Chanda's Wars (21 page)

A
T DAWN
, I
collect Iris. She's curled up, deep asleep. Her arms wrap around my neck as I lift her up and carry her inside to her mat. I tuck her sheet around her, smooth the kerchief over her shaved head, and tiptoe to the counter to make breakfast. All the while, Soly follows me like my shadow. As I cut the maize bread, I feel his fingers on the back of my dress. His touch is cautious, like he's making sure I'm really here. I glance down. He runs to his room.

Esther arrives with Sammy and Magda for breakfast. They eat in the yard while I scatter feed for the chickens and check their nests for stray eggs. Then Sammy and Magda go to school and Esther bikes to the Welcome Center. I go back inside, intending to lie down in my room.

I don't get past the doorway. Iris's crumpled pictures stare at me from the shadows in the corner. It's like they're
calling to me:
We've waited here all night, waited for you to pick us up. To look at us. Now you're alone. What are you going to do?

I'm afraid. Soly just scribbles colors; Iris draws images. I've seen enough. I don't want to know any more. I want to rip the pictures up. To throw them away. But I can't. The children's lives are on those pages. I need to be in the drawings with them.

The air around me disappears. Nothing exists but that ball of paper. I bring it to the table and separate the sheets, slowly, slowly, chanting the alphabet as I smooth each one flat in front of me.

From the corner of my eye, I catch Soly and Iris in the doorway. They stare at me, shy, defiant, and awkward, all at once.

“I'd like to tape these up in my room,” I say.

Iris frowns. “Why?”

“I want to understand.”

A pause. “Do what you want,” she says, and closes their curtain.

 

In the afternoon I fix up the garden, clean around the outhouse, and have Mrs. Tafa watch the yard while I get a sack
of chicken seed at the feed lot. When I return, I go to my room to lie down. There's a dozen new drawings on my mat.

 

After the sun's gone down, Esther and I put the kids to bed and talk outside in the low glow of the firepit. Around midnight, she nudges my toe and nods toward the overturned wheelbarrow. Soly and Iris are peeking out from behind it.

“I know you're hiding.” I wave them over.

Iris approaches warily, then plunks herself down between us. When Soly sees everything's all right, he comes and snuggles beside me. We sit in silence. After a while, I realize Soly and Iris aren't staring at the logs. They're staring at Esther. The flickering light plays tricks across the scars on her face, the shadows turning the thin lines into a map of gullies and riverbeds. I remember back to before Tiro, way back to the night she showed up at our door, raped, her head swollen, the cuts and stitching fresh with pain.

“What are you looking at?” Esther asks.

“Your scars,” Iris says simply. “Do they hurt?”

Esther's eyes stay fixed on the firepit. “Depends what you mean by hurt. I don't feel them anymore. Except when
I laugh. Then there's a little pull, and a tingle at the bottom of my lip.”

Iris thinks for a longtime. “Esther…”

“Yes?”

“Esther…do you mind being ugly?”

Esther grips her knees. “Sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes I see myself in a mirror, and I wish I was dead.”

Iris nods gravely.

“But that's only
some
times,” she adds. “Other times, I think these scars are part of me. They're part of my life.” She hesitates. “Do they bother you?”

“No,” Soly shakes his head. “You're Esther.”

“Good.” Her eyes mist over. She brushes them with her wrist. I put my hand on her shoulder. “It's just the smoke,” she says.

There's a pause, then Iris whispers: “You're brave. Soly and me, people talk about us too. Yesterday when we went back to school, Ezekiel Sibanda whispered about our bush brands. He said everyone knew we had them. He said we're animals. The General's animals.”

“It hurts, doesn't it?” Esther says. “The talk.”

Iris and Soly bite their lips.

Esther's voice goes low. “When people say bad things,
I remember the night I got cut up. I was so ashamed. Now I think, My scars are a badge. They prove I can survive anything.”

There's a crackle from the firepit, but none of us move. Esther takes Soly and Iris by the hand. “Here,” she says. She runs their fingers gently over the crevice that runs from her forehead, across her eyebrow, cheek, and nose, over her lips and chin, and onto her throat. There's a silence as holy as the moon.

Soly and Iris look at Esther and me. “Would you touch our bush brands?”

Esther and I kiss our fingers and gently touch our kisses to the hurting place. The children's eyes well up, but they don't cry. They cup their hands over ours and press them tight.

“Thank you,” Iris whispers. “Thank you.”

N
EXT MORNING, AN
ambulance brings Mr. Lesole home from the hospital. Mrs. Tafa's finishing her grand tour when it arrives at his door. She scurries up the road into our yard, dabbing her forehead with her hankie. Esther and I rush to get her a chair and a glass of water. The children hide behind us.

“How's Mr. Lesole?” I ask.

“Who knows?” Mrs. Tafa pants. “His wife bundled him inside with his safari jacket over his head.”

“It was like that after the attack,” Esther says. “They brought him into the house covered up in a bloody coat.”

I can't believe my ears. “You mean no one's seen him since he got hurt? Not once?”

“How?” Esther demands. “At first there were the guards. Then after they left, he kept inside. We figured he wanted to be alone.”

Mrs. Tafa plants the tip of her parasol on a paving stone and rests her chins on its handle. “Mr. Lesole was a proud man,” she says. “Now his tongue's cut out. His head's deformed. He can't talk. He can't swallow right. No wonder he wants to hide.”

“Nobody
wants
to hide,” I say. “I'll bet he's just scared of what people will say. Like Mama. Like us. Well Mr. Lesole isn't a secret. He's a friend. Esther, Mrs. Tafa: You of all people should understand.” I kneel by Soly and Iris. “The two of you need to see Mr. Lesole. So do I.” Their eyes fill with terror. “If you get scared,” I say calmly, “just chant the alphabet. It's how I got you home.”

 

We walk alone, the three of us, hand in hand. As we go down the road, the yards go quiet. People pretend to hang laundry, rake the ground by their doors, or darn socks, but the moment we pass they turn and stare. This time, Soly and Iris don't care. Their eyes are glued to the Lesoles' front door. The closer it gets, the more they squeeze my fingers. I squeeze back.

We enter the Lesoles' yard, pass by the hammock, and stand on the threshold. I knock. Silence. The shutters are half-closed. I think someone's watching us from the inside, but I can't tell. I knock again.

Soly tugs my hand. “Maybe we should go.”

I'm thinking he's right, when the door opens. Mrs. Lesole stares through the crack. “So you're back,” she says.

“Yes.”

She glances at Soly and Iris. “We heard these two were in the bush.”

“Yes.”

An awkward pause. Soly wriggles a toe in the dirt. Iris twists around and looks up at the sky as if she isn't here.

“Mrs. Lesole, we've come to wish your husband a good recovery. The children want to know he's all right.”

“Do they.” Her breath catches. “Well he's not all right. He'll never be
all right
.”

“We're sorry.”

“I'll tell him you said so.” She grips the door frame. “A few days later, it could have been them that did it.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But it wasn't.”

She wipes her eyes. “He was a beautiful man, my husband. I'll tell him you called.” She shuts the door in our face.

“What do we do?” Iris says.

“I guess we go home.”

We start to make our way across the yard. As we pass the hammock, Soly strokes Mr. Lesole's pillow.

Then, behind us, a strange sound. We turn around. Mr. Lesole is standing at his front door, in pajamas, slippers, and nightgown. He hides his face behind a park map. We look at each other. He lowers the map slowly. His neck and face are swollen huge. There's bandages over his head and around his mouth and jaw. He motions the children to come to him. They take a few steps and freeze.

Mr. Lesole hesitates. Then he bends over and starts to lumber around the yard like an elephant, his arm-trunk swinging freely. He lifts his hands to his ears. It's Elephant Charge. Soly's favorite. I smile, as he rocks from side to side, kicking the earth behind him. He raises his arm to trumpet. Instead, a mangled cry rips out of his throat.

The children's eyes fill. Mr. Lesole charges. The children know to stay still, but they can't. They turn and run. He catches up, scoops Iris under one arm and Soly under the other. Then he settles onto his knees and hugs them fiercely.

“Mr. Lesole, Mr. Lesole,” they say.

He kisses the tops of their heads through his bandages.

“Why aren't I dead?” Soly whispers. “I should be dead.”

“Me too,” Iris cries.

Mr. Lesole shakes his head, no no no. They hold him tight. They weep into his chest. He weeps too.

E
VERY DAY WE
spend a little time with Mr. Lesole. His love for Iris and Soly has softened Mrs. Lesole. It protects the children from the whispers, too.

The three of us are finally back at school. Iris has the occasional rage, but she's still in my class, and Soly's across the hall, so I get to work and keep an eye on them at the same time. At home, they continue to draw. Mostly the images are terrors from the bush, but every so often there's a surprise. They're with the chickens. Or helping me carry water from the standpipe. Simple things.

This evening they color together quietly. When they're finished, they call me over. They've made a picture of the family. Iris is the biggest, of course. She's smack at the center, standing on my head. I've got Soly by the hand.

Iris points at a bright triangle holding a box to its ear.
“That's Auntie Rose,” she says. “And that's Esther. And Mr. Lesole. And Mrs. Lesole.”

“It's beautiful,” I gasp. “Especially the gold stars around everybody.”

“They're for Granny and everybody up in Tiro,” Soly volunteers.

“The ancestors, too,” Iris corrects. She hesitates, then points to the top of the page. There's a stork flying next to a crow with a clumpy foot. The tips of their wings are touching. “The birds, the birds are…” She stops.

“I know,” I whisper. “I know.”

A family picture isn't the end of our troubles. Mandiki is in their heads and always will be. But at times like this, I know that something else is in there too. I feel myself start to breathe. To dream of a time, sometime, when they'll be well.

 

We're at the Lesoles' one Saturday afternoon, when Mrs. Tafa runs up twirling her parasol. She calls me aside. “There's a young man got off the truck from Tiro,” she says, eyebrows arching off her forehead. “Name of Nelson Malunga. I put him in your front yard.” She winks. “You never told me he was so well developed, if
you know what I mean. If he wants to stay over, he stays with me and the Mister. You don't want stories getting round.”

Nelson's slumped on the wheelbarrow. When he sees me, he gives me a hug. Mrs. Tafa's watching from over the cactus hedge. I bring Nelson to the swings in the empty sandlot. We rock on the wood seats, scuffling the grooves in the dirt under our feet. I can tell there's lots on his mind, but he doesn't know how to say it.

“Your granny says to say hello,” he begins. “Your aunties and uncles too. They've sent some things, uh, some dried beef, some preserves. They're in my bag at the house in the shade.” He clears his throat. “My sisters-in-law…My sisters-in-law, they've gone. They're back with their people. One of them's getting remarried. Maybe the other one, too.” He breathes heavy. “Cattle are fine. Your uncles, they help. They've been a big help. They've…they're why I could get away.”

He gets up and circles the swings in silence, kicking at the odd stone. “It's a nice place you got. Nice place. Nice neighbor lady. She the one who phoned that night?”

“Yes.”

A smile flickers on his lips. “Nice lady. Bit strange
though. Told me to comb my hair. Tried to wipe a smudge off my cheek with a dab of spit on her hankie.”

“That's Mrs. Tafa—‘Auntie Rose,'” I laugh.

“Yeah. Well. She's okay.” The smile vanishes. He sits back on the swing.

Silence.

“And…?” I say. I'm afraid to say more.

“And, yeah, well, that's the other thing.” He sucks a breath. “That's, well, it's hard. It's hard.” He gets up and walks so his back's to me. “He was just a little fellow. He never meant any harm. He was just so, just so…”

“Nelson?” I get up. He puts up a hand. I stop.

“He was never really quite right. Not after Papa and my brothers. That time in the bush…I don't know how he held up like he did. Back home was another story. He started to fight. He'd fall on the ground and scream. Folks in town, they said he had the bush in him. It wasn't true. I took him to the post. There was no one to call him names there. It was just us and the cows and the herd boys. You knew that the herd boys got saved? All but two of them. It was a miracle. It was—”

I can't hold back anymore. “Nelson. Tell me. Is Pako okay?”

“I hope so…I like to think so.”

“What do you mean?”

He looks up at the sky. “I thought he was tending the cattle. When they came back to the pen at night without him, I didn't think much of it. I was used to him taking off. Next morning, I headed after him. Same path as always. I got to the waterhole before sundown. His blanket was in the hollow log. I figured he was hiding. I called to him like I always did and waited. Nothing. I went to wash up at the waterhole. That's when I saw it. His bandanna, floating on the surface. He'd filled his pockets with stones, walked into the water, and drowned himself.” Nelson pauses. “He liked it there,” he says softly. “It was his special place. It was where he felt safe. I hope he's at peace.”

We sit very still.

“I can't go back,” he says. “I have nowhere to go.”

I take his hand. “You have here.”