A Girl Named Disaster

41

She wore her best dress, the one Mother had bought her, and the bra. She was going to do things exactly right for this occasion. Nhamo thought the old man would take her to the local graveyard, but he led her to his house. It was a small place tucked away at the edge of the vast Jongwe estate. People were always waiting outside for advice. They came from all over the country, and they sometimes had to wait a long time for the nganga’s attention.

Nhamo spied a pot hidden in the thatch and halted. Horror nailed her to the spot. What did ngangas store inside such things? It couldn’t be—she didn’t want to know—

“I’m not the muvuki,” he said in a whispery voice that made her jump. “I don’t keep my oldest son’s heart in a bottle.”

Nhamo bit her lip. That was exactly what she had imagined. She looked cautiously at the dried animals hanging on the walls, the heaps of withered herbs.

“I’ve been too weak to undertake this journey until now,” explained the old man. He waved to a young man at the back of the house. “Garikayi is my assistant. He will help us.”

Garikayi loaded a car with bottles of water and food. He helped the nganga into the front seat and opened the back door for Nhamo. They set off on a steep road going up into the Umvukwe Mountains. It was here, Nhamo had learned, that the chrome mines lay. It was the only place on earth where that rare metal was found.

The car struggled up higher and higher. It curved around until the outside world had completely vanished. Nhamo’s eyes opened wide. She had no idea this beautiful green country existed so close to the dusty streets of Mtoroshanga. Yellow weaver birds darted across the road. A stream overhung with palms wound beside them with a loud, heartening sound. She pressed her face eagerly to the window.

Eventually, they came to a meadow. The road deteriorated into a path scarred by deep ruts from the rainy season. They stopped. “Oh,” sighed Nhamo, stepping out onto springy grass.

“We’ll eat first,” said her great-grandfather. Garikayi spread out a cloth and heaped it with food. He helped the old man sit down with his back against a tree. No one spoke, and Nhamo was just as happy to stay quiet. She was in awe of the nganga and hardly knew how to address him.

They had lemonade, peanut butter sandwiches, and a kind of pound cake with red jam. Nhamo was now knowledgeable about the food she had seen in magazines so long ago. She could never have imagined then that she would be eating them in a forest glade with her great-grandfather.

When they were finished, Garikayi packed up the food. They set off along the rutted path. The nganga had to be carried across the larger gaps. They came to a grassy hill dotted with gentians and pink ground orchids, and began to climb.

It was a long, slow process with many stops to allow the old man to rest. “Would you like to return, honored Tateguru?”* asked Nhamo.

“If I stop now, I may never have the strength to return. Your father appeared to me in a dream and asked me to bring you here,” he replied.

So Nhamo went up behind him, to cushion his fall if he slipped, and Garikayi half carried him until they arrived at a jumble of rocks and timbers in the side of a cliff. The nganga sat down on a log to catch his breath.

All around were the green hills with the stream chattering below in the valley. Puffy white clouds floated overhead in a blue sky. Nhamo took a deep breath.

“I’m an embarrassment to the family. So are you,” said the nganga. “We represent the past, which they are busy trying to forget.” He patted the ground beside him, and Nhamo sat down. “They’re Methodists when it suits them. That’s a kind of Christian.”

Nhamo sighed. Another kind of Christian. Why did they have to be so complicated?

“Industry went to church until he decided to take a second wife. Then he suddenly discovered his African roots. The Methodists don’t approve of second wives. Even so, the others occasionally attend church and talk about bringing Zimbabwe into the twentieth century. They aren’t pleased to have a traditional healer in the backyard, but I’m too powerful for them to ignore.”

The old man signaled to Garikayi, who quickly produced cups and a thermos of sweet milky tea.

“My son—your grandfather—made his fortune in the mines.”

Nhamo nodded. He was talking about Jongwe Senior.

“He dug his own tunnel into these hills and made a lucky strike. A lot of men work independently along the Umvukwe range. The place is like a giant anthill. As soon as he got money, he began to imitate the white people, and he changed his Shona name, Murenga, to Lloyd. He wanted to flatter the owner of the Big Chief Chrome Company, who was also called Lloyd. Unfortunately, the owner was killed by a land mine. Then the whites began to lose the war, and it became unfashionable to have a white name.

“As you know, the word murenga means ‘revolution.’ What wonderful luck! Lloyd-the-lackey turned into Murenga-the-revolutionary overnight. Oh, he was first in line for the victory parades, as soon as the guns were put away. At the same time I was promoted from being a senile old peasant to being a revered elder.

“Murenga was rewarded for his patriotism by being made manager of the mines. He had two sons, called Proud and Industry.”

Nhamo straightened up. Here at last was information about Father.

“I think you’ve noticed Murenga’s weakness where alcohol is concerned.”

Nhamo was confused. She was unwilling to criticize her grandfather, but what was she to do when her great-grandfather wanted her opinion?

“Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked. How could anyone in that house not hear the shouting and fighting? Murenga is an alcoholic. So, unfortunately, was Proud.”

A breeze blew between the hills and bent the grass before it in long waves. An impala buck stepped onto the path far below, turned its head to observe the humans, and led a group of females across to the stream.

“Proud was a good boy,” said the old man, his eyes soft. “He could have been such a fine man, but he started drinking when he was no older than you. I think he used to empty Murenga’s bottles after he passed out. Your father always had such big plans! He was going to own the Big Chief Mine; he was going to run for Parliament. The sky was the limit. And then he met your mother.”

Nhamo was jolted out of her reverie. “You knew about Mother?”

“I met her. She was just a little schoolgirl, but very, very beautiful. Proud should have been ashamed of himself. Did you know she was pregnant before they got married?”

“I—I—wasn’t even sure they got married,” Nhamo admitted.

“There was a terrible family row. Murenga refused to give his permission. I did, of course, but at that time I was only an ignorant old peasant. Murenga was in his I-love-whites phase. The Catholics at Nyanga married your parents.”

Nhamo sighed with relief.

“I suppose Proud lied to the priest—neither of your parents was Catholic—or perhaps the priest felt sorry for your mother. He insisted that Proud get an official wedding license from the government, to make sure the marriage was legal. I still have it.

“Your parents traveled to your mother’s village in Mozambique. The next thing we knew, Proud was back, and we got a letter asking for cattle to pay for a murder. It was like someone had tossed a beehive through the window. You wouldn’t believe the fights!”

I might, thought Nhamo, remembering the noises that came from Jongwe Senior’s room.

“Murenga disinherited his son. Proud announced he was going to earn his own fortune. He came here.” The nganga gestured at the hill. “He was always full of great plans. He was going to dig the deepest, longest tunnels anyone had ever seen. And so he did. They collapsed one day with him at the very heart of the mountain.”

Nhamo gasped. That jumble of rocks and timber—it was her father’s grave! “Didn’t…anyone dig him out?” she said.

“We tried, but the tunnels went in all directions. No one had any idea where he was when the accident happened. Finally, we conducted the funeral ceremonies here. Murenga wanted it that way, but I always wondered whether Proud’s spirit was happy with the arrangement.”

Nhamo was so overcome with a mixture of emotions, she began to cry. She was glad her parents had been married, but shamed that Mother hadn’t been welcomed by the Jongwes. She was horrified to be sitting next to Father’s grave—and yet relieved to know what had happened to him. She lay on the grass and gave herself up to weeping. The old man handed her a handkerchief when she was finished.

“I think we should go down now. I’m feeling tired,” he said.

“Oh! Of course!” Nhamo was instantly concerned about her frail great-grandfather. She and Garikayi helped him back to the meadow. The sun had slipped low in the sky. The valley was filling up with green shadows.

“Let’s have more tea, little Disaster,” said the old man. “I have one last piece of information for you.”

The ever resourceful Garikayi started a fire and boiled tea with water from the stream. He laced it with sweetened condensed milk. Nhamo thought she had never drunk anything so delicious. In a strange way it tasted exactly like the tea she used to prepare for Mother in the ruined village.

“I think there were two spirit leopards involved with your life, Nhamo,” the nganga said suddenly. “Goré Mtoko’s totem was the leopard. So is ours.”

“I thought ours was the lion.” Nhamo was appalled. If two people with the same totem married, it was incest.

“Ours is both the lion and the leopard. That happens sometimes when two powerful clans combine. Our praise name is Gurundoro, the people who wear the ndoro, the symbol of royalty. The Mtokos, by the way, are very remote relatives with different praise names, so you can relax. The marriage wouldn’t have been incest, although it would certainly have been evil. My understanding is this: Goré Mtoko’s spirit killed your mother and, I believe, caused your father’s mine shaft to collapse. At that time Goré’s revenge was complete.

“But your father’s spirit was unsatisfied. He knew he had a child who must be brought to her true family. Proud told your mother his totem was the lion because it made him feel powerful, but he was really more like a leopard. A leopard hunts alone in the shadows. He doesn’t face his enemies openly. I think your father’s first appearance to you was by the stream.”

“It might have been a trick of the light,” Nhamo couldn’t help saying.

“Yes, but why did you insist on telling everyone about it? He appeared again in the banana grove the night before Vatete got sick, and he left his print on her grave. He was driving you away from your mother’s village.”

“But the leopard on the island—”

“Tell me, did it ever harm you?”

“No,” Nhamo admitted.

“From what you told me, it provided you with meat when you most needed it, and killed the baboon that was a danger to you. At the same time, it frightened you off the island. Otherwise, you might have spent the rest of your life there.”

Nhamo clasped her hands. That was certainly true.

“Proud appeared to me in a dream recently, asking me to bring you here. I think he wanted you to understand what he had done.”

All the way home, Nhamo was sunk in thought. She barely noticed the hills give way to the dusty plain, or the lights of Mtoroshanga as they approached. The nganga rapped on the door of Jongwe Senior’s room as soon as they returned.

Jongwe Senior was slumped in an easy chair with a cutglass decanter on a table beside him. His wife crocheted a blanket on the opposite side of the room. She must do that all day, thought Nhamo. The house is full of those crocheted blankets.

“I’ve come for the picture,” said the nganga. Murenga stared at his father with red-rimmed eyes. He seemed not to have heard, but his wife put aside her crochet hook. The air in the room was full of the sweet, cloying smell of whiskey, and every corner was heaped with mementos of trips to England and South Africa.

Murenga’s wife cleared away some porcelain statues of white girls in long frilly skirts. She folded up a lace tablecloth. From a tea chest underneath, she removed a portrait of a man in a suit and a woman in a long, white dress.

The nganga took the photograph without a word and led Nhamo from the room. “Phew! I need fresh air after that,” said the old man, seating himself by the open dining-room window. The cool smell of lawn sprinklers drifted inside. “They rented the clothes.” He tapped the portrait. “That’s what Catholics wear when they get married.”

Nhamo was afraid to look. She had imagined her parents’ appearance for so long, she didn’t want the image destroyed. But she finally had to open her eyes and acknowledge them. They were so young! Mother wore a gauzy white cloth over her hair and held a bunch of flowers trimmed with ribbons. Father was cheerfully at ease in the whiteman clothes, while Mother seemed embarrassed. They were both extremely handsome people. “She looks like Masvita,” murmured Nhamo.

“Masvita? Oh, your first cousin. That’s not surprising,” said the old man. “You’re in the picture, too, little Disaster.”

“I am?”

“Right here.” The nganga pointed at Mother’s stomach, and laughed at Nhamo’s discomfort. “This picture belongs to you. I’ll give you the wedding license tomorrow. It proves you really are a Jongwe, although sometimes I think that’s not such a wonderful thing.”

Both Nhamo and the old man winced as the first sounds of fighting erupted from Jongwe Senior’s room.

*Tateguru: Great-grandfather.