The Poisonwood Bible
Page 132
But the children soon came back, unable to resist the scene of such a spectacle. Just as they used to do when we first arrived here, they materialized one by one out of the moist air and the bamboo thickets until they’d formed a silent, watchful circle around the periphery of our yard. I suppose they were as astonished as we were that a member of our family was capable of death. Gradually they crept forward, closing their circle around the table, and there they remained for a very long time, staring at Ruth May.
Mother had gone back in the house, where we could hear her strange, tireless industry moving upon the empty rooms. Our father seemed to be nowhere. My sisters and I stayed outside with the children because they seemed to embrace our presence. Out of habit we knelt on the ground and prayed the dumb prayers of our childhood: “Our Father which art in heaven,” and “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” I could not remotely believe any Shepherd was leading me through this dreadful valley, but the familiar words stuffed my mouth like cotton, and it was some relief to know, at least, that one sentence would follow upon another. It was my only way of knowing what to do.
Whenever I stopped praying, the buzz of the locusts grew horrible in my ears. So I didn’t stop. Sometimes Rachel prayed with me, and sometimes the Congolese children also prayed in whatever words they knew. I recited the 23rd Psalm, the 121st Psalm, the l00th and 137th and16th and 66th Psalms, the 21st chapter of Revelation, Genesis one, Luke 22, First Corinthians, and finally John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Then I stopped. It was very late in the afternoon, and I could think of no more prayers. I’d come to the end of all I knew. I listened to the world around me, but all other sound had ceased entirely. Not a single bird called. I felt terrified. The air seemed charged and dangerous but I couldn’t pray anymore, and I couldn’t get up and do anything else. To go back inside our empty house, where Mother was, especially, I couldn’t make myself do. Not for anything. It seemed impossible. So I stayed where I was, kneeling beside my sisters with our heads bowed low beneath the crackling air.
The sky groaned and cracked, and suddenly the shrill, cold needles of rain pierced our hands and the backs of our necks. A thunderstorm broke open, and with a strength as mighty as the thirst of crops and animals, the rain poured down on our heads. It lashed us hard, answering months of prayers. Some of the smaller children rushed to break off elephant-ear leaves for umbrellas, but most of us simply stayed where we were, receiving the downpour. Lightning sang and hissed around our shoulders, and the thunder bellowed.
Our father came out of the house and stood looking at the sky, holding out his hands. It seemed to take him a long time to believe in the rain.
“The Lord spoke to the common people gathered at the well,” he said at last, in his old booming voice that allowed no corner for doubt. He had to shout to be heard above the noise of the downpour. “And the Lord told them, Whosoever drinks of this ordinary water will be thirsty again, but the water I will give unto him will quench his thirst forever. It will become a spring within him, bubbling up for eternal life.”
The children weren’t paying much mind right then to my father or his bubbling spring of eternal life. They were so transfixed by the rain. They held up their faces and arms to the cold water, as if the whole of their skin were a manioc field that needed to be soaked.
“If anyone is thirsty,” my father shouted, “let him come to me and drink! If anyone believes in me, streams of living water shall flow forth from his heart!”
He walked to a tall boy near me, Pascal’s half brother. I’d spoken to him twice and knew his name was Lucien, though I’m sure my father didn’t know it. Nevertheless, Father held out his large, white hand and spread his fingers wide over the boy’s head. Lucien looked my father in the eye as if he expected to be struck, but he didn’t flinch.
“I am a voice of one shouting in the desert, Straighten the Lord’s way!” my father cried.”! am only baptizing in water, but someone is standing among you of whom you do not know. He is God’s Lamb, who is to remove the world’s sin.”
My father lowered his hand and closed his fingers gently over the top of Lucien s head.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost I baptize you, my son. Walk forward into the light.”
Lucien didn’t move. Father took his hand away and waited, I suppose, for the miracle of baptism to take hold. Then he turned to Lucien s tiny sister Bwanga, who held on to Lucien’s hand for dear life. Their mother had died during the disease time, and their father’s other wife—Pascal’s mother—had taken them both into her house. Throughout this time of loss and salvation, Bwanga had remained Ruth May’s most loyal playmate. Even that my father wouldn’t have known. I felt an unspeakable despair. He knew nothing about the children. Under his cupped hand Bwanga’s little bald head looked like an overripe avocado he was prepared to toss away. She stood wide-eyed and motionless.
Mother had gone back in the house, where we could hear her strange, tireless industry moving upon the empty rooms. Our father seemed to be nowhere. My sisters and I stayed outside with the children because they seemed to embrace our presence. Out of habit we knelt on the ground and prayed the dumb prayers of our childhood: “Our Father which art in heaven,” and “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” I could not remotely believe any Shepherd was leading me through this dreadful valley, but the familiar words stuffed my mouth like cotton, and it was some relief to know, at least, that one sentence would follow upon another. It was my only way of knowing what to do.
Whenever I stopped praying, the buzz of the locusts grew horrible in my ears. So I didn’t stop. Sometimes Rachel prayed with me, and sometimes the Congolese children also prayed in whatever words they knew. I recited the 23rd Psalm, the 121st Psalm, the l00th and 137th and16th and 66th Psalms, the 21st chapter of Revelation, Genesis one, Luke 22, First Corinthians, and finally John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Then I stopped. It was very late in the afternoon, and I could think of no more prayers. I’d come to the end of all I knew. I listened to the world around me, but all other sound had ceased entirely. Not a single bird called. I felt terrified. The air seemed charged and dangerous but I couldn’t pray anymore, and I couldn’t get up and do anything else. To go back inside our empty house, where Mother was, especially, I couldn’t make myself do. Not for anything. It seemed impossible. So I stayed where I was, kneeling beside my sisters with our heads bowed low beneath the crackling air.
The sky groaned and cracked, and suddenly the shrill, cold needles of rain pierced our hands and the backs of our necks. A thunderstorm broke open, and with a strength as mighty as the thirst of crops and animals, the rain poured down on our heads. It lashed us hard, answering months of prayers. Some of the smaller children rushed to break off elephant-ear leaves for umbrellas, but most of us simply stayed where we were, receiving the downpour. Lightning sang and hissed around our shoulders, and the thunder bellowed.
Our father came out of the house and stood looking at the sky, holding out his hands. It seemed to take him a long time to believe in the rain.
“The Lord spoke to the common people gathered at the well,” he said at last, in his old booming voice that allowed no corner for doubt. He had to shout to be heard above the noise of the downpour. “And the Lord told them, Whosoever drinks of this ordinary water will be thirsty again, but the water I will give unto him will quench his thirst forever. It will become a spring within him, bubbling up for eternal life.”
The children weren’t paying much mind right then to my father or his bubbling spring of eternal life. They were so transfixed by the rain. They held up their faces and arms to the cold water, as if the whole of their skin were a manioc field that needed to be soaked.
“If anyone is thirsty,” my father shouted, “let him come to me and drink! If anyone believes in me, streams of living water shall flow forth from his heart!”
He walked to a tall boy near me, Pascal’s half brother. I’d spoken to him twice and knew his name was Lucien, though I’m sure my father didn’t know it. Nevertheless, Father held out his large, white hand and spread his fingers wide over the boy’s head. Lucien looked my father in the eye as if he expected to be struck, but he didn’t flinch.
“I am a voice of one shouting in the desert, Straighten the Lord’s way!” my father cried.”! am only baptizing in water, but someone is standing among you of whom you do not know. He is God’s Lamb, who is to remove the world’s sin.”
My father lowered his hand and closed his fingers gently over the top of Lucien s head.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost I baptize you, my son. Walk forward into the light.”
Lucien didn’t move. Father took his hand away and waited, I suppose, for the miracle of baptism to take hold. Then he turned to Lucien s tiny sister Bwanga, who held on to Lucien’s hand for dear life. Their mother had died during the disease time, and their father’s other wife—Pascal’s mother—had taken them both into her house. Throughout this time of loss and salvation, Bwanga had remained Ruth May’s most loyal playmate. Even that my father wouldn’t have known. I felt an unspeakable despair. He knew nothing about the children. Under his cupped hand Bwanga’s little bald head looked like an overripe avocado he was prepared to toss away. She stood wide-eyed and motionless.
