A Girl Named Disaster

32

Filled with wonder, Nhamo made her way through the forest. There were several lights attached to the roof of a large, square house, and they illuminated a grassland surrounded by a fence. Nhamo tried to look directly at them, but they were too bright. They hurt her eyes.

The grassland was lush with plants, in spite of it being only the beginning of the rainy season. You could keep a whole herd of goats in there, she thought. They would be safe, too. The fence was higher than her head and topped with spiky wire. Not even a lion could jump it.

The inside of the house was lighted, too, and she could see a table. Nhamo’s heart sped up. It wasn’t just any table. It was like the one in Mother’s picture, covered with cloth and dishes.

Oh! It was too marvelous to be real! It was exactly like the picture! Nhamo saw a woman in a print dress and white apron emerge from a room at the back of the house. She was carrying a tray covered with steaming food. Nhamo followed her progress from window to window until she reached the table.

Other people arrived, with light skins—much paler than Joao. There was a man, a woman, and two children. They sat down, and the first woman piled food on their plates. Even from where Nhamo squatted outside the fence, she could smell the rich aroma of meat. These must be the whitemen Grandmother had told her about. Nhamo thought they were fascinating.

She assumed the man had two wives, one light, one dark. He was certainly rich enough. The dark woman had no children, but perhaps she hadn’t been married long. She was obviously the junior wife since she was doing most of the work.

Nhamo looked for a way into the grassland so she could peer more closely into the windows, which were open but covered by a fretwork of iron. She went round and round until she found a spot where the wire was loose at the bottom. With some work, she was able to pry it up. The gap was large enough to wriggle through.

But first she changed from the rabbit skins to the dress-cloth. She hadn’t forgotten how the women at the village reacted to her. She attempted to comb her hair with her fingers, but it was far too knotted. Then, inspired, she tied around her head one of the red scraps from the cloth in which she was to have married Zororo. It covered most of the knots.

She crawled under the fence and pulled her belongings through. She hung the grain bag from a stray wire halfway up and leaned the spear against it. But she couldn’t bring herself to leave the panga behind. It had stood between her and destruction too often. She tied it to her waist.

Nhamo saw beds and tall chests with many handles in one of the rooms. In another was an easy chair wide enough to hold four people. She jumped when she saw something move on the wall. It was a person who seemed to be looking out of a shadowed room. When Nhamo raised her hand, so did the person. Nhamo had encountered mirrors in the Portuguese trader’s house, but this was not a reflection. It was too tall and bony. Tufts of hair stuck out from under a head rag, and the eyes stared from a face gone skeletal. If Nhamo had met the creature on a forest path, she would have climbed the nearest tree.

There would be time enough later to figure out the picture, Nhamo decided. She crept along the grass on hands and knees, and rose silently to look into the room where the people were eating dinner. They used knives and forks. They spoke softly in an unfamiliar language. Once, when the children made a noise, the father became angry.

Nhamo eagerly tried to identify the food on the table. She recognized margarine and white bread. She saw a bowl of red paste that Grandmother had said was jam. One of the children—a boy—stuck his finger into it, and his older sister slapped his hand. The junior wife came in with a bowl of boiled potatoes covered with a gray sauce.

Nhamo’s stomach complained at the sight of so much food. She was afraid the sound could be heard through the window. Then the junior wife took the plates away and brought—Nhamo had to think hard to remember the word—cake. It was covered with a yellow paste. The father poured himself a drink from a glass bottle.

By now, Nhamo was standing with her nose poked between the window bars. She didn’t want to miss a thing. She incautiously took a deep breath to bring the heavenly odors closer—and the sound attracted the attention of the chief wife.

The woman screamed. She jumped up, dumping her cake to the floor. The children scrambled out of their chairs, and the father shouted, “Voetsek!” It was one of the few non-Shona words Nhamo understood. It meant “go away,” but not the go away used for people. The word was meant for animals, and it was a terrible insult.

Nhamo dropped below the window and scuttled away. Her feelings were hurt. She wasn’t an animal, in spite of living with baboons for so long. But of course the man was angry because she had been spying on them. She would have to approach the house again in the right way and try to apologize.

She hurried to the gap, but before she could reach it, the back door of the house slammed open, and several huge black dogs bounded out! They made straight for her. She scrambled under the fence, abandoning her grain bag and spear. She heard the precious dress-cloth tear and the panga rattle against the metal. Her head scarf snagged on a wire and was torn away. Panting, she came up the other side.

Two of the dogs fell upon the grain bag with snarls and flashing teeth. The man came out the back door with a gun. He yelled at the animals and they dropped the meat and proceeded to wriggle under the fence after Nhamo.

She didn’t wait to see what happened. She ran for her life with the bullets whizzing over her head. The dogs set up a horrible cry as they galloped on. Murder! Murder! they howled.

Nhamo ran this way and that. She didn’t know where to hide. She blundered into the forest and out again to a road. Murder! the dogs howled as they ran. Nhamo fled past more houses, where other dogs set up a clamor. She stumbled and fell, picked herself up, and dashed on. The lights of the houses stabbed through the trees, making it just possible to tell where she was going—except she didn’t know where she was going.

Finally, gasping for air, she climbed a hill and abruptly reached the end of the road. The hillside had collapsed. The road broke off into a deep gorge. She couldn’t go any farther. She was trapped.

Nhamo’s chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. She saw the shadowy bodies of the dogs as they approached. She braced herself at the top of the hill and waited. Suddenly, she was possessed by an intoxicating—and frightening—sense of power.

“Whhhooo’s going to be my next meal?” she screamed, brandishing the panga. “Whhhooo’s going to sweeten my cooking pot?”

The dogs skidded to a halt and stared at her.

“I’m soooo hungry! I want a fat little dog for dinner! Will it be you?”—Nhamo thrust the panga at one of the animals—“Or you? Or you?” She advanced on the creatures, who backed away with nervous whines. “Too late! You can’t make friends now!” snarled Nhamo. “I’ll send my locusts to eat the hair off your backs! I’ll brew your blood into beer. Whhhooo’s going to sweeten my cooking pot?”

The dogs lost their nerve and ran—all except one. He was the biggest. He launched himself at Nhamo and she met him with the panga. It was almost as though she wasn’t there. Her arms and legs moved of their own accord. Her spirit sang as she fought, and when she dropped the dog’s lifeless body to the ground, she howled with purest ecstasy.

All the dogs in the neighborhood went wild as Nhamo fled back down the road, skirted around the houses, and disappeared into the forest. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she had to run, that she didn’t belong with people who shouted voetsek and shot at her with guns. She plunged deeper and deeper into the bush until the sensation of power left her and she fell to the ground unconscious.

Who did you think gave you the panga, said Long Teats from her perch in the dead tree. Nhamo lay on the hard soil. Tsetse flies zoomed overhead. As the days passed, as she had wandered on, she’d encountered more and more of them.

“The Portuguese spirit,” she said weakly.

Ha! He was no match for me with his Catholic spells. Forgive your enemies, indeed! I say kill them all as quickly as possible.

“My ancestors…the puff adder…,” murmured Nhamo. She was too exhausted to explain fully, but Long Teats understood.

Your ancestors have watched over you, little Disaster, but this time it was I who aided you.

“You’re a witch…”

Nonsense! I’m just someone who won’t let herself be pushed around. What has goodness done for you? Tossed you from one nasty situation to the next.

“It’s wrong to enjoy killing…”

It’s wrong to suffer, child.

Nhamo’s spirit wandered. The hot, humid air of the forest buzzed with tsetse flies. Now and then chills seized her body. She was sick, no question about it, and lost. She had staggered on along trails for days. A few times she had seen houses, but the memory of the dogs came back to drive her away.

She hadn’t seen people for a long time. She found the remnants of a farm and gorged herself on bananas gone wild. They were unripe and made her stomach ache. A rainstorm briefly caused the streams to flow, but now she was dependent on the few pockets of water that hadn’t dried up. She was hungry, thirsty, and weak—and her head thudded with pain.

Worst of all was the realization that she had been possessed by the spirit of a witch. Far from leaving Long Teats on the njuzu island, she had brought her along with the panga. Witches made you do evil things without your will or even memory. No village would allow you to stay. You became an outcast. Nhamo shuddered as she remembered the weird ecstasy of destruction the night she had killed the dog.

The dead tree was empty. Long Teats had flown off to plague someone else, but she would return. Nhamo was sure of it.

She forced herself to stand. She knew she ought to search for food, but she couldn’t keep her mind on it. How her head ached! Nhamo paused as another chill wracked her body. The trail, which had seemed large at first, had dwindled until she couldn’t find it anymore.

Thunder rolled in the distance. Rain would keep her alive awhile. It had already caused new grass to spring up. Soon the forest would be full of things to eat, but Nhamo doubted she would survive long enough to appreciate them.

She heard a strange humming in the distance. It was like a giant hive of bees. She wouldn’t be able to smoke them out—her five remaining matches had perished at the same time as the kudu meat—but perhaps she could use a long stick to fish out the honey.

Nhamo staggered on. The humming came from an odd structure on a hill. As she drew near, she saw a door in the side of the hill, and from the opening came a rumbling sound and the lowing of cattle.

Nhamo stopped to clear her head. She had trouble focusing. The strange object was like a hut, but the sides were like finely woven cloth. She could see inside. It was full of tsetse flies. Nhamo shook her head again. She must be dreaming. Tsetses didn’t live in hives. The flies were zipping into openings at the bottom, but they couldn’t get out again. So many of them clustered on the screen that their buzzing made her ears ring.

She stood bemused until the pain in her head forced her on. She peered into the door in the side of the hill. A breeze laden with the rich odor of livestock blew against her face. It was dark inside.

The floor beyond the opening sloped down to a central chamber. Beyond lay another door filled with something that whirled round and round, and was the source of the breeze. In the central chamber was a pen containing many cattle and a few goats. Nhamo suddenly understood where she was. She had arrived at the underground country where the broken and thrown-away creatures lived.

She made her way down the slope. The cattle stirred uneasily as she approached. “Oh, beautiful cows,” she whispered, running her hands over their warm hides. Among them were two nanny goats with swollen udders. Nhamo backed one against the fence and, ignoring its angry protests, helped herself to the milk. She drank until she began to feel sick again. Then she lay down at the feet of the milling herd and fell asleep.

Her spirit wandered in confused dreams. The voices of the underground people muttered as they lifted her. They carried her along a path with branches rushing past overhead. A silvery gray twilight soothed her burning skin. Presently, she was in a room with white walls where a woman sat reading a book by a window. Nhamo opened her eyes wide to make out the figure.

It was Mother.