White Dog Fell From the Sky (31 page)

She passed through Debeeti as the acacia
trees began to be lit by sun. Then Mosomane and Mochudi. It was a marvel how this
landscape, so brown, had entered her. How she’d grown accustomed to the taste of
dust in her mouth from June to December. It was hard to imagine the woods in Ohio
anymore, home to green moss, deep layers of fallen leaves, robins. When had she last
heard a robin sing? Or a white-throated sparrow? Or seen a field of green grass combed
by wind? Could she bear it if she never again lived in her own country? She hadn’t
missed her mother when she’d first come out here, but she did now. And she missed
the ring of spring: peepers singing in the swamp. And the trudging sound of a city bus.
And oddly, Walter Cronkite. She
missed snowy Sunday afternoons,
newspapers with editorial pages, grocery stores with well-stocked shelves.

She missed how the swing that hung from a
maple tree in her mother’s yard could flood her with recollections, the way one
memory led to another: the feel of her girl-thin body as she pumped her way into the
sky, the toes of her Buster Brown shoes—scuffed, blunt-toed, homely as moles—straining
to touch one high leaf of that tree.

Here, she lived only in the present and the
future. At times, it was a relief to escape the past. But forever? How bad the margarine
tasted here, like rendered fat. And the smell of butchered beef everywhere, tough,
overripe. But then there was beauty: women carrying square cans of water on their heads,
the way their bodies moved under the weight of the water. The wild thorns bursting into
blossom when the land around them was dry as dung. On Sundays, a scattering of men
walking to church with dusty, beaten black hats held in their hands. Women wearing the
uniform of the Congregationalists: dark skirts and white blouses, with bright blue
sashes and white turbans around their heads. And their singing, voices swooping slow and
deep.

She passed through Phakalane and
Mogoditshane. A boy herded five goats across the road in front of her. His shirt was
dust colored, his young body looked dazed with sleep. She was supposed to go to dinner
at Muriel’s tonight, but she’d need to beg off. It would be a triumph just
to make it through the day.

When she drove in, exhausted, White Dog was
there at the end of the driveway. The tip of her tail moved slightly in recognition. As
far as she knew, White Dog hadn’t left her post since Isaac had disappeared. Alice
brought her breakfast and fresh water and set it next to her. She went back into the
house and stood in front of her closet and stared at the clothes hanging there. She felt
vaguely off center—it was no longer possible to imagine a life without Ian. And yet a
life with him did not include even the barest prospect of calm domesticity. What
was
their life together? Islands of ravenous love surrounded by oceans of
separateness.

She went into the bathroom and
couldn’t get the the toilet to flush. The tank was high up, and she pulled the
chain,
klunk
, waited, pulled
the chain three more times, and
still nothing happened. It infuriated her. She yanked the chain four more times, and on
the fifth pull, the water rushed down the pipe. She filled the bathtub until the water
no longer ran hot from the faucet, turned it off, and climbed in. There was no time to
sink into the pleasure of it. She lay back a moment, then lathered up and rinsed off.
Toweling herself dry, she felt unaccountably close to tears. She grabbed a blue gray,
short-sleeved dress, close-fitting, cut fairly high at the neck.

She had no hair dryer. She combed her damp
hair, pinned it back, fed Magoo (still no sign of Horse), grabbed a piece of bread,
stuffed a few work papers into a canvas bag, put on her sandals, and went out to the
truck. It occurred to her as she slammed the door that the chief of police might like to
see some tangible piece of evidence that Isaac existed. She ran back inside to the room
where he’d slept, and picked up a letter written by his mother.

As she backed out the driveway, White Dog
got to her feet. “Yes, I’m going to see about him,” she said.

“Please, madam,” he said,
indicating a chair on the far side of a battered desk. He was drinking tea but
didn’t offer to get her a cup. He had a long, weary face, as though the collective
misdeeds of his fellow men had made his jowls heavy. She felt herself in the presence of
someone who would believe the worst about you and ask questions later.

“What can I do for you?” he
asked, his question obligatory rather than encouraging.

“My gardener is missing.”

“Yes?”

“He’s not the sort of person to
disappear.”

“People can surprise you,” he
said.

“I was away on a trip up north, and he
was minding the house and garden. When I returned, he was gone.”

“Did you find anything
missing?”

“No. And his dog was still there. He
loved that dog. He would never have left her.”

“What makes you so sure,
madam?”

“I know.”

She could see this was insufficient.

“He is a Motswana?”

“A South African.”

“Here illegally?”

“
Ee, rra,
I believe
so.”

“Name?”

“Isaac Muthethe.”

He stopped a moment. She noticed with a
start that he had a glass eye. Between the real eye and the glass eye was a deep worry
line. The glass eye didn’t look in her direction. Floor, wall, anywhere but where
the other eye looked. “And your name?”

She told him.

“Excuse me a moment, madam.” He
went to his filing cabinet and opened a drawer. He brought a manila folder to his desk
and pored over it for a few moments.

“I recall the case now. I am sorry to
say, madam, your gardener was a double agent, working both for the ANC and the South
African Defense Force. I interviewed him myself. He pretended that he did not know what
a double agent was. He is a clever chap.”

“He is an intelligent man,” she
said, “but he is no double agent. He was in medical school in South Africa before
coming to Botswana. He is a good, decent man.”

“Then why was he here?”

“I don’t know. I assumed his
life was in danger back home.”

“So you see?”

“See what?”

“You see that you do not know. When I
asked him how he had entered Botswana, he said he had come by car. When I pressed him
further, he said that he had traveled under a casket. Madam, people do not enter this
country traveling under a corpse.” He laughed, a small, dry laugh that sounded as
though it had been living in a dark closet.

“Where is he?”

“He is not in Botswana.” The
chief’s eye slid away from her. “He is in South Africa. I signed the
deportation order with my own hand.”

“You deported him? You
deported
him?”

“Individuals such as this one, madam,
are a danger to our country. We have no army. We have only our brains and common
sense.”

“What evidence did you
have?”

“One of my officers found him at the
scene of the shooting, one day following, taking money from the floor of the house. He
himself had been living in that ANC house.”

“Where was this house?”

“In Naledi, madam. An officer found
him in this very house in the middle of the night and brought him in. After interviewing
him, I was convinced of his guilt and deported him. He was not at the house when the
shooting occurred. Do you know why? Because he knew it would happen. He saved himself
and let the women and children die.

“I wondered whether you and your
husband were involved. I did some background checks on you and found nothing.”

“At least you checked before accusing
us. But your hasty speculations about Isaac Muthethe couldn’t have been further
from the truth. He wasn’t there because I’d asked him to stay at my house in
the Old Village while I was away.” A flicker of doubt crossed the chief’s
features.

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know, madam. My men
delivered him into the hands of the South African Defense Force.”

“Oh, dear God.” She stood up
abruptly. “What have you done?”

“I did my duty, madam. That is all I
have done. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Do you know the names of the South
Africans who took him away?”

“No, madam.”

“You’ve made a serious
mistake,” she said, her voice shaking with anger.

“No, madam. You don’t
understand. He will be in no danger there. He has a good relationship with the
police.”

“With all due respect,
rra,
you have no idea what you’re talking about. There’s a good chance
you’ve condemned an innocent man to death.”

She picked up her bag and left. Her whole body
trembled with rage. Modimo,
nthusa,
she heard those women’s voices sing,
slow and deep like wind.
Help me, God.
She had never, not since she was eleven
or twelve, believed in a Being of that sort, with fingers in every human pie, but she
wanted Him now.

She put the truck in gear and exploded out
of the parking lot. She drove out of town, yelling, “Bastard!” Her voice
reverberated through the truck cab, puny, impotent. The sky was blue and cloudless, and
its complacency inflamed her further.

She turned right at the road to the dam, not
trusting herself to drive safely, and pulled over to the side. She pictured Isaac
puttering about the garden, his hands cupped around a plant. She saw him drag thorn
bushes around the base of the half-dead tree to protect the crested barbets from the
cats. When she compared Isaac to just about anyone she knew, herself included, he came
out a notch above. Humility in spades, a natural dignity, the sort of person you’d
trust in the hardest times, the sort of human being who ought to be peopling the Earth.
But he was smaller than small now. If he’d been accused of double
dealings … no one likes a liar and a cheat. And where he’d gone, he sure
as hell wouldn’t be innocent until proven guilty. She remembered the day when
he’d killed the black mamba. That quick ferocity. So what if he
had
been
with the ANC. Who could blame him? But she’d bet her two feet he wasn’t a
double agent.

She turned the truck around, sick at heart,
and drove back to her office. Her boss was on the phone when she went to find him. He
indicated a chair. A picture of his three children and his wife, Susan, smiled from a
bookcase on one wall. Susan was grinning bravely, but underneath the smile was something
else. Alice had been to their house a couple of times, a tidy, well-run home, bursting
with kid energy, barely contained. Susan had the look of a woman whose life was
permanently on hold. Alice imagined her catching up with herself around sixty, when
there’d be hell to pay. And C.T., a kindly, nonassertive man, a little over his
head in every sphere, would hardly be equal to it.

He got off the phone and greeted Alice
warmly. “Haven’t seen much of you since you returned. Are you better
now?”

“Yes, thanks for asking.”

“Tick bite fever’s no
joke.”

“No. But I’m sorry I was a few
days late with the position paper.”

“It couldn’t be helped.”
However, his eyes said it could have been helped if she hadn’t gotten it into her
head to run off with that fellow who was still married. “I’ve got a few
changes to suggest,” he said. He dug around in a tower of documents and handed the
paper to her. “But you’ve done an excellent job. Just those few corrections
and we’ll ship it off to the permanent secretary and minister.” Coming from
him, this was high praise.

“C.T., I’m afraid I’ve got
to go home.”

“You’re not well?”

“My gardener has been apprehended and
deported to South Africa. The chief of police seemed to think he was a double
agent.”

“And
is
he?”

“Definitely not.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. But at
this point I’m afraid there’s not much to be done.”

Anger throbbed behind her eyes. A wildness
overtook her. “If this were Susan, would you say there was nothing to be
done?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean
to attack you.”

“I just want to caution you not to do
anything you’ll regret.”

She thought of asking him to quit the
avuncularity. It annoyed her that he seemed to have pegged her as a hotheaded nitwit.
“I’m going to try to locate his family, that’s all. I think they need
to know. I’ve got to go through his papers, see if I can find an
address.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll have those changes done
for you by tomorrow.”

“No worries.”

She greeted White Dog and patted her on the
head. The bed in Isaac’s room was made in rumpled fashion. Under it, in a
cardboard box, were a few clothes, most of which she’d passed on to him from
Lawrence. At the bottom of the box were four letters, three in the same hand, one in
a different hand, all from Pretoria. She opened one of the three. It
was written in Setswana, but she recognized a few words, piecing together the news from
his mother that Isaac had told her earlier: his brothers unable to attend school because
they had no shoes. There was no return address on the envelope, but there was a post
office box address inside, at the top of the letter. Alice opened a second letter, and
the same address appeared inside. She jotted it down, replaced the letter in the
envelope, and put both letters back at the bottom of the box under his clothes.

She wrote to his mother in English,
expecting she’d be able to find a translator. In it, she explained what had
happened and asked where Isaac was likely to have been taken. On her way back to work,
she dropped the letter in a mailbox and prepared herself to wait a couple of weeks for a
reply.

That evening, she drove to Naledi, the air
so hot it knocked the breath out of her. Heat oozed from every blade of grass, from
every parched, shriveled, hapless leaf. She parked and walked into a rabbit warren of
paths. In front of a cardboard house, a young boy pushed a little wire car with tin can
wheels. Goat droppings littered the way. She passed a man going the other way. She
greeted him, and he stood long enough for her to ask directions to the house the South
Africans had targeted.