by James King
Peggy’s introduction to A Tree for Poverty is a beautiful, crisp and concise explication of an oral literature that has, through her, found its way on to the printed page. In the text that follows, she translates thirty poems and paraphrases thirty-six tales, either Arabic or Somali in origin. In addition, she provides explanatory notes on the customs and traditions informing these texts. For her, this was a literature which dealt in a fundamental way with strong, basic feelings: “Love was one of the two great subjects of Somali poetry, the other being war. Love between men and women did not here contain the dichotomy long ago imposed upon it in the Western world by the church, that of separating it, as though it were oil and water, into elements labelled ‘spiritual’ and ‘physical.’ ” In fact, the essence of this literature was the free expression of passion:
Love was an intense and highly emotional state—it was not expected to endure. Indeed, so much was it at variance with the stark-ness of usual life that no wonder love in this sense did not survive for long after marriage.
Love was a serious matter, a delight which could turn to disaster. But no Englishman ever died of love—of this fact the Somalis were quite positive. It seemed doubtful to them that the Ingrese had much need of love at all.
In her later career as a writer, Margaret Laurence was intrepid in her exploration of the intense—often dark—impulses of the human heart. Part of her inspiration was her first-hand knowledge of the “primitive” oral literature which she rendered into written words.
For her, the rejection of the “primitive” spoke volumes about the corruption of Western culture, one which often rejected the true language of feeling. As in this excerpt from a belwo, the expression of loss can be a central theme in literature:
I long for you, as one
Whose dhow in summer winds
Is blown adrift and lost,
Longs for land, and finds—
Again the compass tells—
A grey and empty sea.
Somali literature extends to the grotesque, as in the story of Deg-Der, the cannibal mother, who is murdered by her daughters. In this tale, the sin of the mother reasserts itself when the third daughter confronts her husband at their locked threshold:
“Suppose I kill a fat camel,” the husband pleaded, “the best of my herd, and you may cook the meat for your meal. Will you open the door then?”
But still his wife refused.
Then the husband’s face grew wan with fear.
“And if I kill you a fat … boy?” he asked.
But the wife would still not unbar the door.
Then the husband’s brow grew tight with anxiety.
“And if I kill you a fat … girl?” he asked.
But the door remained closed.
Then the husband’s heart grew chill with dread
“If you want none of these things for your meal,” he said, “perhaps the one you hunger for is … myself?”
And then the third daughter of Deg-Der opened the door and met him.
The last portrait in “The Imperialists” (in The Prophet’s Camel Bell) is of a District Commissioner, Michael Wilson, called “Matthew” in the book, who had a wonderful appreciation of the Somalis, although he was their polar opposite: “They were emotional and dramatic. He was restrained. They spoke with a thousand intricacies and embroideries. He spoke with a plain lucidity. They were capable of guile.” Wilson could appear cold—a trait he shared with Jack Laurence—but he was also, like Jack, a man capable of deep passion. One day, Peggy showed her translations to him. His response was immediate: they must be published, if only because of one passage. That “was a description of the Somali tribesmen’s harrowing and precarious life in the dry jilal. I realized then how deep was his attachment to this land and these people, and how carefully he must keep his own feelings in check, if he was to do his work at all.”
Through the efforts of another sympathetic Englishman, Philip Shirley, the Administrator of Somaliland, A Tree for Poverty was published for the Protectorate at Nairobi in 1954. When working on the translations, she had no certainty they would ever be published: “Still,” she told Adele, “it was interesting work and I’m not sorry I did it.” Years later, Margaret Laurence would rightly claim her African books could not be regarded as “separate entities” from her Canadian ones, “for it really was Africa which taught me to look at myself.”
Peggy had several other literary irons in the fire during her two years in Somaliland, as she informed Adele that September:
I’ve been terribly busy all these past months. First of all, I’ve been keeping a diary, or rather a series of descriptions and interesting bits of information, with an eye to a possible series of articles or something in a year or so. Secondly, I’ve begun a new phase in writing. I must admit I haven’t worked on my novel for a hell of a time, and now feel that the whole thing will have to be completely re-written. What set this off was the beginning of some writing about this country … about 2 months ago I wrote a short story, and a few weeks ago, I wrote another 2 stories, about Somaliland, or rather, set in an East African colony, without mentioning any names. Listen Adele, they’re good! Pardon this unpardonable attitude of pride, but really, I honestly think they are. I think, as a matter of fact, they’re the only good things I’ve ever written in prose, except for odd passages here and there. But I mean as a whole. Jack thinks so, too. Adele, it really is the first time I’ve every written anything that he thought was good, as a whole. There have been odd bits in the novel that he liked, and his criticism was always very helpful, but this time it was a bit different. I think this is for 2 reasons: a) for the first time in my life I really tried to write as I thought my characters would think, and not as I thought myself … i.e. both stories are without propaganda entirely; b) they are both written mainly in conversation. I am beginning to feel that this may be the start of a new way of doing things. I’m unsure of the method, of course, but I do feel it’s the most hopeful thing that’s happened. Because, on reading over the novel, I find that a good deal of the conversation seems quite good, but the descriptive passages, especially those describing people’s reactions and feelings, are really pretty bloody. It seems that when I go much beyond conversation, I get pompous and rather unsubtle. I seem to do better sticking to what people actually say, and letting the reactions and feelings and any deeper significance show up between the lines, rather than actually stating it. I don’t know if this will lead to anything, but I feel quite hopeful at the moment.
Two months later, on November 5, Peggy sent the typescript of “Uncertain Flowering” to New York City to Whit Burnett, the editor of Story: The Magazine of the Short Story in Book Form. Five days later, she had abandoned the novel. “The reason,” she informed Adele, “is simple. It stinks.” Still, she remained confident about her short stories, although she lamented the fact she was not “a Steinbeck or a Hemingway or even … now I come to think of it … a Kipling!”
Somaliland unleashed Margaret Laurence the fiction writer, although only one surviving story is set there. In a letter to Sheila and Guś of November 1951, she says: “I have been writing a number of stories set in ‘an East African colony’ (guess where?). Did I tell you all this before? If so, please forgive me. I’ve done four so far, not counting the first story, which I wrote long ago (the one about the houseboy and the English woman … you read it, Sheila). It was very badly written, and I’ve tried to re-write it, but I can’t make it sound convincing, so I’ll leave it for awhile. The other four seem to me to be the best things I’ve ever written … I’ve sent them to various publications, but I am not being very hopeful about it yet.” (“Uncertain Flowering” was one of these.) In January 1952 she provided Adele with additional information about her fiction writing: “I’ve been trying for 2 weeks to settle a plot of a short story. It is a good story, about an eastern Jew in Africa, and is based to some extent on fact … i.e. the character of the man, not the plot itself. I know exactly what I want, but when I try to p
lan it out it gets absurdly tangled up, and I find myself in a confusion of the Jewish and Muslim religions, ineffectually leafing through the Old Testament and the Koran! From time to time I wonder if I shall become a permanent vegetable, but perhaps this isn’t likely. All my stories so far have come back like homing pigeons, blast them.” She was mildly pleased when the Atlantic Monthly sent her a real letter instead of a printed rejection slip. At times, she felt dealing with publishers was like squeezing “bread from a stone, or blood from a turnip or whatever it is! I have sent them all out again. It takes so long to hear. Also, I have discovered that most magazines send the scripts back all covered with coffee stains etc., which is most annoying as you have to type the offending pages all over again and then they don’t look the same as the rest.”
At the beginning of 1952, it was clear the Laurences would soon be leaving Somaliland, since as Peggy told Adele at the time of the completion of the third balleh: “it would be a waste of Jack’s time to stay on a job where there is so little experience to be gained … a good foreman can carry it on.” She had been working at the Secretariat, as confidential secretary to Philip Shirley, but had to give this up temporarily when she became pregnant with her first child, Jocelyn. For at least two years, Peggy had tried without success to get pregnant. She miscarried at least twice. When she seemed to be miscarrying once again, she became frantic. Only years after the event did she provide Adele with a history of those dark days.
I nearly lost her, did I ever tell you? I was only 26, and healthy as a horse, but had been going around the desert over no roads in a Land Rover and could hardly believe I was pregnant anyway because I wanted a kid so much and couldn’t believe it would happen. Anyway, the bleeding began and I went to the doctor, and he said it would probably be okay and to take it easy for a few days. Then, a woman put her feet up and stayed that way for several weeks and at the first sign of bleeding, did the same again instantly and called for the doctor. So I did that. After the first three months were over, I was able even to return to the office.
At the time of the completion of the first balleh, Ahmed Abdillahi, a young Eidagalla chieftain, presented Jack with a large camel bell which he had made of galol (acacia) wood. He did this to symbolize his acceptance of the huge containers which would provide life-sustaining water. Just before they were leaving, husband and wife revisited this balleh, which had quickly become so assimilated into the life of the desert that even Jack Laurence, who had helped to build it, was seen as an intruder. This was a bit disturbing, but they were also moved by how the technology of the West could be so gracefully incorporated.
At the end of The Prophet’s Camel Bell, Peggy joined together her Somalian experience with that of her husband: “Whenever we think of Somaliland, we think of the line of watering places that stretches out across the Haud, and we think of the songs and tales that have been for generations a shelter to nomads on the dry red plateau and on the burnt plains of the coast, for these were the things through which we briefly touched the country and it, too, touched our lives, altering them in some way forever.”
The “we” did not survive. The transformation of Peggy would be far-reaching. At the edges of The Prophet’s Camel Bell can be seen the varying views husband and wife had of colonial existence. These differences were indicators of what were, in fact, profound dissimilarities in their personalities which would later destroy their marriage. However, their two years in Somaliland were a shared adventure and an extended honeymoon, a time in which their marriage flourished. But, beyond that, Peggy Laurence experienced Somaliland as both an unknown and unknowable entity, something she could not fully penetrate. What is more, she did not want to do so. She came to see herself in the same way, as carrying within herself an essential loneliness or separateness. Painful though it would be, the seeds of this knowledge would eventually bear fruit.
8
CROSSING JORDAN
(1952–1957)
IN THE SUMMER of 1952, Peggy was preoccupied with the forthcoming birth of her first child and planning, en route to London, a stopover in Rome, where Adele was living. In England, the Laurences would spend their leave and also meet up with Marg. Their ground-floor flat in a large brick house in Hampstead soon became “excessively African” and they were comfortably settled there by early July. Six weeks later, on August 18, “the whole problem,” as Peggy wearily and impatiently revealed to Adele, “is that the wretched baby hasn’t arrived yet, altho nearly a week overdue … I wish the little so-and-so would decide to get itself born.”
Ten days later, on August 28, “a lovely little girl,” Barbara Jocelyn, was born at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Maternity Hospital at Belsize Park. During the pregnancy, Peggy had been confident she would have an easy delivery, but this did not prove to be the case. A relieved Peggy—not released from hospital until September 10—told Adele on September 6: “I was in labour for 36 hours, which was rather unfortunate, since by the time she came to be born, I was too tired to manage her by myself. Finally, they had to give me an anaesthetic and finished the delivery with forceps.” Just before using the anaesthetic, one of the doctors sympathetically reminded her that in this instance, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The baby’s collarbone was cracked during delivery, but this healed quickly. The new mother’s first question concerned the baby’s health. Then, she asked the nurse: “Did I have to be cut?” When the answer was yes, she was a bit dismayed: “Oh my God, I won’t be able to sleep with my husband for months.” The nurse burst into laughter: “Take lots of salt baths.”
She was not allowed to hold or nurse the baby until she was three days old because of the cracked bone but she quickly found herself transformed into a doting mother, much to her surprise: “She is so sturdy and well built, and has none of that puckered, newborn look.” Jack had wanted a boy but soon pronounced himself delighted with his daughter. Overall, she had not been prepared for the mysterious, strong feelings that overwhelmed her: “… holding this miracle in my arms, seeing her quiet contented breathing, her latching onto my breast for nourishment, taught me something I had never begun to guess at.” Part of this she articulated when she stated that the bearing and caring for children brought her into touch with the realization she could love someone else more than she loved herself. Another, corresponding portion of this feeling—more difficult for her to voice—was the feeling of vulnerability she experienced, a vulnerability linked to the fact she had been as a youngster deprived of her own parents, of those who could have loved her more than they had loved themselves.
In order to visit with the Laurences, Marg had to find a housekeeper to stay with her difficult father. Unfortunately, the visit was not a complete success. For one thing, Marg was supposed to stay for several weeks after the baby was born. As it turned out, the late delivery meant she did not have as long a visit as anticipated with her granddaughter. For another, Peggy was filled with an incredible sense of optimism about her writing: “I was ecstatic. I also knew that I would go on and write books.” Marg’s habitual way of being was reserved. With hindsight, Peggy came to this conclusion: “I thought I could do everything. Mum knew, as I did not, that there would be a price.”
During this visit, she also came to the realization that Marg, now sixty-two, was getting old. The clash between the two came to a head one day when, before Jocelyn’s birth, Peggy was fussing with her hair. Marg exploded: “A lady gets dressed and makes up her appearance and then forgets about it.” Peggy was hurt, but she “later saw that what she was trying to say was about herself, not about me at all.” Her explanation is accurate, but only to a point. Although she was reluctant to admit it, an invisible barrier of silence remained between mother and daughter, a barrier which was never torn down.
Two months later, in the midst of the Laurences’ preparations to return to Africa, Jocelyn reacted badly to her injections for smallpox and yellow fever. She was in her crib, when suddenly her tiny body went into convulsions. The Laurences took
her to Lawn Road Fever Hospital, where a doctor accused the young mother of having caused the problem because she had continued breast-feeding even after the baby had become ill. The nurses were sympathetic, the doctor “wished I would go away.” She held firm, walking nearly two miles, four times a day, to feed the baby. When she returned to the flat, the young mother would burst into tears. Jack was heroic, and Peggy confronted the doctor again, who treated her like a kind of “lesser species.” Very much lacking in any kind of bedside manner, he informed the anxious parent the baby might have a “tendency to convulsions, which she might or might not get over by the time she was sixteen, or else she had spinal meningitis.… The fact was that he didn’t know what was wrong so he tossed out those two facile and brutal answers.” After a week, the convulsions miraculously ceased and the “blossoming” baby, who had gained two pounds, was able to leave hospital. Only years after the event did Margaret Laurence come to some sort of understanding of that crisis: “… when it is someone you love, you feel an overwhelming sense of rage and panic and helplessness—a kind of protest against fate, I guess, or at least that is how I felt when my daughter had convulsions when she was [two months] old.”
On December 1, three months later, Peggy was still haunted by the nightmarish existence into which she had been plunged by Jocelyn’s illness: “After the first week, when her temperature still wasn’t down, the doctor said they’d have to take off some spinal fluid to do the tests for meningitis.” That month, the Laurences had just begun to settle into life in Accra in the Gold Coast, where Jack had taken a job as second-in-command of building the new port of Tema, ten miles to the north. The first three weeks after their arrival had been miserable. Before their housing was ready, the Laurences stayed with Jack’s boss and his wife, a childless couple. Jocelyn was not settling easily so Peggy walked the floor with her, hoping the baby would not make too much noise.