Paul

A worker at a mission school in Botswana meets a woman, Janet Gleason

Chapter Five

                  Paul                                           

 

     A long time ago Paul had concluded that whatever it was that women wanted, he did not have.  Pretending otherwise just made him look and act like an idiot.  If he had any doubts about that he had only to think of Susan.  He could see now that he had blundered his way into that disaster out of the belief that if he loved someone long enough that ultimately they would return that love. He had been too in love with the idea of loving someone to see the person that he was trying to love  He had realized that while standing in the departure terminal waiting for her to come to say goodbye and knowing all the while that she would not be coming.  Well, he wouldn't be making that mistake again.

     He had been back to Canada once, on leave the first year after completing his first year. He had gone back to North Bay to see his parents. They had asked him about Africa and he had tried to explain about the dust and the heat, the poverty but above all about the warmth and dignity of the people. They had listened but did not understand. For them Africa was hunger, war and HIV. "When are you going to get a real teaching job?" his mother had asked.

       There had been an opening for a history teacher at the local secondary school, the same one that he had been a student in. At his mother's urging he had applied for it and had been invited in for an appointment.

     The panel of three experienced, middle aged, men, one a principal, one a vice-principal and the other a H.OD,  had leafed through the copies of his C.V.'s as he had told  them of working at the mission, often fifty students to a class, often without electricity in forty degrees centigrade heat.

He was about to begin to explain about the clinic for the students infected with HIV when the principle spoke.

      "But what's your Canadian experience?"

       After being told that Paul had supply taught for three years in Toronto, the principle had frowned.  "You do realize that if you want to work you have to be mobile."

      Paul left for Botswana two weeks later. He had never been back to Canada.  An exile? No. Not so. He looked out over the passing yellow fields of maize Here he had come home. He did not feel that out of any romantic illusions. There had been nothing romantic about malaria, tick fever or amoebic dysentery.  What bound him to this obscure drought-stricken little country was that here not once had he ever felt useless or unwanted.

       Through the white dust cloud following the Hiace streamed the strains of Stan' Rogers "Make or Break Harbour."

      Paul leaned forward in his seat and with half an eye on the dust road before him turned up the CD player.

                "How still lies the bay in the light western airs

                which blow from the crimson horizon

                Once more we tack home

                with a dry empty hold

                Saving gas with the breezes so fair."

       He accepted that the song written about a dying fishing village seemed somewhat incongruous here in the plains of Botswana but what did it matter? In his first days he had ridden in public buses with Dolly Parton's Rocky Top Tennessee blasting away. Stan seemed positively sedate compared to that.  One of the things he liked about Africa was that incongruities ceased to be incongruous here.

                "Fishing nets  hung to dry, are

                forgotten grow rotten

                Forgotten, blow away"

        As the song ended he went over the mental list of what he needed to pick up in Maun. Parts for the school generator. Chemicals for the lab. Ten sacks of fine mealie meal for the kitchen. Then his own personal needs had to be looked to; groceries mainly but he would also have a look at any new books and DVD's.that might have come in. Last on the list was a note to pick up the new teacher at the lorry park, a Miss Janet Gleason.

      She would be replacing Miss Olsen who had taught Fourth Form for five months. Deciding that Africa was not for her Miss Olsen had decided to go off skiing in New Zealand . How long would this new one last, he wondered. During the past six years he had seen so many come and so many go. They had come seeking an adventure, willing to accept the mission's miserly wage. Each one had seemed to believe that he or she possessed that unique blend of talent and humanity that would uplift Africa.  Then he had watched them go, drained by the heat, the poverty and the vastness of Botswana. This one he suspected would be no different from the others.

       Janet made two mistakes while waiting for her ride, mistakes common to any one new to Africa.  She bought an orange from a market woman.  AT first refreshing it left her mouth and hands sticky. She washed her hands at a public tap and then bought a coke .The second mistake, this only increased her thirst. A man, a white man clad in gray shorts, a white shirt, and a wide-brimmed khaki bush hat cane towards her. The hat brim and dark sunglasses concealed much of his face.

        "Miss Gleason," he asked.

          "Yes." She stood.

            Paul held out a small cold bottle of Aquafina that he had taken out of the cooler at the back of the Hiace. "Pula" he smiled. "Welcome to Maun Miss Gleason.”

                Janet looked out over the plain of yellow grass, bound only by the blue brightness of the cloudless sky.

                He nodded in disapproval of her gaze. Three months thought Paul. That was what he gave this one before she packed up and left.

                "Looks better after the rains."

                He did not sound very convincing.

"When do they come?"

                "In about four months."

                "How long have you been here?"

                "Six years. Place kind of grows on you."

                He led her through the milling market day crowd.  The dust-covered Hiace sat parked under an acacia tree.  Paul tossed the woman’s luggage into the back of the van.  They then drove out of the pounded red dust of the parking lot.  

            Now that the van had turned away from the sun, Paul removed his sunglasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket.

           He had changed, thought Janet. He had been burned and scarred by the years and by other things. But she could see that one thing remained unchanged, the gentle patience of the eyes. It shone through the grime of the mirror. That, she knew, would never change. She shifted a little closer to him.

***

                Thirty years passed.  Paul passed away one warm spring day, sitting

in his favourite chair while reading a newspaper.  They buried him the mission graveyard under the shade of an ancient Baobab.  The villagers came, the schoolchildren and  his fellow teachers.  There was one other mourner, Louise Miller.

           

"I am one of the family after all,” Louise smiled.  “What about Paul’s family?”

“In Canada? I never met them,” said Janet giving Louise a formal peck on her left cheek.  “They’ve probably forgotten about him.”  Then she added looking out over the crowd.  “They were his family.”  Then she looked back at “Louise.  “So why have you come?”

“To pay my respects to Paul and to ask you for a favour.”

Louise watched a tiny green gecko skitter across a wall.

“You never had children?”

“No. When I was young I had an abortion   After that I couldn’t.   Paul would have loved to have had children, but during all the years that we were together, he never blamed me.  Not once.  I have known one truly good man.”

 

“And your brother?”

 

                “I never knew him. Both of us tried to escape, he into his books, I into my anger.  In doing so we lost each other.”

 

                Louise placed her tea cup on the red mahogany table.  “What will you do now?”

               

                Janet knew what she would not do.  She would not go back to Canada.  Grey skies.  Cold rain. No.  She knew no one there.  Here was her garden, her primary students, her friends and Paul.

 

                “Stay here I suppose.  What else can I do?  I suppose that you have another choice?”

 

                “Well you are a Foley.  I thought that you might to go into your brother’s business. ”

 

                Susan smiled.  “His business was never mine.  This is my place.  I will stay here until my dying day.”

               

                Louise nodded.  That would be agreeable.

 

               

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