The Missionary's Wife by Tim Jeal

Author:Tim Jeal [Tim Jeal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571311767
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2013-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Robert knew he would soon feel stronger, but at present he still wept over trifles and found the ordinary sounds of village life intolerably strident. Though his illness had been a great trial, in more important matters God’s hand had clearly been at work. The great rains had been held in check. Now, when they came, they would be greeted as a divine reward for Mponda’s baptism.

Without going to the window, Robert could imagine the pale, burned-out blue of the sky darkening to grey and purple along the horizon. Neither bird nor lizard moved. A silence charged with latent energy hung over the village. Soft rumbles of thunder muttered across the plain. Within days, the rains would be lashing down.

One afternoon, Robert walked with Clara as far as the base of Mponda’s crag. He had not intended to go beyond the well, but there was a light breeze; and with Clara at his side, he felt able to strike out farther than usual. Rounding the shoulder of the spur that led to the crag, they saw an almond tree in full flower – an exquisite drift of pale pink against the dusty bush. How African trees could burst into spring flower under a scorching sun after six months without water was a mystery that filled Robert with joy. Some women walked by, bearing on their heads long trusses of grass for the new chapel’s roof. They were singing.

‘Just listen to them,’ he said. ‘They know the best is to come.’

Far away across the scrub, a bush fire was winking, no brighter than a burning cigar. Clara could imagine the savage heat at its centre and the stampeding wildebeest and impala. Somewhere out there too, Nashu and Makufa would be planning their return.

That afternoon, Robert and Clara rested together in the house. Clara lay on their bed and tried to read a novel – a society romance by Mrs Braddon called The Lady’s Mile. Why did these fictional men and women care so much about social distinctions? Was a gentleman in a silk top hat less bizarre than a tribesman with feathers on his head? Suddenly she saw the story of Jesus as if through Venda eyes. A white boy, born, in a stable, of a human mother but no father except God, had taken away all the evil in the world by allowing himself to be nailed to a piece of wood.

As his wife closed her book and lay staring up at the dirty thatch, Robert felt a great welling of love. How marvellously kind she had been when he was ill. For the first time since his illness, he wanted to make love to her. Tiny beads of moisture along her hairline and on her upper lip in no way discouraged him. The heat was a shared privation, just as the divine reward for their steadiness would be a shared joy. When the rains broke and the people saw that God had repaid their chief’s faith with a blessing on the earth, Clara would recognize her suffering as a necessary part of God’s plan.

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