A Girl Named Disaster (18 page)

A
s the dry season progressed, the grass shriveled and many trees lost their leaves. The lake, which was receding gradually anyhow, experienced another sudden drop. Now there was dry land all the way to the little island, except for the final, deep channel. Nhamo worried that something might be tempted to invade from the large island.

Her bathing pool dried up. Collecting water was hazardous again, and she had to wash hurriedly, with one eye watching for the crocodile. She couldn’t make soap with ashes and fat as Aunt Chipo had done in the village—every morsel of fat went down her throat—but she made a reasonable substitute from the boiled roots of
ruredzo
plants. The vines grew everywhere, their green and silver-white leaves contrasting attractively with rose-pink flowers. The leaves were edible, too, but they left a slimy feel in Nhamo’s mouth. She didn’t eat them unless she was starving.

“It’s so
hot
,” Nhamo sighed, brushing away
mopane
flies as she worked on the boat. “I wish I could sit at the bottom of a nice, cool lake like you,” she told Crocodile Guts.

You have to be dead to do it
, Crocodile Guts reminded her. He was puffing on a pipe made from a long-stemmed calabash with a clay tobacco bowl inserted in the round bulb of the
plant. It was so much like Grandmother’s pipe, Nhamo suddenly felt her throat constrict.

“How do you keep a fire lit underwater?” she asked to keep the lonely-sickness away.

Anything’s possible in the country of the
njuzu, the boatman said enigmatically.

“Don’t you get homesick?”

I won’t be here forever, little Disaster.

“What do you mean?” cried Nhamo.

You know the custom. My brothers have already divided up my things. If Anna was still alive, one of them would have been forced to marry her. I’d have liked to see that argument!
Crocodile Guts laughed so hard he almost fell off his stool.

Nhamo nodded. She remembered the boatman’s wife screaming insults at her husband.

She was a good person. Just a little noisy
, Crocodile Guts said.
Everyone was annoyed when they found the boat missing, by the way.

“How do you know all this?” asked Nhamo.

The
njuzu
told me.

Of course, thought Nhamo. Snakes went everywhere. She saw them rustling through the leaves, watching the affairs of the village from their dark lairs.

Anyhow, my family’s going to have the coming-home ceremony at the end of the dry season. They’ve sent out all the invitations.

“And then?” said Nhamo.

And then I go home.

“But…what about me?”

You’ll be on your way by then.

“What if I’m not?” Nhamo wailed. “You can’t leave me!”

You’ll have to work faster, little Disaster. You haven’t been paying attention. The
njuzu
can give you plenty of advice, but you have to pay attention.
Crocodile Guts knocked the ashes out of his pipe and packed it again with tobacco. An
njuzu
girl picked up a live coal from her cook-fire and carried it to him in her delicate fingers.

The underwater scene rippled and vanished. Nhamo was
alone next to the
mukwa
log. She hurled the scraping stone as hard as she could against a rock.

“How can he go off and leave me! Selfish man! He’s living like a king at the bottom of the lake. He doesn’t care what happens to
me.
All he has to do is let his pipe go out, and one of those creepy snake-girls lights it again!”

The image of the
njuzu
lifting the coal came to her mind. What a strange thing to do. What was it about that coal? Nhamo saw it glowing in her mind as she gazed at the
mukwa
log.

Of course!

Why was she spending so much time chipping away at the wretched boat when she could
burn
a hole into it?

“You’re right. I haven’t been paying attention,” she apologized to Crocodile Guts. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. I’m an ungrateful child and I’m lucky you speak to me at all. I don’t really think you’re creepy,
Va-njuzu
,” she added. “You just take a little getting used to.”

That afternoon, Nhamo sacrificed her best calabash to the water spirits. She had decorated it with black-and-red designs from crushed berries. She filled it with lucky beans to make up for the lack of proper beads, and hurled it far into the lake. She poured
marula
juice into the water for Crocodile Guts because she didn’t have any beer.

In spite of her new weapons, Nhamo’s food supply grew smaller as the dry season struck with full force. Plants she could count on earlier were ravaged by baboons. Her traps were destroyed by jackals, honey badgers, and the caracal—she was certain of its identity now. Not only had she heard it meowing in the dark, but she also saw it make an absolutely stunning leap early one morning. It had spotted a dassie on the cliff. With breathtaking accuracy it sprang straight into the air—twice the height of a person—and plucked the hapless creature off its perch. After that, Nhamo reinforced the thorn-bush barrier around her trees and added a coat of birdlime to the bark.

She still managed to bring down the occasional hare or dassie, but she had to spend a long time hunting them. It took time away from her work on the boat. It was taking
shape more rapidly now that she used burning coals to hollow it out.

One day, as Nhamo watched the baboon troop pass beneath her platform, she realized that they had many more sources of food than she. She had only explored a fraction of the island. Surrounded by an ever vigilant crowd of baboons, she could hardly be safer finding new hunting grounds.

Nhamo climbed down the ladder, hooked it out of harm’s way, and, greeted by only one or two outraged
oo-AA-hoos
, trailed after the creatures. At first the animals moved rapidly—they obviously had a goal in mind. She kept her distance. After a while, the baboons fanned out and began digging earnestly in the soil. They hauled up thick, juicy grass roots, knocked them against their arms to dislodge dirt, and proceeded to feed. The babies clustered around to snatch unguarded morsels. Nhamo dug, too, using a sharpened stick. She stored the roots in a carrying basket.

The animals turned over logs, ripped off bark, plunged their paws down holes (and sometimes withdrew them hurriedly), and picked over cassia trees for pods. Nhamo copied everything, with the exception of sticking her hand down holes. She wasn’t
that
desperate yet. The baboons devoured beetles, grubs, maggots, grasshoppers, mice, and even scorpions. Nhamo shuddered when they nipped off the stingers. One of them uncovered a snake and sent the whole troop into a screaming panic. Nhamo went up the nearest tree, scratching herself badly.

“Stupid animals,” she muttered, climbing down. Still, it was pleasant foraging with company. The baboons appeared to accept her presence. They allowed her to sit almost within arm’s reach.

She collected grasshoppers and grubs, cassia pods, the black fruit of the buffalo thorn, donkeyberries, and sowthistle leaves. In the heat of the day, the troop rested in the shade of a
musasa
grove. The remains of a stream meandered through the rocks, and here and there were small pools of water at which the baboons—and Nhamo—could refresh themselves.

“This was an excellent idea,” Nhamo told Mother. “I have enough food for several days, so I can stay by the boat for a while. The work is going quickly now that I’m using hot coals.”

All at once she felt a tickling sensation on her back. She had tied rabbit skins around her hips to save the precious cloth for her eventual arrival in Zimbabwe, so everything from her waist up was bare. Nhamo felt horribly vulnerable. Something was inching its way across her skin.

Nhamo didn’t scream. She didn’t jump. Months in the wild had taught her the wisdom of sitting perfectly still until she found out what was happening. None of the animals were reacting, so the danger had to be small. It’s probably a scorpion, she thought bitterly. The baboons are probably
envious
of my good luck.

Flicker, flicker.
She felt a pinch, the scrape of a tiny nail. Very slowly, she turned her head. Her heart was pounding.

It was Tag. He looked up briefly and went back to his examination of her skin. He was
grooming
her!

Nhamo’s emotions underwent a rapid change. She was relieved of course, and then pleased that the tiny creature had trusted her. And then—and then—she began to shiver. From some unknown depth, sobs rolled out of her. Tag jumped back, his mouth open in alarm. Nhamo wept until she thought she was wrung dry. All those nights she lay on the platform hugging the grain bag came back to her. What she wanted, what she desperately needed, was
touch.
Now she understood the hours the baboons spent combing one another’s fur. Now she knew why they wore such blissful expressions and why Rumpy would put up with any mistreatment in order to lure someone into grooming his hide.

Donkeyberry and the other animals seemed to recognize her agony. They didn’t move nearer, but neither did they flee. They watched her nervously. Tag was clinging to his mother’s stomach. This wasn’t the reaction he’d expected to get for being friendly.

“I’m sorry, Tag,” Nhamo said, hugging herself tightly. “I like you. I really do.” She made lip-smacking noises, aware
of how ridiculous she must appear. I’m just like Fat Cheeks, she thought. Well, it didn’t matter. No one was going to laugh at her here.

After a while, Tag untangled himself and began a wrestling game with another baby. The troop went back to dozing. Nhamo felt weak with emotion. It’s probably my period coming. I seem to cry more easily then, she thought. In the afternoon she harvested wild cotton plants to use in her pads.

It made sense to work on the boat—but Tag’s offer of friendship had made a deep impression on Nhamo. He was really like a naughty little boy. Perhaps Aunt Shuvai’s baby was toddling by now, getting into mischief, making Masvita laugh. Nhamo didn’t need to forage for a few days, but she found herself following the troop anyhow the next morning. At midday she rested with them, tensely waiting to see if the baby would approach her again.

He did. He picked through the rabbit skins, explored Nhamo’s back, and then scrambled onto her head. She held herself tightly to keep from screaming. Tag found her head enormously entertaining. Her fur wasn’t at all like anything he was used to. He pulled and prodded, chuckling to himself. Then he bounced off and scampered over to Donkeyberry, who was watching the scene anxiously.

“See, I didn’t once try to eat him,” said Nhamo. She felt her head ruefully. Tag was anything but gentle.

She grunted softly, the way the baboons did when they wanted to be friendly. Donkeyberry yawned. Nhamo had learned this meant the old creature was uneasy. “I don’t blame you,” Nhamo told her. “I can imagine Masvita’s reaction if Aunt Shuvai’s baby tried to pull out
your
hair.”

Every day the troop traveled farther. Nhamo discovered hills and valleys she never knew existed. She passed an enormous fallen log that swarmed with bees, but she didn’t dare try to get the honey. Only men did that, and sometimes they got more than they bargained for.

She found a shallow pool filled with water lilies: The bulbs
would make acceptable food when other things ran out. She found a chocolate-berry tree loaded with juicy black fruit. The taste was pleasant enough, but the smell was disgusting. Masvita often said chocolate berries reminded her of bedbugs. Nhamo knew it was foolish to ignore any source of food, though, so she held her nose and ate.

The baboons, she discovered, were not above eating baby birds and mice. Fat Cheeks even killed a hare and snarled at anyone who tried to get a share. She wondered if he had been one of the culprits who had destroyed her traps.

One afternoon the troop didn’t return to the sleeping cliff at all. Nhamo realized with horror that they intended to spend the night in the trees. It was too late for her to return alone. She climbed a tree with the rest and sat there miserably all night, with her legs aching and her body chilled. She jumped every time she heard a noise. In the morning she returned to her platform alone and spent the day in bed with her arms around the grain sack.

You really have to stop following baboons around and work on the boat
, said Mother as Nhamo buried her nose in the comforting bag.

“I know,” Nhamo sighed. “It’s just…it’s so
nice
to have company.”

They’re animals. You belong with people.

“I know.”

You don’t have much time, little Disaster
, said Crocodile Guts.
When the rains start, you’re going to have elephant-sized waves on that lake.

Nhamo covered her head with the dress-cloth.

You can’t play “let’s pretend” now. This isn’t the deserted village
, Mother insisted.

Nhamo saw Crocodile Guts packing a string bag: He put in a pipe, fishing lines, and a reed flute she remembered him playing as he waited for fish to blunder into his net. The
njuzu
girls rose to the surface of the water and looked expectantly to the east, from where the storm clouds would come.

N
hamo grudgingly went back to work on the boat. Now and then she doused the coals and carved away the blackened bits with Uncle Kufa’s knife. The
mukwa
tree was beginning to look like a real boat, or at least like a log with a very large hole in it. Nhamo labored for several days, but one morning the lonely-sickness struck her with such force, her spirit felt like it was being circled by hyenas. “It wouldn’t hurt to gather supplies,” she explained to Mother, to keep from being scolded. She armed herself with the
panga
and spear, and set off after the troop.

This time they went up a hill near the other end of the island. The territory was new, and Nhamo realized she would have to stay with the baboons because she wasn’t sure of the way back. The animals located a rich stand of wild grapes in a dell partway up the hill. They fell on them ravenously. They didn’t seem at ease, though, and she wondered why they had left such a good supply of food untouched before.

Fat Cheeks and the other large males kept looking around. Rumpy dropped his fruit whenever anyone made a sudden movement. Nhamo found their nervousness contagious.

During the noontime rest, everyone sat much closer together than usual. Tag tried to pull off the bag Nhamo wore around her neck, and she had to push him away. He hurled himself to the
ground.
Ik-ik-ik-ik
, he scolded, thrashing around in the dirt. He looked just like a toddler having a temper tantrum. Nhamo refused to look at him, and after a moment Tag scuttled off to play with someone else.

Rumpy went from female to female, trying to get himself groomed. He smacked his lips seductively, but it did him no good. One and all, the females turned their backs. “Some days are like that,” remarked Nhamo.

She immediately regretted speaking aloud. Rumpy noticed her and halted in his tracks. He was trying to put a thought together in his mind, and she had an awful suspicion what it was:
This strange animal has been following us for days. Tag likes it. Tag grooms it, so it must be available to groom someone else.

“Oh, no!” cried Nhamo as the scruffy baboon shuffled toward her, smacking his lips. She turned her back. Rumpy trotted in front of her again.
Oo-er
, he coaxed. “No!” shouted Nhamo. The other baboons flinched, but Rumpy wasn’t discouraged. Everyone shouted at him. He was used to it. “Go away!” Nhamo yelled.

Rumpy fluffed out his fur.
I am a male and it is the duty of all females to obey me
, he seemed to say. Nhamo jumped up and grabbed a rock. The baboon instantly understood.
Oo-AA-hoo
, he barked angrily.

Fat Cheeks, who was lounging nearby, rose to his feet and roared a counter threat:
I am the chief here! No one else is allowed to push people around!
Suddenly, all the baboons were aroused. Their nervousness flared into rage. The males screamed at one another, tore off branches, and slapped the ground. The females gathered up their shrieking young. The whole dell erupted with wild cries.

Nhamo realized she was in danger. She dashed farther up the hill to put distance between her and the excited animals. Soon she couldn’t see them, although she could hear their cries. “I’ll stay away until they stop fighting,” she decided.

The shouts were already dying down, but she didn’t go back yet. She climbed higher. She had spotted an unusual
tree
*
at the top of the hill. It had hand-shaped leaves and purple berries like the ones found on bramble vines. All around, the rocks were stained with purple splotches. The birds clearly fed on the tree, but that didn’t mean the fruit was safe. Birds sometimes ate things that poisoned people. On the other hand, most of the things they ate were perfectly good. Nhamo cautiously tasted a berry: It was delicious.

She stored some in her carrying basket. She would try the new fruit on Rumpy before she ate any more. If he got a bellyache, it was no great loss.

She explored farther and found more of the unusual trees. All around was the silent forest, and she heard no birds. Vervet monkeys slipped through the branches like shadows sliding among the leaves. It was strange that they didn’t make any noise.

At the very top of the hill, Nhamo found a crack in the rock. She followed it around a corner to where it widened to reveal a cave. Sand, which seemed too cool for the hot afternoon, surrounded the entrance. She dug her toes into it.

The mouth of the cave wasn’t large. She knelt down to get a better look. And in the shadows where the sand disappeared into darkness, she saw a heap of skulls.

They were little skulls, belonging to monkeys. They stared out with empty eyes, and all around the ground was littered with tiny bones.

No wonder the monkeys were silent! This was the lair of the caracal!

Nhamo hurried down the hill and sat as close to Donkeyberry as the old creature permitted. She was relieved when the baboons made the long trek back to the sleeping cliff, rather than spending the night in the trees. They seemed as anxious to get away from the cave as she was.

Rumpy pounced on the new fruit. He relished every berry and showed no ill effects. But Nhamo was frightened to go
back to the hill by herself. Nor did the baboons return to gather more grapes. One visit was enough for their nerves.

They soon learned to tear Nhamo’s traps apart. First one, then another discovered the secret, until she couldn’t get to the snares fast enough to salvage any food. The baboons learned about the birdlime, too, and all she found now were a few forlorn feathers. Her garden, never healthy, turned yellow in the heat. She was reduced to eating the pumpkin leaves when every one of the new vegetables was devoured by beetles. Here and there she managed to salvage a tomato, a handful of okra, a stunted yam. It wasn’t enough.

She made a bow and arrows, but hardly ever hit her targets. She spent hours lurking by the dassie dens only to have them scale an almost vertical rock to escape. The dassies knew she was their enemy. They evaporated almost before she could see them.

As the food supplies disappeared, Nhamo felt a strange nervousness descend on the island. The baboons muttered more at night. The antelope were more wary, the birds readier to take flight. Nothing, she had to admit, had gone right since the day she looked into that bone-filled cave.

Most distressing, Rumpy had decided she was another member of the troop—a less important member. He began to play the kick-someone-off-a-rock game with her. He stared at her aggressively, slapped the ground, and swaggered over with his fur puffed out. Nhamo hurriedly moved away. With great satisfaction, Rumpy sat down in the place she had vacated. This was the first time he’d been able to bully anyone. He loved it!

He followed her around, demanding that she share her food. She retreated to the platform to eat. He sat below, watching intently. “I ought to throw this spear at you,” she yelled at him. “I ought to chase you with a
panga
!” But actually, she was afraid. Rumpy might be a miserable specimen compared to the other males, but he was still a large animal with lethal-looking fangs. She didn’t know how far she could push him.

Nhamo foraged by herself these days, and she scurried
back to her trees before the troop returned. Rumpy made her too nervous to enjoy sitting with the baboons anymore. Hunting for food took most of her time now. She peeled the roots of wild geraniums and baked them in hot coals. They were so tough, it was like gnawing on a tree. She cooked their bitter leaves as a vegetable. She boiled cassia pods to make a thin, unsatisfying soup, and roasted spongy, tasteless water-lily bulbs.

All this filled her stomach, but it wasn’t nourishing. Nhamo began to get dizzy when she stood up. She had to rest frequently on her foraging expeditions, and she realized that she was slowly starving. The sky remained a hot, dry blue with not a single cloud in it.

Nhamo sat by the
mukwa
log, too dispirited to work. It was hollowed out well enough, but the exterior still looked like a lumpy tree. Crocodile Guts’s boat had been shaped to move smoothly in the water. The sides were braced to keep from warping. Altogether, his craft was a work of great skill, and Nhamo despaired of equaling it. She couldn’t even roll the log over, much less drag it to the water—which receded farther from the work site every day.

Besides, she was bone-tired. The smoke from the fire she used to make coals made her head swim. She rested her cheek on the log and closed her eyes out of sheer exhaustion. Gradually, she became aware that things were awfully quiet. Not even the go-away birds
*
called in the heat. The air was breathless and still. The forest had that eerie quality she had noticed near the caracal’s cave. Nhamo sat up quickly, in spite of her fatigue.

For two nights the baboons had chosen to nest in another part of the island. She listened for their distant shouts: There was nothing. Nhamo picked up the
panga.
I’ll get some water quickly and go back to the platform, she thought. Watching the harsh shadows under the trees, she edged toward the lake.
If anything, the bright light stabbing through the leaves made things more confusing. She stopped several times when she couldn’t immediately identify something. She knelt by the reeds and cautiously filled the calabash.

On a rock set back from the water was a large shape. The rock was flat, almost like a platform, and was overhung by a large fig with roots snaking down on either side. Her heart thudding heavily, Nhamo shaded her eyes. The shape began to look familiar. It was…a
kudu.

A kudu didn’t lie so quietly on its side unless it was dead.

She could tell it was a male by the huge, spiral horns. Its reddish brown back, marked by pale stripes, lay toward her, and one of the large, cuplike ears was silhouetted against the pale trunk of the fig. Nhamo clapped loudly. The kudu didn’t move. If it was alive, it would have sprung to its feet.

It might have starved or died of old age. Or it might have eaten something poisonous. One thing was clear: It wouldn’t stay on that rock long if the jackals and vultures discovered it.

Nhamo carefully made her way to the animal, looking around for possible rivals. She saw a trickle of blood glistening on the stone. It was still damp. She halted.

This antelope had just died—and not from starvation. Nhamo raised herself on tiptoe, craning her neck to see what was on the other side of the rock. Whatever had slain the kudu wasn’t visible, but it—or they, since it must have been jackals—had to be nearby. No predators would abandon such a rich feast.

Nhamo lifted the
panga
and inched forward. The thought of all that meat made her reckless. She could snatch a morsel away from jackals. They were probably sleeping off their first meal nearby. She could see that the intestines and forelegs had been devoured. The hind legs were untouched.

The neck of the antelope was scored with teeth marks: It had been strangled. Jackals didn’t do that. They weren’t strong enough. They disemboweled their prey, devouring it while it was still alive.

Strangling was a technique used by caracals—but no caracal
could have brought down such a large animal. A kudu stood taller than Nhamo and weighed ten times as much.

Only a lion or a leopard could have done it.

Nhamo was positive her island contained no lions. Their roars were too obvious. That left only leopards.
A leopard
, she thought.
How could I have overlooked it?
But she knew: When she had discovered the caracal’s footprints, she had seized on that to explain Rumpy’s injury. She had assumed it lived in the cave at the other end of the island. But why would an obviously starving baboon troop avoid a hill covered with wild grapes? Not because of a creature smaller than themselves.

How could I have been so stupid?

Nhamo’s spirit threatened to abandon her. She felt like an antelope circled by hyenas. Sometimes an animal simply gave up and let itself be devoured. I am Nhamo Jongwe, a woman, not a little girl, she told herself. My totem is the lion. Lions are stronger than leopards. It wasn’t much consolation, but it was enough to keep her spirit from entirely fleeing her. Keep thinking, she ordered her body.

Leopards carried their prey into trees, but the kudu was too large to lift. The big cat had eaten as much as it could manage and had withdrawn to rest. It wouldn’t go far. For the moment, though, it was sated and perhaps even asleep.

Nhamo had gone beyond terror to a state that was almost a dream. She couldn’t possibly run fast enough. She hadn’t a hope of fighting off a leopard with a child’s training spear. There was nothing she could do to protect herself, and so she did the only sensible thing left and began to cut off a big, meaty hind leg from the kudu.

It was too heavy for her to lift. She dragged it back to her trees and set about butchering it. She cut off long, thin strips of meat and laid them on her smoking-platform. Methodically, still in a dream, Nhamo built up a fire beneath. The trick was to bathe the meat in smoke without actually roasting it. Smoking preserved meat far longer than cooking did. She roasted some of the kudu, though, for immediate use. The
rich food filled her with elation, but she was too shaken by the presence of the leopard to make up a victory poem.

In late afternoon, shouts in the forest told Nhamo the baboon troop was on its way to the cliff. Smoke-curing the meat would take at least two days, and she didn’t dare leave it exposed. She would have to do the operation in stages. She hauled the meat into the trees and laid it out. The wind was so hot and dry, it would hasten the process of curing on its own.

The baboons drifted past below, and sniffed as closely as they dared to the fire. Rumpy bared his fangs at the smoking-platform and then looked up at Nhamo, who was watching from her shelter. She had the unpleasant suspicion that he knew exactly where the meat had gone.