Owen Sheers - The Dust Diaries

Cullen was wrong-footed. He hadn’t expected such an eloquent, heart-felt response. He remembered looking hard at Cripps as he considered how to reply, trying to work out what type of a man he was, trying to find a foothold in his character that would help win him over. He also remembered thinking how old Cripps looked, old beyond his years. The Native Commissioner had said he was thirty-three, not much older than himself, and yet his tanned face already seemed too thin for the bones that supported it. His manner was athletic but reserved and his skin was lined with deep creases around his eyes from squinting over the glare of the midday veld. But the eyes themselves were not of an age with this face. His eyes, which stared unblinking at Cullen as he waited for his response, were young. Bright blue, penetrating and more than a little unsettling.

Cullen cleared his throat and tried another approach. Weren’t the church fees that the natives paid to the missions just like the hut tax? A necessary income to keep the work of the church going in Africa? Yes, Cripps agreed, and Cullen remembered thinking here was his turning point, here was the matter on which he would win ground. But Cripps went on, quietly assuring him that he had never charged such fees at any of his churches or mission stations, nor at his mission schools. He was in fact at that moment engaged in discussions with the Synod on this very point.

♦

Another horse approaches the puissance fence, which now stands at over five feet. A chestnut Arab, much like Daisy, the martingale and reins working up a lather of sweat flecking across her shoulders and neck. Cullen watches her jump, her darkened muscles straining to clear the pole. It looks as though she’s over when she hits the pole with a trailing hoof, sending it rattling from its cups and falling to the ground with a solid thud and a long cloudburst of dust. The crowd let out a collective gasp, then applaud anyway.

♦

As Cullen and Father Cripps continued their discussion outside Cripps’ ramshackle hut that day back in April, Cullen became increasingly confused and frustrated by the missionary. Cripps possessed a remarkably harsh view of the BSA Company’s administration which seemed unshakable. When the priest quoted Shelley to him (‘ What more felicity can fall to creature ⁄ Than to enjoy delight with liberty? ’) Cullen had quoted from the ‘Dual Mandate’ in reply, arguing that in following this mandate (to help existing forms of government develop and evolve), he was bringing law to the country. Law, he had said, feeling his composure slip, which is designed to bring liberty to all. Cripps dismissed this assertion, as he did so many of Cullen’s points that day, with a wave of his hand, insisting the Dual Mandate was thwarted by the Company’s self-interest. Cullen shook his head first in disbelief, then in mild amusement. It was clear that whatever he said he would not change Cripps’ view of the hut tax as anything other than a form of forced labour. By now, however, he didn’t even have to talk to evoke Cripps’ opinion, and Cullen sat by, listening to the goat bells and winking at the pot-bellied young children standing at a distance viewing him cautiously as Cripps expounded his theories on everything from race relations to agricultural techniques.

As Cullen sat and listened to Cripps speak the contradictions that the priest revealed in himself both fascinated and irritated him. From what he could tell, like most missionaries Cripps was strongly opposed to many of the traditional practices of Shona witchcraft. He had no time for the superstitious fear of curses and he didn’t allow polygamists to live on mission land. And yet in the same breath he appeared greatly in awe of the Shona capability for faith, of their highly developed spiritual intelligence. Cullen found himself being given an impromptu lesson in the Shona system of belief, which, as Cripps said, was much more than mere animism. He was, Cullen remembered, especially taken with the Shona’s relationship with their dead ancestors, the sprits of dead grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, mothers and brothers that governed over the fates of the living. As he got more excited it seemed to Cullen that Cripps was even making parallels between the Shona belief system and his own. He referred to the practice of chisi , the Shona day of rest, and each tribe’s Mhondoro as an example of worshipping one deity. One comment in particular, though, had stayed with Cullen, and had perhaps given him his first insight into what drove Cripps’ character. Taking a sip of his tea (which Cullen was sure must have gone cold while he was speaking) Cripps had said in his quiet manner, but firmly, as if it was his final statement on the subject: ‘You know, there are many Shona out here who are better Christians without knowing it than some of the settlers who call themselves such. They may not go to church like the Europeans, but believe me, spiritually and in their practices, they are the more mature Christians.’

Cullen was aware that despite his views he was warming to Cripps. There was something refreshing about the passion with which he argued his case and there was no doubt that his love for the African was real. He spoke about the Shona as other men might speak about their brother or cousin. As if they were adults, not children. Cullen had never heard that before, in Rhodesia or England.

What Cullen could not ignore, however, was what he considered the most crucial contradiction at the centre of Cripps’ situation. The missionary’s vision of the African world seemed Arcadian in nature (indeed, he had admitted as much when he confessed to Cullen that the Shona lifestyle reminded him of Theocritus’ Idylk ), and threatening this vision was the white settlers’ corrupting influence. All of his ideas, his arguments, pointed towards this desire to defend the African way of life from the European. And yet, here he was, a missionary, bringing an alien faith to the Shona, performing a role that in its very nature was evangelical, exerting influence and change. However much he lived as an African, Cullen felt that Cripps could not escape the facts of his situation. But he didn’t press the point. It was getting late, Daisy was restless and he needed to return to his office. He also wanted to leave Wreningham on a good note, so, engaging his ability to please again, he took the opportunity of a lull in the conversation to ask Cripps about his writing instead.

Literature was a subject on which the two men shared more common ground, and Cullen ended staying later than he had meant, discussing poetry, his own writing and some short stories that Cripps was working on. The missionary seemed especially pleased that Cullen had been writing about his African experience. ‘That’s excellent,’ he’d said. ‘Places like this need to be written about. Until they are, some people don’t seem to think they exist.’ Cullen thought he knew what Cripps meant and he agreed, remembering how Rider Haggard’s She had lit his own interest in Africa all those years before.

By the time Cullen had mounted Daisy and Cripps had accompanied them down to the bottom of the hill the sun was already low in the sky, the clouds blood red on their undersides. After wishing him well and promising to come out again Cullen bent from his horse and shook Cripps’ hand before beginning his ride back to Enkeldoorn; but he found himself thinking about Cripps long after Wreningham had disappeared behind him, and particularly about the priest’s parting comment.

He couldn’t tell if Cripps had been joking or not. He thought probably not; he had been smiling, no doubt thinking about their earlier discussion, but there had been a serious note in his voice as well. They were making their way down the kopje, Daisy picking her way between the granite rocks and Cripps sucking on his clay pipe, when suddenly he’d said, ‘People talk about the need for medical missionaries in South Africa but in a country like this, you know what the Africans really need?’ Cullen waited for Cripps to continue. ‘Legal missionaries, that’s what we need here. Not Christian, not medical, but legal. That’d put the cat among the pigeons, wouldn’t it?’