PREFACE

Many years ago I took a boat to Africa. I had read a book about Jane Goodall and how she studied chimpanzees. As far as I could tell, all it took was a tent, a sleeping bag, and a good supply of bananas. I cheerfully overlooked my lack of education and money. Friends told me that I was an idiot and would get eaten by lions, but I replied that Africans (most of them) do not get eaten by lions. They knew how to survive. I would simply ask them for advice.

And so, armed with ignorance and $500, I landed on the continent. I was about a thousand miles from the nearest chimpanzee, but I reasoned that Africa was full of interesting creatures. I would simply find something else. Thus began a seventeen-year adventure.

To tell all that happened would take a book ten times longer than the one you are about to read. Some of it appears in A Girl Named Disaster. Nhamo’s island is real, and so is the baboon troop. I have sat still long enough to let a baby baboon groom me, but I don’t recommend it. Those babies are strong enough to pull out all your hair. I did hide from a leopard and steal part of a leopard kill when I was low on food. I have been over every mile of Nhamo’s journey, from the village devastated by cholera to the tsetse fly camp in Zimbabwe.

I never did become a superstar scientist. Let’s face it, I don’t have what it takes. Real scientists work like demons. If there’s a party in the next village, they don’t go. If someone suggests a moonlight cruise in a canoe, they shake their heads and say, “No, thank you. I have to work.”

Alas, I discovered that parties and cruises were exactly what I wanted. And so, good-bye chimpanzees. Good-bye fame. But I don’t think my life has been wasted. After all, life itself is an ever changing, ever inspiring wonder. Perhaps all along I was meant to be a writer, although I came to it late. No other line of work is as enjoyable.

I was unsuccessful for years. Most writers are. But it didn’t matter, because I was reliving those moments when the light was exactly right, and the birds were singing their best, and the people were at their finest. That’s what writing is for. Moment slip past and are gone almost before you can appreciate them. But you can put them in a book in order to experience them again and again.

That’s what is behind A Girl Named Disaster. Nhamo sets out on her journey whenever you open the book. The lake shimmers with possibility. The door to the spirit world is always ajar, over there, in the bright haze of distance.

I hope you enjoy her adventure as much as I did.

Nancy Farmer

September 2002

CAST OF CHARACTERS

THE VILLAGE

1

Crouched on a branch of a mukuyu tree, a girl tore open a speckled fruit. She grimaced as ants scurried over her fingers. So many! And the inside was full of worms, too.

Even Nhamo, hungry as she was, couldn’t eat it. She dropped it to the ground and searched for another cluster of figs.

“Nhamo! Nhamo!” came a voice not far away. The girl rested her head against the trunk of the tree. If she was quiet, no one would find her. The thick, green leaves formed a bowl around her.

“Nhamo! You lazy girl! It’s your turn to pound the mealies,” called the voice. Footsteps trudged along the path below.

It’s always my turn, thought Nhamo. She watched Aunt Chipo disappear behind some bushes. She much preferred to sit in the shade and gather figs. Almost without thinking, she observed the dusty path below: Aunt Chipo’s footprints were short and wide, with the little toe tucked under. Nhamo could recognize the footprints of everyone in the village.

Nhamo didn’t know why she had learned this. It was simply a way to calm her spirit. Her body worked all day planting, weeding, baby-sitting, washing—oh, so many chores!—but her spirit had nothing to do. It became restless, and so she gave it work, too.

It learned how the Matabele ants carried their young at the center of a line while the soldiers ran along the outside. It learned that when Uncle Kufa pursed his lips as he was eating, he was angry at Aunt Chipo. It learned that the wind smelled one way when it blew from the stream and another when it came from the forest.

Nhamo’s spirit had to be kept very busy to keep her from losing her temper.

The other girls in the village never felt restless. Nhamo was like a pot of boiling water. “I want…I want…,” she whispered to herself, but she didn’t know what she wanted and so she had no idea how to find it.

“Nhamo!” bellowed Aunt Chipo from directly under the mukuyu tree. “Selfish, disobedient child! I know you’re up there. I can see fresh fig skins on the ground!”

Then she had to come down. Aunt Chipo switched her across the legs with a stick before dragging her back to the village.

Nhamo went to the hozi, the communal storehouse, to fetch mealies. The hozi was up on poles, and in the shade beneath was Masvita, Aunt Chipo’s oldest daughter. She was making a pot from wet clay. Nhamo squatted beside her.

“That’s beautiful,” she commented.

Masvita grinned. “The last one fell apart when it was baked. I’ve been working on this one all day.”

“It’s so nice! I’m sure it will be all right.” Nhamo stuck her finger into the reserve clay and tasted it. “Mmm! Termite nest!”

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Masvita licked some of the clay off her fingers.

“Nhamo!” shouted Aunt Chipo from her doorway.

Nhamo climbed into the hozi and selected a basket of mealie grains. She hauled it back to the kitchen hut and poured the grains into a mortar made from a tree trunk. Stamp, stamp, stamp! She pounded the mealies with a long pole until the tough outer husks came loose. It was extremely hard work. The sweat ran down into her eyes. She had to stop and retie her dress-cloth from time to time.

She rested her skinny arms whenever she dared and watched Masvita in the cool shade of the hozi. Her cousin wasn’t exactly idle, but she was never given the really difficult tasks. If a heavy pot of boiling porridge had to be lifted from the fire, Nhamo was told to do it.

Once, when she was smaller, she had dropped a pot. The scalding porridge spilled over her feet. She screamed. The other villagers ran to help her. They blew on her skin, but in spite of their care Nhamo’s feet had blistered and scarred. “Such a shame!” cried Grandmother. Aunt Chipo only remarked, “Yes, but think if it had happened to Masvita!”

Stamp, stamp, stamp! Nhamo watched her cousin in the shade of the hozi. She was beautiful, no question about it. Nhamo had seen her own face reflected in a pool. She thought she didn’t look too bad. Masvita was sweet-tempered, though, and Nhamo had to admit her own manners left a lot to be desired.

But who wouldn’t be sweet-tempered if she could sit in the shade all day?

When the husks were loosened, Nhamo poured the grain into a winnowing basket. She tossed it repeatedly until the breeze blew the chaff away. She put the crushed maize into a clay pot with water to soak overnight. She would dry and grind it into flour tomorrow.

Then Aunt Chipo sent her to fetch water from the stream. Nhamo filled the cooking pots and watered the pumpkin mounds. She weeded the fields carefully with her hoe—chop, chop, chop. Next, she collected fresh cow dung for her grandmother’s floor.

Grandmother sat in the shade outside her hut and puffed on a clay pipe. It wasn’t a nice habit for a woman, but no one dreamed of telling her so. Ambuya was old, so old! She was close to the spirit world, and everyone respected her for it. “Welcome, Little Pumpkin,” she called as Nhamo arrived.

Nhamo swept the floor with a bundle of grass and rubbed the dung in with her hands. “If only we lived when Mwari’s voice was still heard,” sighed Grandmother. “In those days, when people clapped their hands and asked God for food, pots of porridge and honeycombs came out of the earth.”

Nhamo smiled as she polished. She had heard the story dozens of times, but it didn’t matter. She liked being close to Ambuya.

“At first, the ancient kings were good,” Grandmother said, her eyes dreamy, “but gradually they became cruel. Mwari withdrew into his country to show his displeasure. He didn’t want to abandon his people entirely, so he still spoke to the spirit medium Tumbale, and Tumbale told everyone what God wanted.

“The worst king of all was called Mambo. He flew into a rage when people praised Mwari. ‘Who is this creature no one can see? How can he have more power than me?’ And Mambo hated Tumbale because he was good.

“One day all the people were gathered in a field. They were celebrating a victory against their enemies. Mambo sat on a carved chair and accepted plates of food from his wives, who approached him on their knees. Suddenly, the grass in the field began to whisper, ‘If not for Tumbale, there would be no victory.’

“‘What’s that?’ roared Mambo. ‘How dare the grass talk back to me! Set it on fire!’ The soldiers soon had it ablaze, and it burned to ashes.

“Then the trees all around began to murmur, ‘If not for Tumbale, there would be no victory.’

“ ‘Chop those trees down!’ screamed Mambo. His soldiers reduced the forest to a heap of kindling.

“The rocks began to say the same thing, so Mambo had fires kindled on them and split them into pieces. Still the voice was heard whispering, ‘If not for Tumbale, there would be no victory.’ Now it came from the king’s youngest wife.

“ ‘You traitor!’ shouted Mambo, but all the people gathered around and said, ‘Great chief, please do not blame her. She is only a child.’

“The king said, ‘Let there be an end to it. Kill her!’ The soldiers killed the girl, skinned her, and used her skin to cover a drum. They burned the body. Then Mambo had the drum beaten, but the sound disturbed the hearts of the people so much that they crouched on the ground and covered their ears. A voice came out of the wind, saying, ‘You have shamed me with your evil ways. Now feel my anger. I will send armies against you. I will reduce your houses to sand and your fields to ashes.’

“And Mwari’s voice withdrew from the people forever. Since that time people have had to work hard, and their lives have been full of strife and danger.”

Grandmother’s voice died away. Soon Nhamo heard a gentle snore from outside and she knew Ambuya had fallen asleep in her chair. She leaned against the wall of the hut and thought about the story. Imagine having your skin used to make a drum! Would your spirit know what had happened?

Nhamo knew that the spirit stayed close to one’s body, but Mambo’s poor wife had been burned. Except for the skin. Did that mean the girl lived in the drum?

“Aren’t you finished yet?” exclaimed Aunt Chipo from the door. Nhamo sighed. She washed her hands and prepared to grind the maize from yesterday. Nhamo used a flat, hollowed-out stone for a base and a smaller stone for a crusher. Crunch, crunch, crunch she went, grinding the maize into flour. All this time, Masvita had been sitting under the hozi. She had two half-completed pots sitting on wooden plates to dry.

“Come and drink maheu,” called Aunt Chipo to her daughter. Nhamo thought longingly of the cool, sour taste of the fermented mealie-water.

“What beautiful pots! We’ll have to decorate them,” said Aunt Shuvai, Chipo’s younger sister. Masvita got up gracefully and clapped to thank them. They went inside to escape the heat.

Soon it was time for Nhamo to gather firewood.

2

Most girls were afraid to gather firewood by themselves. The village was surrounded by a forest where almost anything might hide. Nhamo was afraid, too, but she had a compelling reason to venture out alone. She didn’t expect to meet elephants—although they migrated to the river at certain times of the year. She wasn’t likely to run into a buffalo—although someone had done so a few months earlier. Her most persistent worry was leopards. She feared leopards with a terror so complete that she couldn’t breathe when she thought of them.

Her mother had been killed by one when Nhamo was only three. The child was sleeping by the door of the hut, but the animal walked past her and attacked Mother instead. Grandmother rocked back and forth, wailing with grief, when she recounted the story. “In daylight, Little Pumpkin! With the sun streaming in the door, that disgusting beast killed my poor, poor daughter! It wasn’t her fault. It was that hyena-hearted husband of hers—may he fall into a nest of flesh-eating ants!”

The hyena-hearted husband was Nhamo’s father.

Nhamo couldn’t remember the tragedy, yet somewhere inside her was a memory of flowing, spotted skin and terrible claws.

Now she followed a broad path from the village to the stream. She saw women beating clothes on rocks; their round-bellied babies were deposited on a mat in the shade of a tree. A small girl watched to be sure they didn’t crawl away.

Nhamo followed the stream to an area of yellow sand where she could see the bottom clearly in both directions. No crocodile could creep up on her here. She waded across. The water came up to her shoulders. She always experienced a moment of panic in the middle because she couldn’t swim, but she planted her feet firmly in the coarse sand and struggled on. When she got to the other side, she scrambled up a rock and picked off a leech that had managed to fasten onto her ankle.

She hid behind a bush to wring out her dress-cloth. The wetness against her skin was very pleasant, but she couldn’t waste time enjoying it. Aunt Chipo would be waiting for her firewood. Even more important, Nhamo had to return before dusk.

Dusk was when the leopards came out to hunt.

She followed an old, overgrown trail for a long time until she came out into a meadow. It wasn’t a natural clearing. A few poles remained of the village that had once been there, and a few pumpkin mounds with vegetables gone wild. Nhamo wasn’t sure who had lived here. It might have been her own people, but they no longer visited the site. Masvita said the place was haunted.

With a nervous look at the shadows under the trees, Nhamo crossed the clearing and quickly gathered firewood from a deadfall in a dry streambed. That was the good thing about this place: The wood was easy to find. It took her far less time than Aunt Chipo suspected. She tied the wood into a bundle with vines and deposited it by the trail.

She climbed a hill at the edge of the deserted village. It was really only a large, round boulder, but it allowed her to see in all directions from the top. On one side was the stream and wavering smoke from her village; everywhere else was a sea of low, gray-green trees. In the distance she saw the river where the stream ended: a flat brightness at the edge of the forest.

At the very top of the hill a perfectly round and deep hole had been worn into the rock. Rain filled it in the rainy season; even now it was half-full of water. Nhamo leaned over and studied her face. She didn’t think she was ugly.

Now came the moment she was waiting for. She dragged aside a slab of stone from a smaller, dry hole in the rock. Inside were the treasures Nhamo had managed to collect. She removed pots, wooden spoons, a drinking gourd, an old cloth Aunt Chipo once used to cover her hair, and a knife Uncle Kufa had hurled into a bush when the tip broke off. (He was even angrier when he couldn’t find it again later.) She left a few things inside the hole: a precious box of matches, some glass beads that had come off Aunt Shuvai’s bracelet, some of the copper wire Uncle Kufa used to decorate his snuffboxes.

Reverently, Nhamo smoothed out the cloth and put the utensils on it. Last of all, she reached into a pot and removed—a roll of paper.

She weighted the edges down with stones. It was a picture torn out of a magazine.

Books were unheard of in Nhamo’s village, but very occasionally a magazine found its way from the distant cities of Zimbabwe. Only two men in the village could read. They retold the stories for everyone’s entertainment. The women studied the pictures of clothes and houses, gardens and cars with great interest. They tried to copy the hairstyles in the photographs. Eventually, the magazines fell apart and were used to light fires.

This picture had been on the cover, so it was of sturdier paper. The minute Nhamo had seen it, her heart beat so fast it hurt. The picture showed a beautiful woman with braided hair decorated with beads. She wore a flowered dress and a white, white apron. She was cutting a slice of white, white bread, and next to her was a block of yellow margarine.

Nhamo didn’t know what margarine was, but Grandmother told her it was even better than peanut butter.

The room behind the woman was full of wonderful things, but what interested Nhamo most was the little girl. She was wearing a blue dress, and her hair was gathered into two fat puffs over her ears. The woman smiled at her in the kindest way, and Nhamo knew the white bread and yellow margarine were meant for the little girl.

She thought the woman looked like Mother.

She couldn’t remember Mother, and of course no one had a picture of her, but the way her spirit leaped when she saw that picture told her this was how Mother had looked.

Nhamo hadn’t waited for the magazine to get old. Right away, when Aunt Chipo wasn’t looking, she’d torn off the cover and hidden it. Aunt Chipo was terribly cross. She accused her sister of doing it, but it never crossed her mind that Nhamo was responsible. What would Nhamo want with a new hairstyle, anyway?

Nhamo pretended to pour tea into the pots. She cut bread and covered it with margarine. “I climbed the mukuyu tree and got so many figs, Mai,” she said. “But they were full of worms. I had to throw half of them away. Then I saw a yellow bird—the kind that builds a basket over the water—and it ate the worms. Do you think they grow inside?”

Nhamo paused to let Mother answer.

“I didn’t think so either. I saw a swarm of bees fly overhead—oh, so many! But fortunately they didn’t land.”

Sometimes Nhamo tried to imagine her father at the tea party, but she knew almost nothing about him. He had run away before she was even born. Grandmother said he was working in a chrome mine in Zimbabwe. How she had learned this was unknown, but visitors did wander through the village from time to time. Father was at a place called Mtoroshanga and someday, Ambuya said, he would return to claim his daughter.

The thought was frightening. A stranger could merely show up and take her away from everything she’d ever known. No one would stop him. But probably—or so Aunt Chipo said—he had found himself another wife and forgotten all about his daughter by now.

Nhamo suddenly realized the light was going. Maiwee! She had been so absorbed, she had forgotten the time. Scrambling, she packed everything and dragged the lid over the hole.

She slid down the hill and tied the firewood to her back. Oho! In this light, the trail was almost invisible! The air was a strange, silvery color, and the gray-green trees melted into the sky. It was the moment when the day animals passed the night animals on their way to hunt. Nhamo listened for the stream. The air was so still she couldn’t smell it.

Sh, sh—there it was in the distance. She made more noise than usual, smashing through the bushes in her haste. All at once, she was by the stream. The surface of the water gleamed with silver light, and it was impossible to see underneath. Crocodiles liked this time of day. They floated just beneath the water, where their flat, yellow eyes could watch anything that approached.

“Oh,” whispered Nhamo. She lifted the bundle of firewood to her head and slowly approached the stream. Sh, sh went the water as it rushed along the banks. By the trail, in the bushes, was a spotted shadow. It was sitting on its haunches, barely visible in the speckled light.

Nhamo froze. Behind her was no safety. If she returned to the deserted village, the creature would only follow her. She could throw the firewood at it and hope to frighten it. Or she could wait. The villagers would come to look for her.

Or would they? Nhamo wasn’t sure.

The darkness increased. Then, quite suddenly, the strange, silvery quality of the air faded. A half-moon lit the path, and Nhamo saw that the leopard was merely a tangle of leaves by the water. It had been a trick of the light. She could even see faintly into the water. The sand lay in a pale sheet without any crocodiles floating over it.

Shaking with relief, she edged past the spot and entered the water. It felt warm now in the cool air of evening. She held the firewood up high to protect it, and presently she came up the other side and hurried toward the cook-fires beyond the trees.

3

Where have you been?” said Aunt Chipo crossly as Nhamo dumped the firewood onto the ground.

“She probably fell asleep under a tree,” Aunt Shuvai said.

Masvita was cutting up onions and tomatoes for relish. She looked up and smiled at Nhamo. “It was very hot, Mai. I dozed off myself several times.”

“The lazy thing was probably stuffing herself with wild fruit.” Aunt Chipo scowled at the worms in the figs she was preparing.

Nhamo didn’t say anything. She broke up the wood and began to feed the fire. Not far away, other women knelt by other outdoor hearths, preparing the evening meal. The men, tired from fishing, farming, and hunting, had gathered in the dare, the men’s meeting place. Now and then, laughter reached her on the cool evening breeze.

Soon the air was full of the comforting smell of food. Nhamo’s mouth watered, but she didn’t dare help herself to anything. First, the men must be fed, then Grandmother and the small children. Aunt Shuvai nursed her baby while busily shoveling porridge into the mouths of her two smallest sons. The older boys were at the dare with their father. Nhamo fed Aunt Chipo’s three smallest children, Masvita carried pots of beer to the dare, and Ruva, Masvita’s little sister, carried back empty plates. Ruva had just graduated from being hand-fed herself. She was finding it difficult to wait for dinner.

Grandmother sat contentedly smoking her pipe as Aunt Chipo, Aunt Shuvai, Masvita, Ruva, and Nhamo settled around the fire with bowls of their own.

No one spoke. Eating was much too serious. They ate mealie porridge, called sadza, with tomato, onion, and chili sauce; boiled pumpkin leaves; and okra with peanut butter. Everyone had a piece of boiled fish with some of the water for gravy. It was a good, full meal. The only thing wrong with it was the lack of salt. Salt had to be traded for from the seacoast far away, and they used it sparingly.

“Ah, that was good,” sighed Aunt Shuvai, mopping up the last of her relish with a chunk of stiff porridge.

“Nhamo, fetch the men’s bowls,” Aunt Chipo said lazily. “You can wash them outside.”

Nhamo hurried off to perform this last chore. She bowed respectfully as she entered the dare. Uncle Kufa was telling one of his favorite stories about a willful girl who insisted on running off with a strange man her parents didn’t like. “She went up the mountain with him,” said Uncle Kufa.

“Go on,” said the other men and boys, joining in with a polite response. They knew the tale, but they looked forward to the ending.

“Her husband walked too fast. He left her behind. ‘Wait!’ called the girl.”

“Go on,” said the men and boys.

“He turned back and his head began to grow. He opened his mouth wide.”

“Ah! So wide,” said the men and boys.

“He took the girl’s head in his mouth and began to swallow. Gulp, gulp, gulp. Her head went in. Her body went in. Her legs went in until she was all gone!”

“All gone!” everyone responded.

Nhamo slowly gathered the dishes. The fire in the dare crackled as a breeze came up from the stream.

“He had turned into a big snake,” Uncle Kufa said with satisfaction. “He swallowed the willful girl right down to her toes. And that is what happens to children who don’t obey their parents.”

“A true thing!” cried another man, relishing the fate of the bad girl.

“Imagine what it was like inside that snake,” Uncle Kufa said.

Nhamo shivered. She could easily imagine it.

“It happened on the flat-topped mountain a day south of here, and the girl lived in the ruined village across the stream.”

That village? thought Nhamo. Where she had poured tea for Mother? Perhaps the girl’s spirit still wandered, looking for her people. What happened to your spirit if it was swallowed by an animal? What had happened to Mother?

A rap on the side of her head made her gasp and almost drop the dishes. She saw Uncle Kufa’s cane by her knees.

“Speaking of willful girls,” said Uncle Kufa. The other men laughed. “Get back to your chores. You aren’t allowed here.”

Nhamo, burning with embarrassment, gathered up the dishes and fled. She dumped them outside the kitchen hut and fetched a pot of water. She rinsed the cooking pots but used ash and sand to get the wooden plates clean. Then she lined them up on a rack inside.

What happened to your spirit if it was eaten by an animal?

The thought had never occurred to Nhamo before. She assumed Mother’s spirit hovered near her grave, as the other ancestors did, but what if her body had been carried off by a leopard?

She found her female relatives and the children settled around Grandmother. Ambuya was telling one of her stories. Ruva sat with her thumb in her mouth. Masvita mechanically jiggled the baby as she listened. Aunt Chipo braided her oldest daughter’s hair into a new pattern she had seen in a magazine. Masvita’s skin shone with butterfat applied earlier.

They sat comfortably together, like kernels on a mealie cob. There was no space where Nhamo might fit herself in, and so she waited patiently in the doorway as Grandmother finished her tale. The others added bits of gossip from the events of the day.

Nhamo wanted badly to ask about Mother’s spirit, but didn’t know how to introduce the subject. Suddenly, she had an idea. “Ambuya, a very strange thing happened at the stream this evening,” she began.

“See how the hollow gourd rattles with stones inside it,” said Aunt Chipo.

“Oh, let her speak,” Aunt Shuvai intervened. “She’s been quiet up till now.”

“Ambuya, I was coming back from gathering wood. I was very late.”

“You’re telling me,” muttered Aunt Chipo.

“The light was bad,” Nhamo went on. “I was almost to the stream where the sand is yellow, when I saw a leopard—”

“What?” everyone cried.

She had their attention now, all right. “It was big, with terrible claws. It was watching the path. Oh, oh, I thought. How will I ever get home? I almost dropped the wood, but I said to myself, ‘I’ll throw it at the leopard. I’ll ram it into its teeth.’” Nhamo was so pleased with the unusual attention she had attracted, she began to embroider the tale.

“It growled low down in its throat—rrrrrr! Its tail lashed the grass. I thought, That leopard could swallow my bundle of sticks and still have room for me.”

Masvita’s eyes opened wide and she stopped jiggling the baby.

“Maiwee! What could I do? ‘Oh, Mother, help me,’ I cried. All at once, the moon shone brightly. It shone onto the leopard—and turned it into a bush! It was only a donkey berry bush! I kicked it hard as I went by and came straight home.” Now Nhamo planned to ask about Mother, but she became aware that the room was unnaturally quiet.

Grandmother, Aunt Chipo, Aunt Shuvai, Masvita, Ruva, and even the little children were all staring at her.

“I—I don’t think it was a good idea to kick the bush,” said Aunt Shuvai.

“A spirit leopard,” Aunt Chipo said in horror.

“The light was bad. Probably it was a bush all along,” Nhamo amended.

“No, you said it growled,” said Grandmother. “This is very serious. I must talk to the nganga about it.”

Nhamo’s heart sank. The nganga lived in the next village and didn’t do anything without being paid.

“Perhaps it was just passing through,” argued Aunt Shuvai.

“But it was waiting for Nhamo.” Aunt Chipo pulled Masvita closer.

“Mother sent it away. Her spirit is nearby, isn’t it?” Nhamo asked.

“Well, of course, Little Pumpkin.” Grandmother smiled sadly.

“I mean—I mean—” Nhamo didn’t know how to put it. “Mother was eaten by a leopard, so—her body—”

“Oh, listen to her!” exploded Aunt Chipo. “Go to bed, Nhamo, before you make Ambuya cry!”

But Grandmother was already weeping silently. She beckoned for Nhamo to sit beside her. Nhamo tucked herself in between Aunt Shuvai and Ambuya. She felt tremors of grief run through the old woman’s body.

“I should have explained before,” Grandmother said after a few moments. “Little Pumpkin, we found your mother’s bones in the forest. She was a small woman, and the leopard was able to drag her away. When someone is carried off in this way, we sacrifice a cow and lay it in the grave. This replaces the body so the spirit can return home.”

Nhamo was awestruck. Cattle were extremely valuable and they were almost never killed. How much Ambuya must have loved Mother to do that! Tears began to roll down her face, too.

“So you see, your mother was able to protect you from the spirit leopard.”

Nhamo wanted to say she had made up the part about the growl, but it was too late. Ambuya hugged her tightly. Nhamo was almost never shown affection and she liked the feeling. She didn’t want Ambuya to stop. She often wondered why her aunts didn’t like her, but it probably had something to do with Father.

No one ever talked about Father. Nhamo didn’t even know why he had run away, although she was well aware of the results. Mother had died because he hadn’t been there to protect her. Normally, a child was sent off to its father’s family if the mother died. A child’s totem, and therefore its true kinship, came from the male parent. Nhamo had not been sent away.

Sometimes she felt bad about this: Her real family would have welcomed her. At other times, such as tonight, she was content to bask in Ambuya’s affection. After all, Father’s family might be as vicious as a pack of starving hyenas. She had no way of telling.

“Time for bed,” said Aunt Shuvai.

Nhamo, Masvita, and Ruva rounded up the little girls and took them to the girls’ sleeping hut. The little boys were fetched by their older brothers.

Nhamo lay awake and tried to sort out her thoughts. Could she have been mistaken about the shadow by the stream? She was certain it was a trick of the light, but everyone else took the appearance of a spirit leopard seriously.

It was almost, she thought as she rolled a sleeping toddler back onto her own mat, as if they were expecting it to appear. And as if they were expecting it to come looking for her.

4

Very early next morning, Masvita left the girls’ hut. This was most unusual. Nhamo quickly tied her dress-cloth and went to investigate. She looked in all directions, but her cousin had already vanished. Takawira, Grandmother’s brother, was coughing and groaning in his hut. Soon he would call for someone to take him into the bushes.

Nhamo bent to study the ground. Masvita’s footprints went across the compound to Grandmother’s hut. That was a surprise! Grandmother was the only person in the village who regularly gave Masvita any chores. Her cousin usually avoided her.

“Help me!” came Takawira’s querulous voice. One of the boys appeared instantly from the boys’ hut. To hesitate when the old man needed to relieve himself was to invite disaster.

Nhamo hurried off to begin her chores. Soon she had water boiling actively in a three-legged pot. She measured tea leaves in her hand and threw them in. Tea was a luxury. Only Grandmother and Takawira drank it regularly. They liked it as sweet as possible, so Nhamo measured six spoonfuls of sugar into the pot.

Uncle Kufa and the other men traveled to a trading post to barter for tea, sugar, salt, cloth, and matches. Nhamo had never seen the place. The trading post was located where many trails from various villages converged, and once a month (she had been told) a tractor slowly made its way to the store from a tar road. It pulled a wagon piled high with goods and people who wanted to visit the villages. Uncle Kufa said a child could walk faster than the tractor, but of course it never got tired. The travelers had a good time swapping stories as they rode.

After the goods were delivered, the tractor slowly ground its way back with a load of people returning to the outside world. That was why sugar, like salt, was so rare and why, much as she wanted to, Nhamo didn’t dare take a spoonful for herself. Aunt Chipo watched the supply too closely. Nhamo contented herself with licking a few grains from her fingers. By this time Takawira was perched on the bench outside his hut.

She poured him tea.

“I want milk,” complained the old man, but unfortunately none of the cows was producing at the moment. He wrapped his old gnarled fingers around the enamelware cup.

Masvita emerged from Ambuya’s hut with Grandmother close behind. They wore broad smiles, and Masvita hurried off to the stream. Grandmother came to the fire to drink her tea. She didn’t offer any explanation, so of course Nhamo couldn’t ask her anything.

She pounced on her cousin when she found her packing a basket in the girls’ hut. “All right, what’s happening?” Nhamo said.

Masvita grinned. “I’m going to stay with Vatete.” Vatete was Uncle Kufa’s sister in the next village, five miles away.

“Whatever for?”

“I’m a mhandara now,” Masvita said proudly.

So that was it: Masvita’s first blood had shown, and she was going to stay with her father’s sister to be instructed in the secrets of womanhood. No wonder she was smiling!

Nhamo felt her mutimwi hidden under her dress-cloth. Everyone, boys and girls, wore a secret cord to protect his or her fertility. Masvita’s mutimwi would be broken with great ceremony because now she had proven her readiness to bear children.

It was hard to dislike Masvita—she was so goodnatured—but Nhamo felt a little serpent tongue of envy wriggle inside because her cousin had crossed the river into womanhood first.

“How long will you be gone?” she asked.

“Until the full moon. That way we can have a party all night,” Masvita replied.

Flicker, flicker went the little serpent tongue. Of course there would be a party with dancing and good food.

“Nhamo! Hurry up and give the little ones their breakfast,” said Grandmother as she entered the hut.

Feeding the toddlers was Masvita’s job. Ordinarily, Nhamo would have enjoyed the chore, but her pleasure was spoiled by her cousin’s triumph. She spooned the porridge with such bad grace the little ones complained and cried for Masvita. She told them to be quiet if they didn’t want a smack, and they watched her with round, accusing eyes.

Even the babies liked her cousin better! It wasn’t fair!

At midmorning, Grandmother placed the broken mutimwi and a stamping pole from one of the mortars across the doorway of Uncle Kufa and Aunt Chipo’s hut. Gravely, the parents stepped over these, to show that they accompanied their daughter on her journey to womanhood. The old mutimwi was burned, and Masvita, who was hidden in Grandmother’s hut, was presented with a new one. She wasn’t allowed to see her parents until after her visit to Vatete was over.

As soon as Masvita left, Nhamo stalked off to the deserted village. Let Aunt Chipo beat her! She didn’t care. She bent over the rock pool and studied her body. She didn’t look like a mhandara yet. Her chest was as flat as the top of a drum.

“At least I won’t have to get married soon,” she told Mother when she had laid out the utensils and picture. “Masvita will probably go to someone with two wives already. They’ll beat her when he isn’t looking.”

She listened to Mother’s reply.

“Oh, I don’t really want Masvita to suffer. Or not much,” Nhamo added honestly. “But sometimes I wish Masvita would do something bad. It would feel so good to have a reason to dislike her!” She cut slices of sponge cake and served them with ice cream. She had never seen ice, let alone ice cream.

Then she laid out a plate of fried chicken. She and Mother were going to celebrate today. They finished up with lemonade sweet enough to make their jaws ache.

“When I become a mhandara,” she announced, “I’ll get a new dress-cloth and a necklace of blue beads. I’ll have pink plastic shoes like that pair Aunt Shuvai got from the trading post. When I come back from Vatete’s house, I’ll have a party, too.”

A sudden thought struck her. Masvita’s vatete was, of course, Uncle Kufa’s sister. Who was hers?

Father must have a sister. Where was she? Not in any village Nhamo knew about.

A child belonged to its father’s family. No matter that Nhamo had spent her entire life with Mother’s relatives. When the time came for her to marry, Father would arrange the bride-price.

“Grandmother will send a message to him,” Nhamo assured Mother. “Ambuya says he is at Mtoroshanga. She must know how to call him.”

By now Nhamo’s stomach was grumbling. It was all very well to eat pretend cake and chicken, but her real stomach felt like the two sides were stuck together. She repacked her treasures, slid down the rock, and built a fire in the dry streambed. Nhamo dug around the deserted gardens until she had found several sweet potatoes to roast.

Then, driven more by thirst than by any desire to return home, she gathered a bundle of wood—to mollify Aunt Chipo—and trudged back to the stream.

She entered the village nervously. She had been gone for hours. The water pots had been neglected, the pumpkins unwatered, the mealies unstamped. Aunt Chipo would be furious! Nhamo dropped the firewood outside the cooking hut and braced herself.

But Grandmother came out instead. Aunt Chipo was squatting inside, her mouth set in a sour line. She didn’t say anything. Ambuya beckoned for Nhamo to follow her. In amazement, Nhamo saw Ruva and the other girls hauling water from the stream.

“It won’t hurt them to bend their backs for once,” Grandmother remarked. “I need my granddaughter’s company today.”

“Masvita is your granddaughter, too,” Nhamo couldn’t resist saying.

“Yes, but she’s off getting her skin oiled and her mouth sweetened with honey. Anyhow, Little Pumpkin, sometimes I find Miss Masvita just a little dull.”

Nhamo was astounded by this. It was the first time anyone had hinted Masvita might be anything less than perfect.

Grandmother took Nhamo into her hut and gave her—wonder of wonders!—lemonade with sugar. Exactly what she had pretend-given Mother.

“Your mother grew slowly,” said Ambuya, startling Nhamo out of her reverie. “I worried a great deal at the time, but people are like plants. Some shoot up like weeds, and some are slow like fruit trees. In the end, the fruit trees are worth more.”

That sounded all right to Nhamo: Masvita was a weed.

“Runako, your mother, was worth waiting for. Did you know she could read?”

Nhamo shook her head. Things were getting more surprising by the minute.

“Your grandfather and I used to live at Nyanga in Zimbabwe. It’s cold there. Ice forms on the water in winter.”

Nhamo tried to imagine it.

“Grandfather cut trees for a white farmer. Oh, such strange trees! They were tall, with leaves like needles. Every one was exactly alike, and they grew in rows like vegetables. Every week, the farmer’s wife gave us a sack of mealie meal, sugar, cooking oil, and meat. She also gave me cloth once a year and, when your mother and Chipo were old enough, school uniforms. Shuvai was still a baby.”

“What’s a un-i-form?” said Nhamo, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.

“A dress. All the girls at school wore exactly the same thing. It looked very smart to see them lined up with their faces scrubbed and their hair combed.” Grandmother sighed. She didn’t speak for a while, and Nhamo knew she was remembering. Ambuya wept when she thought of Mother, so Nhamo had always been afraid to ask questions. She was excited to learn that Mother had gone to school. Perhaps she ate ice cream, too.

“Runako was so clever! The headmaster said she could go to university someday. Chipo, on the other hand, forgot everything as quickly as possible. How different things might have been…”

Grandmother trailed off again. Nhamo sipped her lemonade slowly, to make it last. Outside, crows cawed and someone shouted at them. They must be trying to raid the garden.

“One day Grandfather was killed by a car as he was walking along a road. The farmer gave me his pay for that month—ten dollars—and turned us out of the house. His wife gave me two old dresses and a photograph of herself—I tore the picture up the minute I was out of sight! We had no house, no money, no work. This village was the only place we could survive. Runako cried when I took her books back to the school.”

Ambuya fell silent. Quite soon, she began to snore. Nhamo gently helped her lie down and stretched out on the mat herself to think.

5

Wake up,” said Masvita, shaking Nhamo. Nhamo sat up and rubbed her face to clear it of sleep. It was still dark, although the crowing of a rooster told her dawn was not far away.

“What’s the matter? Did the leopard come back?”

“No. Vatete is sick. They’re sending for the nganga.”

Nhamo got up at once. Nhamo’s village had no nganga, and sick people had to travel five miles to be treated. Vatete must be extremely ill to ask the doctor to come from her village.

“She was tired by the walk yesterday,” Masvita said as they hurried through the dark. “We had to rest every mile or so. I thought she was better last night, but she began to vomit after the party.”

By now they were at Aunt Chipo’s hut. Vatete was curled up on a mat inside, and Aunt Shuvai was wiping her face with a wet cloth. Nhamo saw at once that Vatete was extremely ill.

“Thank goodness! Nhamo, cut some thatching grass. We need it for bedding.” Aunt Shuvai dipped the cloth in water and bathed the sick woman’s arms and chest. “She’s very hot. I don’t think this is food poisoning.”

Nhamo took a sickle and hurried off. The first streaks of light were turning the clouds pink. She could see well enough, but she moved cautiously after leaving the village. No one else had seen any trace of the leopard, but Nhamo had no doubts about its existence.

Presently, she came to a stand of dry grass and sliced off as much as she could carry. When she returned, Aunt Shuvai and Masvita packed a layer under the sick woman. Aunt Chipo attempted to give her water, but Vatete only moaned and pushed her away. The sick woman was curled up in a ball as though her stomach hurt. Her face was gray and her eyes were squeezed shut.

“Don’t just stand there, Nhamo,” Aunt Chipo snapped. “Fix breakfast and feed the babies. Don’t think you’re going to sneak off to the bushes today, my girl!”

Nhamo spun around and left. She felt stung that Aunt Chipo thought she would run away during an emergency. It hadn’t escaped her notice either that she had been the one awakened to cut grass.

At least it shows they believed me about the leopard, thought Nhamo with a bleak smile. She blew last night’s coals into a flame and hauled a large pot to the fireplace.

All day she ran from one chore to another. Inside Aunt Chipo’s hut, Masvita fanned Vatete, and Nhamo’s aunts watched with expressions of great worry. Uncle Kufa sent another messenger to urge the nganga to hurry.

But at midday Aunt Chipo and Masvita suddenly broke into wild cries. Aunt Shuvai rushed out of the hut, pulling her hair. “She’s dead! She’s dead!” she wailed. She fell on her knees. Nhamo caught her emotion and began to wail, too. Other women rushed to add their cries.

Poor, poor Vatete, Nhamo thought as she rocked back and forth with her arms tightly wrapped around her chest. Only last night she was joking about roora. She was so happy!

People hurried off to carry the message to the other village. A woman poured ashes into a mortar and pounded them as she called the names of Vatete’s relatives who lived too far away to attend the funeral. “Cousin Kuda,” she cried, “Greataunt Misodzi. Uncle Tendai. Please do not be frightened. Your relative has died here. We know you would come if you could.” The ashes blew away on the wind, carrying the message.

But when evening came, grim news arrived. People were dying in the other village. Even the nganga lay in his hut, unable to rise. None of the relatives would be able to come.

“What is this illness?” Nhamo whispered to Masvita.

“Ambuya says it’s cholera,” Masvita whispered back.

Nhamo’s eyes opened very wide.

“She says we must boil our water. We must wash our hands carefully and go far from the village when we have to—”

Nhamo nodded. They would have to provide old Takawira with a pot.

“But Father”—Masvita meant Uncle Kufa—“says it’s witchcraft.”

Nhamo sucked in her breath. That meant a witch-finding ceremony. She had never seen one, but she had heard about them. The most horrible thing was that a person could be a witch and not even know. He or she—it was usually she—could ride hyenas at night and spread sickness, and in the morning she wouldn’t remember anything about it.

“There’s not much we can do until after the funeral. Vatete’s sisters are supposed to prepare the body, but for all we know they’re dead, too.” Masvita began to cry again, and Nhamo waited patiently for her to be finished. She didn’t feel like crying. She knew this showed lack of proper feeling, but she had barely known Vatete.

Aunt Chipo washed the dead woman’s body. She broke Vatete’s mutimwi and laid it aside to give to whichever female relatives might survive. This cut Vatete’s last tie with life. No longer would she tend her garden or prepare food for her family. She would not sit by the fire, nor would she clap respectfully when her husband returned from hunting. Now she belonged to the spirits and would dwell in the land of her ancestors forever.

Aunt Chipo dressed the dead woman again and wrapped her in a cloth to await the funeral.

A brooding sense of disaster hung over the village that night. The men ate silently in the dare. The women sat drawn and worried inside their huts. This death was not natural. Trouble would surely come of it.

Uncle Kufa and one of his brothers set out at first light to dig the grave. They had already selected a termite hill about half a mile away. They dug a shaft downward and then sideways in the tough clay. When they returned, they broke a hole in the side of Aunt Chipo’s hut—for the dead must not leave by the same door as the living—and carried Vatete’s body out on a litter.

The mourners followed in single file to keep witches from following them. Witches knew that many footprints meant a funeral, and they stole bodies for their own evil purposes.

Uncle Kufa laid out a mat in the grave. He placed a pot of ground millet, a packet of snuff, cooking utensils, and a calabash of beer at the top. Then Vatete was laid down on her right side with her hand under her head as though she were sleeping. Her face was uncovered. Uncle Kufa and those few blood relatives who could be present each threw a handful of sand over her. “Farewell,” they murmured. “Keep us a place in your new home, for we will surely meet again.”

Afterward, the grave was securely filled. Stones were piled on top and the sand around it was smoothed. It would be checked the following day for evidence of witchcraft.

6

Witchcraft,” whispered Masvita in the girls’ hut. The others watched her with frightened eyes. The only light came from a burning wick in a tiny bowl of cooking oil. The smell made Nhamo’s nose twitch.

“Are they sure?” said Tazviona, a large girl who had been born with a twisted foot. Nhamo knew that witches caused deformity, but no one had ever discovered who was to blame for Tazviona’s misfortune. Perhaps it was Anna, who was married to Crocodile Guts, the boatman. Anna had a nasty disposition, and everyone knew that her great-grandmother had been a witch.

“They were talking about it at the dare,” Masvita said in a low voice. “I listened outside after I brought the food. Father says witches send animals to dig up bodies.”

“They didn’t get Vatete?” cried Ruva.

“No, no. Of course not. Father surrounded the grave with branches of mutarara, wild gardenia, to confuse them.”

Nhamo thought about her young cousin. Ruva was known to sleepwalk, which could be the first sign of witchcraft. Aunt Chipo was certainly worried by the habit, and slapped her daughter whenever it happened. But it was hard to think of the little girl as a horrible witch. Anyhow, Ambuya said she would grow out of it and that they should worry more about Ruva falling over a cliff. “—especially because it was a leopard,” finished Masvita.

“What? I didn’t catch that,” Nhamo said.

“We’ve had a lot of visits from leopards recently: first the spirit animal by the stream, and then the one in the banana grove.”

“I didn’t really see a spirit leopard! It was a trick of the light.”

“It growled at you,” Masvita gently reminded her. Nhamo felt trapped. If she protested now, everyone would think she was trying to hide something.

“Will Father send for the nganga?” Ruva asked.

“The nganga isn’t good enough,” Masvita explained. “The elders are going to wait until Vatete’s relatives can visit us. Then they’ll call in a specialist.”

“The muvuki!” gasped Tazviona.

It made sense, Nhamo thought. The muvuki lived near the trading post, where he could be consulted by people from many villages. He could smell witches by their evil thoughts, and it was useless to lie to him.

“I—I heard that he got his powers in a bad way,” stammered Tazviona. The other girls eagerly bent forward. “He studied with a famous doctor in Maputo. The doctor told him to kill a close relative so he could force the spirit to serve him.”

“Ah,” sighed the girls.

“Which relative did he kill?” Nhamo asked.

“His oldest son!”

Everyone was speechless with horror. That made the muvuki very close to being a witch himself.

“I think the nganga is perfectly able to solve our problems, ” Nhamo declared. “Ambuya says witch-hunting is a way to get rid of people nobody likes. She says it’s illegal in Zimbabwe.”

Everyone looked at her in surprise. It was all right for Grandmother to say outrageous things, but not for a girl like Nhamo to repeat them.

“You’re only saying that because the leopard appeared to you,” said Tazviona.

“I am not! Ask Ambuya, if you don’t believe me.”

“Don’t shout. The elders will hear,” said Masvita.

“Of course you don’t want to admit it,” Tazviona said.

“I suppose you think I twisted your foot! I wasn’t even born when it happened.”

“Your mother was there!”

Nhamo threw herself at Tazviona, and the bigger girl punched her right in the stomach. It only made Nhamo angrier. She grabbed Tazviona’s ears and wrenched for all she was worth. “Take back what you said about Mother!” she screamed.

“She was a bad woman! Everyone knows!” Tazviona shrieked back. The other girls fell on the pair, trying to pull them apart. Ruva tipped the light over onto a sleeping mat. It flared up instantly.

Masvita kicked open the door at once and dragged the mat out before it could set the whole hut on fire. Everyone struggled outside. The mat crackled as it burned. Red gleams shone on everyone’s faces.

“You girls are a disgrace!” shouted Aunt Chipo as she ran toward them. She was followed by people from the nearby huts. “We’re all worried sick, and you have to throw temper tantrums! Bad, bad children!” She dealt out blows in all directions.

“Who was fighting?” said Uncle Kufa in a terrible voice. The girls were silent, but it was clear who had been involved. Nhamo and Tazviona were breathing heavily. Tazviona was clutching her ears; Nhamo had deep scratches on her arms. Tazviona’s mother led her off to be punished privately, and Aunt Chipo took Nhamo off to an empty storage hut.

Aunt Chipo pinned Nhamo’s head between her knees and lashed her with a leather strap until her arm was tired. “You can sleep here. You won’t find anyone but the mice to fight with!” She slammed the door shut and secured the bolt outside.

At first Nhamo barely noticed the welts Aunt Chipo had inflicted. Her spirit was too angry. But gradually, as the excitement of the fight wore off, she began to hurt. She huddled next to the wall with her knees drawn up almost to her chest. “I’m glad Tazviona’s foot is twisted,” she said to the dark hut, but almost at once Mother’s voice whispered inside her head, You don’t really think that. You’re angry because she insulted me.

“I should be angry,” Nhamo said. “You weren’t bad.”

Of course not. I’m proud of you for sticking up for me.

It was so dark Nhamo couldn’t see anything, even with her eyes wide open. If she concentrated, she could imagine Mother sitting across the room from her. Mother wore a bright blue dress and pink plastic sandals. A flowered scarf covered her hair.

Nhamo stretched out, wincing as the marks of the lash met the floor. Most girls would have been terrified to be left alone, but Nhamo rather liked it. She had never let Aunt Chipo realize this, however.

I wonder if they really will call the muvuki, she thought sleepily. Uncle Kufa might think twice after he considered how much a specialist cost. He would have to bring him from the trading post and entertain him until the judgment was given. Uncle Kufa was so stingy, he would rather eat boiled weevils than admit porridge had gone bad.

Could the muvuki really have killed his own son to get power? A man like that wouldn’t think twice about killing anyone else. What happened to the people he smelled out?

Nhamo understood that most witches were tolerated, as you might tolerate a bad dog in the neighborhood. But if someone had done something really evil—like spread cholera, for instance—wouldn’t that person be punished? Nhamo had heard a story of a witch who had her eyes poked out with a sharpened stick.

“They don’t do that anymore, do they?” she asked Mother, but Mother’s spirit had stolen away, and the hut was silent.

7

Is that basket too heavy?” Masvita asked as Nhamo carefully took a few steps.

“I don’t think so. I’ll tell you if I need help,” Nhamo said. In fact, the basket was larger than anything she had ever attempted, but Nhamo was afraid to ask her cousin to take some of the load. Masvita was so thin! She had been over the cholera for weeks, but she was still skeletal. It wasn’t from lack of food. Every time she turned around, someone tried to feed her. Aunt Chipo killed one of her precious hens and forced her daughter to eat all of it. Ambuya toasted pumpkin seeds and sprinkled them with salt.

But Uncle Kufa had made the greatest sacrifice. Accompanied by Nhamo, he went into the forest and found a wild beehive. The bees had taken up residence in an old termite nest. First Uncle Kufa checked the opening. A blackish opening would show that the hive was new, and they would have to find another one. But the opening was the color of earth. That meant the bees had had time to store honey.

Uncle Kufa sealed the hole and dug another entrance close by with a hoe. He made a smoky fire of grass and leaves to make the bees drowsy. In spite of this, when he thrust his hands into the new opening, some of the insects were alert enough to sting.

Nhamo bit the inside of her cheek as she watched. She didn’t dare get close. The tears ran down Uncle Kufa’s face as he grimly scooped out honeycombs. He placed them in a pot of water to keep the bees from finding them again.

It was Nhamo’s job to carry the pot. Her uncle’s hands were so swollen, he couldn’t pick up his hoe, so Nhamo carried that as well. They hurried away before the bees woke up.

Aunt Chipo squeezed the honey out of the combs and boiled it with millet meal to make delicious cakes. Every time Masvita showed the slightest willingness, a cake was thrust into her mouth. Still she didn’t gain weight and, most upsetting of all, her menstruation didn’t occur at the expected time.

“She’s very young,” Ambuya told Aunt Chipo. “Girls are often irregular at that age.”

“She’s sterile,” moaned Aunt Chipo. “I’ll never have grandchildren.”

Ambuya pursed her lips in annoyance.

This was why Nhamo was unwilling to share her load with Masvita, even though she suspected the heavy basket would make her neck ache. Nothing worse could happen to a woman than sterility. She felt terribly sorry for her cousin.

She hoped they would find a cure for Masvita on this journey, although it was filled with potential danger for everyone. Someone—probably a witch—was responsible for the deaths and Masvita’s condition. They were about to find out who that person was.

Masvita tied Aunt Shuvai’s baby to her back and lifted a much smaller basket to her own head. The baby had been weaned far too early and was unhappy with a diet of watery porridge and weak, sweetened beer. He cried continuously, adding to Nhamo’s gloom.

Would she ever see the village again? Nhamo had been quite wrong about Uncle Kufa’s willingness to pay the muvuki. Masvita’s condition worried him too much. She had been wrong about the specialist coming to the village as well. Common ngangas could be coaxed into making house calls, but not the muvuki. He was far too important. People had to travel to him, and they might have to wait a long time to attract his attention.

Uncle Kufa, Aunt Chipo, Ambuya, Masvita, and Nhamo waited for the others to show up. At least half the families had lost someone. The rest of the villagers would remain behind to care for the children, although Aunt Shuvai’s baby was being taken along in hopes that they could buy milk at the trading post.

Eventually, a crowd of twenty gathered, and they started off down the trail. Nhamo’s neck began to hurt after a few minutes, but she gritted her teeth and endured it. They rested frequently because Ambuya and Masvita were unable to keep up the pace.

By early afternoon they arrived at the next village, where Vatete had lived. “What kept you so long?” complained Vatete’s husband. He would be joining them on their trip to the muvuki.

“Masvita,” Uncle Kufa replied in a low voice. Vatete’s husband glanced at the wasted girl as she tottered to a log and sat down.

“That’s her? I didn’t recognize her,” he whispered to Uncle Kufa.

Nhamo took the baby from her cousin and dribbled porridge into his mouth with her hand. His skin was loose and he seemed to have already given up the battle to live.

“I suppose I should see Vatete’s children,” Masvita said in a dull voice.

“We can do that on the way back,” said Nhamo. She didn’t want her cousin to start crying. “Tell me about the trading post. It sounds so exciting.”

So Masvita described the tractor and the bolts of cloth again. She said that the Portuguese trader had a yellow-and-blue parrot in a cage. It could talk, but only in Portuguese, and it bit anyone who stuck his fingers through the bars.

They spent the night at Vatete’s village, and early the next day they moved on. Nhamo noticed that quite a few people had zangos, or charms against witchcraft. Everyone, of course, already wore the bark cords of mourning, the men around their heads and the women around their necks. The men’s faces, too, were covered with stubble because they would not be allowed to shave until the period of mourning was over. What Nhamo saw now was the sudden appearance of small red-and-blue packages containing magic roots or feathers. Aunt Chipo and Uncle Kufa each had one tied around an arm, and even Aunt Shuvai’s baby wore one around his waist.

They must have visited the nganga last night, Nhamo thought. But who are they protecting themselves against? A thrill of terror ran through her. No one had given her a charm. The sunlight grew dark before her eyes. She stumbled along with the heavy basket on her head, but she couldn’t feel the ache in her neck anymore. She couldn’t feel anything. She was the one they were worried about! She was the one they thought rode hyenas in the middle of the night.

Nhamo was so distracted, she banged into a tree. The bark cut her forehead, but she didn’t react. She stood still, dazed by her thoughts.

“Please let me take some of that,” came Masvita’s gentle voice. “Mother is carrying the baby now. I can help out.”

Nhamo didn’t protest as her cousin took some of the heavy packets of mealie meal from the basket and transferred them to the sling on her back.

“If they keep loading you like that, you’re going to grow up crooked. Here, let me tie a zango on your arm. I have more than I need.”

Hypnotized, Nhamo watched Masvita fasten a blue charm around her arm. She wiped the cut on her head with some leaves and smiled in a glassy way at her cousin.

“I think the heat’s bothering you,” said Masvita, worried.

“No, no. I’m fine.” Nhamo forced herself to continue walking. It took a while for the shock to wear off, but presently she found an explanation for what had happened. Uncle Kufa had given the zangos to Masvita, expecting her to share them with the younger girls. It made perfect sense to protect everyone from sorcery. They were visiting the muvuki, who had killed his own son to gain power. Uncle Kufa wanted to be sure they didn’t go home with more witchcraft than they arrived with.

8

Every day Nhamo saw interesting things. A group of Frelimo soldiers gave a speech outside the trading post. They told everyone the people of Mozambique must work together to build a new nation now that the Portuguese colonialists had been defeated. Nhamo had no idea what a nation was, but she listened politely. Some of the soldiers were women. They dressed in the same clothes as the men, and they swaggered around like the men, with guns slung over their shoulders.

“I wonder what kind of roora they’d bring,” remarked Uncle Kufa to Vatete’s husband.

“None at all,” he replied. “Frelimo says paying for women is bad.”

Everyone was shocked. Not pay for women? How were fathers to get back their investment in raising daughters?

“They’re no better than animals,” declared Aunt Chipo. “Marriages that haven’t been paid for can be broken like old pots.”

One night, for entertainment, the Frelimo soldiers set off flares and fired tracer bullets into the sky. The bullets flew like sparks, and the flares went right up into the stars. The explosions made Nhamo and Masvita clutch each other in alarm.

“Stupid soldiers,” muttered Ambuya. She was irritable most of the time now. Whether it was caused by the long walk or by grief, Nhamo didn’t know, but the old woman seemed to age more every day. She no longer bustled around. Instead, she sat against a tree and stared at the stream.

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 do 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.

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.

He then slowly and impressively listed all the people who had died. When each name was uttered, everyone cried, “Womba! Amazing!” He pointed at a grove of trees at the far end of the garden and abruptly entered the house.

“What happens now?” whispered Nhamo.

“That is his vukiro, his sacred grove,” Grandmother whispered back. “We must wait there until he is properly dressed.”

Everyone sat in a semicircle. Presently, the muvuki emerged, still wearing his suit but with two ceremonial cloths crossed over his chest and tied behind his back. He wore a leopard-skin cap and a necklace of small bones and glass beads. He carried a clay pot.

Is that the pot where he keeps his son’s spirit? thought Nhamo with a stab of pure terror. But the muvuki unrolled a reed mat on the ground and removed four hakata, or divining sticks, from the pot. Nhamo shivered with relief.

Following the doctor came a younger man who knelt beside him and waited. “I request my gogodzero, the opening fee,” said the muvuki. Uncle Kufa quickly took three trussedup chickens from the other villagers and laid them before the doctor.

“I will keep them for you, baba,” said the younger man. He removed the chickens to the shade of a tree nearby. So that’s one of the muvuki’s sons, thought Nhamo. I wonder what he thought when his brother was sacrificed.

Now the doctor took up two of the hakata sticks in one hand and two in the other. “These people have come to me, a son of an nganga, and want to be told who killed their relatives. Was it a mudzimu, a family spirit?” he asked. His hands opened, and the sticks fell to the mat. He quickly scooped them up, but Nhamo saw that two were faceup and two were down. She knew each stick had a patterned and a smooth side. Three of the designs were abstract. The fourth was the outline of a crocodile. She didn’t know what the symbols meant.

“Is this diagnosis true?” asked the doctor, and he let the hakata fall again. This time three were up and one down. “Zaru,” he said. “The sticks disagree. These deaths were not caused by a family spirit.”

He proceeded to ask whether the trouble was caused by a shave, a wandering spirit. He threw the hakata twice to see if they agreed. Again the answer was no. “Was an ngozi* responsible?” the doctor said. The sticks fell with three down and the fourth up, showing the crocodile. “Ngwena. Bad luck. Is this a true diagnosis?” Again the hakata fell three down with the crocodile up. “They agree! An ngozi has done this.”

“Hhhuuu,” everyone sighed. Now no one would be pointed out as a witch.

“A man has been murdered,” the muvuki went on. “His spirit wanders. He has become an ngozi without a resting place, without heirs. He seeks revenge. He is the one who slew your relatives—and that one’s father is responsible!” He pointed straight at Nhamo. She flinched back so abruptly, she fell against Masvita.

“His spirit is crying out, ‘Why did you kill me? Why is my family calling for vengeance?’”

“We paid compensation,” Ambuya objected.

“Hush, hush,” everyone murmured. Masvita helped Nhamo sit up. They clung to each other.

“Who is this who questions the hakata?” demanded the muvuki. “Is she a spirit medium? I do not recognize her.”

“Ten years ago I paid compensation. I wasn’t even a relative of the man who committed the murder, but I paid. Goré Mtoko’s father demanded ten cattle, one for each of the fingers on his son’s hands. Such a price for a tsotsi whose only skill was to prop open a door!”

“Please don’t say any more,” whimpered Aunt Chipo. Ambuya impatiently waved her daughter away.

“And did you pay ten cattle?” inquired the muvuki in a quiet voice.

Grandmother became uneasy. “Well, how could I? I didn’t have that kind of wealth. Besides, nothing would have happened if Goré hadn’t knocked Proud into the coals. They were both at fault, really.”

“And what did you pay?” The muvuki’s voice was smooth as the passage of a snake through reeds.

“Two cows,” admitted Ambuya.

“Two cows for a man’s life? Two cows for depriving someone of becoming an ancestor? Is it any wonder his spirit has returned in the form of a leopard?”

Everyone gasped.

“Oh, yes.” The muvuki smiled. “You think to hide it from me, but I know. I have seen it, Va-Nyamasatsi. Your daughter Runako was killed by a leopard, is it not so?”

“Yes,” whispered Grandmother.

“It walked into the village. It did not kill a goat or a chicken. It walked past a small child and took her mother, is it not so?”

Grandmother was unable to speak.

“Then, when this girl approached the age of womanhood, the leopard came again. It appeared to her by the water—to her alone—and it spoke to her in the banana grove by night. Its footprints were seen in the dust of graves. You all know that the totem of Goré Mtoko’s family is the leopard. The solution to this problem is very clear.”

“Aaugh!” screamed Aunt Chipo, falling to the ground. “Eh! Eh! Why did you kill me? What had I done to you? Aaugh!” She tossed from side to side, her eyes rolled back in her head. Everyone jumped up at once. Masvita dragged Nhamo away from Aunt Chipo’s writhing body.

Nhamo almost fainted from shock. Goré’s spirit had possessed her aunt! He was right there, demanding vengeance!

“I had no cloth to cover my body, no goat for the people who dug my grave! I had no food for the people who mourned me! These things I demand now!” screamed Aunt Chipo. Uncle Kufa knelt beside her and tried to wipe her face with a cloth, but she threw him back with surprising strength.

“I have no son to offer sacrifices for me! I demand vengeance! I demand the daughter of my murderer! Eeeee!” Aunt Chipo gave a heart-stopping shriek and fainted. Her body became perfectly limp as the spirit of Goré left her. Several women hurried to rub her arms and legs. Uncle Kufa asked the muvuki for a calabash of water. The doctor sent his son to the house.

Masvita was crying and trembling, but Nhamo barely noticed. She felt turned to stone. Only Grandmother maintained her self-control. She faced the muvuki squarely. “I agree that two cows was too small a payment, but after all, the murderer’s family should have handled the situation. They’re in Zimbabwe. I sent them a message telling them about the problem, but they never answered.”

The doctor’s son arrived with water, and Uncle Kufa splashed it over Aunt Chipo’s body to cool her down. She moaned and opened her eyes.

“One member of the murderer’s family is not in Zimbabwe, ” the muvuki said.

“I will send cloth and food to Goré’s family, and a cow to take the place of this girl. That, surely, will please the Mtokos.”

“We aren’t speaking of what will please the Mtokos,” the muvuki said in his smooth voice. “It’s the ngozi who has to be satisfied. Life must be given for life.”

Nhamo was jolted from her state of shock. Was the muvuki talking of sacrificing her? Surely not!

“The girl must be given to the brother of Goré Mtoko as a junior wife. As you know, she will really be the bride of the ngozi, and her first son will bear his name.”

“No! Ngozis can no longer demand human beings as payment! That custom is illegal—and it’s stupid—and cruel! I will not agree!”

“Please, Va-Ambuya. Don’t make things worse,” pleaded Uncle Kufa.

“They could hardly be any worse. Let me tell you, Muvuki. The brother of Goré Mtoko is a beast. He’s riddled with disease, and so are his miserable wives. As if I would give the child of my Runako to that animal! I would sooner die—and then you would see an avenging spirit. Not one of you would get a good night’s sleep! Let go of me!”

Several of the women present tried to hold on to Grandmother. They murmured anxious words as though they were calming an angry infant. “She isn’t well, Muvuki. Please forgive her,” one of them said.

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Grandmother shouted. “We live in modern times, and girls don’t have to be given away as slaves. What kind of doctor are you, anyway? Someone who killed his own son to gain power? Ha! Only witches do that!”

“Mother!” shrieked Aunt Chipo.

“She’s sick,” Uncle Kufa cried. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

Nhamo was dizzy with fear. The worst, the very worst thing you could call anyone was a witch. Especially when it might be true. The muvuki’s face was expressionless, but his clenched fists showed the rage that bubbled inside him. Even Grandmother seemed appalled by what she had just said.

“If there’s a witch present, she arrived this morning,” the muvuki snarled. “And if someone tries to cast a spell on me, the force of my ancestral spirits will cast it right back.” He thrust his walking stick, carved in the shape of a serpent, at Ambuya.

Nhamo screamed. She thought the heavy cane was going to smash Grandmother’s face, but it stopped a finger’s breadth away. The effect was as though the blow had actually landed, however. Ambuya’s head snapped back and she bared her teeth in a terrible parody of a smile. Then she collapsed into the arms of the women around her.

“Grandmother,” wailed Masvita.

“Get back. Let her breathe,” Uncle Kufa ordered.

The women laid Grandmother on the ground, and Aunt Chipo began rubbing her hands and feet. The muvuki’s son grabbed the calabash and ran for more water.

To Nhamo, the rest of the world seemed to disappear: All she could see was Grandmother’s face with one side crumpled and one eye open and unblinking. Nhamo closed the eye gently. She massaged Ambuya’s face and felt the teeth clenched beneath the wrinkled skin.

“Can you help her, honored doctor?” said Uncle Kufa.

“Why should I aid someone who called me a witch?” said the muvuki.

“She is the oldest person in our village. She suffers from a misguided fondness for her granddaughter, but otherwise her life has been blameless. I will pay you, of course.”

The muvuki considered. “It is a good thing to care for one’s elders. I see you are a considerate and honorable son-in-law. Very well, I will make a poultice to draw out the illness, but you will have to find someone else to carry on the treatment after you return home. This kind of sickness takes a long time to heal.”

“How long?”

“Weeks. Perhaps months.”

The muvuki returned to his house to prepare the medicine, and Uncle Kufa removed more gifts from the packs carried by the villagers. He took out two brand-new hoes, a knife with the hilt wrapped in copper wire, a length of dress-cloth, and a small amount of real money. Grandmother’s breathing was ragged, almost like snoring.

“Go on to the Portuguese trader’s house, Nhamo,” said Uncle Kufa. “Ask him to send us something to help move Ambuya.”

Nhamo hurried farther along the trail. The trader didn’t open his store until noon, so he was still sitting on his porch enjoying the cool morning breeze. He sent his assistant off at once with a stretcher. “Bring her here,” he told the man. “No leave alone with witch doctor. Maybe he cut her into steaks for dinner.” Nhamo looked so alarmed, he added, “I make joke, little Disaster. Your ambuya too tough for him anyhow.”

After a while the villagers arrived with Grandmother. The side of her face and body was plastered with a brown-gray mud. Everyone’s forehead was marked with chalk to show that the muvuki had been satisfied with his payment and that everyone had been satisfied with his diagnosis. The trader told them to put Grandmother on a bed on the covered porch.

“She’s not used to sleeping off the ground. She might fall,” whispered Nhamo.

“You watch her, then,” the trader ordered. “Me, I no sleep on the ground. Centipedes crawl up my nose and make nest.” In spite of her misery, the idea was so silly Nhamo gave him a watery smile. “That better, little Disaster. You stay by your ambuya and hit the centipedes with a stick when they show up.”

Uncle Kufa was amazed that the trader wanted no payment for keeping Grandmother, but he was quick to take him up on the offer. He assigned several women to take turns watching her.

All day they sat, keeping Grandmother’s body warm and flexing her hands and feet. By afternoon, the old woman was able to move one side of her body, but the other side remained paralyzed. She was unable to speak. There was no question of moving her until she recovered more of her strength or—Nhamo swallowed back the tears—died. At night, the women returned to the camp by the stream. Only Nhamo remained, patiently changing the cloths beneath Ambuya’s hips and dribbling water into her mouth. Finally, in the middle of the night, she was too exhausted to go on. She stretched out on a mat by the bed and, worn out by fear and misery, sank into a dreamless sleep.

10

The next day, Uncle Kufa sent Masvita, Aunt Chipo, and Aunt Shuvai’s baby to stay in Vatete’s village. Vatete’s husband and one other man went along to protect them. The rest of the villagers remained to carry Grandmother home when she was able to travel. Nhamo hugged her cousin. They both cried, and the baby, who was tied to Masvita’s back, picked up their mood and began to howl.

“He looks strong,” said Nhamo, wiping tears from her face. “Good lungs, anyway.”

“He’s beautiful,” Masvita said. “If I—if I never have babies, I’ll at least have had him.” Then she cried some more until Aunt Chipo called her away. Nhamo watched them disappear down the trail with mixed feelings. On one hand, she hated to see them go. On the other, no one else would expect her to discuss that terrible, terrible meeting with the muvuki. Uncle Kufa would make only brief visits to see how Ambuya was doing.

The other women didn’t speak to her at all, and Nhamo had plenty of time to think about her situation. Her father was a murderer. The ngozi had demanded that she marry a diseased man with several wives. Goré’s brother wouldn’t pay roora for her, so she wouldn’t have any status in her new household. The other wives would beat her. Perhaps her husband would beat her, too, to get revenge for his brother’s death. She wouldn’t see Masvita anymore, or Ruva or Grandmother—if Grandmother even lived.

The future was so bleak, Nhamo refused to think about it. She pretended that she lived on the trader’s porch instead. It was what she did in the deserted village back home. She knew, of course, that Mother didn’t really drink tea with her on top of the hill there. She knew she sat with a scrap of paper held down by pebbles—but the pictures in her mind were so real, she thought they must somehow exist. They might live in the underground country where the thrown-away animals and people went. And someday, if she could find the way, she might join them.

Nhamo applied herself to caring for Ambuya. When an unpleasant thought occurred, she shook her head to clear it out. Nothing existed for her but the trader’s house, the porch with Grandmother’s bed, and an endless present.

Three or four times a day she made up a poultice. The muvuki had provided powdered bark from a tree that had been struck by lightning. This was the correct treatment, he said, for someone who suffered from chikandiwa, or a stroke. Nhamo boiled the powder with water, soaked it in a cloth, and applied it to Grandmother’s paralyzed side. Between times, she rubbed Ambuya’s arms and legs, and told her stories. She couldn’t tell whether the old woman understood her.

The other women helped during the day, but they talked to one another and ignored Nhamo.

During the afternoon, when the trader was at work, his wife sat on the porch. She was a plump, cheerful woman called Rosa. “I used to have a Shona name, but Joao changed it when we got married,” she explained. Joao was the trader.

“Is that their custom? To change a wife’s name?”

“If she joins the church,” said Rosa. “I became a Catholic to marry Joao. You’re an excellent storyteller.”

“Thank you. Ambuya taught me.” Nhamo was pleased to have company and even more delighted with the snacks Rosa produced. Never had she encountered such food! Some of it came out of cans—delicious, oily fish, and peas already shelled and cooked. Rosa had paper packages of cookies and glass bottles full of honey. What a wonderful thing it was to be married to a storekeeper! Nhamo would have joined the church, too, to have such riches.

Other things about Catholics made her uneasy, though. Across from Rosa and Joao’s bed was a huge cross with a man nailed to it. His head was crowned with thorns. Rosa said he was called Jesus. She said bad people had murdered him, but he came back to life after three days.

“Did he get revenge on his enemies then?” inquired Nhamo.

“Oh, no! He forgave them. That’s the Christian way.”

Nhamo didn’t want to be rude, but she thought it was creepy to have a dead man on the wall of your bedroom. Also, if compensation hadn’t been paid, Jesus would have turned into an ngozi and made his enemies suffer anyway. Nhamo shook her head violently to keep from thinking about ngozis.

Slowly, Grandmother improved. She could move both sides of her body, although she was too weak to stand and she still couldn’t talk. Her eyes had expression in them now. They followed Nhamo and sometimes they welled over with tears.

“Does it hurt, Ambuya?” whispered Nhamo as she wiped the tears away. Grandmother couldn’t answer; the tears continued to flow.

One afternoon, Uncle Kufa decided the old woman was well enough to travel. “The basket maker has made a traveling chair for you, Va-Ambuya,” he said. “It hangs on long poles, which we can carry on our shoulders. You should be very comfortable.” He instructed Nhamo to have everything ready to leave the next morning.

Nhamo felt stunned as her uncle strode off. All at once, the thoughts she had pushed away came back in a rush. She wasn’t going to live on this porch forever. No one would speak to her kindly anymore or worry about her welfare. She would go to a strange house where the women would hate her and her husband would beat her. Even her own people couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

Nhamo sank to the ground and burst into wild sobs. Rosa came running from the house. “What is it? Are you hurt?” She knelt and took the girl into her arms. Nhamo wept until she was exhausted. Rosa led her into the house and made her lie down on the big bed across from Jesus.

“Drink this, little Disaster,” she whispered, holding a glass of dark red liquid to Nhamo’s mouth. Nhamo almost choked on the sweet, fiery substance, but Rosa refused to go until she finished. “Stay here. Sleep,” Rosa murmured, stroking Nhamo’s forehead.

Nhamo woke with a start later. The first thing she saw was the dead man on the wall. He was a murder victim, so he had certainly turned into an ngozi. Was he still wandering around, looking for his enemies? Nhamo rolled off the bed and crouched on the floor where Jesus couldn’t watch her. She heard voices outside, speaking Portuguese.

Her chest ached from her crying earlier. A heavy feeling of despair weighed down her arms and legs, but she realized that Ambuya needed care.

“Little Disaster!” cried the trader as she came out to the porch. He and Rosa were sitting next to Grandmother.

Nhamo was surprised. It was daytime, and the trader was supposed to work until midnight.

“I come home special for you,” Joao explained. “Rosa send message: You cry, cry. Make yourself sick. She explain better what we got in mind. Speak better Shona.”

“We know all about the muvuki. He’s an evil man!” began Rosa.

“Bad bugger ten times over,” Joao added.

“He tells people to wait, so his spies can find out their secrets. Then he pretends the spirits told him everything. It’s all lies.”

Nhamo was worried. It was dangerous to criticize the doctor. He might find out and harm Joao and Rosa.

“He always has someone at the trading post because, sooner or later, everyone goes there,” Rosa went on.

“I big fool, getting this old lady to talk. The witch doctor hear about you, Nhamo. He smack his lips, you bet. Get out the salt and pepper.” The trader nodded at Ambuya, and she watched him intently.

“We’ve met your grandmother before, when she came to trade livestock and gold,” said Rosa. “She’s a remarkable woman, intelligent and independent. Look at the way she sent your mother off to school. We know she wouldn’t want you to be an ngozi bride.”

Nhamo hung her head. It was kind of the trader and his wife to be sympathetic, but they had no idea how desperate the villagers were. They were fighting for their lives. The happiness of one girl wouldn’t concern them.

“We think—although we aren’t sure—that your mother became a Catholic before she was married. That makes you a Catholic child, Nhamo. You can’t be given away in a pagan ritual.”

Nhamo looked up, startled.

“Our little Maria die of cholera,” said Joao. “Rosa sad all the time. No have any baby. She want for you to be hers.” Rosa took Nhamo’s hands, and her eyes glistened with tears. Nhamo was astounded. Live here? With these kind people? Was it possible?

“Your ambuya would like that,” said Rosa. Nhamo looked down at Grandmother. The old woman brought her withered hands together as though she were trying to clap, the way one did to say thank you.

“Oh, Grandmother,” murmured Nhamo. She felt dazed. Could she really stay here—and talk to Rosa all day—and listen to the guitar—and eat fish from a can? She would work in the garden and kitchen—she would work day and night to make them like her! But she wouldn’t see Grandmother or Masvita anymore. And what about Mother! Would she still be able to have tea with her?

“You wouldn’t be able to see your family anyhow, if you got married,” Rosa said, understanding Nhamo’s sudden look of dismay. “You’d be nothing but a slave. Do you think your husband would let you run off on visits? Husband! How could anyone think of marrying you off? You don’t look over eleven.”

“I’m the same age as Masvita,” said Nhamo.

“Going by her, you might be as old as twelve. That’s still a shocking age to get married.”

“Uncle Kufa will never agree,” Nhamo said. She didn’t dare let herself hope for too much.

“I deal with him,” declared the trader. “I fill him up with presents. He fat as hippo by time he go home.”

11

Nhamo stared at the open door of the hut. The light outside was blinding; inside, it was cool and dark. She heard Grandmother’s steady breathing from the mat behind her.

Tomorrow was the first day of the handing-over ceremony. Beer had been brewed and the nganga from Vatete’s village had arrived. During the ceremony, he would be possessed by Goré’s spirit and would list the things it required to leave Nhamo’s family in peace. All the conditions had already been decided. The ceremony was only a formality.

The following day, Nhamo and her relatives would travel to Goré’s village for the second part of the marriage. She would wear a red cloth over her head until she sat beside the ceremonial pot shelf in her new home.

For the first time in her life she wasn’t burdened with chores from dawn to dusk. It was as though the village had already said good-bye to her. Masvita, Tazviona, and the others gathered wood and weeded the gardens. They spoke politely to Nhamo when she ventured from Grandmother’s hut, but there was already a wall between them and her. The only encouraging event was the reappearance of Masvita’s menstruation. It seemed the ngozi had forgotten some of his anger.

What would her new life be like? She knew that Goré’s brother, Zororo, had three wives already. They were all older than Aunt Chipo and so they would be jealous of her. She had seen Zororo. His hair was peppered with gray, and the whites of his eyes had turned a dull yellow. When Uncle Kufa’s hunting dog growled at him, Zororo gave the beast such a kick in the ribs that it ran yelping into the forest. Goré’s brother clearly didn’t tolerate opposition.

And what would she do about Mother? Only once, in the weeks since her return, had Nhamo gone to the ruined village. It was too disheartening! “Could I take you with me, Mai?” she asked. It might be better to leave the picture where it was. She could always imagine Mother waiting for her there.

“Little Pumpkin,” came a faint voice behind her.

Nhamo was so startled she almost screamed. She spun around and saw Grandmother watching her from the mat.

“D-did you speak, Va-Ambuya?” she quavered.

“Come here.” The old woman’s voice was low, but perfectly clear. “I don’t want anyone else to listen.”

Nhamo crouched next to the mat, trembling.

“I’ve been able to talk for several days. And to listen for much longer. I had to think about what to do.”

“D-do?” murmured Nhamo.

“I’m very, very weak,” Grandmother went on. “I doubt whether I can argue with Kufa about your marriage.”

“You know about it?”

“I remember everything, including the night we were taken from the trader’s house. I’ve had a long time to think about what Rosa said. Little Pumpkin, you might be a Catholic.”

“How can I tell?” Nhamo automatically dipped a cloth in a pot of water. She had been cooling Ambuya’s skin so often during the hot days, she hardly noticed what she was doing.

“I don’t know. But I do know the Catholics would protect you if they thought you belonged to them.”

Nhamo felt like crying. Why had Grandmother waited so long to give her this information? Any help Ambuya sent for now would come too late. She gently wiped the old woman’s face and arms with the wet cloth.

Grandmother was silent a few moments. Perhaps she had exhausted herself.

“Ambuya, would you like some food? Or should I call Aunt Chipo?”

“No!” Grandmother said with surprising strength. “The last thing I need is a fit of hysterics in this hut. My beloved child, what I have to say is for you alone.”

At the words beloved child Nhamo began to cry silently and hopelessly. Never in her life had anyone called her that.

“You must run away to the Catholics today.”

Nhamo sat up straight. Had she heard correctly? “You mean walk to the trading post by myself?”

“No. Kufa and that misbegotten brother of Goré would find you in no time. Besides, Joao and Rosa can’t protect you. They are only two against hundreds. You must go to Zimbabwe.”

“Zim-bab-we?” gasped Nhamo.

“I’ve been lying here thinking, thinking, thinking. How is it to be done? And at last the solution came to me. The stream flows down to the river—the Musengezi River. I followed it when I came from Zimbabwe. You can use it to go back.”

“I—don’t know.” Nhamo was aghast. The edge of the river was thickly forested. Not only was it difficult to walk through, but all the animals went there to drink. She would be someone’s dinner before the first day was out!

“You could take a trail, but you’d probably get lost. Besides, one girl alone wouldn’t last long.”

Exactly my idea, thought Nhamo.

“So you’ll have to take a boat. Crocodile Guts’s boat was pulled up on a sandbank when he died. I doubt whether anyone has disturbed it.”

“It’s still there,” Nhamo said.

“Good! You’re an observant girl. I’m sure you noticed how Crocodile Guts maneuvered his boat.”

Nhamo had, in fact, often watched the fisherman. Boating was one of the many things she had studied without having any clear reason to do so. He had a pole with a flat paddle that he used first on one side, then the other, to move himself along.

“When it gets dark, you pull the boat into the water and let yourself float downstream. After a while you’ll come to the Musengezi. Then you must use the paddle to force yourself against the flow. You have to go upstream, not down. When you need to rest, go toward shore and tie up to a tree. Crocodile Guts always kept a coil of rope in his boat. Be sure it’s still there. It’s perfect! You’ll be safe from animals all the way.”

Nhamo was stunned by the idea. It was so unbelievably daring! Could she really float—or row—all the way to freedom? “How will I know when I’ve gone far enough?”

“When you come to electric lights,” said Ambuya. “You’ve never seen them, but they’re bright—bright as a hundred fires! You must be very careful crossing the border, though. Don’t get out of the boat. The ground is full of land mines.” Grandmother explained about land mines, and Nhamo felt queasy.

All at once, they heard Aunt Chipo’s voice outside. Ambuya lay flat and closed her eyes. The woman brought in food and maheu. There was a special dish of treats for Nhamo. “Since it’s your last day,” Aunt Chipo explained. She lifted Grandmother’s hand, which was perfectly limp, and laid it back down with a sigh.

When they were alone again, Nhamo shared her treats with Ambuya. “I had to lie to her,” the old woman explained. “If Kufa knew I could give you advice, he might guess where you went after you escaped. I’m hoping he’ll think you went back to the trading post.” The two of them ate and talked more as if they were two girls rather than a revered elder and a child. It was like the afternoon they had listened to the guitar at the trading post.

But finally, Grandmother told her to close the door for privacy. “Move that chest at the end of my bed,” she ordered. When Nhamo had done so, Grandmother told her to dig a hole in the floor. A few inches down was a small pot. It was full of gold nuggets.

“I collected those from the stream. I used to trade them with Joao, but I’ll never do that again.”

“Don’t say that,” begged Nhamo.

“I’m only telling the truth. When I go to my ancestors, Chipo will hunt around until she finds it. She can dig up a pot of earthworms for all I care! I want you to have it.”

Nhamo poured the nuggets into her hand. They were colder and heavier than she’d expected.

“Put them into a cloth bag and tie them around your neck,” instructed Ambuya. “Don’t try to sell them without advice—ask the nuns for help.”

“At Nyanga?” said Nhamo, remembering the place her mother had gone to school.

“You won’t be able to walk that far, but there are nuns all over Zimbabwe. Just find the nearest ones and tell them you’re Catholic. They can send a letter to your father.”

Her father! Nhamo had forgotten about him. Suddenly, Grandmother’s daring plan took on reality. Nhamo had a family in Zimbabwe. She had a name: Nhamo Jongwe, member of the Jongwe clan, which might include friendly aunts and uncles and even grandparents.

“He’s as trustworthy as a rat in a grain bin, but he’s all you’ve got,” said Ambuya, spoiling Nhamo’s enthusiasm. Still, Grandmother didn’t really know Father that well. He might have a very nice family.

“Go for a walk now, Little Pumpkin. Take food from the storehouse. Get matches, a calabash, and whatever else you can manage without getting caught.”

“That’s stealing,” protested Nhamo.

“That’s survival. I, your elder, command you to do it. Now go. I’m exhausted with talking and need to sleep.” Grandmother closed her eyes and this time really dozed off. Nhamo tore a square of the red cloth she was to use for the wedding ceremony and tied the gold pieces inside.

My roora, she thought with a bitter smile. Then she set about following Ambuya’s directions.

All went with amazing smoothness. Crocodile Guts’s boat was still jammed into the reeds, and the mooring rope was still attached. Nhamo removed a sack of already ground and dried mealie meal from the storehouse. She visited Aunt Chipo’s hut and took a box of matches and a bag of beans. Here and there she went, removing odds and ends. It was wicked to steal—she knew that—but worse to disobey an elder. And so she entered into the adventure with a clear conscience. No one bothered her or even stopped to talk. She was a ghost in her own village, already seen as the bride of the ngozi.

Only Masvita gave her an uncomfortable moment. “I’ll miss you,” her cousin said tearfully as Nhamo bent over Aunt Shuvai’s baby. “I want you to know…if it doesn’t work out…if he’s cruel…come back. I couldn’t bear to see you suffer. I’ll argue with Father until he lets you stay. You’ll have to return anyway to have your first child.”

Nhamo knew that Masvita would never find the courage to argue with Uncle Kufa, but she appreciated the thought. She felt slightly guilty because she had just stolen a pot of the millet-and-honey cakes Aunt Chipo kept to fatten her daughter up.

Nhamo stored everything in the boat. In the late afternoon, she went to the ruined village and fetched Mother. “You’ll never guess what I’m going to do,” she whispered to the clay pot. “I know it seems wrong, but Grandmother commanded me to do it.”

As the shadows grew and the time for departure approached, however, Nhamo began to have second thoughts. It had been a wonderful plan when the sun was high. Ambuya had seemed full of confidence and even—if such a thing were possible with an elder—mischief.

Now the spaces between the trees filled up with blue-gray shadows as Nhamo halted by Crocodile Guts’s boat. Quelea birds flew to safety in the reeds. The moment, when day had not quite become night, held the forest enthralled. A kudu stood, one foot poised, near the water; a monkey gazed at Nhamo from his perch in a mobola plum tree. Nhamo hesitated, holding the clay pot with Mother’s picture inside.

Then the light shifted; the kudu snorted and backed away to find another path. The monkey fled. “Oh, Mother, I’m so frightened,” murmured Nhamo. She placed the pot in one end of the boat and packed grass around it for protection.

12

As usual you’ve arrived too late to help,” grumbled Aunt Chipo as Nhamo entered Grandmother’s hut. “Don’t think you’ll get away with such laziness with your new husband. He’s a man who knows what’s what.” She leaned against the wall with a bowl of sadza and relish. Masvita was carefully spooning food into Ambuya’s mouth.

“She looks better, don’t you think?” said Masvita. “I almost think she understands what we say.”

“Poor Mother! If it wasn’t for Nhamo, she wouldn’t have angered the muvuki. Well, what are you looking at, girl? I’m not going to wait on you.”

Nhamo helped herself to the pot of relish and platter of sadza next to Grandmother’s pot shelf.

“You be ready bright and early—no running off to the forest,” Aunt Chipo said.

“Please come to the girls’ hut tonight,” begged Masvita. “I’ll ask Tazviona to watch Grandmother.”

Nhamo almost choked on her sadza. “I’ll see you again, lots of times. I don’t know when I’ll see Ambuya.”

“Then I’ll stay with you,” her cousin said warmly.

“Oh, no! You won’t get any sleep,” snapped Aunt Chipo. “You have to do this one’s chores, now that she’s running off to a new home.” She made it sound as though Nhamo were marrying Goré’s brother out of spite.

Masvita made a few gentle protests and dropped the argument. “Don’t worry. I’ll come and see you as often as possible after you’re married,” she whispered. Nhamo doubted this very much. Her cousin had a kind spirit, but she was no match for her mother.

And it didn’t matter. Masvita wasn’t going to visit her in her real new home.

Nhamo hurried to perform the final chores of the day after Aunt Chipo and Masvita had left. She helped Ambuya sit up to relieve herself. She tidied the hut and made sure a water jar was close to the bed. She discovered that Grandmother could hold a cup and drink without any help at all.

“You fooled everyone,” she said with admiration.

“In a day or two I’ll magically recover.” The old woman smiled serenely.

Nhamo glanced out the dark door. “Grandmother…if I run away, won’t the ngozi punish everyone?”

Ambuya paused before she answered. “I’ve been thinking about that a long time. Many people died of cholera, not just our family. I believe Rosa was right: Goré Mtoko couldn’t be responsible for a whole epidemic.”

“But the muvuki—”

“Was wrong. I know that’s a surprise,” said Grandmother when Nhamo’s eyes widened. “You see, spirit mediums are ordinary men and women when they’re not being possessed. A few of them fake messages when they can’t manage a real one.”

Nhamo was deeply shocked.

“I’ve lived a long time, Little Pumpkin. I honor and revere ngangas; I believe they can tell us what our ancestors want, but a few—a very few—are dishonest. Now and then one is downright wicked.”

“Like the muvuki.”

“What kind of decent person would kill his own son? Really big problems, like drought or swarms of locusts or epidemics, are dealt with by the mhondoro, the spirit of the land. The muvuki’s spirit is only a flyspeck compared to it.”

Grandmother’s words were disturbing. Nhamo had never heard anyone question the authority of an nganga—except the trader and his wife. They were Catholic, so their opinion didn’t count.

An idea suddenly occurred to Nhamo. “Aunt Chipo! She was possessed by Goré’s spirit.”

“Oh, yes. Chipo,” Grandmother said bitterly. “Listen, Little Pumpkin. What I’m about to say will be upsetting, but you need to understand. Your aunt has hated you from the moment you were born. She hated your mother, too. Runako was the one everyone said was pretty. She was the one who did well in school, and the very worst thing Runako did was have a beautiful child one month before Masvita was born. It took all the attention away from Chipo.”

Beautiful. They thought I was beautiful, Nhamo said to herself.

“She’s always wanted to get rid of you, and her chance came when we visited the muvuki.”

“You mean she was lying?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

Nhamo’s world turned upside down. First Ambuya had accused the doctor of making things up, and now she said Aunt Chipo had pretended to be possessed. What could anyone believe when things like that happened?

“You can’t wait any longer,” Grandmother said softly.

“Now? I don’t want to go!”

“You have to. If I could come along…” Ambuya sighed. “Well, I can’t, and that’s that. I know all about Zororo. Believe me, you wouldn’t last a year before he either beat you to death or one of his wives poisoned you. Your only hope of survival is to go. I gave Runako her chance long ago. Now I’m giving you yours. I only wish you were older.”

“I’m frightened,” sobbed Nhamo, clinging to Grandmother.

“I know.” Ambuya smoothed her hair, and Nhamo felt a tear drop onto her head. “The journey will be the hardest thing you’ll ever do, but it will be worth it. Just think of finding your father. I don’t expect the trip will take more than two days—we’re very close to the border. Remember to push yourself against the current when you reach the Musengezi. Close to the border the river divides in two, but it doesn’t matter which branch you take. They both go to Zimbabwe.”

“What lies in the other direction?” Nhamo asked.

“Lake Cabora Bassa. The Musengezi used to flow into the Zambezi River until the Portuguese dammed it up. Now the Zambezi’s become a huge lake. You can’t even see across it.” Nhamo nodded. She had heard many tales about Lake Cabora Bassa. Ambuya gently removed her granddaughter’s arms from her neck and pushed her toward the door.

“You might get sick in the night,” Nhamo protested.

“I’ll be fine. Remember, Little Pumpkin, your mother’s spirit is watching over you. She’ll warn you of any danger.”

“I’ll never see you again!”

“Sh. Sh. Someone might hear us. If I go to my ancestors before we meet again, my spirit will come to you in a dream. I promise it.”

Nhamo felt sick with grief as she crept out. She removed the small oil lamp that lit the interior of the hut and put the wooden door in place to keep out predators. She heard Grandmother sigh as the old woman lay back down.

All around stood the dark huts of the village. A quarter moon lay low in the west, not giving enough light to tempt anyone to stay up late. Nhamo took the lamp along to light the way. Far off, in the distance, a lion roared. He was not the dangerous one, the girl knew, but his mate who padded noiselessly through the trees.

Every trickle of noise made Nhamo freeze and her body break out in sweat. Every rustle of leaves made her want to flee back to Ambuya’s arms. But it was a false safety. Besides, she had been ordered to go by her elder. “Please protect me, Mai,” she prayed as she tiptoed along.

Eventually, she pushed aside the reeds and saw Crocodile Guts’s boat floating right where she had left it. She climbed in. Oho! It swayed like a tree branch. Nhamo had never been in a boat, and she didn’t like the sensation. She lay on her stomach with her arms over the stern, untying the rope. A puddle of water in the bottom soaked her dress-cloth.

Once free, she took the oar, as she had seen Crocodile Guts do many times, and pushed herself away from shore. The boat moved! At first it edged by inches, but it drifted more swiftly as it reached the middle of the stream. Nhamo held tightly to the sides. The quarter moon was almost down.

She could see the sky over the trees. Now and then she glimpsed a round boulder or a patch of sand. Of her village there was not a trace.

In spite of her fear, Nhamo felt a little thrill of excitement. She was really doing it! She was sailing away from Zororo and his jealous wives. In two days she would arrive in Zimbabwe and ask the first people she met to find her some nuns. And then—oh, then!—they would send a letter to her father at Mtoroshanga.

Thinking happily of the aunts and uncles she was soon to have, Nhamo watched the dark shore slide by as she floated on toward the Musengezi River.

13

Nhamo woke with a start. At first she was completely confused. The floor rocked and her dress-cloth was soaked. I’m on the boat, she realized after a moment. She sat up cautiously. A faint light marked the eastern horizon, and the shoreline seemed very far away.

Fighting back a surge of panic, she scanned the water for clues as to where she might be. The current was moving much more swiftly than it had in the middle of the night. That was what had awakened her. “This must be the Musengezi,” she said aloud. Nhamo took the oar and began to paddle against the flow, first on one side, then the other, as she had seen Crocodile Guts do. But she didn’t make much headway. The river was very strong.

The light increased, and pink wisps of cloud appeared in the sky. Nhamo felt chilled by her wet dress-cloth. Surely there was more water in the boat than she remembered? Meanwhile, it took all her strength to make any progress. Her arms ached; she clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. Soon the villagers would discover her absence and search parties would go out. She would have to be either far away or hidden before anyone decided to visit the river.

The red ball of the sun appeared to her left over the gray-green smudge of the shore. Red ripples dimpled the water, and the odor of cooking fires stirred on the sluggish morning breeze. Nhamo’s chest began to hurt. She badly needed rest, and so she turned toward land.

It would have been safer to go to the farther bank—the villagers wouldn’t be able to find her—but she could barely see it. A heat haze lay over the water and hid all but the tallest rocks. Sometimes even they disappeared. Nhamo doggedly plied the oar. The trees drew closer with painful slowness. Her dress-cloth untied and fell into the murky water sloshing around her feet, but she couldn’t take the time to retrieve it. If she paused, the current rocked the boat in a frightening way.

Finally, with a last burst of energy, she drove the craft toward a stand of reeds and stood up to catch an arm of willow protruding from the water. The boat spun around. Nhamo fell back. “No, no, no, no,” she whimpered as the prow swung toward shore and crunched into a mass of acacias. Wicked-looking thorns passed within inches of her face. She stared up wildly at the branches crackling around the boat. Dust, ants, and twigs showered over her, but the trees also caught the craft and kept it from being swept away. After a few moments she felt secure enough to creep forward and tie the rope to an acacia. Then she lay still with her cheek pillowed on the soggy lump of her dress-cloth. Her body trembled with fatigue.

So much for her first attempt to sail to Zimbabwe!

Nhamo rested for a long time. The water smelled of rotten fish—an odor she had always associated with Crocodile Guts. Now it seemed to sink into her skin as thoroughly as it had permeated the fisherman. People always said you could smell Crocodile Guts before you saw him. Perhaps she, too, would advertise her presence in this way. Nhamo smiled bitterly. Would Zororo be as anxious to marry her if she smelled like a sun-ripened tiger fish?

As the heat of the day rose, Nhamo’s stomach began to churn. Her fingers wrinkled from being immersed in water and, perversely, her mouth dried up with thirst. Still, she was unwilling to move. In the distance she heard voices. They grew and then faded as the searchers combed the forest. It didn’t seem likely that anyone would venture into the acacia thicket and, fortunately, the village had possessed only a single boat.

Grandmother said that once many people had owned boats. At that time the Musengezi was a tame river. When the Portuguese dammed up the Zambezi, it pushed water back up the mouth of the Musengezi, widened it, and made it a dangerous place to sail. During the civil war, Portuguese soldiers came through the village and destroyed all the boats to keep them from being used by Frelimo. Only Crocodile Guts managed to hide his, and only he continued to fish until Frelimo took over the country.

Now, as Nhamo lay in speckled shadow and watched the ants wander over acacia thorns, she considered the implications of this story. Frelimo had defeated the Portuguese several years ago. Why hadn’t anyone rebuilt the boats? Could it be that only Crocodile Guts had the strength to maneuver against the new, strong current? Of course, the water must always have been swift, but the shore was once much more reachable. Lesser men could have managed it.

It had looked so easy when she watched the fisherman set off on his travels. It must have looked easy to Ambuya, too. For the first time a thread of doubt entered Nhamo’s mind. How did Grandmother know it took only two days to reach Zimbabwe? Perhaps it only took Crocodile Guts that long.

“Ah!” gasped Nhamo as she suddenly noticed that water had crept halfway up her body. The boat was sinking! The sacks of food were dangerously close to getting soaked, and Mother’s pot was actually floating at the far end! She twisted herself into a kneeling position, getting several bad scratches from the acacias in the process, and pulled the clay pot back. She cradled it between her knees and began bailing with her drinking calabash for all she was worth.

Oh, but she was being foolish! She had often seen Crocodile Guts do the same thing. In the morning, before he set out, he had always spent time getting rid of the night’s accumulation of water. When she recalled this, Nhamo felt better. Bailing out water was a normal activity on a boat. Crocodile Guts had sailed around safely for years, leaks and all.

Nhamo stopped to dip up clean drinking water and to nibble some of Masvita’s honey-and-millet cakes. The food made her feel immensely better.

Later, when the boat was as dry as she could manage, she took Mother out of the pot and propped her against the sack of mealie meal. “We’re going to Zimbabwe, Mai,” Nhamo said. “I’ll try to find the nuns at your school—I’m sure you’d like that. I’ll visit the place you lived and talk to your friends. Did you ever meet Father’s relatives? I hope they like me.”

Nhamo listened for Mother’s reply.

“Of course I’ll go on to Mtoroshanga. I imagine Father has a home there—Ambuya said he liked square houses.” Did chrome miners make a lot of money? Nhamo asked Mother. It would be wonderful if his place was as fine as Joao’s.

Mother told her not to expect too much.

“I have gold to help pay my way.” Nhamo jiggled the sack of nuggets tied around her neck. She put Mother away before an accident could happen, rinsed her dress-cloth over the side, and spread it out to dry. Then she stretched out naked in the speckled light and waited for late afternoon. She wanted to give everyone time to get tired of searching before she ventured into the current again.

Sometime later she perched her bottom over the side and relieved herself. The heat in the acacia thicket was overpowering. Even the ants seemed dazed by it. They sat on the thorns and waved their antennae slowly. A small, green snake slid along a branch, causing Nhamo’s heart to speed up, and disappeared into a crack in the bark. A Nephila spider spun a golden web, lazily swinging from twig to twig. It finished the beautiful pattern and settled itself at the center with blue-furred legs outspread.

By now Nhamo had to admit she was stalling for time. She was afraid to venture out onto the dangerous river again. The sun slanted lower and lower in the west. Quelea birds swooped in flocks over the water as they searched for a place to spend the night.

“I can either go home and marry Zororo,” said Nhamo to Mother in the jar, “or I can try to reach Zimbabwe. The only thing I can’t do is stay here. I wish I knew how far Zimbabwe was.”

She tied her dress-cloth as best she could while lying down in the boat, untied the rope, and pushed herself away with the oar. Ah! The minute she was free, the water had her in its grip again. She paddled vigorously. She seemed to have learned something about boats because it was easier to control her direction. Rowing was still tiring.

Nhamo kept close to shore. The sun went down, casting red gleams across the water. A hippo complained loudly from somewhere near the middle of the river. Nhamo shivered. What was its opinion of boats? Did it think she was merely a log floating upstream? Hippos were quite intelligent—and curious, unfortunately. They sometimes watched the women wash clothes. They considered anything that happened to the water to be their business.

Fortunately, this hippo floated off in the opposite direction. Its head formed a black bulge in the reddening river.

Twilight came and swiftly departed. The moon was slightly larger tonight, but still gave little light. Nhamo kept checking the dark shore on her left. She didn’t want to drift too far from land. On and on she went until her arms ached and her breath came in short gasps. It was impossible to tell how far she had traveled. The shore was lightness. No cook-fires shone beyond the trees, and there was no trace of the electric lights Grandmother had described.

Nhamo had to make for land again. This time she glided into a little bay where the current was sluggish, and tied up to what she thought was a willow. She filled her calabash and ate more of the honey-and-millet cakes. “I’ll have to go ashore to build a fire, if this journey takes much longer,” she whispered to herself. It seemed proper to whisper in the dark.

As Nhamo bailed out the boat, a strange sensation came over her. It was extremely unpleasant. For a minute she thought she was going to be sick, but then she realized that this illness came from her spirit, not her body. For the first time in her life she was completely alone.

She had been by herself in the deserted village—and when Aunt Chipo locked her into a hut for being bad—and when she went off to cook private meals. This was different. No one was waiting for her to come home, not even a bad-tempered aunt. For all the villagers knew, she was dead. Masvita would cry because her spirit might be wandering along the dark roads.

At the thought of spirits, Nhamo lay down in the boat and covered herself with as much of the dress-cloth as possible. She felt around until her fingers touched Mother’s jar. I’m not alone. Mother is with me, she thought. But the pictures that seemed so real by day were unconvincing after dark. She heard disturbing sounds in the water. Was that a crocodile swimming by? She didn’t know what they did at night. A troop of bush babies chattered as they made their way along the shore. A ground hornbill grumbled deep in its throat—hhuhh-hhuhh, hhuhh-hhuhh.

Worse than the feeling of danger was the sheer loneliness. Nhamo had never, ever, spent a night alone. She generally slept in the middle of a troop of girls. Their breathing surrounded her, their bodies warmed the air, their movements formed a barrier between her and the dark. Suddenly, without even expecting it was going to happen, Nhamo began to cry. She did it silently, to keep the creatures on the shore from hearing. Tears rolled from the corners of her eyes and soaked into her hair.

Eventually, she went to sleep with her arms around the sack of mealie meal and her nose buried in its dusty cloth.

14

She slept soundly until dawn and awoke with a feeling of hope. “I’m being silly,” she declared. “Hippos never stay long in one area. They run out of food.” She scanned the water carefully for crocodiles and then eased herself over the side for a bath. It felt wonderful! She was no longer quite as afraid of the river.

I wonder if I could learn to swim, she thought. Hippos do it. Even people swim where there aren’t crocodiles. Nhamo shivered at the thought of crocodiles. This corner of the Musengezi, however, flowed over a wide, flat expanse of stone with the remains of trees jutting out here and there. It had recently been dry land, she realized. When the Zambezi was dammed, the water had pushed up into the river and drowned part of the shoreline.

Nhamo hung on to a low-hanging branch and experimentally lifted her feet from the bottom. Oho! The branch moved! She put her feet back down quickly.

How did you keep your nose up when your body wanted to go down? Nhamo found a place where the water barely came to her knees. Here she practiced, holding on to a jutting rock and letting her body float out straight. Once she tried to let go, but panic made her claw her way back. Still, she was pleased with her progress. Eventually, her grumbling stomach told her it was time to think about breakfast.

She collected supplies and climbed onto shore. Nhamo set about making a cook-fire in a clearing next to a jumble of boulders. Not far away was a grove of muzhanje, or loquat, trees. It was too early for them to have fruit, so Nhamo paid them little attention until she noticed a stealthy noise in the dry, brittle leaves that littered the ground. She came instantly alert.

Crick-crack went the leaves. Nhamo’s heart raced. The trees lay between her and the boat. She squinted at the loquats. Their massed branches created deep shadows, among which streaks of harsh sunlight confused the image of what lay beneath. Flames caught the dry twigs of the cook-fire and smoke spiraled up, but Nhamo’s attention was riveted on the trees. The fire flared briefly and died. Crick-crack went the leaves.

She didn’t know whether she was looking for something very large or very small. Hippos were enormous, but they could glide like spirits when they wished. On the other hand, a lizard could make as much noise as an elephant.

Crick-crick-crack-crack! Nhamo was up the rocks between one breath and the next. So what if she was fleeing a lizard? No one was around to make fun of her. She scrambled higher until she was at the top of a huge boulder that leaned out over the clearing. She peered over cautiously.

Crack-crack-crick went the leaves, and out of the dappled shade came a fat guinea fowl—and another and another. It was a whole flock! They patiently hunted for seeds in the clearing.

Silently, Nhamo edged back from the cliff. She found the biggest rock she could lift.

Slowly, the guinea fowl approached the cook-fire, which was now only a drift of ashes. They found the sack of mealie meal. It was tied up, but they clearly sensed it was something they might enjoy. They clustered on top and pecked at the fabric. One of the birds wandered close to the bottom of the cliff. Nhamo slowly lifted the rock over the edge. Her arms began to tremble from the weight.

Closer, closer—ah! She lost her grip. The rock fell straight down. The guinea fowl panicked—and fluttered in the wrong direction. The rock caught it squarely on the back. The other birds blundered into the air, their heavy bodies crashing through branches as they fled.

Nhamo slid down. The guinea fowl was squashed flat as one of Masvita’s honey cakes. She cleaned it as well as she could with Uncle Kufa’s broken knife and soon had it boiling over a crackling fire. As it cooked, Nhamo made up a song. It was like the boasts the boys chanted when they wanted to show off. Girls weren’t supposed to use them, but Nhamo was so elated, she didn’t care. It went:

“I am she who lifts mountains

When she goes to hunt,

Who wears a mamba* for a headband

And a lion for a belt.

Beware!

I swallow elephants whole

And pick my teeth with rhinoceros horns.

I drink up rivers to get at the hippos.

Let them hear my words!

Nhamo is coming

And her hunger is great.”

She sang it over and over. After a while, she hauled everything back to the boat and ate as much of the guinea fowl as she could manage. She had to pick numerous fragments of bone from the stew. She ate and dozed and ate again. The only way she could store the meat was inside her round belly.

The hippos floated far and near, unmoved by Nhamo’s threats. They paid no attention to the boat or to her when, late in the day, she attempted another swimming lesson. All in all, it was a most successful day.

Still, when darkness fell, so did her spirit. “Why do I need people?” she wondered as she huddled in the damp boat. “I’m full of food and comfortable—well, fairly comfortable. I’m safe—well, fairly safe. Soon I’ll go on to Zimbabwe. But right now I wish I could see Aunt Chipo. I don’t care if she beats me. I even want to see Zororo, and he’s a pig! I don’t understand it.”

As for Ambuya and Masvita, Nhamo didn’t dare think of them. Her longing was so great, she might throw herself into the river. She fell asleep with her arms around the mealie bag. “If I eat all the grain, I’ll have to fill the bag with grass,” she told Mother. “I seem to need something to hold on to.”

15

Nhamo was walking in a strange place. It was very beautiful, with trees full of fruit. Cattle grazed in thick grass that rippled about their legs, and goats with fat udders wandered with clanking iron bells tied about their necks. On either side she saw hillocks covered with pumpkin vines, while beyond stood row upon row of ripe mealies.

She, herself, felt unusually light. Her feet barely brushed the ground, and when she jumped, her body moved through the air in a slow, dreamy fashion.

Is this Zimbabwe? No wonder Mother was sorry to leave, she thought. Nhamo followed a path that wound through the hillocks. The earth was soft beneath her feet. Presently, she came to a cluster of huts in a clearing: fine huts that looked as though they had been built yesterday. The thatching was evenly trimmed, the walls freshly plastered, the ground smooth without the print of a foot.

Two girls sat on a bench outside. Nhamo’s spirit leaped. People! And what wonderful ones! They were even lovelier than Masvita before her illness. Their skin shone with oil. Their hair was woven into an intricate pattern, more like the scales of fish than like any style Nhamo had seen. They smiled at her with even, perfectly white teeth.

“Masikati! Good day!” said Nhamo.

“Masikati!” responded the two beautiful girls.

“Have you spent the day well?”

“We have done so if you have done so,” they answered politely. Around their necks and looped over their arms were many, many strands of black beads. These rippled like drops of water when the girls moved.

“Your village is very fine,” Nhamo said, uncertain how to strike up a conversation.

“Come and eat with us,” they called. Nhamo needed no second invitation. She quickly settled herself on the ground. The girls produced plates of sadza, white as gardenias, and pots of steaming relish. Nhamo clapped in thanks before accepting a bowl.

She dredged a morsel of sadza with relish, lifted it to her mouth—and sprang to her feet, knocking everything to the ground. Crocodile Guts suddenly stood in the doorway of the dark hut!

“Maiwee! A ghost!” she cried. The girls twined around her; their long arms held her prisoner. “Please don’t hurt me,” Nhamo moaned.

“As if I would hurt you, little Disaster,” Crocodile Guts said cheerfully. He sat down on the bench and helped himself to the food. He smacked his lips and scratched his neck with long, dirty fingernails. Even in death, his hair swarmed with lice—or ghost lice.

The fisherman belched satisfyingly. “I see you have my boat, little Disaster. Well built, isn’t it? You have to remember to bail it out every morning, though. I never did get all the cracks filled.”

Nhamo felt tongue-tied. What was the polite way to address a ghost?

“I carved it out of mukwa wood,” Crocodile Guts continued. “That’s the best. The termites won’t touch it. But after many years, even a good boat gets cracks. I used to plug them with sap from the mutowa, the rubber tree. Most of the time it was easier to bail the thing out.”

“Baba…,” Nhamo began uncertainly.

“Yes, little Disaster?”

“Forgive me, baba, but aren’t you…dead?”

The fisherman roared with laughter. “Of course! Why else would I be in this fine place with two beautiful njuzu girls to wait on me?”

Njuzu! Water spirits! Nhamo felt the long arms of the girls twining around her—or were they arms? She was afraid to look.

“Most people wander on land between the time they die and the kugadzira ceremony, when their family welcomes them home,” the fisherman explained. “I was so fond of water, I came here instead.”

“I—we—are underwater?”

Crocodile Guts pointed up.

For a moment Nhamo didn’t know what she was seeing. The sky rippled as though the wind had become suddenly visible. Above hovered a small, dark shape.

“The boat!” moaned Nhamo, struggling against the girls. They slithered around her with a whispering, rustling sound. Their faces were still those of beautiful humans, but their bodies had turned into long, black snakes! Nhamo screamed. The njuzu shrugged themselves off and rippled over to Crocodile Guts.

“You mustn’t be afraid of njuzu, child. They taught me everything there is to know about water.”

But Nhamo screamed again and again, and stretched her arms toward the distant boat.

“I’m drowning!” cried Nhamo. She flailed wildly, and the sky rocked back and forth. Mother’s jar rolled on its side. In spite of her panic, Nhamo automatically grabbed it before it could fall into the water—

—in the bottom of the boat. She was still in the boat! She wasn’t drowning. It had only been a dream. Nhamo was flooded with relief. She had been soaked by the water that seeped in overnight, and that must have been what gave her the nightmare. “It was so real, Mai,” she told Mother. “Those girls…and Crocodile Guts…”

The sun was nearly overhead. “Maiwee! I’ve slept a long time!” she said, shielding her eyes from the glare.

She lay on the soggy grass bed and went over all she had heard about njuzu. They lived in bodies of water and kept these from drying out. They were far wiser than humans. For this reason, they often instructed ngangas in their craft. Occasionally, they pulled unwilling people into their pools. Sometimes they took the shapes of humans, and sometimes of snakes or fish or, if they were bent on evil, crocodiles. They could melt from one form to the other.

If the njuzu offered you food, you must refuse it or be doomed to stay forever in their watery realm. Nhamo shivered. She had come that close to eating the sadza and relish.

She sat up and looked around. A mist lay over the horizon. Only a few yards away, the river faded into a haze. She dipped her calabash over the side and noticed that the water didn’t look quite the same. The stream by the village had been clear. The Musengezi was dyed the color of tea, although it tasted perfectly clean. This water was blue-green. Or perhaps it was only the hazy light.

Nhamo remembered tying up to the reeds the night before. She crawled to the stern and pulled on the rope. It came up easily. The loop at the end had a single broken reed still attached.

Nhamo stared at the rope and then at the water. She was drifting! The motion had been so gentle, she hadn’t noticed it. I must have crossed the sandbanks into a side channel, she thought. She began to paddle against the current, but the movement was so slight she couldn’t keep track of the direction. For all she knew, she was traveling away from, not toward, Zimbabwe. “It’s better to wait until I can see the shore,” she decided.

Nhamo drank water and munched a few of the fish she had dried at the guinea-fowl camp. The clear area around the boat gradually widened out, and still she couldn’t see the edge of the river. She listened for birds, but there was only the light slap of water against the hull. The air was empty of the smell of plants or flowers. Nhamo became uneasy.

Presently, a breeze stirred. The haze dispersed, and Nhamo realized she was in a far worse situation than she could ever have imagined. The shoreline had completely vanished. This was no side channel. This wasn’t even the Musengezi. The boat had been scooped up and dropped into a boundless ocean. It had to be the country of the njuzu. “I didn’t eat the food. I didn’t!” she told the water spirits. But perhaps by merely accepting a bowl from them, she had fallen into their power.

As the breeze freshened, small ripples became wavelets; the wavelets grew into swells. Nhamo yelled when the boat began to sway. “Oh, njuzu, I didn’t mean to insult you by screaming,” she cried. “I’ve always been afraid of snakes. Please forgive my rudeness!” She begged and wept, but the boat continued to pitch, with Nhamo clinging to the sides.

When the craft leaned over, she could see right into the water. It was deep, so deep! The njuzu girls were coiled up in the depths, watching her with bright, human eyes. Mother’s pot rolled; the mealie bag shifted. Nhamo desperately opened the bag with one hand as she clung to the boat with the other. She retrieved the pot and stuffed it inside.

“I think your pool is beautiful, Spirits of the Water. I am so lucky to be allowed to see it. Please don’t drown me!” she cried. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask permission to use your boat, Va-Crocodile Guts. I didn’t know how.”

You mustn’t be afraid of njuzu, child. They taught me everything there is to know about water.

“You’re already dead,” Nhamo wailed. “You don’t have anything to be afraid of!” But her mind began to work very fast. What would Crocodile Guts do in this situation? He must have encountered it. People said he went everywhere, even Lake Cabora Bassa. She grabbed the oar. Every time the boat tipped, she tried to push it back. This didn’t work very well. Eventually, she discovered she was in less danger of capsizing if the prow faced into the waves.

Now she could slide up and down the swells without tossing the contents of the boat around. It was hard work, and the waves made her queasy. If she tried to rest, the craft swung sideways with a terrifying seesaw motion. On and on Nhamo forged, not knowing where or for how long, only that she had to keep going or die. Her head swam with fatigue; the sunlight glittering off the water made her eyes ache. She noticed a patch of whiteness ahead.

A dip in the waves revealed the top of a rock. Ah! She veered away before it could rip out the bottom of the boat. Suddenly, white foam frothed all around her as other rocks made their presence known. Nhamo was bewildered by so much danger. Directly in front of her was even more whiteness, a ring of it, and in the center a low shelf of land almost hidden in the glare of sunlight. It was an island!

Nhamo discovered she wasn’t quite out of energy. She made for the island, and when her oar struck bottom, she jumped out and dragged the craft onto shore. The boat wasn’t light. Nhamo had no idea she was strong enough to lift it, but terror gave her supernatural strength. She pulled the boat away from the foaming water and collapsed on the warm stone. Then she must have fainted, because the next thing she noticed was the sun, lying very low in the west. All around her was the slap-slap-slap of waves.

“Thank you, Va-Crocodile Guts,” she whispered. “Thank you, Va-njuzu.” She didn’t know whether they had anything to do with her rescue, but it was safer to be polite. She watched the shadow of the boat lengthen and the sunlight creep away from the rock. She sat up.

It was a very small island, hardly a man’s height above the waves at its tallest point. As far as Nhamo could see, there was not another speck of land in any direction. And her new home had not a bush or a tree or a blade of grass.

16

Nhamo stretched out with the mealie bag for a pillow. Mother’s pot was wedged into a crevice at her side. She slept heavily, without interruption. In one sense, it was the safest place she had been since she left the village. No leopards could creep up on her here. No hippos would be attracted to a grassless rock.

The wind died in the night and so, then, did the waves. A haze blotted out the stars, and when dawn came, the sky turned a milky pink. Nhamo opened her eyes briefly onto a glory of shining mist.

When she finally awoke, the sun was a furious, white ball in the east, the air already unpleasantly hot. Nhamo stood up and stretched. Hezvo!* She had never imagined so much water was possible. Twenty long steps took her from one end of the island to the other; fifteen steps took her from side to side. She hunkered down to consider the situation.

She had tied up within sight of Zimbabwe. The river had been flowing rapidly all around her, and if the rope came loose there (or was untied by an njuzu, she thought uneasily), the boat would have been rapidly swept downstream. She had slept soundly. Perhaps she had sailed all the way back past the guinea-fowl camp and the stream that went by the village.

What had Grandmother said? The Musengezi used to flow into the Zambezi River until the Portuguese dammed it up. Now the Zambezi had become a huge lake.

Lake Cabora Bassa.

You couldn’t see across Cabora Bassa. Even Crocodile Guts had approached it with caution because of the great waves that sometimes arose. Nhamo felt slightly happier that this was a real lake and not the ghostly realm of the njuzu. Still, water spirits no doubt inhabited the place, as they did any body of water.

She couldn’t stay here long, that was certain. The island was barren. Her fish trap was useless without a narrow channel, and no birds ventured this far from shore. The thought of leaving filled her with dismay. The lake was calm now, but who could say how long that would last? Meanwhile, her stomach felt as if its two sides were glued together. She ate more of the dried fish and drank as much water as she could manage. For a few moments her belly felt comfortably stretched, but the sensation quickly vanished. She was afraid to eat the uncooked mealie meal: Ambuya said raw flour swelled up inside and made your stomach burst.

Nhamo laid out the matches to dry. She unrolled Mother’s picture and saw that it had survived the journey unharmed. “Well, Mai,” she sighed. “We don’t have many neighbors in our new home—unless you count the njuzu. I imagine there are a lot of them around here. I’ll make you some tea, and we can talk.”

Nhamo pretend-boiled the tea and poured it into pots. She didn’t have the heart to cut bread and spread it with margarine. She placed the fish trap over Mother’s head so she wouldn’t get too hot.

“Grandmother told me a story once about a man who had many wives and sons, but no daughters.” Nhamo sipped her tea as though it were really hot. “The man called his sons together when he was dying. ‘I have no money to buy you wives, or daughters to exchange for them,’ he said. ‘All I have is a single black bull and the friendship of the njuzu who lives in the river.’

“You can listen, too,” Nhamo told the snake-girls under the water. “This story is about your people.

“The old man said, ‘My sons, I can give you only good advice. Before you do anything important, sprinkle mealie meal on the black bull’s head. If he shakes it off, it means I agree with your plan. I will speak through the bull. As for getting enough money for roora, you must jump into the deepest pool in the river!

“The old man died. His sons thought he was making fun of them with his advice. They planted their crops and toiled in the fields. Not one of them made enough money to buy a wife.

“One day, when they were discussing the problem, the youngest boy, who was called Useless, said, ‘Don’t you remember? Father told us to jump into the river.’

“‘You have the brain of a flea, Useless. If you jump into the river, you will drown,’ said the oldest.

“Useless went to the black bull and sprinkled mealie meal on his head. ‘O Bull of the Ancestor, I am going to jump into the river. Do you think that’s a good idea?’ The bull shook his head vigorously. ‘That means yes!’ cried the youngest son.

“‘That means we will have one less mouth to feed around here,’ replied the oldest.

“All the sons went to the river to watch Useless throw himself in. The boy sank like a stone. His brothers waited and waited. All day they waited, but Useless never returned. They went to the boy’s mother and told her what had happened.

“His mother wept and cried. She put on the bark cord of mourning and refused to cut her hair anymore. The older brothers hired themselves out to other farmers. They worked for many years to earn enough to marry the farmers’ daughters. ‘Still, we are more clever than our youngest brother,’ they said. ‘His bones are rolling around in the mud somewhere.’

“One day Useless’s mother went to the river to get water. She found a beautiful girl sitting on a rock. ‘Cut your hair and put on your finest clothes,’ the girl told the astonished woman. ‘I will give you a horn full of oil.’

“The mother didn’t understand, but she obeyed. Soon she saw a great herd of cattle, goats, and sheep approaching with many servants. Leading them was a handsome young man dressed in a lion skin and wearing a crown of reeds. On his right side hung a sword and on his left a bag. He carried an animal tail and a black horn full of oil. Behind him walked the beautiful girl who had been at the stream.

“‘Mother! Mother! Don’t you recognize me?’ called the young man. ‘I am your son, Useless!’

“‘Oh, my son! What happened to you?’

“The man explained that he had turned into a tiny fish when he threw himself into the river. He went through a crack in the rocks and found himself in an underground country as big as the earth. It had fields and cattle and houses.

“‘I lived there, Mai, with a giant snake as big as a river. Plants grew along his back, and my job was to weed them. He was the njuzu Father told us about. He told me I must eat only mud and never touch mealie meal. If I ate real food, I would be trapped forever in his country. Finally, he gave me a horn of oil to cure people and a bag of medicine. He gave me a crown of reeds and a sword to rule my brothers with. Last of all, he gave me an njuzu bride.’

“Useless had learned how to be an nganga from the water spirit. He became a great chief, and his mother, who had been mistreated by everyone, was treated like a queen from then on.”

Nhamo lay on her stomach and watched the waves lap against the shore. The wind was rising. She had been wise not to venture out in the little boat. She gathered up the matches before they could blow away, and stored Mother’s picture in the pot. When this was done, a heavy feeling of despair fell over her.

It had been all right when she was telling the story. Somehow, she was transported away. Mother had been there; even the njuzu girls had listened from their watery houses. Now she was all alone on a tiny island. The waves foamed around the shore and the rocks that lurked beneath the surface.

“If I threw myself in…,” she began. But with her luck, she wouldn’t find any underground country. She would merely drown, and her spirit would wander without any hope of rejoining her relatives.

The spray left Nhamo feeling damp and irritated. She would like a bath. It was unfair to be surrounded by bathwater and unable to use it! She squatted next to the shore and doused herself, using the calabash. Then she took out her treasures from the boat and went over them.

She had one box of matches, five pots, the calabash, Aunt Chipo’s old head scarf, the red cloth (minus a corner) she was supposed to wear for her marriage ceremony, Uncle Kufa’s broken knife, the lamp she had used to light her way from Grandmother’s hut, four wooden spoons, a few glass beads, a packet of salt, dried chilies, the bag of mealie meal, a small bag of dried beans mixed with ash to discourage weevils, and the sturdy rope Crocodile Guts had left in the boat.

And around her neck was the red cloth bag containing Ambuya’s gold nuggets.

“If I was in the village…,” Nhamo said dreamily. “Well, I wouldn’t be in the village. I’d be at Zororo Mtoko’s house. I’d be stamping mealies for his three wives. They would be sitting indoors with pots of maheu.” Nhamo imagined the sour, rich taste of maheu. Her mouth watered. “They wouldn’t give me any, oh no! They’d make me eat rotten porridge and wormy fruit.”

Nhamo closed her eyes, seeing the three angry women inside the hut. Their skin was blotched with disease. Their heads were almost bald. “Their children are rude and stupid,” Nhamo went on. She didn’t know this, but it gave her spirit pleasure to imagine it. “They fight among themselves. Zororo can hardly bear to look at them. They’re ugly, like him. He comes home drunk and swings his knobkerrie* in all directions. His wives think about putting poison in his food, but they don’t dare.”

Nhamo felt satisfied with the dismal scene she had imagined. “And I am not there! I, Nhamo, am visiting the country of the njuzu. They will tell me their secrets and send me home with cattle and goats.”

But when she opened her eyes, she was still alone in the middle of a vast lake. The lonely-sickness came over her again, and she pressed her fists to her temples to force it away.

You mustn’t be afraid of njuzu, child. They taught me everything there is to know about water.

“What can I learn, Va-Crocodile Guts?” Nhamo cried.

For one thing, swimming.

Now where had that come from? Nhamo so badly wanted to hear a voice, she wasn’t sure whether someone had actually spoken or whether she had imagined it. She considered the shoreline. The lake was shallow where she had pulled up the boat, and farther out were clusters of rocks. She waded in, keeping a sharp eye on the bottom. By slowly feeling her way around—and scrambling back onto shore when a large wave came through—Nhamo staked out a sizable area where the water reached no higher than her chest.

She perched on the island again and rewarded herself with a few tiny dried fish and a pinch of chili powder.

Njuzu took the shapes of snakes and fish and—ugh!—crocodiles, Nhamo thought. How did they move? She tried to wriggle like a snake. No, she wasn’t long and thin enough. Crocodiles floated. She knew how to do that. But they moved along by swishing their tails from side to side. She didn’t have a tail.

She tried to remember how other animals swam. Most creatures didn’t venture to try if they could avoid it. The ones that did—hippos and elephants—were too dangerous to spy on. Very occasionally, Uncle Kufa threw a stick into the stream for one of his dogs to retrieve. The dog swam back with its legs going as though it was racing across a field. It looked relieved to get back on land—not that she could blame it. Even dogs understood about crocodiles. But wait! There was one animal who swam readily, even joyfully. The otter, or binza.

Nhamo had often observed binza hunting in the stream. They skimmed along the bottom and turned over rocks to flush out frogs and fish. They caught these in their hands just like people, rose to the surface, and ate while treading water. Again and again they dove with restless energy until, sated, they bobbed around on top with their heads out of the water.

They were fascinating, but dangerous. An enraged otter would hurl itself at an enemy far larger than itself. One of Uncle Kufa’s hunting dogs had been drowned by a mother protecting two cubs.

But they certainly knew how to swim.

Nhamo waded out on the shallow shelf of rock. She practiced floating like a crocodile. She kicked her legs like an otter. She trotted like a dog running across a field. Little by little she began to understand how a creature could maneuver in such a treacherous medium. She practiced until dark, by which time she was exhausted. For dinner she had two small fish and another pinch of chili powder. She drank two calabashes of water to stretch her stomach.

Days passed; Nhamo lost count. After the dried fish were gone, she suffered from gnawing hunger for a day before a new plan occurred to her. Ambuya had told her often enough of the dangers of eating uncooked flour and beans. She no longer had a choice in the matter. She soaked a handful of mealie meal in a pot. Hopefully, if it swelled enough outside, it wouldn’t swell inside and burst her stomach.

The beans provided a more hopeful solution to the problem of food. Until now, Nhamo had only considered cooking them, but they could be soaked, too. And would begin to grow. The young plants were perfectly edible.

Why didn’t I think of it earlier? she wondered.

She changed the water frequently, but the mealie meal spoiled anyway. When she touched it with her finger, ropes of slime pulled away from its surface. Even so, Nhamo attempted to eat a small portion. It made her vomit, and she threw the rotten meal away.

The beans sprouted. She devoured them as soon as she dared and set the rest to soak. The future was too terrible to contemplate, and so Nhamo didn’t. It was like the time she had cared for Grandmother on the Portuguese trader’s porch, an endless present. She spent the day telling stories to Mother and the njuzu girls. She talked to Crocodile Guts, too, in case he was visiting down below.

When the lonely-sickness came over her, she plunged anew into the blue-green waves. Danger kept her from despair. Farther and farther out she swam. She clung to submerged rocks and lifted her head above the water. She ventured out beyond the safe shallow area. She skimmed along under the surface like an otter. As long as she kept busy, she didn’t think. But at night, in the middle of the night, she woke up without any defenses and cried hopelessly until dawn showed in the sky.

One day she didn’t have the strength to return to shore. She turned over on her back to catch her breath. The lake roared in her ears, and sunlight jagged off the waves. When she eventually regained the island, she was so overcome with dizziness, she had to lie half out of the water for a long time until her strength returned.

Nhamo couldn’t hide the facts from herself anymore. She had gone past hunger to real starvation, where the body no longer struggled against its fate. She would become progressively weaker until her arms and legs refused to move at all, and then she would die.

17

Nhamo slowly dragged the boat down to the water. She rested frequently, having no desire to reach her destination, but she couldn’t postpone the journey any longer. “It seems you insist on me visiting you, Va-njuzu,” she said bitterly as she wrestled the heavy boat over the rocks. It was early morning, when the water was generally calm. Nhamo floated the boat and walked it out of the shallows. On one side of the island was a field of dangerous rocks; on the other, as far as she could tell, was a deep, clear area.

Nhamo didn’t allow herself to think. She clambered into the boat, waited for it to stop rocking, and started out. She didn’t allow herself to look back at the island. A pinch of the precious salt and a few bean sprouts filled her with energy for a while, but it wore off.

For once, the waves remained small. Unfortunately, the still air brought a heat haze that covered the water and made it difficult to see very far. Midday came and passed. Nhamo rested and ate more beans. They rumbled inside her stomach. Long before sunset, Nhamo was too exhausted to row, so she brought the oar inside and stretched out with Aunt Chipo’s scarf over her head.

“Mother, how will my spirit return to the village if my body is at the bottom of the lake?” she asked.

Mother smiled at her over the white tablecloth, where she was spreading bread with margarine. “I got home, didn’t I? The paths of the body are long, but the paths of the spirit are short.”

“Don’t worry, little Disaster,” said Crocodile Guts, who was lounging in a chair. “You’ve got my boat. It’s made out of mukwa wood. Even the termites won’t touch it.” He scratched his head, and ghost lice crept over his fingers.

Two njuzu girls coiled up the table legs and bent gracefully over cups of tea that Mother had poured. They lapped at them with forked tongues.

Nhamo woke in the middle of the night. Mwari’s country spread out above her. It was a region of which she knew little. Nighttime was too full of danger to encourage anyone to relax and study stars. Mwari, of course, was everywhere, but his special place was the sky.

The air was still, and the boat drifted gently. Nhamo thought about the dream. She knew that her spirit wandered with the ancestors when she was asleep. It made perfect sense that Mother would speak to her, but the presence of Crocodile Guts was puzzling. He wasn’t a relative. Perhaps he was attracted by the boat.

As for the snake-girls, Nhamo would have preferred them to slither off to someone else’s dream.

Dawn came. She continued to rest. It seemed too much trouble to sit up and row. Where could she go, anyhow? The sunlight crept up behind Nhamo’s head and finally bathed her in uncomfortable heat. The air was motionless. She covered her eyes with Aunt Chipo’s scarf. Slowly, the sun rose until it shone directly on her face. She could see beads of brilliant light through the weave of the scarf.

She attempted to paddle in the afternoon, but the oar threatened to slip out of her fingers. Nhamo gave herself up to the inevitable. Now and then she drank water and nibbled the rest of the beans and salt. At night she fell into confused dreams. How long had she been out here? How many times had the sun passed overhead? It was just peeping over the rim of the boat now, although she had no memory of a dawn.

And then it came to her that the boat had been drifting in the same direction all that time. It was moving toward the rising sun, which meant the current was flowing east. All she had to do was paddle west, and eventually she would reach Zimbabwe.

Nhamo sat up. Lights flashed before her eyes and her head swam. Oh, yes! I’m going to row to Zimbabwe. I can barely move, she thought. It took a while for the fit of dizziness to pass, and then her eyes couldn’t focus. A dark smudge floated over the water.

Nhamo rubbed her eyes; the smudge didn’t go away. In fact, it became clearer as the boat floated toward it. A strip of sky separated it from the lake, but it was most definitely a patch of land with trees. A thrill of terror shot through Nhamo. Whoever heard of land floating? It had to be connected to the spirit world.

As the boat approached, the strip of sky wavered and melted away. Suddenly, Nhamo realized she was looking at an island. She grasped the oar and was swept with another fit of dizziness. No matter! She began paddling anyhow, trying to make out the island through the haze of light blurring her vision. The shoreline rose up steeply. Here was another problem! This island didn’t slope gradually into the water. She couldn’t see anywhere to tie up.

On she went, bumping now and then against rocks. Even if she did manage to tie up, she didn’t think she had the strength to climb any cliffs. Nhamo prayed to her ancestors and then, to be on the safe side, asked the njuzu for help, too. She hadn’t forgotten the strip of sky. This land might very well belong to supernatural creatures.

As she was almost past the island, she spied a giant fig tree with long roots snaking down to the water. Nhamo made for it and secured the boat. She lay down to rest.

The roots twisted and interlocked above her. They made a natural ladder and even provided places to sit and catch her breath. It was perfect. I can build a fire, Nhamo thought. I can eat. Thank you, Mother and Grandfather. Thank you, Great-grandparents. And of course you, too, Va-njuzu. And Va-Crocodile Guts. I couldn’t have done it without your boat.

Nhamo thought about what she should do to express her gratitude. Beer was what one generally offered the ancestors, but she hadn’t learned how to make it yet. She did know how to make maheu, though. She could use some of the cooked mealie meal and have it ready tomorrow.

What would the njuzu like? Here, Nhamo was completely stymied. They seemed to have plenty of food and drink in her dream. They had houses and livestock, too. Really, it was difficult to know what such powerful spirits lacked. Then she had it: They liked jewelry. The snake-girls had been covered with beads.

Nhamo hunted in her stores until she found the beads from Aunt Shuvai’s bracelet. She looked at them sadly, remembering when she had gathered them up long ago after her aunt had thrown them away. They were one of her few remaining links to the village. But she must not be cowardly. The njuzu had brought her to this island, and it would be extremely ungrateful not to repay them.

Nhamo closed her eyes and flung the beads into the lake. She heard a light patter as they struck the water. “I hope you like them,” she whispered. “They were very beautiful.”

Nhamo made ready to climb the fig-tree roots to the top of the island. She packed a cooking pot, mealie meal, and matches into the fish trap. This she tied to her back. Then she filled the calabash with water and began her journey.

Step by step, with many rests, she worked her way to the top. The most difficult job was keeping the water in the calabash. She would have to work out a better method for transporting it. Nhamo fought against dizziness, but the promise of cooked food kept her going. She finally hauled herself over the top of the cliff and stopped.

And stared, open-mouthed.

The island was covered with greenery as far as she could see—not with ordinary forest plants, but with tomatoes, mealies, and bananas. Nhamo’s eyes grew wider and wider as she took in the unbelievable scene.

“Oh! Oh! Thank you!” she cried. She fell to her knees by a banana tree and began cramming the ripe fruit into her mouth. Then she forced herself to eat more slowly. Ambuya said it was dangerous to eat too much after starving. Nhamo nibbled and waited and nibbled again. She ate some tomatoes next. They were little and egg-shaped, not like the tomatoes they grew in the village, but she had seen ones like them in the Portuguese trader’s garden.

After a while Nhamo curled up in the shade of a tree and went to sleep. She knew this was foolish—after all, she hadn’t explored the island—but she was so weak she couldn’t help herself. And besides, she thought as she snuggled into the grass, this place must belong to supernatural beings who wouldn’t allow wicked things to stay. Hadn’t it floated over the water?

She awoke shortly before sunset, found a rocky area to build a fire on, and prepared dinner. She added tomatoes for flavor. Before it got dark, she boiled water and added it to the leftover mealie meal. “I am preparing maheu for you, O vadzimu. Please understand that I am very, very grateful for your help,” she said.

Nhamo climbed down the fig roots and spent the night in the boat. The wind came up and tossed it around, but she barely noticed.

18

And yet she couldn’t bring herself to spend the night on the island. Nhamo had been over every part of it now. She was sure there weren’t any dangerous animals. It was unreasonable to return to the damp boat except to bail it out, but she felt safer there. The ruined house gave her a bad feeling. She knew that in the middle of the night, she would think about the door and what might push it the rest of the way open.

She wedged the boat between the fig-tree roots that snaked down into the water, to keep it from battering against the rocks. Even so, the waves tossed her around, sometimes violently.

Nhamo brought everything from the boat to her cooking area. She made a frame from branches and tied bundles of grass across it. This she leaned against two small trees to form a kind of shelter. With her belongings arranged at one end, she could curl up in the shade and feel almost as if she had a home.

She reserved the mealie meal for her eventual trip to Zimbabwe. Instead, she feasted on the riches the island provided. With careful management, she could live there for years, planting at the beginning of the rainy season and harvesting at its end. But of course she didn’t want to stay for years. Father’s family was in Zimbabwe. The thought of aunts and uncles and grandparents waiting for her there was cheering.

Nhamo dried chilies and roasted peanuts. Sweet potatoes and pumpkins would store for weeks or even months. She had ample food for a journey, and her supplies were limited only by the size of the boat. She made herself a grass ring for the top of her head. Now it was much easier to transport water from the lake. She had only to wedge a pot into the grass ring and climb the fig roots. Her hands were free to hold on. Years of practice kept her from spilling so much as a drop.

In the heat of the day, Nhamo sat under the lemon tree at the highest point of the island and made twine. She found young mupfuti trees, broke away the outer covering with a rock, and pulled the inner bark off in long strips. These she alternately chewed and rolled between the palm of her hand and her thigh. Her twine wasn’t as strong as Crocodile Guts’s thick rope, but it had more uses. She could make animal snares and lash together tools or thatching grass.

In the meantime, she thought about the people who had lived here. Once this had been the top of a hill where the owners of the ruined house could catch an afternoon breeze. At the front were traces of a wooden porch. Behind, near the lemon tree, Nhamo had discovered a variety of unfamiliar flowers. Rosa, too, had had a flower garden.

Nhamo closed her eyes and imagined the scene. The parents sat at a table with three—no, six—children. She felt kindly toward them, so she gave them enough offspring to be happy. They ate fish out of cans and used knives and forks. They had a nice, loud radio and a cage with a parrot.

And now they were gone.

Nhamo opened her eyes. The afternoon breeze whistled through the partly open door with a mournful, far-off sound. “They went back to Portugal,” Nhamo said firmly. The civil war had gone on for ten years, with many deaths on both sides. When it was over, many of the Portuguese had returned home. She tried to imagine the inhabitants of the ruined house in their new country, but she knew too little about it.

Sometimes the afternoon breeze turned into a real wind. The trees shook and the waves dashed against the rocks. Nhamo inched the boat out of the water. She had regained her strength, but the craft was still too heavy for her to lift. She wrestled it into the tangle of fig roots. It was safe there, but far too unstable to sleep in. At night she had to let it down again. One evening the weather was too wild to permit this.

“Now what,” said Nhamo, perched in a curl of tree root. “Hezvo! That was a big wave!” The spray blew across her face; she rubbed her eyes. Twilight didn’t last long, and already the lake had turned dark blue. The first stars were appearing in the fading light of the sunset.

Nhamo checked Crocodile Guts’s rope again and the smaller rope she had made. The boat was tied as well as she could manage, but it wouldn’t take her weight. “I’d better find a bed before it gets completely dark,” she sighed. She climbed back to the place where she did her cooking. The fire was never allowed to completely die, and it took only a moment to blow the coals into flame. The wind threatened to scatter the fire. Nhamo rolled rocks around it for a windbreak and tucked her jars, a half box of matches, and supplies into a crevice between two boulders.

She hated being so exposed! She tied the grass shelter more firmly to the trees and crept as far inside as she could manage. It was still unpleasant. The wind seemed like a live thing determined to drag her out of her hiding place. She remembered that njuzu sometimes traveled as whirlwinds.

“Please don’t carry me off,” she prayed. Far off she could hear the waves splashing and, if she concentrated, the voices of the njuzu as they went about their business in the water. Nhamo lay wakeful and nervous for a long time. After a while, she dragged another log onto the fire and retreated to her shelter to sleep.

19

I can’t stay here anymore,” she said as she feasted on bananas and roasted yams by the fire.

I agree, said Mother, who was sitting under a tree.

“I’m afraid, though. What if the wind comes up while I’m out on the water?”

You’ve got the best boat in the country, boasted Crocodile Guts from his perch on the rocks. It’s made out of mukwa wood. Even njuzu can’t sink it.

“The njuzu like you. They don’t think much of me,” pointed out Nhamo. Still, she had to admit that the snake-girls were friendlier than Long Teats.

After breakfast, Nhamo began selecting things to take with her. It would take careful planning. She didn’t know how far she had to go, but she didn’t dare load the boat too heavily. By afternoon the wind rose, and she realized it would be impossible to sleep in the lake. The thought of another night on the island was depressing, even if Long Teats was only a bad dream. “I’ll put a barrier of mutarara branches around my bed,” she decided.

Nhamo crossed the island, skirting the clearing where the Portuguese house stood. She didn’t like to go that way, but it was by far the quickest path to the sapling grove. She glanced nervously at the house and almost fainted. The door was standing wide open!

Nhamo wanted to scream. If she spent the night within reach of that open door, she would be nothing but a pile of bones and gristle by morning. “Oh, what will I do?” she moaned.

Close the door, whispered Mother.

The suggestion made sense—except when Nhamo thought about actually doing it.

The afternoon sun shone directly into the dark opening, but she couldn’t make out anything from that distance. “I’ll stay on the boat no matter how bad the waves are. If anything tries to get me, I’ll untie the rope,” she said.

I would never sail in bad weather on purpose, little Disaster, warned Crocodile Guts.

Nhamo shifted from foot to foot, staring miserably at the door. Things weren’t going to get any easier when the sun went down.

“Why don’t I get the mutarara branches first?” she suggested.

Close the door now, the voices of the njuzu girls hissed.

Nhamo walked slowly to the Portuguese house with Uncle Kufa’s knife held out in front of her. She didn’t know if knives could hurt Long Teats, but it was worth a try.

Her eyes searched the dark interior. She noticed a pile of twigs and dirt. She leaned inside to grasp the edge of the door.

What she had taken for twigs were bones.

They lay in an orderly pattern, ribs here, legs there, showing through the remains of black pants and a black shirt. The skull sat where it should, and all was arranged on a metal frame. It was a Portuguese bed like the one Joao and Rosa had owned. Nhamo couldn’t move. She stood with one hand reaching for the door and the other holding Uncle Kufa’s knife.

The wind began to pick up again, causing the cloth shreds to flutter.

What struck Nhamo, when her shock began to ebb, was the peacefulness of the scene. A small table in the shadows bore a plate and a glass, thickly covered with dust. The remains of a rug were blown against a wall. A wooden chest sat under a boarded-up window. It didn’t look like a witch’s lair. She had poured maheu to the ancestors only a few feet from here, and they had drawn near to watch. They surely wouldn’t have been comfortable in the presence of wickedness.

Nhamo lowered the knife. She took a few deep, almost sobbing breaths. Nothing awful had happened so far, but you never knew. Dead bodies were not to be approached lightly.

She squatted in the doorway and tried to sort out her thoughts.

This was a Portuguese body. It was laid out carefully, not sprawled like a murder victim. She didn’t know what Portuguese did with their dead, but they might seal them in houses, as her people occasionally did. Then the house, or hut, was left to decay. The wind had blown the door open, though, and the man—Nhamo guessed it was a man by the clothes—was upset.

She could understand that.

A witch might get interested in an unguarded body. The man’s spirit was worried, and he had sent her the dream to tell her about his fears. Nhamo suddenly understood what she had to do. “Please excuse me, Va-Portuguese,” she said, inching into the room. “I’m only trying to protect your grave.” Other rooms lay beyond the one where she stood, but Nhamo didn’t have the courage to explore them. She went to the chest under the window and looked inside.

She found more black clothes and a necklace of beads with a cross attached. Ugh! It was another portrait of Jesus-ngozi. She dropped it at once. She found books with no pictures, a tobacco pipe, bottles with beads inside. Nothing she could use.

Then she saw a glint of metal in the heap of rug fragments. It was even better than she had hoped for: It was a big, beautiful, strong panga, the perfect tool for cutting mutarara branches.

She hurried to the sapling grove before the sun got any lower. She sharpened the knife on a convenient stone and began hacking at the gardenias, scratching herself on the thorns. She worked as though possessed, and maybe she was possessed. Nhamo had never been taken over by a spirit, so she didn’t know what it felt like.

She carried branches to the house and went back for more. She wanted enough to protect herself as well. She also found, and uprooted, a small muzeze sapling covered with bright yellow flowers.

She laid gardenias across the bones and, because she thought it might scare off Long Teats, draped Jesus-ngozi on top. She closed the door tightly, placing more branches in front of it. Last of all, she used the muzeze roots to sprinkle water all around the outer walls. Nhamo had seen Ambuya do this around Aunt Chipo’s hut after Vatete’s body had been removed. It insured that wandering spirits stayed where they belonged.

Nhamo went back to her cooking area and made a barrier around the place where she intended to sleep. This, too, she sprinkled with water from the muzeze roots. By now the sun had set and the wind was again tossing the trees.

Nhamo built up the fire. She ate roasted yams and mealies. She lay down in the mutarara ring with a nice, warm feeling that everything had been done properly. “Isn’t it lucky I watched Grandmother so closely?” she congratulated herself. “I could have spent every night on the island if I’d remembered about witch repellent sooner.” And then she realized she hadn’t returned the panga to the house.

It was lying under the lemon tree, where Long Teats could find it.

“Sometimes I think I was given the right name,” Nhamo sighed. “Although Stupid would have done as well as Disaster.”

Don’t worry, Mother said kindly. The mutarara will confuse Long Teats so much, she’ll walk right over a cliff, and the wind will blow her away.

“I hope so,” murmured Nhamo. The bed was hard. If she stretched her toes out, they met the gardenia thorns. In spite of everything, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep and woke long after the sun had lifted from the edge of the lake.

20

All day Nhamo toiled, with pauses to rest and eat. When she stopped, the boat very gently drifted east. She wore a basket on her head when the sun bothered her. On and on she went, singing to pass the time, or talking to Mother, Crocodile Guts, and the njuzu. Eventually, she got so tired she couldn’t do anything except doggedly move the paddle, first on one side, then the other.

She had hoped to find land before sundown, but she didn’t. It was difficult to see when she was crammed down next to the water with all her stores. “I wish I could climb a rock,” she grumbled. The light reflected off the lake and hurt her eyes. Sometimes the horizon disappeared in a confusing glimmer that seemed to be neither earth nor sky. Nhamo found this extremely disturbing. “I think it’s the opening to the njuzu country,” she told Mother. “I don’t care what Crocodile Guts says; I intend to stay away from it.” Fortunately, no matter how vigorously she paddled, the opening never got any closer.

When it was too dark to be sure of her direction, she brought the oar inside and wriggled down between the baskets of food. She ate peanuts, roasted yams, and tomatoes. The boat gently floated back the way she had come.

Before dawn, Nhamo began again. At midmorning, she found a line of trees protruding from the water. They must have grown on top of a hill before the river was dammed. She stayed there the rest of the day, resting and treating herself to baths. She could see a definite shadow now to the north.

It was far away, hardly a smudge on the horizon, but clearly something other than water. “That must be the north shore of the lake,” Nhamo decided. “I ought to keep going west, though.” She debated the problem for the rest of the day. “It can’t make any difference whether I follow the north or south shore. I’ll still be heading for Zimbabwe.”

You’d be safer close to land, Mother agreed.

You forgot to bail out the boat again, complained Crocodile Guts. Next time I’ll lend it to someone else.

Nhamo hurried to placate the irritated fisherman.

The smudge had disappeared in haze by morning, but she soon found it again. Nhamo pressed on, watching the smudge grow into a definite strip of land. By nightfall it was still too far to reach. “Stupid water!” she shouted at the lake. “Why can’t you flow in that direction for a change?” Her legs ached with the need to walk on solid ground. Her body was hot and sticky, and she was beginning to feel hysterical.

Nhamo spent half of the next day recapturing the distance she had lost. When she still hadn’t reached the land by nightfall—it stretched away from a headland and was covered with tall trees—Nhamo burst into noisy sobs. “Nobody wants me to reach Zimbabwe. Nobody cares what happens to me!” Between fits of weeping, she ate cold cooked yams, which were beginning to taste moldy, and peanuts. Some of the peanuts had worms. She chewed them up before she realized it.

“Horrible!” she screamed, spitting out the vile mix. “Oh, I wish I was dead!” She threw herself down, beating the hull of the boat with her fists and howling insults at the lake. Eventually, she fell asleep in the remains of a tomato basket, with the juice soaking into her dress-cloth. Sometime during the night, she awoke with a strange feeling of peace.

“I don’t really think your lake is nasty,” she assured the njuzu. She didn’t want to anger them when they had been keeping the water calm.

The land was farther away at sunrise, but it looked reachable. Nhamo had something far more momentous to deal with, though. Her legs were streaked with blood. During the night she had become a woman.

“I’m a mhandara, just like Masvita,” she told Mother. She smiled at the shining water and tantalizing strip of land. She was someone important now, a future ancestor. She had proven her willingness to bear children. She wouldn’t have a party, but that didn’t take away from the importance of what had just happened. When a girl became a mhandara in the village, they said she had crossed the river into womanhood.

“I’m the only girl who ever crossed a whole lake,” Nhamo boasted. She tore the red marriage cloth into three wide strips and folded them around grass from her bedding to make pads. She held them in place with twine tied around her waist. Later she would hunt for wild cotton to use instead of grass. She began paddling with new spirit. On the way she made up a song:

“I am Nhamo, a tree full of fruit,

Not a weed.

Pay attention, little girls!

I am now a woman

And allowed to scold you.

My pots will be stronger, my baskets finer.

The roofs of my houses will not fall in.

I am Nhamo, a mighty woman

For whom crossing a measly river was not enough!”

By midday she neared the land. It should have stretched east and west, but it extended north instead. The view south was blocked by a headland. This was somewhat puzzling. “I’m probably at the mouth of a river,” Nhamo decided. She tied up to a convenient tree on a small island offshore.

Maiwee! It felt good to stretch her legs. She squatted by the water to douse herself with the calabash and to wash out her dress-cloth. Then she touched her toes and wriggled her shoulders to take the stiffness out of her body. She spent the afternoon lounging in the shade of a tree. Before dark, Nhamo hunted for a sleeping site. The lakeward edge of the island was steep enough to discourage hippos, but the landward side sloped gently into the water. As Nhamo climbed over a rock, she saw something rise from the ground and hurl itself into the lake. It was a crocodile!

She hastily retraced her steps. She had felt safe in the deep water. Now things were back to normal. She had been extremely lucky the crocodile hadn’t been watching her bathe.

Feeling irritated, she resigned herself to another uncomfortable night on the boat. The yams were definitely moldy now, and she was sick of peanuts. But she had come to land safely. And become a woman.

“All in all, it hasn’t been a bad day,” Nhamo told Mother.

21

Nhamo rounded the headland and saw, to her relief, that the shore did extend west. She paddled vigorously, looking for signs of people in the early-morning light. She sniffed the air for cook-fires. A troop of baboons trotted along the bank to observe her, and the males uttered threatening cries. Springbok, duiker, and waterbuck hid in the shadows of musasas. Shoko, vervet monkeys, leaped from tree to tree.

But there were no people. Nhamo went ashore at midday. She built a fire and boiled mealie meal with the remains of the tomatoes. She wasn’t discouraged. She had only to keep going, and eventually the huts, fields, and brilliant lights of Zimbabwe would appear. Nhamo filled one of the pots with live coals and perched it in a pool of water at the bottom of the boat. There was no use wasting matches until she knew how far she had to go.

After four days, she came to the end of the land. Nhamo was horrified. What had happened to the shore? Beyond lay nothing but featureless water. She directed the boat around a peninsula and began to paddle east. She searched the distance anxiously for the shadow that would surely connect the trees, the rocks, and the abundant animal life to the north shore. But it never appeared.

“At least the current’s with me,” she murmured as the boat slid along. She camped again and hunted for food rather than depend on her stores. As long as she kept busy, she didn’t have to think about the significance of her new direction.

Finally, after threading her way through a cluster of rocks surrounded by foam, she came again to an endless stretch of water. With a pounding heart, she turned south. When she spotted a small island at the end of a headland, she couldn’t avoid the truth any longer. There was the place she had taken a bath. There was the branch she had tied up to—the low-hanging tree was unmistakable—and yes, she even saw the same crocodile watching her with yellow, slitted eyes.

“It’s another island,” wailed Nhamo. Lake Cabora Bassa was so huge, it could contain a place this large and still give no hint of where the shore might be. “I hate you!” she screamed at the big island. “What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you in Zimbabwe where you belong?”

Snap! The boat jolted in a sickening way. Nhamo had been paddling rapidly, not paying attention. The boat had driven right onto a sharp-edged spur of rock just under the water. Nhamo wrestled it free, but water began to seep in at an alarming rate. One of Crocodile Guts’s old cracks had opened up! She had no time to waste, so she drove the craft toward the low-hanging tree. The crocodile fled into the lake as she approached. Nhamo dragged the boat out of danger and sat down to catch her breath.

“I shouldn’t have insulted the big island,” she moaned. Aunt Chipo had often scolded her for speaking without thinking first. It was always dangerous to say bad things about an unknown place. Who knew what spirits were listening?

“Well, I’ve really got myself into a mess this time,” she told Mother. “I’ve wrecked the boat, I’m nowhere near Zimbabwe, and my only neighbor is a big, hungry crocodile.”

Nhamo soon discovered she had more than one neighbor, however. As she unpacked the boat, she saw a furtive movement in the bushes. She grabbed the panga and watched the shadows with her heart pounding.

After a few moments, the bushes moved again. A shrill bark made Nhamo jump back with the knife raised over her head. This was followed by a soft churring as though someone were talking to himself. “Go away!” shouted Nhamo. The creature uttered four or five staccato cries and retreated.

It was a baboon.

Nhamo realized at once that she had a serious problem. Baboons could destroy her entire food store in a matter of minutes. Normally, she could have floated the supplies in the boat, but the crack made this impossible. “Why didn’t I see them last time I was on the little island?” she wondered. They must have been watching her from the trees.

It was still morning, so she kindled a fire from the pot of coals and roasted yams while she thought. Baboons hated to cross water, she knew. They avoided it for the same reason people did: Crocodiles lurked under the surface.

Nhamo considered the line of rocks between her and the large island. It would be just barely possible to leap from stone to stone—if you were a baboon. A person couldn’t do it. But why go to the trouble? The little island was too small to feed a troop.

Nhamo ate the yams with an uncomfortable feeling that she was being observed. She turned quickly. The bushes moved as though something had recoiled, and she hurled a rock at it.

She moodily watched the flames die down. A termite mound rose not far from where she was sitting. “I could fill the crack with clay,” Nhamo suggested.

It’s worth a try, said Mother.

“Of course, it would be better if I could bake the boat like a pot.”

Don’t you burn my mukwa wood, Crocodile Guts cried. He stood in front of the craft to protect it.

Nhamo chipped off a portion of the termite nest with Uncle Kufa’s knife, while watching carefully for the mambas that inhabited such places. She crushed the clay between two rocks and made a thick paste with water to smear over the outside of the boat. She would have to wait for the seal to dry.

“Go away!” she screamed, hurling a stone at a baboon. He had almost reached the food stores. She rained missiles at him as he scampered clumsily into a tree. He clambered to the top branches and hooted at her with a grimace of fear.

“I don’t like you either!” yelled Nhamo. She noticed that the baboon’s tail ended in a lumpy scab: Something had recently chopped it in two. His left hind paw was twisted to one side like Tazviona’s foot. It looked like a birth defect, not an injury, so it could have been caused by a witch.

Did baboons even have witches?

The longer Nhamo studied the miserable creature, the more certain she was that he was the only member of his troop on the island. He was too nervous to have companions. By now she should have heard the barks of the other animals.

He must have been chased by something extremely frightening to make him cross the water. She wondered what it was. Now he was trapped. Unless he worked up the courage to return, he would starve.

“It’s not my problem,” Nhamo said, turning her back. She applied another coating of termite mud, turned the boat over, and winced when she saw the damage caused by the spur of rock. Outside, the crack was tiny, but farther in it grew as wide as her little finger. She forced clay into the opening.

One baboon wasn’t a serious problem, especially such a timid one. He wouldn’t forage at night. The crocodile might be out after dark, but it wouldn’t be interested in her food stores. “Although I’m sure it would be delighted with me,” Nhamo said bitterly.

She built a large half-circle of fire in front of a rocky bluff. The crocodile wouldn’t attempt to crawl over hot coals. The baboon would spend the night cowering in a tree. Feeling reasonably safe, Nhamo settled down inside the half-circle of fire with her head on the shrinking mealie bag. She stared up at the stars as she thought of a story to tell Mother, whose jar rested at the base of the cliff with the rest of Nhamo’s belongings.

“Once upon a time there was a man with two wives. The senior wife, whose totem was the baboon, gave birth to many daughters. But the junior wife, whose totem was the zebra, gave birth to many sons. Because of this, everyone treated the junior wife with greater kindness and respect. The senior wife was so unhappy, she became thin as a rake.

“In our family,” Nhamo remarked to Mother, “Grandmother had only daughters, and no one complained about it.” At the thought of Ambuya, Nhamo felt such a wave of lonely-sickness sweep over her, she had to swallow hard several times to keep from crying out loud.

“One day,” Nhamo said when she had recovered, “a hen belonging to the junior wife wandered into the senior wife’s hut and broke three pots. ‘Eh! See what your animal has done,’ the older woman cried. ‘An ordinary chicken wouldn’t hunt out my things to break them. A witch must have trained it!’

“‘What kind of family do you come from?’ retorted the younger woman. ‘Your father begged on the roads, and your mother’s roora was a basket of stale millet! My roora was a herd of fine cows.’

“‘Be quiet! You bring shame upon us all with your fighting,’ the wives were scolded by the oldest woman in the village.

“The two wives went into their huts to sulk, but the next day the older woman sang a loud song as she ground mealies into flour:

“Why am I plagued with someone

Whose mother is a witch,

Who scoops up water with the tail of a hyena?

Ihe! Ihe! Her ears are round as dinner plates,

And her skin feels like the bark of a tree!”

“The junior wife heard the words, as she was meant to do, and became very angry. The next day she ground mealie meal and made up a song:

“Ihe! Ihe! The women in this area have no brains.

Their lips hang open like cooking pots,

Their hair is grass left over from the dry season.

Their skin feels like burned logs,

And their nostrils yawn like old warthog burrows!”

“Every day one or the other of the wives would make up an insulting song. Everyone in the village was secretly amused by the battle, and only the husband was unaware of what was happening. Finally, the junior wife became so angry she crept into the senior wife’s hut and dropped a chunk of baboon meat, the older wife’s totem, into her cooking pot.

“That night at dinner the senior wife suddenly began to grow hair. She sprouted a tail, and her nose stretched out long. Barking like a baboon, she ran off into the forest. Everyone was horrified. They suspected what had happened, but no one had any proof.

“The daughters of the senior wife went into the fields to work the next day. They took the youngest girl, who was only a baby, with them. She cried loudly for food, and at once a female baboon burst out of the forest and snatched her up. She breast-fed the baby, laid it on the ground, and ran away.

“After that the daughters took the baby to the baboon-mother every day. Still, they were afraid the creature might run away with the child, so they told their father what had happened. He went to the nganga for help. The nganga put poison on bananas and left them where the baboon-mother could find them. She vomited up the chunk of baboon meat and turned back into a human at once.

“Now everyone learned about the nasty trick the junior wife had played. The husband sent her back to her parents, and gave all her jewelry to the senior wife.”

Nhamo added wood to the ring of fire. In spite of the precautions she had taken, she was too nervous to sleep. Her father’s totem—and therefore hers—was shumba, the lion, or so Grandmother believed. “That’s what he told me, anyhow, ” she said. “In my opinion, it should have been the hyena. Don’t look like that, Little Pumpkin. I’m sure you aren’t related to hyenas.”

Nhamo’s clan name was Gurundoro, which, Grandmother explained, meant “the people who wear the ndoro.” Ndoro were round disks worn by kings. Nhamo rather hoped this meant she came from a royal family, but Grandmother said the old kings had dozens of wives, so of course they had a multitude of children. Some of the descendants were fine people, but some inevitably turned out to be lazy parasites. “Like your father,” Grandmother added.

Because Nhamo’s totem was the lion, she wasn’t permitted to eat one. “As if I would try,” she said, smiling at Mother’s jar. People who ate their totems lost their teeth or went blind or became sterile or occasionally turned into the forbidden animal. It was extremely easy to avoid eating lions, so Nhamo never worried about it.

Grandmother’s totem was moyo, the heart, which meant she wasn’t allowed to eat the heart of any creature. Aunt Chipo, Aunt Shuvai, and Mother’s had been shiri, the bird, which would have been an enormous problem if it had meant any bird. Fortunately, the ban applied only to the fish eagle, who carried Mwari’s messages. Uncle Kufa—and therefore his children—weren’t allowed to eat the gumbo, or leg of the cow. They could eat any other part of the animal, though. Since cattle were almost never killed, the difficulty rarely came up.

Nhamo listed the totem, mutupo, and clan name, chidao, of everyone in the village. It was important to remember this information so she wouldn’t marry a relative by accident. “Tazviona’s mutupo, let me see, is—” Nhamo stopped in consternation. Tazviona’s totem was the baboon. If Tazviona ate a piece of baboon meat, she would turn into the animal, and because she had a twisted foot—

Nhamo sat up and scanned the dark trees at the top of the cliff. Don’t be foolish. It’s only a stupid animal, she thought. But she couldn’t ever remember seeing a baboon that deformed. It wouldn’t have survived.

“It’s not my problem,” Nhamo decided, firmly putting the idea out of her head. She lay back down and presently drifted off into the first of many fitful periods of sleep.

22

The lake water softened the clay Nhamo had so carefully applied. She had to paddle furiously after the crack opened again. She managed to grab an overhanging branch when she got close to shore, but the baskets got wet and even the mealie bag was dampened. It was nearly empty, anyhow.

Nhamo scrambled onto the large island and pulled out her stores before they were ruined. She guided the boat along the shore until she was able to drag it up a sandy beach. Then she rested under a musasa tree to consider the situation.

“At least I’m not in as much trouble as the baboon,” Nhamo said to Mother. She could see him going over her campsite on the little island. He smelled the ground where she had prepared food, and devoured the pumpkin skins ravenously.

Nhamo’s new home was able to support a baboon troop, monkeys, and many kinds of antelope. It could support her, too. The problem was what else lived on the large island. Something had frightened the baboon over the treacherous rocks.

“Maybe it was a snake,” she said hopefully. Baboons went into screaming fits if they saw a snake. Nhamo was capable of going into screaming fits herself, for that matter, but she did have common sense. Snakes left you alone if you didn’t upset them. Most of the time they ran from you just as fast as you ran from them.

“I might have to live here until someone visits the island,” Nhamo decided. She couldn’t possibly attempt a long trip with the boat in its current condition. The thought of the crack suddenly opening out of sight of land made her feel sick. She had seen no one fishing in all the time she was on the lake, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

“Or I could make a boat,” she said.

“Now you’re talking,” said Crocodile Guts from his seat by the njuzu hut at the bottom of the lake. “You make a boat out of mukwa wood. It’s so strong, even the termites won’t touch it.” He scratched his hair, and ghost lice crept over his fingers.

Nhamo shook her head. She was on friendly terms—so far—with the spirit world, but she found its presence frightening. For a moment she actually saw the fisherman as he lounged in his watery kingdom. An njuzu girl poured him a pot of beer.

“Thank you. It’s good advice,” Nhamo said politely as she made sure she was surrounded by real trees and real sunlight. She had a panga and Uncle Kufa’s broken knife. Surely, with careful work, she could fell a mukwa tree and carve it into the shape of Crocodile Guts’s boat.

She felt immensely cheered by the plan. All she had to do was survive until the craft was finished. It might take a long time, though. To be on the safe side, she ought to plant her uncooked pumpkin and mealie seeds.

She balanced the baskets in the branches of the musasa tree. It wasn’t a good storage place, but it would have to do. She needed to find a campsite and shelter before dark.

Nhamo cautiously made her way away from shore. Now and then she stopped to memorize her surroundings. The lake quickly became hidden behind trees, only occasionally appearing when she climbed over a boulder. She picked a large fig tree near the water and an oddly shaped pillar of rock as landmarks.

The farther she got from the lake, the more nervous she became. The place was too quiet. She flicked off a few ticks that had brushed onto her dress-cloth. They were large and hungry, probably left behind by antelope. She could see more of them clinging to the grass, waiting for dinner. She found a game trail that meandered until it met a wide grassland divided by a stream. Beyond rose a sizable cliff, topped by trees. She made out the prints of kudu, waterbuck, and duiker, the splayed mark of guinea fowl, the looping trail of a burwa lizard. Nothing dangerous.

The stream, lined with bushes and small trees, rushed along with a lively chuckle. The water was too shallow to hide crocodiles, so Nhamo sat down for a drink. It was clean and surprisingly cool. She washed her face and arms.

When she got closer to the cliff, she saw it was pitted with small caves. Many crevices and cracks, filled with plants, ran down its face. She found much evidence of baboons, although they were absent at the moment. In a clearing between the stream and cliff were two enormous mutiti, or lucky-bean, trees growing close together. Heavy branches stretched out almost at right angles to the thick trunks and gave Nhamo the idea of making a platform. Lucky-beans didn’t attract animals, because their seeds, although beautiful, were poisonous. The trees would make a fine refuge.

The platform would take days to build, though, and Nhamo needed a place right now.

She set about exploring the cliff. Everywhere was the stink of dassies. They perched on boulders and squealed at her furiously before retreating. Their favorite places were painted with a thick coating of urine. She climbed farther up. She could camp inside one of the caves and watch the grassland for predators.

Predators.

What had frightened the baboon to the little island?

Nhamo couldn’t hope for the luck she had had on the njuzu island, where she had found so much food. This place was too large. One excellent reason for living close to dassies was that they would give a swift warning of anything dangerous in the neighborhood. And provide an alternate meal for whatever was hunting.

Halfway up, Nhamo found a low cave partly filled with a drift of sand. She poked the panga around inside to drive out anything that might be lurking. The only thing she dislodged was a large scorpion, which she hurriedly flicked down the cliffside with the knife.

Well pleased, Nhamo returned to the musasa tree by the lake. Termites had already found and attacked the baskets. She knocked them off, getting several bites from the soldiers in the process, and hauled her belongings to the cliff. When she had everything stored at the back of the cave, she built a fire, boiled pumpkin, and toasted a few soldier termites she cornered in the baskets. It gave her a melancholy pleasure to eat the creatures that had so recently tried to bite her.

Nhamo spent the rest of the day scouting around the area she had chosen for her camp. She found several other small streams—they had been much larger, but the rainy season was already two months past. She noted a number of mutowa trees with rough, scaly bark. Their sticky sap could be used to trap birds. She found gourd vines to make more calabashes.

Food plants close to camp had been picked clean by the baboons, but she could forage in the woods as they did. And unlike them, she could fish and trap game.

That afternoon Nhamo cooked the last of her mealie meal. It was damp and would spoil anyhow. She would have to conserve as much of her other stores as possible for the dry season, which was coming. It made her sad to empty the sack. Aunt Shuvai and Aunt Chipo had grown this grain; she and Masvita had ground it. It had been made with the many, many hands of the village, and when it was gone she would have no more food that had been touched by her people.

But the bag had been woven by them. Nhamo stuffed it with dry grass and took it to the cave to use as a pillow. She could wrap her arms around it and bury her nose in its smell.

She gathered a heap of rocks by the cave mouth because she could hear the barks of the baboons in the distance. She backed into the opening and watched the forest on the other side of the grassland.

The baboons straggled out from under the trees in the slanting golden light of late afternoon. In little groups they came, talking and shouting. The young bounced around the adults, ambushing one another, rolling in mock battle, and shrieking for protection when an older animal lost patience and bared its teeth. Little black babies clung to their mothers’ stomachs while older, brown ones rode on their mothers’ backs. There were so many of them! Nhamo couldn’t count that high!

They paused to drink at the stream. They jumped over the water and passed the lucky-bean trees. They found the cook-fire and stopped short. Nhamo held her breath. A large male shouted a challenge. His eyes flashed white and his big fangs yawned. The message was perfectly clear: Come out, whoever you are, so I can rip you to shreds!

“Oh, Mother,” whispered Nhamo. She had expected the baboons to nest in the far trees. It was clear from the gathering below that they intended to climb the cliff. They would pass right by her cave. Nhamo had a sudden vision of the male baboon discovering her presence and deciding to remove the intruder.

Nhamo wriggled out and stood on the narrow ledge at the mouth of the cave. The troop down below reacted instantly. Several males gave the loud threat call: Oo-AA-hoo! Females gathered up babies with cries of alarm. The large male by the cook-fire puffed out his fur until he looked twice as big. Oo-AA-hoo!

“Go away!” shrilled Nhamo. She looked frantically for a quick way up the cliff. She hurled the stones she had piled at the mouth of the cave. One caught a male on the face. Wah! he barked, jumping back.

The baboons milled around, obviously upset by the strange creature in their sleeping place. They swayed back and forth, eyeing Nhamo. Then, as the sun went down, they suddenly made up their minds and headed for the trees at the edge of the grassland. Their outraged barks floated back on the evening air.

She had won! She had driven off a huge baboon troop. She slid back into the cave and let her pounding heart settle down to its natural rhythm. She felt like vomiting, so great had been her fear, but she had won! “I, Nhamo, have taken this cliff for my own,” she said. “And the island. This is Nhamo’s Island. I am the boss of all baboons.”

Later, when she listened to the hoot of an eagle owl, the hiss of a genet, and the hrrr-hrrr grunt of a foraging honey badger, she didn’t feel quite as confident. The night was full of activity—some harmless, some not. A dassie screamed as it was killed by some unknown predator in the dark.

“I’ll get started on the tree house in the morning,” she promised. The cave wasn’t really comfortable: The ceiling was too low, and she hated the feeling of being trapped. Something kept crawling over her body, flickering its antennae as it puzzled over the addition to its home. Nhamo didn’t fall asleep until the first streaks of dawn appeared in the sky.

23

So much work to do! Nhamo had to find food, build a shelter, dig a garden, cut down a tree, and carve it into the shape of Crocodile Guts’s boat. The boat and garden would have to wait. Even the shelter was less important than an immediate food supply. She didn’t dare use up her stores from the njuzu island until she was certain she could replace them.

The rainy season was past and so, therefore, was the largest supply of vegetables. Still, on the stony slopes of hills she found many small tsenza bushes. Their roots could be roasted like yams or even eaten raw if she was really hungry. In the marshy ground where the stream met the lake she found dense patches of sedge. The small brown tubers under the soil would be available throughout the dry season.

Wild spinach, mowa, was still present although sparse, and several varieties of wild beans had escaped foraging baboons. The beans were dry, but she could soak them. On termite mounds Nhamo discovered jabvane bushes with purplish black fruit, and in dense thickets near the water grew brambles with dark, sweet berries.

She found wild loquats and waterberries, monkey oranges, and marula. All had been plundered by baboons, but quite a lot of food was left. Nhamo noticed that some trees were hardly touched, and when she tasted the fruit she understood why. The animals had so much to eat they could afford to ignore food that tended to be sour. Later in the dry season they wouldn’t be as fussy.

Nhamo collected a basket of the pale yellow marulas from the ground and returned to her cook-fire. In the middle of each fruit was a nut that, broken open, produced three edible seeds. Nhamo craved oil, so she ate the seeds right away. Some of the white, pulpy fruit she also devoured, and some she boiled to make a drink for later.

She found a number of large grasshoppers, pulled off the heads to remove the guts, and roasted them on a flat stone over the fire. She tossed them in a basket to knock off the wings and legs.

In the afternoon, Nhamo harvested gourds to turn into calabashes and storage pots. She cut slashes in mutowa trees and collected a ball of sticky sap. She hacked off the outer shell of a mupfuti tree and began peeling off long strips of the inner bark.

By sundown, Nhamo was exhausted. She lay in the mouth of the cave and wearily chewed and twisted the bark strips into twine. The bark tasted good—like raw beans—and gave her the illusion she was eating as well as working.

The cries of the baboons echoed in the trees across the grassland, but they didn’t attempt to approach the cliff. In the middle of the night the unknown creature came out of its hiding place and whisked its long antennae over Nhamo’s legs.

24

Nhamo shaded her eyes and looked across to the little island. At the foot of the bluff where she had built a fire lay a dark object. She squinted to be sure. It was the baboon. She sighed unhappily. She hadn’t wanted him to die, but she couldn’t carry out her plan until he was gone. The little island was an ideal place to plant a garden.

Nhamo hopped from stone to stone, all the while searching for signs of the crocodile. When she reached the final rock, she paused. The last channel was very deep. It was almost too wide for her to cross. A few months before, she would never have attempted it, but now she could swim if she miscalculated—and if the crocodile didn’t get her first.

She took a deep breath and leaped. She fell on the sand, scraping both knees, and scrambled to put distance between herself and the treacherous lake. She cautiously approached the dead baboon. He lay on his back with his eyes closed. His twisted foot stuck up reproachfully.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Nhamo. A few people ate baboons, she knew, but the practice wasn’t common. As precarious as her food supply was, she wasn’t even slightly tempted to cook this one. He had been alone like her, and his disability had set him apart from the other animals. She would cast his body into the water for the crocodile to find.

Nhamo poked the baboon with a stick. He sprang up with his fangs bared and his skeletal chest heaving. Nhamo jumped back with a shriek. She threw the stick at him and followed it with every rock she could lay her hands on. The baboon retreated, screaming. He tottered to the base of the bluff and fell over. He lay there churring with terror, his eyes wide open and unfocused.

“You horrible creature!” she yelled. “Why aren’t you dead like you’re supposed to be?” She squatted on the ground and hugged herself to stop shaking. They sat across from each other, the baboon whimpering and Nhamo trembling. After a while the baboon sighed deeply and relaxed again into the posture of impending death. He looked, Nhamo had to admit, like one of the many cholera victims she had cared for.

“You’re only a beast,” she said defiantly. The animal’s eyes were haunted with fear. He feebly scratched his chest. “Nyama, that’s all you are. Meat. If I wasn’t so fussy, I’d cook you up at once.” The baboon turned toward her voice. Oo-err, he said, like an infant calling for its mother.

“Oh, stop it!” Nhamo cried. She got up and returned to the beach. The leap back was easier—she had an idea of the range now. She could still see the baboon from the large island. “Don’t think I care!” she yelled across the water.

Nhamo walked along the shore until she reached a shallow stream. She followed this to a meadow dotted with marula trees. She filled her dress-cloth with ripe fruit and tied it onto her back like a baby-carrying shawl. Then, naked, she returned to the rocks and proceeded to cross. This time she heaved a large stone into the water first. The crocodile was a fearsome, but cautious, beast. She had seen how it fled when it heard a strange noise.

Nhamo dumped some of the marulas near the baboon and laid a trail back to the beach. She put another small heap on the first rock, and then one on each of the easier jumps all the way back to the shore. “I’m only doing it so you’ll leave my garden alone,” she shouted. The baboon didn’t react. She went off to harvest the birdlime traps.

That night she listened to the voices of the troop as they nested in the trees across the savanna. They were more agitated than usual because the moon was full. Like people, baboons were restless at such times. She heard the low, soft, rhythmic grunts of the females and cooing of the infants, the rumble of the males, with now and then a challenging bark. They had trouble sleeping in the intense, white moonlight, as did she. In the village, everyone would spend the night around the cook-fires, exchanging stories. Nhamo shook her head to keep from thinking about the village.

In the morning the marulas were all gone and the little island was deserted.

25

Nhamo 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.

26

Nhamo 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.

27

As the dry season progressed, the grass shriveled and many trees lost their leaves. The lake, which was receding gradually anyhow, experienced another sudden drop. Now there was dry land all the way to the little island, except for the final, deep channel. Nhamo worried that something might be tempted to invade from the large island.

Her bathing pool dried up. Collecting water was hazardous again, and she had to wash hurriedly, with one eye watching for the crocodile. She couldn’t make soap with ashes and fat as Aunt Chipo had done in the village—every morsel of fat went down her throat—but she made a reasonable substitute from the boiled roots of ruredzo plants. The vines grew everywhere, their green and silver-white leaves contrasting attractively with rose-pink flowers. The leaves were edible, too, but they left a slimy feel in Nhamo’s mouth. She didn’t eat them unless she was starving.

“It’s so hot,” Nhamo sighed, brushing away mopane flies as she worked on the boat. “I wish I could sit at the bottom of a nice, cool lake like you,” she told Crocodile Guts.

You have to be dead to do it, Crocodile Guts reminded her. He was puffing on a pipe made from a long-stemmed calabash with a clay tobacco bowl inserted in the round bulb of the plant. It was so much like Grandmother’s pipe, Nhamo suddenly felt her throat constrict.

“How do you keep a fire lit underwater?” she asked to keep the lonely-sickness away.

Anything’s possible in the country of the njuzu, the boatman said enigmatically.

“Don’t you get homesick?”

I won’t be here forever, little Disaster.

“What do you mean?” cried Nhamo.

You know the custom. My brothers have already divided up my things. If Anna was still alive, one of them would have been forced to marry her. I’d have liked to see that argument! Crocodile Guts laughed so hard he almost fell off his stool.

Nhamo nodded. She remembered the boatman’s wife screaming insults at her husband.

She was a good person. Just a little noisy, Crocodile Guts said. Everyone was annoyed when they found the boat missing, by the way.

“How do you know all this?” asked Nhamo.

The njuzu told me.

Of course, thought Nhamo. Snakes went everywhere. She saw them rustling through the leaves, watching the affairs of the village from their dark lairs.

Anyhow, my family’s going to have the coming-home ceremony at the end of the dry season. They’ve sent out all the invitations.

“And then?” said Nhamo.

And then I go home.

“But…what about me?”

You’ll be on your way by then.

“What if I’m not?” Nhamo wailed. “You can’t leave me!”

You’ll have to work faster, little Disaster. You haven’t been paying attention. The njuzu can give you plenty of advice, but you have to pay attention. Crocodile Guts knocked the ashes out of his pipe and packed it again with tobacco. An njuzu girl picked up a live coal from her cook-fire and carried it to him in her delicate fingers.

The underwater scene rippled and vanished. Nhamo was alone next to the mukwa log. She hurled the scraping stone as hard as she could against a rock.

“How can he go off and leave me! Selfish man! He’s living like a king at the bottom of the lake. He doesn’t care what happens to me. All he has to do is let his pipe go out, and one of those creepy snake-girls lights it again!”

The image of the njuzu lifting the coal came to her mind. What a strange thing to do. What was it about that coal? Nhamo saw it glowing in her mind as she gazed at the mukwa log.

Of course!

Why was she spending so much time chipping away at the wretched boat when she could burn a hole into it?

“You’re right. I haven’t been paying attention,” she apologized to Crocodile Guts. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. I’m an ungrateful child and I’m lucky you speak to me at all. I don’t really think you’re creepy, Va-njuzu,” she added. “You just take a little getting used to.”

That afternoon, Nhamo sacrificed her best calabash to the water spirits. She had decorated it with black-and-red designs from crushed berries. She filled it with lucky beans to make up for the lack of proper beads, and hurled it far into the lake. She poured marula juice into the water for Crocodile Guts because she didn’t have any beer.

28

Nhamo grudgingly went back to work on the boat. Now and then she doused the coals and carved away the blackened bits with Uncle Kufa’s knife. The mukwa tree was beginning to look like a real boat, or at least like a log with a very large hole in it. Nhamo labored for several days, but one morning the lonely-sickness struck her with such force, her spirit felt like it was being circled by hyenas. “It wouldn’t hurt to gather supplies,” she explained to Mother, to keep from being scolded. She armed herself with the panga and spear, and set off after the troop.

This time they went up a hill near the other end of the island. The territory was new, and Nhamo realized she would have to stay with the baboons because she wasn’t sure of the way back. The animals located a rich stand of wild grapes in a dell partway up the hill. They fell on them ravenously. They didn’t seem at ease, though, and she wondered why they had left such a good supply of food untouched before.

Fat Cheeks and the other large males kept looking around. Rumpy dropped his fruit whenever anyone made a sudden movement. Nhamo found their nervousness contagious.

During the noontime rest, everyone sat much closer together than usual. Tag tried to pull off the bag Nhamo wore around her neck, and she had to push him away. He hurled himself to the ground. Ik-ik-ik-ik, he scolded, thrashing around in the dirt. He looked just like a toddler having a temper tantrum. Nhamo refused to look at him, and after a moment Tag scuttled off to play with someone else.

Rumpy went from female to female, trying to get himself groomed. He smacked his lips seductively, but it did him no good. One and all, the females turned their backs. “Some days are like that,” remarked Nhamo.

She immediately regretted speaking aloud. Rumpy noticed her and halted in his tracks. He was trying to put a thought together in his mind, and she had an awful suspicion what it was: This strange animal has been following us for days. Tag likes it. Tag grooms it, so it must be available to groom someone else.

“Oh, no!” cried Nhamo as the scruffy baboon shuffled toward her, smacking his lips. She turned her back. Rumpy trotted in front of her again. Oo-er, he coaxed. “No!” shouted Nhamo. The other baboons flinched, but Rumpy wasn’t discouraged. Everyone shouted at him. He was used to it. “Go away!” Nhamo yelled.

Rumpy fluffed out his fur. I am a male and it is the duty of all females to obey me, he seemed to say. Nhamo jumped up and grabbed a rock. The baboon instantly understood. Oo-AA-hoo, he barked angrily.

Fat Cheeks, who was lounging nearby, rose to his feet and roared a counter threat: I am the chief here! No one else is allowed to push people around! Suddenly, all the baboons were aroused. Their nervousness flared into rage. The males screamed at one another, tore off branches, and slapped the ground. The females gathered up their shrieking young. The whole dell erupted with wild cries.

Nhamo realized she was in danger. She dashed farther up the hill to put distance between her and the excited animals. Soon she couldn’t see them, although she could hear their cries. “I’ll stay away until they stop fighting,” she decided.

The shouts were already dying down, but she didn’t go back yet. She climbed higher. She had spotted an unusual tree* at the top of the hill. It had hand-shaped leaves and purple berries like the ones found on bramble vines. All around, the rocks were stained with purple splotches. The birds clearly fed on the tree, but that didn’t mean the fruit was safe. Birds sometimes ate things that poisoned people. On the other hand, most of the things they ate were perfectly good. Nhamo cautiously tasted a berry: It was delicious.

She stored some in her carrying basket. She would try the new fruit on Rumpy before she ate any more. If he got a bellyache, it was no great loss.

She explored farther and found more of the unusual trees. All around was the silent forest, and she heard no birds. Vervet monkeys slipped through the branches like shadows sliding among the leaves. It was strange that they didn’t make any noise.

At the very top of the hill, Nhamo found a crack in the rock. She followed it around a corner to where it widened to reveal a cave. Sand, which seemed too cool for the hot afternoon, surrounded the entrance. She dug her toes into it.

The mouth of the cave wasn’t large. She knelt down to get a better look. And in the shadows where the sand disappeared into darkness, she saw a heap of skulls.

They were little skulls, belonging to monkeys. They stared out with empty eyes, and all around the ground was littered with tiny bones.

No wonder the monkeys were silent! This was the lair of the caracal!

Nhamo hurried down the hill and sat as close to Donkeyberry as the old creature permitted. She was relieved when the baboons made the long trek back to the sleeping cliff, rather than spending the night in the trees. They seemed as anxious to get away from the cave as she was.

29

Once upon a time a farmer lived in the middle of a forest full of baboons,” began Nhamo. It was late at night. Her nerves wouldn’t let her sleep, so she decided to tell Mother a story. Nhamo hugged the grassfilled grain bag, and she had Mother’s jar nestled next to her face. She knew the leopard wouldn’t be a problem until he finished eating the kudu, but he was still out there.

“The farmer could never relax,” she went on. “Day after day the baboons looked hungrily at his mealies. But every time they tried to get them, the farmer would pelt them with rocks from his sling.

“Finally, the chief baboon said, ‘My brothers, we are never going to get those mealies. That man is much too watchful. He can make mistakes, though. He never guards the goat pen because he doesn’t know we can eat meat.’

“‘Hoo! Hoo!’ cried all the other animals. ‘Let’s go raid the goat pen!’

“They killed a goat and roasted its meat. ‘Do you know what would be really funny?’ suggested the chief baboon. ‘Let’s sew our droppings into the skin and prop it up outside the farmer’s hut.’

“‘Hoo! Wow! What a great idea!’ cried the other animals. They filled the skin with baboon droppings, sewed it up, and propped it against the farmer’s door. Then they hid in the bushes to watch.

“Soon the farmer came out. ‘Good morning, my fine nanny goat. What are you doing out of your pen?’

“The goat didn’t answer.

“‘Well, don’t stand there blocking the door. Get out of the way,’ said the farmer, but the goat didn’t answer. The man shouted at the animal and then, when it still didn’t answer, he lost his temper and kicked it.

“Maiwee! The stitches flew apart. The goatskin exploded and sent baboon droppings all over the hut. The farmer was furious. ‘Wah! Wah!’ cried the baboons, falling all over themselves with laughter.

“‘I’ll get them back for that,’ the man said as he swept and washed out his hut. He dug a deep pit in front of his garden and covered it with branches. Then he lay down on the trail to the forest and pretended to be dead.

“The baboons discovered him. They pushed and prodded him. He didn’t move. They sang:

‘The farmer is dead, hii!

What has killed him, hii!

He died of grief for his goat, hii!

With what can we repay him, hii!’

“‘We’ll have to bury him,’ said the chief baboon, so they carried the farmer into the forest and dug a grave. It was hard work, and soon the animals got bored.

“‘Who cares if the hyenas scatter his bones,’ said the chief baboon, wiping his face. ‘The good thing is, he’s no longer around to throw rocks at us. Let’s go raid the mealies.’

“The baboons left the farmer and hurried back down the trail. They raced to the garden, fell into the pit, and were all killed. The farmer lived happily ever after and never had to worry about his plants again.”

Nhamo hugged the grain bag and listened to sounds in the night. She heard the usual mutter of the baboons. They couldn’t be too worried or they wouldn’t talk.

It’s going to be more difficult to finish the boat now, Mother said.

“I shouldn’t have put it off,” moaned Nhamo.

There’s always something dangerous in the forest. You’ll just have to be more careful.

“I can’t work with that creature around!”

You don’t have a choice, Mother pointed out.

The waves are as big as elephants during the rainy season, said Crocodile Guts from his soft bed in the njuzu village.

Nhamo got up and sat on the edge of her platform. She watched the starlit cliff with its murmuring baboons until dawn.

30

Nhamo lay on the platform. The ruins of her belongings lay around her, but she didn’t bother to check them. The sun had passed over the trees once or perhaps twice since she had crawled to her present bed. She had drunk water—Rumpy hadn’t been interested in those calabashes. She had eaten nothing. What was the point? She didn’t even put her arms around the grain bag. She couldn’t bring herself to touch it.

Below, the baboons ransacked the smoking-platform. Nhamo turned on her side and watched a line of ants move up the tree trunk. Perhaps they had found their way to the kudu meat. What difference did it make?

Once she stirred enough to climb out onto a branch to relieve herself. She saw that Rumpy no longer lay on the ground, so he must have survived.

More time passed. It was dark, then light again. She saw Fat Cheeks with Tag draped over his shoulders, and Donkeyberry searching the remains of the calabashes on the ground. Rumpy appeared. His limp was far worse. He moaned to himself as he struggled along, and the other baboons seized the opportunity to bully him.

The water ran out. Nhamo’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her body smelled strange—not dirty, exactly, but old, like a musty cave where animals had laired for a long time. Her head ached. It doesn’t take long to die of thirst, she thought dully. She didn’t think she had the strength to climb down the ladder.

Darkness came, and with it a cooling breeze. The sound in the leaves was like water rushing across the sky. The moon was growing again, and its milky light spilled through gaps in the tree’s canopy.

I’m on my way, little Disaster, said Crocodile Guts. He had a string bag hefted over his shoulder. My relatives have brewed beer and my oldest son has bought a goat to sacrifice at the coming-home ceremony. It’ll be good to see them again.

Nhamo didn’t answer.

I suppose Anna will be there. I hope she’s forgiven me for dying first. Crocodile Guts scratched his hair thoughtfully. I would have liked a sacrificial bull, but times have been hard recently. My sons have promised me a bull as soon as they can afford it. I’ll probably have to remind them.

Nhamo watched him stride along the bottom of the lake as easily as a man on a forest trail. Just before he moved out of sight, the boatman turned and called, The njuzu might be lonely for a while. Don’t be surprised if they pay you a visit. And then he was gone.

First Mother, now Crocodile Guts has deserted me, thought Nhamo. She watched the cool moonlight slide along the platform. The baboons stirred on their rocky perches. An eagle owl called as it floated along the upper airs.

Sh sh. Something was moving in the grass below. Hhhhuh, came a sigh. Nhamo tried to ignore it. So what if something wanted to kill her? She wanted to die.

The sounds went on, sh sh. Of course, she wanted to die on her own terms, not some horrible beast’s. Her plan was to stay on the platform until her spirit was driven away by thirst. She had seen people die of cholera. Eventually, they fell into a fevered sleep that deepened until they simply let go. There were worse ways.

Nhamo put her eye to a gap in the platform. Two njuzu girls were weaving around the thorn barrier, looking for a way up. They lengthened their supple bodies until they were thin enough to slither between the thorns.

Nhamo felt a chill pass over her. She was too dehydrated to break out in a sweat.

Up they came until they reached the first foot hole Nhamo had carved into the tree trunk, before she made the ladder. Now the njuzu did a very strange thing. Instead of sliding around it, which they could easily have done, they searched until they found a fragment of wood. It might have been part of the storage platforms Rumpy had smashed.

One of the snakes carried the wood to the hole in her fangs and the other butted it into place with her head. In a moment the rift was healed. They went on to the next hole, and the next until the trunk was smooth again. Then they came to the ring of birdlime.

Nhamo had put it there to discourage the caracal. She watched to see how the njuzu would handle the problem. They slithered down the tree and gathered up dry grass. Back and forth they went, gluing the grass to the birdlime until it was covered up. When they were finished, they glided over it as smoothly as if they were rustling across a rock.

Nhamo had to admire their cleverness, but she realized she was about to have njuzu in her bed. She wanted to die, but she did not want snakes crawling all over her first! She crept to the other end of the platform. Her body trembled with the effort.

The njuzu coiled over the edge with their eyes glittering in the moonlight. One of them found a calabash Nhamo was certain was empty and dived her head inside. Water droplets twinkled as she rose again. Her mouth brimmed with water.

“No!” cried Nhamo, clinging to the trunk. “Go away!”

One snake twined around the girl’s body, ssuh, and came up by her face. She lightly caught Nhamo’s lower lip with her fangs and pulled the girl’s mouth open with surprising strength.

“Aaugh!” Nhamo gasped. The other snake bent over her mouth and poured the shining water inside. It was cold, cold! It sank into her body like a frog diving into a lake. At once the njuzu shook themselves loose, rippled over the rim of the platform, and disappeared.

Nhamo was shocked to the very depths of her being. She clung to the tree, shivering violently. She had swallowed something offered by the njuzu. Did that mean she was condemned to live with them forever? Or did the rule only apply to food? One thing was certain: Her determination to die had completely vanished. Now she passionately wanted to live. She only hoped she wasn’t too late to try.

31

I can’t stay,” said Nhamo, looking out over the endless lake beyond the mukwa log. She didn’t know who she was talking to. The island, perhaps. “If I stay, I’ll go mad. Or the leopard will get me.” She felt it was only a matter of time. The great cat had marked Rumpy as his prey long ago. Grandmother said that if a lion or a leopard tasted someone’s tears, it would never be satisfied until it got the whole person.

She considered dragging the log to the water in its present state. She could sit in the hollow and float along—but it would probably flip over with her inside. Anyhow, she couldn’t even budge it. Nhamo contemplated Crocodile Guts’s boat. “He said the njuzu taught him everything he knew about water. I wish they would do something for me.”

Or had they?

Who taught her to swim? And who found her the island with the Portuguese grave? Who told her to hollow out the log with coals? And who slithered up and down the tree fitting pieces of wood into the holes?

“I have been such a fool,” whispered Nhamo. After many years even a good boat gets cracks, Crocodile Guts had said the first time she met his spirit. I used to plug them with sap from the mutowa tree.

She turned Crocodile Guts’s boat over and studied the bottom. The gap was as wide as her little finger on the inside, but it narrowed to a hairline outside. She could whittle a slice of wood to fit it—and pack it securely with mutowa sap and wild cotton fiber. It should last long enough to reach shore.

Nhamo worked feverishly all day. She mended every defect she could find, both inside and out. She poked sticky cotton into tiny gaps with a sliver of dassie bone. She held a glowing branch next to the wood to dry the seals. She harvested all her plants from the little island—leaves, seeds, and roots—leaving nothing to replant in the rainy season. Everything depended on this last attempt. She would succeed, or she would join the njuzu in their watery kingdom.

The next morning she said good-bye to the baboon troop. Tag scampered after a butterfly he hadn’t a hope of catching, and Donkeyberry groomed Fat Cheeks by the dry stream before everyone set out on the daily search for food. There was no sign that any of them missed Rumpy.

Nhamo dragged the boat to the reeds and packed it with her stores. She had one fish trap still full of kudu meat, and a few yams and tomatoes. She was encouraged to see that the interior of the boat stayed dry as she paddled along, but to be absolutely sure, she rowed to the far end of the island and spent the night there.

As the sun rose, she set out again, keeping it at her back. The island fell behind her. It was still visible at sundown, and during the night the current drifted her partway back. The second day she forged on, and by nightfall she saw land again.

32

Filled with wonder, Nhamo made her way through the forest. There were several lights attached to the roof of a large, square house, and they illuminated a grassland surrounded by a fence. Nhamo tried to look directly at them, but they were too bright. They hurt her eyes.

The grassland was lush with plants, in spite of it being only the beginning of the rainy season. You could keep a whole herd of goats in there, she thought. They would be safe, too. The fence was higher than her head and topped with spiky wire. Not even a lion could jump it.

The inside of the house was lighted, too, and she could see a table. Nhamo’s heart sped up. It wasn’t just any table. It was like the one in Mother’s picture, covered with cloth and dishes.

Oh! It was too marvelous to be real! It was exactly like the picture! Nhamo saw a woman in a print dress and white apron emerge from a room at the back of the house. She was carrying a tray covered with steaming food. Nhamo followed her progress from window to window until she reached the table.

Other people arrived, with light skins—much paler than Joao. There was a man, a woman, and two children. They sat down, and the first woman piled food on their plates. Even from where Nhamo squatted outside the fence, she could smell the rich aroma of meat. These must be the whitemen Grandmother had told her about. Nhamo thought they were fascinating.

She assumed the man had two wives, one light, one dark. He was certainly rich enough. The dark woman had no children, but perhaps she hadn’t been married long. She was obviously the junior wife since she was doing most of the work.

Nhamo looked for a way into the grassland so she could peer more closely into the windows, which were open but covered by a fretwork of iron. She went round and round until she found a spot where the wire was loose at the bottom. With some work, she was able to pry it up. The gap was large enough to wriggle through.

But first she changed from the rabbit skins to the dress-cloth. She hadn’t forgotten how the women at the village reacted to her. She attempted to comb her hair with her fingers, but it was far too knotted. Then, inspired, she tied around her head one of the red scraps from the cloth in which she was to have married Zororo. It covered most of the knots.

She crawled under the fence and pulled her belongings through. She hung the grain bag from a stray wire halfway up and leaned the spear against it. But she couldn’t bring herself to leave the panga behind. It had stood between her and destruction too often. She tied it to her waist.

Nhamo saw beds and tall chests with many handles in one of the rooms. In another was an easy chair wide enough to hold four people. She jumped when she saw something move on the wall. It was a person who seemed to be looking out of a shadowed room. When Nhamo raised her hand, so did the person. Nhamo had encountered mirrors in the Portuguese trader’s house, but this was not a reflection. It was too tall and bony. Tufts of hair stuck out from under a head rag, and the eyes stared from a face gone skeletal. If Nhamo had met the creature on a forest path, she would have climbed the nearest tree.

There would be time enough later to figure out the picture, Nhamo decided. She crept along the grass on hands and knees, and rose silently to look into the room where the people were eating dinner. They used knives and forks. They spoke softly in an unfamiliar language. Once, when the children made a noise, the father became angry.

Nhamo eagerly tried to identify the food on the table. She recognized margarine and white bread. She saw a bowl of red paste that Grandmother had said was jam. One of the children—a boy—stuck his finger into it, and his older sister slapped his hand. The junior wife came in with a bowl of boiled potatoes covered with a gray sauce.

Nhamo’s stomach complained at the sight of so much food. She was afraid the sound could be heard through the window. Then the junior wife took the plates away and brought—Nhamo had to think hard to remember the word—cake. It was covered with a yellow paste. The father poured himself a drink from a glass bottle.

By now, Nhamo was standing with her nose poked between the window bars. She didn’t want to miss a thing. She incautiously took a deep breath to bring the heavenly odors closer—and the sound attracted the attention of the chief wife.

The woman screamed. She jumped up, dumping her cake to the floor. The children scrambled out of their chairs, and the father shouted, “Voetsek!” It was one of the few non-Shona words Nhamo understood. It meant “go away,” but not the go away used for people. The word was meant for animals, and it was a terrible insult.

Nhamo dropped below the window and scuttled away. Her feelings were hurt. She wasn’t an animal, in spite of living with baboons for so long. But of course the man was angry because she had been spying on them. She would have to approach the house again in the right way and try to apologize.

She hurried to the gap, but before she could reach it, the back door of the house slammed open, and several huge black dogs bounded out! They made straight for her. She scrambled under the fence, abandoning her grain bag and spear. She heard the precious dress-cloth tear and the panga rattle against the metal. Her head scarf snagged on a wire and was torn away. Panting, she came up the other side.

Two of the dogs fell upon the grain bag with snarls and flashing teeth. The man came out the back door with a gun. He yelled at the animals and they dropped the meat and proceeded to wriggle under the fence after Nhamo.

She didn’t wait to see what happened. She ran for her life with the bullets whizzing over her head. The dogs set up a horrible cry as they galloped on. Murder! Murder! they howled.

Nhamo ran this way and that. She didn’t know where to hide. She blundered into the forest and out again to a road. Murder! the dogs howled as they ran. Nhamo fled past more houses, where other dogs set up a clamor. She stumbled and fell, picked herself up, and dashed on. The lights of the houses stabbed through the trees, making it just possible to tell where she was going—except she didn’t know where she was going.

Finally, gasping for air, she climbed a hill and abruptly reached the end of the road. The hillside had collapsed. The road broke off into a deep gorge. She couldn’t go any farther. She was trapped.

Nhamo’s chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. She saw the shadowy bodies of the dogs as they approached. She braced herself at the top of the hill and waited. Suddenly, she was possessed by an intoxicating—and frightening—sense of power.

“Whhhooo’s going to be my next meal?” she screamed, brandishing the panga. “Whhhooo’s going to sweeten my cooking pot?”

The dogs skidded to a halt and stared at her.

“I’m soooo hungry! I want a fat little dog for dinner! Will it be you?”—Nhamo thrust the panga at one of the animals—“Or you? Or you?” She advanced on the creatures, who backed away with nervous whines. “Too late! You can’t make friends now!” snarled Nhamo. “I’ll send my locusts to eat the hair off your backs! I’ll brew your blood into beer. Whhhooo’s going to sweeten my cooking pot?”

The dogs lost their nerve and ran—all except one. He was the biggest. He launched himself at Nhamo and she met him with the panga. It was almost as though she wasn’t there. Her arms and legs moved of their own accord. Her spirit sang as she fought, and when she dropped the dog’s lifeless body to the ground, she howled with purest ecstasy.

All the dogs in the neighborhood went wild as Nhamo fled back down the road, skirted around the houses, and disappeared into the forest. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she had to run, that she didn’t belong with people who shouted voetsek and shot at her with guns. She plunged deeper and deeper into the bush until the sensation of power left her and she fell to the ground unconscious.

33

I am not your mother,” the woman said crossly. Nhamo sank into happy oblivion again. If Mother wanted to disagree, that was her business. She was not mistaken about the braided hair decorated with beads. She recognized the flowered dress. They were exactly like the photograph.

Nhamo dozed, woke to be fed, and dozed again. Never had she been so contented. After a while an old man dressed in a white robe sat by her bed and murmured charms. “Are you my grandfather?” she asked. The old man looked startled.

She snuggled into the bed, which was softer than anything she had ever known. A woman-spirit stuck a thorn into her arm. It hurt, but Nhamo accepted it as part of the strange rituals of the spirit world. Then the old man was back with a black book, which he read with his lips moving.

“Oh, Grandfather. I’m so glad to see you,” Nhamo murmured. “Ambuya said I would meet you someday. Did you know Mother can read? She’s so clever! Is Aunt Shuvai here? I miss her…”

“Sh. You must rest,” said the old man.

Nhamo obediently went back to sleep.

She talked to Mother, sharing with her things that had happened since the picture was destroyed. “Poor Rumpy. He never had any luck,” she sighed. “I wonder whether he was really a human who had eaten his totem. Do you know?”

“He was only a baboon,” said Mother firmly.

Gradually, Nhamo became more aware of her surroundings. The woman-spirit was called Sister Gladys.* She was kept busy mixing things up in bottles and writing in a book. She was very respectful to Mother. The old man was called Baba Joseph and he often came to talk. She didn’t understand half of what he said, but it didn’t matter. His voice was very soothing.

And gradually she became aware that she wasn’t dead after all and that Baba Joseph wasn’t her grandfather. But she stubbornly refused to give up on Mother. Other people might call her Dr. Everjoice Masuku. Nhamo knew differently.

She was so sleepy! It was all she could do to keep her eyes open more than a minute. She lay in the soft bed, and now and then drifted off into dreams.

“What’s wrong with her?” said an unfamiliar man’s voice.

“What isn’t wrong with her? Malaria, bilharzia, malnutrition, ” said Mother. “When I picked her up, I could have sworn her bones were hollow.”

“Her feet are scarred.”

“That’s an old burn. You should feel the soles. They’re like hooves.”

“How long was she out there?” the man asked.

“Months. She keeps raving about water spirits and a dead boatman and a baboon she thinks was human.” The woman sat next to the bed. Nhamo could smell the soap she used.

“Is she insane?”

Insane! Nhamo was insulted.

“She was alone an awfully long time,” said Mother.

Nhamo opened her eyes to protest when she saw the man. He was an enormous whiteman with a bristling beard. His arm was as big as her waist. “No!” she yelled, scrambling out of bed. She fell to the floor with the sheet wrapped around her and tried to crawl away on her hands and knees.

“Stop that!” Mother cried. She hauled Nhamo back.

“No! No! No!”

“She doesn’t seem to like you, Hendrik,” Mother said as Nhamo tried to squirm out of her grasp.

The whiteman shrugged. “At least she doesn’t think I’m her mommy.” He lumbered out of the room, and Nhamo’s breathing became regular again.

“Why are you so afraid of Dr. van Heerden?” Mother asked.

Nhamo told her about the man with the dogs and gun. She didn’t mention Long Teats or killing the dog, however. She didn’t want to be accused of being a witch.

“That’s terrible! You probably don’t know this, but not long ago we had a civil war here—white people against black. Some of the hatred is still around. I wish I knew the man’s name. I’d set the police on him.”

“How could he hate black people when his junior wife was black?” Nhamo asked logically. She described the house and the wonderful dinner.

Mother laughed. “Englishmen aren’t allowed more than one wife, and anyhow they almost always marry Englishwomen. That was a servant.”

“Is Dr. van Heerden English, Mai?”

“Don’t call me Mai. I’m not your mother.”

“Yes, Dr. Masuku.”

“Dr. van Heerden is Afrikaans. It’s a different kind of white person. He doesn’t like to be bothered by children, so stay out of his way.”

“Yes, Mai—Dr. Masuku.”

34

Nhamo worked steadily for whoever would allow her to help. She walked a fine line between staying invisible (no one would notice her and send her away) and being useful (they would think she was valuable enough to keep). She was determined to live at Efifi—if only to feast her eyes as often as possible on Mother.

Dr. Masuku, for her part, was often impatient with the little shadow she had acquired. “Go haunt someone else!” she would cry. “You hang around like a tsetse fly!” And Nhamo would fade away, only to reappear later when she thought Mother wasn’t looking.

Nhamo observed Dr. van Heerden as he picked up dead flies with a pair of tweezers and put them into bottles. She was a little afraid of him. He was so big and hairy! His legs were like tree trunks, and nestled in the top of one of his long socks was a comb. Nhamo wondered if he used it to comb his legs. Dr. van Heerden warned her not to make any noise or touch anything or get in his way.

Once she had satisfied these conditions, though, he was willing to let her watch. In fact he became so absorbed he often forgot about her altogether. If he was feeling sociable, he called her his Wild Child and insisted she had been raised by jackals. “I saw your brothers near the goat pen, Wild Child. Tell them I’ll make a rug out of them if they get any ideas.”

Nhamo explained gently that she came from a proper village full of people.

“We’ll see what happens when the full moon arrives. I bet you’ll run through the forest with your tongue hanging out.”

There was no shaking him. She knew he was trying to be funny, so she didn’t take offense.

When Dr. van Heerden’s work went badly, his beard fluffed out like Fat Cheeks’s mane. “What are you smiling at?” he rumbled, peering at her over his bottles.

“I am happy,” said Nhamo.

“Go be happy somewhere else, Wild Child.”

The only person who never chased her away was Baba Joseph. He was stern, as an elder should be, but always welcoming. The fate of the old man’s guinea pigs upset her, though. Dr. van Heerden painted them with poison and put them under little wire baskets. The baskets fitted so tightly the animals could hardly wiggle as cages of tsetse flies were placed over them. They yelped and cried as they were bitten. The tsetses swelled up with blood until they looked ready to burst. It made Nhamo sick.

“It’s cruel,” agreed Baba Joseph, “but one day the things we learn will keep our cattle from dying.” He stuck his own arm into a tsetse cage. Nhamo covered her mouth to keep from crying out. The flies settled all over the old man’s skin and began swelling up. “I do this to learn what the guinea pigs are suffering,” he explained. “It’s wicked to cause pain, but if I share it, God may forgive me.”

Baba Joseph talked a lot about God. He and a number of the other villagers dressed all in white on Saturdays. The men shaved their heads and carried long wooden poles with a crook at the top. The women wore white head scarves. They met in the forest on Saturday afternoons to sing and pray. Baba Joseph was their leader.

“Excuse me, Baba. Are you Catholic?” Nhamo asked him.

“Catholic! Whatever gave you that idea?” The old man was affronted, and Nhamo was too overcome with embarrassment to say anything more.

“There’s more than one kind of Christian,” Sister Gladys explained. “Baba Joseph is a Vapostori. Those people don’t believe in medicine—if they get sick, they’d rather die than take a pill. I think they’re idiots.”

Whatever their opinion of Vapostoris, everyone deferred to Baba Joseph, even Dr. van Heerden: “The old man looks at you with those luminous eyes,” the Afrikaner told Mother, “and you find yourself saying, Yes, Baba. You want me to stand on my head with a flower up my schnozz? You got it, Baba.”

In the evening, the doctor sat outside his hut and drank beer. It wasn’t the stuff the villagers brewed. It came in brown bottles, like the beer Joao had given Grandmother long ago. Dr. van Heerden drank seven or eight, and the sweat poured off him like a river. At such times he let Nhamo lurk in the bushes while he talked to visitors.

It was a lot like the men’s dare, although Mother and Sister Gladys sometimes attended, and Nhamo learned a great deal from the conversations. Unlike her own village, Efifi was a mixture of Shona, Tonga, and Matabele, with one Afrikaner thrown in. The language was generally Shona, but smatterings of other tongues cropped up when people became excited.

Dr. Masuku was Matabele. At first this bothered Nhamo. She had been taught that the Matabele, traditional enemies of her people, were as cruel as hyenas. But she couldn’t imagine Mother doing anything bad. She knew it didn’t make sense that she, a Shona child, had a Matabele mother.

Mother wasn’t married, either, and never intended to be. “It’s just another name for slavery,” she declared. Nhamo thought this was astounding. How could you become an ancestor if you didn’t have children? How could you become anything without a husband? But Mother insisted that marriage was the worst thing that could happen to an intelligent woman.

She and Dr. van Heerden argued about it frequently. “What you need is a nest of little babies, Everjoice,” the Afrikaner would announce after his fourth beer. “I can see them cheeping, ‘Mama! Mama!’ You’ll go all soft like a pat of butter. You’ve got motherhood written all over you.”

“I’d rather swim through a pool of starving crocodiles,” Mother said.

“Even the Wild Child knows.” Dr. van Heerden held a bottle of beer against his face to cool off. “She follows you like a little shadow.”

“The Wild Child has imprinted on me. I was the first thing she saw after her ordeal in the forest.”

Nhamo didn’t know what imprinting was and she didn’t bother her head about it. Her spirit told her Mother’s true identity. That was all that mattered.

Her life drifted on in an aimless fashion. She knew she ought to ask about nuns. She knew it was important to locate Father, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave Mother. Sometimes, when she was washing sheets at the hospital or gathering vegetables for the guinea pigs, a great craving came over her. She carefully put down her work and trotted off to the laboratories.

Ah! There was Mother with her eye pressed to a metal tube called a microscope. Nhamo would watch for a while, suffused with happiness. Dr. Masuku would eventually look up and say, “Stop sneaking up on me! You made me break a slide!”

Little by little Nhamo took over Baba Joseph’s chores. He was grateful to let her handle things that had become difficult for his old body. He watched her carefully and instructed her in new duties when he thought she was ready. She worked willingly, even feeding the warthog, which snorted alarmingly when she approached. The only animal she could not bring herself to care for was the crocodile. It was given an occasional fish and the bodies of the guinea pigs when they died.

She was particularly helpful on Saturdays. Saturdays were sacred to the Vapostori. They weren’t allowed to work all day. Baba Joseph always worried that he had not left enough food and water for his animals, but now he could relax. Nhamo looked after everything—except the crocodile. It can dry up like an old cow patty for all I care, she thought privately.

When she was finished, she helped Sister Gladys, and then she hurried to the forest to spy on the Vapostori.

They spent the afternoon in a clearing. The men sat on one side and the women on the other with an aisle in between. One or another of the worshippers would stand and begin the singing:

“Kwese, kwese,

Tinovona vanhu hamuzivi Kristu…

35

I’m off to Harare tomorrow,” Dr. van Heerden told Mother as the sun settled behind the gray-green trees of the forest and a soft dusk stole out of the east. The doctors and about ten villagers, all men, were seated companionably outside Dr. van Heerden’s hut. There was no room for such a crowd inside and besides, it was too hot. Nhamo was hidden by the leaves of a bougainvillea vine the Afrikaner had grown over a frame at the side. It cast a welcome shade against the hut in the afternoon and formed a convenient nook for someone who did not wish to be noticed.

Dr. van Heerden had given Nhamo a bottle of orange soda from the refrigerator earlier, but by now had forgotten about her existence. She spun out the pleasure of the cold drink as long as possible. She pressed it against her face and let the juice slide down her throat to make her cool from inside. Now all she had left was a few sugary drops. She applied them to her tongue, one by one.

“I’m taking Petrus”—the doctor named one of the villagers. “He needs to spend time with his family. I hear the wife has a new baby.”

“And Petrus hasn’t been home for a year,” added one of the other men. Petrus casually knocked the man’s stool over.

He wasn’t angry, so Nhamo knew it wasn’t a real argument. She sometimes had trouble understanding jokes at Efifi. No one in her village would have made such an accusation lightly.

“Bring us magazines,” said Mother. The rainy season had kept the road too marshy to use for many weeks. All the old magazines had fallen apart.

Whenever Dr. van Heerden went to town, everyone made out a list of requests. His Land Rover returned as loaded as the tractor that visited the trading post.

“I’m making two quick trips if the weather stays good. I’m taking in bottles of cow smell to be analyzed.”

Nhamo had watched the doctor try to collect the exact substance that attracted the tsetses. Nothing was overlooked: the breath, the sweat, the droppings. The last item was most interesting. It had to be collected absolutely fresh before it hit the ground. Dr. van Heerden crept up on a likely cow, bottle in hand. Sometimes he got what he wanted, and sometimes he got a surprise. Once a cow coughed as he was peering up its backside, with entertaining results.

“I think I’ll bring Bliksem back for a few days. We can hunt jackals together.”

Who is Bliksem? thought Nhamo. She hadn’t heard of him.

“This place is bad for his health,” Mother pointed out.

“Ach, a few days won’t hurt. The old fellow needs a vacation.”

Bliksem must be an elder relative, Nhamo decided. Perhaps he was Dr. van Heerden’s uncle.

“Someday we have to send the Wild Child off, you know,” Mother remarked. “It isn’t fair to keep her without an education.”

Nhamo’s throat suddenly closed up. Mother said that? Mother wanted to get rid of her?

“She’s learning plenty,” said Dr. van Heerden. “Works harder than five of these buggers.” He was into his fifth or sixth beer. The men rolled their eyes.

“You know what I mean. She can’t read or add. She’s totally unsuited for modern life—and she’s bright enough to take advantage of good schooling. In fact, she’s brilliant.”

Nhamo’s heart burned within her. Mother’s praise meant nothing. She wanted to get rid of her.

“Baba Joseph can teach her.” Dr. van Heerden tipped the bottle up over his red, sweaty face.

“Baba Joseph!” Mother sounded exasperated. “He’d teach her to speak in tongues. Besides, he doesn’t have time—and neither does Sister Gladys, and neither do I, so don’t ask.”

“You’d make such a wonderful mother,” Dr. van Heerden said sentimentally.

“Nhamo needs a proper school and a real family. She says she has a father at Mtoroshanga.”

“The Old Man is very attached to her.” Petrus offered an opinion for the first time. Everyone knew that the Old Man was Baba Joseph. “She called him Grandfather when she was sick. He lost a granddaughter years ago, and Nhamo reminds him of her.”

“Oh, brother! Just what I need. Another one of Baba Joseph’s pets!” groaned Dr. van Heerden.

Pets! So that’s what they thought of her! Nhamo’s skin was hot with shame. She was just another warthog trailing around after the Old Man!

“All right, I’ll think about it.” The doctor came to a decision. “I’ll go through Mtoroshanga on my way to Harare. If I can scare up the Wild Child’s daddy, I’ll take her back with me and Bliksem. If not—well, there’s always boarding school. The government makes grants for orphans.”

The men and Dr. Masuku (not Mother, Nhamo thought angrily) went on to other topics.

That night she ground her teeth as she lay on the cot at the hospital. Sister Gladys had pronounced her the night watchman and given her the duty of calling for help if anyone became especially ill. But she was not a night watchman, only an ugly warthog allowed to sleep in a human bed as a joke.

In the morning, she hid when Dr. van Heerden and Petrus drove off. She didn’t look for Mother—not once!—and she obeyed Sister Gladys in such stony silence that the nurse asked if she felt sick.

But Nhamo couldn’t be angry at Baba Joseph. She reminded him of his dead granddaughter. That meant he thought she was human.

“I’ll never smoke cigarettes or eat pork or birds with webbed feet,” she murmured as she swabbed out the guinea-pig cages. She had paid close attention to the things Baba Joseph considered sinful. “And I’ll never make phone calls to Satan.” Satan, the old man had explained, was like an ngozi and witch rolled into one. He waited around for people to get careless. The minute they let their guard down—boom!—he possessed them.

“I’ll be good, and Baba Joseph will tell everyone to leave me alone.” Nhamo wiped the tears from her eyes as the guinea pigs gathered around her with earsplitting squeals.

She avoided Dr. Masuku so completely during the next few days that the Matabele woman (she was that now, not Mother) tracked her down in the hospital. “I never thought I’d miss your beady eyes on the back of my neck. What’s the matter with you, Nhamo? Why don’t you spy on me anymore?”

Because you want to send me away, thought Nhamo, but she replied, “I’ve been busy.”

“Of course you have! Sister Gladys says she doesn’t know what she’d do without you.”

Borrow the warthog from Baba Joseph, I expect, thought Nhamo, but she said, “I’m glad Sister Gladys is pleased with my work.”

“You’re acting so—oh, I don’t know! You seem angry. Has anyone upset you? I know it’s difficult trying to fit in to a strange village without any children. If I can do anything…” Dr. Masuku trailed off uncertainly.

Nhamo stared straight ahead, not insultingly but not in a friendly way either. Dr. Masuku looked to Sister Gladys for help.

“It’s probably her period coming on,” Sister Gladys offered.

“That makes young girls nervous,” Dr. Masuku said gratefully. “It took me forever to settle down. I think the whole process of menstruation is a joke played by God on women.”

But nothing she said could coax a smile out of Nhamo. Dr. Masuku eventually went back to her duties, and Sister Gladys gave Nhamo an herbal drink that she said “would make the pains better.”

The only one who could lift her bad spirits was Baba Joseph. He went about his chores in the same tranquil way, with a kind word for each of his pets and apologies to the guinea pigs when they had to be strapped under the wire cages.

He and she always had lunch by the livestock pens. As long as Dr. van Heerden was away, the cows didn’t have to spend the day in the underground chamber. The windows of their building were securely screened, though. Even one tsetsefly bite could prove fatal. As it was, the poor animals had to be given injections to treat animal sleeping sickness every few weeks.

“It always rests my eyes to see a fine herd of cattle,” Baba Joseph said. Nhamo nodded. She loved their sleek brown hides and lucerne-sweet breath. The old man told her about how Jesus ngozi had slept in a cow’s feeding trough when he was a baby. Nhamo, in her turn, related one of Ambuya’s stories.

“Once upon a time there was a couple with many cattle, but only one son. Their neighbors became jealous, so they hired a witch to put a curse on them.”

Baba Joseph frowned, not entirely pleased with a tale about a witch.

“The parents became very sick,” Nhamo went on hastily. “Just before they died, they told the boy to sell all the cows and move far away. But first he was to kill the black bull and travel inside its skin.

“The boy was mystified by the commandment. Still, he obeyed his parents. He killed the black bull, took out its intestines, and moved himself and his belongings into its belly. At once the bull began to walk! ‘Eh! Eh! What a strange thing!’ cried the boy.”

Baba Joseph was definitely uneasy about pagan magic, but he was too interested in the story to object.

Nhamo continued. “The bull walked and walked. It went through forests and swam rivers with the boy inside. Finally, it reached the court of a king. ‘O great king, may I stay with you?’ the boy said from inside the bull’s belly.

“The king was frightened. ‘Get out of here, you demon!’ he shouted. ‘Whoever heard of a bull talking?’

“The boy went on to an old woman’s hut. ‘Respected grandmother, may I stay with you?’ he asked.

“‘What luck! A beautiful black bull!’ she cried. ‘You can stay with my cows as long as you like.’

“Every morning the bull led the cows to pasture. The boy came out of the bull’s belly and played on a flute to pass the time. When he played, the rain fell over the old woman’s fields, even though everyone else was having a drought. Mealies and pumpkins grew everywhere. Her cows all gave birth to calves, and their udders were so full of milk the old woman didn’t know where to put it all.

“The people around began to notice how prosperous the old woman had become. Their children spied on the pasture and saw the boy come out of the black bull’s belly every day. ‘When he plays, the rain falls,’ they told their astonished parents. The parents went at once to tell the king.

“The king sent his soldiers to take the bull away, but it tossed them on its horns. ‘You turned me away when I asked,’ it bellowed. ‘Now your fields can turn to ashes for all I care!’

“When the people saw this, they threw out the old king and put the boy in his place. He became very powerful and eventually had many wives and children. He built a fine new house for the old woman. But the boy’s father called the black bull away to the spirit world. Ever since, when a parent dies, a cow or bull is given the person’s name and sacrificed when the spirit is brought home again.”

Baba Joseph sighed. “You tell a fine story, Nhamo,” he said. “But you haven’t learned the truth yet. All those old beliefs are wrong. Only Jesus matters, and our future in heaven.”

Nhamo said nothing. She had her own private opinions. Who had protected her on Lake Cabora Bassa? Who taught her to swim and to use boats? As much as she wanted Baba Joseph’s approval, she couldn’t ignore the evidence of her own eyes. Crocodile Guts, the njuzu, and Mother had been with her when she most needed them, and she couldn’t turn her back on them now.

At the thought of Mother, Nhamo’s spirit sank again. Baba Joseph, perhaps noticing, set her to work feeding a young calf that was learning to do without its mother’s milk.

36

Nhamo was returning from the lucerne fields. She had been gathering food for the guinea pigs, but had been distracted by a black wasp that was running around a patch of cleared land. Dr. Masuku had widened her knowledge of insects. Now they were not merely something to be swatted. They had families and illnesses just like people.

The black wasp dashed up to a twig and flipped it over. It dislodged a pebble, scattered dry grass, and scurried along a fallen fence post. All at once it jumped back with its wings raised. A huge spider stepped out from under a leaf the wasp had disturbed. It was a baboon spider with long, shiny fangs! Nhamo dropped her bundle of lucerne.

But the wasp didn’t flee. It plunged straight into battle, and the spider reared back with its fangs exposed. Faster than Nhamo could see, the insect was in and out of biting range. Its stinger dealt a blow to the spider’s head. Very soon the spider began to stagger as though it were drunk. The wasp landed squarely on it now, almost embracing it with its black legs as it delivered another sting to the belly.

Nhamo was thrilled. This was every bit as exciting as a lion kill without posing any danger to her. What courage the wasp had to tackle something so much bigger! When the baboon spider was nearly dead—its legs quivered slightly—the wasp flew off. Nhamo wondered why it didn’t stay to feast on its fallen enemy. She wanted to ask Dr. Masuku, but her spirit still burned with anger toward the treacherous Matabele woman.

Nhamo gathered up the lucerne and trotted off to the village. People had left their work and were moving toward the main road. She soon saw what had attracted them: Dr. van Heerden’s Land Rover was being unloaded of its treasures. Dr. Masuku had a stack of magazines, Sister Gladys carried a box of disposable syringes, and the staff cook had his arms full of sugar bags. Dr. van Heerden was wiping his face with a red-checkered handkerchief.

“The blerry* flies were after me, I can tell you,” he exclaimed. “They thought I was lunch and dinner rolled into one.” He opened the door of the Land Rover. “Come out, Bliksem! You’ve got some tasty jackals to find!”

Out of the door bounded a huge black dog exactly like the beasts that had attacked Nhamo on her first night in Zimbabwe! She dropped the lucerne again, but she didn’t drop the knife she had used to cut it. The world seemed to disappear. She saw only the huge black animal leaping around its white master.

“Look, meisie-kind,* I brought you a playmate,” said the whiteman. He pointed at her. The beast started for Nhamo with its red tongue lolling out of its mouth.

She stood perfectly still. She would not run any more than the wasp had fled from the spider. Of course not, whispered Long Teats. Only cowards run from their enemies.

“Nhamo! Don’t!” shouted the Matabele woman.

The dog was almost upon her now, but something in her face checked its gait. It swerved to one side. Nhamo struck out, raising a red streak along its ribs. The dog howled fearfully. “It’s too late to make friends now,” she snarled as she turned to pursue it.

“Stop it!” bellowed the whiteman. He threw himself between her and the dog. “Voetsek! Go away!” He gathered up the animal in one hairy arm and thrust the other before him to ward Nhamo off. He backed off hurriedly, with the whimpering animal clutched to his chest.

She paused just an instant. Baba Joseph said you should forgive your enemies. Forgive your enemies, indeed! I say kill them all as quickly as possible, cried Long Teats. Nhamo threw back her head and howled. Then she hurled herself at the whiteman and buried the knife up to the hilt in his arm.

She felt herself being dragged back from behind. Her wrist was wrenched so hard she could hear the bones snap. The Matabele woman grasped her from the front, holding her in a tight embrace, and the spirit of Long Teats suddenly fled into the blinding sunlight.

“Mother! Mother!” screamed Nhamo, and fainted.

37

She’s going to look awful,” said Mother as Sister Gladys shaved Nhamo’s head. It was several weeks later and Nhamo’s wrist had nearly healed, but she still had it bound tightly in a bandage.

“Demons get tangled in the hair,” Baba Joseph explained. “That’s why Vapostori men shave their heads.”

“Why not the beards?”

“What an idea! The longer the beard, the holier the prophet.”

Sister Gladys rolled her eyes.

Nhamo hadn’t looked into a mirror since the day she thought she resembled a wall spider with a burr on top. Now the burr was gone. She didn’t think it was going to improve her looks.

“Are you sure it’s safe out there?” Mother said. “Karoyi Mountain is infested with hyenas.”

“Nothing in this life is safe,” replied Baba Joseph tranquilly.

“I can send a guard along with a gun.”

“No outsider is permitted. Mwari will look after us.”

Mother’s expression showed she felt this was unlikely. “I think this is a mistake, but if Nhamo believes it…”

And Nhamo wanted to believe it with all her heart. Baba Joseph and the other Vapostori prophets were going to conduct an exorcism ceremony on Karoyi Mountain. Karoyi meant “little witch” and it had a reputation for being a gathering place of evil, although Dr. van Heerden said that was because of the hyenas that lived there.

Baba Joseph’s eyes shone as he talked about how he was going to send Long Teats back to her smelly den in Mozambique. While he was at it, he might as well clean up the other witches who might be lurking on Karoyi Mountain.

“Don’t overdo it, Baba,” Mother said gently. “You aren’t as young as you used to be.”

Sister Gladys swept Nhamo’s hair into a pile. It looked like a dead animal sprawled on the floor. Nhamo was given a white dress and a scarf for her naked scalp. She would be allowed to wear sandals until they neared the exorcism site. The Vapostori never wore shoes for their ceremonies because the ground where they prayed to Mwari was sacred. “Please don’t make Nhamo carry anything heavy,” the nurse instructed Baba Joseph.

The sky was black when they started out. Mother hung a flashlight on a leather thong around Nhamo’s neck. “Don’t use up the batteries,” Mother warned as Nhamo delightedly clicked it on and off. The prophets, ghostly in their white robes, carried blazing torches. They had different symbols embroidered on their robes to indicate their rank within the church. Their bald heads shone in the flickering light. They walked off along a forest path with Nhamo in their midst.

She saw Mother and Sister Gladys standing in the doorway of the hospital as they moved away from the comforting lights of Efifi. Dr. van Heerden was in his house. He had not entirely forgiven Nhamo, but he had promised to keep the generator going until she returned.

On and on they went through the eerie sounds of night. An owl hooted softly as they passed its tree. Bush babies chattered. Water trickled in streams left over from the rains. Nhamo turned her flashlight on only when she couldn’t see by the light of the torches. Once she aimed it into the forest and caught a pair of red eyes staring back. She didn’t do that again.

The path gradually began to rise. It threaded between boulders and past baobab trees with their roots firmly tapped into pockets of water in the soil. Soon they left the baobabs behind. They came to drier soil with strangler figs splitting the rocks. They passed close to a solitary mukonde tree, which raised many pale, leafless branches against the dark sky. They were careful not to touch it, for the sap was poison.

At last they arrived at the bare knoll of the mountain with only the stars for cover. Baba Joseph told Nhamo to remove her sandals. “Ow!” said Nhamo, stepping on a thorn. Once her feet had been like balls of baked clay, but Sister Gladys had made her work on them with a pumice stone. “Ow,” Nhamo cried again, trying not to notice the pain.

“Be quiet,” Baba Joseph said sternly.

The prophets must have gathered wood earlier because a great heap was already present at the center of the bare knoll. They thrust their torches into it. Soon it was blazing high into the sky. Nhamo wondered whether Mother could see it from Efifi.

At first the ceremony was exactly like the service on Saturday. The men sang “Kwese, kwese” to invite the angels to come down. “I imagine they’ll need a lot of angels tonight,” Nhamo said to herself. She took no part in the proceedings. The Vapostori sang and prayed until the flames died down to coals. Then they behaved very strangely indeed.

The men knocked the embers into a long, glowing line and began to walk over them as though it were a path. Nhamo stifled a scream. They not only walked, they rolled on them and placed hot coals in their mouths. No one seemed to get burned. Even the robes didn’t catch fire.

After Baba Joseph had crossed over, he shook his staff and shouted. “I have heard! I have heard the word of God, alleluia! He said, ‘You witches come out. You make your feet to go. You take your ugly toes somewhere else.’ Ehe! I have heard it! The waters of the earth have witnessed it! Falaula he! God has said it! We don’t want you anymore! Zifokola hau!”

Nhamo didn’t know what all the words meant, but there was no mistaking the power that filled Baba Joseph. If she had been a witch, she would have leaped straight off the mountain.

The other prophets joined in, praying, cursing, prophesying together with a kind of weird music. After a while Nhamo realized they weren’t the only ones making it. From all around on the dark hillside came the voices of hyenas. They had observed the intruders in their country. They didn’t like it.

“I call on you, Long Teats!” bellowed Baba Joseph. “I say, Come here like the mangy dog you are! Come and see your power destroyed! Mezu-kano-eh!” The old man laid the panga on the hot coals. Nhamo hadn’t seen it since she arrived at Efifi. A breeze caused the fire to leap again. The wooden handle burned to ashes.

On the edge of the hill, at the very rim of the light, was an enormous hyena with red-shining eyes.

“Eh! You have crawled out of your pile of dung! You have come to witness the superior power of Jesus!” Baba Joseph laid his hand on Nhamo’s head. She wasn’t expecting it and flinched.

“I will send you to hell along with damned Satan!” The panga burned in the fire with a sickening, metallic smell.

You miserable worm, came Long Teats’s voice from the dark. You’re no match for me. I’ll burst your lungs between my teeth like old rotten bladders.

Nhamo hugged herself so tightly, her arms turned numb.

“You’re stupid, like all witches,” taunted Baba Joseph. He took out a bottle of holy water from a pack he had carried up the mountain. Nhamo had seen holy water blessed after the Sabbath ceremony. It was used to cure illnesses. “Watch this!” the old man commanded. He poured the liquid on the panga. It hissed up in a furious steam—and the metal snapped!

Aauu, wailed Long Teats. The hyena seemed to have shrunk. It was only a cane rat watching the fire with glittering black eyes.

“I command you to bring me the ngozi. I have words to say to him as well.”

The form of the cane rat wavered. Its eyes became dull. There is no ngozi, sighed Long Teats.

“Don’t give me your damned lies! I want Goré Mtoko!”

There is no ngozi. The cane rat came apart in shreds of air. It was only a blackjack weed at the side of a rock.

“Alleluia! Alleluia!” sang the Vapostori as they circled the broken panga. “Mwari save Africa!” they sang. They were beside themselves with joy. But Baba Joseph wasn’t finished. He began striding up and down again, praying and prophesying, with his words sometimes shifting to an unknown, yet strangely powerful, tongue. Nhamo was sure it was the language of the angels. She was weeping with relief. She felt clean and free again. She was as happy as she had been when Masvita’s face lost the deathly gray pallor of cholera.

“I call on you false gods of Africa!” shouted Baba Joseph, shaking his staff. “I call on the njuzu and on the ngozis! I call on the vadzimu, the ancestors of this girl.”

Uh-oh, thought Nhamo.

The old man shouted challenges at the pagan spirit world. He ordered the spirits to line up like naughty children in front of an elder. Nhamo began to get seriously worried. She wanted to get rid of Long Teats, but no one had mentioned driving away the njuzu. And she couldn’t part with the vadzimu. Although in one sense Mother had returned as a Matabele doctor, deep down Nhamo knew the truth. Her real parent was with the ancestors. And someday Grandmother would join her…

“I don’t want to lose Ambuya,” Nhamo cried out suddenly.

“Hush, hush,” murmured the Vapostori. Nhamo shuddered. She didn’t want to oppose them, but she didn’t want to lose her family either. She stood up, desperately trying to think of a way to stop them. All at once she became aware that the other prophets didn’t seem as confident as Baba Joseph. They stopped now and then to observe their leader’s performance. When they began speaking the angel language again, they looked around as though they weren’t sure what might be lurking in the darkness.

“I call on mhondoro, the lion spirit!” bellowed Baba Joseph.

“Respected elder, surely we have done enough…,” one of the prophets said.

“Nothing will be enough until we drive all false gods from this mountain! Don’t lose courage, brother. Satan comes in many forms, but they are all worms compared to Jesus. Come forth, you maggot-infested hyena droppings!”

The coals had died down. By the cold, distant light of the stars, Nhamo could still make out the white robes of the prophets. Suddenly, they began to move erratically.

“Eh! I feel hands on my neck!” one of them cried.

“Don’t touch me!” yelled another.

“Stand firm! It’s only Satan!” Baba Joseph shouted, but the men stumbled around, fighting things they could not see. A scream and the sound of tumbling rocks told Nhamo someone had fallen over a cliff. The cries of the Vapostori filled the air. One by one they blundered into objects until all that could be heard were Baba Joseph’s exhortations and the groans of men nursing injuries.

Finally, the fight went out of Baba Joseph as well. He sat down heavily, and his staff clattered to the ground. Nhamo flicked on the flashlight. “Are you all right, Baba?” she whispered. She crept up to him. He was slumped over with his head cradled in his arms.

“Broken reeds,” he muttered.

“What did you say, Baba?”

“I fought with a rod of iron, but my brothers fought with broken reeds.” He spoke no more. Nhamo huddled next to him. It wasn’t cold exactly, but the early-morning air raised goose bumps on her arms. She heard moaning from half a dozen places. It occurred to her that the sounds might attract predators, and so she dragged unburned chunks of wood together and rekindled them with the still-hot coals.

She made Baba Joseph sit close to the fire for protection. Nhamo carefully hunted around the knoll for the injured Vapostori. She urged them to move next to the old man, but they stared at her blankly. She didn’t know whether they were injured or possessed. “Please. I don’t have enough fuel for more fires,” she begged. They rocked back and forth, with their eyes staring.

“If I can’t bring them to the fire, I’ll take the fire to them,” Nhamo decided. She set the longest branch she could find ablaze. But first she put on her sandals. “I don’t think this is holy ground anymore,” she said. “The Vapostori certainly don’t act like it.”

Methodically, she went from person to person, waving the burning branch with her good hand and shouting insults at any hyenas who might be lurking. At the bottom of a boulder she found the first victim. He seemed to be really hurt but, paradoxically, he was the only one willing to talk. “Water…,” he murmured. “Water…”

The only water around was in the bottles Baba Joseph had brought. Nhamo knew that it was for healing purposes. The man by the boulder was certainly in need of healing, so she removed the containers from Baba Joseph’s pack and gave the injured prophet as much as he could swallow.

By now the first faint streaks of dawn were appearing in the east. Early morning was a favorite time for animals to hunt, and she didn’t dare let her guard down. What will I do if I really meet hyenas? she thought. Her wrist ached badly, and the torch had burned down almost to her fingers. The beasts weren’t going to be frightened of a small female person with a flashlight.

“Wake up, meisie-kind,” came a hearty voice. Dr. van Heerden came over the edge of the knoll with a rifle slung over his shoulder. He had a crowd of workmen with him. They fanned out at once to attend to the injured Vapostori. “Looks like you had a blerry square dance up here. You certainly live up to your name, Disaster. You’ve disabled half the farm crew.”

Nhamo turned hot with shame.

“Baba Joseph put them up to it,” Mother said sharply. She had walked more slowly than the others and was just coming up the mountain.

“Everjoice wouldn’t leave me alone until I came looking for you. Bang! Bang! On the door all night,” said Dr. van Heerden.

“He had the binoculars trained on Karoyi Mountain from the minute you left.”

“Not Karoyi Mountain,” Baba Joseph murmured, raising his head.

“You rest, oupa,”* the Afrikaner said in a gentle voice.

“No witches here anymore. We threw them over a cliff.”

“I’m sure you did, oupa, and a few Vapostori, too, by the look of it.”

Daylight and the arrival of help brought most of the prophets back to their senses. Only the man who had fallen off the boulder needed to be carried back to Sister Gladys’s hospital, and to be on the safe side a litter was used for Baba Joseph as well.

38

What happened up there, Mai?” asked Nhamo as she drank sweet milky tea at the hospital. Sister Gladys and Dr. van Heerden were splinting the injured Vapostori’s leg.

“I’ll take this one to Harare. He needs an X ray,” the Afrikaner told the nurse.

Dr. Masuku grimaced at the word mai, but didn’t correct Nhamo. “What do you think happened?”

“Baba Joseph drove Long Teats away. I saw it. First she was a giant hyena and then, when he broke the panga, she turned into a cane rat, and then she became a blackjack weed. I threw it into the fire.”

“Good for you,” said Mother.

“But I don’t understand how the spirits could throw the Vapostori off the mountain,” Nhamo went on. “I thought Jesus was too strong for them.”

“Jesus is too strong for them,” Baba Joseph called from his bed.

“Go back to sleep,” Sister Gladys said. “Do you know, not one of these fools will take an aspirin.”

“Prayer is our medicine,” insisted Baba Joseph.

“I think”—Mother lowered her voice—“that most of the Vapostori weren’t born Christians. They were raised to believe in vadzimu and the mhondoro. It’s very hard to turn your back on something you learned as a child.”

Nhamo nodded. She wouldn’t think of arguing with anything Grandmother had taught her.

“It’s all right to exorcise witches. Everyone thinks they’re bad. It’s different when you try to get rid of your ancestors. I think the Vapostori threw themselves off the mountain without quite realizing it. They couldn’t reconcile their childhood beliefs with Christianity.”

Nhamo wasn’t sure she understood this. “Do you believe in the spirit world, Mai?”

Mother sighed. “I’m a scientist. I’ve been taught not to believe anything that can’t be proved, and yet…” She gazed at Baba Joseph, who had snuggled into the soft bed with a look of bliss. “He often infuriates me, but he’s old. I’ve been taught to revere and obey such people. It’s just…built in.”

“Like motherhood,” Dr. van Heerden said cheerfully. “I’m finished, you layabout.” He put a final strip of tape on the injured man’s splint. “If you don’t take Sister Gladys’s nice medicine, every bump of the Land Rover is going to make your eyes cross with pain.”

“Prayer is our medicine,” the Vapostori said mournfully.

“Speaking of ancestors, I think you should get in contact with your family, Nhamo,” said Mother. “You have relatives in Mozambique and at Mtoroshanga.”

Nhamo clutched Mother’s hand. She had been forced to flee so often, the thought of going anywhere else was simply terrifying.

“I won’t rush you,” Mother said. “We ought to send a message to your Grandmother, though. I’m sure she wants to know you’re safe.”

“They might make me go back. To marry Zororo.”

“There’s no chance of that!” Mother’s eyes flashed. “The very idea! Trying to force a child into marriage to save their own skins. Ngozi sacrifices are illegal in Zimbabwe.”

“I’m…not a child.”

“Oh, Nhamo! Having a few periods doesn’t make you an adult. You have so much to learn—and you’re so clever.”

Nhamo looked down, smiling with pleasure.

“If she’s so clever, tell me how she buggered up half the farm crew,” said Dr. van Heerden as he helped the Vapostori hop out to the Land Rover.

39

Dr. van Heerden drove. Then he and Mother went off for a cool drink while Sister Gladys alone accompanied Nhamo. Since the Jongwe family was suspicious of white people, they probably wouldn’t welcome a Matabele woman either. Nhamo wore her special dress with the bra underneath. It was hot and uncomfortable. She wore freshly cleaned sandals. Sister Gladys had styled her hair and given her clear polish for her fingernails.

She said Nhamo was beautiful, but Nhamo was afraid to look into the mirror.

Mtoroshanga was covered with dust from mining operations. Some of the houses were attractive; most were merely hovels. Sister Gladys said that many Jongwes lived in the part of town they were passing through. They all worked for the Big Chief Chrome Company, whose manager was Industry Jongwe, Nhamo’s uncle.

Nhamo grew increasingly nervous as they walked. The Jongwes might not like her at all. They might think she was an ignorant Wild Child of dubious parentage. She realized that her mother and father might not have been married at all.

They came at last to a magnificent house with a large lawn and a drive that curved up to the front door. Sister Gladys opened the front gate and went in. Nhamo looked around in wonder. Flowering trees cast shade on emerald grass. They weren’t even fruit trees. How could anyone afford to have trees that didn’t produce food? And where did they get so much water when the rest of the town was dry?

The windows were covered with iron grilles and the roof was of red tile, like a Portuguese house. The front steps were the same color. They gleamed from a recent application of wax.

“Your father’s younger brother Industry lives here,” Sister Gladys said.

Nhamo was frozen with fear as the nurse rang the doorbell (a doorbell!). Soon a servant (a servant!) in a white apron answered it. She invited them to sit in the parlor while she called her mistress.

“They won’t like me,” whispered Nhamo as she gripped Sister Gladys’s hand.

“They have to. You’re family,” the woman said placidly.

The servant brought them tea, which Nhamo was too distraught to drink. Then a tall, elegant lady in a flowered dress entered and introduced herself as Mrs. Edina Jongwe. Several children peeped out of a back room until the servant shooed them away.

“Dr. van Heerden phoned you about Nhamo,” began Sister Gladys.

“Oh, yes. The whiteman,” said Mrs. Jongwe distantly. “This is the alleged relative.”

“Proud Jongwe’s daughter,” the nurse said.

“She’s pretty,” remarked Mrs. Jongwe. Her cold manner took the pleasure out of the compliment. “How old are you, child?”

“I—I don’t know,” stammered Nhamo.

“When she came to us, she didn’t look over eleven, but actually I think she was around fourteen.”

“Totally uneducated, I suppose.”

“She grew up in a remote village,” said Sister Gladys with a trace of irritation. “Since she’s been at Efifi, she’s learned rapidly. She can read like an adult, and Dr. Masuku is going to teach her typing. She’s wonderful at arithmetic. I think she’s a very intelligent child.”

“How interesting. Well, my husband will be home around five. Perhaps you can come back then and discuss things.” Mrs. Jongwe stood up. Sister Gladys pulled Nhamo to her feet.

They were shown to the door. Very soon Nhamo and the nurse found themselves at the foot of the gleaming red steps.

“I told you they wouldn’t like me,” said Nhamo.

“That witch,” hissed Sister Gladys under her breath. “Did you see her fingernails?”

“They were very long,” Nhamo said.

“That’s to show everyone she doesn’t have to work with her hands. I’d like to stick them into a nice hot tub of laundry.”

Sister Gladys fumed until they found Mother and Dr. van Heerden at a grocery store. “Come back at five! I’m surprised she didn’t tell us to use the servants’ entrance!”

“It’ll be too late to drive back to Efifi afterward, but we can stay at a hotel,” Dr. van Heerden said, trying to calm the nurse down.

“If only we could find Proud. We could forget about the others,” said Mother.

“Don’t worry, Wild Child,” boomed the doctor. “I’ll corner your daddy. I’ll tell Bliksem to track him.”

Nhamo wished he wouldn’t call her Wild Child.

The news of her arrival must have traveled, because at five a small crowd of Jongwes had gathered outside the gate to observe her. Nhamo, feeling extremely self-conscious, made her way past several dozen pairs of eyes. She didn’t know how to react. Did you wave at strange relatives? Would they think she was rude if she didn’t?

Mother and Dr. van Heerden had decided to accompany Sister Gladys on this visit. “I don’t think it makes any difference who shows up,” Mother said. “They’re simply unfriendly.”

“Or are hiding something,” observed Dr. van Heerden.

They were ushered into the parlor and again served tea. This time Mrs. Jongwe was joined by her husband and his parents. Nhamo studied them covertly. Industry was dressed in a gray suit and shiny black shoes. His face was carefully bland. The grandparents were surprisingly youthful, or perhaps they had had easier lives than poor Ambuya.

What would Ambuya have made of these people? “Dressed-up donkeys,” she would have judged them. “What good are claws on a woman?” she would have said about Mrs. Jongwe. “Is she going to hunt dassies for lunch?” Nhamo smiled with her head politely bowed.

“Let’s have a look at the child,” commanded Industry Jongwe, and so Nhamo was made to stand and turn before the assembly.

“She’s pretty,” remarked her grandmother.

“Yes, I noticed that,” Mrs. Jongwe said.

“But she doesn’t look like Proud.”

No, the Jongwes agreed. She didn’t look like Proud.

“She resembles my mother,” said her grandfather. The others glared at him.

“Would it be possible to speak to Proud?” Dr. van Heerden asked.

No, that would not be possible, the others murmured.

“Why ever not?” exclaimed Mother.

The children clustering at the inner door scattered. From beyond, Nhamo heard the tap-tap-tap of a cane. The elder Jongwes turned, suddenly tense.

“Why can’t we talk to this child’s father?” Mother cried.

An old, old man came through the door. He was dressed in European clothes, but around his neck hung many charms and around his hips was tied a leopard skin. He was unquestionably an nganga, and, from the reaction of the others, a powerful and important one.

“Because Proud Jongwe is dead,” the nganga said.

40

Dr. van Heerden, Mother, Sister Gladys, and Nhamo were sitting in the dining room of the Mtoroshanga Hotel. They had arrived just before the kitchen closed and were busily applying themselves to curry and rice. Nhamo sat between the two women. She needed them close to her, and she dreaded the morning, when they would leave her.

“You’ve landed with your bum in butter, and no mistake,” said the Afrikaner, wiping his vast chops with a napkin.

“She’s frightened, Hendrik,” said Mother.

“Ach, that old man hasn’t eaten anyone for blerry years, Wild Child. His teeth have gone soft.”

Nhamo turned her eyes, which threatened to spill over with tears, toward him.

“Don’t look at me like that! You must have learned how to make me feel guilty from Baba Joseph,” rumbled Dr. van Heerden. “Listen, any kid in this dust bowl would give her right elbow to live in that mansion. The Jongwes are rich. They’ll send you to the best school, buy you fancy clothes. You can’t afford to pass up the chance.”

“I know,” Nhamo said tearfully.

“The witch almost bit off her long fingernails when the old nganga recognized Nhamo,” remarked Sister Gladys.

“Please don’t make her more nervous,” Mother said. She put her arm around Nhamo, and Nhamo had to swallow hard to keep from crying. It was very clear that all was not harmony in the Jongwe household. Nhamo didn’t know what was wrong, but she knew the addition of a Wild Child from Mozambique wasn’t going to improve matters.

“Remember,” Mother said softly, “if things don’t go well, you can come back to us. We expect you during school vacations anyhow.”

School! That was another thing Nhamo found worrying.

“I’ve got something of yours in my safe, remember,” added Dr. van Heerden.

Nhamo looked up in surprise.

“Your roora, Wild Child. Your granny’s gold nuggets.”

“I thought—I mean, I expected—”

“—the old whiteman to pocket them,” finished the Afrikaner.

Nhamo’s face burned with shame. He had taken her in, saved her life, and asked for nothing in return. She had repaid him by slashing Bliksem and stabbing his arm.

“You more than earned your keep with work, Nhamo,” the Afrikaner said, “even if you did disable half the farm crew.”

She was too overcome to speak.

“This calls for ice cream all around,” shouted Dr. van Heerden. The sleepy waiters moved toward the kitchen with resigned expressions on their faces.

41

She wore her best dress, the one Mother had bought her, and the bra. She was going to do things exactly right for this occasion. Nhamo thought the old man would take her to the local graveyard, but he led her to his house. It was a small place tucked away at the edge of the vast Jongwe estate. People were always waiting outside for advice. They came from all over the country, and they sometimes had to wait a long time for the nganga’s attention.

Nhamo spied a pot hidden in the thatch and halted. Horror nailed her to the spot. What did ngangas store inside such things? It couldn’t be—she didn’t want to know—

“I’m not the muvuki,” he said in a whispery voice that made her jump. “I don’t keep my oldest son’s heart in a bottle.”

Nhamo bit her lip. That was exactly what she had imagined. She looked cautiously at the dried animals hanging on the walls, the heaps of withered herbs.

“I’ve been too weak to undertake this journey until now,” explained the old man. He waved to a young man at the back of the house. “Garikayi is my assistant. He will help us.”

Garikayi loaded a car with bottles of water and food. He helped the nganga into the front seat and opened the back door for Nhamo. They set off on a steep road going up into the Umvukwe Mountains. It was here, Nhamo had learned, that the chrome mines lay. It was the only place on earth where that rare metal was found.

The car struggled up higher and higher. It curved around until the outside world had completely vanished. Nhamo’s eyes opened wide. She had no idea this beautiful green country existed so close to the dusty streets of Mtoroshanga. Yellow weaver birds darted across the road. A stream overhung with palms wound beside them with a loud, heartening sound. She pressed her face eagerly to the window.

Eventually, they came to a meadow. The road deteriorated into a path scarred by deep ruts from the rainy season. They stopped. “Oh,” sighed Nhamo, stepping out onto springy grass.

“We’ll eat first,” said her great-grandfather. Garikayi spread out a cloth and heaped it with food. He helped the old man sit down with his back against a tree. No one spoke, and Nhamo was just as happy to stay quiet. She was in awe of the nganga and hardly knew how to address him.

They had lemonade, peanut butter sandwiches, and a kind of pound cake with red jam. Nhamo was now knowledgeable about the food she had seen in magazines so long ago. She could never have imagined then that she would be eating them in a forest glade with her great-grandfather.

When they were finished, Garikayi packed up the food. They set off along the rutted path. The nganga had to be carried across the larger gaps. They came to a grassy hill dotted with gentians and pink ground orchids, and began to climb.

It was a long, slow process with many stops to allow the old man to rest. “Would you like to return, honored Tateguru?”* asked Nhamo.

“If I stop now, I may never have the strength to return. Your father appeared to me in a dream and asked me to bring you here,” he replied.

So Nhamo went up behind him, to cushion his fall if he slipped, and Garikayi half carried him until they arrived at a jumble of rocks and timbers in the side of a cliff. The nganga sat down on a log to catch his breath.

All around were the green hills with the stream chattering below in the valley. Puffy white clouds floated overhead in a blue sky. Nhamo took a deep breath.

“I’m an embarrassment to the family. So are you,” said the nganga. “We represent the past, which they are busy trying to forget.” He patted the ground beside him, and Nhamo sat down. “They’re Methodists when it suits them. That’s a kind of Christian.”

Nhamo sighed. Another kind of Christian. Why did they have to be so complicated?

“Industry went to church until he decided to take a second wife. Then he suddenly discovered his African roots. The Methodists don’t approve of second wives. Even so, the others occasionally attend church and talk about bringing Zimbabwe into the twentieth century. They aren’t pleased to have a traditional healer in the backyard, but I’m too powerful for them to ignore.”

The old man signaled to Garikayi, who quickly produced cups and a thermos of sweet milky tea.

“My son—your grandfather—made his fortune in the mines.”

Nhamo nodded. He was talking about Jongwe Senior.

“He dug his own tunnel into these hills and made a lucky strike. A lot of men work independently along the Umvukwe range. The place is like a giant anthill. As soon as he got money, he began to imitate the white people, and he changed his Shona name, Murenga, to Lloyd. He wanted to flatter the owner of the Big Chief Chrome Company, who was also called Lloyd. Unfortunately, the owner was killed by a land mine. Then the whites began to lose the war, and it became unfashionable to have a white name.

“As you know, the word murenga means ‘revolution.’ What wonderful luck! Lloyd-the-lackey turned into Murenga-the-revolutionary overnight. Oh, he was first in line for the victory parades, as soon as the guns were put away. At the same time I was promoted from being a senile old peasant to being a revered elder.

“Murenga was rewarded for his patriotism by being made manager of the mines. He had two sons, called Proud and Industry.”

Nhamo straightened up. Here at last was information about Father.

“I think you’ve noticed Murenga’s weakness where alcohol is concerned.”

Nhamo was confused. She was unwilling to criticize her grandfather, but what was she to do when her great-grandfather wanted her opinion?

“Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked. How could anyone in that house not hear the shouting and fighting? Murenga is an alcoholic. So, unfortunately, was Proud.”

A breeze blew between the hills and bent the grass before it in long waves. An impala buck stepped onto the path far below, turned its head to observe the humans, and led a group of females across to the stream.

“Proud was a good boy,” said the old man, his eyes soft. “He could have been such a fine man, but he started drinking when he was no older than you. I think he used to empty Murenga’s bottles after he passed out. Your father always had such big plans! He was going to own the Big Chief Mine; he was going to run for Parliament. The sky was the limit. And then he met your mother.”

Nhamo was jolted out of her reverie. “You knew about Mother?”

“I met her. She was just a little schoolgirl, but very, very beautiful. Proud should have been ashamed of himself. Did you know she was pregnant before they got married?”

“I—I—wasn’t even sure they got married,” Nhamo admitted.

“There was a terrible family row. Murenga refused to give his permission. I did, of course, but at that time I was only an ignorant old peasant. Murenga was in his I-love-whites phase. The Catholics at Nyanga married your parents.”

Nhamo sighed with relief.

“I suppose Proud lied to the priest—neither of your parents was Catholic—or perhaps the priest felt sorry for your mother. He insisted that Proud get an official wedding license from the government, to make sure the marriage was legal. I still have it.

“Your parents traveled to your mother’s village in Mozambique. The next thing we knew, Proud was back, and we got a letter asking for cattle to pay for a murder. It was like someone had tossed a beehive through the window. You wouldn’t believe the fights!”

I might, thought Nhamo, remembering the noises that came from Jongwe Senior’s room.

“Murenga disinherited his son. Proud announced he was going to earn his own fortune. He came here.” The nganga gestured at the hill. “He was always full of great plans. He was going to dig the deepest, longest tunnels anyone had ever seen. And so he did. They collapsed one day with him at the very heart of the mountain.”

Nhamo gasped. That jumble of rocks and timber—it was her father’s grave! “Didn’t…anyone dig him out?” she said.

“We tried, but the tunnels went in all directions. No one had any idea where he was when the accident happened. Finally, we conducted the funeral ceremonies here. Murenga wanted it that way, but I always wondered whether Proud’s spirit was happy with the arrangement.”

Nhamo was so overcome with a mixture of emotions, she began to cry. She was glad her parents had been married, but shamed that Mother hadn’t been welcomed by the Jongwes. She was horrified to be sitting next to Father’s grave—and yet relieved to know what had happened to him. She lay on the grass and gave herself up to weeping. The old man handed her a handkerchief when she was finished.

“I think we should go down now. I’m feeling tired,” he said.

“Oh! Of course!” Nhamo was instantly concerned about her frail great-grandfather. She and Garikayi helped him back to the meadow. The sun had slipped low in the sky. The valley was filling up with green shadows.

“Let’s have more tea, little Disaster,” said the old man. “I have one last piece of information for you.”

The ever resourceful Garikayi started a fire and boiled tea with water from the stream. He laced it with sweetened condensed milk. Nhamo thought she had never drunk anything so delicious. In a strange way it tasted exactly like the tea she used to prepare for Mother in the ruined village.

“I think there were two spirit leopards involved with your life, Nhamo,” the nganga said suddenly. “Goré Mtoko’s totem was the leopard. So is ours.”

“I thought ours was the lion.” Nhamo was appalled. If two people with the same totem married, it was incest.

“Ours is both the lion and the leopard. That happens sometimes when two powerful clans combine. Our praise name is Gurundoro, the people who wear the ndoro, the symbol of royalty. The Mtokos, by the way, are very remote relatives with different praise names, so you can relax. The marriage wouldn’t have been incest, although it would certainly have been evil. My understanding is this: Goré Mtoko’s spirit killed your mother and, I believe, caused your father’s mine shaft to collapse. At that time Goré’s revenge was complete.

“But your father’s spirit was unsatisfied. He knew he had a child who must be brought to her true family. Proud told your mother his totem was the lion because it made him feel powerful, but he was really more like a leopard. A leopard hunts alone in the shadows. He doesn’t face his enemies openly. I think your father’s first appearance to you was by the stream.”

“It might have been a trick of the light,” Nhamo couldn’t help saying.

“Yes, but why did you insist on telling everyone about it? He appeared again in the banana grove the night before Vatete got sick, and he left his print on her grave. He was driving you away from your mother’s village.”

“But the leopard on the island—”

“Tell me, did it ever harm you?”

“No,” Nhamo admitted.

“From what you told me, it provided you with meat when you most needed it, and killed the baboon that was a danger to you. At the same time, it frightened you off the island. Otherwise, you might have spent the rest of your life there.”

Nhamo clasped her hands. That was certainly true.

“Proud appeared to me in a dream recently, asking me to bring you here. I think he wanted you to understand what he had done.”

All the way home, Nhamo was sunk in thought. She barely noticed the hills give way to the dusty plain, or the lights of Mtoroshanga as they approached. The nganga rapped on the door of Jongwe Senior’s room as soon as they returned.

Jongwe Senior was slumped in an easy chair with a cutglass decanter on a table beside him. His wife crocheted a blanket on the opposite side of the room. She must do that all day, thought Nhamo. The house is full of those crocheted blankets.

“I’ve come for the picture,” said the nganga. Murenga stared at his father with red-rimmed eyes. He seemed not to have heard, but his wife put aside her crochet hook. The air in the room was full of the sweet, cloying smell of whiskey, and every corner was heaped with mementos of trips to England and South Africa.

Murenga’s wife cleared away some porcelain statues of white girls in long frilly skirts. She folded up a lace tablecloth. From a tea chest underneath, she removed a portrait of a man in a suit and a woman in a long, white dress.

The nganga took the photograph without a word and led Nhamo from the room. “Phew! I need fresh air after that,” said the old man, seating himself by the open dining-room window. The cool smell of lawn sprinklers drifted inside. “They rented the clothes.” He tapped the portrait. “That’s what Catholics wear when they get married.”

Nhamo was afraid to look. She had imagined her parents’ appearance for so long, she didn’t want the image destroyed. But she finally had to open her eyes and acknowledge them. They were so young! Mother wore a gauzy white cloth over her hair and held a bunch of flowers trimmed with ribbons. Father was cheerfully at ease in the whiteman clothes, while Mother seemed embarrassed. They were both extremely handsome people. “She looks like Masvita,” murmured Nhamo.

“Masvita? Oh, your first cousin. That’s not surprising,” said the old man. “You’re in the picture, too, little Disaster.”

“I am?”

“Right here.” The nganga pointed at Mother’s stomach, and laughed at Nhamo’s discomfort. “This picture belongs to you. I’ll give you the wedding license tomorrow. It proves you really are a Jongwe, although sometimes I think that’s not such a wonderful thing.”

Both Nhamo and the old man winced as the first sounds of fighting erupted from Jongwe Senior’s room.

42

Efifi looked exactly the same as Dr. van Heerden’s Land Rover roared through the gate. Nhamo sighed with relief. She was so used to losing things, she was afraid Efifi had vanished. She ran to find Baba Joseph as the doctor unloaded supplies. Then she ran to the hospital to find Sister Gladys.

It was wonderful to be back! No matter how she tried, she couldn’t really please the Jongwes, except for her great-grandfather. In subtle ways they made her feel like an intruder, and she suspected they always would. Efifi felt like home. She raced eagerly from place to place to assure herself everything was all right. The bottles were lined up on the same shelves in the hospital; the pumpkins were heaped in the corner of the cookhouse where they belonged. Even the same crows perched on the fence near the livestock pens.

Only she had changed. She had stylish new clothes, pink plastic sandals, and almost-emerald earrings in her newly pierced ears. One thing worried her, though: She no longer knew how to address Dr. Masuku.

Nhamo couldn’t call her Mother anymore, now that she knew what Mother had looked like. And yet it seemed unfriendly to go back to “Dr. Masuku.” She hesitated at the door of the lab.

“Nhamo!” cried Dr. Masuku in a delighted voice. “Oh, my! You really are a woman now. Turn around. The Jongwes didn’t pinch pennies on that cloth. And those earrings! You look beautiful!”

“Grandmother made me the dress,” said Nhamo shyly. “She took time off from crocheting blankets.”

“You told me about those wretched blankets.”

Nhamo had written letters to Dr. Masuku in her clumsy, uneven scrawl. She started them “Dear Mother,” although it made her uncomfortable to do so. This summer she would learn to type and would throw away pencils forever.

“I finally got a message from Mozambique,” Dr. Masuku said. “I thought it was better for you to read it in person.” She took out a piece of yellowed paper that had been folded and refolded. It had obviously been carried in someone’s pocket for a long time. The writing was just as crabbed as Nhamo’s.

“Dir Neese,” it began. It took a moment for Nhamo to realize it meant “Dear Niece.” The letter was from Uncle Kufa. It confirmed what she already knew, that Ambuya had died. Aunt Chipo was devastated (“veri veri sad”), but she was cheered up when Masvita had a baby boy. Masvita had married a man from Vatete’s village and was pregnant again.

Two children! Nhamo’s eyes became distant as she calculated. They must have married her cousin off the minute her hair grew back. She remembered the fever dream she had after the scorpion sting. Masvita had sacrificed herself in the lake with Princess Senwa “because it was the custom,” but Grandmother had held her, Nhamo, back. “Ambuya didn’t want me to be like Masvita,” she murmured.

“I’m sure she didn’t,” Dr. Masuku agreed.

“I ought to visit them.”

“I’d wait awhile. They might still be worried about ngozis.”

Nhamo thought about living in the village again. She would have to spend her days pounding mealies and hauling water. She wouldn’t have any books. Most of her fellow students hated studying, but Nhamo loved it—except for the writing. Well, as Ambuya said, even the best bowl of porridge has a few weevils in it.

“Dr. van Heerden and I need to talk to you,” said Dr. Masuku. They went off to find the Afrikaner in the barn, supervising the birth of a calf. Baba Joseph was watching the procedure critically.

“I don’t think you should have given her medicine to hurry it along,” he said.

“She’s weak from the blerry flies. I suppose you’ll want to baptize the baby,” Dr. van Heerden said, soaping his hands as he prepared to deliver the calf.

“Vapostori don’t baptize animals. I can pray for your soul, however.”

“Thanks, oupa,” said the doctor. He wrestled the calf from its weakened mother. Nhamo’s eyes grew wide as she watched the new life slide into the world. Animals had one spirit from Mother Earth, but people had an extra one from Mwari. She wasn’t sure why you had to pray for it.

“I wondered where you’d got to,” boomed the Afrikaner as he plunged his hands into a bucket to clean them.

GLOSSARY

(Unless otherwise stated, words are in Shona.)

THE HISTORY AND PEOPLES OF ZIMBABWE AND MOZAMBIQUE RECENT HISTORY OF ZIMBABWE AND MOZAMBIQUE

From 1964 to 1974 Mozambique was embroiled in a war of liberation from Portugal. Independence was declared in 1975, with the political party Frelimo taking over the government.

In 1963 the British attempted to grant independence to their colony Zimbabwe (then called Rhodesia). A small English tribe living in the country took over the government. They ruled until 1979, when independence was finally achieved after several years of fighting.

Nhamo’s journey takes place around 1981. Land mines were still in place along the border, and relations among white people, the Shona, and the Matabele were sometimes hostile. THE SHONA

The ancestors of the Shona arrived from the north between A.D. 1000 and 1200 as a collection of tribes with a common language and a distinct culture. The whole group was not referred to as Shona until the nineteenth century.

Histories of several royal lines were preserved in oral poetry, but the most famous king was Monomatapa. Monomatapa lived in the fifteenth century, and tales of his splendor reached the first Portuguese traders on the coast of Mozambique. He was supposed to rule a vast kingdom from the Kalahari Desert in the west to the Indian Ocean in the east.

Throughout southern Africa are the traces of an ancient civilization. The most important site is the city of Great Zimbabwe. This is located inland from the southeastern coast of Africa in present-day Zimbabwe. The city center was on a hilltop that was naturally protected from attack by a large outcrop of granite. Because it was situated on a high plateau, it was safe from the disease-infested tsetse flies that were common in the lowlands. This made it possible for an economy based on cattle to exist. Large amounts of rain made the land good for farming, and, rich in minerals, the earth could be mined for granite, iron, copper, and gold. The ancient Zimbabweans traded gold for glass beads, porcelain, and silk from as far away as China.

The city was only one of many such structures. More than 150 stone enclosures were built over several centuries from Mozambique to South Africa, but it is unknown whether they were part of a large kingdom or the remains of several small ones. The word zimbabwe means “stone enclosure” in Shona. THE MATABELE OR NDEBELE

Mzilikazi, one of Shaka Zulu’s generals, was allowed to leave the Zulu tribe with three hundred warriors. He built up his own tribe (the Matabele), but was driven out of South Africa by encroaching white settlers. He moved into southern Zimbabwe around 1836. Mzilikazi brought with him the powerful military organization of the Zulus and was able to establish a kingdom at the expense of the resident Shona. At the time of independence, the Matabele made up about 19 percent of the population. The two tribes, Shona and Matabele, have had a long history of mutual hostility. THE BRITISH

The British tribe is composed of several subgroups: the Scots, Irish, Welsh, and English. One of these, the English, has been dominant for several centuries. The British gained control of Zimbabwe around 1890, but not without violent dissent from the Shona and Matabele. Several uprisings occurred before 1965, when the British lost control of the country. From 1965 to 1979 Zimbabwe was ruled by a small minority of English tribesmen. THE PORTUGUESE

The Portuguese first settled in East Africa in the fifteenth century. They pursued a policy of conquest and trade with the interior for five centuries, and developed the slave trade from around 1600 until the late nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, a great number of Portuguese immigrated to colonies in Africa. After Mozambique and Angola became independent in 1975, many of these people moved to South Africa, Zimbabwe, or back to Portugal. THE AFRIKANERS

While the Afrikaners’ language is based on Dutch, only about a third of their ancestors actually came from Holland. They are a mixture of Dutch, French Huguenots, and Germans. They also clearly have a few English, Malay, Hottentot, and black African ancestors as well. In spite of this mixture, they form a distinct culture with strict Protestant ethics. Beginning in the late seventeenth century, they established farms throughout South Africa. In 1906 only about 6 percent of them lived in cities, towns, or villages.

Some of the early Afrikaners became wandering farmers, or Trekboers, and performed amazing feats of courage and endurance. Each group was highly individualistic, with a patriarch and a holy mission to find the Promised Land under the guidance of God. Some, hazy on geography, thought they had reached the Nile River when they were about halfway up South Africa. Trekboers went as far as Kenya in their wanderings, and many settled in Zimbabwe. THE TRIBES OF MOZAMBIQUE

Many Shona-speaking people live in Mozambique. Other cultural groups include the Maravi, the Yao, and the Maconde. The most important influence on the tribal system of northern Mozambique was the slave trade. This was carried on by Arab traders, the Portuguese, and the Yao from the sixteenth century on, but became epidemic from about 1790 to 1840. Serious depopulation and great displacement of people occurred. This permanently disrupted the traditional culture. One group, the Tonga, appears to be the remnant of several groups of fleeing people rather than a genuine tribe.

The Portuguese in Mozambique gave up slavery in 1890, although it had become technically illegal years earlier. At this time the majority of the Yao converted to Islam in order to keep trading slaves with the Muslim sheikhs on the coast and with the sultan of Zanzibar.

THE BELIEF SYSTEM OF THE SHONA

Shona culture is extremely complicated. The following is intended only as a brief overview. MWARI

The supreme being of the Shona is usually called Mwari, although he—or she, for Mwari is both—is known by many praise names. Mwari could best be described as Natural Order. Anything thought contrary to Natural Order, such as the birth of twins, must be put right or disaster will follow. Mwari may not be referred to as “it” because he/she is a sexual being involved with the mysteries of fertility. He/she is a bringer of rain, and one of his/her praise names is Dzivaguru, the Great Pool.

Great Zimbabwe, the ancient city, was a religious shrine that operated as a spiritual and governmental center in the same way as West-minster Abbey in England. In the nineteenth century a ceremony was held in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe every second year. A black cow was sacrificed as a request for rain. Two other cattle were killed, one for the priests and one to feed the wild animals of the forest. The latter carcass was left near a building known as the temple. If it was devoured, it was a sign that Mwari had accepted the prayers. The high priests who transmitted the messages of the spirit world to ordinary people were—and are—called the Ear, the Eye, and the Mouth. I changed the latter to Arm in an earlier book to indicate the physical way in which things are communicated through possession in Africa.

Now the center of the religion has shifted to the Matopos Hills near the city of Bulawayo in southern Zimbabwe. This is the one place on earth where the voice of Mwari can still be heard. Below the priests is a lower circle of devotees called the mbonga and the hossanahs. Mbonga are virgins dedicated to the service of the god. They care for the shrines until they reach puberty, when they are expected to marry. The hossanahs are young men who dance during ceremonies and carry messages for the priests.

The mbonga, when they marry, move to another status as mediums for tribal spirits, and when they pass child-bearing age they become very important as muchembera, priestesses who brew the sacred beer used in ceremonies. THE MHONDORO

A mhondoro, or lion spirit, is concerned with the land and its people as a whole. Because the Shona are actually made up of several tribes, each tribe has a mhondoro and a lion-spirit medium. The mhondoro is concerned with general problems, such as rainfall and famine. THE MUDZIMU

The mudzimu (plural, vadzimu) is a more personal spirit belonging to a family. Each person has at least four, his or her parents and patrilineal grandparents, who may make contact to warn of impending danger or to demand that some wrong be righted. Other ancestors may or may not take an interest in their offspring. One consults a specific male or female ancestor through a spirit medium to receive advice on personal problems. Certain family spirits may become interested in their descendants and teach them skills. This is why particular abilities run in families.

Old people are considered to be close to the spirit world and therefore are cloaked in power. The elderly are treated with great respect in Shona society. SHAVE

A shave (plural, mashave) is someone who died far from home and therefore couldn’t receive proper burial rites. A shave can possess anyone he or she likes, to impart knowledge. This is what happens when an unusual skill shows up in a family, for example a computer expert in a family noted for hunting. Race or tribe is unimportant in this possession. The original names of the spirits are not known, so they are referred to by the attributes or skills they impart. Some of the more popular mashave are Mazinda, who teaches one how to dance; Rotunhu, who imparts the art of healing; Nkupa, who teaches generosity; and Rokuba, who turns people into kleptomaniacs.

Rokuroya makes people act like witches. This is a particularly bad shave, and people who sleepwalk are suspected of being possessed by Rokuroya. In the bad old days they used to pound wooden pegs into the heads of sleepwalkers and leave them to die in the bush.

Chirungu is my personal favorite. He or she is the spirit of a white person, who makes people dress in pure white clothes, sit in chairs, drink boiling tea, and crave hard-boiled eggs. NGOZI

An ngozi is an angry spirit who can cause madness, illness, and death. A murder victim, a parent mistreated by his children, or anyone else who has a grievance left over from life may turn into an ngozi. The wrong must be corrected before the spirit will agree to depart. VARI KUDENGA

The vari kudenga, or people of the sky, live in Mwari’s country and are very powerful. At the same time, not much is known about them. They are said to be the source of newborn souls. VARI PANYIKA

The vari panyika, or people of Middle Earth, include living humans, visiting ancestral spirits, and animals. The boundary between humans and animals can be weak, and some people have the ability to change from one to the other. Most people don’t want to be overwhelmed by the animal world; it’s considered extremely dangerous. One way to fall into the clutches of an alien form is to eat your own totem. A totem is the symbol of your family or clan.

Certain people have a special ability to contact the spirit world. These mediums are highly respected, unless they devote themselves to evil and become witches. Witchcraft is thought to be hereditary, but it sometimes shows up in a normal family. It is a serious crime to accuse someone of witchcraft in Zimbabwe because accused people may commit suicide. This is partly because of the social isolation that overtakes such individuals. VARI PASI

The vari pasi are the people who live under the earth. A lot is known about them. The ancestors live with them, and sometimes living people fall into their realm.

Some of the most important inhabitants of the underworld are the njuzu, the water spirits. They protect lakes and rivers. If they are angry, they travel through the air like whirlwinds, bringing drought to the land beneath them. Njuzu take the shape of attractive men or women, but they can metamorphose into snakes, fish, or even crocodiles. They sometimes carry off people in their whirlwinds or pull them into their sacred pools.

Traditional healers, or ngangas, are often kidnapped and trained by njuzu, but they have to be very careful. They must never accept food while they are in the spiritual realm or they will be condemned to live in it forever. CHRISTIANITY

Catholic missionaries arrived in southern Africa along with the Portuguese. Most of the other Christian groups have established churches in the past hundred years, but there are a few genuinely African sects. One of the most widespread is the Vapostori, or Apostles.

In 1932 Johane Maranke, the grandson of a chief and a member of the Methodist church, fell into a trance and began “speaking in tongues” after experiencing a vision. He and his family believed he had received the inspiration to establish a new church from the Holy Spirit.

The new system spread rapidly. It was against traditional religious practices and considered ancestral spirits to be evil demons. It also had a full set of rules, communicated to Maranke in his visions.

Vapostori may not drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, or eat pork. They may not use medicines, although they are allowed holy water and the laying on of hands at healing ceremonies. The men shave their heads and let their beards grow. On the Sabbath, Saturday, Vapostori meet outdoors for confession and prayer. All wear white, and the men carry shepherd’s crooks.

While they reject the traditional Shona religion, they do believe in witchcraft and have ceremonies to deal with it. TOTEMS

When a child is born, he or she is given the father’s totem name. This identifies the infant as belonging to a particular clan. This name, or mutupo, refers to an animal or part of an animal that must not be eaten. The child also receives a principal praise name, or chidao. This refers to a much smaller and more closely related group of relatives. A person can marry someone with the same mutupo but not the same chidao.

Examples of names are:

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Major sources are indicated with an asterisk. Sources of Nhamo’s stories are indicated with a dagger.

Altmann, Jeanne. Baboon Mothers and Infants. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980.

^*†Aschwanden, Herbert. Karanga Mythology. Translated by Ursula Cooper. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1989.

^*†_____.Symbols of Death. Translated by Ursula Cooper. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1987.

^*†_____. Symbols of Life. Translated by Ursula Cooper. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1982.

^*Bourdillon, M. F. C. The Shona Peoples. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1982.

Bozongwana, Reverend W. Ndebele Religion and Customs. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1983.

Broadley, D. G., and E. V. Cook. Snakes of Zimbabwe. Harare, Zimbabwe: Longman Zimbabwe, 1993.

Chigwedere, A. S. The Forgotten Heroes of Chimurenga. Harare, Zimbabwe: Mercury Press, 1991.

Corfield, Timothy. The Wilderness Guardian. Nairobi, Kenya: The David Sheldrick Wildlife Appeal, 1984.

Dale, D. Shona Mini-Companion. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1981.

^*Daneel, M. L. The God of the Matopos Hills. The Hague and Paris: Mouton & Co., 1970.

^*Drummond, R. B., and Coates Palgrave. Common Trees of the Highveld. Salisbury, Rhodesia: Longman Rhodesia, 1973.

^*Ellert, H. The Material Culture of Zimbabwe. Harare, Zimbabwe: Longman Zimbabwe, 1984.

^*Estes, Richard Despard. The Behavior Guide to African Mammals. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1992.

^*Fortune, George. Elements of Shona. Salisbury, Rhodesia: Longman Rhodesia, 1957.

Gelfand, Michael. An African’s Religion. Cape Town, South Africa: Juta & Company Ltd., 1966.

^*_____. Diet and Tradition in an African Culture. Edinburgh and London: E & S Livingstone, 1971.

^*_____. The Genuine Shona. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1973.

^*†_____. Growing Up in Shona Society. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1979.

^*_____. The Spiritual Beliefs of the Shona. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1977.

^*_____. Witch Doctor. New York and Washington, D. C.: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964.

^*Gelfand, Michael, S. Mavi, R. B. Drummond, and B. Ndemera. The Traditional Medical Practitioner in Zimbabwe. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1985.

^*Ginn, Peter. Birds of the Highveld. Harare, Zimbabwe: Longman Zimbabwe, 1972.

^*Grainger, Colonel D. H. Don’t Die in the Bundu. Cape Town, South Africa: Howard Timmins, 1967.

Guy, Graham, Alan MacIsaac, P. Papadopoulo, and Dr. D. G. Broadley. The Bundu Book of Mammals, Reptiles and Bees. Harare, Zimbabwe: Longman Zimbabwe, 1972.

Hannon, M. Standard Shona Dictionary. Harare, Zimbabwe: College Press, 1987.

^*†Hodza, A. C., comp. Shona Folk Tales. Translated by O. C. Chiromo. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1987.

^*†_____. Shona Praise Poetry. Edited by George Fortune. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Hove, Masotsha M. Confessions of a Wizard. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1985.

Jenkins, David, R. B. Drummond, S. Mavi, J. F. Ngoni, and R. Williams. The Bundu Book of Trees, Flowers and Grasses. Harare, Zimbabwe: Longman Zimbabwe, 1972.

^*Jules-Rosette, Benetta. African Apostles. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975.

^*Kenmuir, Dale, and Russell Williams. Wild Mammals. Harare, Zimbabwe: Longman Zimbabwe, 1985.

^*Kileff, Cliff, and Peggy Kileff, eds. Shona Customs: Essays by African Writers. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1992.

Lightfoot, Christopher. Common Veld Grasses of Rhodesia. Salisbury, Rhodesia: Government Printer, 1975.

Minshull, Jacqueline, and Janet Duff. Arachnids: A Classification. Bulawayo, Zimbabwe: The Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, 1993.

Munjanja, Amos M. Everyday Shona and English. Harare, Zimbabwe: Write and Read Publications, Literature Bureau, 1994.

Nelson, Harold D., ed. Mozambique: A Country Study. United States government publication, Department of the Army, 1985.

_____, ed. South Africa: A Country Study. United States government publication, Department of the Army, 1981.

_____, ed. Zimbabwe: A Country Study. United States government publication, Department of the Army, 1983.

^*Plowes, D. C. H., and R. B. Drummond. Wild Flowers of Rhodesia. Salisbury, Rhodesia: Longman Rhodesia, 1976.

^*Reid-Daly, Ron. Staying Alive. Cape Town, South Africa: Ashanti Publishing Ltd., 1990.

Skaife, S. H. African Insect Life. Cape Town, South Africa: Struik Publishers Ltd., 1994.

Smuts, Barbara B. Sex and Friendship in Baboons. New York: Aldine Publishing Company, 1985.

Stein, David Martin. The Sociobiology of Infant and Adult Male Baboons. Norwood, N. J.: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1984.

^*Steyn, Peter. Wankie Birds. Salisbury, Rhodesia: Longman Rhodesia, 1974.

^†Stockil, C., and M. Dalton. Shangani Folk Tales. Volumes I and II. Harare, Zimbabwe: The Literature Bureau, 1987.

^*Stuart, Chris, and Tilde Stuart. A Field Guide to the Tracks and Signs of Southern and East African Wildlife. Harare, Zimbabwe: Tutorial Press, 1994.

Swaney, Deanna, and Myra Shackley. Zimbabwe, Botswana & Namibia. Hawthorn, Australia: Lonely Planet Publications, 1992.

^*Tredgold, Margaret H., in collaboration with H. M. Biegel, S. Mavi, and Dr. Hugh Ashton. Food Plants of Zimbabwe. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1986.

Viewing, Dr. K. A., J. W. Sweeney, and P. S. Garlake. The Bundu Book of Geology, Gemology and Archaeology. Salisbury, Rhodesia: Longman Rhodesia, 1968.

LITERATURE CIRCLE QUESTIONS

Use these questions and activities that follow to get more out of the experience of reading A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer.

Why is Nhamo particularly afraid of leopards?

What happens in Nhamo’s village that causes them to visit the muvuki?

What circumstances lead to Nhamo fleeing to Zimbabwe? What does she expect to find there?

The muvuki knows everything about Nhamo’s village, which makes his magic seem very powerful. How else could he have learned the history and names of the people in the village?

Why might Aunt Chipo want Nhamo to be sent away? What evidence can you find that she dislikes Nhamo? Do you think Aunt Chipo was really possessed?

Choose one of the stories that Nhamo tells and explain how it relates to the situation that Nhamo is in at the time and how it demonstrates or affects Nhamo’s feelings about the situation.

Through most of her journey, Nhamo talks to spirits such as Crocodile Guts. How do the spirits help her? Discuss how they help her survive, both directly and indirectly.

How does being on her own affect Nhamo’s behavior? Choose three things that she does that she wouldn’t have done if she had stayed in the village. Would she have done them if she had a human companion?

Compare how Nhamo feels about the njuzu when she first encounters them and then at the end of her journey. Has her opinion changed? Find evidence to support your answer.

Why does Nhamo spend so long on the second island? Do you think she would have left earlier or later if the baboons hadn’t been there? What if Rumpy hadn’t been part of the troop?

Why are the people Nhamo first encounters after she reaches land suspicious of her? Imagine you encountered a person who looked and acted like Nhamo did today. Would you trust that person?

Do you think Long Teats possessed Nhamo? What evidence can you find to support or refute Nhamo’s conviction that she was possessed? What circumstances brought about Long Teats’s possessing Nhamo?

What about Dr. Masuku makes Nhamo call her “Mother”? Do you think that Nhamo really believes Dr. Masuku is her mother? Explain why. Is there a connection between what Nhamo calls Dr. Masuku and how much Nhamo believes that she is her mother?

Why does Nhamo choose to tell some people about her interactions with the spirits and not others? Select one negative and positive thing that happens as a result of her talking about the spirits. Discuss how you think it affected Nhamo’s behavior in the book and if you think it will continue to guide her in the future.

Note: The literature circle questions are keyed to Bloom’s Taxonomy: Knowledge: 1-3; Comprehension: 4-5; Application: 6-7; Analysis: 8-9; Synthesis: 10-11; Evaluation: 12-14. Activities

Create a timeline of major events in Nhamo’s life, including events that happened before the book began and where she was at the time. Project the timeline into Nhamo’s future. With your class, discuss with your ideas about Nhamo’s future.

Illustrate one of the many colorful places that Nhamo saw or visited on her travels, including its inhabitants.

Make up a folktale or story—like Nhamo did throughout the novel—to explain some aspect of your own daily life, your local culture, or human relationships.

OTHER ORCHARD CLASSICS

Nothing But the Truth

Copyright

Copyright © 1996 by Nancy Farmer

Preface copyright © 2003 by Nancy Farmer

Cover illustrations copyright © 2003 by Bryan Collier