A Girl Named Disaster

  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.

  33

  I am not your mother,” the woman said crossly. Nhamo sank into happy oblivion again. If Mother wanted to disagree, that was her business. She was not mistaken about the braided hair decorated with beads. She recognized the flowered dress. They were exactly like the photograph.

  Nhamo dozed, woke to be fed, and dozed again. Never had she been so contented. After a while an old man dressed in a white robe sat by her bed and murmured charms. “Are you my grandfather?” she asked. The old man looked startled.

  She snuggled into the bed, which was softer than anything she had ever known. A woman-spirit stuck a thorn into her arm. It hurt, but Nhamo accepted it as part of the strange rituals of the spirit world. Then the old man was back with a black book, which he read with his lips moving.

  “Oh, Grandfather. I’m so glad to see you,” Nhamo murmured. “Ambuya said I would meet you someday. Did you know Mother can read? She’s so clever! Is Aunt Shuvai here? I miss her…”

  “Sh. You must rest,” said the old man.

  Nhamo obediently went back to sleep.

  She talked to Mother, sharing with her things that had happened since the picture was destroyed. “Poor Rumpy. He never had any luck,” she sighed. “I wonder whether he was really a human who had eaten his totem. Do you know?”

  “He was only a baboon,” said Mother firmly.

  Gradually, Nhamo became more aware of her surroundings. The woman-spirit was called Sister Gladys.* She was kept busy mixing things up in bottles and writing in a book. She was very respectful to Mother. The old man was called Baba Joseph and he of
ten came to talk. She didn’t understand half of what he said, but it didn’t matter. His voice was very soothing.

  And gradually she became aware that she wasn’t dead after all and that Baba Joseph wasn’t her grandfather. But she stubbornly refused to give up on Mother. Other people might call her Dr. Everjoice Masuku. Nhamo knew differently.

  She was so sleepy! It was all she could do to keep her eyes open more than a minute. She lay in the soft bed, and now and then drifted off into dreams.

  “What’s wrong with her?” said an unfamiliar man’s voice.

  “What isn’t wrong with her? Malaria, bilharzia, malnutrition, ” said Mother. “When I picked her up, I could have sworn her bones were hollow.”

  “Her feet are scarred.”

  “That’s an old burn. You should feel the soles. They’re like hooves.”

  “How long was she out there?” the man asked.

  “Months. She keeps raving about water spirits and a dead boatman and a baboon she thinks was human.” The woman sat next to the bed. Nhamo could smell the soap she used.

  “Is she insane?”

  Insane! Nhamo was insulted.

  “She was alone an awfully long time,” said Mother.

  Nhamo opened her eyes to protest when she saw the man. He was an enormous whiteman with a bristling beard. His arm was as big as her waist. “No!” she yelled, scrambling out of bed. She fell to the floor with the sheet wrapped around her and tried to crawl away on her hands and knees.

  “Stop that!” Mother cried. She hauled Nhamo back.

  “No! No! No!”

  “She doesn’t seem to like you, Hendrik,” Mother said as Nhamo tried to squirm out of her grasp.

  The whiteman shrugged. “At least she doesn’t think I’m her mommy.” He lumbered out of the room, and Nhamo’s breathing became regular again.

  “Why are you so afraid of Dr. van Heerden?” Mother asked.

  Nhamo told her about the man with the dogs and gun. She didn’t mention Long Teats or killing the dog, however. She didn’t want to be accused of being a witch.

  “That’s terrible! You probably don’t know this, but not long ago we had a civil war here—white people against black. Some of the hatred is still around. I wish I knew the man’s name. I’d set the police on him.”

  “How could he hate black people when his junior wife was black?” Nhamo asked logically. She described the house and the wonderful dinner.

  Mother laughed. “Englishmen aren’t allowed more than one wife, and anyhow they almost always marry Englishwomen. That was a servant.”

  “Is Dr. van Heerden English, Mai?”

  “Don’t call me Mai. I’m not your mother.”

  “Yes, Dr. Masuku.”

  “Dr. van Heerden is Afrikaans. It’s a different kind of white person. He doesn’t like to be bothered by children, so stay out of his way.”

  “Yes, Mai—Dr. Masuku.”

  After a few days Nhamo was allowed out of bed. She was given a new dress-cloth because the old one was torn and foul with dog blood. Sister Gladys had burned it. Nhamo’s bag of gold nuggets had disappeared during the period when she believed herself dead. She was afraid to complain. Dr. van Heerden must have taken it to pay for my supplies, she decided.

  She was delighted with the new cloth, though. It was green and red with a pattern of jongwe, or roosters. “That’s my name,” she told Sister Gladys proudly.

  Nhamo went to the long mirror at the end of the hospital corridor to admire herself. She stood there a long time. Then she folded up on the floor and burst into tears.

  “Now what?” said Sister Gladys.

  “I’m—I’m so ugly,” Nhamo hiccuped. The creature she had seen in the Englishman’s house wasn’t a moving picture after all. It was her. She looked like a wall spider with a burr stuck to its head.

  “You’re only thin,” the nurse said kindly. “Anyhow, Baba Joseph says the important thing is the soul.”

  This did not make Nhamo feel any better.

  As soon as she was strong enough, Nhamo volunteered to help. Sister Gladys was pleased to have someone to scrub floors. She taught Nhamo how to make beds and how to use the electric stove to prepare sadza. Nhamo was enchanted by the stove. No more collecting firewood. No more worrying about leopards creeping up on her in the forest. She loved electricity!

  It was made by something Sister Gladys called a generator. Dr. van Heerden fed it a kind of smelly liquid, and it hummed away as it made the lights shine and the stove hot. Late at night the generator was turned off, and then they had to use lamps like the ones Joao had at the trading post.

  Nhamo quickly saw that she had landed in a very strange village. It was called Efifi and was stuck in the middle of a wilderness. There were vegetable gardens, cattle and goat pens, and fields of lucerne* for the animals. There were the usual huts and granaries, but along with them were large buildings devoted to what Mother (Dr. Masuku, Nhamo reminded herself) called science.

  Nhamo learned new words every day. Science was the kind of work people did in Efifi. It consisted of catching and destroying tsetse flies.

  Tsetse flies carried a sickness that killed cattle, horses, pigs, goats, and donkeys. The livestock at Efifi had to be given medicine every few weeks or they would die. Normally, no one would have kept domestic animals in such a lethal place, but the creatures had a very special purpose.

  They were bait. Every day they were driven into the underground chamber Nhamo had seen, and a huge fan blew their smell through the forest. Tsetse flies came from miles around. They landed on the trap, crawled inside to find something to bite, and couldn’t get out again.

  Dr. van Heerden brought live insects back to his science house (which Nhamo learned was called a laboratory). There he let them bite animals that had been painted with poison. The whiteman was also trying to put the smell of cattle into a bottle. He wanted to bait traps all over the forest.

  Everyone at Efifi had something to do with science. Dr. Masuku was looking for a disease to make the tsetses sick. Nhamo was amazed to learn that flies could get sick, just like people.

  Baba Joseph was in charge of the animal building. He cared for herds of guinea pigs, which resembled small dassies. The guinea pigs squealed shrilly when he brought them food. After a few days he let Nhamo feed them, too. She covered her ears when the little creatures streamed out of their smelly pens, but she was charmed by the confident way they nibbled lucerne from her hands.

  Baba Joseph had several pets: a duiker antelope, a bush baby, a large tortoise, and an enormous warthog that waddled after him, begging for treats. Nhamo realized that the old man was a very great nganga. He could get wild animals to obey him. He was also in charge of a small crocodile Dr. van Heerden insisted on keeping. Neither Nhamo nor Baba Joseph liked the crocodile. It eyed them in a most calculating way and once, when Nhamo teased it with a stick, it rose up with its yellow mouth open wider than she had dreamed possible. She clawed herself halfway up the wall. Baba Joseph laughed so hard he had to sit down and wipe his face.

  Other people at Efifi concerned themselves with farming, herding, and carpentry. Two men were detailed to drive away an elephant that liked to raid the fields. Every night they patrolled, calling out “Iwe! Hamba! Hey, you! Go away!” The elephant was well aware that no one was allowed to shoot him. He went where he pleased, and the only thing that could move him on were the large firecrackers the men threw at his feet.

  They had to be extra careful, Baba Joseph said, because it was never certain whether the elephant was going to run away from or toward them.

  Sister Gladys took care of the inevitable accidents.

  The one thing Efifi did not contain was children, and there were almost no women. Everyone had another home where he kept his family, and which he visited regularly. Nhamo thought this was a strange arrangement, but Mother explained that Efifi wasn’t a healthy place for children.

  * * *

  *Nurses are called “sister” in Zimbabwe. Sister Gla
dys is not a Catholic nun.

  *lucerne: Alfalfa.

  34

  Nhamo worked steadily for whoever would allow her to help. She walked a fine line between staying invisible (no one would notice her and send her away) and being useful (they would think she was valuable enough to keep). She was determined to live at Efifi—if only to feast her eyes as often as possible on Mother.

  Dr. Masuku, for her part, was often impatient with the little shadow she had acquired. “Go haunt someone else!” she would cry. “You hang around like a tsetse fly!” And Nhamo would fade away, only to reappear later when she thought Mother wasn’t looking.

  Nhamo observed Dr. van Heerden as he picked up dead flies with a pair of tweezers and put them into bottles. She was a little afraid of him. He was so big and hairy! His legs were like tree trunks, and nestled in the top of one of his long socks was a comb. Nhamo wondered if he used it to comb his legs. Dr. van Heerden warned her not to make any noise or touch anything or get in his way.

  Once she had satisfied these conditions, though, he was willing to let her watch. In fact he became so absorbed he often forgot about her altogether. If he was feeling sociable, he called her his Wild Child and insisted she had been raised by jackals. “I saw your brothers near the goat pen, Wild Child. Tell them I’ll make a rug out of them if they get any ideas.”

  Nhamo explained gently that she came from a proper village full of people.

  “We’ll see what happens when the full moon arrives. I bet you’ll run through the forest with your tongue hanging out.”

  There was no shaking him. She knew he was trying to be funny, so she didn’t take offense.

  When Dr. van Heerden’s work went badly, his beard fluffed out like Fat Cheeks’s mane. “What are you smiling at?” he rumbled, peering at her over his bottles.

  “I am happy,” said Nhamo.

  “Go be happy somewhere else, Wild Child.”