The White Shadow

by Andrea Eames

  ‘Tinashe …’

  ‘Just one more minute.’

  I gave up. I did not know where Babamukuru had put the photograph, and I doubted that even he would remember.

  ‘Kurumidza, Tinashe.’ Hazvinei pushed me through the door and we were outside on the dew-wet grass, hearing the first birds shouting their good-mornings.

  ‘Do you know where Abel is?’ I asked her.

  ‘Of course.’

  Of course she did. They must have had many secret places together, those two, where they could meet – while innocent Tinashe did his homework and imagined that his sister and cousin hid nothing from him. I followed her out of the front gate and down the road, towards the brown smear of bush that rose behind the houses and the school.

  ‘I went to the camp. He wasn’t there.’

  ‘He was hiding.’ Hazvinei glanced over her shoulder. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Hazvinei,’ I stopped her, ‘you are bleeding.’ There was a dark stain on her navy skirt.

  ‘I know. It is fine.’

  ‘Do you need to get …’ I was not sure what to say. ‘Some cloth?’

  ‘I have cloth. It is not working. It has soaked through already.’

  ‘Is this normal?’ I did not know how women were supposed to bleed.

  ‘I am fine. Let’s go.’

  She moved too fast for me, and was soon out of sight. I slowed to a jog, and let my heart return to its regular rhythm. I knew where she was going. There was no hurry to get there. Bush gave way to clearing, and there was my cousin.

  ‘Abel.’

  He looked different: taller, grimmer around the mouth. He stank of cigarettes and sweat. Hazvinei danced around him, triumphant. He did not seem surprised to see us.

  Why did he look different? Perhaps it was my eyes that had changed. I no longer saw a hero, my big-city cousin with his knowledge of the world. I saw a dangerous man with a crocodile smile and quick-moving, clever-fingered hands that I did not trust. I saw his eyes flicker and shiver in his face, always looking, looking and seeing more than you wanted him to see. He saw the shadow in me, and I saw him smile at it. Something dark inside me smiled back, and my stomach twisted.

  ‘Tinashe! Come, sit.’ He patted a spot beside him. ‘Did you bring me some food today?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Cigarettes?’

  I knew he was joking. I shook my head again.

  ‘Aiee,’ and he cuffed Hazvinei playfully about the head, ‘you are too much trouble, you two. You do not visit for days, and then when you come you bring me nothing. Still, I am a generous man, and I will offer you a cup of tea.’

  He had his fire, and his pots and tins. I saw blankets, and a zipped canvas bag. He looked like someone who had prepared for a long journey.

  Hazvinei took her tea. It was full of sugar, the way she liked it. When Abel held a mug out to me, I did not move.

  ‘Go on, take it. You think I am your Amai? That I will hold it to your mouth for you?’

  He thrust it at me. I did not move.

  ‘Fine,’ He tipped up the cup, and let the hot tea burn and hiss on the ground. ‘What is the matter with you?’

  Abel stood, and walked to me. He was a whole head taller now. When he stood so close, my eyes were level with the buttons on his khaki shirt. ‘I thought you were coming to join me,’ he said. ‘Both of you. And now you won’t speak to me?’

  I said nothing, but I felt my eyes slide away from him.

  ‘What is the matter? Why are you not talking?’

  Silence.

  ‘You have a guilty conscience, eh?’

  He pushed his face into mine. I smelled mbanje on his breath, and I was afraid.

  ‘I am talking to you.’ He gripped my shoulder and pushed downwards, so hard that my knees buckled. I tried to push back, not taking my eyes from his, but I folded and crumpled until I was kneeling.

  ‘Abel.’ Hazvinei, at his elbow. ‘Tinashe is sad about leaving school, that is all.’

  Abel stared at me. Then a flicker like a lizard darting over a rock, and his eyes were full of humour again. ‘Eh-eh, Tinashe,’ he said, patting me on the back as if that had been his intention all along, ‘did I not tell you that this school was a waste of time? Yes? And here you are wasting good tea because of it.’

  He made me another cup. Although we were only half an hour’s walk from Babamukuru’s house, the bush swallowed up all the sounds of the town. We could be back at the kopje, listening to the slap and wash of the river against its banks. We could be real vakomana. I almost managed to convince myself that we would be.

  It was a while before Hazvinei moved away from us and I could speak to Abel alone. I did not know what to say to him, but I knew that I had to say something. I love you. I missed you. I will never forgive you for what you have done to my sister. I am afraid of you. All of these things were true. Instead I said, ‘Where are we going to go?’

  He smiled. ‘We are going to find the freedom fighters.’

  ‘Do you know where they are?’

  ‘We will leave the city. If we ask enough people – the right people – we will find them.’

  ‘And how are we planning to leave the city?’ I crossed my arms. I felt cold, even though the day was warm. ‘Are we going to walk?’

  ‘You think I left with nothing? I took money from Baba’s wallet. We will travel by bus.’

  I had thought that people would stare. I had thought that people would talk. But, as we pushed our way through the crowds into the sweaty fug of the bus, no one remarked on us at all. Men glanced at Hazvinei, yes, but they said nothing. What had I expected? A thunderclap? A njuzu rising from the river to bar our way?

  ‘The first thing to do is get out of the city,’ said Abel. ‘And then we will start asking questions.’

  ‘Where will we sleep?’

  ‘Outside, to begin with. Until we find them.’

  ‘You really think it will be that easy?’

  ‘With Hazvinei, yes.’ He smiled at my sister. ‘She knows things. She will lead us to them.’

  I was not so sure that I wanted to find the guerrillas. They could be dangerous to us, even if we told them that we wanted to help with the cause. I would keep silent and let Abel talk and, as soon as we were out of the city, I would take Hazvinei and go … Where, I did not know. But I would find somewhere where she would be safe. Perhaps I could even persuade Abel to come with us, once this fervour had worn off. Surely he did not expect a camp of rebels to welcome three city kids into their group without any questions or suspicion?

  We arrived in the middle of nowhere. I realised how much I had changed since moving to town – the villages looked small and straggling now, and the dust in everyone’s clothes and hair made them seem dirty. I had grown used to Tete Nyasha’s scented soap and the hot water from the taps.

  Abel led us off the road and into the bush, talking constantly. He was alive with excitement, his eyes wide and bright in his face. ‘We will find a freedom fighter camp,’ he said. ‘And we will join them. This is a good spot for us. There are many villages nearby, and there is water. ‘

  He thought it would be so easy. But where else could we go? We could not return to Babamukuru’s house. I could not return to school. And there was nothing for us on the kopje.

  ‘They will allow you to?’

  ‘Of course they will.’ He spoke with confidence. ‘And you are coming with me.’

  We walked for a long time through the bush, away from town. The heat lowered our heads and weighted our feet. We made a makeshift camp when evening fell, building a fire to keep the animals away and hanging blankets over branches to make a tent. Abel produced the last of his mbanje, but neither Hazvinei nor I would have any.

  ‘Your loss,’ Abel shrugged, and smoked in the darkness, his eyelids growing heavy and fat.

  I awoke knowing that something was wrong, and that Hazvinei was not in the camp. I could smell the oils of wild animals in the air; a rich, musky stink that warned me.<
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  ‘Abel, have you seen Hazvinei this morning?’

  ‘No.’ He was not concerned. He was playing a game with the bullet – tossing it up into the air and catching it, over and over again. It flashed silver in the sun. ‘She is around, I am sure.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘Last night, just like you. Stop worrying, Tinashe. Hazvinei can take care of herself. She is probably washing, or pissing.’

  I left him and wandered around our camp, hoping to see her. When I did not, I moved into the bush, careful not to go too far.

  ‘Tinashe.’

  A voice from behind the reeds. I ran, stumbling in the wet soil, and found her. She lay on the river bank, streaked with mud. Her legs were submerged up to her waist.

  ‘Hazvinei, what are you doing?’

  She rolled her eyes towards me. She was panting, and her face was blank. I was not even sure if she had heard me.

  ‘Hazvinei!’ I skidded down the bank until my takkies swelled and filled with water. I grasped her by the shoulders. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She shuddered and made a convulsive, heaving movement. I looked down. From between her legs, tendrils of red were coiling and curling into the muddy water. It was beautiful, like a flame lily opening between her thighs. For a moment I did not realise what I was seeing, and then I saw that it was blood, and I thought that my sister was dying.

  ‘You are still bleeding,’ I said. ‘Why are you still bleeding?’

  ‘I think something is wrong,’ she said.

  I did not think that it might be better to leave her still while I fetched help. I did not think to shout out, or try to stem the flow of blood. I picked my sister up as if she were a tiny baby and I cradled her head on my shoulder and I carried her back to the camp as tenderly as I could. ‘My little lioness,’ I told her. ‘No one is as brave as you.’

  Abel sat with Hazvinei in the tent. The grass in front of it was stained red from where we had dragged her in and I watched the red droplets turn rust-coloured and then brown, adhering to the grass blades as securely as spilled paint. We would have to be careful that night that animals did not come into the camp, lured by the smell. I waited outside while he looked at her, hoping that by some magic he would be able to cure my sister.

  Abel emerged. ‘She is still bleeding,’ he said. ‘Not as much as before. But I cannot stop it.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  He spread his hands. ‘I don’t know. We are miles from town now.’

  We tried the clinic in the nearest village, but they shook their heads. ‘We are sorry, brothers. We cannot help.’

  The white men had been in there only the day before, and had dealt out severe punishments to sympathisers.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘We are not vakomana.’

  I saw them look at our red, nervous eyes, the grass in our hair, the sweat and stains on our clothes. Abel had his wish. We were vakomana now, whether we wanted to be or not.

  ‘Even some painkillers. Even some headache tablets. Even a bandage, one bandage.’

  They gave us half a packet of Panadol. Nothing more.

  ‘We are sorry, we are sorry,’ they kept saying.

  We carried her from village to village, and met with the same bad news everywhere we went. Even Abel’s charm could not help us.

  ‘We cannot keep moving her,’ I said to Abel. ‘It is going to make her worse.’

  ‘What do you suggest we do, then? We are miles from town.’

  ‘We could call Babamukuru …’

  ‘None of these places have a telephone. And if they did, they would not let us use it. And if they let us use it, Baba would not help us.’

  ‘If we told him that Hazvinei was dying …’

  ‘She is not dying. And you do not know him like I do.’

  In the morning I went back to the village. This time, I tried the local witch doctor. He came back to the camp with me, and Abel watched in silence as he examined Hazvinei.

  ‘I will not touch her,’ said the witch doctor. ‘The snake in her womb is eating itself, and that is what is causing the blood.’

  Cursed, cursed, cursed. I was sick of hearing it. I was sick of watching people shake their heads and say with mingled sympathy and dark pleasure that there was nothing they could do to help.

  ‘She has done nothing wrong,’ I told the N’anga.

  ‘If that is true,’ he said, ‘then why is this happening to her?’

  I had no answers.

  I sat by the river that night, by a small fire that I had built. The sounds of the camp were distant, and the shrill buzz of crickets filled my ears like water and drowned my thoughts as I fell asleep. I welcomed this.

  I dreamed that Amai fed me soup, spooning it into my mouth as if I were an infant. Her dead face shone with an intricate pattern of light and dark. I opened my mouth as she stretched her hand towards me, and was surprised when my teeth closed on empty air.

  ‘Tinashe?’

  I did not want to wake up. I wanted to stay here in this brighter place, where Amai was smiling at me and the sky was full of stars bigger than the moon. I could see huge, indistinct faces looking down at me, their features traced in lines of white light. They smiled through bared teeth. The air smelled of blood and woodsmoke.

  ‘Tinashe.’

  Amai turned into the shadows.

  ‘Wake up.’

  I did not want to return to my body. I could already feel the pain, numbed and far away. When the voice called to me again, I was imprisoned inside my aching skeleton and bruised skin, a maggot trapped inside a rotting pawpaw. I opened my eyes, which felt swollen and too big for their sockets. Abel, his face carved from wood, a mask of lines spiralling out from his toothy grin. I blinked, and he became a man again.

  ‘You are awake,’ he said, without pleasure.

  ‘Yes.’

  I struggled on to one elbow and looked around. I did not recognise this place. ‘Where are we?’

  He shrugged. ‘In the bush.’

  I remembered. ‘Hazvinei?’

  Abel’s eyes were so dark that the pupil disappeared into the iris. ‘She is not well,’ he said.

  Not well. I remembered the blood. Amai might have known what to do, but Amai was dead. Hazvinei was dying.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I asked him.

  Abel stood.

  My head felt tight and strange. ‘Abel?’

  I could not see him. Or Hazvinei. Where was Hazvinei? I sat up and looked around. ‘Hazvinei?’

  No answer.

  ‘Abel!’ I tried to shout, but my throat was dry. ‘Hazvinei is alive? She is still alive? She is here?’

  Abel knelt beside me again. ‘She is here.’ ‘Where is she?’

  He indicated a bundle of blankets. ‘She is sleeping.’

  ‘Sleeping?’ I could not see any movement; any breathing.

  ‘She is very sick.’ He seemed resigned. ‘I do not know what is wrong. She might not live for long.’

  ‘How can you say that? She is your cousin!’ And more, I thought but did not say.

  ‘There is nothing more that we can do for her.’

  ‘Then you must take her to the hospital!’

  Abel did not meet my eyes. Instead, he flicked his gaze to a pile of pots and blankets.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked him.

  ‘I am packing up.’

  I stayed very still. ‘Why?’

  ‘I am moving on.’

  ‘Moving where?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘How are we going to take Hazvinei?’ I asked him.

  ‘I am leaving everything behind, except what I can carry.’

  ‘Then …’

  ‘I cannot stay,’ said Abel. ‘You understand this.’

  ‘But Hazvinei is too sick to travel.’

  He moved his eyes away from mine. ‘I cannot stay,’ he said again.

  The truth settled between us, a moth landing in the dust.

  ‘You are
leaving us?’

  ‘I have to find a camp. I have to join them. Otherwise, what am I doing here? I will come back for you. With help.’

  I looked at the still form of my sister. ‘You cannot go, Abel. She will die.’

  ‘I will come back. I told you. I will find the vakomana, and they will help us.’

  I saw that he really, honestly believed what he was saying. There was a light of fanaticism in his eyes; he looked at me, but he did not see me.

  ‘Here.’ He dropped something cool into my hand. The bullet. ‘It is yours,’ he said. ‘You should have it.’

  I closed my fingers over it.

  ‘Perhaps it will bring you luck again,’ he said, and walked away with a strong, optimistic stride. I stood, clutching the bullet and watching him. And then I ran. He did not see me coming. I crashed into his retreating back with such force that he sprawled in the dust, face first. I heard the satisfying crunch of his nose.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  He turned around under me, fighting to get up. I was smaller and lighter, but I held him down. His face was distorted by blood and anger. ‘Get off me.’

  We fought, silent and bitter. We did not fight like men but like boys: scuffling in the dirt; pinching whatever delicate skin we could find; spitting in each other’s faces. He bit me on the arm, as Hazvinei used to do. I tugged at the short curls of his hair. When we broke apart, we stared at each other, mouths open and gasping. I waited for Abel to laugh, or to apologise. I waited for him to soften.

  I ran at him again. I hit every part of him that I could reach. I scratched at him with my nails and I kicked at his legs. I pushed him to the ground again. If I could not be a brave leopard hunter, I could at least be a little mosquito, buzzing and whining in Abel’s ears and hurting whatever tiny patch of his skin I could reach. I could be an annoyance, even if it got me crushed. To my surprise, I was winning the fight. My blood turned hot. I wanted to beat him until I killed him. I wanted to beat him as Babamukuru had beaten him. I staggered backwards, releasing him, and retched.

  Abel got to his feet, coughing and clutching at his side. ‘Tinashe.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘You understand that.’