Anthills of the Savannah
Page 60
No one spoke or stirred. No one sought another’s eyes. Beatrice sat erect, her arms folded across her chest…
Then at last, like one just returned from a distant journey of the mind bearing a treasure in her eyes she murmured, to a welcoming party? merely to herself? Beautiful! And she said it a second time even more softly: Beautiful!
The rest had now turned their faces on her. She alone gazed still at something remote—a third party invisible to the rest, a presence to whom she had spoken her quiet apostrophe?
The change in her when it came was sudden. A deep breath audible through the room and a melting down of the statuesque told of her return…
“I can’t thank you enough, Emmanuel, for being there and bringing back the message. And you too, of course, Adamma.” She looked at each in turn with a strained smile on her countenance. “Truth is beauty, isn’t it? It must be you know to make someone dying in that pain, to make him… smile. He sees it and it is… How can I say it?… it is unbearably, yes unbearably beautiful. That’s it! Like Kunene’s Emperor Shaka, the spears of his assailants raining down on him. But he realized the truth at that moment, we’re told, and
died smiling… Oh my Chris!”
Two lines of tears coursed down under her eyes but she did not bother to wipe them…
“BB, weting be dis now?” Elewa remonstrated, showing her two palms of innocence to the powers above. “Even myself I no de cry like dat! What kind trouble you wan begin cause now? I beg-o. Hmm!”