Grace Webb’s Reviews > The Poisonwood Bible > Status Update

We stood watching them while the sunset painted the river with broad streaks of pink and orange. Islands of water hyacinths floated past in the drowsy current. I was thinking I’d never felt more content or known such beauty in all my life. And right then he said, “Béene, you’re well. You can go, you know. I promised your mother I would see that you get home safely.” My heart stopped. “Where does she think home is?” “Where you are happiest.” “Where do you want me to go?” “Where you will be happy,” he said again, and so I told him where that place is. Nothing could be easier. I’ve thought about it long and hard and decided that if he will tolerate me as I am, I’ll decline to return to all familiar comforts in order to stay here. It was an unusual proposal, by the standards of any culture. We stood on the bank of the Kwenge listing the things we'll have to abandon or relinquish. It's important information. For all I may be forsaking, he's giving up a good deal more: the possibility of having more wives than one, for instance. And that's only the beginning. Even now, I think Anatole's friends doubt his sanity. My whiteness could bar him outright from many possibilities, maybe even survival, in the Congo. But Anatole had no choice. I took him and held on. There's enough of my father in me that I had to stand my ground.

Maybe that won’t necessarily guarantee me a front-row seat in heaven, but considering what all I have had to put up with from Eeben Axelroot for the last year, just for starters, that ought to at least get me in the door.

I guess trading away your prime of life is a fair price for somebody flying you out of that hellhole.

He has a hundred and one reasons not to marry the cow so he can buy the milk for free.

I got baptized by mud.

So now his number-one secret is: I need another beer! Which just goes to show you.

We were presumed insane. Mother took the diagnosis well.

On the verbal portion I missed four questions, all having to do with choosing a word in a series that doesn’t belong. I have always had trouble with that line of questioning. Given my own circumstances, I find that anything can turn out to belong nearly anywhere.

I had told the truth: I needed to go to his college. I needed to get out of Bethlehem, out of my skin, my skull, and the ghost of my family. It is not because I was ashamed of Mother-how could I, the village idiot, be ashamed of her? I somewhat enjoyed the company of her madness, and certainly I understood it. But Mother wanted to consume me like food. I needed my own room. I needed books, and for the first time in my life I needed schoolmasters who would tell me each day what to think about.

When I visit her we never talk much, and are both relieved by the silence, I think. There are only the two of us now, and I owe her my very life. She owes me nothing at all. Yet I have left her, and now she is sad. I'm not used to this. I have always been the one who sacrificed life and limb and half a brain to save the other half. My habit is to drag myself imperiously through a world that owes me unpayable debts. I have long relied on the comforts of martyrdom.

The world seemed crowded and empty at the same time, devoid of smells, and extremely bright. I continued to stare at the traffic light, which glowed red. Suddenly a green arrow popped up, pointing left, and the row of cars like obedient animals all went left. I laughed out loud.