The Cry of the Go-Away Bird Read online

  Chapter Four

  The removal men jumped down from their van.

  ‘Morning Baas, Medem.’

  Mum and Steve had laid most of the furniture out on the lawn, to make it easier.

  Archie sat in one of the armchairs, washing, as if he had not even noticed that the walls and ceiling were gone.

  The removal men carried the pieces of furniture into the van one by one. Mum winced when they banged the edge of the sofa against the van door, but they were cheerful and laughing. There was also much hilarity when they almost dropped one of the beds.

  ‘I can’t watch.’ Mum went inside.

  I stood in the driveway. It seemed obscene that all the pieces of our lives could fit into one van. I knew better. We were taking all the best bits, and leaving behind a rubbish tip of stuff, things we could not take to Harare. All the toys I had lost in the garden over the years. The hair clips I had dropped behind the dressing table. Cat hair in the carpet. The tiny body of a pet bird buried in a shoebox at the bottom of the garden. Carved initials on the trees, fingerprints on the walls and footprints on the wooden floor. The endless memorabilia and detritus of two lives lived in one house.

  Steve loaded some of the smaller boxes into Mum’s car. It was a grey, very old bakkie, called Grandpa Elephant by the farm workers, and the doors had a habit of falling off.

  ‘Do you want to ride with us?’ asked Mum. She had crammed Archie into his cat cage and a supplicating paw poked its way through the mesh.

  ‘You can go with the removal men if you like,’ said Steve. He stretched his teeth over his lips in what was meant to be a grin. He was trying to make friends.

  I did not answer, but went to the van and jumped up next to the driver in the front cab of the truck. The seat was disembowelled leather, leaking stuffing, and it was hot and sticky. The top of the gearstick was rubbed smooth by years of sweaty hands. ‘Is there a seatbelt?’ I asked the driver.

  ‘Ah-ah, no,’ he said cheerfully. ‘She does not work. Do this.’ He showed me how to hold the broken middle seatbelt so that it looked like it was fastened (‘in case we are stopped by mapurisa’). The other removal man slammed shut the van’s sliding door, then jumped in the cabin. The whole truck shook.

  ‘Okay,’ said the driver, and started the van. It was hot and noisy, and juddered like an old washing machine. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw Mum and Steve getting into the car to follow. I slumped in my seat.

  ‘Is it far?’ I asked.

  ‘Ja, about two hours,’ said the driver. He negotiated the gate with hardly any room to spare. A branch squeaked and scraped against the roof.

  The other man turned on the radio. Crackling static, and then Shona music, sunshiny and jangling with mbiras and drums. They started to sing along. I stared out of the window at my secret places. The corner where I had hunted the tokoloshe. The macadamia tree, a favourite home of chameleons. We passed my aunt and uncle’s house.

  Hennie was standing at the gate with the dogs, waving.

  The removal man in the passenger seat waved back with enthusiasm.

  ‘Is that your friend?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Aren’t you going to wave at him?’

  By now we had passed the gate. I craned my neck to look in the rear-view mirror. I could see Hennie mouthing ‘Sour!’ and smiling.

  The yellow grass and bush of the farm was almost white in the early-morning light, and the sun was a red naartjie in the sky.

  Farm gave way to long dirt road, then smooth tarmac again and town. The Farmers Co-op, where Uncle Pieter bought his flour and seed. The corner shop where I had bought Freddo Frogs and jelly wems. My school.

  Every time we turned a corner, the whole van lurched sideways. I could hear furniture sliding about in the back, and an occasional bang.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ I asked.

  ‘She is fine,’ said the driver. He was still singing lustily.

  I closed my eyes and leaned back in my seat, falling into an uneasy doze. In a half-dream, I saw the hut of the N’anga. He was standing outside, watching the road, and raised a hand.

  I awoke from my sleep. We were passing through the dykes now – round, brown hills studded with dark green scrub and acacia trees. The removal van juddered over the bumps, then followed a winding trail downhill. My stomach developed a hollow, furry feeling that I recognised.

  ‘Pamusoroi.’

  The driver was humming, and his companion was asleep.

  ‘Pamusoroi! Excuse me!’

  I poked the driver with a finger.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I feel sick.’

  He pulled over to the side of the road, and parked on the long, dry grass. More bangs from the back of the van. Mum and Steve pulled over behind.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Mum asked the driver.

  ‘Ah, this one she is sick.’

  Mum made me sit in the open doorway of the car with my head down.

  ‘Take deep breaths,’ said Steve.

  I turned my body away from him and crossed my arms. I watched bugs crawl around the toes of my flip-flops, and inhaled the rusty smell of the ground. The air sizzled above the car bonnet.

  ‘Feel better?’ asked Mum. I nodded.

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘Right. Come and ride with me.’

  ‘Got a bit of a dodgy tummy, hey?’ said Steve when he got into the car. I ignored him.

  ‘It’s that crazy driver, taking corners like he’s trying to win a bluddy race,’ said Mum.

  I felt the car-sickness start up again as soon as we drove off, but did not say anything. I just rolled the window down and leaned my head against the frame. Anything to keep the car moving and avoid talking. Through half-closed eyes I could see Mum and Steve holding hands on the gearstick.

  I must have slept again, because when I looked up we were on a big main road next to a yellow bus bulging with people. The roof of the bus strained under suitcases and crates, strapped down by rope, and chickens squawked and fussed in a cage.

  ‘Where are we?’ I asked Mum. My mouth felt sticky.

  ‘The outskirts of Harare,’ she said.

  I saw brown blobs ahead that I thought were huts in a village. When they came closer, however, I saw they were rows and rows of shacks made from cardboard and corrugated iron. Scraps of washing fluttered from makeshift lines. One shack had a television aerial.

  ‘Shantytown,’ said Mum.

  I sank my chin on to my chest and crossed my arms. Harare means ‘he does not sleep’. It was much bigger than Chinhoyi, and there was no sign of the Bush anywhere.

  We drove through the centre of town, down Samora Machel Avenue. The street was wide enough for six lanes of cars, lined with purple jacarandas and red flamboyant trees – and beggars. There had been a few in Chinhoyi, but I had never seen so many all in one place before. Every pavement we passed was divided into two invisible lanes: one for the pedestrians and one for the people sitting against the walls with cups held out. People in suits – black people and white people – marched past the beggars without looking at them. Whenever we stopped at a traffic light, half a dozen street kids clamoured around the car.

  ‘Money for bread! Money for bread!’ one of them yelled. He was about nine years old and skinny. The whites of his eyes were milky and mottled.

  Mum wound up the window right in his face, and we sat in the hot, smelly air of the car watching the street kids mouth silently outside.

  ‘Can’t we give him some money, Mum?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But he wants to buy food.’

  ‘No, he doesn’t.’

  ‘What does he want to buy, then?’

  ‘Glue,’ said Mum, and put her sunglasses on. I saw her reflection in the window; bland and faceless behind the glasses. It floated like a pale ghost in front of the crowd of street kids.

  The lights went green and Mum sped up. I looked back and saw the kid shaking his fist at us.

  The sound of a s
iren spiralled from behind us. Mum pulled over, and the car bumped up on to the grass verge.

  ‘It’s Bob and the Wailers,’ said Steve.

  Three motorbikes with sirens went past, then a big black car with dark windows.

  And another. And another. There were nine in all, with little flags on the bonnets.

  ‘Who is Bob?’ I asked Steve, after a few moments of silence. I suspected him of enticing me into talking, but I was too curious not to ask.

  ‘President Mugabe.’

  ‘Was he in that car?’

  ‘Ja.’ Steve looked grim.

  I could not believe it. I had just seen the president drive past. Something this exciting would never have happened in Chinhoyi.

  ‘What happens if you don’t get out of the way?’

  ‘Everyone gets out of the way.’

  ‘But what happens if you don’t?’

  ‘Everyone does.’

  ‘Can I wave at them?’

  ‘No!’ Mum grabbed my hand before I could move it. ‘Never do that.’

  I rubbed my wrist. I was only going to play the ‘Sweet and Sour’ game. Even the guards at the farm had found it funny. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Just don’t.’

  Harare seemed to leave many questions unanswered. Mum switched the indicator on, and we pulled out into the traffic again.

  City gave way to suburbs. Everything was very green. Gardeners moved on the verges, mowing lawns or watering.

  We had been driving for so long that my stomach felt hollow and I did not know whether I felt hungry or sick, or both. I could still smell the sandwiches and bananas that Mum had brought for lunch. The odour had soaked into all the upholstery and it infected the scent of hot leather with a cloying ripeness.

  Suburbs gave way to countryside. White buildings became smaller and smaller, then vanished entirely. The grass grew from short and green to long and yellow. The sky widened and deepened. Soon we were in a deep bowl of a valley, yellow studded with brown bushes and the occasional flat-top acacia. Aeroplanes winked white in the sun and cut a sluice through the high, brushed-out clouds.

  ‘Airport is nearby,’ said Steve, twisting around slightly in his seat. I had been staring at the back of his neck for most of the drive and it was disconcerting to suddenly see his face again. I looked out of the window and did not reply.

  We passed under a white arch with a tail like a fish’s. ‘Independence Day April 1980’ was carved at the top.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said Mum.

  Pools of sweat had collected under my bare legs, but I almost enjoyed feeling uncomfortable. After all, if I was never going to be happy again, what would be the point of shifting position or putting my head out of the window to catch a breeze? If this was going to be hell on earth, I might as well start hating it now.

  The car skipped over stones and rutted tyre tracks. After about ten minutes, we pulled up at an iron gate and a black man in uniform came out. He and Steve had a short, jovial conversation, and the gate was opened. The man in uniform gave the car a playful smack with his truncheon as it went through.

  ‘We’re here,’ said Mum.

  I looked over my shoulder. There was a sign on the gate: ‘Cooper Farms.’

  Someone had scrawled a Shona phrase over it in red paint. I did not know what it meant.

  The earth was a different colour from Chinhoyi – white and powdery rather than sandy, as if someone had emptied a vat of talcum powder. I had never thought that even the soil would be unfamiliar. I rested my forehead against the window. Sky, yellow grass and electric fences streamed past; three ribbons of colour above the road. A dead, furry something that I did not look at too closely. A small group of women walking in slow, stately steps with bags of mealie-meal and flour piled high on their heads. A herd of cattle, and a skinny piccanin flicking a switch at their flanks and kicking at stones.

  I saw dark green fields and rolled down the window. The air smelled almost like cigarettes, but fresher, sweeter, a heady smell. The plants were waxy and poisonous-looking, and men in overalls waded in slow motion between the rows.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Tobacco. It’s a tobacco farm,’ said Mum.

  There was something menacing about the blade-like leaves. I saw a white man standing in the fields, knee-deep in tobacco. He shaded his eyes as we passed, watching the car, and I felt a flicker of foreboding.

  The car came to a halt. ‘Out you hop,’ said Mum. I peeled myself off the seat. Now that there was no longer a breeze from the car’s movement, it was like stepping out into an oven.

  ‘Your new home,’ said Steve, shading his eyes from the sun. He put a hand on my shoulder, and I twitched my skin like a horse ridding itself of a fly.

  ‘Elise,’ said Mum.

  I ignored her, and turned to look at the new house. It was whitewashed, sitting low to the ground, with that blank, bare expression that empty houses have. The lawn was green and lush, scattered with tiny thorn plants. The farm belonged to the Cooper family – a father and his teenage son.

  ‘You’ll like them,’ said Mum.

  I shrugged. I was helping to carry boxes from the car, but still refusing to speak unless absolutely necessary.

  ‘You will. The boy is only three years older than you.’

  ‘Okay.’ That would make him sixteen, intimidating, and not a potential playmate. ‘What’s Mr Cooper’s wife like?’

  ‘His wife?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a wife.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Oh, he did, but she died,’ said Mum. ‘A while ago. It’s just him and the boy now.’

  ‘Do you know what . . .’

  ‘No.’ She gave me a sharp look. ‘And don’t ask.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask!’

  ‘Okay, just don’t, all right?’

  I lifted Archie’s cat box out of the car. It was almost impossible to see him, a black cat in a dark box, but if I squinted I could see two panicked eyes peering at me.

  ‘Don’t let him out just yet,’ said Mum. ‘He’ll run away.’

  I opened the door. Archie crept out, his belly almost touching the ground. His paws touched the strange soil and he sniffed in disgust.

  ‘Fine, it’s your own bluddy fault if he goes missing,’ said Mum.

  Archie turned right around and scooted back into his box. I did not blame him.

  ‘You going to sit there all evening?’ said Mum. I did not reply, and after a moment she turned and went into the house. I crouched down next to Archie, and inhaled the unfamiliar air. I heard the loerie, the Go-Away Bird, calling from a tree. I could hear Mum and Steve laughing inside, and although the sun had not yet set, I felt cold.

  Chapter Five

  Mum and Steve started work the next day. Steve was going to manage a section of the farm and Mum was going to do the accounts. Mum took me to the office with her on the first day.

  ‘Can’t I stay here?’

  ‘And do what? Sulk in your room?’

  I had not even been out into the garden.

  ‘I don’t want to come.’

  ‘Tough takkies.’

  We had toast for breakfast. I remembered the porridge Beauty used to make for me every morning, and the remembering was like an ache.

  We drove to the farm offices after breakfast, Mum talking brightly all the time. ‘You can help me with the filing or something. Be a good way to earn some extra pocket money, hey?’

  I made a noise that could mean yes or no.

  ‘Here we are.’ Mum turned into a dirt road. It was wide and rutted with lorry and tractor tracks. A buck stood at the edge, giving us a bright, accusing stare before disappearing into the yellow-brown scrub. We drove past one of the workers’ compounds. A Sweeper was busy outside and a crowd of children in red and brown T-shirts jumped up and down and waved.

  ‘How are you? How are you?’ they shouted and collapsed in giggles.

  ‘They don’t know my car yet,’ said Mum. ‘Th
ey think I’m a visitor. They’ll get to know us soon, hey?’

  In the rear-view mirror, I could see the black kids dancing in the dust from the wheels.

  Mum pulled up to a row of low, whitewashed buildings. ‘These are the offices,’ she said as she turned off the engine. Her cheeks were pink.

  There were long runs covered in chicken wire next to the office. ‘What are those?’

  ‘The baby ostriches,’ said Mum. ‘Mr Cooper keeps ostriches as well as the tobacco.’

  I got out to investigate the ostrich pens.

  ‘I’ll be inside when you’re done,’ said Mum. She took a big keyring out of her bag and opened the door.

  The ostriches were divided into age groups: a row of incubators, a pen of fluffy chicks, a pen of slightly less fluffy and taller chicks, and then the gangly, moulting teenagers. They smelled of feathers and greasy excrement. I sat with my back against the wall and watched them watching me through the chicken wire.

  Mum came out with a Coke. ‘Don’t you want to take a look around?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ll have to eventually.’

  ‘No I won’t.’

  Mum rolled her eyes and disappeared inside again.

  Since it was the school holidays, Mum took me to work with her every day that week to help with filing and addressing envelopes. I did not mind as much as I pretended to. It was something to do, at least, and it took my mind off Beauty and Chinhoyi – and school, which I would be starting soon.

  ‘Could you get me a Diet Coke from the fridge, treasure?’ Mum asked when we took a break.

  I went to the fridge. ‘Mum?’ A bloody heap of feathers. And a pot of yoghurt. ‘Mum!’

  Mum came over. ‘Bluddy yell.’

  ‘What are those?’ I saw more details; bits of skin, scaly feet, veined eyelids stretched over bulging eyes.

  ‘Baby ostriches,’ said Mum. ‘They died in the pens. Jeans said he was going to get rid of them . . .’

  ‘I suppose he needs to keep them cool,’ I said, ‘until he moves them.’

  ‘I suppose so.’