When Hoopoes Go to Heaven (9 page)

Jabulani gave the box to Benedict, and he took it carefully. It was made of a light-coloured wood, and worked into its lid was a beautiful carving of a hoopoe. Breathing in sharply, he looked up
at Jabulani.

‘Is it...?’

‘Yes. It’s your King Solomon’s queen. I made the casket myself.’

‘
Eh!
It’s so beautiful!’ Benedict turned it round in his hands, examining it from every angle. ‘Does it open?’

‘No, I glued it shut. She broke into pieces when I pulled her off the van’s grille, so I went for closed casket. Sorry, nè? I kept her in a plastic bag in the fridge till
I’d finished making it.’

Benedict didn’t know what to say. Nobody had ever done anything like this for him before. There was so much work in the carving!

‘Shall we bury her now, or do you want to invite your friends and family?’

Benedict thought about it. Giveness and Sifiso wouldn’t understand, and nobody in his family would be interested in a funeral for a bird. Baba might even shake his head and look at him
with disappointment. Uncle Enock, maybe. But Uncle Enock might say something about the hoopoe flapping its wings in Bird Heaven now, and Benedict didn’t want to think about himself maybe one
day ending up in a separate Heaven without any beautiful birds to look at.

‘Let’s do it now,’ he said, glad to have Jabulani with him.

They chose to bury the bird under the lucky-bean tree at the side of the house on account of the hoopoe being lucky to be buried in such a beautiful casket, and on account of a lucky-bean tree
also being called a sacred coral tree. Somewhere sacred was a proper place for a queen. And when the tree’s flowers came they would be red, which was the colour of royalty in Swaziland. It
was also a good place for the burial because queens wore jewellery, and lucky-bean seeds were often threaded together to make necklaces. Jabulani said the bark of the tree was good for treating
aching joints, which the hoopoe might be experiencing, being all in pieces. And the tree was next to the hedge of yesterday, today and tomorrow bushes that would help the bird to be remembered for
eternity.

Taking turns with the small spade Benedict kept outside the back door for his chore of clearing any
kinyezi
the monkeys did on the grass, they worked together to dig a hole, place the
casket in it, and pat the soil into a small mound on top.

Then Jabulani stood to the side as Benedict knelt, crossing himself and saying a silent prayer. He asked God to bless the hoopoe and to look after her in Heaven even though she had given King
Solomon some bad advice about not respecting ladies, and to bless Jabulani for making such a beautiful casket. And then he asked God to do everything He could to help an edge to come to Ubuntu
Funerals.

Mama didn’t need an edge for her business, she already had one: she was confidential. A customer could tell Mama anything they wanted, and Mama would never tell. But Mama’s business
needed customers, and while he was on his knees, Benedict took the opportunity to ask God for some of those.

He stood and brushed the soil from his knees. ‘Thank you, Jabulani.’

‘Not to mention.’

‘The casket is so beautiful I almost didn’t want to bury it.’

‘I liked making that!
Eish
, it was a nice change from the ones we make every day!’

They made their way past the family’s washing lines and round the back of the house, past the window of the bathroom that belonged to Mama and Baba’s bedroom, and past the window of
the bathroom for Titi and the children. Outside the kitchen, next to the gas tank for Mama’s special oven that they had brought with them on the trailer behind the red Microbus, was the
outside sink made of concrete where Titi did their washing. There they washed the soil off their hands, and Titi gave them a towel to use, handing it to them carefully because her hands smelled of
the onions she was chopping.

‘Jabulani!’ Zodwa’s voice came from inside the house.

They went in through the kitchen, finding Zodwa standing at the dining table with her purse, counting out some emalangeni notes which Mama took, folded, and tucked through her neckline into her
underwear.

‘It’ll be ready next week Friday, as we’ve agreed,’ said Mama, patting the Cake Order Form that lay on the table.

‘Good. I’m so pleased I was able to give you some business after we scared you so badly. Come, Jabulani, ours is not to linger, nè?’

As he watched Mama walking with them down the steps to the garage, Benedict held the Cake Order Form to his chest.

Eh!
God could answer a prayer quickly sometimes.

O
N
S
ATURDAY MORNING, BABA TOOK BENEDICT AND
his brothers and sisters to the public library in Mbabane. Mama and Titi never
went there; Baba usually dropped them at the supermarket at either The Plaza or The Mall so that they could do the family’s shopping for the week. Baba didn’t mind if Mama shopped at
the supermarket, on account of prices there being the same for everybody, but if they were going to a market where you could argue for a lower price, Baba wanted to do that himself because Mama was
too kind. Mama said she was being fair to the seller, but Baba said she was being unfair to his budget.

Today they had dropped Titi at the supermarket, and Mama and Henry would be collecting her from there. Mama was having a driving lesson in the Saturday morning traffic of the capital city for
the first time ever, and she had been too nervous to eat her breakfast.

‘What are you expecting?’ Baba had asked her. ‘New York rush hour?’

‘Of course not, Pius, we’re in Africa. You’ve seen how bad the traffic gets in Dar.’

‘Dar es Salaam is the biggest city in East Africa, Angel. There are somewhere round two million people living there – twice as many as live in the whole of Swaziland. And not everybody in
Swaziland drives a vehicle.
Eh
, here people are lucky if they have a wheelbarrow to push!’

‘Please eat, Mama,’ Benedict had said. He knew from Baba that they were lucky to get breakfast and that most of the people they shared the continent with didn’t. Most were
lucky to get just one meal a day.

‘Please, Auntie,’ Titi had tried. ‘At least have more tea.’

‘I can’t.’ Mama had pushed her empty mug away and put a hand to her stomach.

‘
Eh
, Mama!’ Grace had said. ‘Being nervous could help you to reduce.’

Mama had given Grace one of her looks that said she must be very careful what she said next. Then Daniel and Moses had asked if they could share Mama’s bread and she had let them, and Baba
had thrown his hands in the air and muttered something about Mama not blaming anybody but herself if she fainted behind the wheel and killed somebody.

At the library, Benedict volunteered to stand in line at the counter with all the books they were returning, because he wanted to ask the librarian for some information on King Solomon. There
hadn’t been much in the encyclopaedias at home, little more than the story that Benedict already knew from the Bible. Two ladies had said that a baby was theirs, and they had gone to King
Solomon so that he could say who the real mother was, but he had said he would cut the baby in two so that they could share. The lady who had said no, he mustn’t cut the baby in two, he must
rather let the other lady have the whole baby, that lady was really the baby’s mother. The story showed that King Solomon was wise.

The librarian recommended a storybook called
King Solomon’s Mines.
It hadn’t been taken out and it hadn’t been stolen, so that was what he chose. He showed it to Baba,
even though he knew that Baba wasn’t interested in storybooks; Baba was busy looking at the books that people had written about their own lives.

A voice close behind them said, ‘
Sanbonani!
Hello,’ and they both swung round.

‘Dr Mazibuko!’

‘Uncle Enock!’

‘And how are my tenants this morning?’

‘Fine,’ said Baba. ‘And how are you?’

‘Tip top.’

‘We don’t normally see you here.’

‘It’s not my natural habitat!’ He winked Benedict, who smiled back at him. ‘I’m just from the bank. I saw the Microbus outside and I came in to check if you were
here.’

‘
Shh!
’ A
Mzungu
woman sitting with a newspaper looked at them angrily over her shoulder.

Uncle Enock said
eish!
very quietly and the three of them moved closer to the open door. His voice was a whisper when he continued.

‘Benedict’s duck may be well enough to come home today. I’m on my way to check on her. Do you want to come with me, Benedict?’

It was the most wonderful news! Benedict had rescued the duck from the dam some time back, sure that she was on her way to being late. Uncle Enock had said he would try to save her, though he
had warned him that there wasn’t very much hope.

‘Please, Baba!’

‘
Shh!
’

‘Of course. Here, give me your book, I’ll take it home for you.’

Uncle Enock’s bakkie was big and powerful, just like Uncle Enock himself. Benedict strapped himself in, and as they set off together he checked how much traffic there was in Mbabane for
Mama to be coping with. It was nothing like it could get back in Dar, though it was a little crowded and confused at the circle near the market where the United Nations had sponsored a wall with a
picture painted on it. It was a picture about a bad disease, and it showed the planet Earth with Africa on it, and the flag of Swaziland and a person and a mask both crying. There was a skinny,
skinny person wearing a white robe, with black letters on it saying
hospital bed, diarrhea, weight loss, TB, sores, death
, and behind the skinny person there was a casket and a gravestone
that said RIP. It was a scary picture, and Benedict didn’t like to look at it.

They didn’t talk much to each other on the way out of Mbabane, on account of Uncle Enock talking to the other vehicles and shouting at many of them.

‘Now what are you trying to do?’ he asked a dark blue Mazda. ‘Oh, I see.’ His voice rose to a shout. ‘Why don’t you bloody indicate?’

‘No, no, no,’ he said to a minibus taxi. ‘This is
my
lane, don’t you dare! Hey! Hey! Hey!’ He slammed his hand down on the hooter as the taxi squeezed in
front of them anyway.

‘Come on, try a little harder,’ he said kindly to the old bakkie in front of them that was struggling to get up to the crest of the Malagwane Hill on the outskirts of the city.
‘You’re way too old to be carrying so many people on your back.’

Benedict asked him if he always spoke to vehicles in English, and Uncle Enock laughed and said he was sure that vehicles wouldn’t understand siSwati, and since he himself spoke no Japanese
or German, English was probably best.

Over the crest of the hill they went, and the road sloped down steeply, twisting and turning. Just near the turn-off to the Baha’i centre they stopped to buy some new chicken-houses from a
boy who was selling them at the roadside. Quite a few chickens lived down near the dairy, sleeping in round houses woven from dried grass just like the ones Uncle Enock was buying. They laid their
eggs in there, too. Auntie Rachel ate a lot of eggs on account of not eating any meat.

Mama had been afraid that Benedict might want to become a vegetarian, especially after meeting Auntie Rachel, who had seen too many animals killed for food on her parents’ farm. But
Benedict had told her no, if he did that, when his time came to get confirmed in the church, he wouldn’t be able to join Mama, Baba and his sisters in having parts of Jesus. And yes, there
were animals that didn’t eat meat, animals like cows and giraffes, but there were also plenty of animals like lions that ate meat, and birds that ate fish.

‘People are animals, too, Mama,’ he had assured her, ‘and people are supposed to be omnibus.’ She had given him one of her looks that said she wasn’t quite sure if
what he had said was a good thing or a bad thing, but she had said she was happy.

Uncle Enock wasn’t a vegetarian. Being a vegetarian was un-Swazi, and something un-Swazi was a very bad thing for a Swazi to do.

When they turned off the busy new highway onto the old road through the Ezulwini Valley, the Valley of Heaven, there were fewer cars to shout at and Benedict felt that it was okay to talk.

‘Uncle Enock, you know King Martin Luther Junior?’

‘Er... you mean Martin Luther King Junior?’

‘Mm. I found him in the encyclopaedias when I was looking for King Solomon.’

Uncle Enock shouted at a bus to stay on its own bloody side of the road. It was coming towards them at an angle: the wheels were heading in the right direction, but the body seemed to be trying
to cross over to the far side of Uncle Enock’s lane. When they had passed it safely, Benedict continued.

‘It said he tried to get respect for black people in America.’

‘Respect and rights, nè?’

‘Mm. That law in South Africa, that law that said you and Auntie Rachel weren’t allowed to fall in love. Did they have it in America too?’

‘It wasn’t quite the same law, but the effect was the same. I’m not sure you went to jail for loving somebody different, but a mob might have killed you.’