A Girl Named Disaster

35

I’m off to Harare tomorrow,” Dr. van Heerden told Mother as the sun settled behind the gray-green trees of the forest and a soft dusk stole out of the east. The doctors and about ten villagers, all men, were seated companionably outside Dr. van Heerden’s hut. There was no room for such a crowd inside and besides, it was too hot. Nhamo was hidden by the leaves of a bougainvillea vine the Afrikaner had grown over a frame at the side. It cast a welcome shade against the hut in the afternoon and formed a convenient nook for someone who did not wish to be noticed.

Dr. van Heerden had given Nhamo a bottle of orange soda from the refrigerator earlier, but by now had forgotten about her existence. She spun out the pleasure of the cold drink as long as possible. She pressed it against her face and let the juice slide down her throat to make her cool from inside. Now all she had left was a few sugary drops. She applied them to her tongue, one by one.

“I’m taking Petrus”—the doctor named one of the villagers. “He needs to spend time with his family. I hear the wife has a new baby.”

“And Petrus hasn’t been home for a year,” added one of the other men. Petrus casually knocked the man’s stool over.

He wasn’t angry, so Nhamo knew it wasn’t a real argument. She sometimes had trouble understanding jokes at Efifi. No one in her village would have made such an accusation lightly.

“Bring us magazines,” said Mother. The rainy season had kept the road too marshy to use for many weeks. All the old magazines had fallen apart.

Whenever Dr. van Heerden went to town, everyone made out a list of requests. His Land Rover returned as loaded as the tractor that visited the trading post.

“I’m making two quick trips if the weather stays good. I’m taking in bottles of cow smell to be analyzed.”

Nhamo had watched the doctor try to collect the exact substance that attracted the tsetses. Nothing was overlooked: the breath, the sweat, the droppings. The last item was most interesting. It had to be collected absolutely fresh before it hit the ground. Dr. van Heerden crept up on a likely cow, bottle in hand. Sometimes he got what he wanted, and sometimes he got a surprise. Once a cow coughed as he was peering up its backside, with entertaining results.

“I think I’ll bring Bliksem back for a few days. We can hunt jackals together.”

Who is Bliksem? thought Nhamo. She hadn’t heard of him.

“This place is bad for his health,” Mother pointed out.

“Ach, a few days won’t hurt. The old fellow needs a vacation.”

Bliksem must be an elder relative, Nhamo decided. Perhaps he was Dr. van Heerden’s uncle.

“Someday we have to send the Wild Child off, you know,” Mother remarked. “It isn’t fair to keep her without an education.”

Nhamo’s throat suddenly closed up. Mother said that? Mother wanted to get rid of her?

“She’s learning plenty,” said Dr. van Heerden. “Works harder than five of these buggers.” He was into his fifth or sixth beer. The men rolled their eyes.

“You know what I mean. She can’t read or add. She’s totally unsuited for modern life—and she’s bright enough to take advantage of good schooling. In fact, she’s brilliant.”

Nhamo’s heart burned within her. Mother’s praise meant nothing. She wanted to get rid of her.

“Baba Joseph can teach her.” Dr. van Heerden tipped the bottle up over his red, sweaty face.

“Baba Joseph!” Mother sounded exasperated. “He’d teach her to speak in tongues. Besides, he doesn’t have time—and neither does Sister Gladys, and neither do I, so don’t ask.”

“You’d make such a wonderful mother,” Dr. van Heerden said sentimentally.

“Nhamo needs a proper school and a real family. She says she has a father at Mtoroshanga.”

“The Old Man is very attached to her.” Petrus offered an opinion for the first time. Everyone knew that the Old Man was Baba Joseph. “She called him Grandfather when she was sick. He lost a granddaughter years ago, and Nhamo reminds him of her.”

“Oh, brother! Just what I need. Another one of Baba Joseph’s pets!” groaned Dr. van Heerden.

Pets! So that’s what they thought of her! Nhamo’s skin was hot with shame. She was just another warthog trailing around after the Old Man!

“All right, I’ll think about it.” The doctor came to a decision. “I’ll go through Mtoroshanga on my way to Harare. If I can scare up the Wild Child’s daddy, I’ll take her back with me and Bliksem. If not—well, there’s always boarding school. The government makes grants for orphans.”

The men and Dr. Masuku (not Mother, Nhamo thought angrily) went on to other topics.

That night she ground her teeth as she lay on the cot at the hospital. Sister Gladys had pronounced her the night watchman and given her the duty of calling for help if anyone became especially ill. But she was not a night watchman, only an ugly warthog allowed to sleep in a human bed as a joke.

In the morning, she hid when Dr. van Heerden and Petrus drove off. She didn’t look for Mother—not once!—and she obeyed Sister Gladys in such stony silence that the nurse asked if she felt sick.

But Nhamo couldn’t be angry at Baba Joseph. She reminded him of his dead granddaughter. That meant he thought she was human.

“I’ll never smoke cigarettes or eat pork or birds with webbed feet,” she murmured as she swabbed out the guinea-pig cages. She had paid close attention to the things Baba Joseph considered sinful. “And I’ll never make phone calls to Satan.” Satan, the old man had explained, was like an ngozi and witch rolled into one. He waited around for people to get careless. The minute they let their guard down—boom!—he possessed them.

“I’ll be good, and Baba Joseph will tell everyone to leave me alone.” Nhamo wiped the tears from her eyes as the guinea pigs gathered around her with earsplitting squeals.

She avoided Dr. Masuku so completely during the next few days that the Matabele woman (she was that now, not Mother) tracked her down in the hospital. “I never thought I’d miss your beady eyes on the back of my neck. What’s the matter with you, Nhamo? Why don’t you spy on me anymore?”

Because you want to send me away, thought Nhamo, but she replied, “I’ve been busy.”

“Of course you have! Sister Gladys says she doesn’t know what she’d do without you.”

Borrow the warthog from Baba Joseph, I expect, thought Nhamo, but she said, “I’m glad Sister Gladys is pleased with my work.”

“You’re acting so—oh, I don’t know! You seem angry. Has anyone upset you? I know it’s difficult trying to fit in to a strange village without any children. If I can do anything…” Dr. Masuku trailed off uncertainly.

Nhamo stared straight ahead, not insultingly but not in a friendly way either. Dr. Masuku looked to Sister Gladys for help.

“It’s probably her period coming on,” Sister Gladys offered.

“That makes young girls nervous,” Dr. Masuku said gratefully. “It took me forever to settle down. I think the whole process of menstruation is a joke played by God on women.”

But nothing she said could coax a smile out of Nhamo. Dr. Masuku eventually went back to her duties, and Sister Gladys gave Nhamo an herbal drink that she said “would make the pains better.”

The only one who could lift her bad spirits was Baba Joseph. He went about his chores in the same tranquil way, with a kind word for each of his pets and apologies to the guinea pigs when they had to be strapped under the wire cages.

He and she always had lunch by the livestock pens. As long as Dr. van Heerden was away, the cows didn’t have to spend the day in the underground chamber. The windows of their building were securely screened, though. Even one tsetsefly bite could prove fatal. As it was, the poor animals had to be given injections to treat animal sleeping sickness every few weeks.

“It always rests my eyes to see a fine herd of cattle,” Baba Joseph said. Nhamo nodded. She loved their sleek brown hides and lucerne-sweet breath. The old man told her about how Jesus ngozi had slept in a cow’s feeding trough when he was a baby. Nhamo, in her turn, related one of Ambuya’s stories.

“Once upon a time there was a couple with many cattle, but only one son. Their neighbors became jealous, so they hired a witch to put a curse on them.”

Baba Joseph frowned, not entirely pleased with a tale about a witch.

“The parents became very sick,” Nhamo went on hastily. “Just before they died, they told the boy to sell all the cows and move far away. But first he was to kill the black bull and travel inside its skin.

“The boy was mystified by the commandment. Still, he obeyed his parents. He killed the black bull, took out its intestines, and moved himself and his belongings into its belly. At once the bull began to walk! ‘Eh! Eh! What a strange thing!’ cried the boy.”

Baba Joseph was definitely uneasy about pagan magic, but he was too interested in the story to object.

Nhamo continued. “The bull walked and walked. It went through forests and swam rivers with the boy inside. Finally, it reached the court of a king. ‘O great king, may I stay with you?’ the boy said from inside the bull’s belly.

“The king was frightened. ‘Get out of here, you demon!’ he shouted. ‘Whoever heard of a bull talking?’

“The boy went on to an old woman’s hut. ‘Respected grandmother, may I stay with you?’ he asked.

“‘What luck! A beautiful black bull!’ she cried. ‘You can stay with my cows as long as you like.’

“Every morning the bull led the cows to pasture. The boy came out of the bull’s belly and played on a flute to pass the time. When he played, the rain fell over the old woman’s fields, even though everyone else was having a drought. Mealies and pumpkins grew everywhere. Her cows all gave birth to calves, and their udders were so full of milk the old woman didn’t know where to put it all.

“The people around began to notice how prosperous the old woman had become. Their children spied on the pasture and saw the boy come out of the black bull’s belly every day. ‘When he plays, the rain falls,’ they told their astonished parents. The parents went at once to tell the king.

“The king sent his soldiers to take the bull away, but it tossed them on its horns. ‘You turned me away when I asked,’ it bellowed. ‘Now your fields can turn to ashes for all I care!’

“When the people saw this, they threw out the old king and put the boy in his place. He became very powerful and eventually had many wives and children. He built a fine new house for the old woman. But the boy’s father called the black bull away to the spirit world. Ever since, when a parent dies, a cow or bull is given the person’s name and sacrificed when the spirit is brought home again.”

Baba Joseph sighed. “You tell a fine story, Nhamo,” he said. “But you haven’t learned the truth yet. All those old beliefs are wrong. Only Jesus matters, and our future in heaven.”

Nhamo said nothing. She had her own private opinions. Who had protected her on Lake Cabora Bassa? Who taught her to swim and to use boats? As much as she wanted Baba Joseph’s approval, she couldn’t ignore the evidence of her own eyes. Crocodile Guts, the njuzu, and Mother had been with her when she most needed them, and she couldn’t turn her back on them now.

At the thought of Mother, Nhamo’s spirit sank again. Baba Joseph, perhaps noticing, set her to work feeding a young calf that was learning to do without its mother’s milk.