When Hoopoes Go to Heaven

by Gaile Parkin

  Grace had suggested that Mama should consider wearing a trouser like Auntie Rachel did, but Mama had said no, it wasn’t polite for a lady her age to wear a trouser, especially a lady who wasn’t the right kind of shape for it. And besides, here a lady in a trouser wasn’t allowed into a government building, which meant that Mama wouldn’t be able to visit Baba in his office at the ministry. Mama never had visited Baba in his office at the ministry, but still.

  After school, it felt strange not having to walk to the high school to wait for Auntie Rachel. But they did have to wait, and Benedict was disappointed: Sifiso had been hoping to meet Mama so that he could say how nice her cake was, but Mr Simelane was in a hurry to get Sifiso home in the Buffalo Soldiers van because Mrs Levine would soon be arriving there to help him for the very first time.

  Sifiso was nervous, but he was also a little giddy with excitement. Even if Mr Simelane hadn’t been in a hurry, Sifiso would never have had the patience to wait for Mama to arrive.

  ‘Nekth time,’ he said, as his father hooted again.

  ‘Next time,’ Benedict agreed, though he knew that wasn’t likely to be soon. Mama was busy with training the ladies, and she was also making a number of the Ubuntu remembrance cakes herself. And something interesting was beginning to happen: people liked the remembrance cakes so much that they were starting to order them for people who weren’t yet late, to celebrate special moments in their lives like retirements, anniversaries and the beginnings of new projects.

  Getting his percentage from the remembrance cakes that Mama made herself was making Benedict feel big. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it meant that he had been able to order a cake from Mama for Giveness.

  The cake, which would be ready for the arrival of Giveness’s mother that weekend, wasn’t a cake to welcome her. No. She didn’t really deserve a welcome on account of her calling Giveness one of God’s mistakes. But Giveness and his aunt deserved to have something sweet and comforting to make them feel better and to help them to forget about being afraid.

  Benedict wasn’t afraid waiting outside the primary school: if his brothers needed the toilet, they knew where to go, and nobody was going to shout at Benedict and make him feel small. But he knew from Auntie Rachel that there was no need to feel afraid at the high school now, either, on account of Mr Thwala being gone. Two other girls had come forward and said that Mr Thwala had been doing bad things to them, too, and Mr Magagula had had no choice but to tell him to go.

  Benedict hadn’t been nice to Nomsa himself, and thinking about that sometimes made him feel like he’d bitten into a rotting prickly-pear fruit that had stung his mouth and flooded it with the taste of kinyezi. Eh, he just hadn’t understood! He had even thought it was nice that Mr Thwala helped Nomsa with pocket money! Now that he knew, he didn’t need Mr Thwala to make him feel small; he felt small all by himself.

  When the red Microbus finally arrived, Mama wasn’t alone inside it. A man they didn’t know slid the side door open. Stepping out and tipping his seat forward, he ushered the surprised children into the back. The inside smelled deliciously of curry and chips.

  ‘Sorry, for delaying,’ Mama called back to them. ‘I’m just dropping these people past the golf course.’

  ‘Eveni Village for me, nè?’ said the man who had let them in.

  ‘We’re not a bl—’ Grace began.

  ‘We’re not a taxi!’ Benedict shouted, and the five strangers inside the Microbus laughed.

  ‘I’ve already told them that,’ said Mama.

  ‘Many times!’ laughed one of the ladies in the front next to Mama.

  Mama told them the story, shouting it to them as she drove. Titi was down at the other house, looking after the smallest Mazibukos so that Lungi and Mavis could go with the other Mazibukos and Mrs Levine to support Nomsa at the funeral, and Mama had been too busy with cakes to make lunch for herself or to prepare any fruit for the children’s tea.

  That part of the story thrilled Benedict: it had been a long time since Mama had been too busy with cakes to do something.

  Mama had decided to treat everybody to take-aways, which they almost never had on account of the expense. When she pulled up across the road from Mr Patel’s shop, she knew that if she got out to go into the shop, she would find it very difficult to get back into the Microbus and there would be a very real danger that her smart skirt might split.

  ‘I called a lady over,’ said Mama, and one of the ladies at the front turned to the children and raised her hand. ‘I asked her to go into the shop and get the food for me.’

  ‘I negotiated for a lift,’ said the lady who had raised her hand. ‘Then inside Patel’s, I found my brother.’

  ‘It’s me,’ said the man who had opened the door. With his elbow, he nudged the man next to him. ‘I told my friend.’

  When the lady got into the Microbus with the family’s treat, many others got in with her.

  ‘Taxi is never free like this,’ said one of the other men.

  ‘I’ve already delivered the others,’ said Mama. ‘Now it’s just these for other side the golf course.’

  ‘Eveni Village for me, nè?’ the man next to the door repeated.

  When they finally got home, Giveness’s cake was waiting there for Benedict. It looked like a big gift, and it was beautiful. The square of two vanilla layers was draped in thin, smooth stripes of bright red, green and blue just like the gift-wrap you could buy at the news agency in The Plaza. Wrapped around it was a wide ribbon of sunshine-yellow marzipan that finished in a large bow on the top, and with a corner tucked under the bow was a white sugar-paste label on which Mama had piped in large purple letters: FOR GIVENESS. It was perfect!

  Baba helped him to deliver it on Saturday morning, on the way to the public library. The other children waited in the Microbus as Baba opened the squeaky little gate to the small, neat garden and went to knock on the door, leaving Benedict to concentrate on carrying the beautiful gift-cake on its board.

  It was Giveness’s aunt who opened the door. Benedict had guessed that Giveness wouldn’t open it himself on account of being scared that it might be his mother.

  Baba and Benedict greeted his aunt, and Benedict said they’d brought something for Giveness.

  ‘Giveness!’ she called into the house, her eyes dancing over the cake. ‘Come! It’s your friend!’ Benedict knew she added that in case Giveness thought it was his mother, here to take him away. ‘Come in, come in.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Baba, holding his hands up with the palms facing her. ‘Thank you, but I have children in the car and we’re on our way to the library.’

  Giveness appeared in the doorway, and when he saw the cake his eyes grew large and his mouth fell open into a big O.

  ‘It’s for you,’ said Benedict, handing it over.

  Giveness took it, the O of his mouth so big that he was unable to speak.

  All of them were busy laughing as they looked at Giveness looking at his cake, and there was no squeak from the little gate on account of Baba having left it open, so it wasn’t until the lady with the suitcase was right up close that they saw her.

  Then so many things happened all at once that Benedict would struggle later on to separate them out in the right order for Mama and Titi, who no longer came with them to get dropped at the supermarket on Saturdays, now that Mama had her driving licence.

  He was pretty sure that Giveness’s aunt saw the lady first, stepping around Benedict and Baba to greet her, and that next the lady’s eyes fell on Giveness and stayed there as she ignored Benedict’s outstretched hand as well as Baba’s. Giveness stared at her, the round O of his mouth no longer about joy and surprise but now about shock and fright.

  Then Baba took the cake from Giveness quickly as the lady leapt at her son like a lioness leaping at a buffalo, embracing him, covering his pink face with kisses and speaking in a deep-voiced moan without any spaces between her words, in a way that made her sound like a chainsaw cutting down a tree.

 
; Nobody else moved or said anything. Then the lady let go of Giveness and, straightening herself up, she noticed the cake that Baba was holding.

  ‘Oh!’ she cried, looking at it carefully. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ Raising both her arms up in the air and looking up into the sky, she cried oh! some more, before falling on her knees at Baba’s feet and shouting a string of joyful-sounding siSwati at the top of her voice.

  Benedict noticed Giveness’s aunt glancing around at the neighbouring houses at the same time that he saw Baba stepping back and shifting the cake-board sideways so that he could say something to the lady at his feet.

  ‘Angisati siSwati, sisi.’ Looking down at her, he shrugged his shoulders as best he could with the cake-board in his hands.

  Benedict decided to take the cake from Baba and give it to Giveness’s aunt as the lady switched to English.

  ‘A messenger from afar!’ she shouted. ‘Praise the Lord! When I first met Jesus, when I accepted Him into my heart as my Lord and my saviour, I told Him what I had done!’ Casting an arm dramatically in the direction of Giveness, she swung her head round to look at him. Benedict saw that the pink of his friend’s face was darker than it usually was, much darker than the pink hands that now covered his mouth so that Benedict couldn’t see if it still had the shape of an O.

  ‘He told me to come!’ she yelled to her son. ‘Praise the Lord, He told me to come to you!’ Turning back to Baba, she lowered her volume the slightest bit. ‘And then he sent you to me! Oh! Praise Jesus, hallelujah! You have brought me the sign from Him!’ Sinking down on her knees until her buttocks touched her heels, she flung her body forward and grabbed hold of Baba’s ankles, making Baba’s mouth an O and sending Benedict’s hands up to cover his own.

  ‘Forgiveness!’ she cried, her lips now close enough to Baba’s shoes to kiss them. ‘I asked and the gift was given! Praise Jesus, hallelujah, I asked and it was given!’ Then she said amen over and over and over until it was one long word without any spaces in between and she was sounding like a chainsaw cutting down a tree again.

  Baba tried to step away, but she tightened her grip on his ankles, almost making him fall. Giveness took the cake from his aunt so that she could squat down next to her sister and try to get her to let go, but she held on more tightly, pulling sharply on Baba’s feet, so that the left foot that Baba had been trying to lift and pull back suddenly shot forward, making Baba lose his balance and tumble backwards onto the ground with a very loud eh!

  Almost at the same time that Baba’s buttocks hit the ground, the side door of the red Microbus slid open, and the Tungaraza children who had been watching and laughing scrambled out and ran to Baba, each of their giggling mouths suddenly becoming an O.

  But Baba was fine, and Giveness’s mother was suddenly quiet, rubbing with both hands at the side of her chin where the toe of Baba’s shoe had hit her as he fell. Embarrassed now, she joined her sister and Giveness in insisting that the Tungarazas lock up the Microbus and come inside for a soda and a slice of cake.

  While Grace and Faith were pouring Coke into glasses and Moses and Daniel were brushing the last of the dust from the back of Baba’s trouser, Benedict took Giveness by the arm and led him to beside his mother’s chair, where she could look directly at them. Her face was turned to the side on account of her sister standing in front of her chair, dabbing some ointment onto the side of her chin where Baba’s shoe had cut her.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Benedict, feeling his friend’s arm trembling.

  ‘Yes, dear?’ Her voice was calm now.

  ‘Me and Giveness, we want to know something.’

  ‘Hm?’ She flinched as Giveness’s aunt dabbed.

  ‘Did you come here to take him away?’ As he asked, Benedict saw Giveness’s aunt stiffen.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is that why you came? To take him away from us?’

  ‘Oh, Lord, no!’ She looked up at her sister, who had stopped dabbing. ‘Is that what you thought?’

  ‘Yebo! Why else would you come all this way?’

  ‘But I told you. I told you I was coming to say my apologies!’

  ‘There are telephones for that.’ The lid went on to the tube of ointment.

  ‘And if I had phoned? How would the Lord have told me I was forgiven? How would I have known?’ As she began to tell her sister all about meeting Jesus, Benedict and Giveness moved away.

  Giveness let out a breath that he seemed to have been holding for a very long time, and putting both of his hands on his stomach, he said, ‘Now I can eat some cake!’ Smiling, he took Benedict’s brown arm in his own pink one, and led him to the table where Grace was serving slices from his very special gift.

  Benedict was relieved that Giveness wasn’t going to leave, but something else was making him feel uneasy. He was worried that Petros might be very sick, that his new muti wasn’t working. He hadn’t seen him for many days, although he had spotted Krishna a number of times. It was unusual for the two to be apart.

  Then Mavis told Titi and Titi told Benedict that Petros had gone.

  ‘Gone? Without his dog?’

  ‘His dog is with the dairy manger. Petros is going to come back, he only went for paying his lobola.’

  Eh! If Mavis knew he’d gone for lobola, Petros must have told her. Why hadn’t he told Benedict? They were friends. They were going to look for Mr Quartermain’s gold together, and if it was real they were going to share it. Okay, if Auntie Rachel and Uncle Enock were wrong about Petros, and if Auntie Rachel was wrong about Mr Quartermain, maybe Petros’s gold and Mr Quartermain’s gold were already the same thing. But they could still have an adventure together to find more, then Petros would have more for his baby to inherit.

  ‘Nhlangano,’ Benedict said. ‘That’s where his girlfriend is. He showed me her photo.’

  ‘Eish.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe Henry has a new girlfriend now. Maybe he’s already paying lobola for another wife.’

  Men didn’t always behave well when it came to girls, and it really wasn’t nice that Petros hadn’t said goodbye to Benedict. But there were other boy and girl things going on to take his mind off Petros for a while.

  It was the middle of October, and there was a public holiday for Umhlanga, the Reed Dance that happened every year. Thousands of girls from all over the kingdom had already gathered bundles of reeds for mending the fence in front of the home of the king’s mother, Indlovukati the Great She Elephant, and today they would sing and dance for the king. Innocence was joining in, so Auntie Rachel took Mama and the girls to watch it.

  Benedict and the boys had an outing of their own: Uncle Enock and Baba took them to Mlilwane, the sanctuary for wildlife in the Ezulwini Valley. They went in Uncle Enock’s bakkie, on account of the roads there being too difficult for Baba’s red Microbus, and Benedict and his brothers sat with Fortune and Vusi in the open flatbed at the back, even though there were leopards.

  Vusi went to Mlilwane with his father every year, so he knew what to expect and what to look out for. He promised that they were going to be safe.

  ‘There are no elephants in this reserve,’ he told them, ‘and no lions.’

  ‘What about tigers?’ Daniel’s eyes were starting to get bigger as they entered the reserve, and Benedict’s eyes closed as they went over the cattle-grid at the gate, which didn’t seem quite as safe from the back of an open bakkie as it would have from the inside of a Hi-Ace or a Microbus.

  ‘There are no tigers in Swaziland, nè?’ Vusi’s voice was patient; he had plenty of experience at home with younger children. ‘All the tigers live in Asia.’

  Soon after the gate there were zebras, two on the dirt road right in front of them and four more in the wild grass at the side.

  ‘Eh!’ said Daniel and Moses, and Benedict held his breath, not wanting to scare them away.

  ‘Burchell’s zebra,’ Uncle Enock called from inside the stationary bakkie.

  Benedict was confused. ‘Are they family with
a Burchell’s coucal?’ His question to Vusi was a whisper.

  ‘Ag no, man.’ Vusi sounded like Auntie Rachel. ‘A mammal can’t be family with a bird! They get their name from the man who first saw them.’

  ‘Eh!’

  All the morning, all the way through stopping to look at hippos, crocodiles, ostriches, warthogs and blesbuck, Benedict tried his best to see something new, something that he was the first to see, so that it would be known as Benedict’s something or Tungaraza’s something.

  ‘What about that?’ he asked Vusi for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  ‘That’s an impala,’ Vusi said patiently. ‘A male. See its horns? Females don’t have horns. How high do you think you can jump?’ he asked Moses and Daniel.

  ‘This high!’ Moses indicated with his hand.

  ‘This high!’ Daniel put his hand much higher.

  ‘My daddy is two metres, nè? That impala can jump three metres in the air.’

  ‘Eh!’

  ‘And eleven metres forward.’

  ‘Eh!’

  Vusi put his hand over Fortune’s mouth. ‘And what do we call October month in siSwati?’

  Benedict gave his brothers time to think of the answer, and when they couldn’t he said Impala himself.

  Vusi high-fived him like an American, and Benedict glowed with pride.

  ‘Because impalas have their babies in October month,’ said Fortune, his mouth free at last.

  ‘I know June as well,’ said Benedict, anxious to impress the older boy some more. ‘It’s Inhlaba, meaning aloes. On account of aloes getting their flowers in June. And September’s Inyoni, on account of birds finding mates that month.’

  ‘Speaking of birds,’ said Vusi, ‘it looks like we’re going all the way up to Nyonyane.’

  ‘Execution rock?’

  ‘Yebo. Hold on tight, nè? This road is steep.’

  Up at the top, they all got out and Uncle Enock pointed out Sheba’s Breasts. From there Benedict could see very clearly the two separate peaks that looked just like a lady’s breasts. It was a much better view than the one Henry had said was perfect. He became aware that Uncle Enock was staring at him.