Now Is the Time for Running

by Michael Williams

  “Listen, Innocent, we do not have the money to take a taxi, and our truck driver has left without us. Remember what Captain Washington said? We have to find Mai Maria.”

  “But she’s a witch! I don’t want to find her,” he says angrily.

  “You want to get to South Africa, right?” I shout at him. “You want to find your dad, right? Well, you’re not going to find him on this side of the border. We have to get across to the other side, and Mai Maria is going to help us. So do what you want to do!” I know I am being tough on him, but sometimes it’s the only way.

  “Yes,” he says. “That’s true, but if she’s a witch…”

  I tune him out as I follow the path, which leads us down to the banks of the Limpopo River. The river is a slow-moving silver ribbon. I don’t see another bridge this way. Perhaps Mai Maria has a boat that takes people across the river? We walk on for another hour. Innocent is trailing, mumbling, but I pay him no attention. We follow the path, and Innocent points out several crocodiles lying in the sun on the mud bank of the river. Even from here I can see that they are huge. Of course the Limpopo River has crocodiles, I remind myself, but how did they get to be so fat?

  Crocodiles or witches? I know which one I would choose.

  “No soccer today, Deo?” Innocent has caught up and is walking close behind me.

  “Today we go to South Africa,” I answer. He is trying to make up for being so pig-headed earlier, and there’s no point in staying angry with him. He forgets arguments as soon as we’ve had them. “Look across the Limpopo River, Innocent. That’s South Africa.”

  “There we will find my dad,” he says.

  “Sure we will,” I say, even though I don’t know where we will go when we get to the other side. Or what we’ll do. After hearing how much the taxis cost, I don’t want to spend any more of our money. I have a hollow feeling in my stomach; I don’t think we have nearly enough money.

  After an hour of walking we come to a clearing with several small huts, a little way from the Limpopo River. We stop and look around. There is no one about. The huts are empty and swept clean, but in the middle of the clearing there is a smoldering fire. Next to it is a large black pot, which has been turned over. My stomach grumbles. We’ve had nothing to eat this morning. I check inside the pot—burned pap at the bottom. I scrape off as much as I can, and Innocent and I sit down to a breakfast of cold, blackened pap.

  “AND WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

  A voice booms in the clearing, and I jump up. Storming toward me is the ugliest, fattest, angriest woman I have ever seen. I swallow as fast as I can, drop the crust back into the pot, and stare at this enormous woman shaking her fist at me. The fat in her upper arm is going into a speed wobble. She has a head of dreadlocks like thick black mamba snakes. A scar runs from her forehead over her nose to the corner of her mouth. I see flashes of gold in her mouth.

  “BY JAH! YOU HAVE SOME NERVE SITTING AT MY FIRE, EATING MY FOOD, AND SNOOPING AROUND. I’LL FEED YOU TO THE VULTURES!”

  I want to stick my fingers into my ears to block the force of her words, but I doubt that that will stop this woman. She looks exactly like a witch. Her bare feet are like blocks of cement, and she wears bright red shorts that barely cover her fat thighs. Her breasts hang dangerously loose behind her T-shirt, moving about like a pair of snuffling anteaters.

  “YOU ROBBERS! YOU DOGS! YOU LIONS OF ZIMBO! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING HERE?” One loose eye moves around in its socket with a life of its own. The other is staring at me as steady as a hawk’s eye. All I want to do is turn around and run for my life.

  But then Innocent does a funny thing. He grabs my wrist and pulls me behind him. He is trembling with the effort of facing this woman.

  “Stand where you are, witch!” he says loudly. “You will not eat us. We have not come here to be eaten.”

  Her single hawk eye focuses on Innocent. “WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?” she booms.

  “You will not eat Deo. He is my little brother. If you want to eat someone, it will have to be me.” Innocent’s voice trembles, but he does not back down in the face of this horrible woman.

  The woman lets out a roar. She slaps her man-sized hands together, throws her head back, and stamps her foot. Her black mambas swirl around her shoulders as if they’ve seen a mongoose. I’m not sure whether she’s angry, laughing, or choking to death.

  “Who would want to eat you?” she asks, spluttering and wheezing, pointing at Innocent and then slapping her hands together.

  “The witch called Mai Maria eats people,” says Innocent boldly.

  “I am Mai Maria, boy! But I don’t eat people.”

  “If you are Mai Maria, you will take us across the river,” he says. “I need to find my father. He is over there.”

  “Aha! You want to make a crossing.” She wipes tears from her eyes. “Who told you about Mai Maria?”

  “Captain Washington,” I say, stepping from behind my brother.

  Mai Maria’s single steady eye focuses on me.

  “My friend, Captain Washington? You boys have come from Masvingo Province? From Bikita?”

  “Yes. From Gutu,” I say.

  “I’ve heard what happened in Gutu. Terrible, too terrible. And now you want to go over to the other side. Do you know how much I charge to take people to South Africa?”

  I shake my head.

  “Two hundred rands—today that is twenty billion Zim dollars. Tomorrow it might be thirty billion. You’d better go today.”

  My heart sinks. We haven’t enough money, but I pick up my soccer ball and untie the twine. Mai Maria watches with interest as I pile all our money on the ground in front of her and start counting. It’s not even close to ten billion, and I know Mai Maria knows it too.

  “So, you are the boy with the soccer ball? I heard about the game last night. You chose the boy with one leg to be on your team?”

  I nod at her and stand up.

  “You will see that boy later on today. He comes here with his father. They will make the crossing tomorrow.”

  I nod again, not knowing what to say. It seems Captain Washington was right. Mai Maria knows everything about getting people across the border.

  “Okay. I tell you what we do. You two are special. The boy with a billion-dollar soccer ball and the crazy brother who thinks Mai Maria eats children. I like you two. We make a deal. You give me your money and those sneakers, and I’ll take you over to South Africa. This must be our secret. You tell no one how cheap it is to cross, okay? Otherwise they will all think Mai Maria has gone soft.”

  Innocent clutches the sneakers around his neck. He hasn’t worn them even once since Captain Washington gave them to him. I can see this will be trouble.

  “Let me talk to him.” I pull Innocent a few steps away from the fire.

  “The witch can’t have my sneakers, Deo.”

  “You want to get across, right? You want to see Dad? This is the only way,” I whisper urgently.

  “Why isn’t our money enough? We’re giving all of it to her. That should be enough.”

  “It’s not enough, Innocent. That’s just the way it is. And it will be no use to us over there, anyway. They have different money across the river.”

  “But the captain gave those sneakers to me….”

  “I’ll get you another pair on the other side, exactly the same. I promise.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “Okay, you’ve got a deal,” I say, walking back to Mai Maria, giving her our sneakers.

  She snorts again, inspecting the shoes, sniffing the inner soles. She gathers up the money, and it disappears somewhere under her clothes. I fold up my soccer-ball-no-more and place it under my shirt.

  “Now you are the guests of Mai Maria for a day and half a night. More people will come, and by tonight there will be many here. They will sit around the fire and sing songs and say good-bye to their land. You will see,” she says, snorting and shaking with laughter agai
n. “As you are my first customers, you can have the pick of the huts. That is where you will sleep tonight, and tomorrow morning, when it is dark and the crocodiles are sleeping, we will cross the river.”

  11

  CROCODILES IN THE LIMPOPO

  I am dreaming of Amai. She touches my cheek and smiles at me. Amai’s face hovers over me, close, the tiny wrinkles around her eyes reminding me of her laughter. I reach out to hug her, but she is shaking me, shaking me awake.

  And then I open my eyes, awake now, with only the pain of missing her.

  It is still dark.

  In the hut there are the sounds and smells of people sleeping close to one another. A bird sings its early morning call. The murmur of people talking outside drifts into the hut. I reach out for Innocent.

  He is no longer sleeping beside me. I sit up, instantly awake. I must find Innocent. What if he went wandering during the night? Sometimes Innocent goes on a walkabout and then cannot find his way back home. In this strange place, it would be easy for him to walk back to Beitbridge and then be unable to find his way back to Mai Maria’s place. I step over the bodies of sleeping people to get to the entrance.

  A man swears at me. I’ve bumped his head. I don’t care. I must get out of the hut and find Innocent. Today’s the day we cross into South Africa. We have only one chance. If he has disappeared, I will have to stay behind to find him, and we will lose what we paid to Mai Maria.

  Outside the hut, a fire is burning at the center of the clearing, and steam rises from a big black pot. Innocent is in deep conversation with Patson. Last night these two became good friends, when Innocent asked Patson about his leg, not pretending he was like everyone else. He even allowed Patson to listen to music on his radio, and that is something I’ve never been allowed to do.

  At the thought of last night, I quickly glance around at the other two huts. The men from Harare are not around. The clearing is quiet. A few people come out of the hut, stretch, wash their faces from a tap behind Mai Maria’s hut, and gather their belongings, ready for the crossing. Last night I heard many stories of the dangers ahead of us today. People spoke about the Ghuma-ghuma, but I didn’t understand what it was. I heard something about crossing a park and how people had died trying. I don’t want to believe them, but the adults spoke in such serious tones it’s hard not to worry.

  And then a fight broke out around the campfire. Three men and two women from Harare started shouting for beer and then complained to Mai Maria about how expensive it was. There was an ugly moment when one of the men swore into her face. He called her a filthy Rasta woman. Mai Maria said nothing. She stood with her hands on her hips and looked at him in a way that would keep me awake for weeks. When everyone started shouting and swearing, I pulled Innocent away and went to the sleeping hut. I was tired of trouble.

  I walk over to where Innocent and Patson are sitting. A man makes tea and hands out slices of buttered bread. Above the huts the faintest light of the day rises, but it is still dark in the clearing.

  “There will be no crocodiles where we cross,” says Innocent to me, moving up on the log to make room for me. “Patson says so.”

  I sip at my tea and catch Patson’s eye. He knows what I am thinking. There will be thirty-two people making the crossing today. How many will make it?

  “My father will have to carry me some of the way,” he says bitterly. “He promised Mai Maria that I would not hold up everyone. I won’t.”

  It’s hard not to stare at where his leg should be, so I look up instead. There are more and more people coming out of the huts. The men from Harare and the two women are the last to come out. They grumble when they get cold tea and have to share the last of the bread. Mai Maria is nowhere to be seen.

  “We leave in ten minutes,” one of Mai Maria’s helpers calls to everyone standing around the fire. We finish our tea and collect our belongings.

  Patson’s father comes over to us. He is a tall man but doesn’t look like he is strong enough to carry Patson across the river. He has a large backpack on his back, and he puts out his hand to Patson, who grabs it and lifts himself up onto his crutches.

  “You’re ready?” he asks.

  “Ready,” says Patson, throwing the last of his tea into the fire. The water sizzles instantly. It’s as if he is throwing away all the memories of this place. “And you two?”

  “We are crossing today. We’re coming with you.”

  “And once you’re on the other side, what will you do then?” Patson asks.

  I shrug. It’s a question I have been trying not to think about. “Something will come up,” I say.

  We move out of the clearing and follow a steep path to the Limpopo River. At first the sound of the river is a long way off, but as we get closer, the water sounds louder and louder.

  “Will we see the witch again?” asks Innocent.

  “I don’t know. Keep walking and watch your step.”

  Innocent doesn’t have great balance, and getting him down the steep trail is not easy. If he trips, he will grab at anyone to keep upright. He could bring the whole line of people tumbling down the path. Ahead of us, people walk single file down the trail, slowly making their way to the cold, gray river below.

  I shiver at the sight of the fast-moving water. When I asked last night how we would cross the river, one man said, “Why, we’re going to walk across,” and the others laughed at his joke, which I didn’t catch. Now, I look at the other side—surely this isn’t the place that we cross. It will be too far!

  Mai Maria’s helpers jump from rock to rock and move steadily along the bank of the river. They look like they know where they are going, and we follow them as closely as we can. Patson and his father struggle behind us. Every time we cross over rocks, Patson’s father has to swing his backpack in front of him and half drag, half carry Patson over the rocks. I offer to take the backpack, but he refuses.

  We scramble over some rocks and turn a corner, and there, sitting on a rock overlooking the river, is Mai Maria. She has obviously been waiting for us.

  “Across the river is South Africa,” she begins. “On the other side there will be others who will lead you through the park. Listen to them carefully. Your life may depend on it. They have done this many times. You will need to do it only once.” Her voice is as loud as always and easily carries over the noise of the river.

  I look across to South Africa. It looks the same as Zimbabwe—same bushes, same trees, same sky. Everyone talks about the opportunities of good work with good pay. A better life there, they say, than in Zimbabwe. It’s hard to imagine anything better than my life in Gutu before the soldiers came, but I have lived for only fourteen years.

  “It looks deep,” says Innocent. “Where’s the bridge that bites, Deo?”

  He is nervous because he can’t swim. “We left Beitbridge behind, Innocent. You’ll be okay.”

  “Each of you will hold on to the stick with your right hand,” says Mai Maria, as her helpers pull long bamboo poles from behind the rocks. Rope knots have been tied at regular intervals on the poles. We are divided up into groups of six or seven people per pole. Innocent becomes even more frightened as he watches what is happening. He starts shaking his head from side to side.

  I don’t know how I am going to get Innocent across the Limpopo River. The banks on the other side seem impossibly far away.

  “Do not let go of the pole! If you do, you will be swept away by the river toward the crocodiles you saw on your way here. Keep your feet on the riverbed and drag yourself through the water. If you lift your feet too high, the water will take you,” says Mai Maria, as the three men from Harare and their two women push their way to the front of the group to take the first pole.

  They swear at Mai Maria and tell her helper that it’s time to go. Mai Maria simply looks at them. I see her exchange a glance with the lead helper as one by one the three men follow him into the water, while the two women moan to each other about how cold the water is.

  Abov
e us, a golden light grows in the east, and the tops of the trees gather color with the first thin rays of sunlight. Down by the river, the light is still gray and it is not yet fully morning.

  I watch the first group carefully.

  The helper walks steadily through the water, dragging his feet and holding on to the front of the pole. The water curls up around his lower legs. The women shriek as the water rises up around their legs. The current is strong, but the river is not deep. Then one of the women slips, her head disappearing under the water.

  “DON’T LET GO!” bellows Mai Maria.

  The man behind grabs her and she comes out of the water, spluttering and coughing. She starts walking again, and they continue on into the middle of the river. The second group heads into the shallow water.

  Innocent is shivering in terror behind me. “No, Deo, Innocent doesn’t want to do this. Let’s go home. This is no good. No good at all,” he says, pulling my arm.

  I understand what Innocent is feeling, and I feel it too. Perhaps this is a big mistake. What if he slips and the river sweeps him toward the waiting crocodiles? How will I live with myself if Innocent drowns?

  What if I’m swept away by the river? Who will look after Innocent if I drown?

  The helpers are preparing for the third group to cross. Mai Maria is shouting instructions. We could slip away; nobody will notice if we are not here. We could run back up the slope and go back to the border. There has to be another way of crossing into South Africa.

  “Innocent, will you help me?” This is Patson. He stands in front of us and holds out his crutches to Innocent. “My father has to carry me on his back. It is the only way. I cannot get across without your help.” Patson stares at me, as if he knows what is going through my mind. “Deo, don’t leave now. You can make it. I know you can.”

  What does he know about me, and what I can or cannot do? How did he know what I was thinking?

  “You can make it,” he says again. “Look.”

  The first group is almost at the mud bank on the other side. Although they still have a way to go, they’ve made it through the deeper part of the river.