The White Shadow Page 4

‘That is fine.’ Baba smiled at Abel, who did not smile back. ‘We will enjoy having Abel here.’

  ‘But Baba …’ Abel began.

  ‘Nyarara, Abel.’ Babamukuru wiped his mouth. ‘I have decided.’

  ‘Baba, my friends …’

  ‘You will make new friends,’ said Babamukuru with finality. ‘Tinashe, keep him out of trouble. Do not let him misbehave.’

  Abel banged his spoon against his bowl as he ate, but said nothing more. We finished our breakfast in silence.

  ‘Tete Nyasha will not be happy,’ Amai whispered to me afterwards. ‘She will miss her baby, her one son. She will not be able to coddle him.’ Amai hummed to herself and did her morning chores with more enjoyment than usual, thinking of Tete’s discomfort.

  When the silver car coughed into life and ploughed its path down the dirt road from the kopje, Abel was not sitting in the front seat. Instead, he cried angry tears behind the chicken run. I waited for him to emerge, but the sun moved in the sky and there was still no Abel to be seen.

  ‘Baba, Abel won’t come out.’

  ‘Give him some time, Tinashe.’

  ‘Why does he not want to stay with us?’

  ‘He just does not know what to expect,’ said Baba. ‘That is all.’

  I did not understand this. I was excited to have my town cousin visit. I wanted to take him swimming in the waterhole, to teach him the best way to poke an ants’ nest and to catch mopane worms for him to eat. I was even willing to show him where to find the discarded Coke bottles that we could exchange for coins at the bottle store. ‘He is stupid,’ I said.

  ‘Tinashe!’ Baba cuffed me around the ear. ‘Do not be rude.’

  I rubbed at the side of my head. It stung. ‘I am sorry, Baba.’

  ‘You do not know what it is like for him,’ said Baba. He stared in the direction of the chicken run, and I could see sadness on his face. ‘His life might not be as easy as you imagine.’

  With running water and gravy every night? I doubted it, but I said nothing.

  ‘Go and find your cousin and talk to him.’

  Hazvinei lay on her stomach on the cool tiles while Amai shelled peanuts. She bared her teeth at me in a smile.

  ‘Yes, Baba.’

  I left the three of them on the stoep and went to find Abel. The chickens smelled like dirty clothes, craning scaly necks and making frantic, muttered noises as I came towards them, forgetting that it was I who fed them their millet every day. Perhaps they were still nervous after the disappearance of one of their sisters the night before.

  ‘Abel?’ Silence – but that special silence when you know that someone is listening and holding their breath. ‘Abel, I know you are here.’

  A rustle, and a sniff. Distress among the chickens. I climbed over the mess of green-white droppings and discarded feathers to find Abel hunched and hidden. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Why are you sitting over here?’ I tried to make myself comfortable next to him.

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘Baba told me to come and find you.’

  ‘Well, you have found me.’ He wiped the back of his hand across his face. When he drew it away it glistened with a pale, slick line of tears and snot.

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’ I picked up a twig and started to trace patterns in the dirt.

  ‘You are stupid.’

  ‘Why don’t you want to stay here?’

  ‘You don’t even have an indoor toilet,’ said Abel. ‘I do not like the food. I do not like sleeping on the floor. I do not like drinking your water that tastes like dirt. I do not like your sister who bites me.’

  I pushed him over. He stared at me with wide, startled eyes, and then pushed me back. We rolled in the mess of mud and chicken droppings, our clothes becoming streaked with red and sloppy grey in equal amounts. Abel’s sweat stung my eyes. He dug his sharp nails into my arm, leaving little bloody half-moons, and I twisted at his ear until he yelped. When we tired, we fell apart and lay panting in the dirt. I felt pleasantly disposed towards Abel now, because this I could understand, this sort of fighting and pinching. ‘I’m going to the river,’ I said, and got to my feet.

  ‘I’m coming,’ said Abel.

  We raced each other down the hill to the water, skidding on the loose stones and shouting. When we reached the bottom, it was Abel who jumped into the river first, shoes and all. His dark head dipped under the brown water, then emerged, coughing. I followed. We swam, splashing each other and ducking our heads under, shaking off the flies that landed on our slick wet faces when we emerged. Abel was good at swimming. When I climbed out of the water, my clothes dried stiff with grit against my skin, and the sun dissolved the droplets as quickly as they ran off me.

  The river ran red and swollen in the rains and trickled slow and sticky in the summer. It began in the Eastern Highlands, where it was sharp with pine and salty with mountain soil, and it ran down through the flat yellow grasslands, muddy metal shanty towns and even the big city, until it came to the brown, bald sweep of earth where we lived.

  You should not open your mouth in the river, but we did. It tasted of silt, of ammonia, of soap, of blood – tastes from upriver, borne to us from other villages and towns. We gave it our own flavours, on the kopje, before releasing it. It carried bugs apt to swim into a carelessly opened mouth; leaves and flowers from plants we had never seen. Sometimes an old shoe floated past, or a lost toy, bloated and swollen with river water. Sometimes the bloated, swollen thing was not a thing at all but an animal, tempted too close to the current.

  We used the river for washing – ourselves and our clothing. There was a special place where the women bathed, and a special place where the men bathed – far apart. We children could swim wherever we wanted – until that mysterious point, dreaded and ill-understood, when it would suddenly be unsuitable for us to see one another naked. The river would watch us as we grew. It would see the feet that paddled at its edges broaden and lengthen. It would see Abel urinate in the water – he and the other boys who thought it was funny to see the yellow merge with the brown and laugh at the girls who screamed and swam away from the warm patches. It would watch me teach Hazvinei how to swim, and then it would watch as she became a better swimmer than me and did somersaults and handstands, rooting her long, brown fingers into the silky powder of the riverbed and collecting a halo of bright bubbles on her pale skin.

  Now Abel surfaced, laughing. ‘This is the same river that runs through town,’ he said. ‘It is different there.’

  ‘How is it different?’

  ‘There is rubbish floating in it. And I am not allowed to swim there.’

  I knew then that I had won him over. No one could resist my river.

  That night at dinner, Amai served Abel the biggest portion of sadza and relish, and the biggest cup of tea with six sugars stirred in.

  ‘How are you enjoying your time with your family, Abel?’ said Baba.

  ‘It is good, Babamudiki,’ said Abel without looking up. He pushed his sadza around the plate.

  ‘It will get cold,’ said Amai.

  ‘Do you have any potatoes, Amainini?’ said Abel.

  ‘No, Abel.’

  We ate in silence.

  ‘Babamudiki?’

  ‘Yes, Abel?’

  ‘I need the bathroom.’

  ‘Then go to the bathroom.’

  Abel sucked in his lips and looked out of the window at the blackness. Baba followed his gaze. ‘Tinashe, go with your cousin.’

  ‘But Baba, I am still eating.’

  ‘Tinashe.’

  I knew that tone. I slid down from my seat and led Abel outside. The crickets clicked and trilled in the long grass, and I heard a deep-throated whoop in the distance.

  ‘What is that?’ Abel, wide-eyed.

  ‘A hyena,’ I said. I made my voice low and growling. ‘He is probably looking for children for the muroyi’s supper.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘You
shut up.’

  We stood for a moment.

  ‘Why do I have to go with you?’ I said. ‘Why can’t you go to the bathroom on your own?’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘Fine, then go.’

  Abel hovered, looking at the black shape of the toilet. ‘What about the tsotsis?’

  ‘The tsotsis?’ I was confused. ‘There are no thieves here. It is a safe place.’

  ‘I don’t mean thieves,’ said Abel. ‘I mean the rebels. The ones Baba hears about on the radio.’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I said. ‘There are no rebels here. The policemen look for them, but they do not find anybody.’

  Something rustled by Abel’s feet, and he jumped. I gave in. ‘Come on, then. And hurry up.’

  The latrine had a single bare light bulb at its entrance, a luxury in the kopje, where most toilets were darker than night and you had to find your way by feel. I switched on the light. Moths winked into life, circling the light bulb and dying tiny moth deaths when they flew too close.

  Abel shuffled inside. I heard him unzip his trousers. ‘Do not listen.’

  ‘I won’t listen.’

  A short pause.

  ‘I can tell you are listening.’

  ‘I am not listening!’

  A trickle. I stood with my back against the concrete and watched the moths swoop drunkenly. I heard a muffled fart, and giggled.

  ‘I knew you were listening!’

  ‘I am not listening.’

  The door creaked. Abel’s eyes shone white in the darkness.

  ‘Ready to go back inside?’

  ‘You said you wouldn’t listen,’ he said and walked ahead of me into the house, head high, alone. I followed, hearing the hyena laugh behind us.

  Abel shared my room. We slept on a mattress on the floor, under a rough brown blanket. Hazvinei still slept with Baba and Amai in the next room, and I heard her muffled grumblings and sudden chuckles under the low murmur of their voices. I lay still, listening to Abel’s shallow bubble of breath and smelling the greasy scent of his skin. It took me a while to realise that he was crying.

  ‘Abel? Abel!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He rolled over, away from me.

  ‘You are crying.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘You will like it here. And it is only for a few weeks.’

  Abel pulled the blanket over his head. I rolled closer to him and felt his fresh sweat and tears on my cheek. ‘Babamukuru will come and get you if you write to him.’ I said. ‘You know he will.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Abel, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear him. ‘You don’t know anything.’ He made his breathing slow and even, so that I would think he was asleep. I lay in the dark for a long time, listening to the voices from the next room.

  It took a few days for Chipo and Little Tendai to come and visit again. They saw that my wealthy cousin had moved in with us and they were afraid to approach him. Instead, they circled the house as the mangy village dogs circled the cooking fires, looking for scraps.

  ‘Your friends are stupid,’ said Abel.

  ‘They are shy.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They do not know you.’

  After days of complaints, misery and tears, Abel had woken that morning with a smooth, untroubled face. No tears today. He had spoken to Amai and Baba politely that morning, played with Hazvinei and helped me feed the chickens. Amai and Baba were very happy, but I was a little afraid of this new, composed Abel.

  ‘Are you glad to be here now?’ I said. ‘Are you happy that Babamukuru asked you to stay?’

  ‘I have to do what Baba says.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘We all have to do what Baba says.’

  ‘I know that. But still?’

  He did not answer me. Instead, he vaulted over the fence and ran to Chipo and Little Tendai.

  ‘Abel, wait!’

  But it was too late. Between Abel’s jump over the fence and my catching up to him, he had already become the new leader of our gang.

  ‘Chipo, you are in goal. Tendai, you are defending. Tinashe, you are at the front with me.’

  There were some advantages to being Abel’s cousin. He had first kick of the ball, but I had the second. We all grew very good at football that week – even Chipo – and we were the envy of the other kopje kids.

  Our house was among many other houses exactly the same. We kids from the kopje looked down on the kids who lived in the village in the valley below, and we fought with them every day. We all had our jobs. I was in charge of finding good clumps of red earth to throw at the kids from the bottom of the hill and rhino beetles to put in their clothes when they went swimming in the waterhole. The oldest kids in the gang were twelve years old, and they looked like giants to me.

  ‘Your cousin is a cool mukomana,’ said the older boys, and patted me on the head. A cool boy. They had never called me a cool boy.

  The girls of the kopje did not run with our gang because they had too many chores to do, and they shook their fists at us as we ran free down the hill or played football in the dust.

  ‘You don’t know how lucky you are,’ said Chipo, who could only occasionally sneak away from her grandmother to join us in our games. ‘Boys have an easy life.’

  ‘That is how it should be,’ said Abel, and laughed.

  Having Abel in the kopje gang elevated our status. We now had a town boy who not only owned his own pair of white takkies but also a proper football, a shirt with a stiff collar and a collection of multicoloured marbles that he carried in a string bag. His father had a job in town and a big silver car. Abel was our prize, and we taunted the bottom-of-the-hill boys with him. We won all the football games now, and we had the waterhole to ourselves whenever we wanted it. And Abel took to his new role as leader very easily, bossing around even the older boys. On the rare occasion that one of them challenged him, he had an answer for everything.

  ‘What do you know about it? You have never even seen a road with tarmac. You have never even been to the cinema.’

  Unanswerable. We all deferred to Abel’s superior knowledge. This applied to the wider world, as well. Abel told us about the tsotsis, rebels who had started to cause trouble around the country. It was all very confusing. Rhodesia did not want to be ruled by Britain and the rebels did not want to be ruled by Rhodesia. I had questions, but I saw the older boys nodding and stroking their chins as the men did in the dare, and I kept quiet. I must be ignorant, I thought.

  ‘You do not know what is going on, here in this small village,’ said Abel. ‘In town we know about these things.’

  When Babamukuru came to collect Abel the next week, he was happy with what he saw. Tete Nyasha would not be so happy with the state of Abel’s nice clothes, I thought. Kopje dust was notoriously difficult to remove. Abel showed off for his father as we brought the village cattle back into the kraal, flicking a switch at their flanks and shouting as if he knew what he was doing, rather than just getting them excited and making my job more difficult.

  ‘The boy is learning,’ said Babamukuru when we came inside. ‘Tinashe is a good influence on him. Eh, Tinashe?’ He patted my head. Abel grinned at me from behind his father’s back.

  ‘We will do this again,’ said Babamukuru. As an afterthought, he turned to my father. ‘If that is all right with you, Garikai.’

  ‘Of course, brother,’ said Baba. ‘You know that I will always do as you ask.’ He spoke gently, but there was something in his voice that made Babamukuru give him a sharp look before pressing his hand in farewell. ‘Take care, brother.’

  When the silver car pulled out of the yard and started its journey down the hill, I felt a small hand pull at the hem of my trousers – Hazvinei. She looked up at me with wicked eyes.

  ‘He will come back, Hazvinei,’ I said, and I did not know whether I was glad or sorry.


  Our family hardly ever received letters and so, when the packages arrived a few days after Abel’s departure, I did not know what they were.

  ‘Baba!’ I ran to him. ‘Look.’

  Two big brown boxes, wrapped in paper and string. He picked them up and cradled them in his arms – the way Amai held the chickens before snapping their necks.

  ‘What are they, Baba?’

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about, Tinashe.’

  ‘But one of them has my name on it,’ I said. I had seen the strong, decisive ‘T’ on one of the labels.

  Baba was stern. ‘You do not read my letters, Tinashe. You know that.’

  ‘Sorry, Baba.’ I retreated.

  Baba and Amai discussed something special that night, I knew. I heard their voices humming like the crickets outside. In the morning, they called me to the table.

  ‘Mangwanani, Tinashe,’ said Baba. He was very grand and ceremonial. The two brown-paper and brown-string packages sat on the brown table, thrillingly anonymous.

  ‘These packages have arrived for you and Hazvinei from town,’ he said, ‘from Babamukuru.’

  ‘For us?’

  ‘Yes.’ Baba’s hands hovered over the packages, as if he were reluctant to give them to us. His fingers closed, then released, and he stepped back and let us tear off the paper and reveal our treasures. At least, I could have torn off the paper, but instead I took it off carefully and folded it. I wanted to keep that label with its strange, square writing in black ink: that triumphant T.

  Toys. A doll for Hazvinei, with yellow hair and eyes that opened and shut like real ones. Its skin had a milky, underwater look, like a water spirit’s. For me, a toy truck. I had never before seen anything so shiny and new. It had little silver wheels and a red, red body, redder and shinier than anything on the kopje. We had no new things in that place where even the sheets of corrugated iron on our roof were second-hand; everything came to us scuffed, stained and warm, smelling faintly of other people’s fingers or armpits or feet. I was overwhelmed by the hot-plastic smell of newness. To have a toy made in a factory, put in a beautiful box with a window in it and sent to me and to me only – this was wealth beyond anything I had imagined.

  I learned a lesson that day. The new, shiny truck made our house smaller and shabbier, the road dustier, the holes in my shoes even bigger than before. I think that this is what Baba had feared when the packages arrived.