Things They Lost, page 16
Nabumbo Promise shook her head, as though stumped.
She said, Perhaps we are all trying to come to terms with our own mortality. You know, to overpower death. Maybe we consume these images of death because they soothe us. If you look long enough at a strange thing, it really does start to lose its strangeness. It becomes familiar, and a familiar thing is knowable. It cannot hurt you. Maybe we are seeking intimacy with our own deaths. Encountering it daily before that final encounter, so that by then, we shall be old friends, sweethearts even.
Ayosa looked at the photograph. The speckled goats with the tassels and horns and short shiny coats. The sheep with turbid eyes and dirty woolen coats. And beneath them, where no one could see, a lady who had drowned in a sea that swelled deep inside her own Self. Ayosa found it beautiful that there were no boats to save you from the water inside your own being. Just the moon outside you calling, and the tide inside you rising, and the waves crashing against your brittle bones. Filling your lungs. Drowning you.
Tears sprung to her eyes. She turned to her mama and said, You swore, Nabumbo Promise!
What are you talking about?
You swore never to leave me again. But you went away.
I didn’t go away.
You did! I woke up and you were gone.
To my studio! I was only a stone’s throw away from you. Developing old film.
And you didn’t come back to me for Christmas.
Because I fell inside myself! Are you sour at me for that?
Ayosa glanced down into her hands. She said nothing.
How did you find me, anyway? her mama asked.
It was Mbiu that did.
The dirty throwaway girl?
She’s not a throwaway girl!
Ayosa frowned. She lowered her head. She thought of Mbiu, and her heart smarted.
She thought of the two long-nosed Venetian masks that Mbiu had stolen for them on Christmas Day. And she thought of how they had sat outside her mama’s studio door, their stomachs twisted up. How they had looked out of those impish crystal-studded masks, the peacock feathers fluttering in the breeze.
Ayosa sighed. How she wished to be with Mbiu right this moment. Digging through the dirt, searching for gold coins that the Vikings might have dropped out of their pockets if they ever had walked through this way. Or sticking their feet into the river, hoping their toes got chewed up by angry tiger fish.
Mbiu, her dear Mbiu.
Ayosa thought of the day Mbiu’s mama robbed the bank. She thought of Mbiu and her cat, Bwana Matambara, sitting in the Volkswagen, waiting while Mbiu’s mama held an AK-47 to a security guard’s head. She thought of the mama in-descent, the mama laughing her way out of this world.
She thought of how much Nabumbo Promise would have loved to be there to capture the moment with her camera. Documenting. But really, only just sullying things.
It was like this: if Nabumbo Promise had been there with her camera, then Mbiu’s mama would not have laughed her way out of the world the way she did. The laughter was important, she thought. Its defiance and its triumph. It was about the mama’s having the last laugh. Maybe that’s what it meant to be in-descent.
And documenting it would have stolen that moment away, from Mbiu and from her mama and from her cat. And Mbiu would not have had that memory left behind, to bring with her everywhere she went. Ayosa wanted to tell her mama this. To say, Mama, maybe you should stop bothering people with that camera of yours. But her mama would say to her, Stay out of grown folks’ business. So Ayosa said nothing at all to her mama. Silently, she sketched in her notebook, a picture of Mbiu with Bwana Matambara on her shoulder, his tail hooked around her neck.
* * *
Later, she sat on the veranda, playing checkers by herself. Sindano came running up the hill, across the yard. I heard on the radio, she said, breathless. Your mama is dying?
My mama is not dying. She’s only a little worn out from her journey in the land down under. The radioman was only speaking mud.
Where is she now?
Ayosa pointed at the awning above her.
Sindano walked past Ayosa and into the kitchen. She took the stairs two at a time. She was gone for a long moment. She returned with several dirty plates and mugs, as many as she could fit in her arms, and washed them in the sink.
Your mama’s asleep.
Ayosa shrugged.
She looks so frail.
Ayosa gave up playing and pushed the checkerboard away.
Did you eat today?
I’m not hungry.
Atse! Sindano said. Look at the type of mud your mouth has started speaking.
Sindano opened the refrigerator. She was taken aback by its yawning yellow emptiness. Why do you keep this thing running, if there’s nothing inside it?
Don’t know.
Sindano began for the door.
Where are you going?
I’ll be back soon.
An hour later, Sindano returned with a pot of chicken soup, pork stew, and a mincemeat casserole. She brought Ayosa a bag of glazed doughnuts. She made her eat two of them, and then she said, Follow me, Ayosa!
Where are we going?
For a walk. You ought to stretch those bones of yours. You’re looking almost as frail as your mama. A bag of kindling sticks, that’s what you are.
Sindano began for the door.
Wait, Ayosa said. Are you a wraith? You sound like a wraith trying to convince me to get up and follow it. Trying to snatch me.
Why would I—oh, I see what you mean. No, I’m not a wraith.
Give me your hand.
Sindano held out her hand for Ayosa to touch. It was solid. Ayosa nodded. Okay, let’s go, she said. She wore a pair of rubber shoes and walked with Sindano into the woods.
It’s not your fault, Sindano said.
What?
I know that you’re blaming yourself for what happened to your mama. But how could you have known that she was in the studio? That she had fallen inside herself?
I’m not feeling guilty about that.
What then?
About the gleefulness.
What gleefulness?
It’s what I felt when I thought my mama might die. I wanted to be rid of the burden of being her daughter.
Oh, Sindano said, crossing her arms over her chest.
I am abominable, aren’t I?
No, Sindano said. Your mama, she’s the one that’s abominable.
Ayosa did not like the direction this conversation was going. She did not like it when people spoke ill of her mama. Stop this talk, she said.
And Sindano stopped that talk. They walked in silence to the edge of the water. Then Ayosa and Sindano took off their frocks. Now in their petticoats, they waded into the river. The water came out to meet them, overjoyed at seeing them, gushing and leaping up their ankles and knees, like a dog that had dearly missed its masters. Ayosa dove in, and she swam with a shoal of fish, a stranger’s grinning dentures, a shelf of leather-bound books, a kitchen table with a candle stuck by its own wax to the middle. Ayosa was still inside the river when the Jinamizi struck. She writhed, and the water twisted her about like a piece of manila rope. The Jinamizi brought memories that were heavy as boulders—she fought against them, scratching, kicking, biting, but they subdued her, buried her deep in the brackish water.
She saw a woman led to the guillotine, saw a priest anoint her head with oil, saw the crowd gasp and then cheer as her decapitated head rolled off the precipice. She saw three little girls huddled together inside a poor farmer’s dark cellar. Their papa was gone for a day now, or was it two, three? In search of bread. The kind but destitute farmer had given them bean water and a fish head to eat. A humbug candy too. The children were malnourished, their bones feeble as grass stalks, their faces hollowed out. Their voice boxes were empty, which was a small mercy, because they could not cry out when the soldiers came searching for them.
In another memory, a boy staggered home to his mama, bleeding out of the stumps where his arms used to be. He had not slashed enough rubber, and the FP lined up the tappers in a clearing and then severed their limbs. The boy’s name was Bokali. He did not make it home to his mama.
Ayosa! Ayosa!
Ayosa coughed and sputtered.
Sindano turned her over to her side, so she would not swallow the green water rising from her lungs.
Easy now, Sindano said, trying to soothe her.
The Jinamizi came for me.
I know, I know.
Ayosa lifted herself, sat on the rocks, sniffling, sobbing for the boy who did not make it home to his mama. Bokali.
Bokali is all right, Sindano whispered. He is no longer in pain. What you saw happened a long time ago.
Ayosa looked at Sindano in awe. How did you know?
I can see things, Sindano said. She sat down next to Ayosa. She said, Long ago, when I wanted a man to marry me, I thought that that kind of domesticity would numb my… er… gift. I wanted to be ordinary.
If you can see things, then why did you not see that it was Bessie the wraith and not ten men wanting to marry you?
Good question. The answer is simply that it doesn’t work like that. My gift is useful to everyone but me.
What can you see anyway?
All sorts of things. For example, I see people’s most awful afflictions.
Can you help them? Can you relieve them of their pain?
No.
What good is it to see, then?
Oh, plenty good. Doesn’t it comfort you to know that I saw your Bokali? It is a heavy load for a young girl to have to carry on her own. Sometimes it’s good just to know that someone else saw too. That you’re not lonesome in your carrying.
Ayosa nodded. It was true, she felt better already about the Jinamizi’s terrible visit. Tell me more, please, she said. About the things that you can see.
Sindano raised her head, stared out into the trees. She said, Ayosa Ataraxis Brown, what do you see when you watch the air?
Nothing.
Really? Nothing?
Nothingness.
Me, I see a three-dimensional arena, full of objects and people. She pointed toward a nearby casuarina tree. Over there, I see a pair of wraiths watching us. Scheming. She turned, pointed right in front of them. Over there, I see some Sufi poets of yore, burning the midnight oil, composing epics about the Prophet’s ascension to Isra and Miraj. And over there, I see you and your sister.
Sister? You must be mistaken. I don’t have a sister.
The girl with a cat on her shoulder.
Ayosa’s eyes widened. What are we doing?
Fishing. Catching blue marlin in the ocean. The horse and the pigeons and the cat, they are all foraging on the beach, waiting for you to come back.
Ayosa swallowed. She thought, No-no-no, that can’t be right. It was too sweet a fantasy, it could never come true. What use was there in indulging it? So she abandoned the thought. She said, What else do you see?
Over there, I see your mama.
My mama? Ayosa asked, surprised once more. What would Sindano tell her? That her mama was in a field somewhere, photographing a dying mother and child, refusing to help?
I don’t know if she is still your mama when she’s the woman in the red city. That is where she is as I’m looking at her right now. She has stolen a barrel of figs. She’s kicking it over, rolling it down a hill. She’s… She’s smothering a baby with the barrel of figs. My God, the baby is dead.
Ayosa’s heart flew into her mouth. Was her mama stuck in the land down under again? She jumped up. Got to go, she announced.
She did not bother to put her frock on. She ran through the wattle trees and sycamores.
Nabumbo Promise Brown! she called, sprinting up the stairs, bursting into her mama’s bedroom. Her mama was sitting in the blue rocking chair, nodding in her sleep, while the radioman talked about an armyworm infestation in the wheat crop.
Nabumbo Promise, Ayosa said, and her mama’s eyes flew open.
What? Is there a fire?
No, Ayosa said.
And now she let out a sigh of relief. For one, her mama was fine, perfectly fine. And for two, she, Ayosa, had felt concern for the well-being of her mama. Not gleeful at all about her misfortunes. What a relief it was, to feel normal feelings. Appropriate feelings. Sadness for sad things, and joy for joyful things.
She crawled to her mama’s feet. She and her mama listened to the transistor radio together, and her mama tut-tutted and sucked her teeth bitterly when the radioman talked about the hostile protests against African students in Nanjing, China. Her mama said, Now, tell me, Buttercup, where can we go in this world where we won’t be downtrodden like mules?
On New Year’s Eve, her mama awoke feeling good. She said that she felt better than she ever had felt in her whole entire life. She said that the thing that once came and ate all the birds in her forest had now spat them out. That the birds were everywhere, singing their little hearts out. Flycatchers and canaries and cuckoo finches. Even dodos, which were supposed to be fossils, had been resurrected, and were hopping about in her marula trees, whistling with ecstasy.
Her mama could walk without a cane, and could run too, which she did, up and down the stairs, dizzyingly, calling, Buttercup, time waits for no fool! And, Buttercup, for God’s sakes!
Coming! Ayosa said. She was cleaning herself up. She’d spent the whole morning making candied plantains and frying green gram and potato sambusas. She wore a clean dress and went downstairs, and she and her mama ate breakfast outside on the porch, watching the bees flutter in the frangipanis and jasmines.
Afterward, she and her mama brushed their teeth, spitting suds into the kitchen sink. They gargled salt water. They greased their elbows. They tucked poinsettias in their hair. They curtsied for each other. Said, How do you do, madam? And then they said, I do just fine. And then they giggled.
Nabumbo Promise grabbed Ayosa’s hand and tugged. They ran out of the house, past the awnings and chimneys, past the yard full of tangled balls of thorn trees and wildflowers and barbed wire and stiff yellow grass, past the stone angels with severed heads, past the rusted sign that read Manor Mabel Brown. They arrived at Our Lady of Lourdes just as Father Jude Thaddeus was giving his homily.
He said, Again I say to you, as is written in—
And he paused, and raised his head, and watched as Ayosa and her mama sidled into a whimpering pew.
Sorry-sorry, they whispered, brushing past townspeople’s knees. All the faithful turned, eyes wet with old devotion and new derision. Akh! they hissed their disgust.
Father Jude Thaddeus cleared his throat. Hem-hem-hem, he said, and the faithful remembered that they ought to be focusing their attentions on him. He said, Again I say to you, as is written in Ephesians: Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.
He said, If this year has taught us anything at all, it is that turning the other cheek in radical forgiveness—which is what we know the Christlike love to be—has the power to save our broken world. Where haven’t we seen it? From East to West, people are choosing to honor the two greatest commandments as inscribed in the Gospel of Mark: Love thy God, and love thy neighbor. We have seen it with South Africa, Cuba, and Angola putting their hands together to what? To free Namibia. We have seen it with Yasser Arafat saying what? Saying no to terrorism and yes to the state of Israel. We have seen the superpowers doing what? Destroying their nuclear weapons. We have seen cease-fires where? In Iran and Iraq.
Next to Ayosa, her mama fidgeted. Made the bench whimper and then squeak and then cry out like an enraged toddler.
The birds inside me, they are really loud, she said to Ayosa.
Hush! a woman said. She was sitting at the front pew, dressed in a purple suit, with a bunch of sticky black currants pinned to her straw hat, caramelizing in the heat.
That’s Dorcas Munyonyi, Nabumbo Promise said to Ayosa.
Ayosa gawked at the woman. At her stub of a nose, which looked like she once leaned too close to a candle and melted the tip of it off. Her beady, chameleon’s eyes seemed to grow out of her temples. They rolled about, observing all that took place behind her and in front of her and above her and below her.
You heard me? Nabumbo Promise said. That woman there, she is Dorcas Munyonyi. She and the priest are lovers!
The entire church fell silent. Nabumbo Promise had spoken louder than she had intended, and everyone in the church had heard. The priest tripped on his words and then fell mum, his eyes growing large as mugs. Nabumbo Promise cupped her mouth with her hand. Ayosa wished she could shrink into the pew. There were sniggers among the faithful, and then laughter suppressed in mouths, that then grew and grew and then burst, like excess air in latex balloons. Dorcas Munyonyi’s yellow face took on a tinge of maroon, as though it were suddenly, viciously rusting. She stood up, marched down the aisle, her pumps going kong-kong-kong on the granite floor, her fruit hat leaving violet splotches on townspeople’s faces.
She stopped at the pew where Ayosa and her mama sat. She was foaming at the corners of her lips, like an enraged bull.
She said, The Brown girls! Always up to here with their gobbledygook.
She pointed at her own neck, to show the amount of gobbledygook that the Brown girls were full of, and also, intentionally or not, conveying a more sinister message. Her index finger slid over her neck in a motion that suggested that jugulars would soon get slit.
Nabumbo Promise took Ayosa’s hand and squeezed it tight.
It’s okay, her hand was saying.
Dorcas Munyonyi said, Nabumbo Promise Brown, this town has had enough of your conniving and philandering and murdering. We should have hung you fifteen years ago, when we had the chance. We should have tied you to a tree in front of your mother’s house. And no one would have cut you down all those years. You would still have been hanging there, until today. And you would never have spawned that—she looked at Ayosa now, mouth curled in utter disgust—that… that aphid of a child, that arachnid, that sorry red louse.
