by Chris Abani
Here, you say, showing the woman the picture. She is stirring a pot of beans on the stove in the small kitchen-cum-pantry. This is my real father, you say. I know that for a fact, you insist, although no one is arguing. The one in the fairy tale you are about to tell is your father too, but you don’t say that. I mean, he can’t be your real father if he is in a fairy tale, can he? It is just a story, like Red Riding Hood, and that isn’t real, and telling it never hurt anybody, did it? Although if the truth be told, Red’s big mouth did alert the wolf to Grandma and though everything worked out really well in the end, there can be no joy in being eaten by a wolf, swallowed whole. Even if you are old, even if it is temporary. Like the nine-year-old boy in the homelands that Drum magazine says was swallowed whole by a python, but bit his way to freedom, right through the snake’s belly, from the inside out.
Tell me more, the woman says. Each time you have lunch, since you first told her the story, she presses you to tell it again. And you want to because she comes to you while your mother is still at work and feeds you, and you want to because she is your mother’s special friend. It’s the same every time; you always begin with the photo that is your real father, not the father in the story. Because what harm can it do? What a rarity; a grown-up who wants to hear the stories of a child. Not just any grown-up, but a white woman too, although that is not immediately obvious when you look at her—she looks more colored than white, but this is South Africa in the ’70s and who can tell for sure. This you can understand, because your mother is Zulu and your father is Indian but there is nothing clear about that when people look at you, especially in this land where you are what your father is. But only women surround you, and so there is no clear proof that you are who you want to be. Especially since everyone thinks you are just another Zulu brat with a father lost to the mines, the war, the struggle, the bottle, or all of them, and this story your mother tells is a lie that makes her not the slut she really is, and this photo of a Sikh man in a turban, this photo could not be real. Who would admit to a marriage, a relationship, that clearly broke the anti-miscegenation laws? And you know children are just being cruel when they say this; you know it’s not true because your mother told you it isn’t, but it hurts nonetheless. And then your mother adopts this strange woman who claims she is white, and brings her home and says, Here is your auntie Alice, even though everyone else calls her White Alice.
So what harm, telling her this story?
And like always, like a game she plays with you, this lonely only child half-starved for attention, she asks, Have you ever seen your father? And you say, No, but he is a hero, just like the father in the story. And then White Alice says, Tell me the story, then, Sunil, tell it to me, you know I love it.
And she listens, rapt, moving only to keep the beans from burning and sticking to the pan. And then you begin.
Long ago and far away, but today and so forever, there lived a brave. Then one day, a big ogre invaded his land. He was a strong, evil ogre from a land far in the north where the sun hid its face. At first the people said to the ogre, There is plenty of land to share, why not share? But the ogre began to kill everyone, so the warrior fought the ogre, but it was too powerful, so the warrior fled, escaped to the land of the Shona, a powerful but kind people to the north. And there the warrior made his home, training other men who also escaped to the land of the Shona, driven off by the ogre, how to be warriors.
And where does he live in the land of Shona, White Alice asked.
He lives by a big baobab tree, you say, on an island that looks like a mudfish in a big sea called Kariba. There he and the other impis trained and grew strong to become better warriors and they would return soon to defeat the ogre.
It is a short story, but with each telling, you add detail: the dusty road that leads through the mystical forest of Chete Safan, which is the name of a powerful witch who protects all who dwell there; the strange Sibalians who roam free and are powerful medicine men who can fly to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro; the reeds by the water’s edge that hide the magical fish-shaped island from view like the ones that hid Moses as a baby.
And then while you stuff your face with beans and bread, sipping delicately on the Coca-Cola that you aren’t allowed but which is part of your secret, White Alice spreads a map out and asks you to tell her the story again, pen poised over the map to mark something, and with each telling, the map gets more and more marks.
Today, like all the other days, she draws lines across the map that has Rhodesia printed on it in big letters. She draws lines connecting the Chete Safan area with the small town of Sibalia on the shores of Lake Kariba, looking, searching for an island shaped like a mudfish or a whale.
But it is only a story, and what harm can it do? And if your mother trusts this white woman who looks colored and if she wants to hear your fairy tale, then what of it?
And then a few days later you come home from playing to find your mother crying on the floor, kneeling as if in prayer, shoulders heaving, a telegraph lying like a dead moth beside her. You know someone has died. That’s the only time telegrams come to Soweto. You know better than to ask any questions, better than to approach her. So you sneak to your room and you listen to her prowling and muttering to herself as she deduces the mystery, and you hear the terrible words that confirm a fear that until now has sat in the pit of your stomach, gnawing away.
How did White Alice know the truth, she asks herself. Was it Sunil? Was it Sunil’s story about his father, about where he was hiding, that led Alice to the truth?
And you know she has put it all together. And you realize that this was no fairy tale, even though she had said it was, said the word in Zulu, ignanekwane. This was no mere tale. Your father was the father in the story and he is real. He was the head of an armed ANC faction launching guerilla attacks on shopping malls to bring down apartheid. He fled to Rhodesia to escape and he was hiding in an ANC training camp on an island. The fairy tale contained the directions and White Alice finally figured it out on a map while you ate beans and bread and drank Coca-Cola and told your story. And although you tell yourself you could not have known the truth, you know it is a lie, because you were four when your mother first told it to you, because your father left when she was still pregnant with you, and you needed it. But now you are twelve and if what the Bible says about Jesus is true, then old enough to debate your elders in a temple; and certainly in Soweto, in the ’70s, to be twelve is like being twenty, but there is still a four-year-old who missed the father he had never seen and who needed someone to hear his story. This is what you tell yourself.
But you hear the terrible whispered truth as your mother prowls the house like a hungry ghost. And White Alice, who was once white but turned colored because of a sickness; White Alice, who lost it all—her husband, her kids, her nice home in a white suburb, her white pass card, her privilege—and had to live in Soweto like a kaffir; White Alice, whom Dorothy had taken in, taken to, a fellow lost soul, Alice had betrayed her. Stolen Sunil’s story and day by day reconstructed the truth. A truth she sold to the secret police in the hopes of getting her life back, her kids, her husband, her home, her whiteness. And who wouldn’t, Dorothy muttered, and who wouldn’t. But still, but still. And now her husband and many other men dead, and Sunil without his father, not even a mythical one. And all because of a story, a story and a mouth that told it. She was good at stories.
The last sound you hear that night draws you into the kitchen. And you see your mother sitting there, shoulders shaking with sobs. Terrified, you approach, terrified because you have never seen her this way, this woman whom everyone deferentially calls Nurse Dorothy.
And then she looks up when you call to her, and you scream.
You don’t scream because of the mascara running down her face in black witch tendrils, or the rouge of her cheeks smeared with tears and sweat. It is her mouth that terrifies you. She has sewn it shut, the needle still dangling f
rom a piece of black surgical thread. Not a mouth at all but flesh, meat, raw and bleeding.
And so you run. Run to White Alice’s house.
And then the men come in an old ambulance and take your mother, and though there is a murderous rage in her eyes when she sees White Alice, there is also an understanding, gratitude for this gift of the men dressed in white uniforms.
And Dorothy looks from you to White Alice and because her mouth is still sewn shut, the women can only exchange looks.
Yes, White Alice says, yes, I will take care of Sunil.
Again that murderous rage and gratitude, then Dorothy is gone.
You are twelve.
You never tell your story again.
Johnny Ten-Ten, who lives down the street at Ten-Ten, says: You know why your mother sewed her mouth shut and then got taken to the crazy house?
You know better than to answer, you know that children can be cruel.
SATURDAY
Seventeen
It was early, and a mist thrown by the heat and the sprinklers covered the grounds of the Desert Palms Institute. Invisible in the whiteness, peacocks shrieked like god-awful creatures. Water, unable to sleep all night, was wide-awake when the nurse came round on the forty-minute-interval suicide watch. Although Sunil didn’t actually believe the twins would kill themselves, he wanted to be sure.
The nurse brought coffee. Is it how you like it, he asked Water, passing a Styrofoam cup of hot liquid.
Four hundred billion cups of coffee are consumed across the world every year, Water said, sipping gingerly.
You didn’t sleep much, did you?
The record for the longest time without sleep is eighteen days, twenty-one hours, and forty minutes, Water said.
Is your brother still asleep, the nurse asked, pointing to the caul-covered Fire.
Water’s stomach growled loudly in response. The rumbling made the nurse smile.
I’ll bring you something to eat in a minute, he said, closing the door gently.
Water walked across the room and stood by the window. The mist was dissipating, revealing well-manicured Japanese-style gardens rolling down to a fence. Even with the landscaping, the place still looked like a corporate park. The room, decorated as it was like a high-end but impersonal hotel room, added to the effect. The nurse returned.
The kitchen isn’t open yet, but I did find these in the vending machine, he said, holding out a bag of M&M’s and a packet of Red Vines.
The main flavor of licorice candy is anise but for red licorice it’s cherry, Water said, putting a Red Vine in his mouth.
I’ll be back in forty minutes, the nurse said, turning to leave just as the caul covering Fire snapped back like a venetian blind.
Fire blinked, adjusting to the light. Sniffing theatrically, he said: Red Vines.
Water passed one. Fire chewed-on it for a minute, eyes closed, then spat the chewed-up red candy into his cupped hand. The nurse watched from the half-closed door, mesmerized.
Fire looked up. Hello, he said to the nurse.
Hi, the nurse said.
Disgusting habit, I know, Fire said, but I’m not good at digesting anything that isn’t liquid. I get most of my nutrition from Water.
Like a baby, Water said. That’s why I eat for two.
You eat for three, Fire said.
Water laughed so hard, Fire looked like he was riding a mechanical bull.
That’s quite all right, the nurse said, retreating.
Did you sleep, Fire asked Water.
No, Water said.
Is the coffee any good?
No, Water said.
What’s that horrible screeching?
Peacocks, Water said.
What’s with the curt answers, Fire asked. Are you in a bad mood?
Water shrugged. The peacocks screeched again.
Jesus, Fire muttered, how many of those fuckers are there?
An ostentation, Water said.
A what?
A group of peacocks is an ostentation, Water said. Like a bouquet of pheasants, a kettle of hawks, a deceit of lapwings, a descent of woodpeckers, an exaltation of larks, a murmuration of starlings, a siege of herons, an unkindness of ravens—
Fuck, Fire said, you really are in a bad mood. He passed the handful of spat-out Red Vines to Water and retreated under the caul. I’m going back to sleep, he said, voice muffled. Maybe you should try and get some.
The caul snapped shut.
Closed for business, Water said, and finished his coffee.
Eighteen
Eskia crossed his room to look out the window at the still-rising sun. He hadn’t slept much. He never did, really. He had resigned himself to this a long time ago. His insomnia held the full weight of his guilt; the heft of his father’s sniper rifle.
He’d already spent three days at this hotel and would have to check out today. Routine made it easier to be found. To be marked. It made intelligence operatives careless. From following him, he knew the Venetian was Sunil’s favorite, so he decided on there.
Eskia cupped a mug of coffee in his hands. The room service delivery had not woken the sleeping Asia. He studied her sleeping form, sheets half off her. She had impossibly long legs; so long they made her torso seem short. And her hair was thick and worn in a crowning Afro. Flawless amber skin betrayed her biracial identity. Something a South African would spot easier than anyone else. He was somewhat surprised at the abandon with which she slept. He was irrationally angered by it. What right did she have to be so carefree?
Glancing over at the breakfast for two on the cart, Eskia wondered why he had bothered. He wasn’t that hungry, and while he didn’t typically frequent prostitutes, he was sure they didn’t expect breakfast the morning after. But this wasn’t just any hooker. This was Sunil’s special hooker.
He knew Sunil from college, and while he was the closest thing Eskia had to a friend then, their relationship had always been fraught.
Eskia came from Soweto royalty, an upper-middle-class family of Anglican ministers, doctors, and lawyers. People who lived in Orlando, the part of Soweto the locals sometimes called Beverly Hills; people who sat in the front pews at church on Sundays and sent their kids to private schools abroad; people who made up the cream of the ANC leadership.
Eskia’s parents were paying his way but Sunil was on scholarship, one rumored to be bestowed by the apartheid government. Because of that, ordinarily Eskia would never have befriended Sunil, but they were the only two blacks in their cohort and so an uneasy friendship developed between them, an alliance that affirmed each other’s humanity in the face of the crushing shame of apartheid. But Eskia perceived his need for affirmation as a weakness on his part and so he came to resent Sunil for it.
A resentment that festered into a deep hate when they both fell for Jan. But she chose Sunil, and Eskia’s ego couldn’t take the blow. That someone like Sunil, a township rat with no pedigree, could have taken Jan from him was too much, was unimaginable to him. Over time, Eskia realized that it wasn’t just his pride that was wounded. He came to love Jan and he burned with the fire of unrequited love.
When Sunil left for Europe on an internship, Jan fell apart. Eskia consoled her and a firm friendship and then a romantic relationship grew between them. Eskia struggled though. As a member of the ANC it was seen as a betrayal to date a white woman, not to mention that it was illegal under the apartheid government. But all through their relationship, all five years of it, what was hardest was the knowledge, though unspoken, that Jan still loved Sunil. And not even hurting Sunil’s mother made Eskia feel better. Then Jan disappeared in a raid and just like that, Eskia lost her.
He turned his gaze back on Asia and watched her breathe. He smiled cruelly. The nicer you treat a person, the more it hurts when you turn on them. That was a pleasure he knew well. Asia was stretching and
he admired the tattoo on her arm as she flexed. It read: Trae Dhah.
Breakfast, she said with a smile, spotting the room service cart and the two place settings. She helped herself and dug in. Eskia watched the unbridled pleasure with which she ate and found himself lost in her delight.
Not hungry, she asked, pausing briefly.
He shook his head.
She smiled, shoved the last of her eggs into her mouth, and stood up, crossed to her clothes, and began to dress.
You can use the shower, he said.
Thank you, she said. Maybe next time.
As the door closed behind her, Eskia returned to the window. Sitting in this kind of meditation was a discipline he knew well. When he was a boy, his father, a former sharpshooter from the British Army, had been very active in the ANC’s armed wing. Many a Boer policeman had fallen to his skill.
He sometimes took Eskia with him. Together they would cross the vast desert of stubby grass and garbage that marked the divide between Soweto and Johannesburg. Keeping to sewers, culverts, and other places only the blacks knew about, they would travel for miles in the night, Eskia bearing the weight of his father’s Lee-Enfield rifle. By all expectations, a Lee-Enfield wouldn’t make a very good sniper’s weapon with its limited range, but the caliber was solid, and in the right hands even a boomerang was a deadly weapon. A relic of the First and Second World Wars, it should not have fired evenly. But Eskia’s father kept the rust away with oil and a leather rag and a high-caliber bullet. In his expert hand, that projectile could travel nearly a quarter of a mile to bury itself into the resolve of his chosen target.
At first light they would arrive on the edge of a leafy, tree-shaded suburb and, climbing a select tree, they would sit the whole day, unmoving, until at dusk, just before the abrupt curtain of night, Eskia’s father would take the rifle from his son, hold it steady, and, with the tender caress of a whisper, pull the ratchet back. He would wait for a long moment and breathe slow, then he would squeeze the trigger, and before the crack could echo and reveal their location, they would be down the tree, melting back into the depth of night. Eskia, carrying the heavy rifle, always struggled to keep up. But this one time he tarried and saw the target fall. A plump man in his forties with a shiny bald spot. He saw a child running down a garden path to meet him. And then he saw the spurt of blood obliterating the bald spot and darkening the face of the child. And then Eskia turned away and ran after his father in the dark, the weight of the rifle heavier than usual.
