Joshua, the village priest, watched the gathering black clouds and muttered one word: ‘Rain’. It was almost a whisper, spoken so quietly that a man a yard away would not have heard it. He was standing on a raised piece of ground looking thoughtfully at the clouds and the country around. Behind him stood a tin-roofed rectangular building from which thick black smoke was beginning to issue, showing that the woman of the house had already come from the shamba and was now preparing the evening meal. This was his house – the only one of its kind along the Ridge, and beyond. The rest were mud-walled, grass-thatched round huts that were scattered all over the place. From these also, black smoke was beginning to curl upwards.
Joshua knew that in most of the huts the inmates had been sleeping with contracting, wrinkled stomachs, having eaten nothing or very little. He had seen such cases in the past months during his rounds of comforting the hungry and the suffering, promising them that God would in time bring rain. For the drought had been serious, and had lasted many months, so that crops in the fields had sickened, while some had dried up altogether. Cows and goats were so thin that they could hardly give enough milk.
If it rained now it would be a blessing for everyone and perhaps crops would revive and grow and all would be well. The dry anxious looks on the faces of mothers and fathers would disappear. Again he looked at the darkening clouds and slowly the old man retraced his steps to the house.
Soon it began to rain. Menacing thunderstorms boomed in the heavens and the white spots of lightning flashed across with a sharpness and fury that frightened him. Standing near a window, the priest, his horse-shoe-shaped bald head lined with short grey bristles of hair, watched the slanting raindrops striking the hard ground and wetting it. ‘Jehovah! He has won!’ the priest muttered breathlessly. He felt cheated, bitter and angry. For he knew that the coming of rain so soon after the morning sacrifice would be nothing but a victory for the rain-maker at whose request a black ram had been sacrificed. Yes. This was the culmination of their long fight, their long struggle and rivalry in Makuyu village.
Makuyu was an isolated little place. Even the nearest missionary station was some fifty-five miles away – quite a long way in a country without roads. It was in fact one of the last areas to be seriously affected by the coming of the white missionaries, farmers and administrators. And so while the rest of the country had already seen the rain-maker, the medicine-man and magic workers being challenged by Christianity, this place had remained pretty well under the power and guidance of the rain-maker.
The challenge and rivalry here began when the Rev. Livingstone of Thabaini Mission made a visit and initiated Joshua into this new mystery – the new religion. The white man’s God was said to be all-powerful, all-seeing, the only one God, creator of everything. And the rain-maker had denounced his rivals when he saw how many people had been converted by Joshua into this new faith. He had felt angry and tried to persuade people not to follow Joshua. He threatened them with plague and death. But nothing had happened. The rain-maker had even threatened Joshua.
But Joshua had not minded. Why should he? Had he not received an assurance from Livingstone that this new God would be with him ‘always, even unto the end of the earth’?
Then the drought had come. And all the time Joshua told the village that there would be rain. And all the time he prayed over and over again for it to come down. Nothing had happened. The rain-maker said the drought was the anger of the old God. He, the rain-maker, was the only person who could intercede for the people. Today under the old sacred tree – Mugumo – a black ram, without any blemish, was sacrificed. Now it had rained! All that morning Joshua had prayed, asking God not to send rain on that particular day. Please God, my God, do not bring rain today. Please God, my God, let me defeat the rain-maker and your name shall be glorified. But in spite of his entreaties it had rained.
He was puzzled; he could not understand it. And through the evening his forehead remained furrowed. He spoke to no one. He even went to bed and forgot to conduct the evening prayer with his family. In bed he thought and thought about the new God. If only Livingstone had stayed! All might have been well. He would have read from the black book and then prayed to his God and the rain-maker would not have won. A week later Livingstone would have prayed for rain at a public meeting. Then everyone would have believed and Joshua would have remained the undisputed spiritual authority in Makuyu.
A thought occurred to him; so staggering was it that for a time he could neither move nor breathe as he lay on his bed woven with rope and bamboo poles. He ought to have thought of this, ought to have known it. The new God belonged to the white man and could therefore listen to none but a man with a white skin. Everybody had his own God. The Masai had theirs. The Agikuyu had theirs. He trembled. He seemed to understand everything. Some gods were stronger than others. Even Livingstone probably knew this. Perhaps he feared the God of Agikuyu. That is why he had gone away and had not appeared all the time the drought had continued.
What shall I do? What shall I do? Then his way became clear. A sacrifice had been performed that day. Early in the morning, he would go to the sacred tree and there make peace with his people’s god.
The morning was dark and chilly. The first cock had already crowed. Joshua had just put on a big raincoat over his usual clothes. He trudged quietly across the courtyard.
The dark silhouette of the house and the barn beside it seemed watchful and ominous. He felt afraid. But his mind was set. Down the long path, to the distant forest, to the sacred tree, and there make peace with the god of his people. The birds were up and singing their usual morning songs, the prelude to dawn. To Joshua they had a doleful note and they seemed to be singing about him. The huge old tree stood where it had always been, even long before Joshua was born. The tree too looked at once mysterious and ominous. It was here that sacrifices to God were made under the direction of the elders and the medicine-man. Joshua made his way through the surrounding dry bush and to the foot of the tree. But how did one make peace with God? He had no sacrificial ram. He had nothing.
‘God of Agikuyu, God of my people …’ He stopped. It sounded too unreal. False. He seemed to be speaking to himself. Joshua began again. ‘God of …’ It was a small crackling laugh and the crack of a broken twig that interrupted him. He felt frightened and quickly turned his head. There, standing and looking at him maliciously, was the rain-maker. He laughed again, a menacing laugh but full of triumph.
‘Hmm! So the white man’s dog comes to the lion’s den. Ha! Ha! So Joshua comes to make peace. Ha! Ha! Ha! I knew you would come to me Joshua … You have brought division into this land in your service to the white strangers. Now you can only be cleansed by the power of your people.’ Joshua did not wait to hear more. He quickly moved away from the dumb tree, away from the rain-maker. It was not fear. He no longer feared the tree, nor the rain-maker. He no longer feared their power, for somehow it had all seemed to him false as he spoke to the tree. It was not even the feeling of defeat. It was something else, worse … shame. It was a feeling of utter hollowness and hopelessness that can come only to a strong-willed man who has sacrificed his convictions. Shame made him move more quickly. Shame made him look neither to the left nor to the right as he made his way back, in the break of day.
The journey was long. The path was muddy. But he did not mind. He saw nothing, felt nothing. Only this thing, this hollow feeling of shame and hatred of self. For, had he not sacrificed his convictions, his faith, under the old tree? ‘What would Livingstone say to me now?’ he kept on murmuring to himself. Livingstone would rebuke him again. He would think him unworthy. He had once rebuked him when he had found Joshua quietly sipping a little beer just to quench his thirst. He had another time warned him when he found Joshua beating his wife because she had not promptly obeyed him.
‘This is not the way a man of God acts,’ Livingstone told him in a slow sorrowful tone. Yes. No one could understand Livingstone. At one time he would be unreasonably stern and imperious, and at another time he would be sorrowful. And as he looked at you with his blue sunken eyes, his head covered with a thick-rimmed sun helmet, you could never divine his attitude. Joshua was now sure that Livingstone would think him quite useless and unworthy to be a leader. He thought so of himself, too.
The sun had already appeared in the east when Joshua finally reached his home. He stood outside and surveyed the whole ridge and countryside. Suddenly he felt like running away, never to preach again. He was so deep in thought that he did not seem to see the anxious, excited countenance of his wife as she came out to announce that ‘somebody’, a visitor, had called and was waiting for him in the house.
Who could it be? These women. They would never tell anyone who a visitor was, but must always talk of somebody. He did not really feel like seeing anyone for he felt transparent through and through. Could it be the rain-maker? He shuddered to think of it. Could it be one of his flock? And what would he tell him after he himself had betrayed the trust? He was not worthy to be a priest. ‘If I saw Livingstone today I would ask him to give me up. Then I would go away from here.’
He entered and then stopped. For there sitting on a three-legged Gikuyu stool was none other than Livingstone himself. Livingstone, tired and worn out after a whole night’s journey, looked up at Joshua. But Joshua was not seeing him. He was seeing something else.
He was seeing the altar on which he had sacrificed his convictions. He was seeing the rain-maker, listening to his menacing triumphant laughter.
Run away, Joshua! But he did not move.
Run away, Joshua! But he went nearer Livingstone as if for protection.
Do not tell him then! But he told him everything. And all the time Joshua had not dared to lift his head. He kept it down. And as he confessed, even this sense of utter hollowness and shame, he felt as if strength was ebbing from his legs. He was sinking down, down …; he leaned more firmly against the wall, with his eyes still bent to the ground. Livingstone had not spoken a word. There was complete silence. Joshua could hear his own heart beating, tom-tom, tom-tom. He was waiting for Livingstone to stand up and go, after upbraiding him and telling him how unworthy of his calling he had been.
Cautiously Joshua lifted his eyes. He met the full smiling face of Livingstone. Joshua was never more surprised in his life. The old sternness and apparent hardness of Livingstone was no longer in his eyes but only a softened, condescending sympathy of a man sure of a new and stronger follower. Joshua could not understand this look and his heart beat faster and more loudly.
With slow deliberation, Livingstone took Joshua’s right hand in his and with the left patted him on the shoulder. He muttered something about a broken heart and contrite spirit. Joshua looked mutely at him. ‘Let’s pray,’ Livingstone said at last.
Joshua’s wife entered the room, found them deep in prayer and went back to the kitchen wondering what had happened. When a few minutes later she came back she found Livingstone talking about the problems of Makuyu now that the rain had come and the drought was over. Joshua listened.