A Girl Named Disaster (17 page)

N
hamo tried to build an entire hut on the platform, but she soon found it was beyond her ability. Poles crashed down and calabashes shattered as she struggled to construct walls. She had watched the villagers make houses for years, but somehow, somewhere, she had missed a critical piece of information. There was a way to brace walls even in a tree, but Nhamo couldn’t remember how it was done.

After her efforts clattered to the ground for the tenth time, she gave up. She wedged a pole across the branches over her head and leaned reeds against it to make a slanted windbreak. She lashed the reeds down and covered them with bundles of thatching grass, using many overlapping layers tied in place with
mupfuti
twine. It wasn’t perfect, but she was too irritated to keep trying. “I’ll be out of here before the rainy season starts, anyhow,” she told herself.

Nhamo was lacking other important skills as well. How did you
finish
a reed mat, for example? Her attempts unraveled. She knew skins could be cured. It had something to do with soaking in mud and rubbing with ashes, but her rabbit skins smelled vile when she was finished.

The boat was the biggest problem, though. Slowly, painstakingly, Nhamo cut down the
mukwa.
When it finally crashed to the ground, her heart sank. How could she
ever
turn such a giant lump into anything useful? She couldn’t
even make a walking stick. She sat in Crocodile Guts’s leaky craft all afternoon, too dispirited to try anything.

Nhamo crouched by the
mukwa
log scraping, scraping, scraping with a sharpened rock. It was slow work, but she was afraid of using Uncle Kufa’s knife too often.
Mopane
flies circled her face, landing to drink moisture from her lips and eyes. She waved them away; they came straight back. The only way to discourage them was to sit directly in the sunlight, and it was too hot for that.

She stopped to watch flecks of light on the lake. Breezes ruffled its surface, and occasionally a tiger fish leaped after a low-flying dragonfly. Otherwise the lake was devoid of interest. Blue and endless, it lay between her and freedom. She never even saw a boat on it.

“If only I could strike it with my skirt like Biri,” she sighed. Biri, a famous rain priestess, and her two brothers had founded the eland clan. They came from the north and were light-skinned like the Portuguese. “When they reached the Zambezi, Biri removed her skirt and struck the water. Immediately, it rose up on two sides like hills, leaving a dry path between,” Nhamo said aloud to whatever spirits might be listening.

“‘You will find your totem on the other side,’ Biri instructed her brothers. As they crossed over, the ancestors played mbiras and drums from the depths of the water, and after they had passed, the river came together again.

“I suppose you’d find that frightening,” Nhamo told the
njuzu.
“It would be like someone rolling up your house while you were living in it.” She stripped away the green, resinous wood, pausing to remove a splinter from her thumb. “The older brother ran ahead. He came upon a dead eland and immediately cut it up into steaks. ‘How could you be so foolish?’ cried Biri when she saw what he had done. ‘That was our totem. Now you will be forever unlucky.’ From that time, the descendants of the younger brother were called the Tsunga, the Steadfast Ones, because he had honored the totem.”

Nhamo tried to rock the log. It wouldn’t budge. She poked her fingers into a gap beneath to get a better grip. A pain shot through her like a knife! She jerked away, and a large black scorpion scuttled out of the hole. It danced sideways, making a hissing noise.

Nhamo threw the scraping rock at it. It squirted venom at her in a fine spray. She grabbed a stick and pounded the creature even as it rose to attack again, banging it until its body was mush with the tail twitching feebly. She sank to the ground, dizzy with shock. “Oh,” she moaned. The pain was so terrible, she couldn’t think.

Nhamo stared up at the sun stabbing through the gray-green
musasa
leaves. The light dazzled her eyes, and her stomach rolled with nausea. “I can’t stay here,” she whispered. If she was going to be really sick, she didn’t dare remain exposed. A jackal or honey badger could be just as lethal as a lion then. But she couldn’t bring herself to move. Instead, she studied her hand until she found the puncture on the back. It was oozing slightly.

Nhamo sucked at the wound and spat out bitter liquid. Painfully, she forced herself to roll over and crawl to the lake. She scooped up water to wash the evil taste out her mouth. And then she collapsed with her face half in the mud. She wanted to lie there forever.

If only Masvita would cover her with a blanket. She could sleep until the pain went away. Someone will look for me if I don’t return with the firewood, she thought dimly. But no, she wasn’t in the deserted village. Nowhere near it.

At sundown, Nhamo remembered, the larger animals would venture down to the lake. And waiting for them under the surface would be the crocodile.

It didn’t much matter whether something discovered her on its way into or out of the water.

She struggled to her feet. Slowly, with many stops to clear her swimming head, Nhamo crept back to the lucky-bean trees. The rope ladder was hooked over a branch. She sank down again and looked at it with despair. It seemed impossible to lift the long stick she kept at the foot of the trees.
Her hand and arm were on fire. And her heart was doing funny things. “Aunt Chipo is going to be furious if I don’t start dinner,” she murmured. At last, after several tries, she unhooked the ladder, and it flopped down within reach.

Nhamo had only a fleeting memory of how she got up. Once she leaned through the ropes and vomited on the ground. For a long time she seemed to be frozen in one place without moving at all. But eventually she dragged herself over the platform and pulled the ladder up for safety.

Her spirit had done as much as it could. Now it abandoned her and went to the place where the living walk with the dead.

Hhhuuu
, she was cold! Her body was wet as though she had stood in the rain. Masvita came toward her with a blanket. “Hurry up,” ordered Grandmother. “They won’t wait all day!”

“I’ll carry your pack,” Masvita whispered, wrapping the blanket around Nhamo’s shoulders. They walked swiftly through the forest, Grandmother in the lead, until they came to a great, shining expanse of water. There, gathered at the edge, was a troop of twenty young women and twenty young men, and standing on a rock above them was a beautiful woman. Her arms and legs were weighted down with gold bangles.

“That’s Princess Senwa, Monomatapa’s niece,” whispered Masvita. Nhamo’s eyes grew round. King Monomatapa lived at the beginning of time, long before even Grandmother was born. The young women and men played drums and mbiras, but they didn’t seem joyful. And Princess Senwa’s face was drawn with grief. Masvita untied her pack and laid it respectfully at the foot of the rock. It was full of honeycombs.

“Why is she so sad?” Nhamo whispered.

“You’d be sad, too, if your husband had abandoned you for another wife,” Grandmother said harshly.

“But she’s so beautiful…,” began Nhamo.

“As if that mattered. Men are like baboons. If one mango
tastes good,
two
must be better. Or three, or ten. They eat until they have to lie on the ground clutching their stomachs!”

“Didn’t Princess Senwa object?”

“Of course she did,”
Ambuya
snapped. “Prince Kakono, her husband, said that his men would laugh at him if he listened to her. Afraid of being laughed at! He hunts lions for sport, and he’s nervous about a few snickers. What a fool!”

Grandmother fell silent as the princess raised her arms. Her servants began to wail. Nhamo watched with amazement as a herd of cattle was led to a cliff jutting over the water. Warriors urged them on with spears. The cattle rolled their eyes and bellowed, but they had no choice but to go forward until one after the other, they tumbled into the lake. They thrashed wildly and were drawn under by forces Nhamo couldn’t see. She sank to her knees with horror.

Next, the warriors threw baskets of food away. One of them grabbed Masvita’s basket and hurled it into the deep. Nhamo felt sick. All those delicious honeycombs! The soldiers cast away grass mats, pottery, and beads. Then they seized upon the young men and women.

“No,” moaned Nhamo, hugging
Ambuya
’s legs.

The men struggled, the women screamed, but it did them no good. They were all sucked under the water even as they stretched out their arms for help. The warriors, their duty performed, followed the hapless servants to destruction. Princess Senwa looked on with grim satisfaction. She turned to gaze directly at Grandmother. “Tell my husband I await him,” she said. Then she descended from the rock and threw herself over the cliff. Her body was so weighted down with gold, it disappeared instantly.

“Let’s go back to the village,” Nhamo pleaded, clinging to Grandmother’s legs.

“Wait,” commanded
Ambuya.

Now another group of people arrived from the forest. A handsome man wearing a crown of feathers rushed to the water’s edge and shouted, “Senwa! Senwa!” The others joined him with cries of alarm.

“That’s Kakono,” said Masvita. The prince climbed the rock and stood watching as his servants mournfully played their drums and mbiras. They were even younger than Princess Senwa’s followers. “Kakono can only be waited on by people who have not yet married,” Masvita explained. “His magic depends on it.”

Nhamo thought he was indeed a magnificent being as he gazed at the lake where his wife had disappeared. “If he hadn’t been such a donkey, it would never have happened,” grumbled
Ambuya.
“Right now he’s wetting his loincloth over what Monomatapa will do to him when he finds out.”

Trust Grandmother to take the glamour out of the scene, thought Nhamo.

She heard the lowing of cattle and smelled their earthy breath on the wind. “Not
again
,” she murmured.

Prince Kakono raised his arms. A new army of warriors drove a herd of cows over the cliff at spearpoint. They threw all the prince’s wealth into the lake, and then they turned to the terrified servants. Masvita rose and began to walk toward them.

“No!” screamed Nhamo. Grandmother held her tightly. “Let me stop her! Please,
Ambuya
!”

Masvita turned and gave Nhamo a sad and tender smile. “It is the custom,” she said.

“No! No!” shrieked Nhamo.

Grandmother held her with a grip of iron. Masvita walked to the warriors and they parted to let her pass. The others struggled as they were flung to their deaths, but Nhamo’s beautiful cousin approached the water like a queen. She paused on the cliff to let the breeze ruffle her dress-cloth. Then she stepped off and fell like an arrow into the devouring water.

Nhamo wailed uncontrollably as the warriors and Prince Kakono sacrificed themselves, but her cries weren’t for them. They
wanted
to die. They wanted to destroy everything to satisfy their stupid pride. The lake had turned blood-red, but it wasn’t from the light of a setting sun. It was swollen with
death, and it resounded with the boom of drums. The spirits were dancing under the water!

She could see them like the inhabitants of a great city in their finery and gold. The warriors were in their leopard skins and the servants in their bark dresses. Princess Senwa and Prince Kakono danced apart, apparently still not reconciled with each other. And in the center, unmoving, stood Masvita, gazing upward through the blood-red water.

Boom…boom…boom.
The drums pounded. Nhamo flung her head from side to side to get rid of them.
Boom
…The movement only made it worse. Her head ached and her heart raced. Her body was soaked in sweat. She blinked at the lucky-bean leaves overhead. Ah! Even her eyelids hurt!

But she wasn’t at the lake. Grandmother was still in the village, and Masvita was still alive. Whimpering with relief, Nhamo tried to sit up. She was overcome with muscle spasms. Her body jerked as though it belonged to someone else. Frightened, Nhamo lay as still as she could manage. Was she possessed? Her stomach felt like someone had punched it.

I’m dying, she thought. She had never heard of anyone dying of a scorpion sting, but she had never seen anyone stung by such a big one either. The way it sprayed venom at her!

“I’m not dead—yet,” she whispered. She had come close, though. Grandmother had often told the tale of Princess Senwa and Prince Kakono, finishing up with, “And if the prince hadn’t been such an ass, everyone could have been perfectly happy.”

Remembering
Ambuya
’s acid remark made Nhamo feel slightly safer. It made the world seem solid, not a shifting mist of dreams. She listened to the baboon troop returning to their sleeping cliff. She could interpret all of the sounds by now. There was the squeal of babies who had tackled one another too vigorously. There was the soft grunt of a mother calling her child. There was Rumpy getting kicked off a rock by a bigger male.

The animals appeared almost civilized. They stole from one another, of course, and enjoyed terrorizing one another, but their crimes were minor compared to those of people. Even Fat Cheeks wouldn’t march the troop into the lake to satisfy his pride.

N
hamo was afraid to climb down the ladder for two days. Her body wouldn’t obey her: It jerked when she tried to remain still and went limp when she tried to move. The first day she was so drowsy, she didn’t care. Then thirst drove her to pull herself up and hunt for the calabashes of water she had stored. She had laid in a good supply, fortunately, along with dried grasshoppers, fish, and fruit.

She fouled her bedding during the first day. That was unpleasant, but not as unpleasant as falling off the platform from sheer weakness would have been.

On the third morning, Nhamo threw the bedding out and ventured down the swaying rope ladder. She found the baboon troop still lingering by the stream. The water had subsided and would probably disappear by the end of the dry season. The animals no longer screamed when they saw her. They watched her with suspicion, but accepted her as part of the scenery much as they accepted the impalas and vervet monkeys.

She dabbled her feet in the stream. The baboons groomed one another in tranquil groups. Even Rumpy had maneuvered a half-grown female into combing his scruffy fur. It was nice having them around, Nhamo realized. She had come to depend on the cooing sounds, the lip-smacking, the sudden shrieking panics. They were—almost—people.

An older female whom she called Donkeyberry, because of the creature’s fondness for the fruit, sat surrounded by a respectful gathering of younger females and babies. The animal most certainly dominated her group—or was it her family? Nhamo didn’t know. Donkeyberry got first choice of food, and she was the one who decided when the others would move. She was—almost—like a grandmother.

Except that she had a young child. A mischievous baby, who had just changed from the black fur of the newborn to brown, climbed over the respectable old baboon’s head. Nhamo called the baby Chisveru, or Tag, after a game she had played in the village. Tag scampered everywhere. He and the other youngsters held endless running, jumping, and wrestling matches with much shouting and even noises that sounded very much like laughter.

No matter how gloomy Nhamo felt, her spirit lifted when she watched Tag. His favorite game was to climb out to the thinnest branch on a tree, dangle by one skinny arm, and drop to the ground. Sometimes three or four youngsters went up the same tree, and then they followed one another off the branch, trying to land on the one who went before.

Tag fearlessly climbed over Fat Cheeks, ignoring the rumbles a foot in the eye caused. Fat Cheeks hardly ever lost his temper, although occasionally he did and sent Tag shrieking to Donkeyberry’s arms. The large male wasn’t as gentle with brown babies as he was with the tinier black ones.

“I wonder if you tell each other stories,” said Nhamo to the elderly baboon, who was dozing with her paws tucked under her knees. Donkeyberry blinked at Nhamo and went back to her nap. “You certainly
seem
to talk. I wonder if you have relatives in other villages. Did a witch put a curse on Rumpy’s foot? What do you do when someone gets sick? Do you have
ngangas
?” But Donkeyberry paid no more attention to Nhamo’s questions than she would to a chattering bird.

Nhamo made her way to a stand of thatching grass to fetch more bedding. As usual, she scanned the dirt for prints. She knew that the island (“
My
island,” she said to herself) had once been part of the mainland. Before the Zambezi rose,
the animals had drifted here and there as they pleased. Now they were trapped. Whatever had scrambled to this higher ground when the lake formed was here forever. By merest chance the most dangerous creatures had been excluded.

Nhamo had found no evidence of lions or hyenas, buffalo or rhinoceroses. Hippos came ashore at night, but only in the marshes. They ignored the garden island and anyhow, to be on the safe side, Nhamo had planted everything out of reach. She had seen no wildebeests or zebras. She knew there were a few jackals, bushpigs, honey badgers, and porcupines. She had seen the gaping holes anteaters carved into the sides of termite mounds, although she hadn’t seen the creatures themselves. She had seen many kinds of antelope: waterbuck, duikers, bushbuck, reedbuck, and a few large kudu, whose harsh bark sometimes rang through the forest.

As far as the small animals went, there was a wealth of squirrels, cane rats, and hares, as well as the irritable dassies, the tiny bush babies who squealed as they jumped from tree to tree after dark, and mongooses who slithered into holes as she approached. These were all, as far as Nhamo knew, that inhabited her island.

And of course whatever had chopped off half of Rumpy’s tail.

Nhamo found nothing alarming in the dirt around the thatching grass. She quickly got out of breath slicing off new bedding with the
panga.
She rested under a
musasa
tree and idly snaked a long piece of grass into a termite hole. It came up with several angry soldiers attached, and Nhamo expertly twisted off the abdomens and ate them.

“I really ought to water the garden, but I’m too tired,” she said. “I suppose it can wait another day. Ow!” One of the termite soldiers had transferred its mandibles from the grass to her finger. “I should check the traps. There’s still food in the lucky-bean tree, though.” The thought of walking anywhere was unappealing. She had a fit of dizziness whenever she stood up.

Nhamo wearily hoisted the bedding up to the platform. She burned the old grass, rekindling the dead fire with one
of her precious matches. I mustn’t let it go out again, she thought. She dragged a large green log over the flames. It smoldered and hissed—a thick smoke drifted over her platform—but it would burn slowly. As a bonus, the smoke would drive away mosquitoes.

Nhamo spent the rest of the day idling by the stream. In the afternoon the baboons returned, and she lay on a conveniently flat rock to watch Tag. He had discovered it was more comfortable to land on something softer than the ground. Nhamo held her breath as the baby dashed up a small tree and hurled himself onto the unsuspecting Fat Cheeks.

Wah!
shouted Fat Cheeks as Tag bounced off his stomach. The baby ran for all he was worth to Donkeyberry, who gathered him into her arms and turned him over for a quick grooming session. When Tag was sure the large male had fallen asleep again, he repeated the performance. Nhamo was impressed with Fat Cheeks’s patience. In spite of the creature’s fearsome appearance, he was soft as potting clay where the baby was concerned. Tag was far less confident about jumping on other males, though. Once he blundered into Rumpy, who bared his fangs and sent him into hysterics.

Was Fat Cheeks patient because he was the chief and too dignified to react? Or was he, in fact, Tag’s father? And if he was Tag’s father, was he
married
to Donkeyberry? Nhamo found it all extremely interesting.

She felt better the next morning, but she got a nasty surprise when she made a tour of the animal traps. Every single one had been broken. She found fragments of bone and hair with the shredded twine. Of course a struggling animal would attract predators—she had been foolish to put off checking the snares. She studied the ground. Jackals had been present, and a honey badger—and a catlike creature as well.

It was too small for a leopard, too large for a wildcat. Nhamo had never been taught hunting, but her restless spirit had seized upon any information she overheard at the men’s
dare.
She knew, therefore, that the only animals who could have made the prints were the serval or the caracal. The serval was a spotted animal about the size of a jackal. Uncle Kufa had
given two serval skins to the
nganga
in return for headache medicine, and the
nganga
had made himself a ceremonial hat. Servals sometimes raided chicken pens, but generally they avoided people.

The caracal was half again as large—the height of a goat—and was a much bolder creature. Servals lived on mice, but a caracal could bring down an impala.

Nhamo had not heard of caracals attacking people, but their size and strength made it possible. She found droppings clotted with bone and hair. They could have belonged to either animal.

The fish traps were empty, which wasn’t surprising. The streams were almost dry. The birdlime had entangled a few
queleas
and a mouse that had been attracted by their fluttering. The garden on the little island was beginning to wither. The plants were stunted anyhow, with few flowers and less fruit. Nhamo didn’t know whether the soil was bad or whether she had simply planted too late. She watered them morosely and returned to the
mukwa
log.

It
was as big as ever, with hardly a dent to show for all her scraping.

Nhamo poked around the edge with a stick, but even after she had satisfied herself that no scorpions were lurking, she couldn’t bring herself to carve. Instead, she cut down spotted aloe plants to make new traps. They were easier to prepare than
musasa
bark, although the twine they provided wasn’t as strong.

As she pounded the long, tough leaves with a club and rolled the fiber into string, she thought about the dry season. The wind off the lake grew hotter every day. Food was going to get scarce soon. “I thought I’d be off this island by now,” she grumbled.

Well, if she couldn’t leave, she would have to learn to hunt. Nhamo went over the weapons she had observed in the village. The boys were trained to use bows and arrows, slings, clubs, throwing sticks, and spears. Girls, of course, didn’t need such skills.

Nhamo examined the branches she had trimmed off the
mukwa
tree. When she had found one long and straight enough, she whittled an end with the
panga.
“I wish I had metal for a spear point,” she said. She remembered, though, that when Uncle Kufa made training spears for boys, he didn’t waste precious iron. He hardened the tips with fire. He held the wood just so over the flame, turning it carefully so it wouldn’t char. The results weren’t as strong as a proper, man’s weapon, but the boys could still bring in small game.

Nhamo gathered up her supplies and went back to the fire. She sharpened and fire-hardened and balanced the
mukwa
spear until it felt good to her hand.

She practiced throwing it at a rabbit skin. It bounced off and clattered to the ground. After many attempts, she decided her arm simply wasn’t strong enough. She would have to thrust with the spear, using her weight to add force.

“Now what shall I hunt?” she mused. A kudu? Ah! That would be a prize! Nhamo’s mouth watered at the thought, but she knew such a large antelope was beyond her strength. An impala? Nhamo considered her thin arms and lowered her expectations.

She had often observed the dassies as they foraged for grass. They hated sunlight but were too timid to venture out after dark, except during the full moon. This limited them to very short feeding periods at dusk. The rest of the time they crowded into crevices that were easily found by the streaks of dried urine staining the rocks.

Nhamo waited by a little cul-de-sac on the way out of one of these crevices. As the afternoon shadows lengthened, the dassies muttered among themselves and eventually clustered at the entrance to their den. A large male edged forward to check for enemies. Nhamo sat perfectly still.

I’m just another rock, she told the dassie as he suspiciously sniffed the air. He crept out farther; the huddled group inched behind him,
scuttle, scuttle, freeze; scuttle, scuttle, freeze.

He came down the path by the cul-de-sac. Nhamo lunged. His instinct was to race back, but she stood between him and the others. He leaped into the cul-de-sac. She had already aimed the spear there, guessing that his panic would send
him into the nearest gap. She impaled him against the rock. He screamed and gnashed his teeth.

The other dassies fled with shrieks, but Nhamo barely heard them. She was too terrified of being bitten. The dassie flopped wildly, snapping his sharp tusks. She didn’t dare let go! With her free hand, she felt around for a stone and smashed him on the head. She struck him repeatedly until he stopped moving. Nhamo sat down and burst into tears.

“I don’t like hunting,” she sobbed.

You did it very well
, said Mother.

“I didn’t! It was even w-worse than dropping a r-rock on a guinea fowl.”

But you did it. And on your very first try.

“That’s true,” Nhamo admitted. She wiped her eyes and looked at the dead animal. Its body was sleekly fat. Its meat would make a welcome change from mice and termites. Nhamo willed the trembling in her hands to go away. She got the
panga
and expertly prepared the carcass. Soon she had it roasting over the fire.

It was heavier than two guinea fowl! She could smokecure most of it for later, and still have a banquet tonight. Her salt was finished, but she had made a substitute some time ago.

Mutsangidza
plants were common on the island. They were bushy herbs with purple, daisylike flowers, growing as high as her knee. Nhamo had soaked and then burned them. She mixed the ashes with water. She poked holes in a calabash and padded it with dry grass to make a sieve, because unfiltered
mutsangidza
ashes were slightly poisonous. The juice that dripped through was collected in a pot and boiled until only a white residue was left. The result didn’t taste as good as salt, but it was better than nothing, and the same residue could be used to tenderize tough leaves or meat.

Nhamo felt elated as she feasted on the roasted dassie. She sang:

“I had mambas for breakfast

To put me in a bad mood.

Now I am ready for anything.

Run, dassies, hide in your holes!

I crunch up bones like a mother hyena

And hit flies on the wing with my spear.”

She would make more weapons. She would make spears, throwing sticks, a bow and arrows, a sling. She would be chief of the island (
my
island, Nhamo thought happily as she licked the grease from her fingers).

And, she thought later as she snuggled up to the grass-stuffed grain sack, I’ve solved the mystery of Rumpy’s tail. A caracal is exactly the kind of creature that would try to catch a skinny baboon.