FICTION — RESTIVE SOULS
The Tale of Shyllandrus Zulu: Chapter Four
Chapter Four of Part Two: Zulu West and Diderot take tea
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A Restive Souls excerpt
As told to eminent historian Emmet Bolo by the high priestess Zulu West.
Chapters 1&2
Chapter 3
Chapter 5.1
Chapter 5.2
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12.1
Chapter 12.2
Restive Souls Part 2: Carolina Rising
Zulu’s Tale (1801–1804)
4.
I took tea with Diderot later that evening on The All Saints Congregation’s congregational grounds. I wanted to let him know of my displeasure, but my victory in our battle of wits tempered my frustration considerably.
“I am disappointed, Guillaume,” I said as we met outside a tearoom. He simply bowed in response before we walked through an open door.
The tearoom consisted of a small cottage near the harbor. The structure was a traditional African stone rondavel with a porch fronted by two Doric columns overseen by several statues of gargoyles along their upper circumference.
The musician Boree was perched on a large, cut tree trunk singing and playing his music without his bandmates. Practicing his craft, I supposed.
He was an old man, but his hair was a mix of gold and brown, strung up in dozens of thin braids that hung sprayed out of his head in dozens of directions. He sang in Gullah:
This old man he’s fightin’ back
This old man he’s fightin’ strong
This old man’s head is high
Don’t matter your kinda wrong.
Nothin’ comes my way
Nothin’ comes yours
You took us to this land
Now it is ours for sures
Our server was a tall, strong-looking Akan woman with a royal lineage and a strong bayi — magical powers inherited from birth. Her mother had been captured and brought to America before the ascendency of the House of Asona.
Because she was born on a Monday, her name was Adwoa. Her personality was as peaceful as her name suggested.
The House of Asona of the African Ghana Region and the Kinlaza House of the Kongo became the dominant powers of northern and western Africa. The battle for dominance was settled in the House Wars of the 1850s, which saw the Kinlaza House establish hegemony over most of western and central Africa.
Akan children were usually given names based on the day of the week they were born. Adwoa meant that she was born on a “peaceful Monday.”
She was, of course, much more than a server for the congregation. She was young but full of wisdom. As a priestess in training, she had earlier performed a full service at the praise house a few weeks before Chastain’s healing session.
The service she led had drawn a full house. Many said that was because men were eager to attend on account of her astounding beauty. Her prominent, full lips were treasures that looked to be full of pink, sensuous blood. Her hair was braided from the forehead to the shoulder, ending in tight waves below the shoulder that poured out of a series of short, hollow reeds that were bound together by a shell rope. Her cheeks were prominently round and full of finely etched tattoos.
She looked like Asona royalty in every sense of the word, and perhaps, I sometimes thought, a competitor to me, but when we spoke, I found it impossible to consider her so. Diderot claimed that I was a woman of magic, but if that was so, then Adwoa was a queen of the supernatural. I truly believed that when Diderot and I ordered our tea, she would send the serving out on its own through the conveyance of a small flying carpet.
“It is an honor to serve you, your grace,” she said as she took our order.
“It is my honor,” I replied. She bowed to both of us and left.
“She sends a shudder down my spine,” said Diderot after her disappearance.
I laughed at that. “Oh? Is that so.”
“It’s not what you think. She is, like you, fully of ti-bon-ange.”
“In Twi that would be bayi,” I said.
“Is it not the same?”
“You can ask her yourself.”
“I have some difficulty understanding her. She speaks Twi and Gullah. Both are dialects beyond my mastery. Most Gullah has a strong enough basis in English that I can understand some of it. Hers? Not at all.”
“Her dialect of Gullah is very close to English. I believe you’ve mostly heard her speak Twi, which is quite different of course.”
“This Union will become a Babel country, I’m afraid,” replied Diderot. “There are competing dialects and languages from Africa, the First Settlers, and now even Europeans from beyond Britain have begun to settle. The Prussians are here, and the Dutch have made further landings.”
“I worry myself more about how everyone will want a piece of this land. We may discover that we are all invaders, except for the First Settlers, of which I realize you are part.”
“Non, not you. Your people were brought here in chains. You are not invaders. As was my other half.”
“You have quite deftly changed the subject, Guillaume. I applaud your efforts.”
“I am known to have the alacrity of the cleverest of cats regarding conversation,” he said, his lips borrowing a look from his vast collection of mischievous smiles that sent one side of his mouth curving substantially higher than the other.
“Please, I need no reminders,” I sighed.
“I mean and meant no disrespect, your grace.”
“Your actions spoke otherwise.”
“There were pressures I didn’t wish to burden you with. The rabble-rousers wanted blood.”
“I was aware of this.”
“Not fully. Not fully the depths of discord. Ma chérie, what you witnessed on my behalf was a secondary plan. A way out. My full intent was to provide the forum you worked so hard to achieve. I stand by your principles.”
I was silent at that. So was he. After a few moments of silence, he continued. “When the crowd filled the hall, I knew it was a wild one. Full of venom. Full of hate, even. But you see, sometimes people simply need an outlet. Dare I say, I don’t think they were up in arms over the crime itself. But rather, the color of the criminal’s skin is what drove their animals within.
“My lieutenants, for lack of a better word, and others close to me, warned strongly that the crowd attending this healing event would be hostile. So we devised a secondary plan, something to calm them. I admit, it was radical, but if I had sought your permission, I was certain you’d reject it fully.”
“In that, you were quite correct.” I understood where Diderot was going with this. Diderot sometimes had peculiar methods, but his heart was almost always rightly placed. Nevertheless, I was unable to hide the displeasure in my voice.
“I hoped that we would not need to fall back on this plan. The coals were kept hot, as it were, out of caution. I didn’t know what else to do. They wanted his death, and nothing less. Perhaps if she had not been a teacher…” his voice trailed off. “His pale skin would have still mattered, of course. There is an ongoing cry for vengeance.”
“It is a cry that must be stifled, lest this continent endures centuries of mayhem,” I said. “I have it on good faith that a human cell is but a part of a larger whole. Frankly, I don’t know what science says about this, but I think it shall ultimately agree on this concept. I also will argue that each of us, as humans, are part of a larger organism, which, in its final manifestation, is God, whether we observe its good nature or not.”
“I agree in the most absolute terms,” replied Diderot. “If God made the human animals in his image, and if you are correct that each of my cells works together to make me who I am, it makes sense that I am but a cell within God’s own body. But my congregation is taught that teachers are like royalty. They are our way forward. Chastain is a bad cell. He should probably be excised from the whole of the body, non?”
“As I understood his confession, he was not aware of her profession.”
“No matter. He wanted to violate her. That alone is a wicked crime. No matter the color of the perpetrator’s skin.”
“Indeed, indeed it surely is, Guillaume. And perhaps I am rushing forward too hastily. Let us consider lesser crimes as targets for rehabilitation. Rapists and murderers… I am not sure rehabilitation is possible for these souls. I saw malice in his eyes, Guillaume. He was not remorseful.”
“What, then, of the rapists? What of the murderers? What do we do with them?”
“They cannot live among us.”
“Where then?”
“Exiled to a place where they cannot make their way back. To an island somewhere.” I laughed at the ridiculousness of my idea as I thought of the many small islands off the coast, none of which could have sustained such a plan.
“You laugh, but such a thing exists. Botany Bay, Norfolk Island. Botany Bay may be a misnomer for another realm in those parts. I am uncertain of those specifics, your grace.”
I had never heard of these places, and I said so.
“Faraway lands. To which the British transport prisoners with some frequency.”
“Lord above, do the convicts run the asylum in these places?”
“I believe that they are, quite literally, colonies of prisoners, governed by military commanders within prison encampments. It is safe to say that if we send them there, they will not return.”
“We are, technically, a part of the crown,” I said with some interest. “Will they honor our request?”
“It is a curious fact that the British tend to send their petty criminals to these islands. As well as those deemed revolutionaries and political traitors. We will be proposing quite the opposite approach by holding on to our petty criminals and sending our rapists and murderers to these far-off lands. This will raise the king’s eyebrow a full foot above his head, methinks.”
“The king will most surely suggest we take his petty criminals off his hands,” I chuckled.
“That has been attempted. The war changed that. When the rebel war began, well, that prompted the British to seek another venue for their prison population.”
“You are suggesting to me that they sent their criminals here? How dastardly.”
“That is not what I am suggesting. It is fact, your grace.”
“I am appalled,” I said.
The evening sound of drums and chanting began to fill the air. Boree had been joined by drummers. Their music charged through my body as I contemplated our fledgling nation. The tearoom door was fully open to allow for this experience, and I was glad of it.
I swatted a mosquito on my neck.
“I’m afraid that one made quite a splash,” said Diderot, handing me a kerchief from his vest.
I dabbed at my neck and saw a large blood stain on the kerchief. I tried to hand it back to Diderot, but he waved me off. “Keep it. You’ll need it. And I have no desire to launder such a slaughter. They are rather festive tonight. Shall I close the entrance door?”
I shook my head. “I have been told that the mosquitos here are mere pests compared to those in the Homeland.” After I swatted another, a man dressed in a tan shirt with full sleeves that widened broadly at his wrist walked up to me holding a large feather fan. He began to fan us both. He looked like he might be planning to stay for the rest of our conversation.
I continued my thoughts after nodding at the man in thanks. “Regarding retribution. I need to know you are completely in agreement on the principle of incarceration. We are a young nation. We have an opportunity to reject the white man’s way completely, but that moment is only upon us momentarily. The moment will lapse quickly. The seething anger of the crowd was proof enough.”
“I will admit to my reservations. But these are matters best left to the high priestesses of our land. Adwoa — she should be your primary consultant on this matter. And others like her.”
“You consider yourself a military man.”
“Quite.”
“Then I need your support more than Adwoa’s, who I already know will welcome my proposals. What do you suppose Saint Paul tells us about this, Guillaume?”
Diderot shrugged. He was a reader of scripture but was always quick to point out that he was not someone who would ever be known to quote it well.
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. He says these things in the third chapter of Colossians, but this is the most important part of our scripture, and it is the reason I have accepted the white man’s religion. That,” and I touched my bosom, “and that I feel the Holy Spirit within me at all times.”
I leaned into Diderot closely. “You know that it would have been quite unlikely for Jesus himself to be a white man, don’t you? He was a man of dark skin, like you. Like me. He lived among the oppressed, like us. And yet he passed on such a beautiful message. Because above all these, Saint Paul tells us, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
“Including the white man?”
When Diderot asked this, I wondered if he was thinking at all of his friend Honeyman. Diderot had long ago forgiven the white man by his simple act of befriending Honeyman, even if Diderot wasn’t aware of this himself. “Even the white man,” I replied.
“Love your enemies,” Diderot said, quoting Matthew.
“And how do we love our enemies?” I asked.
“We pray for those who persecute us.”
“Would you have branded an Afriker?”
Diderot leaned back in his chair to contemplate this. Then he said quietly, “Non. I’ll admit that the look of cooked skin on a white man offers great satisfaction.”
“And this is where you and I diverge and must converge. This continent is teeming with people who bound us in chains for two hundred years. If we seek personal, daily retribution, never mind as any kind of official policy, this continent will be forever cursed with civil strife and, eventually, war with Europe. Europe is fond of its world wars.”
“This sounds like acquiescence to me, ma chérie.”
“Nothing that is God’s will should be considered acquiescence. His one great demand is that of forgiveness. That was the very reason for his son’s appearance on earth. Furthermore, it isn’t acquiescence if we grow a nation that is as strong or stronger than the barbaric nations emerging from Europe. We have the means, and we have the people, and our people have the skills.”
“And hopefully, soon, the teachers, if we can stop white men from trying to rape and kill them.” He sounded angry, which I understood, but I needed him to be the man of reflection I truly considered him to be.
“It is not acquiescence, Guillaume, because the philosophy against incarceration will apply to everyone. No one shall be exempt. There will be no special cases based on heritage, religion, or any other way of measuring human background. There will be no special cases based on language. Nothing.”
“You remind me of my friend Honeyman.”
“I will like to meet this man.”
“He has a formal degree in decency, I do believe. And he is well schooled in the art of honor.”
“I shall call him Dr. Decency, should I have the pleasure of meeting him,” I said.
Notes
Chapters 1&2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5.1
Chapter 5.2
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12.1
Chapter 12.2
The paragraphs are reformatted to allow for more white space than the original text from the novel. This is sort of a Medium audience thing.
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