by Gabi Moore
The next thing I knew, the sound of chairs grating on the floor pulled Dylan’s gaze from mine as he watched half the crowd in the café shoot to their feet and come rushing over to the table. My friends. The farmers who had helped me plant the maize. They stood in silence, but their intention was clear as day. Though my cheek burnt hot, I glared at him, suddenly feeling backed up by the people here.
“Don’t touch her,” said a voice from somewhere in the crowd.
Dylan was standing too, clenched fists on the table, and a look of pure disbelief on his stupid face.
“You have got to be joking me,” he said.
As much as he hated my body, he still felt entitled to it, even now, even after I was so clearly Vik’s and nobody else’s. He reached over the table and roughly grabbed my arm, yanking me forward. I resisted, but he was stronger than he looked. He pulled me away from the table and started for the door.
“I’ve had enough this bullshit, you’re fucking coming home Penelope…” but before he could finish, the crowd had blocked our path.
“Leave her alone,” said another voice, this time one I recognized. It was Mama Tembi, parting the crowd with the dark gray barrel of the shotgun she kept hidden in a latch door under the counter. She pointed it square at him, cocked it and lowered one beady eye to the sight.
Dylan flung my hand aside and raised both his hands in the air. His face looked as though he was the one who had just been slapped.
“Get out of here, and don’t come back,” she said, and she meant every last syllable.
Dylan shot me a poisonous look and then glowered at the crowd again.
“Fucking animals,” he blurted, and then blustered out.
Mama lowered her gun and relaxed her shoulders. Everyone went to sit down, but I stood there for a while, looking at her. She frowned at me, but I knew she wasn’t angry. I ran up to her and threw grateful arms around her.
“You have a filthy mouth, girl. I wonder who taught you to talk like that,” she said, and I smiled and kissed her neck and hugged her more.
“Thank you. I love you Mama Tembi. Thank you so much for everything. I’m sorry. Thank you…” I said as I squeezed her.
She grabbed me by the shoulders and held me at arm’s length to look at me, motherly concern all over her face. She smiled.
“You think I’m running a charity here? You’re paying for both those Cokes sunshine.”
Chapter Twenty-Four - Viktor
It had been four years since I stepped foot in Mchinji.
Russia had been cold and empty. In Mchinji, I had always been rounded up to white, but in Moscow, I had been rounded down to black. The language was ugly to my ears, and the weather hostile. Oksana Mikhaelova’s family were chilly with me, and nodded and smiled and showed me the door, telling me politely that she had been dead for years and that would I please have the respect and dignity to leave and not upset her relatives any further. I bid my time on a fishing vessel, and kept to myself, and wandered for a while, a lonely, wrong-colored speck in a blizzard. One month turned into a year, and then, in the seasonless country, one year turned into four. My soul went to sleep. I spent time outside.
Now, back in Mchinji, strange parts of me were waking up again. Let me tell you this: there are no two places on the face of the earth more different from each other than Moscow and Malawi. It was almost comical.
I gave the driver some cash and greeted him, but my pronunciation was rusty now, and he scowled at me. The bus was the same, the roads were the same. The dusty red ground hadn’t changed and the goats and chickens scampering out the way may well have been the exact same ones I had seen on my way out, all those years ago.
I made my way down the aisle and found a seat near the back, and at the next stop, a young missionary got on and came to sit beside me. A buffed, clean cut boy with a TV accent and new shoes, he introduced himself as Damian and shook my hand. I said little about myself. I was Viktor. I was coming to visit family. After four years, I fully expected that my name would no longer ring any bells for anyone in the village, but the reality of it still stung the ego a little. My own clothes spoke nothing of my past. I was cleanly dressed, shaven. Tattoos hidden and the callouses on my hands long since healed and softened.
I was heading for my old cabin, or what would be left of it after all these years. I would see Mama Tembi later, if she was still at the café, but before anything else, I needed to see that land. I needed to smell the air, to touch the soil. It would be in bad shape, I knew. All the way on the flight here I had reminded myself of that: things would not be as I expected. I had to be prepared for the worst.
But this little pilgrimage was overdue now. Every morning of my life I woke up and my mind was still there, still in that place. I had moved around endlessly, spent endless mornings waking up in endless rooms. But the cabin in Mchinji was always there first. And inside it, Penny. A vision of the cabin always came with a vision of her. Bare shoulders, flaxen hair floating in waves around her glowing face. She would appear there, a split second before I woke properly. Living in my mind when I had done so much to erase everything else in there.
My body remembered her, too. Those dreamy days spent in the forests, in the fields, in the hazy nest the cabin made when it was dusk and we lit a pipe and lay together, hands clasped, naked and gazing at the stars peeping through the window… Whenever I came, she was in my mind. Onto this, too, her image was melded. To have pleasure was to think of her; to think of her was to have pleasure. She was tangled into my mind and body and after four years, the knots were still tight.
The stranger Damian began to chat about this and that. He had arrived a few weeks ago and was loving his mission. They had started to revamp the old community garden here and he was so excited about how well it was going. They were really going to make some meaningful changes in the next few months.
“Met any interesting people in town yet? Mama Tembi?”
“Mama Tembi? Hmm… not sure the name rings a bell,” he said and I smiled with a pang.
As he prattled on, I found I couldn’t keep her face out of my mind. The way you could trace every little thought and feeling in her fine features; her pale eyes, so similar to mine.
“Luckily we have some really good people on our mission, honestly. Really passionate people,” he said, and I looked out the window at the dust and stray dogs.
“A lot of strange people around here unfortunately, so it’s good to have such a nice group to work with, you know, people you can trust…”
“Strange people?”
He smiled and waved off the question.
“Oh you know, we’ve all heard the stories of crazy people who come out here and get weird ideas …and then never go home again!” he laughed. Perhaps he had heard of me after all.
“What else have you heard about these crazy people?”
He seemed disappointed that I wasn’t interested in hearing about the mission’s garden.
“Well …just rumors you know. There are people living in the reserve, I think.”
“Crazy people?” I said and smiled.
“Yeah, I’ve heard about a woman who lives there somewhere, but she’s American? I don’t know. Just stuff I’ve heard.”
My heart kicked in my chest. A woman. I slammed my eyes shut and saw her face again. He carried on talking about this and that, but I was no longer really listening. My mind raced.
Eventually the bus came lurching to a stop and he had to go. I shook his hand again and he told me to come find him later, if I passed through again. I squeezed my hand round the straps of my small backpack and said I might. A few stops later, I got off too.
It took me a full two hours to hike through the bulk of the road that lead into the heart of the forest. With the tar road behind me, and the sun blazing ahead, I was soon breathing hard, the backpack straps leaving wet sweat marks on my shirt. It had been a long time since I had done this much physical activity.
The plants were the same. The trees
had changed a little, and some foot paths seemed to have grown fainter and disappeared under weeds and grass, but the character of the forest was still intact. And still in the trees, as it always was: her face.
I climbed the familiar rise and looked down. There was the old cabin.
It seemed much as I had left it. Too much like it, in fact. From that far away, I couldn’t make out too much detail, but I had expected more wear and tear. I carried on walking. By the time I had rounded the bend and stepped into the clearing, it was immediately clear – someone was living here.
I slowly walked through miraculously well-kept gardens and fields. Gardens that rivalled my own, when I had lived here. The plants were lush and heavy, almost obscenely healthy. There were vegetables, herbs, corn, and a few of the old strains I had first cultivated here, although different somehow. The old shed had been torn down and there were no weeds. Instead, to my surprise, I discovered small baskets of pansies. Pansies.
Little bowls of African violets were scattered here and there, and I found a clutch of chickens cooing and cackling in the shade of the pumpkin leaves, out of the heat. Those were new.
I followed the path to the cabin and saw further evidence of care. Repairs. Some sections had been painted. A coir mat at the front door. I stood for a long time, trying to understand everything I was looking at.
“Who are you?”
I spun around to find the source of the strange voice. Behind me stood a small boy, barely as tall as my hip, wearing a dusty pair of superman trousers, a full complement of freckles and no shoes. He had a stick in his hands, and skin that looked velvety soft and downy, even under the dust. With eyes that resembled the transparent blue-green of beach glass, he looked me up and down and asked the question again.
“I’m Vik,” I said. My mouth was dry and my throat hurt to say it. I swallowed hard and looked at him, and he looked at me.
“I used to live here,” I said eventually.
He peered at me through suspicious eyes but then smiled, big and broad, and scratched his stick in the dirt.
“No, this is my house!” he said playfully, and began to kick the ground a little.
“Of course it is,” I said. “Where’s your mommy?”
He peered at me again and pointed behind me, at the house. I smiled at his eagerness and turned towards the house. Instantly, I saw her.
She was a vision.
Her face was the same, I think, but just barely. She was swathed in stiff red and yellow fabric, and her head was wrapped, a knot to the side. She was bigger. Her breasts were full and between them hung several beaded necklaces. She looked down at me with heavy, calm eyes, eyes that seemed only mildly surprised to see me standing there. With one hand resting on the door, she used the other to beckon the boy, who ran up to her and hid himself behind her skirts, peering out at me with a smile.
She didn’t need to ask who I was. And I knew who she was. I had seen her face every day in my dreams for years. A single blonde tendril poked out from her head wrap and slowly, she smiled a little at me.
“Look Kojo, we have a visitor,” she said. Her voice was the same, although barely. Thicker somehow, and softer, and deeper. “Kupeza mphika mwana wanga,” she said, and the boy smiled and ran to the back of the house.
She took a step down and then another, never breaking her gaze with mine. God, she was beautiful. I swallowed again, feeling myself about to laugh, or maybe to cry. Instead, I said,
“You’ve taught him well. He’s a good boy.”
She stepped down off the last step and sidled up to me. I could hear the little one clamoring with something somewhere far behind the house.
“Yes, I know,” she said and stepped close to me. She smelled of cinnamon and roots and soap and some other indescribable loveliness. I kept waiting for her to say something, but she just looked me over, up and down, and smiled quietly to herself. I wanted to grab her, to embrace her and tell her that I loved her, and that I was sorry, and that she was everything, had always been everything, and that I had been wrong, and that more than anything I wanted to reach out and touch her now, and seal up all these years, and forget everything else, everything except that I loved her, and that all I wanted was her.
All I could do was extend a hopeful hand, and wait for her to give me hers. Her palms were rough from work, but her touch was soft and graceful. She seemed so in control, so elegant and poised in her movements as she turned and gestured for me to follow her.
“Come inside and sit down a little. You look tired.”
It was inside that you could see that the cabin was no longer the same cabin. In fact, it was a full house now, with several extensions added on, making several rooms, all plastered inside and bright and clean. I stared for a moment, shocked. She had really done well for herself. Parts of the old cabin poked through here and there, but there was no doubt about it: the place I was standing in was all hers. I swallowed the lump in my throat. The moment she arrived in Mchinji, all those years ago, I had seen something in her eyes. A kind of uncommon strength. And now here it was, in front of me, the fruit of that strength. I was unspeakably proud.
With a clatter the boy entered the room holding a tray with a teapot and a set of dainty Moroccan teacups. He wobbled over carefully, placed the clinking tray down and looked up at us both with expectation.
“Thank you baby, you brought all the things for us,” she said, and he ran up to her and pawed at her skirts again.
“How old is he?”
“He’s four.” She stroke the top of his head. He had faint, blonde curls and beautiful tanned skin.
I laughed and put my back pack down. I was speechless.
“Wokomamtima, today you must go and play with Jeffrey. Mommy must talk to mister Vik today.”
The boy looked up at her with big, pale eyes.
“To Jeffrey?” he repeated.
“Yes, you must take some cake and put your shoes on, and go to Mama Dora. When it’s dark, I’ll come and get you” she said, and smoothed down the springy curls on his head.
He nodded and thought to himself for a second, suddenly very serious. I was in awe that such a small child had so much mastery over himself, and that they both thought nothing of sending him out alone.
He bounded off to the kitchen to prepare a little parcel of cake, and then she helped him with his shoes. He threw little glances at me here and then, smiling mischievously, as though he was sure I would be jealous that he got to go and play with Jeffrey today. She repeated the instructions to him a good few times more, and he nodded and seemed pleased with himself, repeating them back, telling her that when the sun went down, then she would come and fetch him again. They sang a little song together, a local song about the sun, and he clapped his hands and she pressed her forehead to his and kissed him. It made my heart ache.
Once the boy had left, I smiled at her, raising my eyebrows.
“He’s very advanced for his age. Wants to do everything himself. Takes after his father,” she said, and gave me a questioning look. I extended my hand to her again and she took it, and I smiled at her. I could spend the rest of my life like this, just smiling at her, enjoying her sweet face.
“I missed you,” I said. She didn’t say that she missed me in return. I continued. “Every day I was away, I dreamt of coming back, of coming back here. Back to you. You’re my home, Penelope,” I said, and it was the first time I had said something like that, even though the moment I uttered it I realized that it was the simplest way to express what I was feeling. She said nothing.
“I was afraid, before. I’ve been running away my whole life, and I didn’t expect anyone ever to find me. But you did. By some magic, or some miracle, you came into my life anyway. And I …I hurt you. I was an asshole…”
I waited for some acknowledgment on her face, but she remained silent. The loose blonde tendril floated noiselessly. How had she grown so beautiful?
“And that haunted me all the time I was away. Every day. I wanted to run
away again, that’s all I know how to do, to run away. Just like my mother, I wanted to run away and pretend none of it ever happened. But this time I couldn’t. You followed me. Your face was everywhere. When I closed my eyes, I saw you. In my dreams, I saw you.”
I felt my chest tightening. I felt like I had never said so many words all at once before. And once I started speaking, I couldn’t stop. I was afraid if I stopped speaking then I would cry, so I carried on speaking. I told her about going to Russia. That my mother had passed before I had a chance to find her. I told her everything. And when I was done with that, I started talking about her son. Our son. And when I said “our son” I did cry, although I quickly wiped away the tear and carried on talking. She held my hand, and listened, following my every word.
When I was done, the tea was cold. She clasped my hands and looked deep into my eyes. Then she knelt on the floor in front of me and took my hands to her cheek, kissed them and held them again. Her hands went over my thighs and onto my knees, and she stroked me, like a wounded animal that had wandered into her home. I relaxed and exhaled, grateful beyond belief that at least she was touching me.
She traced her hands up onto my torso. Her touch was not gentle and seducing – there was no need, after all. She already had me, heart and soul. No, these touches were grounding, like she was reclaiming me. Checking to see if everything was where she left it. The hands travelled further up and then she had my face in her hands. Slowly, she moved upwards to kiss me, and I moved downwards, and our lips met halfway.
It was as though no time had passed at all. Instantly, my body remembered her, and I sighed into her gorgeous lips as she pulled me down into a deep, slow kiss. Every cell in my body piqued. I was hard in seconds. In silence, we kissed for a long while, her tender lips patient and kind. I was overcome with a feeling of wanting to please her. To know all her needs and fulfil them, perfectly. I wanted to love and hold her, and the little boy too, and every time her beautiful face broke into a smile, I wanted to be the reason for it.