'He doesn't mean it,' said Clever. 'No, he doesn't,' pleaded Zebedee.
Then Joshua mumbled, 'You take my children. You must take them to England. '
Her wrist was aching because of the tight bone bracelet. ' Joshua, let me go, you' re hurting me. '
His grip tightened, ‘You must promise me, now-now, you must promise. ' His head was lifted up off his nearly-dead body as a snake lifts its head when its back is broken.
' Joshua, let my wrist go. '
‘You will promise me. You will...’And he mumbled his curses, his eyes hard on hers, and his head fell back. But his eyes did not close, nor did he stop his mumbled hatred.
' Very well, I promise, Joshua. Now let me go. ' His grip did not relax: she was wildly thinking that he would die and she would be handcuffed to a skeleton.
' Don't believe what he says, Doctor Sylvia, ' whispered Zebedee. ' He doesn't mean what he says,’ said Clever.
' Perhaps it is just as well I don't know what he's saying. '
The bone handcuff fell off her wrist. Her hand was numb. She squatted beside the near-corpse, shaking her hand.
‘Who is going to look after him?'
' The old women are looking after him. '
Sylvia went to the women and gave them money, nearly all she had, leaving enough to get back to Senga. It would keep these children fed for a month, perhaps.
‘And now get your things, we' re leaving. '
‘Now?' They fell back from her, with the shock of it; what they had longed for was here, was close – and it was a separation from everything they knew.
‘I’ll get you clothes, in Senga. '
They went running down to the village, and she walked up the hill between the oleanders and the plumbago to the house, where everything she was going to take was already in her little hold-all. To Rebecca's niece she said that if she wanted her books, she could take them. She could take anything she wanted. But what the girl asked for was the picture of the women on the wall. She liked those faces, she said.
The lads appeared, each with a carrier bag – their possessions.
'Have you had anything to eat?’No, clearly they had not. She sat them at the table, and cut bread and set the jam-jar between them. She and Rebecca's niece stood watching them fumble with the knives, spreading the jam. All that had to be learned. Sylvia's heart was as heavy with dismay as it was going to be: these two
orphans, for it was what they were – were going to have to take on London, learn everything, from how to use knives and forks, to how to be doctors.
Sylvia rang Edna Pyne, who said that Cedric was sick, she couldn't leave him – she thought bilharzia.
'Never mind, we'll take the bus into Senga.'
‘You can't go on those native buses, they' re lethal. '
' People do. '
' Rather you than me. '
‘I’m saying goodbye, Edna. '
' Okay. Don't fret. In this continent our deeds are writ in water. Oh dear, what am I saying, in sand then. That's what Cedric is saying, he's got the blues, he's got my black dog. ' ' Our deeds are writ in water, ' ' he says. He's getting religion. Well, that's all it needed. Goodbye, then. See you around. '
The three were where the road to the Pynes and the Mission joined one of the main roads north. It was a single belt of tarmac, much potholed, and as eaten away at the edges as the poster Rebecca's niece had taken off the wall that morning. The bus was due, but would be late: it always was. They stood waiting and then sat waiting, on stones placed there for that purpose under a tree.
Not much of a thing, you' d think, this road, curving away into the bush, its grey shine dimmed where sand had blown over it, but along it, a host of the smartest cars in the country had sped not long ago to the Comrade Leader's wedding to his new wife the Mother of the Country having died. All the leaders of the
world had been invited, comrades or not, and they had been conveyed on this bush road or by helicopter to a Growth Point not far from the birthplace of the Comrade Leader. Near it, among trees, two great marquees had been erected. Inside one trestle tables offered buns and Fanta to the local citizens, while the other had a feast laid out on white cloths, for the elite. But the church service where the marriage was being solemnized went on too long. The povos, or plebs, having consumed their buns, surged into the tent for their betters, and consumed all the food, while waiters futilely protested. Then they vanished back into the bush to their homes. More food had to be flown by helicopter from Senga. This event, so aptly illustrating... but one that is so like a fairy tale does not have to be annotated.
Along this road, in not much more than ten years, the bully-boys and thugs of the Leader's Party would run with machetes and knives and clubs to beat up farm workers who wanted to vote for the Leader's opponents. Among them were the young men – former young men – to whom Father McGuire had given medicine in the war. Part of this army had turned off from this road on to the minor road to the Pynes' farm, which they did not appear to know had already been forcibly acquired by Mr Phiri, though the Pynes had not yet left. About two hundred drunks arrived on the lawn in front of the house and demanded that Cedric Pyne should kill a beast for them. He killed a fat ox – the drought having relaxed its grip – and on the front lawn a great fire was built and the ox was roasted. The Pynes were dragged down from the verandah and told to chant slogans praising the Leader. Edna refused. 'I'm damned if I'm going to tell lies just to please you,’ she said, and so they hit her until she repeated after them, ' Viva Comrade Matthew. ‘When Mr Phiri arrived to take possession of the two farms, the garden of the house was black and fouled and the house well was full of rubbish.
Along this road eight years ago Sylvia had been driven, dazed and dazzled by the strangeness of the bush, the alien magnificence, listening to Sister Molly warn her against the intransigence of the male world: 'That Kevin now, he hasn't caught on that the world has changed around him.'
By this road, not far from here, in a hilly area full of caves and rocky clefts and baobabs, is a place where the Comrade Leader was summoned at intervals by spirit healers (n'gangas, witchdoctors, shamans) to night sessions where men (and a woman or two), who may be working in a kitchen or a factory, painted, wearing animal skins and monkey hair, danced themselves into a trance and informed him that he must kill or throw out the whites or he will displease the ancestors. He grovelled, wept, promised to do better – then was driven back to town to take up his residence again in his fortress house, to plan for his next trip to meet the world's leaders, or a conference with the World Bank.
The bus came. It was old, and it rattled and shook and emitted clouds of black greasy smoke that trailed for miles behind it, marking the road. It was full, yet a space appeared and admitted Sylvia and her two – what were they, servants? – but the people on the bus, prepared to be critical of this white woman travelling with them – she was the only white among them – saw her put her arms around the lads, who pressed up close to her, like children. They were doleful, trying not to cry, afraid of what they were facing. As for Sylvia, she was in a panic. What was she doing? What else could she have done? Under the rattling of the bus she asked them, low, ‘What would you have done if I hadn't come back?’And Clever said, ‘I don't know. We have nowhere to go. ' Zebedee said, ' Thank you for coming to fetch us. We were too-too afraid you wouldn't come for us. '