Chanda's Secrets (21 page)

“You know... Mama? She's with my granny and grampa? I called two days ago? I asked you to pass on messages?” Something in the way he scratches his head makes me nervous. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Only your Mama isn't here anymore.”

“What?”

“She's not here. She's gone.”

M
AMA'S GONE.
But she isn't dead. That's what I keep telling myself as Mr. Kamwendo walks me to my Granny and Grampa Thela's.

“I took your messages over,” he says, pointing out the potholes with his flashlight. “I asked for your mama like you told me, but your Auntie Lizbet said she'd already left. Said she caught a ride from some friend at the post. Your granny dropped by the store later. Phoned a message to your neighbor lady. You didn't get it?”

“No,” I say.

“And your mama never showed up?”

I shake my head.

“Strange.” He frowns. “Oh, well, I'm sure there's an explanation.”

“I'm sure there is too,” I say, and curse Mrs. Tafa in my heart. “When Mama was here... did you see her much?”

“Can't say as I did. Not surprising, with all the folks she had to visit. Saw her when she arrived, though.”

“How was she?”

“Travel sick. It's a long trip. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

Tiro's laid out in a broad grid, lots of space between clusters of huts. We cross a dozen streets. A few more and we're at the village edge. Behind us, the firepits are dying out. Their coals burn like orange eyes in the night.

The general dealer pauses. “Your granny and grampa's compound is over there,” he says, pointing his flashlight into the darkness. “It's faster if we cut through this field.”

I can't see a thing. The flashlight's batteries are running low.

I hesitate. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. It's pretty much cleared. Just a few weeds.”

I take a deep breath and follow him into the pitch black. The flashlight flickers like a firefly. We walk in silence.

“I'm s'prised no one showed up to meet you,” he says at last.

“I didn't tell them I was coming.”

“Oh.” A pause. “So no one's expecting you?”

“No.”

More silence. I wish I knew what he was thinking. My throat's a little dry. “Are we nearly there?” I ask.

“Oh, yeah.”

The field is bigger than I imagined when we started walking. I look over my shoulder. The road's disappeared. So has the village. All I can see are the pale tufts of grass lit by the wavering flashlight.

“How much further?”

“Just a piece.”

The hairs on the back of my neck begin to prickle. I'm tempted to turn and run, but I'm scared. Who knows what's out there. Or what's ahead. “Maybe we should go back to the street.”

“I know where I'm going.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He chuckles quietly.

This walk was a bad idea. I should have phoned before I left home. I should have had an uncle waiting with a buggy. I should have told the dealer I was expected. I should have—

Suddenly the flashlight goes out. The general dealer grabs my arm. He pulls me back. I try to scream, but I can't. He whaps the flashlight on the side of his leg. The light snaps back on.

“Careful about those bushes,” he says. Not two steps ahead of me is a thicket of jackalberries. “You don't want to rip yourself up on those thorns.”

“Thank you,” I say as he lets go of my arm.

The moon comes out from behind a cloud. Straight ahead, a small circle of mud huts is silhouetted against the sky.

“We're here,” Mr. Kamwendo says. “Your aunties, uncles, and cousins live in the side huts, except for your Auntie Lizbet. She stays in the center one with your granny and grampa.” He walks me to the main door and knocks.

“Ko ko,” he calls out, so they won't be scared by our midnight visit. “It's me, Sam Kamwendo. I've brought you a surprise guest.”

Inside, somebody lights a lamp. The light glows through slits in the shutters.

“A guest?” It's an old woman's voice. A voice I barely remember.

“Granny? It's me. Chanda.”

Confusion. “Lizbet, get the door.”

Muttering. A curse. The bolt is pulled back, the door opened. Auntie Lizbet peers suspiciously from the gloom. “What are you doing here?”

“I've come to see Mama.”

“She's gone.”

“That's what I told her,” says the general dealer.

Auntie Lizbet spares him a nod. “Evening, Sam.”

“I phoned two days ago,” I say. “Mr. Kamwendo says that's when you said she'd left. But she hasn't come home. Where is she?”

Granny Thela shuffles up, bundled in a housecoat, skin as cracked as a dried mud hole. “She's with friends in Henrytown. Her ride broke down. Radiator trouble. She'll be home when it's fixed. Maybe a week.”

“Where did you hear that from? Who told you?” I turn to the general dealer. “Did Mama phone from Henrytown?”

“Are you calling your granny a liar?” Auntie Lizbet snaps. Aunties and uncles appear at the doors of the other huts.

Mr. Kamwendo clears his throat. “I think it's time for me to go.”

“'Night,” Granny Thela says sharply. “Thanks for your trouble. No need to worry about Lilian. Everything's fine.”

“Whatever you say, Mrs. Thela.” The dealer tips his hat, turns, and ambles back across the field.

Granny waves her chin at my aunties and uncles. “It's nothing. Just Lilian's girl. We can handle it.”

“Get inside,” Auntie Lizbet orders me. While Granny bars the door, Auntie Lizbet grabs my arm, yanks me to the kitchen table, and pushes me onto a stool. I hop up. She shoves me down again. I bounce back, this time fists clenched. She raises her cane.

“What's going on?” comes a frail voice from behind a curtain.

“It's nothing, Papa,” Auntie Lizbet shouts. “Go back to sleep.”

“I hope you're satisfied,” Granny Thela hisses, “waking your grampa, and him a sick old man with bad bones, deaf in the bargain.”

“Where's Mama?”

“We told you. Henrytown.”

“Give me the address. A phone number.”

“Go back to Bonang,” Auntie Lizbet says. “She'll be there soon enough.”

“I don't believe you. Tomorrow morning I'm going to the police.”

“A troublemaker, just like your mama,” Granny Thela says.

Auntie Lizbet waves the Bible from the kitchen table. “Remember the ten commandments, girl. ‘Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.' Your mama got what was coming to her. So will you.”

I freeze. “Is she dead?”

“She defied God, her ancestors, dishonored her family, coveted another, committed adultery—”

“
Is she dead??
”

“She has the disease. God's curse.”

“Disease isn't God's curse,” I say, “any more than your club foot. What sin did you get that for?”

Auntie Lizbet swings her cane at my head. “God's vengeance!”

I duck just in time. “You wouldn't know God if he bit you on the nose!”

Auntie Lizbet roars and swings again. I roll under the table for protection. The cane hits the hard boards, sending tin cups flying.

“Lizbet!” Granny Thela barks. “Enough! Enough!”

Auntie Lizbet lowers her cane slowly. She backs up. I crawl out from under the table. Granny Thela sinks into her rocker and motions me to sit in the chair opposite her. I do.

We stare at each other for a long time. Maybe it's the smoke of the oil lamp, but her eyes are damp. In her face I see Mama, and a little of myself. Does she see the same in me?

“We kept your mama here as long as we could,” she says. “We built a lean-to behind the woodpile. But she took a turn for the worse. Her legs gave out. A week ago she lost control of her bowels. We fed her tea and bark from the baobab. It didn't work. We had to hide her someplace else. Someplace far away where the stench of the sickness wouldn't shame the family.”

“She's always shamed the family,” whispers Auntie Lizbet. “Even in dying.”

Before, I might have smacked Auntie Lizbet across the face. Not now. Now, I'm too empty even to be angry. “Where is she?”

“At the cattle post,” Granny says. “In one of the old huts.”

I grip the arms of my chair. “What?”

“We're doing what we can. We've given your mama a mat and a blanket. Each day one of us brings fresh food and water.”

“Who's with her now?”

Granny pauses. “Nobody.”

“Nobody? My mama's alone in the bush?”

Granny's face fills with despair. “We can't stay with her. If we did, folks would know something's wrong.”

“Besides,” Auntie Lizbet interrupts, “it makes no difference to your mama. Her mind is gone. She can't move. She won't eat. She barely drinks. She doesn't even know us anymore.”

I look to Granny. Tears roll down her cheeks. “I'm sorry, Chanda,” she says. “This is a small village. We didn't know what else to do.”

A
T FIRST LIGHT,
I
START FOR THE CATTLE POST.
The air is crisp. Fruit bats swoop around me, flying home to rest till nightfall.

I leave Tiro and head for the highway. From there I travel north to the giant baobab. A family of baboons chatters at me from the upper branches. They toss twigs as I pass, moving off the paved road onto a dirt trail that winds into the bush.

There are no fences marking the borders of the posts. I know whose family belongs where by the rocks, the hillocks, the bushes and trees. The younger trees have grown since I was here last, a few are missing. It doesn't matter. It's like when I bike through downtown Bonang and notice a new store, or a streetseller missing from the bazaar; despite the changes, I know exactly where I am and where I'm going.

A few miles in, I come to the three boulders at the east corner
of Mama's family post. A lizard suns itself on the largest, mouth open for bugs. I head off the road and into a maze of cattle paths. Geckos skitter from my shadow.

Granny's told me where I'll find Mama: in an abandoned hut out by Auntie Amanthe's burial stone. When Auntie Amanthe died, the Malungas returned her body and her stillborn, I guess on account of “Mama's curse.” Granny and Grampa buried them at the family compound. The spirit doctor said the evil lived on. He said they should leave the compound and build another, or it would kill their cattle. So they did, moving to where the herd boys stay now.

After a hard walk, I near Mama's hut. I remember it from the times Granny took Mama and me to Auntie Amanthe's stone. Even then, the thatched roof was collapsed and the mud walls were crumbling. Now all that's left is a partial clay curve and the ring of exposed mopane poles. Half these stakes have fallen to the ground; the others are held in place by termite mounds. Weeds fill what used to be the inside rooms.

I pause. “Mama?”

Everything's still, except for a circle of large black birds hovering overhead. I continue to walk toward the hut, barely daring to breathe. But soon I'm not walking. I'm running as fast as I can. “Mama? Mama?”

A couple of poles have been propped against the clay curve. They're loosely covered with scrap thatching. On the ground, in the shadows under the thatching, I see a water jug, an untouched plate of food, and a mat. And lying on the mat, I see a small still bundle draped in a stained sheet buzzing with flies. I kneel down under the thatching and crawl beside it. I touch its thin shoulder.

“Amanthe?” comes a voice as quiet as breath. “Is that you, Amanthe?”

“No, Mama,” I whisper. “It's Chanda.”

For a moment, nothing. Then the bundle curls in on itself. “Forgive me, Amanthe.”

“No, Mama. Auntie Amanthe is dead. It's me. Chanda.”

She shudders. “Chanda?”

“Yes.”

I draw back the sheet. Mama rolls her head toward me. Her eyes are confused and frightened. “Chanda?”

“It's all right, Mama. I'm here.” I take my handkerchief and soak a little water from the bottom of the jug. I pat her forehead, wet her lips.

Mama's eyes cloud. “Chanda, I'm lost.”

“It's all right. I've found you.” I hold her hand. “We're going home.”

I
HAVEN'T COME TO THE POST BY MYSELF.
Before leaving Tiro, I stopped at the health clinic, where I explained my story. A nurse and a helper rode out with me in the clinic van. I gave them directions as we drove along the trail till we reached the entrance to the post. Then they parked the van and followed me into the bush on foot. As soon as we reached the compound, they began searching the outlying ruins while I headed to the hut. Now, as I signal that Mama's been found, they hurry over with a stretcher.

The nurse opens her medical kit and pulls out an intravenous bag filled with fluids, antibiotic, and painkiller. She inserts a tube
into the bag; the other end of the tube she sticks into a vein in Mama's arm. Very carefully she and the helper lift Mama onto the stretcher. With the helper taking one end, and the nurse and me the other, we make our way back to the van.

A few minutes later, we're at the clinic. Mama is carried through an open waiting area to the examining room. The doctor checks Mama over and asks me questions. I tell him about her headaches, her night sweats, her diarrhea.

He frowns. “I think she should have an HIV/AIDS test.”

Mama's too lost to give consent. It's up to me. I swallow hard. “Go ahead.” It's not like I don't already know the results.

“There aren't any hospital beds available,” the doctor says, as he draws the blood. “Your mama will have to be cared for at home.”