20 by John Edgar Wideman

Author:John Edgar Wideman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822972419
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

1988

UNCLE MOUSTAPHA'S ECLIPSE

Reginald McKnight

Idi, my very best friend here in Senegal, was suffering from a very strange eye malady. He didn't know precisely what had caused his usually quick, pebble eyes to swell, yellow, tear, and itch so. He'd gone to both doctors and marabous and they didn't know either. “All that I can say,” said Idi, “is that my eye sickness remind me very much of my Uncle Moustapha's eye sickness.” And at that he proceeded to tell me the story of his Uncle Moustapha M'Baye's eye “sickness”:

“This was a long, long time ago, Marcus. Before I even was born. My uncle live in a small, small village along the Gambian river near to Bassi Santa Su, call Sakaam. It is too, too hot there. You would not believe it, my friend. The sunshine is so heavy there that a man can reach his hand into the hot air and squeeze the sunshine like wet clay. The mosquito there can only walk and the baboons move like old men, in Sakaam.

“It was there my Uncle Moustapha live and work with his three wives and seven children. He, it is say, was the finest peanut farmer in his whole village. He hardly never had a bad crop. When even there was too much rain, his crop was fair, and other farmers’ much worse. And when the rains were thin, Uncle Moustapha always have plenty of rice for he save from the good years. This mean he was a very careful man. He was a hard worker, and very lucky. He had strong juju and was also a good Muslim.

“His only problem in life was that always, always he think about Death. He always think about Death most deeply on the night before his birthday. Now, you must understand, Marcus, that even when I was born thirty years ago, people did not know their birthdays. But Uncle Moustapha was very fond of many things in white culture. He like chocolate and watches, books and French bread. He like birthdays too, because my father tell me, he was a proud man and like the idea of having a personal day of celebration. So he begin keeping a birthday from the day his seventh child was born. He begin at the age of forty, and every year for twenty years, he keep the day of June seven as his birthday. This only add to his worry, for as we say here, Marcus, Death is birth and birth is Death.

“So on the eve night of his sixtieth birthday, he think about his death and he could not sleep. He lay in his hot room and no sound came to his ears. He wait with a numb heart for Death to enter any minute. He focus on nothing but the door, knowing that his final moments were upon him. He expect that soon, soon, a long, white hand would push the door open with no sound; that Death's face would be reveal to him and that he would be taken.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.