Ways to Come Home

by Kate Mathieson

  The lake is busy every hour of the day. It offers a place to bathe, to swim, to wash, to work, to gather at night and cook on small pot fires, to eat, and to drink. During the day the friendly locals gather to wash and beat their clothes against the rocks. For a small price, they do ours too.

  Groups of women, some with babies, arrive with more freshly tied stacks of clothes. Mountains of our clothes once stained brown – so dark we thought they would never be clean – are now white again. They are miracle workers.

  My washing returns stiff and starched, folded neatly, pants perfectly creased, shirts with collars stiff and starchy, piled on top of each other in a pyramid of sizes; smallest at the top, tied with a piece of string, flourished with a twine bow. I inhale the freshness; the kind that doesn’t come from laundry powder or liquid, but from nature, rinsed in lake water, dried under the sun, pressed between rocks.

  ‘Could you hold him?’ I look up to see a mother asking me to hold her baby while she unloads her washing.

  At first I am reluctant. A baby? Strapped to my back? He looks happy exactly where he is.

  ‘Go on,’ she smiles, and pushes my arm.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘Okay then.’

  He is swaddled and tied to my back. A sarong is carefully wrapped around him and then knotted at my stomach and neck. At first I’m afraid I’ll drop him as I walk around, and hold my right hand to support his bottom. I’m not sure the cloth is strong enough, the knots tight enough, to stop him from falling right through.

  ‘Let it go,’ a woman waves. ‘Yes, relax,’ another lady says.

  Slowly I ease my arm away. The baby remains perfectly in place, chewing on the edge of the cloth like cud. I watch him over my left shoulder, expecting him to cry, pinned as he is against the milky skin of a stranger, but he doesn’t.

  He accompanies me to the truck, back to my tent and around the bus once, then twice. As we near the gate we both explore the smell of the pyrantheum flower that grows in thick clumps to one side of the camp. All along he chews the edge of the cloth. Sometimes I catch him staring at me as I stare at him, both of us seeming slightly surprised to find the other one still there.

  When he is finally unstrapped from my back, the women retreat towards the lake – new clothes are waiting to be washed and pressed. I wave until they are out of sight. As they turn the corner, does he turn his head? Or do I imagine it?

  ‘You’d make a good mother,’ Ant says later as we’re cutting carrots for dinner.

  ‘Would I?’ I say, surprised.

  She starts peeling garlic, removing their paper-thin casings.

  ‘Yes,’ she nods. ‘There is something about you.’

  She looks over, and I feel her eyes studying me. ‘I just get that feeling.’

  A gust of gnats swarm past our faces. It’s a windy evening, almost jacket weather. I look at the leaves fluttering in the breeze. Mumble something about it getting cold. Stroll over to the tent and pick around for my cardigan. Inside my heart beats like a Roman drum.

  Her comment is not without irony, for I have been a mother.

  And I have had two.

  LOCAL MALAWIAN men eagerly wait for us outside the gates of our campsite. Clapping. Shouting. Herding us.

  ‘You want to snorkel? Jewellery box? Wall hanging? Key ring? Marry ju wana?’

  ‘I do want a jewellery box, actually,’ I tell the young guy who introduces himself as Raffa. ‘With a starfish. Some brilliant stars. Like a night sky in Africa. Ocean waves.’

  He frowns. ‘You mean all together, the stars in the waves?’

  I laugh. ‘No, no.’

  Raffa gives me a piece of paper and asks me to draw it.

  I lean down over the paper catching the smell of his sweat without deodorant, the ripe earthiness of musk. I sketch badly, an outline of waves, and it looks more like a wobbly Sydney Opera House. I write above it in capital letters WAVES. (Yes, my drawing skills are so poor that I have to name it.) I sketch a wonky starfish and label it too.

  ‘Do you get what I mean? I’m sure you can do much better,’ and hand over my stick-figure drawings.

  My star is so lopsided it appears half of it has already been sucked into a black hole.

  ‘And you pay for this fifty dollars!’ Raffa grins, beginning the bargaining dance Malawians love.

  We laugh. I barter him down to twelve dollars and a pair of my old white sandals. Who wants my cruddy sandals anyway?

  Ant and I wander around the tent of their talent. Elephant masks. Little stools, gorillas carved into the legs. Jewellery boxes of all shapes, pre-made and lacquered in a honey-brown glaze. Key rings, shapes of Africa each once precise and wonderful, whittled in and out, each inlet, with such care. And selling for less than a carton of milk.

  In the corner, specialty items left to dry in the sun after a coat or two of varnish, carved specifically for individuals who have selected the animals, the shapes, the colours, the size – chairs, boxes, chests that open on giant hinges and squeak perfectly as though they are antique. They will be boxed up, padded and swaddled, shuffled onto boats or planes and couriered back home where they will sit in the corner of houses, proudly on display.

  Ant has selected as much as she can hold – ebony necklaces and glossed black figurines of hippos and leopards.

  ‘I want that too!’ she exclaims, picking up a high-backed chair.

  These men are true artists. Along each caramel leg has been carved the animals Africa is known for – hippo, lion, elephant and leopard. At the top across the back of the chair, facing outwards, two cheetah eyes on alert.

  ‘Yes, and how will you go transporting a wooden chair in your backpack?’ I ask.

  Reluctantly, she returns the piece to the corner where it sits elegantly awaiting another buyer. She settles instead for a small globe of the world, wooden and carved. Dipped in wax, it comes apart in half so you can study both the northern and southern hemispheres, holding each in your palm. Inside is a perfect place for rings, or notes from friends, or just the rocks and stones and tumbled lake glass we find each day we saunter along the shore, in shapes we never thought possible.

  Forty minutes under the tent, without a breeze, and it feels we have all started to breathe each other’s exhales. Stuffy and smelly. I’ve had enough of shopping. Thankfully, Ant has too.

  We wave goodbye to Raffa at the end of the driveway, where stone gives way to parched earth. Then with quick feet we run over burning sand, down to the lake.

  EVERYONE FEELS like we’re on a holiday from our holiday. There is a certain zest in the air. All day the beach weather holds. Unblinkable blue skies. Sun scorched sands. By late morning it burns the soles of our feet. People hop and curse and jump into patches of damp sand or shade when they can, balancing on one foot, sometimes on tiptoes.

  When the heat falls like fire at midday, everyone retreats in haste. Even the water burns like a boiling bath. We lay on beds in stuffy rooms and let the fans spin at top speed sending dust and fly carcasses across the room, some landing on our bare legs.

  The sunlight, like hands, reaches in, finds its way into our hut and glares at us, bouncing off every surface – the mirror, the windows, the fridge door.

  Lunch is ready. A smorgasbord of fish and salads and bread rolls, finally edible. Soft and squishy, with a slight crunch to the skin. Exactly as you wish white bread to be. Are there bakers here?

  We take our portable fold-out seats to the hut by the lake, where we watch the water, shaded, as intently as if watching the football finals. Waves crash onto the sand. How can this be a lake?

  Bees and flies and mosquitos duck around our heads and we shoo them from our food. A lizard runs between our feet. Ants traverse my toes like a mountain, a steady string of them marching over my big toe. I don’t care to flick them off, but stay watching them instead.

  We swim for hours. Our fingers prune. Our toes shrivel. My skin becomes waterlogged white. The sun finds its way to the bottom of the lake, and we sit under the water,
watching the sky from below. The water turns a peregrine blue. Everything is filled with light, capturing it, reflecting it straight back up to the surface.

  We stay in the lake until the sun forgives the land and dims her intensity. She leaves the sky that night with an indigo blush that lasts longer than other dusky evenings. The night flowers open and everywhere smells like honey-sap.

  I feel tired but don’t want to sleep. In the last streams of light, everyone heads to the bar for beer. I emerge reluctantly from the water and choose a last spot of sun to dry off. I can hear the sound of tipsy people from the bar, but am much happier walking along the water’s edge, watching the evening sky turn lavender, pumpkin and then a royal navy. I stroll ankle deep in the inky water for hundreds of metres. Listening to the soft rush of the tide wash up and down the sand.

  By then the sky is deep velvet, encrusted with stars. Their light catches the lips of the waves and they filter through the water, like diamond filaments scattered and glinting. I stand in the whitewash letting the fresh water run sweet and cool over my feet.

  As the night deepens, I find myself feeling more awake than tired. I’m always energised by the water. Soothed. Calmed. Grounded. Is it strange that something that constantly moves is the same thing that makes me feel so still?

  I realise when I was in Sydney, in an office, in my car, even in a restaurant or cafe, I was surrounded by walls. Perhaps they used to make me feel safe, but now I can see how they stifle.

  In Africa, we have dinner under the stars. Lunch by the lake. Breakfast as the sun slips from behind night’s hood. Toast with a soft-boiled egg. Cups of heavenly coffee, thick and dark. The cool cement of the floor, scrubbed cement with a thin lick of green paint. I brush my feet over it, grains of sand try their best to exfoliate my heels.

  In fact, we do most things outdoors, and even at night, when we don’t want to sleep inside, sometimes we pull out the small thin slip of mattress and lay underneath the moon, the stars as our roof.

  Being outside in Africa, you gain a certain sense of cycles. Of time. It’s hard to miss the light, the seasons, the turn of both when you are standing, a wondrous spectator, in it. And it’s particularly nice to let anything and anyone come and go as they please.

  I walk back to our wooden cabin, its rough edges, wonky shape, a silhouette jutting into the sky. Down below on the beach the waves continue to roll, a pleasant symmetry of sound, marking the breath of water – in and out, in and out. Shallow. Deep. Shallow. Deep.

  The scent of Africa is familiar now, like home – cedar and milkwood, and the fragrance of smoke from beach bonfires that have licked the night sky.

  AT THE top of our long, dusty driveway is a small Malawian school. Four demountable classrooms huddle in a semicircle. Rampant weeds grow long between each, but mostly the playground is soil, red and dusty. The classrooms have doors, but the windows are just carved long rectangles, like church windows without glass, which let the breeze, when it comes, rush in and out.

  The children are so well behaved. ‘Yes, miss. Yes, madam.’

  When we enter the back of the classroom and perch on teeny tiny chairs like strange voyeurs, they turn around with wide smiles, ‘Welcome,’ they say in sing-song voices.

  Somewhere a bell rings, ending class. Instead of running outside they calmly stand, push chairs under desks, hold hands and walk outside. They’ve left their desks immaculately clean, even the pencils are lined up. What magical order has been created in a land so wild?

  Outside, one straggly tree stands lopsided in the centre of the yard. When we follow them outside, games are immediately discarded, a piece of rope lays where it is thrown, food remains uneaten in small brown bags – the children gather en masse, most interested in us.

  Rosie, a little girl of about six, licks the palm of her hand so it is good and sticky and slaps it into my mine. I feel the squelch of her spit bind our hands together, and part of it drips down my fingers. I look down at her wide eyes, deep brown, browner than the darkest cacao. She wriggles and yells if any other children get too close to us.

  Another girl grabs my little finger on my right hand, another my thumb. My hand now taken, someone lunges for my forearm. They want to hang on to any part of my body. Ant too has a friend hanging on her arm, a small boy of about six, and a tall girl has found Tiff and clutches on for dear life. Are they starved for affection?

  A little boy clambers quickly up my back like a monkey. Wrapping his arms tightly around my neck, he almost chokes me. Despite Rosie’s best snarls and growls to keep me to herself, she can’t fend off the insistent attempts of the other children. An older boy, about twelve, stands in front of me, feet planted solidly, large eyes like coffee cups, black in the middle, dash of cream on the outside. He’s taller than most of the others; his head reaches just under my chin.

  He puts his hand in mine, the one that Rosie has licked, and we squelch together what I think is going to be a handshake, but instead he uses both hands and grips my white palm in the middle.

  ‘I’m Hunter,’ he says in a soft voice.

  ‘Kate,’ I smile.

  After that Hunter doesn’t leave my side. Rosie soon grows tired of sharing and runs off to find another mzungu (white person) to claim.

  ‘Watch Kate, just watch,’ he tells me, picking up a handful of old leaves and grass from the edge of the yard.

  In under a minute he has made me a grass necklace. He places it gently it into my palm and I slip it over my head. ‘That’s brilliant!’

  He smiles for the first time, and I see his eyes twinkle and crease, and his teeth shine so brightly.

  After lunch, the younger children must stay behind for extra lessons, but the older children can walk into town with us, and are allowed out until dusk.

  The town is small. One main red dusty road. Makeshift carts have been set up outside every second house. Oil vats bubbling, local men with wiry arms and stained white shirts fry fish and other water creatures giving the air a scent of salt.

  Women workers walk to and from the direction of the river, towels and tops neatly folded in bundles and balancing on their heads. Sometimes a baby too is balancing, swaddled into their backs, calmly sleeping or looking over their shoulders at the world around them.

  A market has been set up in time for the weekend. I have not tracked the days and couldn’t say if this market was just beginning or ending, but we’re lured by the idea of cheap knick-knacks – whatever they may be.

  Second-hand clothes falling apart, rips in the neckline, tears down the arms of shirts. To wear, or for rags to scrub house floors? Old keys. Wrangled metal that perhaps could have been coat hangers in a past life. Copper wire for heating. Ancient burners and oil vats for use at home or at the stalls. A workman covered in oil is selling pans of all sizes, charred and second-hand, they’ve seen the flame of many fires.

  Outside little houses, women crouch over naked flames and fry in one large pan a porridgey gruel poured into patties. Stalks of corn lay near their feet.

  Ant’s thirsty.

  ‘Hunter, where can we buy some water?’ I ask him.

  He puts up his hand to signal Wait please, and runs off, his little legs pumping under him. Two minutes later he’s back, carrying an old plastic cup of water. Ant looks at it warily, but accepts it with grace.

  Further down the road, Tiff needs a lighter.

  ‘Hunter, do you know where we can find a lighter?’

  He makes the Wait please signal and runs off. He opens his fist slowly to reveal a used box of half matches. What a wonderful helper! We pay him, even though he says we can take it for free.

  Up the road a cheap clothes market selling more second-hand clothes spills haphazardly out of baskets. Some are torn, or ripped, or faded, but they’re clean, washed well, scrubbed by the women I have seen at the edge of the lake. Beating clothes with milky suds against the rocks and then rinsing them and draping them carefully on broom handles, propped between two logs.

  A group o
f teenagers sprawled on the ground stare as we walk past. They all wear caps, perched so high on their head I think they may fall off if they move suddenly, or at all.

  ‘Why are their hats like that, so high?’ I ask Hunter.

  ‘They have ice in there.’

  ‘Ice?’

  Hunter makes the Wait please signal again. He calls out to the teenagers who are kicking rocks and looking mischievous. He beckons them over and one of them, a cocky one in jeans, his t-shirt off and slung over his shoulder, sways within inches and eyes me up and down.

  ‘Show her,’ Hunter says.

  ‘How much?’ the cocky one looks at me.

  I laugh, ‘I’m not paying anything, but good try.’ I like his optimism.

  He laughs too, ‘A cigarette?’

  ‘No.’ I consider, ‘How about a bracelet?’ I show him a line of seashells I had bought from the markets a few towns ago.

  ‘Definitely.’ He takes off his cap. Underneath is a raggy tea towel folded in a square. He holds it in his hand and unfolds the cloth, revealing a chunk of melting ice the size of my fist.

  ‘It helps in the heat,’ he says, reaching for the bracelet.

  The other teenagers gather round and they too unwrap their head scarves to show us the wonky blocks of ice that keep them cool.

  We stop at a small stall. I say stall, but it’s just a man sitting on a milk crate with a ratty tarpaulin on the ground displaying jewellery. Tiff and Ant pick them up and try them on. They are copper wire, melded and moulded into beautiful designs, flowers and stars. Rings of many sizes. They shine in the sun.

  Hunter makes the Wait please signal. He runs away and ten minutes later, while we amble through the rest of the markets he stands in front of us, brandishing a long copper wire in his hand.

  He grins. ‘For you,’ he tells me.

  ‘A wire?’

  ‘No, no,’ he laughs, throwing his head back and gurgling as if I have just told the funniest joke.

  He stares intently at the copper in his hand, twisting and turning, coiling it, sticking his tongue out in sheer concentration. He works carefully, as we stroll through town. He stays close to me, like he is my natural protector. Close enough that our arms sway against each other. He smells of salt and cooked fish; this is a seafood village. I’m so close I can see the spots where his hair grows in tight curls and clump close to his head.