The White Shadow
Page 30
I walked again. I did not know where I was going. It was only when I felt the heat of fire on my face and heard voices that I realised I was not alone. There were seven of them: white men in uniforms with their sleeves rolled up and their hats off, sitting around a campfire. I had stumbled right into the middle of their group.
‘Oi,’ said one of them. ‘Who are you, boy?’
‘Voertsek,’ said another, but the one who must have been in charge had stepped forward. ‘What are you doing here, hey? You with the terrs?’
Perhaps they too thought I was mad. I saw their hands move to their own guns. They were not going to shoot me, I thought; just hit me with the butts of their rifles, and scare me until they heard who I was and what I was doing there. I did not intend to hurt them, but I saw my fist fly out, thick with elephant’s blood, and hit their leader in the face. There was blood, spraying out onto his khakis, and I heard a clean, sharp snap, like someone stepping on a twig, which must have been his nose. I remembered the old game we used to play on the kopje: whites against freedom fighters. I heard Abel laugh.
‘Kerr-ist,’ said the man as he stumbled backwards. The others ran towards me. The sky flashed different colours again, and I had that same sense of being able to hear all the animals and plants speaking to me in their different voices. I saw colours, lots of colours. I heard a drumbeat that did not exist. I felt as if I had drunk the ritual beer and was full of ecstasy, dancing and stomping my feet as we did to bring the rains. The white men were in the dance with me, I thought. I could see them twirling and stomping as well, throwing their heads back. Everything had a red tinge. I saw dark drops of some liquid fall onto the grass. Rain, I thought. We had called up the rain. A drop landed on my tongue, salty and metallic, and I laughed. I felt something hard bang into my back; a knee, pushing me to the ground. I opened my eyes and saw the sky, and a large, white face with a beard hanging in it, bigger than the sun. It is the white God, I thought – I have gone to the wrong place. I wondered if he would punish me, or whether he would take me to the white heaven. Whether I would be allowed in.
The white god was mouthing something. ‘Calm yourself down, Sonny Jim.’
I became aware that I was on the ground, on my back. I raised my head slightly and saw a bloodied mess and stained uniforms. A scalp half torn off. By me? My vision cleared and I saw that the scalp was a clump of grass rooted in red earth; that the white men still stood, panting but unwounded. And I saw a movement in the long grasses.
‘Bloody fool,’ said the white man.
I scrambled to my feet, and I ran. I heard a roar behind me – not the lazy, authority-asserting roar of a lion, but the harsh, hungry roar of his mate. I heard shouting, and screams. I did not stop. I knew they would follow me, those that still could, but my muscles burned hard and bright and my blood ran hot and no one could catch me. I did not feel the thorns and stones under my feet. I did not look back. When I came to the elephant carcass once more, I climbed inside it with relief, as a child climbs into its bed and sleeps without dreaming.
The lioness guarded me all night. I woke to hear snuffling outside, and low noises from deep in the throat. Sometimes a dark shape that observed me with glinting eyes obscured the pale fingernail of moonlight I could see through the arching ribs. Once, I woke to feel a warm, coarse body next to my own, and smelled bloody, inhuman breath. I curled against the rough, matted hide and felt the wild surge of its pulse; I knotted my fingers in the tangle of its hair. I felt its fur wet beneath my face and thought that the lioness was bleeding, as Hazvinei had bled, but when I tasted the wetness with my tongue I knew that it was the salted damp of tears.
Chapter Twenty-six
I WAKE, AND I am alone. My head is clear for the first time in days. I feel clean and newborn. I look around for the lioness, but I can see nothing but the golden stretch of long grasses and scrub and the pinwheeling shapes of birds in the dusty, pale sky.
I sit in the sticky blood and I look at the rows and rows of pawprints in the red earth, circling the elephant carcass. At first I think that only the lion has been here, but then I see that there are two different sets of prints. One circles the place where I slept; the other, the larger set, hovers a small distance away, approaching and retreating, but never coming too close. I rest my palm against one of the larger of the two prints and feel it warm beneath my skin. Mbada. Leopard. I was not the one to fight them, after all.
My back is cold where the lion leaned against me in the night. There is a rich, animal smell about me.
‘Hazvinei!’
There is no answer. I suppose I do not expect one. But I am grateful for this bright, empty morning, because it means that, at the very least, I am alive. I am even grateful for its emptiness, because it means that I can fill it with something of my own, now that I have no Baba, Babamukuru, Abel or Hazvinei to fill it for me. I have no one to please or to impress. I have no one to care for.
I am not sure whether Hazvinei was my light side or my dark side – the white shadow or the black shadow, the spirit or the flesh. Without her, though, I am wandering this new world with a courage of which the old Tinashe, the fearful Tinashe, would have been proud.
And one day my white shadow will crawl out of my grave and into the unforgiving light, where it will wander for a year as an animal.
And then I will rejoin her.
Acknowledgements
The White Shadow is set during a fictionalised version of Zimbabwe’s Second Chimurenga, but many people had to live through the pain and difficulty of the real thing. Many thanks to the friends and family who shared their stories with me.
Thanks also to all the people who made this book possible: my agent, Vivien Green of Sheil Land Associates – as always! – not only for being an amazing agent in all respects, but also for being my mentor and support system throughout the publishing process.
Liz Foley, Ellie Steel, Fiona Murphy and the wonderful team at Harvill Secker, including the amazing cover artists: I loved the cover of The Cry of the Go-Away Bird, and The White Shadow is no different. It’s the kind of cover that writers dream about having.
Particular thanks go to Chiedza Musengezi, who read the manuscript and added an essential and much-appreciated Shona perspective. I am so grateful. Of course, any errors and omissions are entirely my own.
I also owe a huge debt of thanks to my husband, David, for all his support and encouragement – and for the thousands of cups of coffee he has made me.
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