The Butterfly Heart (6 page)

“What are you going to do? There’s nothing to be done. It is only four weeks away.” Her voice broke.

“I’ll speak to my dad, he’ll do something. We’ll hide you where they can’t find you. We’ll tell the police—”

“He’s a policeman himself, this ugly old man – it’s no use,” she said, crying now.

The caretaker arrived just then to lock up the classroom. “Move out now, school’s finished,” he said, shaking his keys at us. We both jumped and then grabbed our bags, remembering the story of how he’d once locked two girls in the school for the night because they didn’t leave fast enough.

When we reached Twin Palms Road, Winifred and I went our separate ways, her to the right and me to the left. My stomach was swirling as I watched her walk away. I would tell Dad; he would think of something.

I
visit all the houses in this town. The big ones with trees and swimming pools and the small ones that are sometimes blown away in the storms. I am welcome in all of them because I take the snakes with me when I leave. Nobody turns me away. Nobody asks me questions about how I do it. They are grateful. And my gift is growing. My grandmother told me that a gift does not stay the same; you must use it well. You must practise and then you will get better. If you do not use it, you will find one day that it will turn against you. I did not want that to happen. So I carried on practising. She was right. There is no snake any more that can resist me. Not even the gaboon viper.

I never used to see it around town; it stayed near the trees in the land that lies low. Not like here in Lusaka, where we sit so high above the sea that I think it is easy for Lesa to watch over us. But now the viper comes here. Everyone is afraid of it, the snake with the little horns on its nose. The snake with the bags of poison that never run out. The snake that could bite many people and kill every one of them. But it doesn’t bite unless it has no choice. The people fear it because of these bags, but it is a quiet, kind snake. The easiest for me to catch. It never runs from me.

The only snake that troubles me, that I do not properly understand, is the white one with the pale, pale stomach. But I am taking my time with it. One day that, too, will obey me.

My grandmother practised her gift all her life. It was a gift that made people fearful of her. She could start a fire just by thinking about it, she did not even have to think hard or be close to where she wanted it to start. Once she told me that she just had to see the place in her mind and the flames would appear. Everyone in our village knew this, which is why they feared her. No one wanted a fire to start in their home or, worse, on their bodies. She had been known to do that only once, when the elders were teaching the young girls about becoming women. At night these girls would be kept away from everyone in a hut on the edge of the village. One night – I do not know how my grandmother knew of this – an old man was creeping towards the hut with bad ideas in his head.

Suddenly out of nowhere he started burning. He woke everyone with his screams as he rolled in the dirt, trying to put out the flames. They took much longer to go out than normal flames and he was scarred for ever. He was also filled with shame and I never saw him smile again.

My grandmother’s gift failed her at the end of her life. I still do not know why.

I
didn’t tell Dad today, as I thought maybe I should speak to Fred and Madillo about it first. I called Fred through the hedge and he came over to sit with Madillo and me. I am still not sure it was a good idea to tell them, but anyway, I did.

Fred arrived with his hair full of leaves and twigs. He always comes through the hedge. He says that his mum does not particularly notice whether he is there or not, so it doesn’t matter which way he comes, it’s just he prefers that way.

Before I started, I made them both promise that they would not interrupt me or even mention evil spirits or head-lolling. They promised: Madillo with closed eyes and her face raised to the sky and Fred as usual muttering the words under his breath. He’s never liked being told what to do, so he pretends it’s not happening.

“I finally spoke to Winifred,” I said, “and she is in a terrible, terrible situation. We have to help her. Her uncle is forcing her to marry an old man in four weeks’ time. He says it is tradition … Bemba tradition.”

Madillo let out a gasp but then remembered her promise.

“Even Winifred’s mother is involved, planning this with the uncle, although Winifred says it’s because she is scared of him.” I stopped for a minute, as I heard a rustle in the grass on the other side of the hedge. “Did you hear that?” I asked.

They shook their heads silently.

I listened again but the noise had stopped. Maybe it was a cat coming in off the road.

“We have four weeks to do something. Winifred says we can’t go to the police because this old man is a policeman. But I think we should at least tell Dad, maybe he can speak to someone. Winifred’s mother is from the same village as Dad’s mum, after all. What do you think?”

Madillo gestured to me as if she had been struck dumb by the God of Silence and was waiting for the curse to be lifted.

“Speak, O quiet one,” I said, happy to oblige.

“What about speaking to Fred’s great-granny? Now I know you said we shouldn’t talk about witches and that kind of thing, but ask Fred about the things she has solved … go on, ask him.”

Reluctantly I turned to Fred. “Well?”

“Lots of things, really,” he said. “She is known to be a very powerful witch.” Then he sat back, as if that was all that needed to be said.

In some ways he was right.

“What would we ask your great-granny to do? Put a spell on the old man?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never asked her to do anything before … especially not in a case like this. Maybe she could make him disappear?”

“Well,” said Madillo, “that wouldn’t be any use if the uncle was still around, he’d just find somebody else for her to marry.”

She had a point. And it was logical. Must make a note of that:
Today Madillo used logic.

“It would probably be simpler if we just got rid of the uncle,” she continued. “There’d be nothing the old man could do then.”

Just then the hedge moved again and I jumped up and peered through it. I
knew
I had heard something. And there was Ifwafwa leaning against the hedge, fast asleep, his bag of snakes on his stomach. I wouldn’t wake him, but seeing him did give me an idea. What if we spoke to him about it? Maybe
he
would know what to do.

“Shh…” I motioned to the others. “Ifwafwa is out there, fast asleep.”

Fred crept over on his hands and knees to check.

“What if he heard us?” Madillo said.

“He would never tell anyone, you know what he’s like. But I think we should tell him anyway. We won’t use Winifred’s name – as he knows her – just explain the situation and ask him for advice.”

“Before we ask Fred’s—”

“I think so. It’s safer. If she does have all these … powers, we should be careful about unleashing them.” I doubted she had even one power, but I preferred the option of talking to Ifwafwa.

There was little point in waiting for Ifwafwa to wake up, he sleeps deeper than anyone I have ever seen, so we left him in peace and decided we would check on him each hour. We had got used to the fact that a bag of snakes, all of them probably poisonous, would lie peacefully on his stomach for as long as he slept.

He has tried to persuade me many times to make friends with the snakes, but I can’t. I agreed to touch a small python once, but only because it was too small to squeeze me to death. I wouldn’t touch any of the others in his bag. I never understand how all of them can be in there together and not fight with each other. Imagine if it was a bag of humans: they would fight from the minute they got inside.

I
have many memories, many ancient voices, in my head. As I move around from place to place, sometimes it is hard for me to remember where I am now. There is no longer anywhere I call my home. When I go back to where I was born, it will be with hatred and grieving in my heart. I am taking so long to get there because I do not want it to be that way, but I cannot help the way things are.

I left my mother there alone, she could not even seek comfort and strength from the graveside of my grandmother, who lay unburied. And now she, too, lies unburied. I was not there to bury her, my own mother, and I can feel that her spirit is unhappy because of it. The man who killed her would have thrown her to one side, not caring whether or not her head faced east towards our ancestors. There would have been no one there to purify her home and make way for her spirit to return. I do not know where she wanders now; when she comes to me, she is far from home. Lonely. I cannot help her. It is his doing.

But my grandmother’s spirit is stronger than her killer’s. She comes to me without fear. Last night she told me that his heart is weak and that he lies in his hut all day, waiting for death. Maybe the time to go home is coming soon.

Ifwafwa
took two hours to wake up, and already the sun was starting to go down. I didn’t have much time to tell him the story, but he understands things so quickly you never have to use too many words. Unlike Madillo, he never interrupts you. He listens with his head held slightly to one side, and his brown eyes look straight at you. He is very easy to talk to. I decided not to tell him any names and he did not mind.

“Ifwafwa, today I have a story for you, but it is a story with no names. A real story. And I want you to tell me what to do.”

He nodded, so slightly you would hardly have known it was a nod.

“I have a friend, a young girl, the same age as me. She’s Bemba-speaking. Last year her father died, and her uncle moved in the same day. He is now her mother’s husband. This girl doesn’t like the uncle and misses her father. And the uncle – who is not a nice man – has now decided that she is to be married to his friend, an old man who drinks too much Chibuku and who looks at her in a wrong way.” I watched Ifwafwa to see what he was thinking, but I could see only his kind face waiting for me to go on.