121
" London was a city of ghosts, some deader than others. Thorne knew that in this respect, it wasn't unlike any other major city - New York or Paris or Sydney - but he felt instinctively that London was .... at the extreme. The darker side of that history, as opposed to the parks, palaces and pearly kings' side that made busloads of Japanese and American tourists gawk and jabber. The hidden history of a city where the lonely, the dispossessed, the homeless, wandered the streets, brushing shoulders with the shadows of those that had come before them. A city in which the poor and the plague-ridden, those long-since hanged for stealing a loaf or murdered for a shilling, jostled for position with those seeking a meal, or a score, or a bed for the night.A city where the dead could stay lost a long time "
124
" The year the Europeans seized Jomo Kenyatta (1952), Chepusepa and I were sharing our homestead with Arimo, a Teso, who was a headman of the local road crew. One day, Arimo's son found an ostrich's nest between Amudat and Katabok, while he was watching cattle. There were six eggs, and both of our cowherds took one. The brought the two eggs to our home and put them in the ashes near the fire. After two weeks, they hatched.I remember the baby ostriches walking about, eating millet and stones. Arimo took care of them, and they grew quite large. One night a leopard got the female, but the male continued to thrive, and Arimo harvested its feathers twice. Then, one day, when it was fully grown, our ostrich wandered into the town of Amudat. A European saw it and asked the people, " Where did this come from?" " Oh, it is the 'ox' of a man named Arimo, they told him.The European immediately summoned Arimo to Amudat. " Do you have license to keep an ostrich?" he demanded." Of course not!" Arimo replied. " This ostrich doesn't belong to anyone else--it's mine. So why do I need a license?" But the European decreed," From this day on, you must not keep this ostrich without a license. If you do, you will go to jail for stealing from the government!" That was only the beginning. The Europeans have been seizing our pet ostriches ever since. When other people heard about Arimo's trouble, they killed their ostriches so they could at least have the feathers. Another man was so angry, he killed his female ostrich and destroyed all her eggs. "
127
" Though you are three times more beautiful than angels,
Though you are the sister of the river willows,
I will kill you with my singing,
Without spilling your blood on the ground.
Not touching you with my hand,
Not giving you one glance, I will stop loving you,
But with your unimaginable groans
I will finally slake my thirst.
From her, who wandered the earth before me,
Crueler than ice, more fiery than flame,
From her, who still exists in the ether—
From her you will set me free. "
― Anna Akhmatova , The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
132
" As I exclaimed 'Jane! Jane! Jane!' a voice- I cannot tell whence the voice came, but I know whose voice it was- replied, 'I am coming: wait for me;' and a moment after, went whispering on the wind the words- 'Where are you?' " I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words opened to my mind: yet it is difficult to express what I want to express. Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where sound falls dull, and dies unreverberating. 'Where are you?' seemed spoken amongst mountains; for I heard a hill-sent echo repeat the words. Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my brow: I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane were meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were your accents- as certain as I live- they were yours!" Reader, it was on Monday night- near midnight- that I too had received the mysterious summons: those were the very words by which I replied to it.(Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre) "