“My word, Sally Beth. You’re a natural!”
He let her fly in wide, lazy circles as the sun sank lower, until the huge ball of orange flame just touched the western horizon, and then he asked the unthinkable. “Do you want to learn to land?”
She let out a little shriek. “Oh, yes!”
It took her three tries, buzzing the meadow by the mission and setting John’s hair on end, but on the third try, she managed a bumpy landing that made him wish he hadn’t been so generous with his offer. His brand new Skylane did not need to be jostled by an amateur landing. But he repented of his parsimony when she turned to him, eyes wide and glowing.
“Every time I learn something new, it takes me three tries to get it right, but, by golly, I can land this thing. And I can fly!”
Walking through the meadow of long, dry grass, gilded by the last sliver of sun, Sally Beth could not let go of the thrilling sensation of taking control of the craft and the air. She took advantage of the growing darkness, falling behind to spread her arms and pretend to swoop and fly. John glanced back once, then forced his eyes forward to give her time to enjoy this moment of sweetness. His own jubilation tickled in his belly.
When they reached the door to her room, he turned to see her gazing up at him, her face luminous with joy, and he felt his heart soften with the pleasure of knowing he had been the instrument of her gladness. She must have heard his thoughts calling to her, for before she could summon the will to govern her actions, she jumped up and threw her arms around his neck, hanging like a sparkling necklace. She was light and warm, vibrating with happiness. There was no choice but to bring his arms up around her.
She felt it first. The strength of his arms, the roughness of his cheek, the breadth and hardness of his chest sent a lightning bolt through her. She caught his scent, like summer grass and wind and sun, and she felt her heart hammering. A soft cry escaped her lips.
It pierced him, too, that lightning bolt, and then he was overwhelmed by an intense physical response that he never anticipated and did not welcome. Unprepared, he was frightened and angered by how it caught him unawares; he had no business flirting with Sally Beth or feeling this way about her. He tensed.
She felt the sudden apprehension gripping him, making him cold and rigid. Sally Beth let go of his neck; he released her, and she dropped to the ground, face flaming.
“Thank you so much, John,” she breathed. “Sorry, I got a little carried away there. I’ve never done anything so exhilarating in my whole life!” She gave a little gasp. “Thank you,” she said again.
He nodded, ashamed of his reactions to her and of his own fears. “I am real proud of you, Sally Beth. I’ve never seen anybody take to flying like that. You seem like you were born to it.”
“I know!” she agreed. “It felt like it was me flying, not just the plane. Like I didn’t even need the plane…” She trailed off, then looked up at him hopefully. “Do you think maybe we could do it again? I’d really love to learn and all, and maybe get my license?”
He relaxed. “Of course. I’ll teach you. It should take another—oh—couple of minutes for you to learn to take off. Maybe three. I still have my old plane back in Kenya. Maybe I can bring it up here and leave it with the mission so you can fly it when you’ve learned how.”
John swept his hat into an elaborate bow before he made his way back to his room, the shadow of his desire following him like a lost puppy.
Sally Beth was so happy she fell onto her bed with her arms outstretched and reimagined what it felt like to hold the plane in her hands and soar into the heavens. Tanzania was beautiful! People were kind and good. John was kind and good. She tried to stop thinking about that, but it was very, very hard.
October 7, 1978
On Saturday morning, Sally Beth packed an overnight bag and a portable sewing machine and ran to breakfast an hour before Alethia was due to pick her up. Pastor Umbatu stood before the others as he usually did to pray. His face was grave, lined with worry and tiredness.
“My friends,” he said. “I have some bad news. Last night I got word that an attempt was made on Idi Amin’s life two nights ago. Some dissidents in the Ugandan army who are weary of the way things are staged a raid on his home, but he and his family escaped by helicopter.”
There was an alarmed murmur. Pastor Umbatu held up his hand. “Then, yesterday, General Adrisi, the Vice President, was injured in a car accident that he suspects was contrived as a reprisal. As you know, there are many in the government and the military who are unhappy with Mr. Amin. General Adrisi is one of them, and now he and part of the army have declared a mutiny. My friends, it saddens me to tell you that the country is on the brink of civil war, but perhaps some good will come of this. We must pray that this is the beginning of the end of Idi Amin’s reign of terror over Uganda, and that God will cause a good and just leader to rise up in his place.”
There was a shocked silence before a cheer rose up from the Africans in the room. Pastor Umbatu went on, “Now, let us pray.”
The silence descended again. Sally Beth thought about the young Ugandans she had met the month before. Perhaps they had something to do with the attempt on the president’s life. They were so young, and they talked of peace; yet, somehow, they seemed to be capable of violence beyond her ken. The thought of death, vengeance, and brutality gnawed at her peace, clawing through her mind, until the floor began to spin beneath her and she was forced to her knees. For now, there was nothing else to do but pray for peace and good leadership for the Ugandan people. She took a deep breath, willing herself not to think about Idi Amin or his wrath today, but to concentrate only on what she could do. She would pray for deliverance and she would make dresses for little girls.
Sally Beth and Alethia had a constructive morning cutting out patterns and sewing sundresses, starting with one for Priscilla. “We need to make Prissy’s first because all the others get hand-me-downs, and by the time they make it to Jayella, she has way more than she needs,” commented Alethia. “Poor Prissy has only four dresses, while Jayella has over twenty.” She ran the scissors down a length of fabric while Sally Beth set up the portable sewing machine on the dining table.
“Is this a treadle machine?” she asked as Alethia rolled an ancient contraption over to the window.
“Yeah. We generally go without electricity during the day. I just am running the generator today so you can plug yours in. This treadle machine works fine, and it doesn’t use an ounce of power.” She wound the bobbin and threaded the machine.
“How did you end up being the mother of six girls?” asked Sally Beth. “Did you get all of them right here?”
“No, I started over in Dodoma. I was studying at the college there my junior year—that was five years ago—and I ended up dropping out so I could work at a mission right there in town. Lizzy was my first. Her mother had died of some sort of wasting disease—nobody could ever figure out what it was, but both she and her husband had it. When her mother died, her father was too sick to look after the children—there were five of them—so her sisters both took two of the younger ones, but Lizzy was left to take care of her dad. She was just seven at the time. When he died, the sisters were overloaded with children of their own, and neither one of them felt like they could handle another child, and they brought her to the mission. I just fell in love with her. I knew she was mine the minute I saw her.”
“So you really adopt them officially—you don’t just take them in to take care of them?” Sally Beth was growing more impressed with Alethia by the minute.
“Oh, yes. They need the assurance that somebody is going to claim them no matter what. They’ve been through so much in their short lives. It wouldn’t do for them to think I could just get rid of them whenever I got tired of them. Some of these girls have witnessed unspeakable horrors. What Mara has gone through is the least of it.” She bit a thread and held up the partially constructed garment.
“This is going to be cute!” She went on, “There
’s a law that says a single woman can’t adopt, but there are a lot of orphaned children, especially in Uganda. Idi Amin has done his best to make orphans of the entire nation. If kids can make it across the border, they end up in orphanages here, and they’re overwhelmed with all the homeless children coming in. The Tanzanian government makes exceptions for Ugandan children with no known relatives, or even Tanzanian children if the orphanages get too crowded. It’s not been hard for me to adopt girls. They’re more careful about boys, but that’s okay by me. I think I am better at mothering girls.”
“Are you going to stay here? Will you ever take them to America to live?” Sally Beth wondered if she missed her home in Alabama.
“I go back all the time, but by myself and just to raise money, and I guess my life is here now. I had intended to go back permanently after school—I had a boyfriend back home then, and we were planning on getting married. He was at Auburn, and he’d come over for vacations if I didn’t go home, but after I adopted Lizzy, things fell apart for us. I don’t think he liked the idea of being a father so soon.
“After that, it seemed like the girls came at just the right time. I got Charlene and Charlotte right after I broke up with David. I was heartbroken over it, and one night I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself, and these two darling little girls, sisters, came to my door and told me they wanted me to adopt them. They were the cutest little things, standing at my door, looking up at me and telling me I had to adopt them because they were afraid the orphanage might separate them. Word had gotten out about me taking Lizzy, and so they figured I could handle two more. It was crazy, but they got me out of my funk in a hurry! I can’t imagine my life without them. The rest I got after I moved here. Ugandan.” She stopped talking, but her eyes told Sally Beth volumes. Priscilla, Becky, and Jayella did not need to be reminded of their past traumas. Alethia smiled at her girls and gave Jayella a cuddle. “We’re a real family now.”
Sally Beth was full of questions. She had never met anyone like Alethia before, someone who would sacrifice a comfortable life in America and take on being a single mother to six little girls. And who knew how many there would be before it all ended? “When did you come to Kagera?” she asked.
“Two years ago. I met the pastor at a Baptist church in Kakindu while I was in Dodoma, and he invited me to teach at his mission. I did for a year, then I got Priscilla, Becky, and Jayella, and I got too busy with them to teach anymore. Now I raise funds from America and Canada and that keeps us going. I go over there once or twice a year, do a tour, see my family and old friends. That’s how I built this house, with Western donations.” She finished a seam and removed a little dress from the sewing machine.
“Oh, gosh, I didn’t match up this square up in the front of the bodice,” she mumbled through the pins in her mouth. “It’s not far off, though. Hand me that seam ripper. I think I can adjust it.”
They worked all day. The girls giggled when it was time to try their dresses on, standing on a stool while Sally Beth and Alethia pinned up their hems. If Sally Beth had wanted to broach the subject about how many of the girls had been circumcised, she had learned that it should not be of concern to her as far as Alethia was concerned. But she was curious about something she had said the first day they had met. “Why did Mara’s sister say she had heard you were the person to bring Mara to?”
Alethia paused before smiling guiltily. “I know I told you not to get involved, and I have good reason to. I was like you in the beginning, determined to change things. Even though I knew my grandmother had been through it, the first excisement I saw made me so mad I wanted to go storming into every village in Africa and ‘enlighten’ them.” She splayed two fingers on both hands to make air quotes. “I’m afraid I said more than I should have to a village elder once. If you want to know the truth, that’s why I am here, and not still over by Dodoma. I am considered a persona non-grata there.” She smiled again.
“So now you know. I pretty much ran for my life—and for my lady parts!” The smile softened, then disappeared. “I have to be careful, still. My reputation has been hard to live down, and it took a while for the people to accept me. But they mostly have, now, because I have kept my mouth shut. Fortunately, not too many people know about Mara’s circumstances. They just think she’s another child that lost her family. But she does have a family, and I assume her sister will be taking her back as soon as she is healed.”
“Will it be okay for her to go back? Will her sister suffer for bringing her here?”
“No, I don’t think so. They love their children, and the fact that she brought her here instead of a clinic nearer her home won’t make a difference.” She paused, picking at a thread. “I won’t reverse her infibulation, in case you were wondering. It isn’t up to me, and besides, they’d just do it again once she gets home. I have to do what I can to ease some suffering, and in Mara’s case, to get the infection cleared up.”
She held up a little dress, eyeing it critically. “Not bad. I am so glad you brought us this fabric.” She pointed to the curtains and slipcovers on the couch and chairs made from a bright green, yellow, red, and blue cotton broadcloth, a field of flowers on a meadow. “I have about 2,000 yards of that fabric down in the basement, and I was afraid I was going to have to make every outfit from here on out of it. Some company in America gave their entire stock to me because it has a flaw in it. I mean, it’s pretty, but I’ve made us all curtains and bedspreads and some tablecloths, and everybody a dress out of it. I’ll never run out, and I’m sick of it.”
“Maybe you could donate it to somebody else. I’m sure people from the village would love it if you gave them some.”
“Yes, and then have to look it every time we go to Kyaka. Sorry. I’ll just have to take it to Nairobi next time I get over there.”
They went to bed late, after completing four dresses; the others needed only the hems by the time they were yawning so much they finally agreed to call it quits. “We’ll finish them up after church tomorrow. Do you want to come to church with us? We go to the Baptist mission a few miles from here up in Kakindu.
“Sure,” said Sally Beth. “I haven’t been up there yet.”
October 8, 1978
They didn’t make it to church the next day. During the night, Mara’s fever spiked, and by morning, her condition had worsened. Alethia put her in the bathtub filled with cool water. Sally Beth stood in the doorway of the bathroom at six o’clock in the morning and watched as the child lay spread-eagle in the water, her suffering wound red and unrecognizable as part of a human being.
“I called the mission. Dr. Sams said I should just get her to the hospital in Bukoba, and he’s going to send someone up here to get us.” She looked at Sally Beth with pleading eyes. “I hate to ask this, but—”
Sally Beth cut her off. “You go. I’ll take care of the children. I’m sure Prissy can tell me what to do. If you leave your van here, I can drive them to school, and church, and do whatever they need. The mission can live without me a few hours a day. I can go there after I get them to school.”
Alethia blinked back tears. “Sally Beth, I know God sent you to me. I could be gone a while. A week maybe? Or more. I just don’t know. I’ll take Sylvie with me.”
An hour later, Sally Beth was on her own with six little girls she had barely met, but that did not stop them from climbing into her lap and asking her to tell them stories. She did the only thing she knew to do. She wrapped her arms around them and told them about the frog and the mockingbird who traveled the world singing before sultans and princes.
Swallowtail Gap, West Virginia
“Ha!” said Geneva, although it was not so much a snort of laughter as it was an exclamation of disgust. She stomped into the kitchen. “You awful man!”
“Wha’d I do?”
“Lured me up to that rock where you do your thing and got me pregnant. Again. When I am just now starting to get my body back. What on earth has Lenora fed you all—” Geneva didn’t g
et to complete the sentence because Howard was suddenly kissing her so hard she couldn’t breathe. Or think. But when he let her go, she could laugh.
An hour later, they lay tangled in the Egyptian cotton sheets they’d bought on their honeymoon, their fingers entwined. He placed his free hand on her belly. “They could have the same birthday. Twins a year apart. I bet this one’s a girl.”
“No, knowing you, it’s another boy! Are you going to get me pregnant every time the stars fall? I’d like to have a year or so off, if you don’t mind. I might as well get rid of all my shoes and resign myself to the fact that I’m going to spend my life up on that mountain barefoot and pregnant.”
“I’m not so dumb, huh? Making sure you stay that way means I don’t have to worry about you running out on me.”
She giggled. “Just keep digging up gold. And make sure the mint patch doesn’t get torn up. I’ll forgive you this time, but you have to promise to take us all to Paris every single year. We keep this up, and you’ll have to buy a plane.” She fell into the quiet of his arms, pondering the possibility of having a personal plane, then giggled again. “Suppose we could get John to fly us around in his two new planes?”
“Wonder how he’s getting along now that he’s discovered Sally Beth’s in Africa?” Howard mused as Geneva laced her fingers through his and gave a contented sigh.
“I bet Sally Beth would love to learn to fly. You think we should maybe make an anonymous gift to the mission stipulating that one of the American women serving in a non-medical capacity gets a plane and flying lessons?”
He laughed. “You start getting too detailed, and they’ll figure something is up, especially if you get specific on every one of them. Telling John he had to set up a station in Kagera wasn’t so bad. You can pass that off in a lot of ways. Getting a plane for Sally Beth’s personal use, or setting up a scholarship for Lilly is going to be tricky. ‘Full scholarship for a twenty-one-year-old female student from Tucker, West Virginia who wants to study photography.’ Should we add ‘blonde hair’?”
The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set Page 65
