A Girl Named Disaster

24

Nhamo shaded her eyes and looked across to the little island. At the foot of the bluff where she had built a fire lay a dark object. She squinted to be sure. It was the baboon. She sighed unhappily. She hadn’t wanted him to die, but she couldn’t carry out her plan until he was gone. The little island was an ideal place to plant a garden.

Nhamo hopped from stone to stone, all the while searching for signs of the crocodile. When she reached the final rock, she paused. The last channel was very deep. It was almost too wide for her to cross. A few months before, she would never have attempted it, but now she could swim if she miscalculated—and if the crocodile didn’t get her first.

She took a deep breath and leaped. She fell on the sand, scraping both knees, and scrambled to put distance between herself and the treacherous lake. She cautiously approached the dead baboon. He lay on his back with his eyes closed. His twisted foot stuck up reproachfully.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Nhamo. A few people ate baboons, she knew, but the practice wasn’t common. As precarious as her food supply was, she wasn’t even slightly tempted to cook this one. He had been alone like her, and his disability had set him apart from the other animals. She would cast his body into the water for the crocodile to find.

Nhamo poked the baboon with a stick. He sprang up with his fangs bared and his skeletal chest heaving. Nhamo jumped back with a shriek. She threw the stick at him and followed it with every rock she could lay her hands on. The baboon retreated, screaming. He tottered to the base of the bluff and fell over. He lay there churring with terror, his eyes wide open and unfocused.

“You horrible creature!” she yelled. “Why aren’t you dead like you’re supposed to be?” She squatted on the ground and hugged herself to stop shaking. They sat across from each other, the baboon whimpering and Nhamo trembling. After a while the baboon sighed deeply and relaxed again into the posture of impending death. He looked, Nhamo had to admit, like one of the many cholera victims she had cared for.

“You’re only a beast,” she said defiantly. The animal’s eyes were haunted with fear. He feebly scratched his chest. “Nyama, that’s all you are. Meat. If I wasn’t so fussy, I’d cook you up at once.” The baboon turned toward her voice. Oo-err, he said, like an infant calling for its mother.

“Oh, stop it!” Nhamo cried. She got up and returned to the beach. The leap back was easier—she had an idea of the range now. She could still see the baboon from the large island. “Don’t think I care!” she yelled across the water.

Nhamo walked along the shore until she reached a shallow stream. She followed this to a meadow dotted with marula trees. She filled her dress-cloth with ripe fruit and tied it onto her back like a baby-carrying shawl. Then, naked, she returned to the rocks and proceeded to cross. This time she heaved a large stone into the water first. The crocodile was a fearsome, but cautious, beast. She had seen how it fled when it heard a strange noise.

Nhamo dumped some of the marulas near the baboon and laid a trail back to the beach. She put another small heap on the first rock, and then one on each of the easier jumps all the way back to the shore. “I’m only doing it so you’ll leave my garden alone,” she shouted. The baboon didn’t react. She went off to harvest the birdlime traps.

That night she listened to the voices of the troop as they nested in the trees across the savanna. They were more agitated than usual because the moon was full. Like people, baboons were restless at such times. She heard the low, soft, rhythmic grunts of the females and cooing of the infants, the rumble of the males, with now and then a challenging bark. They had trouble sleeping in the intense, white moonlight, as did she. In the village, everyone would spend the night around the cook-fires, exchanging stories. Nhamo shook her head to keep from thinking about the village.

In the morning the marulas were all gone and the little island was deserted.

Nhamo was unable to find large patches of soil, but she found many small ones. She cleared out weeds and broke up the ground with a sharpened stick. It was extremely hard work, and a hot wind made her throat ache. Fortunately, the drop in the lake had created a small bay on the far side of the little island. She dragged branches across the narrow inlet. The water could get in, but the crocodile couldn’t hide in such a shallow place. She felt safe to draw water for her new garden.

Over the next few days she planted mealies, pumpkins, squash, tomatoes, peanuts, okra, and pieces of yam. The planting season was over, but if the weather didn’t turn too cold before the vegetables ripened, she ought to get some results. She named the place Garden Island in honor of her work. Well pleased, Nhamo bathed in the small bay and washed out her dress-cloth. She would have to be careful with it. It would be terrible if it wore out and she had to arrive in Zimbabwe stark naked! She sang:

“I have worked! I have sweated!

And now I have a great farm.

I will eat to my heart’s content,

For I am a soldier of the land,

And a warrior whose weapon is the hoe.

Even kings and ngangas respect me,

Bringer of food and preserver of nations.”

“I wish I did have a hoe,” Nhamo added, wriggling her toes. Water striders skated away on their X-shaped reflections. Tiny fish darted here and there in the weeds. Old Takawira had been a fine blacksmith, Grandmother said. He had taken red soil and melted it into iron, but that was in the old days. Now people bought such things at the trading post.

“I’ll have to make do with a sharp stick,” she sighed.

That afternoon Nhamo feasted on a guinea fowl that had become entangled in one of her traps. She had never equaled the feat of eating one a day as she had on the Musengezi. They weren’t as common here. Still, she regularly caught francolins and doves, and she was able to snare smaller birds in the lime traps. All in all, she was doing well, but she had yet to get through the dry season.

As the afternoon shadows slanted across the grass, Nhamo got a shock. The hoots and yells of the baboon troop didn’t veer off into the trees. Instead, they came straight ahead. Soon she could see little groups of animals moving toward the cliff as they had on that first evening.

“This is my home,” Nhamo shouted from her platform. She gathered rocks from her hoard and prepared to rain them down. The baboons gave her trees a wide berth, however. “I do not give you permission to visit!” she yelled. The animals glanced at her and continued their migration. The big male who had sniffed at her cook-fire that first afternoon approached and bared his frightening teeth.

Oo-AA-hoo! he shouted at the girl cursing him from the branches. We’re going to sleep here whether you like it or not! Nhamo hurled a stone at him. His fur puffed out until he looked twice as large. His eyes flashed white with rage. Abruptly, he turned and trotted after the others. Last of all came a straggler, all skin and bones, hobbling on a twisted foot. The big baboon shouted at him, and the crippled animal cringed.

“He doesn’t like me, either,” Nhamo called with grudging sympathy. She wasn’t in actual danger as long as the troop kept to the rocks, so she settled down to watch their antics. The young ones scampered and wrestled. They turned flipflops and chittered with excitement. The adults walked staidly among them, as elders should, and now and then pulled a tail to maintain order. The grassland between the stream and cliff was thick with them.

Nhamo watched with mixed feelings. They were a threat, but they were also company. The mothers nursing their tiny infants, the females who gathered around to admire, the youngsters leaping over one another all created the bustle of a peaceful village. Even the sullen males were not that different from Uncle Kufa and his friends at the dare.

“Uncle Kufa would be furious if I told him that,” Nhamo said to Mother. “But it’s true. That big one—I think I’ll call him Fat Cheeks because his beard swells up when he gets angry. And the miserable creature I rescued from Garden Island will be Rumpy because something chopped his tail off.”

Rumpy was pushed around by almost everyone. He cringed and groveled and chattered with terror, but no amount of bad treatment could drive him away. He seemed to have accepted his status as pariah. “The things people do to keep from being lonely,” sighed Nhamo.

When she woke up in the night, she could hear the baboons murmuring among themselves on their rocky perches. “I’ll put thornbushes around my trees in the morning,” Nhamo muttered as she drifted back to sleep.

Nhamo was used to hard work, but she had always depended on others for help. Now she had to do all the gardening, all the water carrying, all the hunting, and still find time to cut down the mukwa tree and carve it into the shape of a boat. From the minute the red ball of the sun lifted above the lake to when it sank again in thickening layers of haze, Nhamo hurried from one chore to another.

She finished the rope ladder and barricaded the base of the lucky-bean trees. She built small platforms higher up in the trees. When she was out, she lifted the end of the ladder with a pole and draped it over a convenient branch. She didn’t want to find baboons in her home!

Even with the correct raw materials available, Nhamo’s basket-making skills were limited. She had to depend on the calabash vines to provide most of her containers. She chopped up old termite mounds and used the clay to make pots, firing them in heaps of coals. Even the ones that broke in the process were useful. She used the shards to roast termites. She spent every morning weeding and watering the garden, and every afternoon chipping away at the mukwa trunk. Between times she foraged for food. When she couldn’t face chores any longer, she explored—cautiously.

The baboons ranged far and wide on the island. Sometimes they chose to stay in another area, and then the darkness rustled with unfriendly noises. Nhamo huddled on the platform, rocks at hand. Most nights, though, the animals preferred to stay on the cliff, and then she slept easily, soothed by their incessant murmuring.

The baboons filled the days with drama. The troop erupted with shrieks when someone encountered a snake. They churred excitedly when someone discovered a large scorpion—and muttered with disappointment as the lucky finder nipped off the stinger and ate the rest of the creature! Some things—vultures, for example—made them rub their faces and watch the sky uneasily. And some things they ignored, like Nhamo, most of the time.

Other animals, too, lived in the area around the cliff. Dassies snarled at anything that attempted to invade their rocky hideouts. Their fat bodies shivered with rage and their shrill cries pierced the air. Impalas grazed around the baboons as though they were bushes. Vervet monkeys cavorted as much as their larger cousins, and the babies of both species occasionally joined in play.

The main business of the male baboons, as far as Nhamo could tell, was to shove one another around. A stronger one would stare fixedly at some inferior, slap the ground, and fluff out his fur. Then he would stand up and slowly approach. The other baboon would quickly give up his seat. The first animal sat down in his rival’s place with what appeared to be great satisfaction. Fat Cheeks was the most successful at this game and, predictably, Rumpy was the one who always got moved on.

Not all baboon activities had to do with threats, though. Babies, especially the tiny black infants, brought out the best in everyone. Even Fat Cheeks was reduced to lip-smacking foolishness when he attempted to entertain one. He lay on the grass and let the baby crawl over him, yank his beard, and put a foot in his eye without the slightest protest.

The least attractive, where infants were concerned, was Rumpy. When he felt threatened, he snatched up one of the tiny creatures and held it in front of him for protection. Sometimes it worked and sometimes, if the baby was old enough to protest, it only got him more soundly beaten.

Every morning and every afternoon, the animals busily groomed one another’s fur. This was their greatest pleasure. The one being groomed lay down, eyes closed in ecstasy, as another searched for dirt and ticks. He or she would present an arm or leg if the other baboon’s attention wavered. Everyone took part in this activity—except Rumpy. He had to sit on the edge of the gathering and morosely groom himself.