The White Shadow

by Andrea Eames

  ‘We have to get a bloody move on,’ he was saying to the other. ‘Can’t waste our time jawing with the piccanins.’

  VaStephen waved his hand at Njiri, indicating that he should be silent, and turned back to me. ‘Tinashe, have you noticed anything strange today?’

  I could not escape this, it seemed. They watched us everywhere. ‘No, sir.’ I looked at the twin wrinkles of VaStephen’s cheeks as he smiled, and felt I could ask, ‘Why?’

  ‘We’ve just heard some things.’ He was vague. He watched my face and played with the cigarette lighter in his hand, turning it over and over. I did not say anything.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘If you see or hear anything unusual, you’ll come and tell me, hey?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Stephen!’ Njiri was impatient.

  ‘I’m coming. Run along, Tinashe.’

  He adjusted the weight of the rifle on his shoulder, and wandered back through the heat haze to Njiri, who had started tapping his watch. I lifted my hand in farewell, and I tried not to remember the white policeman who had come to see Baba on the day that he told us the story of Nehanda. I missed the kopje. I missed my river. But I was grateful to be here.

  Despite its size, the house seemed too small for us all as soon as Babamukuru came in for his dinner. I became very aware that Abel, Hazvinei and I were teenagers now. We seemed huge – gangly and clumsy. I saw us through Babamukuru’s eyes – leaving sweaty footprints on his polished concrete floor, handprints on his clean white walls, hair in the plughole and, shamefully, drips on the toilet seat. I tried as hard as I could not to take up any space. I hunched over the table when we ate, and tried to be as quiet as possible in the bathroom. I even ate smaller portions and became thinner, as if my body were colluding with me.

  Hazvinei, however, became louder. She filled out until the buttons on her dress strained over her breasts and you could see little spoonfuls of skin beneath. She was not fat – she could never be fat – but she became ripe as a mango. She even smelled like a mango, fruity and exotic. How did even her smell take up more space? I felt we were moving further and further away from the Tinashe and Hazvinei I had known on the kopje, and thus from Amai and Baba as well. I missed them all. And so I broke my own rules one night, as Hazvinei and I lay on the lawn looking at the stars, and opened up that world that I had made certain to close when we left the kopje.

  ‘Hazvinei, tell me about the spirits.’

  Hazvinei turned her head to look at me with surprise. ‘You told me not to talk about them.’

  ‘Well, I am not telling you that now.’

  ‘You told me never to speak to Abel or Babamukuru or Tete Nyasha …’

  ‘It is only us here,’ I said. ‘Please, Hazvinei.’

  We lay in silence for a moment.

  ‘Well,’ said Hazvinei, ‘there are mashavi. They died a long way from home, and they are trying to find their way back.’

  ‘White people?’

  ‘Some of them are white people.’

  ‘What do they look like?’

  Hazvinei shifted her head on the grass. I saw the glint of her eyes. ‘They are like sour milk,’ she said. ‘White and yellow. They smell bad. And they look unhappy.’

  I sniffed. ‘I cannot smell them.’

  ‘That is because you are stupid,’ said Hazvinei. This was her answer to everything.

  ‘What else is there?’ I said.

  ‘Zvizungu. These ones are all white men.’ She shrugged. ‘They are boring.’

  ‘Dzepfunde.’

  ‘Spirits raised from graves,’ said Hazvinei, making her voice low and sinister. ‘Raised by witches.’

  The hairs at the back of my neck prickled. ‘What are they like?’

  ‘It depends,’ she said. ‘Some are like people, but with no faces. Some have no bodies at all. Some have their feet on backwards, and no hands.’

  I knew she was trying to scare me, but I shivered. ‘And what else? What else is here?’

  ‘Zvipunha,’ she said, and said nothing more. She did not need to. Zvipunha were the most frightening of all – dead infants, haunting their families. To kill a baby was the worst sin of all, unforgivable by the spirits and bringing misfortune not just to you but also to your whole family. This was why Amai whispered about Tete Nyasha and those other women who had lost their babies. My lost brother Simba brushed me with the edge of his moth wings.

  I pushed Hazvinei. ‘You talk rubbish.’

  ‘Abel did not think it was rubbish.’

  Hazvinei told me stories about the spirits every night after that, in secret, as we lay on the damp green grass and breathed in the scent of water. I knew that I should not let her talk – that to speak the names of the spirits was to summon them – but her stories brought back to me the smooth muscles of the river, the cry of the N’anga’s black cockerel, and the striped war-paint of the witch-smellers. I did not realise that Abel had been listening until he spoke to me as we lay in bed. At first, when I heard his voice, I thought I was dreaming.

  ‘Tinashe!’

  ‘Abel?’ I rolled over until I could see the glint of his eyes in the darkness. ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. You have to promise not to tell Baba.’

  ‘Promise not to tell him what?’

  ‘What I am going to show you.’

  ‘What?’ It felt like the old days, when Abel and I would lie awake and whisper in the dark. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I will show you tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I thought you had changed,’ he said. ‘You and Hazvinei. But then I heard you talking.’

  The leopards scratched at the window. ‘What? When?’

  ‘Outside.’

  ‘We were just talking …’

  ‘About the spirits – and Nehanda. I heard you.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Tinashe! There is nothing to be worried about.’

  ‘If Babamukuru knew …’

  ‘I have not told Baba.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Abel. What are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘Just go to sleep,’ said Abel, turning over. ‘I will show you tomorrow.’

  He left me puzzled and feverish. When his breathing became even and quiet, I was still awake, wondering what Abel was going to show me. The darkness in my belly told me that it would not be anything good – but at least my cousin was talking to me again. I tried to forget that he was only speaking to me because of my sister’s ghost stories and strangeness. I did not need the bad fortune to follow us here.

  I did not sleep well that night, and I did not raise my hand in any of my classes the next morning. When it came time for football practice after school, neither Abel nor I went to the field. We stood outside the changing rooms looking at each other. I noticed that I was the same height as Abel now – skinnier, but just as tall. We were two men together.

  He seemed to realise this as well, because he grinned and held out his hand, beckoning. ‘Come.’ He led me out of the school.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You will see.’

  Behind the school was a wire fence, sagging in places, separating the cool green smear of cut grass from the bush that grew up the hill behind the white buildings. No one had built on this land because it was too rocky and uneven, and so it was left to grow wild. Babamukuru mentioned it often, shaking his head, as a missed opportunity. They should build something there, he said. It did not look good for the town. Now, Abel led me through the discarded scatter of crisp packets and Coke bottles.

  ‘Careful. There are thorns.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked again, and again received no reply.

  The wire fence had collapsed in one place, weighed down by weeds. Abel stepped over it, and I followed, my socks snagging on the wire. I stopped to untangle myself.

  ‘Come.’

  The weeds and long grass gave way to a dusty slope and loose stones, bushes which were dry a
nd spiky as a bundle of twigs and the flat, grey thorns that covered the ground as profusely as grass. I smelled burning.

  ‘Abel?’

  He pushed his way through the bushes with a sound like tearing paper. Behind the bushes was a pile of cigarette butts. Abel sat, carefully, avoiding the ash. ‘What are we doing here?’ I asked him.

  ‘This is where I come,’ he said. ‘Every day, after school.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No football?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘This is where you were on that first day?’

  ‘Yes. I am sorry I did not tell you.’

  Silence. I looked around. I could not see any attraction in this dry, litter-strewn place. ‘Why?’

  ‘I am going to be a freedom fighter,’ said Abel.

  I swallowed a laugh. I could see from the intensity in Abel’s eyes that he would not find it funny. ‘What?’

  ‘Remember? I always told you that I would.’

  ‘But we were playing a game,’ I said. ‘It was just a game.’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe to you.’

  ‘What about school?’

  ‘School is useless,’ he said. ‘It is a joke, to sit there and study when there are more important things to be doing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you not listen to the news, Tinashe? Everyone except South Africa is supporting us. The guerrillas have many friends who will shelter them over the border. It is easier for them to come in now.’

  ‘But what do you do?’ I asked cautiously. ‘What can you do, from here?’

  ‘I can think about the world,’ said Abel. ‘I can make plans.’

  I looked at the pile of cigarette butts. ‘Oh.’

  ‘I am going to do more,’ he said quickly. ‘But for now I am just making plans.’

  I nodded. I said nothing.

  ‘I am showing you this because I know that we feel the same way, you and I,’ said Abel. ‘We saw Chenjerai.’

  Did we feel the same? I was not so sure. Walking back afterwards, my head was a fog of thoughts and cigarette smoke. Abel wanted to be a mukomana, like the man in the kitchen. He wanted me to be one too. Babamukuru did not know. I felt at once guilty and suddenly grown up. What would Baba have thought? Abel certainly imagined that he would have approved. Perhaps he would have. After all, he did his part for the struggle – I could see that now. But then, look where it had taken him.

  As if the direction of my thoughts had conjured him up, I saw Njiri leaning up against his bakkie on the side of the road.

  ‘Abel.’ I tugged on his arm.

  ‘Shut up, Tinashe.’

  ‘But Abel …!’

  I felt that the white man would pluck my new knowledge from my head as a monkey cracks open a fruit to get at the juices inside. Abel, however, was not afraid.

  ‘Manheru, baas,’ he said.

  ‘Manheru.’ Njiri was not interested in us. He sucked on his cigarette and stared into the distance.

  ‘Manheru,’ I said, a beat too late. My feet did not move until Abel grabbed me by the shoulder and manoeuvred me onto the path again.

  ‘You see?’ he hissed. ‘That is why I did not tell you at first. You have never been able to keep a secret.’

  Stung, I shook him off. ‘That is not true.’

  ‘It is. And you have to keep this to yourself. You cannot tell anyone. Not even Hazvinei. Yes?’

  ‘Yes, Abel.’

  ‘Good.’ He released me, glared and dusted his hands off on his shorts.

  I decided that I did not care that he was annoyed. I did not care that he had said I was no good at keeping secrets. My cousin was speaking to me again – including me again – and I was glad.

  Every night since we had moved to Babamukuru’s house I had dreamed that I sat in the tall grasses of the kopje. Grass scratched my skin; an ant climbed over my foot. Then the wind rushed past me and I was lifted right up to the sun, so close that I could feel my skin singeing. I was hoisted onto my father’s shoulder. I knew it was my father because I could feel the oil of his skin and the scratch of his blue canvas overalls. I could feel his arms steadying me. But I could never see his face.

  When I awoke, I remembered. The knowledge sat on my chest as tokoloshes were supposed to do; a malignant spirit, black and hairy, with dead breath and laughing eyes. I had learned that if I closed my eyes very tightly, so that water squeezed out, and clenched my fists as hard as I could, I could make the tokoloshe go away. The weight on my chest lifted, but the dream flapped and fluttered in my head like a bright piece of washing pegged to a line, and I could not quite shake it off.

  Now, thinking about Abel helped to get rid of my dream. That night, I swelled with the pleasure of having a secret that was just between my cousin and me, separate from Hazvinei. I should have known that there was no way to keep secrets from my sister. I had known her for thirteen years, and she could still read my thoughts and feel my feelings with a touch of her long, clever fingers. In the morning – a Saturday – before I could yawn and stretch, she sat on my bed willing me to be awake. Abel was up and gone already, leaving the two of us to whisper in the early morning light.

  ‘What happened yesterday?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tinashe.’ She pinched the tender skin of my underarm. I yelped. ‘Tell me, then.’

  ‘Or what? You will keep pinching me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am not scared.’

  When she got her claws into the thick tangle of my hair, however, I changed my mind.

  ‘Abel wants to be a mukomana.’

  Hazvinei was on fire at once, dancing barefoot on the bed, pinching me, as if that would make the words come more quickly.

  ‘Why? What does he do?’

  ‘Slow down.’

  ‘Why does he want to be a mukomana?’

  My hand reached inside my pyjama pocket and closed over the bullet. I would not show it to her. But I told her everything else.

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘We are going to find him.’

  ‘Abel?’

  ‘He went out early,’ she said. ‘I bet he is there. Come.’

  ‘I have just woken up, Hazvinei.’

  ‘Tough takkies.’

  And she was gone, just like that, knowing that I would get up and flush my sleep-warmed body with cold water from the basin, and follow her. I always followed her.

  ‘Hazvinei. We have chores at home. Babamukuru will be angry.’ He will be angry with you, Hazvinei, I meant. And she did not need more reasons for Babamukuru to punish her.

  She pushed me. ‘Who cares? It is the weekend.’

  ‘Fine. I will take you there. But you cannot tell anyone, all right?’

  I led her to the school.

  ‘It is big,’ she said, but was not interested in seeing my classroom. She followed me to the place where Abel had taken me the day before.

  ‘See, Hazvinei. There is no one.’

  ‘He must be here.’

  ‘He is not here. Let us go home before Babamukuru sees we are gone.’

  ‘I will find him.’ And she disappeared into the bushes.

  ‘Do you know where you’re going?’

  ‘I know where he will be.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Benzi.’ She liked to call me an idiot many times in a day. ‘Come with me.’

  I followed her pink gingham bum, indecently cheerful in its colourful bounce. I could see the small, uneven stitch at the hem that revealed Tete’s tendency to get distracted while sewing. Red dust powdered my greying takkies. Tete would be angry when we got home, pursing her lips and tutting – she could always tell bush dust from regular dust.

  ‘Here.’ She stopped.

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  I peered through the bushes, and could see nothing.

  ‘Look.’

  The broken sunlight and patches of darkness rearranged themselves, the way a chamel
eon appears on a branch when you concentrate.

  ‘Told you,’ said Hazvinei.

  I looked at Abel. Then I looked at the gun he held. He had not seen us. He leaned against a tree trunk, clasping the rifle in both hands and looking down at it. I remembered the poisoned mukomana I had seen in the same position before the witch doctor’s ceremony, and my belly twisted.

  ‘See?’ Hazvinei hugged herself with excitement.

  ‘Be quiet.’ Where had he found the gun? Why did he have it? Abel had said nothing about guns. I had thought he was playing at being a mukomana, but this was not a toy.

  ‘Hazvinei, we should not be here. Let’s go home. And we should tell Babamukuru …’

  ‘No!’ she pinched me. My fingers felt for the comforting smoothness of the bullet in my pocket, while Hazvinei pushed through the thorns with a sound like paper tearing, and walked towards Abel.

  ‘Hazvinei!’ I felt as if my heart had leapt onto my tongue. ‘Wait!’ I followed, stiffened arms and legs unfolding with painful creaks and cracks.

  ‘Abel!’ Hazvinei shouted his name. I felt Abel’s movement rather than saw it, in the way a rock rabbit knows when a hawk passes overhead, and my feet started moving before I had commanded them to. I reached Hazvinei and grabbed her pink gingham shoulders just as Abel lifted the gun. She shook me off with an irritated shiver.

  Abel kept the gun lifted. And pointed at us. He looked like a stranger.

  ‘I did not ask you to come today,’ he said to me.

  ‘I am sorry, I am sorry,’ I kept saying, still reaching for my sister’s bony shoulders. I did not know this Abel. I did not know what he was capable of. ‘We did not mean to disturb you. We were just passing by, we did not mean to …’

  ‘We came to see you,’ said soon-to-be-murdered Hazvinei.

  ‘Who knows you are here?’ said the gun. I could no longer see Abel, just that round hole that spat fire. ‘Who followed you? Does Baba know that you came to find me?’

  ‘Where did you get that gun?’ Anger made my voice break. ‘Why are you pointing it at us?’

  Hazvinei and Abel ignored me.

  ‘No one knows.’ Hazvinei pushed me forward. ‘Tinashe told me about you.’

  I felt an urgent need for a toilet. I curled my fingers around the cool bullet in my pocket, and held it out like a talisman. It gleamed dull and grey in my palm. I felt its magic. I felt it even more when Abel lowered the gun, and grinned with all his teeth. ‘It is dangerous to sneak up on a man with a gun, yes?’