The Ghosts of Eden

by Andrew JH Sharp

  They practised until all knew lesson number two. It was as well, for soon another man came in who could only, by his bearing and the way their teacher backed away a little, like a nervous insect, be the headmaster. Dung Beetle recovered, and jerked himself straight – even his head was higher between his shoulders. He held his stick diagonally across his chest, as if giving a pledge. Then he rasped, ‘Stand up.’

  Everyone stood.

  ‘Sit down.’

  Everyone sat down.

  ‘Stand up.’

  Everyone stood up.

  ‘First rate!’ the headmaster shouted.

  Dung Beetle’s head subsided onto the front of his chest again, his grin stretching out, a deep red cleft beneath his nasal spaces.

  Then the headmaster turned to the class and yelled at them in short sentences, as if they were sitting far away on the hill behind the school. ‘You are fortunate. You have Mr Mbuzi as your teacher. He has passed the school certificate.’ Dung Beetle tapped his stick on his chest and dipped his head. ‘You are forty in this class. Only two of you will receive your certificate.’

  Stanley looked over at Zachye, puzzled. Why was there such a shortage of school certificates? Zachye’s return look was steady and reassuring, and he indicated with his finger that the two certificates were for Stanley and himself.

  ‘Do not be sad. You will know geographies and handworks. Also, English and algebras. First rate. Also, rural sciences. All are useful to our new country.’

  Dung Beetle’s head oscillated up and down a little, whilst his beady black eyes stayed still, fastened on the headmaster. Stanley thought that if his teacher had an extendable tongue he could easily lift a fly off the headmaster’s nose.

  ‘The school is shoddy after the holidays. This morning P1 will tidy up. You will pull up the weeds. You will remove the stones from the field where we grow our vegetables. Mr Mbuzi will supervise you after registration.’

  A table and chair had been set up in the middle of the compound. A woman in a bright yellow jacket and high hair (just like Felice’s, Stanley thought), sat at the table with her elbows resting on a large open book. The headmaster stood behind her. Dung Beetle pushed the children this way and that but they had no idea what he was trying to do. Eventually a queue was achieved with Zachye at the front. Stanley stood behind him. The woman at the table asked Zachye his name, the name of his father, his village, the headman and how old he was.

  To this last question, Zachye said, ‘It’s like this: after I was born my mother weaned me, and then I helped in the kraal, and then I looked after my father’s cattle.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what has happened to you, but when were you born? What is the date of your birth?’ She tapped her pencil on the table.

  Zachye turned out his hands in a daring show of exasperation. ‘I was born on the day my mother gave me birth.’

  Someone tittered in the queue behind.

  ‘This boy’s from an ignorant family,’ the headmaster hollered, making the woman in the yellow jacket startle forwards. ‘Ask him which group of children he belongs to.’

  ‘What’s your group?’

  ‘Ntooro dance.’

  ‘He’s about twelve,’ the headmaster said.

  The woman wrote it in the register.

  When Stanley was asked the same question he replied that he was the younger brother of Zachye. The headmaster took stock of him, and told the woman to give him the age of eight.

  As the children came out of the queue Mr Mbuzi set them to work, pointing out the area to be cleared and where to put the waste. All morning they pulled up weeds and picked out stones. When they thought they had finished Mr Mbuzi pointed out smaller stones that they had not yet removed, and when those had been collected he pointed out still smaller stones, poking them with his stick.

  Stanley stuck by Zachye. He longed for some milk, but he worked hard for he did not want the stick. Zachye handled the weeds and stones with reluctance, only picking out stones on the surface – avoiding getting dirt under his fingernails. ‘Why are we soiling ourselves working like people who dig in fields and keep goats?’ he grumbled. ‘We’re being taught to become like boys from another tribe. If our father could see us now he’d be provoked.’

  ‘We must listen to the things Dung Beetle says, and then it’ll be you and me who get the school certificates,’ Stanley replied.

  Zachye muttered, ‘Listen to the beetle and pick up his dung for him.’

  Just when Stanley thought he would faint from thirst, Dung Beetle called, ‘Attention P1! Come for food now.’

  Again they were corralled into a line, this time in front of a tap standing on its own over a drain at the edge of the compound. Dung Beetle held a metal plate, on which was a large green cube. Zachye took his place at the front of the queue again because the other children lined up naturally behind him. He looked around and pulled Stanley in front of him. Stanley was glad to go first; he had seldom drunk water, but he was thirsty enough to drink whatever was provided. Dung Beetle called him forwards. Stanley cupped his hands under the tap, let them fill and then bent his head to drink.

  ‘What are you doing, boy?’ asked Dung Beetle, inserting his stick between Stanley’s lips and his hands. He thrust the plate towards him. Stanley looked at Dung Beetle, confused. He could not think what was expected of him, so he took the green lump on the plate, put it to his lips and took a bite. It had the texture of the hardened fat of an animal. Dung Beetle snatched it back.

  ‘Are you so ignorant?’

  Stanley started gagging, and spat again and again, although his dry mouth had little to spit. The food was worse than he could ever have imagined. He thought it little wonder that his ancestors had decided to take nothing but milk and blood.

  ‘Ha! He has eaten the soap,’ shouted a voice in the queue. The line disintegrated as the children stepped out to see.

  Dung Beetle was shaking his head. ‘This is soap. Have you never seen soap? You don’t eat it. You wash your hands with it. Where have you been living? Does your mother not wash your clothes?’

  Even in his distress, Stanley remembered lesson number one. He looked straight into Dung Beetle’s black eyes, and said clearly, ‘My mother cleans our clothes with butter, sir.’

  He gagged again but kept looking Dung Beetle in the eye.

  Dung Beetle spoke to himself, wonderingly, shaking his head, ‘Butter? Ah! For cleaning skins and bark. So, it’s true, I’ve been posted to a backward place.’ Then he addressed Stanley, ‘Let me show you.’

  Dung Beetle took the soap and created a rich lather all the way down his forearms, and then held up his arms to the line of children. ‘In teacher training college I was informed of something that I didn’t believe. I was informed of a new idea, a modern idea: that you youngest children would need reading, writing and arithmetic, yes, but also soap! How I doubted this idea; surely spelling and algebra were all that were necessary. Now I stand here and think that my supervisors were progressive educators.’

  After the children had all washed their hands, some still giggling and whispering ‘Soapy Stanley’ to each other, they were summoned to a building full of tables and benches. White enamelled mugs, large jugs of water and pans brimming with creamy, yellow plantains lay ready on the tables. At last Stanley could drink. But first the headmaster gave an address, still shouting, welcoming the newcomers to the school, saying that if they worked hard they would be able to help build the nation, and might even become teachers themselves one day – ‘First rate’. Zachye caught Stanley’s eye and pulled his neck in to imitate Dung Beetle. The headmaster finished his address with a prayer. Stanley noticed that the teachers mumbled ‘Amen’ when the headmaster had finished. All except Dung Beetle, who croaked.

  The children scooped up dollops of plantain with their hands and ate eagerly, but Stanley hesitated, making an expression of disgust to Zachye.

  ‘You can eat this,’ Zachye said, and took a little himself.

  Stanley stared at th
e yellow mountain. The taste of soap came back again. He shivered deep in his chest and tears came to his eyes. Then he became aware that Dung Beetle was standing over him. He could hear his rasping breathing, which quickened in pace like an annoyed cricket. Stanley bent his head and a tear plopped onto the wooden table, making a dark spot.

  Dung Beetle was speaking to him, but had bent down and put his face near so that the other children could not hear. ‘This food is good. Look at your brother – he likes it. You should try some. Some day, little boy, when you’re grown, it’ll remind you of the good times you had at school.’

  Stanley put the tip of a finger on the food and then touched the tip of his tongue, holding his cup of water at the ready. But he found it quite edible, and he joined Zachye in scooping handfuls with the other children.

  Back in the classroom Dung Beetle said that the next day they would be working again to make the school tidy, but before they went home he wished to teach them lesson number three. On his desk was a neat stack of exercise books and pencils.

  ‘These are your writing books. These books belong to you. These are your pencils. These pencils belong to you.’

  Stanley was following well. Lesson number three was not difficult. He wondered how many lessons there would be until school certificate. He thought there might be as many as one hundred.

  ‘So, here is lesson number three. If your exercise book or your pencil is lost, you will have to pay many shillings to buy another one.’

  Stanley felt cross at the injustice of it and turned to Zachye, who had a quizzical look. Why would they have to suffer for such random events?

  Dung Beetle knew their thoughts, for he said, ‘When I was a child, I was like you – I believed that ghosts caused such things. I didn’t believe that I myself, by my own foolishness, could cause anything to break or become lost. But this is not a progressive belief.’ He scratched his back with his stick. ‘We must take responsibility for our own actions.’

  Stanley needed time to think about lesson number three, but he was excited to receive his book and pencil. He remembered Felice and her book, and believed that when he opened his book he would somehow hear the story of Mary and her friend again. On the cover of the book was a picture of two Bazungu children, holding hands, and walking together towards a mountain. Stanley stared at the picture for a long time. They were the only Bazungu children he had seen at school. When he opened the book he was surprised. Each page had only lines. He could not make the book speak, although he looked at it hard and moved his lips silently.

  Rusoro Town, Uganda, Independence Day:1962

  Together we’ll always stand.

  from the Ugandan National Anthem

  The drumbeats faded. A man in a knee-length cape, banded in black, yellow and red, climbed in a dignified manner onto the podium in the centre of Rusoro stadium. Next to the podium the Ugandan flag, in the same colours (black for the people, yellow for the sunshine that gives light and sustenance, and red for the blood brotherhood of man) hung proud on a freshly painted white flagstaff. Two policemen in khaki drill, socks pulled taut to their knees, stood as rigid as their rifles either side of the flagstaff. A British officer had earlier lowered the Union Jack. The ranks of the Boys’ Brigade fidgeted in anticipation. Stanley pressed his cymbals into the side of his thighs lest they spontaneously sound but Zachye spun his drumsticks carelessly in his fingers.

  The man in the cape lifted a loudhailer (also belted in the national colours). He cleared his throat down the device to prime its mechanism.

  ‘Ladies, gentlemen, chiefs, headmen, workers, children, clerks, officials, Boys’ Brigades, youth of today, elders, traders, Girl Guides, clergy of religion.’ He paused between each greeting, so that each group could feel their inclusion in, and importance to, the new nation. The European ladies smiled, as if pleased to be addressed first and foremost. Some groups clapped themselves as they were greeted.

  ‘We are here in the stadium to celebrate our Independence Day.’

  The dignitaries on the platform, and the Europeans in the crowd, applauded in a stately manner. The rest of the crowd ululated. Songs started spontaneously from different points in the stadium, to just as rapidly die away as the speaker continued.

  ‘On this day we have received our independence.’

  More clapping, louder this time, but drowned by a roar from the crowd. Only those closest to the speaker heard him say, ‘Our nation is born.’

  The man spoke of the coming together of many tribes under one nation: like the Children of Israel, like the followers of Mohammed, like the four tribes of the British, but also like the clans and tribes of these very lands in days past who had accommodated each other in treaties and understandings. So all were bound together, but now irrevocably, as Ugandans. Unity under the wise and forward-thinking leadership of Dr Apollo Milton Obote. More cheering. He introduced each of the other speakers in turn. All pledged themselves and their constituencies to the advancement of Uganda.

  As soon as the last speaker had taken his stand the Boys’ Brigade leader, Mr Nyaishokye, turned to face his brigade. He held his baton across his upper lip to signal that the moment had come for the band to lead the parade around the stadium. Stanley wore his uniform with pride: they had been chosen because they represented the future. They were young, disciplined, uniformed and loudly exuberant. For months they had practised, and today they had left before daylight in a bus laid on for them by the district administration. Now, pressed from behind by the other groups in the parade and forbidden to step over a ribbon on the ground in front, they were bunched up so tight that they had difficulty finding space to bring their instruments to their lips or chests. Stanley found himself being pushed forward into Zachye. Zachye’s head whipped around. He cursed.

  ‘It’s not me,’ Stanley said.

  He looked at Zachye, pleadingly. Zachye scowled and turned his attention back to the bandmaster. Stanley tried to recall the last time that Zachye had been agreeable towards him. At school Zachye always went with a group of older boys nicknamed the shenzi. They skulked around in a pack, like stray dogs; sat sullen in class; organised strikes on the least pretext; beat up those they disliked; and made themselves a nuisance to the girls. At home Zachye ignored him, or made remarks about the ignorance of the unschooled peasants in the kraal, including his mother, and, during the holidays, when his father instructed him to go with the cattle (now that it was safe, after Bejuura’s death in an incident with hyenas while he was drunk), he grumbled about having to do a herdsman’s work. He said that it was not suitable work for the Wabenzi – the Mercedes class.

  Suddenly they were away, Zachye launching forward, ahead of Stanley, his elbows out as he raised a spectacular drum roll that introduced the bugles. Stanley counted the beat as he marched along, waiting to clash his cymbals. It felt good to be marching with Zachye, and right that Zachye should lead and be playing the more difficult instrument. He was proud of the panache of his brother’s playing, and today he listened especially carefully to ensure he kept to Zachye’s rhythm. Music was the only school subject that Zachye was better at than himself. It was painful to think of it: how Zachye was so tense in anticipation of his test results, but how he, Stanley, always came first; always received the prizes and was the one to please Dung Beetle. It was not that Zachye did not want to succeed. Once, when he was tending the cattle with Zachye in the holidays, he found Zachye studying his exercise book, but when he had offered to help Zachye had said ‘Pee off,’ and thrown the book aside.

  They carried on marching noisily around the track. Behind them children from schools from as far away as sixty miles followed, in blocks of uniform colour. A Muzungu woman led a group of bemused Bazungu children from the nearby European boarding school. The ladies of the Mothers’ Union, in bright headscarves and bold-patterned dresses, swung in a fluid dance in opposition to the fixed beat of the band. Veterans of the King’s African Rifles, in black-tasselled scarlet pillbox hats, leopard-skin coats, and white
boots, brought the parade to a startling finale. They were led, it was announced, by a Captain Idi Amin. The ceremony ended with the singing of the National Anthem.

  Oh Uganda! May God uphold thee,

  We lay our future in thy hand.

  United, free,

  For liberty,

  Together we’ll always stand.

  Stanley clasped his cymbals to his chest, to hold in his pride. Mr Nyaishokye caught his eye and they sang the verses loudly to each other. Stanley loved Mr Nyaishokye. At Sunday School Mr Nyaishokye had told him and his friends of the Uganda Martyrs, the first Ugandan Christians, whom the king had put cruelly to death.

  ‘They died singing,’ Mr Nyaishokye said.

  The brigade enacted the scene one Sunday, and Stanley volunteered to be a martyr burning at the stake. Standing there in the pyre of wood and grass, he imagined his shoes and socks, shorts, shirt and then body melting away in the weightless power of the flames. A spirit entered him, but he felt no fear. From that time on he decided to live as if he, Stanley Katura, was an Uganda Martyr who had not been reduced to spitting fat and black ash but had been preserved from the fire like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, in the furnace of King Nebuchadnezzar, in that land in the Bible. What would Shadrach have done with the rest of his life? Stanley found himself nicknamed Saint Stanley after that, but he lost no friends. And, best of all, no one ever called him Soapy Stanley again.

  The Boys’ Brigade had to walk a long way back to their bus: out of the stadium with the still effervescent crowds, across a wide waste-ground normally frequented by goats nibbling on forlorn stands of grass, and then down the main street towards the bus park on the edge of town. The band mixed with the crowds as they walked towards the road. Stanley felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Kabutiiti, his cousin, with some others, whom he assumed were friends from the capital.