The Flower Plantation

by Nora Anne Brown

  “Just take a little of what you fancy, Arthur,” said Father. “You can always come back for more.” I wanted to start with pudding, but, knowing better, I followed Father's example and began with some bread, cheese, meat and salad.

  We sat down with our plates stacked high and looked out at the pool. The water was lit from below, and lights shone through the surrounding plants. It looked beautiful, even to a boy who had just lost his butterfly and didn't like to swim. We watched the ladies in their swimsuits lying on the loungers, talking to each other and giggling coyly at passing men.

  I was about to go back for more food when a shout turned my attention to the bar. It was the witch again! Mother rolled her eyes and sighed. Father cleared his throat and concentrated on his food.

  The witch was sitting by the corner of the bar, clutching a drink. Also at the bar was the lady with the pineapple hair, wearing only a bikini top and sarong and surrounded by men. Every time the witch shouted, the group of men grew smaller.

  “Arthur, go and get something else to eat,” said Mother.

  At the buffet table I dolloped several spoonfuls of mashed potato onto my plate. Then a waiter behind hot urns lifted each in turn, so that I could decide which meat dish to have. I pointed to the lamb stew.

  Returning to my seat I saw Mr Umuhoza and Sebazungu arguing by the pool. I couldn't imagine why Sebazungu would be at the hotel on his time off – it was a place only Europeans and Americans could afford to go to – or why he and the hotel manager should be fighting.

  Tucking into my stew I watched Mr Umuhoza leave Sebazungu and approach the witch. He stood in such a way that he blocked her from the lady with the pineapple hair and the one remaining man. Whatever Mr Umuhoza said, it didn't appear to calm her down. The witch threw up her hands and slurred her words. After a while he gave up and came to ask Father for help.

  “I'm sorry to ask,” he said, and Mother put down her cutlery and gave Father a severe look.

  “Why don't you phone Dr Sadler?” said Father to Mr Umuhoza. This seemed to please Mother a little.

  “Certainly, sir,” he said, and left the bar.

  At that point a troupe of traditional dancers came in. They wore beads across their chests, wrap skirts, long grass wigs, held spears and had bells on their ankles. They began to dance in the centre of the room, in between our table and the bar. Through the thrusting heads and hair, brandished spears and arms held wide I saw Sebazungu go up to the witch. The drumming started, bells jangled, ladies ululated and spears pounded – all of which prevented us from hearing their conversation. Sebazungu stood, tall and strong, inches from the witch. His face was so close to hers it almost touched. He spoke quietly, his eyes fixed: he barely blinked. The witch, growing more and more irritated, tried to get out of his way. She moved from side to side and back in her stool, but he mirrored her moves. In the end she pushed him, jumped up and, just as the dancers and drummers paused for breath, shouted: “All poachers and pimps should be hung!”

  Mother looked aghast. Father closed his eyes. I didn't know what a pimp was, but I knew about poachers and that the witch was one. I couldn't understand why she'd want to be hung. Before I could think of an answer, Dr Sadler arrived and led the witch away. They moved to the wicker seats. Sebazungu left the lounge.

  After the fuss had died down, Mother handed me my book and gave me permission to have pudding. At the buffet I took the biggest bowl I could find and filled it up to the brim with every type of dessert. Then I went to the pool and sat down under the palm tree, where nobody could see me.

  There I gorged myself until I was so full my sadness subsided and I couldn't manage another drop. I rubbed my belly and watched the ladies on the loungers, their breasts spilling out of their swimming costumes, then Sebazungu suddenly appeared with Beni. I was so thrilled to see her that I jumped up and started towards her. But as I got closer I saw that Beni didn't look the way she usually did. She looked thin; her eyes were small and her mouth tight. And she had make-up on.

  Sebazungu had his hand on Beni's shoulder, but it looked as though he was steering her, not guiding her. He took her over to the lady with the pineapple hair, who had joined the other ladies on the loungers. She looked Beni up and down and turned her around, then held Beni's chin and moved her head from side to side, examining her face.

  The woman nodded at Sebazungu, who held Beni close, kissed her forehead and touched her bum. She flinched. He then brushed his lips against her nose and lips and ran his hand over her small breasts, then rubbed her farther down, under the hem of her short skirt. Beni was stiff and tense, as if she wanted to resist but couldn't. Sebazungu stepped away and called to someone behind him. Out from the shadows of the trees came Sammy, who pulled Beni roughly away by the hand.

  I was up and after them in an instant, through the bar and down the corridor towards the entrance foyer. I was aware of my grunting – anger and words trying to break out of me – but I didn't care. My gut told me I had to get Beni away from him.

  “Arthur, where are you going?” said Mother, stopping me in my tracks as Sammy pulled Beni up the stairs to the bedrooms. I pointed in their direction.

  “No, no,” said Mother, ignoring my grunting and gesticulating. “We're going home. Come on, your father's waiting.” She took me by the hand and led me away.

  As I got into the car I was impelled, like never before, by a desire to talk, to tell my parents that Sammy had taken Beni upstairs, that we had to go after them. I grunted the words I fought to say, almost choking myself in the process. I even banged on the car window, but Mother and Father ignored me, just as they ignored each other.

  By the time we arrived home I was so cross with my parents I couldn't bear to be under the same roof as them. Without thinking I picked up my torch, a bottle of soda, pulled on my jacket and went out back leaving Romeo behind. I hurried through the yard and took to the fields, where I stomped through Mother's flowers, deliberately damaging them, until I reached the clearing and the tunnel to the forest.

  I didn't pause at the entrance – the soldiers had stopped fighting, the elephants didn't exist, the witch was at the hotel – the forest was hazard-free. I pushed on, farther from Mother and Father, through the trees and the gate, towards the top of Mount Visoke.

  The fact that it was pitch-dark didn't bother me, nor did the fact that I was breaking the promise I'd made to Father not to go up the mountain, since he'd broken his part of the promise.

  I scrambled up the steep ascent, which led to the witch's camp. When I arrived, I found it no longer looked the way it had before. The cabins were dilapidated; there were no Christmas lights and no socks or boots criss-crossing it. The bath was filled with empty bullet cases, the grass burnt out, and discarded bits of soldiers’ kit were littered about the place.

  Not wanting to hang around, I kept going up the path. My torch continually lit a circle of fern, moss and bamboo six feet in front of me. I felt nettles sting my ankles and vines tangle round my shoes, but I tore my feet away and pushed harder.

  I was growing short of breath when I slipped on something wet. I managed to catch myself from falling and swung my torch to the ground. There, in the pool of light, was what looked like dung – not the elephant dung I might once have imagined it to be, but what I could only assume was gorilla spoor. Gorillas were the only mammals that could survive that far up the mountain and produce such a large amount of excrement. And the spoor was wet, which meant it was fresh. I knew the gorillas must be close.

  Stopping for a drink I noticed hoops of wire – spring traps – all around my feet, which were covered by only a light layer of dirt. I used my bottle to test one. It was snatched away instantly and hung, swirling above my head, from the noose attached to a bamboo pole. Within seconds footsteps approached, a poacher let out a cry, a dog howled, and the din of the clappers on its collar rang out. I hid behind some bamboo and held my breath.

  Somehow it didn't surprise me when Sebazungu appeared and checked the snare. On
seeing the bottle dangling above him he swore and looked over his shoulders. As he untangled the bottle, the tip of his glove caught in the wire and tore. He tossed both gloves into a hollowed-out hagenia stump and left.

  When I was sure he was gone, I flashed my torch in the stump. Inside it were bits of wire and string, a knife, two bottles of beer and a tobacco pipe. Maybe it was Sebazungu – and not the witch – who had snared Monty a few years ago, I thought, and a chill crept up my spine. Perhaps the witch didn't snare and cage gorillas, after all, perhaps Sebazungu did. Not wanting to dwell on the thought, I pushed on towards the crater, flashing my torch from side to side.

  A little farther on, in a glade of brambles and thistles about thirty feet from the path, I happened upon a band of gorillas huddled in sleep. A baby suckled at her mother's breast. To one side sat the silverback, his fur bathed in moonlight that had crept out from behind a cloud. He woke and looked up. His smell was of sweat and manure. Our eyes met. “Agh-mmm,” he grunted. My breathing all but stopped. He looked away, scratching himself uninterestedly.

  I don't know how long I stood watching those creatures. It felt like seconds, but it may well have been hours. In the end I broke away and climbed higher. The farther I went, the colder it got. Mist and drizzle clung to me as if I was climbing into the clouds.

  Then, just as I thought my lungs might burst, the mist lifted and I found myself at Visoke's summit. I could see for miles, all the way to Nyiragongo. It was exhilarating to be up there alone, free from Mother and Father. The crater was filled with a silver lake that shone in the dark. It must have been over a hundred metres wide. Scraggly evergreens stood round its edge like worn-out sentries.

  I sat on the grass, which was dotted with clover and wildflowers, and stared at the reflections cast on the lake. A crescent shadow on one side, like an eyelid, gave it the appearance of the silverback's eye. It was almost perfectly still. The only sound I could hear was the throbbing of blood in my ears. I lay down and stared into the stars.

  And then, when I'd been lying there for a while, a great rabble of tiny blue butterflies appeared. At first, it didn't look real – an indefinable mass of blue. They flew like confetti fluttering in the breeze. It was so quiet on top of the mountain I could hear the movement of their wings. A sudden rush of sadness hit me. This was where my butterfly belonged, here on the mountain, not buried under a hydrangea bush. I wished more than ever that Beni was with me, and that we'd set our butterfly free.

  20

  JULY 1991

  As dry season turned to wet, I struggled to grow used to the absence of Beni, whom Mother still forbade me to see. I wondered how she was, and spent much of my time alone in my room, feeling empty without her. I'd imagine holding her hand, and sometimes, early in the morning or late at night, I'd imagine kissing her too. When I thought about kissing her, things began to happen to me physically that I didn't want Mother to know about. If Father had been home I might have thought of a way of explaining to him, but he spent more and more time away, and we rarely saw each other.

  Despite my loneliness, the ceasefire continued and my old routine gradually fell back into place. One Thursday I went out to Sebazungu's office to find him going through the filing cabinet. I saw his black-leather glove with one fingertip missing poking out through the files.

  “Today you add up the hours,” he said, slamming the drawer shut and throwing the sign-in sheets onto the table. The sheets that were used by the staff to log in and out each day. I lifted them grudgingly – the anger I had directed at the witch was now aimed at him. I could never forgive him for killing Monty or snaring gorillas.

  Sebazungu left and I went through the sheets, trying to figure out the signatures and the thumbprints of those who couldn't write. I added up how many hours each member of staff had worked and multiplied this by their hourly pay. Sebazungu would then give everyone their pay on Friday. When I was almost finished, Joseph popped his head round the curtain.

  “Sebazungu?” he said, and I pointed in the direction of the cutting shed.

  He went off, his boots slapping against his calves, and returned a moment later with the key to the filing cabinet. With a screech from the drawer he took out a file. Sebazungu's fingertip-less glove fell to the bottom. Joseph locked the cabinet and left with a grin that exposed his gappy teeth. I finished my calculations, gave the totals to Sebazungu and went to my room, where I remained for the rest of the day, thinking about Beni.

  That night, after dark, when the house was quiet, I heard footsteps outside and, not long after, the faint screech of the filing cabinet. I guessed it was Joseph doing his nightly rounds and putting back the file he'd removed earlier. But when I went to the kitchen for a glass of water and I looked out into the yard, I saw Joseph sound asleep in his lookout surrounded by empty beer bottles. Feeling tired I thought no more about it; I flung Romeo some scraps and went back to bed.

  The next morning, when Mother didn't arrive for our English lesson, I went outside and found her talking to Sebazungu and Joseph, who was holding on to his pay packet.

  “Oh Arthur, thank goodness. Let's have English class here today,” said Mother with a wink that implied a game just between her and me. “Grab a pen and a piece of paper from the office and hurry back.” I did as she asked and returned a moment later. “Sebazungu, I'd like Arthur to practise translation from Kinyarwanda to English. He'll write down whatever you and Joseph say.” That wasn't something we usually did in English lessons, but it sounded like fun, so I went along with it. This is what they said:

  JOSEPH: Madame, I have been given the wrong pay.

  SEBAZUNGU: He is lying. He is trying to deceive you.

  Joseph tried to respond, but Mother stopped him. She read what I had written and let out a weary sigh, then asked me to get the sign-in sheet for the week. She did the calculation in her head and took Joseph's pay packet, which she counted. “He's right: it is short,” she said.

  I wrote that down in Kinyarwanda and showed it to Joseph, who could read a little but couldn't write. Then they said:

  SEBAZUNGU: Madame, that is because he has already spent it on beer.

  JOSEPH: That is not true.

  SEBAZUNGU: He is a thief. This morning there was money missing from the filing cabinet – and my leather gloves have also gone. He stole in the night. Who else could have done it? I'll bet his dirty prints are all over the drawer.

  Joseph said nothing. I thought about writing that Joseph had been asleep when the filing cabinet had been opened in the night, but I didn't want him to get in trouble for sleeping on duty.

  “Well, let's see, shall we?” said Mother, and we all went to the office to examine the filing cabinet.

  There on the cabinet was Joseph's distinctive thumbprint from where he'd opened it the day before. I looked in the bottom of the drawer to prove that the gloves were there – but they weren't.

  “Joseph,” said Mother. “Go home. I will talk to you this evening.”

  With Joseph gone, Sebazungu explained to Mother that his stolen gloves had one fingertip missing – and if she saw anyone wearing them, could she tell him? I wondered who else had access to the filing cabinet other than Sebazungu, knowing he was the only one with a key. I went back to my room to think about Beni. After that, the day went along as normal, until just before dinner, when Celeste knocked on the living-room door. I couldn't remember Celeste ever interrupting before dinner.

  “What is it, Celeste?” asked Father, who was home from work and reading his paper on the sofa.

  “It is no good, bwana.”

  “What's no good?” said Father impatiently. I could tell he'd rather have Mother deal with the staff, but she was trying to make dinner, because she still hadn't found anyone to replace Fabrice.

  “Ms Laney,” said Celeste, and she looked at the floor.

  “What's she done now?” Father put down his paper.

  “Nothing, bwana.” Celeste paused.

  “Well?”

  “Ms Lan
ey, she is dead.”

  “What?”

  Celeste did not repeat herself. She said only, “It is true,” and continued to look at the ground.

  “Where is she?” Father's face was the same colour as the grubs I used to find in the cabbage patch – a creamy white. He sat quite still for a moment, as if he was dead too.

  “Visoke.”

  Father put on his coat and picked up a torch. I did the same.

  “No, no, Arthur,” he said. “You stay here with your mother.” He zipped up his coat and went out the back door.

  “Albert,” said Mother from the kitchen when she heard Father leaving. “What's the matter?”

  “Some trouble up the mountain,” he answered. “Stay here and call for Dr Sadler.”

  Mother called Dr Sadler, and then we ate the plain pasta and salad she'd made, in front of the fire Celeste had prepared before she'd gone home. We watched the flames crackle and spit.

  “I wonder what's going on,” Mother said to the flames. I thought of writing “the witch is dead”, but I guessed she wouldn't believe me, so I didn't. I doodled in the back of my book instead.

  When the flames were growing shorter and the embers brighter, the sound of Dr Sadler's car broke the quiet. The beams from his headlights crossed the living-room ceiling as he pulled up outside.

  “Everything OK?” he asked Mother when he entered.

  “We're fine, Edward. Albert says there's trouble on the mountain. I don't know anything else.”

  It was then that the back door opened and Father came into the living room. Romeo jumped and sniffed around him as though he hadn't seen him in days, but Father ignored him.

  “Everything all right, Albert?” asked Dr Sadler when Father sat down by the fire without saying a word, staring into the embers.