A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa (21 page)

Pulling herself back to her responsibilities, she spoke to Duro. “Mr. Bowman tells me he found some sort of native medicine in the kitchen. In one of your pots. Why do you have it?”

The man’s chest bent inward. “It is
oogun
mah, the medicine left by the idiot, against evil force.”

“We will have to let you go if you practice native charms.”

“Please mah. It is very powerful. It cannot be thrown away.” The cook made a swatting motion with his hand. “It can even move against a good something, if the owner is not careful.”

“But there is no power.”

“Yes mah.”

“You must agree to get rid of it.”

“Yes mah.”

“We will pray together—for your faith.”

That evening she and Henry ate supper in the courtyard. One fine quality of the dry season was the diminishment of insects in the twilight hours. Emma told her husband how she had spoken with Duro. “I think he truly understood,” she said. Henry didn’t seem to hear her. “Henry,” she said. “Henry!” When he looked up, he seemed lost, as if he were perceiving another world, not the one they were in.

“Are you well?” she said, dismayed.

“Of course,” he said. “I just had the oddest sensation—you know the kind—when you feel something has already happened.”

In the night, she woke frightened, remembering how Henry had been lost when they were in Ijaye. She nudged his arm, and he pulled her close.

The next day she saw Duro go out of the compound, and she thought:
He’s taking that medicine to bury somewhere.
And then she knew, as if it were something she had been knowing all her life, like the dominance of the number four, that the charm had been for Duro’s protection, perhaps even against her. Just as Uncle Eli’s arrangements that she had taken for stars were surely against her father. And though she didn’t believe any of it, she shivered in the heat.

· 25 ·

Living Stones

J
ACOB FELT HER
looking at him from the courtyard through the parlor doors.

He knew her eyes now. They were brown like his, almost as dark. Her hand had been like a bird in his hands, fluttering, afraid, white.

What was she, this pastor’s wife?

Jacob had a world in his head, and it depended on the
oyinbo
man.

He was glad when he and the reverend went into town, inviting people for church. The man spoke with him about the meaning of scripture. He even asked Jacob’s opinion about the parable of the vineyard in which everyone is paid the same regardless of how long he has labored. His heart warmed in their conversation. So he was concerned when Pastor spoke of Ilorin. It was no good to move again. Abike’s mother would not wish her to travel so far. Then what would he do? He was saving for the bride price. Without even having planned it, having spoken with no one about it, he had begun to think of Abike as a mother for his children.

* * *

O
NE
S
UNDAY IN
December
,
the earth so dry the ground had split, a large crowd arrived for services. Jacob was encouraged.

First, the missionary read scripture.
“Come, and let yourselves be built, as living stones, into a spiritual temple.”
Then he talked on it. “The sacrifice required by the true and living God is nothing short of your life. God does not require your fish. Give that to your children. Neither does He require your drink. Save that for yourselves. Such sacrifices laid at the feet of the Shango idol merely rot.”

Instead of living stones, Jacob saw turtles—turtles in droves, brown and green, old turtles and young, clamoring one over the other in chaos. Pastor was taking direct aim at the Yoruba pantheon, and few divinities were more favored than Shango, divinity of thunder and lightning.

“Ah!” a man erupted from the back, throwing the sleeves of his
agbada
over his shoulders.

Jacob waited for more of an outcry, but the people seemed intrigued by a white man speaking about their deities in their own language. It was like watching a lizard fly.

“The true God has come to us through His son, Jesus, because God loves us and wishes that we will not die but live with Him eternally—
titi lailai
—if only we believe.” Pastor dug into his pockets and pulled out a stone. “This is your life now,” he said. With the other hand, he held out a green branch. “This is your eternal life in Jesus.” Pastor rested, closed his Bible, and wiped his forehead. It was a good place to stop, Jacob thought. But the missionary started again.

“Your
orishas
cannot speak, nor can they give you everlasting life.” Pastor waved the living branch. “But when you come to Jesus, the Christian God speaks to you directly.”

The man who had protested earlier stood up. “Shango speaks loudly,” he declared. “First the lightning, and then he clears his throat! He speaks well-well-o.” A number of men laughed and clapped. Jacob could have anticipated this response.

“Lightning is merely a natural phenomenon,” Pastor said. “God may use it to chasten those who forget Him.” He paused as if he were remembering some personal experience with fire. “Only God directs the winds and rains. And He will not be appeased with scraps from our tables. God demands more, like a king!” Now he seemed to have hit upon a point. “The king of Ogbomoso is most powerful, no?” Agreement from all. “More powerful than the warrior, the chief, even the
babalawo
.”

Jacob would have stopped with the impression of the strong king and not brought in the high priest. Still the people agreed.

“Yes. Yes,” came the reply.

“And will the king accept mere gifts of food from his warriors? By no means! He requires the warrior’s absolute devotion! So much more is it with the living God!”

Another man sprang up: “The king will also take food for his belly!” Now the crowd rose up in a swell. Jacob bent his head to hide a grin. The townspeople who had shown up didn’t dislike the
oyinbo
. Their idea of things was to debate and see who could tell the best story. A few of the congregation, doubtless, hoped Rev. Bowman might work as a charm against the more ravenous race of Europeans who were interrupting their trade and demanding tariffs. Some might see the point he was making. It was true that God was the origin of all things. But they also saw their kinsman’s point; the king had to eat—and so did the
orishas
.

After the service, Rev. Bowman said he would not eat for two days, as a demonstration of spiritual sacrifice. He invited Jacob to join him. Again Jacob felt confirmed in their friendship. This
oyinbo
did not call him
brother
and then treat him as a slave. The reverend explained his thinking. “The people understand one God. The
orishas
are merely a mask to cover the darkness. To their credit, they conceive the darkness. But they have no idea how to find the light.” Jacob thought briefly of Pastor at night, bent to the ground, feeling the earth. Was there some light in the dark that Pastor sought? Had he found it there?

“It’s up to you,” the reverend was saying.

“I will join you,” Jacob said, but wondered that the missionary did not know that the Yoruba often fasted for their divinities: fasted for rain, for harvest, for battle. He saw the turtles again, but now they were dispersing, some leaping into the river, some even mating. The Pastor departed, and Jacob pressed his fingers against his temples. The man’s essence was restless. Mrs. Bowman knew this as well. He had seen her look from her husband to himself, Jacob, then back at the husband. Her eyes spoke what she did not say.

Tunji called in the evening after Wole had fallen asleep, carrying food as usual. He poked fun at the reverend, who had been bettered in his word game. “Watch where your tongue walks,” Jacob warned, even as he smiled at him. “It may pick up sand but never find meat.” To answer, Tunji offered up a gourd of cassava with sauce. “Sorry, brother.” Jacob tried not to look at the gift. “I am fasting.”

“Ha! You won’t last. Anyway, this food is happy to meet my belly.” Tunji fell into his dinner.

Later, when his master did not appear in the outer courtyard and the moon was waning and Tunji had lain down on a mat, forgetting to go home, Jacob picked up his banjo and found a tune in it he hadn’t heard before. It came from the small place on the back of Abike’s neck.

· 26 ·

A Letter

E
MMA HELD HER
tongue over her husband’s fasting, but it wasn’t easy. His health was never far from her mind, and not eating seemed an invitation to weakening. Furthermore, an
oyinbo
’s denying himself nourishment did not seem a route to the African mind. Then Jacob joined him, and she was faced with thinking on the two of them: Jacob quite capable of going two days without food; Henry, already too thin, much more vulnerable to some sort of attack. The comparison did little to unknot her tangled feelings. On the second day, Henry traded old horseshoes for a length of wood, to create a trough for Caesar, and she watched the men in the work of carving out the log. Her husband seemed to be holding up well. She was relieved enough to imagine that her infatuation with Jacob was passing.

In her school, Emma meant to make books of fables, but they were short on paper so she taught through memorization instead, though she worried that Wole learned too quickly. By the time she had the books, he would know the stories by heart and would not read but recite. It had been the same with word cards. He just knew them. Over and over he said, “I know that one mah. I know it.” She thought it quite possible she had found a boy genius in Africa.

Two weeks later, she woke early to see the moon still bright on the horizon. It filled her with well-being, as a pristine egg swaddled in her palm had always made her feel whole. She felt everything linked: the heavens, this African town, Henry’s sermon on life, her own body’s life, their household—Jacob, Duro, Abike, Wole. God had led her to the Iyalode, and she had begun her women’s work.

She found Henry at his table, occupied in copying Yoruba words into manuscript. It had become his custom first thing in the morning. She stood near him, energized by her vision. She bent to kiss his nicked ear. She ruffled his hair. “We were meant to come here,” she said, gazing into the courtyard to see a chicken with its biddies. Henry said nothing but continued at his work. Emma often liked him for his masculine reserve, and she rested her hand on his shoulder. She wandered over to a chair that had been left on the piazza and took advantage of it. She had a piece of mending in her apron pocket, which she pulled out now. She threaded her needle and continued her morning reverie. “Look how well you are. The people are so eager.” The morning smelled like water in the grass. She glanced at Henry. Wasn’t he going to say anything? “When do you expect to build a church?” she said. It took him no time to respond to this.

“I don’t think we’ll be here long enough to build,” he said, stopping to wet his index finger. “The next missionary, perhaps.” He sorted through some notes.

She set her mending aside. “Why do you say that? There is no one else.”

“Didn’t I tell you”—at last he looked up at her—“we’ve heard from the board. Two new missionaries, along with a Negro agent; they’re due to arrive in May. One can stay in Ijaye with Moore, and one can be stationed here with the agent. We can move soon after the baby.”

“No,” she said. “You told me nothing of it.” In her dreaming on Jacob, she had missed some vital sign from Henry.

“I thought I had.”

“Were there other letters?”

“Yes. One from your mother, I believe.”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you haven’t told me.” Her shoulders felt suddenly brittle. “How could you not tell me these things?”

“I set the letter right there on the table by the parlor door. I thought you’d see it.” He looked at her as though now she should be pleased; certainly he looked pleased.

Emma found the letter just as Henry had said, only it was half hidden under a book. She ripped it open and a seed packet fluttered to the floor. She picked it up and went straight to the bedroom to stow it in the trunk. Her eyes rested a moment in the darkened space until she understood she was looking for Henry’s rifle. It wasn’t there. She cut back across the courtyard to Henry.

“You have deceived me,” she said. The words echoed in her strangely. “Your actions led me to understand we would stay; I’ve set my mind to the work here.” Her husband’s head was down over his papers, as though she were speaking of a dress pattern or some such trifle and he hoped to escape the details. “We’re so well along.”

“You’re in my light,” he said, continuing his study.

“I thought,” she said, “you seemed quite energetic in your preaching here. I counted sixty people last Sunday. You’ve played with the children as though they were your very family.” It tore her to recall that beautiful scene, and this man would uproot it now and throw it to the fire!

Finally Henry looked at her, and she believed she hated him as fully and roundly as ever she had known a feeling.

“One of the Hausa men invited me on to Ilorin,” he said. “I didn’t say anything because there seemed little possibility. But with new missionaries, the way is open. Someone else will take Ogbomoso.” He looked back over the table as if he were surveying a field from some height and trying to imagine where to start clearing.

“A way has opened here,” she countered. “My student Sade will be a true believer. But she needs us to guide and support her. Duro will not travel as far as Ilorin. Jacob may not either. I can’t go there alone.”

“I’ve seen little evidence of true faith in anyone as yet,” he said. He looked directly into her face. “What do you mean alone?”

She felt a flurry in her chest. “I believe the signs suggest we should stay here.”

“You sound like a pagan, speaking of signs. This is a crossroads bulging with refugees. I made this mission and I’m the head of it. I’ll do as I see fit.”

“I thought you were fond of the place. The Baale wishes us to stay.” She knew exactly how she was using her anger in raising the specter of their benefactor.

“We’ll not decide the route of the gospel based on the wishes of an African king.”

“But we will. If the king of Ilorin decides against you,” she said, fiercely. She drummed her fingers on the table.

“Will you stop that everlasting tapping. It’s like a Chinese torture.”

Emma grabbed Henry’s arm and shook it. “Will you think about us?”

“Let go of me,” he said. He ran his fingers through his hair, then ran his hands down the sides of his face, and at last picked up his pen. His gaze turned from her. He began to write something, but he pushed the nib too hard and tore the paper. When he looked up, it was to ponder the courtyard. “Well, that will need copying,” he said and stood, hitting against the table and upsetting slips of paper that fluttered to the floor. He walked over them and stepped down from the piazza. Emma could see his figure retreating, how he aimed himself toward the passageway and then into it as if to save any unnecessary step. In a little bit she heard Caesar’s hooves and knew he had ridden out.

She sat for a good while and felt her hot misery. She saw her husband being led not by the gospel but by some baser need. He spoke of humility but jousted for power with these native kings. Certainly it was fine for her to sister the load, work with the women, but to him it was so much embroidery. She wondered if she had married a man who was spiritually less worthy than she had thought he was. It was one thing to be stricken with fever, quite another to use one’s energies for vanity. He kept her in the dark on purpose, contemplating things of utmost importance to their work. She put her injured thumb to her lips. An image of Jacob’s walking away rose in her mind, and she was suddenly enraged with him for distracting her. When Abike found her, Emma was still brooding.

During the school hour, she let her passion flow into her teaching, and she thought it was the best class she had ever led. Abike was developing a beautiful voice, a lovely soprano. Emma wished she had a piano in Ogbomoso. At midday, she took her repast in the parlor where it was cool, and once or twice she raised her head to listen for the sound of Henry’s horse, not because she was through with her anger but because she nursed it and looked forward to expressing it. They could not keep riding into the unknown world.

As afternoon shadows grew, she began creating a story in which she could see just how far Henry had ridden and so could imagine him on his way back. She would still be angry when he returned; in fact, she looked forward to keeping her anger for a week at least. But he would be here and she would not have to carry the responsibility of the entire compound. She had only to survive the next two or three hours. For a moment, she dozed in her chair and then woke with a start. Everything was still and Emma felt on the edge of an unfathomable void, the world without shape or reason, the hot day an eternal suspension. A terror gripped her, so frightening it seemed hellish. She wished to scream; someone must come to break this awful spell. In that moment, she remembered her mother’s letter left in the parlor. Who knew what might be in it. It was one of only a handful she had received in a year and a half. Emma scanned it quickly—Catherine’s new house, a revival in the church, nothing about her father being reconciled with God. And at the very end, almost an afterthought.
Old Uncle Eli finally died. We made him a nice grave in the Negro cemetery. The seed is from his garden.

Emma twisted the letter and pressed it against her chest. At first she was calm, almost reassured, as if she had been transported home. Then she thought of the old man’s hands that last time, lying gently on the quilt, all of the beauty that had come out of them. She closed her eyes and tears flooded her face. She was a small raft on a great ocean, nowhere a mooring. Her shoulders rose and fell. Poor Uncle Eli. She conjured the old man, his open smile for her, the wonderful look of surprise that came to his face when she was a girl, how special he made her feel.

Someone touched her shoulder. Little Wole. She caught him into her arms and sobbed. She rocked back and forth with him, recalling in her mind whole scenes of Uncle Eli, his whittling, finding her at the stream, saving her from the elephant, tending the garden, and always his turning to her.
It’s the white bird come to visit.
But not again, not ever. “I have never been in the world without him,” she said aloud. Wole looked into her face. Suddenly Emma remembered the letter opener.
You find a place.
Her torment doubled. She hugged the boy back to her.

“Mah?” he said into her shoulder.

She broke the embrace but still held his hands. “I lost a friend,” she said.

“Jesus?” he said.

“No, not Jesus,” she said.

Into evening, Wole stayed with her. Abike brought tea. Jacob came to ask if she needed his help. She looked at him sadly.
Mend me
, she wanted to say. “An old friend died,” she said instead. “My mother wrote to me.”

“Ah mah,
e pele o
,” Abike said, “I am sorry.”

No one in the house spoke of Henry. Beneath the odan tree, Emma committed two sentences into her journal.
Husband too much desirous of the north. Uncle Eli passed.
Out of the last wispy clouds, she pulled to her mind the wild rhododendron of Georgia.

Finally it was dusk and Duro brought the lantern. Soon he returned with her evening meal. She ate most of it, for the baby. The cook came back to collect her dishes. “Where is Abike?” she said.

“She is with me in the kitchen,” he said.

“Send her to bed.”

Emma watched her handmaid enter her room. She saw the curtain close and soon after, Abike’s candle was shut, as the girl liked to say. Duro returned to ask if she wished him to sit as a night watchman by her door, but she said no. She took the lantern and went to bed, but when she entered the room, the terror of the afternoon hit her again, the absolute cold absence. She steadied the lantern on the bedside table and opened Henry’s medicine kit. She let her eyes rest on the contents, waiting for her vision to adjust. There was the small decanter of wine. She took it out and poured half a cup. In a moment, she found the slender amber bottle of laudanum. It clinked against the others. The sound seemed monstrous. Like a thief, she turned her back to the curtained door of the room and hid the bottle as she tried to open it. The stopper had been set in odd-angled and it was stuck. She was afraid of breaking the vessel if she forced the stopper. Why in the world had it been pressed so forcefully and wrongly? She rubbed her damp palms against her skirts and tried again, and this time it gave. She thought six drops would put her to sleep. She stirred the tincture, set the cup on the table next to the lantern, applied the stopper back to the bottle, replaced it in the kit, and set the kit back on the trunk. Her ears seemed to be ringing. She lifted the cup and drank it in one gulp and set the glass down. In a bit she couldn’t tell if her skirts belonged to her dress or her nightgown. It didn’t seem to matter. She made herself think harder about the light, being sure to snuff it, and then waiting to be sure she could see nothing, not even her hands, before turning herself into the bed.