And so it is my birthday. On this day, I rededicate my faith in God. On this day, I renew my mission. I swear to Him who guides the weak, for weak I have proved to be, that I will put aside all that has distracted me and rededicate myself to His service.
On this day, of my twenty-second year on earth, I pledge that I will do everything I can to get to England. And when I am there, I will be ordained, and then I will have my own mission.
I shall return to my homeland, where I shall do all that is in my power to fight the reason that these forests are dotted with aging bones. I shall do all in my power to fight the detestable traffic in humans that demeans every person associated with it. I shall save the people who sold me into bondage and cast me out those many years ago.
My mother will not know that the Jacob Wainwright who stands before her, so full of knowledge and great learning, is the same Thenga that she bore all those years ago. If she is alive. But they are alive, of that I am certain, for that is my fate and my mission, to save my people, and to bring them to salvation just as I was brought to salvation on this day, the day of my rebirth. And the Dry Bones shall live.
23
25 December 1873
Twenty-Third Entry from the Journal of Jacob Wainwright; in which the Party Discovers the Duplicity of a Trustworthy Companion and Wainwright Rues his Willful Blindness.
Will this dangerous and toilsome journey ever end? We are walking with Death, eating with Death; we carry Death in our midst. At present, we are in the Forest of Slaves. Here lie the doomed, dozens upon dozens of them, their bones lying in heaps at the bottom of the trees to which they were tied. Their skulls roll along the forest in a high wind and knock against each other. The trees themselves seem to send up a smell of rot and corruption.
We are at the mercy of Providence; we are tossed about by the vicissitudes of fortune. In the last week, I have been fortifying my faith by proclaiming His name in Antiphons.
O Leader of the House of Israel, giver of the Law to Moses, come to rescue us with your mighty power!
O Root of Jesse’s stem, sign of God’s love for all his people, come to save us without delay!
O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice, come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death!
And today of all days, most precious day that it is, my Lord Jesus Christ’s birthday, I proclaim, O Emmanuel, our King and Giver of Law, come to save us, Lord our God!
For today finds us burying another body as we continue to bear our toilsome burden on this wretched, endless journey. It is the Doctor’s corpse that calls death into our midst. Losi is gone, Kaniki is gone. Songolo is gone. Misozi is gone. Nchise is gone. Ntaru is gone. John Wainwright is gone. Amoda is gone. And to that number we now add Chirango.
We are walking with blood and bones, we are walking with mangled bodies, here in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, we are walking with Sorrow and with Strife.
The sorrows of Death have compassed us, and we shall not see the land of Milk and Honey. I wish to God we had never borne the Doctor away. I wish we had heeded the Mohammedans. I wish, above all, we had heeded his own words and buried him in the ground at Chitambo. Better still, we should have left him to be eaten by wild animals, or flung him into one of those rivers he was endlessly discovering.
Truly, I wish to God I may never see again the shape of his body as it is carried between two men. Because the cost that he has wrought on us is too great to bear, for anyone to bear.
24
10 January 1874
Twenty-Fourth Entry from the Journal of Jacob Wainwright; in which the New Year finds the Expedition still on the Journey and stalked Everywhere by Death, and Wainwright comes Face-to-Face with the Flatterer and Worldly Wiseman.
I have not written a word since that last entry. Instead I have been praying penance for allowing myself to be conquered by the Giant Despair. Though I have read His words over and over, and prayed again and again to Him who cures all for His counsel and wisdom, and though I have said so many times the Reverend Bean’s Prayer against the Sin of Despondency that I know it now by heart, I am unable to shake completely the heaviness that rests in my chest.
After days of hunger, and marching in relentless rain, more than half the pagazi have deserted. Led no doubt by Asmani, for he is gone, they have taken the most valuable packages and simply vanished in the night. No one bears them any ill will, for we would all desert if we could.
For we have been traveling with a great evil among us. We have harbored a snake in our midst, one which has spread great venom and destruction among us. To my own personal disappointments, I must add the firm and certain knowledge that I have nested at my bosom a Worldly Wiseman, a Flatterer in possession of a cursed tongue that speaks words of honey that drip with poison, and who comes in the guise of a Friend of the Spirit. And with this has come certain knowledge of my Willful Blindness. I have allowed the Flatterer to take Comfort under my Protection.
On the night before that last despairing entry, Chuma had woken up to relieve himself in the place we had assigned for the purpose, far from the camp. It was long past midnight but not yet dawn, and the whole camp slept. On his return to where he slept, he heard what sounded like a muffled cry.
The sound came from the tent where Doctor Dillon was quartered. Chuma went in that direction, and just as he was about to call, from the tent emerged Chirango. On seeing him, Chirango said, “I was just checking on the Doctor. Everything is well.”
Chuma was made suspicious by Chirango’s manner. He tried to enter the tent, but Chirango stood in his way. But Chuma is a larger man than Chirango; he fought his way into the tent and met a most horrible sight. Doctor Dillon was lying on his bed, his eyes staring ahead sightlessly. His throat had been most mercilessly cut. One look at Chirango told Chuma all he needed to know, and indeed, had he not rushed out to give a cry that roused the rest of the party, he might have met Doctor Dillon’s fate.
As it was, he gave a great cry that woke the camp. In the tumult that followed, Chirango tried to flee, but was tackled to the ground by Munyasere and Adhiamberi. Chirango, wild-eyed, made a charge to escape, but the men held him fast.
It took some time before any of us could understand what it was that Chuma was relating to us. And when we did, only one question was on every mouth. “Why? How came it that he killed this man?”
Chirango said, “And why not? Why was he here, why were they all here? I would kill them all if I could. And he is not the first either. I have killed more than him.”
My stomach turned to water as I said, “Amoda.” I spoke as though to myself but I must have been louder than I thought.
“You killed Amoda?” Susi said.
“And not him only,” Chirango said. “Why did he whip me?”
“He did so on Bwana Daudi’s orders,” Chuma said.
“Pwana Pwaudi’s pworders. Pwana Pwaudi, Pwana Pwaudi. Will you listen to yourself? How is he your bwana? How is he anyone’s bwana? And that other one, the one with the boiled eyes whom you call Bwana Stanley. And you talk of Bwana Dillon too. Bwana pwana. How are any of them your bwana?”
Gone was the pleasing self-effacing Chirango of the humble demeanor. In his place was this man whose rage seemed to waft from him in waves and threaten to consume us with its power.
“Your Bwana Daudi is lucky that he died when he did, because I would have killed him too. As I killed Losi and Misozi and Kaniki, I killed them all, it was to be Halima too, but it is all the same to me.”
“You killed Losi . . . ,” Halima wailed.
“And Kaniki knew I had bought poison from Chitambo’s medicine man, and I killed John Wainwright because he helped me to kill Amoda.
“And it is all because of that man you are carrying so slavishly. Who was he to come to my land? To bury his woman on my land? This Stanley, this Cameron, this Speke, this Grant. Who are they, who are any of them, who are they that they go so freely to any of our lands? This man Dillon rais
es his hand to me, and you all do nothing. Nothing.
“He slaps me without consequence. He destroys my instrument, and you do nothing. I have told you again and again, but you will not listen to how the Portuguese drove my ancestors off their own land. They wasted my kingdom, stole my land. And now this Cameron goes inland. More of them will come, mark my words. This Nile source that he wanted to find, that they all want to find. They will find it, and other river sources, and in the process, they will see that there are other things to be taken. And they will want us to worship their gods, like we have not our own.”
His one eye bulged so much that it seemed in danger of falling out. In a voice of great anguish, he cried out, “Look at me, look at me, look at me. I have nothing. Nothing. Blinded, and for what? For one string of beads? Blinded for taking a string of beads from a man who has not paid me for my labor?”
In the stunned silence that followed his words, he looked directly at me and said, “And you are the worst of them all, Jacob Wainwright.”
My stomach lurched as I scrambled for the words to deny what I knew was coming. “You are the worst,” he said. “For you have allowed them to enter your soul and hate yourself. You have discarded your gods for theirs. You loathe your own skin, and your own kin. You want to dress like they do, and speak like they do, but you will never be one of them.”
I breathed in relief. I had to say something to stem the words that might come next. To my great relief, the expedition leaders moved off to discuss the matter away from the group. Halima was weeping into her cloth, with Laede and Khadijah consoling her. The others were dissecting in stunned voices the information they had received.
There was a clear consensus among the leaders: we could not take him with us, that much was certain. But nor could we leave him behind, because he would come after us while we slept and kill us. And the blood that he had shed had to be avenged. While we pondered what we were to do with him, we tied him to a tree; the night grew long as around the fire we talked.
“We could leave him tied there,” said Munyasere.
“It would be a week or so before he died, because the body has reserves of food,” said Farjallah.
“Without food or water, that would mean we leave him to die,” said Carus. “We cannot do that to him, it would make us no better than slavers.”
I did not want to agree with the man, but my soul revolted at the notion of leaving him tied to a tree. Perhaps another party of travelers would, in time, come across him as we had come across other corpses and skeletons and assume that he was just one of the many slaves tied to trees. It was a horrible thought, to think of him there, for who knew how many nights it would take for him to die.
But it was just as clear that we could not take him with us. For where would we take him? And to face whose justice? Would the Sultan’s courts, the qadi’s courts even try him?
Finally, Chowpereh suggested a plan. There were ten guns left, and three muskets. Ten men, to be picked by lot, would load their guns and each would fire at Chirango once. That way, he would not only die quickly, it would never be known who had fired the fatal shot. No man would bear the burden of this guilt. This would be done at first light without alerting the rest of the party.
At first light, the ten men assembled. It was clear that no one had slept. Susi took up Amoda’s gun. Chirango did not act like a man about to meet his Maker. His voice dripped with malice as he said, “But surely, you want to know all about it. Halima wants to know how Amoda begged for his life. Still, Susi, you must be grateful, for I have cleared your way for you. Indeed, you should thank me, you and Halima, for I have done you a great service. I took Misozi’s life with one hand and Amoda’s with another. Now you can lie with one another all day long like the slut Ntaoéka lies with—”
From the right side of my vision, I saw a blur break through the line of men. I heard a guttural scream. For a wild moment, it looked like Susi was embracing Chirango. Chuma and Chowpereh ran to pull him away. Chirango’s head drooped. Susi stepped back. As he did so, we saw that he had driven a knife into Chirango’s stomach.
I had not realized until then that I was holding my breath. Susi pulled the knife from his stomach. Chirango’s body twitched and spasmed. Chirango gave a look of puzzled astonishment. He opened his eye and his mouth, made as though to speak, and then was still. I breathed at last.
25
12 February 1874
Twenty-Fifth Entry from the Journal of Jacob Wainwright; in which Journey’s End approaches as the Expedition Heads for Bagamoio.
We have moved a little from the place of Chirango’s death. We would fain have moved farther, but we are awaiting Susi’s return. And the end of Ramadan approaches. We are all faint with hunger. I admit that I have found a new respect for these Mohammedans, for I do not know how they can march without food.
Halima has been prostrated by Chirango’s revelations. She believes it is the spirit of Misozi that has come back as a vembwigo from the land of the dead to punish her. First Losi, now Amoda: she is convinced that Misozi wants her revenge. She is out of her mind with fear and grief. She is babbling about her house in Zanzibar, and the door that she will make, and that Susi was supposed to live with her there, but now he can’t because Misozi will not let him.
Susi was last seen walking back to Kasekera. Chuma and Munyasere followed him there. They found him trading cloth and beads for calabashes of pombe. He was deep in liquor and belligerently refusing to come with the party. There was only one thing to be done. Four men carried him back when he was at his drunkest. As soon as he came to himself, the whole party took turns to talk to him. I prayed for him, Chuma shouted at him, Laede and Khadijah wept, we have all talked ourselves hoarse.
And we have all said the same thing, the same thing I said to him: “It was not murder, what you did. You acted to save us all.”
But Susi will not listen to anyone. “When you have killed a man, only then can you come to me and tell me what is a murderer.”
“In that case,” I said, “let Christ be your salvation.”
Susi laughed then, the laugh of a demented man. I left him, the others took over. After three more days of waiting, we resolved to continue with our mission. It was Majwara who said, “Leave me to talk to Susi, I will talk to Halima too.”
He led the unresponsive but complaisant Susi to where Halima sat under a tree. From afar, we saw the three of them talking. They sat thus for more than three hours. We do not know what, if anything, was said, for none of them ever spoke about it.
The next day, on the morning before we left, we were joined by Susi. He indicated to Mariko Chanda that he was to help him carry the Doctor’s body. Halima took her place in the caravan, next to Laede and Ntaoéka. Majwara blew his horn and beat the drum, and on we marched, until we reached the glorious sight that told us we were almost there, until we reached the sea. I have not had many happy associations with the sea, but I must own that no body of water has ever looked so beautiful as the sea did that day.
The moment we saw it, Majwara let out a great cry. “Alḥamdulillāh!” he shouted. “Bahari, bahari!” An answering cry went up as the group spoke like a man in possession of only one word, and that word, “the sea,” “the sea.”
For one happy moment, we were all children again. We dropped all we carried and embraced each other in giddy dances as Majwara let out a positive frenzy of drumbeating. Chowpereh took up Majwara’s horn and blew it. The flags waved in a riot of color. Then we ran as a body to play and dance in the sea and splash each other with its waters.
Amoda would have scolded us for tarrying, but perhaps he might also have been overcome by the sight of our journey’s end and done no more than frown. As it was, there was no Amoda to rebuke us. That whole day, we swam and fished and lay in the sun. It was the first truly merry day that we had spent together since Amoda’s death.
Against the blue ocean touching the even bluer sky, against the warmth of the sand and gentle lapping of the water, the
evil wrought by Chirango and the sorrowful troubles of the journey receded behind us.
We agreed that we would camp there for the night before following the coast up to Bagamoio. That night, we lit two large fires on the beach and roasted fish we had caught during the day. There was even more singing, and much laughter too.
The following morning, Halima insisted on washing and drying the clothes of everyone left. “We cannot walk into Bagamoio looking like a party of miserable rescued slaves,” said she.
The weight of her loss still sat upon her. It seemed no harm to indulge her in this small vanity. Bagamoio was but a day away; what harm could another day do? The women spent the day washing clothes and braiding their hair.
Early the next morning, before dawn, we struck out for Bagamoio, choosing to walk along the coastline. This was a most pleasant part of the journey. We did not need the drum now. The waves and the gulls above gave us encouragement on our march. The children ran in delight to the cows that lay in the sun as birds pecked and picked at their ticks and fleas. In the distance, coconut growers climbed the tall trees and lowered their prizes.
The sea was in our every view, the ground soft beneath our feet. Now and then, we hailed fishermen who were taking their dhows out or fixing nets in a stream of chatter. The news soon spread of our strange party with its woeful bundle. By the time we reached Bagamoio just before the hour of eleven, we had gathered a crowd of followers that was twice as large as our own party.
And that is how we entered Bagamoio, praying and sorrowing with twenty-five people less than when we left Chitambo, fifteen deserters and the ten dead. We headed for the church. Chuma and Susi made a sign to the others that they would carry him inside themselves. A Sunday service was in progress. The people rose in their pews as we walked to the front. The priest stopped in midsentence and stared. “Mwili wa Daudi,” Chuma said. On the cold stone floor of the church, they laid down the body of Doctor Livingstone.
Out of Darkness, Shining Light Page 22
