Perhaps, instead of going to strange lands, or even to the sea, I will move across the water and live in Bagamoyo. It was a sorrowful period that I spent there, but I liked it well enough. The air is much cleaner there. I will get a big Swahili bed made, one with those carvings, just like the ones they all slept on at the Liwali’s, the kind that is so big it has to be made right there in the room itself, the kind you use to sleep in and eat in and live in. Once you have a bed like that, you know you are not going to move.
I will sell this house, and buy a smaller house there. I will make sure it has a garden. But I will carry my door with me, it is too pretty to leave behind. They can admire it too in Bagamoyo, my door with all the symbols, though there won’t be as many people there to admire it as there are here. And from my house with the magnificent door, from our house with the magnificent door, Susi can go traveling. And maybe I will go with him too. And we will come back to our house in Bagamoyo and go through that door and lie down on that bed.
And if he does not come back, well then. I had Amoda and I lost him. I had Losi, and I lost her too. But I am still here. I will still be here if Susi does not come to me. I have a house with a door that all wonder at, and soon I will have a bed that I will wonder at. With wealth like that, what more can any person ask for?
For now, I am content to live in my house, with my door and, soon, my bed with carvings all around it. The only thing I wish for is to hear news of Susi. In the meantime, I am content to walk to the dock and sell my food and listen out for news of him. Then I walk back home and admire my door, and enclose myself within my very own house. Every two weeks, I go to the public baths. I could afford to go once a week, but they might think that I have got above my station. And I make sure to walk at least once a day on Hurumzi, just to remind myself that I am free.
July to August 1885
An Entry from the Journal of Jacob Wainwright, written at the Court of the Kabaka Mwanga, the Thirty-First King of Buganda; in which he reflects on an Uncertain Present and a Disappointing Past, and contemplates the Doubtful Future.
From this distance, the hills of the Kingdom are purple against the sky. This is my favorite time of day here, when the mist is high and the light is breaking with the promise of a new day. It is banana season, the Kingdom’s most productive time. In an hour, the landscape will be dotted with banana pickers who will work in groups to slash and harvest the fruit. It is not the small yellow bananas that the Baganda eat, but the large green bananas that they call matoke. It is cheerful work; the pickers sing as they pick. From this harvest will come the food that will sustain the Kabaka’s Court and subjects in the months to come.
When I first came to the Kingdom six years ago, it astonished me to see how great was the variety of food that you could make out of that humble fruit. The Baganda cook their matoke in a variety of ways: boiled in water, fried with onions, and covered in peanut sauce, or cooked in a pleasing mixture of fish or meat. They also pound dried bananas to make a flour that is cooked with water to make a stiff porridge. They even use banana leaves as a covering in which they cook other things. When I find myself eating a particular delicacy, my mind immediately flies to Halima, for she would be sure to delight in all this banana fare.
All of the Kabaka’s subjects, from the highest to the lowest, from the aged to the young, are expected to join in the banana harvest. I am no subject here, I am a visitor merely, but even I have found myself drawn to the picking fields. It is not every day that I join them, but when I do, I work often enough and long enough that they can see that I am as capable of the labor involved as they are.
My six years in the Kingdom of Buganda have been years of great change. I first arrived in the Year of Our Lord 1878, sent by the Church Missionary Society to give support to the Reverend Alexander Mackay in his efforts to set up a mission in the Kingdom. The Reverend Mackay urgently needed an interpreter, they said, for the Kabaka would not give them permission to hire any of his people. It was welcome work.
Before the Lord opened up this path for me, He had cast me into the wilderness, and there tested me sorely. There was a most humiliating period when I was forced to work as a door porter in Zanzibar. I took to wearing Arab dress then, so that no one I knew would recognize me in the lowly station into which I had sunk. But a most kind gentleman from the Church Missionary Society recognized me, and, shocked to find me sunk so low, had arranged for me to accompany a new mission to the Kingdom of Buganda.
It seemed to me that my time had come. I opened up my heart in Thanksgiving because finally I could work as a missionary. But when I arrived in Buganda, it became clear that the Reverend Mackay, the mission leader, would not let me do any missionary work at all. I was supposed only to interpret and explain, and not do any preaching or converting. And what is more, the missionary expected me to serve him as his personal attendant, as though I were some low servant or base slave!
Even that work, which was like a yoke around my neck, was fruitless, for the people here spoke not Suaheli but Luganda, a language I was unfamiliar with. By the time a year had passed and I had gathered enough to be of use, Mackay himself had gained sufficient knowledge such that he no longer needed an interpreter. In the end, I became his household servant. Though I prayed the Reverend Bean’s prayer against resentment, my heart burned with humiliation.
And so when I learned, through a servant of the Katikiro, one of the chief advisers to the Kabaka, that the Kabaka Mtesa needed a trustworthy man to write his letters and interpret for him, and that he had heard about me as one who knew the white man’s knowledge, I seized my chance and offered myself up. I believe that Reverend Mackay was as glad to have me leave as I was glad to leave them.
It was a busy time in the Kingdom. There were missionaries from two countries here, France and England, petitioning the Kabaka to build churches. The Kabaka Mtesa was a wily man, adept at keeping them uncertain but expectant, always hopeful that tomorrow would bring the positive word they needed to build churches and schools.
But alas, within just months of my joining his Court, the Kabaka Mtesa began to ail, and in a matter of days, his life was extinguished. The sinful king had as many wives and concubines as King David and King Solomon, more than eighty, it is believed, and it was not immediately clear which of his sons was to succeed him. Great conflict was averted only when it was finally announced that he was to be succeeded by his young son Mwanga, a son of his tenth wife. I am afraid I cannot explain the convoluted manner in which the determination was made that this boy had the best right to the throne, but if I am to own the truth, the crown could not have covered a more unsuitable head.
Truly, when the old Kabaka died, with him went his wisdom. It is true that youth is not necessarily a bar to success, and that young monarchs have succeeded the world over, but it is clear to every person who meets him that, at the age of sixteen, Mwanga does not have the seriousness of mind and steadiness of heart necessary to make his reign a success.
The new Kabaka is rash and restless; he delights in japes and jests, and is unable to think seriously on matters of weight. Then there is the matter of the unspeakable acts that he is said to force on his pages. I will say no more about those acts other than to say they are strictly censured in the Book of Leviticus.
Nor does the Kabaka Mwanga have wise counsel about him, for the wisest of his counselors, the Katikiro, through whose good word I was hired, has been banned from the Court. Now, although I am not of the Baganda nation, I had entertained a faint hope that I might become in time, if not Katikiro, then a counselor and close adviser.
I had thought at first that the Kabaka’s youthful age was a great blessing, and that my Lord had finally granted me favor, and given me the thing I longed for the most after my still-unfulfilled wish to be ordained and become a priest. Unfrocked as I was, I thought I could lead a mission of my own. I thought this was my chance to be close to a king or prince who had great influence over his people. But the Kabaka Mwanga has said many times t
hat he keeps me only because not only do I have the white man’s knowledge, I also amuse him.
Chirango often talked of those who had swallowed the white man’s knowledge. But thoughts of Chirango bring up other, darker thoughts, the darkest and most painful of which relate to Ntaoéka, and so when they come to my mind, I bid them go.
I am meant to work at the Kabaka’s Court as a dragoman and scribe, writing the Kabaka’s letters for him and reading those that he receives, and interpreting for him when visitors come to his Court who are unable to speak the language of the Baganda. But mostly, he treats me as a jester. He mocks my manner of speaking the Luganda language, for though I have become fluent after six years, it is only natural that I make the occasional slip in pronunciation. These small moments he treats as a great joke, however, and he calls attention to every mistake.
When he is bored with mocking me, he will ask that I read to him from my small stock of books. The Bible would be the best thing to read to him, but he refused to accept Christ and has no interest at all in the Holiest of Books. He demands that I read to him from my other books.
It is right, the Reverend Bean says, that we pray for even the most black-hearted of sinners, but I confess that I find it hard to pray for the heart of this man. My greatest moments of peace are when I find myself outside the Kabaka’s Court in my small house at the foot of the Mengo Hill. Here I keep my own company, interrupted only by the presence of Nambi, the young handmaiden who has been given to keep my house. Since Mkasa Balikudembe, the Kabaka’s majordomo, replaced the first servant assigned to me by the old Kabaka with this one, no hour has passed in which she has not giggled at something or other about my person or manner.
I will not complain, for the Mkasa Balikudembe is a good man, a Christian—though one who has most unfortunately chosen to be a Papist—and he has been most kind to me. And we should, says the Reverend Bean, stand prepared to meet with Christian Firmness that overbearing banter which attempts to put everything grave and serious out of consequence.
Though it has long been my desire that the distinction my education and status have given me be reflected in my physical person and attire, when I am not at the Kabaka’s Court, I wear the colorful cloths of the Kingdom. The truth is that Nambi’s housekeeping skills are lamentable; though I brought with me an iron and taught her how to use it, she is quite unable to iron straight the shirts and collars that I brought with me from England. When I reproach her, she only laughs behind her hand. This forced accommodation of dressing like a local is, I must confess, not too unpleasant, for the climate here is hot, although it means that from a distance, I must look like any other native.
While Nambi is most unsatisfactory, I am most pleased with Kizito, the page who brings me messages from the Kabaka’s Court and calls for me when the Kabaka needs to see me. In person, he is very like Majwara, for they are of an age, though Kizito is much more amenable. I never could bring Majwara to Christ; he was too tied to the stories of his mother. Kizito is willing to learn, and he is already advancing well.
There is a small community of pages, among them Kizito’s friends and brethren Yusufu, Mako, Nuwa, Kagwa, and Luanga; they are part of a small group that meets in secret. I have often hosted their prayer meetings in my house. But I fear I am losing them all to the lure of the Papists. Under Père Siméon Lourdel of the White Fathers, the Papists are fast gaining ground and attracting adherents. It has proved difficult for me to explain why the pages should be with my Church, and not that of the Papists, particularly when there is no identifiable Church to which I belong. Père Lourdel has made approaches to me on more than one occasion, encouraging me to convert to Papism, but when he said I could not be a priest, I told him that I did not see the point of it. Besides, I have always had a strong dislike of Papism.
I had thought that here, in the Kingdom, I might find the means and land to build a small parish church, nothing to equal the Abbey certainly; nothing even as grand as the smallest church in that green and pleasant land, merely a simple dwelling where His name would be sung by a small congregation of believers working in humbleness as they tended His vineyard. And from there, I had hoped, would be built a new Jerusalem, here on Africa’s soil.
But the Kabaka refuses me permission to build a church. Even here, in my native land, I suffer under what the Reverend Waller called, in my hearing, “the great and terrible disadvantage of being black.” It has been made clear by those of my own kind that the people would sooner listen to the white missionaries than to me.
And that has proved true. My experiences here have not been without bitterness. A few months ago, I interpreted for him when the Papists who call themselves the White Fathers asked to build a church. It was a bitter blow to convey to them the news that they could build a church, when the same Kabaka has refused me permission to start my own mission.
I try to be forbearing, to put all the bitterness aside. And I try to focus on the task that I have set for myself. In my small house is my humble library. I no longer possess only the prayers of the Reverend Bean, my Pilgrim’s Progress, and my Bible. In addition to all of Doctor Livingstone’s published journals, a gift to me from the Royal Geographical Society, I brought back with me a few more books from London. The Kabaka likes me to read to him from one called The Water Babies, written by a man of the cloth called Charles Kingsley. It reminds me of the stories that some of the companions told on our journey, stories of fantastical things that, while unreal, were nonetheless diverting.
I keep it not for its own sake, but as a keepsake of the affection shown to me by the Doctor’s daughter Agnes, for she it was who gave it to me. It is the sole book that the Kabaka would have me read to him, even more so as I render the words in his tongue, the better for him to understand, and always he chuckles and wants it read again and again.
To own the truth, I spend more time in explaining than in telling, for the Kabaka wants explanations for everything: he wants to know what chimney sweeps are, steam engines, telegraphs, and so on. And though it is but a tale told to entertain children, I hope that its message of Christian charity and kindliness will get through to the man, and have him abandon his vicious ways. At the very least, if my words of Christ’s love cannot do the trick, perhaps he can be turned by the homilies of Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.
In my small house, I do my work, quietly and steadily. I have not told anyone yet of my great task. On the ship to England, when I was not struck ill, I finished my translation of the key passages: the Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, a few prayers of my own, for times of heat and despondency. I had them bound in England. They cost me a small fortune, as well as many curious looks. I have now translated the Gospel of Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Letter of the Apostle Paul to the Hebrews.
And when I need rest, I walk in the quiet of the forests. Here, where there is no single monument to His name, I feel Him in the movement of the stars and the laughter of the children. I feel Him too in the night, when the lights of fires have all been put out, and the dark is lit only with His heavenly stars.
In the unquiet company of my thoughts, I pray that the Lord may forgive Chirango all his sins, that the Lord have mercy on his soul, that the Lord truly have mercy on his soul, and that the Lord may have mercy on us all, that He may forgive us for all that we did to bring the Doctor home, and that He may bless us, in all the places we are scattered. And every evening, I say a special prayer for the soul of Abdullah Susi.
* * *
Only in rare moments do I look back at the past, because to do so simply brings me pain. For England was not the Celestial City after all, it was not the place of my ordaining, but a cold and unpleasant purgatory.
And yet my beginning promised much. My first days in England were such as to suggest that all that I longed and prayed for would come to pass. When Her Majesty’s Ship Malwa docked in Southampton, the Reverend Horace Waller and others of the Doctor’s friends met me most cordially. They gave me the news that I h
ad been chosen to bear the Doctor’s remains to his final resting place.
In the glorious magnificence of the Abbey of Westminster, I led the pallbearers, with Mr. Stanley beside me on the left, and the Doctor’s sons and friends behind me. Bearing the Doctor’s body to its final resting place, I felt as one with them, an equal in their eyes and in the Lord’s sight. Afterward, I was presented to the queen, who complimented me most kindly on the perfection of my English.
It was even more promising after that. The Church Missionary Society took me on a speaking tour all over England. On these occasions, I found myself addressing persons to whom the land of Africa was nothing more than a drawing on a map. There was lamentably little knowledge of the vast geography of the place.
I was at great pains to explain that drawings, always so beloved of geographers, give merely an approximation of distance. When they talked of establishing bases, they talked of establishing a base in the Seychelles, from which they would go on to Mombasa and the interior. And though I explained many times that the climate was hot, there was a strong fervor to knit socks in the thousands to send to the little slave children in Zanzibar. In the many instances that I made so bold as to correct them, I could tell that such corrections were not welcome.
But it was when I talked at length about my wish for a mission that things changed for me; it was when I talked about the hearts that I would turn to Christ, and about the ones I had already baptized, that the promising beginning came to nothing at all. In just a few months, I said, I had turned seventeen to God, more than the Doctor ever had in his entire lifetime. I told them I baptized them in a river, and gave them new names.
Instead of their receiving this news with joy, I was met with consternation. I had acted without the authority of a bishop or any Mission, they said. I was no missionary. Worse, they said I was boastful and arrogant, and my learning had gone to my head and driven out all humility. It was a pity, Mr. Waller said, I had learned nothing from the Doctor I had had the good fortune to travel with.
Out of Darkness, Shining Light Page 24
