ORDER OF SEVEN (11 page)

He sighs and leans back in the seat. “I should go,” he says. “I’ll call you.”

I get out of the Jeep and watch him drive away. Two days earlier, I didn’t even know this man. Now his absence is an earthquake. I’m sad, but also happy because for the first time, I have someone who knows my secret. I have someone who matters, who I’m not just trying to get a meaningless thrill from.

I have someone.

Stand under me and feel humble
Look up and feel embraced
Lean on me, sense my permanence
Hug me and know pure grace

See my leaves dance
See my leaves dance

Come, climb up my able arms
Leaf shadows dance across your face
Your weight gives comfort to this old man
Who grows alone in such a vast place

See my leaves dance
See my leaves dance

So high up but my branches support you
Hear leaves whisper of my sage-like soul
My deep roots tell you of their history
This makes you feel connected and whole

See my leaves dance
See my leaves dance

Wipe a tear as you behold my solemn presence
And my maternal love and pride
Please protect me from being cut down and destroyed
Like so many for whom I have cried

And my leaves still dance
And my leaves still dance

— DEVI

•◊
9
ץ

DISCOVERIES

S
chool resumes the next day. I’m taking mostly basics: animal behavior and English literature on Mondays and Wednesdays. Tuesday is economics, and Friday is philosophy.

Animal behavior is the only one I chose based on my interests. So far, it’s fascinating and the class I look forward to most. My work hours vary based on the bookstore’s need, but I usually end up with about fifteen. This doesn’t pay rent, but my parents supplement as long as I keep my grades up, which has always been pretty easy for me. No social life—making out with boys in a car after school doesn’t count—means plenty of time for studying. My parents have the same arrangement with Nodin.

My animal behavior class ends and I walk outside, digging in my backpack for my phone, which has been buzzing for the last five minutes. It’s Nodin.

“What?” I say.

“That’s a nice greeting.”

“You know you could leave a message. I was in class.”

“Sorry, sorry. I couldn’t wait to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“About the adoption papers. I want to look over them again. You still have them?”

“No, I threw them away.”

He huffs. “Your sarcasm isn’t appreciated.”

“Actually, I appreciate it.”

“How’s the clunker runnin’?”

“It’s running perfect, Nodin. Anything else? I need to get to my next class.”

“Yes. Call me as soon as you get home and I’ll come over.”

“I don’t think I’ll have time. I have to work toni—”

“I don’t care if it’s late. Just call me.”

I promise I will.

Jamie Two greets me as I walk in after work that night. He has papers spread across the coffee table and a textbook in his lap. He lets me know there’s leftover pizza in the kitchen. Dinner hasn’t occurred to me, so I take him up on it. I grab two slices and a bottled water and head to my room, turn on my laptop and start to twist my hair into a bun when there’s a tap at my door.

“Yes?”

“Your phone’s ringing.”

“Oh, thanks.” I didn’t realize I’d left it on the kitchen table. I follow him into the family room and grab my phone, noticing two missed calls from Nodin.

“Your new silver Jeep mystery lover?” Jamie teases.

“Ram it.” I walk back in my room, but before I can return Nodin’s call, I hear a car door slam.

Panic grabs my gut. I run to the front door and let Nodin in, hoping Jamie doesn’t make any comments about a guy I kissed in front of our house, who happens to drive a Jeep.

Fortunately, it appears the only fun in joking about my new lover is with me. They greet each other with boss nods and Nodin follows me in my room.

“Where are the papers?” he says. His face is flushed with excitement, or maybe it’s just the bright orange sweatshirt he’s wearing.

“Chill out, dude, I’ve been home two minutes.” I get the manila envelope from a box in the top of my closet and hand it to him.

He pulls out the official adoption documents and the three yellow pieces of notebook paper covered in my adoptive mom’s handwritten notes, which he hands to me. She kept a log detailing their trip to Johannesburg to adopt us. I hold the papers up to my nose and inhale.

“What on earth are you doing?” Nodin asks.

“They smell like Mom.” I hold them out for him to smell. “Cinnamon.”

“That’s okay. I take your word for it.”

We sit side by side on the edge of my bed, just scanning her words since we’ve read them before. We both smile when we read the part where Mom and Dad gave us our first bubble bath in the Johannesburg hotel. The bubbles “scared Nodin half to death, but delighted Devi.”

I run a finger over the faded yellow paper. “It’s sweet that she did this and kept it all these years.”

“Yeah.” Nodin turns the pages over. “Too bad it doesn’t tell us anything we need to know.”

“Do you remember anything from that weekend?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Not a thing. Is that weird?”

I shrug. “Not necessarily. You were three. That’s pretty young to have memories.”

“Yet I remember things from before then. I remember playing a game with a dark-skinned boy, like soccer, but you moved the ball with a long stick.”

“It’s strange what the mind chooses to remember, isn’t it?”

He nods and folds Mom’s notes to the back. On top are the official documents, the ones our biological father filled out when putting us up for adoption. In the top left, in bold, are the words
Biological Father: Ashon Mahtembo. Race: White. Age: 21. Province: GR. City: 32.

“God, twenty-one. He was so young,” I say.

“I know.” Nodin taps the province and city information, or the lack thereof. “We need to figure out what these numbers mean.”

“It could be a code. Can’t we just look it up on the Internet?” I say.

“Maybe,” he says.

The section for biological mother is empty other than the word
deceased
. It echoes in my head.

I’m sad for her, sad her name wasn’t provided. There’s nothing under medical, no specific address or phone number, no other names. The second document is the information about us. I hate this one. The missing information is a slap in the face. Only our names, genders and race, listed as Caucasian, are provided.

I sigh. “I don’t see much to go on here.”

Nodin takes the document and moves to the laptop at my desk. “You want your dinner?” he asks, pointing at my pizza.

I shake my head. “I don’t feel like eating anymore.”

He opens a search engine and types in
South African city codes
. The links lead nowhere. He sighs and tries a few other combinations of words. Nothing.

“Try just typing in the code with South Africa,” I say.

He types in
GR South Africa
. The word Gauteng pops up first in the search. He opens the top link and a page with a map appears. Not far from Johannesburg is a star labeled Gauteng.

“There it is,” he says. “GR is for the province Gauteng.”

“What about the thirty-two?”

He goes back to the search page and types
GR32 South Africa
. Bronkhorstspruit is the top link, a city in the province of Gauteng.

“Holy shit, we did it,” I say.

He reads aloud, “Gauteng, Bronkhorstspruit. A small farming town east of Pretoria, South Africa. It is home to the largest Buddhist temple in the southern hemisphere...was the location for the first Boer War in 1880...is supposedly beautiful and known for great bass fishing by the dam.”

“How far is that from Johannesburg?”

Nodin looks it up. “A little over an hour. Not far at all.”

“But in my dream, we are with a tribe. Is there tribal land near Bronkhorstspruit?”

Clicks sound as he types a new search. “Wow. There are a bunch.”

I lean forward and peer at the links. “Right there.” I grab the document. “See?!” I point to the name
Mahtembo
listed on the paper as our father’s last name, and then to the same name among the list of tribes.

Nodin takes the paper from me. “You’re right. It’s the same. But why would his last name be the same as the tribe?”

I shrug. “I don’t know, but it can’t be a coincidence. Look up the tribe.”

He types
Mahtembo tribe, South Africa
into the search bar. A Wikipedia page comes up, and in the top right corner is a photo that sucks the air out of my lungs.

I grab Nodin by the shoulders, speechless. My jaw moves up and down without success until I gasp, “It’s them. The people from my dream!”

The caption underneath reads,
Members of Mahtembo Village in front of a traditionally painted dwelling.
The hut is circular and made of clay or mud with a straw roof. The outside walls are decorated with blue, yellow, and white symbols: stars, the moon, two elephants, and a human figure. Two dark men stand in front of the hut wearing a narrow red cloth around their waists. They stare at the camera, stone-faced. The women aren’t smiling either, but their faces are less stern, a slightly amused contentment. They sit with their legs straight out in front of them, ankles crossed. Their right eyes are adorned like stained glass windows, and their right breast is exposed.

“I can’t believe I’m looking at this,” I say. I’m numb and my tongue feels too big for my mouth. “What were we doing with them?”

Neither of us speaks as we read the lone paragraph about the Mahtembo.

The Mahtembo are a tribe located in South Africa, twenty miles southeast of Bronkhorstspruit. Locally they are known as the Elephant Tribe because, translated, their name means Man of Elephant (Mah = man, Tembo = Elephant). They are animists and believe the spirits of their deceased shaman live in elephants.

“What’s an animist?” I ask Nodin.

“It’s the belief that spirituality exists in living and non-living things, like people have souls, but so do rivers, mountains, thunder, plants, stuff like that,” he says.

I sometimes forget how handy it is to have an archaeologist around.

I read the rest of the paragraph out loud, “Their chief income is farming, largely made up of Sorghum production. They also grow a wide variety of herbs, which are taken into town and sold by outside sources. Although a tolerant people, outsiders are not allowed onto tribal land except under rare exceptions.”

I look back at the photo and wonder who was allowed on the property to take it.

“Wow, there are a lot of them—I mean, compared to a thousand Tabari,” Nodin says.

I scan the page. “How many?”

“Eight thousand according to the two thousand and eight census,” he says.

“Whoa.”

“They speak a Bantu language spelled, m-b-a-l-a.”

“How do you pronounce an M and a B at the same time?”

“I guess one of them is silent. Or you go
mmmbala
.”

I smile at his attempt at humor, but it wanes. “Where do we go from here, Nodin? What’s next?”

He lets out a lung full of air and turns to me. “I’m not sure yet.”

“Well, we’ve gotta do something. What we have leads us to the tribe from my dream, which has the same last name as our father. We think. Or...” I grab his shoulder. “Do you think he put that name down intentionally, like as a clue?”

He squints. “Hmmm. That seems like a stretch. What makes you think he wants us to find him?”

“Wishful thinking, I guess.” I sit on the bed. “We should call the adoption facility. Maybe they could tell us something not in the document.”

“Yeah, I was thinking that, too. But there’s something else we could do.” He looks at me warily.

“What?”

“We could go to Africa.”

I freeze. “No. No way, Nodin. I’m already having a panic attack about going to Oklahoma. You know I can’t be away from the tree that long. I’ve never left town before. I’m sure as hell not going to frickin’ Africa.”

“Relax, relax,” he says, his palms in the air. “I’m not suggesting we go tomorrow. I’m just asking you to consider it when you learn to channel wherever you want.”

I laugh. “You know that’s not possible. If I could do that, I would’ve long ago.”

“I know you can.”

“Really. And how do you know? Please enlighten me.” I cross my arms.

“I’ve been thinking. The tree is just a portal for the energy to get to you, but energy has to travel to the tree some way. When we find out how the energy is getting to the tree, we find out how to channel it from other places.”

I roll my eyes. “Why couldn’t it just travel through the ground?”

He stands and gathers the papers. “It needs a less broad vehicle to travel to a specific spot.”

“Like what?” My interest is piqued.

“Like water.”

“Water? Odessa is a desert, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Trust me, I noticed.” He looks at me, thinking. “I’m going to do some research on the ground water in the area. If I find anything, I’ll let you know.”

“Let’s say you find something and I can channel at other trees. You expect me to go to Africa?” I huff. “And even if I agreed to go—which I wouldn’t—how could we miss school and who would pay for it?”

“Those details would work themselves out.” Nodin waves his arms through the air like a magician about to say
voila
.

I grin, amused at his undying enthusiasm. “They would, huh?”

“All right, maybe it’s a crazy idea, but it might be the only way to find him.”

“Enjoy your flight. I hope you get peanuts.”

He looks at me, exasperated, but I can see the smile he’s trying to smother. “You’re terrible, you know that?”

“Bring me back a souvenir.”

“I’m leaving.” The papers ruffle in his hand and as he turns on his heel.

“I think you should go, and I’m not lion.” I make my fingers like claws and feign a growl.

He walks out of my room, shutting the door behind him. I giggle, but my eyes catch the image still glaring at me from the computer.