This Side Jordan

  ‘Yes,’ she said tiredly. ‘I know what you’re thinking. It’ll start all over again. And end the same way, too, I suppose. Their independence is coming up, isn’t it, within a few years?’

  Then she laughed.

  ‘A few years –’ she said. ‘That’s eternity. I try not to think more than six months ahead now.’

  The desk was littered with samples of mammy-cloth, and James was completely absorbed in studying them.

  ‘Sit down, Johnnie. I won’t be a moment. I’d just like to finish these –’

  He held up a patch of cloth, an orange elephant and a green palm. He shook his head and picked up the next, patterned in blue clocks on a chocolate background. Satisfied, he fingered the material, then placed it carefully with the others that had passed inspection.

  ‘An African,’ James said, ‘would not be able to select these patterns, for the simple reason that he’d only know what he liked himself. From a commercial point of view, one’s selection has to extend much further than that. It’s a question of judging the general taste.’

  ‘I expect you’re right.’

  ‘Of course I’m right. And they’ll find it out one of these days, too. I’ve been studying pattern trends in tradecloth for many years. I fancy I know what these people want better than they know themselves.’

  Reluctantly, he turned from the varicoloured scraps.

  ‘What is it, Johnnie? You wanted to see me?’

  Johnnie looked away from the creased simian face.

  ‘Yes. I suppose I should have told you before. That day you asked me to speak to Cameron – I didn’t accomplish anything you intended. Not anything.’

  James sighed.

  ‘I didn’t really think you would. I’m afraid he isn’t a man who can be persuaded or convinced.’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘I don’t want to hear the details,’ James said. ‘I’m sure no one else could have done any better. Probably it wouldn’t have made much difference in the long run, anyway.’

  He glanced up.

  ‘You’ve heard about Bedford, I suppose? It was to be expected, of course, that he’d be the first to go. I never had a very high opinion of his work, yet now I feel – well, I shall miss him. Strange.’

  Then James sat up straight in the hard high-backed chair that he had brought to this country with him and had used ever since, an uncomfortable chair, darkened with years but still unmistakably oak, not ‘ofram’ or African mahogany.

  ‘You mustn’t think I’m despondent,’ he said. ‘I believe there’s every chance that the Board will come to its senses despite Cameron. As a matter of fact, I’ve written to one or two people about it, and I expect to hear from them quite soon. I know some of the directors very well. Nicholas Moore, for example. Why, I’ve known Nicholas for twenty-odd years. I think he’ll understand my point of view.’

  Johnnie turned to go.

  ‘I’m sure he will. I’m sure he’ll understand.’

  As he left, he noticed that James had picked up one of the fragments of mammy-cloth once more. The Squire was turning it over and over in his hands, and his unseeing eyes were fixed on the printed clocks.

  ‘Come with me,’ Aya begged, ‘come to the meeting, Nathaniel.’

  ‘Why doesn’t Charity go with you? She always used to go.’

  ‘She’s busy.’

  ‘Well, so am I.’

  He had been trying all day to get this one thing done. He was writing to Adjei to say that he wanted the post of clerk to Nana Kwaku Afrisi. He had not known the letter would be so difficult to write. The sheet of paper still only said ‘My dear uncle –’

  Aya gave him a furious glance.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Don’t come with me. I didn’t want you to come, anyway. If my pains start, somebody will help me home.’

  And so of course he had to go.

  It was an evangelist church, one of many, for this city which had absorbed into itself so many gods always seemed to have room for one more. The meetings were held outside, under a huge rough shelter of fresh palm boughs piled on pole frames. The benches were nearly filled by the time Nathaniel and Aya got there. They sat down, Aya waving and shouting greetings to everyone in sight. Nathaniel was stiff, embarrassed, conscious of the glances of Aya’s friends. He had never been to a meeting with her before.

  The preacher was an African. Bulbous and earnest, with protruding eyes, he prayed as though God were sitting next to him in an Accra municipal bus.

  ‘ – Lawd, you see these people – ’ ‘Yes, yes!’

  ‘ – Lawd, you see these sinners – ’ ‘He sees!’

  ‘ – Lawd, what we gonna do with ’em?’ ‘Save us, save us!’

  If he could be saved, Nathaniel thought. If he could be saved as easily as that. But this meeting was a game. The preacher knew his part and the congregation knew their part and they knew what would happen this night. Nathaniel did not want to see it. He looked around at Aya, hoping she would not yet have entered in, that he would be able to persuade her to go.

  ‘Yes, yes!’ Aya was saying.

  Nathaniel turned away.

  The meeting provided for every man, every tongue. The prayers were alternately in Ga, Twi and English.

  A man in a green shirt printed with purple orchids got up and said he had once smuggled cocoa into French Togoland, where it fetched a higher price. He had been driving his lorry one night through the Aburi mountains on his way back to Tafo to see his family. He had been drunk, he said, drunk on the money he got from his crooked work. It had started to rain, up there in the Aburi mountains, on that narrow winding road. And he, in his drunkenness, had driven the lorry too close to the edge, and the wheels had skidded and the lorry started to go over into the ravine. The lightning flashed all around him, he said, and he knew it was the anger of God, like his sister had told him many times before, and she was a Christian also of this Church, only he never paid heed to her. And his soul was afraid in that moment. But listen, brethren, do you know what happened then? ‘No – what? What happened then, man?’ That lorry caught on a big jagged rock, and the rock held it long enough for him to scramble out. And he fell out onto the road, and the lorry plunged down into the deep ravine. And he knew that God had saved him. And God had punished him. Yes, man, God had punished him and saved him.

  Nathaniel looked down at his feet. His shoes badly needed polishing, he noticed. He tried not to listen. But he knew he was listening. Beside him, Aya swayed and moaned.

  Nathaniel sweated and tried to think. But all he could think of was that boulder and that lorry and that man, saved.

  – He saved me, He saved me. Who all could be saved?

  – Not Nathaniel, oh no, not him. Not Nathaniel, over whom both gods had fought and both had lost.

  – Nathaniel. That was his name. Before he went to the mission school, he had had an African name. He never thought of it now, even to himself. His name was Nathaniel. They had given him that name at the mission school. They always did. They went through in alphabetical order. If he had been the first boy to arrive that term, his name would have been Abraham. And after they had given him a different name, they began to give him a different soul. They talked of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Moses, the God of Nathaniel. And the boy had listened, he with the new name had listened, bored at first, indifferent, then frightened, until finally he came to take it for granted. The new name took hold, and the new roots began to grow. But the old roots never quite died, and the two became intertwined.

  – I was of both and I was of neither. I forgot one way when I was too young to remember everything of it by myself, without help. And I learned another way when I was too old for it ever to become second nature. Do not question me too closely about God the Holy Ghost, for the meaning is not clear to me. And do not ask me who Nyankopon is, for I have forgotten.

  – Did my father think I could take the red wine of
Communion and return then to offer red ‘eto’ to the gods? And did the mission fathers think that when I tasted the unleavened bread, the smell of the sacred ‘summe’ leaves scattered in the grove would ever quite be gone from my nostrils?

  – Once, when the boy was in his second year at the mission school, some of his schoolmates said they would let him accompany them on an adventure. They went, all of them together, to the grove outside the town, where there was the hut of a powerful fetish. The other boys, brave laughing boys, had shown Nathaniel the black earthen pots beside the fetish hut, where the townsfolk left their offerings of money. Look – what a hoax! That was what the boys had said, laughing. The fetish priest has plenty of palm-wine on that. And Nathaniel said, bitterness in his heart, look – what a hoax! The fetish priest is well-fleshed and his sorrows are soothed away by palm-wine, on that money. So they stole it, that boy and the other boys, they stole the money from the earthen pot and divided it among them. Some of the boys bought sweets, some bought palm-wine, and if it gave them nightmares, they never told. But Nathaniel buried his share under a casuarina tree in the compound of the mission school. He buried it, just in case. For six months it stayed there, before he found the bravado to dig it up and spend it. And when he did, the sweets were like a bitter leaf in his mouth.

  – There was a line from a funeral song, long ago:

  ‘Thou speeding bird, tell father

  That he left me on the other side of the River –’

  – Oh, my father, why did you leave me here? And what shall I do?

  – Our Father –

  – my father – my father which art in Hell –

  – You cannot tell me, either of you. There is no advice from you or You. Two silences.

  In the gathering darkness the bodies swayed and moaned with the fever’s beginning.

  ‘He saved me. He saved me. I was in the brothel, in the jail, and He saved me. I was in the fiery furnace and He saved me. I was in the lion’s den and He looked mercifully upon me.’

  The palm leaves of the shelter were disarrayed by the wind, and the night was hot. The night was hot and still, and you could see the stars through the screen of palm branches, and the moon, thin as a golden necklace.

  They were mostly women, the congregation. And when they sang, they sang of themselves, of despair and exultation. They sang in the warm night, and their cloths rustled in the half darkness. Their shoulders and big breasts lifted to the song, and their sandalled feet shuffled in the dust, in the dark.

  Nathaniel listened.

  ‘My soul in the River – gonna sin no more,

  My soul in the River – gonna sin no more,

  My soul in the River – gonna sin no more,

  I’m gonna walk up Jordan shore –’

  And the preacher.

  ‘What did the Lord say to Joshua? What did He say to Joshua? I’ll tell you what He said. He said, “Be strong and of good courage. Yes, be strong and of good courage, for the Lord thy God is with thee.” And the Lord said, “Don’t be afraid. Neither be thou dismayed. Cross Jordan.” That’s what the Lord said. And Joshua, he crossed over.’

  ‘Jordan, Jordan, Jordan shore,

  I’m gonna walk up Jordan shore,

  Live in the glory forevermore,

  I’m gonna walk up Jordan shore –’

  The drums caught the rhythm and gave it back. And the women swayed, swayed and sang. They sang in the hot still night, with the smell of charcoal smoke and palm oil and frying plantain heavy in the air. And Nathaniel listened.

  He listened to the preacher.

  ‘Do you think Joshua was afraid, brethren? Was that man afraid? Yes, he was afraid! Yes, he was afraid! Joshua had a big battle to fight and Joshua had a big river to cross. Yes, he was afraid. Nobody ever got to the promised land without a fight. Every man want salvation, and every man afraid, afraid to try for fear he fail. But the Lord say “Cross Jordan, Joshua”. And the Lord say “Be not afraid, Joshua. Cross over. Yes, man, cross over that river and win that battle.”’

  ‘ – Yes, man! Yes!’

  ‘And Joshua say – “All right, God. I’ll try.” And he say “That’s right, God, I’ll try if You say so. Yes, sir, I’ll try if You say so.” And he tried. And when he got to that river, see what happened! Just see! Why, that river parted its waters. Yes, those waters rose up! And it says, those waters rose up in a heap far from the city that is beside Zaretan, and it says, those that came down towards the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, why, those waters failed. The Jordan was flooding its banks, because it was that time of year. And those big waters were cut off, this side, that side. And the children of Israel crossed over on dry ground.’

  ‘ – Tell it! They crossed on dry ground! Amen! Amen!’

  The preacher raised his arms. He was a small man, and fat, but when he raised his arms he seemed to grow enormous, tall as the palms, and his arms reached out, reached out. The women swayed and their tears flowed down their singing faces.

  ‘That’s salvation, brother! That’s salvation! A man’s afraid. He’s got fear and he trembles and he won’t come forward. He’s afraid to cross that river, that Jordan. And then he tries. And what happens? I’ll tell you. Yes, I’ll tell you! He finds it’s easy, easy, easy! He finds it’s easy, for the Lord parts the waters, and he walks over on dry land. You going to come over?’

  ‘ – Yes, yes!’

  ‘You going to come over?’

  ‘ – Yes, yes!’

  And they went forward, singing. And the preacher blessed them and prayed for them.

  ‘Come over into salvation! You, man, you!’

  They surged forward, swaying and singing. Forward to be blessed.

  In the warm night they sang, their voices hot and hungry. And the drums beat, beat, beat. The drums pulsed this hope, as they had pulsed the hope and despair of a thousand years, here, in this place.

  ‘Joshua crossed the River to the Promised Land,

  Joshua crossed the River to the Promised Land,

  Joshua crossed the River to the Promised Land,

  And The Lord gave the battle into his hand –’

  And then triumphant, feet stamping, hands clapping, bodies sweating, voices shouting, triumphant –

  ‘Jordan, Jordan, Jordan shore,

  I’m gonna walk up Jordan shore,

  Live in the glory for evermore,

  I’m gonna walk up Jordan shore!’

  Nathaniel listened. His throat felt tight with wanting to sing, and he clenched his hands that wanted to clap.

  Then he stopped holding back, and he sang. He threw back his head and sang into the warm night.

  ‘Joshua crossed the River to the Promised Land –’

  – Oh, the River was many things. Now he knew it. The River was the warm slimy womb of all, lapping around the little fish, holding him so that he might not learn lungs. And the River was Jordan.

  – The River was Jordan.

  ‘Jordan, Jordan, Jordan shore,

  I’m gonna walk up Jordan shore –’

  Nathaniel sang, his head thrown back, the look of him forgotten. He did not mind about his glasses, that they shone with his tears. He did not mind that his shoes needed polishing. The doubt and the shame, for the moment, were no more. Nathaniel sang, and his voice was deep and true.

  – Who all can be saved? Oh, every man, every man, no matter what his trouble. I heard that You did not turn any away.

  – The Kyerema had not known its name was Jordan. But perhaps, after all, when he set the boy’s feet on that path, he knew it was goodbye. Maybe he knew his son would have a strange new river to cross.

  – The land was there. And the land was theirs. And the people crossed over into their land. The land was there, waiting for them, waiting for them to walk up the shore of Jordan. And the Lord gave the battle into their hands.

  ‘Live in the glory for evermore,

  I’m gonna walk up Jordan shore! ’

  Then it was over. For a second ther
e was silence. And in that second, Nathaniel wondered what Joshua had done once the walls of Jericho fell down. What had he done with the city, when it was his?

  Then time began again. He must be crazy. He was going back – had he forgotten? – to the Forest and the dark River.

  What was Jericho to him? What was Jordan to him?

  FOURTEEN

  It was late in the night when Aya wakened Nathaniel. The pains had been coming for about two hours. At first she hadn’t been sure, but now they were getting stronger.

  Nathaniel looked at her face to see if she were frightened, and she turned her eyes away. He asked her.

  ‘Not of the baby,’ Aya said. ‘I’m not frightened of the baby.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘The hospital,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to go, Nathaniel.’ Then another pain came, and he watched her as she drew up her legs and moaned. When it was over, she turned to him angrily.

  ‘Why do you make me go there?’ she cried. ‘You don’t know! You don’t know!’

  Suddenly Nathaniel was appalled at what he had done. It was not he who had to bear the child. Why had he not let her have it here, with the people she knew and trusted around her? What was it to him? Progress or pride? For his pride she now had to pay with her fear. He could not let himself think of it. Even to him, now, the presence of Aya’s mother would have been reassuring.

  What if there was any trouble about Aya being admitted to hospital at this time of night?

  ‘Where’s Akosua?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s making some tea,’ Aya said. ‘I wakened her before.’

  They dressed and went into the other room. The children were rubbing their eyes and blinking like two ruffled owls. When they were fully awake, they squatted cross-legged on their sleeping-mats, and stared with the ruthless curiosity of the young, as though they hoped Aya’s pains would soon reach screaming pitch and provide a dramatic entertainment.

  Akosua, her cloth draped sparely around her gaunt body, came in with the tea and immediately began to question Aya sharply and minutely. Had there been blood yet? Was the child moving a little or a lot? The water had not broken? Were the pains small, like this – she half clenched her hand – or strong, like this – her thin fingers snapped in toward her palm in a vivid gesture of tension, and Nathaniel, horrified, looked away.