Tefuga

by Peter Dickinson

  All the courtiers stood aside. I hesitated but KB waved at me to follow. Inside I got a terrible shock, ’cos straight in front of me was an enormous fat man with a naked sword, grinning at me with cruel thick lips. There was a vile sour smell in the room. I think it came from him. KB said something to him and waddled straight on through to the next room, which was smaller still—not much bigger than our bathroom at The Warren and quite empty except for the man with the sword. The doors were crooked to each other. KB slipped through like an owl popping into its hole and I followed. The next room was tiny too, and almost dark—just the light from its two doors—crooked to each other again—and beyond that another one, lighter tho’, ’cos it was leading out into the open. Two guards with swords here. The same smell. As I bent to go through the outside door—they really were tiny, I’m only five foot one!—I saw two black bare feet on the sunlit earth in front of me. The legs the feet belonged to were kneeling. There was a silver bracelet round one ankle, and the hem of a dark blue skirt.

  All in a blink I understood. KB was taking me into his harem! The men with the swords were eunuchs, and the funny crooked entrance rooms were like that so you couldn’t see right through from the outside. I remembered how KB had looked at me when we first met and a mad horrible idea crossed my mind and I’m afraid I actually turned half round to run away. It was no use. The other door was blocked by one of the eunuchs coming through. It was like the worst possible nightmare for a mo, but then I saw he was carrying my parasol and paints and stool, and—I don’t know why—that told me I was just being silly. Nobody would dare. They know what would happen if they did. I think the eunuchs guessed, tho’, from the way they grinned.

  A hammering noise had begun outside and when I got through the door I found KB banging away with a sort of cudgel at an old bit of carved black plank which was hanging by the doorway. There were about a dozen women, the two or three nearest grovelling to KB and the ones further off just sitting. Soon as I showed up they started to stare. I thought that was all his wives but almost at once more of them came. More and more. They oozed from tiny doors which must have had little dark rooms behind them—hardly a window anywhere. I began counting but lost track almost at once ’cos of the way they kept appearing, around sixty in the end, I should think, all sorts milling around and staring at me in a vague, scared way, pale cattle Fulani and black Hausa and dark brown little women with terrific face-scars, and glossy Kitawa and three who I think must have been half-castes—half-Chinese, one of them—and a tall purply-black girl with huge bones like a horse and her hair knotted into yellow beads, and others too—Africa’s extraordinary like that, how many there are! They were all dressed in long, loose, wrap-around cotton, worn like a plaid, with a different coloured skirt, mostly rather dirty. Some of them didn’t look more than about thirteen, and none of them very old, though KB’s seventy. Only half a dozen children that I could see, clinging to their mothers like babies tho’ they were much too big for that.

  I’ve made it sound rather picturesque, but really I felt absolutely sick to look at them. It was disgusting. Like being in a farmyard—not ’cos it was dirty which it wasn’t specially, but ’cos the women weren’t people. They were cattle. They stared at me with dark stupid cow-eyes. They didn’t know anything, they didn’t do anything, they were just herded into this place and kept here for that filthy, fat, leering old brute to—I will write it—to copulate with. It was so shocking I almost fainted, not ’cos of the heat or the smells, but the absolute horror of it. But I clenched my teeth and told myself this was what I’d chosen and I’d got to go through with it. I tried to smile at them but they didn’t smile back.

  There was a shade-tree here too so I turned away and started to set up my easel while KB went strolling among his women picking out the prize ones for me to paint. Some of the others rolled huge clay pots out from inside and dragged out special clothes, grander and brighter than what they were wearing. KB chose who should be dressed in what for her picture. I was ready ages before he was so I started a quick practice sketch of the courtyard with KB pushing his wives around—my hand was absolutely aching to paint. The flies were a nuisance so I called out in Hausa for a whisk and KB turned and pushed one of the women towards me—only a girl, really, about fourteen. She hadn’t understood what she was supposed to do but soon as I showed her she whisked away. I wasn’t really paying attention to her ’cos my sketch was going so well. It was only a cartoon, really, but I think it was ’cos I was so furious with KB and couldn’t say so that it came alive, the way they sometimes do.

  By now a few of the other women had drifted over to watch what I was doing and got interested. Soon I had a real audience. At least it meant there were more people for the flies to land on and someone kneeling on the other side fanning away and someone fanning behind for the privilege of standing near the Great Artist! They began to chatter and comment I only had to run a block of shadow down a wall and they’d all sigh with appreciation, and when I took a fresh sheet of paper and started to do a serious sketch of the courtyard—straight off with the brush, risking absolutely everything, dashing it in—and at first they couldn’t make out what the blobs and lines were meant to be and then someone realized and a brown arm would come over my shoulder and point and explain and point at the right bit of a building—oh, the chatter and laughter! I simply had to carry on. I wanted to, anyway, but this was probably the most exciting thing that had happened to those poor girls for months!

  I hadn’t really finished that one when KB was ready at last and paraded his prize cattle in front of me. He wanted them as a group but by now my blood was really up and I refused to let that fat devil tell me what to paint, as if he owned me and my brushes as well as those unlucky women! I jumped off my stool and chose the ones I wanted and smiled at them as I posed them and then rushed back and slapped and dabbed them onto the paper, fast as my hand would move, never a hair wrong. I just knew my hand would do it without me having to think, tho’ it was a great help having had a bit of practice with the skin colours on the way up river. I don’t know. Even if I’d never tried to paint a black skin before I think I’d have got it right. That’s how I felt yesterday—quite, quite certain that my hand would do what my eye was seeing, as tho’ there was nothing else of me between them. Oh, if only it was always … no, I suppose not. Mustn’t be greedy, Bets.

  I did a group of three, one of them carrying a dark red jar on her head. They stood like queens, and so still in that blazing sun. And those beautiful bright robes. Then I did the big woman with the horse-bones and the yellow beads—not at all beautiful, but interesting. I wonder why KB chose her—so much I’ll never know. I did her standing beside a pale thin Fulani woman—a complete contrast except for the lovely native dignity. The Fulani was wearing earth green and ochre stripes and the horse-face the most marvellous royal blue edged with gold, which set off the blue-shot lights in her skin to perfection. I wonder if KB chose it on purpose for her. If so he’s really got an eye, in spite of being so horrible every way else! Then I did four sitting in a pose like a Victorian photo. That came out just right too. And then, snap, it was over. I was exhausted. Drained. I only just had strength to clean my brushes and put them away. When the women understood they sighed, all together, slow and soft.

  Something interesting. Oh, what a futile way to say it! Something really important! While I was painting the women my audience behaved quite differently from before. Perfect decorum. Silence. Stillness. We might have been in church. Yes, awe. I know what that funny word means now. Perhaps they’re better at feeling it than we are in spoilt Europe. I don’t mean awe at me or what I was doing. There was something there, working through me—not just me, all of us—a force, a spirit, something to do with us all being women. They gathered it, standing behind and around me, and then it came funnelling through me into the pictures I was painting, making them special. I don’t believe, however much practice I have, I’ll ever do anything as good as tho
se three sketches in my whole life.

  Of course the only one who didn’t understand was the Emir. He’d been sitting over to one side having a snack (goodness, I was hungry!) which some other women had brought him, so he didn’t notice at once that it was all over. I’d put my paints and brushes away and turned to say thank you to the child who was still kneeling beside me, whisking the flies off. Then I saw that she was a Bakiti. Do you know, from the moment I’d had my fright just before I came into the courtyard, right through till now, I hadn’t even tried to look for Elongo’s sister. There’d been too much else—that scare, and then the horror of finding what it must be like for them in the harem, and then of course the painting. Anyway, I do know how to say thank you in Kiti, so I said it. She looked surprised for a moment, and then she smiled. Such a smile! I told her my name and she was starting to wish me a strong spirit before she told me hers (it’s all terrifically formal among the Kitawa when strangers meet) but just then horrible KB came barging up and interrupted. He stared popeyed at the girl as tho’ he was going to eat her and she lost her smile and got down on the ground and grovelled. I showed him the pictures and he was pleased—tho’ of course he thought I’d been painting for him—but I wouldn’t let him keep them. I told him, very firmly, that I’d got more work to do on them and he could have them when I’d finished. Now I suppose I’ll have to do copies for him. I’m certainly not going to let him have the real ones, those women as they were made to be in their beauty and their pride. He doesn’t own them like that!

  I was almost dropping with exhaustion and hunger but KB insisted on dragging me off to show me his bed. It is huge. Brass knobs. From Birmingham, I should think. On the way out I was stupid enough to look properly at the black board he’d banged to call the women out. I thought the carvings might be interesting. Such a fool. Revolting, of course. The usual thing. KB pretended to be shocked that I’d looked but he was amused, really. And inquisitive. And then so rude all of a sudden. He just took me to the first of the entrance rooms and told one of the eunuchs to see me out and went scurrying back to his women. Or his meal, I suppose. I hope so. Poor things.

  Lukar was waiting for me in the palace courtyard. Ted had sent him to find out where I’d got to. Believe it or not I’d been four and a quarter hours in the harem! When I looked at my watch and saw I suddenly felt so done in that I could hardly walk as far as the Town gate. Elongo was there, patient as ever, looking after Salaki and my turkey. He had to lift me into the saddle—Lukar didn’t think of helping—but E.’s stronger than you’d think. Then he took the reins and led me home. Poor Ted was furious with me for overdoing things in the heat of the day, just after a fever, and I was too tired to explain. We were having our first proper quarrel—at least he was—when I fell asleep in the middle of it! He picked me up and put me to bed and I didn’t wake up till supper.

  He was being terribly apologetic about losing his rag and I was saying it was all my fault and he was quite right except that it just happened, and then I noticed he was eating with only his left hand. Poor man, something frightful has happened to his right arm, and he hadn’t even told me! He’s a saint about things like that. It’s called a guinea worm. He wouldn’t think of sending for a doctor all the way from Soko, so we dealt with it after supper. I was v. nearly sick several times. It’s just a swelling like a boil, but you have to lance it and then there’s this thready thing inside and you get hold of the end and you take a match-stick (really!) and wrap the end round and begin to wind it out. You wind a little each day and then strap the match down again. It’s absolutely vital not to break the worm ’cos then it dies and goes bad inside you. Poor Ted. The only good thing was he couldn’t have done it without me, using only his left hand. He really did need me. That was nice. There are so many ways Africa can be horrible, but men like Ted still love it!

  Wed Jan 16

  I wrote all that yesterday morning when I still felt that doing the pictures in the harem was the most important thing I’d ever have happen to me. Well, almost. Like saying “Yes” to Ted. ’Cos of the guinea worm I’d been too busy to try and tell Ted—and, you know, it’s funny but I don’t think I quite understood how important it was myself till I’d written it down. Anyway, yesterday lunch-time I showed him the pictures and tried to tell him. He pretended to understand how good they were (dear man), but he couldn’t help showing that he was only pretending to be interested because my painting is something that stops me being bored, so it doesn’t matter whether what I do is any good or not. I might just as well be playing patience! So I gave up after a bit and just chatted, but I was rather disappointed. Silly of me. I can’t expect him to understand.

  Then he rode down river in the afternoon to try and settle some kind of dispute about fishing rights which KB was supposed to have dealt with months ago, so I sent for Elongo for a Kiti lesson. I told him I thought I might have seen his sister in the harem and I tried to describe the girl and told him she’d smiled when I’d talked to her and so on, but do you know he wasn’t very interested either! After all that! I could have wept. The trouble is we don’t both know enough of any of our languages to have a proper conversation. We can say “The monkey is in the tree,” or “Bring me fresh tea,” but nothing like “I’m feeling a bit low because I had a terribly important and exciting experience two days ago and now it’s beginning to fade away as tho’ it was only a dream.” Real talk doesn’t start till you can say things like that. E. did say “My sister is happy,” but I don’t know whether he meant someone else had told him or that he was just guessing ’cos I’d seen her smiling (if it was her).

  By supper I was in a proper dump. I’d made it worse by starting to copy my pictures for horrible KB, and even the real ones started looking like just coloured water on paper—nothing in them. Ted thought I must have another fever coming on ’cos I do my best in the evenings to be cheerful and chatty and interested ’cos that’s what I’m here for. I couldn’t stop thinking about those women. And me. I mean, how different am I? Really different? In the end I thought I’d do best to get it off my chest—not about me, of course—that’d be hopeless with Ted—but them.

  Ted wasn’t very sympathetic.

  “You’re looking at it with white eyes,” he said. “If you could get inside their minds you’d probably find they thought of themselves as extremely fortunate. They are fed and clothed and protected and they have a minimum of work to do. That’s the African’s idea of paradise.”

  “They’re hardly alive, darling. The women I saw on the market stalls down river were having a better time selling a couple of yams. Twenty times better!”

  “That’s another white illusion, judging Africa by the river life. You’ll see when we go on tour how most Africans live.”

  “But these ones aren’t even living, darling. That’s what I’m trying to tell you!”

  “Well, accepting that, which I don’t, but for the sake of argument. What are you going to do about it? Or rather, what do you propose I and Kaduna and Lagos and London should do about it? It’s a central element in a whole way of life.”

  “Oh, nonsense, darling. What earthly difference would it make if Kama Boi had one wife and treated her like a human being?”

  “It would make all the difference in the world. Everything here depends on authority. Who gives orders, who accepts them, and why. Why is the most important. The native has to recognize your right to rule. You have to keep showing him your reasons. You can’t show him the real reasons, of course. We can’t send out the soldiers and shoot someone once a week, so we keep a flag in front of the house and run it up and down. It is a juju—a way of saying without doing.”

  “I don’t see what that’s got to do with Kama Boi keeping women like cattle.”

  “Being able to send for the soldiers isn’t the only source of power. In Africa if you are believed to have magical powers that can be just as important. Down south you got kings who only appeared to their
people once a year. They shut themselves away and ruled by mystery. I often think we owe a bit to that, you know. The white man is incomprehensible, therefore mysterious, therefore magical. In the pagan tribes it’s mostly a matter of tradition. Up in the north, it’s … let’s call it greatness. You have to keep showing the people you are a great man. You have robes, and processions, and you get given presents and dish out titles and so on. And you have more possessions than anyone else. More slaves in the old days. More wives.”

  “More cows, you mean!”

  “That’s the cattle Fulani … Oh, I see what you’re getting at. It’s something everyone understands, Rabbit.”

  “I don’t believe that was all Kama Boi was thinking about when he insisted on showing me his collection.”

  “It was certainly one of the things he was thinking about. He was boasting.”

  “Why wives? Why’s it got to be those wretched women? Why not horses or … or stamps? Our king collects stamps. Why shouldn’t he?”

  “Because people wouldn’t understand. This is a semi-paganized area. Kama Boi himself is only dubiously a Muslim. People here have a very primitive view of power. When I was over south of Gombe in ’twenty-one the local chief, a nominal Muslim like Kama Boi, took a cracking fall out hunting. He was stunned, out cold for twenty minutes, and groggy for the rest of the day. Spite of that, the first thing his followers did when they saw he wasn’t going to die was round up a local corvée—it was a pagan area—and set them to building a hut. Then they sent a couple of chaps to the nearest village to choose a suitable girl. The chief married her on the spot—I doubt if he had much notion what was happening, tell you the truth—and took her to the hut that night. Divorced her first thing next morning and sent her home with five shillings. She was as pleased as Punch and so I bet were the village. But the thing that mattered was that all the people had been shown their chief was still fit to rule over them.”