Baker's Woman

by Tess Enroth

  Sam got up and woke a few men to help him free their animals to graze on the blanket of tender jizu. Florence pulled off her stockings and walked barefoot on the cool, damp earth. Following the sound of bubbling water, she came to clear water issuing from a fissure in the rocks only yards from where they had slept.

  Achmed and Osman were quick to set up their kitchen under the umbrella trees, and the aroma of coffee and hot bread soon wafted across the camp. Sam conferred with the Latooka guides and then declared a holiday. The men laughed and talked, and collected stones for games. Donkeys rolled on the damp turf, and camels munched and belched and looked aloof. From their folding chairs under a tree, Florence and Sam looked on.

  “Isn’t it marvelous, Sam? We’re fairy tale king and queen, viewing our subjects at play.”

  “The Latooka say it’s called Ellyria, and I’m trying to think where Shakespeare uses that name.”

  Suddenly, the sky darkened and thunderheads rolled down from the mountains and within minutes a cloudburst sent them scurrying for the shelter of trees. The rain stopped as suddenly as it began and evaporated into freshened air, leaving a rainbow.

  Florence warmed water and washed her hair and, as she bent over and combing it with her fingers, she thought of Widdin and rinsing Marie’s hair in the washhouse. She realized she could feel pleasure at the same time she recalled the pain of loss.

  The next morning, the caravan maintained a swift pace across the plain. Sam said Petherick had told him the camels wouldn’t work in a moist climate, but he believed they were swifter than the sturdy and strong-minded donkeys that occasionally tried to control the pace of the march. Florence laughed as the animals stopped to nibble greens and refused to move until they had been coaxed, prodded, and finally bribed with sugar.

  Cotton trees grew among granite outcroppings on the banks of a narrow stream. Jasmine meandered and climbed everywhere, and Florence picked the fragrant blossoms to tuck into bridles. Sam collected resinous bulbs and fragrant leaves from the Balm of Gilead trees to replenish the medicine chest. In the late afternoon, they spotted a village snuggled against stony hills a quarter of a mile to the east.

  “It may be wise to stop to see what kind of welcome we can expect,” Sam said. “I’ll alert the men to keep their weapons near but not to touch them or make any move.”

  They were unloading the animals when twelve men in an orderly square formation trotted toward them with long spears. Florence stood behind her horse as Sam told her to do, and she trembled as the short, muscular warriors advanced. Squares of cloth hung like aprons from thongs at their waists, and feathers adorned their wrists and ankles. Tattoos embroidered their torsos, and blue mud turned their close-cropped hair into helmets. They stopped and faced Sam, holding their spears horizontally, and gripping them with both hands, a position that certainly didn’t indicate hostility.

  Sam stepped forward open-handed, arms away from his sides, and the men laid their spears on the ground. One spoke, and a Latooka explained that they wanted to cross the territory and were expected by the Latooka friends of Adda, who had sent his tribe word of a bearded man and his wife who would come as friends. The stranger replied that their chief required a toll for passage, and Sam responded, through the Latooka, that he brought gifts to exchange for the privilege to camp for a night.

  The delegation bowed in unison, then picked up their spears and trotted back to their village.

  Florence was no longer shaking after the men laid down their spears, and now she stepped away from her horse and the Fletcher rifle.

  “I guess we’re in luck again, Sam. We not only arrived before Ibrahim, but we were expected.”

  “Yes, expected to pay well.”

  “The good news is not that good?”

  “It’s just fine. Better unpack the gifts.”

  Florence thought Sam looked tense and wondered if he sensed trouble. However, she felt better when, as she bent to unpack a carton of gifts, he gave her backside a friendly squeeze.

  “Would you like me better with feathers, Florrie?”

  “Feathers, whiskers, not a big difference,” She tweaked his beard. “But how do we entertain a chief? Do you think he’ll bring his wives?”

  “If he does, I hope there won’t be too many.”

  “How much of this do you suppose he’ll want?” Florence laid out a long strip of merikani cloth and a dozen copper bracelets.

  “All we show him, I’m sure, and then ask for more. Hold back some of the bracelets.”

  Their tent was up, the men busy with the animals, and Achmed cooking dinner when two men came, beating a pair of gongs to announce the arrival of Chief Legge. Legge was a squat, bandy­legged man with thin arms and heavy paunch. Around his waist he wore a broad girdle which supported a garishly painted wooden phallus. Behind the chief stood five women wrapped in sheaths of bright cloth and wearing bones in their hair. Flanking them, several male attendants carried fans and stools, but no one sat down. The Chief stepped forward until the wooden phallus nudged Sam’s belt buckle, and he waited.

  Sam addressed him in Arabic and was understood.

  Meanwhile the women surrounded Florence, stroking her hair, lifting the hems of her loose trousers, and fingering the buttons on her shirt. She held out a hand to the women and they touched palms.

  Then as she picked up goods to give them, Chief Legge brushed past Sam, stomped into the tent, and shooed his wives away. He reached for a small oval mirror hanging from a pole; just what his wives wanted, Legge said. Sam protested that his own wife needed it, so Legge offered to take her, too. He was willing, he said, to leave one of his own wives in exchange. Sam could have his choice.

  “My wife is not for trading.”

  Legge shook his head as if he did not understand, and Sam asked the Latooka to tell Legge his exact message.

  “Tell him she is the only one I have, a gift the gods entrusted to my care. They will destroy anyone else who touches her.”

  While this was going on, Florence’s mind flashed back to the auction where she had been for sale, ignorant and terrified of what might await her. She looked with sympathy at these women, bought, sold, traded, and certainly born to live without choices, and she scooped up bracelets and beads and heaped them in the women’s hands. They happily put them on their arms and around their necks, and Legge accepted Sam’s explanation and seemed satisfied to leave.

  “You were generous enough,” Sam said, “but he’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “I have reason to be generous,” Florence replied, “the gods have been good enough to award me to the right man.”

  “They’ve been good to me, as well, and should I fail you, surely the gods will destroy me.”

  In the morning Chief Legge was back.

  Like a greedy monkey, he rooted in the hampers and bundles inside the tent while Sam looked on, arms akimbo and lips pursed. Suddenly Legge whooped and pointed to the treasure he must have: the curvaceous and delicately painted chamber pot.

  Sam responded with a definite, hands-down refusal and turned again to the Latooka. Chief Legge glowered as the guide explained for Sam that the artifact was significant to Sam’s tribe and was put to use every night in secret and essential rituals. Reluctant but credulous, Legge settled for the merikani Sam had meant to give him the night before.

  Florence waited until Legge was out of earshot before her laughter burst forth and she flung her arms around Sam.

  They remained in the camp for another dry, sunny day. Legge did not reappear but sent men carrying food and jugs of the local beer, and when he sent two guides the Latookas said it meant they had been there long enough.

  Chapter 22

  East of the gap in the Tollogo hills the short dry grass of the Latooka plain offered little game; two or three guinea hens that were a good day’s shoot provided only enough stew for one meal. Men hungry for meat often had to make do with tinned sausage or jerked game at one evening meal and kisras and sorghum during the day.


  One morning Sam was greeted with news that six crewmen had deserted, taking three camels as well as provisions. There had been no sign of hunters or traders in the region, and he expected the deserters would return.

  Two nights later, two straggled in on foot. They had found a party of ivory hunters who turned them away. When they had tried to steal some food, sentries shot at them and took the camels. These two said they feared the others were dead, and they threw themselves at Sam’s feet, begging to be taken back.

  “Whatever happened,” Sam told them, “is the result of their own treachery. On your feet now. Act like men.”

  “Please, Sam, don’t use the whip,” Florence said and was relieved when he said that they may have learned their lesson.

  A few days later, dust clouds billowed on the horizon, accompanied by shouts and drums and rumbling of hooves. Sam assumed it was a razzia, which could mean anything from a skirmish to an all-out war. To wait it out the caravan took cover in a thicket of umbrella and elder trees, where they bivouacked without lighting fires. It was an uneasy night, but at dawn the sky was clear and the savannah peaceful.

  They resumed their trek across barren land and didn’t see a settlement until the day’s end, and then it seemed to be empty kraals and deserted huts. Going from one hut to the next, they found six aged women and four young ones cradling babies in their arms. They all cowered in the dim dwellings until they heard the guides speak in their own dialect.

  At the center of the village, two men guarding the door of a large hut told the guides the villagers had gone off in pursuit of a band of cattle thieves and soon would return. Sam asked about Chief Comorro, saying he brought greetings from friends who had once been here. Hearing that, one of the guards went inside and returned shortly to say his chief would come to meet them the next day.

  Sam and Florence realized Comorro was in the big hut, and they camped outside of the village and waited. On the following afternoon, a messenger came to take them to their chief. The men at his door stood aside, and inside was Chief Comorro, straight­ backed and white-haired. Around his thin body he wore a length of ochre cloth and over his shoulders a zebra skin was slung. He bowed to Florence and his face was sad as he told them his wives and children remained away, but he welcomed them and asked that they sit down.

  The siege had inflicted great suffering on his people, and he believed further hostile events could be expected. He was grateful to hear Sam say he had released the Latooka guides so they could stay to help their own people. Sam asked if many Latookas had died in the raid and learned that seven men had been slain, a few injured. Remembering the Bari’s family graves on small plots near their homes, Sam inquired about burial customs, how and where the Latooka honored their dead. He was amazed by Comorro’s answer: wherever they died, they were buried, and their graves were unmarked.

  The matter prompted further discussion of customs and of the afterlife. Sam said that in his own land, as well as in some lands very near Latooka, people believe not only in life after death, but in resurrection.

  “Some go to great lengths to preserve the dead, out of respect for them and their belief the body is transformed.”

  “Existence after death! How can that be? How can a dead man get out of his grave, unless we dig him out?”

  “Do you believe man is a beast, that death is the end?”

  “Certainly death is the end for man or beast. But man is not like an ox. Man is weaker and not so clever. Oxen sleep anywhere and need not plant or sow or build a shelter.”

  “Yes, but a man thinks,” Sam said, “adjusts the world around him to his own needs and comforts. He has a spirit within that is more than his flesh. He has dreams and makes plans, and even when he sleeps his mind goes where he is not.”

  Comorro laughed. “How do you account for that?”

  “The mind knows we are more than our bodies and the inner spirit is independent of the body. The body will die and become dust or food for vultures, but the spirit does not die.”

  “And where does this spirit live?”

  “Where does fire live? Can you not rub sticks together and make fire?” Sam knew they did this without understanding why or how it happened. “Yet you cannot see the fire in the stick until it appears and consumes the wood.”

  “Because it is not part of the stick,” Comorro assured Sam. “Man summons it for his use and then it dies.”

  Sam’s next argument was that a grain of corn, buried in the dirt, comes to life again. He also pointed out that the scarab comes from the dead bodies in the desert.

  “Exactly so,” Comorro countered, “but the grain in the earth rots like the dead man. It does not rise, but decays. Another plant rises, just as a child comes from what a man leaves behind. The new plant is not the grain that was buried. It replenishes the soil. That is its end. As for the scarabs, they have come from enjoying a good meal.”

  * * *

  Sam enjoyed a good argument for revealing a way of thinking and was accustomed to his view proving the better one. As she listened, Florence thought that in his argument Sam revealed his analogies as contrived, and Comorro’s views were more sensible. What she was learning about Sam amazed her.

  “This wild and naked savage,” Sam said to Florence later, “has no faith at all! Not even a superstition on which he might develop religious feeling. He is totally pragmatic, believing in only what is material – in matter only and has no awareness of spirit.”

  “But, Sam, are you suggesting religion is founded on superstition?”

  “I am saying he has acute perceptions but no ideals.” Florence made no reply, and Sam dropped the subject.

  * * *

  Following the Latookas’ directions, Sam led the caravan southwest toward the gap in the Maadi range. The ground was firm and travel swift. On the third day they forded a tributary of the Kanieta River and followed a trail into rocky foothills where it wound among trees and granite boulders. Above they saw the bare, gray summit that divided the Latooka from the Obbo, and above it, the afternoon storm clouds gathered. Before they finished setting up camp, rain began to fall and increased throughout the night.

  The morning broke with a clear sky and pleasant breezes.

  They got an early start, but slick boulders and loose gravel made the trail slippery and hazardous for the animals, so no one rode.

  Florence gathered wildflowers from under the trees, and they all rested when they reached a plateau. Achmed brought out dried dates and hard bread and served hot tea. In late afternoon they reached the crest and looked out upon Obbo country, a land that had been described to them as an Eden.

  Twenty-five hundred feet below them, green fields and hills stretched south and east toward ranges of high mountains. It took little more than an hour to descend to the foothills and then the valley, where primroses sprang up in the soft green grass and the trees bore fruits and nuts. Purple and gold agapanthus and delicate blue plumbagos grew four feet tall.

  Yam and grape vines climbed tree trunks and festooned their boughs.

  In all this abundance, the men were quick to discover the green grapes were sour, but the fragrant yellow plums were ready to eat. They all picked as much fruit as they could carry as they marched on and the sky darkened again and threatened rain. They quickened their pace, heading toward a cluster of huts in the distance as rain drops splattered on their shoulders. Then it stopped, and they went on another half hour before reaching a village of thatch and wattle huts. As they drew near, from the fields came a dozen men, smooth-skinned and naked but for thongs tied around their waists and wrists.

  Their neatly braided hair lay flat in a shape like a beaver’s tail, and they laughed as they spoke greetings, then as large drops of rain again fell, urged Sam and Florence toward the shelter of cattle sheds.

  They all crowded under the thatch and soon saw their hosts turning to face a man who strode toward them, smiling as the rain wet his face and glistened on an antelope robe he wore across his shoulders. He, too,
wore an apron, and his skin was smooth and unscarred.

  His curly gray hair was unconfined, and raindrops glistened in it as it radiated from his head. As he passed, dignified and commanding, he laid a hand on men’s shoulders and met their eyes with a steady gaze. Then he broke into a broad grin and bounded forward to grab both of Sam’s hands.

  “Katchiba, Chief of all the Obbos, welcomes you,” he sang out. Turning, he clapped his hands and spoke rapidly to his people, who hurried away to do his bidding. Only two attendants and a piper remained, and to this tune, Chief Katchiba led Sam and Florence through the village to an open door to a large round hut. There, a man took the hide from the chief’s shoulders and replaced it with a lion skin, complete with maned head.

  Inside the torch-lit hut, three men sat cross-legged on the ground beating on drumheads made from elephant ears. Katchiba seated himself on a fur-covered bench, and Sam and Florence sat on leather stools. When every man who could had crowded into the hut, a youth stepped to Katchiba’s side and bowed to Sam and Florence.

  “Rahan, my son,” Katchiba said in Arabic, “eldest of my children, first son of my best wife.”

  Rahan said his father could command the rains to fall and could heal the sick, and that he was a generous ruler, a man of peace. Then he asked their reasons for coming to his father’s land.

  “We hope to pass through your lands toward a lake that feeds the great white river. If this lake is known to the Obbos, will Chief Katchiba help us find it?”

  “We know the place,” the chief said. “If you stay among us, we will treat you well and then help you on your journey.”

  “Have you seen the lake?”

  “Yes, we have seen many lakes.”

  “We also need to cure fevers that sometimes afflict our men,” Florence said. “Our medicine is not enough.”

  “We will send our magicians with cures,” Katchiba said and turned his broad smile on Florence. “You are you best wife of this man with a fur chin? How many children?”

  “Oh, yes, the best of wives,” Sam told him quickly.

  “She will give you sons!”

  Katchiba raised his hands, clapping loudly three times, and two boys brought jugs of beer. As they passed out filled cups, Katchiba said the women were now bringing food. After the meal, his men would take them to their dwellings.