A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa (16 page)

Henry sat on the mattress, his back against the wall, his hair tousled and full.

“My wife,” he said as she approached with the coffee. “Someone has taken off with my boots.”

“They found their way onto my feet,” she said.

“What happy boots,” he said.

She handed him the coffee, sat herself on a corner of the mattress, and pulled them off.

“Move closer,” he said.

She did, her legs and skirt stretched out in front of her. He took a drink and offered her a sip, and they drank it back and forth. When it was finished, he set the bowl aside and placed a hand on her lap.

“We should pray,” she said. “I felt happy looking at the place.”

“Why don’t you recite a psalm,” he said.

She felt herself aflutter.

“Go on,” he said.

“Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me,” she said. She stopped and he joined her, and then their voice was one. “For my soul trusteth in Thee. Yea, in the shadow of Thy wings will I make my refuge. Though my soul is among lions, my heart is fixed on Thee.”

Emma sensed Henry leaning toward her. His fingers ran under her hair where it had fallen. He lifted a curl and kissed her neck, coffee on his warm breath.

After breakfast, Henry and Jacob went out in search of the creek. They were back in no time with four buckets of water.

“The stream is just down the hill,” Henry said. “Local folks call it the Laka River, but in the dry season, you’ll be able to cross on planks.”

The morning was taken up in inspecting and sweeping out rooms. This task was relatively simple, as the regular inhabitants had stowed in the rafters what items they had left behind. Emma rinsed some undergarments, along with Tela’s shoulder cloth that had served for Abike’s handkerchief. The cloth was a lovely blue print, a blocked pattern. It seemed she had studied it before. But no time now to ponder. It would go into the trunk for showing later, in America. She would never wear it.

Emma and Abike sat under the odan tree and unpacked the crockery. “How are you feeling?” Emma said.

“Fine mah,” she said.

“Your mother loves you. She wants you to have a good life,” Emma said.

“I miss her too much,” Abike said.

Emma moved to sit beside her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know how you feel.”

They were saved from weeping by Duro, who came through the passageway with a pan of water.

“We must wash the walls and smooth with cow dung,” he said.

“Oh,” Emma said. She put a finger to her pursed lips. “What if we only wash them down?”

“It’s not so good,” Duro said.

“But we won’t be lodging here that long,” Emma said, hoping her answer would satisfy.

None of the rooms had a window, of course, only low doors opening onto the courtyard. But there was one room with two doors, an inner and an outer, the outer leading directly to the kitchen, and the doors to this room were almost as tall as Emma. Light shone in from both directions, providing a flow of air and illumination throughout the day. “This will be our parlor,” she told the cook.

She was happy with the deep cool piazza and the odan tree in the courtyard. Its large, glossy leaves—larger and brighter than a magnolia’s—would offer shade for outdoor dining, sewing, writing, and visiting. All in all, she thought the
Baa-lay
must be an unusually humane African. She felt solid at that moment, for she could easily see herself out with the women, a ministering angel, a white bird.

“What do you think we should do with the boy?” Henry said.

Emma wasn’t aware that they had come to a firm decision on whether Jacob would stay, though she had more or less promised Abike his presence and Wole’s in the household. “What are your intentions with Jacob?” she said.

“He and I spoke on the way,” he said, “after the fracas at the river.”

“Over the rifle,” she said.

“Yes,” Henry said. “I’d still like to keep him. I told him as much. As an assistant. He’ll be more than a servant. He can read and translate. Help with the house building.”

“Can we afford to pay a second person?” Emma had no intention of giving up Duro.

“He’s agreed to a reasonable salary. He wants the boy educated.”

“Oh,” Emma said, entirely pleased, as if an unexpected gift had been presented to her.

Henry and Jacob conferred at the entrance to the passageway.

“The child is welcome to stay with us,” she overheard Henry say. “He will be a pupil in my wife’s school. What do you say?”

She heard nothing back and looked up. This was part Jacob’s proposal, after all. Why did he hesitate?

“Let me look at the boy before I make an answer,” Jacob said.

Off he went, and Henry sat down with her. Directly the man returned. “It is good,” he said. “Your offer is favorable to him. We can agree.”

“You and the boy agree?” Henry said, half chuckling.

“Yes. God agrees,” Jacob said, resolute.

They both seemed pleased as they went to set the stable straight.

Her writing box glowed in the dispersed light; sometimes Emma could almost catch her face in the wood’s finish. She picked it up; was it lighter with the record of illness gone?
You are stronger
, she thought to herself. At her seat, she pulled out the lap desk. Good as new. She opened the nib compartment, the writing tips bright as jewelry. A few grains of sand were still caught in the brass hinges; she wetted her handkerchief with spit and wiped at them, inhaling the familiar smell of her best thing. Her testament, so used it fell open in places. She pulled out Uncle Eli’s carving and polished it too. Again she felt the slight nudge of emotion—of being at home, of herself, that holiness in her body she had felt this morning. How surprising that she should feel so content in this native compound! However briefly, she must make some record.
Our first morning in Ogbomoso
, she wrote.
Mild and clear. We came forward in faith.
A morning dove lit on the piazza.
Already I find God’s gifts.
The dove’s mate flew in and settled and the two walked back and forth. Emma mused on their sleeping arrangements. Jacob and Wole had taken up the room that opened out to the compound. She would ask the cook to choose a room across the courtyard, and Abike would sleep in the room next to hers and Henry’s. It would be hard for the girl, being alone, as she was doubtless accustomed to sleeping with family, but Emma could see no other option. She settled the conundrum by thinking how she would offer the girl the second mattress. She looked up to see Wole standing in the doorway of the sitting room, watching her.

“There you are,” she said, hoping he could understand her Yoruba. “You are going to stay with us.” The boy glided toward her but held his body sideways, as if he might need to disappear. “Soft,” she said, setting aside journal and pen. Suddenly the boy was next to her. “Is there something you want?” she said.

“Oracle,” he said, pointing at her writing box. He meant, she knew, a priest’s receptacle, for holding charms and reading destinies. She would correct him later.

“You want to draw?” she said, making a motion with her hand. He nodded his head up and down once. “You’ll need pencil and paper,” she said, finding a slip of blotting paper, a nub of pencil. She turned the paper over to show he could use the back.

He took the items and walked away quickly, his figure erect.

“Huh,” she said.

Two days later, Emma was back under the odan tree, her box open, the red journal on her lap desk. She looked down at her note.
Husband complained of spleen yesterday. Reports better today.
She frowned. She hadn’t meant to fill her journal with their health records. But it wouldn’t do to tear the page. Henry came through the passageway, and she closed the book. “What did you and Jacob find in town?” she said.

“Oh, the usual. Some weavers. Indigo pots. A blacksmithers. Most folks live by farming. Less of a military presence than Ijaye”—he wiped his brow with the back of his hand—“unless you count some of the women in the market. They’re serious as Hannibal.” He grinned in his funny way, as if he wished not to show feeling but the feeling overwhelmed him. “I sat with an old blind man. Said he couldn’t imagine a white man before he heard me speak but now he can see me.”

“How amazing,” she said.

“I ran into some folks who remember me from the exploratory trip on my first tour. My first thought is a trade school. Teach a craft. The church will grow with the school.”

“You ought to rest,” Emma said.

Henry took a seat on the piazza and pulled off his boots. Then he stretched out, his arms up and his hands cupped to make a pillow for his head. Emma’s eyes, half opened, watched the sparkle of light through the leaves. She rested her head against the canvas chair and fell asleep.

A sudden commotion woke her. Two men were releasing chickens into the courtyard. “From the Baale,” one of them said. Ten hens, one cock. Emma watched a young woman with a basket on her head step around them and come toward her. She bent her knees in the ritual sign of respect, then lifted the basket straight up before bringing it to the ground. She pulled out two heads of cowries.

“The Baale must mean to win you over,” Henry said, adjusting his hat, his feet still bare. “The gift is clearly for you.” Emma checked her hair, stood, and smoothed her skirts.

Chickens were everywhere. The rooster strutted before perching on the chair Emma had just vacated.

“My,” Emma said, and then remembered herself. “Please,” she said, nodding to the girl and the two young men, “give my deepest thanks to the Baale.”

“We’ll build a coop,” Henry said as the gift-bearers departed. “Looking after the chickens will be a good task for Wole.”

“You’re right,” Emma said.

“Of course I am,” Henry said, his hand on her shoulder.

Sunday, a week after their arrival, they held their first services in the Africa room, just the household. In a little bit, a good group had gathered at the wall. When Henry called to them, a few shook their heads and passed on, but a half dozen came in and took a seat. Henry offered a lovely devotional on the lilies of the field, how they toil not, neither do they sow, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. His message for Africa: You are already fully loved. Emma ruminated. In her experience, it seemed the children already knew this.

Monday morning Emma was still in bed, considering her plan to go out among the women, when she heard Henry coming in a hurry.

“Word of a rogue elephant in the area,” he said. “The king has given the townsmen permission to hunt. A man with a rifle is expected to join in.”

Her husband was at the wardrobe, slipping on a jacket, checking the pockets, taking inventory of what he needed. “My saddlebag,” he said to himself.

She sat up. Her husband no doubt believed the townspeople would be helped by his leadership. She thought it likely they knew how to hunt elephants, being longer acquainted with the animal than Henry was. But there was no use arguing. Henry turned to her. “I might be out for the day.”

“Of course,” she said.
Kiss me
, she thought.
And is Jacob going?
But Henry had left.

She felt listless. At last she chose a lavender-waisted dress with pink smocking. She fingered her lace collars.
I ought to give one to Abike
, she thought.

Henry returned at dusk. Emma was sitting under the odan tree.

“How are you?” he said.

“I haven’t felt well.”

“You don’t look ill,” he said. He put his palm to her forehead and she smelled his male smell, of salt and tobacco and almost like a memory, a whiff of alcohol. Because of the elephant hunt, she felt a thrill of danger, imagining the drink as a feature of his manhood, for once not seizing on his nerves or potential bad judgment.

“What about the elephant?” she said.

“No luck. Though there’s no doubt he was here. Dung big as a native basket.”

“But why do you say
he
?”

“Because the animal was alone. Females travel together with their young.”

“How strange that I forgot,” she said. Henry’s presence made her wonder vaguely if she might be expecting a child. Not yet, she thought. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready.

“I’ll wash up,” he said.

Emma didn’t like her husband’s absence, but she liked the confidence a hunt brought into him.
Thank You,
she prayed in her interior heart.
Keep us well in Thee.

· 20 ·

Imperative

H
ENRY CALLED ON
the Baale. It was only reasonable to do so after the generous gifts. Such gestures were always meant to be answered. He carried with him a small clasp knife to leave in return. He had another. Indeed, he had invested mission board money in several of these to offer as signs of friendship.

The gatekeeper saluted him. Henry surveyed the Baale’s compound, large enough for hosting festivals. He was led into the king’s palace, which was built like the house he and Emma were occupying but was twice as big, the piazza deep and commodious. Everything was brown but the trees. The Baale sat on the piazza, communing, it appeared, with his chiefs.

Henry knew the order of things: the king in charge, a chief for each borough of the town. Then there were the priests, who might be more powerful than the chiefs. It all depended. Every town was different, and Henry had yet to figure the politics of Ogbomoso. The Baale stood to greet him, and Henry was introduced around. Still seated, the men leaned forward from the waist as their names and positions were announced, and Henry did the same in turn. He felt happy for being among men. The Baale, he knew, was a pagan, but he wondered if the man dressed in white might be Mohamedan. A boy came offering punch, and Henry had an opportunity to present the knife.

“Crafted in my home territory,” he said, delivering it into the king’s large palm.

The man turned it over but couldn’t figure it out.

“Let me show you.” Henry demonstrated how the blade could be brought out.

“Ah,” the Baale said, his eyebrows raised. “It is good. It is very good.”

As Henry was leaving, the fellow expressed happiness over his presence in the town and emphasized how he must stay for a long time. On the trek upcountry, Henry had already begun to think about how easy it would be to push on to Ilorin. Only thirty miles more and he would be on the northern frontier. He was fortified with Jacob. Emma had taken the trip well. She might prefer to set up house, but housekeeping was not their calling. Of course he would see to her welfare. But they were within reach of his true destination. He was being candid about a trade school. He could get it started, sketch out the plan. But a native agent could develop it. Henry’s calling was to clear the path. Smart as Emma was, she could not be expected to understand the imperative posed by the Mohamedans. He was pressed by time. So much of his life behind him. The Kingdom of God yet to be won.

The next morning, he studied his fingernails and later his hairline in the mirror. He powdered his feet. He thought the toenail was already better. It was the drier climate. Certainly they
should
move north, after the next dry season. Ogbomoso was a way station.