“The name’s a mistake?”
“A misunderstanding among the English. It stuck.” Baba sank into a chair next to the kitchen table. He had gotten out of bed late that morning. I was pretty sure he was hungover and felt like shit.
Was there a better word than “shit” to describe how my father felt? Mama had said that using vulgar language showed ignorance—“proof of a limited vocabulary.” The first time she had told me this, I was in the first grade and didn’t know the meaning of “vulgar” or “vocabulary.” I started avoiding all words beginning with “v.” For years, the words “shit” and “fuck” never crossed my lips. But now that I was older and motherless, it occurred to me that those potent words actually expanded my vocabulary. I had started to use them sparingly, like hot pepper flakes, because really, in certain situations, no other words would do.
“Africa has black rhinos too,” Baba said, rubbing his temples, “with pointed snouts. Black rhinos are the same color as white rhinos—gray.”
I sighed. Human beings could foul up the simplest things. “People think the horn is medicine, don’t they?” This was not a question. I knew that the same gangs that took ivory from elephants also hunted rhinos for their horns.
He nodded. “They think it cures hangovers.” He managed a rueful smile. “Also fevers, nosebleeds, rashes, typhoid, strokes, cancer, comas, whatever. Poachers and their dealers can be very convincing. People who are sick want to believe what they say.”
“They think a bone will cure them?”
“It’s not bone. Horns are keratin, same as your hair and fingernails.”
Almost reflexively, I curled my fingers until I felt my nails tucked safely against my palms. “What do they do with it?”
“I imagine they grind, shave, chop, boil, and swallow it. They might sniff or inject it. Maybe they wear rhino horn in lockets, massage it into their skin, or toss it over their left shoulder.” His voice held both scorn and pity. “I really don’t know. They do whatever they think brings a cure.”
He rose from his chair and went to the sink, where Zola had placed a pitcher of water. She had gone shopping with Hannie, who was nearly five now and would start school soon after I finished. I cast a parting look at the possibly doomed, possibly already dead white rhino and, with a heavy heart, sat down at the table to study.
5
MY FRIEND ROOPER NOBBS WASN’T much of a student. He didn’t plan to take the JSC exam but would gladly leave school, uncertified, at the end of the academic year. For Roop, simply sticking it out, more or less, for ten rocky grades of compulsory schooling was a magnificent achievement. I suspected our teachers agreed and wouldn’t be too sad to see him go.
Roop lived with his grandmother in a tilting shack they called “Rotting House.” When malaria took both of his parents within a week, his numerous siblings had gone to distant relatives who had the youth and stamina to foster them, while Roop, the oldest, had become the ward of his wizened, widowed grandmother. Granny Nobbs raised Ovambo chickens and was getting to the age when she could use some help.
Grandpa Nobbs had died not long before of a stab wound from a thief who robbed him of all the cash in his pockets. Cockfighting—or rather, betting on cockfights—was Grandpa Nobbs’s favorite pastime. Roop told me that over the years his grandfather had lost a lot of money at the pits but on the last night of his life, he won big. His assailant nabbed him on a dark path not far from the fights. After the attack, Grandpa Nobbs lasted long enough to stagger home, penniless, and whisper to Granny not to worry—he had won more than enough, picked the best of the best, and loved her above all. Granny said he died in her arms with a smile on his face.
The best part about visiting Roop was seeing Granny Nobbs’s wide, gap-toothed grin when I stepped up to her chair on the porch. “It’s Bonesy!” she would exclaim, as though my arrival were a rare and delightful event. Her face was as pale and lined as crumpled paper. She smelled sweetly of Lifebuoy soap, a bath bar made of red carbolic and flowery perfume and sold in barrels at Swale’s Grocery Store.
The worst part about visiting was getting past Granny’s chickens. Although she did not raise them to be fighters, her roosters and hens had plenty of spunk. Ovambos are a feisty, aggressive, dark-plumaged breed capable of catching and eating rodents, pecking insects from the backs of cattle, and flying up to roost in the tallest trees. Rather than scattering when I walked into the yard, Granny’s Ovambos rushed toward me with the zeal of starving omnivores. Anything worth pecking on here? Watching me zig and zag my way forward, Roop would stand on the porch and laugh. Hyunk-hyunk-hyunk.
Granny Nobbs peddled chickens and eggs at the market. As she got older, she became known for the excellent walkies she made from boiled chicken feet and sold off the steps of Rotting House. Her walkies were the crunchiest, spiciest, most delicious snack I had ever tasted. Purchasing them took courage, though. The Ovambos, as if affronted by the delicacy on offer, harassed every customer who ventured across the yard. This was fine with Roop and me because it left more walkies for us. We were growing like stinkweed and almost always hungry.
One afternoon a week before the certification exam, Roop barreled into Uncle Stash’s shop carrying a fishing pole and a net. “Tilapias, Bonesy! A big school spawning in the backwater. Oh, hi, Mr. Stash.”
I was counting money from the cash box and checking it against the receipts we listed in a dusty ledger. Uncle Stash’s bank visits were irregular, based more on when he felt like going into town than on the number of checks and bills straining the hinges on the tin box. I glanced at him.
“Go ahead when you’re finished. I’ll close up.”
Roop stood in the doorway, impatient, jiggling a foot while he rolled a bread ball between his fingers. In truth, I was almost done when he arrived, but I took my time, showing off a little as I handled the stacks of cash. When I realized my friend truly wasn’t interested, I returned the box to its shelf and bid Uncle Stash goodbye. In five minutes flat, Roop and I had fetched my fishing pole. In another five minutes, we stood on a grassy ledge, peering down at a fine mess of fish.
Tilapias prefer quiet, well-vegetated water free of currents and eddies. We knew their favorite location, near a deeply undercut bank in the shallow, sloping margin of the river. It was there Roop had spotted the mother lode. “See the spawning beds?” he said, pointing.
Round, bowl-like impressions as vivid as moon craters marked the bottom about two feet from shore. Swimming above the beds, keen-eyed and watchful, were a dozen or more tilapias the size of dinner plates.
I felt a rush, not unlike the heart flutter that preceded taking aim with a gun. Fishing and hunting were alike in this way. The great challenge of outsmarting a wild and wary creature never failed to stir the blood. What made this expedition especially thrilling was the catch we hoped to take home. Tilapias were the tastiest, most tender fish I had ever eaten.
“Oh boy, Roop. Dinner.”
“Granny’s favorite, with her gums and all.” He cast a pointed glance upstream. Roop and I had not forgotten our early acquaintance with the river’s cruel surprises.
Although the chance was slim that a crocodile would snatch a person fishing from the bank, Roop and I had learned to be cautious. A crocodile wouldn’t prevent us from fishing, but if one happened to be in the neighborhood, we wanted to know where it was. “I’ll check downstream,” I said, turning to go.
While Roop scouted upstream, I turned and walked in the opposite direction, scanning the left and right banks as I stepped over the uneven terrain. Nuggets of rock gave way to slick green vegetation and dark tongues of mud. A flock of plovers pecked along the verge. A turtle nosed into a bed of algae bordering the opposite bank. Above the central channel, a few iridescent dragonflies swooped toward their own reflections. I inhaled the sweet scent of a flowering tree and felt the familiar sense of peace that comes with being outdoors on a fine afternoon.
/>
“All clear down here,” I called to Roop, retracing my steps.
“Dangerous chameleon roosting on a branch, hyunk-hyunk. Otherwise, all clear upstream.” He dug in his pocket and handed me a chunk of bread. Bread balls were the bait of choice for spawning tilapias. The fish wouldn’t tolerate anything floating above their nests, so they would likely push away, or better yet bite, whatever we tossed in.
I stood back from the overhang to avoid being seen by the fish while I worked a wad of bread into a ball. Roop, who had prerolled several rounds, threw his line in the water and almost immediately got a strike. The tilapia he pulled in was a beauty—dark olive-green fading to pale on the flanks and about twenty centimeters long. I guessed it weighed at least a kilo, enough to provide an excellent meal for him and Granny Nobbs.
“Nice catch, Roop.”
“They’re biting, all right.”
The tilapia thrashed at the end of Roop’s line. It took him a few tries to get a good grip on it. When he had removed the hook and let the fish flop into the net, we stood over it for a moment without saying a word. I wondered whether my friend felt the way I did while watching the life drain away from a wild creature. I never told Roop, but every fish I landed gave me a moment of contrition even as I rejoiced in the catch.
In no time, though, we had lowered our hooks again. I settled into the focused, almost meditative state that erases the boundary between fishing gear and flesh, as though the pole had become an extension of my body. I pictured the tilapias cruising around my bait, eyeing it, not liking the pale blob that had dropped in from nowhere. The slightest, most tentative tap on the bread ball felt like a message sent directly from a fish to me: a tremor pulsing up the line, through the pole, and into the sensory network poised at high alert in my hand, wrist, and arm. My concentration was intense. I willed that creature to bite. Only a person who has fished can understand the exquisite sensitivity between an angler and his catch, the intimacy of it.
Roop’s pole jerked. In one swift motion he landed another tilapia, slightly smaller than the first but still a keeper. He looked a little sheepish as he unhooked and netted the fish, avoiding my eyes. Usually we came out even. In a moment he had caught yet another.
“Did you give me the voodoo bread?” I kidded, only half-joking.
“Here.” He handed over one of his prerolled bread balls. “Let’s trade.”
Although I understood the element of luck in fishing and didn’t really blame my bait, I decided a swap was worth a try. We made the trade and threw in our lines. I waited. Imagined. Willed. Then I felt it, a little nudge. And another. I held the pole steady. When it came, the strike was so sudden that I almost lost my footing on the grassy ledge.
“I got one!” Gripping the pole in both hands, I pulled up the biggest tilapia I had ever seen—two kilos at least. Handsome markings stood out like the illustration on a poster: greenish vertical stripes, a thin red margin above the dorsal fin, dark spots on the caudal fin. About thirty centimeters long, my fish was beautiful enough for a page in a calendar from Ruby’s Amazing Safaris.
“That’s a trophy, pal.” Roop sounded relieved that I had finally caught one. I felt more than relieved. This minor goliath would feed my whole family.
As I swung the catch toward land, a dark shadow passed over Roop and me. A whoosh ruffled my hair. In a flash, an osprey swooped down and sank its talons in the tilapia at the end of my line. The bird flapped its great wings, trying to steal the prize.
What the fuck? I clutched the pole and tugged, fighting back. Ospreys can lift twice their weight. For a moment I was pulled up onto my toes.
“Holy moly!” Roop poked his pole at the bandit, trying to help. The bird flapped and jerked the line. I feared the thin strand might snap, or the hook might tear through the tilapia’s lips. The pole felt rough and splintery in my grip. I staggered toward the edge, dangerously close to being yanked over. Then things took an even more terrifying turn.
A crocodile sprang up from under the cut bank beneath my feet. A gaping jaw, jagged with teeth, flashed before me. Like a spring-loaded trap, it snapped shut on the osprey and fell back into the river, taking with it the bird, the fish, the line, and my instantly surrendered fishing pole. While Roop and I stood open-mouthed, the giant reptile and its flailing captive disappeared in the undercut below us. We leapt back from the edge. For a heart-stopping moment the sound of the death struggle tore through the air. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the splashing stopped. A few dark feathers floated into view.
I turned to Roop. He was pale, clutching his net full of fish.
My voice came out hoarse. “We missed a spot.”
He stared at me. Then we burst out laughing.
Our laughter quickly sputtered and died. A brush with the same force of nature that had taken Squeak turned us inward, remembering. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the late-day slant of the sun. I had stood an arm’s length from a crocodile’s wide-open jaw—the very thing my unlucky cousin might have seen in the final, horrifying seconds of his life.
Calm soon returned to the riverbed. The plovers called out: tink-tink-tink. The crocodile had crept back into its dark green realm. The silence troubled me almost as much as the violence that had preceded it. Who could have known a thousand-pound reptile lounged in the undercut a few feet below us? Not for the first time, I was struck by the genius of the natural world—its power and stealth.
Roop and I didn’t need words to agree it was time to leave. We walked a while without speaking. Every now and then, one of the tilapias flopped in the net hanging behind his back.
“Good bait,” I said.
He shrugged. “Bread and spit. Same as always.”
“We almost caught a crocodile.”
We shared a nervous laugh.
Roop turned serious. “Two of these fish are for you.”
“No way.”
“Granny and I can split the big one. She doesn’t eat much.”
I gave him a look.
“You need it more. Brain food.”
My family would welcome the fish, of course. But from a boy who lived hand to mouth with a dependent grandmother in a truly rotting house? “Are you sure?”
“Yep. You’d do the same if you skunked me.”
I supposed I would. “Well, thanks.” This felt awkward, so I blinked and said, “Zola will thank you too.”
I watched him blush. It never failed; my older sister had this effect on boys—even the polite ones like Roop, who really just wanted to give me the fish. Then I felt bad for creating a diversion at his expense.
“Let’s go by your house so I can say hi to Granny.”
On the porch of Rotting House, we made quick work of cleaning Roop’s catch. Although I liked Granny Nobbs, my real reason for stopping by was to contribute the leavings from the fish Roop had given me. Ovambos could, and would, eat anything, including fish guts. We filleted the tilapias with care, collecting in a bucket every slimy, scaly bit that wasn’t prime fish flesh. While we worked, Granny sat near us, shooing away chickens with a broom. When I told her about the osprey and the crocodile, she threw back her head and laughed, her merry grin checkered yellow and black with old and missing teeth.
“The crocodile did you a favor. You wouldn’t have wanted to reel in that bird. Have you ever tasted osprey meat?”
I shook my head.
“Almost as bad as eagle. Any bird that eats fish and long-dead rot tastes like the bottom of a garbage pail.”
“Ewwww!” Roop and I chorused, savoring the gross imagery.
I eyed a chicken that had slipped past Granny’s broom and was investigating a splotch of fish blood on the floorboards. “The Ovambos eat rot, and they taste good.”
“They also eat grain and real chicken feed when we have it. Scavenging makes them a little gamey is all.”
I wave
d away a rooster circling the pail of offal. Like my uncle, Granny was a font of interesting information. Stash would appreciate the item about birds that tasted like the bottom of a garbage pail. I planned to tell him as soon as possible.
After we finished cleaning the fish, Roop placed four wrapped filets in my hands and shoved me toward the steps, preventing further awkwardness. The Ovambos chased me out of the yard, and as darkness fell, I ran all the way home.
* * *
I spent the last few days before the JSC exam with my nose in one book or another, brushing up on math, history, science, and English. Hannie had come down with something that made her nose run and her eyes water. From time to time, she would wander into the kitchen where I was studying and reach out with her sticky, virulent little hands for a hug or a lift up to my lap. Zola tried to keep her away, but increasingly, Zola’s assistance included a poke at me.
“Get down, Hannie. Bonesy’s studying for a ticket to a bright future.” The words “ticket to a bright future” came out flat and mocking. For someone who once had encouraged me to study and make something of myself, Zola showed little enthusiasm for my actual success.
I gave her a look meant to say, You got that right, sister, but she was too busy wiping Hannie’s nose to notice. Watching her tend the baby, I realized what my bright future must look like to her. She probably imagined me finding a good job, becoming successful, and leaving our threadbare existence—and her—far behind. I wasn’t ashamed to admit that almost everything about that excited me.
A couple of days later, less than a week before the exam, Baba fell ill with symptoms similar to Hannie’s. During the cool morning hours he managed a few chores outdoors, but he spent most of each day in bed, sniffling and coughing. When he passed me studying at the kitchen table, his eyes red and raw, he patted my back as if to say, Go get ’em, Bonesy! Or maybe, I’m sorry I can’t help you because I’m sick and I drink too much and I never went far in school. Either way, I felt he was on my team.
The Story of Bones Page 6