A Girl Named Disaster

by Nancy Farmer

  The boat was unharmed. It had tipped sideways, but since it was empty, nothing was lost. “So that part of the dream wasn’t true,” she said. “Maybe Long Teats wasn’t real either.” But Nhamo knew that dreams always had some significance. The ancestors were telling her something was wrong, or perhaps they merely wanted her to stop putting off her trip to Zimbabwe.

  Nhamo climbed down and checked the ropes holding the boat. The waves were higher than she liked, but safe enough. Holding on to a fig root, she got into the water and refreshed herself with a quick swim.

  19

  I can’t stay here anymore,” she said as she feasted on bananas and roasted yams by the fire.

  I agree, said Mother, who was sitting under a tree.

  “I’m afraid, though. What if the wind comes up while I’m out on the water?”

  You’ve got the best boat in the country, boasted Crocodile Guts from his perch on the rocks. It’s made out of mukwa wood. Even njuzu can’t sink it.

  “The njuzu like you. They don’t think much of me,” pointed out Nhamo. Still, she had to admit that the snake-girls were friendlier than Long Teats.

  After breakfast, Nhamo began selecting things to take with her. It would take careful planning. She didn’t know how far she had to go, but she didn’t dare load the boat too heavily. By afternoon the wind rose, and she realized it would be impossible to sleep in the lake. The thought of another night on the island was depressing, even if Long Teats was only a bad dream. “I’ll put a barrier of mutarara branches around my bed,” she decided.

  Nhamo crossed the island, skirting the clearing where the Portuguese house stood. She didn’t like to go that way, but it was by far the quickest path to the sapling grove. She glanced nervously at the house and almost fainted. The door was standing wide open!

  Nhamo wanted to scream. If she spent the night within reach of that open door, she would be nothing but a pile of bones and gristle by morning. “Oh, what will I do?” she moaned.

  Close the door, whispered Mother.

  The suggestion made sense—except when Nhamo thought about actually doing it.

  The afternoon sun shone directly into the dark opening, but she couldn’t make out anything from that distance. “I’ll stay on the boat no matter how bad the waves are. If anything tries to get me, I’ll untie the rope,” she said.

  I would never sail in bad weather on purpose, little Disaster, warned Crocodile Guts.

  Nhamo shifted from foot to foot, staring miserably at the door. Things weren’t going to get any easier when the sun went down.

  “Why don’t I get the mutarara branches first?” she suggested.

  Close the door now, the voices of the njuzu girls hissed.

  Nhamo walked slowly to the Portuguese house with Uncle Kufa’s knife held out in front of her. She didn’t know if knives could hurt Long Teats, but it was worth a try.

  Her eyes searched the dark interior. She noticed a pile of twigs and dirt. She leaned inside to grasp the edge of the door.

  What she had taken for twigs were bones.

  They lay in an orderly pattern, ribs here, legs there, showing through the remains of black pants and a black shirt. The skull sat where it should, and all was arranged on a metal frame. It was a Portuguese bed like the one Joao and Rosa had owned. Nhamo couldn’t move. She stood with one hand reaching for the door and the other holding Uncle Kufa’s knife.

  The wind began to pick up again, causing the cloth shreds to flutter.

  What struck Nhamo, when her shock began to ebb, was the peacefulness of the scene. A small table in the shadows bore a plate and a glass, thickly covered with dust. The remains of a rug were blown against a wall. A wooden chest sat under a boarded-up window. It didn’t look like a witch’s lair. She had poured maheu to the ancestors only a few feet from here, and they had drawn near to watch. They surely wouldn’t have been comfortable in the presence of wickedness.

  Nhamo lowered the knife. She took a few deep, almost sobbing breaths. Nothing awful had happened so far, but you never knew. Dead bodies were not to be approached lightly.

  She squatted in the doorway and tried to sort out her thoughts.

  This was a Portuguese body. It was laid out carefully, not sprawled like a murder victim. She didn’t know what Portuguese did with their dead, but they might seal them in houses, as her people occasionally did. Then the house, or hut, was left to decay. The wind had blown the door open, though, and the man—Nhamo guessed it was a man by the clothes—was upset.

  She could understand that.

  A witch might get interested in an unguarded body. The man’s spirit was worried, and he had sent her the dream to tell her about his fears. Nhamo suddenly understood what she had to do. “Please excuse me, Va-Portuguese,” she said, inching into the room. “I’m only trying to protect your grave.” Other rooms lay beyond the one where she stood, but Nhamo didn’t have the courage to explore them. She went to the chest under the window and looked inside.

  She found more black clothes and a necklace of beads with a cross attached. Ugh! It was another portrait of Jesus-ngozi. She dropped it at once. She found books with no pictures, a tobacco pipe, bottles with beads inside. Nothing she could use.

  Then she saw a glint of metal in the heap of rug fragments. It was even better than she had hoped for: It was a big, beautiful, strong panga, the perfect tool for cutting mutarara branches.

  She hurried to the sapling grove before the sun got any lower. She sharpened the knife on a convenient stone and began hacking at the gardenias, scratching herself on the thorns. She worked as though possessed, and maybe she was possessed. Nhamo had never been taken over by a spirit, so she didn’t know what it felt like.

  She carried branches to the house and went back for more. She wanted enough to protect herself as well. She also found, and uprooted, a small muzeze sapling covered with bright yellow flowers.

  She laid gardenias across the bones and, because she thought it might scare off Long Teats, draped Jesus-ngozi on top. She closed the door tightly, placing more branches in front of it. Last of all, she used the muzeze roots to sprinkle water all around the outer walls. Nhamo had seen Ambuya do this around Aunt Chipo’s hut after Vatete’s body had been removed. It insured that wandering spirits stayed where they belonged.

  Nhamo went back to her cooking area and made a barrier around the place where she intended to sleep. This, too, she sprinkled with water from the muzeze roots. By now the sun had set and the wind was again tossing the trees.

  Nhamo built up the fire. She ate roasted yams and mealies. She lay down in the mutarara ring with a nice, warm feeling that everything had been done properly. “Isn’t it lucky I watched Grandmother so closely?” she congratulated herself. “I could have spent every night on the island if I’d remembered about witch repellent sooner.” And then she realized she hadn’t returned the panga to the house.

  It was lying under the lemon tree, where Long Teats could find it.

  “Sometimes I think I was given the right name,” Nhamo sighed. “Although Stupid would have done as well as Disaster.”

  Don’t worry, Mother said kindly. The mutarara will confuse Long Teats so much, she’ll walk right over a cliff, and the wind will blow her away.

  “I hope so,” murmured Nhamo. The bed was hard. If she stretched her toes out, they met the gardenia thorns. In spite of everything, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep and woke long after the sun had lifted from the edge of the lake.

  The wind blew steadily for one more day. Nhamo waited two days longer to be sure the weather had calmed down. She gazed intently across the water to find signs of land. When the wind blew, she thought she saw a shadow to the east, but calm air brought a heat haze. Perhaps there was another island, perhaps not. At any rate, it wasn’t in the right direction.

  She had no more bad dreams, but the presence of the grave had spoiled the island for her. The panga lay where she had dropped it. It was more than two hands long, with a curved blade. Even Un
cle Kufa hadn’t possessed anything that fine, and it seemed a shame to leave it behind. It was, however, the property of the Portuguese spirit.

  The correct thing, of course, would be to open the gravehouse and throw it inside, but Nhamo didn’t want to touch the door. The exorcism ceremony had worked so far. Why stir things up? She whetted the knife on a stone and polished it with damp leaves. Ah! It was a beautiful thing! She laid it next to the cook-fire.

  All the supplies were ready to load early in the morning. Nhamo fixed dinner and retired to her nest. “I’m leaving the panga where you can get it,” she informed the Portuguese spirit. “Of course, it would make an awfully nice gift—if you didn’t mind—in return for protecting your grave from Long Teats. Not that I expect payment. You’ve already let me stay on your island. Don’t think I’m not grateful. But if you don’t need the knife, I could certainly use it.”

  The wind was perfectly still this last night. She could hear the water lapping in the distance. Long Teats had blown away, no doubt searching for another grave, and the njuzu were coiled up in their houses at the bottom of the lake.

  Early next morning Nhamo sat up and looked around. A chill, blue-gray light filtered down from the sky. Trees were silhouetted beyond the rocks, and she could see the cleft where she had hidden from the witch. Stores of cooked and raw food lay in the makeshift baskets Nhamo had been able to produce. The island didn’t provide good weaving material.

  Shining dully, the panga lay on the other side of the clearing. The middle of the blade had vanished. Nhamo rubbed her eyes. No, the blade was unbroken. It was covered with something of the same color and texture as the ground.

  As she watched, she noticed a mouse pilfering a basket of peanuts. It sat up with a nut between its paws, nibbling busily. Now and then it paused to check its surroundings. The light strengthened. Nhamo could see its whiskers and shiny black eyes.

  Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, the thing on the panga struck. It snapped up the mouse, which uttered a forlorn squeak before being hurried off to the crevice in the rocks.

  It was a puff adder. Its yellow-and-brown-patterned body had faded easily into the rocks. Nhamo was startled, but also impressed. Puff adders came from the spirit world. Although dangerous, they were even-tempered and slow to anger, faithful to their chosen homes, and bringers of good harvests.

  The message was perfectly clear. Nhamo had drawn the mouse with her store of peanuts. The spirit that possessed the snake had accepted the present and in return had given her the panga.

  “Thank you,” she cried, clapping her hands in gratitude. The knife could mean the difference between life and death.

  Nhamo made a final breakfast and scattered some of her precious mealie meal as a sacrifice to whatever ancestors might be present. “You have some, too,” she told the Portuguese spirit as she gave him an extra helping.

  Then she quickly bailed out the boat, loaded it, and cast off, paddling away from the rising sun. Occasionally, she looked back—somewhat regretfully. The island had given her a much-needed rest. She could have lived there forever. She could have built her own hut to shelter from the rain and devised fishing lines to satisfy her need for meat. But the one thing the island could never provide was company. Spirits were thin fare, compared to people. They didn’t breath comfortingly in the middle of the night, and they couldn’t hold her in their arms—not even Mother.

  The island slowly dwindled until it disappeared in a glimmer of light. Now she was truly alone on the water, without a trace of land and with no idea of how far away it might lie.

  But at least, Nhamo reminded herself, she was paddling toward Zimbabwe.

  20

  All day Nhamo toiled, with pauses to rest and eat. When she stopped, the boat very gently drifted east. She wore a basket on her head when the sun bothered her. On and on she went, singing to pass the time, or talking to Mother, Crocodile Guts, and the njuzu. Eventually, she got so tired she couldn’t do anything except doggedly move the paddle, first on one side, then the other.

  She had hoped to find land before sundown, but she didn’t. It was difficult to see when she was crammed down next to the water with all her stores. “I wish I could climb a rock,” she grumbled. The light reflected off the lake and hurt her eyes. Sometimes the horizon disappeared in a confusing glimmer that seemed to be neither earth nor sky. Nhamo found this extremely disturbing. “I think it’s the opening to the njuzu country,” she told Mother. “I don’t care what Crocodile Guts says; I intend to stay away from it.” Fortunately, no matter how vigorously she paddled, the opening never got any closer.

  When it was too dark to be sure of her direction, she brought the oar inside and wriggled down between the baskets of food. She ate peanuts, roasted yams, and tomatoes. The boat gently floated back the way she had come.

  Before dawn, Nhamo began again. At midmorning, she found a line of trees protruding from the water. They must have grown on top of a hill before the river was dammed. She stayed there the rest of the day, resting and treating herself to baths. She could see a definite shadow now to the north.

  It was far away, hardly a smudge on the horizon, but clearly something other than water. “That must be the north shore of the lake,” Nhamo decided. “I ought to keep going west, though.” She debated the problem for the rest of the day. “It can’t make any difference whether I follow the north or south shore. I’ll still be heading for Zimbabwe.”

  You’d be safer close to land, Mother agreed.

  You forgot to bail out the boat again, complained Crocodile Guts. Next time I’ll lend it to someone else.

  Nhamo hurried to placate the irritated fisherman.

  The smudge had disappeared in haze by morning, but she soon found it again. Nhamo pressed on, watching the smudge grow into a definite strip of land. By nightfall it was still too far to reach. “Stupid water!” she shouted at the lake. “Why can’t you flow in that direction for a change?” Her legs ached with the need to walk on solid ground. Her body was hot and sticky, and she was beginning to feel hysterical.

  Nhamo spent half of the next day recapturing the distance she had lost. When she still hadn’t reached the land by nightfall—it stretched away from a headland and was covered with tall trees—Nhamo burst into noisy sobs. “Nobody wants me to reach Zimbabwe. Nobody cares what happens to me!” Between fits of weeping, she ate cold cooked yams, which were beginning to taste moldy, and peanuts. Some of the peanuts had worms. She chewed them up before she realized it.

  “Horrible!” she screamed, spitting out the vile mix. “Oh, I wish I was dead!” She threw herself down, beating the hull of the boat with her fists and howling insults at the lake. Eventually, she fell asleep in the remains of a tomato basket, with the juice soaking into her dress-cloth. Sometime during the night, she awoke with a strange feeling of peace.

  “I don’t really think your lake is nasty,” she assured the njuzu. She didn’t want to anger them when they had been keeping the water calm.

  The land was farther away at sunrise, but it looked reachable. Nhamo had something far more momentous to deal with, though. Her legs were streaked with blood. During the night she had become a woman.

  “I’m a mhandara, just like Masvita,” she told Mother. She smiled at the shining water and tantalizing strip of land. She was someone important now, a future ancestor. She had proven her willingness to bear children. She wouldn’t have a party, but that didn’t take away from the importance of what had just happened. When a girl became a mhandara in the village, they said she had crossed the river into womanhood.

  “I’m the only girl who ever crossed a whole lake,” Nhamo boasted. She tore the red marriage cloth into three wide strips and folded them around grass from her bedding to make pads. She held them in place with twine tied around her waist. Later she would hunt for wild cotton to use instead of grass. She began paddling with new spirit. On the way she made up a song:

  “I am Nhamo, a tree full of fruit,

  Not a weed.
/>
  Pay attention, little girls!

  I am now a woman

  And allowed to scold you.

  My pots will be stronger, my baskets finer.

  The roofs of my houses will not fall in.

  I am Nhamo, a mighty woman

  For whom crossing a measly river was not enough!”

  By midday she neared the land. It should have stretched east and west, but it extended north instead. The view south was blocked by a headland. This was somewhat puzzling. “I’m probably at the mouth of a river,” Nhamo decided. She tied up to a convenient tree on a small island offshore.

  Maiwee! It felt good to stretch her legs. She squatted by the water to douse herself with the calabash and to wash out her dress-cloth. Then she touched her toes and wriggled her shoulders to take the stiffness out of her body. She spent the afternoon lounging in the shade of a tree. Before dark, Nhamo hunted for a sleeping site. The lakeward edge of the island was steep enough to discourage hippos, but the landward side sloped gently into the water. As Nhamo climbed over a rock, she saw something rise from the ground and hurl itself into the lake. It was a crocodile!

  She hastily retraced her steps. She had felt safe in the deep water. Now things were back to normal. She had been extremely lucky the crocodile hadn’t been watching her bathe.

  Feeling irritated, she resigned herself to another uncomfortable night on the boat. The yams were definitely moldy now, and she was sick of peanuts. But she had come to land safely. And become a woman.

  “All in all, it hasn’t been a bad day,” Nhamo told Mother.

  21

  Nhamo rounded the headland and saw, to her relief, that the shore did extend west. She paddled vigorously, looking for signs of people in the early-morning light. She sniffed the air for cook-fires. A troop of baboons trotted along the bank to observe her, and the males uttered threatening cries. Springbok, duiker, and waterbuck hid in the shadows of musasas. Shoko, vervet monkeys, leaped from tree to tree.