The White Shadow

by Andrea Eames

  ‘From the man who sold you the gun? Where do you meet these people, Abel?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He held the open mouth of the bag towards me, and I saw something else inside.

  ‘Cigarettes?’

  ‘Mbanje.’

  A bomb, and drugs. What had Abel and my sister been doing? Who had they been talking to? I shook my head to rid it of the fug of cholera memories. ‘Abel …’

  He punched me lightly on the shoulder. ‘Do not worry. Here, you can look after it. ‘

  I felt Hazvinei’s eyes on me as I took the bottle in my hands. I turned it over, smelling its strange scent.

  ‘Have you got it?’ Abel asked me.

  ‘Yes.’

  Abel finished rummaging in his bag and took the bomb from me again. It was wet with sweat. ‘Shit, man, have you been sucking on it?’

  ‘No,’ I mumbled.

  ‘I know you haven’t, benzi.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. I flinched away from his hand.

  ‘Tinashe,’ his smile dropped off, ‘don’t be stupid.’

  ‘I won’t, Abel.’

  ‘Because if you’re stupid, then we all get in trouble. Yes?’ He shook me by the shoulder. ‘Yes? You chose to come with us.’

  ‘Yes.’ No.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Why are we doing this?’

  ‘Does it matter? I say that we have to do this. Do you trust me?’

  No.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hazvinei.

  Planning our mukomana exploits back at the camp had felt like deciding the rules of an elaborate childhood game. I had not expected to smell the sweat of the people inside the tent; hear the breaths they took between each line of the songs they sang; see their silhouettes against the tent wall.

  ‘How much longer?’ I asked.

  ‘Why? You need to pee?’

  ‘No,’ I said, and as soon as I had said it I realised I did need to pee, very badly. I tried not to think about it.

  We could hear singing and clapping from inside the tent. One person very close to where we were crouching, on the other side of the cloth, had a professional-sounding voice, like someone on the radio. She rolled the notes in her throat.

  Abel smiled at me with all his teeth. And I envied him. To him, this was so simple.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he asked us.

  I wondered what would happen if the bomb shot my mboro off. Would Abel leave me outside, clutching at my bloody trousers? Or would he shove my severed mboro right back onto its stump and tell me not to be bloody stupid?

  We entered through the tent flap. The singing was louder in here, and it was shady. It was pleasant, standing there in the doorway with the relentless eyes of the sun behind us, unable to watch what we were doing. I felt myself sway on my feet.

  Abel led us to the back of the tent. The chairs were plastic and squeaked when we sat down. There was only one other person in the back row – an old white ambuya with white hair pulled back with tortoiseshell clips. I imagined her lifting her old, wrinkled arms, the loose skin falling back like the folds of a sleeve, while she tugged and pinned her wiry hair into place. She drew her handbag away from Abel, and shifted her weight slightly. I was suddenly conscious of my eyes, red and itching, and the strong stink of my nervous sweat.

  I did not see the moment when Abel lobbed the bottle towards the front of the tent, but I heard the old woman say ‘Disgraceful!’ as if he had burped or passed wind rather than thrown a bomb. Then there was a bang and we were out the back of the tent, and one of us was laughing, and the air seemed to be full of a roaring sound. I think I heard screams, but I do not remember. There must have been screaming.

  I listened to the whoosh-whoosh of blood through my ears and the steady drumbeat of my heart. My hearing had gone. All I could hear was a high-pitched whine, as if a mosquito had crawled into my head. I saw people mouthing and dust being kicked up by running feet. We had given them a fright, all right. My head rang. The bomb had been louder than I had expected, but Abel was right – it was a big noise, and that was all.

  Hazvinei’s face hovered above me. I reached up to touch it. She was smiling.

  ‘Tinashe! Are you all right?’

  My hearing cleared as suddenly as it had clogged. It felt like when I had been swimming in the waterhole and had water in my ears, then stood on one leg and managed to knock it out.

  ‘Hazvinei?’

  ‘Yes, it is me.’

  I felt stupid and slow.

  ‘Hazvinei?’

  ‘Come on.’ She lifted me. I saw that her hair and eyebrows were grey. I wondered if the explosion had knocked me out and I had been asleep for years and years, and everyone in the world had grown old and grey.

  ‘What happened to your hair?’ I asked.

  She put up her finger and touched her head. Grey ash came away on her fingertip. ‘Come on, Tinashe.’ She pulled at my shoulder.

  ‘I can’t move.’

  ‘You can.’

  I looked down at my legs. They did not seem to belong to me. I expected them to run away without me.

  ‘You can, Tinashe.’ Hazvinei pulled at my arm. ‘I can’t carry you. You have to walk.’ She was getting impatient.

  I felt like an old man. I pulled myself up. ‘Am I bleeding?’

  ‘Of course you are not bleeding. No one is hurt. And now we have to get out of here before people find us.’

  ‘Oh. Good.’

  We ran. We ran until our lungs burned and it felt like a hole had opened up in my side and my insides were bleeding out. When we stopped, safely in the bushes, I fell to the ground and clasped a hand to that hole in my side and tried to hold everything in.

  ‘Hey, shamwari!’ Someone I did not recognise gripped my shoulder with a strong hand, and grinned into my face.

  ‘Mangwanani,’ I said, and squinted at him.

  ‘What’s wrong? We did it!’ The stranger passed me a hand-rolled cigarette. I could still see the snail-trail of saliva along the edge of the paper.

  ‘Abel?’

  ‘What, did you blow your brains out in there?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Good!’

  The smoke tasted different – sweeter and richer than a cigarette.

  ‘It is mbanje,’ said Abel. ‘Your first one. A good reward, yes?’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘I bought it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  It felt a little like I imagined kissing to be – at once soft and fiery, burning your lips as it caressed them. It breathed its sweet-smelling breath into my mouth. My heartbeat slowed.

  ‘Good, hey?’ said Abel. He took it from me and closed his eyes as he sucked the smoke between his lips. ‘We gave them a good fright,’ he said. ‘They did not know what hit them.’

  ‘Abel.’ I caught my breath. ‘You are crazy.’

  He laughed, still giddy with his achievement.

  ‘Guns. Bombs. Mbanje. You are going to get into serious trouble, Abel.’

  ‘But we are fine,’ he said.

  We ran back to the camp. Hazvinei and Abel were laughing, clutching their sides, but I was silent. My breath came rattling through my throat, tasting of ash. We passed the school. I should be there, inside my classroom, raising my hand when the teacher asked a question. I should be planning for my time at college. I should not be running after my sister and my cousin again.

  Abel rolled me a cigarette, and passed one to Hazvinei as well.

  I was ready to use it – to forget, to drift. I wanted to forget them both. I wanted to forget this day. The scholarship exam was close, and as I sucked in the smoke of the mbanje I felt that it would save me from everything, and free me from both Hazvinei and Abel for ever.

  Hazvinei smoked and then sat in silence, watching us as we talked and laughed in the cooling evening. After a while I thought that she had fallen asleep. We grew quiet, we boys, our heads full of smoke – and we dreamed.

  �
��We should probably go home soon,’ I said. ‘It is getting on for dinner time. Tete Nyasha will be waiting for us. She thinks we were at school.’

  ‘But first we must wash,’ said Abel. We spoke slowly, our tongues made lazy by the mbanje.

  ‘What do you think, Hazvinei?’

  She did not reply.

  Abel noticed, and sat up straight, his fog of mbanje dissipating. ‘Tinashe, what is happening?’

  ‘Hazvinei!’

  She raised her head to look at me. Her eyes were blank, the pupils wider and darker than was natural.

  ‘Hazvinei?’

  Hazvinei’s eyes rolled back in her head. Her jaw slackened. Her limbs moved and twitched as if she was strung on puppetry wires, and a noise came from her throat that was not a human noise.

  Abel drew back. I remembered Hazvinei kneeling on the ground before the N’anga, back on the kopje. I remembered her shudder as the spirit left her; the unnatural lightness of her body. I remembered Amai pushing through the crowd to cradle her, as I was pushing through the fug of mbanje now. I reached her, lifted her head and clasped it in my two hands, trying to bring her back.

  ‘Hazvinei, wake up.’

  Abel knelt beside me, and I saw my own memory reflected in his face. Little Tendai. The medicine stick. Hazvinei’s fit.

  ‘Muroyi,’ came the whisper.

  ‘She is not a muroyi!’

  ‘I did not say anything!’ said Abel.

  ‘She is not well,’ I said. ‘It is the mbanje. I knew we should not have smoked it.’

  ‘Why would the mbanje do this?’ said Abel.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it is not good for her.’ I tried to lift Hazvinei, but she was too heavy. ‘Abel, help me. We must take her home.’

  Abel held his palms up and shook his head. ‘We can’t.’

  ‘Abel, she is sick. Help me to carry her.’

  ‘We can’t take her home.’

  ‘Why not?’ I became angry.

  ‘We have to wash first. Baba will smell the mbanje on us. He must not know.’

  ‘Abel, this is Hazvinei.’

  ‘You don’t think I know?’

  ‘Then what are we supposed to do?’

  He was silent.

  ‘We have to take her home.’

  ‘And what are we supposed to tell Amai about Hazvinei, hey?’ said Abel. ‘That she had a fit for no reason?’

  ‘Yes.’ I cradled her head. ‘Take her feet, Abel.’

  It was far worse than carrying Tendai through the kopje. There, only the birds and rock rabbits had watched us. Here, everyone walking the streets or driving past in their cars could see the two dusty boys hauling the lifeless body of a pretty girl along the pavement. Street vendors shouted and wagged their fingers. Men on bicycles whistled and called to us. Clusters of women laughed or shook their heads and pursed their lips.

  ‘She is sick!’ I kept shouting. ‘She is sick! We are taking her home!’

  There was no one in the yard or on the stoep when we approached the house. Perhaps we were lucky this time. Perhaps no one was home. Abel had the same thought, and grinned at me.

  ‘We will have to take her to the bedroom,’ I said.

  It was difficult to carry her up the steps, but we managed it. In the cool shade of indoors, Hazvinei’s face looked peaceful.

  ‘Perhaps she just needs to sleep it off,’ said Abel.

  We lowered her as gently as we could onto her bed.

  ‘Should we cover her with a blanket?’

  ‘I will take her shoes off first.’

  I removed her socks and takkies, exposing dusty feet. I did not want to take her clothes off. Tete Nyasha would have to think she was so tired that she fell asleep without undressing. I pulled the faded wool blanket right up to her chin.

  ‘Will she wake up again?’ said Abel.

  Fear made my voice sharp. ‘Of course she will.’

  Abel nodded, slowly, without looking at me. ‘We should clean ourselves up,’ he said. ‘And brush our teeth. Or Baba will know.’

  I felt the presence in the doorway before I turned around. I saw from Abel’s face that he did too.

  ‘Babamukuru,’ I said. ‘You are home.’

  He was early. He never came home early. A wisp of bad fortune coiled like smoke in the corner of the room, and Abel cowered. I felt a sickness in my stomach at seeing Babamukuru as well, but there was nothing we could do now.

  ‘What is wrong with Hazvinei?’ he asked me.

  ‘She is not feeling well, Babamukuru,’ I said.

  Babamukuru stepped over to the bed. He saw Hazvinei’s rigid body; the dust and streaks of ash on her face. Why hadn’t we thought to wash her face? He saw the unnatural, slow breathing, the clenched fists.

  ‘What is that smell?’

  He lowered his face to hers and sniffed.

  ‘Baba …’ said Abel.

  ‘It is on you as well. What is this?’

  ‘Nothing, Baba!’

  ‘You have been smoking mbanje!’

  He slammed Abel against the wall with unlikely speed. I stood, frozen. ‘Where did you get it?’

  Abel did not answer. Babamukuru shook him. ‘Answer me.’

  ‘I bought it.’

  Babamukuru let him fall. As Abel slumped to the ground, he turned to me.

  ‘And you, Tinashe. You have been smoking this too?’

  I nodded, and did not move.

  ‘You are leading your cousin astray now,’ said Babamukuru to Abel. Abel did not respond.

  Babamukuru hit me. I felt the weight of his hand, and the cool band of his wedding ring against my skin. When he released me, I was gasping and holding back tears.

  ‘Tinashe, leave the room.’

  I looked at Abel. He stared at me, but said nothing.

  ‘Leave the room.’

  I backed away, reluctant to turn my back on them both. I hovered in the doorway, looking back at the two men and my sleeping sister.

  I could hear the thumping and groaning from my room. I could not even be angry, this time, although I wanted to be. His son, his nephew and niece had been smoking a drug and getting up to who knows what when they should have been safe at home. Baba would have beaten me too, I knew it. And I knew that I was more at fault than Abel. Not only had I got myself into trouble; I had also put my sister in danger.

  I did not dare to go to the door, but pulled my pillow over my head and waited for it to finish, for Abel to stumble into bed beside me. When he came, he was breathing hard, and I could smell his sweat. I heard the creak of the bedsprings as he climbed into bed.

  ‘Abel?’

  No answer.

  ‘Abel? Are you all right?’

  ‘I am fine.’

  I thought of Abel. I thought of how Hazvinei followed him and listened to him. I remembered a bowl of blood and the ridged spine of a tall man in the darkness, and I said, ‘Do you remember Chenjerai?’

  A snort. ‘Of course I do.’

  I fumbled under my pillow and brought out the lucky charm that I had carried for so many years. ‘Do you remember the bullet he gave me?’

  ‘You would not give it to me,’ he said.

  ‘Hold out your hand.’ I found his hand reaching for me in the darkness and dropped the bullet into his palm, imagining it rolling into the centre and nuzzling at his skin as if it belonged there. ‘You can have it now,’ I said. ‘For luck.’

  He closed his fingers around it.

  ‘Take care of my sister, Abel,’ I said.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘You must promise.’

  ‘I promise.’

  Chapter Twenty

  I DID NOT see Abel again that night, but I awoke before dawn the next morning. He was not in his bed, and I knew at once that he had gone. I could tell by the feeling in the house – that special emptiness. He was not sitting at his breakfast, sleeping on the sofa or out on the hard tiles of the stoep. He had gone.

  I lay still, waiting for Babamukuru to discover what I al
ready knew. I heard Tete Nyasha first – her usual morning humming and clinking of cups and plates, then a wail as she discovered what I later learned was Abel’s letter. Babamukuru’s quick footsteps as he went through to the kitchen. Raised voices. A thump – perhaps a fist against the wall? The slam of a door, and the rumble of Babamukuru’s car engine.

  I rolled over and stared at the blank white wall with unseeing eyes.

  When he returned from his fruitless search, Babamukuru sat Hazvinei and me down at the dining-room table. We never used the dining room – Tete Nyasha polished the wood to a dark mirror-like shine and it remained empty and perfect all week. We felt like small children, perched on the uncomfortable chairs. Obviously, Babamukuru felt that this occasion needed the added formality.

  ‘Have you read this?’ he brandished the letter.

  We shook our heads.

  ‘Did you know that Abel had gone?’

  More vigorous shaking.

  ‘Do you know where he would go?’ He stared at us. We said nothing. He threw the letter down. ‘He says he has joined the freedom fighters.’

  Silence.

  ‘Did you know about this?’

  I shook my head. I did not dare look at my sister.

  ‘Where has he gone? Do you know where he has gone?’

  Babamukuru stared at us for a moment longer, and then walked out. I turned to my sister, to touch her shoulder, to comfort her, but she got to her feet and ran outside.

  ‘Hazvinei! Wait!’

  I found her hunched over and gasping in the bushes, throwing up the breakfast that she had just eaten.

  ‘Hazvinei?’

  She stared up at me with wild eyes. There were still traces of vomit around her mouth. ‘Tinashe.’ She started to cry – great, dry sobs that did not sound like crying at all, but like the cough of a lioness in the evening, when she has fed and is announcing to the world that she is here and she is dangerous. There was a threat in Hazvinei’s sobs. ‘I want to go with Abel.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I must.’

  ‘Why? Why must you? He is gone, Hazvinei. Perhaps it is for the best.’

  She shook her head. ‘You know I do what the spirits tell me to do.’

  ‘You have never done what anyone tells you to do, Hazvinei.’

  ‘This is different.’ The shadows under her eyes were dark violet, and her eyes seemed to be retreating into her skull – more like the eyes of an animal than of a person. She tightened her dhuku around her head and got to her feet. ‘I feel fine now,’ she said. ‘We should go back inside.’