by Linda Ihle
Once again, Harrison pulled the top part of the stable door closed and turned to Mark. “You alright?” he asked. Mark shook his head and his eyes glistened with tears. “What’s going on? Anything I can help you with? Is it your father or your Mum? Devin?” And now the pent up tears of the past two days flowed freely.
“I’m not supposed to say anything, sir.” Harrison took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Mark. It smelled of tobacco smoke and after shave. “It’s Devi!” he blurted.
Harrison stared at him. What has happened to Devin? Agh, no, man! A chilly hand slipped up his spine and into the hair at his nape. He had had a crush on her at varsity and beyond, but she had been so hung up on that damn James bloke she had resisted his every overture. Nonetheless, they had remained close friends. He took a pack of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes from the top pocket of his safari suit, removed one with shaky fingers and lit it with a lighter, inhaling, blowing the smoke away from Mark’s face. “Hmm. Well, if you’re not supposed to say anything, say nothing, but listen, Gray, if you want to talk to me, I will be here, and I will keep what you say in absolute confidence. Understand?”
“Yes, sir. Please don’t tell my ma I said anything.”
“I won’t. Off to the lavs, wash your face, compose yourself, then go to the office and pick up the register for me, OK?” Harrison stubbed the cigarette out under the heel of his veldskoen. Mark nodded briefly, gratefully, handed back the hanky and trotted off to the toilets. He was not accustomed to being treated thus by a grown man. At the mere hint of tears, his father would have given him a good clip across the ear. Harrison stared after him. What the hell is going on with Devi? He walked back into his classroom just in time to see Charlie Jones hand a maths exercise book, open at the page he had been copying, back to Piet van Heerden. Harrison strolled back down to Jones’ desk.
“What now, Jones?” he asked, picking up the boy’s maths exercise book. Charlie Jones paled. “Cat got your tongue, Jones?” Charlie shook his head, flinching as his teacher tore the beige, wide-ruled, rough, recycled paper from the book. He balled it in his hand and dropped the book back upon the desk. “Do your own damn work, Jones!” There was a collective gasp from the rest of the class - had he really said ‘damn’! “I’ve told you before, if you don’t understand something, ask me. There is never an excuse for cheating. Understand?”
Jones nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Now, do it by yourself and if you can’t, come up to my desk and we can talk about it.” He looked up as Gray reentered the classroom, carrying the register. “Get moving here, Gray,” he told him. “Finish the problems on Page 35 and, if you run out of time, take it home and finish it there.”
Mark nodded, took his seat and reopened the maths book. Silence reigned again as the rest of the class worked, until there was a scrape of wooden chair legs on the polished concrete floor, and Jones rose to approach the teacher’s desk, maths book in hand. I still don’t understand why this damn kid is in the A stream, Harrison wondered. Hell, if I could, I would put him in B next door and never have to deal with him again. He managed a small welcoming smile, though, and pulled up a chair next to his. Jones took a seat and, quietly, they went through the exercise again.
When the bell rang at 1:05 PM, the students quietly closed their books and popped open suitcase latches, piling in pens and heavily adorned pencil boxes and homework assignments, as well as the remains of their sandwiches and sweets from the tuckshop. They waited for Harrison to dismiss them before filing out then making a chattering run for the bike stands or to the hostels. All except Grace. She remained in her seat until Andrew had seen the last pupil out and shut the door. Then she rose slowly, pulled her satchel straps over her shoulders, and approached his desk.
“Alright,” he said, “let’s talk about this disgusting piece of artwork.” He waved the drawing in front of her eyes. “What would you like me to do with this, Grace? I mean, why would you even conceive of something as disgraceful and obscene as this?”
“I, I don’t know, sir. I am sorry sir.”
“What would your mother say if I showed this to her at the next exeunt weekend?”
“She probably wouldn’t take me home, sir.” The response was so quick, it took him by surprise. Had she thought about the potential consequences?
“And your father?” Harrison pictured the man, his short,stocky build, red crewcut and a fiercely bristling moustache of the same hue, pale thick brows and watery blue eyes shaded by nearly white eyelashes. He appeared brutish and Harrison tended to give him a wide berth at PTA meetings. When he made them.
Grace paled. “Agh, no, please, sir,” she begged, in tears now, “please, don’t show my dad. He will beat me.”
“Has he beaten you before, Grace?” She looked away, staring out the classroom window where she could now see some of the other children riding or walking home for lunch. “Grace?”
“Yes, sir,” she responded, not looking at him. “With a sjambok.”
He stared at her in disbelief. What kind of man took a sjambok to his daughter? “Are you telling a fib?” he asked and she shook her head. He sighed. “Well, let’s take this outside and get rid of it, OK?” She nodded and followed him out, waiting in silence while he locked the classroom door. He pulled his lighter out of the tunic pocket of his safari suit. “I am going to burn this, Grace. Do you have any other similar drawings?” She shook her head. “I will tell you that, even though this is bloody obscene, you have a talent for drawing. I will burn this and we will hear no more of it, ever, if you will promise to do one thing for me.”
“What is that, sir?”
“Draw every day, keep up your work, but don’t draw obscenities like this, OK?” She nodded. “I’ve seen your drawings of the msasa trees and the mahobohobo fruits and leaves and they are very good. Now, the fine arts competitions among the junior and high schools will be coming up in the next term. Practise and practise, OK. Draw still-life, draw the hogs and the chickens down at the Young Farmers’ Club, try oils and water colors. But,” he wagged a forefinger at her,” if I ever find out that you are drawing crap like this again, I will tell both your parents and the headmaster. Do you understand?”
She nodded, mute with relief. He flicked the cap on the lighter open, rolled the wheel with a snap and set fire to the drawing, holding it over a small metal rubbish bin near the classroom door. In seconds it was nothing but black flakes. “Now, you had better run to hostel. Tell Matron I had to deal with you after class.”
“Thank you, sir!” she cried.
He watched her jogging past the swimming pool and netball courts taking the left fork in the pavement to the girls’ hostel dining room. He took the right fork and in minutes was in the cool dining hall. The boys rose as he entered. He told them to sit as he took his place at the head table, apologized for the delay, said a perfunctory Grace, and they tucked in. Although boarding-school food, with the green beans often boiled into a pale green, mushy shadow of their former selves, and the gravy over-salted and lumpy, it was passable, and Harrison was surprised to find himself actually hungry. He scanned the faces in the hall and found no incipient problems, so excused himself before pudding (which he had sniffed out well before even entering the hall - banana custard) and left it up to Matron and the other teacher residing in hostel to dismiss the boys to their dorms after lunch.
He made his way into the dormitory area, striding down the aisle between the neatly made-up beds, all with their mosquito nets raised and balled above them, pending dusk when they would be lowered to cover each bed. The odor of mosquito spray and newly applied floor polish melded and lingered in the cool hallway at the end of the dorm. He unlocked the door to his room, went to his record player set the needle on the first track of Blind Faith, and shut it all out. Except for Devin. He sat on the edge of his bed, head in hands. At Can’t Find My Way Home, he suddenly realized what might have happened.
Shit! Another Viscount down. This one, even though painted gr
ey to camouflage it (since the Viscount Hunyani shoot-down), had been flying between Victoria Falls and Kariba. He probed his memory for the last time he and Devin had talked. Yes! Shit! She had been teaching at Ukunkwe High long enough to get her government loans and grants paid off. They met often after school on Friday afternoons, generally at the Egg and Spoon Cafe in downtown Ukunkwe, where they sucked down Cokes or milk shakes and nicotine, and talked. It was hot, a December afternoon, and she had recently completed marking and grading the end-of-year tests for Forms 1 and 3. She had also tendered her resignation to the headmaster and was, effectively, celebrating.
“Ja, I haven’t told my mother yet,” she admitted, “and don’t you say a damn word, Andy!”
At that time, she had been living at home with her mother and things were not in the least bit comfortable or happy. Devin left nearly every weekend primarily in a bid to escape having to deal with her father who had developed many years before a hearty and unhealthy appetite for beer. At all hours of the day. And her mother. She would frequently hitchhike to Salisbury, spend the weekend with friends living in a messuage there, and then head back to be home in time for marking and lesson-planning and Sunday night supper. At this, their last meeting, she told him that she had found Mick James, in jail in Salisbury. He had been busted, again, for dagga[10] and LSD possession. She had helped get him a decent lawyer and he was expected to be released within the month. He had a job in the offing - a 3-month gig with a band at one of the Kariba hotels, which might help his case.
Devin had been in love with, no, obsessed with Mick, since first meeting him at a dance at the Ukunkwe sports club. He had been sitting in for the drummer in a Bulawayo based rock ’n roll group and the rest was history. But a very one-sided history. She confided to Andrew Harrison that all it had taken was just one kiss, that’s all. And then she would begin singing the Hollies’ Just One Look song, totally off key, replacing Look with Kiss, and Andrew would laugh, amazed at how those big green eyes shone with so much love. She told him too of the broken promises, that he had told her he loved her, nights of abject misery when he just didn’t show up and then would not phone for months, the fact that they had never even consummated their relationship, such as it was.
At that last meeting she had been optimistic and upbeat, talking about trying for a job with the Rhodesia Herald or anywhere…so long as it was in Salisbury. When school closed for the holidays, Andrew drove down to Durban to spend a couple of weeks with friends. She had phoned him to say goodbye, but he had already left - the chief housemaid at the boys’ hostel took the message and left it under his door. Devin took her possessions and left on the train for Salisbury, looking for a room in digs or in the friends’ messuage, and a new job.
Could she have been in Vic Falls? he wondered. Mick was in Kariba. That meant she would most likely have gone there. But from Vic Falls? He determined to speak to Mark again the following morning. He would get to the bottom of it come hell or high water.
16.
Devin woke with a start and jumped to her feet. How long had she been asleep? Shading her eyes she peered to the sky. Two hours! Bloody hell! Quickly, she gathered her things, and still bleary-eyed from the nap, began to walk again. Soon the riverbed narrowed to creek size and stagnant pools of water became more the norm. She climbed the banks and took a course over boulders taller than she, between the path of the river bed and the sun - east-southeastward. I hope, she thought.
The terrain was very similar to what she had run through in her headlong flight from the elephant except fewer kopjes were apparent. Taking their place were giant grey boulders and scrawny mopane trees, along with the ubiquitous thorn scrub. As she walked farther from the river, the land became flatter, more grassy, and the trees fewer. The occasional acacia or baobab was apparent on the horizon, but the grass ruled. It was long, brown, and yellow, reaching to her waist in places, and harboring, she knew, ticks, snakes, and spiders. She climbed one of the boulders and peered out over the veldt. Nothing moved. The birds kept up their continuous racket, so she knew that there was a good chance that the cats were not in sight.
Climbing down, she continued to push through the grass, seeking refuge for the night, walking faster as the sun began its descent. The grass, some of it sharp edged, assailed her feet and legs, cutting the sensitive webbing between her toes. She climbed several boulders in her quest for shelter, always seeing nothing which would be suitable, and began to worry. After having walked about three miles, she found a massive pile of the boulders, each balanced precariously one atop the other, and climbed that. Her view from that relatively lofty position was enhanced and she could see that the land was beginning to slope downwards again. Far to the east was the green of the extensive stands of elephant grass and to the west the green of the pans. She was heading in the right direction, but there was no way she wanted to be anywhere near the marshes when the sun went down. If the mosquitoes didn’t carry her off, the snakes surely would.
She shaded her eyes and looked south. There, right at the periphery of her vision was what appeared to be a massive fig tree. As she gazed, she thought she saw something move under the tree. She narrowed her eyes, trying to force the picture closer, into focus, but saw nothing out of the ordinary and determined that her eyes had been playing tricks on her. As she was about to clamber down, she detected movement in the grass about 30 feet south of the boulder and stood stock-still, staring at the spot. Within seconds, she saw the cause: a small covey of pheasant. She dropped silently to one knee, and brought the rifle to her shoulder, gazing intently through the sights. It felt as if her eyes were on fire and if they could have sweated they would have, but she maintained her position and her vigil, and they paid off. The covey moved out of the long grass into a very small clearing below the rocks, chattering quietly and pecking at the sandy ground. Devin squeezed the trigger, again anticipating the recoil and the harsh clatter assaulting her ears.
A tumult of bird calls and screeches rose from the surrounding bush and a small flock of black birds took flight from the branches of one of the far-off acacias. Peering down, Devin searched for signs that she had got at least one of the skweshle. Dust still rose from the spot where the covey had fed. As it settled, she could see one bird lying dead on the ground. She hoped she hadn’t wounded any, leaving them in pain, hobbling along, dripping blood and drawing predators. She climbed down quickly and retrieved the kill. As she picked it up, its body jerked and she screamed and dropped it. She watched it as it lay on the ground. It was motionless. She positively and absolutely refused to wring its neck. Hell, if she had to, she decided, she would put another bullet in it to put it out of its misery. A guinea fowl, yes, she would wring its neck; not one of these soft colorful birds. She waited a full five minutes, staring down at the pheasant, ensuring that it was dead, before she finally picked it up by its legs and headed out over the veldt to the giant fig.
The ground seemed to grow softer, less rocky, and the soil richer, redder, more claylike. She walked carefully, eyes to the ground, dodging patches of paper thorns, thankful for the shade of her makeshift hat. She recalled as she walked that she might have seen something moving around the tree, so slowed her pace. The terrain began to rise and she moved quietly and cautiously up the rise to the lip of what might have been a massive, shallow, grassy bowl. Approaching that lip, she dropped to all fours and placed her water and the pheasant on the ground, then crawled silently through the grass the rest of the way to the top. As she neared the edge, she heard the distinctive sounds of a woman weeping and immediately ducked, her bowels turning to water.
The weeping continued, soft, eerie in this vast expanse of emptiness. Devin belly-crawled to the edge of the bowl and, raising her head slowly, peered over the rim toward the colossal fig sitting toward the back of the odd depression. She wondered briefly at the geological workings that would have created this indentation in the earth, but determined then that, barring proof to the contrary, it could have been made by an enorm
ous heel pressed into the soil, by a giant. She was open-minded in that respect. Ask anyone.
Squinting into the blur of the setting sun she made out a form, a pose in grief, kneeling at the foot of the tree. Shading her eyes with her hand, she peered intently again at the form silhouetted in black against the burnished grass. It seemed to be a woman, a black woman, but there was something different about her that alerted Devin to the fact that this was no native. She wore no doek or any other form of head covering, and her hair was teased into a conservative Afro. She stared, realizing that the woman looked strangely familiar, then it came to her. This woman had been on the plane! Yes! She had been one of those who had refused to evacuate, not believing perhaps that the terrorists would brutalize her. Perhaps not even believing that they would come in search of the plane and destroy those who had survived; until that very thing happened. Devin had not spoken to her, but believed her to be a tourist, probably American judging from her clothes and footwear. She had worn khaki, knee-length shorts, something Devin had never seen any black woman wear, and a pair of heavy-duty tackies with a brand-name emblazoned on the back. Plus the hair, of course -- that was a dead giveaway. And so were the socks with the tackies, and absence of Vaseline on the shins.