Chanda's Secrets (7 page)

Auntie Lizbet squints. “So that explains it.”

I want to say something, but what? I'd only make things worse. Luckily the house is now empty. Esther and I can clean inside and pretend they don't exist.

Together with Mama, we scrub down the floors and walls. We also wash all of the cutlery, plates, and cups that the neighbors have lent us for the feast. It arrived clean, but it never hurts to be careful. Then we haul enough wood to the cooking pit to make sure there'll be coals under the stew pots through the night.

Mrs. Tafa and Auntie Lizbet join us for lunch.

“Not bad,” says Mrs. Tafa, having a look around. “I don't mean to criticize, but you missed a few spots on the kitchen wall. I'm sure nobody else would notice.”

“Oh, I did,” says Auntie Lizbet. “And if you ask me, the furniture out back might be lined up more neatly, too. All the same, I suppose I've seen worse.”

We ignore them and get changed. Mama suggests I loan Esther a long skirt. I'm embarrassed to suggest it, but Esther doesn't complain. She even volunteers to remove some bracelets and a rhinestone broach.

Then we leave for the Eternal Light.

The moment we arrive, Auntie Lizbet notes the cement mixers next door. “How handy,” she says, nodding at Mr. Bateman's patio of pink and gray paving stones.

Today the patio's covered in folding chairs. We sit in the shade of a plastic awning, surrounded by other bereaved families. They come from all sorts of churches. Most have colorful costumes: bright cotton robes and tambourines. Sometimes we
join in their singing, but mostly we sit tight in our blacks and navies, like shabby crows at a parade.

Mr. Bateman starts releasing the bodies at three. As he calls out each name, there's a clatter of folding chairs and a gust of clapping and song.

Finally, Sara's name is called. Esther gives my hand a squeeze. I hold my breath and try not to think about what's happening.

Mr. Bateman leads Mama, Jonah, me, and our priest down the corridor, past the coffin showroom, and into a tiny chapel. I'm out of my body somewhere, as he presents Sara in her coffin. She looks so strange. The powder has smoothed where the rash crossed her nose, and they've wrapped the shroud to cover the eruptions on her ears and the bald patches on her scalp. They've also stuffed her cheeks before sewing the lips. I suddenly realize how much weight she'd lost.

Others are filing in now, crowding around us: Esther, Auntie Lizbet, Mrs. Tafa, and Jonah's relatives. I hear a tape of religious music, the priest saying a prayer—and before I know what's happening, Sara is wheeled out the door and the room is following. We pass the embalming station and turn right. Heavy double doors swing open and we're outside in the back parking lot. Sara's placed in a miniature trailer shaped like a coffin, hooked up to a Chevy.

My ears fill with the sound of church ladies singing and banging their tambourines as Mr. Bateman ushers me into the Chevy with Mama and Jonah. Heading out of the driveway, I see a mist of faces: the faces of those who came for Sara, and the faces of the families and friends who've come for the others.

I have a vision. One day there'll be faces come for Mama and for me and for Esther, and Soly and Iris and everyone I love.
I want to bury my head in Mama's breast and scream, “I don't want to die! Why are we born?”

T
HE
C
HEVY PULLS UP AT OUR HOME,
at the head of a convoy of mourners. Two of Jonah's brothers-in-law bring Sara's coffin inside. They take it into the main room and set it on an ironing board. The ironing board is draped in a clean, white bedsheet with Sara's toys spread around the bottom.

Mr. Bateman has provided two plastic wreaths, which Mrs. Tafa insists should stay in their cellophane wrappers to keep clean. She says this is how they do it at the white cemetery. Mrs. Tafa is an idiot, but Mama doesn't argue. She just waits to unwrap them till Mrs. Tafa's gone outside. From now until tomorrow morning only immediate family are allowed inside; by the next time Mrs. Tafa sees the wreaths, she'll have forgotten her advice. Like Mama says, she just likes to be important.

Mr. Bateman circulates, shaking hands and passing out his business card. Neighbors wander up with questions. “We offer a full service,” he confides. “There's nothing for you to worry about. We even put a picture of your loved one on the funeral program. If you don't have one, we can take a Polaroid.” He gives them a couple of extra cards to give to friends: “It pays to make these plans in advance. Takes away the stress of last-minute decisions.”

Meanwhile, Esther prepares the fire and Jonah's sisters chop vegetables, while the goats are brought in from slaughter. They've already been bled. I'm glad. I hate the sound of the squeals, the sight of the dripping, and the smell of the blood that misses the vats and bakes in the ground for weeks.

Mama and I go inside to be with Sara. At the foot of the ironing board, she suddenly clutches her middle and falls to the floor sobbing. I'm scared. This is the first time Mama's ever cried in front of me.

“I'm sorry,” she says.

“It's all right. I'm not a baby.” The next thing I know I'm on the floor beside her, crying too. We hold each other, gasping for air. When we can breathe again, we wipe our eyes.

“I suppose it's fine to cry in here, just the two of us,” Mama says. “But be careful when we welcome visitors.”

I nod and do as she says. All afternoon we put on a calm face in public, then come inside to howl.

Most of our friends and neighbors have brought along a sweater, a pillow, and a mat. They'll be sleeping over outside. Esther helps me organize their stuff. My school friends say nice things about Sara, but when Esther sees my lip start to quiver she changes the topic to other things, such as rumors about our teachers. “Two years is a long time for Mr. Joy to spend his nights all alone with history essays,” she winks.

For a second I forget the funeral is tomorrow and I laugh. Then new people arrive. “I'm so sorry,” they say, and my heart's in my mouth again. I nod my head, shake their hands, say, “Thank you for coming,” and run back inside.

Hearing “I'm sorry” is nice. What I hate is: “It's for the best. Sara's with God.” I want to say, “If being with God's for the best, why don't you go kill yourself?” I also hate, “Trust God. He has a reason.” I want to say, “Oh? Is it the same reason He made you stupid and ugly?”

Thinking those things makes me feel guilty. I want Sara to be with God. I want to believe He has reasons for things. But
more than anything, I want Sara alive. I can't stand that she's dead. And I hate people trying to make me feel good about it.

Mrs. Tafa is the worst. While we waited at Bateman's, she leaned over to Mama and said: “Take comfort, Lilian. The poor thing's out of her misery.”

“The poor thing?” I wanted to hit her.

Then a terrible thought. What if she was right? Sara suffered from the minute she was born. She cried so much, sometimes I forgot she was my sister. I'd think of her as this horrible screeching thing. She had colic. Running sores and rashes, too. It hurt her to move, so she didn't: she never walked, she barely crawled—a few feeble kicks and fussing, that's all. Mama and I sang to her and told her stories. She hardly ever listened. Hardly ever talked either. Did the fevers affect her brain? Or was talking too painful because of the blisters on her mouth and throat?

I don't know. Nobody knew. Not even the doctors. At least not according to Mama. Early on she took Sara to the hospital. She came home looking like a ghost. She said the doctors couldn't help, they didn't know anything. She never went back.

It was awful. A couple of times I prayed that Sara would die so the crying would stop. Then I slapped myself to make the evil thoughts go away. Now I wonder—did God answer my prayers? Is Sara's death my fault? I don't know what to think—or what I thought—or what I should have thought. I don't even know what I feel.

I wander around lost and confused.

Esther tugs my elbow. “Mr. Selalame's here.”

Mr. Selalame? I look over. He's walking towards me. I never dreamed he'd come. He's important, a teacher; I'm just a student.

As Mr. Selalame gives me a hug, his wife comes up beside us.
She hugs me too. It's like we know each other without having met.

The Selalames stay with me while the sun sets. Mama appears. The offer their condolences and she thanks them for coming.

“Chanda's one of my favorite students,” Mr. Selalame says. “You must be very proud of her.”

Mama beams. My heart swells as big as the world.

The sky glows orange and purple. Torches are lit throughout the yard, and our gathering shakes off its gloom. There are pop cans in a cooler, but some folks nip out to the Sibandas' shebeen. By ten o'clock the night is alive with singing and dancing. Songs from the villages played by old men on the segaba. And best of all, reggae and hip-hop from the Lesoles' boom box.

Mr. Lesole got his boom box with tips from his job as a cook in a safari camp up north. The neighborhood knows whenever he's home on break, because the boom box thumps till all hours, and the street by his yard jumps with parties. Sometimes the noise keeps me awake, but the music brings such cheer, and tonight it's just what we need.

Friends moving with the music cluster in groups all over the yard. They catch up on each other's news, or spread Mrs. Tafa's gossip, or argue with Mr. Nylo the ragpicker about how to choose the best odds and ends for mats.

By midnight, the goats are off the spit, simmering in stewpots. It's then that I see Mary by the road, wool cap pulled extra low as if she's in disguise. She's gripping the hedge to keep her balance, so drunk she doesn't feel the cactus needles. She waves a hip flask to get Jonah's attention. He inches her way.

I tell two of his brothers-in-law to keep an eye on him, but they're into the booze, too. Mary runs off with the three of them.
Jonah's sisters form a posse. They track them to the Sibandas and drag them back by the ears.

About two in the morning, things start to wind down. Some folks sleep under the open tent, but most lie out under the stars. Jonah is stuck in the house under threat of a beating by his sisters, who post themselves at the front door. He stays alone in his bedroom while Mama and I lie awake in the main room with Sara.

Unfortunately, one of Jonah's friends slips him drinks through the window. Just before dawn, we find him with five empty cartons of shake-shake, passed out in his own vomit. We barely manage to clean him up by the time Mr. Bateman arrives with the priest.

Outside the air is as crisp as the sunrise. Most of the gathering have slept well. They rub the night from their eyes and say their “good mornings.” The priest officially opens our home, and they file inside and past the open coffin.

Back in the yard, everyone sorts themselves into the backs of pickup trucks. Auntie Lizbet and Mrs. Tafa are staying behind to bake the bread. Esther volunteers to help, but Mrs. Tafa says she'd just be in the way. The truth is, Mrs. Tafa doesn't want her touching the dough for fear she'll spread her parents' disease.

Mama and I have one last look at Sara. We rest her favorite toy beside her, a striped sock puppet with wobbly button eyes. Then Mama holds me and Mr. Bateman nails down the lid.

The coffin slides into its trailer. Mama, Jonah, and I take our places in the Chevy and the funeral procession heads to the cemetery.

T
HE CEMETERY IS A ROCKY FIELD
on the outskirts of town. It only opened last year but already it's almost full. Sara's being buried in the northeast corner, about a ten-minute walk from Esther's parents.

We drive through a gate in the barbed-wire fence, past a metal sign announcing township bylaws for behavior: no screaming, shouting, or other indecent behavior; no defacing or stealing memorials; no grazing of livestock.

The winding dirt roads are filled with potholes. Last rainy season, hearses got stuck in them. So did the tow trucks that came to pull them out. Today, as the Chevy bounces along, I'm more afraid the bouncing may break Sara's coffin.

We pull up to the site. We're not alone. There's a row of eight fresh graves, the earth piled high at the head of each hole. Mr. Bateman says we're the third one down. Funerals are already in progress on either side. In the distance I see the dust of other processions driving through the gates. Mourners hop off pickup trucks and search for their dead. A fight breaks out over who's supposed to be in holes five and six.

Meanwhile, our priest climbs to the top of Sara's mound and delivers a scripture reading about eternal life. I want to believe in God and Sara being with the ancestors. But suddenly I'm scared it's just something priests make up to take away the nightmares. (I'm sorry God, forgive me. I'm sorry God, forgive me. I'm sorry God, forgive me.)

The priest starts the Lord's prayer. “Raetsho yoo ko le godimong.” Everyone bows their heads except for me. As we join the priest in chanting the prayer, I stare at this field covered with
bricks. Each brick marks a grave. A date's scrawled in black paint. There's not even room for a name. The dead have disappeared as if they never lived.

This is what Sara will have.

“Sara,” I whisper, “forgive us.” I know we can never afford to buy her a headstone, but I want to save for a moriti; I want her to have a grave marked with its own little fence and canvas top, her name soldered in wire at the front. I want there to be a gate and a lock, too, so I can leave toys for her without them disappearing.

Mama says moritis are just another way to make the undertakers rich. Papa's and my brothers' lost their canvas tops years ago, and the fences bent out of shape the moment the graves collapsed in the rainy season. But I don't care.