Tefuga (26 page)

“That was somebody called Atafa Guni.”

Surprised by this apparently lost fragment from the past the Sarkin chuckled.

“I had forgotten.”

“I don't think she met Femora Feng again until just before the Incident.”

“It does not matter. All the women dreamed this dream in the end. It caused great dissension between them and the men, and by then certainly the dream showed the termite so, and the women agreed that it signified your mother. But when Femora Feng told me to go and find the white man and ask for work on the house he was building she did not know that your mother was coming. The termite was simply a termite.”

“Wasn't there something about your sister being stolen?”

“How do you know that?”

“It's in my mother's diary. You told her.”

“I cannot have told her in those words, but yes, one of the nephews of Kama Boi who was overlord of Tefuga had taken my sister to work for him for a year because my uncles could not pay their full taxes. This was common. We did not like it, but since Bestermann's Patrol we did not dare fight against it, so the custom had grown up.”

“I'd have thought it broke the agreement you'd made with Kama Boi and his predecessors.”

“It was not done by Kama Boi himself, but by his nobles and family. He benefited because of the presents they were thus able to send him.”

“He must have known.”

“He knew and he did not know. But to us Kitawa the case was that his spirit had been tricked by the white men. We did not want to harm him. We wanted to release him from the magical power of the white men, so that he could protect us again, and we could go back to our golden age. It was Femora Feng and then the other women who first saw that this could not be done, and that therefore Kama Boi himself must somehow be destroyed. The oppression, you see, was not static. As the Hausa discovered they could get away with one thing, they then went on to another. The case of my sister was only a minor example. Her overlord, seeking a favour from Kama Boi, had included her in his gift. This was against custom but my uncles did not dare complain. Only that rains a man who had caused offence by trying to bring a complaint had been beaten to death and his body left by the track for all to see.”

“So you went to the river. How did you manage to get taken on?”

“I do not know. Perhaps because of what Femora Feng had seen me do in her dream I did not feel afraid of the White Man. I stood up straight in front of him. I spoke very little Hausa, but one of the river Kitawa had taught me what to say. At least your father gave me work. Then, without my doing anything more, your father asked me to stay and be his houseboy when his new wife came.”

“She didn't know much about Africa. He thought experienced servants would take advantage of her and cheat her.”

“Probably. I thought the White Man a very strange creature. He was old and rich. He had two horses and many huts, but only one wife and she neither old nor young, but ugly. I thought perhaps he had eaten his other wives. He certainly ate much boiled chicken in order to keep himself white, and kept a smoking-stick in his mouth for the same reason.”

“It must have been pretty confusing.”

“That is not the reason I tell you. I want you to understand what sort of boy it was who saw these things, how he thought, what was the shape of his mind. For then, you see, your mother caused me to change again, in a new way, the first of my people. Just as Femora Feng had taken me into her hut to show me how to be a man, so your mother took me into hers to show me how to be a White Man. Indeed she spoke to me once in words such as Femora Feng might have used, telling me to do something in a manner I could not refuse. This was very important to me. I owe those two women an equal debt.”

“What did you make of her as a person?”

“She had a strong spirit in her, much more than your father. In some ways I did not find her so strange. She was like any young bride. Of course there were many things I did not understand. She drew and painted everything she saw. At first I was a little afraid to see how she could take a big river and trap it on a small piece of paper, but then … I remember a day when she painted Kama Boi and some of his people in front of Kiti Gate. I kept the flies off her while she did so, so I saw how she took that great and dreadful man and made him small on the paper. I saw him with her eyes, and for a little while I was not afraid of him. I learned by her painting to see our world in the way the white man saw it. And she taught me English also.

“But I was always wary of her. You do not change in one week from being a simple savage into being a westernized politician. Despite her kindness to me I continued to think of her as having dangerous powers, but I decided that these were mostly devoted to preventing her husband from marrying a second wife. She had a magic for this which she would wear inside her before they copulated, which they did often and with vigour. At night I would hear her crying out aloud to encourage him. But yet she had no children. Among our people when a wife has no children she must find another woman to bear her children for her, so all this was very hard to understand. I could not ask her about it. It is women's talk. But I watched all her movements, and your father's, because of what Femora Feng had told me about my part in her dream.”

“You still took that seriously?”

“Of course. Why not? I take it seriously to this day. Femora Feng was a great spirit. Such people are close to the ancestors. She had foreknowledge of what would happen. Dreams do not speak clearly, but that one spoke clearly enough. There is as much evidence for its truth as there is for many of the scientific propositions which you accept without question. Because of what your mother did and said Kama Boi was destroyed and the rule of the Hausa over the Kitawa ended.”

“And then you smote the White Man with your ballot-box and he fell to bits and crawled away.”

The Sarkin laughed.

“You hadn't thought of it like that?” said Jackland.

“Not that interpretation.”

“Oh?”

But the Sarkin was apparently more interested in the details of this new reading of the dream.

“Certainly the White Man fell to pieces,” he said. “How can you rule when you doubt both your own right to do so and the means by which you do it? In the 'Fifties you could hardly find one British administrator who would not tell you openly that in his opinion the whole system of Indirect Rule had been mistaken from the start.”

“Some of them must have felt that all along. Judging by my mother's diary, my father had a fairly pessimistic view of the system.”

“Ah, yes, the diary.”

“Did you know she was keeping it?”

“I knew she wrote often in a book. I thought there was a magic in it which renewed her spirit, because when she had finished writing she put it away in the box where she kept her other magic and the spirit was bright in her eyes.”

“Yes.”

A slight pause, a definite tension, as though both men knew what was coming.

“I've tried to ask you about this before, Sarkin,” said Jackland. “You've always shied off, but it is something I seriously would like to know. For my own spiritual peace, if that's not too grandiloquent a phrase. My mother says in the diary that she is going to finish by writing her version of the Incident and then give the book to you and ask you to bury it in a termites' nest in the bush. Evidently that did not happen. I would be grateful for any light you can throw on the question.”

“I do not remember,” said the Sarkin.

“The mystery is that I found the diary among my father's gear. I would like to know how it got into his hands. You see why?”

“I tell you, I do not remember.”

“I'm sorry about that.”

They sat in silence, stiff and still.

“I can tell you this, Mr Jackland,” said the Sarkin at last, speaking with evident care. “The boy I then was would have been reluctant to do what your mother asked. She would have seemed to him, especially after the Incident, to possess truly dangerous magical powers, of which she herself was largely unaware. Some of these powers would have been connected with her pictures, but those would have been as it were the outward manifestation of a central magic. That magic lived in the book in which she wrote. Now, what would it mean to such a boy that he should be told to bury such a thing in the land of his people? In a termites' nest? Remember that we had only recently, after much tribulation and danger, contrived to rid ourselves of another magical presence. To the European mind these arguments may seem fanciful, but I can assure you that to such a boy they would seem as solid and practical as the arguments, say, for fiscal responsibility.”

“Yes, I see. Thank you. You can't tell me what you think the boy would have done, then?”

“He would have done the best he could, no doubt. Now, Mr Jackland, I think the time has come to do as the White Man did and crawl away.”

“Hadn't you better wait till it's light?”

“It is possible Major Kadu will follow your tracks. I would like to be well clear of the truck by then. I am not afraid. I belong to this land, but I have lived long enough in contact with the outside not to believe in bugbears any more.”

“I was thinking about leopards.”

“I will take my chance with them. Perhaps Major Kadu can be persuaded to think I was unlucky.”

The Sarkin climbed slowly from his seat and stood by the car, a tall pale pillar like an i, with the dot of his white cap separated from the column of his white robe by the invisible patch of blackness which was his face. The pillar swayed and the dot disappeared as he tossed the cap on to the passenger seat. After a rustle and slither the robe joined it, followed by a string vest and linen underpants. He knelt to unlace his shoes. When he stood up his blackness, lacking the contrast of linen, seemed less, and his figure was clear in the moonlight.

“Will you be warm enough like that?” said Jackland. “The harmattan's about due, isn't it?”

“Overdue, if anything. I have a blanket. To that extent I go back to the bush richer than when I came out of it. Goodnight, Mr Jackland. My only fear is that the breakdown may result in your part in my flight being discovered.”

“Can't be helped. I wish I could have got you the whole way.”

“I do not think you need anticipate too much trouble. The military will be anxious to ingratiate themselves with foreign powers.”

“I'm more worried about getting Mary out, and then the last cans of film. I come third.”

“Do you think you will be able to make your rendezvous?”

“With a bit to spare, starting at first light. I've done this sort of trek before. No point in trying before then if I'm going to follow our tracks.”

“Well, I wish you good luck, and give you my sincere thanks for your help. Perhaps we will meet again.”

“Hope so. There's quite a bit more I'd like to ask you. Good luck, old man.”

The Sarkin turned and walked away. Despite the moonlight he became invisible after the first few paces. Jackland lit a last cigarette and smoked it before trying the starter motor once more. There was still no sign of a spark, so he huddled down on to the bench seat, spreading the Sarkin's robe over himself as a coverlet, and tried to sleep.

Fourteen

T
hurs Oct 9

To Kiti this morning, to watch KB going into exile. I thought I'd do a picture for my album 'cos it's an historic occasion (and
I
did it!) but it didn't come out at all well. Not just 'cos there was nothing special to paint, no brolly-men or trumpeters—they haven't got a ceremony for that sort of thing—but I felt v. low. I've got a funny sort of tummy-bug I can't shake off—not too dire, but sick every morning and queasy most of the day. It does drag you down. I expect that's why I keep wondering if I've made any difference at all to my dear Kitawa, or if I have whether it's a good idea after all—when Bevis gets his bridge and his roads, what'll that do to them? Clothes and tinned peaches and the clever ones going to Lagos and wearing suits and ties and pretending to be just like us! Oh, dear.

Anyway, we wanted everyone to see KB going in disgrace, so that the Kitawa would know he'd really crossed the river and the new Emir (whoever he's going to be—terrible ructions about that) saw what'd happened to him if he didn't behave. We thought everyone in the town would turn out and Elongo might persuade the Kitawa to send a few elders, but it was quite the other way round! When we passed the market it was clattering away just like an ordinary day and there were only a few traders up by the ferry, and no Hausa at all far as I could see, but over on the other side of the track hundreds and hundreds of naked bush Kitawa, women and men and children, one silent dark mass, waiting.

“Good for Elongo,” said Ted. “He's going to be a decided asset. Last thing I want is rumours going round the bush that old Kama Boi's still in Kiti. Wish I had some of those Kaduna desk-drivers here to see that the Emir crossing the river actually means something to the Kitawa.”

“If Bevis gets his way the next Emir's going to start off crossing, to go to school.”

“If Bevis has his way there'll be a railway siding at Tefuga by 1940.”

“Oh, I hope not!”

“Bit late to change your mind now, Rabbit.”

He's been quite snappy with me these last few weeks, sometimes. He's still dreadfully cut up about losing Salaki, and he can't help wanting to blame someone and I can't help feeling guilty. After all, it was my fault, sort of. I'm quite sure Ted doesn't know, but there's been a sort of awkward feeling between us. The new horse, Beano, isn't bad, only a bit dull. And a bit expensive—we couldn't really afford him. On top of all that there's still the strain of being a good loser with Bevis, or pretending to be. Bevis is not a good winner!

Well, I had a bit of a problem with my picture. I'd like to have painted it with KB going past my Kitawa, but there was nothing to give it a shape, so thought I'd do it from the other side with Kiti wall and the rapids in the distance, and the islands. Besides, that meant I could set up close to them and have a chat. But they didn't want to talk, even among themselves. There was a bit of a rustle when I walked over and started to get ready. Perhaps they thought I was going to do another magic picture. No more of that for me. Not if I can help it.

KB was late, of course, but he came in the end. Bevis had sent a couple of lorries from Birnin Soko to take KB's party to Ibadan. They were standing on the far side of the ferry crossing. I dabbed them in at the edge of my picture while I waited. I knew already it wasn't any good. Then he came. Quite a lot of Hausa, and him in the middle. We'd said he mustn't wear his turban or have a brolly-man, so he was wearing a white cap and a pale robe (clean, far as I could see!), but all the Hausa who weren't going with him were in their party best. We're only letting him take a few servants and half a dozen wives. (He couldn't afford more on his pension.) The wives were bundled up like accident patients, but I don't suppose my little girl was one of them.

I must say KB behaved with terrific dignity. Ted says he still doesn't believe he's the slightest bit in the wrong. It wasn't him, you see, who'd been burning villages and murdering people, or even taking taxes and not telling us. It was his sons and nephews and hangers-on, using his name and his juju power to terrify the Kitawa. Of course, it meant they could afford to give him much better presents, but if you're an African that's something quite separate! Anyway he still walked past like a king, so in spite of all the crowd round him you knew it was all about him. If I'd been on form that's what I'd have got in my picture. (Spilt milk, Bets.) The town people had shouted a few times as he went past—just good-byes and wishing him luck—but it was too solemn for that. We all watched him walk down to the ferry. Ted was waiting there. They shook hands. KB walked onto the ferry and gave a present to the ferry-master, who'd fallen flat on his face to greet him. The wives and servants followed, the baggage was on the lorries already. The tail-board was slotted in and the ferry-master shouted to go. The men sang out and heaved at the cables, all together, like dancers. Slowly, heaving and chanting, they hauled the ferry away. As the gap of water showed between it and the bank I heard a long deep hoo-o-o-o like wind in a chimney, all round me. The Kitawa, watching the juju broken. They didn't say anything else till we'd seen KB and his people pulled up into the back of the lorries, and then the lorries driving away along Bevis's road.

Then the muttering began. I turned, trying to catch eyes, and smiling, but they wouldn't let it happen. I'd hoped they'd look a bit joyful (a bit grateful, even!), but no. I couldn't even tell if they were worried or unhappy. Perhaps Bevis is right, and we'll never know what's going on inside their heads. It isn't enough to speak the tones. You have to belong to understand.

Then Ted came up to take me away.

Thurs Oct 30

Well, I was right about that last bit, anyway! To think we've been here twenty years and there's still something quite important nobody'd told us! We found out almost soon as KB had gone, and Ted and Bevis tried to get on with their battle about the next Emir. It's been a pretty dire time for Ted, but at least he'd got Kimjiri back, and that's something! The poor fellow got here good as under arrest 'cos the D.O. at Jos had sent a policeman along to see he didn't run away again, so at first he was too scared to talk sense, but soon as he found KB had gone and Lukar was under arrest already (they'd found him hiding in the Bangwa Wangwa's house) he spilled the beans about Lukar trying to bribe him to put poison in our food and then threatening him with KB's juju powers. All so's we shouldn't go on our surprise tour. Not such a surprise as we thought! Kimjiri even knew how Lukar'd found out. Elongo'd told him! Lukar'd tried to frighten Elongo away too, before any of that, but Elongo'd stood up for himself but he'd got to have something to fight with so he'd threatened Lukar back with my juju powers(!) and said I was going to find everything out with my magic pictures. (Doesn't all this seem absolutely mad when I write it down? But it was real for them, and true, and Lukar already sort of half-believed in my juju 'cos of the Tefuga picture I'd given KB. And isn't it totally extraordinary them knowing all this and us not having any idea—except that Ted had guessed Lukar and Elongo had had some sort of a row?!! And spite of what he tried to do, I do think it's rather awful Lukar will probably be hanged now.) So that was all right.

But about the next Emir? Even Ted saw he'd have to give up Zarafio, who it turned out had been the ringleader in the whole business—no wonder he'd been so keen on having me watched on my first tour in case the Kitawa told me anything! Quite likely he'll go to prison now! So who? Before us British came all the emirs got chosen by special electors, and the only rules were that the new man had to come from the right family and the electors weren't allowed to choose one of themselves. (They didn't mind, 'cos they'd been getting masses of presents from all the hopefuls for years!) We still pretend it's like that, but usually we make it pretty clear who we want, tho' it's no use us picking a man they won't respect. This time Ted thought Alafambo was the best bet and the Hausa would have been happy with that, but Bevis persuaded Kaduna to insist on a young prince called Azikofio—KB's great-nephew, far too young to have given anyone any presents!—and there was a terrible fuss. In the end Kaduna told Ted to say that if they didn't choose Azikofio we'd abolish the emirate completely and lump it in under Soko, and Alafambo could be just District Head, which would have been a frightful comedown. So they gave in and we thought that was that.

But then, believe it or not, the meek, peaceful, downtrodden Kitawa dug their heels in! Elongo brought a deputation to Ted. They wanted me there too. And they explained to us they had a choice too. They have special electors. You see, they are the real owners of the land, and KB was only there because they'd allowed him to be and given him his juju-powers to protect them. And now he'd broken the juju and crossed the river they weren't going to choose anyone else. They were going back to the old days when they didn't have an emir at all, not even chiefs.

This was a real poser. Ted told them that was impossible. You can't work Indirect Rule without chiefs—besides, we'd already good as promised the Hausa. (Typical of the Hausa they hadn't told us, tho' it turned out they knew perfectly well, in spite of nobody having had to do any of this for thirty years!) Anyway Ted sent the Kitawa away and told them to consult their people while he whizzed off messages to Bevis and Kaduna, and yesterday we had another palaver with them out in the bush. The choosers came this time, five old men, very scrawny and used up and unimpressive to look at, but solemn and dignified too. We gave them ginger-nuts and lemonade. They thought the fizz was some kind of trick and were v. suspicious, but Elongo calmed them down. He was marvellous. They treated him as an equal, which was nice to watch. Kaduna had said we'd got to offer them the same choice as the Hausa—Azikofio, or come in under Soko. They thought that was a terrible idea. They said Soko people would come and take them away for slaves again (they talked just as if that had been happening yesterday, when it's almost a hundred years!) We tried to explain we'd never let it happen but they said how did they know we weren't going away again as suddenly as we'd come?

But they didn't want Azikofio either. How could a child protect them? He wasn't even a young man—he hadn't reached that age-change. How could he take part in the Tefuga ceremony? That was v. important. They kept coming back to how young he was. I explained we'd chosen him exactly 'cos of being young, so we could send him off to Katsina to the chiefs' school where he would learn to be a good chief. It wasn't much of an argument, seeing they didn't really want a chief at all.

But then Elongo, without Ted or me telling him, said, “The White Man will bring this boy to Tefuga for a ceremony. It will be a new ceremony. No man's blood will water the graves. And then immediately the White Man will send the boy across the river for many years.”

That did it really. They asked me about it, and I explained to Ted, who said yes, they could have a sacrifice at Tefuga but it would have to be a goat or something, and yes, Azikofio would have to cross the river to go to school, and I explained back to them, very slow and clear, and they got up and walked away into the bush. Elongo told us to wait. I didn't hear any voices and it was more than an hour before they came back. They asked us about the sacrifice and the river again, just to make sure, and then they said alright and finished off the lemonade. (They quite liked it by now and were disappointed there wasn't any more!)

We were riding back—I was thinking how well it had all gone—when Ted gave a funny yapping laugh, angry and sad, not like him at all.

“What's funny, darling?” I said.

“It's a complete farce,” he said. “We've got to go through with it, but it'll never wash.”

“I thought it had all come out rather nicely.”

“Total waste of time. Just now we've good as told your pals that Azikofio's never going to be more than our puppet. The ceremony at Tefuga won't mean much without a human sacrifice, and then our very next act will be to send the new Emir across the river. They'll know, and he'll know, so he'll never have any respect from them, which at least old Kama Boi had. That'll mean in turn he'll never have any incentive to rule properly, and—you and I'll be gone by then, thank God—my successors are going to find themselves having to run Kiti direct. I hope old Bevis is here to see it, driving his motor along his roads!”

Of course we'd been terribly careful not to say anything to the Kitawa about having to work on roads as well as paying proper taxes. I don't think they'd have understood, so what's the point? But it's going to be a horrid shock for the poor dears.

Now I must stop—we've got a dinner party! Bevis and the engineer he's brought to survey for the bridge. I'm v. nervous. Eleven months married and my first dinner party! Bet that's a record.

Nov 30

The direst thing possible. I've found out why I'm being sick. I haven't told Ted yet, but I'll have to, soon as we're back from Tefuga. It's not just me who knows, you see.

I found out in rather an awful way, too. What happened was Kaduna made up its mind we'd have a proper show for installing the new Emir, spite of Kiti being such a potty little place. Idea was to let everyone see it had been all KB's fault things got so bad, and none of us British were blaming each other, and now there was a lovely fresh start and everything was going to be hunky-dory from now on. So we had quite a party at Kiti, Bevis, and the Soko D.O.s, and Bevis's Emir, and two other neighbouring Residents and their Emirs, and several bigwigs from Kaduna. Wives, too. The Lieutenant Governor's on leave, but his Deputy came to read the main speech and take the salutes.