara was unsure of this man’s identity until she saw beside his body various gourds, bones, and bladders; his magical paraphernalia reduced to pathetic rubbish. The nganga was weighed down by heavy stones on his chest. Mponda strode up to Nashu. The chief had a basket in his hand, from which he tipped horns, teeth, feathers, a necklet of rats’ skulls, and a green snake.
‘Are these yours?’ Mponda thundered.
‘You know they are.’ Nashu’s voice was high-pitched and very clear.
Mponda pulled a knife from under his skin kaross. Clara’s heart leapt, and she thought she would faint. The chief knelt next to Nashu and raised his knife. The crowd caught its breath. As the blade flashed downward, Clara shut her eyes. Dazed with shame at having done nothing, she forced herself to look again. Expecting to see the nganga jerking in his death throes, she was overjoyed to see him push away the stones. Mponda had used the knife to sever his bonds. He pointed to the nganga’s possessions.
‘Burn them.’
When Nashu hesitated, Mponda nodded to a burly man with a whip, who stepped forward and lashed the nganga across his shoulders. Nashu staggered, stunned by the pain, then bent down as if complying. He picked up the snake and an armful of other things. But when he reached the fire, he looked around as though in a trance. The crowd watched the snake twisting and turning above the fire. People gasped and backed away. A few screamed in panic. The man with the whip lashed Nashu again. The witch doctor tossed the snake aside and threw something else into the flames. The fire exploded. There was pandemonium as smoke billowed across the khotla.
Nashu fled towards the trees, hoping to find safety in the fleeing crowd. But Mponda ran faster. He caught him a few yards from where Clara was standing. She was sure the nganga would be murdered. The chief was followed closely by a handful of his retinue. As they closed in around Nashu, Clara flung herself in front of Mponda and shouted, ‘Show mercy, great chief!’
Mponda, who was holding Nashu by the throat, looked at her in anger and amazement, then flung Nashu down next to his possessions. ‘Burn the rest.’ Clara sensed that the chief was angry with her because he had never meant to do more than humiliate the nganga.
People hid their eyes and backed away as item after item was dropped on to the fire by the nganga: powders, bones, charms, strips of fur and flesh. But though Nashu grimaced and chanted, nothing else occurred to alarm the onlookers.
The nganga cried out in anguish, ‘Who will care for the ancestors now?’
But the crowd did not rally to him. They were subdued and shaken. Their spiritual leader’s magic had failed. The chief’s new medicine had triumphed.
An altercation was taking place under the kachere tree. Mponda and his men were shouting angrily at each other. While they had been chasing Nashu, Makufa had been spirited away. Mponda grabbed the whip from his henchman and beat Nashu in front of the crowd. Clara lost count of the blows. Only when the nganga screamed for mercy did the chief release him.
A few hours later, it was known throughout the village that the chief had gone in pursuit of his son and that Nashu and an unknown number of headmen had fled into the bush. Clara went to the mission to tell Philemon what she had seen. On finishing her account, Clara asked him, ‘Will Mponda catch Makufa?’
‘Not if he can join up with Nashu. The nganga is too clever for all of us.’
‘Would you like him to be dragged back and butchered?’
Philemon raised a hand to his bandaged head. ‘Of course Mponda should have killed him. When Nashu kills Mponda, you will see that too, Nkosikaas.’
‘Oh, Philemon,’ she murmured, ‘what about forgiveness?’ Even as she spoke, she thought of Paul’s forgiving nature and his trust – not just in Jesus, but in people too. Where had they got him in the end? She had come to ask Philemon what he thought would happen next, but she feared she knew.
CHAPTER 14
Robert knew he would soon feel stronger, but at present he still wept over trifles and found the ordinary sounds of village life intolerably strident. Though his illness had been a great trial, in more important matters God’s hand had clearly been at work. The great rains had been held in check. Now, when they came, they would be greeted as a divine reward for Mponda’s baptism.
Without going to the window, Robert could imagine the pale, burned-out blue of the sky darkening to grey and purple along the horizon. Neither bird nor lizard moved. A silence charged with latent energy hung over the village. Soft rumbles of thunder muttered across the plain. Within days, the rains would be lashing down.
One afternoon, Robert walked with Clara as far as the base of Mponda’s crag. He had not intended to go beyond the well, but there was a light breeze; and with Clara at his side, he felt able to strike out farther than usual. Rounding the shoulder of the spur that led to the crag, they saw an almond tree in full flower – an exquisite drift of pale pink against the dusty bush. How African trees could burst into spring flower under a scorching sun after six months without water was a mystery t
hat filled Robert with joy. Some women walked by, bearing on their heads long trusses of grass for the new chapel’s roof. They were singing.
‘Just listen to them,’ he said. ‘They know the best is to come.’
Far away across the scrub, a bush fire was winking, no brighter than a burning cigar. Clara could imagine the savage heat at its centre and the stampeding wildebeest and impala. Somewhere out there too, Nashu and Makufa would be planning their return.
That afternoon, Robert and Clara rested together in the house. Clara lay on their bed and tried to read a novel – a society romance by Mrs Braddon called The Lady’s Mile. Why did these fictional men and women care so much about social distinctions? Was a gentleman in a silk top hat less bizarre than a tribesman with feathers on his head? Suddenly she saw the story of Jesus as if through Venda eyes. A white boy, born, in a stable, of a human mother but no father except God, had taken away all the evil in the world by allowing himself to be nailed to a piece of wood.
As his wife closed her book and lay staring up at the dirty thatch, Robert felt a great welling of love. How marvellously kind she had been when he was ill. For the first time since his illness, he wanted to make love to her. Tiny beads of moisture along her hairline and on her upper lip in no way discouraged him. The heat was a shared privation, just as the divine reward for their steadiness would be a shared joy. When the rains broke and the people saw that God had repaid their chief’s faith with a blessing on the earth, Clara would recognize her suffering as a necessary part of God’s plan.
Seeing the attentive, tender expression on her husband’s face, Clara closed her eyes. The thought of sexual intercourse in this terrible heat held scant attraction – all the less when she thought of poor Herida. When Robert reached out a hand to her breast, she said, ‘What’s the chief’s brother like – the one Herida must live with?’ The hand withdrew.
‘He’s called Moeti. I don’t know him.’
‘Will she have to share his bed?’