by Andrea Eames
Abel called over Hazvinei and I to examine something he had found inside the gate. ‘What is that?’
‘What?’ I looked where he was pointing, and could see nothing.
‘There.’
Hazvinei crept forward on her hands and knees. ‘I see it.’ She traced something with her fingers in the dust.
‘What is it?’ I could not see. I came closer, craning to see over the bent heads of my sister and cousin. And then I saw what they were seeing: a perfect paw-print in the dust, sharp-edged and clear.
‘It is probably one of the dogs,’ I said.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Abel. ‘Do you know any dogs this big?’
Hazvinei fanned out her fingers and placed them over the print. Her whole hand fitted inside with plenty of room to spare.
‘It cannot be,’ I said. ‘It would not come this close to the house.’ Because Baba would keep it away, keep us safe, I thought but did not say. ‘And there is only one print. Someone may have made it for a joke.’
No one said ‘leopard’. We stood in silence, looking down at the paw-print.
‘Fine.’ Abel scuffed the print out with his foot. ‘It is nothing.’
We went to bed early that night. Abel fell asleep at once; I heard his snoring and and occasional grunt. As I lay there, thinking, I felt a weight on the end of the bed. A tokoloshe, a mischievous night spirit that sat on your chest and stopped your breath. I sat up, my heart trying to escape through my ribs, and saw that it was Hazvinei.
‘Hazvinei, it is the middle of the night.’ I kept my voice low, so as not to wake Abel, but my mouth was dry with fear, and it was hard to swallow. Hazvinei’s eyes shone white in the darkness.
‘What do you want?’ I asked her. She shifted her weight, getting comfortable. Abel shifted in his sleep and sighed, but did not wake.
‘Why are witches always women?’ she whispered.
‘What? You woke me up to ask this?’ I slumped backwards. ‘Can’t it wait until morning?’
‘I was thinking of Nehanda,’ she said.
‘In the middle of the night?’
‘Nehanda was not a muroyi. No one calls her that.’
‘Of course she was not.’
‘But what is the difference? Why are varoyi always women?’ said Hazvinei with great patience. ‘Why are they never men? We call men N’angas when they do the same things.’
I sighed, resigning myself to being awake a while longer. Abel did not stir.
‘That is impossible,’ I explained kindly, ‘because if they were men then they would not be witches.’
Hazvinei stared at me, flat-eyed. When she spoke again, it was with the slow, babying voice she used to talk to the chickens. ‘That is what I am saying. Why? There must be men who are witches too.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘What is wrong with you, Tinashe? I am asking why the witch-smellers only pick out the women from the crowd to see who is the witch. They do not look for men. Why is that? Why couldn’t it be a man poisoning the mombes and making them sick?’
‘Go to bed, Hazvinei.’
‘But why?’ she persisted.
‘Men are N’angas. They are not varoyi.’
‘Why?’
‘Hazvinei!’
‘Why?’
‘Because varoyi are women,’ I said. ‘That is just how it is.’
Hazvinei snorted. ‘You are a fool,’ she said. ‘Watch that a dung-beetle does not crawl in through your ear and steal your brain.’
She melted into the black. I hoped that she was going back to her room, and not to sit and fume outside where the leopards were. But even Hazvinei was not that careless.
Time passes slowly in places like the kopje. The hot sun melts and distorts it like sadza cooking on the stove, turning it soft and malleable, expanding it almost without your realising it. Every day was much the same: chores and lessons, rumours whispered in our ears, games played in the dust and hours spent swimming in the river. The river was our plaything, we kopje children. During the day we trusted it; perhaps a little too much. It rolled onto its back and let us tickle its belly, a friendly brown snake with a soft underside. There were times, though, when the rains turned the brown river to a black mamba that moved too quickly to be safe. More than one baby was lost to the river’s long, swallowing throat.
Abel, Hazvinei and I were not swallowed. Not yet.
The river is a living thing, Baba taught me. The long throat of the river swallows water from the sky. When you drink from it, you are not drinking ordinary water (the kind that collects in rain barrels and the evening leaves of plants): you are drinking a story told by a deep voice filled with knowledge of the sky and the earth. You are drinking a god. And, as a god, the river is capricious – you cannot trust it. It can bring illness as easily as refreshment; death as easily as life. And it steals the years from you as you sit quietly at its edge, dangling your toes in the water. You go from baby to boy to man without realising it, in those long, hot days.
Chapter Seven
THE YEAR OF 1973 was filled with ghosts and the rumours of ghosts. We heard whispers. ‘Vaenzi vauya – the strangers have come.’ According to the rumours, instead of living outside the borders of Rhodesia and only coming in again to raid or cause trouble, the rebels walked among us now, infiltrating the villages. Some of the men from neighbouring villages had vanished, they said – just disappeared without warning and without saying goodbye. Their wives and children carried on with chores and lessons as if nothing unusual had happened, answering questions with flat, unseeing stares. The kopje remained largely untouched, but the whispers continued.
The white men smiled less and did not give us chewing gum as before. Instead they watched us with colourless eyes and asked us questions when we left the kopje. Where are you going? Why? They collared the kids in particular, because it was known that a village child could act as a mujiba – an errand boy for the rebels – sneaking out under pretence of play and smuggling information or supplies. When Abel came to stay with us now, he was under strict instructions from Babamukuru to stay within the bounds of the village and to visit the river only when a large group was swimming or washing there.
‘The last thing Abel needs is any trouble,’ Babamukuru said. ‘He is going to take a scholarship exam in four years’ time, as I did. I will not allow him to do anything that will affect his future.’
I was old enough to start high school now, but although Baba allowed me to continue lessons at the village school, he told me I could not go to a proper senior college.
‘We cannot afford it, Tinashe,’ he said. ‘I am sorry.’
Abel attended a good school in town. I had seen his smart blazer and the straw hat he wore.
‘What about Babamukuru?’ I said.
Baba looked at me without expression. ‘What about Babamukuru?’
I knew that I should have stayed silent, but I could not. ‘Babamukuru said that I would be an educated man like him. When he visited. He promised that he would take care of my school, Baba. He promised.’
Baba was silent.
‘We could ask him for the money,’ I said. ‘He promised.’
The blow across my ear surprised me. It was merely a slap, but it made my head ring. I staggered backwards, more from surprise than from the weight of it.
‘I do not want to hear you talk about this again, Tinashe,’ said Baba. ‘Is that clear?’
I shook my head, trying to clear it.
‘Babamukuru has done many things for our family,’ said Baba. ‘You must be content with what we have. I will not have you shupering and bothering him with all your questions, and I will not have you talking that way. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Baba.’
It was a small thread of sound, but he heard it and seemed satisfied. I did not mention high school again. I read Abel’s cast-off books and tried to teach myself the things that he was learning, so I would not fall behind. When he visited a few days after my fight with
Baba, he dumped a pile of books in my lap and raced straight to the river with Hazvinei. I was sitting in the dust of the yard with my newsprint exercise book when they returned.
‘If you are not careful you will need glasses like Baba,’ said Abel. ‘Reading all day.’
I threw a pencil at him. He flopped down beside me in the shade, laughing, and Hazvinei stretched out full-length on the tiles of the stoep to dry off. We stayed silent, and I concentrated so hard on my reading that I almost did not hear the voice that spoke from our front gate.
‘Hello again.’ English words.
I turned, and saw the white policeman who visited Baba from time to time. We had not seen him for months now, and I had imagined that Baba was no longer suspected of hiding his knowledge of the rebels.
‘I am here to see your Baba,’ said the policeman. ‘Is he home?’
‘I do not know,’ I said in English. ‘We have just come back from the river.’
I saw us through his eyes – scruffy kopje kids with dust in our hair and holes in our clothing.
‘What do you want?’ said Hazvinei.
The white man smiled, showing yellow teeth.
‘It is a good day for swimming,’ he said. ‘We go down there sometimes as well, when we have finished work.’
I imagined him skinny and pale, dipping a cautious toe in the water.
‘Does your father often go out after work?’ said the white man. ‘Does he go down to the river as well?’
There was a question behind his question, but I did not have time to answer it. Baba was at the door.
‘Vana. Go and play.’
‘But Baba, we have just come home …’
‘Go.’
He stepped forwards to talk to the white man. Hazvinei and I hovered for a moment.
‘What did I tell you?’ Baba’s voice was sharp. He said something in English, quietly, to the white man, and then to us. ‘Now.’
We ran, Hazvinei clutching my hand as if I could protect her from everything bad that there was in the world. As we ran, I wondered if Abel had told Babamukuru, safe in their brick house in town, about the suspicions of the white policemen who still visited Baba to ask him questions. I doubted it.
Sometimes ghosts are not the remembered shadows of the dead, but people who blow into our lives by accident; they are ghosts because we were never meant to meet them. To see them is a dangerous thing, and they bring bad fortune whether they want to or not.
Late that night, my mboro woke me with the strong desire for a piss. I did not want to get up, because I remembered the yellow teeth of the policeman and the snake-like hiss of the radio he carried, and I was afraid he would be waiting for me in the leopard-filled darkness outside the comfort of my bedroom. I tried to sleep again, but my dreams were full of snakes and rivers and waterfalls. I got up, careful not to wake Abel. He was a dark shape on the mattress, breathing sour sleeping breaths, and he did not stir.
As I shuffled through the thick darkness, I heard voices from the kitchen. I stopped, my knees stiff and unyielding, and listened. Two voices, yes, but they were not speaking English and they did not have the crisp rasp of the white man’s voice.
I opened the door to the kitchen. Two figures sat at the table.
‘Tinashe!’
Sleep greased my eyes, and their faces swam and swirled like oil at the bottom of a pan.
‘Tinashe, go to bed.’
My eyes cleared. I saw Baba, hollow in the electric light, and another man, his bare back curved and ridged with bone. The strange man turned to look at me. His shoulders heaved with every breath; his nostrils flared. He was wet, as if he had run through the rain, but it was not raining outside.
‘Tinashe, go back to bed,’ said Baba.
‘Babamudiki? What is happening?’ Abel appeared in the doorway. I had not even heard him approaching.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked me, and then caught sight of the stranger.
The unknown man curled his wide mouth into a smile. ‘Hello, Tinashe,’ he said. ‘Your father has been telling me about you.’
‘Manheru,’ I said, not sure if it were indeed evening still, or closer to morning. Abel pushed his way through the door to stand next to me.
‘I am Abel,’ he said.
The curly mouth smiled again.
‘This is Chenjerai,’ said Baba. ‘He is visiting us.’
‘Come. Sit,’ said Chenjerai.
I looked at Baba. His stillness told me that I was given permission, and I moved to stand at the table. Abel followed.
‘Do not wake your sister,’ said Baba.
‘No, Baba.’
‘No, Babamudiki,’ said Abel.
‘This is not your son?’ said Chenjerai.
Baba shook his head. ‘My nephew.’
I noticed three things. I noticed a pan of water on the stove. I noticed a sour smell that came from a pair of tweezers sitting on the table. And I noticed a dark, soaked bandage at Chenjerai’s shoulder.
‘I am sorry to have woken you,’ said Chenjerai, who was younger than I had first thought. Eighteen, perhaps, like the boys who hung around the bottle store and kicked cans.
‘Where do you live?’ I asked him. ‘I have not seen you before.’
Baba took a sip of tea, looking at me over the cup’s rim. ‘It is rude to ask too many questions, Tinashe.’
‘I am sorry, Baba.’
‘It is all right,’ said Chenjerai. ‘I live in the bush.’
In the bush. A mukomana. A freedom fighter. Beside me, I felt Abel stand up straighter.
Chenjerai saw my excitement, and smiled.
‘You are staying nearby?’ I said. ‘All of you?’
‘Tinashe. You know we do not ask these things,’ said Baba.
‘It is all right,’ said Chenjerai again, but he did not answer me.
‘Can I have some tea too?’ I asked, pushing my luck. I half-rested my bum on one of the kitchen chairs.
‘No,’ said Baba. ‘You need to go back to bed. Chenjerai is going now.’
Chenjerai flicked his eyes to Baba, then back to me.
‘I owe you something for waking you, yes?’ he said. ‘Hold out your hand.’
I held it out, palm up. I could feel Abel’s eyes on me.
‘Close your eyes.’
I closed them. The electric light made my eyelids red and angry.
‘Here.’
Something smooth and cool rolled into my palm; something small and heavy. I opened my eyes. An object of dull grey, rounded, with a misshapen end, like a tiny river stone. I smelled the metallic stink that had filled the kitchen when I first arrived.
‘It is a bullet,’ said Chenjerai. ‘It will bring you good luck, I think. It was good luck for me.’
‘In a way,’ said Baba.
‘I am happy for whatever luck I get,’ said Chenjerai, and winked at me. ‘Chisarai.’
I was dismissed. ‘Chisarai.’
Baba opened the door. A sudden wind, night noises, the smell of dry grass and dew. Chenjerai went, smiling, into darkness, and Baba closed the door again.
He looked at us both. We looked at him. ‘I did not want to wake you,’ he said.
‘How did you know that man?’ I said. ‘What was he doing here? Is it something to do with Nehanda? Is that why the policeman came to see you?’
‘Nyarara.’ Baba hushed me. ‘Come.’ He held out his hand, cool and strong. I took it, Abel took the other, and we let him lead us back to our bed.
‘You will not mention this, vakomana,’ said Baba. He bent down to look us in the eyes.
‘No, Baba.’
‘No, Babamudiki.’
‘You promise me?’
‘Yes, Baba.’
‘Yes, Babamudiki.’
‘We must all do our part,’ he said. ‘But we must also keep quiet about it.’
‘Yes, Baba.’
‘Yes, Babamudiki.’
‘Good boys. Now off to bed.’
Even in the close
darkness of our room, Abel and I dared not talk about it; but I had forgotten about my mboro. A hot, sharp pain in my side reminded me that I had some piss to let out, but I did not want to go back through to the kitchen, as Baba had told me to stay quietly in bed. Instead, I opened the little window and stood on my bed, aiming into the darkness.
‘What are you doing?’ Abel asked me in a whisper. ‘Are you going to follow him?’
‘No.’
Even the full moon looked like a distended bladder, yellow and swollen. It was a good job; I only left a few drips on the windowsill.
‘Are you sleeping, Tinashe?’ came Baba’s voice from the next room.
‘Yes, Baba,’ I said, and jumped back into bed to burrow my nose into the familiar, musty smell of my pillow.
When I awoke the next morning, Abel was staring into my face. I pushed him away. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Are you awake? Do you remember what happened last night?’
‘Yes.’ I rubbed the back of my arm across my eyelids and blinked to clear the stars. I remembered a bullet; a bowl; the curved ridge of a spine. ‘Yes.’
‘Chenjerai,’ said Abel. Beware.
‘What?’
‘Chenjerai. His name.’
‘Oh.’ I felt beneath my pillow, remembering, and pulled out the bullet. It was warm, and I imagined it smelled of the dark, rich scent of Chenjerai’s wound.
‘Let me see.’ Abel held out his hand.
‘No. He gave it to me.’
‘Give it to me.’
‘No.’
A scuffle. The bullet fell to the floor with a clatter.
‘What are you boys doing?’ came a voice from the kitchen.
‘Nothing, Amai!’
Abel lay on top of me, breathing heavily.
‘He gave it to me,’ I said, and gripped the bullet in my fist.
Silence for a moment. Abel glared at me. I held his gaze.
‘Fine.’ Abel rolled off me. ‘But we will go to find him today.’
I snorted. ‘How are you planning to do that?’
Abel pressed something to my arm. It burned, and I yelped. I had forgotten his habit of collecting the hard black seeds that littered our yard – when rubbed hard against the concrete floor, they became hot and stung the skin. Abel always kept one or two in his pocket for moments like these.
