The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (5 page)

Mother lightened the window of the stretch limo and looked down on the city beneath. Mount Hampden passed on their right, glittering with solar panels to catch the energy of the sun. That's a nice place to live, she thought. Still, it was hard to find fault with Mazoe, and the crime rate was certainly low. Not that anyone with half a brain would bother General Matsika. She smiled fondly at her husband.

What was it the Mellower said? The General was a great tree whose branches protected them — or something like that. The Mellower certainly knew how to put things. She was lucky to have a live-in Praise Singer. Amadeus was suspicious at first. He thought compliments were for sissies, but he changed his mind after the first few sessions.

The limo changed direction and headed for the University. The Chinese delegation was suffering from rocket lag and wouldn't show up for another hour. She had time for a leisurely cup of tea. Mother sighed with contentment.

Now they were passing over the gray ruin of Dead Man's Vlei. Mother looked regretfully at the ancient mountains of garbage. What a shame so much land went to waste in the middle of the city, but what could one do? It had been contaminated with toxic chemicals over a century ago.

They said people lived in Dead Man's Vlei. Not nice people. Not people she'd invite for tea in Mazoe. Mother wondered idly what the children were up to. They were so restless in the hot weather. Tendai kept nagging about a Scout trip.

Wait a minute, thought Mother. Something happened during the Mellower's session this morning. It was odd how difficult it was to remember what the man said. It was pleasant, of course. She could listen all day, but often she couldn't remember
why
she felt happy.

The Scout trip. Something about the Scout trip. She looked over at Amadeus and saw him frown as though he, too, were trying to remember. In her mind's eye, Mother saw two cards on the dining room table. Amadeus had placed them there. They were — oh
Mwari!
— Pass Cards.

Mother and Father looked up at each other at the same time. "Curse that Mellower!" shouted Father. "Turn this limo at once!"

The chauffeur flew a figure eight as he reacted to the furious voice. Then he straightened out and made a beeline for Mazoe. The General sent a message on the limo's computer to seal the gates of his house.

Tendai, Rita and Kuda fought their way down the steps of the bus stop. "Hold on!" shouted Tendai over the noise of the crowd. Kuda clung to Rita, and she grabbed Tendai's hand so hard he winced.

"I never saw so many people!" Rita cried. "Ow! That woman just stepped on my foot!"

Tendai grimly led them through the mob. People struggled past them with bags of groceries balanced on their heads. A trussed-up chicken stuck its head out of a sack and watched them mournfully as it was carried past. "It's like being squeezed in a toothpaste tube," gasped Rita.

At last they reached the bottom and made their way to an empty area under a platform. It was shady, but foul with rotting vegetables and debris from the meat market. A huge rat considered them with its flat black eyes before bending again to gnaw on a bone.

"A
rat!"
cried Rita in delight. "I've never seen one outside a book. Do you think it's tame?"

"Don't touch it!" yelled Tendai, slapping her hand.

"You bully! How dare you hit me?"

"That's not a tame animal. Look at the marks it's making on that bone."

The rat continued scrunching bits of sinew and meat. It lifted its muzzle and chittered at them.

"He thinks you want his dinner," said Tendai.

"Very funny." Rita threw a chunk of bread from her backpack at the animal. It gobbled it up and waited for more. "See. It
is
tame." She threw it another chunk. The rat finished this and waited. When no more food came, it walked deliberately toward her. Tendai tried to pull her back, but Rita stubbornly held her ground. The rat suddenly leaped for her shoe and scrabbled its paws on her leg as it squealed with rage.

"Help!" shrieked Rita, kicking wildly. Tendai swung his backpack and caught the animal by surprise. It spun around on the cement and bumped into a pillar. At once it sprang up and hurled itself at Rita, but Tendai struck it again. The rat clung to the backpack.
 
 
He
  
swung
 
it
  
against
 
a
 
wall, knocking the animal senseless. It flopped onto a mass of cabbage leaves.

He didn't know whether it was dead or merely stunned, and he didn't care. He dragged Rita and Kuda back to the noisy crowd before anything worse happened. They found another pocket of calm behind a chili-bite stall. Rita was trembling with shock.

"Animals aren't supposed to do that," she wailed. "It was tame. I fed it."

"We aren't used to wild creatures," said Tendai.

"Rita's a wimp," said Kuda.

"Don't you start. If you had a big rat on your foot, you'd wet your pants."

"I'd
 
kill it with a Scout knife."

Tendai ignored him. Kuda, in spite of his brave words, hung on to Rita's hand as though he were welded to her. "Look, you can get a badge for observing wild animals," Tendai told his sister.

Rita lifted her tear-streaked face.

"We've only been gone a few minutes and already you have a badge. Think how many you'll have at the end of the day. Would you like a chili-bite?"

She wiped her eyes. The heavy smell of fried dough filled the space behind the stall. "Mmm," she murmured.

"Ugh! Look at your pack," said Kuda.

Tendai saw with horror that a chunk had been ripped out by the rat's teeth. A damp patch had to be urine. "I'll wash it in the public rest room." He sighed. "Come on. We all need to cheer up." They went to the front of the stall, where a man tended a pot of boiling oil. Trays of greasy chili-bites cooled on mats of newspaper.

"Could we watch you make some?" asked Tendai.

"Sure," the man said. "How many do you want?"

"Lots," said Rita.

So Tendai ordered two dozen. The vendor spooned blobs of batter into the pot of oil, where they hissed and bubbled with a satisfying roar. He turned them with a slotted spoon. The chili-bites were filled with onions and shreds of hot peppers. The smell was maddening. The man dumped them on a newspaper-covered tray. "That's my table under the tree," he said as he accepted Tendai's money. "Bring the tray back when you're finished."

They sat in the shade, devouring the hot fried dough. Their faces gleamed with oil, and the chilies brought tears to their eyes. "This is
living,"
said Rita. "Let's get something to drink.”

 
Tendai brought them cups of freshly squeezed pineapple juice. They lazed under the tree, feeling slightly sick but satisfied. Tendai rinsed his pack under the chili-bite vendor's faucet. The huge market of Mbare Musika no longer seemed threatening. It hummed with laughter and shouts like a big party. Buses took off from the Central Depot, going to all points of the city, going farther to Mozambique and Kenya and even Gondwanna, in the north.

Long sunshades covered the various markets. Each street was devoted to a different product: fruit, vegetables, clothes, crockery and soap. Meat sellers slapped sides of beef to dislodge flies and show off their wares.
Ngangas
squatted before heaps of roots and herbs. They wore feathered caps banded with wildcat fur and smoked long pipes as they dozed in the heat. There were even a few public Mellowers.

Each Praise Singer had his own booth with a comfortable couch. When someone felt depressed and needed a quick Praise, he gave the Mellower a brief rundown of his best points. The person would lie down on the couch while the Praise Singer created a poem about him.

Tendai, Rita and Kuda watched as closely as they dared. The poems started out in the standard way, but once the Mellower got going, he added the desired compliments. It didn't matter, Tendai thought, whether the Praise was true or not. Once the listener fell under the spell, he accepted it all as his due. Potbellied men were praised for their lean, hard muscles. Skinny, bitter-looking women were told how plump and kind they were.

And the extraordinary thing was that people began to
look
like their descriptions — for a few minutes, at least.

"This is boring," said Rita. "Can't we do something else?"

"He's not as good as
our
Mellower," Kuda said.

Tendai led them along the rows of fruit and vegetables. The sun was climbing — they had been at the Mbare Musika at least an hour. They would have to leave soon if they were to get to Beatrice and back before dark. But Tendai found he didn't want to go. Mbare Musika was so full of life.

He realized he was happy, and he hadn't known he was sad before. He liked the noise and the smells, both good and bad, and the faces, both innocent and crafty. He liked being surrounded by people. He liked them in all their shapes and dispositions simply because they were people and not machines.

"Look," cried Kuda. They were walking along the animal pens. Vendors haggled over goats and chickens. Fancy show cats yawned contemptuously at the crowds that milled around them. But on a table at the end, all by itself, sat a most amazing creature.

It was blue. Its fur stood out in a handsome ruff around its face, and its tail hung down almost to the ground. It wore a leather collar attached to a chain. Its owner, who had a surprising number of bandages on various parts of his body, sat glumly in a chair and smoked a cigarette.

"That's a genetically engineered monkey," said Tendai in wonder.

"I thought they were illegal," Rita said.

"They are."

The Blue Monkey reached out a long arm and snatched the cigarette from its owner's mouth. The man tried to retrieve it, but the monkey bared its teeth at him. It calmly began to puff on the cigarette itself. "What
are you
staring at, roach face?" it snarled.

"It talks!" Rita cried.

"Of course I do, when I have someone worth talking to. Not him." The Blue Monkey spat in the direction of its owner. Two other men had stopped at the table. One of them flicked a peanut at the animal.

"When I want a peanut, I'll go to the market and buy one!" shouted the monkey in a rage. "Get me a hamburger, you tightwads!" The men laughed.

Tendai noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that one was burly like a prizefighter while the other was slender and somehow unpleasant. But he was far too interested in the animal to pay much attention. "I thought genetically engineered monkeys were illegal," he said.

"They are now," said the owner, "but you can hardly kill off the ones already made."

"Not that you haven't tried," the monkey said bitterly. "Look at the swill he feeds me: black bananas they can't sell in the market."

"Go on! You eat better than I do."

"Lies! Lies!" shrieked the monkey. "I earn all the money, and he drinks it away. He passes out in the gutter every night, and I have to fight the rats off him!"

"You poor thing," cried Rita.

"You said it, sweetheart. I'm the unhappiest creature alive. Too bright for my cousins in the bush. Too bright for this lump of donkey doodoo. Why don't
you
buy me, sugar? You look like a nice kid."

"Oh, Tendai, could we?" said Rita.

Tendai thought about how Father would react to the foulmouthed animal — or, for that matter, Mother, with her tasteful tea parties. It was almost worth it.

"Please!" Kuda said excitedly. "He can stay in the garden."

"Yeah, the garden," said the monkey, fixing Tendai with its bright, intelligent eyes.

If they got the monkey, they would have to go straight home. Tendai couldn't see their taking it all over the city.

"I'm housebroken. I play the harmonica. I'm a barrel of laughs. Come into the back so we can talk business." The animal tugged at Tendai's sleeve.

He allowed himself to be pulled behind a wall, while the owner followed with a hangdog look. Rita and Kuda danced along with the Blue Monkey. They found themselves in a dimly lit area like the place Rita encountered the rat.

"Wait. Why can't we talk about this outside?" said Tendai, but instantly the monkey sank its teeth into his hand. Rita and Kuda screamed as the two men — who had silently followed behind — pounced on them and stuffed rags into their faces. Tendai struggled with the monkey, but the owner
  
threw
  
his
  
arm
  
around
  
Tendai's throat and plastered a rag to his face, too. His lungs burned and his legs turned to jelly.