The Great Agony & Pure Laughter of the Gods (3 page)

The way was long, and with the cattle eating whatever green leaves they could find, the journey seemed endless. Everywhere beside the paths, the leaves wore the same khaki colour that predominated in the area because of the dry season.

The warmth of the village was clear in the smiles of its people. Handshaking and news met the boys along the way; everyone they passed greeted them. They tried to be the first to greet people, as advised by Benny.

Here people knew even what one another ate; there were no secrets. The village was not like the town, where people went about with their own issues. Here things belonged to the whole village, to the community. A visitor was the visitor of the entire village. Everyone knew when a visitor came and where he was staying, and people came freely to greet him. If the visitor was a child, they would come with a bag full of fruit – avocados, bananas, plums, oranges, guavas, lemons. Others came with papaya, pineapples, sugar-cane. If the visitor was an adult, they would come with a calabash full of local beer, the kasiksi, or some kind of local banana juice, the mutobe, for example.

The boys arrived at the river before the sun reached its zenith. Risto thought it was a beautiful place, like a pilgrim site. The birds were singing as the river played music. The limpid water reflected the pristine blue sky above the trees. On one big stone in the river, the flowing water became a multitude of stars that disappeared and reappeared like mysterious lights.

They let the cattle wander in the pastures nearby, losing themselves in dances with their shadows in the river. Benny threw himself in the water and Frank followed him. But Ombeni and Risto stayed on the riverbank. They were happy to play with the water, but swimming was too frightening for them. They played ricochet instead, picking up small stones, throwing them into the water, and looking in amazement as water spurted up.

Frank and Benny enjoyed swimming, splashing, chasing one another. Sometimes they came up onto the riverbank, counted from one to three, and then threw themselves into the river like the stones that their two friends were throwing, but they splashed far more water.

Eventually they went a little further downstream, where the river narrowed through rocks. Benny said this was where they would catch crabs.

‘Have you ever seen a crab?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ they replied without delay.

‘Where?’

‘At the open-air market and sometimes on the television,’ said Risto.

The game seemed simple: lifting rocks at random from the narrow bed of the river.

‘Many of these rocks are dwellings for crabs,’ Benny told them.

They began the hunt, wading around, lifting rocks. Suddenly, something was moving underneath the rock that Benny had partly lifted.

‘There is one! There is one!’ screamed Ombeni as he looked on from the bank where he stood.

‘Be careful with your finger, it can cut it off. Don’t put it in its alligator pincers!’ Benny yelled at Risto. Risto moved his hand stealthily towards the crab and picked it up by its back. Then he held its claws and legs. His fear vanished; he could examine every single movement.

He took a stone and hit the crab on its head.

‘We don’t treat crabs like this!’ Benny exclaimed. ‘We hold them and disable their pincers, that’s all. Your way of doing things makes them suffer. Do you know the pain it is feeling now?’

‘But you told me that it could cut off my fingers!’

‘It still didn’t deserve such treatment.’

‘I didn’t know, I am sorry,’ Risto apologised.

‘You know, God always watches our actions. If we mistreat his creatures, we will be treated the same. Like this crab, if we torture it, then the next time we come to look for other crabs, we will never find them; God will hide them from us. That is why if we catch one, we must treat it with respect,’ Benny lectured while the boys hung their heads and stared at the motionless crab.

Later it was time to look for the cattle. Benny led them through the forest. He knew it like the backs of his hands. He knew how and when the river was born, and where it ended.

The boys walked towards unknown endings. They walked in secret leaves and dew. Sometimes, they felt peculiar temperature changes as they passed, somewhere else, an unusual scent. The things to discover were uncountable – different scents to smell, voices and echoes without owners. These were the secrets of the forest.

After some time, they reached the edge of the forest and soon the edges of some small farms. There were plenty of them.

‘How on earth can these plants have green leaves in the dry season? The sun is shining at its peak; it is a dry season, no rain. How can these farms look so fresh?’ Risto asked Benny.

‘Risto, the village has it secrets. It holds them in its womb like the night holds its mysterious secrets from our faces,’ Benny replied.

They found all their cattle and decided to retrace their path homewards. The sun was about to hide in its cave, its strength was already gone. After a long walk, they came across some cattle. Their own cattle diverted directly into this herd. The town boys tried to stop them, but Benny advised them not to waste their time. They were worried that they might not be able to recognise their own livestock as some of their goats and cows looked like the ones they had met.

The shepherds tending these strange cattle were a little way ahead of them. They had a camp near the mountain. Benny knew them, and as he approached them, they greeted him in their mother tongue. Laughs and jokes followed as the three town boys stood listening; they understood what was said, but weren’t confident enough to talk.

‘These are my brothers from Bukavu town, they came this side for a holiday,’ said Benny proudly. The gleaming eyes of the shepherds revealed the questions that floated in their minds. There was a short silence, followed by whispers in a language that the town boys could not understand. By listening closely, they worked out that it was a mother tongue that had been twisted into a local lingo, a slang of some kind. Sentences were shortened, with words said in reverse. Surely this is some gossip, the visitors thought.

Benny finally bridged the gap: ‘Ombeni, Risto and the other one is called Frank,’ he introduced his cousins from town.

The shepherds looked at them, then spoke, with much laughter. The boys didn’t know why.

‘They understand Mashi, but they are not good at speaking it,’ Benny explained to the shepherds, who switched to Swahili, the language considered the town boys’ language. They spoke it very well, with only the Mashi accent revealing that these guys didn’t grow up in town. The boys understood them perfectly.

Soon the shepherds asked Benny to compete with them in their sticks game. Benny agreed, even though his friends were unlikely to succeed in the village game.

‘You are on my side,’ he told the boys. ‘It is about keeping the stick on the tip of one of your fingers without holding it or allowing it to fall. If it touches another part of your body, it means that your turn is over. If you hold the stick with your hands or if it falls, your turn is over. The longer you hold it on the tip of your finger, the higher the mark you get.’

The first time Risto got the stick, he wanted it to be the same colour as Benny’s stick, a yellowish-black colour. He peeled off its bark and tied a spiral of banana bark around it before hitting it gently on the rocks in the shepherds’ fire. It came up with a double colour, a snake-like curl of yellow around the black stick. The black mamba stick, he called it.

He took it to start the game. Ombeni decided not to play. There were three contestants on both sides. Benny rounded up his men, a song started, his friends grasped it within seconds; a song to sing when they would be juggling. Benny’s advice was simple, ‘Look only at the top tip of your stick and not at your fingers.’

A referee was there with his watch. Risto was the first to juggle, his song vibrating all the way to the top of the hill.

‘A shepherd’s stick does not fall, a shepherd’s stick stands!’ He repeated these words over and over again. His friends were afraid that he might bite his tongue. Finally his stick fell down.

‘One minute and twenty seconds,’ the referee announced, looking at his big clock-like plastic watch. Risto was confused; was his time a success or a failure? Nevertheless, he was happy; he felt he hadn’t done badly for his first time. A shepherd from the other group took his stick: ‘Two minutes, thirty-five seconds.’ Then Frank: ‘One minute.’ On the other side: ‘Two minutes, forty-five seconds.’ Benny’s turn arrived. He spat on his hand, and then he started with the song and the game. His voice sounded like soft waves on the peaceful Lake Kivu; it seemed to glue the stick to his fingers, floating it from finger to finger in a gentle rhythm. His eyelashes remained still. It was real magic. ‘Eight minutes, fifty seconds,’ the referee said at last. The last person from the other group started: ‘Four minutes, ten seconds,’ the referee announced.

The town boys couldn’t hide their happiness, they had won. ‘Viva, Benny, viva!’ They were as excited as little goat kids just released from a pen.

It had been a long day, full of excitement and with many good surprises. In the bag that Ombeni was carrying were crabs and many other amazing things that they had picked up along the way. It was starting to get dark when they arrived home. Benny enquired about the harvesting of the beehives, and was told that the business had already started. Ombeni and Frank were too tired for another adventure, but Risto went along with Benny.

There were only two men in the fields, one in his early fifties and one in his twenties. They shook hands after Benny explained that they were coming to help as grandfather had promised. The men’s hands were as strong as iron, and they had twilight smiles, which glowed as the darkness hid their faces. The next step was to undress. The men wore only shorts, while Benny and Risto were in coats. The two men had four big basins, each of which could have swallowed Risto entirely. The two men in shorts lit torches tied to their foreheads and moved closer to the murmuring bees.

The beehives were in a small nyassi house. The young man started a fire on a small cloth soaked with coconut oil. He walked towards the beehives, and dropped the burning cloth in the small house. After a while, smoke started emerging. It disturbed the bees. Their quiet humming song became the endless roaring murmur of a lion. The two men approached and got their hands inside the hives. The buzz of the bees grew again to the hum of a strong rain; they flew in all directions. Benny went over to the hives to fetch some honey. He came back, his hands dripping with sweetness. He gave some to his friend to enjoy.

‘Didn’t they sting you?’ asked Risto in amazement as he licked his fingers.

‘Yes, but I couldn’t feel anything,’ said Benny.

The bees were all around them; Risto and Benny could feel them in the air as they stood in the dark. Risto wanted to run, but Benny advised calm.

The two beehive specialists were half-way through harvesting the first beehive when Benny shouted, ‘Put on your coat properly!’ Once they were finished, Risto and Benny would take the basin from them.

‘I am going to help them to harvest the last beehive. You can come if you want, it will make us real men,’ Benny told his friend.

Risto hesitated. The bee buzz was frightening; harvesting the beehives would be like putting one’s hand in a glowing fire. Benny went ahead as Risto waited.

Time passed, and he grew impatient. Wasn’t it his biggest wish to prove his manhood in the village, to be called a man, to do a man’s work, to have a story to tell in town? A boy from town who wanted the crown of a real man in the village couldn’t stay behind any longer; adrenaline was flowing and his heart was beating fast. His legs felt strong, although they shook a little. It was time to be a man in the village.

Risto covered his head and went towards the beehives. One big basin was already almost full of honey. He put his hands in the basin and tasted the pure honey. Benny, who was standing a metre from Risto, put his hand inside the hive and took out a layer of honey mixed with something white. These were the baby bees, and this was the best quality, he explained to his friend. The torch that lit the basin showed bees mixed in with the honey.

‘Is this what we are eating? But we are eating bees!’ Risto exclaimed.

Benny laughed. They were both excited; the bees were buzzing around everywhere. The rhythm was compelling; a hand in the honey basin, soon in the mouth, an amazing pleasure; Bugobe was truly a small paradise. But now Risto felt something land on his lips. Then he felt a sting.

‘A bee on my lips! Help! Help!’ he screamed.

He pulled it off forcefully, but a piece of the sting stayed behind. His lip became heavier than his head, hotter than a boiling pot on a stove. As if that wasn’t enough, the buzzing sound of bees followed. There was singing above his head. Maybe the bees thought he was a real tree. He used his right hand to chase them away, then he used both hands while he screamed with all his strength.

‘Help! Help! Help!’ He started running, the buzz over his head, pain raining down on his head. His entire body was covered; he was done for.

He opened his eyes to see his grandmother nearby. Benny wasn’t there anymore, and he wasn’t in his room; it was his grandmother’s. He could feel the pain in his lip; it was swelling. His grandmother took him from the bed and put him on her back like a baby to take him to the bathroom, which was a big hut with a straw roof close to the lemon trees. There, a big metallic basin full of water stood ready. She mixed fresh plants into the water and added dried ones. She took off all Risto’s clothes, and made him sit in the hot pungent water in the basin. It was then that he saw how his body had swollen. His grandmother took a facecloth and used it all over his entire body. His body itched. Afterwards, she took him back to her bed. The next day when he woke, there was neither pain nor swelling anywhere on his body.

The month of September approached; school would be starting soon. It was time to return to Bukavu town. The boys from town had enjoyed the village; life here was limitless. What hadn’t they experienced? They had been to the sacred silent river, they had played games and competed with the shepherds of the village, they had gone to harvest the beehives, they had done many things that made them wish to stay forever at Risto’s grandmother’s place.