Mission

by Philip Spires

  When belief rules the mind there are no questions, only answers. Only reason allows the impotence of not knowing. Belief explains all, provides a cause for every event, whereas reason, through its reliance on collective experience of limited minds must sometimes admit failure. This was to be an occasion where belief would triumph.

  Prompted by fear, the explanation seemed obvious and soon had occurred to all three. Boniface, Julius and Rose thus began to think the same things, but for different reasons. For Julius and Rose it was a sign sent by powers greater than themselves to protest at a father’s unthinkable threat to disown a son. For Rose in particular, it was an ancestor’s warning against conflict, to remind them that their prime duty was to preserve the family line and continue the name, a role the prime responsibility for which fell to the first born son.

  For Boniface it was nothing less than a revelation. The Lord had spoken directly to him, had accused him of disloyalty and questioned his worthiness to become His servant, since for just one moment, the boy had wavered and had almost succumbed to the pressure of his father’s argument. In retrospect, he saw the week of illness and fever that followed the incident as his own body’s fight to expel the evil, which its momentary weakness had admitted. The fact that he soon recovered both his health and his sight further convinced him that he had won the battle and had thus defeated this first attempt by a powerful devil to bar his way. And he had prevailed, just as Jesus Christ himself had done when he was first tempted. Self-fulfilled, he thus became even more convinced of his resolve to fulfil all of his ambitions.

  Reason demanded that Julius should not believe that his son had ever lost his sight. After all he himself had been as close to the flash of flame as Boniface and he had suffered no ill effects whatsoever. Indeed so great had been his concern for his son that he had not even noticed the persistent flashing white patch in his own vision that lasted for over an hour after the event. It took a few days, but eventually it went of its own accord, apparently without any long-lasting effects. Fear gradually gained the upper hand, however, and began to control his thoughts. When, after two days, his son still offered neither recognition nor reaction, he began to believe what he saw, though subsequently he was never openly to confess it. Thus, it was in this manner that all discussion of his son’s future was rendered taboo. Julius Mutisya decided that it was best to leave the matter alone for a while, at least until the boy’s examination results were known. After all, it just might be that he would not have the grades he needed, and in that case the problem might just solve itself.

  In the event, the future would allow them all to see that Boniface’s ambition had in fact died that day, apparently never to be raised again. It did live on, though, in the minds of both father and son like a half-remembered skeleton in an unmentionable cupboard, a potential threat to both of their lives to be avoided at all costs.

  ***

  A violent crash shook Boniface out of his dream. He had seen it coming for almost a minute, but had not prepared himself for the shock. The car had laboured to the summit of a shallow rise to reveal a view of the road ahead. In a broad curve it swept across a wide valley, at the bottom of which a grey and narrow concrete bridge contrasted with the brown unedged earth of the rest of their route. On the down slope, Michael pressed his foot to the floor and the car quickly picked up speed. Boniface knew that at the bottom of the valley, where the road crossed a riverbed, the junction between the murram of the road and the concrete of the bridge had worn badly, leaving a vertical step between the two surfaces, several inches high in parts. Everyone who travelled the main road knew the spot. Even the more irresponsible bus drivers would slow to a crawl here to negotiate the bump, but could still not prevent the flow of abuse from the rear seats when their vehicles lurched as they crossed onto the bridge and threw the most vulnerable passengers momentarily into the air. There was simply no way of avoiding it.

  By the time Michael’s car hit the ramp, it was doing fifty miles per hour, but of those inside the car only Josephine, Boniface’s wife, seemed concerned by the looming danger. Not until the wheels hit the step and lifted the entire car into the air did either of the men in front of her show any reaction. A split second before impact, she tried to utter a warning shout, but it was already too late. The car hit the ridge, flew into the air and came down with what seemed like a gigantic crash, flinging her from her seat and transforming her intended shout into a long high-pitched scream.

  Boniface simply held on. Michael’s previously vacant expression disappeared, transformed by the widening of his eyes to one of undiluted shock and surprise. After only a short skid, which the priest quickly and easily controlled, the car sped on without either a word or glance shared. Some moments later, Boniface did turn to face his wife who was bent low over the child in her lap and holding the top of her head which had bumped hard against the roof. He offered a short comforting smile to ease her discomfort and said, “Don’t worry, Josephine. Father always drives like this.” His words did nothing to ease her pain or her nerves and, almost ignoring him, she continued to rub her head and grit her teeth. Though Boniface continued to stare at her for some time, their eyes did not meet and she offered him nothing.

  After only another half a mile, the monotonous banging of the car over the rutted road regained its regular predictability. Still, however, it apparently demanded the total concentration of Boniface, as he sat bolt upright and newly afraid in the front seat. Soon, his mind again began to wander.

  ***

  The three months between Boniface’s homecoming and the publication of his exam results passed quickly, all too quickly for his father. As expected he joined the staff of Thitani’s new primary school as an untrained teacher on the joint recommendations of Father Michael and Father Patrick. There never had been any doubt about his getting the job, since the Roman Catholic Church was officially sponsoring the new school and both of the priests had long before identified him as a potential employee to the school’s hand-picked governors, but this had done nothing to reduce the pride with which Boniface adopted his new status. For the first time in his life he had money in his pocket, money that he could rightfully call his own. He did not keep the full salary for the job, of course, since he had publicly and conscientiously undertaken to pass on half of his earnings each month directly to his father for his own food and also for school fees for his brothers and sisters.

  It was thus with some trepidation that Julius Mutisya again awaited the arrival of his son from Mwingi. During those months, he had grown used to the relative comfort that his son’s regular income had made possible and privately he found it difficult to admit that it might not continue. There was still time, of course, for Boniface to change his mind, since the seminary years began in September and not in January, as in the schools. So whatever happened, he could look forward to at least another six months of his son’s help and thus there was ample time to seek to change his heart. In the event there was no need to pressurise his son into waiting.

  When Boniface returned home on the afternoon bus, he went to his own house and stayed there until nightfall. Julius interpreted this at first as his son’s final rejection of his family duties and, determined to see the matter closed one way or the other, he again violated his son’s privacy and entered his house. This time, however, Boniface reacted differently. Whereas before he had vehemently challenged his father’s intrusion, this time he hardly seemed to notice. Bending low over the scattered papers that covered his small table, he was so engrossed in study that his father had to speak before Boniface would even acknowledge his presence.

  “Are you studying for the seminary already?”

  “Yes.” The reply was clipped short by embarrassment.

  For several uncomfortable quiet moments, Julius toyed with the prospect of another confrontation. Eventually, however, he judged the particular moment to be inauspicious and opted for safety. “When will you start?”

 
; Boniface offered no reply as the apprehension on his father’s face grew. Matters had certainly reached a head, that at least was clear and Julius felt a new determination to assert his authority begin to grow inside him. He was about to speak as firmly as he dare on this foreign territory when Boniface turned to face him and answered the question.

  “I failed in Mathematics.” The statement was utterly flat and overtly accurate, as if offering indisputable but, from Boniface’s point of view, inconsequential fact.

  It took a few minutes for Julius to interpret both the meaning and the consequence of his son’s words, but once their full implication had been realised, he was unable to hide the almost joyous relief he felt. With a broad smile spreading across his face, he sought confirmation of the obvious. “And without mathematics you cannot go to the seminary?”

  Boniface shook his head and eyed his father with growing cynicism. Within a couple of minutes the two had been joined by Rose Mutisya, called by her husband to share in his increasingly private celebrations. Boniface, however, begrudged him his joy, which clearly was a celebration of his own failure. “Father Patrick has told me that he will enter me for the exam again this year. And as you can see I have already started studying.” His final gesture, as before, was specifically designed to insult, but this time his father ignored it, for now he had surely won the fight. Turning away from his parents to face his work again, Boniface said in English, “Please leave me alone. You are wasting my time.”

  With a slightly derisive but definitely satisfied laugh, Julius held aside the hanging sackcloth that covered the doorway to his son’s house and invited his wife to pass. Thus they left Boniface in peace to chase what they both now saw as his impossible dream. Already disappointed, Boniface found that he was deeply hurt by his father’s obvious delight at what he felt was his own misfortune. Even then he knew that this memory would live for the rest of his life. He had truly hated no one in life until then.

  Until November of that year, Boniface lived according to the strict confines of a self-imposed timetable. His teaching, of course, occupied all of his working week. Also two evenings a week were set aside for work with the adult literacy scheme which Father Michael had been keen to set up for so long. Only the lack of a suitable and dependable teacher whom he could trust had thwarted the priest’s plan thus far and, with Boniface now available for at least a year, Michael decided that the time was right to make a start. Boniface had at first been undecided, regarding the two weeks compulsory training during the Easter holidays merely as wasted time, but soon the extra cash in payment for his work began to find its way into his pocket, and all seemed more worthwhile.

  Sundays remained sacrosanct. They were set aside for the Church, as was half of every Saturday, when voluntarily he took on the training of the choir and, afterwards, met with Father Michael to receive instruction in the catechism, or more frequently to discuss ideas and theology informally. Just occasionally, such discussions might even touch upon visions of his own future. All other time, save that set aside for taking sleep and food, he devoted to study, and study he did, like he had never done before. His only diversion from this rigid routine was provided by occasional trips to Kitui town or even more occasionally to Nairobi to buy books.

  He developed quite a reputation among the other schoolteachers in the area. Since most primary school teachers were untrained, Boniface’s studying was certainly nothing out of the ordinary, for without the necessary academic qualifications, none of them could apply for the in-service training which could raise both their status and their salary. What was different about Boniface was the fact that he studied seriously rather than simply talked about it over yet another beer in the town’s bar. In the first few weeks he was cajoled by his colleagues to join them for a drink but, though tempted, he never once accepted. He thus became branded as selfish, since his refusal was interpreted as an unwillingness to share his pay packet. This in fact was an accurate assessment.

  Nothing could ever persuade him that he had studied enough. Even when he had repeatedly completed without a single mistake the revision papers which Father Michael both set and marked, he would not allow any slackening of the pace, since his life’s one failure had so severely shaken his confidence.

  The months passed with apparently exceptional speed. It seemed that he had no sooner started studying than it was time to take the exam. On completing the paper, every reasoned self-analysis told him that he had passed, but no reassurance was great enough to outweigh the millstone of doubt that he permanently carried. Memories of the intensity of his vision, its force and its malevolent anger lived on and so above all he feared a repetition of failure, for then he would surely be subject to another attack. He would have again failed God, and His wrath was great.

  With his exam behind him and therefore the need for study removed, he found he had time on his hands. His routine had been broken and he was left with no interest to absorb the resulting free time. After only a handful of evenings, he ceased trying to convince himself that he ought to stay at home with his parents. With the possibility that he might leave for the seminary again raising its head, his relationship with his father, having been kept by default rather than through agreement on an even keel for some months, suddenly deteriorated, rekindling the tension with which neither of them could adequately cope. The only other thing to do, of course, was to go to the bar with his friends and colleagues. This he did, and soon, where before he had studied, he drank, except, of course, for the two evenings each week which he continued to devote to Father Michael’s adult literacy classes.

  The priest had been well pleased by his prodigy’s performance in delivering the intended content and the preferred style of his classes exactly as the philosophy of the project had demanded. Slowly, small step by small step, Boniface had thus been entrusted with more and more responsibility. Recognising that, with no studying to do and much free time to fill, Boniface might just start to drift and lose his enthusiasm for his vocation, Michael decided to hand over to him the management of virtually the entire project. As ever, Michael seemed to be trying to do too many things at once and he had begun to begrudge time spent ensuring that the classes progressed properly. Handing the responsibilities over to Boniface and adopting a merely occasional supervisory role enabled him to divert his attentions to reproducing the apparent success elsewhere with the help of the Northern District Officer, John Mwangangi.

  For Boniface, however, time now began to crawl. The months between the exam and the publication of the result passed so slowly that they seemed more like a year. He was bored, uncomfortable and filled with doubt, not only as a result of his father’s behaviour but also by his own reactions to the often pointed comments of his fellow teachers. These friends, whom he had adopted in the first place only in preference to solitude, gradually became more important to him as communication with his father withered to merely an occasional glance. At least they were of his own generation and had shared experiences thus far in their lives similar to his own. But there all similarity ended. Their ends in life were clear, but not, like his own, guided by any ideal other than self-interest. To a man they all professed Christian faith and attended their respective churches regularly. Some of the Protestants even conducted or inflicted Bible readings on a captive and largely deferential audience from an upturned box on market day. Their interpretation judged the Thitani custom of market on a Sunday as fundamentally in error, incurring nothing less than damnation on anyone who took part. Since this classification included everyone in the town and its environs, there was certainly adequate scope for further evangelisation.

  The aim, then, was to save the souls of those who mistakenly traded on the Sabbath and therefore violated God’s written laws. The fact that none of these same people lived the rest of their week according to God’s law devalued, in Boniface’s estimation, every belief they professed. Inevitably, then, conversations they shared often revolved around the diffe
rences between the two interpretations of Christianity, that of the Africa Inland Church on the one hand and that of the Roman Catholic Church on the other. Boniface, though the only confirmed Catholic in the group, was usually more than a match for the combined efforts of his opponents.

  It was during one such argument that engrossed them one sweating February evening when, after the searing heat of a rare windless day, they slaked their thirsts together in one of the town’s three bars.

  “But why do you want to become a priest? Why not just be a lay preacher like me? After all you would still be serving God.” Samuel was the only one of the group apart from Boniface who took his convictions seriously. And he never drank beer, only lemonade.

  “I have told you before…,” said Boniface with obvious conviction. Out of the whole group, only the two of them appeared to have the slightest interest in the conversation. “…That to serve God in my Church, I must devote my whole life to Him. What is more, I have had a vision. The only time I can remember trying to reject the idea, I was thrown to the ground by a blinding flash. I was very ill and only when I strengthened my determination to become a priest did I get better.”

  Samuel shrugged his shoulders in disinterest as if to say, “So what? So you have had a vision... so have many other people, but it does not make them want to become priests.” For a moment he was distracted. He looked across the bar to what had attracted the attention of the other two men and then, preferring to ignore the diversion, he continued, “But if you become a priest, you can never marry. You can never have a son...”

  “Of course,” replied Boniface quickly. “How could I devote my life to God if I also had all the responsibilities of a wife and family? This, Samuel, is one of the most basic ideas of our Church. A priest’s duty is to God. His attentions must not be divided.”