Dreams from My Father

distance, your grandfather stood in the center of the road and said, “Go back to where you come from.” The shaman didn’t know who Onyango was, and made like he was going to pass, but Onyango blocked his way and said, “If you are as powerful as you claim, you must strike me now with lightning. If not, you should run, for unless you leave this village now, I will have to beat you.” Again, the shaman made as if he was going to pass, but before he could take another step, Onyango had beaten him to the ground, taken his suitcase, and returned with it to his compound.
    Well, this was a very serious matter, especially when your grandfather refused to return the shaman’s potions. The next day, the council of elders gathered beneath a tree to resolve the dispute, and Onyango and the shaman were both told to appear and state their case. First the shaman stood and told the elders that if Onyango did not return the suitcase at once, a curse would be brought on the entire village. Then Onyango stood, and he repeated what he had said earlier. “If this man has strong magic, let him curse me now and strike me dead.” The elders leaned away from Onyango, fearful that the spirits might miss their target. But they soon saw that no spirits came. So Onyango turned to the man who had hired the shaman and said, “Go and find yourself a new woman, and let this other woman be with the one to whom she is promised.” And to the shaman Onyango said, “Go back to where you came from, because there will be no killings in this place.”
    To these things, all the elders agreed. But they insisted that Onyango must also return the shaman’s suitcase, for they did not want to take any chances. Onyango also agreed, and when the meeting was finished, he brought the shaman to his hut. He told me to slaughter a chicken so the shaman could eat, and even gave the shaman money so that his trip to Alego would not have been wasted. But before your grandfather let the shaman leave, he made the man show him the contents of his suitcase and explain the properties of every potion, so that he would know all the tricks that the shaman performed.
    Even if Onyango had used one of these potions on Akumu, I don’t think he could have made her happy. No matter how much he beat her, she would argue with him. She was also proud and scornful of me, and often refused to help in the household chores. She had a third child—named Auma, like this one sitting here—and as she nursed this new baby, she secretly planned her escape. One night, when Sarah was twelve and Barack was nine, she made her move. She woke up Sarah and said that she was running away to Kendu. She told Sarah that it was too difficult a journey for children to make at night, but said that they should follow her as soon as they were older. Then she disappeared with her baby into the darkness.
    When Onyango found out what had happened, he was furious. At first he thought he should finally let Akumu go, but when he saw that Barack and Sarah were still young, and that even I, with two children of my own, was little more than a girl, he again went to Akumu’s family in Kendu and asked that she be returned. But this time the family refused. In fact, they had already accepted dowry for Akumu’s remarriage to another man, and together Akumu and her new husband had left for Tanganyika. There was nothing Onyango could do, so he returned to Alego. He said to himself, “It does not matter,” and he told me that I was now the mother of all his children.
    Neither he nor I knew of Akumu’s last visit to Sarah. But Sarah had remembered her mother’s instructions, and only a few weeks passed before she woke up Barack in the middle of the night, just as her mother had done to her. She told Barack to be quiet, helped him get dressed, and together they began to walk down the road to Kendu. I still wonder that they both survived. They were gone for almost two weeks, walking many miles each day, hiding from those who passed them on the road, sleeping in fields and begging for food. Not far from Kendu, they became lost, and a woman finally saw them and took pity on them, for they were filthy and almost starved. The woman took them in and fed them, and asked them their names; and when she realized who they were she sent for your grandfather. And when Onyango came to get them, and saw how badly they looked, this is the only time that anyone ever saw him cry.
    The children never tried to run away again. But