Vernon Mooers writes

THE WHITE MAN'S GRAVEYARD

chapter 21 (2)

Falmata lay asleep with her head in the crook of his arm. He liked the colour of her skin and he liked the way she felt when she lay close to him, warm and soft. He touched her face tenderly. He couldn't imagine her face without the tribal marks. There were no blemishes, no hairs, just a deep toned brown.

The new-born, Aishatu, lay quietly in the other bed, breathing contentedly. He would protect them but he knew it would be hard on them. He'd thought about taking them to Canada for a long time. Every time he thought about it, it seemed like there wouldn't be any problems. His was a heterogeneous society, with principles of civil rights and justice, founded by immigrants. In the cities, you could blend in. But in a small Nova Scotia town that prided itself on its Loyalist origins and conservatism? Somehow every time Alex had thought of it before, he'd just dismissed it, optimistically thinking it wouldn't be a problem.

Now it would be a reality. He wondered how they'd react -- even his teenage friends who used to tell those jokes about Pakis and Jews. All in good fun, they thought. Even the nurse in the clinic ward where he'd gone for his inoculations before leaving, said jokingly he'd better not bring any back with him. "They have an odour about them," she'd said. And she was supposed to have empathy for people. 

"Maybe I will," Alex had said for spite, "move a whole family in right up there on Golf Club Road." That's where she lived, in one of most pretentious sections of town.

The reality of that ever remotely happening hadn't ever occurred to Alex. He was only going to teach for two years. He'd extended it to four. There was Elizabeth and another intermittent two years, so many things, another, maybe longer after that. He'd lost track of time. Now he was returning, bringing back an African wife and a child. How would he feel about Falmata when he got back to the culture that was originally his? Maybe his feelings would change.

Worse still, how would Falmata take it? Alex began to question the whole idea. It was easy to live with her in her own environment. There weren't many pressures in everyday living.

You just got up, did your job and came home. Then they'd walk with the clear star-lit African sky overhead -- unsoiled by noise and lights and buildings. Then he'd read or play some music. She was around, pleasant and gentle.

He would even have adjustments to make, just as many as when he'd arrived there. But Falmata, he was worried about her. She'll be lonely, he thought -- isolated and afraid. She couldn't go to Tupperware parties or join the Curling Club, not that she would probably want to. She'd be innocent to the attitudes and ways of the West, and alone with the newness of an alien environment and culture. People would stare and she'd do only what seemed natural to her. 

Yes, it was Falmata he was worried about. The baby, Aishatu, didn't know any better -- it would adapt as all children do. He could survive it, as he'd always done -- live with the foolishness of society. He was used to it. He had done it all his life.

Alex was wide awake now. He couldn't sleep with all the anxiety growing, building up inside him. It was the questions that kept bothering him and his mind was alert like those poised for the unexpected -- fearful with anticipation of what lay ahead. It seemed that his problems came as soon as they left Africa. That was precisely why he'd stayed there. Most of the time it was peaceful and he'd been happy. He wondered now why he'd even decided to go home at all. They needed him there.

He didn't sleep at all. Falmata stirred, looked at him and rose silently. Sometimes she didn't talk. Alex could hear the shower running and her moving about in the bathroom.

Eventually she came out with the towel wrapped about her waist and began to prepare herself in the mirror. He just lay and watched. She seemed oblivious to him as she began to rub her skin with balm oil and other things that she carried in those precious jars of hers. He never knew what they were, hadn't really paid attention at all. To him, it was simply a routine she went through.

She poured the oil over her hands and spread it over her arms and legs, working it right into the skin. She used powder from another jar to rub her feet and some from a different one to work into her hair like vaseline. They really are impeccably clean, he thought. Their bodies are sacred, one of the few things they own.

She took a long cloth from the drawer and wrapped it tightly around her waist, tying the tabs on the side. Then she slipped a top on and fastened another brightly-patterned cloth in a bandanna fashion on her head. She took another long cloth from the bureau and lifted the baby onto her back, wrapping him snugly amongst the cloths, his legs spread around her slender waist.

Alex liked that custom they had, thinking it was more human for the baby to be close to his mother rather than sterilely placed in a carriage a few feet away. In fact, there were a lot of those customs that he liked. That aspect of human warmth was one of them.

Loneliness didn't exist in a society where family and the tribe were still the primary groups, the villages with their clusters of tiny huts secured amongst networks of straw fences and paths all joining the wide avenues. Alex could still visualize Falmata's home village looking like a group of bee-hives. He liked the feeling of community and the interdependence of the lifestyle.