Tidetown, page 4
He passes the book to Mrs April. She feels the worn leather of the cover, running her fingertips over the embossed contours, content that Brother Ricardo’s work and wisdom will find a place in the new annals of the monastery.
‘Ah, there’s Zakora,’ she says, spotting the tall figure through the window making his way across the lush lawn of the cloisters.
‘I hope he can find some happiness here with us,’ says Brother Moses.
‘And a purpose,’ replies Mrs April, watching him entering the small chapel at the opposite corner.
‘Ah, yes, Mrs April. There’s no true happiness without purpose.’
Carp is unusually alone in the small communal area where prisoners spend an hour before being locked in their cells for the night. Sometimes she and Perch sit together in a corner alcove. But tonight Perch has returned to their cell with a headache. The governor, on her nightly walk through the block, sees Carp.
‘Can I sit beside you?’
‘You are in charge. Don’t you sit wherever you please?’
So the governor settles down on the bench beside Carp.
‘I want to say some things to you while I have the chance. Just we two.’
‘What things?’
‘Well. About you, Carp. About yourself.’
The governor pauses to assess the reaction to her words. Carp examines her fingernails.
‘I have seen many young women stifled by others. Unable to become themselves.’
Carp looks down at her skirt, her long hair falling across her face. A mask. A curtain. She fiddles with the string of her smock.
‘Before we met I read all the transcripts and the reports of your time here. Also, it was the little things the wardens had to say about you that made me think. To consider who you were. Who you could be. Then when we met, with your sister, I could sense in your eyes that you want something else from your life.’
Carp says nothing. She raises her head. A blank, baleful expression on her face. Stoic yet almost yearning. The governor maintains eye contact, looks for a sign of recognition, then continues.
‘I will be bold. I think your sister is controlling you. I don’t think you really believe all the things that Perch believes. That she says you both believe. Mostly, I think you don’t want to be who you think you are.’
Carp puts her hands over her ears.
‘I can help you. We can help you. To find your own way, Carp.’
She moves to put a hand on Carp’s shoulder, but the younger woman pulls away.
‘Stop, stop!’ shouts Carp. ‘Don’t say these things.’ Then she jumps up from the bench and runs along the corridor and into her cell, leaving the governor in a space and place she’s found herself many times before.
Lying face down on the lower bunk Carp heaves and sobs.
‘What is it?’ whispers Perch, half awakening. ‘Have you seen him? Has the archangel come to you?’
‘No,’ says Carp. ‘No I have not seen him. Not seen him at all.’
The monks have all they need. The island is the great provider: the ‘GOD of the Great Out Doors’, as Brother Moses always says. They get fruit and vegetables from the orchards and fields; oysters, fish and crabs from the sea and its shores; they bake bread, brew beer, breed pigs for meat and chickens for eggs. Everyone’s day is a mix of prayer, meditation and work. Just as the morning bells call them from their beds to the chapel, so the evening chimes bring them from the fields and barns, from the oast houses and orchards, to the long oak table of the dining room and a nutritious meal.
During Zakora’s first weeks at the monastery, much was alien, unusual, peculiar. The rhythm of the day, the taste of the food, the way the monks spoke, the sounds they made, the songs they sang, the echoes in the passageways, the feel of the air in the cloisters. He sits in the chapel and looks up at the beauty of the stained-glass windows and wonders at the stories they might tell. Some remind him of the words of the Silvery Man. One window, he thinks, shows the Jesus person laying hands on a sickly child. It takes him back to the time when he fell sick, a sickness that would change his life, that would set him on a course across oceans, bringing him to this chapel with windows of multicoloured glass.
One morning, when he was about fourteen years old, Zakora woke with a terrible pain at the base of his skull. He buried his face in the pillow, worried his head would explode and fly from his neck. All that day he stayed in bed. The Silvery Man called for the doctor, who gave him medicine and told the matron to keep a cold towel on the young boy’s forehead and shoulders. By dusk the pains had only got worse and were now running up and down his spine. The doctor returned, shaking his head in bemusement. ‘Put him in a room by himself. Keep him in bed, keep him wrapped up and I’ll come again in the morning.’
As darkness set in, Jango, the old Zulu nightwatchman, was assigned to sit by his side and look over him. Jango, long versed in the ancient traditions of sacred healing and witchcraft, placed his weathered hand on Zakora’s cheek and whispered in his ear.
‘Tell me what you see, young Zakora, fine strong warrior. What sights?’
And, as deep as he was in his pain, as far as he felt from the room, Zakora was calmed by the softness of Jango’s words.
‘There are faces, Jango, and voices I half recognise but do not know.’
‘And what do they tell you, Zakora, what do they say to you?’
‘They tell me I have a calling. They tell me I am special, an ithwasa. I am chosen.’
Jango smiled, for he knew full well what all this meant. He knew that the ancestors called upon and identified an ithwasa through an illness, an ailment. This would be the first sign, one Jango had seen in his aunt, many years ago, when he was a young child in his highland village. Jango decided there and then to take it upon himself to ensure that Zakora’s destiny would be fulfilled.
‘Rest. Your pain is your blessing,’ he said, and Zakora closed his eyes and slept. In the dreams that came a parade of faces appeared in sharp relief: urgent eyes, welcoming smiles, warm demeanours. They wore headscarves and robes from years and generations gone by. In his delirium, in the depths of his sleep, Zakora was comforted by these faces, by a sense of recognition, even though he had never seen them before this night. These men and women, some very old, some young, he intuited were the spirits of his ancestors come to welcome him. As dawn broke and the images faded he felt contented and at ease. Without uttering a word to anyone at the missionary station, Jango spoke to the local elders and crow-heads. He recounted all he’d seen and heard. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind as to their significance: Zakora had been chosen and they all had a duty to perform. Preparations were made to whisk Zakora away to the care of the sangoma in his secret hut deep in the Chimanimani mountains. If Jango’s part was discovered it might cost him his job or more, but he knew it was a task he could not shirk. Over the succeeding days Zakora’s mysterious pains continued and he was moved to the room in the missionary station reserved for those with malaria or infectious diseases. On the fourth day Jango arrived with a donkey and provisions for a long hard journey. Zakora was happy to be taken away, knowing in his heart that his future lay elsewhere.
The journey was a haze for Zakora; his fever, though unabated, was also his protector. The time and hardships of the road passed by in a sequence of mirages: fording a swollen river; Jango leaning close to his face, mopping his brow; a spread eagle silhouetted against a broiling sun; the braying of the donkey as it stumbled and slipped on the crumbling rocks of a steep incline.
When they reached the agreed meeting place (a bore hole by the sacred babool tree) the old sangoma and two n’anga were waiting. No words were exchanged; none were needed. The sangoma gestured for Zakora to climb down from the donkey. He reached out for Zakora’s hand, looking him straight in the eye to confirm what he already knew from his own dream world. Then the old sangoma turned and led Zakora back along the track that headed to the hills and his secret place. The two n’anga, his loyal disciples, and Jango watched them until they disappeared into the distance. They then took the donkey to the bore hole to drink before Jango began his journey back to the mission station.
Immediately upon his return Jango was confronted by the Jesus men. He told them the half-truth that he had been ordered by a powerful crow-head to take Zakora back to his village. ‘No,’ he said, under fear of witchcraft or death, ‘I cannot tell you where the village is or reveal the identity of the crow-head.’ ‘Yes,’ he had thought about telling the Jesus men what was being planned, but knew this would only make matters worse. And ‘yes,’ he did realise the police might press charges leading to prison. But Jango was too good a nightwatchman and the head Jesus man did not want to incur the wrath of the crow-heads. And, when all was said and done, no one would miss another street boy. So the police were not called and Jango kept his job.
Zakora was taken to the ndumba and there in the sacred healing hut his clothes were taken from him and his initiation as an ithwasa began. The old sangoma listened to Zakora. He was kindly, for he saw and sensed in Zakora the makings of a great diviner. When Zakora spoke of his times as a child when he secretly visited the wise man who lived near the mission, the sangoma knew his heart was right. As the sangoma spoke in the Shona language of their people Zakora felt soothed by his voice. The words of the ancestors rested well in his ears, opening his mind, connecting him to the land beneath his feet.
‘Here in the ndumba your ancestors reside. They have been with me waiting for you,’ said the old man, whose face seemed to change shape and expression as he spoke. It was as if his features shifted from old to young, drifting between man and woman.
The hut was bare and sparse, made from mudbrick, with a small hole in its conical roof where smoked billowed from the ever-smouldering fire. Suspended from the walls were pieces of wood and twigs, animal skins and stones tied together by vines. Zakora sat around the fire with the old sangoma and the two n’anga.
‘Jango did well to recognise the signs,’ said the old man. ‘He is a wise soul. Your illness is a twasa, a calling from the ancestors. Not to be cured, it is there, ku mu thwasisa, to lead you to the light. You will stay here with me, away from all others, and I will teach you all you need to know. I will instruct you in the old ways and you will be humbled in the face of our ancestors.’
As young as he was, as much as the constant throbbing ache in his head and neck troubled and absorbed him, he felt exuberant and expectant. Here was a true purpose, a sublime meaning to his life. A searing bolt of pain shot down his spine and he winced and bent forward. The sangoma laughed.
‘My young ithwasa, what ails you now at the beginning will become your trumpet call at the end. This ailment we will transform into a song and dance, through dreams, and with prayer. At the end of your training with me, when you move from ithwasa to sangoma, you will tell the story of your suffering with the voice of a myna bird and the deft and delicate step of a gazelle. That which is pain will be your strength … your treasure house.’
This would be Zakora’s life for the next five months. He never left the side of the old sangoma. He came to believe in the power of amadlozi, the ancestral spirits; he learned to divine by casting bones and twigs and stones. He was schooled in the powers of creating harmony between the living and the dead, and was taught to show respect for the ancestors through ritual and animal sacrifice. He joined the old sangoma in summoning the ancestors by burning sacred plants such as imphepho, by dancing, chanting, going into a trance, by playing drums. Some days the sangoma would force Zakora to cleanse his body by drinking huge quantities of a strange-tasting liquid that caused violent vomiting. On others, he would be purified through smoke and steam or else by being washed in the blood of sacrificed animals.
Eventually, when the old sangoma deemed his young ithwasa had learnt enough, the day of Zakora’s initiation was set. A goat was sacrificed and Zakora drank the freshly spilt blood. This was to seal the bond between the new sangoma and the ancestors. Many gathered to celebrate the completion of training. At the conclusion of the ceremony, after the anointing and blessings, Zakora was presented with one final challenge to prove his worthiness and acceptance by the ancestors and to witness whether he had truly acquired the skills and insight to be a healer and diviner. One of the oldest of the sangomas, out of Zakora’s sight, hid his sacred objects, including the gall bladder of the goat that had been sacrificed. Zakora was instructed to call upon the ancestors to reveal the hiding place and to return the objects to the sangoma who had hidden them away. This would be proof as to whether or not Zakora had developed the ability to see those things hidden from view. He closed his eyes to conjure the ancestors. When he came out of his trance he walked straight to the well and found the objects hidden in a bucket. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he handed them to the oldest sangoma in the group. Everyone cheered and clapped and Zakora laughed heartily, knowing he was now a true sangoma.
After the initiation ceremony the elder sangomas held council and agreed that Zakora should travel to a village in the highlands where his cousin lived. The sangoma there had died at an old age and only a n’anga remained. Zakora’s skills of divining and healing would match the other’s knowledge of herbs and remedies. And so, with full blessing and best wishes, Zakora joined his cousin on the long walk to the highlands and his new life.
Sitting on the cold flagstone floor of the monastery library, the catalogue open on her lap, Mrs April hears the soft footsteps of Brother Moses coming down the stairs from the depository above, puffing and blowing as he struggles with the load he carries.
‘These old books can be very heavy,’ he says, carefully placing his cargo on the ground.
‘Indeed,’ she says. ‘Who was it spoke of the weight of history?’
Brother Moses scratches his head, his wiry ginger hair standing stiffly on end.
‘Not I, said the sparrow,’ he replies with a laugh.
‘Whose bow and arrow?’ smiles Mrs April.
‘With my bow and arrow. I killed cock robin.’
‘The things we remember,’ sighs Mrs April.
‘The things we forget,’ says the Brother.
‘But then we all have different versions of a story to tell, ours or anyone else’s,’ considers Mrs April.
‘Talking of which,’ says the monk, pointing to the pile of books, ‘I think that’s the last of the batch.’
‘Excellent,’ says Mrs April, smiling brightly, ‘now I truly know the size of the task.’
When she was first approached to chronicle the story of the monastery’s founding abbot and his arrival at the Island of Good Hope, Mrs April was unsure she had the skills to undertake the job. A librarian she was, with over two decades’ experience at the helm of Tidetown’s library. But a historian? A biographer? Brother Saviour, recently installed as the monastery’s twelfth abbot, had convinced Mrs April to take on the task. A tiny hidden room had been uncovered behind one of the walls when the builders were probing for rising damp. Picking away at the brickwork, one of the labourers discovered a cavity. On closer inspection it was found that a closet had been bricked in and there on its shelves were rows of books. When Brother Saviour opened the volumes he was amazed and enthralled to discover the unread writings of Brother Alphonso, the founder of the order and the monastery itself.
‘We dearly want someone who knows and loves the monastery,’ said an impassioned Brother Saviour to Mrs April one afternoon as they walked together in the quiet surrounds of the cloisters. ‘We discussed this amongst ourselves and a number of the Brothers offered your name. Spontaneously, without any prompting. I may be unorthodox for a monk of our order, and probably best you keep this to yourself,’ he said, leaning over and whispering into Mrs April’s ear, ‘but I don’t believe in divine intervention.’
Mrs April smiled and feigned shock and horror.
‘A liberal, a humanitarian, in monk’s clothing,’ she joked.
‘Precisely,’ he added, ‘but I’m happy for some of the Brothers to believe that God put your name forward. If it convinces you to take on the task then I’m prepared to dispel my own judgement and defer to a higher authority. What say you, madam?’
Mrs April walked on a little, enjoying the quiet beauty of the cloisters, pondering the notion that the first abbot, so long ago, would oft times have made this circuit, deep in thought or else counselling a novice or Brother. She imagined sitting in the monastery library, opening up the first volume of the wise old man’s writings and being the first to bring to light his private thoughts, his deep reflections. She turned to Brother Saviour and smiled.
‘With you and the Brothers confident in me,’ she said, ‘and maybe even God endorsing my candidature, how can I be any other than humbled by the offer?’
‘Can I take that as a yes?’ asked Brother Saviour.
‘Indeed you can, in the hope that I will live up to your expectations.’
The books now stacked in front of her, dating back centuries, some heavily bound and metal clasped, were to become her challenge and her refuge.
‘It’s like the old abbot has been resurrected here before us,’ says Brother Moses, ‘all his diaries and thoughts that have been hidden away for centuries suddenly appearing.’
‘A labour of love, it shall be,’ replies Mrs April.
‘Not love’s labour’s lost, then?’ jokes the monk.
‘No, we hope not. “Our court shall be a little academe, still and contemplative in living art”.’
