The grounded Bishop said he knew we were going to get on.
Beth, in return, delivered me to the bathroom. If I was ever to meet the Queen, then a good scrub was in order. The bath measured the width of three donkey carts, silver taps the size of rams’ horns; soap as white as bread; and from the silver taps poured a geyser of boiling water that soon filled the room with thick, rich steam. She placed a tall screen between us, on which was painted a magnificent tableau depicting a wild boar lanced by pursuing red-coated horsemen, and she instructed me to hand my clothes to her, over this painted wall, and she would see that they too had a good wash.
I was very happy to rid myself of these cumbersome clothes and to return to a natural state. I undressed, passing each item over the head of the dying boar who gazed up at his pursuers with a look both wild and strange, as if he wished to say something important to those who killed him.
I retained only my hat. It contained my journals and money and my flag, and I had resolved while in England never to let it out of my sight. Once decently naked, I stretched and yawned, as one does when released from some tedious task, and climbed into the bath where I stood a moment, enjoying the plenitude of liquid lapping at my knees; reminding myself that I was about to immerse my body in enough water to serve a family for a month.
My peace was ruined by a loud cry from the other side of the screen and I heard Beth run from the bathroom as if pursued by lions. I sat down in the water and asked myself if perhaps she suffered from religious fits, as some of our women do, when they believe a god has visited them. Even then, you see, I thought of Beth as one of us. And, as events were to show, I was not far wrong.
Beth’s behaviour reminded me of the G/wi women, who live in the desert, and whose god G//amama sometimes shoots arrows at them. They scream and leap to avoid the sharp points because they wound more easily than men. Then they must be healed. So they dance by the fire and the medicine man, going into the sleep of Heaven, that healing dream, sucks the poison from their bodies, pulls the arrows of the god from their bodies and throws them away so that the women are cleansed. And we know all this good comes from that point in a man that points upwards.
The flying Bishop burst in on this reflection. He ripped from my hand my large tawny hat and, waving it like a flag to make the steam part much as the prophet Moses waved and the waters of the Red Sea parted, he opened the curtains of mist long enough to show a dark head rearing in that lovely room, in the inquiring way a mongoose will raise its head from its desert hidey-hole.
The Bishop seemed transfixed by that part of a man that keeps the world turning, that part of him which maidens anoint with buchu, that part that makes him a man on the night when the boy first first shoots milk at the heavens and informs his father, that part of him which is the power that can bring rain when he points it at the fire and rains a few drops on to the flames, that part of him which is a man’s weapon so powerful that he believes he has an eland bull between his thighs and rides the great eland until it finds a mate. That part of a man without which the world would die of dryness.
Again he pointed. I felt a degree of amused perplexity. It is said in the outside world that the English male native is immensely fond of his own sex. Was I to understand my saviour saw me as more than a passing friend? Perhaps even as a joking relative? The Boers are of the opinion that English male natives, above a certain level of refinement, are almost entirely captivated by their own kind. This led to a variety of afflictions, including the inability to shoot straight. For there is no Boer on earth who will admit that the English can hit a buck on the hoof at anything over a hundred metres. Or that, when mounted, they can hit anything at all.
It stood on end, the good ex-Bishop thundered. Did I not see how it stood out, stiff, pointed, proud?
Well, what of it? Would I deny my member stood on end? It was my qhwai-xkhwe.5 Among the Red People the phallus never slackens. We are born upright, pass through life erect, and go to our graves still bravely standing. It is the last thing to die. It points always before us, a sign to the richest game. It is the arrow of a man. It is a fact as old as our people and we are older than all the tribes in the world. Indeed, when we were already ancient, the English tribes were first putting their noses outside their caves. And even then the qhwai-xkhwe, in the smallest infant or the oldest man, pointed to the medicine moon and to the milk of the sky from which the rains come when she showers her blessings on those she loves.
Again the ex-Bishop pointed the finger. Imagine the effect upon an unsuspecting girl! That dread head aimed at her through the steam of her own bathroom. What did a man grow an erect member for if not an assault?
Assault? Try as I might, I could not keep an entirely straight face. I reached for, and hid my face behind, my great hat. How wonderfully consistent they are. How foolish their consistency! Because their bodies bend to a certain line they imagine all other bodies will do likewise. Are all bowstrings bent to the same tension? Are all arrows cut to the same length?
When I had fought my features into some form of composure I asked ex-Bishop Farebrother why my stub of semi-erect tissue should cause such consternation.
Sitting on the edge of my bath, the defrocked aviator told me of a wave of hatred against women of all ages sweeping the country; of girl-children savaged in ditches; women murdered without compunction; old ladies raped on a regular basis, in flats and bedsitters across the land, robbed, battered, locked in their cupboards, and left to die.
But who would do such things? I asked. Barbarians?
He gave me an odd look. And this explanation. For centuries it had been the custom for Englishmen – being very often overseas – to take their rougher pleasures abroad. Rougher, only because foreign females failed to understand the civilities of gentle contact. Very often they did not even understand English. As a result, they very often said ‘no’ when they clearly meant ‘yes’. What normal bloke wished to embark on a lengthy semantic discussion when in haste to answer an urgent call of nature? So chaps simply proceeded, in pragmatic fashion, without further argy-bargy. For centuries this had been perfectly satisfactory. However, when the empire dissolved, young males found themselves deprived of their traditional right of inspecting their foreign holdings. More and more they were thrown back on their own domestic resources. They approached women, meaning well. Alas, their inner moral core had been corrupted by exposure to foreign females. The sort of animal high spirits, all very well ‘across the water’, proved disastrous at home. Getting drunk and attacking some passing woman was all very well in the Countries of the Sun – but it did not look good in England. English women were not foreign females. Many otherwise decent Englishmen now quite openly hated women. Was it surprising, then, that women increasingly mistook men for thugs? Or that, in this season of rapine, poor Beth should mistake my honest, upright qhwai-xkhwe for something worse?
Given his stumbling pronunciation, these simple words, usually so full of the music of hoof and horn, emerged in hard little parcels from his lips, like the stubborn droppings of a costive goat. Once more my trusty hat provided welcome cover, behind which I composed my face.
I said I understood completely. But just as Beth could not hold back her fear of assault, no more could I undermine the natural rigidity of my member. Among the Red People it lasted from boyhood to old age, whether standing, sitting or sleeping. However, I promised I would do what I could to avoid frightening her in future.
And Beth, I realized, had been spying on me. I felt a twinge of sadness. Yet another who saw me as a specimen – one to be observed. Despite her wonderful outline, she was not of my people. More importantly, this episode taught me to put aside the understandable but futile desire, while in England, to find someone of my own sort. I decided then that the success of my expedition required that I become more like them.
Lying back in my bath, I considered my position. Once, when the springbuck were plentiful in our world, in the First Times, when we were alone and lords of all, when Ka
ggen made the eland out of a shoe and fed it on honey, and the gemsbok and the hippo and all animals were still people and lived happily beside us, in those great good times before the visitors came, a hunter would put on his becreeping hat, a house of springbuck skin still with its horns and nose and eyes and ears intact, and, hidden beneath it, he would set off after the game, knowing that the gods would be kind to his hunting because he heard in his heart the steady beat of the springbuck’s heart, heard it crossing the veld, felt itches in his scalp where its horns grew; he was the springbuck he hunted.
Well, now, I would go hunting amongst the English. And if I was to succeed, I would have to hide my Bushman parts beneath my becreeping hat, for I saw they are more sensitive to an alien presence than is the rock-rabbit among the cliffs to the rank body fume of the stalking lynx.
And if I suspected I was being watched, I would take precautions. I did so now lest Beth felt tempted to repeat her frightening experience. I lay back in the bath, casting my eyes politely at the roof, where the light bulb hung in the steam like a weeping moon. And I did so henceforth whenever I took a bath in that house. As the placid body of the duck disguises its webbed feet in the water below, propelling it forward with invisible digital dexterity, I ensured that my great round hat at all times floated in the water, directly above my qhwai-xkhwe.
1
The hunting of hares with steel hooks is practised among the !Kung people of the Kalahari today. It was probably also practised among the /Xam Bushmen of the Cape to whom Booi claims to belong. But it is worth remembering that the /Xam are extinct.
2
For the five basic clicks of the Bushman languages, see the description on page 282.
3
Brutish?
4
Wales? The county is probably Shropshire or Herefordshire.
5
Early travellers among the Cape Bushmen noted that males seemed to be in a state of permanent semi-erection. Many cave paintings of hunting Bushmen confirm the phenomenon.
Chapter Five
Lessons in Little Musing; the charms of Beth and the miracle in the church; learns something of their custom of abusing their young, and how this has strengthened their democracy
Gratitude speckled by suspicion; mystery dotted by disbelief; temptation sharpened by nostalgia; these emotions struck me successively in showers, like stinging arrows, after I took up residence in the village of Little Musing.
Edward Farebrother’s welcome alarmed me. It was so firm, so lengthy, so decided. He may have hung up his flying gloves, yes, but he flew freelance now. Third World cases were of very special concern to him. The rich North was building a living bridge between the developed world and the impoverished South. I was his very own aid programme. But between ourselves, given the extreme sensitivity of people to sexual harassment – and especially with the fears of disease coming out of Africa – it would be advisable to keep myself tucked away.
I could not respond with the gratitude politeness demanded, for I sensed that, far from wishing me well on my way, my friends foresaw a lengthy visit; and I dimly perceived that my saviour, in rescuing me from those about to expel me, only achieved this act of redemption by agreeing to become my keeper.
I suspected that my captivity was important to him, for it mirrored his own – and that relieved him. He warned constantly that should I venture out alone, or set off unguided, or, worse, if I ‘ran off’, I must surely come to a terrible end: ‘Chop, bloody chop!’ were the words he used to warn me against straying amongst the natives.
If anything, Beth’s welcome alarmed me even more. She insisted on accompanying me wherever I went; a burly, watchful woman in her fathers shoes. Yet her shapeless clothes could not disguise the naturally lovely lines of her astonishing body. She told me that a little corner of Africa had come to an English village and she had always loved Africa.
Beth said I would be happy if I settled with them. Which I took to mean that she would be happy if I settled with them. She explained that I was classified as a seeker by the authorities.
I seized joyfully on this. Yes, a seeker! What could be a better description? I was on a voyage of discovery. I was prepared for danger. My people who had sent me on my travels were very curious about the island of which they knew little beyond legends and myths. Its culture, dietary habits, and history were the source of so many childish stories. Therefore I had been given the responsibility of preparing a true and accurate portrait of this near-mythical island race.
Many were the questions to be answered. Would there always be an England? Did the Lord Mayors of all great English cities keep talking cats? Had Jerusalem been built in England’s green and pleasant land, as legend insisted? At what precisely did the English aim their arrows of desire? Were there corners of foreign fields that were for ever England?
Beth explained that the terms under which I had been released into her father’s care forbade me to seek any of the aforementioned. For the record, I was not permitted to seek employment either. The only thing I was permitted to seek was asylum.
And, seeing the disappointment in my face, they offered the following items of encouragement:
(1)
Rome was not built in a day.
(2)
More haste, less speed.
(3)
Patience is a virtue.
To which I replied, in the words their ancestors, facing similar difficulties, had used to rally their courage: nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Speaking slowly, smiling to show my good intentions, I explained that, far from seeking employment, I intended to offer employment to others. I would need helpers and guides. I appealed to their own tradition of exploration. Did the brave adventurers, pressing deep into Africa, refuse to give employment to native porters and bearers? Did they ask first if the authorities found it acceptable? Imagine if they had stopped to ask permission! Or spent their time seeking asylum when they could have been seeking cities of gold. And ivory. And slaves. They would never have named a mountain, forded a river, shot a rapid, or left their names at some magnificent river falls. Or succeeded in bringing the light of civilization to great stretches of the continent. Very well, then – to retreat from my plan would be to shame the memory of those heroes whose books I had devoured as a child in the library of the good Boer Smith: Stanley, Livingstone, Kingsley, Burton, Speke and Park.
They shook their heads and foresaw many difficulties; fatal obstacles as well as grave repercussions, lurking dangers, tears before bedtime. They warmed to their task of cataloguing impending disasters, and I began to see that, far from saddening or even worrying them, such muscular gloom is practised much as we practise the preparation of favourite poisons. They are, in fact, never happier than when sharing such black prophecies with each other.
After this little orgy of foreboding, the good Farebrother told me, frankly speaking, that a miracle had saved me and he had a duty to see that I jolly well stayed saved.
Beth, more gently, pointed out that if ever I mounted my expedition to London, I would need special training. To experiment first with the native villagers of Little Musing would be advisable. They were a slow and tolerant lot. Better to begin gently before facing the merciless citizens of the metropolis.
Together they reached this consensus: on balance, taking all things into consideration, erring on the side of caution, I was better off where I was. Better to do nothing. To go nowhere. To wait and see until the time was ripe to make a move.
Now, having spoken from their hearts, they looked happy and relieved. We all knew where we were, said Beth. We had cleared the air, said her father. And they felt sure, said both father and daughter, that we would be very happy together.
This movement between lack of expectation on the one hand and, on the other, the assertion that the little they have is better than the best anywhere else is something so natural, so calming, that it induces in them a state of tranquillity other natives derive from chewing narcotics – or sm
oking dagga,1 as our people do. The difference being that when we take the weed, it is with the intention of inducing dreams, joy and dancing; but they drug themselves with dreams of glory that lead but to a kind of mutinous indolence, and a rancorous domesticity, and to a fatal immobility.
I tried to set their minds at rest. I had powerful protection against any who might wish me harm. From my bag I took a tin of strong medicine, a cunning potion of jackals kidneys mixed with ashes. I had as well a mixture of dried gecko2 and kidney fat. Making a cut in the wrist and rubbing in this medicine, one has protection against a variety of enemies, including snakes.
They waved aside my remedies, locked them in a cupboard and kept the key, saying they would be perfectly safe, and they suggested that the primitive potions from Bushmanland were of no use in the jungles of modern England. For there, said Mr Farebrother, an individual is judged not by what he does for himself, but by what others can be persuaded to do for him. Many people were instinctively well disposed to rank and wealth. Unfortunately, I possessed neither. Thus we were left with the alternative of making people wish to help me because they felt I was ‘one of them’. Given my appearance, this was difficult, but not impossible. I had only to assume the demeanour of a real Englishman and people would soon forget how very odd I looked and take me for one of them.
I should learn, for a start, to be less headstrong. He noticed my unfortunate habit of blurting out what I felt. Nothing was more sure to make ordinary people feel very, very uneasy. Also, I must get out of the way of asking directly for things. Preface all such requests, Boy David, with an apologetic disclaimer, the good man suggested. Something like ‘By the way …’ or, better still, ‘Would you very much mind if…?’ And never, ever speak frankly without saying first, slowly, so there should be no mistaking your intention, ‘Frankly speaking…’, for this will reassure your listener that you are not making some emotional commitment to honesty or brevity but simply using a conversational convention.
Darkest England Page 10