by Nancy Farmer
“I call on you false gods of Africa!” shouted Baba Joseph, shaking his staff. “I call on the njuzu and on the ngozis! I call on the vadzimu, the ancestors of this girl.”
Uh-oh, thought Nhamo.
The old man shouted challenges at the pagan spirit world. He ordered the spirits to line up like naughty children in front of an elder. Nhamo began to get seriously worried. She wanted to get rid of Long Teats, but no one had mentioned driving away the njuzu. And she couldn’t part with the vadzimu. Although in one sense Mother had returned as a Matabele doctor, deep down Nhamo knew the truth. Her real parent was with the ancestors. And someday Grandmother would join her…
“I don’t want to lose Ambuya,” Nhamo cried out suddenly.
“Hush, hush,” murmured the Vapostori. Nhamo shuddered. She didn’t want to oppose them, but she didn’t want to lose her family either. She stood up, desperately trying to think of a way to stop them. All at once she became aware that the other prophets didn’t seem as confident as Baba Joseph. They stopped now and then to observe their leader’s performance. When they began speaking the angel language again, they looked around as though they weren’t sure what might be lurking in the darkness.
“I call on mhondoro, the lion spirit!” bellowed Baba Joseph.
“Respected elder, surely we have done enough…,” one of the prophets said.
“Nothing will be enough until we drive all false gods from this mountain! Don’t lose courage, brother. Satan comes in many forms, but they are all worms compared to Jesus. Come forth, you maggot-infested hyena droppings!”
The coals had died down. By the cold, distant light of the stars, Nhamo could still make out the white robes of the prophets. Suddenly, they began to move erratically.
“Eh! I feel hands on my neck!” one of them cried.
“Don’t touch me!” yelled another.
“Stand firm! It’s only Satan!” Baba Joseph shouted, but the men stumbled around, fighting things they could not see. A scream and the sound of tumbling rocks told Nhamo someone had fallen over a cliff. The cries of the Vapostori filled the air. One by one they blundered into objects until all that could be heard were Baba Joseph’s exhortations and the groans of men nursing injuries.
Finally, the fight went out of Baba Joseph as well. He sat down heavily, and his staff clattered to the ground. Nhamo flicked on the flashlight. “Are you all right, Baba?” she whispered. She crept up to him. He was slumped over with his head cradled in his arms.
“Broken reeds,” he muttered.
“What did you say, Baba?”
“I fought with a rod of iron, but my brothers fought with broken reeds.” He spoke no more. Nhamo huddled next to him. It wasn’t cold exactly, but the early-morning air raised goose bumps on her arms. She heard moaning from half a dozen places. It occurred to her that the sounds might attract predators, and so she dragged unburned chunks of wood together and rekindled them with the still-hot coals.
She made Baba Joseph sit close to the fire for protection. Nhamo carefully hunted around the knoll for the injured Vapostori. She urged them to move next to the old man, but they stared at her blankly. She didn’t know whether they were injured or possessed. “Please. I don’t have enough fuel for more fires,” she begged. They rocked back and forth, with their eyes staring.
“If I can’t bring them to the fire, I’ll take the fire to them,” Nhamo decided. She set the longest branch she could find ablaze. But first she put on her sandals. “I don’t think this is holy ground anymore,” she said. “The Vapostori certainly don’t act like it.”
Methodically, she went from person to person, waving the burning branch with her good hand and shouting insults at any hyenas who might be lurking. At the bottom of a boulder she found the first victim. He seemed to be really hurt but, paradoxically, he was the only one willing to talk. “Water…,” he murmured. “Water…”
The only water around was in the bottles Baba Joseph had brought. Nhamo knew that it was for healing purposes. The man by the boulder was certainly in need of healing, so she removed the containers from Baba Joseph’s pack and gave the injured prophet as much as he could swallow.
By now the first faint streaks of dawn were appearing in the east. Early morning was a favorite time for animals to hunt, and she didn’t dare let her guard down. What will I do if I really meet hyenas? she thought. Her wrist ached badly, and the torch had burned down almost to her fingers. The beasts weren’t going to be frightened of a small female person with a flashlight.
“Wake up, meisie-kind,” came a hearty voice. Dr. van Heerden came over the edge of the knoll with a rifle slung over his shoulder. He had a crowd of workmen with him. They fanned out at once to attend to the injured Vapostori. “Looks like you had a blerry square dance up here. You certainly live up to your name, Disaster. You’ve disabled half the farm crew.”
Nhamo turned hot with shame.
“Baba Joseph put them up to it,” Mother said sharply. She had walked more slowly than the others and was just coming up the mountain.
“Everjoice wouldn’t leave me alone until I came looking for you. Bang! Bang! On the door all night,” said Dr. van Heerden.
“He had the binoculars trained on Karoyi Mountain from the minute you left.”
“Not Karoyi Mountain,” Baba Joseph murmured, raising his head.
“You rest, oupa,”* the Afrikaner said in a gentle voice.
“No witches here anymore. We threw them over a cliff.”
“I’m sure you did, oupa, and a few Vapostori, too, by the look of it.”
Daylight and the arrival of help brought most of the prophets back to their senses. Only the man who had fallen off the boulder needed to be carried back to Sister Gladys’s hospital, and to be on the safe side a litter was used for Baba Joseph as well.
* * *
*oupa: Grandfather.
38
What happened up there, Mai?” asked Nhamo as she drank sweet milky tea at the hospital. Sister Gladys and Dr. van Heerden were splinting the injured Vapostori’s leg.
“I’ll take this one to Harare. He needs an X ray,” the Afrikaner told the nurse.
Dr. Masuku grimaced at the word mai, but didn’t correct Nhamo. “What do you think happened?”
“Baba Joseph drove Long Teats away. I saw it. First she was a giant hyena and then, when he broke the panga, she turned into a cane rat, and then she became a blackjack weed. I threw it into the fire.”
“Good for you,” said Mother.
“But I don’t understand how the spirits could throw the Vapostori off the mountain,” Nhamo went on. “I thought Jesus was too strong for them.”
“Jesus is too strong for them,” Baba Joseph called from his bed.
“Go back to sleep,” Sister Gladys said. “Do you know, not one of these fools will take an aspirin.”
“Prayer is our medicine,” insisted Baba Joseph.
“I think”—Mother lowered her voice—“that most of the Vapostori weren’t born Christians. They were raised to believe in vadzimu and the mhondoro. It’s very hard to turn your back on something you learned as a child.”
Nhamo nodded. She wouldn’t think of arguing with anything Grandmother had taught her.
“It’s all right to exorcise witches. Everyone thinks they’re bad. It’s different when you try to get rid of your ancestors. I think the Vapostori threw themselves off the mountain without quite realizing it. They couldn’t reconcile their childhood beliefs with Christianity.”
Nhamo wasn’t sure she understood this. “Do you believe in the spirit world, Mai?”
Mother sighed. “I’m a scientist. I’ve been taught not to believe anything that can’t be proved, and yet…” She gazed at Baba Joseph, who had snuggled into the soft bed with a look of bliss. “He often infuriates me, but he’s old. I’ve been taught to revere and obey such people. It’s just…built in.”
“Like motherhood,” Dr. van Heerden said cheerfully. “I’m finished, you layabout.” He put
a final strip of tape on the injured man’s splint. “If you don’t take Sister Gladys’s nice medicine, every bump of the Land Rover is going to make your eyes cross with pain.”
“Prayer is our medicine,” the Vapostori said mournfully.
“Speaking of ancestors, I think you should get in contact with your family, Nhamo,” said Mother. “You have relatives in Mozambique and at Mtoroshanga.”
Nhamo clutched Mother’s hand. She had been forced to flee so often, the thought of going anywhere else was simply terrifying.
“I won’t rush you,” Mother said. “We ought to send a message to your Grandmother, though. I’m sure she wants to know you’re safe.”
“They might make me go back. To marry Zororo.”
“There’s no chance of that!” Mother’s eyes flashed. “The very idea! Trying to force a child into marriage to save their own skins. Ngozi sacrifices are illegal in Zimbabwe.”
“I’m…not a child.”
“Oh, Nhamo! Having a few periods doesn’t make you an adult. You have so much to learn—and you’re so clever.”
Nhamo looked down, smiling with pleasure.
“If she’s so clever, tell me how she buggered up half the farm crew,” said Dr. van Heerden as he helped the Vapostori hop out to the Land Rover.
Nhamo was happier than she could ever remember. She was accepted. She was safe. And everyone went out of his or her way to make her feel wanted. The cook made her special milk tarts from a recipe provided by Dr. van Heerden. Sister Gladys took time from her busy schedule to give her lessons in arithmetic. Mother let her look through the microscope at wiggling creatures that lived inside the tsetse flies and made them deadly.
Baba Joseph took a long time to recover from his night-long ordeal on Karoyi Mountain (which he renamed Angel Mountain). One of his sons performed his duties. Nhamo still helped, but she spent several hours a day with the old man, learning to read.
Once she realized the funny marks stood for sounds, she progressed rapidly. She took to reading with a fervor so extreme, Baba Joseph had to take the books from her hands by force. “Your eyes are not tractors. They are not meant to pull heavy loads,” he said sternly. Still, Nhamo couldn’t help sounding out every bit of writing she encountered. Some were in languages she didn’t know, like English. It didn’t matter.
Writing wasn’t nearly as easy. Her fingers were callused from years of grueling work. The pencil wouldn’t obey her, and she became so angry she wanted to snap it in two—except that it belonged to Baba Joseph. “Don’t worry. I’ll teach you to type,” whispered Mother when she found Nhamo in tears over the writing.
But all in all, her life was blissfully free of care. She waited anxiously to hear from Grandmother. “It’s hard to get a message to a place that doesn’t even have a name,” Mother explained. “I sent letters by several people—anyone who might be traveling in that area. They are to ask for Mai Chipo, Mother of Chipo, of the Moyo clan, whose childhood name was Nyamasatsi.”
Weeks passed; months passed. Nhamo’s hair grew back, softer than before, and Sister Gladys rubbed coconut oil into her scalp. The smell made Nhamo hungry. The nurse taught her to oil her skin as well, and to buff her fingernails with a piece of leather. She provided her with underpants, something Nhamo found annoying, but Sister Gladys insisted that civilized women wore them. She even came up with a strange strip of cloth with two bags at the front to contain Nhamo’s growing breasts.
That was too much! The bags were uncomfortable. Besides, no one in the village had ever needed such a thing. Nhamo only wore it under the new dress Mother had given her for special occasions. The rest of the time she trotted around bra-less in her dress-cloth.
After work, she liked to sit in the watchtower that overlooked the lucerne fields. During the war, Mother said, it had been a guard post to protect Efifi from attack. Now it was slowly falling apart, but Nhamo could still lounge under the thatched roof and enjoy an afternoon breeze. On this particular day, she had a bottle of red soda from Dr. van Heerden’s fridge. She had a peanut butter sandwich and a heap of guavas. She gazed contentedly at the distant shadow of Karoyi—now Angel—Mountain.
The sun dipped below the trees. A haze began to gather at the rim of the horizon. It spread out in a gray line, and a long, thin finger of it flowed toward the tower. Nhamo watched in amazement. It came from the east, from beyond the border of Mozambique, where her nameless village lay on the banks of an uncharted stream. It surrounded her with a swirl of gray ashes.
Cousin Tsodzo, Cousin Farai. Granddaughter Nhamo. Please do not be frightened. Your relative has died here. We know you would come if you could, the ashes whispered. And another voice sighed, If I go to my ancestors before we meet again, my spirit will come to you in a dream. I promise it.
Nhamo screamed and fell to her knees. The soda bottle smashed to the ground below. She stared into the east for a long, long time. The sky darkened. The first stars came out, and fireflies began to appear over the damp fields of lucerne.
She heard Sister Gladys calling her to dinner. The nurse came to the bottom of the tower and waited while Nhamo climbed down. “What’s wrong?” said the woman, touching the girl’s tear-streaked face.
“Ambuya” was all she was able to reply.
In the morning, Mother called her to her office. “I think it’s time we visited your relatives at Mtoroshanga,” she said.
39
Dr. van Heerden drove. Then he and Mother went off for a cool drink while Sister Gladys alone accompanied Nhamo. Since the Jongwe family was suspicious of white people, they probably wouldn’t welcome a Matabele woman either. Nhamo wore her special dress with the bra underneath. It was hot and uncomfortable. She wore freshly cleaned sandals. Sister Gladys had styled her hair and given her clear polish for her fingernails.
She said Nhamo was beautiful, but Nhamo was afraid to look into the mirror.
Mtoroshanga was covered with dust from mining operations. Some of the houses were attractive; most were merely hovels. Sister Gladys said that many Jongwes lived in the part of town they were passing through. They all worked for the Big Chief Chrome Company, whose manager was Industry Jongwe, Nhamo’s uncle.
Nhamo grew increasingly nervous as they walked. The Jongwes might not like her at all. They might think she was an ignorant Wild Child of dubious parentage. She realized that her mother and father might not have been married at all.
They came at last to a magnificent house with a large lawn and a drive that curved up to the front door. Sister Gladys opened the front gate and went in. Nhamo looked around in wonder. Flowering trees cast shade on emerald grass. They weren’t even fruit trees. How could anyone afford to have trees that didn’t produce food? And where did they get so much water when the rest of the town was dry?
The windows were covered with iron grilles and the roof was of red tile, like a Portuguese house. The front steps were the same color. They gleamed from a recent application of wax.
“Your father’s younger brother Industry lives here,” Sister Gladys said.
Nhamo was frozen with fear as the nurse rang the doorbell (a doorbell!). Soon a servant (a servant!) in a white apron answered it. She invited them to sit in the parlor while she called her mistress.
“They won’t like me,” whispered Nhamo as she gripped Sister Gladys’s hand.
“They have to. You’re family,” the woman said placidly.
The servant brought them tea, which Nhamo was too distraught to drink. Then a tall, elegant lady in a flowered dress entered and introduced herself as Mrs. Edina Jongwe. Several children peeped out of a back room until the servant shooed them away.
“Dr. van Heerden phoned you about Nhamo,” began Sister Gladys.
“Oh, yes. The whiteman,” said Mrs. Jongwe distantly. “This is the alleged relative.”
“Proud Jongwe’s daughter,” the nurse said.
“She’s pretty,” remarked Mrs. Jongwe. Her cold manner took the pleasure out of the compliment. “How old are y
ou, child?”
“I—I don’t know,” stammered Nhamo.
“When she came to us, she didn’t look over eleven, but actually I think she was around fourteen.”
“Totally uneducated, I suppose.”
“She grew up in a remote village,” said Sister Gladys with a trace of irritation. “Since she’s been at Efifi, she’s learned rapidly. She can read like an adult, and Dr. Masuku is going to teach her typing. She’s wonderful at arithmetic. I think she’s a very intelligent child.”
“How interesting. Well, my husband will be home around five. Perhaps you can come back then and discuss things.” Mrs. Jongwe stood up. Sister Gladys pulled Nhamo to her feet.
They were shown to the door. Very soon Nhamo and the nurse found themselves at the foot of the gleaming red steps.
“I told you they wouldn’t like me,” said Nhamo.
“That witch,” hissed Sister Gladys under her breath. “Did you see her fingernails?”
“They were very long,” Nhamo said.
“That’s to show everyone she doesn’t have to work with her hands. I’d like to stick them into a nice hot tub of laundry.”
Sister Gladys fumed until they found Mother and Dr. van Heerden at a grocery store. “Come back at five! I’m surprised she didn’t tell us to use the servants’ entrance!”
“It’ll be too late to drive back to Efifi afterward, but we can stay at a hotel,” Dr. van Heerden said, trying to calm the nurse down.
“If only we could find Proud. We could forget about the others,” said Mother.
“Don’t worry, Wild Child,” boomed the doctor. “I’ll corner your daddy. I’ll tell Bliksem to track him.”
