Читать книгу Like a Lily on a Mountain, Love Grows on Rocky Terrains - Thokozani S.B. Maseko - Страница 5

Chapter 2

She slid back into the wet garments as if that would resolve everything. Well, anyway, she wasn’t dead. After surviving the great fall, that was not to be taken for granted. As to where the well had emerged from was anybody’s guess. She was certain that there had only been big boulders and pebbles there when she’d gazed down from the stone-bridge. What should she do now? Her car was tens of metres above, and her pencil sketch-map was in the car. She was lost in a no-man’s land, and darkness was falling.

Her boots stroked her feet through her awfully damp socks, and she was sure that she would develop blisters quite early before finding a bed to slip her boots underneath. Her soggy jeans excoriated her inner thighs and were cold and clammy as the sun’s rays played hide-and-seek with the shrubs that lined the cliff above her. The sketch-map had shown two ways that forked, and the address she searched for was somewhere along the right folk. She couldn’t see anything that looked like a path now that she was deep in the river canyon. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was an adult, and had she not trained herself to be courageous and capable and burly, she would have surrendered to the tears that threatened to block her sight. Instead, she snuffled stridently and wiped her nose on her shirt.

Literally almost immobilised with pain and devastation but refusing to surrender, she raised her head and took off in what she hoped was the right direction. Before long, the stars would decorate the sky, and she could benefit from their guidance. How had the temperatures dropped so quickly when it had been so hot just a few hours ago? It was just the way everyone described the desert; as almost immediately after the sun goes down; all the heat vanishes. She remembered how sweaty she was when she had disembarked from the car, but now shivering overtook her.

***

The earth had never appeared as silent as it was now as she paced to nowhere in the gloom. Only her footing, resonating from the rocks, walked with her. Every time she halted, only the wind was audible; with not even the sound of a moving car. She was at the opposite end of civilization. If the stillness was scary, the darkness was terrorizing. Darkness fell over the river, and it didn’t happen gradually. One instant she was engulfed by the loveliness of the mountains against the yellows and reds of the twilight sky, and the next moment, nothing was visible in front of her, and her overwhelming dread was that at any second, there could be nothing below her foot. The notion of dropping off the earth twice in a few hours halted her in her tracks.

Well, she considered, trying not to surrender to her worries; Musa would still be there at daybreak, and she could still make it then. The best thing to do was just to settle down and wait until sunrise. Relying more on her sense of touch than her sight, she found a small stone and sat on it. As she sat her wet jeans hacked into her inner legs and calves.

Damn! it was freaking cold. How freezing it is? She jested with herself. It’s so freezing that …

Something scuttled over her left foot and started to work under her right one. She drew and held her breath and stayed absolutely motionless, saying her prayers without even stirring her lips. She could scarcely feel any motion under her right thigh. What was the best thing to do? That was the question. Should she lift her foot to let the intruder pass by, or would it be invited to bite her soft tissue through her stiff denims?

Fortitude is virtue, Hannah. Be courageous, she encouraged herself, conscious that whatever it was, was gradually making its way out from under her foot. A second more, two at the most. Like a flash, she was up, trampling and yelling and hopping and shouting in the gloom as though the interloper had finally made its mark on her foot. Some people could settle in the centre of the wilderness and wait for the sun to come up, Hannah thought, but she wasn’t any of them. She fumbled in the dark; walking in what she prayed was the right direction.

With the soreness on her feet, she imagined she had been walking for a couple of hours when she eventually noticed some smoke. It looked like an ash cloud against the murky sky, and it took her nostrils to confirm what she had seen. Civilisation! She scuttled towards the dirty fog, her feet ablaze as her sores rubbed against her damp socks and hard boots, shocked by how much further it was than it seemed. Who could have imagined that nostrils could smell smouldering stuff kilometres away?

Candlelight glowed in the window, a male voice droned a hymn that seemed a lullaby, and a scent of fried chicken crammed the air. But she couldn’t creep up to the house yet. Not now. Not until she had dried her tears and collected herself. It took her a while.

***

Finally, a man came to the balcony, and a second one followed, much shorter, with a tall lean dog that had lost an ear. Were these the guys who were to meet Musa and his father? Could there be such a pleasant coincidence? And they were crooning a lullaby. Had Musa already arrived? She cleared her throat, and the two men dropped to the porch floor. The dog exposed its fangs and snarled. In the soft glow that showed through the windows, she could see that the men had rifles, and that they were aiming them in her direction.

“Who’s it?” One of them shouted into the dark.

She didn’t know how to respond. Telling them her name would mean nothing to them and introducing herself as a member of the Social Welfare Child Section might only infuriate them and terminate any hope that she had of conning them into betraying themselves.

“I … am,” she started to say in a rather gentle voice. She cleared her throat again. “I eeh,” she said more sturdily, “I apologise for troubling you, but I’ve missed my way, and I …”

“Stand in the light so that we can see you,” demanded the man who had shouted before.

“And don’t try anything stupid,” the other one added.

He appeared younger than the one who had spoken before, more of an adolescent; and his short dreadlocked hair made him look more terrifying than she could have pictured.

“No mischief, I’ve just lost my way,” she said, as she stepped to the light in front of the house.

“There are ways of making sure you’re lost.”

On closer scrutiny it was apparent that these men were more aggressive than she had imagined. It was just the way the man at the shop had said, two men with hunting guns. He had only forgotten to mention the dog, who was stiff with distrust.

She felt a simple push on her back and cried out, certain that another dog had managed to sneak behind to her.

“Very scared, aren’t you?” a man’s voice said, and she turned to see a third man. This one held a rifle only centimetres from her abdomen.

“Oh my gosh,” Hannah said. “You terrified me to death. Where the hell did you come from?”

The man smiled at her. In the dark he appeared menacing; the light from the windows reflected off his eyes, reflected off a rough scar on his face, such that for a second, she felt that she was involved in a TV show.

“Hey, be cool,” she said, trying to show an audacity she didn’t feel. “Put away that thing, okay? See, if you guys want not to be disturbed, that’s completely fine with me. But would you allow me to stay on your balcony for the night only? I’m in fact not too comfortable with all this desert thing and I …”

A sneeze brawled from within the house. A frail, ill sound, and the guys appeared to have forgotten all about her. The younger one got up, placed his gun down next to the door frame, and went into the house, his head indicating irritation.

“Stay here, Topsy,” he said to the dog, who redirected his concentration back to Hannah. The other rose, initially kneeling and then he leaned against the balustrade.

The man behind her nudged her from behind and he motioned with his head for her to move towards the portico. A man whose teeth included two gold ones and a dog waited for her. Both of them were salivating as they observed her climb up the steps. It was noxiously quiet. She then heard a lady’s voice. It was soft, broken up by coughs and wheezes, but it was certainly a woman’s voice, and the man tried with difficulty to hear it.

The younger man came back, something around his riding boots jingled with every footstep he made, making him seem like some kind of concierge with many keys. He muffled something to the guy who still had his gun on her. He frowned, his pockmarked face pulsating, but he nodded and put the rifle down.

“She’s calling for you,” the younger man told her.

He opened the door and held it for her, and Hannah shrugged and walked in. Topsy remained on the portico.

The chalet was comfy, the light from a paraffin lamp casting a yellow glow on the little room. It was jumbled with the clear signs of three men living with no woman’s care. Dishes lay around; with their desiccated scraps of food stuck to them and were swathed with filth or dust. Someone had been generous enough to place curtains on the windows and covers on the settee; but now they dangled at angles and were about to fall onto the grimy floor at any instant. Hannah struggled with the urge to put things in to place as she walked across the room. Wood burnt softly in a bin, its whisper almost a sigh as if out of deference for the ill woman in the other room.

The fluffy bearded man stood intolerantly waiting for Hannah to come with him, apparently disgruntled with her inspection of the room. Her eyebrows lifted at seeing yet another gun, this one placed above the doorway in which he stood. He traced the direction of her eyes and scowled. Taking the gun, he jacked it open and took out two cartridges, or whatever it was they put in guns. Hannah was amused that he suspected that she would attempt to take the gun and point it at them. She hardly knew which end was dangerous. When he placed the gun back in its place by the door, it made a thumping noise that reverberated around the room.

“Ready now?” he asked as he opened the door. He beckoned her to come in after him.

The bedroom was dimmer than the first room. Dimmer and colder. It took a minute for Hannah’s eyes to adjust, and as they did, she cuddled herself for warmness. She’d lost hope that her damp socks would ever dry, and now she wanted to remove her boots to rub some circulation back into the veins. Perhaps they would allow her to stand in front of the fire a little before deciding to chuck her out into the cold night. She felt a wince in her chest – The chill? Or dread?

In the middle of a tiny bed lay a petite woman, her body scarcely visible under the weighty bedding that covered her. Her face appeared rosy in the flickering light by her bed. Her eyes were shut, but Hannah was sure that if she opened them, they would be light brown.

“Thandi, darling,” the man called tenderly, and she opened her eyes. Hannah had been right. “Here’s the woman you asked for.”

Hannah watched Thandi swallow. It was clearly a great endeavour.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

Thandi’s voice was so weak that Hannah could hardly make out the words. She went closer to the mattress, where Thandi could get a good look at her. Perhaps Thandi could tell the men to allow her to take Musa and leave.

“My name is Hannah,” she said sincerely. “I’m here to take the baby.”

Thandi grinned at her softly. She shut her eyes and folded herself.

“Thank you,” she muffled towards the roof. “I’ve been praying you could come. They adore him, but how far can men go in taking care of a baby?”

“We’ve done everything you told us,” the man with the gold teeth said, apparently less terrifying in the ill woman’s presence.

“You and Themba have been truly good, Thabani,” Thandi said, thinking; “but a child needs a mama, and it won’t be much longer before I’m gone.”

Hannah gazed around. No one differed in opinion. The whole thing made no sense to Hannah. Thandi wasn’t Musa’s mother. Why would they bring Musa here? Certainly, they didn’t expect Thandi to take care of someone else’s baby in her state.

“Has she seen a doctor?” Hannah asked. “What’s wrong with her, anyway?”

“The doctor said nothing can be done now,” the younger man said. Themba, began to explain, but Thabani stopped him.

“Quiet,” he said, and Themba frowned but took the instruction. “She’s using something over there,” the man said, pointing to a litre of some concoction.

He gazed at the bottom of the mattress, not at any point did he look at the woman lying on it.

“See,” Hannah began, “I have no idea what’s wrong with her, but it seems to me your wife needs a doctor real soon. Why not just take her to hospital?”

“Hospital?” Thabani giggled. “Nearest hospital is in Siteki, Good Shepherd. Thandi can’t even make it to the wagon in the shed, not to mention all the way to Siteki.”

“Why not call an ambulance? Or call your doctor again, at least. Perhaps he can recommend something over the phone.”

Themba glared at her as if she had implied that they take Thandi to Good Shepherd on a bicycle. Thabani just grunted.

“You’re from the big city, aren’t you?”

Hannah turned around. It was the third man speaking. She hadn’t even seen or heard him follow them, but the younger one’s nippy steps jingled so noisily that it was difficult to hear anything else when he moved. This was the second time that the man had sneaked behind her, and the cold that crept up her vertebrae wasn’t from the freezing night this time.

He started again. “I haven’t got a phone out here,” his revolting pockmarks running up and down his face, and he turned so that they sparkled on what little light there was.

“Don’t have anything here,” Thandi said, her eyes set on Hannah; “not a thing, but sickness and death. Thabani get me some water please?”

Thabani walked over to the bedside and filled a cup with water from a little pail. Tenderly, he held Thandi’s head and placed the plastic cup to her lips.

“Your wife looks very ill,” Hannah said. “Can’t you ask to use your neighbour’s phone?”

“She isn’t my wife,” Thabani said, the gold teeth catching the paraffin lamp light and shooting sparks in the dim light.

“And we haven’t got any neighbours,” Themba said, a grin disturbing the corners of his mouth.

“Is she yours?” Hannah asked the third man, whose name was still not known to her.

He appeared the most composed of the three, but in that tranquillity, prowled a restiveness that made her more scared of him than the rest.

“No,” he responded, standing against the door frame as if he didn’t mind a thing in this world.

His eyes ran over the ill woman’s figure, revealing the fine side of his face, nearly fine-looking in the dim light. Hannah felt his eyes turn to her, but when she gazed at his eyes, they were fixed on the far end of the room, as if the shades held some appeal for him.

“Anyway, whosoever’s woman she is, she appears pretty damn sick,” Hannah said.

“You have a big mouth, girl,” the man responded. “Where are you from, anyway?”

“Yes,” Themba seconded. “How did you locate this place, huh? How did she find us, Mandla?”

Thandi stretched out and put her hand on Hannah’s. It was warm to the touch, and Hannah placed the flipside of her free hand over Thandi’s brow. Not surprising, the lady was extremely hot.

“I dropped from above, actually,” Hannah answered, a note of frustration apparent in her voice. She considered her answer. It was a fact, almost. “What difference does it make? We’ve got to act fast to rescue … this woman. Whose woman is she, anyway?”

“Her man is dead,” the third man said, leaving the wall and taking a few steps into the room. “Died right after … well, you could say on his wedding night.”

The three men laughed, and Hannah glanced down at Thandi enquiringly.

“You came from above, did you?” Thandi asked, paying less attention to the men.

It took great effort to say those words. Thabani placed the cup of water to her mouth again and elevated her head a little, to help her sip from it. He shot a look at Hannah, pleading with her to mutely concur with Thandi. The dog barked outside, a lonely, eerie call that crept down Hannah’s back.

She smiled at the woman, who looked only twenty or so. “Yes,” she agreed, “I did.”

“And you were sent to take care of my child?” Thandi asked, her breathing strenuous and her hand falling away from Hannah’s.

“I was instructed to …” Hannah gazed around the room.

Themba’s eyes were filled with tears, and the man they called Thabani gaped at a crevice in the roof. The last one, Mandla, turned and quietly left the room.

“I … e-e-h …,” Hannah stumbled, but she was disturbed by the man’s return with a sleepy baby whose closed fists lingered over his eyes, rubbing them. He seemed nothing beyond eleven, twelve months old.

Thandi started to cough hysterically, but the child was oblivious that his mother was drifting away, he still stretched himself out to her, and Hannah’s arms reached out of their own accord as she stepped forward and took the child from the man’s hands. She remained with him by the door, rubbing his back while his heavy head knocked against her chest as he attempted to fight sleep in vain.

It was Musa, that was certain.

“The lovely Lord brought you here to take care of my child, didn’t he?” Thandi pleaded, between coughs. “And you guys are aware that the good Lord will without fail put you to ruin just as certain as he’s punishing me if you upset a single hair of this seraph’s head. That’s the reason you’re here, Hannah, isn’t it? God sent you for this baby …”

Hannah contemplated the matter as she kissed the boy’s brow and smelled the balmy sweet odour of the sleepy baby. The baby found his thumb without difficulty in his sleep and he began sucking on it. That and the spluttering of the kerosene lamp were the only perceivable sounds in the house. Who knew better about punishment from God?

“Yes,” she said, just loud enough for herself and the woman approaching death in the tiny bed near her.

She tried to disregard the fact that the man who had fetched the baby now held a gun to her head. In any case, if he really wanted to do it, he’d have first made sure that the child was safe, not with her.

“Take Mashwa (Misfortune) back to his bed,” he instructed Themba. “And then show the girl a bed.”

“I Suppose that would be under Thabani,” Themba said with a smile, but his smile disappeared as Mandla frowned.

“No one is mounting anyone,” he said with a crisp finality. “And someone mind Topsy. He might be hungry. The damn dog’s howling is driving me nuts.”

He motioned with his head and Hannah followed him. He pointed to a door at the end of the hallway. She smiled her thanks and went in, closing the door behind her. Then she took off her boots, removed her wet socks, and crept into the weird bed. It stunk as if horses and mules had used it for mating, but it was smooth and warm, and she was totally exhausted and bushed.

She wondered if someone else had noticed yet that she had dropped off the face of the earth. She was certain that Musa’s mother and grandfather were frenzied by now, and that they had obviously called Sophia at the office. For a second, she wished that she was a significant person. Right now, her disappearance could warrant a police search.

Oh, please, she whispered into the night, let someone come searching for me.

***

Dawn presented Welcome with a surprise he wasn’t anticipating. He’d taken care of his needs and had his breakfast and lunch just before sunrise. He had been sitting on the ridge for just a short while when Thabani Dlamini’s horse came down to the river’s edge bearing two riders. Thabani turned around and let down the lady who Welcome had seen the previous day.

She wasn’t wearing her Guess jeans anymore but had wrapped herself in some kind of long wrap-around skirt and a t-shirt Thandi often wore. Thabani lowered a soft sack and mumbled something to her. Welcome tried to listen but he couldn’t catch a word. He saw Thabani point towards some rocks, and the woman shaded her eyes from the morning sun as she gazed in the direction of his finger. She glanced at her wristlet and nodded. She stood looking at Thabani as he directed his horse to the rocks he had pointed at, and slowly he disappeared. Hannah picked up the bundle, hesitated for a moment, as though she wasn’t certain what to do, and then went closer to the water.

Gosh! She possibly couldn’t teach a chicken to squawk, Welcome imagined as he looked at her approach the river, with her shoes on, and skirt hauling on the soil, mindless as the baby whose napkins she was no doubt about to wash. He pursed his lips and battled the urge to utter some words that had quickly leaped into his mind. ‘A stupid idiotic woman.’ But what more could he expect from someone who stayed with the Dlamini gang? He massaged his leg that was sore from remaining in one position for too long and counted himself in the same category.

A few metres from the river, the woman sat down on a tiny rock to take off her shoes. She had forsaken her boots for soft flat shoes. From his point of view, they looked like genuine leather shoes, but he couldn’t be certain. He had heard that the Dlamini boys had some kind of arrangement with the South Africans and the Mozambicans, trading with them stolen rifles for various goods and services. He’d gathered, too, that the Mozambicans had offered their women. But this was no Mozambican, whose very light skin legs were now exposed as she tucked the front of her skirt up into her waistband and waded into the river with the bag of dirty clothes.

He hadn’t seen women’s legs in over a year; apart from the exhibition this one had given him, of course, when she’d jumped into the river; sixteen months if he were to be precise; And the way things were now, he wasn’t certain if he’d ever be between a pair of them again. He was still sure of his prowess at it, all right. He’d tested that with a willing Mozambican woman who had pleasured him right in the presence of the traditional healer’s own son. But the bullets that had pierced his body had left his right leg nearly useless, and he was sure that between the scars and the clumsiness, that he was now a pitiful excuse for a man; surely no woman’s dream anymore.

He remembered the girls who used to avail themselves after winning horses and marathon races in Big Bend, or those who had run after him when he had visited Lavumisa or Big Bend for leisure. Boys in the area always complained that there were not enough ladies, but they were always abundant for him, waiting for him after a contest, offering him home-cooked meals, offering to wash his clothes.

Suddenly the woman screamed as she slipped in the water and caused Welcome to laugh. A fly on a mare’s ass had enough intellect to seek higher ground when flying across a river, but not her. The flipside edge of her skirt had become soaked that its weight had finally dragged her down. She squatted in the river, her buttocks half socked. She attempted to right herself when the current started to sweep her along.

Thabani, who was seemingly taking a bath further downstream, ran towards her in his long dripping johns, slithering and slipping on the rocky base, shouting curses. By the time he got to the woman, she had started drifting down the stream, and the river was beleaguered with buoyant bits of dirty clothes that Thabani picked up as he ran after her in the angry water flow.

“For life’s sake, woman!” he yelled after her. “Hold on to something!”

“I’m fine!” she shouted back at him, wading her way to a ledge of rocks. “Pick up my jeans!”

“What?” he yelled as he picked up her overalls and pulled her uncouthly from the water. She was painstakingly wet, and even from two hundred metres away Welcome could identify two dark nipples through the soaked fabric. Or perhaps he just imagined them – he wasn’t certain.

He thought perhaps he would be treated to an exhibition, as Thabani stood there with her, staring at each other, the water dripping from their clothes. But Thabani just whistled, and his horse came running from farther downstream. Taking the blanket from his saddle, Thabani gave it to her and took the horse’s reins. He went back to his bathing site, not even glancing over his shoulder.

Possibly it was not Thabani’s girl, Welcome figured. And certainly, someone this imbecilic couldn’t belong to Mandla. Themba? Yeah … she was just right for Themba. Two semi-idiots. Weren’t there laws forbidding mating of imbeciles? The thought slithered out of his mind when the woman removed her clothes for a second show in a row. She draped the blanket around herself and then attempted to pick up the clothes that had stuck to the rocks.

“Thabani,” she shouted. “Are you there?”

“What now?” he yelled in response.

“Just remain where you are till I tell you, all right?”

No answer.

“Okay?”

From where Welcome was, he could see Thabani hiding behind the rocks, not more than ten metres from where the girl stood waiting for a response. Thabani’s face was inclined against a rock, and Welcome deduced that he had a great view of her through a fissure, but she couldn’t see him.

“What’s the matter?” Thabani shouted back, but somehow his voice was soft.

“Just don’t move, all right?”

“Okay,” he answered.

Welcome shook his head. ‘Dirty moron,’ Welcome thought as he watched her remove the blanket and run stark-naked into the river, retrieving the clothes as swiftly as she could.

A piece of navy-blue fabric lay on a rock at the far end across the river, and she waded in to pick it up. Midstream, she leaned her head back and soaked her hair. Her face turned up towards the sun, a generous grin on her lips, and Welcome wished that she had opened her eyes. He could almost take a good look at her. He cursed the fact that he hadn’t bought those binoculars he’d seen as he passed through Big Bend, but he didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. He’d only been there briefly, just to pick up a few things, and no one had taken any notice of him with his new beard and thick hair. It wouldn’t have been a good idea to throw money around, even in a little town like Big Bend.

“Pick up your stuff, it’s time to go,” a voice said, and Welcome saw Thabani standing on the riverbank, as he waited for the woman to come out.

The sun sparkled on his gold teeth as he stood with arms crossed, waiting intolerantly. If this was Themba’s woman or worse Mandla’s, he was about to get into a heap of trouble.

The woman waded to the clothing; she picked it up and wrapped it around herself in the water. It was the shirt Welcome had seen her take off the previous day. How long was it? Welcome tried to recall. Would it conceal everything? She’d left the blanket too far down the riverbank to simply take it.

“Turn the other way, Thabani,” she said, and her voice echoed up to Welcome’s den. It was a gracious sound, filled with amusement, as if she thought her quandary was funny. “Come on, Thabani, I’m not moving until you look away.” Thabani kept staring at her. Welcome wasn’t sure if he shrugged. “Please,” she begged then, more quietly; the jollity had gone from her voice.

From his hiding place, Welcome saw another rider just seconds before Thabani saw the horse. Thabani turned around, grabbing impulsively for his gun which wasn’t on his hip.

A deep voice roared, incomprehensible to Welcome, but effortlessly recognisable. It was Mandla. Thabani’s hands went down, and he whistled for his horse.

Mandla jumped down from the saddle and went to the edge of the water, grabbing the blanket on the way. He gave it to her, his eyes averted, and she grabbed it and wrapped it around herself. She then collected the napkins and other clothes that had escaped during her attempt at washing and silently put on her shoes. Thabani climbed up onto his horse and headed in her direction, but Mandla slapped the horse’s side and with a lurch, it took Thabani home.

Welcome watched the chat between Mandla and the woman. He cupped her face to look into her eyes and she stared back at him. Apparently, content, Mandla climbed up onto his horse and considered his charge. He then pulled her up and sat her across his lap, allowing her to adjust her blanket, and then he started unhurriedly in the direction he had come.

Welcome remained in his den until the three were long gone. Then he rose at a snail’s pace, clumsily, using his good leg and arms to right himself, and inspected the area. Now that he knew where the Dlaminis and their women were, it was only a matter of time.