by Carol Robi
He then began talking to me, his voice doubtful that I could hear him- but I could. So I smiled up at him encouragingly despite my teary face, not daring to utter a response, for most of my classmates were staring at me as though I’d lost my mind, for bursting into tears unprovoked and wailing unstoppably in the middle of class. My mother was then called from work to come and pick me up. One look at her face, and I knew she’d heard the news.
"How did you know?" Mother asked baffled.
"I just know," I answered her, and grandfather smiled at me sadly from where he stood by my side.
I refused to go to school the following couple of days, choosing to spend my days drawing with my colouring pencils and talking with my grandfather. My mother just assumed it was one of my imaginary friends again, a coping mechanism, and had not been particularly worried.
He told me all the stories I loved about the legends of our tribe, its history and the common myths. Silly stories like why the zebra is stripped, and how there once was a tortoise that beat a hare at a race. He’d helped me get over my loss and let go gradually.
Early Thursday morning that week, we boarded a plane to Nairobi, Kenya. Grandmother picked us up from JKIA airport that night in her old pickup truck. Dad was with her, having arrived from Malawi earlier that morning. It had been nice to see dad, but like always, I had nothing to talk to him about. I did not know him. He hugged us tight, and then grandmother did the same. He swung our luggage to the back of the rusty pickup, joining his lone duffel bag and a parka.
The four of us had then squeezed into the front of the pickup, with me perched on dad's knees, and travelled for the next eight hours to mom’s tribeland at a steady pace.
My grandfather's ghost rode with us the whole way, placing himself on the center console, between my grandmother at the drive seat and my mother. He kept making faces the whole time and telling jokes about grandmother and our family. I couldn't help but laugh out loud, and at times it had been hard not to respond to what he said.
My grandmother appeared a little scared and worried at my behavior and had asked me eventually with whom I was talking to. Grandfather begged me to say that it was one of my imaginary friends, like my parents assumed, but I told the truth.
I was talking to grandfather.
They all looked back at me with stricken faces at my answer, but I didn't care. I had been seeing ghosts long enough to know that they did not stay on earth for long. In fact, I had a feeling that grandfather was overstaying, and had to leave soon. So I did not want to waste the remaining time of his stay by pretending not to see him.
"Was it grandfather you’ve been showing your art all week, and talking with on the plane?" mother asked, trying as hard as she could to mask the worry in her voice.
"Yes," I replied without hesitation. "No grandfather, it's ok, I'll just tell them the truth." I proceeded to say aloud upon my grandpa's insistence that I lie.
He feared that they would take me to a hospital for the crazies, and he’d been right. He told me stories of how in the old days of our tribe, people who could see and hear ghosts, were murdered for it. The people feared it to be a work of evil spirits. The story scared me, but I reasoned out with him aloud.
"They won't accuse me of evil spirits for talking with you, grandfather. They are my parents, they love me." I was not paying them any attention to note the look of shock and fear that crossed the faces in the car at my utterances, because my attention had been focused on my grandfather's warm lined face. We then spent the rest of the time telling stories and laughing together, when my grandfather finally gave up on lecturing me on the importance of discretion.
By the time we arrived at my grandparents’ traditional homestead the next day, the sun had been scorching high at midday. None of the grownups questioned me more about my grandfather or his ghost, leaving me alone in peace to talk to him. Some of my uncles and aunties looked at me funny when I would randomly burst out laughing or say something to myself, but most of my cousins my age just began talking to their own imaginary friends with me. They looked up to me a lot, maybe because I was a ‘foreigner’ from faraway lands, therefore marking me as different.
The younger children stalked my father wherever he went, touching him, and staring at him unabashedly. Any other person would have been embarrassed at this kind of attention, but dad was used to it. He had travelled so many times to different places in the world where his looks stuck out like a sore thumb. He entertained the children, and even went as far as to speak his heavily accented Swahili with them. His Swahili is good, much better than mine, but my accent is not as foreign as his.
Mother says it is because I began hearing her speak Swahili since I was a little baby, and thereby learnt the language with her accent. It is easier for children to adopt accents with a new language than it is for grownups. She is right. My Kuria however, my mother's tribe language, is terrible. I can understand most of it, but every time I speak it, I just stumble through the words with such misplaced intonations that all my cousins laugh at me. I have learnt from my past mistakes, so now each time someone speaks in Kuria to me, I make sure to respond in Swahili.
Mother and I took a nap together later that afternoon, on a small bed in one of the many thatched huts that she grew up in, and woke up later in the evening. The celebrations for grandfather's life had begun in the main house and the gardens around it. There was lots of music and dancing, three large bonfires had been set up on the large front garden with large pieces of roasting beef strewn over it.
The aroma of the roasting meat and other food delicacies made my stomach grumble, and what a great range of food and drinks were served during the ceremony. Those that weren't children, basically most over fourteen years old, drunk the rich sweet millet wine, busara. The band played lovely trance-like African tunes to which people danced all night. Members of my grandfather's age-group, sang praise songs of his life and what he had conquered. They mentioned his children that would carry out his life and legacy, and they even mentioned my mom and dad, and the sunset haired granddaughter (that is me). Grandfather danced often with me, probably because I was the only one that could see him.
Much later in the night, as the day began to break, and my whole body was so tired from dancing, I sat by one of the bonfires and stared at the vibrant crackling flames. My grandfather came to seat beside me, watching the flames with me. I knew what he was going to say even before he began.
"I have to move on now, sweetheart," he started, and I shook my head in childish protest. "I have to, and you have to let me go."
"I won't!" I said indignantly, clutching at his pipe tight against my chest.
"You should, child. I am getting weary. My soul needs to go home and rest now. And you need to start living with the living, the dead belong elsewhere."
"I want to be with you!"
"You will one day, but right now the people that love you, need you." He insisted, pointing his finger at me. Hot fiery tears escaped my eyelids, for I knew he was right. I hugged my pipe tight to myself, just how I would have hugged grandpa if I could hold him. He then smiled at me warmly, understanding the gesture.
"I will wait for you, and one day when you are VERY OLD, and ready, I’ll welcome you with all my heart." He concluded, stressing the words very old. I felt his presence leave even as his ghost lingered before my eyes a few seconds longer.
At the first rays of sunlight that morning, we lowered the body of the great Mwita Gisusu deep into the ground, covering it up with the freshly dug mound, and planted a eucalyptus tree above the grave. The great spear, first born son of the family Gisusu was dead.
I held onto his pipe, taking it with me wherever I went for the next four years. My decision to give the pipe to my Danish grandfather, was because I love him dearly too. He’d always made me feel important and special, always giving me the attention I need. And besides that, he loved to smoke almost as much as my African grandfather had, probably even more. I knew he would love the pipe, and
appreciate its artistic properties, as well as its functional ones. Turns out I was right. For nearly every late afternoon I spent with him thereafter, I’ve seen him sit on his reclining garden chair, light his pipe and smoke.
Chapter 6
After hours of sketching under the lazy warm sun and the cool North Sea breeze one afternoon, dad bikes into the driveway. He parks his bike while calling out greetings to his parents. He then comes over to me and kisses the top of my curly head.
"Hej skat," hi darling, he says.
"Hi dad," I respond. “Did you have a good day?”
"Yes, very," he responds cheerfully. I lay down my pencils on the nook of my drawing table and turn towards him questioningly.
"Very, huh?"
"Yes very, I think I found us a house! You can still attend the creative arts gymnasium in Sønderbirk, where we have been thinking of enrolling you, as there is a direct bus to take you there."
"Really?" I ask. But he is already fielding questions from his parents in rapid Danish, and it is a headache to follow the conversation.
After a while, they seem satisfied with his answers. I am happy too at dad's news. My grandparent's house is too small to house us all, and we are often in each other's way. It would be good to have our own place, and not have to compromise my TV preferences with those of ones over 50 years older.
"The owner's son said he could show us the house in about half an hour's time. So if you are ready princess, we could go check it out now."
"I am," I answer excitedly as I begin folding up my drawing board and packing my stuff to take them indoors.
"I am coming too," my grandfather adds as he raises himself off his leaning chair, still puffing at his pipe. "Are you coming too, Regitze?" He asks grandma.
"Of course, of course," she responds, getting up and putting away her reading. "Shall we not have a cup of tea first? Torben must be hungry!" We all burst out laughing. Grandma is obsessed with feeding people, eating dinners on time, and all matters related to food.
"Mother we have to leave now," dad says, but she soon erupts into a quick paced discussion about how dinner shall be delayed if we all go to see the house, and how a man of his body size needs to eat at regular intervals, and much more that I don't listen to as I return my art paraphernalia into my room.
Dad finally gives up on fighting his mother and grabs at an apple before we all squeeze ourselves into my grandparents' car. We drive along the road I had taken earlier this week, but when we get to the turn by the golf course, we keep proceeding further with the narrow winding road. I love being on the road, even now, cramped together like this into the little car, listening to Kim Larsen and the adults’ rumbling conversation.
Evidence of the beautiful Danish summer speeds past me; the tall ash and birch trees clamped together, the endlessly running short green grass, generously carpeting every square inch of ground, has begun fading at its tips to a pale brownish green.
I am quite surprised by myself. I love it for the same reason that I hate it. Quite a paradox. I hated it when I had to visit Denmark as a child, because of the small towns and the reserved people, which probably arose from the fact that the country had sheltered itself from the world and foreigners for far too long. I always felt out of place here, each time I walked into a supermarket or just left the house. Even my own cousins stared at me, during the few Christmases that we spent here. However, its beautiful untouched nature tugs at my heart, despite all my reservations, forcing me to fall in love with the country even more.
Truth be told, there grows a great longing in my heart as we drive on, wishing that we were driving towards my beloved park. My heart longs for it, no, my soul sings for it. I long to go back, to get closer to the enriched air that had threatened to intoxicate me. I have longed for it all week. Even now, if I close my eyes, I can feel the air begin to thicken, just by thinking about it.
Is it my imagination, or are we nearing the park? We drive on further, the air thickening even more- embracing me, filling every inch of me, and I hunger for it like an addict and his poison. The others must not have noticed it, for they keep up their banter about something a politician had or had not said in the Folketinget, the Danish parliament.
My head begins to feel light and hazy, and the air starts to adopt a very pale lilac haze. I push my head back, as far back as it can go against the headrest behind me, and drop my what now feel to be very heavy eyelids, half closing my eyes. My skin feels unusually warm, and for a second I think I might just have purred - for it feels as though my bones and joints vibrate in synchrony and that I am producing a sound to acknowledge my state of bliss.
I, however, mustn't have made any noise, because grandfather and dad are still out-talking each other about the politician in question.
They seem so far away, a distant vision, and it is hard to believe that we are all cramped into the same small space. The rich essence in the air now affects me much more than it had last time, much more. I take it in, in slow deep breaths, letting it flow deep inside me. With each intake, I hunger for even more. Something tells me that I ought to worry about this hunger, but my worries are quickly swept away by the intoxicating bliss that engulfs me.
I mustn’t have noticed them at first, due to my heady intoxication, but my eyes fly open in shock when I notice what appear to be shadowy blobs with gaping holes for eyes peering into the car, and I involuntarily let out a sharp gasp.
Relax, relax! I tell myself over and over again as I try to still my racing heartbeat, and explain to my family's worried faces looking at me that I had gasped due to a painful stomach cramp. My grandmother besides me immediately turns into a ball of concern, pestering me with a hundred and one questions on the stomach cramp.
"Where does it hurt?" she asks looking up at me questioningly.
"Umh... Somewhere here," I say splaying my hand vaguely over my midsection. My grandmother narrows her eyes quizzically, pondering on what could be the matter. I immediately feel a pang of guilt at having worried her, so I opt to splash a fake smile on, trying to ignore the tingling caused by fear in my veins because the ghost like creatures are still peering at me from outside the car, their faces planted fast against the windows, windshield and rear screen.
"I am okay, grandma. It feels completely fine now, maybe it had just been a spasm." I insist. She still looks at me quizzically. Dad's questioning face too examines me through the rear view mirror. I smile at him, fighting hard to ignore the enthralling air that is still pulling at my senses.
I look at one of the creatures that is pressed against the windscreen, staring right at me. I stare right back, hoping that it will assume my attention is on the road ahead, while resting my head against the very window against which more of those phantom faces are pressed from the outside.
My skin cringes at the act, but I know it is the best way to make it seem as though I do not see them, just like the rest of the human population does not.
The face staring at me from outside the windscreen is engrossing though, and as I stare ahead, I try to fathom its features - its un-humanistic features. Definitely not the regular ghosts I am used. Its features, that had at first just been a mass of jumbled shadows, keep getting impossibly defined, right in front of my eyes.
I could swear it hadn't had a nose before, but right now there is one pressed hard against the glass. Its mouth, that had been just a gaping hole a few seconds before, now smiles back at me reassuringly, almost coaxing me to reciprocate the smile. Before he had just been a shadowy blob, but right in front of me is an unmistakably male figure with large dark chocolate wings floating above him, with the outermost tips of his wings tinted to a light yellow brown. His gray hazy shape slowly comes into focus to form a muscular torso, and powerful legs to match his upper body, clad in a tight dark bluish leather-like combat suit, with a long sword scabbard between his shoulder blades, its hilt reaching up to the back of his head.
I blink a little at the image forming before me, watching his ski
n darkening from the lifeless gray matter it had been before to a pale hue, an olive shade and finally a warm caramel color. His eyes were the most frightening of all, having previously been gaping holes, then shiny bright globes, transform right before my eyes into a crisp light blue; and then a darker shade of blue, to green, tangy orange, and finally to brown. Soft dark brown eyes like- I gasp in surprise, like my late grandfather’s!
I know I have screwed up then, with my gasp, for he smiles, having noticed my reaction. He knows I can see him. I struggle to keep my face neutral, tightening my facial muscles so hard that a little spot by my left temple begins to throb. He flies some inches away from the windscreen, flying backwards in pace with the car, his wings barely making a flutter above his body. He then flicks his hand as though making a signal, his lips moving inaudibly, right before flying away from my view.
Spectacular! Is the first thought that runs through my mind when he leaves, once fear stops being the only emotion raging through my body.
I note with relief as I stare out the window, that I do not see any of the creepy creatures that had been pressed against its pane a short while ago.
I keep thinking that I must have imagined it all. None of it makes sense. How could he have disappeared so fast? Why had his, its features kept changing as I stared at him? What is going on? The vein at my temple now throbs even more painfully, and with greater intensity. I try to relax my facial muscles so as to ease it.
Dad starts slowing down the car as we drive through a cluster of 5 or so houses, and we pass a small wooden sign standing by the road, the single short word, RØ written on it. Two of the houses here look newer, 1920's newer, with the classic Danish architecture of simple design, red bricks, and dark grey asphalt roofing. The other three houses however are old buildings. They must be between 150-200 years old, for they appear to be the traditional half-timbered houses, which must have been renovated countless times over the years. They are beautiful in their resilience, standing strong even after so many years. I hope one of them is ours.