A Girl Named Disaster

25

Nhamo tried to build an entire hut on the platform, but she soon found it was beyond her ability. Poles crashed down and calabashes shattered as she struggled to construct walls. She had watched the villagers make houses for years, but somehow, somewhere, she had missed a critical piece of information. There was a way to brace walls even in a tree, but Nhamo couldn’t remember how it was done.

After her efforts clattered to the ground for the tenth time, she gave up. She wedged a pole across the branches over her head and leaned reeds against it to make a slanted windbreak. She lashed the reeds down and covered them with bundles of thatching grass, using many overlapping layers tied in place with mupfuti twine. It wasn’t perfect, but she was too irritated to keep trying. “I’ll be out of here before the rainy season starts, anyhow,” she told herself.

Nhamo was lacking other important skills as well. How did you finish a reed mat, for example? Her attempts unraveled. She knew skins could be cured. It had something to do with soaking in mud and rubbing with ashes, but her rabbit skins smelled vile when she was finished.

The boat was the biggest problem, though. Slowly, painstakingly, Nhamo cut down the mukwa. When it finally crashed to the ground, her heart sank. How could she ever turn such a giant lump into anything useful? She couldn’t even make a walking stick. She sat in Crocodile Guts’s leaky craft all afternoon, too dispirited to try anything.

Nhamo crouched by the mukwa log scraping, scraping, scraping with a sharpened rock. It was slow work, but she was afraid of using Uncle Kufa’s knife too often. Mopane flies circled her face, landing to drink moisture from her lips and eyes. She waved them away; they came straight back. The only way to discourage them was to sit directly in the sunlight, and it was too hot for that.

She stopped to watch flecks of light on the lake. Breezes ruffled its surface, and occasionally a tiger fish leaped after a low-flying dragonfly. Otherwise the lake was devoid of interest. Blue and endless, it lay between her and freedom. She never even saw a boat on it.

“If only I could strike it with my skirt like Biri,” she sighed. Biri, a famous rain priestess, and her two brothers had founded the eland clan. They came from the north and were light-skinned like the Portuguese. “When they reached the Zambezi, Biri removed her skirt and struck the water. Immediately, it rose up on two sides like hills, leaving a dry path between,” Nhamo said aloud to whatever spirits might be listening.

“‘You will find your totem on the other side,’ Biri instructed her brothers. As they crossed over, the ancestors played mbiras and drums from the depths of the water, and after they had passed, the river came together again.

“I suppose you’d find that frightening,” Nhamo told the njuzu. “It would be like someone rolling up your house while you were living in it.” She stripped away the green, resinous wood, pausing to remove a splinter from her thumb. “The older brother ran ahead. He came upon a dead eland and immediately cut it up into steaks. ‘How could you be so foolish?’ cried Biri when she saw what he had done. ‘That was our totem. Now you will be forever unlucky.’ From that time, the descendants of the younger brother were called the Tsunga, the Steadfast Ones, because he had honored the totem.”

Nhamo tried to rock the log. It wouldn’t budge. She poked her fingers into a gap beneath to get a better grip. A pain shot through her like a knife! She jerked away, and a large black scorpion scuttled out of the hole. It danced sideways, making a hissing noise.

Nhamo threw the scraping rock at it. It squirted venom at her in a fine spray. She grabbed a stick and pounded the creature even as it rose to attack again, banging it until its body was mush with the tail twitching feebly. She sank to the ground, dizzy with shock. “Oh,” she moaned. The pain was so terrible, she couldn’t think.

Nhamo stared up at the sun stabbing through the gray-green musasa leaves. The light dazzled her eyes, and her stomach rolled with nausea. “I can’t stay here,” she whispered. If she was going to be really sick, she didn’t dare remain exposed. A jackal or honey badger could be just as lethal as a lion then. But she couldn’t bring herself to move. Instead, she studied her hand until she found the puncture on the back. It was oozing slightly.

Nhamo sucked at the wound and spat out bitter liquid. Painfully, she forced herself to roll over and crawl to the lake. She scooped up water to wash the evil taste out her mouth. And then she collapsed with her face half in the mud. She wanted to lie there forever.

If only Masvita would cover her with a blanket. She could sleep until the pain went away. Someone will look for me if I don’t return with the firewood, she thought dimly. But no, she wasn’t in the deserted village. Nowhere near it.

At sundown, Nhamo remembered, the larger animals would venture down to the lake. And waiting for them under the surface would be the crocodile.

It didn’t much matter whether something discovered her on its way into or out of the water.

She struggled to her feet. Slowly, with many stops to clear her swimming head, Nhamo crept back to the lucky-bean trees. The rope ladder was hooked over a branch. She sank down again and looked at it with despair. It seemed impossible to lift the long stick she kept at the foot of the trees. Her hand and arm were on fire. And her heart was doing funny things. “Aunt Chipo is going to be furious if I don’t start dinner,” she murmured. At last, after several tries, she unhooked the ladder, and it flopped down within reach.

Nhamo had only a fleeting memory of how she got up. Once she leaned through the ropes and vomited on the ground. For a long time she seemed to be frozen in one place without moving at all. But eventually she dragged herself over the platform and pulled the ladder up for safety.

Her spirit had done as much as it could. Now it abandoned her and went to the place where the living walk with the dead.

Hhhuuu, she was cold! Her body was wet as though she had stood in the rain. Masvita came toward her with a blanket. “Hurry up,” ordered Grandmother. “They won’t wait all day!”

“I’ll carry your pack,” Masvita whispered, wrapping the blanket around Nhamo’s shoulders. They walked swiftly through the forest, Grandmother in the lead, until they came to a great, shining expanse of water. There, gathered at the edge, was a troop of twenty young women and twenty young men, and standing on a rock above them was a beautiful woman. Her arms and legs were weighted down with gold bangles.

“That’s Princess Senwa, Monomatapa’s niece,” whispered Masvita. Nhamo’s eyes grew round. King Monomatapa lived at the beginning of time, long before even Grandmother was born. The young women and men played drums and mbiras, but they didn’t seem joyful. And Princess Senwa’s face was drawn with grief. Masvita untied her pack and laid it respectfully at the foot of the rock. It was full of honeycombs.

“Why is she so sad?” Nhamo whispered.

“You’d be sad, too, if your husband had abandoned you for another wife,” Grandmother said harshly.

“But she’s so beautiful…,” began Nhamo.

“As if that mattered. Men are like baboons. If one mango tastes good, two must be better. Or three, or ten. They eat until they have to lie on the ground clutching their stomachs!”

“Didn’t Princess Senwa object?”

“Of course she did,” Ambuya snapped. “Prince Kakono, her husband, said that his men would laugh at him if he listened to her. Afraid of being laughed at! He hunts lions for sport, and he’s nervous about a few snickers. What a fool!”

Grandmother fell silent as the princess raised her arms. Her servants began to wail. Nhamo watched with amazement as a herd of cattle was led to a cliff jutting over the water. Warriors urged them on with spears. The cattle rolled their eyes and bellowed, but they had no choice but to go forward until one after the other, they tumbled into the lake. They thrashed wildly and were drawn under by forces Nhamo couldn’t see. She sank to her knees with horror.

Next, the warriors threw baskets of food away. One of them grabbed Masvita’s basket and hurled it into the deep. Nhamo felt sick. All those delicious honeycombs! The soldiers cast away grass mats, pottery, and beads. Then they seized upon the young men and women.

“No,” moaned Nhamo, hugging Ambuya’s legs.

The men struggled, the women screamed, but it did them no good. They were all sucked under the water even as they stretched out their arms for help. The warriors, their duty performed, followed the hapless servants to destruction. Princess Senwa looked on with grim satisfaction. She turned to gaze directly at Grandmother. “Tell my husband I await him,” she said. Then she descended from the rock and threw herself over the cliff. Her body was so weighted down with gold, it disappeared instantly.

“Let’s go back to the village,” Nhamo pleaded, clinging to Grandmother’s legs.

“Wait,” commanded Ambuya.

Now another group of people arrived from the forest. A handsome man wearing a crown of feathers rushed to the water’s edge and shouted, “Senwa! Senwa!” The others joined him with cries of alarm.

“That’s Kakono,” said Masvita. The prince climbed the rock and stood watching as his servants mournfully played their drums and mbiras. They were even younger than Princess Senwa’s followers. “Kakono can only be waited on by people who have not yet married,” Masvita explained. “His magic depends on it.”

Nhamo thought he was indeed a magnificent being as he gazed at the lake where his wife had disappeared. “If he hadn’t been such a donkey, it would never have happened,” grumbled Ambuya. “Right now he’s wetting his loincloth over what Monomatapa will do to him when he finds out.”

Trust Grandmother to take the glamour out of the scene, thought Nhamo.

She heard the lowing of cattle and smelled their earthy breath on the wind. “Not again,” she murmured.

Prince Kakono raised his arms. A new army of warriors drove a herd of cows over the cliff at spearpoint. They threw all the prince’s wealth into the lake, and then they turned to the terrified servants. Masvita rose and began to walk toward them.

“No!” screamed Nhamo. Grandmother held her tightly. “Let me stop her! Please, Ambuya!”

Masvita turned and gave Nhamo a sad and tender smile. “It is the custom,” she said.

“No! No!” shrieked Nhamo.

Grandmother held her with a grip of iron. Masvita walked to the warriors and they parted to let her pass. The others struggled as they were flung to their deaths, but Nhamo’s beautiful cousin approached the water like a queen. She paused on the cliff to let the breeze ruffle her dress-cloth. Then she stepped off and fell like an arrow into the devouring water.

Nhamo wailed uncontrollably as the warriors and Prince Kakono sacrificed themselves, but her cries weren’t for them. They wanted to die. They wanted to destroy everything to satisfy their stupid pride. The lake had turned blood-red, but it wasn’t from the light of a setting sun. It was swollen with death, and it resounded with the boom of drums. The spirits were dancing under the water!

She could see them like the inhabitants of a great city in their finery and gold. The warriors were in their leopard skins and the servants in their bark dresses. Princess Senwa and Prince Kakono danced apart, apparently still not reconciled with each other. And in the center, unmoving, stood Masvita, gazing upward through the blood-red water.

Boom…boom…boom. The drums pounded. Nhamo flung her head from side to side to get rid of them. Boom…The movement only made it worse. Her head ached and her heart raced. Her body was soaked in sweat. She blinked at the lucky-bean leaves overhead. Ah! Even her eyelids hurt!

But she wasn’t at the lake. Grandmother was still in the village, and Masvita was still alive. Whimpering with relief, Nhamo tried to sit up. She was overcome with muscle spasms. Her body jerked as though it belonged to someone else. Frightened, Nhamo lay as still as she could manage. Was she possessed? Her stomach felt like someone had punched it.

I’m dying, she thought. She had never heard of anyone dying of a scorpion sting, but she had never seen anyone stung by such a big one either. The way it sprayed venom at her!

“I’m not dead—yet,” she whispered. She had come close, though. Grandmother had often told the tale of Princess Senwa and Prince Kakono, finishing up with, “And if the prince hadn’t been such an ass, everyone could have been perfectly happy.”

Remembering Ambuya’s acid remark made Nhamo feel slightly safer. It made the world seem solid, not a shifting mist of dreams. She listened to the baboon troop returning to their sleeping cliff. She could interpret all of the sounds by now. There was the squeal of babies who had tackled one another too vigorously. There was the soft grunt of a mother calling her child. There was Rumpy getting kicked off a rock by a bigger male.

The animals appeared almost civilized. They stole from one another, of course, and enjoyed terrorizing one another, but their crimes were minor compared to those of people. Even Fat Cheeks wouldn’t march the troop into the lake to satisfy his pride.