Two Moons by J. Raymond Ractliffe - Chapter 41

Two Moons is a new novel by J. Raymond Ractliffe that explores the inner spirit life of Africa, her people and their powerful faith in the world of the Unseen.

The Mark of the Two Moons
Chapter 41

     The Land Rover sat waiting to be called in the garage. Manti had filled all the Jerry cans and water bottles. The medicine chest had been loaded and all the extra provisions Claire had asked for, had been carefully packed. Soft pillows and blankets lay waiting in the back seat, Jeremy's long trek to the specialists in Nairobi was going to be a long one. The long back road to the national main road was going to take a while and every effort was going to be made to spare him the usual jostle and lumpy ride that was the norm.

Instructions could be heard coming from the rear of the house, Mavis's directions to those connected to the household, had everyone running in all directions.

Since Mathew's and Jeremy's return, it was neither the doctor's detailed orders nor Claire's loving ministrations that ruled the wooden corridors of the Blue Barn Estate. A stern finger wagging in the air and loud clucking admonishing anyone failing to meet her tight standards could be heard from the rear of the house as Mavis directed the household with an iron fist none would dare challenge.

One poor soul had not seen the tall tins that had remained carefully stacked outside the back door. Their sudden crashing to the ground brought Mavis through the screened door with a speed few would have guessed she possessed. He was beaten off the estate grounds with a long broom handle, terrible curses raining down on him from the heavens as he ran past the white washed walls of the farm gate. It would take several trips to the local witchdoctor to clear his soul of the curses she had unleashed on him, his ancestors and clan.

A great tear would roll down Mavis's round check as her emotions swelled up and overflowed her heart as she thought of her poor Jeremy and young Matthew out there all alone in the open bush, terrible beasts trying to bite and kill them as they tried to make their way home.

Her gentle, anguished sobs heard even from the rear of the house, were muffled with a large dishcloth, they in turn would spur a flurry of pots and pans, cooking and boiling on the kitchen stove.

No meal too delicate, was not prepared, although only a few survived past their tasting and making it as far as Jeremy's bed tray. Traditional meals that literally overflowed large round metal plates were delivered out the backdoor to Etona, in the certain belief that eating well would reduce his quiet grieving.

Mavis did not leave the rear kitchen when the call of the fading sun ended their day. Several pillows and wide blankets made up a rudimentary bed, her large frame sitting up in the corner as her nighttime snores filled the farmhouse with her song. No one had the courage to ask her to leave the house during this self-imposed sentry duty to her family.

Unannounced visitors were banished immediately from the house. Fresh flowers left behind were brought to the bedroom with a scowl. Phone calls whispering their concerns were collected like wild berries and hidden in her ample breast for fear they would bring distress to the convalescing.

Steaming teas still arrived without warning at Claire's elbow in the middle of the night. How such a large woman like Mavis could move around the house so quietly, up and down polished hardwood corridors, would be the subject of idle conversations for years to come.

Etona had finally wondered in from the outlaying , returning with a slow shuffle to the garage where Manti sat waiting to hear that the Land Rover was to be started, beginning their journey to Nairobi.

Several workers from the house had gone out searching him, but had returned unable to find him. Their departure time had loomed, Claire was afraid that they would have to postpone their leaving as Jeremy was adamant that he see the young man before they leave.

"They are looking for you." Manti said.

"Please go to the house, they are waiting."

Etona turned with the same speed as he had come and made his way over to the main house. Anxious eyes caught him as he made his way through the tall trees and their shadows. Their hearts still acknowledged his silent grieving, his long absences made it clear he was out in the bush, finding his solace alone.

Anxious as they were, they did not call out to him to hurry his coming, but watched with compassion as he finally came to the veranda where they had all been waiting.

Jeremy sat in a large comfortable armchair, his shoulder dressing visible under an open shirt, his leg propped up on a cushioned stool while the IV drip hung from a makeshift hook on the wall. Claire stood by the white veranda wall, her hair gently waving to the trees as the cool breeze blew over the farm from the eastern rolling hills.

Mavis watched from the corner of the veranda, her voice to be added to the circle when Etona or Jeremy spoke.

Their voices fell silent as tired eyes approached them all.

"I am here now.' he simply said.

"He says he is here." Mavis said.

Claire turned to Etona and said, "Etona, Jeremy wanted to say a few words before we go. I am just glad you made it back in time before we left."

She paused now, and waited for Jeremy. He had not told her why he wanted to speak to him, only that it was important, so much so, he was willing to cancel the trip and reschedule the specialist appointment.

Jeremy had sat quietly on the veranda since they had brought him out from his bedroom. Claire had thought the brilliant sunshine would bring a final smile, but it had not come.

Two nights ago, Etona had solemnly stood at the foot of Jeremy's bedside while Jeremy had painfully recreated what had happened to them all. From the great rhino tearing through the bush, Mathew's escape from death and their mad dash through the bush to the Old Woman; the hyena that had stalked him for miles and finally wounding him, until he had fallen out of a tree that he had crawled up to escape, falling below to the started feet of a lion that had by then, killed the waiting hyena.

Somehow his father and the others had managed to find his wounded trail but not soon enough to stop the events that exploded around them. His father's death had wounded them all, none so much as his friend, Jeremy.

Etona had stood and listened quietly until the story had ended. Eyes had filled and glistened in the lamp light, but no tear fell while lips quivered in grief.

He had simply nodded after the words had faded in the air, then he turned without a sound and disappeared back in the night.

"I have a last request from your father Etona. It was important that I tell you this." Jeremy said.

Etona stood quietly, his eyes looking straight at Jeremy.

"He gave me instructions, no, I am sorry, I am not saying it right, he asked me to look after you after he was gone."

Jeremy paused now, the memory of his last visit with Konjaru in his dream stirring the emotions of his loss once more, tightening his throat until it made his voice gently quiver.

"Your father wanted me to look after you, like you were my own son."

Claire's turned to look at her husband's eyes, but they were filled with emotion and memory as he stared deeply into the heart of his friend's son.

Jeremy waited until Mavis had completed her translation, watching for Etona's unblinking eyes for his reaction, but there was none.

"In a few days Matthew is going to be returning back to Cape Town. His family is there and his school is to start in a week or so."

"I am going to send you to a school like Matthew."

A part of Claire's heart smiled with relief.

Jeremy had found some way of repaying the Life Gift Konjaru had given them all. She turned to smile at Jeremy, giving her support but his eyes remained fixed on Etona.

"He has many years of schooling and is ahead of you, so you will have to have a tutor to catch up your studies, before you can begin."

"Then you will go to a school, just like him.'

Etona stood silent as Mavis's words faded. The minutes ticked by as the silence between them grew.

Just as Claire was to finally speak and brake the sudden uneasiness spreading between them, Etona looked away from Jeremy and spoke directly to Mavis."

"This school they speak of, it is the same where he goes?" he asked pointing openly to Matthew who had been sitting beside his uncle.

Jeremy paused for a moment. He had hoped this question would not come. The full force of Africa's colonial system was represented in his next answer, and there could be no other but the truth.

"No, it is not the same." he said quietly.

"Why can I not go to this school? Is it far?" Etona asked, his eyes now staring straight at Jeremy.

"No, its not far." Jeremy said.

"They won't allow you there," he said finally in a hushed voice.

"I have to send you to England, where my own son is at the moment."

"There are schools there, that take students from all over the old empire."

Etona stood watching them all, his eyes now stopping at one, and then drifting over to another, looking into each face as their own words lingered in the air for all to see.

"Why won't they allow me to go to this school?" he asked simply, daring their final answer he already knew.

Jeremy felt the full shame of a system he had tried to fight all his years in Kenya, fall on his shoulders. There was nowhere to hide from the stupidity of his former world.

"They won't allow you there because you are African."

"They only take white boys at his school."

"I'm sorry Etona, there is nothing I can do about it."

Claire jumped in, hoping to add some joy to a gift that had suddenly deteriorated into hopeless embarrassment."

"It's a very good school, one of England's finest. In a way, its even more prestigious that Mathew's school." she said, trying to appeal to his vanity, hoping it would overcome the sting of his first clash with white man's racism.

Etona stood still, his mind playing with the words that they had brought him. The arrow that had pierced his side would fester in the years to come.

His eyes became dark, smoldering as his gaze finally fell on Jeremy.

"I am the son and grandson of a chief, but I cannot go to his school."

"This I cannot do, because of this?" he said pinching his arm's skin.

"It is too dark, not like the white man."

Etona now stood silently, softly touching a small carved kudu horn that hung around his neck as the wind came to blow past the blue gum's leaves that hung over them all in shame.

"My father died under a lion for you, but I cannot go to this school."

Jeremy looked away for the first time, his heart heavy with the last task from the man who had saved his life.

"No, I am sorry." he finally said.

Etona stood staring at Jeremy for a while, understanding the words that were now shaping his life. He turned to stare at Matthew who had remained seated beside his uncle, his own embarrassment visible on his flushed cheeks.

"Then I will go to this other school like your son, until I have the same reading as him."

"Then he and I will go to the same school, or not go at all."

The Challenge now lay open between them.

For the first time, Mathew's voice was added to their circle. He stood up from his chair and walked over to his Claire's side by the veranda wall.

"You're right." he said smiling right back at Etona.

"When you have caught up, you can go to my school."

"I'm sure you will be able to catch up quickly in a few years. If you do really well, we might make it to the same high school."

"Besides, by then the rules might have changed, so who knows." Matthew said finally with a lop sided shrug. He looked around with his wide boyish smile to his Aunt Claire, to see if she had caught the thread of his thoughts.

Her own eyes twinkled with a smile as she silently thanked him, perhaps there was a way out of this after all.

She turned now to Etona, hoping the slight sarcasm was missed and only his words of simple promise were heard.

But Mathew's words had found their mark.

Nothing of their original intent had been missed.

Too many hours challenging each other's stare in the dusty compound had left them both masters in reading each other's silent words.

For the first time, the silent hatred of the Sun and the Moon flared openly between the two young men as easily as the heavens raged between the two great lights that lived in the African sky.

In the years to come it would burn between them with a force that would shatter many dreams, tear at their ambitions and redirect their destinies.

They would not know, the deep currents that had led them to this place and time, had been directed by the silent twinkling eyes that lived in the shadows of trees and in the darkness that lived between the stars.

White bones cast by the Spirits of Africa, the "Angry Children of the Moon,” would be rearranged and molded to suit their bored pleasures.

Like the Sun and the Moon that raged in the Heavens, only one could rule the heavens, only one could rule the land.