by Andrea Eames
‘I fell.’
Baba stared into his face. ‘How did you fall?’
‘I do not remember.’
Something flickered across Baba’s face. He released Abel. ‘See your auntie,’ he had said. ‘She will have some muti for you.’
Abel had become as beloved on the kopje as Babamukuru. ‘You look just like your father,’ people told him whenever he visited, reaching out to touch his hair and grasp his shoulder. Abel was a Babamukuru in miniature and blessed with the same good looks and good fortune. We heard many stories of how adventurous Babamukuru had been as a boy, how reckless and full of energy. How he had been the first among his friends to kiss a girl; how he had killed many snakes; how he had been the best dancer in the kopje.
I swelled with pride, but Abel stayed silent.
‘Why do you never say anything?’ I asked him. ‘Why do you never tell them that you are proud of your father too?’
‘He is different now,’ said Abel.
When Babamukuru and Abel arrived this time, however, Babamukuru seemed in a very good mood, rubbing his hands together and smiling.
‘I hear this daughter of yours is speaking now, eh?’ he said. ‘Where is she? I want to see her.’
‘She is out with her mother,’ said Baba, shaking his brother’s hand. ‘They will be back soon. Will you come in and wait, mukoma? I am about to listen to the news.’
Babamukuru and Abel came inside and Baba fiddled with the dials of the radio. It had a mind of its own. Hazvinei said that a tokoloshe lived inside because sometimes it would work and sometimes it would spit and crackle like a cornered mongoose and refuse to tell us anything at all. Babamukuru sat with us at the table, nursing his enamel cup of tea in his two hands, while the static gave way to a loud whistle and then an English voice that told us about vakomana, the rebels, as it always did. Vakomana. Boys. A harmless word, unless you knew that it also meant freedom fighters. Abel and I listened as we would listen to a bedtime story, resting our chins on our hands and blinking with sleepy eyes, half-aware and half-dreaming. Babamukuru and Baba, however, leaned forward and became intent. We heard that the Communists were training the rebels, and that some of them had weapons from China. China was so far away that I could not imagine it at all. The guerrillas were moving among the people in rural Rhodesia like fish in water, the radio said, spreading their lies and stirring up trouble. Abel pinched me, hard, under the table and I yelped.
‘Quiet, Tinashe.’
When the news finished, Baba switched off the radio. ‘It sounds like the rebels are gaining ground,’ he said. ‘They are becoming more powerful.’
‘Do not be ridiculous,’ said Babamukuru. We perked up. Babamukuru was the head of the family. If he said that it was ridiculous, it must be ridiculous.
‘I beg your pardon, brother?’
‘This is not the way to go about it,’ Babamukuru said, wiping his mouth as if that were the end of the matter. ‘Slinking through the bush and spreading stories. Coming out at night. Attacking farmers.’
‘What else can they do?’ Baba spoke politely. ‘There is no other way.’
‘It is not up to men like that to change the way things are,’ said Babamukuru. ‘It is for men like me. Men who have gone to university. Who have good jobs. Not men hiding in the bush like animals.’
Baba pressed his lips together and said nothing. Babamukuru reached to pat me on the head. ‘You will be one of those men, eh, Tinashe? You will be like your Babamukuru and become an educated man. Yes?’
I nodded and he laughed, but there was an edge to the sound. Baba said nothing.
Before the silence could stretch into something darker, Amai and Hazvinei came in from the river, and Amai started to fuss and flap around Babamukuru. To think that the head of the family would arrive while she was out, and have to fend for himself in her kitchen! This would not do. A fresh pot of tea must be made, and the best biscuits must be put out on the table. Babamukuru must stay longer so that Amai could show him the hospitality that was proper. He protested, but no one could resist Amai. Hazvinei stood on one leg in the doorway, chewing at a fingernail and refusing to come in.
Baba beckoned to her. ‘Come. Sit.’
She came reluctantly, perching on the edge of her chair and swinging her white-socked legs.
Babamukuru smiled at her. ‘I hear that you are talking now, finally, eh?’
Hazvinei glanced at Baba, then at me.
‘Answer your Babamukuru,’ said Baba. Amai paused in her wiping of cups and boiling of water to watch us. Hazvinei said nothing.
‘Hazvinei,’ said Baba. ‘Answer your Babamukuru. Do not be rude.’
Hazvinei stared at him with wide eyes.
‘I am sorry, brother,’ said Baba. ‘She is shy.’
‘That is all right.’ Babamukuru seemed to have recovered his good humour. He placed both palms flat on the table and leaned towards his niece, smiling a wide white smile and speaking loudly and slowly, as if she were not right in the head. ‘How are you today, Hazvinei? Eh?’
She glared at him. I could see trouble coming. ‘I am not stupid,’ she said, her voice sharp.
‘Hazvinei!’ Amai stood frozen.
Baba reached to grab her, but she jumped down from her chair and ran. Abel covered his mouth to hide his grin, and Babamukuru leaned back in his chair and smoothed down his tie with both hands. ‘You must teach her some manners, Garikai,’ he said.
Baba set his jaw. ‘Go and find your sister, Tinashe,’ he said. ‘And bring her back here right away.’
I ran to find Hazvinei. Abel followed.
It did not take long to find her. She stood in front of the chicken run, her arms wrapped around her chest as if she were cold.
Abel examined her. ‘So, are you talking properly now or not?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
The sound of her voice startled him. He turned to me. ‘When did this happen?’
‘Not long ago.’
Abel looked her up and down. ‘Maybe. Why did you speak that way to my father?’
‘I do not like him.’
‘Hazvinei!’ I was shocked. ‘You cannot say these things.’
Hazvinei shrugged.
Abel laughed. ‘She is cheeky, this one!’ He flicked her cheek with a careless finger, and she smiled.
‘You are in big trouble with Baba,’ I told her.
She shrugged again. We heard the sound of Babamukuru’s car starting.
‘See?’ I said. ‘You made him angry.’
‘He did not say goodbye to you,’ said Hazvinei to Abel.
‘I do not care,’ said Abel, and scuffed his toes in the dirt.
Baba made Hazvinei apologise on Babamukuru’s next visit, but although she spoke to him politely after that, there was an undercurrent of something in her voice that made Babamukuru frown. Abel thought this was hilarious, and he and Hazvinei fell about with laughter at jokes I did not understand. They had a secret language, those two, and plodding, dogged Tinashe could not always keep up with it. Sometimes I wished that my sister had stayed silent forever, and I was ashamed of wishing it.
Abel grew faster than me, and taller. By the time Hazvinei was eight and I was eleven, he was only a head shorter than Baba, with a close-shorn, handsome head and those perfect white teeth. He and Hazvinei could both run faster and swim better than I could, but I read all the books that Abel brought me and did not care. While I read, Hazvinei and Abel played rough games together, wrestling in the dirt and shouting and laughing. Neither of them did their chores as they were supposed to, but they did not get into trouble. No one could deny Abel and Hazvinei any pleasure, these two white-toothed, smooth-skinned children with loud laughs and the hearts of two lion cubs.
One day I did not feel like reading and instead lazed with the others in the cooling sun, waiting for Baba to come home.
‘How is school going?’ I asked Abel.
He shrugged.
‘Are you enjoying it?’
‘
No.’
‘Why not?’
‘School is not important.’ He picked at a scab on his arm.
‘Leave him alone, Tinashe,’ said Hazvinei, who lay on her stomach watching a trail of ants.
‘But you are going to college,’ I said.
‘Maybe.’
‘Babamukuru says so.’
‘Tinashe. I do not want to think about school. It is the holidays.’
We sat in silence for a moment, until a voice made us jump.
‘Iwe.’
We looked around, startled.
‘Yes, you.’
A white man stood at the gate. He wore small spectacles, like Babamukuru, and his sunburned scalp shone pinkly through the damp parting of his hair.
Abel and I looked at each other.
‘Yes?’ said Abel finally.
‘Come here.’
Abel stood, and walked to the gate. After a moment, I followed, brushing the red dust from the seat of my pants. Hazvinei stayed where she was, watching the neverending march of the black ants.
‘Where is your father? Hey?’
Abel looked at me.
‘At work,’ I said.
‘When will he be home?’
‘I don’t know, sir,’ I added.
‘Well, tell him that I am looking for him. Hokay? You can remember that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The white man squinted at me with watery eyes, then turned and walked away. I saw a car parked on the other side of the road; a city car, sleek and menacing in shape, with a red haze of dust on its undercarriage. The white man climbed in, and as he lifted his leg I saw the gleam of highly polished shoes beneath the raised hem of his trousers. It was only then that I realised I had not asked his name.
‘He is a new one,’ I said. ‘I have not seen him before.’
‘Are you going to tell Babamudiki?’ said Abel.
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘I think it was a policeman.’
‘He was not wearing a uniform.’
‘Still. Perhaps a special kind of policeman.’
‘Well, then I must tell Baba.’
Abel shook his head. ‘I do not like it.’
‘That is because you have been listening to too many radio stories about the vakomana.’
Abel pushed me. ‘Shut up.’
When Baba returned from work, he picked up Hazvinei to embrace her, and nodded at Abel and I.
‘Manheru, Baba.’
‘Manheru, Babamudiki.’
He sat and unstrapped his heavy boots that smelled of old milk left in the sun. He clasped one of his bare feet in his hand. It was blistered and bleeding.
‘What happened, Baba?’
‘It was a long day, Tinashe. A long day of hard work.’
He stretched his arms behind his head. His skin was softened and stretched with labour, glistening with sweat. Abel sat like him, lengthening out his legs in just the same way, watching him closely to catch the way he sighed and blinked his eyes.
‘Baba,’ I said. ‘Someone was here looking for you.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘A white man.’
He straightened. ‘Who?’
‘I do not know his name.’
Baba leaned back. ‘What did he look like?’
‘He was not wearing a uniform.’
‘Ah.’ Baba was silent for a moment.
‘Baba?’
‘Yes, Tinashe?’
‘What did that man want?’
‘He probably wanted to ask me some questions,’ said Baba.
‘About what?’
‘About the freedom fighters,’ said Abel. ‘Like we heard on the radio.’
Baba flicked his eyes to Abel, and back. ‘Yes. There have been rumours,’ he said. ‘Do not worry, Tinashe. It is nothing.’
‘I have heard stories about the freedom fighters,’ said Abel. He swelled out his chest. ‘They hide in the forest like tokoloshes and jump out to fight the soldiers. They can change themselves into animals.’
Baba laughed. ‘Where are you hearing these stories?’ he said. ‘From your Baba?’
‘No. He does not like me to talk about them.’
‘They are not true,’ said Baba. Abel deflated. ‘But I can tell you a story that is true. You have heard of Mbuya Nehanda?’
Abel shook his head. I nodded. Abel pinched me. ‘You haven’t.’
‘I have heard of her,’ I said. ‘I just do not know the whole story.’
Baba stubbed out his cigarette and leaned back against the tree. Abel and I sat with our legs crossed, as men did.
‘You want to hear?’ said Baba.
Yes, we nodded.
I have heard many versions of Nehanda’s story over the years. I do not remember the words that Baba used to tell the story on that day, but I have my own version of it that I have learned from many repetitions by many different people. Others will tell a different story, but this is mine.
Dzepfunde.
The spirit Nehanda was a mhondoro – a lion spirit – the most powerful, and one that chooses only chiefs and sisters of chiefs to carry its message. A lion spirit protects a whole region, a whole people – not just one family, as most spirits do. And a mhondoro only possesses those who have the heart of a lion to begin with.
The original Nehanda was once called Nyamhika, daughter of Mutota, the first Monomatapa, a king. She had a brother, Matope, from a different mother. To increase his power and to make his line strong and indestructible, Mutota ordered Matope to commit incest with his half-sister in order to produce a son. I do not know how they did this: whether the king let Nyamhika walk under the cool moon to her brother’s hut and couple with him in the secret darkness, or whether she performed the ceremony in full sunlight, in the open air, in front of the king himself. I do not know whether she enjoyed it: whether she felt the power that would create an empire forming between them like flame, or whether she submitted as a daughter who must obey her father, whatever that father demands.
After this, Nyamhika became known as Nehanda. She walked with a new pride, a new knowledge, a new bitterness. She was a lioness now, and even her father was afraid of her. But he was grateful also, as his empire spread and his rule extended until he was the greatest and most powerful king that had ever lived. He gave Nehanda a portion of his empire, and she grew in power also; more so than her brother and father did, and more so than they suspected. She did not die, as they died (for even the greatest kings must relinquish their hold on the land and become ancestors one day): instead, she became the Nehanda spirit, giving knowledge, predictions and power that could not be destroyed in battle. For five hundred years, the Nehanda spirit, forged in fire and incest, appeared when she was needed to those who were great leaders themselves.
After those five hundred years, Nehanda was reborn in the body of Nyakasikana, the slim-hipped, dark-as-honey daughter of a king. When the white people first appeared, Nehanda told us to be friendly towards them. Later, though, she told us to fight. The earth was unhappy with the whites, she told us: they had brought locusts and rinderpest, and our dead cattle burned in damp, steaming piles, our food going up in smoke. Mwari spoke through Nehanda and told us to fight, and not to fear, because the bullets of the white men would be turned to water.
We had forgotten the power of water: how the rains break tree-spines and flatten fields of crops.
The whites captured Nehanda, and sentenced her to death by hanging. Twice they tried to hang her, and twice her neck would not break. It was only when a fellow prisoner told them to remove the tobacco pouch from her belt that the hanging was successful.
‘They say that there is a new Nehanda,’ Baba told us on that day, ‘that her bones have risen again, as she said they would. She will help us in our fight.’
‘Our fight?’ I had heard about the freedom fighters on the radio, but their fight had no place in our half-asleep, baked-brown village.
Abel’s lips parted, but he did not speak. I saw words in
his eyes, though, and knew that his quick, sharp-toothed brain was at work on this new story.
‘Where is she?’ he asked. ‘Is she here now?’
‘They say that she is in another country,’ said Baba. ‘Where it is safer. But she will come again.’
‘Why?’ Abel again.
‘People like Nehanda,’ said Baba, ‘are very important to us. To speak to the spirits is a great gift, and it is given for a reason.’
‘Could I speak to the spirits?’ said Abel.
Baba laughed. ‘If you could, you would know it by now,’ he said. ‘It is not something you can learn.’
‘But I can do other things,’ said Abel, too quietly for Baba to hear.
Hazvinei had said nothing during Baba’s story, but when I looked at her I saw a strange light in her eyes. Baba brushed himself off and went to wash before dinner.
‘Hazvinei?’ I said. ‘Hazvinei!’
But she did not hear me.
The white men stayed in the kopje, and it became normal for me to greet men in uniform as I walked through the village, and to pick up their discarded Coke bottles to take to Simon-at-the-bottle-store. Simon loved having the white men around. He stocked up on bottles of Castle lager and packets of biltong.
‘They have so much money!’ he said. ‘They buy so many things. It is good for the village, Tinashe, no matter what people say.’ And he wagged his finger. I was not sure if it was good for the village, but it was certainly good for Simon. He bought a shining new bicycle and parked it outside the bottle store to show it off. We kopje kids crowded around it, close enough to mist the red paint with our breath, but Simon was ready to shoo us away with a broom if we got too close. The white men laughed at our simple ways, but they did not know the joy of freewheeling down the hill on a new bicycle with fresh tyres and pedals that did not stick. I did not like the fact that they watched us all so closely, but I did like the free sweets and the sudden increase in the number of glass bottles I could exchange for coins.
No one besides Simon and the children liked having so many whites in the village. Cattle began to sicken and die, and people whispered that it was because of the strangers that walked among us like ghosts. Some of the goats broke down their pen and were lost. Bad luck hovered like a cloud of flies in the air. It even touched our family, in our nice brick house with the proper fence and the clean-swept front yard.
