New Daughters of Africa

by Margaret Busby

  In the end, Miré chose not to swallow the fish or even to use a goldfish in a bowl at all. She passed a bucket with a freshly caught trout through the audience, a hook still dangling from its lip. She told a story in the accent of a fisherman displaced from his home, tying hooks into knots in a net. Then she masqueraded as a corporate raider with a clipboard, planning a new corporate development on the site. She only did the piece twice, one weekend at Patrick’s Cabaret in Minneapolis, and hasn’t revived it since.

  In the meantime, that goldfish (rippling wound or wound), the challenge to swallow it, became mine. It belongs to anyone moving toward the form of performance art, struggling to figure out what it means, what is required to do it, what kind of body and spirit you would need.

  Maxine Beneba Clarke

  Born in Sydney, to parents of Afro-Caribbean heritage who migrated to Australia in the 1970s, she is a writer and slam poet. Her collection of short stories, Foreign Soil, won the 2013 Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award, the 2015 ABIA for Best Literary Fiction, the 2015 Indie Award for Best Debut Fiction, and was shortlisted for the 2015 Stella Prize. Her 2016 memoir The Hate Race won the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, and her poetry collection Carrying the World won the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry. Her picture book The Patchwork Bike, illustrated by Melbourne artist Van Thanh Rudd, won the Crichton Award for Children’s Book Illustration.

  Hurricane Season

  Nico tucks his long dreads into his navy cap. The Melbourne summer heat itches his scalp. Getting too old for locks. Too old for a lot of things, really. Say forty’s the new thirty, but Nico’s tired: mind, body and bones. He tears the top off a hot chocolate sachet. Tumbles the fine brown powder into the mug. Tosses the crumpled packet into the plastic bin under the table.

  Nico lifts the lever on the large silver urn, careful not to burn his knuckles again. Think they could afford an upgrade. Same urn’s been in the meals room since the day he started driving. Nearly ten years. Been that long. That long. Taxi depot’s almost empty. Nico’s late this morning, because the dream came at him again. Dominica. Weeks now, he’s been dreaming of home. When Nico woke an hour ago, he could feel the weather in the room with him, could smell the wet earth. Super-photosynthesis. Breadfruit and banana, fermenting wild on the branch. Luscious rot. Bounty. Decay. That foreboding something’s-about-to-happen stillness he remembers so clearly from before the ground swallowed his Gracie. The ominous gathering of hurricane breath.

  Nico scans the meals room. Old timers: hunched over drinks, or staring out windows. Slow-to-starts. World wearies. All swore they’d only be in the taxi game for a few years, like Nico did. Till they got their qualifications sorted to do whatever they used to do at home, or whatever they wanted to do here in Australia. Academics’ minds. Carpenters’ hands. Teachers’ hearts. Their light blue cabbie shirts have faded to off-white now. Threadbare collars browned from decade-long wear no bleach can brighten.

  Nico wraps his long brown fingers around the mug. Drink’s making him sweat even more. Pulls out a vinyl-covered chair. Rocks precariously back on its pock-rusted metal legs. Cocoa. Mama Dominica. Home. Blushing khaki pods hanging unripe from roadside trees, the giant rough-skinned, teardrop shape of them. Their slow-darkening to raisin brown.

  The smell of the hot chocolate is Nico, Gracie and Elias: bumping along towards town in the red open-air truck. Gracie’s clutching Elias tight on her lap. Her hair’s cornrowed down, in that zig-zag way she liked to do. The three of them, rambling down towards the spice factory in Elms Hills where Gracie worked, on Nico’s day off from studying. Nico and Elias, perched on a wooden chair in the factory corner, watching Gracie dance the bean. One-two. Two-two. Her bare mahogany legs wrapped to the knees in plastic as she stands on the pre-fermenting racks. Dancing-dancing the cocoa. Swaying this way, swaying that. Laughing-laughing as she works. And Lord, the smell. Ginger-cinnamon. Nutmeg. Home.

  Nico takes another scalding gulp. Got to get out on the road soon. His mate Ahmed’s sitting near the window: shoulders slouched, grey beard almost touching the table.

  “Ye okay, man?” Nico stops by him, on his way to the car.

  Ahmed glances up, eyes so moist they look loose in their sockets, hands clasped. “Little Brother.”

  Ahmed’s called Nico that since the moment they met. Ten years ago now. Twenty-nine he was, but Nico had still felt like a kid. He’d just arrived here with Elias: Gracie already gone, and him still wrecked with grieving. Black and righteous as Nico true-believed God was, he still couldn’t figure why His Almighty would conjure a hurricane to send Gracie’s way.

  Driving was something Nico could fast-do to pay his rent on arrival. He’d been grateful for the job, but the Little Brother that Ahmed had whispered during his first shift had felt like a fist-bump in the darkness, an arm slung round his shoulder.

  “I pick up a fare out to Belgrave last night.” Fifteen years in Australia, and Ahmed’s accent still sings Somalia. Same way Nico and Elias have somehow never picked up the local twang.

  “Belgrave. Cha! In de country. Past de Dandenongs? Good fare, ole man.”

  Ahmed grunts. Stares down at the table. “Decent bloke. Suit. Tie and everything.”

  “Nice work, if it come te ye.” Nico discreetly glances at his watch.

  “Did the runner.”

  “No way. Ye chase him down?”

  Ahmed’s hands are shaking slightly. “I call the police on him.”

  “Ahmed . . .”

  “The man rob me! I got a right to call.” Ahmed rubs his palms together, as if his anger can be contained by the friction. “Policemen come. Two of them. White. Chewing their gum.”

  “Dem get ye money?” Nico already knows the answer.

  “Say I’m trespassing. Told me get moving. Way they look at me, Little Brother. Down and up. You know how the way I mean,” Ahmed’s voice is all shake and anger.

  “Motherfucker!”

  “Watch that mouth, Little Brother.” Ahmed’s rebuke is like a friendly clip to the back of Nico’s head. Like Nico used to do, back when Elias was small; deft at peeling back the stumps of Gracie’s still-growing sugarcane, chewing off the tops before they’d ripened.

  “Brother. You regret coming to here? Australia?”

  Nico braces against his friend’s question. Anchors.

  “We never going to be like them. And they never going to like us.” Ahmed is looking so deep into Nico’s eyes that the pull feels inevitable.

  “Sometimes. But den mi think of Elias, ye know. Young an cocky, like all-a dem brown boys. But dem is dis place. Dem kids: yours an mine. Australia dem home. An dem kids wid opportunity. Striving te make sometin of demselves. Is hard, my friend. But is dem why we come. We doing okay Ahmed. Doing good.” Nico rests his hand on his friend’s shoulder, leaning as much as comforting.

  “Yeah.”

  Nico feels relief surge through Ahmed’s body. Nico’s not sure if it’s true, or if he just wants it to be true. Been hard to raise Eli alone. Spare the rod, spoil the child, they say back home. Nico hasn’t the hard heart or hands for that kind of fathering. Gracie would have known what to do with the boy at every turn. But he’s raised the boy straight, Elias. Shoelaces always half untied. Natty afro hidden under dark hoodie. But chin raised. Proud. Like Nico was at seventeen. Not a bad thing. Straight As last term. Kid left the report on Nico’s bedside table three weeks ago, when school let out. Praise don’t come easy to Nico, so he never mentioned it, but it had filled his heart up. Took Elias to the pub for steak that night.

  Nico starts his taxi shift down near the station. Habit so ingrained it’s blood-ritual. This time of a Saturday morning Footscray wakes. Stretches. Launches itself bang into the weekend.

  The smell of the fruit markets: plantain, okra, cantaloupe. The sour rot of fish guts, washing into street drains. Kids not that much older than Elias, rolling home clutching hangover pork-buns. Shiny BBQ duck hanging in the windows: whole glazed birds
, beaks, eyes and all. Ethiopian coffee houses colourful with morning clientele, kitchens already herbing the air with Doro and Misr Wat on the boil.

  The Sudanese men in the paved street mall are dressed a day early in Sunday best. Are always dressed in Sunday best. Scrubbed up king-fine. For home. For work. For the bottle. For church. Gliding aubergine-tall, history hovering in their walks.

  Nico steers slowly into Paisley Street. The rank is empty of other cabs. But there’s a woman, waiting. Neat bobbed haircut. Modest grey pencil skirt. Cream work blouse. Hot pink shoes clutched in hand, ridiculously heeled. She climbs in: bare feet blackened by concrete-wanderings. Something lacy’s poking out of her small black handbag. Knickers, maybe. Unsteady on her feet. Furry bunny-ears headband. Nico can’t quite pin a story to her. She looks familiar, somehow.

  He sets the taxi meter, glances in the rear-view mirror as she lists the address. Been accused of looking too long before. Sometimes he can smell their fear—women riding alone. Specially at night. Eyes darting to check if the door’s been deadlocked. Pretending to be on the phone.

  The woman’s gaze meets Nico’s. She laughs at his expression. Tucks liquorice-black hair behind her ear. Smooths her crinkled blouse. “Bridal shower. Mine. Last night, after work. Could have done without it, to be honest. More for my sister than me.”

  Nico laughs too. The shake of his shoulders feels good. “Can’t lie. Was wondering what-all was goin on.” He brakes carefully at the intersection of Barkly Street and Geelong Road.

  “You from Dominica?” Woman’s staring back at him in the mirror now.

  “Matter of fact, yes.” Nico can’t keep the surprise from his voice. “You de firs passenger get dat right bang on. Most de time dem say Jamaica.” Nico’s curious. “How ye know?”

  “I went there once. Hiker’s trip. Breathtaking. The green. Bags of sugarcane by the side of the road. Rum and coconut by the side of the road.”

  Nico laughs, louder this time. “Dem boys jus flag down de tourist, crack de coconut open in front-a dem an pour in a shot-a rum. Cheeky. Nobody on God’s own earth can refuse dat!”

  Her smile is tipsy-wide as the taxi barrels past the new Bunnings hardware store. Nico squints against the vicious morning light. The woman stares out the window.

  “I teach. At the high school. Footscray City. Had a kid from Dominica. Came here when he was young, but that accent was still there. Good kid, but . . .” She sighs. “Must be hard. Coming here.”

  “What ye mean?” Nico can feel the heat, bouncing up off the black tar, reaching in at him through the open taxi window. He pushes the button to wind the window up. Presses the air-con on.

  “I don’t know,” the woman rubs her eyes. “This kid. Smart. Everything seemed good. Just stopped coming to school.” Her speech is still a little slurred. “Sometimes I think there’s something missing in these boys. Who can say what it does to a person? Home is your heart, and all that. And this country is . . . hostile. You would know . . .” Her eyes suddenly meet his, in the rear-view mirror. “God! I knew I recognised you from somewhere. Mr Dawson? You’re Eli’s Dad?”

  Nico wants to give the teacher a piece of his mind, let his thoughts rip. But the taste of wet earth is weighting his tongue. Something missing in these boys. You would know. Eli’s neon shoelaces, undone and dragging. Afro hidden under hoodie. Chin raised. Proud. Like Nico. A good boy. Straight As, just three weeks ago. Nico held the report with his own hands. Nico takes several deep breaths in.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I’m just . . . I’m gonna be quiet now, okay?” She pulls a ridiculously lacy bra from her purse, waggles it around, laughing. “Fricken hen’s night.”

  The white lines on the road dance in front of Nico’s eyes. First they sway this way, then they sway that. Laughing-laughing as he drives. Humidity rising. Black volcano grit flicking up in his eyes. Nico can hear Gracie screaming. “Get inside! What ye staring at, Elias? Hurricane ain’t no pretty picture. Stare right into its eye like dat, it gwan come up an eat ye alive. Come! Come!” Elias. Seven years old. Running. Hiding behind her bright, smelling-of-nutmeg skirts.

  “Are you okay? Sir! Pull over! Pull over!”

  Nico’s hands are shaky on the wheel. “I can’t. I can’t breathe.”

  “What?!”

  “I can’t . . .”

  The taxi is slowly swerving into the next lane. The woman frantically unbuckles her seatbelt. Squeezes her body through the gap. Climbs clumsily into the front passenger seat. Leans over and grabs the wheel.

  “You okay?” She steers the car wonkily into the side street. Pulls hard on the handbrake. “Should I call an ambulance. I don’t . . . What happened?”

  The pull inside Nico’s chest feels like a landslide. Like Morne aux Diables volcano, dropping away to uncertain ground.

  He can feel the weather in the taxi car with him, can smell the wet earth, that foreboding stillness he remembers so clearly from before the ground swallowed his Gracie.

  The gathering of hurricane breath.

  Black and righteous as Nico true-believes God is, he still can’t figure why His Mighty would conjure this trouble his way.

  Nadia Davids

  Born in South Africa, her plays, At Her Feet, Cissie and What Remains have garnered various theatre awards and nominations (seven Fleur de Cap Theatre Awards, and Naledi and Noma nominations) and have been staged internationally (in Africa, Europe, the US). Nadia was a part of the New York Women’s Project Playwright’s Lab (2008–10) and has held writing residencies at the Ledig House and at Hedgebrook. Her screenplay adaptation of her short story The Visit won best South African Film Project at the 2012 Durban International Film Festival. Her debut novel An Imperfect Blessing was shortlisted for both the 2014 UJ Prize and the Pan-African Etisalat Prize for Literature and long-listed for the 2014 Sunday Times Fiction Award. It was named one of TIA’s best African novels, one of three of Ozy’s “Favourite New South African Books” and Radio702’s 2014 “Book of the Year”.

  From What Remains

  What Remains is a fusion of text, dance and movement to tell a story about an unexpected uncovering of a slave burial ground in Cape Town, the archaeological dig that follows and a city haunted by the memory of slavery. When the bones emerge from the ground everyone in the city—slave descendants, archaeologists, citizens, property developers—are forced to reckon with a history sometimes remembered, sometimes forgotten. Loosely based on the events at Prestwich Place, What Remains is a path between memory and magic, the uncanny and the known, waking and dreaming. Four figures—The Archaeologist, The Healer, The Dancer and The Student—move between bones and books, archives and madness, paintings and protest, as they try to reconcile the past with the now. What Remains was first staged at the 2017 Grahamstown National Arts Festival, directed by Jay Pather.

  Scene 1

  A development ground, white floors, white set, smoke. The audience set up in the traverse, two banked rows facing each other, witnessing what is about to unfold.

  The Student, The Archaeologist, The Healer are gathered, waiting to tell the story.

  As they do, The Dancer, the ghost-body, emerges from the gloom. As The Student narrates, The Dancer animates her story; his body morphs, now the ghost, the bulldozer, the driver, the gathered crowd.

  THE STUDENT:

  This is a story in twelve parts.

  Part One:

  On a still, cool day in the east of a city by the sea, three sounds only: a bulldozer’s engine, a forgotten song, a canon that tells the time.

  Behind the bulldozer, a sign: Luxury Mall Coming Soon.

  The vehicle rumbles, moves in, mouth open, teeth bared, ready to bite and spit. The ground gives easily, moves, tumbles, then suddenly, without reason, the engine switches off.

  The driver tries to start it. Nothing. Again. Again. Nothing. Again, nothing.

  He gets out. Inspects the vehicle. Circles it, runs his hands over the wheels, peers at the engine. Nothing. Finally, he looks at t
he debris stuck in the jaw of the bulldozer. In the dirt, splayed, smashed rocks, a sun-faded chewing-gum wrapper, frayed cloth—

  A sense of foreboding, now,

  of terror.

  Wonder.

  The faint sound of the song again, this time: almost words:

  THE HEALER (singing):

  Round our necks,

  round our necks,

  round our necks,

  the amulets.

  THE STUDENT:

  He listens to the song.

  Is made captive by the song.

  Before the song ends, the engine switches on. By itself.

  He jumps. To his left, a rustling. The wind is picking up. A rustling. He walks towards the sound, sees a movement in the ground, stops, bends down: in the earth, in amongst the broken things, something solid. A stick? Something. A thing doing that thing that things sometimes do; it is one thing, but it looks like another. This one looks like a finger. Like a middle finger. Like a middle-finger, out of nowhere, coming out the earth, telling it like it is. He laughs. He looks again.

  He realises, holy shit, it is a finger.

  THE ARCHEOLOGIST:

  A finger’s bone.

  Right there. Pointing at him. At us. The ghost of a broken hand, rising through the earth and giving us all an old fuck you.

  THE STUDENT:

  Raw winds. Wild skies,

  Foreboding—