When Hoopoes Go to Heaven

by Gaile Parkin

  ‘This new part of the business has brought a new sense of purpose to us, too,’ said Zodwa. ‘Before, we simply concentrated on burying the late with dignity and respect. But now we’re also focusing on helping others to celebrate the lives of their late. We’re helping to record why each and every one of those lives mattered.’

  ‘And,’ said Jabulani, ‘we’re even helping people to record why lives matter while those lives are still being lived. Eish, there are more and more orders for cakes that celebrate why people are important to others now, cakes that talk about what people mean to each other now before they are late.’

  ‘Ubuntu is smiling down on us,’ said Zodwa, smiling herself. ‘The business he started is doing so well now.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jabulani said to Benedict. ‘The edge you brought to us is too, too good, nè?’

  Then Jabulani’s cell-phone rang, and he had to rush down the road to Ubuntu Funerals to sort out a delivery of wood for making caskets that was causing problems, and the Tungarazas left shortly after that when a young couple arrived full of smiles, wanting to order a cake.

  On the way home, Baba pulled up outside Mr Patel’s shop, just as Benedict had asked him to. Leaving Mama and Baba in the Microbus, he went inside quickly. Mrs Patel was behind the counter, where she always was. Benedict waited for her to finish with a customer who was buying a Russian and some chips before he spoke to her.

  ‘I have something for you,’ he said, reaching into the pocket of his shorts. Mrs Patel looked at him suspiciously, perhaps expecting a worm or a snail. ‘I made it myself,’ he said, handing her his small gift.

  She examined it carefully, exploring the feel of it with a long, thin finger. He had spent a whole entire afternoon making it, an afternoon that had been full of rain and noisy, bored brothers and sisters. It wasn’t as beautiful as it could have been, but it was the best he could do with what he had, which was an empty matchbox from Mrs Levine, some of the silver foil that Mama used for covering her cake-boards, and the last of the children’s gold glitter.

  ‘It’s a frame,’ he told her. ‘You can put a small photo inside, maybe of somebody you love or somebody you miss.’ He didn’t want to say her son’s name. She had never mentioned him to Benedict, and for Benedict to know would have meant that there was gossip. ‘It can fit in your pocket or your handbag, then that person is always with you.’

  Mrs Patel looked at the frame for a long time before she held it to her chest. ‘So much of happiness you are bringing to my heart,’ she whispered, and if she hadn’t been looking right at Benedict as she said it, he would have thought she was talking to the photograph of Sandeep that wasn’t yet inside the frame. He hoped that the happiness his gift was bringing to her heart might help it – even if just a little bit – to unbreak.

  ‘Chilli-bites,’ she said, smiling and using the hand that wasn’t holding his gift to bring a plateful out from the glass cabinet on one side of the counter. ‘Very nice. Fresh today, nè?’

  Benedict took one, biting into the warm, spicy ball of fried batter. He chewed and swallowed before he asked his question. ‘Did you bring it, Mrs Patel?’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’ Her head disappeared behind the counter, and when it popped up again she had let go of his gift and there was an envelope in her hand. With her other hand she passed Benedict a paper serviette. Finishing his treat, he wiped the chilli-bite grease from his fingers before he took the envelope from her.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Patel. I’ll bring it back soon.’

  ‘No, no. Keep. Keep.’

  He began to thank her, but Mr Patel came in from the back with a new load of paper bags and plastic spoons, and Mrs Patel waved Benedict out of the shop with the back of her hand.

  Back on the front seat of Baba’s red Microbus, Benedict slipped the envelope into Mama’s handbag before securing his seatbelt.

  ‘We were just saying,’ Mama said from the seat behind, ‘how proud of you we are.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Baba, easing into the Saturday afternoon traffic. ‘That business we just went to, it’s there entirely because of you.’

  ‘Mama trained the ladies.’

  ‘But why did she have ladies to train? Because you had an idea. One small idea for a unique selling point, and the result is a business that’s thriving, a business that’s putting food in hungry stomachs by giving people work. That is the dream of any businessman.’

  ‘Or any businesswoman,’ said Mama from behind him.

  Baba seemed not to have heard her. ‘Eh! How can I see you as a small boy now that I’ve seen the business that you built? I’m very proud of you today, Benedict. Very proud indeed.’

  ‘And me, shujaa wangu,’ said Mama, reaching forward and giving his shoulder a squeeze. ‘And me.’

  All the way back down the Malagwane Hill, Benedict felt like he really was Mama’s hero, and Baba’s too. His chest swelled with pride. Baba had compared him with a grown-up businessman! Now that he had started a business, he must surely be big.

  Surely he could do it now?

  He was certainly ready to try.

  Saying that he felt like visiting Auntie Rachel’s chickens, he asked Baba to drop him at the beginning of the driveway. Mrs Levine happened to be driving out just as they got there, and as the red Microbus had to stop outside the farm gate for Mrs Levine’s pale blue Corolla to pass through first, that was where Benedict got out. Baba drove Mama up the hill, leaving Benedict behind to watch the red Microbus disappearing around the bend beyond the shed.

  Now he had to manage, otherwise he would never get home.

  He looked at the cattle-grid.

  The more he looked at it, the more it began to look like a gate that was lying on the ground, a gate that had been pushed over.

  An upright gate said keep out, but lying down it said welcome, come in. It looked a bit like a bridge that wanted to make it safe for him to get from here to there.

  The metal bars of the grid were really so close together. Surely he couldn’t possibly be small enough to fall through the gaps?

  Two of his fingers began to cross, but he stopped them, certain that he didn’t need their help.

  Holding his breath, he ran quickly across the bars.

  Eh!

  It was so easy!

  He turned round and walked back over them, then danced back across them again. Grinning widely, he began to walk slowly up the long driveway, stopping every few steps to turn and look back at what he had done.

  Tomorrow he would walk along the narrow bridge to the just-in-case pump in the middle of the dam. He knew he was big enough to do that now, he no longer had to stand and look at it from the edge of the dam like one of the little ants that wanted to get to the jar of honey in the middle of the dish of water. He would stand there in the centre of the dam and turn round slowly, slowly, slowly, taking in how all the things he knew from the edge looked from the middle.

  Turning again to look back down the hill, he wondered how long it was going to take the cows to understand that the cattle-grid was really just the same as a pushed-over gate. It would mean trouble for Uncle Enock if they ever did, so Benedict would never say.

  Because he kept turning back to see how far he’d come, it took him a long time to make his way all the way up to the house. When he got there, Mama was sitting on one of the couches looking at a magazine. His brothers and sisters were down at the other house, and Baba and Titi were both in their bedrooms taking a nap. Benedict decided he would tell Mama that all this time he’d been afraid of falling through the gaps in the cattle-grid, and that now he was too big to be afraid. He went to sit next to her.

  She smiled at him. ‘Your envelope from Mrs Patel is there,’ she said, pointing to the dining table.

  ‘Thank you, Mama.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what’s inside it?’

  ‘Uh-uh. Not yet.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Mama, you know the cattle-grid at the gate?’

  But Benedict could say no
more to Mama, because a quiet knocking sound began to reach them from the kitchen. Was somebody knocking to come in there? They both went to look, and Mama opened the back door.

  Mavis was standing there with a blanket of bright squares draped over her arm and a Cobra floor-polish tin in her hands. ‘Sorry to disturb, nè? I want to ask, can I come for ordering a cake? A cake for somebody late?’

  While Mama spoke to Mavis on one of the couches, Benedict settled at the dining table to concentrate on the cake for the cleansing ceremony that was about Petros. He had known so little about him, very little more than the story about his treasure. But the cake couldn’t say anything about the treasure, on account of the treasure being a secret that nobody was allowed to know.

  Inside the envelope from Mrs Patel was a piece of card the size of one of the pictures in Mama’s photo album, and on it was a smaller version of the picture of the god called Krishna on Mr Patel’s wall. Benedict was going to ask Mama to make a cake that looked like that picture. Okay, Petros wasn’t an Indian somebody, and he didn’t believe in the Indian people’s gods. But Petros and this god both loved cows, and Petros’s dog and this god both had the same name, so it seemed a really good choice.

  On the couch, Mavis was asking Mama to make a cake decorated like her blanket for the cleansing ceremony that was about her long-ago baby boy. It was the middle part of her blanket that was important.

  It was the middle part of Benedict’s picture that was important, too. All the trees around the edges didn’t matter so much, and they could maybe go around the sides of the cake. Mama could make them look more like the trees that grew on their hill. It was the figure of the god that was important. Mama would need to make some parts simpler, and he wanted her to add a golden dog next to the cow that lay at his feet. She could make the young man’s face brown instead of blue, and she could leave out the flute, on account of it being Petros’s own voice that had called the cows. The really important part was the gold trouser and matching shirt that the god was wearing. That part was about the secret stone treasure that Petros had valued as much as real gold.

  Eh, Mama was going to love doing all the colours and brushing on plenty of her Dusting Powder (Gold).

  TWENTY

  MRS LEVINE WAS MAKING A PARTY FOR BENEDICT’S whole family. Baba said she shouldn’t, on account of the Tungaraza family not needing a party, but Mama said she should, on account of a party being exactly what the Tungaraza family needed. Mama said they had many things to have a party about, not to mention that they needed the chance to say goodbye to all their new friends.

  School had already finished for the year, so Benedict was happy that Mrs Levine’s party was going to give him the chance to be with Giveness and Sifiso one last time. The Tungarazas were going to travel home to Tanzania to meet Josephine straight after Christmas, but they didn’t yet know where they would go to from there. Baba had some new jobs to choose between but he hadn’t chosen yet, it still depended. Anyway, Baba had said he was going to take all of them to the clinic for tests just as soon as they got home. They were all going to have their blood checked and their chests looked at, so they were all going to be fit and healthy and strong enough to go absolutely anywhere at all.

  Very early in the morning, Mrs Levine brought Samson to dig a hole in the Tungarazas’ garden. Samson said it wasn’t right to dig up any of the grass, he should rather dig it at the side of the house, near the lucky-bean tree.

  ‘Please not there, Mrs Levine!’

  ‘Ag Bennie, man, don’t be bloody difficult. What’s wrong with there?’

  ‘It’s a holy place, Mrs Levine, King Solomon’s queen is buried there!’

  Mrs Levine looked at him as if he wasn’t right in his head, like people used to look at Petros, but she looked around for somewhere else. ‘There,’ she said, pointing to the hedge of yesterday, today and tomorrow bushes. ‘Just in front of that. The grass isn’t good there anyway. Okay, Samson?’

  ‘Yebo, Madam.’

  When the long hole was ready, Samson filled it with wood and the sheets of newspaper that Benedict and his brothers had scrunched into balls, setting it all alight with Mrs Levine’s matches. Then Samson helped Mrs Levine to put up some poles at either end of it for the spit that was going to roast a whole entire lamb. A spit was nothing to do with the kind of spitting Petros used to do. No. It was a long metal stick that could turn meat round and round over a fire so that every side of it got cooked.

  Mrs Levine had said it was best to have the party at the Tungarazas’ on account of Auntie Rachel not wanting a whole entire animal cooking in her own garden, but Benedict knew it was because Mrs Levine was busy marking her territory. When the Tungarazas left, Mrs Levine was going to live in their house. She had already done a bit of gardening there, like an animal moving onto new territory and putting its own scent everywhere to say this is my place, I live here.

  She could charge for her speech therapy now, on account of using some of Mr Levine’s money to get a work visa much more quickly than it usually took – though the children she had already started to help for free before her visa, those children still didn’t have to pay. She was still going to help children in their homes after school in the afternoons, and on Saturdays she was going to have group classes right here in the house. The TV was going to go into her bedroom and the long lounge and dining room was going to look like a classroom.

  The poles for the spit were only just up when Uncle Enock’s bakkie pulled in to the garage and he came up to the garden with the skinned lamb slung across his wide shoulders. The lamb’s head wasn’t joined to its body, it was still in the back of the bakkie. Uncle Enock was going to ask Lungi to put it in the fridge, and Samson could take it when he went home for his Christmas. There was wood in the bakkie, too, and Samson must bring it and place it neat-neat next to the fire.

  When the long pole with the wind-up handle on the end had gone right through the lamb and Uncle Enock and Samson had secured it with wire and balanced it across the poles at either end of the fire, Benedict challenged Daniel and Moses to try turning it, while Mrs Levine watched nervously. Neither of them could, it was just too heavy. Benedict pretended that he couldn’t either, so they both helped him, and together they managed.

  ‘Now you lot stay away from the fire, hey? I don’t want any bloody accidents.’

  The lamb was going to need turning every now and so often, and that was Samson’s job. It was going to be hours of work in the sun, so the sleeves of Samson’s blue overall were rolled up high, and a hat sat on his head. Lungi was doing most of the other cooking at the other house, and when the party started, Mavis was going to come and do cleaning.

  Titi wasn’t going to do any work that day, it was her party, too. She put on her pretty dress, the new one she had been wearing when the family picked her up in Mwanza after her last Christmas there. The blue, green and pink of it looked even more beautiful with the red and black of her umcwasho tassels. Benedict wanted to wear his suit, but he hadn’t worn it since the special Easter Sunday service at Mater Dolorosa, and it really didn’t fit him any more.

  ‘The trouser is okay,’ said Titi, turning him round and looking at him carefully.

  ‘But look how short!’

  ‘No, it’s okay. Just wear it with a white socks, it’s the fashion here.’

  The jacket was much too small, but the waistcoat was okay, as long as he didn’t try buttoning it. Baba helped him with his tie.

  ‘You look very smart, my boy. You are very smart. Smart outside and in.’

  Benedict stood straighter, his chest swelling. But that put a strain on his shirt buttons, so he relaxed again. Baba didn’t know about Benedict wanting to help him by finding some gold: Benedict had never said. He knew that if he told Baba now, Baba would squeeze his shoulder and say that his eldest boy had started a business and knew what he wanted to be in his life, and that was richness enough for any man.

  Benedict knew that not finding any gold didn’t matter at
all, not really.

  But still.

  Mama looked beautiful! She wore her emerald-green silk dress that had shiny jewels around its neckline, her hair was big with large, soft curls, and her lips were shiny and red with lipstick. The girls looked pretty too, and even the boys managed to look neater, a little less scruffy.

  By the time the guests began to arrive in the early afternoon, the lamb smelled delicious! In between turning it, Samson sat on a chair in the shade of the lucky-bean tree, with Lungi making sure he didn’t get too hot by taking him cans of coke from the sink outside the back door, the cement sink where Titi always washed their clothes, only Mrs Levine had filled it with ice and cans of drink. The front part of the Tungarazas’ dining table was bright with bowls and plates of snacks, and underneath the cloth covering the back part were things to eat with the lamb when it was ready: the biggest bowl of lettuce, tomato and cucumber Benedict had ever seen, some potatoes covered in a creamy sauce, freshly cooked beetroot with slices of onion, green beans in spices, grated cabbage with grated carrot, and little cubes of cheese.

  Wrapped in silver foil in a bowl on the kitchen counter, onions waited to go into the fire under the lamb, while wrapped in silver foil inside Mama’s gas oven, long, thin loaves of bread filled with butter and garlic waited to be heated when it was time. On top of Mama’s oven, a huge pot of water waited to be boiled for making ugali, and a pot full of Lungi’s spicy tomato and onion sauce was ready for re-heating.

  The first vehicle to come up the driveway was Mr Simelane’s Buffalo Soldiers van. Benedict wanted to run down the steps to say hello, but Mama and Baba said that wouldn’t be right. It was Mrs Levine’s party, she should be the one to greet guests. Benedict went to find her. She was at the window in Mama and Baba’s bedroom with a tape measure and a notebook. She put them down on the windowsill and, picking up her drink, she led the way out of the house and down the steps, the ice cubes clinking in her glass as Benedict followed.