“You are so spoiled,” Moses always told her. He said she expected to be waited on like a princess because her family was privileged, living in the white people’s house, the makgoa house with three bedrooms, a shower, electricity, and carpeted floors instead of the packed cow dung their neighbors used for floors. Soon, he said, she and all her family would grow fat, too, just like the people who’d built the house and lived there before them.
No, Moses didn’t care about her feet today. All he cared about was the contest he was having with Luck about who could bring home the most worms for roasting. Why would anyone want to eat something that crawled on the ground?
“Leave them alone,” Fana told Moses, drawing a crooked line in the dirt with a twig.
Moses was squatting beside one of the tree trunks as if he were going to the bathroom, picking mopane worms from the bark, dropping them into a woven basket. The long worms were shiny and black, with green and blue marks that showed in the sunlight.
“You wouldn’t say that if you tried one. They’re like chicken,” Moses told her, as if it would be less awful to eat the dead skin and flesh of a creature who’d stood on two legs, who had known joy and fear, and whose blood, like hers, had once run warm with its life spirit.
But Fana’s head was often filled with ideas that were too big for her mouth to put into words, so instead she said, “Would you like it if someone ate you?” when he dangled a worm in her face. She was a veg-e-tar-i-an. That was the word her mother had told her, meaning someone who would not eat meat. And that meant worms, too.
“You’re so choosy, Bee-Bee.”
Fana knew Moses was calling her by her old name just to annoy her, so she didn’t say anything. Instead, she watched the goats grazing near them on the tall grass beneath the trees. There were six goats, and she had given them all names after characters in her book: Alice, Mad Hatter, March Hare, White Rabbit, Duchess, and Queenie. Moses said people didn’t name their goats because they’re just going to eat them, but she didn’t care what he said. No one was going to eat her goats. Mommy had promised.
“Come here, White Rab-bit!” Fana coaxed, kneeling, but the white goat ignored her and continued to munch on the grass while staring at her with one pink eye. Goats, Fana had learned, loved to eat more than they loved being petted. Her mommy called the goat al-bi-no because its pink eyes made it look different; this goat had been born special, just like her, she said.
“It sounds dumb, you know, to call a goat a rabbit. No wonder he doesn’t come,” Moses said. “No goat will answer to that.”
Just then, White Rabbit’s head lifted up from the grass. He took a few steps toward Fana and put his wet nose on her hand. Then, he licked her, looking for food. Maybe he could taste the porridge Sarah had made her for lunch. His tongue was warm and mushy, tickling her fingers.
“See! He did too,” Fana said to Moses, grinning. She patted the fur on top of White Rabbit’s head. He was a young goat with soft fur, softer than that of the other goats. Queenie was his mother, and he still tried to drink milk from her belly sometimes. Fana remembered drinking milk from her mommy like that, too, but then she got big. “And I’m Fana now. Even my mommy says.”
“It’s not a true-true name. You made it up.”
Why was it so hard for everyone to understand? Her dreams had explained it to her very well, but she knew she could never explain it the same way. Sometimes she saw a man in her dreams, but she could never remember his face when she woke up. She could always hear him, though. Even if she didn’t recognize the words he spoke, she knew his meaning because his words were magic. The Man only came to her when she went away, during the times when she was not-asleep and not-awake. Mommy called it tran-ces, but The Man said that was how he called her. He said he was far away.
Of course, Mommy said things that happened in dreams weren’t real. Maybe that was true, which meant she was making it all up like Moses said. But she didn’t think so. She hoped The Man was really her daddy, and he was coming to talk to her.
Fana had never seen her daddy, except one time when she was very little, but she hardly remembered that. He was just tall legs and a deep voice. Besides, he hadn’t even known who she was. Mommy was mad at him because they’d had another little girl before she was born, and her father had done a bad thing to that girl and made her go to sleep forever. That girl’s name had been Kira. Mommy thought about her almost all the time in some part of her head; sometimes the thoughts were quiet, sometimes loud. Mommy thought about Kira even when she tried not to, when she didn’t know she was. Fana hated her sleeping sister for hurting Mommy so much.
Because of Kira, Mommy had never told her father he had another little girl. That wasn’t fair! Fana was a good girl, and her daddy would love her very much if only Mommy would let him. Her daddy wasn’t a bad man. What had happened to the other girl couldn’t be her daddy’s fault. Kira should just wake up, that was all. And Mommy still loved her daddy, even if she didn’t want to. Whenever Fana asked when she could see him, Mommy sighed and gave the same answer: In time. Which, of course, was no answer at all, but Fana didn’t complain because it hurt Mommy every time she asked, just as it had made Mommy sad when she had had her ac-ci-dent in the bathtub. Fana was sorry about that. But it wasn’t her fault! The Man in her dream had called her away.
He’d said she was stronger and stronger all the time, so he wanted to give her a new name. Fana could feel her strength today, just as the dream had said. Maybe Moses could feel it, too. It was bigger. It was more.
Moses’s head was filled with thoughts about roasted worms and worries about his school exams, and something bad his grandfather had seen when he’d thrown bones for him—which was probably why he was being so mean, she decided. She forgot about Moses and concentrated very hard on herself, until all of her skin prickled. Despite the shoes she wore, she could feel the grainy dryness of the earth beneath her feet. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of her clothes and skin gently melting, falling away from her as she felt herself grow. Her invisible self, just like the Cheshire cat. She felt herself growing taller, taller, until she stood over Moses like a giant. Her face brushed against the tree’s leaves, which were such a pretty green against the pale earth beneath their shadows. She heard the leaves’ whispers in her ears. She had never felt as tall as this. She would touch the sky today, she decided.
“Tla kwano!” Moses said. “Come look at this one.”
“I don’t wanna look.” Even her own voice sounded as if it were far beneath her.
“Oh, stop your pouting, Born Laughing. Try to earn your nickname for once. How do you expect me to believe you came from your mother’s insides with a smile on your face? Come on! You’ve never seen one this big!”
Moses’s words sounded as though they were being spoken on a platform as a train sped past, chopping them to pieces and throwing them in the wind. Fana smiled to herself. Moses would try to impress her with a worm? He didn’t believe she had been born tickled by the spirits, born laughing? Well, he would see!
Fana let herself become a wind—she saw herself as wind—and she shook the branches of the trees until the dried leaves began to hiss like snakes. The wind was cold, because Fana herself felt cold and tired and annoyed. When Moses didn’t notice her wind or its songs, Fana whipped her wind downward into a bite that stung his face.
“Ay!” Moses cried, staring up into the branches above him. “What’s that?”
Fana giggled, and the air itself exhaled in a humid, living breath.
“Well?” Fana asked him proudly.
For the first time, Moses looked at her. His face wore an ugly frown, and the deep line across his forehead made him seem like an old man. “You have a new trick,” he said, shrugging, and he looked away from her to keep picking after worms. “Behave. Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“Want to see what else?”
Moses shook his head no, and he began to sing to himself. But the cheerful sounds falling from his mouth were
a lie. Fana could smell something unpleasant rising from him, a sour scent that hurt the lining of her nose. A fear smell.
“Mo-ses . . . ,” Fana began in her kindest voice. “Want to see what else?”
“You’re the worst kind of pest, you know. If you want to be useful, help me find worms. You always know where to look. If not, at least be quiet and stop playing games with the wind. I hope you don’t do such silly things when other people can see.”
“Only for you,” Fana said, and that was the truth. She only shared her tricks with Moses. She had done little tricks for her mommy when she was younger, before she knew they were tricks at all—such as sounding out words Mommy was thinking—but it had made Mommy feel funny. Fana didn’t like that. She didn’t want her mommy to be even a little afraid, so she’d stopped doing tricks for her, when she could remember not to.
Fana saved her tricks for Moses. Before today, they had only made him laugh.
She walked to Moses and knelt beside him, biting her bottom lip. She could still smell his fear, even if he didn’t show it in his words. Why should Moses be afraid? He liked the trick with the marbles very much! It had been his idea, so he could have enough money to buy a new school uniform. Fana patted his hand the way her auntie patted her when she cut herself or scraped her knee. She felt better when her auntie touched her that way, no matter what hurt, or how badly.
Moses yanked his hand from her. “Stop. Voetsak!” Scram.
Why didn’t Moses want her to touch him? He had never acted this way before. His fear smell was so thick that it began to sicken her, making her feel as though she were eating rotten vegetables, or the soft flesh of the living, wriggling worm in his palm.
“What’s wrong, Moses? Let me show you.”
“Yes, yes, you showed me. You can command wind.”
“No, better. Watch me, Moses. Please?”
Quickly, while she still had his attention, Fana shot herself into the sky, so high that she nearly became dizzy. She gently wrapped herself in the invisible mist high in the sky, making it grow cooler. She drew upon the mist, pulling on it as far as she could reach, collecting it, tugging against its natural will until she felt something above her rupture, as if she’d torn a bedsheet in half, and suddenly all the ground near her feet was shaded. A cloud! It was not a big cloud, but it was big enough to block the sun above them. Fana played with her new cloud, feeling how the warmer air floating up from the earth bumped the cold air in her cloud, and the cloud began to feel heavy. The cloud flashed and rumbled, and then the leaves of the trees began to sing again, but not with wind this time. It was rain! A few droplets of rain began to seep through the trees, splashing their faces below. The water was cool, like melted ice. Now Fana was full of joy. She had done it! All by herself, she had made it rain after so many weeks of nothing but sun!
Moses stared at the water dripping across his arm as if he had never seen rain.
“See?” Fana had never made it rain before, but she’d suddenly felt certain she could. She’d known she could because The Man had told her she was stronger. That meant she could touch the sky. If she wanted to, she realized, she could stretch the rain as far back as her house, maybe even over the entire village. She did not know this for sure, but she began to believe she could. Then there would be no more complaints about dying crops or thirsty cattle. Even Moses, who liked to pretend he didn’t want to say nice things to her, would have to admit she’d learned a good trick!
“Fana!” Moses said, a sudden call that surprised her. “Make it stop.”
“Why?” She liked the cool droplets against her skin. She thought, in fact, it might be nice if it rained on them for the rest of the afternoon. She could do that, maybe, if she just held on to her cloud the way she would hold the string of a kite in a strong wind. The sky was fighting her, and sometimes the raindrops slowed down when she relaxed her mind, the cloud trying to vanish back to the nothing it had been before. So Fana knew it might make her tired, but she could probably make it rain all day if she tried.
“Where is it coming from?” Moses began to wipe his arms as if they were covered with ants. He batted water from the top of his head.
“From me.”
“Make it stop,” Moses said again.
“Why?”
“Who decides when it rains, you stupid girl? Who?”
I do, Fana thought. She was doing it now. She had decided. But she didn’t believe that was the answer Moses wanted because she could hear the beginnings of the next words in his mind, and they were very different.
“God decides. Modimo.” Moses answered his own question, pounding his fist into his palm. The fear smell from him was worse now. “Spirits decide—badimo. Not you.”
“But I’m—” She wanted to tell Moses so badly about what her dream had told her about how strong she was, but she couldn’t think of the right words. Her mouth couldn’t keep up with her head.
“You think you yourself should do what only God decides? You’re not a spirit, you’re a witch,” Moses said. “My grandfather, he warned me. When he threw the bones, he told me he could see a curse from a witch. It was you he saw, Fana! If you don’t make the rain stop, I’ll leave you here. I mean it—ke a tsamaya. Then you can play with your false rain as long as you want. I won’t stay here with a witch.”
Fana saw that the basket Moses held in his hand was shaking, nearly dropping the worms inside. The shaking came from the fear she could smell on his skin and the anger she heard in his voice. How could he be so mean to her, calling her names, when just now, at this moment, she had made such a wonderful thing as rain, the very thing everyone wanted to see? Rain was so precious here, Moses had told her once, that even the money, pula, was named for it.
By itself, it seemed, her rain dried up. Her cloud had escaped from her. The sun shone through the leaves of the trees again.
Then, Fana realized where the water had gone. Tears, hot tears, were running from her eyes. She sobbed. Now, she only felt weak and small, not at all like The Man said she was. Moses would never believe she deserved her new name.
Moses stood up, cursing to himself. Her rain had cleaned away shiny spots on his legs. “Why are you always crying? It’s not bad enough you’re a witch, but a baby, too?”
Fana couldn’t help sobbing again. She felt as if Moses had punched her in the chest as hard as he could. She couldn’t see because of her tears.
“Well, I won’t listen. Follow me if you’re going to your house. If not, stay here and be a baby,” Moses said, and she heard his legs swishing through the high grass.
She did not follow him. Her body would not move. She wished she could make him cry.
“You have to learn what it’s your place to do,” Moses called back to her. “Some games are fine and some aren’t. You have so much to learn, you see? Wa utlwa? Come on, then, little witch. I’ll carry you this time. You can make it rain, but I know you can’t walk far on those little feet.” He laughed at her.
Off with his head, Fana thought angrily as she rubbed her stinging eyes. She was thinking about Moses when she said it, although she couldn’t see him through her tears.
After that, Moses was quiet. All Fana heard next was the sound of a breeze in the treetops and the call of birds flying overhead. When she opened her eyes, searching the tall grass for Moses, she could only see the goats, still busy eating beneath the trees. She had to stare hard at the spot where Moses’s voice had been before she noticed the rough, dirty soles of his feet lying flat and still in the grass. Silly Moses! He had dropped down and gone right to sleep.
And Fana’s cloud had melted into the clear sky, but there were ripples in the air above her that would live far beyond this day. Fana would have felt proud of herself if she had known.
6
It was nearly midnight when Alex came home. Jessica heard the front door close, then her sister began to scrape her feet in a slow, deliberate rhythm against their patterned Tswana-style woven doormat, which was always flaked with
soil. Alex breathed a loud sigh that answered the silent question uppermost in Jessica’s mind. With a sigh like that, there couldn’t be good news.
Moving carefully so she wouldn’t disturb Fana’s still shape beneath her blanket, Jessica climbed out of bed and pulled the bedroom door closed behind her. Barefoot, she stole across the carpeted floor to the living room. Alex stood staring at her shoes, which she was still wiping across the mat even though they had probably been clean for some time. By now, Jessica figured, Alex was just trying to wipe away what she was feeling.
“Nothing at all?” Jessica said.
Not even glancing up, Alex shook her head.
Jessica realized her heart had quickened in anticipation when she had heard Alex come back, but now disappointment made it flag. That boy’s poor parents! Fana had seemed satisfied after being told that Moses had fallen asleep because he wasn’t feeling well, but after three whole days, she was sure to ask more questions about why he hadn’t come back. Even as young as she was, she had to know it wasn’t normal for someone to slip into such a ghastly, unnatural sleep. What in the world could they say to her?
“The hospital in Serowe wants to send Moses to Francistown, or even Gaborone, maybe.” Alex walked to the dining nook to surrender herself to a chair, her stethoscope listing across her bosom as she sat. She flicked open a can of apple juice sitting before her on the table. “His mother doesn’t like that idea, but, like she just said to me, what else can she do? Someone has to make him wake up.”