A Girl Named Disaster Read online

  Often Masvita sat with her, too exhausted to work. Then Nhamo wished the muvuki would see them quickly, although she was afraid of what he might say.

  “Come with me to the trading post, Ambuya,” she said one day. “It’s so very interesting.”

  “It’s new to you, Little Pumpkin. Nothing surprises me anymore.” Ambuya pulled a blanket around her shoulders.

  “You can listen to the radio.”

  “Shake-shake music,” grumbled Ambuya, referring to the shake-shake, or beer, the trader sold. “I should rack my bones to see a pack of drunk fools.”

  “The guitarist sits there in the afternoon,” Nhamo coaxed.

  “A guitar?” Grandmother’s eyes showed a flicker of interest.

  “It sounds like water pouring over a rock. You have no idea how beautiful it is!”

  “I know what guitars sound like,” Grandmother said crossly. “I’ve heard them hundreds of times.” But she allowed Nhamo to draw her to her feet. Nhamo supported the old woman as they walked toward the trading post. When they arrived, the guitarist was already playing, and someone had thoughtfully provided him with a bucket of beer. Several people moved to allow Ambuya to make her way to the porch. The Portuguese trader found her a stool.

  “He good,” the trader confided to Ambuya in his bad Shona. “I pay his way to Maputo for play in nightclub. We make money like bandits.”

  Ambuya nodded graciously. Her nose twitched, and Nhamo knew she could smell the alcohol on his breath.

  The trader clapped when the guitarist finished, then shouted something in Portuguese. The other people complimented the musician and made requests.

  The sun slanted through the musasa trees as it lowered toward the horizon. It turned everything gold. For the first time in several days, Grandmother smiled. It made Nhamo’s spirit happy to see the old woman nod her head in time to the music. If only the golden afternoon could go on forever, with Ambuya and her at the center of this friendly crowd. But eventually the musician grew tired and the sunlight faded. The trader’s assistant brought out the hissing lamps and hung them over the porch.

  “He go for Maputo soon,” said the trader as the musician slung the guitar over his back. “Make money like bandits.”

  Still, the enchantment lingered as the blue twilight flooded the land. No one was willing to ask for the radio just yet. “You have many death in your village, hey?” said the trader suddenly. Nhamo could have killed him.

  Grandmother’s face became sad again. “Many people died,” she agreed.

  “Cholera a bad bugger. Frelimo send soldiers with muti,* but too late. Muti no work good, anyway.” He shook his head. “You lose someone special, ambuya?”

  Nhamo wanted to drop a lantern on his head.

  “Yes,” Grandmother replied.

  “Me, too. My little Maria. My wife cry. I cry, too.” The trader took a picture from his shirt pocket. He signaled to the assistant to lift down one of the lamps. Nhamo saw a girl about Ruva’s age, wearing a beautiful dress covered with ruffles. The girl had on shiny black shoes and she carried a small purse. Pinned over her hair was a lace handkerchief. Maria was almost as dark as herself, so Nhamo guessed that the trader’s wife wasn’t Portuguese.

  “I don’t have a picture of Shuvai,” Ambuya said with the tears rolling down her face.

  “No matter. Her picture here, no?” The trader slapped himself on the chest. “Inside have best photo.”

  Grandmother was too overcome to answer. Nhamo was desperate to get her back to camp.

  “Can we have the radio?” someone called hopefully.

  “Shut up,” roared the trader. “Me and Va-ambuya talk seriously. You rascals can get drunk without music.” Nhamo heard murmured grumbles, but no one spoke out loud. The assistant began bringing out buckets of beer. “Bring something for this old lady, hey? Nice stuff. Not the swill these buggers drink.”

  Nhamo’s spirits rose. It was unheard of for Ambuya to drink with strangers. Now she would surely ask to go home. But to Nhamo’s horror, Grandmother accepted the dark bottle the assistant brought. He provided his boss with a bucket of “shake-shake.” Apparently the trader had no qualms about drinking swill himself.

  Nhamo brooded in the shadows as Ambuya and the trader discussed dead relatives. It seemed an insane thing to do, but gradually she noticed that Grandmother appeared more lighthearted. Perhaps, in remembering, her spirit let go of the unhappiness.

  Soon, on her third bottle of the dark beer, Ambuya was recounting how Ruva squealed when a fish she had been given by Crocodile Guts wriggled in her hands. The trader responded with a tale of how his wife heated a can of peas on hot coals without opening it first. “Boom! Peas on the walls. Peas on the ceiling. ‘Ah! Ah!’ my wife cried. ‘It’s a hand grenade!’” Grandmother shook with laughter.

  “Come here, Nhamo,” she called. “Tell him about the time you put a grass snake in the boys’ hut.”

  Nhamo burned with embarrassment. She still remembered the beating Aunt Chipo had given her.

  “They left puddles on the mats, I can tell you,” Grandmother recalled.

  “Nhamo mean ‘disaster,’ no? She’s a nice kid. No look like a disaster to me.”

  “She’s my wonderful Little Pumpkin,” Grandmother said warmly. “She’s my Runako’s only child, but her birth caused trouble, I can tell you!”

  “How so?” The trader called for his assistant to bring them bowls of sadza and relish from his kitchen. Nhamo brightened up at once. Her stomach was growling with hunger.

  “Runako was so clever! After we left Zimbabwe, her headmaster sent a letter to our village. ‘I have spoken to the nuns at the Catholic school,’ he wrote. ‘They have agreed to give Runako a—a scholarship.’” Ambuya’s tongue stumbled over the English word. “That’s a kind of bonsella, a gift. Imagine! They would pay for her food, books, everything. I was so excited. I sent her off at once. She was only fifteen.”

  The assistant arrived with three large bowls of food. As much as Nhamo was riveted on the story of her birth, her stomach demanded that she pay attention to dinner. The sadza was white and beautifully cooked. The relish was like nothing she had ever seen. It was a rich tomato stew flavored with strange spices—and full of chicken! Nhamo, who hardly ever got meat, had to control herself to eat politely. Grandmother was equally delighted by the meal and for a few moments applied herself to steady eating.

  “Now can we have the radio?” someone asked.

  “Silence, you tsotsis!*” shouted the trader. “Why do I let you drunks sit on my porch? You better off with the goats.”

  “If only I had kept Runako at home,” said Grandmother as she cleaned the last crumbs of sadza from her bowl. “She met a boy at that school. He was called Proud Jongwe.” Ambuya spat out the words. “Proud! I should like to know what he was proud of. Useless would have been a better name.”

  “But nice-looking,” guessed the trader.

  “Oh, yes.” Grandmother sighed. “Poor Runako. She seemed so intelligent, but they say girls turn stupid for a few years after they become women.”

  “That’s true,” said one of the drinkers. “It’s a well-known fact.”

  “You be quiet!” the trader shouted.

  “They got married in a Catholic church. Wicked, disobedient children!”

  “Not bad to marry in the church,” the trader said, slightly offended.

  “It’s all right for you. You’re Portuguese. Among us, the son-in-law has to get the family’s permission—and arrange the roora. One day I saw Runako walking along the trail to our village. ‘What happened?’ I cried. ‘Did the nuns send you away?’ Then I saw her stomach.” Ambuya paused to finish the beer. She waved a fourth bottle away, for which Nhamo was thankful.

  “He was right behind her, the scheming hyena! Not a coin in his pockets, not a cow to his name.”

  “Sometime poor man work for pay roora. That okay,” the Portuguese man said.

  “If the man works! I never saw Proud Jongwe d
o anything. Oh, he was full of plans! He would find gold; he would build a square house like they have in Zimbabwe—our huts weren’t good enough. But the only talent he had was to empty beer pots!” Ambuya glared at the shake-shake customers, and they nervously looked away.

  “One night…” Ambuya paused dramatically until everyone had turned back to watch her. Nhamo held her breath. No one had ever told her about Father. If she approached when someone was speaking of him, people immediately changed the subject—and here was Grandmother revealing the secret to a whole crowd of strangers!

  “One night Proud went to a beer-drink in the next village.” Ambuya straightened up and put her hands on her hips. The lanterns painted her face with a harsh yellow light. The shake-shake drinkers bent close to listen. “He got into a fight with a man called Goré Mtoko,” she said in a hushed voice. “They were both tsotsis, both useless. Goré knocked Proud into a bed of hot coals, and Proud was so enraged he—he grabbed a rock—and he smashed in Goré’s skull!”

  “Hhhuuu,” murmured all the beer drinkers.

  Nhamo felt like screaming, but her throat had closed up so tightly she could hardly breathe. So that was the secret! Her father was a murderer! Her stomach twisted with nausea. No wonder Aunt Chipo and Uncle Kufa didn’t like her!

  “Proud ran away like the mangy dog he was. He never even said good-bye to Runako. Later I heard he returned to the Catholic school and borrowed money from the nuns— told them it was for his wife. He went to Mtoroshanga to work in a chrome mine.”

  So much for thinking her father would return to arrange a marriage for her! Nhamo clenched her teeth to keep from crying out loud. Her mother had had no roora paid for her. She was one of those women Vatete meant who wasn’t even worth a mangy goat. Everyone in the village had known about it except her. Nhamo wanted to tear out her hair with shame. She crouched next to Grandmother’s stool, hugging her stomach.

  “Va-Ambuya, we were so worried about you,” came Uncle Kufa’s voice. Nhamo squinted at the market area in front of the trading post. She could just make out his figure in the shadows, and that of Aunt Chipo beside him.

  “We thought you had fallen into the stream,” Aunt Chipo called.

  “As if I would do such a foolish thing,” Grandmother said. She rose unsteadily, and Nhamo rushed to support her. “Thank you, my friend,” she told the Portuguese trader, clapping her hands respectfully.

  “You always welcome, Va-ambuya. You got sense in that old head. Not like these buggers.” The trader scowled at the beer drinkers.

  “Now can we have the radio?” someone called plaintively.

  Grandmother leaned heavily on Nhamo as they made their way back to camp. “You—you’ve been drinking,” murmured Aunt Chipo.

  “What of it?” Ambuya said belligerently.

  When they were well away from the trading post, Uncle Kufa said quietly, “I thought we agreed never to talk about Runako’s husband.”

  “Am I to fill my mouth with clay? Am I to be lectured by one who was wetting his loincloth when I was out buying cattle for my family?”

  “Mother…,” faltered Aunt Chipo.

  “Yes! I am your mother, and you would do well to remember it!”

  No one said anything for a while as they felt their way along the dark trail. Nhamo was too disturbed to pay much attention, but gradually she began to sense that something was very wrong. It wasn’t common for women to drink, of course, but it wasn’t unheard of. Grandmother had always been independent. She smoked a pipe. She sometimes sat in the men’s dare. She maintained far more control of her wealth and affairs than any woman Nhamo knew. That was Grandmother, and no one expected her to behave any differently. Uncle Kufa and Aunt Chipo were too quiet, however. Nhamo sensed a current of disapproval; for once it wasn’t directed at her.

  “There’s nothing wrong with visiting people,” Ambuya said suddenly.

  “You don’t know who was in that crowd,” Uncle Kufa replied in a tight voice that told Nhamo he was struggling not to get angry.

  Grandmother thought for a moment. “The whole business was laid to rest years ago.”

  “Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn’t.”

  More silence. More unspoken disapproval.

  Nhamo couldn’t make sense out of the argument, but she knew better than to ask questions. When they at last arrived in camp, Nhamo helped Grandmother to bed. Then she presented herself at the makeshift cooking area to clean dishes. Her mind was whirling with what had happened. She barely heard the other girls’ voices, and as soon as possible she stretched out on a sleeping mat. She pretended not to notice when Masvita lay down beside her.

  Father was a murderer. He ran away before he could be punished, and that meant Goré Mtoko’s family hadn’t got revenge on him. A crime like that cried out for punishment. Nhamo remembered Ambuya telling a story about a man who murdered his wife in Zimbabwe. He was sent to a whiteman’s prison. That was all very well, Grandmother said, but everyone knew the wife’s spirit wouldn’t be satisfied. When the murderer was finally set free, he began to act very strangely. He dressed in women’s clothes and spoke in a high-pitched voice. He shouted at his sisters and said, “Why did your brother kill me?” Then everyone knew he was possessed by the spirit of the dead wife. He wandered around, Grandmother said, until he was run over by a bus. “She made him walk in front of that bus,” Ambuya said with satisfaction.

  Perhaps Goré’s spirit pursued Father even now. And yet Grandmother had said the whole business had been settled years ago. Did she pay compensation to the Mtoko family? That would have been unfair—after all, she was no blood relative of Father’s—but perhaps they blamed Mother. Ambuya would have done anything for Mother.

  Nhamo’s throat ached from holding back tears. A daughter belonged to her father’s family. Most people would have sent her away after Mother died, but not Ambuya. Grandmother had insisted on keeping her, had treated her kindly and called her Little Pumpkin. When she remembered this, Nhamo’s control broke down. Tears poured out of her eyes and she clenched her teeth to prevent herself from making a sound. Her whole body trembled, but she managed to keep from disturbing Masvita at her side. Lucky, lucky Masvita! Her name meant “thank you.” Her birth had been welcomed and, in spite of recent troubles, everyone would rally around to make her future as pleasant as possible.

  * * *

  *muti: Medicine.

  *tsotsi: A hoodlum.

  9

  It’s happened!” cried Masvita, pushing through the reeds of the stream. Nhamo was perched on a rock, watching the effect of a fish trap she had made.

  “What’s happened?” she said.

  “The muvuki.” Masvita had been running so hard, she had to sit down to catch her breath. “He says we can see him tomorrow. Ah! That’s a clever device.”

  Nhamo bent down, whisked a smallish fish from the cone-shaped trap, and popped it into a basket. Her heart was beating very fast, but she didn’t want to show her cousin how frightened she was. “Thanks. I learned to make it at the trading post. There’s a man there who can weave almost anything. Are…we all going?”

  “Oh, yes! We have to be present in case, in case…” Masvita’s voice trailed off.

  In case one of us is discovered to be a witch, Nhamo thought.

  “It’ll be wonderful to get it over with. I want to go home. I thought I’d like travel, but really all I want to do is stay in one place and never, never have any surprises.” Masvita opened Nhamo’s basket and counted the fish inside.

  “I don’t like surprises either,” murmured Nhamo, thinking of Father.

  When they returned to the camp, everyone was busy packing. They would return home soon if everything went well. Uncle Kufa went to the trading post to buy powdered milk for Aunt Shuvai’s baby. The infant was recovering rapidly—his face had already rounded out, and he seemed to have accepted Masvita as his new mother. This, in turn, had an excellent effect on Masvita.

  She already looks like a mother, thought Nhamo
. She could be five years older than I—but then, she grew rapidly like a weed. Grandmother’s comment had once made Nhamo smile, but now it only aroused a dull ache in her heart. It doesn’t matter if I turn into a fruit tree in five years, she thought. Who would want to marry the daughter of a murderer then—or ever?

  Early next morning everyone dressed with particular care. Masvita combed Nhamo’s hair and rubbed her skin with butterfat. Her cousin’s hands were cold, and Nhamo knew that she was frightened, too. They set off just as the sun rose in a dull red ball beyond the musasa trees. The trail was damp under Nhamo’s bare feet, and the forest was full of glossy starlings with dark blue-green feathers and orange eyes.

  The settlement was built in a long line close to the stream. The trader’s house, Nhamo had learned, lay at one extreme, with the muvuki’s house nearby. The Frelimo camp was at the other. The store was at the center. The villagers followed the stream past clusters of huts and granaries perched on stilts. Uncle Kufa was at their head, and the men carried presents for the doctor.

  One mile, two miles passed. They came at last to the muvuki’s garden. He had a square house with a red tile roof, and his garden was full of heavily laden banana and papaya trees. A boy passed them on the way, herding a flock of sleek nanny goats. Each one was fitted with a cloth bag over her udder to keep the milk from being stolen. Nhamo thought that was ludicrous, but she was far too worried to laugh.

  “Takutuka chiremba,” the adults shouted in unison before they entered the garden: “We have scolded you, doctor.” Nhamo didn’t know the meaning behind this strange saying, but Grandmother said it was the correct way to enter a muvuki’s yard. The doctor was dressed in a gray suit like a picture in a magazine, and he was eating breakfast at a table on the porch. Nhamo saw with fascination that he used a knife and fork instead of his fingers. Suddenly, he looked up and gazed straight at her. She felt as though her bones had turned to water.

  “Vahukwu. Welcome,” he called. He put down his utensils, and a servant removed his plate.

  “I see you, Va-Nyamasatsi,” he said, giving Ambuya’s real name. “And you, Va-Kufa.” Nhamo felt goose bumps on her arms as he singled out every person in the group. How could he do this? He had never seen them before.