The Poisonwood Bible
Page 60
She turned around and faced him. “Wasn’t it somebody’s darn business to predict it?”
“How could they?” he asked, opening his hands wide. “Last year when De Gaulle gave independence to all the French colonies, the Belgians insisted this had nothing to do with us! No one even took the ferry across to Brazzaville to watch the ceremony. The Belgians went on speaking of rule with a fatherly hand.”
“A fatherly hand, is that what you call it!” She shook her head from side to side. “Using these people like slaves in your rubber plantations and your mines and I don’t know what all? We’ve heard what goes on, Frank, do you think we’re simpleminded? There’s men right here in this village with tales to make your hair stand on end. One old fellow got his hand whacked off up at Coquilhatville, and ran away while he was still spurting blood!”
Father shot her a look.
“Well, honestly, Nathan. I talk to their wives.” She looked at Mrs. Potato Head, who was keeping mum on the subject.
“We had no idea,” Mother said quietly then, like she’d just figured the whole thing out. “Your King Baudouin is living off the fat of this land, is what he’s doing, and leaving it up to penniless mission doctors and selfless men like my husband to take care of their every simple need. Is that how a father rules? Hell’s bells! And he didn’t expect trouble?”
She glanced back and forth between Mr. Underdown and Father like a nervous child herself, unsure which of the two men was entitled to give her a licking.
Mr. Underdown stared at Mother like he suddenly had no idea where she’d come from—like that houseboy that didn’t know how the sugar got under his shirt. Man oh man, that made me nervous. Every grown-up in the room, including my mother, the Cussing Lady, and Mrs. Underdown, who kept rubbing her neck and craning her chin to the side, you could have mistaken for a mental psychiatry patient right then. Except for Father, and of course he is the one who is really mental.
The Reverend Underdown flung out his fist, and Mother flinched. But he wasn’t aiming for her at all. It turns out he just meant for them all to admire his hand. “That is the relation of Belgium to her Congo,” he said. “Look there! A strong hand, tightly clenched. No one could have predicted an uprising like this.”
Mother walked straight out of the room, out the backdoor toward the kitchen. No one mentioned her absence. Then in a minute she came back, having just remembered, evidently, that she couldn’t go hop on the Greyhound Bus to Atlanta.
“What’s he really saying?” she asked Mrs. Underdown. “That there’s going to be no transition at all? No interim period for—I don’t know-a provisional government-in-training? Just wham, the Belgians are gone and the Congolese have to run everything on their own?”
Nobody answered, and I was scared Mother would start swearing about the King again, or crying. How embarrassing. But she didn’t do either one. She pulled on her hair for a while and then tried out a new, improved Let’s Get This All Straight voice.” Frank. Janna. Not a soul among these people has even gone to college or traveled abroad to study government. That’s what Anatole tells us. And now you’re saying they’ll be left overnight to run every single school, every service, every government office? And the army? What about the army, Frank?”
Reverend Underdown shook his head. “I can’t tell you how, Orleanna. I can only tell you what I know.”
Home, home, home, home, I prayed. If the problem was big enough, we’d just have to go home. We could get on that plane tomorrow and fly right straight out of here, if only he would say so.
Father got up and came to stand in the doorway, facing out toward the porch. I shuddered, both hoping and dreading that he’d read my mind. But he wasn’t looking at us girls. He just stared right past us, to make a point of turning his back on the present company of Underdowns and Mother. I slouched back into my hammock and attended to my cuticles while Father spoke to the great outdoors.
“Not a television set in this whole blessed country,” he announced to the palm trees. “Radios, maybe one per hundred thousand residents. No telephones. Newspapers as scarce as hen’s teeth, and a literacy rate made to match. They get their evening news by listening to their neighbors’ drums.”
That was all true. Almost every single night we could hear those drums from the next village over, which Nelson said was talking drums. But what in tarnation could you tell somebody with just a drum? It would have to be worse than that dip-dip-dop More Scold thing they use in the army.
“How could they?” he asked, opening his hands wide. “Last year when De Gaulle gave independence to all the French colonies, the Belgians insisted this had nothing to do with us! No one even took the ferry across to Brazzaville to watch the ceremony. The Belgians went on speaking of rule with a fatherly hand.”
“A fatherly hand, is that what you call it!” She shook her head from side to side. “Using these people like slaves in your rubber plantations and your mines and I don’t know what all? We’ve heard what goes on, Frank, do you think we’re simpleminded? There’s men right here in this village with tales to make your hair stand on end. One old fellow got his hand whacked off up at Coquilhatville, and ran away while he was still spurting blood!”
Father shot her a look.
“Well, honestly, Nathan. I talk to their wives.” She looked at Mrs. Potato Head, who was keeping mum on the subject.
“We had no idea,” Mother said quietly then, like she’d just figured the whole thing out. “Your King Baudouin is living off the fat of this land, is what he’s doing, and leaving it up to penniless mission doctors and selfless men like my husband to take care of their every simple need. Is that how a father rules? Hell’s bells! And he didn’t expect trouble?”
She glanced back and forth between Mr. Underdown and Father like a nervous child herself, unsure which of the two men was entitled to give her a licking.
Mr. Underdown stared at Mother like he suddenly had no idea where she’d come from—like that houseboy that didn’t know how the sugar got under his shirt. Man oh man, that made me nervous. Every grown-up in the room, including my mother, the Cussing Lady, and Mrs. Underdown, who kept rubbing her neck and craning her chin to the side, you could have mistaken for a mental psychiatry patient right then. Except for Father, and of course he is the one who is really mental.
The Reverend Underdown flung out his fist, and Mother flinched. But he wasn’t aiming for her at all. It turns out he just meant for them all to admire his hand. “That is the relation of Belgium to her Congo,” he said. “Look there! A strong hand, tightly clenched. No one could have predicted an uprising like this.”
Mother walked straight out of the room, out the backdoor toward the kitchen. No one mentioned her absence. Then in a minute she came back, having just remembered, evidently, that she couldn’t go hop on the Greyhound Bus to Atlanta.
“What’s he really saying?” she asked Mrs. Underdown. “That there’s going to be no transition at all? No interim period for—I don’t know-a provisional government-in-training? Just wham, the Belgians are gone and the Congolese have to run everything on their own?”
Nobody answered, and I was scared Mother would start swearing about the King again, or crying. How embarrassing. But she didn’t do either one. She pulled on her hair for a while and then tried out a new, improved Let’s Get This All Straight voice.” Frank. Janna. Not a soul among these people has even gone to college or traveled abroad to study government. That’s what Anatole tells us. And now you’re saying they’ll be left overnight to run every single school, every service, every government office? And the army? What about the army, Frank?”
Reverend Underdown shook his head. “I can’t tell you how, Orleanna. I can only tell you what I know.”
Home, home, home, home, I prayed. If the problem was big enough, we’d just have to go home. We could get on that plane tomorrow and fly right straight out of here, if only he would say so.
Father got up and came to stand in the doorway, facing out toward the porch. I shuddered, both hoping and dreading that he’d read my mind. But he wasn’t looking at us girls. He just stared right past us, to make a point of turning his back on the present company of Underdowns and Mother. I slouched back into my hammock and attended to my cuticles while Father spoke to the great outdoors.
“Not a television set in this whole blessed country,” he announced to the palm trees. “Radios, maybe one per hundred thousand residents. No telephones. Newspapers as scarce as hen’s teeth, and a literacy rate made to match. They get their evening news by listening to their neighbors’ drums.”
That was all true. Almost every single night we could hear those drums from the next village over, which Nelson said was talking drums. But what in tarnation could you tell somebody with just a drum? It would have to be worse than that dip-dip-dop More Scold thing they use in the army.
