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."Poor little thing," she murmured, stroking his hair."Damn it, Grace! Listen to me!"She glared up at him."No, you listen to me, Valentine Treverton! I have just seen a child who was truly ruined, and I will not listen to your shouting over something ridiculous.Another girl has died because of an initiation, and I was unable to save her.What are you doing about these initiations, Valentine? They're your people.You should care!""What's it to me what a bunch of blacks do? My only concern is for my son.I will not have him playing with dolls!""No," she said slowly."You don't care what the Africans do.And you care more about yourself than about your son."A deep flush raced up his neck as Valentine glowered at his sister, then turned and walked away.Inside the cool thatch building that was her clinic, Grace comforted Arthur.He had bruises about his neck and shoulders."Hello," said a soft voice as a silhouette filled the open doorway.Grace looked up.Her heart leaped."James.You're home.""I got in last night and came straight to see you—Hello, what's happened here?""Valentine again."James stepped inside and said, "Hello, Arthur.""Hello, Uncle James.""My brother thinks he can terrorize his son into manhood," Grace said quietly, trying to keep the anger out of her voice so as not to frighten the boy."I'm going to stop these beatings if I have to.You'll be all right, Arthur.You're not hurt badly.""Have you written to Rose about it?""She should be arriving any minute now, in fact.Her letter wasn't very precise—you know Rose.""Then Mona is in school in England?""Yes.At the academy Rose went to as a girl.""You'll miss Mona, won't you?""Yes, terribly."Grace gave her nephew a kiss on the head, then set him down on the floor, a boy who was too small for his age and who had inherited his mother's dreamy temperament."Go on now, love," Grace said gently."Go and play.""Where shall I go?" he asked, bewilderment in his large blue eyes."Where would you like to go, Arthur?"He pretended to think a moment.Then he said, "May I go and see the babies?"She smiled and patted him on his way.Valentine had forbidden Arthur to set foot in Grace's maternity hut, but she had decided not to heed her brother's orders."James!" she said as they walked out of the clinic."What a wonderful surprise to see you!"They stepped outside, and when Grace looked at the way the sunshine brought out the auburn highlights in James's dark brown hair, she felt the familiar rush of love and the ache that never left her.Each time he went away she felt a part of herself go with him.When he came back, she was whole again."I missed you," she said.They followed the path toward her house, passing the thatch buildings she had added.One of them was the small maternity clinic where Arthur spent most of his time looking at the newborn babies.As James and Grace walked up onto the veranda of her cottage, she said, "What is the news from Uganda?""The same as always.Sleeping sickness, malaria, blackwater.Nothing new, I'm afraid.And you, Grace? How has the mission been these past four months?"She went into the house and returned with two glasses of lemonade.Handing one to James, she said, "You've been gone five months.We have a new henhouse and a new blackboard for the classroom."He laughed."Here's to chickens and education," he said, and they drank.James studied Grace over the rim of his glass.She looked as neat and crisp as usual.Despite the demands of running her mission school and clinic, Grace was always dressed in a clean white blouse and skirt, her short hair always in place.And she was even more beautiful, he thought, than when he had last seen her."Is something troubling you, Grace?""There's been another initiation.Mario's sister died." She sat in a wicker chair."I have to be firmer with these people, James.I've got to put my foot down and make them realize that the old ways are bad for them.This is the twentieth century.Modern medicine is reaching a peak that is unknown in all of history.We work miracles these days.But still, when they're frightened, they run to a tribal healer.""Traditional healing isn't all bad, Grace.""Yes, it is.It's witchcraft, plain and simple.Who knows what that woman puts into her concoctions!" Grace waved a hand toward Valentine's polo field and the hut at its end.Wachera's homestead was now, after so many years, such a familiar part of the scene that it no longer aroused comment.Indeed, many European farms were now peppered with "squatter" homesteads—the small plots of Africans who had come out of the Reserves and who chose to work for the white man and live as a tenant on his land—so that Wachera's presence at the end of the polo field was no longer the oddity it had once been.The young medicine woman, Grace knew, lived a strange, secret life, going silently about her ancient business like a shadow at the periphery of one's vision.But Grace knew what she did.Her patients told her.Mathenge's widow led the people on spirit hunts whenever an epidemic struck, she supervised planting ceremonies before the rains, she made magical charms to keep children safe, she delivered babies, she brewed love potions, she talked to the spirits of the dead, and she read the future.She also, Grace suspected, wielded the knife during the initiations of girls."I think," Grace said quietly, "that the District Commissioner is going about it the wrong way.Simply making something illegal doesn't make it disappear [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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