Chanda's Wars

by Allan Stratton

  Esther’s right. Even Mr. Tafa avoids her. He leaves for work early and gets home late; on his days off, he does odd jobs, like building Esther’s rooms at the side of my house, or patching the tenant shacks at the far side of his property.

  “Everyone’s scared of her tongue,” Esther says, eyes dancing, “but nobody pays her much mind. As for Mrs. Mpho—it’s true about her underpants.”

  I laugh. Next thing I know, Esther and I are twirling our swings till the chains are twisted tight. We lift our feet off the ground and spin, squealing like when we were little. We wobble dizzily to the road and make our way home in the near dusk.

  Iris and Soly are already under the cover in their nightclothes. They’re so quiet, I have to check to know they’re there. When I stick my head into their room, Iris says: “Would you tuck us in?…Please?”

  I pull the bedsheet under their necks and smooth it just so.

  “Do you still love us?” Soly whispers.

  “Of course. How could you ask that?”

  He acts shy. “You were so mad. We were scared.”

  “Not me,” Iris says. But I know she’s lying.

  I kiss their foreheads. “I love you now and forever,” I say. “More than anything.” Then I sit cross-legged at the side of their mat and tell them their favorite bedtime story—the one about the impala and the baboon—acting the parts with Soly’s sock puppet and my hankie.

  I kiss them good night again. My stomach dissolves. Mama. I remember how she tucked me in, how she kissed my forehead, told me stories, said how she’d love me forever. Mama. I miss Mama so much I can’t stand it. As I leave Soly and Iris, I touch their door frame for balance, get to the far corner of the main room, and roll into a ball on the floor, stuffing my hankie in my mouth so they won’t hear me cry.

  When I’m like this, I usually go to Esther. She holds me and rocks me and lets me babble, and it helps. But she didn’t know Mama. Not really. She’s the sort of friend that stays away from parents. All she remembers is that Mama smiled at her, offered her biscuits, and never kicked her off the property. So it’s not the same. Not like she knew Mama, and knows what Mama means.

  I’m going to start sobbing, I know it. I won’t be able to stop. I need to get away. The sandlot. I’ll go back to the sandlot.

  I walk gingerly across the yard. To the left, music and happy talk drift up the street from the Lesoles. Mr. Lesole’s a safari guide; he’s mostly away in the bush. When he’s home, he celebrates, spending his tip money on CDs for his boom box and food for his guests. Normally I like it—I even go over—but tonight, all I can think is: How can there be parties with Mama dead? How can the world go on without her?

  I turn right toward the sandlot and hear a familiar voice: “If I was you, I wouldn’t be wandering far, this time of night.”

  Mrs. Tafa’s in her lawn chair, alone in the dark under her tree, waiting for Mr. Tafa to come home. All of a sudden, she doesn’t seem so mean. Just lonely. I’m filled with shame. Why am I mad about what she does for Soly and Iris? Why should they lose out because of my fear and pride?

  I go into Mrs. Tafa’s yard and sit quietly on the ground beside her lawn chair. We don’t talk about our fight. Don’t talk about anything. Just sit there. After a long time I swallow hard and say: “Thank you for doing Iris’s cornrows.”

  “It was nothing,” she says. “Something to pass the time, is all.” A pause. “It’s nice to have someone braid your hair, isn’t it?” Another pause. “I could do yours someday if you’d like. Not as good as your mama, mind. But I could try.”

  I sob. Mrs. Tafa puts her hand on my shoulder. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”

  I gulp air.

  “Your mama was the finest woman who walked this earth,” Mrs. Tafa says gently. “Oh, how she loved you kids. She was proud of you, especially. Before she went to Tiro, she said to me, ‘Rose, no matter what happens, I can die happy. I know my Chanda will take care of things.’” Mrs. Tafa slaps her thighs. “But why talk about sad things, when there’s so much good to remember?” She leans in to my ear. “I’m thinking of when you were little, how your mama’d blow on your tummy to stop you being grumpy.”

  I sniffle-smile at the thought of it. “I’ve tried that on Iris,” I say. “She hates it.”

  “Iris is a special one, isn’t she?” Mrs. Tafa chuckles, and recalls the time Mama was shelling peas and Iris got one stuck up her nose: “Your mama made her a necklace of husks so she’d stop crying.” Soon, Mrs. Tafa and I are laughing and storytelling in the dark. Stories about Mama. Happy stories. Simple stories. Stories from our time in the worker houses at the mine, to a few years back when Mama won a prize at the street fair for her sweet-potato pie.

  “You should have seen the way your mama and papa flirted at the mine hall,” Mrs. Tafa winks. “The glint in your mama’s eye when your papa’d do a jig. Folks knew they took care of business, all right.”

  I get all embarrassed, but I want to hear more. As long as we talk, Mama’s alive. Please, I don’t want to go to bed ever. When Mr. Tafa finally comes home, though, I know it’s time.

  “It’s been ages since we’ve talked like this,” Mrs. Tafa says. “Let’s do it again.” She watches from her stoop as I head to my door. At the last minute, I have a sudden need to run back. I fall on my knees and clutch her round the waist. “Auntie Rose, will the pain ever go away?”

  Mrs. Tafa kneels down, arms around me. “Remember how it was with your papa?”

  I nod.

  She kisses the top of my head. “The missing never goes away,” she says. “But after a time, the hurting’s not so sharp. And in the end, if you’re lucky, there’s a glow.”

  An enormous hole opens in the pit of my stomach. “Why did Mama have to die? Why like that? I wish she’d never gone back to Tiro.”

  Oh, how Mama hated Tiro. At fifteen, Granny and Grampa engaged her to Tuelo Malunga, a boy from the neighboring cattle post; but Mama was scared of him, and ran off with Papa instead. Relatives said she was cursed for dishonoring the ancestors. They blamed her for everything. So for her to return there…Before she left, she said she wouldn’t be gone long. But weeks passed and she didn’t even call us. Then one night Mrs. Tafa blurted her secret: Mama wasn’t coming back, not ever. She had AIDS. She’d been scared of what would happen to us kids if the neighbors found out, so scared she’d gone to die in a place where she was hated. I got on the next flatbed truck to Tiro. The relatives had left her at the abandoned ruin on their cattle post. They claimed they brought her food. All I know is, when I found her, she was alone in the bush, thin as a reed, huddled under a stained sheet buzzing with flies. She didn’t recognize me. With the help of the Tiro health clinic, I got her home. Three days later, she passed.

  I leave Mrs. Tafa’s, crawl onto my mat, and toss and turn till the middle of the night. Mama. You didn’t have to go to Tiro. We’d have taken the shame, the pain—anything, everything—to keep you with us. Why couldn’t I stop you? Why?

  I drift into my dream. Mama’s alive. We’re at the ruin where I found her, watching Soly and Iris dance. Mama turns into a stork. “Keep them safe,” she says. “There’s going to be a storm.”

  5

  MOMENTS LATER, I’M shaken awake into a real-life nightmare. Esther says I screamed in my sleep again. Only this time when the children went to get her, their cries roused the Tafas, who thought we had robbers. Mr. Tafa ran over with his shotgun, followed by Mrs. Tafa in her nightie, wielding a fry pan. She’s wormed my dream out of me. So now, while Esther comforts Soly and Iris in their bedroom, I’m stuck at the table in the main room getting preached at.

  “Your ancestors have sent you a dream,” Mrs. Tafa exclaims, drumming her stubby fingers on the wood boards. “If you don’t get to Tiro, something terrible’s going to happen. The warning is plain as the nose on your face.”

  Mr. Tafa yawns loudly. He leans against the front door, his shotgun propped beside him, waiting to escort Mrs. Tafa back home. I wish she’d tak
e the hint. Instead, she wrestles her left foot onto her lap, takes off her slipper, and squints at the callus on her bunion. “Let’s go over that dream again: You have to get to Tiro. You don’t make it. What happens? Disaster! How simple can a dream get?”

  I think of Mr. Selalame. “Dreams don’t tell the future.”

  “That’s what they teach you at school,” she snorts, “but we know different, don’t we?” She picks at the pad of dry skin. “According to Esther, this waking-up-screaming has turned itself into a habit. Well, I’m here to tell you, it won’t stop. Not till you get yourself to Tiro.”

  “I’m never going to Tiro again,” I say. “Not after what they did to Mama.”

  “They never meant for things to end like that.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Mrs. Tafa looks up from her work. Her eyes are gentle. “Chanda, it’s nobody’s fault your mama passed. Not your granny’s. Not your Auntie Lizbet’s. Not your other aunties, nor uncles, nor your older sister Lily. Your mama had that thing. Nothing could change that.”

  “They abandoned her in the bush.”

  “They didn’t know any better. They’re from Tiro, for heaven’s sake, not Bonang.” She grunts. “You wouldn’t happen to have a peeling knife, would you?”

  I fetch it from the rack by the sink, along with a small dish for her scrapings. What with her eyesight, in two minutes her toe will be raw, and I’ll be looking for a rag to staunch the bleeding.

  “Thank you kindly.” She takes the knife and whittles away like she’s peeling a sweet potato. Her concentration is frightening. “It was bad enough, you didn’t call the family about your mama’s funeral. I offered you my phone.”

  “And I used it.”

  “Not till the night of the laying over when it was too late for them to get here. You didn’t even call ahead to your granny and grampa. Your mama’s own parents.”

  “They wouldn’t have come anyway.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “And what if they had?” I snap. “What would they have said? That Mama died the way she lived? Cursed? Mama deserved a little peace at the end. Respect. Love.”

  Iris is peering in from the bedroom.

  “What are you doing up? I thought Esther had you back in bed.”

  “I’m sorry, Chanda,” Esther calls out. “I’m helping Soly.”

  “His diaper fell off,” Iris announces.

  “It’s not a diaper,” comes Soly’s voice. “It’s a feed sack with leg holes.”

  Poor Soly. I used to wrap him in a towel, secured by a little plastic grocery bag. We switched the little grocery bag to a green plastic feed sack, cut to size and fitted with a drawstring, so he’d feel more grown-up. But Iris is no fool.

  “I don’t care what you call it,” she yells, “it’s still a diaper. And you peed all over.”

  “You didn’t have to tell!” Soly cries.

  “Why not?” Iris mocks. “You’re a pee factory. And you’re five! Five! I only wore a diaper till I was two. Wait’ll your friends find out.”

  Soly wails.

  “I mean it. I’m telling the world!”

  “Don’t you dare,” I say. “Soly’s problem is just between us. Now go back to bed.”

  “How can I? Our mat’s all wet.”

  Esther appears behind her: “I’ve put down a new one.”

  Iris flounces back into the bedroom.

  “Good night, Iris,” I say. Iris doesn’t answer. Esther winks. Now it’s Soly’s turn for attention. He waddles past Esther and up beside me, the towel around his waist, the feed sack tripping up his ankles.

  “Yes?” I sigh.

  “I just peed a little,” he says.

  “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  “Yes, but Chanda…” His eyes are big. “Are you going to Tiro? Are you leaving us?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s going to happen?”

  “Nothing. Everything’ll be fine.”

  “That’s what Mama said.”

  “Soly, go to bed.”

  “Come on,” Esther says. “I’ll tell you and Iris a story.” She maneuvers him back into the bedroom.

  I give Mrs. Tafa a tight smile. “Thanks for your prophecy.”

  She ignores my sarcasm. “By any chance do you have a rag? My bunion’s raw. There’s something the matter with that knife of yours.”

  I throw her a strip of cloth. She wraps her toe in silence and wriggles her foot back into her slipper. Then she looks me straight in the eye, her voice quiet, but firm: “No good ever came of a feud. No matter what your family did, or didn’t do, they’re still your family, and they’re the only family you have. For years, I tried to tell your mama that, but she wouldn’t listen. Well you listen now. Stop being selfish. Soly and Iris deserve a granny and grampa. Go to Tiro. Make peace for the children, if not for yourself.”

  “I appreciate the advice, Auntie Rose,” I say. “Now, please, it’s three in the morning. In no time the sun’ll be up, there’ll be chores, and a day of teaching. I have to sleep.”

  “I’m telling you, there’ll be no sleeping till you make things right with your people.” She taps her nose. “Get to Tiro. Make peace. Otherwise, dear god, something terrible will happen to the children. If you don’t believe me, ask Mrs. Gulubane.”

  I’m still uneasy about the dream part. But Mrs. Gulubane? I roll my eyes.

  “Go ahead, laugh, you and your education!” Mrs. Tafa hisses. “Eight years ago, Mrs. Mpho couldn’t have children. Mrs. Gulubane rubbed her belly with a potion and she’s been making babies ever since. Then there’s Mr. Lesole. She gave him a little bag of magic powder. For six years, it’s saved his safari camp from General Mandiki and the rebels of Ngala. He’d be dead if it weren’t for her. Chopped into bits with machetes! Everyone near the park too!”

  “Auntie Rose, I don’t mean to make fun of the spirit doctor. But the war is in Ngala. General Mandiki and his rebels have never crossed our border. Not once.”

  “What did I tell you? Mrs. Gulubane’s magic is so powerful it even works on devils!”

  Mr. Tafa’s asleep, propped against the door frame. At the mention of the word “devils,” he tumbles over. His shotgun clatters on the cement. The sound of it startles him awake. “What? What?” He blinks, grabs the rifle, and jumps to his feet.

  “It’s nothing,” I say. “We were just talking about the rebels in Ngala.”

  “Oh, them,” Mr. Tafa yawns.

  “They must have popped into your dream when you heard us talking.”

  Mr. Tafa stretches. “As long as General Mandiki stays on his side of the border, his rebels are no business of mine.”

  Mrs. Tafa smacks him on the shoulder. “It’s time I got you home to bed, Leo.”

  Before she can smack him again, Mr. Tafa mumbles, “G’night.” He stumbles out the front door ahead of her.

  Mrs. Tafa turns in the doorway. “Make no mistake, Chanda,” she mutters darkly. “Your dream is a warning from the ancestors. Take heed while you can.”

  6

  IN NO TIME it’s Saturday morning.

  I load up the wheelbarrow with pails and go to pump water at the standpipe. Normally Esther would help, but she’s taking Sammy and Magda to see their Uncle Kagiso. He’s in from the country for the day, staying with their Auntie and Uncle Poloko. The Polokos can’t stand Esther—they say the scars from her rape are the wages of sin—but they can’t keep her away from her Uncle Kagiso when she’s with the little ones.

  At the standpipe, I get in line behind Mrs. Lesole. She’s wearing a flowered cotton-print dress, a polka-dot bandanna, and orange flip-flops; there’s three buckets at her feet, one for each hand and one for her head. “I hope the noise from our street dance didn’t keep you awake last night,” Mrs. Lesole says.

  “I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

  “My man’s back to the safari camp tomorrow,” she sighs good-naturedly. “There’ll be more feasting tonight. Come. Bring Soly and
Iris. He loves to play with them.”

  “I know,” I smile. Since Mama passed, Mr. Lesole’s been incredibly kind. Mrs. Tafa steams with jealousy when the kids talk about his games and adventures. “That man has quite the mouth on him, doesn’t he?” she sniffs. “If he’s so important, what’s he doing in Bonang?” Look who’s talking.

  As it happens, Mr. Lesole’s outfit, the Kenje River Safari Camp, is the most important tourist camp in Mfuala National Park. And Mfuala National Park is the most important tourist destination in the country—ten thousand square miles of dense bush, forest, and floodplain that starts forty miles north of Tiro and ends at the Mfuala mountain range that separates us from Ngala. “There’s an even bigger park on the Ngala side of the mountains,” Mr. Lesole likes to brag, “but nobody goes there because ours is better.” The truth is, the Ngala park is where General Mandiki and his rebels hide out; anyone who goes there gets killed.

  Mr. Lesole’s camp is a private reserve on an oxbow in the Mfuala foothills, near the border. There are no roads in. Tourists arrive on small planes and stay in fancy tents, with hardwood floors, maid service, and flush toilets, that cost more per night than most of us earn in a year. Each morning, Mr. Lesole leads them on bush walks, rifle at the ready in case they run into trouble with the animals. At dusk, he and a driver take them out in 4x4s.

  “The night drives, that’s when we see the kills,” he’ll whisper to the kids in a spooky voice. “I’m strapped in a seat on the hood of the jeep, my rifle under one arm. With my free hand, I scan the bush with a spotlight. I’ve seen lions take down impala, a leopard attack a bush buck, and a pack of hyenas tear into a Cape buffalo that got stuck in the mud during rainy season.”