A Girl Named Disaster

5

Wake up,” said Masvita, shaking Nhamo. Nhamo sat up and rubbed her face to clear it of sleep. It was still dark, although the crowing of a rooster told her dawn was not far away.

“What’s the matter? Did the leopard come back?”

“No. Vatete is sick. They’re sending for the nganga.”

Nhamo got up at once. Nhamo’s village had no nganga, and sick people had to travel five miles to be treated. Vatete must be extremely ill to ask the doctor to come from her village.

“She was tired by the walk yesterday,” Masvita said as they hurried through the dark. “We had to rest every mile or so. I thought she was better last night, but she began to vomit after the party.”

By now they were at Aunt Chipo’s hut. Vatete was curled up on a mat inside, and Aunt Shuvai was wiping her face with a wet cloth. Nhamo saw at once that Vatete was extremely ill.

“Thank goodness! Nhamo, cut some thatching grass. We need it for bedding.” Aunt Shuvai dipped the cloth in water and bathed the sick woman’s arms and chest. “She’s very hot. I don’t think this is food poisoning.”

Nhamo took a sickle and hurried off. The first streaks of light were turning the clouds pink. She could see well enough, but she moved cautiously after leaving the village. No one else had seen any trace of the leopard, but Nhamo had no doubts about its existence.

Presently, she came to a stand of dry grass and sliced off as much as she could carry. When she returned, Aunt Shuvai and Masvita packed a layer under the sick woman. Aunt Chipo attempted to give her water, but Vatete only moaned and pushed her away. The sick woman was curled up in a ball as though her stomach hurt. Her face was gray and her eyes were squeezed shut.

“Don’t just stand there, Nhamo,” Aunt Chipo snapped. “Fix breakfast and feed the babies. Don’t think you’re going to sneak off to the bushes today, my girl!”

Nhamo spun around and left. She felt stung that Aunt Chipo thought she would run away during an emergency. It hadn’t escaped her notice either that she had been the one awakened to cut grass.

At least it shows they believed me about the leopard, thought Nhamo with a bleak smile. She blew last night’s coals into a flame and hauled a large pot to the fireplace.

All day she ran from one chore to another. Inside Aunt Chipo’s hut, Masvita fanned Vatete, and Nhamo’s aunts watched with expressions of great worry. Uncle Kufa sent another messenger to urge the nganga to hurry.

But at midday Aunt Chipo and Masvita suddenly broke into wild cries. Aunt Shuvai rushed out of the hut, pulling her hair. “She’s dead! She’s dead!” she wailed. She fell on her knees. Nhamo caught her emotion and began to wail, too. Other women rushed to add their cries.

Poor, poor Vatete, Nhamo thought as she rocked back and forth with her arms tightly wrapped around her chest. Only last night she was joking about roora. She was so happy!

People hurried off to carry the message to the other village. A woman poured ashes into a mortar and pounded them as she called the names of Vatete’s relatives who lived too far away to attend the funeral. “Cousin Kuda,” she cried, “Greataunt Misodzi. Uncle Tendai. Please do not be frightened. Your relative has died here. We know you would come if you could.” The ashes blew away on the wind, carrying the message.

But when evening came, grim news arrived. People were dying in the other village. Even the nganga lay in his hut, unable to rise. None of the relatives would be able to come.

“What is this illness?” Nhamo whispered to Masvita.

“Ambuya says it’s cholera,” Masvita whispered back.

Nhamo’s eyes opened very wide.

“She says we must boil our water. We must wash our hands carefully and go far from the village when we have to—”

Nhamo nodded. They would have to provide old Takawira with a pot.

“But Father”—Masvita meant Uncle Kufa—“says it’s witchcraft.”

Nhamo sucked in her breath. That meant a witch-finding ceremony. She had never seen one, but she had heard about them. The most horrible thing was that a person could be a witch and not even know. He or she—it was usually she—could ride hyenas at night and spread sickness, and in the morning she wouldn’t remember anything about it.

“There’s not much we can do until after the funeral. Vatete’s sisters are supposed to prepare the body, but for all we know they’re dead, too.” Masvita began to cry again, and Nhamo waited patiently for her to be finished. She didn’t feel like crying. She knew this showed lack of proper feeling, but she had barely known Vatete.

Aunt Chipo washed the dead woman’s body. She broke Vatete’s mutimwi and laid it aside to give to whichever female relatives might survive. This cut Vatete’s last tie with life. No longer would she tend her garden or prepare food for her family. She would not sit by the fire, nor would she clap respectfully when her husband returned from hunting. Now she belonged to the spirits and would dwell in the land of her ancestors forever.

Aunt Chipo dressed the dead woman again and wrapped her in a cloth to await the funeral.

A brooding sense of disaster hung over the village that night. The men ate silently in the dare. The women sat drawn and worried inside their huts. This death was not natural. Trouble would surely come of it.

Uncle Kufa and one of his brothers set out at first light to dig the grave. They had already selected a termite hill about half a mile away. They dug a shaft downward and then sideways in the tough clay. When they returned, they broke a hole in the side of Aunt Chipo’s hut—for the dead must not leave by the same door as the living—and carried Vatete’s body out on a litter.

The mourners followed in single file to keep witches from following them. Witches knew that many footprints meant a funeral, and they stole bodies for their own evil purposes.

Uncle Kufa laid out a mat in the grave. He placed a pot of ground millet, a packet of snuff, cooking utensils, and a calabash of beer at the top. Then Vatete was laid down on her right side with her hand under her head as though she were sleeping. Her face was uncovered. Uncle Kufa and those few blood relatives who could be present each threw a handful of sand over her. “Farewell,” they murmured. “Keep us a place in your new home, for we will surely meet again.”

Afterward, the grave was securely filled. Stones were piled on top and the sand around it was smoothed. It would be checked the following day for evidence of witchcraft.

“I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep,” said Masvita as she lay on her mat in the girls’ hut.

“Me neither,” said Nhamo.

“I keep remembering last week. Vatete took me to the trading post. Did I tell you?”

“No.”

“I saw so many people. The tractor had just come in. I had a choice of a hundred different patterns for my new dress-cloth. The owner of the trading post was Portuguese, very pale, with a big gold cross around his neck. He shouted at Vatete when she squeezed the bread on his shelves. I wonder if she’s lonely.”

“Who?” said Nhamo.

“Vatete. She’s out there somewhere.”

“Don’t!”

“I can’t stop thinking about it. She has to wander until the welcome-home ceremony.” Masvita began to cry again.

Where was Vatete’s spirit? thought Nhamo. Was it walking along the roads calling for her children? Had Mother called for her? No, that was too terrible to think about. “Let me tell you a story,” she said aloud to keep the fear away.

“Do you know how?” said Masvita.

“I’ve listened to Ambuya often enough. She says a good story makes almost anything feel better.”

Masvita sighed and turned on her side. Nhamo could hear her mat rustle. The hut was filled with girls, big and small, and all the breathing noises made Nhamo feel safer.

“Once upon a time there was a man and his wife who had fine cattle and rich farmland, but no children,” she began. “The woman went to the nganga, and he made her a little baby out of millet flour. ‘Take this home and greet it as though it were your child. Tell it your praise names and totems. Then you will become pregnant. But you must be careful not to harm it in any way.’

“The woman obeyed, but one day the millet-flour baby slipped out of her hand. ‘Oh, oh,’ she cried. ‘My child has broken in two.’ Still, there was nothing to do but fit the two halves together again.

“After nine months, the woman gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Now the parents’ joy turned to grief, for the law said that twins were evil and must be killed. The mother and father hid the children in the middle of the forest for six years. For six years, everyone in the kingdom had bad luck. The rivers dried up; the rains refused to fall; the cattle and people died of disease. Finally, the king ordered everyone to appear before him. His witch finder would smell everyone’s hands and discover who was responsible.

“The parents knew they could hide the children no longer. The father took them to a deep pit behind a waterfall and threw them inside. With a heavy heart, he returned to his wife.

“But the boy and girl were swept away by the water to an underground country. This land had a blue sky like ours. It had fields and rivers and villages. It was very beautiful, but the people and animals there were all damaged in some way. They had broken wings or legs or hearts. In spite of this, they appeared cheerful and they welcomed the twins.

“‘Where are we?’ asked the boy and girl.

“‘This is the country of all those who were thrown away by the world above,’ the people and animals replied.

“The twins lived there for a long time. One day, when they were playing by a hill, a crack opened up in the rock. They saw their father weeping on the other side.

“‘Father! Father!’ they cried. They climbed through the crack and went home with him. Their mother had become old with grief, but she cried with happiness when she saw her children again.

“The parents gave the twins anything they wanted. They never scolded them or made them work. In spite of this, the children didn’t feel happy. ‘We don’t belong in this world anymore,’ they decided. So one night, they left the house and went back to the waterfall.

“‘Farewell, Father and Mother,’ they called as they held hands. ‘We are sorry, but we belong with the creatures who have been broken and thrown away.’ They jumped into the pit and were swept off to the underground country. And their parents never saw them again.”

Masvita’s regular breathing told Nhamo she had fallen asleep. She had never attempted such a long story before, and was pleased with the results. Too bad her audience had deserted her!

Grandmother thought that killing twins was wrong, but Aunt Chipo and Aunt Shuvai were of the opinion that one, at least, should be allowed to die. It was necessary, to protect the village from evil. Nhamo hoped she would never be faced with the problem. Wrapped in the comforting presence of the other girls, she drifted to sleep beside Masvita.

In the morning Uncle Kufa returned from Vatete’s grave and said the sand had been marked by the prints of a leopard.