Anthills of the Savannah

“You didn’t want to catch me out. Why? Because you are a very reasonable man, Chris. You are a very considerate man. You wouldn’t hurt a fly. Well, I have bad news for you. You are damn too reasonable for this girl. I want a man who cares, not a man…”

“BB, you are out of your mind!”

“She wants a man who cares enough to be curious about where his girl sleeps. That’s the kind of man this girl wants.”

“Well, well!”

“Well, well. Yes, well, well. And about time.”

“Listen BB.” (He took the remaining steps and made to place a hand on her shoulder.)

“Take your hand off me,” she screamed.

“Don’t bark at me, BB.”

“I’m not barking.”

“You are. I don’t know what has come over you. Screaming at me like some Cherubim and Seraphim prophetess or something. What’s the matter? I don’t understand.”

He stood there where the hand he had tried to place on her shoulder had been rebuffed, and gazed down at her. She had now folded her arms across her breast and bent her head forward on her chest as if in silent prayer. Neither of them moved again or spoke for a very long time. Then Chris noticed the slightest heaving of her chest and shoulders and went and sat down on the sofa beside her and placed his left arm across her shoulder and with his right hand raised her chin gently and saw she was crying. She did not resist then as he pulled her to him and reverently tasted the salt of her tears.

As their struggle intensified to get inside each other, to melt and lose their separateness on that cramping sofa, she whispered, her breathing coming fast and urgent: “Let’s go inside. It’s too uncomfortable here.” And they fairly scrambled out of the sofa into the bedroom and peeled off their garments and cast them away like things on fire, and fell in together into the wide, open space of her bed and began to roll over and over until she could roll no more and said: “Come in.” And as he did she uttered a strangled cry that was not just a cry but also a command or a password into her temple. From there she took charge of him leading him by the hand silently through heaving groves mottled in subdued yellow sunlight, treading dry leaves underfoot till they came to streams of clear blue water. More than once he had slipped on the steep banks and she had pulled him up and back with such power and authority as he had never seen her exercise before. Clearly this was her grove and these her own peculiar rites over which she held absolute power. Priestess or goddess herself? No matter. But would he be found worthy? Would he survive? This unending, excruciating joyfulness in the crossroads of laughter and tears. Yes, I must, oh yes I must, yes, oh yes, yes, oh yes. I must, must, must. Oh holy priestess, hold me now. I am slipping, slipping, slipping. And now he was not just slipping but falling, crumbling into himself.

Just as he was going to plead for mercy she screamed an order: “OK!” and he exploded into stars and floated through fluffy white clouds and began a long and slow and weightless falling and sinking into deep, blue sleep.

When he woke like a child cradled in her arms and breasts her eyes watching anxiously over him, he asked languorously if she slept.

“Priestesses don’t sleep.”

He kissed her lips and her nipples and closed his eyes again.

“YOU CALLED ME a priestess. No, a prophetess, I think. I mind only the Cherubim and Seraphim part of it. As a matter of fact I do sometimes feel like Chielo in the novel, the priestess and prophetess of the Hills and the Caves.”

“It comes and goes, I imagine.”

“Yes. It’s on now. And I see trouble building up for us. It will get to Ikem first. No joking, Chris. He will be the precursor to make straight the way. But after him it will be you. We are all in it, Ikem, you, me and even Him. The thing is no longer a joke. As my father used to say, it is no longer a dance you can dance carrying your snuff in one cupped hand. You and Ikem must quickly patch up this ridiculous thing between you that nobody has ever been able to explain to me.”

“BB, I can’t talk to Ikem any more. I am tired. And drained of all stamina.”

“No, Chris. You have more stamina than you think.”

“Well, I certainly seem to. But only under your management, you know.” He smiled mischievously and kissed her.

“You know I am not talking about that, stupid.”

She left him in bed, had a quick shower, came back and only then retrieved her dress where she had flung it and put it back on. All the while Chris’s eyes were glued on her flawless body and she knew it. She next retrieved Chris’s things and stacked them neatly at the foot of the bed. Then she left the room to find out about lunch. Agatha seething with resentment was seated on the kitchen chair, her head on the table, pretending to be asleep. Yes, she had finished lunch she answered while her narrowed, righteous eyes added something like: while you were busy in your sinfulness.

Beatrice prepared a plate of green salad to augment the brown beans with fried plantain and beef stew. Agatha had not bothered to make any dessert no doubt expecting to have the pleasure of hearing her mistress’s complaint. Beatrice simply ignored her and quickly put together from cakes and odds and ends in the fridge two little bowls of sherry trifles. Then she went back to the room and woke Chris up.

It would appear from the way she beamed at him when he appeared at the table that Agatha did not include him in her moral censure. Girls at war! thought Beatrice with a private smile which the other apparently noticed and answered with a swift frown. Even Chris noticed the sudden switch.

“What’s eating your maid?” he asked as soon as she had returned to the kitchen.

“Nothing. She is all smiles to you.”

“Familiarity breeding contempt, then?”

“No, more than that. She is a prophetess of Jehovah.”