Chanda's Wars (3 page)

M
OMENTS LATER
, I'
M
shaken awake into a real-life nightmare. Esther says I screamed in my sleep again. Only this time when the children went to get her, their cries roused the Tafas, who thought we had robbers. Mr. Tafa ran over with his shotgun, followed by Mrs. Tafa in her nightie, wielding a fry pan. She's wormed my dream out of me. So now, while Esther comforts Soly and Iris in their bedroom, I'm stuck at the table in the main room getting preached at.

“Your ancestors have sent you a dream,” Mrs. Tafa exclaims, drumming her stubby fingers on the wood boards. “If you don't get to Tiro, something terrible's going to happen. The warning is plain as the nose on your face.”

Mr. Tafa yawns loudly. He leans against the front door, his shotgun propped beside him, waiting to escort Mrs. Tafa back home. I wish she'd take the hint. Instead, she
wrestles her left foot onto her lap, takes off her slipper, and squints at the callus on her bunion. “Let's go over that dream again: You have to get to Tiro. You don't make it. What happens? Disaster! How simple can a dream get?”

I think of Mr. Selalame. “Dreams don't tell the future.”

“That's what they teach you at school,” she snorts, “but we know different, don't we?” She picks at the pad of dry skin. “According to Esther, this waking-up-screaming has turned itself into a habit. Well, I'm here to tell you, it won't stop. Not till you get yourself to Tiro.”

“I'm never going to Tiro again,” I say. “Not after what they did to Mama.”

“They never meant for things to end like that.”

“I don't care.”

Mrs. Tafa looks up from her work. Her eyes are gentle. “Chanda, it's nobody's fault your mama passed. Not your granny's. Not your Auntie Lizbet's. Not your other aunties, nor uncles, nor your older sister Lily. Your mama had that thing. Nothing could change that.”

“They abandoned her in the bush.”

“They didn't know any better. They're from Tiro, for heaven's sake, not Bonang.” She grunts. “You wouldn't happen to have a peeling knife, would you?”

I fetch it from the rack by the sink, along with a small
dish for her scrapings. What with her eyesight, in two minutes her toe will be raw, and I'll be looking for a rag to staunch the bleeding.

“Thank you kindly.” She takes the knife and whittles away like she's peeling a sweet potato. Her concentration is frightening. “It was bad enough, you didn't call the family about your mama's funeral. I offered you my phone.”

“And I used it.”

“Not till the night of the laying over when it was too late for them to get here. You didn't even call ahead to your granny and grampa. Your mama's own parents.”

“They wouldn't have come anyway.”

“You don't know that.”

“And what if they
had
?” I snap. “What would they have said? That Mama died the way she lived? Cursed? Mama deserved a little peace at the end. Respect. Love.”

Iris is peering in from the bedroom.

“What are you doing up? I thought Esther had you back in bed.”

“I'm sorry, Chanda,” Esther calls out. “I'm helping Soly.”

“His diaper fell off,” Iris announces.

“It's not a diaper,” comes Soly's voice. “It's a feed sack with leg holes.”

Poor Soly. I used to wrap him in a towel, secured by a
little plastic grocery bag. We switched the little grocery bag to a green plastic feed sack, cut to size and fitted with a drawstring, so he'd feel more grown-up. But Iris is no fool.

“I don't care what you call it,” she yells, “it's still a diaper. And you peed all over.”

“You didn't have to tell!” Soly cries.

“Why not?” Iris mocks. “You're a pee factory. And you're five! Five! I only wore a diaper till I was two. Wait'll your friends find out.”

Soly wails.

“I mean it. I'm telling the world!”

“Don't you dare,” I say. “Soly's problem is just between us. Now go back to bed.”

“How can I? Our mat's all wet.”

Esther appears behind her: “I've put down a new one.”

Iris flounces back into the bedroom.

“Good night, Iris,” I say. Iris doesn't answer. Esther winks. Now it's Soly's turn for attention. He waddles past Esther and up beside me, the towel around his waist, the feed sack tripping up his ankles.

“Yes?” I sigh.

“I just peed a little,” he says.

“We'll talk about it tomorrow.”

“Yes, but Chanda…” His eyes are big. “Are you going to Tiro? Are you leaving us?”

“No.”

“Then what's going to happen?”

“Nothing. Everything'll be fine.”

“That's what Mama said.”

“Soly, go to bed.”

“Come on,” Esther says. “I'll tell you and Iris a story.” She maneuvers him back into the bedroom.

I give Mrs. Tafa a tight smile. “Thanks for your prophecy.”

She ignores my sarcasm. “By any chance do you have a rag? My bunion's raw. There's something the matter with that knife of yours.”

I throw her a strip of cloth. She wraps her toe in silence and wriggles her foot back into her slipper. Then she looks me straight in the eye, her voice quiet, but firm: “No good ever came of a feud. No matter what your family did, or didn't do, they're still your family, and they're the only family you have. For years, I tried to tell your mama that, but she wouldn't listen. Well you listen now. Stop being selfish. Soly and Iris deserve a granny and grampa. Go to Tiro. Make peace for the children, if not for yourself.”

“I appreciate the advice, Auntie Rose,” I say. “Now,
please, it's three in the morning. In no time the sun'll be up, there'll be chores, and a day of teaching. I have to sleep.”

“I'm telling you, there'll be no sleeping till you make things right with your people.” She taps her nose. “Get to Tiro. Make peace. Otherwise, dear god, something terrible will happen to the children. If you don't believe me, ask Mrs. Gulubane.”

I'm still uneasy about the dream part. But Mrs. Gulubane? I roll my eyes.

“Go ahead, laugh, you and your education!” Mrs. Tafa hisses. “Eight years ago, Mrs. Mpho couldn't have children. Mrs. Gulubane rubbed her belly with a potion and she's been making babies ever since. Then there's Mr. Lesole. She gave him a little bag of magic powder. For six years, it's saved his safari camp from General Mandiki and the rebels of Ngala. He'd be dead if it weren't for her. Chopped into bits with machetes! Everyone near the park too!”

“Auntie Rose, I don't mean to make fun of the spirit doctor. But the war is in Ngala. General Mandiki and his rebels have never crossed our border. Not once.”

“What did I tell you? Mrs. Gulubane's magic is so powerful it even works on devils!”

Mr. Tafa's asleep, propped against the door frame. At
the mention of the word “devils,” he tumbles over. His shotgun clatters on the cement. The sound of it startles him awake. “What? What?” He blinks, grabs the rifle, and jumps to his feet.

“It's nothing,” I say. “We were just talking about the rebels in Ngala.”

“Oh, them,” Mr. Tafa yawns.

“They must have popped into your dream when you heard us talking.”

Mr. Tafa stretches. “As long as General Mandiki stays on his side of the border, his rebels are no business of mine.”

Mrs. Tafa smacks him on the shoulder. “It's time I got you home to bed, Leo.”

Before she can smack him again, Mr. Tafa mumbles, “G'night.” He stumbles out the front door ahead of her.

Mrs. Tafa turns in the doorway. “Make no mistake, Chanda,” she mutters darkly. “Your dream is a warning from the ancestors. Take heed while you can.”

I
N NO TIME
it's Saturday morning.

I load up the wheelbarrow with pails and go to pump water at the standpipe. Normally Esther would help, but she's taking Sammy and Magda to see their Uncle Kagiso. He's in from the country for the day, staying with their Auntie and Uncle Poloko. The Polokos can't stand Esther—they say the scars from her rape are the wages of sin—but they can't keep her away from her Uncle Kagiso when she's with the little ones.

At the standpipe, I get in line behind Mrs. Lesole. She's wearing a flowered cotton-print dress, a polka-dot bandanna, and orange flip-flops; there's three buckets at her feet, one for each hand and one for her head. “I hope the noise from our street dance didn't keep you awake last night,” Mrs. Lesole says.

“I couldn't sleep anyway.”

“My man's back to the safari camp tomorrow,” she sighs good-naturedly. “There'll be more feasting tonight. Come. Bring Soly and Iris. He loves to play with them.”

“I know,” I smile. Since Mama passed, Mr. Lesole's been incredibly kind. Mrs. Tafa steams with jealousy when the kids talk about his games and adventures. “That man has quite the mouth on him, doesn't he?” she sniffs. “If he's so important, what's he doing in Bonang?” Look who's talking.

As it happens, Mr. Lesole's outfit, the Kenje River Safari Camp, is the most important tourist camp in Mfuala National Park. And Mfuala National Park is the most important tourist destination in the country—ten thousand square miles of dense bush, forest, and floodplain that starts forty miles north of Tiro and ends at the Mfuala mountain range that separates us from Ngala. “There's an even bigger park on the Ngala side of the mountains,” Mr. Lesole likes to brag, “but nobody goes there because ours is better.” The truth is, the Ngala park is where General Mandiki and his rebels hide out; anyone who goes there gets killed.

Mr. Lesole's camp is a private reserve on an oxbow in
the Mfuala foothills, near the border. There are no roads in. Tourists arrive on small planes and stay in fancy tents, with hardwood floors, maid service, and flush toilets, that cost more per night than most of us earn in a year. Each morning, Mr. Lesole leads them on bush walks, rifle at the ready in case they run into trouble with the animals. At dusk, he and a driver take them out in 4x4s.

“The night drives, that's when we see the kills,” he'll whisper to the kids in a spooky voice. “I'm strapped in a seat on the hood of the jeep, my rifle under one arm. With my free hand, I scan the bush with a spotlight. I've seen lions take down impala, a leopard attack a bush buck, and a pack of hyenas tear into a Cape buffalo that got stuck in the mud during rainy season.”

I love to listen to Mr. Lesole. Closing my eyes, I see mama baboons loping through clearings, with babies clinging to their bellies. Hippo pods sunning on the banks of a lazy oxbow. Vervet monkeys skipping up fever trees. Zebra grazing in wooded brush. Roan antelope dashing through thickets.

I wish I could see it in real life. Apart from bush rats, lizards, and a few warthogs, the game outside the parks was hunted out before I was little. Sometimes a bachelor
elephant will roam beyond the park boundaries, but they disappear fast. Farmers burn old tires to keep them away, or poachers shoot them for their ivory tusks.

Mr. Lesole hates poachers. He reports every one he discovers. “Our animals are a natural resource,” he'll say, “same as oil, copper, and diamonds. The tourist money they bring in helps keep our country alive.”

Mrs. Tafa couldn't care less. When Soly and Iris mentioned Mr. Lesole's fights with the poachers, she went berserk: “Those damn beasts,” she barked. “I'm glad they're gone. When I was a girl in the country, elephants ruined our farms. They killed the trees, ate the bushes, and trampled the crops. If rich tourists want to spend their money to go to some park and take pictures, fine. But spare me tears about the hunt. Who wants lions attacking their cattle, or hyenas picking off their children? Heavens, what's bush meat for, if not feeding the hungry? They don't put leopards in jail for hunting. Why should animals have more rights than we do?”

How can I argue with that? I wasn't alive in the old days. I can't imagine what I'd do if wildlife took my food and threatened my family. But when I see the animals on the back of Mr. Lesole's park map and hear his stories, I thrill
with pride. Elephants, lions, giraffes and hippos—they're part of what makes this place special. Blessed.

 

When I get back from the standpipe, I tell the kids that Mrs. Lesole gave them a personal invitation to today's party. Their eyes sparkle, then Soly gets concerned. “Can we go early? Once the grownups show up, Mr. Lesole won't be able to play.”

We head to the Lesoles' midafternoon. Halfway, we smell the goat stew simmering over the firepit. Soly and Iris break into a run. “Mr. Lesole! Mrs. Lesole!”

Mrs. Lesole sits by the pot, wiping her forehead. Mr. Lesole is flopped in the hammock slung from his tree. He's poured into a ratty khaki outfit, fanning himself with the old Tilley hat he retrieved from his camp's lost-and-found box. His cheeks and chin are dotted with stray hairs; he doesn't have much to shave, so when he's on break he doesn't shave at all. If I was Mrs. Lesole, it'd drive me crazy.

At the sound of the kids, Mrs. Lesole waves greetings with her stir stick. Mr. Lesole leaps out of his hammock and pretends to hide behind the tree. The kids drag him out, crying, “Let's play Don't Die! Can we? Can we? Please?” Don't Die is a series of games Mr. Lesole invented to teach
them how to survive in the bush. Naturally, he's up for it.

They start with Soly's favorite: Elephant Charge. Mr. Lesole lumbers around like an elephant, his arm-trunk twisting imaginary leaves to his mouth. When he goes near Iris, she freezes like she's supposed to, then backs off slowly as if she's moving downwind. Not Soly. He loses concentration and fidgets. Mr. Lesole rears back and touches his fingertips to his temples, making big imaginary ears with the spaces between his elbows and his head. He shakes his head so hard you can almost hear the big gray ears slapping. He rocks, swings a foot to and fro, stomps the earth, kicks it behind him. Then he raises his arm-trunk, trumpets, lowers his head, and charges. It's too late for Soly to freeze, but he holds his ground, yelling and clapping. Mr. Lesole stops in front of his nose. A terrible pause. He moves off. Soly beats his chest and yodels.

“Well done, you two,” says Mr. Lesole.

“Elephants can't talk,” Iris reminds him tartly.

Once, I asked if charges could always be stopped. “They're usually for show,” Mr. Lesole said. “Whatever you do, don't run. If you run, you're jam.”

“Yes, but what if the charge is real?”

He grimaced. “If the ellie's angry—ears flat back, trunk
tucked under its chin—you're in trouble. They can run twenty-four miles an hour. You can't. They can barrel through thornbush that'd skin you alive. If you climb a tree, they'll knock it down. Your only hope is to get downwind. But chances are, you'll be dead first.”

I'm glad he didn't tell that to the kids; Soly'd be wetting his mat forever.

Mr. Lesole recuperates by stretching his lower back, while Soly and Iris prepare for the next adventure: Hyena Hideaway. Shouts of “We're ready” fill the air. It's time for Mr. Lesole to be a hyena and catch them sleeping outside their protective enclosure of thorny acacia boughs—here, made of chairs and benches. After Hyena Hideaway, there's Hippo Highway, Crocodile River, and dozens of other life-and-death thrills. Mr. Lesole would make a great teacher. A great papa, too, if he wasn't away so much.

When the games are over, Mr. Lesole flops back into his hammock. Iris and Soly pile on top, bounce on his belly, and pull his chin hairs till he tells them about his recent adventures. “Last month, there was this tough-guy tourist wanted a morning swim. We warned him the river was full of crocodiles. He didn't listen. Snuck off when we weren't looking. All we found were his sandals, a pair of sunglasses, and a beer can.”

The kids squeal, and I send them off to help Mrs. Lesole prepare for the feast. Before joining them, I decide to have some fun. “So,” I say, easy as a frog on a lily pad, “I hear-tell Mrs. Gulubane gave you a little bag of magic.”

Mr. Lesole falls out of his hammock. “You heard what?”

“A bag of magic.” I bug my eyes. “To protect you from the rebels of Ngala.”

He gets up, brushing the dirt off his pants. “Says who?”

I look up at the sky and hum.

“It was Rose Tafa, wasn't it? That woman's mouth is bigger than her backside!”

“Can I see the bag?”

“I lost it on a night drive.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Fine by me.”

I smile. “What's in it?”

His eyes dart around the yard. “Nothing to laugh about, that's for sure.”

The way he says it, I get a chill. “I'm not laughing. Show me.”

“This goes no further?”

“I promise.”

Mr. Lesole fidgets inside the collar of his shirt and pulls out the magic pouch, hanging by a cord around his neck. I
peek inside. “There's hedgehog and porcupine quills,” he says furtively, “the dried wing of a nightjar, a talon from some bird of prey, and a handful of roots and bark chips I couldn't make out by the torch light. She ground them up in a skull with a pestle of bone. On my life, I won't repeat the spell she chanted, or tell you what she did in her trance. If you say any of this, I'll deny it.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“I've never gone near magic before,” he continues, “but this Ngala business is different. Things have been fine, our side of the mountains. We act like they always will be, to keep the tourists coming. But we're whistling past the graveyard. Who knows what Mandiki will do next? Even
he
doesn't. They say he worships the skull of a dead spirit doctor. Carries it around in an ebony box wrapped in a monkey hide. You were a kid when he was in power. You've no idea what he's like.”

Mr. Lesole is wrong. I was barely ten when the civil war started in Ngala, but Mama and Mrs. Tafa used to whisper about it all the time when they thought I was playing with my dolls. Of course their whispers made me listen even harder. I remember Mrs. Tafa reassuring Mama that even if Mandiki crossed the mountains, he'd have the whole of
Mfuala Park to travel through, and another forty miles of cattle posts, before he'd get to our relatives in Tiro. She was right. Mandiki's guerrillas stayed in the park on their side of the border, launching attacks on their own people. Every so often there's a headline in the market papers: “Ngala village torched; villagers burned alive,” or “Ngala farmer's tongue cut out: a warning not to talk.” Worst of all, Mandiki kidnaps children. He uses them as slaves, decoys, human shields. They become child soldiers. If they try to escape, they're killed—kicked to death, or chopped to bits with machetes. One day, after I'd seen a newspaper picture of a farmer nailed to a tree, I asked Mr. Selalame if he thought the Ngala war would ever end. His shoulders slumped. “Nobody wants peace. If Mandiki loses, he'll be executed. But if Ngala wins, the foreign funds it gets to fight terrorism disappear. Its leaders need that cash to pay for their limos and mansions.”

Neighbors start to arrive for the feast. Mr. Lesole slips the magic pouch back inside his shirt and greets them, while I collect the kids to go home. When we find Mr. Lesole to say goodbye, he's at the side of the road talking with the Sibandas, who've hauled up pails of shake-shake in wheelbarrows. Mr. Lesole's parties take away the night
trade from their
shabeen
, but as long as they can sell their booze by his house, they're happy. Mr. Sibanda ladles some brew into a recycled juice carton and hands it to Mr. Lesole.

“You're welcome to stay for the party, Chanda,” Mr. Lesole says.

“Thanks. But I have to get the kids to bed.”

“It's too early,” Iris pouts.

“You listen to your big sister,” Mr. Lesole smiles. He gets down on his knees and gives the children a cuddle.

“I hate it when you leave for the bush,” Soly says. “Can't we go with you? I want to see the animals.”

Mr. Lesole knuckles his forehead. “One day, when you're big, I'll get you a job as a busboy. How's that?”

“Really?”

“Sure thing. That's how I got started. In the meantime, here's a little something for your very own.” He pulls a worn copy of the park map from his hip pocket. “Next time you miss me, just look at this map, close your eyes, and imagine me tracking a leopard. I'll give you a wave in your dreams.”

“What do I get?” Iris demands.

“Iris!” I say. “Mind your manners.”

Mr. Lesole just laughs. “You get this.” He plops his Tilley hat on her head. It droops over her nose, but she's delighted.

“What do we say?” I prod.

“Thank you.”

“Oh, and here's something for the big kid.” He grins, and offers me a tiny pair of binoculars. “They call them ‘opera glasses.' Some American lady brought them on safari. They fell out of her bag, and the jeep ran over them. One of the lenses is cracked, but it still works, sort of. Take it on a walk. Or spy on Mrs. Tafa.”

Mrs. Lesole gives me a bowl of stew, maize porridge, and bread to take home. What a relief not to have to cook supper. I give thanks, promise to return the bowl first thing in the morning along with some fresh eggs, and we say our goodbyes.

As we head up the road, I see Mrs. Tafa at our gate, her cell phone pressed to her ear. She waves us to hurry. Who's she pretending to talk to this time? I wonder. The President? The Pope?

But when we reach her, Mrs. Tafa does something strange. She hands me the cell. “It's for you.”