A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa (30 page)

· 44 ·

Portuguese Coin

H
ENRY’S ACCUSATIONS DISCOURAGED
Emma. The way he spoke of her writing box, Jacob’s lines to her. She felt he had drawn her clothes away and shown her naked. She moved the box to a corner of the parlor where she often sat in the afternoon. It might have happened because of Wole’s washing her things months earlier or the long time in this country, heat and moisture, but it had come to be the case that bits of paper could be hidden in the seam beneath the secret drawer and drawn out with a needle. Bits Emma had written and later cut from her diary she sometimes kept there, though she often brought these out and tucked them into the pockets of palm trees formed where fronds were cut, or she shredded them first then tossed them over the back fence for birds to build into nests. Now she chose to slide Jacob’s notes into this space. She closed the box and placed her Testament on top against anyone who would open it. For days she herself did not open it. But her process of reclaiming the box affected her like a wrapping of cloth. She felt centered again in the urgency of their lives.

“We must consult one another in talk,” she said to Jacob.

“He is not coming. He is gone to Lagos.”

“You mean Hathaway?”

“Yes mah.”

Hathaway was not coming. It was useless, but she went through the list. “And his wife?”

“She is with him. Gone.”

“Any news of Moore?”

“He remains ill in Abeokuta.”

“Letters?”

“Nothing.”

Emma let her eyes wander the yard. “We will rely on each other,” she said, “and on God.”

She meandered back into the parlor and sat at the dining table. Henry had brought Jacob’s bamboo cross into the sitting room. Aside from that, Uncle Eli’s carving on her special shelf was, as yet, the room’s sole ornamentation. Emma thought the letter opener looked happy, set on the straight side against the board and the arched side up, the man’s head facing downward and the little bird atop the head turned the other way, the bird’s beak pointed heavenward. She clasped it in her hand, reminded of the old man and his affection, and she saw again his look of welcome, almost like an anointing. She placed the treasure in her apron pocket and went out to meet Sade and the children for school.

Later, out of kindness toward his manhood she appealed to Henry, but her mind was made up. “What do you think of selling some items we don’t need?” she said, “to tide us over, for our work.”

He looked out the window, his brow furrowed, before finding the words he wanted. “I’m sorry you have to do it,” he said. At least he recognized her suffering, and then she was sorry that in all of their wanderings and mutual struggle they had not come closer to knowing each other. She was suddenly visited by a memory, some months after Sarah’s death. She had been ill when her bleeding started and Henry had washed her there, so delicate and kind. And they never spoke of it because the act itself was the speech. But so much had happened since.

* * *

E
MMA ALREADY HAD
several baskets filled with biscuit and tea tins and wooden spools and mismatched buttons when she called for Abike’s help. “We mean to sell these items to support our work,” she said. “I’m surprised we even moved all of this. There are dishes we never use.” She pushed her hair back and tried to restore its order. But with fewer combs, it kept falling. “Go get the dress you’ve outgrown,” she said.

At dinner, she offered one of her dresses for sale. “The one I wore for our portrait,” she said to her husband. “I will never wear it here, and I have a better travel dress besides.”

“But will someone buy it?” he said.

She felt her sacrifice had not been acknowledged.

“I believe so.” She poured tea into her cup using a tin kettle and spilled some. He might offer something he did not wish to part with: his new saddle, for example, or one of the colorful Fulani blankets from Ilorin. She looked out the parlor window. Heat swells hovered over the ground. A storm likely. The baby kicked and she found her determination again. “What of yours?” she said. Henry fidgeted; he was touching his side but pretending not to.

“We might as well put up the saddle,” he said finally. “I won’t buy another horse in this territory.” She knew it pained him, and she felt sorry and glad and laid her hand on his.

“Thank you,” she said.

Before anyone could get to the market to sell, the Iyalode called. Emma saw her coming up the lane. She hadn’t seen the woman since she showed up to services in her powerfully built costume of purple and orange, but this was not a good time. It would be awkward to explain the sale items all piled up in the parlor. Emma rushed out to greet her and they sat on the piazza. Duro brought out the tea tray, tea already poured. He offered one of the china cups to the Iyalode, who spied the sugar bowl and asked for it.

“Have you had sweet tea before?” Emma said, “
O dun?
Sweet?” She had precious little sugar left.

“Not at all. Even so, if you drink with sweet, I will do it,” the woman said. With the first sip, the Iyalode lengthened her legs out before her. “This tea will make me strong,” she remarked. “It is very potent.”

“Miracles never cease,” Emma said.

“What is that?”

“I only meant that I’m surprised you like the tea. Most Africans don’t like sweets.”

“I am not like most people,” the Iyalode said, pulling out a fan and beginning to circulate the air. “I thought I would find your baby by now.”

“Not yet,” Emma said, patting her belly, happy to be sitting in a chair.

“What is the name to be?”

“We don’t know until it comes.”

“You are carrying a girl. You can decide the name.”

“Thank you. I will tell my husband. But I doubt he will believe you.”

“Yes. Men want sons. But you are carrying a daughter.”

“No. He will be happy with a girl.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway what he wants,” she said. And then she seemed ready for another topic. “The young women in the town want to know, if they join the
oyinbo
church, will their hair straighten?”

“Of course not. They are Africans.”

“I have told them,” she said.

“The church is not about the body. The church is about the spirit,” Emma said.

“Yes. But women consider the body, is it not?” The Iyalode was like a branching tree with her questions and comments. “I have heard that your husband is ill. Is it true?”

“He has suffered the
oyinbo
fever,” Emma said.

Of a sudden, the Iyalode set her teacup down. “Who has been to see you?” she said.

“Why, what’s wrong?”

“Some strong spirit has passed by,” she said. “Ah!”

Emma suspected the Iyalode was creating a diversion. She had never met a woman who delighted more in maneuvering. “Are you ill?” she said. “Do you need medicine?”

“No mah. It is not myself. Something is troubled for your compound. It needs to rest.” She looked over her shoulder as if in fear of a ghost.

Emma turned to study Duro across the way, to see if he had noticed anything. But he seemed perfectly stable, and she thought again that her visitor was drawing attention to herself.

“Perhaps you would like to see the garden we have begun,” Emma said, breezily as she could. She still had Uncle Eli’s carving in her apron pocket and she touched it now, surprised that it felt woolly. It must be lint. If she could get the Iyalode standing, perhaps the woman would soon leave.

Leaning over the fence, Emma spied the first tender shoots of green breaking the soil. “Oh look! Look! The zinnias are up,” she called back to the Iyalode, who was taking her time.

“Will you make a soup?” the woman said, still looking about the yard as if it could not be trusted.

“No,” Emma said, “it makes a flower.”

“Ah,” the woman said, seeming unimpressed. She had turned her attention to her purse. Emma watched as she pulled out a gold coin.

“You have a dress to sell,” the Iyalode said, the Portuguese coin in her palm.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I will like to buy it,” her guest said.

Emma started for the house. When she returned, the woman relieved her of the heavy garment, somehow tying it into a bundle that she gave to her handmaiden, who carried it on her head. Passing out of the compound, the Iyalode stopped and shook her hands toward Emma’s yard as if to disclaim something. The taffeta dress glowed in the sunlight like a small blue moon.

The next day, the Iyalode sent her handmaiden back to the compound on instruction that she was to help Abike sell the Bowmans’ items in the market. Emma did not argue or even try to imagine how the woman knew her business. Jacob took the saddle, and the two girls together turned out to be skilled traders. With what they made at the market and the Iyalode’s Portuguese coin, they now had enough money to maintain them for another four months at least.

Emma felt keenly the hardship of finding herself beneath the Iyalode, who was wealthier in her world than Emma was in hers. She cried when she was alone, and being alone her sorrow was greater. When she roused herself, she considered that her heart was not pure. Didn’t she believe that the meek inherited the earth? Hadn’t she wished for a world in which white people did not always lord over Negroes? Vanity. She had hardly read the scripture for days. Who was she to talk of giving everything? But then she felt the child move and was reminded that she must protect them. Surely she was required to look after things with Henry weakened. When she lay down to rest, she felt a discomfort—Uncle Eli’s carving in her pocket. She took it out and laid it under her palm on the bed.

· 45 ·

Lost Pilgrim

We know of the great Yoruba kingdom of Oyo. In many ways these people had achieved an advanced civilization. Their language is complex and lyrical; their religion affords every concept necessary for moral reasoning. Their skills in trade cannot be surpassed. What one wonders is why they have not built finer cities. A woman can exit her house looking like a queen. Why does the house look like a hovel?

—HENRY, PERSONAL PAPERS

H
ENRY LAID HIS
pen aside. He was seriously weakened by the latest illness. Occasionally he found himself overly vexed with Emma, the way she had taken liberties, going to the Baale without him. More than once he had considered how he might, should the good Lord show up for conversation, ask Him to take her back to Georgia.

Let me try a walk around the yard
, he thought.
I can rest on the piazza if need be.

Within the week, he and Jacob were taking evening strolls on the lane in front of their compound. He looked up to see his wife waiting for them as they returned. She seemed to hesitate, as if she had perceived some problem in welcoming them. He thought it was his problem, not hers: He was not apprehending or could not apprehend the intention of movement; his body and mind were not yet reconfirmed in belonging to the same man.

The next morning there were a thousand yellow flowers blooming in the field behind the house, like morning glories. Henry picked a bucket full and brought them to Emma. Many were wilted but perked up when she put them in water. After breakfast, he thought to take a ramble on his own, before the heat set in. Rains had brought the trees into full leaf, and he didn’t see the women who had set up their cooking and selling at the church site until he stumbled over them. Nearby, a man was sleeping at the roots of an old tree, or he was resting because every few seconds, his hand rose and slapped his face—to free it of flies. Henry remembered watching out the window as the Iyalode claimed his wife’s dress like a captive animal and set it on her girl’s head. When had things gotten so out of his control?

“What in heaven’s name are you doing?” he said to the women before him. “Get up, all of you. Be up! This is not your place. This is God’s place.” He meant to be stern but not mean.

The sleeping man slapped his ear and opened an eye. Henry walked over and needled his legs with a stick. That brought some attention, and the man sat up and began to rub his face. But he made no effort to stand, and Henry suddenly felt he might have misapprehended his own whereabouts. He looked around. But he was exactly right. Here was the scaffolding Jacob had begun. “I say! Get up. Find another place. This is ground for the church of God.”

“Please sah,” the man said. “I am waiting for food.”

“Waiting for food! Wait somewhere else. This is not a market.”

“For long time I sit here,” the man said. The women kept turning their cakes or fish or whatever it was they were preparing.

“You poor lost pilgrim,” Henry said. One of the women was leaning straight over a tray. She had stacked it high with
akara
, and he could see she had in mind to set it just where he meant for the altar to stand. Watching her move with her casual swaying walk, he burst into flame. “You,” he said, and pointed to her, “making profit on holy ground.” He flew to her, grabbed her tray, and swung the contents out across the ground.

The squatters picked up what they could and ran into the road. Henry took off his coat, the one he had brought with him to Africa five years ago. He held it from the base and gave it a good yank. It tore like a piece of paper. He yanked again and the garment was sundered in two, all but the collar. He pulled a third time and the collar ripped apart. He could hear the threads give way and saw the ragged edges of the fabric. When he pulled at his shirt, buttons flew like tiny birds.

“Why not sell the clothes from my back,” he said, and under his breath, “
niggers
.” He almost laughed. They didn’t even know that word. Who was he talking to? He found his handkerchief and wiped his face. He was a man who kept to maps, who charted cities, who considered the angle of a building set on a landscape. Could he call to these witnesses and say: “Don’t you see, I am already looking out the window of my church and into the firmament?” No. The silence around him seemed to grow like smoke, and he thought he smelled gunpowder. He didn’t know how to go forward, and he could not retreat. The women stared. He saw that others had come out of houses, even children. He must seem to them repulsive, a lost soul.

He stormed back to the house, claimed Jacob’s cross, and slammed back out, twisting his leg as he stepped down from the piazza. At the church site, the crowd was still gathered. A little girl was favoring a rough wooden doll she pretended to bathe in an empty bowl. He held the cross aloft.

“Jesus died for you poor sinners,” he called. “You may find bread today, but what will save you when the Lord of heaven returns with all His hosts and you have not repented?” Now he was in better control.

The little girl tied her doll onto her back with a strip of cloth.

“What is it you wish?” someone finally said, though Henry did not believe it was one of the folks before him who spoke. It was someone from another landscape and another time.

If I could walk out into the farms and fields
, he thought,
I might be whole
. He started for the Ilorin Gate, limping, still bearing the cross. At one point, he turned and looked behind and saw his house, but it appeared to be miles away. What foolishness. A garden. What are zinnias for Africa? He turned again, but the path in front of him had lost its particularity. It could be any path. It could be Oklahoma, Georgia, or Texas. It was the same path he had taken after his mother died. He had lost his hat somewhere and the yellow sun pounded his head until his hair felt hot enough to burn his hand when he touched it. The cut place on his leg still smarted.

Henry suddenly recalled the date, his forty-first birthday, and not even his wife remembered. He felt icy cold. His body seemed to walk away from his mind so that he watched himself but was not himself.

“There’s nothing I want but relief,” he said, and shooed the children who had followed him. He sat outside the town’s wall with the cross propped beside him and looked out toward the great city he would never reach. He sat for hours, until sunset, and then he walked back to his house. The little start of a bamboo church seemed to mock him. He skirted the site. When he entered the house, his wife was sitting in the parlor in her huge way. She had wept. Her hands wrenched a handkerchief.

“Have I ruined us?” he said.

Her eyes seemed to grow, and she pulled in a cry rather than letting one out. The sound was of an animal in pain.