Tefuga (11 page)

“Alright,” I managed to say.

But he
did
know! He just didn't think it was important. He tried to start talking about something else but I snapped and sulked till in the end he couldn't stand it and got his gun and went out to try and shoot something. Now it's almost dark and he isn't home and I'm not even sure I want him. Kimjiri's boiled a guinea fowl, and we'll eat it, and then we'll read. Usually we'd chat, but I don't know. Too late to get the boys to put the tent up, so it's the rest house and the bats and snakes. And then … I think—I'm not sure 'cos it's the sort of thing you can only find out by seeing what happens—I think I'm going to pretend to be sorry and forgiving and good. Inside me I'm still seething, but that's my secret. Perhaps things aren't going to be the same again, ever.

Fri March 14

Goodness, what a lot to write! Rather frightening, some of it. Come to that in a mo. And things happening inside me too—v. interesting. Kept thinking about that yesterday but didn't get a chance to write, and now what's happened this morning … Pull yourself together, Bets!

Well, going back to where I left off, I was
very
lovey-dovey with old Ted when he got back. I'd never realized how cold the nights were going to be out here (just think of the Kitawa—you have to be rather rich to own one blanket!) so it was extra nice to have someone to snuggle with, and we spent the whole night like that. My poor little bed! It creaked quite a bit, but it stood the strain. God bless the Army & Navy Stores. I did boot Ted out a couple of times to look for snakes, just to show him I hadn't totally forgiven him, and actually that seemed to stir him up so we didn't get an awful lot of sleep in the end! But I knew inside me all the time there's a different sort of not-forgiving, like a little dark ball, secret, waiting. I wonder if it'll ever come out!

Yesterday, riding along, I brooded quite a bit. Mainly after the first village, where I'd done some doctoring. A small boy with a terrible sore eye. I explained to the mother she must keep it clean, and tho' I knew I'd said it right 'cos it's something you have to keep saying to all the mothers, I really don't think she understood at all. She was so frightened, 'cos of the spearman watching. Frightened of me, too, tho'. Much more than anyone before. And none of them would say a word, only yes and no. V. upsetting. All since yesterday too!
I
think Zarafio's sent ahead, telling them they mustn't say anything to me. That way it doesn't matter the spearman not understanding Kiti. I didn't tell Ted, 'cos it wouldn't have done any good. He'd have thought I was making it up to get my own back on Z.

So I brooded, not just about that. About being me. So strange. My body so happy, with that nice slightly bruisy feeling all over, and prickly under the eyelids from not much sleep, and Ted riding beside me humming a bit to himself and thinking about the same things (I knew, he didn't!) and the sweat drying on the horses and the hard dusty heat bouncing back off the ground, and one of the spearmen riding on ahead, shimmering in the heat-haze like a dream. Lovely! Paradise, in a funny way. But then, riding on the same horse, wearing the same clothes—the same skin—there's another me, brooding about the spearmen and Zarafio and Ted and the women they've stopped me talking to … But not just about that, about the way it's all managed—the whole world—and what Daddy did to Mummy and nobody would help her 'cos he was her husband so he was allowed! And thinking
I know about this. I understand it. I've been shown.
I used to think it was just that Daddy is a horrible person. But Ted isn't—he's decent and loving and kind, but he's still part of all that. It's funny how people don't all understand this. It's so obvious, but it's so difficult to see because you're inside it, part of it. It's like your own smell, which you don't notice. But I understand now. I'm a sort of spy in their country, with my secret inside me. I don't know who I'm spying for, but perhaps I'll find out some day.

But the
really
interesting thing is that I was wrong saying there are two me's, 'cos there aren't. They're all the same. The spy and the secret are part of the happiness, and the happiness is part of the understanding. You've got to have that, or you won't understand how it happens. You've got to have it as much as you can, which I jolly well intend to! But you mustn't let it stop you understanding. That's what really matters. This is my Paradise, I said, and I suppose that means I must be Eve. But I'm the snake, too!

Well, apart from all that inside me, yesterday wasn't very interesting till the evening. Two more villages. Me doctoring. The women too frightened to talk. Bush, just bush. We got here, to Tefuga, about an hour before dark and then straight off we had to go out and watch a dance they put on to welcome Zarafio 'cos he's KB's representative. A bit like when the Governor General comes to a station, Ted says, and there's a parade for him and a guard of honour for him to inspect and everything, not just 'cos it's pretty to watch, but to show everyone he really is the big man. It's even more than that here, tho', or it would be if it was KB they were dancing for. This is what I find so hard to understand. Here are these lovely, simple, honest, open people and there is that horrible fat black brute, and yet to them he's a kind of god! He's holy. They're deadly afraid of him too, but not just 'cos of what he might do to them, but 'cos of what he
is
! Zarafio's not that yet, but he will be one day if Ted has his way!

Well, long as it was light the dancing was rather a disappointment. Three whole hours, on and on. Pattery little drums. All you could see of the dancers was their feet, 'cos the rest of them was hidden by the costumes, just tall tubes of grass about eight feet high with a painted round for a face at the top, swaying and stamping round and round. A bit boring, really, but soon as it got dark and the grass torches were lit, that was different. Tall thin shadows, shapes you couldn't quite see properly, moving not like people or animals. Spooky. I did rather a good picture, a sloppy dribbly one, not my usual style at all, but then I could hardly see to paint. When I showed it to Elongo this morning he put his hand over it to cover it up, so's he shouldn't look at it! Then he laughed (that lovely noise) and said the dancers were messengers from the ancestors sent to welcome us and when the dance was over they had to be sent back to the hill. I suppose he was afraid I might have trapped them in my picture. Interesting he could see—when I'd shown it to Ted he couldn't make out what it was supposed to be of!

Well, this morning I decided I'd go and do a picture of Tefuga Hill before it got too hot. I've forgotten to say about the hill—we'd ridden fairly close to it on our way to the village. It's about two miles out and not at all impressive, a pimple with a fuzz of trees on top. You'd hardly call it a hill except that the country round here is absolutely flat 'cos of the river which runs close by. Doesn't run, I mean, except in the rains and two or three weeks after. But I thought I ought to try and do a sketch for old KB, seeing the hill's the most important place in his kingdom. I didn't get off quite as soon as I'd have liked—we're staying two nights at Tefuga and there wasn't any hurry and you're always late when it's like that—and I started to ride out quite alone, but I'd hardly got half way when two of Zarafio's spearmen came cantering up after me and said they'd been sent to guard me. I wasn't terribly pleased but I didn't feel like arguing.

Just to make a bit more of my picture I put my easel up close against the bank of the dry river, which gave me a wiggly line running away past the hill. I told the spearmen to go and tether the horses about thirty yards off, and to stay there themselves. They propped their spears against a termites' nest and then, without me having to say anything, sat down in exactly the right pose—pure Africa!—and began to play that game of theirs with pebbles on a patch of earth, like noughts and crosses gone mad. They looked as tho' they'd been at it for days. I did a quick sketch in case they moved.

Suddenly I'd got a picture I really wanted to paint. The trick was to make people see that tho' the hill wasn't really anything, really it was everything. This was where KB and his forebears had come to be accepted as Kings of Kiti. This was where horrible things had been done, under that fuzz of trees at the top. This was where the Kitawa began. This was where the nine ancestors, the first real people, were buried—only they were still alive, inside the hill! Elongo'd told me that, back at The Warren. It was only one of his fairy-stories there, but you could see here it might be real! If I got my picture right, I mean. The spearmen might look more interesting, but tomorrow they'd be gone. The hill was always. I could paint that, I thought.

It began to get hot. Sweltering. Windless. Bleached. Very, very lonely and empty. After a bit, down in the river to my left, half a dozen women came creeping along, bent low, hunting for something. Little bubbles of their talk floated across to me. Soon as I'd done my picture, I thought, I'd go and ask them what they were up to. Only they'd be too frightened to tell me. I started thinking about that, and it made me sad. Sadder when I thought about how Ted had let me down over being watched while I'm doctoring. I began to wonder if he'd been absolutely straight with me. Of course he has in his own mind, but I wonder if there isn't part of him which actually rather resents me talking to the Kitawa in their own language, 'cos it means there's something I do which doesn't belong to him. He can't even share. And the same with why he didn't say no to Zarafio right at the start—I don't think Kaduna or Mr de Lancey would pay a blind bit of notice to a little rat like Z. They'd lose face dreadfully if they did. But then Ted's terribly jumpy about the idea I might be stopped coming on tour and being with him all the time. This business of s**. Oh, I like it too, much more than I'd ever expected. I sometimes even wonder if that isn't why my painting's picked up so terrifically. Africa is thrilling in its funny way, but my pictures aren't just that. There's something inside me, coming out, set free, making my eye and hand work the way they're doing. I honestly can't see any connection between that and me and Ted doing it in our little tent, but I know clever people are saying it's there, only you don't know. So perhaps it's a bit unfair of me to worry about Ted, but I do. You see, with him it's almost as tho' nothing else in the world mattered any more. I'm sure that's not right. Dangerous. All your eggs in one basket. Sorry now I'd played up so the night before …

Well, I was painting away and thinking about that sort of thing and the thinking was getting into the painting, the way it does, heavy and sad, spite of the light, but coming rather good, specially the feeling of sheer heat, when all of a sudden, close by my foot just below the lip of the bank a brown head popped into sight. It stared at me with big eyes, all the whites showing, put a finger to its lips and popped out of sight again. I almost dropped my brush but I don't suppose I really jumped much. When I glanced their way the spearmen weren't even looking.

Nothing happened. Soon I couldn't bear it so I twisted round and pretended to be looking for something in my satchel. She was just there, only a couple of feet below me, peering at me through spiky tussock on the edge of the bank. Two other women huddled against the bank behind her with their faces in the gravel but she was looking straight up. Naked of course, except for their grass collars and belts. I supposed they must have been inquisitive about the white woman and come sneaking along for a closer look, but 'cos of the spearmen I couldn't tell them to come up and be friendly. All I could do was smile. The woman put her fingers to her lips again.

“Do the horsemen listen?” she said.

Luckily those were easy words. “Horsemen” is what the Kitawa call the Hausa, not just 'cos some of them ride horses but 'cos they all
are
horses really. I say luckily 'cos actually Kiti's a terrible language for whispering—the tones almost disappear—if you've been talking it since you were tiny perhaps it's not so bad, but for me it's v. near impossible. That's why I'm not honestly sure I really understood anything else the women tried to tell me. Besides, when I was doctoring the women in the villages they soon realized I was a bit stupid at their language and spoke slowly and went back when I asked and so on. Now I couldn't even look at them. I had to pretend to go on painting almost at once.

“The horsemen are far off,” I said.

I looked at them as I twisted back to my easel. They still hadn't noticed. The women were muttering to each other below me. Suddenly I felt v. nervy, as tho' something important was going to happen and I wasn't sure I wanted it to.

“Femora Feng speaks,” one of them whispered. “I am the aunt of Elongo Sisefonge. He sends words that you are a friend.”

“A strong spirit in Femora Feng,” I whispered. “Betty Jackland speaks.”

This was all quite easy, of course. It's the usual form. I'd even got the right women's language for it, doing my doctoring. And the old woman the day before yesterday had told me about the business of “aunts”. I absolutely longed to turn round and look at the woman who'd done that for dear Elongo. She'd be older than him, of course, but she could still be young and pretty. What Africans think is pretty, anyway. (I've sometimes wondered—if I had a black skin would Africans think I was pretty? White men don't, as I am.)

Another long pause. More mutterings. Then …

“The White Man is the friend of Kama Boi.”

“That is and is not,” I said—useful phrase—the Kitawa say it a lot. “I am the friend of the Kitawa. I am strongly the friend of Elongo Sisefonge.”

(And I hadn't even known his whole name till then!)