TO DREAM AGAIN By Brian H. Jones Smashwords edition Published by Aichje Books on Smashwords Published by Aichje Books – Goulburn, NSW, Australia To Dream Again Second Edition Copyright © 2010 by Brian H. Jones Written by Brian H. Jones ISBN 978-0-9808107-9-0 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re- sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional coy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. *** ‘ and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.’ (Caliban in ‘The Tempest’ by William Shakespeare: Act 3, Scene 2) *** ONE: THE PAST IS ALWAYS WITH US My father never did get a pair of spectacles. Until the day he died, he used a magnifying glass, a large one that dangled in a leather pouch around his neck. When he was carving, my father inspected his work through the magnifying glass. He would take it out of the pouch, blow at it delicately and then hold it close to his work, with the glass against his left eye. I would peek at him secretly and see a great, magnified eye splotched over the side of his face. It made me feel uneasy as if I was seeing an eye that had somehow got loose from the rest of him. Then after a few seconds my father would grunt, blow on the glass again, and put it back into his pouch. When he died, the magnifying glass survived intact. It was a marvel. The pouch was in tatters but the glass survived. There was nothing wrong with it, not even a scratch. How the glass didn’t get blown to pieces like everything else, I don’t know. I retrieved it from the compound just before Arbuthnoir’s funeral, and I still have it at the back of a drawer at home. It’s strange – I don’t want to get rid of it, but I don’t want to use it. I guess I just like to know that it’s not lost. When I think of my father, I like to know that I can reach out and hold it any time. Arbuthnoir would sit in the compound watching my father carve by the light of an oil lamp. He would observe the ritual of the magnifying glass and say, ‘Lukile, if I’ve advised you once, I’ve advised you a hundred times – do yourself a favour and get a pair of spectacles. They’ll be good for your eyes and they’ll be good for your work.’ My father would wave the suggestion away. ‘Where should I get them? Must I go all the way to Fort Marnay just to get some pieces of glass to put on my nose, eh?’ Arbuthnoir would say, ‘perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea.’ My father would snort, ‘Huh! This magnifying glass is just fine. I can see better with it than most of these show-offs with their fancy spectacles. Also, it costs a lot less, not so?’ So much has changed. My parents are dead, and so is Arbuthnoir. Nozam has also gone the way of all corruptible flesh. Keretani is not what it was – but nor is it what we hoped it would be, in the days of our dream-fired youth. One thing that hasn’t changed is the hill called ‘The Watcher’, the one that stands west of Totudi, between the village and the steepest slopes of the mountains. They call it ‘The Watcher’ because that’s what it looks like from the village – a squat human head watching over the life below. Watching for what? Watching for the promise in the Promised Land? If so, it will watch for a long time to come. I was born in Totudi. It was a normal highland village where the family compounds were dotted about on the flatter places of the hillside. The roofs of the huts stuck out above the reed fences and vegetation that surrounded the compounds so that from the top of ‘The Watcher’ the village looked like a scattering of thatched ant-hills. As a child, I loved to run through the dog-legged passageways between the compounds. I loved the sense of mystery – something new could be just around the next bend – as well the feeling of security. Like all children, I knew without question that this was the way the world would always be. The street of the traders follows a ragged course below the hillside-hugging contours of the village. It was from there that the forces of change, the discordant forces of the outside world – the world down at the coast, the world beyond the sea – first began to infiltrate the village. When I was eight years old, my father told me about the early days of the trading settlement. He said, ‘It began a few years before I was born. My parents’ generation saw it all happen. In fact, young one, most of them didn’t like it, not at all. But what could they do? They saw what the soldiers could do and they didn’t want that to happen again.’ ‘What didn’t they like, dada?’ ‘Alcohol, young one. That’s what the first traders were selling. And when I say alcohol, I don’t mean beer. We’ve always had enough of that in Totudi, not so?’ Father Arbuthnoir was sitting there, puffing on his pipe as usual. He said, ‘There’s enough beer in Totudi, not to mention the rest of Keretani. That’s true.’ He wrinkled his nose and grunted, ‘But what about quality? I don’t know how people can drink the local brew.’ He tipped the bottle of beer that he was holding and watched the liquid swirl into the mug. Father Arbuthnoir always drank bottled beer, Palm Bay Lager, from the brewery in Fort Marnay. My father winked at Arbuthnoir. ‘Maybe the beer was better in the old days. I don’t know. I hardly ever touched the stuff.’ Arbuthnoir said, ‘Sensible man, Lukile. But you don’t mind if I have my evening tipple?’ ‘Go ahead, father. You deserve it. Maybe I’d have a beer myself, if I had to care for all the sinners of Totudi, like you do.’ They grinned at each other – the teasing grins of old friends, comfortable in their friendship. Arbuthnoir sipped at his beer and my father looked at his carving down the length of his chisel. They seemed to have forgotten about the subject of the early days of the trading settlement. But I wanted to hear more. I asked, ‘Dada, you were saying about the traders –?’ ‘Hmm? My father was still peering at the carving. He tapped the wood with the chisel, collected himself, and said, ‘The traders? Well, it’s like I said – they came here to sell alcohol.’ He wrinkled his nose in disapproval and sat back. ‘They brought brandy, whisky, gin – everything by way of strong liquor. Heh!’ He grunted. Arbuthnoir said, ‘I hear the first store was built about where the Get Some More Bar now stands.’ My father said, ‘So they say. But it didn’t stand there for long.’ ‘Why not, dada?’ My father gave a sceptical snort. ‘Someone killed the trader one night. They stabbed him to death. At least, that’s what they say. No one ever knew for sure, because they never found the body.’ ‘Why not, dada?’ My father shrugged. ‘The store burned to the ground that same night. The body probably burned to cinders.’ Arbuthnoir said, ‘Ho! The plot thickens!’ My father sat back, rubbed his chin with the handle of the chisel, and said, ‘Some people said it had to do with a woman.’ ‘Ah! The plot thickens some more.’ ‘Some people say that the trader –’ My father paused, looked at me, and then continued, ‘They say that the trader has his –’ He looked at me again and concluded, ‘They say that he forced himself onto a woman from the village.’ ‘What does that mean, dada?’ My father squinted at me. ‘I’ll tell you some day. Wait until you’re older.’ Arbuthnoir asked, ‘Do you think it’s true?’ My father shrugged. ‘Who knows? It could be. But – ha! – you know how people exaggerate. Some people will say anything, just to make a good story, not so? But everyone agrees that there was a woman involved. I was a child, so I can only report what others said. Who knows?’ We sat there for a while without saying anything. My father etched the wood with his chisel and Arbuthnoir sipped at his beer. It was past my bedtime but so far no one had noticed. My father was lean and small of build. His face was round with pointed ears. His forehead was heavily wrinkled and his mouth puckered upwards at the corners so that he always seemed to be regarding the world with sceptical humour. Arbuthnoir said that he looked like a knowing pixie. When I asked what a pixie was, Arbuthnoir just chuckled and said, ‘Find out for yourself, youngster.’ My father snorted. ‘When you do find out, my son, let me know, and I’ll make a carving of a pixie for you.’ People say that I look a lot like my father. They say I have the same round face, largish ears, and small build. But whereas my father was lean, I’m squarer and more compact. Sanomi says I have a chin-down walk. I asked her, ‘Chin-down like a boxer?’ ‘Like a boxer? No, Kerem, that’s not how I see it.’ ‘How, then?’ ‘Hmm, it’s not so easy to say. Maybe it’s more like a soccer player – a soccer player making his way forward with the ball at his feet. Yes, that’s it – a player with his chin down, ball at his feet, figuring out the way ahead.’ Funny, isn’t it, the way people see you, and they way you see yourself? When I was younger, I thought of myself as an arrow, speeding straight towards its destination. I kept that image of myself even during the worst times, like when I was imprisoned, and the times when Keretani and home seemed to be out of reach forever beyond the horizon of events. But nowadays, I don’t seem to have a clear image of myself. What has changed? The sense of destination? Me? Both of those to some extent, I guess. But I think it’s also because lately the arrow is being mightily tossed around by turbulence and head winds. Yes, that’s it. Sometimes it has difficulty in keeping aloft at all. Arbuthnoir stoked his pipe, blew out a cloud of smoke, and asked, ‘After the trader was killed – was that when the soldiers attacked the village?’ My father nodded. He looked at the carving down the length of the chisel and then began to clean the magnifying glass. He said, ‘It’s getting late. I’m tired. I’m not seeing straight any more.’ ‘What did the soldiers do, dada?’ My father stood up and stretched. Yawning, he repeated, ‘I’m tired.’ ‘What, dada? What did they do?’ My father said curtly, ‘They did what the soldiers always do.’ Arbuthnoir said, ‘They took everything of value that they could carry away. Then they burned the village.’ My father said just as curtly, ‘That is so.’ ‘Well, at least no one was injured. That was a mercy.’ Still in the same tone of voice, my father said, ‘No. That’s not true.’ Arbuthnoir asked, ‘No? I always thought…’ He saw the look on my father’s face and his voice trailed off. My father stroked the edge of the chisel and said quietly, ‘They killed my father.’ ‘What, dada! They killed my grandpa?’ Arbuthnoir sat up straight and said, ‘Oh, Lukile, my friend, I didn’t know that.’ I asked, ‘Dada, what happened? What happened to my grandpa?’ My father replied, ‘Your grandfather wasn’t in the village at the time. He was coming back from a visit to Mostadi so he didn’t know what was going on. Your grandmother did what everyone else in the village did when they heard that the soldiers were coming. They took what they could carry and went to hide in the forest. Then your grandmother tried to warn you grandfather, but she missed him somewhere along the way. He arrived in Totudi just after the soldiers did. They grabbed him and started to beat him up. They were saying, where is everyone? Of course, your grandfather didn’t know. How could he know, eh? That made the soldiers beat him some more. After a while, they had beaten him so much that he couldn’t speak, anyway. So they shot him. Just like that – they shot him. Then they took what they wanted, burned the village, and left. When your grandmother and the other people came back, they found your grandfather just lying there, out in the open. Heh! They just left him there, like a dead dog. His clothes were torn, he had bruises and gashes all over his body, and he had a bullet through his head.’ Arbuthnoir said, ‘My friend, I am so sorry to hear that. I am so very sorry.’ My father said, ‘It was the end of my mother, also. She nearly lost her mind that day. After a while, she recovered, but about six months later she started to get worse and worse. Soon she completely lost her memory. Do you know what a human being is like without memory? It is like being worse than an animal. You know nothing, except to breathe and eat and sleep.’ Arbuthnoir said, ‘Ah!’ It was a soft exhalation of breath. My father said tersely, ‘It was terrible, but maybe it was for the best. I think she didn’t want to remember my father lying there dead like a dog.’ He shrugged. ‘She died about two years later. Well, her body died. But she herself, the person who was my mother – she died long before that.’ There was silence. After a few minutes, still tight-mouthed, my father said, ‘It’s not something a person wants to talk about. Talking won’t bring them back again.’ To me, he said, ‘I was going to tell you about it one day, young one. Maybe you’re still too young, but now you know the truth.’ We were all silent for a long time. Then I said, ‘Dada, my grandpa was a hero.’ ‘A hero? Well, I don’t know about that.’ ‘He was a hero, dada!’ ‘Well, maybe he was. But I tell you for sure, young one, if he was a hero, it’s not because he wanted to be one.’ ‘How do you mean, dada?’ My father said somberly, ‘Your grandpa was a private man. He didn’t run after grand things. He liked the quiet things in life. He cultivated his fields, he looked after his family, and he loved to carve.’ ‘Grandpa was a carver – just like you?’ ‘Yes, young one. That’s why I wanted to carve.’ ‘Was he a good carver, dada?’ ‘Good? You can judge for yourself. You know those carved poles outside the meeting place, the ones they walk around at the start of the kumgala procession?’ I nodded. My father said, ‘Your grandfather carved those poles, young one. He did them about a year before he died.’ I said, ‘Then, dada, he was a very good carver.’ My father nodded slowly. He ran his finger down the chisel and murmured, ‘Ha! Sometimes when I sit here, I think, what would the old man say about my work? Would he like it? Would he be happy that I am also a serious carver? And I think, what about my mother? Would she like my work? Would she like my wife and my son?’ My father shrugged and his voice rose. ‘What does it help, to think about these things? Thinking won’t bring them back. Talking won’t bring them back. Ha!’ At the time, I didn’t know what to make of the story. I felt bad – very bad – about what had happened to my grandfather. I felt bad about people who had attacked my village, raided it, burned it, and killed a good man like my grandfather. I felt bad about people who had made my grandmother suffer so much. But what about the bigger picture? Well, I ask you, what do children know about colonialism and politics and things like that? In any case, when I was a child, we didn’t see soldiers or officials in the village. There were a few policemen, but they were local people. Mainly they patrolled the shops and bars, arresting drunks and petty thieves. But, for sure, the story made an impression on me. Years later, I would sometimes think, ‘I’m doing this for my grandparents.’ Then I would think, ‘How can I do this for them? They’re dead and gone. Do you want revenge, or what? Is that going to bring them back?’ That led me to think, no, I’m not doing it for them, not really. I’m doing it so that the same thing won’t happen to other people any more – just like it is happening, every day, to people all over Keretani. Yes, that’s it. I’m doing what I’m doing to stop things like that happening. That’s the best thing that I can do to honour the memory of my grandparents.’ I can say this for certain – the story about my grandparents was always with me, like the yeast that leavens the loaf. Arbuthnoir got up, stretched, and scratched around in the bowl of his pipe. Then he tapped it into the wooden dish that always stood next to his stool. When Arbuthnoir did that, we knew that he was on the point of leaving. He stretched again and said heavily, ‘Time to go.’ He sighed, shook my father’s hand, gave me a light punch on the shoulder, and left. My father stood there looking at the carving quizzically, head to one side. He grunted ambiguously and covered it with a cloth. Then he stretched and yawned, put the magnifying glass into its pouch, and said, ‘Tonight is not good for carving.’ He snapped his fingers at me, saying, ‘It’s bedtime for you, young one. You’d better go to your mother.’ My mother was a small woman, tidy in form and tidy in habits. She said very little, seeming to communicate with my father almost by telepathy. Her face was heart-shaped with high cheek-bones and with eyes that slanted towards the corners. My father teased her about her appearance. He would say, ‘Ah, this Budi, she’s descended from the Kwankamis’– referring to the little people of the forest and the high places, who had been pushed so far back that they were hardly more than wraiths of memory – ‘Yes, that’s it. The Kwankamis came down one night and left her on the mat outside her parent’s home. Yes, I’m sure of it.’ My mother would smile slowly, knowingly, inclining her head as if to say, ‘You see, there he goes again, teasing me – but I know how it is between us, and I’m satisfied with that.’ I ducked into the main hut and joined my mother. She was sitting at the table, weaving a basket, squinting against the light of the lamp. She put the basket aside, picked up the Bible that always stood on the shelf next to the table, and asked, ‘Bedtime is it?’ I nodded and sat down. My mother opened the Bible, turning it so that the light of the lamp fell on it. ‘Where were we?’ I said, ‘Dada told me about his father and mother.’ My mother looked at me steadily and replied, ‘We won’t talk about it now. Where were we?’ ‘You were going to read the story about the prodigal son, mama.’ My mother paged through the book, found her place, and nodded. ‘Ah, yes, here it is.’ She didn’t have enough schooling to be a good reader. Her eyes followed her finger across the page and she stopped every so often to peer at a word. Slowly, she read, ‘A certain man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.” So he divided to them his livelihood.’ She stopped to look at me from time to time, marking her place with a finger. When she finished the story, she put the Bible down and gave a satisfied sigh, saying, ‘You see, there are some things that you can’t run from. There are some things that you have to come back to, no matter how much you think you won’t. Do you understand?’ ‘Yes, mama.’ It was a good story, even if I did know it well. I especially liked the part about the father standing on a high place and spotting his son coming from a distance. It reminded me of how we could look down the valley from Totudi and see people and vehicles making their way along the red-dirt road below. But – and it’s odd to think of it, considering everything that’s happened to me since – in those days I never could understand why the son left home in the first place. My mother said, ‘Well, remember the story. And remember what I said.’ She leaned over and embraced me, murmuring, ‘Bedtime now. Sleep well.’ I have two abiding memories of my mother. One is of her sitting at the table, holding her Bible at an angle to catch the light of the lamp. The other memory is of her singing in the church choir. I can visualize her standing in the front row of the choir, just as if I’m there right now, a child amongst the other children sitting cross-legged on the floor at the front of the church. When my mother was singing, it’s as if she was transported. She lifted her eyes and swayed with the music. Her face glowed so that it seemed to be even rounder and fuller. I loved to watch her even while I felt back-of-the-mind anxiety. Anxiety? What for? It was because sometimes I imagined she had been transported away from me, to a place where my father and I didn’t exist. But even that visceral, childhood fear couldn’t hinder my pleasure in the beauty and power of the singing. Man, that choir could put out a sweet volume of sound. From the rafters down to the floor, the building was filled with the power of the music. We were all captivated by it so that we lost a sense of body, time and place. People got up to sway between the benches, and they danced in the aisles. They waved and ululated in appreciation as they joined in the singing. The whole building, and everyone in it, just became one reverberating cocoon, pulsating in an enveloping swirl of sound and movement. Funny thing, isn’t it? The missionaries brought this buttoned-up religion from Europe, and places like Totudi undid it, loosened it, wrapped it around themselves, and gave it a whole new shape. You only had to see my mother singing in the choir, and you only had to see and hear the church swaying and vibrating, to know that people had taken the raw material of this thing and made it to be their own. The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord; she is his new creation by water and the Word. That was my mother’s favourite hymn. She was always the soloist when the choir sang it. As you will have gathered, woodcarving was my father’s great passion. On fine days, when he could get away from tilling and harvesting, he worked in the yard outside the large hut that he and my mother shared. When the weather was bad, he worked in a thatched lean- to shed. There were always people in the compound: uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbours – but they left my father alone when he was carving. The life of the village and the compound swirled around him, but when he was carving he was lost to everything but his new creation. I loved to see a face and a personality emerge from the wood. It filled me with wonder, this something-coming-from-nothing thing. I guess it attracted me all the more because I don’t have the artistic talent. I can’t make music, or write poems, or act on the stage. Worst of all, I can’t carve and sculpt. When I was younger, I wanted to learn. I wanted to create something from the rough stuff of the wood. I desperately wanted to be able to sit back like my father, look at what I’d created, and be able to say to myself, ‘Yes, that’s it. That’s what was in my head and in my imagination, and now my hands have given it shape and form.’ How I wanted it! I knew what was in my head all right, no mistake about that, but I couldn’t give it expression. My best efforts only resulted in a noble piece of wood looking as if it had been vandalized. ‘Dada, who’s that?’ I pointed at a half-completed carving. ‘Hmm? What?’ My father looked at me absent-mindedly. ‘That man you’re carving – who’s that?’ ‘That’s a good question, young one. Who do you thing it is?’ ‘It looks like Tata Nzomba.’ My father smiled slowly and looked at the carving appraisingly over the edge of his chisel. He murmured, ‘Hmm? Tata Nzomba? Yes, it could be.’ ‘But is it?’ ‘Do you want it to be?’ I was used to these conversations with my father, these as- it-is-in-your-imagination conversations, which were not satisfying for a boy in search of certainties. I tested my father by saying, ‘Yes. It is Tata Nzomba.’ ‘Good.’ My father was still looking at the carving appraisingly. He said thoughtfully, ‘But it doesn’t look a lot like Tata Nzomba. It only looks a bit like him, not so?’ ‘Dada – then who…?’ As usual, there was no definitive answer. Or rather there was an answer, but only in the viewer’s imagination. After he retired, Arbuthnoir still visited Keretani regularly. I always enjoyed meeting him. He made me feel young again – not childish, but young in spirit, like when the west wind blows down from the mountains onto the highland villages and clears away the muggy shroud of heat that has blown up from the coast. Not long ago, during one of his last visits, Arbuthnoir invited me to accompany him to view the displays at the Fort Marnay Art Centre. There were about twenty of my father’s carvings on view. Arbuthnoir started to reminisce, telling me how he remembered what inspired my father to produce this carving, and how he remembered just when my father started working on that carving. Then, while we were looking at the works, Arbuthnoir suddenly said, ‘Kerem, you really wanted to carve like your father, didn’t you?’ I nodded. He said, ‘It was a disappointment to you. I could see it, right from when you were knee-high.’ ‘I tried. But all I could ever do was hack away at the wood, wondering why a decent shape wasn’t emerging.’ Arbuthnoir said, ‘You’re creative in other ways.’ ‘How do you mean, Father?’ Arbuthnoir looked at me thoughtfully and replied, ‘That’s why you put so much time and effort into the struggle.’ This was a new thought. I didn’t know how to respond so I just nodded again. Arbuthnoir said, ‘People got involved for different reasons. Some were ambitious. Some were resentful. Some thought it would add drama and excitement to their lives. Some were filled with hatred and revenge.’ I said, ‘True enough. And there were too many in the last category.’ Arbuthnoir stroked his beard, just like he always used to do, sitting on the stool in our compound. But now the gold- and peppery sheen was heavily streaked with grey. He said, ‘But people like you got involved because they saw that a new thing was happening. They saw that the rough stuff of the past could be taken and transformed. They wanted to be part of the process, putting their hands to shaping and molding something new and good.’ He chuckled and added, ‘Perhaps if you’d been able to carve, you wouldn’t be here. Perhaps you’d be sitting in Totudi right now, looking at a block of wood over the end of a chisel.’ We walked a few paces together, viewing the displays. Then Arbuthnoir stopped, put a hand on my arm, and said, ‘You might not have learned to carve, but your parents taught you something that has served you well.’ I looked at him enquiringly. Arbuthnoir continued, ‘They taught how you to live in peace with yourself.’ When I was growing up in Totudi, Father Arbuthnoir was the local priest. He was also one of the few white men that we ever saw. Arbuthnoir was a big man, ample in girth, large of stride in his booted feet, with a beard that spread out to match the rest of his frame. As a child, I was always in awe of Father Arbuthnoir, this ruddy, freckled creature, as expansive in gestures as he was in physical size. He always greeted me cordially, enveloping my hand in his while he went through the full ritual of greeting in Krilufi. Arbuthnoir spoke Krilufi quite well, although he wasn’t as good at it as he liked to think he was. Behind his back, people laughed fondly at Arbuthnoir’s pronunciation. They laughed most of all about the time when Arbuthnoir publicly addressed the chief as ‘kalwe’ instead of ‘kalwæ’– ‘bush pig’ instead of ‘honoured one.’ Nevertheless, his parishioners were surprised that a person from who-knew- where, from beyond the bounds of the civilized world, nevertheless could speak the language as well as Arbuthnoir did. Often, in early evening, Arbuthnoir sat and watched my father at work. He would sit at a discreet distance, puffing on his pipe, occasionally writing in a thick notebook. Arbuthnoir was a poet. He said that he wrote about the village, about the local culture and customs, and about the village personalities. He said that he also wrote about being a stranger in a strange land, trying to convince sceptical local people to believe in a God of Love. Arbuthnoir said, ‘A lot of people around here have difficulty in believing that an all- powerful, loving God sent his own son to die for the sins of the world.’ My father said tactfully, ‘I can see how they might have difficulties, father.’ Arbuthnoir said, ‘I can understand their point of view. When you also ask them to believe that this all-powerful God would allow his son to be howled at by a rent-a-mob, insulted by fractious priests and politicians, and tormented by the soldiers of a colonizing army ’ Arbuthnoir shook his head morosely. My father said quietly, ‘Well, my friend, perhaps people understand about the colonizing army, not so?’ Arbuthnoir nodded and commented sardonically, ‘I’m sure they do.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘You know what Ngenfile said to me just the other day? He said, if God was all- powerful, he would just have driven a whole oppressive bunch into the sea – colonizing army, Roman officials, tax gatherers, high priest, the governor, everybody. A plague on all their houses, eh? Then God would have given the country to his son, so that he could clear up the mess and put it right. He also said, maybe that’s what Keretani needs right now – someone to clear up the mess.’ My father said tactfully, ‘Ngenfile is an old man. He doesn’t always understand the new ways.’ Arbuthnoir replied thoughtfully, ‘He also said that God must have a funny sense of humor.’ ‘What did he mean by that?’ ‘He said that it was funny that God could bring people like me, on the one hand, and on the other hand could bring people like the governor, the soldiers, and all the other whites.’ My father said, ‘Maybe he’s got a point, eh?’ Arbuthnoir replied morosely, ‘Sometimes I don’t understand it myself, my friend.’ At about that time some Keratanian priests down in Fort Marnay and the coastal regions were beginning to cry, with Moses, ‘Let my people go.’ They said that the colonialists were like Pharaoh and that the people in Keretani had been held in serfdom and slavery for too long. Their superiors tried to hush them and the authorities locked some of them up. But the cry spread like a bush fire in the dry season. It even reached Totudi where it caused people to recall how the soldiers burned the village. They asked, for what? Was it just because a greedy, indiscreet white man was killed? They also asked why only white people were allowed to get licences to own shops and businesses while black people – the people of Totudi, after all – had to sit in the open, selling their wares in what was called ‘the local market.’ Furthermore, they asked who gave the white people the right to chop down the forest. Whose forest was it, anyway, and who owned the trees? Once this trend of questioning and remembering started, there was no telling where it would end. For instance, people asked why, if a black person made a complaint, the police would just laugh and say, ‘Get out of here, you black bastard!’ However, they would apply the full force of their law if a white person made a complaint. Even the black policemen acted like that, treating their own people as if they were of no value. In short, most people thought that the young priests down in Fort Marnay and on the coast had a good point – a very good point. When I was young, I thought that I would like to be a priest, like Arbuthnoir. In fact, I even discussed it with him once or twice. However, Arbuthnoir was non-committal. He said that I should wait until I was older before taking a big decision like that. My father agreed with him, but my mother said that she would be pleased to have a son who was a priest. Anyway, that’s not how things turned out for me. And yet, strangely enough, Nozam made a career in the church in spite of showing no interest in churchly matters when we were young. In any case, his father had so much money that his sons could have chosen just about any career that they wanted. That being the case, I never found out why Nozam chose a career in the church. When he made his choice, we were thousands of kilometers apart, but separated by a bigger gulf than even that distance represented. Later, when we finally met up again, we weren’t exactly on friendly terms so I didn’t discuss the matter with him. Thinking back, I sometimes wonder how things would have developed if I had remained in Totudi. I fantasize that I can go back to a certain point and from there play a new reel of the film of my life, unfolding fresh images and new outcomes. I don’t regret what has happened to me. I don’t regret where I am now. All that I regret is that I can’t know for sure how other choices would have turned out. Choices? One path and not the other? We’ll never know what might have happened. But there’s one thing that is for certain – the past is always with us, no matter how far we travel, no matter what we experience. Sometimes the past comes to the surface obliquely like the silvery flash of a fish near the surface of murky water. Sometimes it comes with force, with a great thrashing of its tail above the surface, staggering us, stopping us in our courses. Somewhere in the Kerem of today there is still an imprint of that long-gone child, that bare-footed boy who ran and played along the crooked paths of Totudi. I feel it. I know it. It’s there. But the more I reach towards it, the more it evades me. I know it, I feel it, but I can’t recover it. It’s like the swoop of a hawk glimpsed through an opening in the tree-tops, the sky flooded in sunlight, the action frozen, the events isolated forever on the film of memory. TWO: STUPID BUSH CHILD I went to school as soon as I was old enough. It was what my parents wanted for me and in any case Father Arbuthnoir urged the case, puffing on his pipe, looking at me appraisingly, saying, ‘He’s a bright one, this youngster. He’ll go far, you’ll see. Maybe he won’t be an artist’ – an ironic glint in his eyes when he said that – ‘but he’ll do well, no doubt about it.’ Not long after I got together with Rita, I remember telling her about some of my early experiences at school. Rita was a primary school teacher before she switched to accountancy, so she liked to hear me talk about these things. I told her, ‘Our first teacher was Miss Renkula. She came from Totudi.’ Rita said, ‘It’s a good practice to have local people in the school.’ I couldn’t help snorting when I replied, ‘Not Miss Renkula! She thought that no good could come out of Totudi – except herself, of course.’ ‘How patronizing! Why did she think that?’ ‘She thought that Totudi was primitive and uncivilized. She thought she was too good for Totudi. You see, she fancied herself as cosmopolitan.’ Rita asked with a half-amused expression, ‘What did she mean by that?’ [...]... were moist as she went on, To insult a father in front of his son – and such a fine man, too.’ My mother stopped Now she was weeping softly, not hiding it from me To insult a man like your father – and so openly, too – and then, to treat you like that…’ She stopped again We pressed together, mother and son, both weeping My father took the news calmly as if it was no surprise to him He stroked his chin,... to so I said guardedly, ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ To tell the truth, I didn’t want to have anything to do with Nozam and I wished that he would go away and leave me alone Nozam cuffed me lightly on a shoulder and said cheerfully, ‘You and me, my friend – we’ll be going to secondary school together.’ ‘Yes That’s right.’ ‘Are you looking forward to it?’ ‘I guess I am.’ Nozam said, ‘Me too.’ We walked together... chapter two, verses thirteen to eighteen: ‘Submit yourself for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right… Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but to those who are harsh.’ At... up to the mark in sports or in school work We didn’t know how much Nozam was under pressure to be better and different from the rest of us As another mark of his favor, Brother George appointed Nozam to the position of class monitor One of his duties was to supervise the class if Brother George had to leave the classroom and that was how I met Sanomi Brother George left the classroom to attend to some... I tried to grab it Suddenly Nozam moved on me, going in low like a wrestler Before I could brace myself, he had me on the ground, face down, with an arm pinned behind my back Nozam put a knee into my back, forcing my face into the dirt I tried to wrestle free but he had pinned me down too firmly He pressed my head forward again, rubbed my face in the dirt and grunted into my ear, ‘I’m going to let you... hugely attractive I wanted to approach the green-dark wall, put my arms forward, and open a way into the foliage I wanted to step into the secret depths of that forest and find out where the paths went Others had done it, so why shouldn’t I? I said, ‘Dada, I would like to go to secondary school.’ My father gave a little sigh and a shrug, as if to say, there you are He said to Arbuthnoir, ‘This is a... tried to answer I choked and began to cough violently My mother kneeled next to me, put one arm around me, and beat my back with her free hand When I stopped coughing, I was crying She held me close to her and I cried all the more She asked, ‘What’s the matter, my son? Something to do with school today? I shook my head, coughed some more, and sobbed even more wretchedly My mother said softly ‘It helps to. .. She used to dress up to the nines in frilly tops, tight skirts, nylon stockings, and high heels And, of course, the tops were semi-transparent, just so that people would get the message that she knew about fashion.’ Rita wrinkled her nose and said, ‘Transparent tops aren’t fashionable.’ ‘They are, in Keretani Or at least they were.’ ‘Where did she get the clothes? Did she buy them in Totudi?’ ‘Totudi!... wave of fire I passed out again The nurses at the clinic in Post Sebastian set my broken leg They also looked into my eyes and said that I didn’t seem to have suffered from the concussion However, just to be safe, they kept me in a darkened room for the next two days When a doctor from Fort Marnay visited the clinic three days later, he reset my leg He didn’t bother to look into my eyes because he said... talking to you man.’ Nozam continued on his way without even looking at me He just said ‘I know Do you think I’m deaf?’ He hitched his bag over his shoulder more firmly, as if to say, ‘I’m busy, and you’re disturbing me.’ I grabbed Nozam by the arm, to stop him, to make him face me Nozam’s eyes flashed He swung his bag in a wide arc and struck the side of my head As he shaped to swing the bag again, . so openly, too – and then, to treat you like that…’ She stopped again. We pressed together, mother and son, both weeping. My father took the news calmly as if it was no surprise to him. He. of goods that falls to me.” So he divided to them his livelihood.’ She stopped to look at me from time to time, marking her place with a finger. When she finished the story, she put the Bible. wanted to learn. I wanted to create something from the rough stuff of the wood. I desperately wanted to be able to sit back like my father, look at what I’d created, and be able to say to myself,