“Why is it that you always think only of yourself, Boniface? Why do you never think of your brothers and sisters? Or your mother? Or even me? You are still young and yet you have had seven years at primary school in Migwani and four years in Mwingi. During all that time you have been a boarding student. You have always eaten well, when here at home your mother and your sisters have often gone hungry. And why? So that we could save the money to pay for your school fees. Now I am not saying that you can never go to the seminary in Nairobi, just that you should be more grateful for all the help you have had and that you should make some attempt, for a while at least, to make some sacrifices of your own. If you go to the seminary, you will effectively deny your brothers and sisters any access to the privilege of education you now seem to take for granted.”
“But they could still go to school...” The interjection raised the pitch of Boniface’s thin voice. “If the Church will pay my fees then what you would have given to me can go to them.”
Julius Mutisya hammered the counter with his fist. The resulting crash was so loud, and his father’s words so fierce, that Boniface jumped with fright. “But who will feed you? And who will clothe you? Who will pay for your bus fares and lodgings? Your Church might pay for the tuition, but who will pay for the rest?” A wave of his arm vaguely towards the shop’s almost bare shelves ordered Boniface to take notice. “Look at all the stock I’ve had to sell off at a loss just to bring you this far! I can hardly sell anything over the counter these days except for an odd cigarette and a box of matches, but keeping things on the shelves would be better than losing money on them. The way things are going I will soon be paying people to take it away! No one wants to buy these things. No one here has any money.” As he spoke, he took a tin from a shelf behind him and derisively held it up for Boniface to inspect. “Look at this. Tinned mackerel... It’s very good food. Very good food indeed. Selling this ought to be very good business here and there’s a good profit to be made on it. But I can’t sell it. It costs fifteen shillings a tin. Now who is going to pay that much for some strange type of food they have never eaten before just because some government poster they cannot even read tells them it is good for them? In Kitui town I could sell this. There are some Europeans there, and lots of Luos in the District Offices They eat fish all the time. But here, who wants it? No one.”
“Then why do you stock it?” There was a hint of impatience in the son’s voice, just a suggestion of the dismissive arrogance that sometimes grows hand in hand with the perception, however false, of intellectual superiority.
“Why do I buy it?” Julius Mutisya now almost roared with anger, thus meeting his son’s challenge head on. “Look! Look around you!” Again he gestures vaguely at the near empty shelves. “Is any of this going to sell here in Thitani when everyone in this place is now so poor? Never? What on earth do you expect me to stock? Now if I could sell maize, beans, cow peas, and what’s more, if I could transport all my stock here myself instead of having to pay someone else to do it, then our troubles would be over. But I can’t sell those things. I’ve no licence. So all I can offer is whatever I can get my hands on at a reasonable price at the wholesaler in Kitui. And just at the moment it happens to be tinned mackerel... that no one wants to buy. But remember, Boniface, that the very people who supply me are also themselves retailers. I can’t match their prices, so they get whatever trade there is.”
“Then sell the shop.”
Julius laughed. “And who would want to buy it? Who would pay good money for a failure in times like these? Physically you might be an adult now, Boniface, but you are still a child in here,” he said, condescendingly tapping his finger on his forehead. “I would have to give this shop away under the present circumstances... and then what would I do? Would I simply turn and wave goodbye to all the money and work I’ve put into it over the years?” He shook his head in answer to his rhetorical question, but in so doing also communicated some of his growing disdain for what he considered to be his son’s single-minded selfishness.
When Boniface remained totally silent for some time, Julius continued in a low quiet tone, which quivered with suppressed emotion. “You have had your turn, Boniface. If you really have grown up, if you really are a man now, you would see everything that I have said is true and you would want to begin to stand up for yourself. You would be eager to take on a man’s responsibilities and to fulfil your duties to your family. The fact that you seem to be intent on starting… what would it be? ...another seven years of schooling suggests to me that while outwardly you may appear to be a man, in your mind you are still a child, living in a world which is only your own.”
Boniface countered quickly, his stuttered words pointing an accusatory finger at the other. “But Father, if you are the Christian man you claim to be, you know that serving God is more important than anything else in life. It is not something that anyone can do. The chance to serve God is a greater privilege than any other a man can receive. I have that privilege. I have been summoned by God to do his work. If I ignore His call then I will have rejected Him, and that is something no man should ever do.” He shook his head and finished on a grave accusatory note.
What Boniface was trying to do was bring to the surface the deep sense of guilt that underpinned his father’s Christian faith. He hoped that latent responsibilities and duties to the Church would surface and, amplified by the awakened guilt, would convince his father of the imperative nature of his own calling. The strategy was not only convenient, but possessed an internal truth that was also implicitly believed by Boniface. Unfortunately, it failed.
“I am not saying that you can never be a priest. What you decide to do with your life is your own business, and I accept that it would be a tragedy if you were to waste what is surely a very special opportunity. Make no mistake, Boniface, I am indeed very proud that you have been offered the chance of attending senior seminary. But at the same time what I can say is this. All of us here have made great sacrifices to make this possible for you. Now if all you can do is say ‘thank you very much, but I need to go on for another seven years’, then I will have to say ‘no’. We will make no more sacrifices for you unless at least for a time you are willing to do the same for your brothers and sisters. Then, when we have helped them as we have helped you, when maybe things here will be a little better, then you can do with your life what it is your own wish to do. Then you can give your life to God, but first, please Boniface, first give some of it to your family.”
Julius Mutisya was right. Boniface could see that clearly, but only in the shallows of reason. In the stranger depths where stronger feelings lie, his conviction remained. If anything, his father’s attack strengthened his own resolve to see his ambition through to its conclusion. Surely this was the devil speaking through his own father’s mind in order to pose the first of the pitfalls that Father Patrick had described and had warned him to avoid. Christ, himself, had suffered temptation so that he could prove his worthiness to proceed along the path of his life’s work and thereby to strengthen his mind in readiness for the even greater tasks ahead. Like Christ himself, he would not be moved; he would not succumb to these crude temptations. For ordinary men, his father’s words would be true, but for Boniface, whose calling raised him above ordinary matters onto some higher plane, the words were surely no more than a temptation to test his worthiness to assume his rightful place. No matter what his father demanded of him, whatever his worldly duties to his family might be, he would never ignore his calling. Now he was answerable to God and to Him alone, and so the kernel of conviction could never be cracked.
Boniface offered his father no reply. Having re-packed all the spillage from his box that had lain on the floor between them throughout their confrontation, he slapped the lid shut. Then, with a silent, slightly superior air, he walked out of the shop, and away across the market place, keeping his eyes fixed firmly forward, perhaps focused on his imagined future. Though Julius rus
hed out onto the veranda to call after him, the son offered nothing to his father, neither a word nor even a single backward glance.
The Mutisya homestead, a cluster of circular earth-brick huts surrounding a tin-roofed concrete house, stood quite near to the main Mwingi road, a mere hundred yards from the shop, though already quite apart from the town. Boniface went straight to his own house, one of the smaller huts on the edge of the group, brushed past the hanging sack-cloth which was its door and, after carefully setting down his box on the floor, took up his copy of Waklisto Wao and began to study. Before long he had become completely engrossed in his task and lost to time. Whilst reading the Kikamba catechism, he sought the advice he needed and found God’s clear command alive in his memory. The message it conveyed was the same as before and demanded continued resolution to see his mission through.
Darkness fell with the passing of unnoticed hours, but Boniface worked on by the flickering light of his oil lamp. Then he remembered the letter, addressed to his father, Julius Mutisya, which Father Patrick had asked him to deliver. In an act of self-satisfying defiance he retrieved it from the disarray of his box, broke the seal and read it.
As expected it contained much praise of himself, high praise indeed, not only of the standard of his academic achievements, but also of his commitment to the Church and his chosen vocation. But also there were words of thanks for his father’s cooperation over the years and recognition of the fact that his school fees had always been paid in full and on time. Then there was a section that detailed all the tasks that he should set himself and complete before the exam results were published. He was still reading the letter with great concentration when his father entered unannounced. As he held aside the sackcloth door, the man began to speak, but his words were drowned by the vehemence of his son’s reaction.
Boniface sprang to his feet and shouted. “You should not come in here unannounced like that! This is my house! Get out!” He lunged forward to push his father outside, his actions justified by his right to defend the sanctity and security of his own personal space, but the confidence with which his action had begun soon dissolved to fear. For the first time in many years, Julius took hold of his son. Calmly, he grasped his son’s wrists, drew them together and gripped them firmly in his left hand’s manacle grip. With the slightest of twists that had caused the boy’s slight frame to tilt in sympathy, he coerced Boniface into a child’s submission until the tantrum passed.
“So you still understand family responsibilities enough to know that I should not come in here without asking. It’s strange, Boniface, how you manage to remember all the things which benefit yourself.” Julius almost ignored the letter whose pages lay strewn over the dirt dappled foam mattress on his son’s bed. He cast a glance toward them and then turned away, ready to continue, but his words were stifled. He looked again at the typed sheets and, after a short silent pause, bent to the side to pick them up with his free hand. There followed a lengthy hush while the barely literate Julius struggled to read the text of the letter. Boniface made no attempt to move. Though angered at being treated like a wayward child, he now neither complained nor struggled against his father’s continued grip. He knew that in the letter he had a powerful ally his father simply could not ignore.
“Why did you not give this to me?” By now Julius had read as much as he needed to understand that the letter should have been delivered directly to him and to him alone.
“I was going to give it to you...”
“Thank you. That would have been very kind of you,” said Julius, cynically. “The letter is addressed to me, not to you. Why did you open it? Were you afraid that it might contain something inconvenient for yourself?”
Boniface was now a child again, helpless and speechless in guilt. He said nothing as the weight of culpability bowed his head. His defiance soon began to return, however, when he felt his father’s grip on his hands loosen. Julius began to crumple the thin sheets of airmail paper in his free hand. Then he let go of his son’s wrist completely, so that he could free his other hand and then tear the sheets. The violent anger, which his long-running frustration had produced, now began to show as his breathing quickened and grew louder. His eyes, which, after scanning the letter had fixed firmly on his son, again glanced back at the blue sheets in his hand. Boniface tried to act. Under no circumstances could he allow his father to destroy that letter which might serve as a reference when he applied for temporary jobs.
He lunged forward and tried to grab the letter, pushing his father in the process, but he managed to achieve nothing, for Julius was so much bigger and stronger than he. A mere wave of the man’s arm sent Boniface staggering across the tiny room and into the earth-brick wall beyond the bed.
Having cast the torn letter onto the bare earth floor, Julius raised his arm to point an accusing finger at his son. “You have sinned, my boy. You had no right to read my letter. No man would ever do such a thing. It is a child’s prank. Father Patrick is a good man. This letter speaks very highly of you. What he has written here is high praise indeed, for Father Patrick is a man of God. But it is now clear that he has been deceived by you. What you have done proves that you are not worthy of his praise and so to protect him from your lies, I have destroyed his letter to make sure that you cannot misuse it.” Julius’s gesture invited Boniface to look at the torn and crumpled pieces of the letter on the floor.
Boniface reacted with great speed, and his instinct led him to commit a callous act, to deliver a biting insult much favoured by educated youth. With overt pride designed to belittle his father, he began to speak in English, using only words that an educated man would understand. “I suppose I should have expected you to react like this. It is my opinion that your beliefs are too backward to comprehend my intentions.”
Though Julius could not understand the words themselves, he was in no doubt as to the meaning their manner of delivery was intended to convey and, now too saddened by feelings of rejection to be angry, he eyed his unrepentant son in silence to offer him ample time for an apology. When none came, he revealed his final weapon. He had hoped that it would not come to this. He had hoped that Boniface would see reason before he needed to broach the threat, but clearly he had overestimated his son’s maturity. He spoke in the slow musical Kikamba of an old man, lengthening vowels almost into sighs which were intended to reflect age and experience, neither of which he had as yet fully attained. First he prepared the ground, still hoping albeit in vain that Boniface would see fit to apologise.
“I had hoped, Boniface, that I would not need to threaten you. But now there is nothing else I can do. For years I have provided for your every need without a word of complaint. Now I have made a simple request. I am asking you to do no more than your duty to your family and I am receiving only insults from you.” He paused here, but still Boniface was determined to offer nothing. He stared into space, but with eyes firmly and consciously fixed on something only he could see. Julius then quickly stepped forward toward the boy’s desk and took hold of the smoking kerosene lamp, which needed to burn even in daylight within this windowless hut. Movement caused the low flame to flicker and its yellow light to fade momentarily. “This is your last chance, my boy. Swear on your name that you will promise to fulfil your duties to your family. If you refuse, then you are no longer a son of mine and I will put this flame to the thatch. I will burn down this house of yours because it will no longer be needed.” A quiet and disappointed self-pity had replaced the violence of anger in his voice.
Boniface said nothing. Whilst he remained rooted to the spot, his still defiant gaze fixed firmly on the lamp and then rose to meet his father’s eyes. Beneath the boy’s calculated attempt to project a sense of strength, there reigned a fearful terror whose only but still clear outward sign was the quivering of a muscle in his cheek. After a prolonged silence, Julius Mutisya shook his head and began to raise the lamp’s unguarded flame toward the tinder dry thatch above his he
ad.
Boniface lunged forward and grabbed his father’s arm, knocking the lamp onto the floor. On impact, the frail tin can that formed its body, split open, splashing its contents onto the bare earth floor and plunging the interior into near-total darkness. In a split second that seemed like an age, the lightless wick flickered blue. Then, quite suddenly, the argument dissolved, rendered insignificant by the urgency of the present. As Julius began to move, the spilt kerosene lit, sprouting geysers of flame through a dull thud of sound. Boniface screamed and fell, but Julius, better positioned to act than his son, dragged a blanket from the bed and in the same movement cast it over the flames, onto the floor where the lamp had fallen. In an instant they were doused.
When shock waned and control of his senses returned, he was confronted only by impenetrable blackness, behind which a memory of the kerosene flame occasionally flashed. Through this wall before his eyes drifted the muffled murmuring of his son’s voice. This darkness was an oppression. Where was Boniface? Standing in front of him? Lying on the floor? Was he hurt? Light! He must have light! Darkness is evil; he must have light! “Rose, bring light,” Julius screamed as he found his way out of the house and ran across the starlit compound towards his own house. After mere seconds he had already returned to his son’s hut carrying his wife’s storm lamp. Rose Mutisya followed closely behind and arrived in her son’s house to find Boniface whimpering on the floor and her husband bending low over him. The boy appeared to be unharmed, but the more comfort his parents offered, the more he screamed. “I am blind! I am blind! I am blind!”
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