Color Purple, The - Alice Walker [62]
And as they struggled to put up roofs of this cold, hard, glittery, ugly metal the women raised a deafening ululation of sorrow that echoed off the cavern walls for miles around. It was on this day that the Olinka acknowledged at least temporary defeat.
Though the Olinka no longer ask anything of us, beyond teaching their children? because they can see how powerless we and our Qod are? Samuel and I decided we must do something about this latest outrage, even as many of the people to whom we felt close ran away to join the mbelesor forest people, who live deep in the jungle, refusing to work for whites or be ruled by them.
So off we went, with the children, to England.
It was an incredible voyage, Celie, not only because we had almost forgot about the rest of the world, and such things as ships and coal fires and streetlights and oatmeal, but because on the ship with us was the white woman missionary whom we'd heard about years ago. She was now retired from missionary work and going back to England to live. She was traveling with a little African boy whom she introduced as her grandchild!
Of course it was impossible to ignore the presence of an aging white woman accompanied by a small black child. The ship was in a tither. Each day she and the child walked about the deck alone, groups of white people falling into silence as they passed.
She is a jaunty, stringy, blue-eyed woman, with hair the color of silver and dry grass. A short chin, and when she speaks she seems to be gargling.
I'm pushing on for sixty-five, she told us, when we found ourselves sharing a table for dinner one night. Been in the tropics most of my life. But, she said, a big war. is coming. Bigger than the one they were starting when I left. It'll go hard on England, but I expect we'll survive. I missed the other war, she said. I mean to be present for this one.
Samuel and I had never really thought about war.
Why, she said, the signs are all over Africa. India too, I expect. First there's a road built to where you keep your goods. Then your trees are hauled off to make ships and captain's furniture. Then your land is planted with something you can't eat. Then you're forced to work it. That's happening all over Africa, she said. Burma too, I expect.
But Harold here and I decided to get out. Didn't we Harry? she said, giving the little boy a biscuit. The child said nothing, just chewed his biscuit thoughtfully. Adam and Olivia soon took him off to explore the lifeboats.
Doris' story--the woman's name is Doris Baines--is an interesting one. But I won't bore you with it as we eventually became bored.
She was born to great wealth in England. Her father was Lord Somebody or Other. They were forever giving or attending parties that were no fun. Besides, she wanted to write books. Her family was against it. Totally. They hoped she'd marry.
Me marry! she hooted. (Really, she has the oddest ideas.)
They did everything to convince me, she said. You can't imagine. I never saw so many milkfed young men in all my life as when I was nineteen and twenty. Each one more boring than the last. Can anything bemore boring than an upper-class Englishman? she said.
They remind one of bloody mushrooms.
Well, she rattled on, through endless dinners, because the captain assigned us permanently to the same table. It seems the notion of becoming a missionary struck her one evening she was getting ready for yet another tedious date, and lay in the tub thinking a convent would be better than the castle in which she lived. She could think, she could write. She could be her own boss. But wait. As a nun she would not be her own boss. God would be boss. The virgin mother. The mother superior. Etc. Etc. Ah, but a missionary!
Far off in the wilds