Tefuga (23 page)

Tues August 26

Long sigh. Flop into chair. B. & s. The river. The gramophone. Home … And we've done it! We've won! I've won. Yes. It was really me. If I hadn't been there it wouldn't have been any good. Oh, some day, in five years, or ten, someone would've found out. But I did it, this year. It was my private war, and I won. Now I'm going to write it all down, before the men start telling it their way.

Well, now, starting at the beginning, the tour began very badly indeed. Off we went with Bevis (which is what we're supposed to call Mr de Lancey now!) and our six soldiers and our bearers (you never saw such a job lot!) to Ofafe where we were going to meet KB's people, same as last time. Not a sign of them. And not a sign of Lukar, either! Ted was perfectly furious—I've never seen him really angry before—and in the end he took the soldiers off to Kiti to find out what had happened and when the ones who were supposed to be coming with us—the Bangwa Wangwa and KB's waziri and one of his sons called Alafambo—said they'd changed their minds and tried to make excuses like being ill he arrested them on the spot and gave them the choice of coming on tour as tho' they liked it or coming in handcuffs! I wish I'd been there to see their jaws drop, tho' I don't suppose they did—Hausa nobs try not to show their feelings, ever. It's one of the things that makes them so tricky to deal with. And Lukar still missing. Not in his house, nowhere. Ted got back to Ofafe middle of the afternoon, still raging, then we plugged on till long after dark and set up camp in the middle of nowhere, everyone in a filthy temper except Bevis. He was v. gracious and smarmy to Ted and didn't complain about anything, even supper, which was only just eatable though poor Elongo'd done his best! I do wish I could find a way of liking him. He's so much cleverer and more amusing and well-read than Ted, as well as understanding about painting, but as a person he isn't a patch on him. Oh, yes, I was in a foul mood too, 'cos when we were waiting at Ofafe I went off and tried to chat to the villagers. Nobody stopped me, but it wasn't any good. They were terrified—some of them absolutely grey with fear. They tried to pretend I was talking a foreign language. Only one or two children, till their mothers called them away. Such a let-down!

Then, in the middle of the night, all our bearers tried to run away. Mercifully Corporal Igg, who was in command of the soldiers, is an absolutely splendid type, straight as a ramrod, black as a squashball, a real advertisement for what army training can do for the African. If only there were a few more like him we wouldn't need to be here at all! Anyway, he'd got wind of what the bearers were planning and told his men to be ready and when it happened he rounded them up—just like a first-rate sheepdog—and came and reported. Ted and Bevis questioned the bearers, but course they only said they wanted to get back to their gardens. But it was clear as crystal somebody'd put the wind up them. Even Ted agreed. He was a changed man, by the by. In a funny way he was rather enjoying himself, breaking rule after rule, losing his temper and so on. It started after he'd read Kimjiri's letter and now everything that happened gave him a fresh excuse, but I don't think it was just that. There's a lot of frustration and rebelliousness been bottled up inside him for years. He's been longing to throw his weight about and bully people a bit, spite of what he's always said about being patient with the native and doing things the African way. That was only what he thought he thought—what he thought he ought to think—but he didn't really, not deep inside. Aren't people funny, living whole lives pretending to themselves, until something happens? I'm not going to let that happen to me. Well, I hope I'm not—don't get cocky, Bets.

Well, next day we did a huge march, v. exhausting for everyone. I've forgotten to say how
different
the bush is after the rains—you almost wouldn't know you were in the same country! The grass has shot up, some places high as a man or more, and then it's got heavy with the wet and its own seeds, and sort of tired so it flops across the track and whoever's going first has to shove their way through—we used the horses for that, and they hated it—and all the loose seeds fall off and get inside your shirt. And the insects! Ouch! And top of that you can't really see more than a few yards most of the time, even from a horse. It was an absolutely
rotten
time to go and look for hidden villages. Ted had known all along, of course, and so'd Bevis, but Bevis had got the bit between his teeth and was absolutely determined to get on with it. Really we'd have done much better to wait till the grass-burning starts, tho' that doesn't always mean there's a village near—it's mostly the honey-hunters who start the fires.

Anyway we started before dawn and hardly stopped at all till noon, when we reached a place called Gokwo. Our poor bearers were practically dropping by then, so the soldiers rounded up every able-bodied man in Gokwo and Ted paid the old bearers off and on we went and got to Binja utterly exhausted just before dark. The horses were in a dreadful state and all us riders were saddle-sore, and the Hausa were groaning and clutching their stomachs and swearing they'd been poisoned and the bearers—usually bearers sing on the march to help them keep going, but these ones just made a sort of moaning chant up and down the line as tho' they were going to a funeral! Even the soldiers were limping a bit. Only Corporal Igg looked as tho' he'd have liked to do the whole march over again. But at least we'd got to the part we'd been aiming for.

Next day Ted and me stayed in Binja to check the census with Alafambo and the Bangwa Wangwa. Actually Alafambo is rather a nice-looking man, about forty, I'd think. He's been to Mecca and he's supposed to be a good Arab scholar—if he was white he'd look just right pottering round Oxford in a gown and mortar-board—but he was just as determined to be difficult about everything as any of the others. While we were doing that Bevis and the soldiers went out to explore. We didn't find anything, and nor did they. Censusing is terribly difficult with people like that. You can count huts but you don't know how many men are using one 'cos brothers often share, tho' the huts belong to the women. We only count men, of course. You can look at the gardens and try and work out how many men from that, but the ground's so poor that the Kitawa have to get a lot of their food from the bush, hunting game and finding wild plants. The idea of trying right after the rains was to catch as many at home as possible, working their gardens, but there didn't seem to be even as many as there were supposed to be. It was terribly slow. They did their absolute best not to tell us anything. Even the simplest question they'd think ages about before answering. At least they stopped pretending they couldn't understand my Kiti after I'd got Elongo along to help. (Alafambo tried to object to that, by the by.) But the awful thing was E. was obviously almost as frightened and nervous as they were. I asked him why when I got him alone to make arrangements about supper, but he wouldn't tell me. And then Bevis and the soldiers trailed in. They'd split up into three parties and between them they must have gone miles. No good.

We had to leave the horses at Binja, 'cos from then on it's much thicker bush and swarming with tsetse. You don't get them nearly so much out in the grassland, provided you're careful about not watering the horses in the shade and so on. So we had to plug on on foot. I could've hammocked but I was d—d if I was going to 'cos that would've given the Hausa an excuse to say they wanted to hammock too and there weren't enough bearers. Funny, broken country, much more interesting to paint if there'd been time—not actual hills but all crumbled and wrinkled into crooked little valleys. Much more water about, and sudden terrific strong smells after the rains, specially from a bush covered with tiny green flowers the size of pinheads. Mr Mooreshed's butterflies. Bags of game, Ted thinks, but v. difficult to hunt.

Got to Sollum early afternoon. I was thoroughly fagged after my tramp, so Ted and Bevis took the soldiers out for a first explore (no luck) and after that we decided we'd have a change of tactic so Ted and me went down to the village (the rest house is on a ridge outside—come to that in a mo) and got the elders together and told them that tomorrow we were going to count them and they absolutely must make certain that all the men were in the village. I actually asked them if there were any people hiding. It wasn't terribly promising 'cos they clammed up, like at Binja, and they wouldn't look me in the face, tho' I noticed that usually one of the ones I wasn't talking to kept glancing over to where the Hausa had setup camp. We purposely hadn't brought any of them with us. Another rule broken, but it didn't do much good!

We went back to the rest house feeling thoroughly dumpish. It still wasn't dark so Ted and Bevis decided to go and see if they could shoot anything and I went round to the back of the rest house to see how Elongo was getting on with supper. Sollum is in the bottom of the valley, but the rest house is up on a ridge, terribly tumbledown, stinking of bats and crawling with huge spiders. That's what happens in Africa the moment your back's turned. Nobody'd used it for four years, Ted said, and we'd all three taken one look at it and said we'd sleep in our tents, but we had to pretend to use it for supper so Ted could make a fuss with the elders about getting it cleaned and tidied.

I tried to put Elongo at his ease by talking to him about supper, and telling him tactfully as I could what he'd done wrong the time before. It was almost dusk, something like a proper sunset for once, orange in the west, and the bush beneath beginning to turn dark and strange. You could feel it watching you. I'd heard one or two shots, and now there was another one. Everything seemed stiller after it, listening, waiting before it dare breathe again.

“There is a lot of game round here,” I said.

“It is good bush.”

“There are men hiding.”

I hadn't planned to say that. It was the stillness after the shot that had made me feel them. Elongo looked at me but didn't say anything.

“Why do they hide? Why are they afraid?”

“I do not know.”

This was all Kiti so far. I decided to switch to English.

“You're afraid, Elongo,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You needn't be afraid. We'll look after you.”

“I am not afraid for me, myself, Elongo Sisefonge. There is a big fear and I am part of it. All the men are afraid. I cannot speak to you more.”

“What about the women, then? Femora Feng spoke to me, and Atafa Guni.”

“They have seen a dream.”

“Yes, I know. But …”

“I cannot speak more.”

He was so unhappy I couldn't bear it. I could see how torn he was. Part of him—the part that had lived with us and done lessons with me and wore our housecoat—that part longed to help, only all his old Kiti side was locked up in fright, and that was too strong for the new bits. I mean, that new Elongo was so young, just a baby really, only six months old, terribly helpless. I suppose I might have bullied and wheedled him into telling me more but it didn't seem fair, so I went round to the front of the rest house to wait for the men to come back. Sun almost down now, with the bats flooding out, hundreds, so quiet and quick, ugh. I sat in my folding chair and tried to think. It was obvious the men weren't any good. I mean if dear Elongo, who's really quite brave and sensible, could be so afraid … it was interesting what he'd said about one big fear and being part of it. They really think like that, as tho' they weren't separate people but part of one big creature like an ant's nest or a bee-hive. That's one of the reasons KB's got such a hold on them. The only hope was for me to get hold of a woman, get her alone or with one or two others.

No men …

Next thing I knew I was walking down towards the village.

I should have waited. It was a rotten time really, but I did it without thinking, 'cos it was my time, inside me. I had to. Kiti women spend all day getting food ready, pounding beans and roots and so on, but they don't put it to cook till the men come home, and then they sit outside the huts together drinking a specially foul kind of beer they make from roots and talk about this and that till the food's cooked. So I didn't actually have much chance of finding one of the women alone, far enough from the others to talk to. Still, I thought I'd at least have an explore.

I didn't want to go straight in 'cos I was sure people would be watching our way, so I snuck off down a little side path. There's always a lot of little paths close to a village and it was still light enough to pick my way. I worked my way round to the far side and then stole up towards the huts. There was a good deal of noise, voices, men and women, arguing. It meant I could get right up close behind one of the huts without them noticing. The argument was only just the other side. I stood there in the dusk and tried to hear what they were saying.

First off it was v. difficult, so many voices, and interruptions, and me not being able to see any of the faces. It was practically all men, doing the talking. Luckily they said the same things over and over (natives do) so I picked up quite a bit in the end. First it was about us. Why were we there? Why was there no word from the mouth of Kama Boi, saying men must go in the bush and hide? Why had the White Woman asked about men hiding? She was a witch. Did she see the men hiding in the huts? Why had the horsemen not come to the palaver with the White People? The horsemen were very angry. Then someone started on a story about people who were more dangerous than the horsemen, the servants of the White Man who had come with guns and burnt Binja and Dolo and shot men at Dolo who tried to stop them (Bestermann's Patrol, I think) and now they had come again with the White Man. They were terrible. If they found the men hiding in the huts they would shoot them and burn the village. The men must go to Kailungi and hide there, go in the night. No! Who would go out in the dark with the white woman so near? She was a dangerous witch. She made magical pictures. Nobody must talk to her. That was the word from the mouth of Kama Boi. She had seen the men hiding in the huts. That was why she had asked questions. They must go to Kailungi while it was dark. No, no—they were afraid! (That's a funny thing about natives and the dark—till you know them you think that 'cos they don't have electric lights and so on they'll be used to the dark, but really they're just as afraid of it as I was when I was small. There's so much might be out there, not just leopards and snakes and soon, but witches and demons and the ghosts of dead neighbours. They're real. Soon as you're afraid enough, things become real.)