The Poisonwood Bible
Page 29
“I won’t be stay here,” she declared. “You send a girl get me at Banga you be need help. I go show you cook eel. They got a big eel downa river yesterday. That fish a good be for children.” That was her final advice for our salvation.
I followed her out the door and watched her tromp down the road, the pale soles of her feet blinking back at me. Then I went to track down my father, who had wandered a little distance from the fenced garden and was sitting against a tree trunk. In his fingers he carefully stretched out something that looked like a wasp, still alive. It was as broad as my hand and had a yellow 8 on each clear wing, as plain as if some careful schoolchild or God had painted it there.
My father looked like he’d just had a look down Main Street, Heaven.
He told me, “There aren’t any pollinators.”
“What?” .
“No insects here to pollinate the garden.”
“Why, but there’s a world of bugs here!” An unnecessary remark, I suppose, as we both watched the peculiar insect struggling in his hands.
“African bugs, Leah. Creatures fashioned by God for the purpose of serving African plants. Look at this thing. How would it know what to do with a Kentucky Wonder bean?”
I couldn’t know if he was right or wrong. I only faintly understand about pollination. I do know that the industrious bees do the most of it. I mused, “I guess we should have brought some bees over in our pockets too.”
My father looked at me with a new face, strange and terrifying to me for what it lacked in confidence. It was as if a small, befuddled stranger were peering through the imposing mask of my father’s features. He looked at me like I was his spanking newborn baby and he did love me so, but feared the world would never be what any of us had hoped for.
“Leah,” he said, “you can’t bring the bees.You might as well bring the whole world over here with you, and there’s not room for it.
“ I swallowed.” I know.”
We sat together looking through the crooked stick fence at the great variety of spurned blossoms in my father’s garden. I felt so many different things right then: elation at my father’s strange expression of tenderness, and despair for his defeat. We had ‘worked so hard, and for what? I felt confusion and dread. I sensed that the sun \vas going down on many things I believed in.
From his big cage on the porch, Methuselah screeched at us in Kikongo. “Mbote!” he said, and I merely wondered, Hello or goodbye?
“What was Mama Tataba so mad about just now?” I dared to ask, very quietly. “We saw her hollering.”
“A little girl.”
“She has one?”
“No. A girl from here in the village that got killed last year.” I felt my pulse race ahead. “What happened to her?” He did not look at me now, but stared off at the distance. “She got killed and eaten by a crocodile. They don’t let their children step foot in the river, ever. Not even to be washed in the Blood of the Lamb.”
“Oh,” I said.
My own baptism, and every one I have witnessed so far, took place in something like a large bathtub or small swimming pool in the Baptist Church. The worst harm that could come to you might be that you would slip on the stairs. I hoped there would be room in heaven for that poor little girl, in whatever condition she’d arrived there.
“I fail to understand,” he said, “-why it would take six months for someone to inform me of that simple fact.” The old fire was seeping back into this strange, wistful husk of my father. I felt gratified.
“Ko ko ko!” Methuselah called.
“Come in!” my father retorted, with impatience rising in his craw.
“Wake up, Brother Fowles!”
“Piss off!”my father shouted.
I held my breath.
He shoved himself straight to his feet, strode to the porch, and flung open the door of Methuselah’s cage. Methuselah hunched his shoulders and sidled away from the door. His eyes in their bulging sockets ticked up and down, trying to understand the specter of this huge white man.
“You’re free to go,” my father said, waiting. But the bird did not come out. So he reached in and took hold of it.
In my father’s hands Methuselah looked like nothing but a feathered toy. When he hurled the bird up at the treetops it didn’t fly at first but only sailed across the clearing like a red-tailed badminton shuttlecock. I thought my father’s rough grip had surely got the better of that poor native creature, and that it would fall to the ground.
I followed her out the door and watched her tromp down the road, the pale soles of her feet blinking back at me. Then I went to track down my father, who had wandered a little distance from the fenced garden and was sitting against a tree trunk. In his fingers he carefully stretched out something that looked like a wasp, still alive. It was as broad as my hand and had a yellow 8 on each clear wing, as plain as if some careful schoolchild or God had painted it there.
My father looked like he’d just had a look down Main Street, Heaven.
He told me, “There aren’t any pollinators.”
“What?” .
“No insects here to pollinate the garden.”
“Why, but there’s a world of bugs here!” An unnecessary remark, I suppose, as we both watched the peculiar insect struggling in his hands.
“African bugs, Leah. Creatures fashioned by God for the purpose of serving African plants. Look at this thing. How would it know what to do with a Kentucky Wonder bean?”
I couldn’t know if he was right or wrong. I only faintly understand about pollination. I do know that the industrious bees do the most of it. I mused, “I guess we should have brought some bees over in our pockets too.”
My father looked at me with a new face, strange and terrifying to me for what it lacked in confidence. It was as if a small, befuddled stranger were peering through the imposing mask of my father’s features. He looked at me like I was his spanking newborn baby and he did love me so, but feared the world would never be what any of us had hoped for.
“Leah,” he said, “you can’t bring the bees.You might as well bring the whole world over here with you, and there’s not room for it.
“ I swallowed.” I know.”
We sat together looking through the crooked stick fence at the great variety of spurned blossoms in my father’s garden. I felt so many different things right then: elation at my father’s strange expression of tenderness, and despair for his defeat. We had ‘worked so hard, and for what? I felt confusion and dread. I sensed that the sun \vas going down on many things I believed in.
From his big cage on the porch, Methuselah screeched at us in Kikongo. “Mbote!” he said, and I merely wondered, Hello or goodbye?
“What was Mama Tataba so mad about just now?” I dared to ask, very quietly. “We saw her hollering.”
“A little girl.”
“She has one?”
“No. A girl from here in the village that got killed last year.” I felt my pulse race ahead. “What happened to her?” He did not look at me now, but stared off at the distance. “She got killed and eaten by a crocodile. They don’t let their children step foot in the river, ever. Not even to be washed in the Blood of the Lamb.”
“Oh,” I said.
My own baptism, and every one I have witnessed so far, took place in something like a large bathtub or small swimming pool in the Baptist Church. The worst harm that could come to you might be that you would slip on the stairs. I hoped there would be room in heaven for that poor little girl, in whatever condition she’d arrived there.
“I fail to understand,” he said, “-why it would take six months for someone to inform me of that simple fact.” The old fire was seeping back into this strange, wistful husk of my father. I felt gratified.
“Ko ko ko!” Methuselah called.
“Come in!” my father retorted, with impatience rising in his craw.
“Wake up, Brother Fowles!”
“Piss off!”my father shouted.
I held my breath.
He shoved himself straight to his feet, strode to the porch, and flung open the door of Methuselah’s cage. Methuselah hunched his shoulders and sidled away from the door. His eyes in their bulging sockets ticked up and down, trying to understand the specter of this huge white man.
“You’re free to go,” my father said, waiting. But the bird did not come out. So he reached in and took hold of it.
In my father’s hands Methuselah looked like nothing but a feathered toy. When he hurled the bird up at the treetops it didn’t fly at first but only sailed across the clearing like a red-tailed badminton shuttlecock. I thought my father’s rough grip had surely got the better of that poor native creature, and that it would fall to the ground.
