|
|
|
Mission
Some extracts from the novel
The title of Mission's first chapter is Michael. Here
is how it starts......
Enter Michael, dishevelled and panting. His movements are hurried, agitated
and anxious. The kitchen door creaks on its hinges after his disinterested
push. It does not close and it swings ajar behind him. In an instant,
Michael has crossed the room as if out of a desire to distance himself from
some pursuer, but now he is cornered. He stops, thinks for a moment and,
realising the futility of trying to run away, returns to the door. He pauses
there and, with his head cocked on one side, listens intently, trying to
discern the frantic sounds of a shouted argument taking place outside. The
sounds are dulled and muffled by echoes, but he stays where he is, afraid to
approach them. There are several voices: at least five are shouting in
apparent opposition without any one gaining the ascendancy. Thus all blend
to form a single, incoherent and meaningless noise. Trying to listen is
pointless and so, with a rueful shake of the head, he advances into the room
again, but this time he moves more slowly, with greater resignation, beneath
some weight.
He decides to sit but cannot relax. Perched on the very edge of the settee,
he leans forward with his head bowed and his hands resting on his knees. He
seems poised to act but is powerless. He can do nothing, now. It is too
late. Still without success he tries again to make.........
The second chapter, entitled Mulonzya, deals primarily
with the local member of parliament, James Mulonzya. But his father, Abel,
and son, Charles play significant roles, as does an idealistic
administrator, John Mwangangi, recently returned from a successful legal
career in London. James and Charles are having dinner with John.......
“So the idea is this,” John continued. “The Father has been told he can
use the school bus from Mutune once a week for nothing. All he will do is
provide the petrol. The nuns have been very generous to us. Without the
vehicle we could do nothing. Near Nairobi there is a group of Europeans
who are researching into agricultural techniques for some agricultural
research agency. Their farm is very productive but is subsidised, so it
does not need to make a profit. Michael has persuaded them to sell us
their maize and beans at a cheap rate. We will then bring it to Migwani,
Mwingi, Mutonguni or wherever in the lorry and then sell off some of it to
people who can afford it until we have covered costs and raised enough
money for the next trip and then we will distribute the rest free to
people who have nothing.”
“That is illegal,” said Charles curtly. “You need a licence to trade
grain.”
“Ah, but we are not trading, Charles...”
“You are selling some of it so surely the law would rule that you are
trading.”
“But that's only to get us started. If we can get enough reasonably
well-off people to give a hundred shillings each - and regularly - we will
be able to carry on without having to sell any of the food. It could then
never be argued that we were affecting the traders' business because we
would be supplying only those people who had absolutely no money to buy
food for themselves.”
“And how would you identify such people? On whose word do you judge
whether a particular family can or cannot afford to feed itself?”
“Priests, Chiefs, District Officers, Members of Parliament....”
The argument had suddenly become very serious. “This food... It will only
go to Catholics, then?” asked Mulonzya, as usual firmly grasping quite the
wrong end of the other's meaning.
“Oh no. To anyone who is in need of it.”
Charles spoke again. His voice spoke the words of a mind already made up.
“What you propose is illegal. You need a licence to trade grain. Your
school bus is licensed to carry children, not merchandise. Mutune is a
government-funded school. I am sure that the Ministry of Education would
not like to think that their property is being misused in this way. It is
definitely illegal.”
“You forget that I am trained in law. I would certainly be prepared to
test what you say in the courts. Anyway, the whole project would be done
in the name of the Church. Would you like to be seen to bring about a case
against the Roman Catholic Church?”
“If it is illegal we would oppose it,” said Charles. “It would certainly
be against our interests. We would have to consult with our legal
advisers, of course, but I have no doubt in my mind when I say that,
whoever started such a scheme, we would seek to stop it through the
courts.”
James Mulonzya almost interrupted his son. “Would you, Mr Mwangangi, a
magistrate and civil servant openly break the law?” There was some sincere
as well as calculated shock in his voice.
“If the law were to stand in the way of a simple, non-profit-making
humanitarian scheme such as this, especially in an area racked with
famine, then the law must be changed.” There was a hint of the beginning
of anger in John's voice. “If there must be a test case then so be it.
Meanwhile people who would have gone hungry will be fed.”
Charles and James Mulonzya began to laugh as he spoke. There was no
disrespect, however, only familiarity. Both father and son knew that they
had trod this ground far more regularly and successfully than their
potential adversary. “Ah John, but now you are talking politics.”
The third chapter, called Janet, is set mainly in London, thirty years
on from the other four. When she left college, Janet worked in Migwani's
school and was Father Michael's neighbour for two years. For two years after
she returned from Africa, she corresponded with Michael, during a period of
personal crisis, but she had not met him until unannounced he reappeared in
her life.
Turning back into the hall, the pause having done no more than shortened
her next step, she looked down to see the long Kashmiri runner reveal
herringboned terracotta tiles at its edges abutting the now stripped
skirts and Janet Smythe, née Rowlandson, felt a sudden and unexpected
twinge of nerves, a slight tightening of the breath alongside the
slightest tingle of the spine, the kind of shiver she thought she used to
feel when her first boyfriend arrived at the family home to pick her up.
Now more than thirty years beyond such nonsense, the unexpected nervous
trill forced a pause, a mere shortening of the rhythm of her step, just as
she passed the second door on her left, which looked into the front room,
beyond the closed folding doors. There, presenting the back of his large
head above the back of a voluminous easy chair that faced into the room,
was David, her husband, precisely where she expected to find him, holding
the double spread of his broadsheet high up to catch the brighter light of
the hallway behind him, absorbed in a minor piece at the foot of page
seven, his head gently nodding to the regularity of the Bach fugues that
Janet could just hear scratching from within foam pads of his headphones.
“I’ll get it,” she said ritualistically, as she passed the open door,
knowing full well he couldn’t hear. Thus she did not even check for a
response which even at best would be a minor noise, not quite a grunt and
definitely not a word, if, indeed, such a reference to the obvious might
merit any recognition.
And so Janet reached the door, a large, wide and heavy hardwood structure,
white within and black to the street, hinged on the right, solid panelled
in the lower half, but admitting two decorative stained glass panels
above, their uneven frosting not allowing any view of those waiting
outside, who invariably presented only fuzzed silhouettes against the
scattered back-light of the streetlamps. As she turned the latch, Janet’s
memory momentarily recreated childhood, prompted by the beautiful symmetry
of the diffused street lights and thus reminding her of those same shapes
her infancy called
‘angels’
in the frosted glass door of her parents’ suburban semi. Swinging
the door open, she smiled at the two priests waiting in the cold and dark
of a November evening.
Boniface, the fourth chapter, describes the difficult
life of a young teacher in a town near to Migwani. He is chosen by Father
Michael to manage one of the Church's projects, but his chapter is primarily
concerned with his family relations.
A violent crash shook Boniface out of his dream. He had seen it coming for
almost a minute, but had not prepared himself for the shock. The car had
laboured to the summit of a shallow rise to reveal a view of the road
ahead. In a broad curve it swept across a wide valley, at the bottom of
which a grey and narrow concrete bridge contrasted with the brown unedged
earth of the rest of their route. On the down slope, Michael pressed his
foot to the floor and the car quickly picked up speed. Boniface knew that
at the bottom of the valley, where the road crossed a river bed, the
junction between the murram of the road and the concrete of the bridge had
worn badly, leaving a vertical step between the two surfaces, several
inches high in parts. Everyone who travelled the main road knew the spot.
Even the more irresponsible bus drivers would slow to a crawl here to
negotiate the bump, but could still not prevent the flow of abuse from the
rear seats when their vehicles lurched as they crossed onto the bridge and
threw the most vulnerable passengers momentarily into the air. There was
simply no way of avoiding it.
By the time Michael's car hit the ramp, it was doing fifty miles per hour,
but of those inside the car only Josephine, Boniface's wife, seemed
concerned by the looming danger. Not until the wheels hit the step and
lifted the entire car into the air did either of the men in front of her
show any reaction. A split second before impact, she tried to utter a
warning shout, but it was already too late. The car hit the ridge, flew
into the air and came down with what seemed like a gigantic crash,
flinging her from her seat and transforming her intended shout into a long
high-pitched scream.
Boniface simply held on. Michael's previously vacant expression
disappeared, transformed by the widening of his eyes to one of undiluted
shock and surprise. After only a short skid, which the priest quickly and
easily controlled, the car sped on without either a word or glance shared.
Some moments later, Boniface did turn to face his wife who was bent low
over the child in her lap and holding the top of her head which had bumped
hard against the roof. He offered a short comforting smile to ease her
discomfort and said, “Don't worry, Josephine. Father always drives like
this.”
The final chapter introduces Munyasya, an ex-army
officer who, late in life, has become destitute. It is his mission, however,
which endures, despite being revealed as misguided. He is apparently
possessed by the spirit of his long-dead step-father.
In the bottle is my madness, the spirit which exhausts me, taunts me,
entraps me. I, the hunter, the warrior, am caged like a monkey. Let me
free! Let me free to live my own life and die my own death. You hold the
key, not I. I would break the lock but I can't find the door. Another
drink. Another drink to bring me closer to you, to hold you near until you
let me go. Do you hear? You? Nzoka? Do you hear?
He had been ignored until then. Hundreds of people had passed him by, but
even those whom he had befriended in the past offered
neither
greeting nor any sign of recognition. People had met and stood in
conversation less than spitting distance from where he lay without even
acknowledging his presence. It was as if he had become a part of the tree
beneath which he sat, merely an exposed root to be stepped over and
avoided lest one should trip. His constant, almost silent murmuring
remained always inaudible amongst the daily bustle of the market place,
especially on market day, itself, when this flat triangle of hardened,
bare, red earth rang with the noise and commotion of trade and humanity.
These last words which he said, however, this oft-repeated question,
habitually delivered with the air of a command, these words were never a
whisper. Every muscle in him strained and shook to throw out the sound.
His entire skeleton of a body stiffened and convulsed, the words grumbling
forth from deep within his squelching chest. Thrown out as if spewed in
rejection, the sound bellowed like thunder, chased by its own echo. It
demanded attention, and received it, albeit begrudgingly and obliquely. It
forced people to react, to look his way and thus acknowledge his presence.
At such moments, all conversation, all business stopped for a moment as
heads turned towards Munyasya's tree. Those with no direct view craned
their necks to see, would jostle for position for just a glimpse, but
no-one would want to go too close. No-one would ever answer. No-one would
ever intervene.
|