Tefuga

by Peter Dickinson

  “Coming along admirably,” he said. “Have you ever looked at anything by Bonington?”

  “Only in books, I’m afraid. I can see they must be lovely.”

  “I have a very decent specimen. I often wish I could have risked having it with me. I mention it because it catches the morning light on the Grand Canal in much the same way you have. I shall be very glad indeed to add this to my collection, Mrs Jackland—it will be adequate compensation for your refusal to let me buy the ones of Kama Boi’s wives … I suppose you’re still adamant about that?”

  “Fraid so. They’re rather special. I’ll never do anything like them again.”

  “Oh, I hope you will. You seem to me to have immense potential. It’s very rare, the combination of freshness of eye with natural technical skill. I’d be interested to know why those three pictures mean so much to you.”

  I didn’t like telling him, but I managed to stammer a bit about how the harem upset me, and how I’d tried to paint those women as they ought to have been, only KB didn’t let them.

  “And what do you make of old Kama Boi himself?” he said.

  “I think he’s perfectly disgusting,” I said. “If you’ve made him one of your prefects then I think you’re running a very bad school and I’m not going to send my sons to it!”

  “Fortunately a remote contingency,” he said with a snickering little laugh—thinking of Ted and Garsford perhaps! Then he asked if he might smoke and lit one of his sickly cigarettes (like an R.C. church) and looked at my sketches of the thing.

  “I had not realized the problem,” he said. “Of course I have never seen my tabernacle from the outside. It looks almost transparent when I am in it. I see I must endure the flies for a while, so that you can portray the man himself.”

  “Well, it would make it easier,” I said.

  He turned to Elongo and rattled away at him in Hausa about clearing the thing away up the bank. Never asked me, of course. Fussy little instructions which I was sure Elongo hadn’t understood, but E. pretended he had (Africans always do) and started off. I knew Mr de Lancey wanted a reason for shouting at him for a fool in front of me, so I called after him in Kiti to undo the guy-ropes first.

  “Is that Kiti, Mrs Jackland?”

  “Yes, I’ve been learning it, for something to do. Elongo’s Hausa isn’t very good, nor’s mine, so we talk in Kiti.”

  “That’s rather enterprising of you. I’m told it is far from straightforward, even by the standards of native languages.”

  Suddenly, then, out of nowhere, I knew this was what I’d been waiting for! That’s what I mean about pretending to be good. It wouldn’t have been any use me nagging at Ted or … I don’t know what else I could have done. I mean even when Mr de Lancey turned up I couldn’t possibly have told him, straight out like that, and he couldn’t have listened, either. So I just said to myself it was all none of my business and I was a loyal little wife and so on. Now, though, when the chance came, I had to take it. It was almost as tho’ something outside me, something much stronger than me, was telling me what to do! I was still v. careful, tho’. I had to make it seem like an accident.

  “Oh, it’s a pig!” I said. “All those tones! I’m getting quite good at household things and fairy-stories and so on, but … for instance, when we were at Tefuga some women came to me with an extraordinary story about someone burning a village and killing the men and selling the others as slaves because they couldn’t pay their taxes, I think …”

  “Really?”

  “Well, it was something like that but the woman was talking in whispers because she was frightened of letting Zarafio’s spearmen know she was there …”

  “You told your husband about this, of course.”

  “Oh, yes. He said it was all to do with a Tuareg raid in 1917.”

  “That certainly occurred.”

  “Well, you see, that’s what I mean about Kiti being difficult to understand. I actually asked the woman when it happened and she said two rains ago. I’m almost sure. I couldn’t ask her a lot, with the spearmen so close.”

  “You imply that they were there to prevent you talking to the women.”

  “Oh, yes. You see, Zarafio didn’t want me coming on tour at all so he tried to make things as difficult as possible. He tried to pretend it was because he was a strict Mohammedan, and when I started doctoring the wives and children and practising my Kiti he kicked up a fuss.”

  “What utter impertinence.”

  “Yes, but you see … well, it was a bit tricky for Ted. Suppose Zarafio had complained to Kaduna, you never know what Kaduna will do, do you? They always take both sides. They might have said Zarafio was in the wrong but I’d better not go on tour next time, anyway. We didn’t want that at all.”

  “It was still utter impertinence.”

  “Well …”

  “You think it was more than that? That there was some motive in preventing you from communicating directly with this woman?”

  “There were three of them, actually. One of the others tried to tell me about something that happened during last rains, a murder, as far as I could make out.”

  “There are no murders in Kiti on the files for 1923.”

  “That’s what Ted said. It’s so difficult to know, isn’t it? Specially if they won’t complain about what’s happened to them. I tried to ask the women if anything bad had happened at Tefuga—both these other things were up in the north, I think—and they just slunk away.”

  “That can be interpreted in two lights, Mrs Jackland. The motive you suggest is one, but if the stories are fabrications it would be well for the tale-bearers to set them at a distance where they cannot immediately be checked. Your boy’s bush Kiti, though. Has he nothing to contribute?”

  You know, I hadn’t even asked Elongo since we got back about what Femora Feng had told me. That’s what a loyal little wife I thought I’d been being! Elongo had got the thing down by now and was folding it neatly into a bundle. Mr de Lancey shouted at him to come over, which he did, carrying the thing. Mr de Lancey asked him in Hausa, speaking slowly and simply, if he knew of any wrong doings by Kama Boi. (Ted wouldn’t dream of asking a native something like that. It’s breaking all the rules.) Elongo looked at me. I nodded that he could tell, but he still looked desperately worried. He got down on his knees and grovelled in front of Mr de Lancey, Hausa-fashion. I hated that, but there was nothing I could do.

  “I do not know,” he said.

  “Elongo Sisefonge,” I said in Kiti, “Femora Feng told me the story of men burning a village and killing the men and taking the others away. The men were servants of a son of Kama Boi. Is the story true?”

  “I must not tell.”

  “But if things of this kind are done the White Man must be told. How else can he punish those who do them? The White Man is the protector of the Kitawa.”

  “Kama Boi is the protector of the Kitawa, because of what was done at Tefuga when his father died. It is the sons and servants of Kama Boi who do wrong, and Kama Boi does not punish them. How will the White Man do this when Kama Boi does not? How will the White Man protect those who bring such stories to him? When they go home to their villages, will the White Man be by their side, night and day, to shield them from vengeance?”

  I explained this to Mr de Lancey, who nodded.

  “That’s the problem with the native,” he said. “Their logic’s different. I hadn’t realized what a hold the old rogue’s got on them. At least we shan’t have that problem with his successor. It will only be a goat sacrifice at the ceremony, I imagine. That should weaken the juju. But the real problem’s one of communication. We are not going to improve the situation until we have a bridge at Kiti, and proper roads so that the Kitawa begin to understand the real extent of our power. And we are not going to get the roads and bridges built while Kama Boi is Emir. Nor are we going to persuade the
Kitawa to bring the necessary complaints to depose him until they understand that we can protect them. It is a vicious circle.”

  “They don’t even seem to blame it on Kama Boi. It’s his sons and servants.”

  “He is the root of the problem. We can’t expect them to see that. Our only genuine hope is that we shall discover some serious financial peculation on his part.”

  “Cheating over taxes, you mean?”

  “We don’t need natives to bring a complaint over that. It is an offence against ourselves. But to get Kaduna to act we would need to prove a major fraud over a period of years, and to judge by the files, though Kama Boi’s accounts could hardly be said to be in order, your husband and his predecessors have kept too tight a rein on him to allow more than the odd casual attempt at peculation.”

  “That’s what Ted says, and he’s terribly careful about that sort of thing. I don’t know. I can’t help feeling there’s something going on. It’s none of my business, though, is it, really?” He looked at me with his funny pale eyes.

  “I suppose we’d better get on or the light will have changed,” he said. “It is typical that on the occasion when I am to have my angling prowess immortalized I should in fact catch nothing.”

  He went back to his place and started to cast. My heart was hammering so I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep my hand steady. I was terribly keyed up, tho’ I’d made a bit of a mistake at the end, saying it was none of my business. Too obvious. But soon as I got painting I was alright—keyed up still, but somehow it went into the picture. Much more promising now. The tint of Mr de Lancey’s shirt and trousers—pale, almost cream—was just right to set off the whole flat, empty, still river. I wasn’t going to do him with any fuss, just blobs—a risk, but worth it. I actually had the colour mixed and on my brush when he hooked into something. The rod bent. It was all there in an instant and I whipped it in, his stance, his tension, the incredible curve of the rod, no line of course, but right at the focus of the picture one white fleck where the fish threshed, fighting to live. I got it in one (you have to!) and then I messed around for twenty minutes touching the details up while he landed his fish. It was a big one. He came over, carrying it, smiling like a cat. It jerked a bit in his hand, with its white needle fangs yawning.

  “Well done,” I said. “It’s a whopper. Just the right moment, too. Look.”

  He took a long time, sometimes standing back and sometimes using his monocle to peer up close. I wasn’t at all nervous. I knew it was alright and I knew he’d understand.

  “Well, well,” he said at last. “Just the right moment, as you say. It’s almost a pity in a way, because that’s all most people are going to be able to see. They’ll think the rest is mere background. That’s a lovely passage along by the far bank. I shall be extremely pleased to own that. Would you like me to suggest a price?”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t!”

  “I see I shall have to do your haggling for you. You will ask me ten guineas, I shall offer two and we will settle for five. Later on, Mrs Jackland, if you decide to start selling, will you get in touch with me, because I know the ropes?”

  I just stammered. I didn’t know what to say. I felt I was blushing as tho’ he’d tried to kiss me (as tho’ I’d said yes! Nightmares!) I began to shuffle my sketches together and the Black Man/White Man cartoon fell out on the ground.

  “Oh!” I squeaked. “Would you like this? As a present, I mean? Just to remember by? You could hang it in your … er …”

  (I was sure he didn’t say W.C. but I didn’t know what.)

  He made his snickery laugh and took it. We looked at each other. That was the moment, handing over that piece of paper, like a treaty. A secret treaty. We didn’t say anything. Mr de Lancey shouted for his boy to come and collect his gear, and Elongo helped me pack up and I trudged up through the heat, back to our own dear house, to have breakfast with Ted. I showed him the picture but he was much more interested to hear about the fish, and a bit jealous.

  After breakfast Mr de Lancey came up to say good-bye. He’s going down river by boat to call on Mr Skarrett, the D.O. at Magundi. I walked down with him through the broiling heat towards the landing-stage, where Ted was making arrangements with the canoe men.

  “You’ll be sure to let me know if there’s anything I can do for you, won’t you, Mrs Jackland?” he said.

  He was only pretending to be talking about painting. We both knew.

  “All I want in the world is for Ted to be happy,” I said.

  “That is in your gift, not mine, Mrs Jackland.”

  Nine

  The thatchers were still at work on the Old Palace porch, a simple but, as Betty Jackland had remarked, incongruous veranda-like structure spreading along a standard Hausa mud-wall frontage. Its function was obscure. Perhaps indeed it had none, other than to symbolize, consciously or unconsciously, the ancient symbiosis between the pagan Kitawa and the Muslim ancestors of Kama Boi. At any rate Jackland, with Miss Boyaba’s help and a cash inducement, had persuaded the thatchers to revert for the day to the dress and methods of sixty years ago. Not many adjustments had been needed. The ladders and scaffolding were already stone-age lash-ups, with only the odd bit of nylon cording to be concealed or replaced. The dump truck—the letters KHP still blatant on its side—had been driven away. Piles of unused thatch concealed other modem intrusions. The old thatcher seemed delighted to renew lost authority by showing his sons how to manipulate primitive tools in the manner his father had taught him. The young men had been more reluctant to abandon trousers and T-shirts for loin-cloths (full nakedness being implausible in a supposedly Muslim citadel), and it may have been because of some such obscure resentment that one of them had chosen, between takes, to fetch his large digital wristwatch from his trouser pocket and strap it back on. The intrusion was not noticed until the procession—Miss Tressider, the actor playing Kama Boi, and half a dozen of Sarkin Elongo’s own officials in ceremonial robes—was poised to pass in front of the now picturesquely primitive thatchers on their way to the palace door. Burn was the first to spot it.

  Not given to tact at the best of times, and more than usually fretful so near the completion of his first big project, he yelled at the young man for a stupid bastard. The young man turned and began to descend his ladder. Then he must have realized that he would lose some of his advantage if he went out of camera shot, so he stopped half way down and yelled back in the vigorous local English. The line he took showed considerable political awareness, demonstrating that beneath the apparently stagnant conservatism of the Kitawa there moved, at least among the urbanized, strong radical currents. Burn—at home a proponent of a very British form of leftist insularism—found himself being described as a colonialist dog at the heels of Reagan.

  It was by now well beyond mid-morning, the air heavy with steamy heat. Everybody was anxious to get on, to be done with hanging around and get into somewhere air-conditioned and have a drink. But despite the heat the filming had attracted a fairish audience, including the Sarkin, dressed slightly less formally than at The Warren in a light-coloured robe and turban and accompanied by his brolly-man who carried a modem lightweight parasol and an aluminium folding chair. The young man, now seeing the strength of his position and the size and quality of his audience, embarked on a full-flown political harangue. His theme, emphasized by gestures towards the new palace, was that in this supposed democracy the old power-wielders were still in office and still cheating the people in order to increase their own wealth. The accusation was of course a commonplace of Nigerian politics, but here there appeared to be a local term for it, namely “Elongism”, whose particular offence seemed to be failure to complete the bridge at Kiti rapids.

  The Sarkin’s reaction was unreadable behind his large sunglasses, but when his brolley-man began to shout in protest against this outrage to decency he stilled him with a gesture and led the way down towards the Old Palac
e and in under the shadow of the porch, thus moving out of the young thatcher’s line of fire. In any case the harangue was cut short. The old thatcher had hitherto shown no understanding of English, but his son’s gestures were unmistakable, and he had no doubt heard the same speech in Kiti or Hausa many times over the local equivalent of the breakfast table. Now, moving with the slow assurance of the craftsman, he swung himself across the scaffolding, and almost as if nudging a bundle of thatch into position, placed his foot in the middle of his son’s back, and shoved. The young man fell sprawling. Someone helped him to his feet and led him away, too winded for oratory.

  “Right!” shouted Burn. “We’ll carry on without him. Ready, Fred? Trevor? God! Nigel, the Sarkin! Can you …?”

  The Sarkin’s move under the porch had brought him to the doorway through which the procession was due to pass. He seemed for the moment oblivious, apparently still trying to calm his brolley-man’s outrage. Jackland strode down.

  “Excuse me, Sarkin,” he said. “We’re in the way. Do you mind? Quickest if we go inside.”

  For a moment the Sarkin seemed about to refuse, but then he let himself be shepherded through the big doorway into what might once have been a fine ante-chamber, tall and cool, whitewashed walls lightly patterned with geometric designs. But the paint had peeled and the domed ceiling fallen away in one corner; the floor-space was used for the storage of various kinds of junk, much of it near-rubbish; and to judge by the smell something had laired or nested, and perhaps died here. The Sarkin led the way on through a similar room, less cluttered but just as derelict, and out into a courtyard. A single large-leaved tree spread its branches over one end; at the other the stump of what had been its twin stood bleached in the glare. All round the courtyard doorways led into the rooms where the lesser members of Kama Boi’s household had lived or worked, but the roofs had mainly collapsed, their beams weakened by Africa’s voracious chewers and borers. Unprotected from the yearly rains the walls had begun to lose definition, like chocolate left in the sun.