Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible

Not me. I latched myself up tight in our kitchen house, tore off my filthy clothes and threw them into the stove. I heated the big kettle of water and poured it into the galvanized tub and sat in it like a scalded potato, alone in this world, just crying. Mother’s picture of President Eisenhower looked down at me from the wall, and I crossed my arms over my naked chest for shame, crying even harder. I felt my red skin was going to scald plumb off, and then I’d look just like that poor antelope. They wouldn’t be able to tell me from any other skinned carcass they drug home that day. Fine with me if I died right along with the rest of the poor animals. Who would care anyway? While the water cooled down I sat there looking up at the President. His round white head was so friendly and kind, I cried like a baby because I wanted him for a father instead of my own parents. I wanted to live under the safe protection of somebody who wore decent clothes, bought meat from the grocery store like the Good Lord intended, and cared about others.

I vowed that if I lived through this ordeal, I would not touch a single one of those animals they trapped and killed out there on the hillside like innocent children. That’s all they were-the baboons and warthogs and antelopes scared crazy by the fire. And the people no different from animals: Leah and all those men licking their lips, already tasting roasted meat in the smoke of the fire. And poor little Ruth May picking up burnt grubworms and putting them straight in her mouth because her own parents can’t keep her fed. All of them out there in the hot sun that day were just dumb animals cursed with the mark of ash on their brow. That’s all. Poor dumb animals running for their lives.

Leah

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN the most glorious day in our village, but instead it all came crashing down. Fifty years from now if I’m still living I will look back on that one afternoon, and the morning that followed. Even then I swear I’ll know it for what it was: the most terrible day of our lives.

After the hunt ended there was supposed to be a celebration, but before the old men could drag their drums out under the tree and get the dancing started, it had already turned into a melee of screaming and fighting. Men we had known as kindly, generous fathers suddenly became strangers -with clenched fists and wide eyes, shouting into each other’s faces. Ruth May burst into tears and hid in Mother’s skirt. I don’t think she ever understood what happened. Not ever.

I know I played a part. I do understand that. But so much had already gone wrong before I joined in. From the time we first set foot in Kilanga things were going wrong, though we couldn’t see it. Even the glorious Independence was not going to be good for everyone, as they’d promised that day on the riverbank, when Lumumba and the Belgians raised up their different promises and the white King lurked somewhere in disguise. There were going to be winners and losers. Now there are wars in the south, killings in the north, rumors that foreigners took over the army and want to murder Lumumba. On the day of the hunt a war was already roaring toward us, whites against blacks. We were all swept up in a greediness we couldn’t stop.

My argument with Gbenye over the impala, which really I killed, became a shouting match between people who’d voted for me and those who’d voted against. Some changed sides, mostly turning against me because of Tata Kuvudundu’s warnings. The terrible things he promised were already starting to happen. Eyes watched us from the trees as we dragged our burden of meat down to the village, piled it up, and gathered around in a hungry knot. Gbenye was the first to move, pulling my antelope off the pile and holding it proudly in the air. Tata Ndu took it from him, raised his machete, and with one hard blow sliced off a hindquarter. This he picked up and threw toward me. It hit the ground with a thump in front of me, throwing blood on my socks. In the perfect absence of any human sound, the locusts in the leaves above us roared in my ears.

I knew what I ought to do: pick it up in both hands and give it to Mama Mwanza. I should turn the other cheek. But the sin of pride took hold of me with a fierce grip. I picked up the whole bleeding leg and threw it at Gbenye, hitting him square across the back as he gloated to his friends. He staggered forward and one of his friends laughed.

Tata Ndu turned to me, his eyes ferocious under his huge furrowed brow. He flung his hand toward us in disgust. “Tata Price has refused his family’s share of meat,” he announced in Kikongo. “A bu mpya.Who’s next?”

He glared at each silent face in turn.

“Anatole!”he declared at last. “Anatole baana bansisila au a-aana!” Anatole the orphan without descendants!-the bitterest insult that could be borne by a Congolese man. “For you this will be plenty,” pronounced Tata Ndu, pointing at the same skimpy hindquarter in the dirt. Only hours ago it had been the strong hind leg of an antelope boy. Now it lay naked at our feet, covered with filth. It looked more like a curse than a gift.

Anatole answered in his polite schoolteacher’s voice. “Excusez-moi, Tata Ndu, mais non. ca, c’est de compte a demi de la famille Price. La grande bete la, c’est la mienne” In his two hands, by himself, Anatole the orphan without descendants began to drag away one of the large bushbucks he’d shot on the hill. It wasn’t right for Tata Ndu to insult Anatole, who hadn’t really taken my side but only argued for people to think for themselves. Now I was terrified that he’d be driven away from associating with our family at all.

Tata Boanda stepped forward to help Anatole, I saw with relief. But then Tata Boanda pulled away abruptly and began to shout, and I understood he was claiming Anatole’s bushbuck for himself. The elder Mama Boanda ran forward screaming and struck Anatole in the face. He let go, stumbling backward. I ran to steady him but was rammed from behind by old one-armed Tata Kili, who could not get past me fast enough in his hurry to claim his own stake. Behind him came the two Mama Kilis, determined to oversee his claim and raise it. Tata Ndu spoke again but was drowned out by the wave of our neighbors that rolled forward, parting and closing around him.

And so it came to pass that the normal, happy event of dividing food after a hunt became a war of insults and rage and starving bellies. There should have been more than enough for every family. But as we circled to receive our share of providence, the fat flanks of the magnificent beasts we’d stalked on the hill shrank to parched sinew, the gristle of drought-starved carcasses. Abundance disappeared before our eyes. Where there was plenty, we suddenly saw not enough. Even little children slapped their friends and stole caterpillars from each other’s baskets. Sons shouted at their fathers. Women declared elections and voted against their husbands. The elderly men whose voices hardly rose above a whisper, because they were so used to being listened to, were silenced completely in the ruckus. Tata Kuvudundu looked bedraggled and angry. His white robe was utterly blackened with ash. He raised his hands and once again swore his prophecy that the animals and all of nature were rising up against us.

We tried to ignore his strange remarks, but we all did hear him. In some corner of our hearts we all drew back, knowing he was right. The dead beasts in our hands seemed to be cursing and mocking us for having killed them. In the end we all crept home with our meat, feeling hunted ourselves. What was surely the oldest celebration of all, the sharing of plenty, had fallen to ruin in our hands.

Rachel

BY NIGHTFALL my sisters and parents came home and everything had gone crazy. Nothing went the way I expected. I had gotten out of my bath, dressed in clean clothes, towel-dried my hair, and was sitting quietly in the front room prepared to announce to my family that I was a vegetarian. I understood full well what this meant: from now on I would have to exist on bananas and have poor nutrition. I knew Mother would have strong opinions about where I’d wind up, with curved legs and weak bones like the poor Congolese children. But I shan’t care, not even if my hair falls out. At seventeen I have my rights, and besides, I’d made my own secret plan. As soon as Eeben Axelroot came back I was determined to use my feminine wilds to my own advantage. No matter what it took, I would get him to take me away from here in his airplane. “My fiance, Mr. Axelroot, and I are planning on returning to America,” I would tell them, “where it’s a free country and you can get anything to eat that you want.”