Chanda's Secrets (8 page)

On the cattle posts, my great-great-grandparents' graves are marked by river rocks. It doesn't matter, though, because families are together, and everyone knows where everyone's buried going back to forever. But here the dead are buried so helter-skelter they get forgotten. Their memory vanishes like tufts of milkpod on the wind.

The priest finishes his prayer and makes the sign of the cross. Mr. Bateman's men lower Sara's coffin on ropes. One by one we file up and throw in our flowers. Then everyone but Mama, me, Jonah, and his brothers-in-law drifts back to our place for the burial feast.

Jonah's brothers-in-law fill the grave with dirt. When they're done, Jonah collapses across the mound. He wails like a baby. Mama strokes his hair. I hate him. He got drunk while Sara was sick. If he didn't care then, why does he pretend to care now? And why does Mama comfort him?

I look at the clouds until Jonah steadies himself. He gets up
and wipes his eyes on his tie. Mama brushes the dirt from his jacket and pants, and we head home to join the rest of the mourners.

By the time we arrive, the yard is full, everyone talking to each other over goat stew and cornbread. Mr. Bateman has passed out programs. The cover has a photo of Sara in her coffin and a Bible verse: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The priest calls the gathering to order. He gives a short speech and turns to Mama, who thanks everyone for coming. After that there's a million hymns led by Mrs. Tafa, who thinks she has a calling for the stage. The yard is alive with singing and clapping. We're hugged, and held, and rocked. Then things blur, and before it seems possible our visitors are gone, except for Esther who's helping to clean up, and Mr. Bateman who's clearing away his tent.

Everyone's moved on. Everyone but Sara. She's frozen in time. Alone in the ground. One and a half forever.

B
Y MIDAFTERNOON IT'S TOO HOT TO BREATHE.
The day should be over but it isn't. And Mama and I should be under a tree but we aren't. We're waiting by the roadside with Auntie Lizbet for the pickup to take her back to Tiro. Mama and Auntie Lizbet have big straw hats and are sitting on kitchen chairs that were left outside. I'm cross-legged on the ground shading my head with an old piece of newspaper.

Some people say, “Misery loves company”; I say, sometimes company
is
misery. Instead of talking, we fan ourselves with paper plates from the burial feast and listen to the piercing drone
of the cicadas. Each second takes forever. We stifle yawns. The silence is heavier than the heat.

Every so often Auntie Lizbet sighs and taps her foot: “No sense you folks waiting out here on my account.”

“No, no, we're happy to,” Mama replies quickly. I wish she wasn't so polite.

Just when I think I'm going to yawn so wide my head'll turn inside out, the pickup turns the corner. Mama helps lift Auntie Lizbet onto her feet.

“I'm glad you could make the trip,” Mama says.

“I know my duty,” Auntie Lizbet replies stiffly. She waits till the driver's hoisted her onto the flatbed and the pickup's started to lurch forward. Then she leans over the open side wall. “It's a terrible price your Sara paid.”

“What?” Mama says.

“As you sowed, so you reap, sister. ‘The sins are visited upon the children.' Hear the spirits of your ancestors. Repent. Beg forgiveness of those you wronged and dishonored.”

The pickup kicks up dust and stones. It disappears around the bend. Mama stands in the road, like someone's kicked her in the guts. She staggers to a stool. I know I should leave her alone but I don't. I run up and kneel beside her.

“Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” she whispers.

“What did Auntie mean?”

“Nothing.” She closes her eyes and holds up her hand.

“Please, Mama, open your eyes. Don't make me disappear.” Her eyes flash wide, but my voice is a river. Words pour from my heart. “Why does she hate us? Why does our
family
hate us?”

“They don't.”

“They do. They didn't come to the funeral. Why? I know the excuses, but
why?
And when Papa died—why did we stay here? Why didn't we go to Tiro?”

“I'm too tired to argue.”

“I'm not arguing. I just need to know. Who was dishonored? What was the sin?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“I have a right to know.”

“I'll tell you when you're older.”

“That's what you said when Papa died. Well, I'm older now. Sixteen. When you were sixteen you were married with babies.”

Mama looks away. I wrap my arms around her waist. She cradles my head and rocks me. I hold her tight. Finally, when I'm still, she tells me the truth. “They hate us because they say I bring bad luck. They say your papa and I dishonored them.”

Her voice may be quiet, but the words are strong and clear—as if the story has rolled around inside her head for so long, it's turned to smooth hard stone.

She says the curse goes back twenty-five years. Her parents—my Granny and Grampa Thela—were good friends with the Malungas, who owned the neighboring cattle post. The families arranged for Mama to marry the Malungas' oldest son, Tuelo.

Tuelo was handsome and strong. It didn't matter. Mama loved Papa. At a harvest celebration, the two of them ran off to Papa's cattle post. My mama-grampa and the Malunga men took up torches and machetes, determined to kill Papa's family and bring Mama home.

There was nearly a bloodbath. But Mr. Malunga found a way to save face. Mama had two younger sisters. Tuelo would
get his pick. Also, the bride price would be doubled, but paid by Papa's family in cattle.

Lives were saved; they were also changed. Papa had to restock his family's post. This was hard since Mama came with nothing. So his brothers turned him into a kind of servant. After sixteen years, he'd had enough. He told them he'd repaid his debt, and demanded his share of the harvest. They refused. That's why we came to Bonang.

There were troubles for Mama's family, too.

Her two younger sisters were my aunties Lizbet and Amanthe. Auntie Lizbet was older, so she expected to become Tuelo's wife. This suited her fine, since she was secretly in love with him. But Tuelo chose Auntie Amanthe instead.

Auntie Lizbet blames this on why she never got to marry. (Mama's too kind to say so, but the real reason is Auntie's club-foot. Building huts, fetching water, and chasing children keeps wives on their feet, especially at cattle posts. The men in Tiro were just being practical. Or maybe they didn't like the idea of being stuck with a toad. Those are hard truths for Auntie Lizbet to swallow. Instead, she blames her life on Mama. Does bad luck make people miserable? Or do miserable people bring bad luck?)

Anyway, right after the wedding, Auntie Amanthe got pregnant. The baby got stuck inside. They had to cut into her belly to get it out. Auntie Amanthe bled to death; the baby was stillborn. At the funeral, Mama was shunned. Auntie Lizbet said what people were thinking: “It should have been you.”

After that, whenever anything went wrong Mama got blamed: she'd shamed her parents and dishonored the ancestors. Traditional doctors came to Granny and Grampa Thela's post to take away the evil. But no matter how often they came, Mama's sin was
too great. The next time there was a problem, Mama was blamed again.

Mama strokes my hair. “That's why we didn't go back to Tiro. I wouldn't live in a place where people said we got what we deserved.”

We sit still for a long time. Then I say: “Granny and Grampa don't really believe in spirit doctors, do they?”

Mama thinks about this for a long time. “There's what people believe,” she says, tapping her head. “And there's what they
believe
.” She taps her heart. I look down.

Mama lifts my head and cups it in her hands. “Everyone believes in something,” she says. “Well, here's what
I
believe. There's no sin in love. What your papa and I did was good. It brought you into the world. And I wouldn't change that for anything.”

I
T'S JUST BEFORE DAYBREAK.
I'm sitting on the floor at the foot of Mama's bed. I've been doing this for three months now, ever since the funeral.

Three months. Sara's funeral feels like yesterday and forever all at once. When I come home from school I still expect to see her. In my head, I know she's gone. But in my heart, well, that's something else again.

Everything's changed. Once I knew every pore of Sara's face. Now I don't know anything. I stare at Mr. Bateman's Polaroid of her in her coffin. It doesn't look like her. Or does it? I can't be sure. Why can't I remember? What's wrong with me?

Friends are no help. Whenever I think life's back to normal, one of them will ask, “How are you doing?” and the pain roars back. It's like when I was up north in the delta, learning to pole
a mokoro through river reeds; the minute I'd relax I'd hit a patch of roots and capsize.

“People who ask ‘how-are-you-doing' aren't friends,” says Esther. “They're scab-pickers. Nosy little scab-pickers. What they really want is to know you feel bad so they can feel superior.”

“That's not fair.”

“It's true.”

Nights are the worst. I have horrible dreams. Such as: Sara is dying, but if I get her to the hospital right away she'll be all right. I try to strap her in my bicycle basket, but she keeps falling out, and when I go to pick her up she slides through my hands. Time is disappearing, Sara is dying, it's all my fault.

I wake up in a cold sweat, but being awake is no better. I toss and turn, panicking about time and life and what is the point of anything. Mostly, though, I hurt myself about Sara. Why did I hate her for screaming? Why did I wish she'd stop? Why didn't I rock her more? Did she think I didn't love her? Did she think I didn't care? Is that why she died? Is it my fault? My brain cramps so bad I want to rip off the top of my head. That's when I get up and sit beside Mama.

The first time I did it, the night after the funeral, she was awake too, in her rocking chair. “Go back to bed,” she said. “You'll feel better if you get a good night's sleep.”

“So why don't you go back to bed?” I asked.

“I'm waiting up for Jonah.”

“What makes you think he's coming?”

“Don't talk that way.”

“What way?”

“You know what way.”

I didn't say another word. I'd guessed right, though. Jonah
didn't show up that night or the night after. In fact, the whole first month after the funeral he only came by three times. Each time he was so drunk I think he stumbled here by accident. Mama never asked where he'd been—I doubt if he could have remembered—she just aimed him for the bedroom.

Sometimes I'd see him when I was out doing errands. He'd be tossing dice on a corner sidewalk or face down in a gutter. I always ignored him. Even if Mama missed him, I was glad we were rid of his stink.

The last time I saw him was different. I'd traded our eggs and vegetables for some milk and sugar at Mister Happy's food stand and was heading back by the rail lands. Along the road there's a chain-link fence with barbed wire on top to keep out trespassers. It doesn't work, though; people just crawl underneath. They sneak into the boxcars on the side rails for sex. Every so often cops clear the place, but an hour later the traffic's back.

At any rate, I was near my turnoff when I saw Jonah, his arm draped over Mary's shoulder, heading to one of the trains. It was one thing seeing them drunk together at the shebeen. But to be shaming Mama out in public—No!

I scrambled under the fence. “Hold it right there!”

When they saw me coming, they tried to hide their heads and change direction. Only they didn't know where to turn. Their legs got tangled. They collapsed in a heap.

I lit into Jonah like a jackal. “Listen, you. If you want to leave my mama, go right ahead. But at least have the guts to tell her first.”

“Don't talk to your step-papa like that!” Mary sputtered.

“I'll talk to him any damn way I please,” I said. I whirled back on Jonah. “You think you can just walk away. All Mama's
questions—her whys—the hurts from not knowing—none of that bothers you, you piece of dung.”

“You have your nerve, girl,” Jonah quivered.

“I have nerve? You step out with your slut in broad daylight and I have nerve? Papa wouldn't have left Mama—not ever—but if he had, he wouldn't have disappeared like she never mattered. That's the difference between him and you. Papa was a man. You're a pig.”

“I don't have to listen to this!” he hollered. “I do what I want.”

“Hah! You do what your prick wants!” I gave him the finger and strode off, embarrassed to death at what I'd just done.