Karen Lord: Redemption in Indigo

Now you understand how we come at last to this quite different picture of a delayed, distressed Ansige departing for Makendha. He was forced to sell the mules and the majority of the baggage, partly to pay his bill and partly because he could not afford to hire anyone to take care of them on the onward journey. He did not wish to part with the horse, but the hotel proprietor convinced him that he should leave it behind to be rented out so it could pay for its own keep until Ansige returned. Pei and Rahid's plans for transport had to be scrapped. Now that he lacked a chef, he needed to get to Makendha as quickly as possible so as not to miss any proper meals.

Driven by the mania of his obsession and blinded by the melancholy of loneliness, Ansige made his choices and boarded a five-hour omnibus to Makendha with nothing more than a small suitcase and a packet of antinausea, antacid chews. Then, because he still had quite a large amount of money, he hopped off briefly at the first stop to buy food, just in case his stomach recovered during the trip.

ansige eats lamb and murders a peacock

Semwe headed Ansige off before he could come to their door and ushered him into the village's guest lodge. For the sake of his daughter, he tried to talk as if he were really glad to see Ansige. ‘How nice to see you again. Did you have a pleasant journey?'

It was the perfect trigger. Ansige unreeled the tale of his tribulations, thoroughly ransacking the truth and then dipping into the bag of embellishment and sprinkling with a free hand. He noted how Semwe's face grew agonised in sympathy at hearing that such a horrible experience could happen to anyone in a supposedly safe country. He was only partially correct. Semwe was counting under his breath with a kind of furious amazement at the fact that Ansige had been talking nonstop for twenty-five minutes with no more encouragement than a glazed look.

'You must be hungry,’ he interjected desperately.

It was the perfect distraction. Ansige choked off in midflow and murmured weakly that yes, he was indeed rather famished.

'I have the perfect solution. Come with me.'

Semwe led him from the lodge to the edge of his own field, where a young lamb was tethered.

'Yours,’ he told Ansige, untying the cord and hooking the loops over Ansige's eagerly outstretched hand. ‘It will make a good dinner. Take it, tie it in the court in front of the lodge for now. I must go tell Paama you are here.'

Off he went to find Paama and tell her about Ansige's arrival. It took him a while because Paama had already seen Ansige from a distance and didn't want to be found. Eventually she relented, to spare her family the shame of a grown daughter hiding like a child.

'Besides,’ she said to herself, ‘if I know my husband, it will not take him long to get into very deep trouble.'

She went to the lodge, but to her surprise he was not there. She began to wander through the village, looking for him with more duty than enthusiasm. Finally she made herself widen the search to the fields. By then twilight was deepening to dusk, so rather than go far, Paama decided she would only visit her family's lands. The moment she saw what was happening there, she clapped her hands over her mouth for one frozen moment of horror and then started to run.

So that you may understand what has happened, we must go back to the moment when Semwe left Ansige holding the lamb by its tether. You will recall that Ansige was supposed to take it back to the court outside the lodge. Well, he did take one step, but then his stomach snarled at him, and his thoughts ran thus:

He was really hungry.

If he took the lamb back to the lodge, he would be compelled by courtesy to share it with any other guests staying there.

He was practically starving, and he did not want to do this.

Semwe gave the lamb to him . Why shouldn't he enjoy it by himself?

He looked around, and there was a corner of ruined old wall, and in its shadow a space of blackened earth and stone. Someone had lit a fire there once, and so could he. Tugging the protesting beast after him, he went back and forth across the field, gathering sticks and grass and other fuel, and heaping them up by the sheltering bricks of the old, broken wall. Then he drew out his knife and rolled up his sleeves.

Anyone who has ever butchered an animal will not need to have the messy business described. They will, however, wonder whatever possessed Ansige to opt for hastily butchered, half-barbecued, unseasoned carcass of lamb when he could have had a proper meal shared with his fellow human beings. I will not try to explain his behaviour. I have already made it quite clear that the man has problems, and so we cannot expect him to act logically.

It was not even this scene that caused Paama's reaction. It so happened that after Ansige somehow managed to pick the lamb down to well-gnawed bones, he still felt cravings. He looked around for something to??ell??ot pack the empty spaces, for they were already packed, but to give his stomach that pleasantly stretched sensation without which he always felt slightly uneasy. His eyes anxiously scanned the flat lands from horizon to horizon until he saw a sheep, half-hidden amid a clump of tall khus-khus grass.

No, he won't, I hear you saying. Make him a glutton, make him a fool, but do not make him a thief, for we cannot believe that such a man would stoop to larceny. Very well, let me once again explain his thoughts, but I do not want to have to do this too often. He employs a twisted kind of logic, but one that still works when the will is looking for any excuse. Thus runs the train of his reasoning:

Thought 1: I am Semwe's guest.

Thought 2: It is Semwe's responsibility to feed his guest.

Thought 3: These are Semwe's lands.

Thought 4: The sheep is on Semwe's lands and is therefore Semwe's sheep, and so I can eat it.

Don't be startled at the galloping logic in the last thought. The will is usually in a hurry to get to the point of justification.

His blunted conscience nudged him slightly. Was that sheep really Semwe's? His whole argument swung on that point, and if the reasoning-out of his actions was not firmly grounded, the uncertainty might interfere with his digestion. He looked around for some way out of this difficulty and caught sight of a stick insect, commonly known as a godhorse.

The godhorse had perched itself on the top of the cracked remnants of the wall, downwind of the smoke from the dying fire. It wagged its head slowly from side to side and looked at Ansige very sternly. It was not this that made Ansige stare at it, however. It was the manner in which it sat: back curled like a young twig, lower legs lapped, midlegs bracing it as it leaned back, and front legs folded.

Ansige goggled a moment longer and then found his voice. ‘Pardon me, but—'

'Yes, these are Semwe's lands,’ said the godhorse in a solemn, almost bored voice.

'Oh. Then perhaps you know if—'

'And the sheep, as any fool can see, is standing on Semwe's lands,’ said the creature coldly.

'Oh. So then it is certainly Semwe's sheep.'

There was a tense silence while the godhorse glared at him. Finally it said, ‘That wasn't a question.'

'I What? But—'

'I don't wish to talk to you any more, you? you??’ snapped the godhorse, but it was a tired attempt at scolding that trailed off as if it considered Ansige unworthy of the breath and effort of a proper insult.

It uncricked its joints and stalked away into the grass, where it soon disappeared among the sticks and straw of brown and gold. Ansige immediately forgot it had spoken. All he remembered was that someone had told him this was Semwe's sheep, so anything that he planned for it was bound to be in order. Conscience appeased, he jumped up from the scant leavings of his meal and went to grab the next course, but to his surprise it moved off, trailing a frayed line of cord behind it. He headed it off and made another grab, but it stepped out of the way. A slow-motion chase ensued, a parody of a hunt—full, lumbering Ansige after the sedate sheep, whose mission in life seemed to be to discover the most economical movements that would put it mere millimetres beyond Ansige's reach.