The covenant - James A. Michener [180]
At this point she would always stop what she was doing and ask her grandson, 'Sotopo, who are you going to marry?' And he would blush beneath his dark skin because he had not yet addressed this problem.
But one day he did ask the question whose answer could reveal the dangers that lay ahead: 'Old Grandmother, why do you always say that when I take a wife, we'll move across the river?'
'Ah-hah!' she cackled. 'Now we're ready to talk.' And she sat with him and said, 'Can't you see that the witch doctor is determined to drive Xuma's father out of the valley? And that when he goes, Mandiso will surely go with him? And that when Mandiso and Xuma flee, you'll join them?'
She had uncovered thoughts which had been germinating deep in the boy's mind; he had chosen to stay by himself, away from the others, to communicate with the wagtails and his other friends of river and forest, because he was afraid to face up to the tragedy that he saw developing in the valley, with families quietly turning against Xuma's father, and by extension, against Xuma and Mandiso. He knew instinctively what he had been afraid to voice: that before this year was out he would have to choose whether to stay with his parents, whom he loved, and with Old Grandmother, whom he loved most dearly, or go into exile with Mandiso and Xuma.
His solution for the moment was to draw even closer to his grandmother, for she was the only person who would talk with him; even Mandiso was so occupied with starting a new family that he had little time for his brother.
'Why does the diviner torment us?' he asked the old woman one day. 'He doesn't. No, he doesn't. It's the spirits. It's his job to keep the spirits happy or they'd devastate this valley.'
'But Xuma's father . . .'
'How do we know what he's done? Tell me that, Sotopo! How do we know what evil things a man can do without the rest of us being aware?' 'You think he's guilty?'
'Of what? How should I know. All I know is that if the witch doctor says he's guilty, he's guilty.'
'And Mandiso must go into exile with him, if he leaves?'
'Oh, now!' She thought about this for some time, sucking at her corncob pipe, then said to her grandson, 'I think the time comes for all of us when we should move on. The field is no longer fertile. The neighbors are no longer kindly. For an old woman like me, death comes to solve the problem. For a young person like you, move on.'
Neither of them said another word that day; they had stepped too close to the ultimate realities of life, and it would require weeks of reflection before complete meaning could be known, but in those days of silence Sotopo became aware that all things had deteriorated sadly in the community. Xuma's father had been found one morning in a ditch with a gash on his head. Xuma's cooking pot was shattered when she left it drying in the sun.
So young Sotopo, now approaching sixteen, gathered the two assegais he had made of dark wood and went for the last time to see the diviner. 'Come in,' the old man said.
'Why is Mandiso being punished?'
'You bring me only two assegais? And a calf, perhaps?'
'I have no more cattle, All-powerful One.'
'But you still ask my help.'
'Not for me. For my brother.'
'He is in trouble, Sotopo, deep trouble.'
'But why? He's done nothing.'
'He's associated with Xuma, and her father has done much evil.' 'What evil, All-powerful?'
'Evil that the spirits see.' Beyond this fragile explanation the old man would not go, but he allowed his visitor to sense the implacable opposition all good men ought to show against a member of the tribe guilty of evil practices, even though those practices were never identified.
'Can you do nothing to help him?' Sotopo pleaded.
'It isn't him you're worried about, is it?'
'No, it's Mandiso.'