Wolf’s legs were trembling and he pawed the ground in anguish. Now and again he looked at me uncomprehendingly, unable to understand why I did not react to his hysterical alarm. His almost human eyes were filled with panic.
“Why is he barking like that?”
“Because he’s seen the snake.”
The mamba was curled up in the hollow between some blocks, and it unwound its body to give itself the most solid support possible. Its head and the raised neck remained poised in the air, unaffected by the movement of the rest of its body. Its eyes shone like fires.
Wolf’s appeals were now horribly piercing, and his hair was standing up around his neck.
Leaning against the fence, Tina and Lolota and Madunana looked on curiously.
“Why don’t you kill the snake?” Nandito’s voice was very tearful and he was clutching me around the neck.
“Because I don’t feel like it.”
The distance between the snake and the dog was about five feet. However, the snake had inserted its tail in the angle formed between a block and the ground, and had raised its coils one by one, preparing for the strike. The triangular head drew back imperceptibly, and the base of the lifted neck came forward. Seeming to be aware of the proximity of his end, the dog began to bark even more frantically, without, however, trying to get away from the snake. From a little way behind, Toto, now on his feet as well, joined in the barking.
For a fraction of a second the neck of the snake curved while the head leaned back. Then, as if the tension of its pliant body had snapped a cord that fastened its head to the ground, it shot forward in a lightning movement impossible to follow. The dog had raised himself on his hind legs like a goat, and the snake struck him full on the chest. Free of support, the tail of the snake whipped through the air, reverberating with the movement of the last coil.
Wolf fell on his back with a suppressed whine, pawing convulsively. The mamba abandoned him immediately, and with a spring disappeared between the pipes.
“A nhoka!”3 screamed Sartina.
Nandito threw me aside and ran out of the chicken run with a yell, collapsing into the arms of Madunana. As soon as he felt free of the snake, Wolf vanished in half a dozen leaps in the direction of Senhor Castro’s house.
The children all started to cry without having understood what had happened. Sartina took Nandito to the house, carrying him in her arms. Only when the children disappeared behind Sartina did I call Madunana to help me kill the snake.
Madunana waited with a cloth held up high while I moved the pipes with the aid of a broomstick. As soon as the snake appeared Madunana threw the cloth over it, and I set to beating the heap with my stick.
When Papa came back from work Nandito had come round from the shock, and was weeping copiously. Mama, who had not yet been to see the snake, went with Papa to the chicken run. When I went there as well, I saw Papa turn the snake over onto its back with a stick.
“I don’t like to think of what a snake like this could have done to one of my children.” Papa smiled. “Or to anyone else. It was better this way. What hurts me is to think that these six feet of snake were attained at the expense of my chickens …”
At this point Senhor Castro’s car drew up in front of our house. Papa walked up to him, and Mama went to talk to Sartina. I followed after Papa.
“Good afternoon, Senhor Castro …”
“Listen, Tchembene, I’ve just found out that my pointer is dead, and his chest’s all swollen. My natives tell me that he came howling from your house before he died. I don’t want any back-chat, and I’m just telling you—either you pay compensation or I’ll make a complaint at the Administration. He was the best pointer I ever had.”
“I’ve just come back from work—I don’t know anything …”
“I don’t care a damn about that. Don’t argue. Are you going to pay or aren’t you?”
“But, Senhor Castro …”
“Senhor Castro nothing. It’s 700 paus.4 And it’s better if the matter rests here.”
“As you like, Senhor Castro, but I don’t have the money now …”
“We’ll see about that later. I’ll wait until the end of the month, and if you don’t pay then, there’ll be a row.”
“Senhor Castro, we’ve known each other such a long time, and there’s never …”
“Don’t try that with me. I know what you all need—a bloody good hiding is the only thing …”
Senhor Castro climbed into his car and pulled away. Papa watched while the car drove off. “Son of a bitch …”
I went up to him and tugged at the sleeve of his coat. “Papa, why didn’t you say that to his face?”
He didn’t answer.
We had hardly finished supper when Papa said, “Mother, tell Sartina to clear the table quickly. My children, let us pray. Today we are not going to read the Bible. We will simply pray.”
Papa talked in Ronga, and for this reason I regretted having asked him that question a while ago.
When Sartina finished clearing away the plates and folded the cloth, Papa began, “Tatana, ha ku dumba hosi ya tilo misaba …”5
When he finished, his eyes were red.
“Amen!”
“Amen!”
Mama got up and asked, as if it meant nothing. “But what did Senhor Castro want, after all?”
“It’s nothing important.”
“All right, tell me about it in our room. I’ll go and set out the children’s things. You, Ginho, wake up early tomorrow and take a laxative …”
When they had all gone away, I asked Papa, “Papa, why do you always pray when you are very angry?”
“Because He is the best counselor.”
“And what counsel does He give you?”
“He gives me no counsel. He gives me strength to continue.”
“Papa, do you believe a lot in Him?”
Papa looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time, and then exploded. “My son, one must have a hope. When one comes to the end of a day, and one knows that tomorrow will be another day just like it, and that things will always be the same, we have got to find the strength to keep on smiling, and keep on saying, ‘This is not important!’ We ourselves have to allot our own reward for the heroism of every day. We have to establish a date for this reward, even if it’s the day of our death! Even today you saw Senhor Castro humiliate me: this was only part of today’s portion, because there were many things that happened that you didn’t see. No, my son, there must be a hope! It must exist! Even if all this only denies Him, He must exist!”
Papa stopped suddenly, and forced himself to smile. Then he added, “Even a poor man has to have something. Even if it is only a hope! Even if it’s a false hope!”
“Papa, I could have prevented the snake from biting Senhor Castro’s dog …”
Papa looked at me with his eyes full of tenderness, and said under his breath, “It doesn’t matter. It’s a good thing that he got bitten.”
Mama appeared at the door. “Are you going to let the child go to sleep or not?”
I looked at Papa, and we remembered Senhor Castro and both of us burst out laughing. Mama didn’t understand.
“Are you two going crazy?!”
“Yes, and it’s about time we went crazy,” said Papa with a smile.
Papa was already on the way to his room, but I must have talked too loud. Anyway, it was better that he heard, “Papa, I sometimes … I don’t really know … but for some time … I have been thinking that I didn’t love you all. I’m sorry …”
Mama didn’t understand what we had been saying, so she became angry. “Stop all this, or else …”
“Do you know, my son”—Papa spoke ponderously, and gesticulated a lot before every word—“the most difficult thing to bear is that feeling of complete emptiness … and one suffers very much … very, very, very much. One grows with so much bottled up inside, but afterwards it is difficult to scream, you know.”
“Papa, and when S
enhor Castro comes? …”
Mama was going to object, but Papa clutched her shoulder firmly. “It’s nothing, Mother, but, you know, our son believes that people don’t mount wild horses, and that they only make use of the hungry, docile ones. Yet when a horse goes wild it gets shot down, and it’s all finished. But tame horses die every day. Every day, do you hear? Day after day, after day—as long as they can stand on their feet.”
Mama looked at him with her eyes popping out.
“Do you know, Mother, I’m afraid to believe that this is true, but I also can’t bring myself to tell him that it’s a lie … He sees, even today he saw … I only wish for the strength to make sure that my children know how to recognize other things …”
Papa and Mama were already in their room, so I couldn’t hear any more, but even from there Mama yelled, “Tomorrow you’ll take a laxative, that’ll show you. I’m not like your father who lets himself get taken in …”
My bed was flooded in yellow moonlight, and it was pleasant to feel my naked skin quiver with its cold caress. For some unknown reason the warm sensation of Sartina’s body flowed through my senses. I managed to cling to her almost physical presence for a few minutes, and I wanted to fall asleep with her so as not to dream of dogs and snakes.
—1969
Ngugi wa Thiong’o
(BORN 1938) KENYA
Ngugi wa Thiong’o is known as East Africa’s most significant and popular literary figure. Born to a large family in Limuru, a short distance north of Nairobi, Ngugi had twenty-seven siblings—many of them half brothers and sisters. His university education began at Makerere University in Uganda and continued at Leeds in England. During his Makerere days, he began writing fiction. His first published novel, Weep Not, Child (1964), is his most widely read work. Njoroge, the hero of the story, goes through childhood and adolescence trying to establish his own personal loyalties to family, country, and friends. Much of the story is devoted to tracing Njoroge’s education in the classroom (and his desire to acquire the white man’s skills), but in the nearby forests the Mau Mau revolt has begun—the struggle that in time will lead to Kenya’s independence.
Revolution and, to a lesser extent, education are two important themes of much of Ngugi’s writing: these topics are of special importance in his novels The River Between (1965), A Grain of Wheat (1967), Petals of Blood (1977), and Devil on the Cross (1980), all written in English. The latter novel was formulated and sketched out on toilet paper during the author’s yearlong detention in prison in Kenya after a 1978 performance of Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), by workers and peasants. The drama marked Ngugi’s shift to Gikuyu, the oral language of his people, the Kikuyu, and his language of choice for all subsequent creative works.
At the time of his detention, Ngugi was head of the Department of Literature at Nairobi University, a position he lost after his release. He has remained a vocal critic of the abuse of power. Ngugi’s initial writing attacked colonialism; when the colonial era ended, he continued his identification with workers and peasants, attacking neocolonialism, capitalism, and multinationalism. His remarks have not been ignored by his country’s leaders, who have attempted to silence him by forcing him into exile. Since 1979, he has lived in England, the United States, and Sweden, holding a series of academic appointments.
Ngugi’s beliefs about cultural nationalism can be found in Homecoming (1972) and Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary (1981), but they are also reflected in distilled form in a conversation between two characters in Devil on the Cross: “Let us now look about us. Where are our national languages now? Where are the books written in the alphabets of our national languages? Where is our own literature now? Where is the wisdom and knowledge of our fathers now? Where is the philosophy of our fathers now? The centers of wisdom that used to guard the entrance to our national homestead have been demolished; the fire of wisdom has been allowed to die; the seats around the fireside have been thrown onto a rubbish heap; the guard posts have been destroyed; and the youth of the nation has hung up its shields and spears. It is a tragedy that there is nowhere we can go to learn the history of our own country. A child without parents to counsel him—what is to prevent him from mistaking foreign shit for a delicious national dish?”
A MEETING IN THE DARK
His mother used to tell him stories. “Once upon a time there was a young girl who lived with her father and mother in a lonely house that was hidden by a hill. The house was old but strong. When the rains came and the winds blew, the house remained firm. Her father and mother liked her, but they quarreled sometimes and she would cry. Otherwise, she was happy. Nobody knew of the house. So nobody came to see them. Then one day a stranger came. He was tall and handsome. He had milk-white teeth. Her mother gave him food. Then he told them of a beautiful country beyond the hill. The girl wanted to go there. Secretly, she followed the man. They had not gone very far when the stranger turned into an Irimu. He became ugly and he had another mouth at the back which was hidden by his long hair. Occasionally, the hair was blown by the wind. Flies were taken in and the mouth would be shut. The girl ran back. The bad Irimu followed her. She ran hard, hard, and the Irimu could not catch her. But he was getting nearer her all the time. When she came close to her home, she found the Irimu had stopped running. But the house was no longer there. She had no home to go to and she could not go forward to the beautiful land, to see all the good things, because the Irimu was in the way.”
How did the story end? John wondered. He thought: “I wish I were young again in our old home, then I would ask my mother about it.” But now he was not young; not young anymore. And he was not a man yet!
He stood at the door of the hut and saw his old, frail, but energetic father coming along the village street, with a rather dirty bag made out of strong calico swinging by his side. His father always carried this bag. John knew what it contained: a Bible, a hymn book, and probably a notebook and a pen. His father was a preacher. It must have been he who had stopped his mother from telling him stories. His mother had stopped telling him stories long ago. She would say, “Now, don’t ask for any more stories. Your father may come.” So he feared his father. John went in and warned his mother of his father’s coming. Then his father came in. John stood aside, then walked toward the door. He lingered there doubtfully; then he went out.
“John, hei, John!”
“Baba!”
“Come back.”
He stood doubtfully in front of his father. His heart beat faster and an agitated voice within him seemed to ask: Does he know?
“Sit down. Where are you going?”
“For a walk, Father,” he answered evasively.
“To the village?”
“Well—yes—no. I mean, nowhere in particular.” John saw his father look at him hard, seeming to read his face. John sighed a very slow sigh. He did not like the way his father eyed him. He always looked at him as though John was a sinner, one who had to be watched all the time. “I am,” his heart told him. John guiltily refused to meet the old man’s gaze and looked past him and appealingly to his mother, who was quietly peeling potatoes. But she seemed to be oblivious of everything around her.
“Why do you look away? What have you done?”
John shrank within himself with fear. But his face remained expressionless. However, he could hear the loud beats of his heart. It was like an engine pumping water. He felt no doubt his father knew all about it. He thought: “Why does he torture me? Why does he not at once say he knows?” Then another voice told him: “No, he doesn’t know, otherwise he would already have jumped at you.” A consolation. He faced his thoughtful father with courage.
“When is the journey?”
Again John thought—why does he ask? I have told him many times.
Aloud, he said, “Next week, Tuesday.”
“Right. Tomorrow we go to the shops, hear?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Then be prepared.”
“Yes, Father
.”
“You can go.”
“Thank you, Father.” He began to move.
“John!”
“Yes?” John’s heart almost stopped beating. That second, before his father’s next words, was an age.
“You seem to be in a hurry. I don’t want to hear of you loitering in the village. I know you young men, going to show off just because you are going away! I don’t want to hear of trouble in the village.”
Much relieved, John went out. He could guess what his father meant by not wanting trouble in the village. How did the story end? Funny, but he could not remember how his mother had ended it. It had been so long ago. Her home was not there. Where did she go? What did she do?
“Why do you persecute the boy so much?” Susan spoke for the first time. Apparently she had carefully listened to the whole drama without a word. Now was her time to speak. She looked at her tough old preacher who had been a companion for life. She had married him a long time ago. She could not tell the number of years. They had been happy. Then the man became a convert. And everything in the home put on a religious tone. He even made her stop telling stories to the child. “Tell him of Jesus. Jesus died for you. Jesus died for the child. He must know the Lord.” She too had been converted. But she was never blind to the moral torture he inflicted on the boy (that’s what she always called John), so that the boy had grown up mortally afraid of him. She always wondered if it was love for the son. Or could it be a resentment because, well, they two had “sinned” before marriage? John had been the result of that sin. But that had not been John’s fault. It was the boy who ought to complain. She often wondered if the boy had … but no. The boy had been very small when they left Fort Hall. She looked at her husband. He remained mute, though his left hand did, rather irritably, feel about his face.
“It is as if he was not your son. Or do you …”
“Hm, sister.” The voice was pleading. She was seeking a quarrel but he did not feel equal to one. Really, women could never understand. Women were women, whether saved or not. Their son had to be protected against all evil influences. He must be made to grow in the footsteps of the Lord. He looked at her, frowning a little. She had made him sin but that had been a long time ago. And he had been saved. John must not follow the same road.
Under African Skies Page 9
