The Cinnamon Tree

by Aubrey Flegg

  A piece of ground had been marked off with red-and- white tape; a triangular notice declared, Danger: Landmines. Lined up on the ground behind the sign were things that looked like rusty cans of beans and tins of boot-polish. It was the sort of display she used to make when she had played ‘shop’ as a child. But these were not empty cans. Mr Hans stepped over the tape.

  Yola stepped back involuntarily. Hans bent down and lifted up one of the little cylinders. Without further warning, Yola’s demons ran amok in her mind. Hans’s voice came to her echoing from a great distance.

  ‘This mine has been made safe, Yola, so I can open it and show you.’ Open it? Open again that dreadful day so carefully sealed?

  ‘Yola …Yola … Managu has gone up the hill,’ Gabbin was calling again.

  The mine lay in two halves now, open like an oyster in Hans’s hands, and Managu’s bell was clanging on the hill below. If only she could see!

  ‘It works like this. When someone steps on the mine the top collapses in and presses down on this trigger in the middle here.’ Hans’s finger moved with elaborate slowness towards the tiny plunger rising like a tower in the centre of the mine. Yola closed her eyes. A butterfly opened its wings. She heard the click as the plunger struck home. The butterfly took off in alarm. Together they fluttered in random spirals above the hill.

  ‘The trigger sends a spark down this red wire to the detonator.’

  The column of smoke was snaking quietly towards the sky. A crumpled figure lay beneath a cinnamon tree, a thread of red spreading on the brown earth. Where is Gabbin? Hurry, hurry, Gabbin.

  ‘The detonator is this thing that looks like the stub of a pencil. The explosive can’t go off without it.’

  The butterfly must have delivered her to hospital because now she is in bed and they have come to change her bandages. This time she will look, not at her reflection in the night mirror, but really look. She props herself up on her elbows.

  ‘You can see how the detonator nestles into this white putty-like stuff. That’s the explosive!’

  There was her stump, unbandaged, stitched and raw, stretched like a detonator in the folds of white sheet. The world began to turn and Yola was looking up not at Mother but at Hans. A black veil like drifting rain was falling between them. His voice was getting fainter. And there was a smell in her nostrils, spicy, familiar, overpowering: the scent of cinnamon.

  The sudden breeze in her face was welcome. Yola opened her eyes to a blur of movement. Hans was fanning her with his hat, a look of alarm and consternation on his face. She smiled, and the look of alarm was replaced with one of relief.

  ‘I’m sorry … so sorry … it was insensitive of me. I should have known it would be upsetting for you. I’ll take you home.’

  What had happened? Yola wondered. Where was Gabbin? They had been holding hands.

  ‘Is Gabbin all right?’

  ‘Oh he’s fine, he’s right here.’

  Yola probed her mind like someone feeling to see if she’s been injured, but the demons were gone, her mind lay open – like an oyster. She smiled at Hans, his frantic flapping was easing.

  ‘Please, Mr Hans. I’m all right now, please don’t take me home.’

  That evening, Yola lay in the wide bed she shared with her mother and talked and talked. She talked about her visit to the hill, about the ghosts that had come back to haunt her, about hospital and about school. Mother said nothing, just ‘eeh … eeh’, which meant that she was listening but not forming an opinion either. That was a nice thing about Mother, she didn’t say anything if she had nothing to say, just eeh … eeh. It was a comforting sound and eventually Yola found herself drifting off into sleep. She had said nothing to Mother of Hans’s suggestion about her teaching mines awareness. That could wait. Curled against the crook of Mother’s back, she dreamed about Hans.

  In the morning, when the other children had left for school, Yola slipped back into her secret place between the granary and the compound fence to think. Some time ago, when she discovered that she could no longer squat with only one leg, Gabbin had helped her to bring a log in to sit on. She sat down and rested her forehead on her knee. She wanted to think, but she couldn’t get comfortable or settled; something was out of place. She tried again. What was it that Hans had said? Oh yes, that her school work should come first. How could he know that she could never go to school again? All she had were her books. If only she could get to school … Suddenly, Yola stiffened and her scalp began prickling. Her school books! She had left them here, scattered. When was that? Oh no! It was the day before yesterday. And her tin-box. She slewed around left and right, but the books had disappeared. She poked in the gap in the hedge where she kept her tin-box, but it was empty. Could Gabbin have taken them? Could he have cleared them up for her? No one else knew about this place, it must be him … but was it? For a crazy moment she thought that Sindu might have found her secret place and taken them, but Sindu couldn’t read, and as they had already had a row over that she didn’t like to ask her. Nevertheless, as black depression settled over Yola, a small worm of suspicion worked itself down deep inside her.

  Days passed, the Landcruiser ground up the hill each morning and did not stop. Mr Hans had forgotten about her; she couldn’t go to school; she had lost her books and Gabbin swore that he had not touched them. There didn’t seem to be anything to look forward to. She had a party to mark her fourteenth birthday, but it was a gloomy affair.

  It was the time of year for planting maize, when the ground was still moist after the rains. The seed corn had been taken from the granary, and the back-breaking job of planting the maize was about to begin. Yola wasn’t surprised when Sindu volunteered to look after the children, leaving Yola the even less enjoyable task of picking stones out of the millet for the midday meal. The millet grains were tiny and so were the stones, which had been picked up during thrashing. In the end, it really meant hand-picking each millet grain from one pile and placing it on a clean pile on a separate cloth. Yola had learned long ago to put herself into a sort of trance when doing boring jobs like this. In her imagination she would travel the world … who could have taken her geography book? she wondered. She didn’t mind so much about the others, but the geography book, with its photographs of the world, was where she got her ideas for her imaginary journeys – it was her passport to the world – and she needed it now! The pile of picked grains grew from a mound to a cone. She looked up and found Hans smiling down at her.

  ‘Where were you? I could have shouted and you wouldn’t have heard me?’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t hear your car.’ She was surprised into resentment – why hadn’t he come before?

  ‘I walked down from the hill.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t think …’

  ‘… that Europeans walked anywhere,’ he laughed. ‘Why aren’t you at school?’

  Yola shrugged and nodded towards her stump. ‘It’s too far to walk.’

  ‘But you must go to school!’ He seemed quite shocked. ‘We need you to go to school!’

  Yola shrugged. She wasn’t sure of her English. Why would he need her to go to school? Hans squatted down awkwardly. She’d heard that Europeans couldn’t squat properly, with feet flat on the ground.

  ‘Look, Yola,’ he said, ‘I want to ask you again. We would like you to help us with our mines awareness programme, remember? People, kids particularly, will listen to you.’

  ‘Because of this?’ and she tipped her chin towards her stump.

  ‘No! Because you’re bright, and you’re pretty, and you know what it’s like to suffer. Please Yola, I didn’t like to ask you last time. Remember, you’d been upset?’

  She looked down at her cone of millet seeds and shook her head.

  ‘Was that yes, or no?’ he asked.

  She looked him directly in the face, flaring bitterly. ‘I’d like to help you. I’d like to go back to school. I’d like to visit the Eskimos, perhaps even visit the moon, but I have work to do.’ She gestured towards
the growing pile of millet seeds. Her lower lip was beginning to tremble. ‘For maths I can count seeds, for English I can make up stories, for mines awareness I can look after babies.’ She resumed her sorting, biting her treacherous lip. It was all right for him with his big car and his complicated-looking watch. She felt a tear on her cheek, but she didn’t want to draw attention to it by wiping it away.

  Perhaps the man hadn’t understood her. He squatted there uncomfortably, watching the seeds falling on the pile, saltating down the slopes. A small landslide would change the profile of the cone from time to time. Then he did a surprising thing: he reached out and touched the tear that was progressing slowly down her cheek.

  ‘We must do something about this, Yola,’ he said and clambered to his feet, his knees emitting some alarming snaps. He turned then and strode out of the compound.

  Next day, the older children walking back from school reported that the deminers’ car had called at the school, and that Sister Martha had spent a whole hour talking to the man with blue eyes.

  ‘Sindu?’ Yola called. ‘Sindu mother?’

  No answer. She’d been there a moment ago. Yola’s mother wanted to borrow an extra pot; Yola ducked her head and went into Sindu’s hut. It was sparsely furnished. A curtain hung across the room to one side, concealing the bed.

  ‘Sindu?’ Yola called again.

  Against the back wall was a table with a coloured cloth over it and a mirror. On the right of this was a radio, on the left was … Yola’s tin-box. Yola froze. Her first reaction was to back out, forget it, avoid confrontation, but her feet didn’t move. Then she tried making excuses – perhaps Sindu had rescued them for her? The books had after all been left out in the open. But Sindu didn’t know about her secret place.

  As if drawn by a magnet, Yola crossed the room and lifted the lid. The shock was electric. The books were gone, no rubber, no pencil, nothing but someone else’s knick-knacks! This was her box, home for her treasured things. This was a violation, like finding something crawly in your clothes. In one compulsive movement she spilled the contents out, recognising a string of beads that Sindu had worn when she had first arrived, some seashells from the coast and a man’s watch, obviously not working. They all scattered on the floor. Yola clutched the tin to her, swivelling awkwardly on her crutches. Where were her books?

  There wasn’t much light in the hut. Yola squinted. On the opposite side of the room was the corner where Sindu parked the babies when she had charge of them. There were the books! Yola pounced, dropping the tin-box with a clang. They were already torn and crumpled, two – no – three. But no geography book! Hope. Where was her geography book, her passport, it must be somewhere here? She searched frantically, poking with her crutches, churning through broken toys. Unless … unless … she swivelled around, lurched across the hut and pulled at the curtain shielding the bed. It came away in her hand and billowed about her, clinging to her leg and her crutches. There, decorating the walls above the bed, was page after page of her precious book. There were her Eskimos! Rage blazed behind her eyes. She tried to reach across the bed but she couldn’t. Perhaps she screamed, perhaps it was Sindu’s scream from the door that rang through the compound, but suddenly they were facing each other across the crumpled curtain like rival leopards.

  ‘What are you doing in here!’ Sindu yelled. ‘Look at my bed, look at what you have done!’ She rushed at Yola, but Sindu did not know the extent of Yola’s fury. They met in a tangle of curtain. Yola managed to push the older girl back and put all of her energy into shouting.

  ‘How dare you take my books! I’ve lost my leg, I’ve lost my freedom, I’ve lost any chance of being married like you, I can’t even go to school, and you’ve torn them up.’

  She was aware of shouts from outside. Sindu obviously heard these too and put her head back and screamed – no words – just screaming. This was too much for Yola, all her restraint blew away. She freed one of her crutches and hit Sindu as hard as she could, first on the shoulder and then, when she was turning, across the back. Her crutch broke with a snap and Yola was helpless.

  The door darkened as people came crowding in. Sindu was helped out of range and Uncle Banda edged around to get behind Yola, afraid of a belt from a crutch himself. Before she realised what was happening, Yola’s arms were pinned to her sides and she was lifted up bodily and carried out the door. Sindu made a rush at her, but someone held her back. This time, Yola had gone too far.

  5

  Trial and Sentence

  For two days, Yola was confined to her mother’s hut. No one came near her. Her food was brought to her on a banana leaf, as if they thought she would throw her plate at someone. Mother came and went, slept and was silent. Yola realised she was in deep trouble. She followed the activity in the compound by the sounds she heard. Her hopes lifted when she heard the deminers’ car. She even heard Mr Hans’s voice in the distance, but hoped he wouldn’t try to see her. She was also sure that she had heard the putter of Sister Martha’s moped, but that was unlikely.

  On the third day her mother, her own precious mother, came to talk to her. She asked Yola to tell her everything – about her books, about how Sindu had been treating her. When Yola was hoarse from talking she asked, why all these questions? That afternoon, she was told, Father would sit in judgement and Mother, as Yola’s true mother, would have to make Yola’s case.

  ‘Why not me?’ Yola asked.

  ‘It is better this way,’ was all her mother would say.

  Yola washed and dressed with care, not that she had many clothes to choose from. The solemnity of the occasion became clear when her friends were allowed in to help her with her hair, parting it, plaiting it, even working in some modest beads.

  ‘What’s going to happen?’ she wanted to know, but they kept quiet, as if they’d been told to say nothing. Uncle Banda came in with a pair of new crutches that he had made for her. They were a bit long, but there would be no time to shorten them.

  ‘I’ve made them extra strong,’ he said, as she tried them.

  ‘Why strong? Have I put on weight since I’ve been locked away in here?’ Yola asked.

  ‘No, it’s so that next time you take a swipe at Sindu, the crutch won’t break.’

  Yola couldn’t believe it; she was quite shocked. She had come to accept her guilt and shame and here was Uncle Banda … she could feel a laugh – no, worse, a giggle rising. She must not giggle! If she giggled in front of everybody it would be terrible. This was so like Uncle Banda. Just when you thought you knew where you were with him, he did something surprising. Like siding with the rebels when everyone else was against them. Footsteps were approaching. Uncle Banda’s voice changed.

  ‘I hope you’re thoroughly ashamed of yourself!’ he said, loud enough for anyone to hear.

  Yola didn’t dare look at him. But it was just one of her friends; she poked her head through the doorway. ‘Sindu’s gone in,’ she said, and Yola was left on her own again. Why is it taking so long? she wondered.

  Yola halted at the doorway to Father’s house. She was propped between her too-long crutches, head bent forward. On her way down she had passed Sindu, who was leaving. If Sindu looked as if she had received a life sentence, what was going to happen to Yola? Sindu had muttered spitefully, ‘Now you’re for it!’ but it was a half-hearted effort.

  Why had Father elected to use his house, rather than the big tree, to sit in judgement? Yola wondered. She blinked in the dim light as she stepped in through the door. Then she blinked again: Sister Martha and – of all people – Hans were there! Uncle Banda was part of the semicircle around Father’s chair, together with several elders from the neighbourhood; she’d expected that, but not the white people. Oh God! Yola’s mother was standing back; she’d had her say. Senior Mother was there, not part of the circle, but a source of invisible power in the gloom. All eyes were on Father.

  As Yola walked forward they all looked around at her, but she could glean nothing from their expressions. She
had been rehearsing all the things she would say against Sindu; suddenly they no longer seemed so important. Father sat, not saying a word, just looking at Yola steadily, as if his face were carved from ebony. The last of her truculence ebbed away. The biting things and pert comments soaked out through the soles of her feet into the polished earth of the floor. Why were Sister Martha and Mr Hans here to see her shame? She had so wanted to please them, and now …

  Father began to speak. His voice came deep from his chest as if rising up through him from the earth. Yola struggled to understand because he was not using their everyday language: he spoke the language of their people when they talk of sacred things – matters of the tribe, matters of law and the spirit – a ritual language that flows like a deep river. To Yola’s surprise, he was not speaking about her but seemed to be telling a story. It was a story about a girl who had nothing, no education, little food, no possessions, and whose family had fallen on hard times. After a little, Yola found she was no longer listening with the top of her mind, but was letting his words sink in like water on dry soil, penetrating into parts of her she did not even know existed. Images began to rise in her mind, unbidden. She saw the face of a girl, only a little older than herself, vaguely familiar, a stupid face, but tear-stained and miserable. It dawned on her that it was Sindu’s face, but from some time ago.

  A man’s voice rasped. ‘You will do as I say!’ Then, rising to a scream, ‘You are mine to give away! I’ll never get a better offer for you. Just look at your snivelling face!’

  ‘But Juvimba?’ the girl sobs.

  ‘That rebel! He couldn’t even pick the winning side! He’s still mixed up with them, I hear. All he’d give me for you would be a stick of dynamite. Probably all you’re worth! Don’t talk to me about him ever again!’