Book Two: The Revelation

Orleanna Price

Summary

Orleanna recalls the release of the parrot and loss of Mama Tataba. Unable to grow familiar vegetables, she learned how to cook manioc, a rather tasteless root that is the staple of the African diet. Mama Tataba had not only cooked and cleaned for them but had also saved them from the consequences of their own mistakes, such as using poisonwood twigs for kindling. The smoke alone from the poisonwood would have killed them.

Nathan did not hear her fears of snakes or pay any attention to her worries about food. His conviction was that as they had come to Africa to do the will of God, they would also have GodÂ’s protection.

Orleanna remembers Tata Ndu as their primary adversary, warning people away from the church on the grounds that the preacher would feed the children to the crocodiles. Nathan agreed to a meeting with Tata Ndu and attempted a reconciliation. The chief had agreed to baptism by sprinkling but was offended by NathanÂ’s insistence that the chief have only one wife at a time. The chief says it would be a shame-faced chief who could only afford one wife.

Nathan became obsessed with his understanding of his "mission" and with the notion that he had failed God. He blamed himself for compromising with the natives, even for having yielded to building mounds in his garden.

Notes

Orleanna acknowledges that in spite of her efforts to escape Africa, it still claims her soul. Small things remind her unexpectedly of scents and sounds of the Congo. She had tried to be one of the women, believing she could be one of them and still be NathanÂ’s wife, but they rejected her, seeing her small mistakes as a violation of their traditions. She recalls the struggle just to stay alive, the way in which she was forced to bargain for everything including their mail. Once Mama Tataba left them, Orleanna learned to appreciate the travail that was required to produce three meals a day for her family.

She tolerated her husband, marveling that life could be so simple for him. He had played football in high school with great success, so he apparently expected his entire life to be a winning season. Yet, she tried to be a supportive wife to him, holding him in her arms at night and listening to his private anguish over a failure to establish an agreement with Tata Ndu who would finally allow a "sprinkling" baptism but would not concede to one wife for himself. Orleanna says that she saw her husbandÂ’s soul "turn to ash" and that he was reborn with a stone in place of his heart. She suffers because of the needs that Nathan never saw in his own family, but also blames herself for too much "looking back."

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