"Resnick, Mike - Kirinyaga 5 - The Manamouki" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

"Why should that be?" I asked. "They are women of your own age."
"We don't seem to have anything to talk about."
"Do you find them unfriendly?" I asked.
She considered the question. "Ndemi's mother has always been very kind to me. The others could be a little friendlier, I suppose, but I imagine that's just because most of them are senior wives and are very busy running their households."
"Did it ever occur to you that there could be some other reason why they are not friendly?" I suggested.
"What are you getting at?" she asked, suddenly alert.
"There is a problem," I said.
"Oh?"
"Some of the older women resent your presence."
"Because I'm an immigrant?" she asked.
I shook my head. "No."
"Then why?" she persisted, genuinely puzzled.
"It is because we have a very rigid social order here, and you have not yet fit in."
"I thought I was fitting in very well," she said defensively.
"You were mistaken."
"Give me an example."
I looked at her. "You know that Kikuyu wives must shave their heads, and yet you have not done so."
She sighed and touched her hair. "I know," she replied. "I've been meaning to, but I'm very fond of it. I'll shave my head tonight." She seemed visibly relieved. "Is that what this is all about?"
"No," I said. "That is merely an outward sign of the problem."
"Then I don't understand."
"It is difficult to explain," I said. "Your khangas are more pleasing to the eye than theirs. Your garden grows better. You are as old as Wambu, but appear younger than her daughters. In their minds, these things set you apart from them and make you more than a manamouki. The correlary, which they have not yet voiced but must surely feel, is that if you are somehow more, then this makes them somehow less."
"What do you expect me to do?" she asked. "Wear rags and let my gardens go to seed?"
"No," I said. "I do not expect that."
"Then what can I do?" she continued. "You're telling me that they feel threatened because I am competent." She paused. "You are a competent man, Koriba. You have been schooled in Europe and America, you can read and write and work a computer. And yet I notice that you feel no need to hide your talents."
"I am a mundumugu," I said. "I live alone on my hill, removed from the village, and I am viewed with awe and fear by my people. This is the function of a mundumugu. It is not the function of a manamouki, who must live in the village and find her place in the social order of the tribe."
"That's what I am trying to do," she said in frustration.
"Do not try so hard."
"If you're not telling me to be incompetant, then I still don't understand."
"One does not fit in by being different," I said. "For example, I know that you bring flowers into your house. Doubtless they are fragrant and pleasing to the eye, but no other woman in the village decorates her hut with flowers."
"That's not true," she said defensively. "Sumi does."
"If so, then she does it because you do it," I pointed out. "Can you see that this is even more threatening to the older women than if you alone kept flowers, for it challenges their authority?"
She stared at me, trying to comprehend.
"They have spent their entire lives achieving their positions within the tribe," I continued, "and now you have come here and taken a position entirely outside of their order. We have a new world to populate: You are barren, but far from feeling shame or grief, you act as though this is not a terrible thahu. Such an attitude is contrary to their experience, just as decorating your house with flowers or creating khangas with intricate patterns is contrary to their experience, and thus they feel threatened."
"I still don't see what I can do about it," she protested. "I gave my original khangas to Wambu, but she refuses to wear them. And I have offered to show Bori how to get a greater yield from her gardens, but she won't listen."
"Of course not," I replied. "Senior wives will not accept advice from a manamouki, any more than a chief would accept advice from a newly-circumcised young man. You must simply" -- here I switched to English, for there is no comparable term in Swahili -- "maintain a low profile. If you do so, in time the problems will go away."
She paused for a moment, considering what I had told her.
"I'll try," she said at last.
"And if you must do something that will call attention to yourself," I continued, reverting to Swahili, "try to do it in a way that will not offend."
"I didn't even know I was offending," she said. "How am I to avoid it if I'm calling attention to myself?"
"There are ways," I answered. "Take, for example, the chair that you built."
"Tom has had back spasms for years," she said. "I built the chair because he couldn't get enough support from a stool. Am I supposed to let my husband suffer because some of the women don't believe in chairs?"
"No," I said. "But you can tell the younger women that Nkobe ordered you to build the chair, and thus the stigma will not be upon you."
"Then it will be upon him."
I shook my head. "Men have far greater leeway here than women. There will be no stigma upon him for ordering his manamouki to see to his comfort." I paused long enough for the thought to sink in. "Do you understand?"
She sighed. "Yes."
"And you will do as I suggest?"
"If I'm to live in peace with my neighbors, I suppose I must."
"There is always an alternative," I said.
She shook her head vigorously. "I've dreamed of a place like this all my life, and nobody is going to make me leave it now that I'm here. I'll do whatever I have to do."
"Good," I said, getting to my feet to signify that the interview was over. "Then the problem will soon be solved."