Under African Skies

by Charles Larson

  “Yes,” Mama KaZili answered with firmness.

  Once again, there were rumbling voices from the men, this time louder and more threatening. I remembered one case two years ago in Habelo when one woman had told her husband outright that he was lazy. Every corner of the village had groups of men cursing,

  “What an insult! A woman tell her husband he is lazy!” By the end of the week, the woman had disappeared. Her husband had beaten her severely. Nobody knew whether she had been admitted to the hospital or had run back to her parents, a ngalile (a wife who runs away from her husband back to her parents), or had joined other runaway wives, who were eventually called prostitutes. (Because separation and divorce are more common nowadays, that has changed.) There were rumors and speculations, until a few days later, when dogs dug up the decaying body of the woman in her garden.

  “Order!” Matweba demanded silence.

  In addition to the rumblings, there was an uncomfortable chaotic movement in the house. Men felt insulted by Mama KaZili, and obviously some of them wanted to “touch” or “lay hands” on her. Others gaped at her with utter scorn.

  “She must go back to Swaziland!” a voice shot to the roof.

  “O-o-o-o-order!” Matweba shouted vehemently in a roar that could have frightened a lion. There was a smell of onion from the other room. My stomach groaned. My mouth watered. If only we would eat in a few minutes! At least by now we were warmed by the yellowish-blue flames of burning dung. But we were still starving. Would we ever eat, amid these heated quarrels of grownups? I wondered.

  A band of birds passed next to the window, singing their old melodious song happily, as though it was not snowing outside. In the house, a deafening silence fell once more for Mama KaZili to speak.

  “May I remind you that I’m a legal citizen of Lesotho through marriage? I don’t intend to go back to Swaziland. And no one can force me to go, not even my husband.”

  “Does this woman ever read the Bible? Will she ever learn to respect us?” one man asked loudly near the door. Other voices joined in.

  “Yes, the Bible. And respect to us?” The question was directed to Mama KaZili via Matweba.

  “Yes, I know the Bible,” she answered. “It says women should keep silent. ‘They are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.’ Customary laws also treat women as children who are expected to be under the man’s guidance and protection. Women are considered weak and naive. They have to seek permission even for little things like visiting friends and parents, looking for employment, seeking to attend school, or asking for a scholarship or loan or applying for a site … . Name them all,” Mama KaZili told them in a clear, firm tone. Her voice had a ring to it, like a medium-sized school bell. It reflected self-confidence, industriousness, fairness, and humbleness, just a touch of hunger, loneliness, and tiredness. The way everybody listened quietly in the house, you would have thought they were hypnotized.

  Mama KaZili continued undisturbed. “All these forms of injustice take place in a government [Basutoland National Party] that repeatedly points out with pride that it has been elected by women because men, who are predominantly away in the South African mines, are mostly pro-BCP [Basutoland Congress Party]. Society and government don’t want to give women a chance. Women have to seek permission for everything that can improve their lives. Before I pass away in this world, I want to have had a chance to improve my life and the lives of my children.”

  Everybody in the house was looking at her in disbelief, openmouthed, eyebrows raised. Mama KaZili must have given them more than enough to chew at a go. Men sighed without a word. One after the other they started going out of the house silently.

  The last to go was Matweba, who said in a declarative tone: “Men solve family problems best at the kraal. We shall be back soon to give our final word on the matter.” He closed the door behind him with what I thought was a bang.

  Fortunately for them, it had stopped snowing, although it was still freezing outside. I heard a cow moo at the kraal, obviously mistaking the men for herdboys.

  As soon as the men had gone, plates of food were brought in for us to eat. That was what Mama KaZili had brought us to Makhoakhoeng for: to have something to eat before we went to sleep. The food was delicious: papa, popasane (a wild vegetable which is resistant to winter cold), and mutton. It was two years since I had eaten meat. The smell of onion was there.

  I had always been told that my nickname, Richman, was derived from one old Nhlapo whom I was named after who lived at Makhoakhoeng sometime in the late 1890s and owned a lot of sheep. That day, with mutton on my plate, the nickname made a lot of sense.

  There were mixed feelings about what Mama KaZili had said to the men. Elderly wives thought she shouldn’t have spoken like that to the heads of families, and that she should offer an apology when they came back from the kraal. Younger wives thought the truth had finally been told. It was high time they stood up on their feet to do something about their lives, they said. Even if men did not admit it, economic pressures in the families appeared too heavy for them to lift alone. It was time they swallowed their pride and accepted reality. Mama KaZili nodded her head with satisfaction, agreeing with the younger women. Her preaching was developing roots.

  One by one, in single file, the men came in. They were silent and frightening. Dusk made them look like tall black shades moving in silhouette. One by one, they sat down in their chairs, while the women remained seated on the floor. Once again, Matweba took the chairmanship.

  Soon there was a frightening silence in the house. Those who hadn’t finished eating had to stop abruptly. The atmosphere became electric. Everybody knew that decisions made from the kraal could not be questioned. In a way, the decisions were regarded as holy because men were made heads of families by the Almighty God.

  The last man came in from the other house, carrying a bundle in his hands, wrapped in a white sheet. He put the bundle next to my mother. It was the corpse of Mkhathini, the deceased child. The audience remained breathless.

  With a thundering note of finality in his voice, Matweba broke the silence: “I, Matweba, the brother of your husband, together with his other close relatives, have decided that you, Mama KaZili, are bringing disrespectful and misleading lessons to our wives here at Makhoakhoeng. If they allow you to do that at Habelo, we cannot allow it here. We have therefore decided that, because of snow, the children will remain here for a week or so. As soon as the snow is over, they will be sent back to Habelo, back to you. We cannot allow you to humiliate Moshe, your husband, our brother, by scattering his children all around in the name of looking for employment without anybody’s permission. If we can allow you to humiliate him, our wives can also go out of hand and humiliate us. We cannot allow the breakup of the Nhlapo family. Those of us who have not been fortunate enough to get employment in the mines have the duty of keeping the Nhlapo family intact.

  “Tomorrow morning some of us will accompany you back to Habelo to help with the burial service for the deceased. You will have to carry the corpse back home on your back, just like you brought it here today. I have spoken.”

  As soon as he had finished, everyone stood up to disperse to their families in silence.

  Matweba and his men might have been keeping culture, customs, and the Nhlapo family intact, but they were still in for another surprise, another challenge. The decision from the kraal was not definite and final enough for Mama KaZili. She stood up to speak. Members of the family who were already going had to stop to listen.

  “You may have spoken. But I also have meant every word I spoke to you and to everybody. It is up to us women to stand up for our lives and the lives of our children … I’ll go back to work hard, hard for them and for myself …” She spoke aloud in a tone that changed to a familiar one I had heard several hours ago when we were struggling to climb the slippery, snowy mountain.

  She did not finish all she wanted to say because she fell down heavily, just like the last time she did on the moun
tain with a baby on her back. But this time she did not utter the name of my father in disgust when she fell. It was just a heavy and very silent fall. Her body lay painfully crooked next to the body of Mkhathini.

  My sister and I were the first to cry hysterically. We did not like the thought that our mother might have died too, leaving us alone in the brutal, uncaring world.

  Very quickly we were taken to the other house, because we were making unbearable noise and disturbing the adults. They were pouring cold water on Mama KaZili’s head to wake her up.

  I recalled all the events of the day and all that Mama KaZili had said. In one instance, she had said: “Before I pass away in this world I want to have had a chance to improve my life and the lives of my children.” I wondered if this would ever happen.

  By the end of the year she would be working as a primary teacher without my father’s or his parents’ permission. From her meager salary she sent us to school, again without anybody’s permission. From then on, there was always something to eat before we went to sleep.

  —1994

  Steve Chimombo

  (BORN 1945) MALAWI

  Steve Chimombo has been an active force in Malawi’s literary resurgence for the past twenty years. A professor of English at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, he has edited and encouraged student work in addition to founding Writers and Artists Services International. His education has been international: a B.A. from the University of Malawi, an M.A. from Leeds, an Ed.D. from Columbia, and stints as a creative writer at the Iowa International Writers Workshop and the Macdowell Colony. He has also taught briefly in the United States, in addition to his more lengthy career as an academic in Malawi.

  The scope of Chimombo’s writing is equally broad. His six volumes of poetry include Napolo and the Python (1994). He has had one novel, The Basket Girl (1990), published and has had several plays presented in Malawi, including The Rainmaker (1975). A collection of short stories, Tell Me a Story (1992), several children’s books, and a volume of folklore (Malawian Oral Literature, 1988) are part of his extensive output, in addition to several academic guides to Malawian literature.

  In an interview with Lee Nichols, commentator for the Voice of America, Chimombo stated that the main goal of all his writing has been to show “the cyclical nature of things, the rhythms of life, night and day, birth, death, and so on.” As the story “Taken” implies, until recently conditions for the writer in Malawi have not been particularly supportive of creative work. Chimombo has said: “The story recaptures the processes of eliminating writers under Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s regime between 1964 and 1994. Writers, artists, and dissenters were systematically arrested, detained, killed, or forced into exile. Although the story was written under such conditions, it could not be published until democracy and multi-partyism were ushered in during the second republic. In fact, an editor of a U.K. journal of letters refused to publish it before this period for fear it might jeopardize the writer. The characters involved in the story are well known in Malawi’s academic circles and have granted the author permission to publish the story as it is. The names and places, however, are pure fiction.”

  Of his own attempts to survive as a writer during the Banda years, the author remarks: “My writings—poetry, fiction, and even faction—over the past thirty years have been forced to be expressed in mythological terms. Writing openly or plainly during Banda’s reign of terror was an invitation to be ‘meat for the crocodiles’; hence my taking refuge in symbol and myth. Those who know the system of metaphors I use understand what I am talking about. The system is still accessible to those who are foreign to it. In the story, however, I am dealing with actualities. I was involved in some of the events and there was no room for mythologizing anymore. Even myth offered no route for escape.”

  TAKEN

  1

  It was a few minutes before noon, and I was packing my briefcase slowly, when Zinenani, an old friend now working in the capital city, burst in.

  “Alekeni!” he shouted unceremoniously.

  “Hi!”

  “When did you get back?”

  “Get back?”

  “I thought you’d gone abroad.”

  “It won’t be for a month or so.”

  “But the whole capital is full of rumors of your having gone already, and decided to stay on.”

  “Stay on?”

  “Defected is the word.”

  “Defected? Why?”

  “Because of what happened to Ndasauka.”

  “But I wasn’t involved in that.”

  “Rumor has it that since your fellow writer was detained you decided to skip the country.”

  “But why should I do that? I haven’t done anything that would make me go into exile.”

  “Believe me, when I saw you walk up to your office a few minutes ago, I thought I was seeing a ghost. The rumors were that strong. I came up just to make sure I was seeing right.”

  “But I was on the radio two days ago.”

  “That could have been prerecorded.”

  “That’s true. Anyway, you can tell my well-wishers in the capital that I’m still around.”

  “But you’ll still be going abroad?”

  “I can’t miss that opportunity.”

  “The rumors aren’t anticipating your exile?”

  “Believe me, if I had wanted to go into exile, I would have done so years ago when I was away studying in the U.K. and U.S.A. The thought seriously occurred to me then, but after toying with it, I realized I’m, deep down, an ancestor worshiper. I also discovered that I cannot write the genuine stuff when I’m on foreign soil. I decided to brave my own country.”

  “It’s good the rumors were just that. We need fellows like you around.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Consultations.”

  The phone rang. I let it ring.

  “It’s nice to see you, all the same.”

  “I’ve got to be going.” Zinenani turned to the door.

  I waved him off and lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

  “This is Chodziwa-dziwa.”

  It was my kid brother. He had not been in touch for a long time. He, too, worked in the capital.

  “How are you?”

  “Fine. I’m actually speaking from your house.”

  “When did you come down?”

  “I just arrived. I wanted to talk to you.”

  “I’ll be right over. It’s lunchtime, anyhow.”

  As I finished packing my briefcase, I puzzled over what Zinenani had said. The rumor was getting slightly stale. Just yesterday, I had been waylaid by a colleague’s wife in the supermarket.

  “Alekeni, come here!”

  She took me by the hand and literally dragged me between two food counters. She was so enthusiastic I worried someone might suspect we were going to embrace or something, the way she furtively looked around and then drew near me as if she wanted to touch me.

  “So”—she heaved a sigh of relief—“you’re not gone!”

  “Gone where?”

  “Taken by the police.”

  “Why should the police take me?”

  “Because of Ndasauka.”

  “But I don’t even know what he’s inside for.”

  “You don’t need to know to be implicated. You’re a friend of his, and a writer, too.”

  “Even then.”

  It had ended like that, leaving me thoroughly peeved at the source of the rumor. In Mtalika, rumor diffused at the speed of sound: word of mouth, telephone, letter, even telepathy. It was said that before you decided to seduce your friend’s wife, people would already know about it and actively make sure it came about. Before long, I would end up believing in the rumor myself, even when right now I was still in Mtalika, getting into my own car to drive from my office home to have lunch with my family and kid brother. A free man.

  “Daddy! Daddy!”

  My five-year-old always ran up to the garage doors to meet me as s
oon as he heard the car in the driveway. Between our dog and him, I could not tell who gave me the warmer welcome. Sometimes they almost tripped over each other in the rush to meet me with cries and barks. It was overwhelming.

  “Your brother is in the sitting room” were my wife’s welcoming words.

  I walked through the dining room to the lounge to find Chodziwa-dziwa flipping through a popular magazine. He looked up and grinned sheepishly. Something was bothering him.

  “So it’s not true” was his greeting.

  “What?”

  “That you are missing.”

  “Missing?” This was getting to be too enormous to be funny.

  “A man came round to my place two days ago to say that something had happened involving a friend of yours, that your friend had been taken, and that you had disappeared without a trace.”

  “This is ridiculous. Who was the man?”

  “I don’t know, and he refused to identify himself. He said he just wanted your relatives to know that you could not be found.”

  It was wearisome, if not monstrous. I reviewed my involvement with Ndasauka again.

  2

  I was going too fast but could do nothing about it. I was too agitated to be driving at that speed, yet I still maintained it, even when I kept going off the road at each minor bend. I had had one too many, but it was too late to start regretting that. I could not talk about Ndasauka rationally with his best friend by my side.

  “Surely”—I detected the hoarseness in my voice—“you must know something he was involved in?”

  “I’m telling you I don’t.”

  “You don’t know, or you don’t want to discuss it?”

  “I don’t know anything that he was doing for the police to be interested in him.”

  “You’re his closest friend.”

  “That doesn’t mean he told me his entire life history.”

  “You were there when the police came to get him.”

  “It’s very simple. I had invited him out to lunch at the club for a change. We had just finished the meal and were having a drink before going back to work when they found us at the bar.”