Mission to Kala

might experience here such adventures as I had never befor
imagined. Duckfoot Johnny, for example, had already pm
mised me a girl for tomorrow.
The first day I spent at Kala - the day after my arrival, tha
is'- nothing of particular importance took place.
Very early in the morning my cousin Zambo came an1
woke me up, saying that his father was asking to see me. M
uncle turned out to be as tall as his son - this, indeed, I ha
already observed from the photographs pinned up in th
dining-room - but he was of a different build. His torso an
shoulders were heavy enough, but they tapered away into thi
legs and (for a peasant) decidedly small feet. He wore
perpetual frown, and worked hi jaws nervously, as though h
were constantly pursuing some complicated idea. Come t
think of it, I never .saw him completely idle. If he wasn
thinking, or listening to someone talking, he at least kept h
hands busy with some small physical task - sharpening h
machete on a stone, mending a lock, pruning an orange-tre
that stood behiid his bungalow, and heaven knows what elst
He was a man of few words, so taciturn, indeed, that z
times he gave the impression of being dumb. He laughed eve
more seldom than he talked. He was a really odd creature - s
odd, indeed, that at timks I wondered whether he was not
stranger by origin, some wanderer who had happened to sett
here. He w- utterly different from the general run of h
neighbours.
That first occasion, as soon as I had wished him good mon
ing, he merely grunted 'How d'you do, young fellow?' an
said not a word more. That was that.
His wife was nearly as tall as he was. As a young girl sl
must have been stunning; but repeated pregnancies, and lor
houlfs of work in field or cocoa-plantation, had left their ma1
on her. She was gentle, charming, eager to be of help, and
humble as a saint. She too was remarkably taciturn - pro1
ably by reason of that imitative tendency which, they say,
common in long-btablished relationships.
40
were it was hard to tell. She must have been
fact, and prcsaved some traces of her youth.
of my mother's generation, she must have
married off at puberty - about fifteen, perhaps evm
As her eldest son was nearly twenty, she could hardly
than thirty-five or so herself. Her husband had
y knocked about the world a good deal : he even spoke
ords of German, as nearly with the correct accent as
no difference. He must be at least fiftv. I reckoned. but
tches, was close to the village. On the other
csivated as fbad - ground-nuts, yams,
ed an occasional joke, and them were almost no
of infirmity and great agility in conversation, this
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