DANUSHIKI

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“His name is and would be Danushiki (Jnr.)” Darjer whispered to the six women who walked briskly, with their leader and the eldest ahead.

He soon left them after they’d walked three or four meters from his compound’s entrance, and went back to his family. When he was with the new born baby and his mother, he peered at his face, before announcing the his name. It was greeted with joy from everyone present, especially Choshi, who was known to be a chronic chauvinist, until Sarme’s birth.

The Simowa women walked in silence to the sacred grove, with the eldest in front, and Harshiri at the end of the procession, holding a small oil lamp. A little over thirty minutes later, they stopped and bowed before the guardians at the entrance of the sacred grove. Afterwards, they entered into the sacred grove to perform their final task in relation to the birth of the baby they’d helped to deliver.

“From time immemorial, you’ve always been with our children, right from their birth, after nine months in their formation. We know that you’d never abandon them, till they take their last breath after living an eventful and successful life…”

The eldest of the Simowa women stopped abruptly and began to un-wrap the brown cloth Sarme had been wearing. It was now soaked with congealed blood and tiny thread like bits of tissue. She removed the placenta and held the purple object in both palms over the steel pot. Her ‘colleagues’ began to mumble some inaudible incantations while they beheld their leader. Taking a deep breath, the eldest Simowa woman let go of the placenta mid-air, took a few steps backward and joined the others whose faces now possessed terrible scowls, in a file. Although it was not the first time they’d witnessed the subsequent event, each time it happened they felt like they were on another planet. This was because of the aura which seemed to envelop the entire grove whenever the event occurred.

They stopped whispering and kept gazing at the placenta while it descended slowly into the mouth of the steel pot. Ten inches near the mouth of the steel pot, the purple object now resembled something made out of several pieces of diamonds stuck together.The next moment, it exploded with a popping sound into several floating diamond particles.

“What is the boy’s name?” a bubbling voice from inside the large steel pot inquired.

“His name is Danushiki (Jnr.),” the eldest of the Simowa women replied.

The next moment, they weren’t surprised when the plain gown on the ground, was seemingly ignited by the diamonds under it. Once it was completely burnt to ashes, the floating diamonds which were transformed from the placenta fell, one after the other into the large steel pot. Harshiri’s oil lamp could adequately be described as useless in its function while the women tried in vain to hide the awe they felt from being inside the sacred grove.

“Danushiki (Jnr.) it is,” the voice bubbled again, as the six women bowed again and went out of the sacred grove one after the other, to their respective homes.

Harshiri secretly wished she could help a woman give birth on a daily basis in order to pay the sacred grove a frequent visit all the time. She knew with the arrival of the new baby, they’d be extra responsibilities for her, especially ‘accommodating’ Mhonse and her overbearing maternal attitude.

He was barely eight years old when he sat in his maternal Uncle’s two-roomed hovel listening to his adventurous tale about a ‘hidden’ island called Shaingwa. Uncle Lloyd Herbert Lyttleton was only forty-seven at that time, but could easily pass for an eighty year old.

While limping, he narrated his ordeal about how he, several friends and less than a thousand ‘retired’ naval officers. According to Lloyd, they’d sold everything they had and used the proceeds to go on a voyage in a large ship, to a destination only he really knew about. The night before he left, he told him with a smile on his face, how he’d engaged his elder sister – the boy’s mother in a bitter quarrel. She’d expressed her anger about his foolishness to engage in a risky voyage. Lady Virginia Whyte was a boring soul who would never understand the passion he possessed for adventure, because she’d never gone to sea in a ship all her life.

He was pleased to see the boy chuckle as he went ahead to describe her as a serious teacher, an ‘unrealistic churchgoer,’ and an innate disciplinarian, (the boy accepted this one as true). He described her in many ‘interesting’ ways, but his mind had been made up and there was no going back. He hadn’t spent his small inheritance to facilitate a crazy voyage, only to back out at the last minute. For more than five years after his return, everyone thought he was nuts, especially when he attempted to tell a soul or two about his experience in Shaingwa.

‘Shaingwa’… the boy would always remember that name as the habitat of uncultured and vicious savages – as described by his dear Uncle. What Lloyd didn’t tell his little nephew was how he’d shot a lone unarmed Shaingwan fisherman near the bank with the Captain’s pistol. That singular action had led to a bloody fight in which the rest of the seafarers were slaughtered. Like someone who was hypnotized, the little boy believed every word his dear Uncle spoke, believing one day he’d be able to ‘complete’ what he started.

Two years later, on his tenth birthday, Uncle Lloyd gave him two objects, which would forever be the twin forces driving him to the fulfilment of his Uncle’s dream.

“Don’t you want your Daddy to be proud of you?”

“Don’t you want to be the second-in-command of this great Empire… and even the whole world?”

“Don’t you wish you had enough money to buy and control the whole world?”

“Don’t you wish to be remembered forever by generations unborn for the next two thousand years?”

“Don’t you wish your Mummy’s ten fingers were decked in diamond rings… don’t you?”

These and more were the kind of questions Lloyd Herbert Lyttleton (as he liked to address himself) always asked the little boy whenever he began his never-ending adventurous tales. Whenever he was asked about marriage and starting a family, he simply said that a wife and family were temporary, but diamonds were forever.

The little boy soon grew up and joined the army at eighteen, and was driven by the desire planted by his Uncle to finish his ‘mission’ by any means necessary. He was given two things by Uncle Lloyd. The first object was a small piece of uncut diamond concealed in a locket, beneath a small picture of Lloyd atop it, with ‘L.H.L.’ engraved on its cover. The second object was an old map carefully preserved by his Uncle, which outlined a sea route from the Empire to Shaingwa. These two objects jointly increased the desire to complete the ‘mission’ his Uncle could not finish. They also made him to see his Uncle as an unrecognized hero.

When he turned twenty-two, Sergeant Kenneth Whyte went home to enjoy the short break. Upon his arrival, he was shown the ‘beautiful surprise’ his mother wanted him to meet, since she didn’t want him to live a solitary life like his crazy Uncle. He had barely dropped his bag or removed his hat when he asked of his Uncle. His father – Sir James Whyte, sighed deeply and beckoned him to sit down, while his mother began to dab her nose and eyes with a pink handkerchief.

“Two weeks ago we were all out of the house, except the Cook. Lloyd informed her that he’d be happy in hell if you make his dream a reality”. James paused to observe his son who didn’t seem surprised.

“Two days after he spoke to the Cook, his body was seen hanging from an apple tree in Lord Cyril’s orchard the next day…”

“Where’s his grave?” Sergeant Kenneth Whyte cut in.

“Some meters from the kitchen door”, Sir James whispered, while wondering could have bonded the two men to such an extent.

His mother wanted to switch the topic over to the ‘beautiful surprise’, while her son walked past and headed for his Uncle’s grave.

“We packed his few belongings into a chest…in case you wanted to go through it”. Virginia whispered to her son, anxious to end the sad topic.

“Of course, I’d want to go through them. Nobody knows, and can know the bond that existed between two of us”.

He looked at his mother and the wedding ring on one of the fingers on her left hand as he remembered one of the ‘rhetorical questions’ his Uncle always asked.

“Where’s the chest?”

Sir James and his wife looked at each other before the latter decided to answer him.

“The chest is in your room, at the end of your bed”.

Immediately, he walked upstairs to his room and pulled the dusty chest toward a small reading table and began to remove its contents. The objects inside the chest were virtually useless, but for a black hat his uncle always wore. It seemed to be the only valuable object inside the chest. Holding it firmly, he went downstairs, passed through the kitchen door and walked towards the dead man’s grave. After a slight hesitation and a deep sigh, he placed the black hat atop Lloyd Herbert Lyttleton’s tombstone.

“I promise to make your dream, our dream a reality…by any means possible Uncle Lyttleton”.

Sergeant Kenneth Whyte didn’t realize how long he knelt at the tombstone, until his mother came and pulled him up to his feet, before leading him into the house. Kenneth was the last of his parents’ four children, and also doubled as his mother’s favourite.

Feeling the cool breeze around him, he imagined how his mother would feel by the next decision he’d take to complete his late Uncle’s ‘mission’. Two days after his return, he was yet to inform his parents or three elder brothers of his ‘decision’, as he sat munching a large piece of smoked mutton. He also listened absent-mindedly to the ‘beautiful surprise’ sitting opposite him, who’d since been ‘unveiled’, and was now talking endlessly.

Sarah Macpherson was a beautiful twenty year old lass and a virgin. She had blue eyes, and a skin whose colour resembled the milk Kenneth had been drinking in the morning. She fell in love with Sergeant Whyte the first day she’d set her eyes on him at the age of fourteen. He had been assisting a former seaman down the stairs, at the entrance of a church, into a friend’s carriage that fateful Sunday. She was standing on the opposite side, behind a statue of an angel, quietly watching his act of kindness. She was moved with compassion as she saw him acting as a support for the one-legged man, and subsequently held his crutch till he was safe beside his friend in the carriage. Walking away later with her parents, she didn’t see Virginia Whyte patting his smooth black hair for being an obedient son, who never disobeyed her instructions…

The butler soon cleared the dishes, and appeared moments later with a jug of water and a glass cup. Miss Macpherson volunteered to serve the young Sergeant a glass of water, but was politely turned down.

“My mother, Lady Virgy Whyte has four grandchildren and will definitely get more from her three boys. I’m not ready to get grounded by any wench right now or in the near future. In three days’ time you may never see me again, because my Uncle and I shared something which I’m going to realize even though he’s gone.”

He took a mouthful of water and almost laughed at the expression on Miss Macpherson’s face. She resembled someone who just realized that she was sitting atop a coiled snake, while her blue silky handkerchief was clenched in her right hand.

The next moment, like a talented actress, Sarah Macpherson simply laughed through her nose at Sergeant Kenneth’s last statement and told him not to be silly.

“I could only get married to you after I’ve successfully completed my late Uncle’s ‘mission’. This unfulfilled dream of his, I believe, would take more than twenty years to accomplish”. Sipping more water after his last statement, he was not surprised by what she said next.