A Girl Named Disaster (19 page)

O
nce upon a time a farmer lived in the middle of a forest full of baboons,” began Nhamo. It was late at night. Her nerves wouldn’t let her sleep, so she decided to tell Mother a story. Nhamo hugged the grassfilled grain bag, and she had Mother’s jar nestled next to her face. She knew the leopard wouldn’t be a problem until he finished eating the kudu, but he was still out there.

“The farmer could never relax,” she went on. “Day after day the baboons looked hungrily at his mealies. But every time they tried to get them, the farmer would pelt them with rocks from his sling.

“Finally, the chief baboon said, ‘My brothers, we are never going to get those mealies. That man is much too watchful. He can make mistakes, though. He never guards the goat pen because he doesn’t know we can eat meat.’

“‘Hoo! Hoo!’ cried all the other animals. ‘Let’s go raid the goat pen!’

“They killed a goat and roasted its meat. ‘Do you know what would be really funny?’ suggested the chief baboon. ‘Let’s sew our droppings into the skin and prop it up outside the farmer’s hut.’

“‘Hoo! Wow! What a great idea!’ cried the other animals. They filled the skin with baboon droppings, sewed it up, and propped it against the farmer’s door. Then they hid in the bushes to watch.

“Soon the farmer came out. ‘Good morning, my fine nanny goat. What are you doing out of your pen?’

“The goat didn’t answer.

“‘Well, don’t stand there blocking the door. Get out of the way,’ said the farmer, but the goat didn’t answer. The man shouted at the animal and then, when it
still
didn’t answer, he lost his temper and kicked it.

“
Maiwee!
The stitches flew apart. The goatskin exploded and sent baboon droppings all over the hut. The farmer was furious. ‘Wah! Wah!’ cried the baboons, falling all over themselves with laughter.

“‘I’ll get them back for that,’ the man said as he swept and washed out his hut. He dug a deep pit in front of his garden and covered it with branches. Then he lay down on the trail to the forest and pretended to be dead.

“The baboons discovered him. They pushed and prodded him. He didn’t move. They sang:

‘The farmer is dead
, hii!

What has killed him
, hii!

He died of grief for his goat
, hii!

With what can we repay him
, hii!’

“‘We’ll have to bury him,’ said the chief baboon, so they carried the farmer into the forest and dug a grave. It was hard work, and soon the animals got bored.

“‘Who cares if the hyenas scatter his bones,’ said the chief baboon, wiping his face. ‘The good thing is, he’s no longer around to throw rocks at us. Let’s go raid the mealies.’

“The baboons left the farmer and hurried back down the trail. They raced to the garden, fell into the pit, and were all killed. The farmer lived happily ever after and never had to worry about his plants again.”

Nhamo hugged the grain bag and listened to sounds in the night. She heard the usual mutter of the baboons. They couldn’t be too worried or they wouldn’t talk.

It’s going to be more difficult to finish the boat now
, Mother said.

“I shouldn’t have put it off,” moaned Nhamo.

There’s always something dangerous in the forest. You’ll just have to be more careful.

“I can’t work with that creature around!”

You don’t have a choice
, Mother pointed out.

The waves are as big as elephants during the rainy season
, said Crocodile Guts from his soft bed in the
njuzu
village.

Nhamo got up and sat on the edge of her platform. She watched the starlit cliff with its murmuring baboons until dawn.

As she had hoped, the meat dried steadily during the night. It hadn’t spoiled. As soon as the baboons were gone, Nhamo built up the curing-fire. Clouds of smoke billowed up through gaps in the platform, adding flavor as well as preserving the meat. Now and then she turned the strips to expose both sides.

“I can’t possibly work on the boat until this is finished,” she explained to Mother. Then, to keep from feeling guilty, Nhamo devised a method to protect her stores. She took two of the now-useless fish traps, plugged the small ends, and hung them by long ropes from the highest branch of the lucky-bean trees. The branch extended out over the grassland. She could pull the fish traps back by means of a string.

“I can store the meat inside,
Mai.
The birds can’t reach it, and the baboons can’t jump that high.” To be on the safe side, Nhamo built a low fire on the ground below. If Rumpy tried anything, he was going to get a hot foot.

In the middle of the day, Nhamo made a quick trip for water. The stream was dry now, and she had to depend on the lake. She put the
panga
in the sling with the calabashes and kept the spear handy. She half intended to raid the kudu carcass again, but when she got to the shore, the antelope was gone.

All of it.

The leopard must have dragged it into a tree, she thought. The rock looked perfectly clean, though, without a trace of
blood. Or perhaps there was blood. Nhamo was too unnerved to check closely.

In the afternoon she packed the fish traps with dried meat and suspended them from the overhanging branch. Well satisfied, she went to the stream to gather a few blackjack leaves for relish. The stream was dry, but a cool dampness still clung to the soil.

Oo-AA-hoo!
The sound brought her instantly alert. The baboons were back early—and they had come almost silently. Suddenly, they were all around her in a milling crowd. It wasn’t the chaotic, screeching mob she was used to. The animals slipped through the grassland like the vervet monkeys near the leopard cave. Even Tag was impressed with the seriousness of it. He rode on Donkeyberry’s back without a single murmur.

Nhamo shivered. The males were unusually irritable. They snapped at one another and threatened the females. Now that the troop was close to the sleeping cliff, the animals spread out and applied themselves to digging in the soil. That in itself was unusual. At the end of the day the baboons preferred social activities: grooming, entertaining infants, lounging in friendly groups. They were clearly ravenous. Something had kept them from feeding.

Rumpy sniffed around the smoking-platform, barking as a coal singed his nose. He spotted Nhamo and trotted up, fur bristling, to demand the meager bunch of blackjack leaves. “Go away!” shouted Nhamo. Rumpy slapped the ground. She snatched up a stone and hurled it accurately at his head.

Rumpy danced back and forth with fury. He didn’t cower as he usually did when she hit him. She suddenly realized he was dangerous. She grabbed the spear, which was lying against the thorn barrier, and quickly unhooked the ladder. As it flopped down, she thrust the spear at the angry creature to drive him back. Rumpy sprang forward instead.

He sent Nhamo crashing to the ground as he rushed to grab the ladder. His foot smashed her face into the dirt. By the time she recovered, he was already on the platform, raging through her possessions. His big teeth crunched into calabashes
to get at the food inside. But what he really wanted—and could obviously smell—was the meat.

He hopped from branch to branch. He caved in the delicate smaller platforms. He found the fish traps hanging from the rope, but he couldn’t reach them. The branch was too slender, and he didn’t have the sense to pull them in with the string. Rumpy bounced up and down in the tree in a perfect fit of rage.

Meanwhile, Nhamo had grabbed a burning branch from the fire. She was terrified, but her survival depended on protecting her stores. She swung up the ladder and shoved the flames into Rumpy’s face. He flinched back. She clambered around him, trying to drive him out of the tree.

Rumpy was beginning to lose his nerve. Nhamo approached him like a small and utterly reckless honey badger. She screamed insults. She cursed his ancestors. She felt like she wouldn’t mind sinking her teeth into his throat.

Wah!
shouted Rumpy. He dodged past her. His twisted foot stumbled against Mother’s jar, and he fell with a shriek over the edge of the platform. Mother’s jar rolled after him before Nhamo could reach it. It smashed open, and the picture, caught in the afternoon breeze from the lake, fluttered off and landed in the cook-fire.

Nhamo almost fell out of the tree in her haste. She ignored the fallen animal as she raced for the picture. The same puff of wind that had blown it away stirred the coals in the fire. They flared up briefly, caught the paper, and burned it to ashes before Nhamo even got close.

She knocked the coals aside with her bare hands, ignoring the searing pain in her fingers. But it was already too late. The picture blew away like the ashes that had been beaten in the mortar so long ago in the village, the day
Vatete
died.

Ambuya
…, they whispered.
Sister Chipo…Masvita…beloved Nhamo. Please do not be frightened. I must go now. I know you will follow when you can.
The ashes floated off on the wind, carrying the message.

N
hamo lay on the platform. The ruins of her belongings lay around her, but she didn’t bother to check them. The sun had passed over the trees once or perhaps twice since she had crawled to her present bed. She had drunk water—Rumpy hadn’t been interested in those calabashes. She had eaten nothing. What was the point? She didn’t even put her arms around the grain bag. She couldn’t bring herself to touch it.

Below, the baboons ransacked the smoking-platform. Nhamo turned on her side and watched a line of ants move up the tree trunk. Perhaps they had found their way to the kudu meat. What difference did it make?

Once she stirred enough to climb out onto a branch to relieve herself. She saw that Rumpy no longer lay on the ground, so he must have survived.

More time passed. It was dark, then light again. She saw Fat Cheeks with Tag draped over his shoulders, and Donkeyberry searching the remains of the calabashes on the ground. Rumpy appeared. His limp was far worse. He moaned to himself as he struggled along, and the other baboons seized the opportunity to bully him.

The water ran out. Nhamo’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her body smelled strange—not dirty, exactly, but old, like a musty cave where animals had laired for a long time. Her head ached. It doesn’t take long to die of
thirst, she thought dully. She didn’t think she had the strength to climb down the ladder.

Darkness came, and with it a cooling breeze. The sound in the leaves was like water rushing across the sky. The moon was growing again, and its milky light spilled through gaps in the tree’s canopy.

I’m on my way, little Disaster
, said Crocodile Guts. He had a string bag hefted over his shoulder.
My relatives have brewed beer and my oldest son has bought a goat to sacrifice at the coming-home ceremony. It’ll be good to see them again.

Nhamo didn’t answer.

I suppose Anna will be there. I hope she’s forgiven me for dying first.
Crocodile Guts scratched his hair thoughtfully.
I would have liked a sacrificial bull, but times have been hard recently. My sons have promised me a bull as soon as they can afford it. I’ll probably have to remind them.

Nhamo watched him stride along the bottom of the lake as easily as a man on a forest trail. Just before he moved out of sight, the boatman turned and called,
The
njuzu
might be lonely for a while. Don’t be surprised if they pay you a visit.
And then he was gone.

First Mother, now Crocodile Guts has deserted me, thought Nhamo. She watched the cool moonlight slide along the platform. The baboons stirred on their rocky perches. An eagle owl called as it floated along the upper airs.

Sh sh.
Something was moving in the grass below.
Hhhhuh
, came a sigh. Nhamo tried to ignore it. So what if something wanted to kill her? She wanted to die.

The sounds went on,
sh sh.
Of course, she wanted to die on her own terms, not some horrible beast’s. Her plan was to stay on the platform until her spirit was driven away by thirst. She had seen people die of cholera. Eventually, they fell into a fevered sleep that deepened until they simply let go. There were worse ways.

Nhamo put her eye to a gap in the platform. Two
njuzu
girls were weaving around the thorn barrier, looking for a way up. They lengthened their supple bodies until they were thin enough to slither between the thorns.

Nhamo felt a chill pass over her. She was too dehydrated to break out in a sweat.

Up they came until they reached the first foot hole Nhamo had carved into the tree trunk, before she made the ladder. Now the
njuzu
did a very strange thing. Instead of sliding around it, which they could easily have done, they searched until they found a fragment of wood. It might have been part of the storage platforms Rumpy had smashed.

One of the snakes carried the wood to the hole in her fangs and the other butted it into place with her head. In a moment the rift was healed. They went on to the next hole, and the next until the trunk was smooth again. Then they came to the ring of birdlime.

Nhamo had put it there to discourage the caracal. She watched to see how the
njuzu
would handle the problem. They slithered down the tree and gathered up dry grass. Back and forth they went, gluing the grass to the birdlime until it was covered up. When they were finished, they glided over it as smoothly as if they were rustling across a rock.

Nhamo had to admire their cleverness, but she realized she was about to have
njuzu
in her bed. She wanted to die, but she did
not
want snakes crawling all over her first! She crept to the other end of the platform. Her body trembled with the effort.

The
njuzu
coiled over the edge with their eyes glittering in the moonlight. One of them found a calabash Nhamo was certain was empty and dived her head inside. Water droplets twinkled as she rose again. Her mouth brimmed with water.

“No!” cried Nhamo, clinging to the trunk. “Go away!”

One snake twined around the girl’s body,
ssuh
, and came up by her face. She lightly caught Nhamo’s lower lip with her fangs and pulled the girl’s mouth open with surprising strength.

“Aaugh!” Nhamo gasped. The other snake bent over her mouth and poured the shining water inside. It was cold, cold! It sank into her body like a frog diving into a lake. At once the
njuzu
shook themselves loose, rippled over the rim of the platform, and disappeared.

Nhamo was shocked to the very depths of her being. She clung to the tree, shivering violently. She had swallowed something offered by the
njuzu.
Did that mean she was condemned to live with them forever? Or did the rule only apply to food? One thing was certain: Her determination to die had completely vanished. Now she passionately wanted to live. She only hoped she wasn’t too late to try.

Nhamo’s first chore, as soon as darkness lifted, was to get water. She was badly dehydrated. Her skin was loose and her ears buzzed, but she was filled with a kind of strength that had been missing the day before. She dipped the calabash—the one the
njuzu
had used—into the lake and drank repeatedly. She lay under a tree to let the water take effect.

After a while she returned to the lucky-beans and ate some of the dried meat. The whole day was spent drinking and eating. She noticed that the tree trunk was still scarred by foot holes and the birdlime barrier was still intact. Was the
njuzu
visit only a dream?

But that night they were back, filling the holes in the bark again and gluing grass to the barrier. This time they didn’t force Nhamo to drink. They murmured to each other as they rustled through the branches. Nhamo couldn’t understand what they were saying, but the sound was oddly comforting. She fell into a deep sleep and when she awoke, they were gone.

Nhamo couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She was sitting by the
mukwa
log, trying to shape the outside of the boat, when it came to her that something had subtly changed about the forest. The light was different. The sky remained as cloudless as ever, and the heat was even more oppressive than usual. Her body was covered with sweat that wouldn’t dry.

Then she realized what had happened: Buds were swelling on the branches of all the dry trees. New leaves were forcing their way out. A subtle green hue hung over the forest. And that meant…

The rainy season was on its way.

During the dry season many of the forest trees lost their foliage. But unlike the vines and grass, they didn’t wait until the first rains to start growing again. They
knew
somehow that the storms were about to arrive. Nhamo had seen it happen before. In two or three weeks towering clouds with swollen purple bottoms would rise out of the east. Branchcracking winds and thunder that shook the bowl of the sky would descend on the island, along with torrents of life-giving rain.

She hadn’t a hope of finishing the
mukwa
log by then.

Nhamo was appalled. She couldn’t possibly cross the lake during the storms. She would have to stay on the island until the next dry season. Alone.

Nhamo stumbled back to the platform and lay in the shade of the lucky-bean canopy with her chest heaving. She wanted to cry—or scream—or throw something hard. So many emotions ran through her, she couldn’t decide which one to feel. All she could do was lie there and pant.
Alone.

The baboons returned full of complaints. Hunger and heat made them irritable. Nhamo watched Rumpy creep from one to another, trying to beg a grass root. They all shouted at him. He was again the scrawny bag of bones she remembered from the little island. Poor Rumpy, she thought. The high point of your life was when you knocked me down.

Nhamo lay back on the grain bag and tried to think. The grinding hunger that tormented the animals would go away when the rainy season arrived. Antelope would have young, and birds would build nests. Perhaps the leopard would return to its cave.

She wouldn’t be able to build fires on wet days. She wouldn’t be able to work on the boat. And all those months alone…

But look on the bright side, she told herself. The island will be full of food. The streams will run again, and the fish traps will become usable. This year she could plant her garden at the right time, although rising lake water might make it difficult to reach the little island.

By evening Nhamo was almost reconciled to the situation.
She munched a strip of dried kudu meat and choked down some of the horrid, tasteless water-lily bulbs as she made plans. She would rebuild her platforms and make a watertight shelter.

The full moon rose as the sun set. It was going to be one of those restless nights with the baboons awake and the dassies foraging.

Rumpy tried to climb the cliff and failed. His foot was swollen. Perhaps he had fallen on it when he tumbled out of the tree. He managed to reach a low shelf, where he ensconced himself in a crack.

The
njuzu
hadn’t visited since the two nights after Crocodile Guts left. Nhamo was frankly relieved. She hugged the grain bag and considered telling a story to pass the time until she felt sleepy. Tell who a story? she thought sadly. Rumpy wasn’t going to listen. He had cowered from her since she had thrust the burning branch in his face. She could hear him groan even now as he fidgeted under the bright moon. Anyhow, an animal wasn’t the audience she wanted. She wanted
people.

Oh, fine, she thought. If I can’t get through one night on my own, what am I going to do in three months?

Cough-cough.

Her mind went blank.

Cough-cough.

That sound. She remembered it from the banana grove outside the village.

Cough-cough.

Silence.

What was it doing? Was it standing under the tree? She remembered the leap the caracal had made to pluck a dassie from a rock. How high could leopards jump?

Cough-cough.

Farther away now, it was moving toward the cliff. Nhamo let her breath out carefully. The baboons were absolutely still. Not a single infant whimpered. The troop might have vanished off the face of the earth. The dassies, who had been
twittering to one another, had turned to stone. The whole grassland held its breath.

Then, a scream.

It was a terrible, wailing shriek, so much like a human that Nhamo stuffed her fist into her mouth to keep from crying out. It went on and on in ghastly agony. From her earliest childhood that scream came, with a memory of flowing, spotted skin and rending claws, and later of
Ambuya
tearing out her hair when they brought Mother’s bones home from the forest.

And then it stopped.

The grassland waited.

The bright moonlight shone through the leaves, and waterladen air pressed on Nhamo’s skin.

After a while a baboon infant whimpered. Its mother grunted softly in response.
Whow-whow
called a nightjar in a breathless voice. One by one the inhabitants of the grassland came alive. They were no longer in any danger. The leopard had selected its prey and they, with heartless ease, returned to their usual activities. The dassies twittered. A ground hornbill uttered its low, panting call.

But something had been subtracted from the chorus of night noises. Rumpy’s characteristic moan as he moved his injured foot was no longer present.