The Cry of the Go-Away Bird Read online

We stared at the fridge in silence for a while.

  ‘Shut the door,’ she said eventually. ‘No, wait, grab us a couple of Cokes first.’

  I lifted out two cans.

  ‘Cheers.’ Mum flicked the can open. It made a sound like kissing. We drank.

  The next day I came to the farm office, I noticed a complicated contraption of ropes and pulleys, on a little platform.

  ‘When did they put that up?’ I asked Mum.

  ‘Just this morning.’

  We watched. A group of men approached, dragging a cart behind them.

  Something big and brown was slumped on it. I watched in interest as they lifted it off at the little platform. Then in horror as they started to hook it up.

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘What?’ Mum came over to the window and watched.

  ‘Well, that explains that,’ she said.

  The men had big cleavers. We turned away from the window, but could not stop the hot, metallic smell of blood from creeping in. The cow’s head lolled from its shoulders, its eyeballs dusty and unseeing.

  ‘Maybe I’ll ask if my office can be moved,’ said Mum.

  I felt sick, but strangely thrilled. I remembered the time Uncle Pieter had killed a kudu and brought it back to hang in the room next to the workshop. Hennie and I sat watching the blood drip from its neck for hours, fascinated, as it bubbled pink and pulsing from the vein to flush itself down a drain in the middle of the floor. The doors were shut to keep the dogs out and the light was dim and eerie.

  We stayed there all afternoon. I could still see the redness of it, like bright flowers blooming on the concrete floor, or the juice from a pomegranate squeezed too hard in a fist.

  The new farm smelled all wrong. There was the same sharp, medicinal scent of eucalyptus trees and the warm stench of manure, but mingled with those were the foreign, feathery smell of ostriches, the sweet nicotine scent of the tobacco and something else that I could not identify, but which was clearly Not Home.

  Mum and Steve were different here, too. Sometimes I heard Mum giggling, and I saw Steve’s hand creep down Mum’s back. Sometimes they shut their door in the middle of the afternoon to take a nap, and no matter how much I knocked on it or how much noise I made they would not open it. Mum stopped wearing pyjamas to bed and started wearing silky things with lace around the hem.

  I missed Beauty. It felt like hunger pangs in my stomach. We did not have any servants yet, and it felt strange. The house was too quiet. There was no Beauty, no Maxwell, no Hennie, no aunt and uncle and no workers to sit with. Just me.

  Archie was my ally in this. For the first week he stayed indoors, under the bed, with only an angry tail-tip emerging.

  I put up with Steve for a while, because I secretly thought we would go back to Chinhoyi. After a few weeks, though, I realised we were not going anywhere and that Steve was going to be living with us for ever. I started to be less polite to him. I did not like the way he was always touching Mum, and the way she ignored me when he was whispering into her ear.

  ‘Elise,’ he said one day, ‘You need to snap out of it, man. This sulking isn’t fair on your mother.’

  ‘I’m not sulking.’

  ‘Ja, you are. And it’s time to stop it.’

  I flew into a rage. ‘You can’t tell me what to do! You’re not my dad! You’re not anyone!’

  Steve flushed. ‘Shut up!’

  ‘No! I hate you both!’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘I want to go home!’

  He grabbed my wrist to hold me still and smacked me hard, as if I were a little kid. He missed my bottom on the first try because I was wriggling, and caught me on the back and the arm before finally landing a hit. Three of those, and then he let me go and I ran out of the front door. I heard him yelling at me to come back.

  We did not talk about it, and I did not tell Mum. I did try to run away, however.

  I had a vague idea of hitchhiking a lift back to Chinhoyi somehow. Not with a white, obviously, because they would bring me straight home, but I thought I could bum a lift off an emergency taxi driver if I pretended I had money. I knew even as I set off, carrying a backpack, that it was a stupid idea, but I had to prove to myself that Chinhoyi was still there – that it had not disappeared when we had left, that Beauty and Hennie and the house still existed.

  I made it to the outer fences of the farm, just before the airport road. The security guard was not at his post at the farm gate, but a group of black men were sitting on the storm drains, holding their tubs of Chibuku between their knees. They started to laugh as I approached. One said something in Shona, too quickly for me to catch.

  ‘Come and sit on my knee,’ said another, and sniggered. I hesitated in the gateway.

  ‘Voertsek,’ I said. It was one of the rudest ways to tell someone to get lost – the word used for shooing dogs and chasing kids off your property.

  ‘Iwe! What was that?’ The smile dropped off the man’s face. ‘You think you clever, white girl?’

  I shoved my hands in my pockets. I was suddenly very aware of my pink takkies and the flower embroidery on my jeans. I looked like a little girl. A little rich white girl.

  ‘Hey, come here,’ said the man.

  I backed away and bumped into something warm.

  ‘Maiwe!’ The guard had come up behind me. He was zipping up the fly of his trousers, and smelled suspiciously of something sharp.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  The men laughed and turned back to their Chibuku. One waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ he asked again. He was carrying a paperback book with a pirate and a girl with long hair on the cover. I did not reply, but he saw my rucksack. ‘It is not a good idea to go wandering by yourself.’

  He had a round, open face and a bushbaby’s unblinking eyes. It was difficult to imagine him being a guard or intimidating anyone.

  ‘I’m going for a walk,’ I lied. I moved back inside the gates, and he followed.

  He stuck out a hand. ‘I am Cephas.’

  I took it. He had the usual Shona handshake, a gentle brush with the palm.

  ‘Elise.’

  ‘You are going back home now?’

  I shrugged.

  He swayed back and forth on his heels, looking down at me. Then he asked, ‘Would you like to hear some of my book?’

  I blinked.

  ‘It is a good one.’ Cephas was painfully eager. He pulled his chair out from the guard hut and sat down.

  ‘All right.’

  He unfolded it so that I could see the cover more clearly. The man I thought was a pirate was actually just a bare-chested man with a sword and long hair tied in a ponytail. He held the woman in his arms and the pair stood on the deck of a ship in a stormy sea. They did not seem too worried about the storm, however, because they were kissing.

  The book smelled a bit funny, as if it had been wet and then dried out. He moved his hand across the page and I noticed he was missing a finger.

  ‘What happened to your finger?’ I asked.

  He blew air out through his mouth. ‘I got in a fight.’

  ‘With who?’

  ‘I do not remember. It was at the shebeen.’ He acted out the story. ‘I have drunk a lot of Chibuku and I am saying things. Then this man, he come up to me and say, stop talking all this rubbish. I say no, and he take me outside and hit me with a bhadza.’

  I could see how the skin of his finger stub had puckered. It looked like a little pursed mouth.

  Cephas laughed at the memory. ‘It came off . . .’ he made a popping sound with one finger in his cheek, ‘and I go back into the shebeen and my friend says, what are you doing? You are bleeding all over the floor. Then I remember and I go to the hospital.’

  ‘What did the hospital do?’

  ‘They put a bandage on for me. I had lost the finger, so they could not sew it back on.’

  I imagined a finger lying on the ground outside th
e shebeen, where anyone could pick it up.

  ‘Do you want to hear this story?’ Cephas asked. He opened to the bookmark that marked his place. I sat cross-legged in the dust, shading my eyes from the sun.

  Cephas ran a finger along the lines as he read, and read slowly. His accent was very strong and I started to feel sleepy in the sun. I leaned my head back against the creosoted wood of the guard hut, inhaling its petrol scent. His voice was soothing.

  I heard the familiar rumble of Steve’s car and opened my eyes. Cephas jumped up to open the gate.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Steve.

  ‘I came to talk to . . .’ I hesitated.

  ‘Cephas,’ the guard supplied.

  ‘Well, come on,’ said Steve. He leaned over the back seats and unlocked a door.

  ‘You come and talk to me anytime,’ said Cephas. ‘I have lots of books.’

  Chapter Six

  The new farm seduced me, despite my efforts. I was not stupid or rebellious enough to go behind the electric fences into the game farm portion of the property, but there was plenty to explore on this side. There were the ostrich pens, where the birds stood like enormous feather dusters, swaying their long, soft necks down to blink at me with ridiculous lashes.

  There were the tobacco fields, lush and wickedly green, where I would pull off a leaf or two to chew as I walked. There were the workers’ villages, swept to dustbowls by the industrious Sweepers, where I could join in with a game of football that quickly became impossible in the dustcloud and heat haze.

  I only tried joining the adults’ circle once. I saw some people sitting in a little open space between the huts, around a cooking fire, and I went to join them. I recognised a skinny old woman who worked in the farm clinic, the gardener who did all the common areas, and the fat woman who worked next door.

  They were talking, but they stopped when they saw me. ‘Eh-eh!’ said one in surprise. ‘What is that one doing here?’

  I stopped and stood on one leg, uncertain.

  ‘Voertsek!’ one of the maids shouted, and shooed me with her hands.

  I was acutely aware of my whiteness. I backed away. ‘Sorry, sorry.’ I had a feeling that Beauty would be disappointed in me. Why, I was not sure.

  I still had not met Mr Cooper. I heard stories about him, though, from the farm workers, and from Cephas.

  ‘He has eyes in the back of his head,’ said Cephas. ‘He always knows what is going on.’

  I asked Mum about him.

  ‘He’s a nice man,’ she said. ‘Busy, though, always on the move.’

  A couple of weeks after we moved in, however, Mum told me that Mr Cooper wanted to meet me.

  ‘He’s invited us for lunch.’

  ‘Do I have to go?’

  ‘Ja. Mr Cooper’s given us jobs and a place to live. You’re coming to meet him. No arguments.’

  ‘He won’t care if I come or not.’

  ‘I said, no arguments.’

  We pulled up outside a heavy iron gate with spikes, set in a big wall with broken glass on the top. Mum stopped the car a little too far away, which forced her to open her door and lean right out to press the intercom. A red light flashed, and the gate began to rumble open along little tracks.

  The car crunched up the gravel driveway and parked. The house was enormous, with elaborate Dutch gables on the roof and a wide sweep of verandah running its whitewashed length.

  ‘There he is,’ said Mum.

  Mr Cooper. I did not know why all farmers stood like that, but they did – legs apart, hands in their pockets or on their hips, thrusting their pelvises slightly forwards. He had a baseball cap on, so I could not see his face at first. This was unusual. Most farmers wore broad-brimmed golf hats gone floppy at the edges with age and hard wear. He was also wearing a leather jacket rubbed thin and fibrous at the elbows, despite the heat. I recognised him – he was the figure I had seen in the tobacco fields when we arrived.

  ‘Oh, hi!’ said Mum in an artificial voice. She wiggled her fingers at Mr Cooper as if she had spotted a friend across a crowded café, rather than her new boss. She had her phone voice on, which is how I knew straight away that Mr Cooper must be good-looking. She was wearing her nice sandals, the ones with the gold braid, and her hair was done. She ducked her head as she got out of the car so as not to squish the curls.

  ‘Howzit,’ said Mr Cooper. He was a tall, spare man, with dark hair greying in silver spiders at the temples, wearing a collared shirt. I knew that under his socks he would have a farmer’s tan – pale shins giving way to red-brown knees the colour of soil. He kissed Mum on the cheek. ‘Good to see you. And this must be Elise?’

  We shook hands. His was covered in interesting calluses. He asked all the usual questions adults ask. What’s your name? How old are you? Ja? Good, good.

  The maid opened the front door for us.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ said Mr Cooper. ‘Tea?’

  I wiped my feet carefully and climbed the steps to the front door.

  ‘You have a beautiful house,’ Mum said. This was an understatement. The floors were polished wood, so smooth and shining that they looked like pools of dark water. Ceiling fans turned lazily, stirring the hot, soupy air.

  There was a stop-and-start flurry of polite conversation. Hello, hello hello, long drive, hot, tea? Yes, please. And juice for me. I did not know how anyone could drink tea when it was so hot outside. The white walls grew brighter and more dazzling and spots danced in front of my face. A maid appeared, yes Baas yes Baas. Disappeared. My head felt full of liquid, sloshing about behind my eyes.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Mum.

  I told her about the sloshing head, and they both burst out in relieved concern. Sit down, have a drink, put your head between your knees. Hot day, too hot.

  They nodded. I had broken the ice, which was all very well but my head hurt. After a few minutes we were sitting down, I had finished my juice and my head was starting to feel better. When I looked up, the walls did not seem as bright.

  The maid came in with a tray, which she put down on the coffee table. It was silver, bright and polished, and so was the teapot and milk jug. She gave me a smile. She had sad eyes, but a sweet face.

  ‘Thank you, Mercy,’ said Mr Cooper.

  Mercy bobbed her head and went back to the kitchen, where I could hear her clinking dishes and running taps. I wanted to go with her and sit on the cool tiles and watch her legs moving about. I wondered if Mercy had any children. I heard her call to someone out the window, and the familiar musical sounds reminded me of Beauty. I realised that Mum was trying to get my attention.

  ‘I’m going to the powder-room,’ said Mum, who had never called a bathroom a powder-room in her life. ‘You stay here with Mr Cooper.’

  Mr Cooper and I sat for a moment in sudden, loud silence. I stared at the bobbles on the carpet. He leaned forwards in his chair and rested his elbows on his knees.

  He sucked some air into his cheeks and blew it out. After a moment, he spoke. ‘I was in the army with your father.’

  ‘My father?’ I sat up.

  ‘Ja. Your mother and I talked about it. He was a bluddy good guy.’

  There were guns and swords all over the walls and on a table there was a black stone bust of a man wearing an army uniform.

  ‘That’s me. A fellah who sold sculptures on the side of the road did it for me. From a photograph.’

  Mr Cooper lit a cigarette and its smell filled the room. Something like manure, a sweet, brown smell. I sniffed.

  ‘It’s good for you,’ he said. The cigarette scooted to the corner of his mouth when he talked and wagged up and down. ‘Stops you getting colds.’

  I looked around the room. There were rows of animal heads on the wall, looking down at us with frozen expressions of surprise. There was also a long, carved stick balanced on two hooks.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘That?’ Mr Cooper followed my gaze. ‘Oh.’ He stood and lifted it down.


  ‘Here, take a look.’

  I traced the carving on the stick – a monster that looked like a snake, curling around and around the stick and baring its fangs on the top. It was surrounded by tiny people carrying food on their heads.

  ‘That is the Nyaminyami.’

  ‘Nyaminyami.’ The word stuck my tongue and the roof of my mouth together.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The River God of Lake Kariba.’

  ‘What does the Nyaminyami do?’

  ‘He protects the river.’ Mr Cooper settled back in his chair. ‘When the whites came to the Zambezi River they decided to build a dam on it, so that they could use the water to make electricity. Nyaminyami, so the people say, didn’t approve of the dam because it harnessed his power. When the whites had almost finished building the dam, Nyaminyami struck with terrible floods. The waters washed away the partly built dam and killed many of the workers.’

  I touched my finger to the tiny wooden fangs.

  ‘Some of the dead workers were white people and their bodies disappeared into the river. The whites called the local tribesmen to help them search for the bodies. The N’anga of the tribe explained that Nyaminyami was keeping them until a sacrifice was made.’

  This seemed only fair. I was familiar with the eye-for-an-eye philosophy of most of the local gods.

  ‘The whites brought a calf to the river bank, slaughtered it and pushed it out into the river. Three days later, the bodies of the missing white men appeared where the calf had been sacrificed.’

  ‘Did they ever finish building the dam?’

  ‘They did, but only after years of flooding and destruction.’

  ‘So we’ve beaten Nyaminyami.’

  Mr Cooper paused. ‘The whites like to think they have tamed Nyaminyami. They fought with him for ten years to build the dam. But I do not think he is tamed. I think he is waiting.’

  ‘Waiting for what?’

  ‘For his opportunity.’

  Mum came back into the room, smiling brightly. Mr Cooper heaved himself to his feet.

  ‘Would you both like to see the garden?’

  The garden was full of trees. Mr Cooper listed them as we walked: banana, avocado, macadamia and pecan nut, Australian cherry, lemon, acacia and flamboyant. All whites had nice gardens, but this one was different. The colours clashed. Spiky, aggressive plants were flanked by low mists of ground cover and frills of flowers. The air smelled sweet, like decay, and the hum of insects was almost deafening. I strained to hear Mr Cooper’s voice over it.