African Quilt : 24 Modern African Stories (9781101617441) (42 page)

Themba heard the screech of the car coming to a halt just yards away. He had made himself a hideout in the Port Jackson bushes, had cleared the space of rubbish blown from the houses, and had dug out with his hands something of a dip in which to settle himself comfortably. Here he often sat in the dark, with the smell of earth not quite smothered by petrol fumes, the sound of the traffic a steady whoosh and hum, and through the screen of reeds and bushes his eyes followed the flashes of light and the sleek shapes of cars sailing by in the black night. Behind him, Crossroads was drowned in darkness.

Themba sat up, squatting to see the yellow light spill onto the shoulder of the road, the light on the woman's cropped yellow head. He watched the man wrenching at the handbrake, swinging his long legs out onto the tarmac and, in another pool of propped torchlight, opening the boot and lifting out a jack. Themba could see that he hasn't done this before, not on the chassis of this car. The man groped for a place to fit the jack, looked about ruefully for a second, then slid on his back under the belly of the car, a silver beauty of a Mercedes Benz . . . yes he'd found it, the jackpoint. Now he reached for the wheel brace to loosen off the nuts.

In the intimate interior of the car the woman's yellow head was bent over a handbag in which she pushed things about, groping for something at the bottom. Another flash of light within that lit space, then a glowing circle of red as she drew deeply from a cigarette. She stared straight ahead. A car rushed past. For a second, her face shone white and still.

Fuck. Fuck. The voice cracked into the night so that Themba started, losing his balance. The man threw down the brace in a rage, then picking it up again, pushed with all his might, with clenched teeth, at the nut that would not budge. The woman's head was turned, towards the bush; she had heard a branch give as Themba toppled on tensed ankles. Oblivious to the angry grunting of the man, her hand groped in the bag, while her eyes flitted in search of the invisible branch.

Themba squirmed with guilt. For spying on them, for not helping the man. But it was not his fault that they had landed right there at his private place, displaying themselves in their own light, acting out their business in slow motion it seemed, before his eyes, and hearing Mrs. Matsepe's voice to keep away from white people, to keep out of trouble, he hesitated.

Then he stood up, parted the branches noisily and walked straight out onto the road. The man's back was turned. The mlungu woman was out of the car in a flash, like a movie star, kicking open the door; her gun was clasped in both hands trained on him. He held up his hands, stuttered, Hô-hôkaai lady, I'm just coming to help, get the wheel loose so we can put on the new one lady. Stupidly betraying himself as spy.

In slow motion the hands were lowered, a slow smile twitched on her face as she looked him in the eye, the moody boys' eyes, ag he was only a kid, and her lips settled, smiling, Yes, sorry, you know what it's like on the N2 . . .

The man was taking the gun out of her hand, pushing it casually into his own back pocket, smiling energetically at Themba. Ag man, she's just a bundle of nerves, and pointing to the wheel, it's these bladdy nuts, you can have a go if you like but I've been trying all this time you know.

We must put something by the front wheel, the boy said.

Themba picked up the torch to search the ground and pointed the light at a suitable stone. A moment's hesitation before the man bent down to pick it up himself. With the front wheel wedged, he tried again and shook his head. He watched the boy straining against the brace. Just his luck that the boy should be the one to shift the nuts.

I think, said Themba, as if he hadn't managed it, they'll perhaps come loose under the jack. Together they pushed aside the clutter in the boot, the toolbag, an old rug and what looked like a brand-new Nikon camera, shifted these to lift out the spare, and in a jiffy the car was jacked up, the old wheel off, the new one fixed.

Themba was wiping his hands on his trousers as they got into the car. The windows rolled down simultaneously. Together they spoke their scrambled words of thanks, then her voice above his, laughing It's so good of you I don't know what . . . and the man's, Yes, that was a devil of a wheel, thank you man, and one day I'll be the one to roll a stone out of your path hey.

Again the noise as their voices merged, and the key turned and the Merc started up, and it was as if from a distance, joining the gibberish of thanks, that he heard a thin sound coming from an unknown place inside and distinctly the words, Please sir, madam, have you please got some rand? Then the scramble in pockets, in the handbag, and two sets of white hands dropped the notes—Yes of course, ag shame man, sorry we just weren't thinking—into the bowl of his very own prosthetic hands.

His hands were on fire. Themba stuffed a burning note into each of his pockets, felt the fire running down his legs and back up through his body, so that he sprinted home with the repetition of his own voice in tinny echo, Please sir madam have you please got some rand some rand some rand . . .

Mrs. Matsepe dropped her dishcloth right there on the floor and followed the boy, a streak of fire she could have sworn, into the room where the youngest was already asleep. Themba whipped the money out of his pockets, two twenty-rand notes, and threw them on the bed.

It's for you, he whispered, from the people on the road. I helped them change a wheel.

And they gave you money?

Themba dropped his eyes. Some rands, some rands, some rands, echoed in his head. He said slowly, watching his hands curve once again into a cup: I asked for the money. From mlungu in a Merc. I begged.

With her eyes fixed on the boy, on the face twitching with shame, Mrs. Matsepe took the notes, folded them together, then tore them, carefully, into halves, into quarters, into eighths, and again, into tiny scraps of paper that she held aloft, clenched in fists, before showering them onto the bed.

 

(The following pages constitute an extension of the copyright page:)

 

“The Museum” by Leila Aboulela. Used by permission of the Gerhert Company.

 

U.S. RIGHTS

“Civil Peace” by Chinua Achebe. From
Girls at War and Other Stories
by Chinua Achebe, copyright © 1972, 1973 by Chinua Achebe. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

CANADA RIGHTS

“Civil Peace” by Chinua Achebe. From
Girls at War
by Chinua Achebe. Copyright © 1971, 1972, 1973 by Chinua Achebe, used by permission of The Wylie Agency.

 

U.S. RIGHTS

“A Private Experience” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. From
The Thing Around Your Neck
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Copyright © 2004, 2009 by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, used by permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.

CANADA RIGHTS

“A Private Experience” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Excerpted from
The Thing Around Your Neck
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Copyright © 2009 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Reprinted by permission of Knopf Canada.

 

“Two Sisters” by Ama Ata Aidoo. From
No Sweetness Here.
Copyright © 1970 by Ama Ata Aidoo. Reprinted by permission of the author, Ama Ata Aidoo.

 

“First Kiss” by Doreen Baingana. Used by permission of Doreen Baingana. “First Kiss” was first published in 2005 in the author's collection
Tropical Fish: Stories Out of Entebbe
published by University of Massachusetts Press, and in paperback as
Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe
in 2006 by Harlem Moon/Random House.

 

“Another Day at the Office” by Steve Chimombo. First appeared in
WASI: The Magazine for the Arts,
Volume 19, Number 2. Subsequently, it appeared in the author's collection
Of Life, Love, and Death.
Used by permission of the author.

 

“Inkalamu's Place” by Nadine Gordimer. Reprinted by the permission of Russell & Volkening as agents for the author. Copyright © 1971 by Nadine Gordimer.

 

“Cages” by Abdulrazak Gurnah. Copyright © 1992 Abdulrazak Gurnah. Reproduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN.

 

“Lomba” by Helon Habila. From
Waiting for an Angel
by Helon Habila. Copyright © 2002 by Helon Habila. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

 

“Earth Love” by Bessie Head. Copyright © Bessie Head, taken from
The Cardinals: With Meditations and Short Stories,
1995. Reproduced with the kind permission of Johnson & Alcock Ltd.

 

“Effortless Tears” by Alexander Kanengoni. From
Effortless Tears.
Copyright © 1993 by Alexander Kanengoni. Reprint by permission of the author and Baobab Books.

 

“Cardboard Mansions” by Farida Karodia. Reprinted by permission of the author.

 

“The Lemon Orchard” by Alex La Guma. Copyright © Alex La Guma 1967. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education.

 

U.S. RIGHTS

“The Second Hut” by Doris Lessing. Reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from
African Stories
by Doris Lessing. Copyright © 1951, 1953, 1954, 1957, 1958, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1972, 1981 by Doris Lessing. All rights reserved.

CANADA RIGHTS

“The Second Hut” by Doris Lessing. Copyright © 1951 Doris Lessing. Reprinted by kind permission of Jonathan Clowes Ltd., London, on behalf of Doris Lessing.

 

“Mrs. Plum” by Es'kia Mphahlele. From
In Corner B
by Es'kia Mphahlele, copyright © 2006 by Es'kia Mphahlele. Used by permission of Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

“Who Will Stop the Dark?” by Charles Mungoshi. Reprinted by permission of the author.

 

“The Middle Door” by Grace Ogot. From
The Other Woman and Other Stories
by Grace Ogot. Copyright © Grace Ogot, 1992. Reprinted with permission from East African Educational Publishers Ltd.

 

“Under New Pastoral Management” by Tanure Ojaide. From
The Debt-Collector
by Tanure Ojaide. Copyright © Tanure Ojaide 2009. Reprinted with the author's permission.

 

“The Power of a Plate of Rice” by Ifeoma Okoye. Reprinted by permission of the author.

 

“Voice of America” by E. C. Osondu. From
Voice of America
by E. C. Osondu, (pp. 205–15). Copyright © 2010 by E. C. Osondu. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

 

“The Suit” by Can Themba. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books South Africa. © The Estate of Can Themba. “The Suit” in
Requiem for Sophiatown,
Penguin Books (SA) (Pty) Ltd., 2006.

 

“Minutes of Glory” by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Reprinted by permission of Ngugi wa Thiong'o and the Watkins/Loomis Agency.

 

“N2” by Zoë Wicomb. From
The One That Got Away
by Zoë Wicomb. Copyright © 2008 by Zoë Wicomb. Reprinted by permission of the author.

*
“The Second Hut” by Doris Lessing. Reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from
African Stories
by Doris Lessing. Copyright © 1951, 1953, 1954, 1957, 1958, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1972, 1981 by Doris Lessing. All rights reserved