The White Shadow

by Andrea Eames

  ‘Don’t you want to see them?’ said Abel. ‘The guerrillas. Perhaps they will let us join them.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said. ‘We are kids. How could we be useful to them? They will laugh at us. And we will get into trouble.’

  ‘Well, I am going to look for them,’ Abel said. ‘You can stay here, like a good boy, and read your books.’

  I did not see Abel for the rest of the day. He wandered into the patchy scrubland behind our house, and I did not bother to follow. I knew that he would not find anything. A mukomana would not be much good at hiding if he could be found by a little boy with seeds in his pocket. Abel came home disappointed and silent, but it did not take long for him to rally the rest of the kopje kids to play a game he had invented – one that became the favourite of all the kopje kids during those school holidays. This was one game that we did not play in front of the adults. They may have smiled at Sarura Wako and Mahumbwe, but they would not smile at this one.

  We played it away from the village – particularly, away from the whites that drifted through. We divided into vakomana and whites. No one wanted to be the whites, which is why we had team leaders who selected us one by one, to keep things fair. If you had been a mukomana last time, you had to take your turn at being a white. Abel was the only one who seemed to enjoy being on the white side, because he had a considerable talent for acting out long and painful death throes. His throat-rattles, foaming mouth and rolling eyes were quite wonderful to witness, and we all enjoyed seeing him murdered. Things were no different today.

  ‘I’ll be the white policeman,’ said Abel.

  ‘I want to be the policeman,’ Hazvinei said, bristling. It was an unheard-of challenge.

  The boys shifted, uneasy. ‘You’re a girl.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So you can’t be a policeman, benzi.’

  Laughter. Shoulders relaxing. You did not mess with Abel, even if you were pint-sized and pugnacious Hazvinei, with your clever, slanted eyes and sharp little claws.

  ‘You can be one of the freedom fighters,’ I said, trying to keep the peace. ‘The women fight too.’

  Hazvinei snorted.

  ‘I will be a freedom fighter with you,’ said Chipo.

  ‘No,’ said Abel/Policeman. ‘You have to be the burned corpse of a white. Lie over there.’

  Chipo lowered herself to the ground with great dignity, choosing a spot where her green dress would not become too disfigured by dust. She always had to play the corpses.

  ‘Hazvinei, you will be an excellent freedom fighter,’ I said. ‘It is harder than being the policeman.’

  ‘Fine.’ She shrugged me off.

  The guerrillas hid in the bushes and waited. The whites (walking with their necks stiff and their legs apart, the way white men did) marched past. We leapt at them, shouting and waving our arms, and they fell to the ground with fright, shouting words at random in English. Then came the climax: the same every time. We rushed at Abel/Policeman and hit him with our pretend badzas. He shrieked and yelled out to the spirits to save him, rolling his eyes and waving his arms like a mad person. It was hard to hit through our laughter. When Abel/Policeman had enough of this clowning, he clutched at his throat and sank to his knees, making horrible bubbling, gurgling sounds and letting his tongue hang out, as the skinny kopje dogs did when it was too hot. When he finally died, we stood silent for a moment before cheering and stamping our feet in the hot dust. Chipo rose from the dead to join us.

  ‘One day I will be a freedom fighter,’ I said to Hazvinei.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘It is too dangerous for you,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean? You said that women can be guerrillas.’

  ‘Yes, but not you. Not in real life.’

  ‘Why not? I am strong.’ She nipped a piece of my soft underarm skin between her fingers and twisted.

  ‘Iwe! Stop that.’

  ‘I am just as strong as you.’

  ‘That is not the point.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I have to keep you safe,’ I said. ‘Baba tells me so every day. Do you think I am going to let you go running into the bush with a gun?’

  Hazvinei stuck out her lower lip. It was fat and shiny, a chongololo of discontentment. ‘I am better than both of you,’ she said. ‘You will see. I will make a better mukomana than you or Abel.’

  ‘You cannot be a mukomana,’ said Abel, who had heard us. ‘You are a musikana, a girl.’

  Hazvinei pushed him. ‘I will tell Baba that you play this game.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Abel. ‘Tell him. I do not care.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Hazvinei stared at him for a moment, and then turned and ran. I watched her white socks flashing as she sprinted towards the house.

  ‘You have upset her,’ I said to Abel.

  ‘She is being a big baby. Who cares if she can be a freedom fighter or not? She is a little girl. I don’t know why she is so angry.’

  ‘I have to go with her,’ I said.

  Abel shrugged. ‘Stay here. She will not really tell Babamudiki.’

  ‘But I cannot leave her on her own.’ I started towards the house. After a moment, Abel followed.

  ‘Do you think she will really tell?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We have to talk to her. Come on.’

  When we reached the top of the hill we saw something flashing silver in the sun.

  ‘What is that?’

  I could not focus on it. ‘I don’t know.’

  Abel ran past me. It took me a moment more of standing and staring to realise that Babamukuru was here, parked outside our house, talking to Baba. And Hazvinei. What was he doing here?

  ‘Abel!’

  As always I was the slow elephant, lagging behind my cousin and sister. Babamukuru’s face was almost invisible behind his glasses when I caught up to Abel. Hazvinei hung behind Baba, clutching his hand and staring at Abel. Baba’s hands were outstretched, palm up, as if he were placating Babamukuru or calming him down.

  ‘Baba …’ Abel began, but could not finish. Babamukuru caught him such a blow across the side of the head that he fell, clumsily, landing on hands and knees in the dirt. Babamukuru hauled him up by his ear. Baba made a jerky movement, clenching his hands into fists, but did not intervene.

  ‘What is this I hear about you? Hey? What are these games that you are playing?’

  Baba stepped forward, conciliatory hands held out again, but Babamukuru ignored him.

  ‘Get in the car.’

  ‘Brother, you were to stay for dinner,’ said Baba.

  ‘I am taking this one home.’ Babamukuru let his flat gaze trail over me as well. I shrank under it. ‘I was going to surprise you,’ he said to Abel. ‘I was going to take you and Tinashe to the movies in town, at the new Kine. And now look what you have done.’

  A chance to go to town and see a film on a big screen – perhaps with Cokes and sweets as well! And a ride in Babamukuru’s car. I hated Abel in that moment for inventing the vakomana game and taking away my chance to live like a smart town boy instead of a grubby village kid.

  ‘They are just playing,’ said Baba.

  ‘And where are they getting these ideas? Hey? I do not let my son listen to this nonsense.’

  Baba flicked his eyes to me. A stranger sitting in our kitchen. Blood in a bowl.

  ‘It is the other children, Babamukuru,’ I said. ‘They invented the game.’

  ‘They should not be playing with such things. It is not a suitable game for my son. For anyone in my family.’

  I looked down at my feet.

  ‘I am ashamed of you both,’ said Babamukuru, ‘playing at being these animals when you know better. Get in the car, Abel.’

  As my cousin passed me, I breathed in his scent of shame and sour fear. He climbed into the front seat and fastened his seatbelt with an over-loud click. Babamukuru climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

>   ‘Goodbye, Garikai,’ my uncle said as he started the car. ‘I will come another time.’

  We watched them go. My face burned as if Babamukuru had hit me as well.

  ‘He did not take Abel’s things,’ I said. ‘He still has books here.’

  The car winked in the sun, sharing a secret. Baba took our hands – me on one side, Hazvinei on the other. I saw Hazvinei’s quick, dark glance. She did not look sorry.

  Chapter Eight

  THE NEXT SCHOOL holidays came and went without Abel, and without a letter or phone call from Babamukuru. Baba and Amai did not speak of it. Hazvinei and I went to school as usual – Hazvinei leading her friends into trouble – and I finished in the top of my class again. This was not saying much, however. My teacher did his best with the small number of books he had, but we learned many of the same lessons over and over. I had the books that Abel had left behind, but I fretted that there would be no more, and that I would be no better than any goat-herding village boy who had never bothered to attend lessons at all. Abel would overtake me; he would go away to a good school and forget me; and I would not see him until he drove up in a silver car and a nice suit to visit me and my family in our little brick house that he had paid for.

  ‘Is Babamukuru still angry, Baba?’ I asked when over four months had passed with no news.

  ‘I suppose he is,’ said Baba.

  ‘Is he angry at me?’

  I saw Hazvinei roll her eyes.

  ‘I am sure he is no longer angry with you, Tinashe,’ said Baba, laying a hand on my head.

  ‘You see what you have done, Hazvinei?’ I said to her in private. ‘Now Babamukuru will never let Abel visit again.’

  She pushed me away irritably. ‘You worry too much. It will be fine.’

  ‘All because you could not keep your mouth shut,’ I said. ‘I wish you had never learned to speak at all.’

  I did not see Chenjerai again. I wondered what had happened to him – whether he had moved on to continue his work, or whether he had been injured again. Or caught. I woke up sometimes in the night, thinking that I had heard the clink of cups in the kitchen or the hum of low voices, but the night was always empty. After Babamukuru’s anger, the visit from the freedom fighter did not seem as exciting. It seemed reckless now, and dangerous. I wondered why Baba had taken him into our home while my mother and sister slept and the white policemen patrolled outside. Had he thought about the risk he was taking? Was it the first time he had done such a thing? I thought about the bullet, neatly removed and rattling in its bowl, and the way Chenjerai had spoken to Baba – as if he knew him, or knew of him. I did not think it had been the first time.

  Perhaps Baba was not keeping the leopards at bay at all. Perhaps he was inviting them in. And as I remembered Babamukuru’s face as he took Abel away, I wondered if he had suspected as much.

  Without Abel and Babamukuru, the long days flowed past unchanging and dim as the river water. The only excitement came from the news on the radio, as the troubles in Mozambique and stories of ‘protected villages’ in Rhodesia occupied everyone’s thoughts. I wondered why we needed special villages to protect us from the rebels.

  ‘It is not to protect us from the freedom fighters,’ said Baba. ‘It is to protect the whites from us.’

  I occupied myself with reading all the books that Abel had left behind. When I finished them, I read them again. I wondered if I would ever get another stack of shining new books, if Abel never returned. I wondered if Babamukuru would forget about me.

  ‘Where is your city cousin?’ said Little Tendai. ‘Did your monkey sister scare him away?’

  ‘He will come back,’ I said, but was not sure I believed my own words.

  ‘You are too serious, Tinashe.’

  ‘I am not too serious.’

  ‘You are. You are always reading your school books.’

  I kicked at a pebble. ‘That is what you are supposed to do with school books.’

  Little Tendai shrugged and moved on to a more interesting topic. ‘Why do you think all those whites are here, anyway?’

  More whites than ever were passing through the kopje as rebels poured in over the borders of Mozambique and Zambia and infiltrated the villages. The policemen and soldiers drove in, parked, bought a cold drink from Simon-at-the-bottle-store, watched us with those too-pale eyes, then left. The people of the kopje watched the movements of the whites with interest but detachment, as they observed the movements of the termites that built great red-earth cathedrals in the grass. It was best not to wonder exactly what they were doing, Baba said, as their actions were none of our business and they would not hurt us. It was safer, also. I thought of the policeman who had come to talk to Baba. I thought of Chenjerai.

  ‘What do you think they are doing?’ I asked Little Tendai.

  ‘Probably looking for vakomana,’ he said in a dramatic whisper.

  ‘You still think there are vakomana nearby?’ I suddenly had an urgent need for the toilet, remembering the bullet safe and cold in my pocket.

  ‘I think so,’ said Little Tendai, who had no idea. ‘They are probably watching us from the bushes right now.’

  I knew Little Tendai was teasing me, but I turned around anyway. Chenjerai. A word meaning beware. I caught a glimmer of movement – a bird probably, or a cane rat darting for cover.

  ‘They might need someone to help them,’ said Little Tendai. He gave me a push. ‘They will come to me, because I am the strongest.’

  A scuffle – friendly and not-so-friendly, all at once. When Little Tendai had me pinned, he smiled at me with all his teeth. ‘They kidnap people, you know,’ he said. ‘They make you join them. Maybe they will come and get you from your bed in the middle of the night …’

  ‘Shut up, Tendai!’

  I broke free and ran. I had had enough talk of the vakomana for one day.

  ‘Perhaps the whites are as crazy as your sister,’ Little Tendai shouted. ‘Perhaps they are here chasing ghosts.’ He made a crazy-ghost face – puffed cheeks, crossed eyes – and ran home, laughing.

  The kopje kids tried to play the vakomana game again, but Hazvinei and I did not take part. They gave up after a while, as well. It was just not the same without Abel.

  Baba and I were chopping wood in the garden when I saw the white policeman again – the one who had visited Baba when Abel was last here. He waited at the gate, watching us, and said nothing. When I met his eyes, he smiled at me.

  ‘Baba! Baba.’

  ‘What is it, Tinashe?’

  ‘It is the white man. The one that came to the house that time.’

  Baba turned around and saw him. ‘It is all right, Tinashe,’ he said. ‘I have talked to him. It is all right.’

  The white man raised a hand in greeting.

  ‘Mangwanani, baas,’ said Baba.

  ‘Mangwanani. Any news?’

  ‘No, baas.’

  ‘We’re having a hell of a time finding these boys,’ said the white man. ‘But we’ll get them eventually.’

  ‘Yes, baas.’

  ‘Sorry about before,’ said the white policeman. ‘You understand. We have to question everybody. Appreciate your cooperation.’

  ‘Anything I can do to help, baas.’

  The policeman turned his attention to me. He obviously did not remember me. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘My son. Tinashe.’

  ‘Tinashe?’ The white man shaped his lips around the words. He gripped my hand unexpectedly – I had never made a handshake before, and did not know what to do. I assumed it was a display of power, so I left my own hand limp and submissive within his.

  ‘Handshake like a wet fish,’ said the white man. ‘Put some oomph into it. Like this.’ He gripped my hand tighter. I heard the little bones in my fingers creaking, and I gave a half-hearted grip back in the hope that it would make him let go. It did.

  ‘You can always judge a man by his handshake,’ said the white man. He smiled at me. His eyes were watery in the bright ligh
t, and there was moisture on his lips. I found his mouth fascinating. It looked like a wet, red fish hiding in his face.

  ‘Well, cheers.’ The man raised a hand in a half-wave. He was done with us, I could see, and anxious to find someone else who would be of more help. Baba winked at me, and smiled as he turned back to his badza and the stack of wood.

  I had noticed that my sister’s breasts had grown, that her smell had become stronger, that she sweated more, and I teased her about those things – but I did not understand where all the sudden male interest in Hazvinei had come from: the teasing, the pulling of her hair, the flipping up of her skirt. She was just Hazvinei. She did not matter – not in that way – but a few weeks after the white man’s visit, Hazvinei pulled me aside.

  ‘Tinashe,’ her voice was low and urgent.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tinashe, come here.’

  I came over. I saw she was holding a piece of cloth.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Look.’ She held it out. It was a pair of her underpants, stained a rusted brown.

  ‘Why are you showing me that? Did you poo your pants?’

  ‘No! It’s not poo.’

  I looked closer, and sniffed – a rich smell, repellent but also somehow attractive. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve found it in my panties every day this week.’

  ‘Is it blood?’

  ‘It looks a bit like blood.’ I crouched down next to her, and we both stared at the offending piece of fabric.

  ‘What have you been doing about it?’

  ‘I have been washing them in the river.’

  ‘Oh.’

  We sat for a moment.

  ‘Have you talked to Amai?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘But this could be a … woman thing.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘But why not?’ I was exasperated. ‘I will bet you that she knows.’

  Silence.

  ‘If you don’t tell her, I will. You shouldn’t be bleeding from your … You shouldn’t.’