The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 121
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"Here it is!" Samson warned him, and he swung sharply onto the secondary track. It jinked through the forest, then came abruptly to the long straight avenue of spathodea trees that led down to the staff village. The trunks were thicker than a man's chest, and the dark green branches met overhead. At the head of the avenue, almost screened by the trees and the long grass, was a low whitewashed wall with a rusty wrought-iron gate. Craig pulled onto the verge and switched off the engine.
"Why are we stopping here?" Samson asked.
They always spoke English when they were alone, just as they always spoke Sindebele when anyone else was listening, just as Samson called him "Craig" in private and "Nkosi" or "Mambo" at all other times. It was a tacit understanding between them, for in this tortured war-torn land, there were those who had taken Samson's fluent English as the mark of a "cheeky mission boy', and recognized by the easy intimacy between the two men that Craig was that thing of doubtful loyalties, a kaffir-lover.
Kaffir" is derived from the Arabic word for an infidel. During the nineteenth century, it denoted members of the southern African tribes. Without any derogatory bias it was employed by statesmen, eminent authors, missionaries and champions of the native peoples.
Nowadays its use is the sure mark of the racial bigot.
"Why are we stopping at the old cemetery?" Samson repeated.
"All that beer." Craig climbed out of the Land-Rover and stretched. "I have to pump ship." He relieved himself against the battered front wheel, then went to sit on the low wall of the graveyard, swinging his long bare sun-browned legs. He wore khaki shorts and suede desert boots without socks, for the barbed seeds of arrow grass stick in knitted wool.
Craig looked down onto the roofs of Khami Mission Station that lay below the wooded hills. Some of the older buildings, dating back to before the turn of the century were thatched, although the new school and hospital were tiled with red terra cotta However, the rows of low-cost housing in the compound were covered with unpainted corrugated asbestos. They made an unsightly grey huddle beside the lovely green of the irrigated fields. They offended Craig's aesthetic sense, and he looked away.
"Come on, Sam, let's get cracking-" Craig broke off and frowned.
"What the hell are you doing?" Samson had gone through the wrought-iron gate into the walled cemetery and was urinating casually on one of the gravestones.
"Jesus, Sam, that's desecration." "An old family custom." Samson shook himself and zipped up. "My Grandpa Gideon taught it to me," he explained, and then switched into Sindebele. "Giving water to make the flower grow again," he said.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" "The man that lies down there killed a Matabele girl called Imbali, the Flower," said Samson. My grandfather always pees on his grave whenever he passes this way."
Craig's shock was gradually replaced by curiosity. He swung his legs over the wall, and went to stand beside Samson.
"Sacred to the memory of General Mungo St. John, Killed during the Matabele Rebellion of 1896." Craig read the inscription aloud. "Man hath no greater love than this that he lay down his life for another.
Intrepid sailor, brave soldier, faithful husband and devoted father.
Always remembered by his widow Robyn and his son Robert." Craig combed the hair out of his eyes with his fingers, "Judging by his advertising, he was one hell of a guy." "He was a bloody murderer he, as much as any one man could, provoked the rebellion." "Is that so?"
Craig passed on to the next grave, and read that inscription.
"Here lie the mortal remains of DOCTOR ROBYN ST JOHN, nee BALLANTYNE Founder of Khami Mission, Departed this life April 16th 193I, aged 94 years. Well done thou good and faithful servant." He glanced back at Samson. "Do you know who she was?" "My grandfather calls her Nomusa, the Girl-Child of Mercy. She was one of the most beautiful people who ever lived." "Never heard of her either." "You should have, she was your great-great-grandmother." "I have never bothered much with the family history. Mother and father were second cousins, that's all I know. Mellows and Ballantynes for generations back I've never sorted them all out." "A man without a past, is a man without a future"," Samson quoted.
"You know, Sam, sometimes you get up my nose." Craig grinned at him. "You've got an answer for everything." He walked on down the row of old graves, some of them with elaborate headstones, doves and groups of mourning angels, and they were decked with faded artificial flowers in domes of clear glass. Others were covered with simple concrete slabs in which the lettering had eroded to the point of illegibility.
Craig read those he could.
"ROBERT ST JOHN Aged 54 years Son of Mungo and Robyn." "JUBA KUMALO Aged 83 years Fly little Dove." And then he stopped as he saw his own surname.
"VICTORIA MELLOW Nee CODRINGTON Died 8th April 1936 aged 63 years Daughter of Clinton and Robyn, wife of Harold." "Hey Sam, if you were right about the others, then this must have been my great-grandmother."
There was a tuft of grass growing out of a crack through the slab, and Craig stooped and plucked it out. And as he did so, he felt a bond of affinity with the dust beneath that stone. It had laughed and loved and given birth that he might live.
"Hi there, Gran, he whispered. "I wonder what you were really like?" "Craig, it's almost one o'clock," Sam interrupted him. "Okay, I'm coming." But Craig lingered a few moments longer, held by that unaccustomed nostalgia. "I'll ask Bawu," he decided and went back to the Land-Rover.
He stopped again outside the first cottage of the village. The small yard was freshly raked and there were petunias in tubs on the veranda.
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