by Karen Prince
He wasn’t sure what he felt like doing, so for the first time in his life he stomped off in what looked and felt suspiciously like a sulk. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Salih watching from a nearby branch.
~~~
By the time the sun dipped behind the trees Ethan felt much calmer. He had paced up and down near the rapids till he caught a whiff of barbecue on the evening breeze and wandered back to the camp. A fire had been lit in the fire pit.
One small girl squatted in the dirt poking a stick into the fire, whilst two others took it in turns to rotate the duiker on its pole. None of them looked old enough to be tending a fire. I should have done that, he told himself with a pang if guilt, instead of throwing a hissy fit while everyone else worked.
“Hey, Ethan, come and look at this,” Tariro called, as if there had been no altercation between them before. Ethan didn’t want to speak to Tariro; he was embarrassed about his outburst, but he guessed the boy was attempting to make peace, so he wandered over.
Tafadzwa had hold of a foot pump, which he used to pump up the inner tube of a tractor tyre, beside the pool. He gripped the footplate between his bare toes and pumped the handle up and down.
“I don’t know how he plans to keep that lot inflated,” Tariro laughed. “It looks like they’re more patch than tube.”
“Can’t see how we are going to stay dry on them anyway with the holes in the middle,” Ethan said. Not that it mattered. If they did end up going down the river, it wouldn’t be cold enough to care if they got wet or not – although he would rather not touch the water at all.
Soon, to Ethan’s relief, Jimoh came over, bringing grown-ups with him.
“Greetings, I am father of Jimoh,” said a kindly looking man in the same stilted English as his son. Ethan was reassured to see he looked official in a faded, but neatly ironed ranger’s suit. Unfortunately, he carried a rusty iron plough disk, which meant he agreed with the concept of attempting a scry. Surprised at the man’s apparent gullibility, Ethan leaped forward anyway, to help him place it on the ground.
The man smiled his thanks, holding his hat against his chest while he went through the tribal handshake with Tariro and then a straightforward handshake with Ethan. It was a fancy Australian outback-style felt hat with a leopard skin band. Ethan wondered how friendly the leopard was going to be when he saw that.
“This is grandfather of Jimoh,” Jimoh’s dad introduced another, much older man, whose eyes crinkled up with mischief as he shook hands. He wore much-mended khaki trousers and a smart, green shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Ethan couldn’t help staring at his sandals. They were made entirely out of what looked like car tyres. Jimoh’s grandfather said something in Shona that sounded as if he was glad Ethan admired his sandals. He mopped his brow with a bright green and yellow floppy cloth hat with “Tobacco Sales” printed on the side and settled it back on his shock of curly white hair.
“Please tell me we are not going to go with those crocodiles into the wilderness,” Ethan blurted out to the two men, anxiously hopping from one foot to the other. “Please tell me you know how to find Joe.”
Jimoh’s dad gripped Ethan’s shoulder and gazed into his face earnestly. “Ah, Ethan, we talk with witch. She is right. You will have to trust crocs to take you to find Joe.”
Feeling his last hope of common sense slipping away, Ethan stammered, “Wh-what about my uncle? Surely we must fetch him, or the authorities.”
“Ethan, Alan is very far on other side of farm with safari client,” Jimoh’s dad said. “It will take long time to fetch him. Then he will call police.” His fingers worried at the brim of his hat. “Then police will waste many days walking through the bushes. They will not find Joe there. Those from city will not believe story for crocs or witch. Maybe they arrest her. She has no identity card. If they take her away, she cannot help us find Joe.”
“What about my aunt?” Ethan said, almost bursting into tears.
“She must stay with girls. This job for men. Now come, we make raft.” He turned and strode purposefully towards the pool, jamming the hat back on his head as he went, allowing no further argument.
Jimoh’s grandpa instructed Tariro to lift the disk and before Ethan had time to argue with them, the two of them went off in the direction of the witch. He could not win. One way or another, he was going to end up going down the river.
Jimoh and his dad wrapped lengths of hessian around the inflated tubes, and sewed the fabric on, using a tobacco-baling needle. When they were done, they had produced very acceptable rafts for the trip. The kraal boys kept up a steady stream of begging and cajoling at Jimoh’s dad in Shona.
“What are they saying?” Ethan asked Jimoh.
“They want to come with on adventure, but my dad says same as witch. It is too much work for crocs. It can only be you and Tariro and me. And that leopard who is for some reason liking you.”
“The leopard?” Ethan said, taken aback. Somehow he had got the feeling the leopard and the witch were inseparable and there was no way the witch was going to attempt the river. He knew he’d feel safer if it did come with them. What was it about the leopard? As menacing as the creature was, he felt strangely drawn towards it. From time to time, he caught himself scanning the Crystal Pools area for the cat, and every time he found it, he caught it staring at him, with a sort of... expression.
“Well, as long as no one expects me to touch the animal,” he shuddered. Although, he might, just once, to see if he could.
“Also, there is place, on journey, where these small boys will not be able to hold breath for long enough,” Jimoh went on. He did not seem in the least bit shocked that the other boys wanted to go on the adventure, or worried about his own safety. Ethan felt as if he was the only one who had any sense of the danger at all.
A single drum began to beat a tattoo that sounded almost like Morse code, and Ethan could hear an answering drum in the distance.
“Is signal to come off fields now, and message to tell about witch and about duiker,” Jimoh said. As people arrived, another drummer and another joined the first drummer, until eventually the drumming changed from a message to the regular rhythm of a tune.
A group of mothers wove their way up from the kraal, balancing groceries and utensils on their heads. Ethan marvelled at the front two, each of whom carried a heavy cast-iron cauldron with only a rolled up scrap of fabric and their own curly hair to cushion their heads.
The women laughed together and greeted their children, then noisily set about preparing a meal. Maize meal was poured into boiling water in one enormous cauldron and churned into a very stiff porridge. Onions and a spinach-like vegetable called rape bubbled away in the other. When the roasted duiker was ready, a grizzled old lady took charge of plopping down spoonfuls of porridge onto tin or plastic plates with a shaking hand. Small girls distributed these amongst the community, starting with Gogo Maya the witch, whose fear of grown-ups had evaporated at the friendliness of the villagers – or everyone’s willingness to believe her story. It looked to Ethan as if she was the guest of honor, holding court from an old fold-up chair someone had fetched her from the kraal. She grinned happily, enjoying the fuss, and a large tin of the pungent local beer, which had bits floating in it. Ethan had literally gasped at the smell of it when Tafadzwa took it to the old woman.
Hunkering down on his haunches beside the fire with the rest of the boys, Ethan felt at a bit of a loss. He was so worried about Joe, he was not sure if he could eat; besides, there were no knives and forks. He was going to have to dip his fingers into the same bowl as everyone else. The thought made him nauseous.
“Like this,” Jimoh said, squeezing into the circle beside him. He broke off a bite-sized piece of stiff porridge and rolled it into a ball, pressing a hollow in to it with his thumb. He dunked the ball into the communal gravy, filling up the hollow, and popped it into his mouth, then turned grinning to Ethan, whose stomach growled loudly. Without thinking too hard about it, Ethan did the
same, sending the kraal kids into fits of applause and hilarity.
After eating, everyone shared in the work of cleaning up. Even the littlest, who could barely walk, took their plate to the water’s edge beyond the pool and rubbed it clean with sand, then rinsed it and returned it to a plastic basin. A murmur of excitement ran around the camp as young and old gathered around the witch for the entertainment. Most of them had heard of scrying but no one had ever seen it done before. Mothers sat on the floor with their legs straight out in front of them, their small children clambering onto their laps, making themselves comfortable. Despite their skepticism, several men sat around on low stools, or upturned paraffin drums, enjoying beer out of mugs made from used baked bean tins with wire tied onto the sides for handles. Ethan, Jimoh and Tariro sat cross-legged right in the front, near the witch, and waited.
9
Smoke and Mirrors
The witch stood up and stretched, sending armfuls of ivory and seed-pod bangles jingling down her upraised arms to pool at her elbows. Ethan was sure she only did it for dramatic effect. Her creamy white dreadlocks hung in fat sausages down to her waist as she turned her face to the stars.
What she wore did not look in the least bit African to him, or witchy, for that matter. It looked more like plain black pyjamas – loose-fitting trousers with a tunic. Her tattered skirt lay drying over a nearby bush. It seemed the only purpose of the skirt was to hold the scores of pockets sewn onto the inside of it. After a good long stretch that focused everyone’s attention, she fished the skirt off the bush, but instead of putting it back around her waist, she lay it out like a picnic blanket beside the sunken plough disk, and rooted around in the pockets till she came up with a pouch of tobacco and a small pipe.
“The tobacco smoke attracts the spirits to the material world,” she explained to the assembled crowd. Someone handed her a burning stick from the nearby fire and she lit her pipe. Soon its rich aroma wafted into the night air. After settling herself cross-legged on her skirt and taking a couple of puffs, she blew gently on the stick to coax a flame and carefully lit the fourteen citronella candles which Joe’s mother had packed in his camping gear to use as a mosquito repellent. Two for each night they were supposed to be camping. As each candle ignited, the witch planted it in a circle in the sand around the disk. The acrid smell of insecticide wafted up to mingle with the rich smell of the tobacco.
The disk, sunk to its brim in the sand, looked like a perfectly spherical puddle. They all gazed at it with bated breath as candlelight flickered and oscillated, casting a strange glimmer over the surface of the water in the dark night. Ethan wondered if the candles were cheap and faulty, or if the witch was making them burn so strangely.
The clearing grew eerily quiet, the only sounds the soft tinkling of the rapids beyond the pool and a single drum beating a slow rhythm in the background.
The witch seemed to be in no hurry as she brought her tin mug up to her mouth and took a swig. A small rivulet of beer ran down her chin. She lowered her mug, wiped her mouth with the back of a wrinkled hand and said, “I’m so sorry about all this...”
“Where is our boy?” interrupted a fierce-looking man Ethan had not noticed before, his patience with the slow ritual wearing thin. Eyes gleaming in the firelight, he stood at the back, leaning on a long pole, its one end sharpened into a stake. Jimoh’s father glowered at the man.
The witch paused, her pipe halfway to her lips. “We had no choice in the matter. It was a life or death situation,” she said indignantly.
Uncoiling himself from his warm place by the fire, the leopard padded softly over to the witch, butted his head against her hand, and then sat beside her, radiating disapproval.
The angry man was not intimidated by this display, but the other villagers shuffled back a little and watched the cat warily. Ethan felt a knot of tension grow in his stomach. Most of the villagers had relaxed around the cat once they realised it was her pet, but the animal still gave him a creepy feeling.
The witch relaxed her hand on the leopard’s back and his expression softened a little. “Your boy has been pulled into Karibu, where I come from,” she explained. “We were captured and feared for our lives, so we had to make a switch. Unfortunately, I believe, when we jumped into your world, your boy jumped into our world.”
An angry murmur rose from some of the men as this was translated to them, and they realised that the witch herself might have somehow caused Joe to disappear. The leopard bristled with menace, but Ethan seemed to be the only one aware of it.
“Do not worry,” the witch said quickly. “The boy will be quite safe. The ones who captured me have no fight with boys, only witches.”
“What if they think Joe is a witch who has changed herself into a boy?” one of the mothers said, pushing her bottom lip out in an angry pout. Ethan was shocked at how easily the villagers seemed prepared to believe that Joe had traded places with the witch. Then again, he had bought her story too...
“Witches in Karibu cannot change shape,” the witch reassured the woman.
“It was bloody irresponsible of you to take the risk,” the angry man sneered at her.
“I was drawn here by those crocodiles,” she snapped back at him, jabbing her pipe pointedly in the direction of Jimoh’s grandpa. To Ethan’s astonishment, the two crocodiles lounged like dark shadows in the firelight beside the old man, almost part of the circle of people. No one seemed to be afraid of them. Grandpa smiled at Ethan when he caught his eye.
“Then is prophecy,” nodded one of the mothers with satisfaction.
“Yes. Yes. Is prophecy,” the villagers murmured, poking each other on the shoulder or rocking back and forth in excited agreement.
The angry man glared around him as if he could not believe such stupidity.
Ignoring him, the witch cocked her head inquiringly at the mother, who in turn gestured towards the old man. Jimoh’s grandpa patted the crocodiles on their brow ridges and came forward carrying his upturned paint tin seat, which he set by the fire opposite the witch. Ethan hoped it had been cleaned properly. It would only take one spark to set any paint residue off and blow the man up like a firework. Grandpa sat down and cast a twinkling eye over the group. After a long pause which Ethan guessed was to ensure the audience were on the edge of their seats with anticipation, he cleared his throat and told the tale of the crocodiles. Tariro translated for Ethan and the witch and, although he didn’t know it, for the leopard too.
“When the first white man passed through the valley he shot and wounded a crocodile by this very pool,” Grandpa said. “As was often the way of white hunters in those days, he left it there to die and went about his killing ways further along the valley. Some children found the crocodile the next day and fetched their grandfather who was a powerful sangoma.” A sangoma was a witch-doctor, Tariro explained to the witch.
Grandpa paused for dramatic effect. “The sangoma patched it up and stayed with it for five days and six nights, never resting himself until the crocodile was well enough to survive on its own. By and by it swam away down river.” He gazed wistfully in the direction of the rapids. The villagers gazed wistfully too, and murmured agreement, as if they had heard the story before. All except the angry man who shook his head as if he had never heard such nonsense.
The old man lowered his voice. “Nobody knew what had passed between the sangoma and the crocodile during his long vigil, but sometime later, two very large crocodiles moved to the rapids below the crystal pool, and the sangoma said they had come to repay their debt. A prophecy grew up around this tale, that the crocodiles would stay here, keeping the people of Tjalotjo kraal safe until they were able to take their revenge for the shooting.” He let this idea sink in and then went on.
“At first the people at the kraal were afraid of them, but as time passed they came to enjoy a feeling of safety around the crocodiles, and an odd feeling of happiness and good health whenever they spent time swimming in the pool. The descendants of the old sangoma h
ad a special relationship with the crocodiles and some of them were even able to communicate with them.” The villagers nodded in agreement. After all, they were the very people he spoke of, and they all knew someone who knew a person who claimed to be able to talk to the crocodiles.
“About a hundred years ago,” Grandpa went on after the babble of voices had died down, “a white family moved onto the land west of the valley. When they started to camp on the other side of the pools, the villagers waited for the crocodiles to take revenge for the shooting. As they got to know them better, the Tjalotjo villagers even warned the white family of the prophecy, but they persisted in camping and swimming there. Rather than wreak vengeance upon them, the crocs seemed to include the white family under their protection.” The crowd shook their heads and tsk-tsked. Ethan couldn’t tell if this was at the stubbornness of the white family or the failure of the crocodiles to wreak vengeance.
“From time to time sangoma come from far away and take water from the pool,” Grandpa informed the witch. “We know it is because of the crocodiles.”
“Yes,” agreed the villagers. “We know it is the crocs.”
“Will they go away now that they have fulfilled the prophecy and taken Joe?” a young man asked the witch.
“No. They did not take Joe, and my leopard would know if they were planning to wreck vengeance on anyone,” the witch said firmly.
“Lucky for you,” Tariro said, poking Ethan in the ribs.
“No, boy,” the witch said. “Crocodiles don’t notice the colour differences in humans, much like we can’t tell one zebra from another.”
The leopard sat up and stared intently at the crocodiles, giving off a low throbbing purr that made Ethan’s scalp prickle. Then, just as suddenly, the tension in the air dissipated and the leopard stretched out once more beside Jimoh. “They have smell memories of the blood of the sangoma’s descendants, and bring magic from Karibu to protect them,” he told the witch, with a meaningful look at Jimoh.