This Side Jordan

by Margaret Laurence

  Aya was scrutinizing his face, sensing a change in him.

  ‘Did I do right?’ she asked again.

  He turned away from her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Why ask me?’

  They left it at that. Nathaniel told her about her mother and Akosua, and Aya told him some more about the birth. The nurse stuck her head in the doorway – it was time for the patients to have a bath and then tea, and he could return at four if he wished.

  Nathaniel had intended to tell Aya that they were going back to the village. But he did not tell her. It might excite her too much. He would wait until she got home. He knew he was putting it off, but he did not know why. Perhaps he was waiting for a sign from heaven.

  Nathaniel stepped outside the plastic curtain that screened off Aya’s bed. Only two beds were occupied in the ward. Behind the other screen he heard the faint rustle of magazine pages. He had only to speak to the white woman. Surely it would be easy to call out something, say hello, tell her he hoped the baby would be born soon. It would be easy. All he had to do was open his mouth and say the words. It would be the only chance to speak to her alone. Next time, her husband would be here.

  Nathaniel stood by the door for a long moment. Finally he shrugged and walked out, but as he went down the corridor, he had a sense of disquiet, of something lost.

  He thought of the woman lying there waiting for her child to be born, leafing through a magazine, crying because she had not been wanted. He wondered how she had felt when Aya said that. Not that he blamed Aya. How could he? The white woman was a stranger. It is not a stranger’s place to observe our pain. But that woman had reached out her hand, and that hand had been struck away. Aya was soft-spoken and gentle, but she was strong and vehement, too. It was odd – he had worried that Aya might be hurt here, in this unfamiliar place, by the callousness of strangers. And it had been the other way round. He felt in a way proud of Aya. And yet he had an inexplicable pity for that other woman.

  Nathaniel stopped walking. He half turned to go back. But when he looked over his shoulder he saw that the nurse with the trolley of bowls and dressings was already entering the room.

  It was too late, for him.

  Nevertheless, in some subtle way he was different, changed. Miranda’s eagerness to know, her exaggerated politeness, her anxiety to please, her terrible kindness – none of it had moved him at all. Only, now, the sudden knowledge that she could feel humiliation and anguish like himself.

  Miranda’s labour began again at six that evening. Johnnie was with her. At first, the contractions were light, and Miranda talked to him quite normally, pausing to grimace slightly with each muscle spasm.

  Delilah, the African midwife, came on duty at eight.

  ‘All right, Mrs. Kestoe?’

  ‘About every fifteen minutes now,’ Miranda said.

  The big woman nodded.

  ‘It will be a few hours yet.’

  She shot a disapproving glance at Johnnie as she walked away. He grinned.

  ‘I think she deplores the presence of a male.’

  ‘Perhaps so,’ Miranda said, ‘but I don’t.’

  Johnnie recalled his interview with the doctor.

  ‘Not every man is a suitable subject for this kind of experience,’ the doctor had said. ‘However, your wife appears to want you with her very much, and if you feel the same about it, fair enough. Only for God’s sake don’t bother the nurses, or ask stupid questions, or go to pieces at the wrong moment. If you do, they’ll have to turf you out.’

  Johnnie had promised and had even contrived to appear fairly nonchalant. But when he brought Miranda to hospital, he wondered how he could possibly stay. He had a day’s respite, when Miranda’s labour stopped, and he had hoped unreasonably that it would begin suddenly and be over before he could get to the hospital again. But of course it had not happened that way.

  Miranda’s contractions grew closer together, and soon she did not want to talk. Her hand tightened on Johnnie’s, until he could feel his bones grating together. Then, as the pain released her, her fierce strength ebbed.

  Johnnie made himself stop glancing continually at his watch. Miranda’s face looked bleached and drawn, and her sleek hair was disarranged. Her breath came raspingly. Johnnie choked down the pity and disgust that threatened him. The writhing of her swollen body was almost more than he could stand. The time seemed forever, but it had been, in fact, less than six hours.

  Finally, Johnnie could not stay alone with her any longer. He went out to the corridor and found the midwife.

  When Delilah saw Miranda, she gave Johnnie an approving nod for the first time.

  ‘You did right to call me. It will not be long. I will have her moved to the delivery room now.’

  ‘Can’t you – isn’t there anything you can give her?’

  ‘I will give her an injection – it will help for a little while, anyway.’

  The plump brown face suddenly creased into a smile.

  ‘Do not worry, Mr. Kestoe,’ Delilah said. ‘It is not as bad as it looks to you. Your wife is quite all right.’

  The delivery room was like an operating theatre, all gleaming metal, with glaring overhead lights that drove bright splinters into the eyes.

  Johnnie wanted to walk out, to get as far as possible from this weird antiseptic prison. But he could not. Now he had to remain. And there was nothing he could do. He felt helpless, trapped.

  Miranda lay on the delivery table. In between contractions, she shuddered as though chilled to the bone. The contractions were very close now. Her body twisted and her back arched with each wave, but she did not seem conscious of these contortions.

  It seemed to him that pain was pouring over her like a wild river, snatching her into its whirlpool. It tore at her muscles, bent her spine to snapping point, tossed her like a matchstick on its cruel and cunning surface. She had to bargain with it for each breath, and each breath won only racked her and seemed almost to split her lungs as though, drowning, she had breathed in water instead of air.

  She caught at Johnnie’s arms. Her grip tightened and she drew herself partly up, not seeming to realize she was doing it, as her body was caught in another spasm.

  ‘Johnnie –’ her voice was a whisper, ‘you won’t leave me?’

  It was a moment before Johnnie could reply steadily.

  ‘I won’t leave you, Manda. I’m right here.’

  Then, once more, she was unaware, unrecognizable.

  ‘Won’t it –’ Johnnie heard his own strangled voice, ‘won’t it ever be over?’

  ‘It is nearly over now,’ Delilah said calmly. ‘Soon the second stage will start. Then it will not be so bad.’

  The waters broke. Johnnie looked at the fluid that gushed from her. He had imagined ‘waters’ meant just that. But this was yellow and thick like pus. How could a living creature issue from that poisonous flood?

  Johnnie looked away. The half-formed thought had been in his mind all along. He was certain that his son would be born dead.

  He saw now that Delilah and the two junior nurses had strapped Miranda to raised footholds at the end of the delivery table. The apparatus looked like part of a medieval rack.

  Delilah was bending over Miranda, trying to get her to inhale gas and air, but Miranda pushed the breathing tube away roughly, as though she did not understand its purpose.

  There was no rest for her now. Her body strained and pressed, arched and strained again. Johnnie forgot his own repugnance. Now he felt only fear for Miranda, fear that he would somehow lose her, that she would not return from this pilgrimage which had already taken her so far from him.

  She was no longer human. The voice that came from her throat was an animal’s coarse voice. Then a jagged scream, the last cry. Johnnie put his head down on his outspread hands. He closed his eyes. He was shivering, as though with shock. Whatever unspeakable thing had come forth, he did not want to see it.

  Then, incredibly, Miranda’s own voice.
/>   ‘Johnnie – look.’

  He lifted his head. At first he could scarcely believe what he saw. His son had not been born dead. As it happened, it was a girl, and she was quite alive.

  The child had only been born for a second and she had not breathed yet, but the small shoulders stirred. Johnnie watched. The baby’s spine was still curved around and her legs folded. There were smears of yellow slime and blood on her body. She looked damp and crumpled. One arm moved. Then she cried, a thin wailing.

  Johnnie Kestoe watched his child enter the breathing life that would be hers until the moment of death.

  The cord was tied and cut. Delilah wrapped the baby and took her to be weighed. Johnnie looked at his watch. Nearly two a.m.

  Then the blood. The placenta came away, and a torrent of bright blood followed. The sight of it did not sicken Johnnie, and for a moment he wondered why. Then he knew. Always, before, he had thought of blood only in relation to death.

  He turned to Miranda. She looked tired, but he knew she was all right. Neither spoke for a while.

  ‘We must’ve been sure it was going to be a boy,’ Miranda said finally. ‘I don’t think we ever discussed girls’ names.’

  ‘Manda – would you mind very much if we called her Mary?’

  He saw her eyes widen questioningly.

  ‘It’s just – well, that was my mother’s name.’

  He felt embarrassed, saying it. But Miranda did not seem to think it odd.

  ‘Of course I won’t mind,’ she said. ‘It’s a good idea. I think your mother would have been pleased, Johnnie.’

  Now it was his eyes that widened, with surprise. Then he understood and wanted to laugh. Of course. Miranda came from a world in which children were named after grandparents, a world in which grandparents danced delighted attendance upon children. Miranda thought the name was a sort of memorial to his mother.

  He did not know exactly why he wanted to call his child by her name. Reasons could be dragged up, no doubt, like the roots of swamp weeds, but he did not want to see them. Only one thing he felt sure of – the name was given not for her sake but for his own. He did not think he could explain.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘she would have been pleased.’

  FIFTEEN

  Once, at the prayer meeting, and again when the child was born, Nathaniel had felt a terrible longing to stay after all, to stay here in this city where you could feel tomorrow being reached for; where you could believe it might happen so, and to you.

  But he was not a man of that tomorrow. He did not know how to act in it. He was a plain man, not cut out for battles of the spirit. Now, when he tried to think back over the whole thing, it only gave him a headache.

  Jacob Abraham Mensah had just arrived back from Ashanti. There was no longer any excuse for delay. Nathaniel went to tell the headmaster he was leaving.

  Mensah beamed and offered Nathaniel a cigarette. Confused, he took it.

  ‘Glad to see you, Amegbe,’ the big man said. ‘Good to be back. We shall all be glad to get back into harness, as they say, eh?’

  His voice dropped to a loud whisper.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Amegbe, before I forget. We mentioned some time ago that fine possibility to start – ah – an employment bureau here. What happened to those boys?’

  Nathaniel fingered his glasses. He had not visualized being quizzed like this. The clown-giant still exerted an inexplicable power over him.

  ‘They were no good,’ he stumbled. ‘Mr. Kestoe didn’t give them a fair trial, it is true. But they were – unsuitable – anyway.’

  Jacob Abraham’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘How many did you send?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘No more,’ Jacob Abraham asked, ‘when those two were not taken?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, well, that won’t do, Amegbe. You must send plenty. Let him take his pick. We have plenty of fine boys. And we do not want to lose this contact with a European employer, do we? It might work up, you know, into something quite nice. Through Mr. Kestoe we might meet other Europeans. I do not think you have organized it very properly. On a business basis. It must be on a business basis. I trust you agree? We will discuss it, what each of us is to do. You need guidance. You will go and see your white friend once more –’

  Mensah had it all planned out, then, how he could get a cut out of the whole thing. But even that did not matter any more. Mensah’s face became blurred to Nathaniel. He rose to his feet, gropingly, hardly knowing what he was doing.

  ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘No! I will never go to see him again! Never, all my life! He only made fun of me, he only mocked me. The boys were no good for anything. What could they do? They’d only been given dreams here, only dreams, do you hear? Don’t you know anything?’

  Jacob Abraham sat back in his chair as though he had been struck. His deep hypnotic eyes rolled in fury and astonishment.

  ‘Are you mad?’ he roared. ‘Yes, that’s it. Mad! Crazy!’

  ‘No,’ Nathaniel said, and it was easier now, ‘no, I’m not mad. I’ve worked here long enough. You put your feet on your carpets and you forget a school needs books, teachers. What do you care? The place is no good, you hear? And I’m no good here. I wanted to do something. But I can’t. I don’t know – but I can’t, it doesn’t happen. My family keeps troubling me for money, and I haven’t got any money. They keep troubling me to go back to the village, and now I’ve had enough. I’m no good here. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do something. I’m going back. That’s what I came to tell you.’

  He sat down again, clumsily, and took off his glasses. He put his palms to his eyes and found the tears were running down his face. He had said it now. Now it was final. He had spoken the words.

  – Oh, River, you are not Jordan for me. Not for me. And you, Forest of a thousand gods, a thousand eyes, I am coming back. I will offer red ‘eto’ to the gods, and scatter the sacred ‘summe’ leaves. And some day I may forget this pain.

  ‘My uncle is going to get me a job,’ Nathaniel said dully. ‘Clerk to a chief. It is in a town not far from my village.’

  He could not look at Jacob Abraham. But the clown, now entirely giant, was silent, and in a few moments Nathaniel did look up.

  Jacob Abraham was sitting perfectly still. His head seemed like the ebony heads the carvers sell to Europeans. It was heavy, solid, dead-looking. Nathaniel saw that the big man’s eyes were shut.

  Finally Mensah sighed. Nathaniel peered at him intently.

  ‘You were the only one,’ Jacob Abraham said. ‘I thought you cared about Futura.’

  Nathaniel could not understand. Then it occurred to him that the man was being genuine. Jacob Abraham really did care about the school. Underneath the cheating and the self-deception, he wanted it to be something.

  ‘No good, you say?’ Mensah went on in the same oddly tired voice. ‘I should be angry. But I always thought you were interested in the school –’

  ‘I was,’ Nathaniel said hopelessly. ‘But it’s no use –’

  ‘I suppose,’ Jacob Abraham said slowly, ‘I suppose that you are determined to go?’

  Nathaniel stared at him.

  ‘Clerk to a chief, eh?’ Jacob Abraham mused.

  Then the ebony head came alive. The eyes glinted once more with inborn shrewdness.

  ‘How much did he offer you?’ he asked abruptly.

  Startled, Nathaniel told him.

  ‘Well, well,’ Mensah had regained his effusive manner, ‘if you stay, I’ll give you twenty pounds a year more than that.’

  ‘Why?’ Nathaniel cried. ‘You don’t want me to stay, after what I said? Why?’

  Jacob Abraham leaned forward across the desk.

  ‘Shall I tell you?’ His voice was amiable. ‘Shall I tell you why I want you to stay? Because you are a sincere man, Amegbe. You have said hard things to me just now. And to my mind you are not as clever as you might be. But you are sincere and hard-working. That
is not so easy to find. Yes, and you are honest.’

  He gestured with one hand, and it became a gesture of helplessness. He frowned, and for a moment his face was puzzled.

  ‘You must realize,’ he said, ‘I have made up my mind – we are going to achieve government standard for this school. Yes, I have made up my mind on that. Only – I am not a young man, Amegbe. The ways of today are not – sometimes they are not so much known to me. Perhaps you young men – ways and means – you know about these things –’

  His voice trailed off. He did not want to say it. He wanted Nathaniel to understand without having to hear it said.

  And all at once Nathaniel did understand.

  Jacob Abraham was a man of energy and persuasion, and he dreamed of glory. For him, glory was to see Futura Academy accepted in all the right circles, a respected institution, himself the head and founder. But things were being done in a new way these days. Perhaps he even realized at last that higher teaching standards might actually pay him in the long run. He needed someone to be an interpreter for him, a barometer by which he could gauge the changing weather of the spirit.

  They looked at each other across the desk. Nathaniel felt tense, excited. Jacob Abraham needed an honest man. It was as simple as that.

  All these years, Nathaniel had believed he was being kept on here only on sufferance. But it was not that way, not any more. Jacob Abraham needed him. Jacob Abraham needed an honest man.

  What if things had gone wrong once? They need not again. Now he would have power here, power to change things. And he would change, himself. At heart he was an honest man.

  It occurred to Nathaniel that if he returned the necklace and the shirts, it would buy back his honesty. That was what he would do. He would do it. And after this, he would not be foolish again, he would not make any more foolish mistakes.

  He would be the man he had been before. He would come back to the school with new authority.

  ‘I will stay,’ Nathaniel said at last.

  – Let the grey parrot scream from the ‘odum’ tree and let the strangler vines reach down to grasp at nothing. Forest, you will not have me yet. And let the River beat its brown waters on the banks. Let it mourn for its child that has shed its gills forever.