From "I Will Not Let You
Go Except Thou Bless Me" an essay included in Out of Africa by Isak
Dinesen/Karen Blixen
Sometimes a cool, colourless day in
the months after the rainy season calls back the time of the marka mbaya, the
bad year, the time of the drought. In those days the Kikuyu used to graze their
cows round my house, and a boy amongst them who had a flute, from time to time
played a short tune on it. When I have heard this tune again, it has recalled
in one single moment all our anguish and despair of the past. It has got the
salt taste of tears in it. But at the same time I found in the tune,
unexpectedly surprisingly, a vigour, a curious sweetness, a song. Had those
hard times really had all these in them? There was youth in us then, a wild hope.
It was during those long days that we were all of us merged into a unity, so
that on another planet we shall recognise one another, and the things cry to
each other, the cuckoo clock and my books to the lean-fleshed cows on the lawn
and the sorrowful old Kikuyus: “You also were there. You also were part of the
Ngong farm.” That bad time blessed us and went away.
That
bad time blessed us, and went away.
I
am counting on this.
