The Colours That Blind

by Rutendo Tavengerwei

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought … It’s only that I thought …’

  I frowned. Treason! Only the previous week, one of the villagers had been found lynched from a tree because she had given birth to a white man’s child. Another week prior, a young boy was burned because his madam said she felt uncomfortable about the way he looked at her.

  ‘Thandiwe, say something,’ he had said, his hand reaching out for mine. I stood and stepped back and stared at him blankly. I too was at a loss. I too was afraid of the things the world had not yet accepted. And I think this is why I could not hear the preacher at the mission today. I think it is because I am still afraid.

  14

  Tumi

  The rain whimpers as it touches the roof. Somewhere in the depth of sleep I can hear the wind still whistling outside, making my window rattle gently.

  I can almost feel them, my nightmares. Waiting to glide in, riding on the back of the wind and bringing to life things meant to be forgotten. And although I know I am sleeping, I already feel them pulling me in, and it is starting to feel as though it is happening again …

  Two figures are towering over my bed, staring down at me just like they did that night. Scars! My eyes scurry around the room. Before I can sit up, one of the men grabs my shoulders while the other grabs my legs. For a brief second everything goes still and I can see clearly: my desk in the corner of the room; the duvet discarded in a pile on the floor; Bamkuru and Maiguru’s closed bedroom door adjacent to mine; a man with vivid scars on his forehead and right cheek; my body swinging with no sign of a fight in the hands of the two men, and the screams stuck in my head that can’t come out, lodged between confusion and fear. Then as though with an interruption from gravity, I come back to myself. The minute my brain wakes, my throat burns a thousand fires as I push out every scream I can. I wriggle and try writhing my body out of the grip of the two men while they hurry along the corridor.

  Who are they? What’s happening? I can’t breathe! HELP!

  Out of the corner of my eye I catch Bamkuru’s wife Maiguru. Her frame shows as she stands just outside her door, her silk headscarf still intact and her hands tying the pale pink nightgown she had thrown on. She looks surprised to see them. The man holding my feet immediately lets go and scurries towards her. I struggle to get up, but before I can kick out or run, the other man’s hand has already made it around my neck, partly strangling me. Everything goes silent. Pictures from one of the books I picked up from the library earlier whizz through my brain. In the few seconds that the man has put pressure around my neck, he has cut air circulation to my brain and massively slowed down the normal flow of blood. I try to shake him off. My brain is already starting to fail, switching off my sense of hearing. I try to push him off, but I am losing energy. My vision grows blurry as his grip tightens. Tears slowly trail the curves of my cheeks as I watch the other man’s boot ram Maiguru in the stomach again and again, and blood oozes out of her nose.

  Where’s Bamkuru?

  I keep trying to wriggle. I can see a shadow of a third person in the background. My spirits lift slightly as I tell myself help has come, but before I can turn to see who it is, a cloth is over my nose, stinging my eyes and filling my lungs with chloroform. My eyes flutter. Maiguru’s eyes flutter too. My eyes give up on me …

  My hearing comes back to me first, more because, regardless of how much I blink, the darkness won’t be shaken. For some reason I can hear rattling. The thick smell of fresh cabbages fills my nose, but I can definitely tell that I’m not in a field. There’s a swerving bump that sends me sliding sideways and what sounds like clucking chickens protesting. Where am I?

  I lie still, listening and trying to figure out what’s happening. My nose still stings from the chloroform and my throat is burning. My heart shudders as I realise that I’m in a car, a pick-up truck.

  Where are they taking me? Wait till Bamkuru finds out. He’ll save me.

  I have to run! I try to scream but this time my screams are blocked by a gag in my mouth. My hands won’t move, and my legs too are unable to come out of the bind they are in. Tears begin to flood my eyes. I’m so afraid, I can almost touch the fear. I try to move my head but there is no space. The truck dives into something – a pothole, I think. The chickens cluck again, and my heart cries. I have to get out! We hit another bump. The road definitely isn’t tarred so I know we’ve left the city, but it solves nothing because then we could be anywhere! Some grainy-stringed material rubs my feet and my cheek. A sack? Oh good grief, I’m in a sack. My poor heart! The engine suddenly stops. I open my eyes wide, hoping that maybe I can see something through the little spaces in the sack, but the dark stands guard. I really am not ready to die yet!

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen.’ It’s a voice I don’t recognise, and it seems slightly far from where I am.

  ‘Licence and registration, please.’

  The police! I try to push out a cry. A dog barks and the chickens join in, covering my muffled screams. C’mon!

  ‘What do you have back there?’ I can hear footsteps approaching, and sniffing close to what I think is the window where I’m curled up in a sack. The police must definitely have a dog. But still, my screams lie under the clucking of the chickens, which now seem agitated by the barking dog.

  ‘We are just transporting some chickens and cabbages for a local food stall up there, officer.’ I know that voice. My heart stops beating, I hold my breath.

  ‘Open up. Let’s see what’s back there.’ Another voice. There must be two officers then. They could save me!

  ‘Is something wrong, officer?’

  Bamkuru? Bamkuru! I’m overtaken by immense confusion. He must be trying to save me!

  ‘Hey, mdara, open up!’ A third voice, this time female. There are three officers! Maybe I do have a chance.

  The door creaks as it swings open. I writhe for them to see movement as the chickens cluck louder. A light darts in the truck, bringing my eyes to life. Sacks packed with cabbages are everywhere around me, and positioned in front to adequately hide me are cages of chickens. I have no chance! My heart sinks as I realise I might never see Mkoma again.

  ‘OK, close it,’ one of the officers goes. Well, that definitely doesn’t sound like a chance! Tears gush out of me as the memory of Mkoma laughing plays in my mind. I have to do something! I whisper a little prayer for a miracle as I heave my folded body sideways, pushing it roughly against the wall of the truck.

  ‘What was that?’ the female officer says, opening the door again. This is the real reason God sent us women!

  My hip hurts, but I don’t care. I throw myself around again.

  ‘Hey! Hey! Stop him!’

  I’m not sure what’s happening outside, but I can now hear the sound of feet scurrying everywhere, with the barks of a dog trailing away after whoever’s feet those are. I push myself against the wall again, until I’m sure I’ve broken a bone or something. The torch moves and hovers over me.

  ‘There’s something moving back there!’

  My eyes open and I can feel my heart racing wildly. I try to blink it all away.

  It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream …

  The rain is humming softly. My throat is still burning and I am trembling. I breathe in deeply to calm my nerves. I haven’t relived that nightmare for a while now, yet it feels as though the thing has just happened. My pyjama shirt is stuck to my skin with sweat. I glance at the other bed. Noku is still lying there peacefully, though I’m not sure whether she’s asleep. I turn to the other side and I can almost hear the fear hiss out through me.

  What the hell?!

  Ambuya! She is there, hovering suspiciously over me in the dark, staring at me as though ready to shove me in a van with chickens.

  15

  I’m not safe here! I have to find a way out. I stand on the veranda of the main house, watching Noku as she struggles to fit her doll’s dress onto the little kitten in the yard. So early in the morning and she’s already brimming with energy. I
yawn, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. A proud rooster moves about the yard, head held high, completely unaware that it will be dinner soon. Ranga stands by the goat pen with his foot resting on the wooden bars as he watches the goats move out. He whips the cattle out of the kraal, steering them to the pasturelands. I stretch and walk down towards the edge of the veranda. The ground is still damp from last night. Shivers spread down my spine as I remember. Noku is now holding the kitten by its neck, forcing the tiny dress over the poor thing’s head. The kitten mews in supposed protest, trying to free itself from her and reminding me of my screams from last night. I must tell Mkoma. I must tell someone!

  The kitten finally stops playing nice, extends its claws and scratches her.

  ‘Ouch! Why you go scratch me now? Ah, ah! Come wear your dress, biko!’ She follows it as it darts out of sight.

  I hold back my laughter. I see why her teachers are convinced there’s some Nigerian blood in her. If I didn’t know better, I’d agree with them.

  Ambuya appears from the kitchen hut. I freeze.

  ‘Tumi, there you are! How did you sleep, mzukuru?’ She walks towards me and I can hear the violent trudging of my heart.

  Something’s up! She better stop trying to act brandnew with me. I’m wide awake, sis!

  ‘Why don’t you go and clear those branches that fell from the bowing tree last night? The rain was so powerful, wasn’t it?’

  I head to the tree, watching her out of the corner of my eye. To my far right is that river again. I so badly want to take a dip! But even when I was younger we were never allowed to swim there. Ambuya always told us that the current was so strong it had swallowed a lot of people.

  I glance back over at Ambuya, who is now humming in the kitchen hut, sweeping. Ranga has already left for the pastures with the animals. Noku has disappeared after the poor little kitten. It’s just Ambuya and me now. I need a way out. I might not have much time.

  I push the wheelbarrow by the wall of the main house towards the tree and kneel almost hidden under the drooping branches, piling up the ones that had fallen.

  ‘Be careful there, Tumi. You don’t want to disappear under those big branches.’

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  The sun is now confidently above us. I quickly pick up all the fallen branches from the bowing tree before I disappear, like Ambuya said. Then I sit on the veranda watching a millipede creep past with its hundred legs. They always come out after rain. I pick up a stick and poke it, making it immediately coil up. The first time I saw that I was only four. And between fear and fascination, I was motivated by my intense curiosity to find out why millipedes curl when they are touched, whether something happened to them in the past. Mkoma took out a couple of books for me from his school library and together we spent that whole day reading about millipedes, including that they curl up when they feel threatened and unsafe.

  At first I found that remarkable and rare, but looking at it now, I imagine everyone does that. Mkoma had definitely curled up after the night I was taken, and so had I. As soon as he had been told the news, he got on the next flight back and never went back overseas. I never thanked him for that. Perhaps I should.

  My phone suddenly vibrates and I look at it nervously.

  Yo son! It’s tick tock over here bruh. You still in this or what?

  Just a few more days until coach will choose the captain. Just slightly over two weeks and we’ll be trying out for the national swimming team. Musa’s right – we’re running out of time.

  The coach went out on such a limb to even get us a chance to try out for the national team. I’ve got to find a way to get back home so I can train. If I don’t get on the swim team, I’ll lose everything. The kids at school will start seeing the paleness of my skin again, and whenever that is all people can see, bad things happen.

  The phone in the main house starts to ring. I check to see if anyone is closer than I am before darting inside, hoping it’s Mkoma.

  ‘Hello?’

  I hold the phone in my hand, unable to answer back.

  I knew this. I knew!

  ‘Hello? Amai?’

  My eyes bulge out and my heart beats wildly. Ambuya comes in from outside, the bottom of her shirt partly covered in soot, and the smell of smoke which she has absorbed from cleaning the kitchen hut very evident. I hand her the phone, heart still hammering.

  She takes it and immediately turns to me, her sharp eye suggesting that I move away. She walks into her bedroom and closes the door. I reach out for one of the empty water glasses on the table, silently follow her and press the glass on the door so I can hear better. It’s a trick I learned from a book.

  Why is Bamkuru calling Ambuya? Haven’t I said it? Anyone who laughs with Bamkuru like that deserves to be in a prison cell just like he is.

  ‘They’re letting you out?’ I hear Ambuya say, her voice puzzled.

  Only three years, for taking a little boy?

  I breathe in.

  Only three years for shoving me in a sack and trying to sell me at the border to men who intended to make me part of their rituals because I look different?

  I grit my teeth.

  How is three years enough punishment for such hatred?

  I press harder into the glass, my ear painfully trying to hear more. Ambuya is speaking in hushed tones and hisses. I pick up something she says. My breath leaves me and I immediately step back from the door, my heart in my hands. Before I know it, my feet are sprinting through the neighbouring estate, my body brushing roughly against shrubs of tea. My lungs ache for air and my feet run for safety. As soon as I can see the little township laid out in front of me, my eyes search for the police office. I trot there, gasping for breath. When I burst in, the four people inside immediately look at me. I stand there, panting, sweat pasted all over my face.

  ‘Help me! My grandmother is trying to have me kidnapped.’

  16

  I watch the man’s lips move as he speaks, but my ears have forgotten how to function and I can barely hear anything.

  I glare at him with my mind playing over and over again the dream I’d had the other night, how Ambuya hovered in my room, the call. The call!

  Bamkuru’s voice was just as deep and threatening as it had been the whole time I had lived with him. As deep and threatening as it had been that night when I thought he would save me and he didn’t.

  The man asks a question.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  I open my mouth but I can’t speak. He looks at his other officers and sighs. The man is tall with a round belly. I wonder if they eat doughnuts in this police station like they show on TV. I wonder if that’s what’s packed in there, donuts. He looks at the other officers and shrugs. The officers are not convinced. Almost unbothered actually. One of them is sitting slumped in a chair, swaying sideways while scrolling on his phone.

  ‘Listen, your brother will be here soon, but for now we’re just going to call your Ambuya to tell her you’re safe.’

  They don’t believe I’m in danger! Why doesn’t anyone see it? I have to do something!

  I bite my bottom lip for a moment. Although I can hear my heart warning me not to, I have to do this.

  ‘She had a knife.’

  They all look at me, brows furrowed. I urge myself to go on.

  ‘In the night, she came into my room with –’ I swallow – ‘with a knife, and … and … when she saw that I saw it, the knife … when she saw, she …’

  ‘You didn’t say this in your initial statement,’ one of the officers says, his face slightly horrified.

  I swallow again and try to stop my heart from freaking out.

  ‘She had a knife, and when I saw her, she quickly went out of the room. She would have used it if not for … It’s true.’

  The slumping officer sits up and scans me, his eyebrows bunched.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  I nod silently.

  He looks at his other officers, then back at me.


  ‘All right … tell us again from the beginning. What happened? Why do you think she’s trying to have you kidnapped?’

  I look away. I have only spoken twice about the thing that happened. Once when the police found me in the back of the truck, and the second time when Mkoma asked. I’ve relived it in my head plenty of times, but that’s because it stays there. It doesn’t creep out as words and become real. By the time I have finished speaking, my stomach is cramping and I can hear my heart through the drumming in my ears, as if it’s just happened again.

  ‘Sit down, young man. You’re shaking.’

  I stare at my hands before glancing back at the officers, who are now speaking in hushed voices with concerned looks on their faces.

  ‘… can’t go back there till we know for sure. Doesn’t matter that we know her. He’s only a child.’

  They’re buying it – they now understand the gravity of the situation! It was wrong but it was worth it.

  I curl up on the cold bench in the room, trying to warm myself. The sun has retired and fewer people are roaming outside. I tell myself I won’t leave the station, not until Mkoma comes. My eyes close and I slowly drift into sleep.

  17

  ‘Tumirai! Are you all right?’ Mkoma’s voice barges in before he does. My heart strums. I sit up, shivering. He comes directly to the bench and his eyes search my face, those same furrow lines etched on his forehead. Guilt parades through my mind because I know that I’ve caused them.

  ‘What happened?’ He reaches out to touch me. I tremble and look down. His eyes drift to the other officers now standing close to us.

  ‘Mkoma, can we go home now?’