by Linda Ihle
“They are waiting until daylight to go into the area where the shootdown probably happened, to look for the plane.” She shrugged helplessly and tears brimmed in her eyes. “Devi was on the plane. Bloody bastards! Bloody bastards!”
They stared at her, never having heard her use that word before (they were not allowed to use it – bastard – bad word). Julia was weeping softly. Mark sat stone-faced, trying hard to hide the glisten of sorrow in his eyes, pretending to choke, but he hadn’t eaten anything. Soon it would be his turn, his turn to join the army, probably the RLI, train for a bit, then off into the bush to fight terrs[7]. His rectum puckered at the thought, but I’m not scared, I’m not scared he convinced himself. He stared at the closed kitchen door. Many an evening had seen Devin banished with her supper plate to the kitchen because she was causing too much hilarity at the table. She would gobble some of her food and then push the kitchen door ajar. Looking up from a more sombre mealtime, they would see her, the kettle plug in hand as if a microphone. She would serenade them with Al Jolson songs, her voice completely off-pitch and the song punctuated by snorts of suppressed laughter. Her favourite was Swanee, but she also did an excellent job on Swing Low Sweet Chariot, bringing fits of laughter once again from the dining room. His mother, trying hard not to laugh, would capitulate and let her finish her supper at the table.
Mark rose and went to his mother, Placing a cautious arm, unused to such touching, around her shoulders, he managed, “I think they will all be alright, Mom. Just like the first Viscount.” No-one wanted to think about what had happened to the second Viscount. He secretly inhaled the next puff of smoke that emanated from her and wished for a smoke too.
In the stark light of the kitchen, Enos, the cook, knelt on the cool, plaid linoleum before the sink, his eyes squeezed tightly closed, but not tightly enough to stop a tell-tale tear from escaping to roll down his cheek. His hands were clasped before him in prayer, the worn soles of his laceless white Bata tackies[8] turned up to face the light, his small, bony frame floating in the white tunic and pants, his uniform. Enos prayed in Sindebele, his own language. He prayed for Devin, “Please, God, carry her safely, Miss Devin, my friend, the Madam’s first-born.” He prayed for Devin’s mother and siblings and even for her father, even though the man was not his most favourite person on this earth, and he prayed for her paternal grandparents down the road, the souls of her maternal grandparents, and for her friends here and in Salisbury and back in South Africa and wherever they might be scattered upon this earth.
Back at the dining room table, where the lamb chops now sat in a cooling puddle of congealing gravy and the chips wavered between limp and sodden, Sandra, Devin’s mother, lit another cigarette from the butt end of the first and approached the telephone. She had to tell Devin’s younger sister, Helen, a new, farmer’s wife down in Hippo Valley. She dialed 0 and waited for exchange. She held her breath hoping it would not be Margie or Brianna: they would be able to tell in an instant that something was going on and she would have to lie to them. But, still, that news and its implications would be all over this small town before bedtime. It was neither of her friends; a new woman, Brenda, she believed her name to be, a Coloured woman with a heavy Afrikaans accent. “Hello, Mrs. G.,” Brenda greeted her. “Howzit tonight?”
“Agh, fine, thanks, Brenda.” She asked the woman to put her through to the Chiredzi exchange – the operator there would transfer the call out to the farm. About two minutes later, a breathless, beloved voice yelled, “Hello? Hello?”
“Hello, my girl,” Sandra greeted her second daughter and Helen knew instantly that all was not well.
“What’s the matter?”
Sandra repeated the tale to a silent receiver, hoping against hope that the operator had gone on to other business and was not listening in. Having conveyed the news and all its horrendous insinuations and unknowns, she replaced the heavy receiver in the cradle, gathered the plates of meat and potatoes from the table and made for the kitchen. Mark ran and opened the door for her, just in time to catch Enos on his knees. He pretended he did not see the man’s attempt to cover, and returned to the table. Sandra stared at the cook. Obviously, he had heard her first words to the children and had surmised the rest. His cheeks glistened with tears. He turned quickly and swiped at them with the back of his hand.
“Enos, you have been listening again?”
He turned back to face her. “Hau, shame, very sorry, Medem,” he said, taking the dishes from her hands and placing them on the stove. He bent to switch the oven back on to rewarm the food and opened the old door, taking one dish at a time and carefully placing it well above the element. He closed the door and straightened to meet her eye.
“You are not to tell anyone,” Sandra instructed, wagging her finger at him. “We know very little still.”
“Yes, Medem, very sorry, Medem,” Enos promised, still wringing that old dish cloth in his hands. “Miss Devi she is my friend, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question, just a manner of speaking. “God, he is carrying her safe.” He nodded at his own words, feeling better now, convincing himself.
6.
As the pale moon rose, spreading its feeble light upon the earth, Devin slept fitfully, her rest interrupted often by sounds, by waking dreams where she did not escape the bull elephant, and finally by a soft slap in the face. She started, her eyes huge, a scream almost escaping her lips. Sitting up she stared into the darkness around her, penetrated feebly here and there by the light of the three-quarter moon. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, but now the terror almost engulfed her as visions of ghosts and tokoloshes cavorted in her mind. Whatever had touched her face had felt in that instant like a cool, flabby, dead hand.
She untied the knot in the gun strap and stood slowly, stiffly in the fork, one hand grasping a branch and the other the gun. She parted the leaves above her to allow more light into her hiding place. Nothing moved. She searched each branch, each leaf, each crook and fork of that old tree until her eyes burned and watered, and still she saw nothing. Finally, she let go of the branch briefly and touched a hand to her face. It felt completely normal, no welts, no slime, no blood, just the grime and melted mascara and foundation. A word kept trying to creep into her mind and her subconscious kept thrusting it away – finally, she said it aloud:
“Python.”
Quickly she grabbed hold of the branch again and shakily lowered herself into the fork, staring desperately around once more, but detecting no stealthy slither, no moving branches. She dared not go farther down the tree because she still had no idea where the leopard was or even whether it knew she was there. She sat there silently, eyes wide, tears spilling, blurring her vision. She wondered about her family. They would have heard by now about the shoot-down. They would think she was dead. She knew her siblings would be distraught and wondered if her mother would really care. Based upon their last conversation, she doubted it.
“You’re an embarrassment,” Sandra had said, standing arms akimbo above her as Devin lay on her bed, reading. “How disappointing? You have no idea.”
“Ja, I think I do,” Devin had responded and rolled away from her mother, out of reach of that hand, so ready to slap, that mouth so ready to spit disdain when no-one else was around to hear it, see it. “And you’re a hypocrite. Leave me alone, please, and I will pack now and be out of your way in the next 24 hours.”
“And just where do you think you’re going to go? Your father is probably in prison, your grandparents have no room in their home, and none of your uncles or aunts will take you in.”
“You want me gone so badly,” Devin was on her feet now, staring back across the bed at her mother, “why do you even care where I go?” She pinched back the tears. The hatred in her mother’s eyes was almost palpable.
“Oh, I know you will probably go looking for him again, chasing him everywhere like a trollop. Have you no shame?”
“Like I said, why do you care?” Devin said evenly. She had turned away from her mother
then so she no longer had to see those eyes seething with rage and loathing, walked to her cupboard and pulled out the small red suitcase. “You can leave now,” she said, turning to dismiss the woman, and proceeded to pack her clothes, shoes, a couple of favourite books, and makeup. All the while, she wondered, as she had so often before, what the hell did I do to deserve this?
Those were the last words they had exchanged and they were really, now that she thought about it, only echoes of echoes of words that had passed between them since Devin had turned 14.
She pushed her mother out of her mind and wondered if those who had run from the plane had found what they were seeking. “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered, rubbing at her eyes. As she opened her eyes again, a miniature galaxy of stars rising before them, she saw the branch directly across from and just below her chest, but behind the one upon which she had originally hung the AK-47, grow fatter, move, and then stretch itself out and up toward her.
The width of the reptile wrapped around there convinced her – it was a python. She took the lighter from her bra strap, flipped the lid and struck a light, unwavering in the cool, windless night. She held it toward the snake and its eyes dully reflected that small light. Its tongue emerged from under its broad snub nose and flickered there, pointing at her, figuring her out. Devin closed the lid on the lighter and strapped herself back to the branch, then pulled the butt of the AK-47 into her shoulder. She looked down the length of the short barrel and realized the thing had not been made for hunting, not like her rifles with the typically long stock and barrel. It’s weird, she thought. It has a pistol handle thingamajiggie in front of the trigger guard. How the hell do I use this?
She held the cold steel of the stock and stretched both arms out. Her right hand grasped the pistol type butt as if it had always belonged right there, her finger sliding comfortably into the trigger guard and coming to rest against the trigger. Thus she sat, pointing the weapon directly at the snake which now hung there, coiling up and down, watching her and, she thought, probably figuring out how it would kill her and then swallow her whole. It was a big snake. Probably would not have too much trouble. She shuddered and realized she was grinning maniacally. How long does it take a person to go mad? she wondered, and forced herself to relax her jaw.
The snake coiled its upper body and rose again to the branch where part of the rest of its body already lay. She looked beneath the fork it occupied and saw that some of its lower body was coiled around the smaller trunk leading up to the fork. Then it was still. After what seemed an eternity, the snake started to move again, this time sliding upward along the branch and stretching itself over the gap between that and a higher limb. She watched it, following its movement with the tip of the barrel aimed unerringly at its head. She wondered how it had crossed the circle of thorns below the tree and decided that it may well have been sitting in the tree with her all day. She just had not seen it. She pondered if it would try to bite her before constricting the life out of her. She wondered if it thought it could swallow her. Perhaps if she rose to her full height, it might see things her way and find something else to munch on.
The snake was above her now, but to the left, so she went with her last thought, unhooked the strap and stood up in the fork. She brought the AK-47’s stock into the crook of her right arm, still aiming at its head. As she accomplished this last maneuvre, the snake swung the rest of its massive body off the branch where she had first seen it, and pulled itself coiling upward to the higher position. She noted that the reptile was at least 12 feet long, although her fear made it seem as big as a full-grown anaconda. She could barely see its head now, but had a pretty good idea where it was. The snake coiled the last of its body onto the branch, and lay still. She imagined it contemplating her now -- a much bigger prey. Logistics. Did hungry snakes consider logistics?
“Shit, I hope so,” she uttered out loud, and the snake hissed then, a long drawn-out sigh susurrating in the night air and causing the goose pimples to rise all along the exposed and chilled areas of Devin’s body. Below the tree the foraging squeaking rats, mice, and other small rodents fell silent. Devin reached into her bra strap and pulled the lighter out again, flipping its lid with her left thumb then pushing hard down on the serrated wheel. It illuminated a scene she had lived through when nine years old and which, she had been confident at that time, she would never encounter again. The snake’s broad snub nose, glistening gold and green in the dim light, was inches from her own. Its tongue flickered in and out, in and out. It hissed again. Devin flinched, pulling her head back, then brought the lighter up and applied it to the end of the slithering fork. The snake recoiled and hissed again, then coiled its upper portions into the classic pre-strike stance.
“Oh, shit!” Devin whimpered.
She brought the weapon up, aiming it directly at the snake’s opening mouth, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
“Oh, Christ!” she whimpered, closing the lighter and sticking it quickly into her underwear where the hot lid immediately assailed her vulva.
She ignored the pain and fumbled with her left hand trying to find the safety. Still she found nothing obviously performing that function, so she raised the gun again, retrieved the lighter, lit it, and focused on the snake. She pulled the trigger again as the snake launched its upper body toward her head. Devin screamed. The weapon fired, its clatter outrageous and eardrum shattering. Contrary to her earlier fears, however, it seemed to have fired off only about three rounds. The snake’s snout hit hers with a force she could not have imagined, almost knocking her from her perch. She could smell its maw, and feel its teeth grazing her cheeks and lips. She threw caution to the winds and, teetering there in the fork, reached up with her left hand to push the thing off her, but found nothing. The rounds had severed the snake’s body. She felt the head dropping, scraping past her nylon-encased breasts and over the rise of her belly, twisting and gyrating past her feet and leaving on her body a trail of blood and gore.
She heard the head hit the ground below and she sat down, suddenly dizzy and very cold, a sure sign of shock. She was whimpering and swearing out loud. A cold sweat drizzled down her spine pooling between her butt cheeks. She carefully placed the AK-47 between her knees, holding it tightly there, then flicked the lighter on again, looking up toward the branch where the snake had lain. The remainder of its body dangled there like a fat noose, the tail area still twitching and writhing.
“Oh, Jesus!” she mumbled. “Oh, Christ!”
She took a cigarette from the pack and managed after several attempts to light it, her hands shaking violently as the adrenaline rush ebbed. After the nicotine collided with her brain, she partly rose from the fork, peered down to where she figured the head would have landed, and whispered, “Sorry, nyoka. It was you or me.” She wondered then, ridiculously, if she could get into trouble for this. The only way she could, though, she assured herself, was if anyone found out about it. And it was definitely self defense. She probably had the bruise on her nose to prove it. Further, if she didn’t tell anyone about it, no-one would know that she had just slaughtered a member of the Royal Game family. She shrugged, but still she felt traces of guilt and remorse.
“Hell, I could’ve killed a member of the bloody pommie royal family and not felt so bad about it,” she said. “Great! Now I’m talking to myself.”
Her monologue was interrupted by a brief burst of gunfire far to the northwest, from the area, she thought, where the plane had come down. She sat silently, listening for any more of that distant staccato, but it had ended as suddenly as it had begun, and she wondered if those people had heard her weapon. What if they came looking for the source? There was no way in hell she was going to get out of the tree until the sun showed its face. She leaned back in the fork, tied herself in securely, finished the cigarette, and closed her eyes.
7.
A yellow, three-quarter moon crawled across the sky, illuminating shadows, identifying their source. Devin’s eyes jittered open every ti
me she heard an unusual noise. (It seemed that all were unusual.) Finally, after what seemed like hours of nervous, half-asleep vigil, she released her deathlike grip on the AK-47 and put it back in the fork across from her. She poured half a cup of water and sipped slowly at it while she pondered the advisability of smoking another cigarette. Not a good idea, she decided -- what if she were stuck here for a week, or what if she couldn’t find her way out to the DMZ before she ran out? And where the hell is the DMZ anyway? Is there even a DMZ?
Just after what she presumed to be about midnight, she heard the leopard cough again. This time, the sound came from the top of the kopje. She unstrapped herself, picked up the AK-47 and stood up, peering over the tree’s canopy, now laden with a cold dew. The cat appeared, sitting nonchalantly upon one of the black boulders. It did not seem to be looking toward her tree, but Devin was again horror struck, not so much by fear of the animal, but at the thought that she might have to kill it. She watched as the cat rose and stretched luxuriously, growl-purring and finally yawning as it did. It slunk over the top of the boulder and approached the remains of the three bodies, walking warily around them in a full circle, before approaching and sniffing at what was left.