Musina is a bad place. So many people. Det wants my money! Sidi and No Matter gone. Det’s changed. Where r u BB??? xxx
She obviously hadn’t got my last message. But then the phone buzzed again.
Sun 4/13/08 11.06am
Hey, BB!!! So plzzzzd to hear from u!!!! Where r u now? xxx
My thumbs darted over the keypad.
At border. Coming to Musina. Go to the police. Where r u? Battery low. XXX
Sun 4/13/08 11.10am
@ Showgrounds. Can’t go to police. Come soon. xxx
Grace was all that mattered now. Every step I took was for her. Stumpy could protest all he liked but I could not give up on my sister. “Look to Grace” was what Arves’s granny had said in her trance. I owed it to my parents to find her. I could not ignore my shavi.
Around midday Boubacar returned with some food and news about our crossing into South Africa. I wolfed down the bread, atchar, and barbecued chicken he had brought for me and showed him the texts I had received from Grace.
“She’s at the Showgrounds in Musina.”
“Ah yes, I know the place. All the refugees that make it to Musina are sent there.”
“Do you really think Determine’s taking her to a stupid jamboree?”
“Some people take children to South Africa and sell them as domestic workers.”
It was obvious Boubacar was not telling me everything. I had heard the stories about young girls sold to truckers who kept them in their cabs as they rode the highways of Africa. “But it could be worse than that, Boubacar, isn’t that right?”
“It also could be innocent, Patson. There’s no point in guessing. How does that help us? We will find Grace. It is as simple as that. Yes?” And he quickly changed the subject to the River Woman. “I know where she is, but we will have to wait here until it is dark before we can move. The soldiers are everywhere and the border was closed all morning. They’re still searching for us. The sooner we get across the river into South Africa, the safer we will be.”
“Do you think Commander Jesus really knows about the girazis I found?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. I’ve been thinking a lot about all the people you told about your girazis. James Banda might have told the commander to bribe his way out of the mine. Also, the wives of Banda could have forced it out of Gracie and then told Sylvia and she would surely have told Commander Jesus. There were many different ways he could have found out about the diamonds.”
“When I was in the photocopying room I told Arves to give them to Grace, but I don’t think she has them. Maybe Arves hid them somewhere before he died? I don’t know where they are, Boubacar. You have to believe me.” Nothing that happened in the photocopy room was any clearer to me now than it was then. “What I really don’t understand is why Commander Jesus wants them so much.”
“You have no idea, do you?” he said with a hint of a smile. “From the way you’ve described them, just one of those stones is worth hundreds of thousands of US dollars. Commander Jesus knows that with those three stones he can retire from the army, buy his way anywhere in the world, and live the rest of his life in luxury.”
As soon as it was dark, we crept out of the burrow and headed away from the searchlights. Boubacar had trouble finding the path to the River Woman, and as he struggled to walk in the dark I was more aware of the effort it took for him to carry me. An hour later we found the small clearing, hidden behind bushes and tall trees, where a man stepped out of the shadows and stopped us. Once Boubacar explained what we wanted with the River Woman, the man pointed us to a narrower pathway that led to a larger clearing, high above the Limpopo River. At its center a man was preparing food over a fire, and people moved in and out of the simple shelters nearby. Two other men were busily hacking down long bamboo poles, while a third was laying luggage in neat rows in preparation for the crossing.
“Welcome to the alternative border post,” Boubacar said, lowering me to the ground. “There’s no paperwork needed here, but to avoid any questions, I think we should say we are family. Perhaps I should be your uncle? Or maybe your father?”
“No, not my uncle,” I said, struggling up onto my crutches.
“Very well then, I shall be your papa, but only for the crossing.”
Together we stood at the edge of the clearing, unsure how to proceed, until a woman clapped her hands in delight at seeing us, and with a Congolese accent very similar to Boubacar’s bellowed, “HOH-HOH. LOOK WHO’S HERE—THE ONE-LEGGED GOALIE I TOLD YOU ABOUT.” Her physical size matched her booming voice and she had a nest of thick Rastafarian dreadlocks that hung to her shoulders. A scar ran from her forehead over her nose to the corner of her too-large mouth, which was open wide enough for me to see the glint of her gold teeth. This had to be the River Woman.
Boubacar greeted her like an old friend as she smothered him with her enormous embrace. “Mugabe’s soldiers are still looking for us, Mai Maria,” he said, disentangling himself from her and shaking his head with laughter. “Now they know exactly where we are.”
“BY JAH! THOSE SOLDIER BOYS DO NOT DARE COME TO MAI MARIA’S BORDER LODGE. I WILL EAT THEM FOR BREAKFAST AND SPIT THEM OUT LIKE THE FOUL-TASTING PIPS THAT THEY ARE.” Mai Maria had one loose eye that moved around in its socket as if it had a life of its own. I couldn’t help but stare at her, and when she looked directly at me, I didn’t know which eye to focus on.
“ARE YOU CATCHING FLIES, BOY? CLOSE YOUR MOUTH OR SPEAK.”
“I need to charge my phone,” I stammered.
Mai Maria shook her head, laughing, while her dreadlocks bounced around her shoulders as if alive. “Boubacar, you didn’t tell this boy that Mai Maria’s lodge has only one star? There’s no electricity here. You will have to wait until you get to South Africa for that,” she said, pointing across the river.
“Mai Maria, this is Patson,” said Boubacar. “My son.”
I felt a twinge when Boubacar called me his son. I was sure Baba wouldn’t mind but it reminded me again of the hole in my life now that my father was gone. No one would ever call me son again. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mai Maria. When do we cross the river?”
“You will sleep here tonight. Anyone who can play soccer the way you can is my honored guest. Then in the early morning, when it is still dark and the crocodiles are sleeping, we will cross the river. Your friends are here, too, Goalie,” she said, pointing to Deo standing beside a man in the doorway of one of the huts. “Why don’t you say hello to them. Boubacar and I have some business to discuss.”
I hobbled over to Deo.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, Patson. What are you doing here?” he responded awkwardly.
“Same as you, I guess.”
“What happened to your leg?” asked the man standing next to Deo.
“This is Innocent, my brother.”
Innocent’s question took me by surprise. Not because how obvious it was, but by the simple way he had asked it. People were usually either too embarrassed to ask straight-out or they preferred to pretend that Stumpy wasn’t there. Innocent, however, had addressed the most noticeable thing about me, in a way that was intimate, even friendly. And he was looking right at me when he asked, as if I were the most important person in the world. For the first time, that question I always dreaded didn’t feel oppressive.
“I stepped on a land mine.”
“It must have been very sore.” The back of Innocent’s hand fluttered near my cheek, as if he wanted to stroke me, but then he pulled it back and smiled. “I watched you play soccer yesterday. You were brilliant. Deo says you are the best goalie he ever had.”
I turned to Deo in surprise. “You said that?”
He shrugged. “My brother likes to exaggerate.”
“Do you want to listen to my radio?” Innocent asked. “If we are lucky, there might be a soccer game on.” He carried a Weet-Bix cereal box under his arm; he opened it and carefully withdrew a small transistor radio. He bent his head low, slowly turned the tuning dial, and shyly
motioned for me to come closer. There was something childlike about this man, as if he hadn’t quite grown up.
“You’re lucky, Patson. Innocent doesn’t share his radio with anyone.”
“You can show me your made-up leg, Patson. The bamboo one. I want to know if you can run on it and—”
“Innocent, Patson doesn’t want to show you his leg,” snapped Deo.
“No, it’s okay,” I said, finding myself laughing at his honesty and refreshing curiosity. “But I can’t run on one leg, Innocent.”
“My brother’s a bit special,” said Deo, by way of an apology.
“That makes two of us,” I said, taking Innocent’s hand and moving to sit with him beside the fire to listen to his radio.
Stumpy jabbed me awake early on the morning we were to cross the Limpopo River. It was almost as if he knew the coming day would be long and difficult. All around me people were sleeping under the makeshift shelter, but with Stumpy’s constant complaining, I couldn’t lie still another moment. I smeared the yellow ointment over my stump, gently massaged away the night’s stiffness, and tried to mentally prepare both of us for the crossing into South Africa.
I packed away my ointments and moved outside the shelter. The morning was still dark and quiet. I crutched my way toward the clearing where Innocent was sitting by the embers of last night’s fire. He glanced up as I approached and made room for me on the log beside him.
“This is my Bix-box,” he said. “In here I have everything I will ever need.”
“Good morning, Innocent. Can’t you sleep?”
He shook his head, his fingers lightly tapping the lid of his box, and then, as if he had suddenly thought of something, he turned toward the noise of the river. “Are there crocodiles in the water?”
“There might be a few, but none where we will cross.”
“Patson, why do you have to go across the river?”
“I have to find my sister. She is somewhere in South Africa.”
“How old?”
“Nine.”
“What’s her name?”
“Grace.”
Innocent fluttered his hand above his head, as if he had caught a memory in midair. “The Ephesians said that you are saved by grace through faith,” he stated, proudly. “That’s what Amai taught me. She also said I have to look after Deo. He’s my little brother. He’s fourteen. I have a picture for you, Patson.”
“For me?”
“Yes. In my Bix-box,” he said, nodding his head and smiling shyly at me.
“Well, can I see it?”
“I collect things. I don’t know why I wanted this picture, but now I know,” he said. “It was meant for you.”
He opened the cereal box and placed the lid on his lap. His long, slender fingers disappeared and I heard things rattling around inside the tin.
“You said you can’t run on one leg. This man runs with no legs. You should ask him how he does it.”
Innocent handed me a piece of newspaper folded into a tight square. It was a photograph of a man wearing a pair of orange sunglasses, a running shirt, and shorts. Both of his knees were connected to J-shaped, black space-age prosthetic blades. His whole body was clear off the ground, flying down a cinder track, and his face was a picture of perfect concentration.
“I bet you that one day you will run faster than him,” said Innocent, closing the lid of his Bix-box. “Because you’ve got one good leg and he’s got no legs.”
There was something compelling about the man running with no legs. It didn’t seem possible that he could be flying so effortlessly down the track and yet he was clearly running very fast. I couldn’t argue with Innocent’s reasoning; one leg had to be better than no legs at all. I had never imagined myself ever running again and yet here was someone more handicapped than I making it look so simple. “Thank you, Innocent, that’s quite amazing,” I said, handing him back the clipping.
“But that’s your picture now. I gave it to you,” he said, smiling. “You’ll see. One day you’ll run fast too. Just like that man.”
I folded the photograph and slipped it between the lattice of my peg leg and Stumpy, hoping it might offer him a bit of encouragement.
“There will be no crocodiles where we cross,” Innocent said to Deo as he walked over with mugs of tea and slices of buttered bread. “Patson says so.”
Above the tallest trees in the clearing a glimmer of light hinted at sunrise. People moved out of the grass huts and made their final preparations. Other men lifted the bamboo poles onto their shoulders and disappeared down the path toward the river. I caught Deo looking at my leg.
“My father will have to carry me some of the way,” I said, aware of his skeptical expression. “He promised Mai Maria that I would not hold up everyone.”
“We leave in ten minutes,” one of Mai Maria’s helpers announced as Boubacar walked over to the fire carrying our bags. He looked tense and serious.
“You’re ready, son?” he asked, putting out his hand to help me up.
“Ready,” I replied, throwing the last of my tea into the fire.
We moved out of the clearing and down a steep path to the Limpopo River shrouded in early-morning mist. Every minute we were not moving forward gave Commander Jesus more time to find us, and Grace would be farther and farther away. In front of us thirty people walked single file, slowly toward the cold, gray river in the shadows below. The path was filled with loose rocks and I struggled silently on my crutches, until Boubacar swung his backpack in front of him and lifted me onto his back. We had figured out that if Boubacar held my crutches firmly and flat behind him, I could sit and balance on them without having my arms so tight around his neck. Mai Maria was sitting calmly on a rock beside the river when we arrived.
“Across the river is South Africa. 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.”
The river was wide and fast moving; crossing it would not be easy.
“It looks deep, Deo,” said Innocent nervously. He told me last night he didn’t swim. “Where’s the bridge that bites?”
Innocent made me smile, but I knew exactly how he felt. I didn’t know how to swim either and suspected that neither did Deo. If only we could have walked across Beitbridge.
“There is no bridge here, Innocent. You’ll be fine,” Deo answered.
“Each of you will hold on to the stick with your right hand,” Mai Maria instructed, as her helpers divided us into groups and demonstrated how we should grip the rope knots tied to the poles at regular intervals. “Do not let go of the pole!” she barked. “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.”
Deo, Innocent, Boubacar, two men who joined our group, and I stood back and watched the first border jumpers enter the river. Water splashed around their legs and one of the women cursed as she slipped and disappeared under the water.
“DON’T LET GO!” bellowed Mai Maria.
The last man on the pole pulled her out of the water, and she came up spluttering and coughing. They continued into the middle of the river, and one by one other groups entered the water and made their way to the other side.
“Give me your phone, Patson. I think we’re going to get wet,” Boubacar said as he stuffed my phone into a plastic bag in his backpack. Beside me Innocent was shivering violently.
“No, Deo, Innocent doesn’t want to do this,” he stammered. “Let’s go home. This is no good. No good at all.”
His panic was understandable, and I saw doubt on Deo’s face as he looked from the swirling water to his brother and then back to the safety of the path.
“Innocent, will you help me?” I held out one of my crutches to him. “My father has to carry me on his back. It is the only way. I cannot ge
t across without your help.” I turned to Deo. “Deo, don’t leave now. You can make it. I know you can. Look.”
I pointed to the first group, which had almost made it to the other side. Innocent grabbed my crutches and stumbled forward. “I can help you, Patson. You must get across. You must find Grace.”
“Come over here, Lennox!” Mai Maria shouted to the strongest of her helpers. “I want you to look after these three boys. No trouble for them, hey? The Ghuma-ghuma can take the first lot, but these three—you look after them.”
Lennox quickly took my crutches from Innocent, lashed them to the bamboo pole, and held it out behind him and over the water. Boubacar lifted me onto his back, waded into the river, and gripped the knot on the bamboo pole. I wrapped my legs around his waist and clung to his neck and shoulders. Behind us, Innocent and Deo gripped their knots, and behind them, the two men did the same. The last of Mai Maria’s helpers held the end of the pole until we were all in the shallow part of the river. Then the eight of us moved slowly forward into the deeper water.
“HEY, SOCCER BOY, WHEN YOU GET INTO THE PARK, DON’T STOP RUNNING. YOU HEAR ME? NOT FOR ANYTHING!” yelled Mai Maria, waving from her perch on the rock.
The water splashed up Boubacar’s thighs, into my face, while I tried my best not to strangle him.
“Nobody must let go!” shouted Lennox from the front. “The water may pull you, but you must not let go of the pole.”
The water clawed higher up Boubacar’s body and I felt myself slipping from around his waist, but was determined not to let the river sweep either of us away. Then behind me Innocent went down into the fast-flowing water.
“Don’t let go!” shouted Lennox.
“Let him go! He will take us all down!” bellowed the man at the back of our pole.
We stopped, and without thinking, I reached out to grab Innocent, who was trying to hold on to his Bix-box and the bamboo pole at the same time.
“No, Patson!” shouted Boubacar. “Hold on to me.” Innocent was thrashing about, trying to grip the pole. Only his face broke the surface and then a wave covered him again. Even if I could grab him, I knew I was not strong enough to pull him upright, and if he held on to me, we would both go tumbling downstream toward the crocodiles. Lennox shouted at Boubacar to hold the pole as he moved around him and furiously jerked Innocent to his feet. With one hand Boubacar held me, and with Lennox’s help they kept the bamboo and the rest of us from being swept away.
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