The Dust Diaries (17 page)

Cullen was doing his best to make this point in his most affable manner. He had, in his time, charmed farmers, police chiefs and natives with his ability to be liked and he saw no reason why he shouldn’t prove as successful with Cripps.

Cripps listened, but he had an answer for every point Cullen made. He understood his position but didn’t he think, he asked, that his argument suffered from an asymmetry of indulgence on behalf of the philanthropic nature of European settlement? Hadn’t there been as much taking as giving? And anyway, he pointed out, the roads only go to where Europeans want to go, and the courts judge crimes and impose sentences that didn’t exist before the settlers arrived. Cullen would have to forgive him if he still considered the hut tax too high a price to pay for the disruption already caused to the Africans by the settler influence.

Cullen was wrong-footed. He hadn’t expected such an eloquent, heart-felt response. He remembered looking hard at Cripps as he considered how to reply, trying to work out what type of a man he was, trying to find a foothold in his character that would help win him over. He also remembered thinking how old Cripps looked, old beyond his years. The Native Commissioner had said he was thirty-three, not much older than himself, and yet his tanned face already seemed too thin for the bones that supported it. His manner was athletic but reserved and his skin was lined with deep creases around his eyes from squinting over the glare of the midday veld. But the eyes themselves were not of an age with this face. His eyes, which stared unblinking at Cullen as he waited for his response, were young. Bright blue, penetrating and more than a little unsettling.

Cullen cleared his throat and tried another approach. Weren’t the church fees that the natives paid to the missions just like the hut tax? A necessary income to keep the work of the church going in Africa? Yes, Cripps agreed, and Cullen remembered thinking here was his turning point, here was the matter on which he would win ground. But Cripps went on, quietly assuring him that he had never charged such fees at any of his churches or mission stations, nor at his mission schools. He was in fact at that moment engaged in discussions with the Synod on this very point.

Another horse approaches the puissance fence, which now stands at over five feet. A chestnut Arab, much like Daisy, the martingale and reins working up a lather of sweat flecking across her shoulders and neck. Cullen watches her jump, her darkened muscles straining to clear the pole. It looks as though she’s over when she hits the pole with a trailing hoof, sending it rattling from its cups and falling to the ground with a solid thud and a long cloudburst of dust. The crowd let out a collective gasp, then applaud anyway.

As Cullen and Father Cripps continued their discussion outside Cripps’ ramshackle hut that day back in April, Cullen became increasingly confused and frustrated by the missionary. Cripps possessed a remarkably harsh view of the BSA Company’s administration which seemed unshakable. When the priest quoted Shelley to him (‘
What more felicity can fall to creature ⁄ Than to enjoy delight with liberty?
’) Cullen had quoted from the ‘Dual Mandate’ in reply, arguing that in following this mandate (to help existing forms of government develop and evolve), he was bringing law to the country. Law, he had said, feeling his composure slip, which is designed to bring liberty to all. Cripps dismissed this assertion, as he did so many of Cullen’s points that day, with a wave of his hand, insisting the Dual Mandate was thwarted by the Company’s self-interest. Cullen shook his head first in disbelief, then in mild amusement. It was clear that whatever he said he would not change Cripps’ view of the hut tax as anything other than a form of forced labour. By now, however, he didn’t even have to talk to evoke Cripps’ opinion, and Cullen sat by, listening to the goat bells and winking at the pot-bellied young children standing at a distance viewing him cautiously as Cripps expounded his theories on everything from race relations to agricultural techniques.

As Cullen sat and listened to Cripps speak the contradictions that the priest revealed in himself both fascinated and irritated him. From what he could tell, like most missionaries Cripps was strongly opposed to many of the traditional practices of Shona witchcraft. He had no time for the superstitious fear of curses and he didn’t allow polygamists to live on mission land. And yet in the same breath he appeared greatly in awe of the Shona capability for faith, of their highly developed spiritual intelligence. Cullen found himself being given an impromptu lesson in the Shona system of belief, which, as Cripps said, was much more than mere animism. He was, Cullen remembered, especially taken with the Shona’s relationship with their dead ancestors, the sprits of dead grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, mothers and brothers that governed over the fates of the living. As he got more excited it seemed to Cullen that Cripps was even making parallels between the Shona belief system and his own. He referred to the practice of
chisi
, the Shona day of rest, and each tribe’s
Mhondoro
as an example of worshipping one deity. One comment in particular, though, had stayed with Cullen, and had perhaps given him his first insight into what drove Cripps’ character. Taking a sip of his tea (which Cullen was sure must have gone cold while he was speaking) Cripps had said in his quiet manner, but firmly, as if it was his final statement on the subject: ‘You know, there are many Shona out here who are better Christians without knowing it than some of the settlers who call themselves such. They may not go to church like the Europeans, but believe me, spiritually and in their practices, they are the more mature Christians.’

Cullen was aware that despite his views he was warming to Cripps. There was something refreshing about the passion with which he argued his case and there was no doubt that his love for the African was real. He spoke about the Shona as other men might speak about their brother or cousin.
As
if they were adults, not children. Cullen had never heard that before, in Rhodesia or England.

What Cullen could not ignore, however, was what
he
considered the most crucial contradiction at the centre of Cripps’ situation. The missionary’s vision of the African world seemed Arcadian in nature (indeed, he had admitted as much when he confessed to Cullen that the Shona lifestyle reminded him of Theocritus’
Idylk
), and threatening this vision was the white settlers’ corrupting influence. All of his ideas, his arguments, pointed towards this desire to defend the African way of life from the European. And yet, here he was, a missionary, bringing an alien faith to the Shona, performing a role that in its very nature was evangelical, exerting influence and change. However much he lived as an African, Cullen felt that Cripps could not escape the facts of his situation. But he didn’t press the point. It was getting late, Daisy was restless and he needed to return to his office. He also wanted to leave Wreningham on a good note, so, engaging his ability to please again, he took the opportunity of a lull in the conversation to ask Cripps about his writing instead.

Literature was a subject on which the two men shared more common ground, and Cullen ended staying later than he had meant, discussing poetry, his own writing and some short stories that Cripps was working on. The missionary seemed especially pleased that Cullen had been writing about his African experience. ‘That’s excellent,’ he’d said. ‘Places like this need to be written about. Until they are, some people don’t seem to think they exist.’ Cullen thought he knew what Cripps meant and he agreed, remembering how Rider Haggard’s
She
had lit his own interest in Africa all those years before.

By the time Cullen had mounted Daisy and Cripps had accompanied them down to the bottom of the hill the sun was already low in the sky, the clouds blood red on their undersides. After wishing him well and promising to come out again Cullen bent from his horse and shook Cripps’ hand before beginning his ride back to Enkeldoorn; but he found himself thinking about Cripps long after Wreningham had disappeared behind him, and particularly about the priest’s parting comment.

He couldn’t tell if Cripps had been joking or not. He thought probably not; he had been smiling, no doubt thinking about their earlier discussion, but there had been a serious note in his voice as well. They were making their way down the kopje, Daisy picking her way between the granite rocks and Cripps sucking on his clay pipe, when suddenly he’d said, ‘People talk about the need for medical missionaries in South Africa but in a country like this, you know what the Africans really need?’ Cullen waited for Cripps to continue. ‘Legal missionaries, that’s what we need here. Not Christian, not medical, but legal. That’d put the cat among the pigeons, wouldn’t it?’

Cullen had no choice but to laugh and agree. It really was late now and he had to get Daisy back to her owner. So he’d left without contesting Cripps’ point, but in many ways, as he rode back to town, he wished he had. Then perhaps he would have resolved what Cripps was getting at, and maybe resolved the comment in his own mind too instead of pondering on it all the way home. At least Daisy had been calmer on that return journey. Her trip into the veld seemed to have tempered her and it was on that day, when Cullen finally saw the first lights of Enkeldoorn in the distance, that he’d resolved to buy her. Damn the eight pounds he couldn’t afford; she seemed settled with him, and he with her. It would be a shame to say goodbye to each other now.

A well-built grey gelding ridden hard by a farmer canters towards the puissance fence, tossing and throwing its head. Cullen watches as it straightens its forelegs a couple of strides out, scuffing up the ground with its hooves, bringing its hind legs sliding under its belly. The farmer lurches out of his seat, losing a stirrup which flips over the saddle behind him. The crowd lets out another gasp, more urgent this time, as the farmer clings on around the horse’s neck and the gelding hits the wing of the fence before spooking and galloping off across the field, the farmer clasped to its side like a child to its mother.

Cullen shifted himself away from the tent pole and stretched his arms above his head. The day was getting hot and he could do with a drink, but thinking of that day with Cripps had made him even more anxious to talk to the priest today. Since April they’d become much better friends than could have been expected after that first discussion, but he still didn’t know him well enough to ask him the questions he had really wanted to on that first meeting. Did he get lonely out there on his own? How did he defend his position as a missionary? What did he think about on those week-long treks of his across the veld? No, he hadn’t asked those questions, but today, if he could catch him, then maybe he would. After all, if he was going to write about Cripps he had to know what made the man tick. What he knew at the moment, the facts, how he acted, what he thought, wasn’t going to be enough.

Another horse approaches the puissance fence, a bay thoroughbred ridden by an army officer. Again Cullen watches as the animal gathers its energy a couple of strides before the pole, now standing at over six foot, then launches itself into the air. With a twist of its hind legs it clears the fence, landing heavily on the other side in a cloud of earth and dust. Distracted by his thinking about Cripps, Cullen has only been half watching the event, but the loud cheering and applause from the crowds indicates this horse has won. The officer swings the thoroughbred around and canters up to the front of the tents where he brings her to some kind of a halt, the mare’s veins standing proud beneath her sweat-darkened coat. Her blood is still pumping hard and she jogs and fidgets under him as Charlie pins the blue first place rosette to her bridle.

After the puissance Cullen watches Cripps compete again, this time in the one-mile walk, lining up with a string of other men, distorted by the midday haze as if they were reflected in a fairground mirror. On the crack of the starter’s gun the line breaks and the men begin striding the three laps of the horse track. A mounted judge trots beside them, moving up and down the line, keeping watch on their stride lengths. Cripps seems in his element and is far out in front when another man suddenly gains on him in the final straight to pip him at the post. It is clear to Cullen that this man had broken into a jog to catch up with Cripps, and sure enough he watches as the mounted judge trots up to Cripps, leans down to speak to him, then canters up to the tents where he brings his sweating horse to a halt and announces Father Cripps as the winner. Cripps walks up to the tents, obviously pleased, to receive his trophy from Charlie. Charlie shakes the priest’s hand vigorously and leads the crowd in a round of applause. As the clapping dies down Cullen thinks this is probably a good time to corner Cripps for a chat, but as he begins to walk over towards him he is stalled by Charlie’s voice booming across the field, followed by more clanging on the milk churn.

‘Last call for entries for the high jump!’

The high jump is the only event Cullen is entering today. He stops by the drinks tent, where he sees Cripps sitting with a glass of lime juice in his hand. The priest acknowledges him with a wave of the hand and Cullen is about to approach him when Charlie’s voice cuts through the chatter again;

‘High jump, Cul! Where the bloody hell are you?’

Managing just a brief smile to Cripps, Cullen turns out towards the field and jogs over to where Charlie is standing with a group of other men, shouting ahead of him as he runs towards them;

‘All right Charlie! Calm down, I’m here.’

Cullen won the high jump, as he had expected to, and it was as he was receiving his own trophy from Charlie, its metal smelling of new polish and two thin blue ribbons tied to its handles, that the screams started.

First a woman’s, a primitive scream of fear, and then others, men and women, two, three, a fourth, joining in like a macabre chorus. The crowd around the tents stands frozen, a painting of the day, looking above each other’s heads as they listen for the next sound to reach them from the town. But it is another voice they hear, a man’s, an African’s, shouting and getting louder as he gets nearer. The first time he shouts, no one can make out what he is saying, but then the words find themselves on the air and they hear him crying out, over and over, ‘
Shumba! Shumba!
’