Daygo's Fury (21 page)

“Some name for a boy!” he shouted. He got up from his chair, shoving it back roughly. It fell over its back legs and bounced noisily away. He stomped around the table with the angry force of an elephant and grabbed the hair at the back of her head with a rough hand, lifting her up savagely. She cried out in pain, her hands reaching up to grab at the roots in her head, afraid her hair would pull free. He thrust his face in close to hers. She shied away from the stink of his breath.

“Out fucking a slum rat, were you? I saw you with him!” he shouted at her, shaking her head furiously, spittle flying from the corners of his mouth. “The same fuckin’ rat that knocked over my tray! The same, I bet, that helped steal my fuckin’ bread!” He slammed her face down against the table viciously. It caught her on the top of her right eyebrow. Her head bounced away, followed a moment later by pain.

Walking back across to the counter top, he picked up the wooden spoon. Racquel was openly crying now. Cara sat at the edge of her chair, looking frantically from Racquel to Galo.

“You a whore now? You off whorin’ with every rat in the slums? Off ridin’ that little fuck. Helpin’ him steal from honest merchants. He’s off stabbin’ good men, and you’re bendin’ over backwards for him!”

“No!” she cried. Her aunt stood up, her hands to her mouth. She raised a pleading arm towards him.

“Please, Galo,” she asked. Her voice was high-pitched and tightly strung, ready to break at any moment. But he silenced her with a look.

He turned and plodded back towards Racquel.

“And I took you in. Didn’t have to, never had to. Put you up and fed you. Barely ever even laid a finger on you!” He shoved her roughly against the table, a vengeful god ready to smite her for disobedience. “Well, there’s where I’ve bin goin’ wrong. Ye bin havin’ it too soft here! Need to be taught a few lessons. Learn some respect for your household, for the man who’s bringin’ ye up.”

He turned her around and shoved her over the table, his round face filled with fury, his chins wagging. Racquel cried out but she could only resist weakly, struggling futilely against him, her hands pressing against the rough, pinewood table.

“This is how you repay me!” he yelled. He lifted up her skirt, holding her hard against the table. She almost felt his arm raise up, spoon in hand. Then he seemed to stop. A moment passed with no movement. He leaned in close to her, whispering in her ear, his voice harsh and rough.

“Did he break yer seal, did he? He have his way with ye already?”

She heard Galo drop the spoon, as though he had changed his mind. It clattered against the ground. Fear, deeper and sharper than she had ever experienced before, shot through her.
What was he doing?

“No!” cried Racquel. A distraught instinct from deep within her told her what he was going to do. “No, stop!”
Why’d he drop the spoon?

“Well, we’ll see.” His mouth was open, his breathing heavy. His hand reached up her skirt and grabbed at her undergarments, fumbling awkwardly. His movements were ragged and jerky. He pushed himself up against her, leaning on her heavily.

“Well, we’ll see,” he repeated, his words gasping wet from his mouth. “That’ll teach ye then, won’t it?” He started grabbing at her more frantically, pulling her pants down. He was rushed now. She could feel his hands shaking as he moved.

“Please, please!” she pleaded desperately. “Cara!”

Cara let out a terrible cry. “Stop!” she screamed, but Galo didn’t even seem to hear.

“You’ll see,” he panted. “You’ll see what a real man’s like!” He shouted the end excitedly. He was manoeuvring himself behind her. She could feel him fumbling with his own underclothes as he held her down. She started to struggle against him fiercely, wriggling, throwing her weight from side to side. Doing anything to stop him, get in his way, prevent him from doing what he was going to do. She was completely panicked, crying out, struggling for all she was worth. Her cries were a high-pitched wailing as she shook her head against what he was doing.

“No, no!”

“Lie still!” he shouted, pushing her down, forcing his weight on top of her. She felt his waist pull away. Then he was pulling up her skirt again.

“Nooo!” she cried. “Cara! Caraaa!” she screamed for help. She heard a manic scream reply and a rush of feet. She felt the blow as much as heard it. Galo’s grip on her loosened. Racquel looked up to see Cara swinging a bread roller and screeching like a lunatic. Galo was dazed, holding the side of his head with one hand and throwing the other out in front of him, trying vainly to block her blows as they came down again and again. She hit him across the head, on his shoulder, on his arm. He was stunned as he threw both arms up in defence, taking blow after blow. Then he seemed to gather himself and realise what was happening. He charged forth and shoved Cara backwards. She fell awkwardly, hitting her head sickeningly off the counter as she did so. The roller fell from her hands. Galo staggered after it and picked it up. He walked over to Cara, looming above her.

She raised her hands in meek defence as he brought the roller down on top of her.

“How! Dare you! Hit! Me!” He panted between blows. Raising the roller again and again and bringing it down viciously. Racquel heard a bone break. She watched as Cara’s hands fell limply to her side, as Galo’s blows started to rain down on her head, as her head rocked and bounced from side to side like a rag doll’s with the force of the hits, as blood started to show and drops flew to the side wall and the floor, as her nose caved in to the side. She heard Galo’s crazed words, spaced out between the blows. “Mind! Your own! Business! A man! Will discipline! In his own! Household!”

Racquel’s legs and arms went weak as though her energy had been sucked from her. She fell to her knees, her chest constricting. She couldn’t look away, she couldn’t close her ears, she couldn’t get up and stop him. She watched in helpless horror.

And then it stopped. Galo stood up, leaning against the countertop, breathing heavily. He held the roller limply down by his side.

“Stupid bitch,” he whispered breathlessly. “Should have minded her own fucking business.”

He glanced Racquel’s way. A sickening, long-winded moan escaped her lips as she took in Cara’s beaten, bloodied and limp figure in the corner of the room.

“I didn’t mean …” he said. “I didn’t … Rac, come here, come over here.” He gestured to her. “Come on.” Racquel looked at him. He had no energy left; he seemed barely able to support himself as he took deep, heaving breaths. Racquel wasn’t going anywhere near him. She stood up suddenly, she felt dazed and leeched of energy, but she turned towards the door and forced herself to run. She pulled it open and stumbled down the stairs.

“Racquel!” she heard him shout. “Where are ye goin’?” But she didn’t stop. At the bottom of the stairs, she turned into the bakery and ran to the front door, pulling the latch aside and opening it wide.

“You’ve nowhere to go, girl! You’ll be back, I tell you …” His roaring faded away as she ran down the street.

She couldn’t stop sobbing, all of the strength felt gone from her body, but she wouldn’t stop running; she couldn’t. She stumbled on, not knowing where she was going and hardly able to see through her tears.

******

By the time Liam reached the flat, he had begun to feel dizzy. When he lay down on his pallet to sleep his head spun, his vision jerked back and forth repeatedly even when he closed his eyes. All of a sudden, he realised that he was going to be sick. He got up and ran down the stairs, bursting out the door and vomiting onto the street. He panted, bent double as he heaved.

He spit a few times, then walked to the wall of the house and rested an arm against it. He was there for a few moments before he looked up. There was a girl at the far end of the street, looking around. She seemed to see something in his direction and started to walk his way. Her stride seemed shaken and unsure. Liam wondered idly what misery had befallen her in the slums during the night. She seemed utterly shaken.

He looked at her as she came closer. She looked familiar, recognisable.
Racquel?
He looked again. It was her. Was this a dream? He stood away from the wall, allowing his hand to drop to his side, and walked towards her. She looked at him as he did so.

“Liam!” she cried and ran at him. He stopped, dumbfounded as she barged into him, wrapping her arms around him tightly. She started to shake with sobs. “Liam, my aunt,” she managed. “Uncle Galo has killed my aunt!” Liam put his hands around her and held her softly.

“Okay,” he said. His mind still fuzzy with a dull headache.

“I can’t go back there!” she said. “He’ll kill me, too!” She seemed to try to control her sobs as she lifted her head from his shoulder. “Can I … Can I come stay with you?” Liam looked at her, dumbfounded. “Please?” she whispered. “I can’t go back.”

“Okay,” said Liam uncertainly. She buried her head into his shoulder again, sobbing uncontrollably. Even muddled as he was, he knew instinctively that this was not good. She was not safe with them.

Fumnaya sat, her eyes bloodshot red. She stared at nothing.

Dikeledi stood at the side of the hut, one hand resting on it, looking up at the edge of the treeline, or perhaps the sky above it, his mouth open; his cheeks seemed to droop, melt from his face, his limbs loose and lost.

Hundreds of tribespeople stood in small clusters around them, lost and shaken, uncertain and scared, muttering and whispering, hoping … that something was misunderstood.

Why was the forest making noise? Why was the breeze still blowing? Why was the morning sun still reaching over the empty space above them, cutting the trees at the far end of the clearing half in shadow, half in light? Why was the sky as blue as ever, the sun as large as ever and the red eye auspiciously missing? Why did the white moon look pale, meek and guilty?

Why were there women and girls screaming, wailing skywards? Why did men bang fists and openly weep? Why did children look so confused, so lost, so scared? Why was the gathering ended on the seventh day and not the eighth?

Why did Niisa sit, in shock, as openly distraught as the rest, his face pale, his eyes wide but unbelieving, the fingers of his hands lightly pressed against his jaw line? He was covered in blood. But innocent of the horrendous crime, of the incomprehensible act; how could anyone be guilty of such a thing? But someone had to be, the deed was done by a human hand, the knife made out of crude stone, the cuts jagged. It stank. The flies already consorted above her.

Did anyone know it was him? No one could believe it was him. Not her own brother, not the poor soul who found her parted and freshly dead. The boy who was not crazed and insane as the perpetrator must have been, but white-faced and appearing in shock, and had sat in stunned silence ever since. This was not the crime of a shocked boy.

“Noooo!” his mother screamed. “Get off her!” She swiped furiously at the little insects, who danced just before her palm and landed in the same spot as before, as though gravity pulled them there. “Get off her!” she sobbed as she changed the direction of her beating palms. “Stop.” He could see that she wanted to lay her head down between her hands, to close her eyes and rest and hide. But she paused in mid-air, her eyes wide, almost falling from her head, bloodshot red, her hands suspended above the carcass at either side of her head, panting heavily, her nostrils flaring at the smell, rejecting it, as she stared down in shock at the tangled mess of her daughter’s stomach. She could not lay her head down there. She could not acknowledge its existence. She held herself above the carcass there, with a strength Niisa had not thought she had, levitating without movement as she stared down. A tear mingled with snot on her nose. Slowly, Niisa watched as it held before it fell. His mother’s eyes widened slightly more, which seemed impossible, when it hit her daughter. In a normal-seeming movement, she retracted from her unnatural position. She retreated back to the corner of the hut, still thick with the scent and the buzzing of flies. His father never moved.

It was funny to watch them all and see clearly their behaviours. It was funny to know and understand their reactions. It was funny to finally be free of them. His mind felt truly opened for the first time. He now was separate. He now no longer did need to associate with them, or wonder at why he was different and yet the same. He was not the same. He was chosen by Daygo, the all-thing. He could commune with Daygo, something they could only dream of doing. He had seen its inner workings. These were just creatures around him, simple creatures. He now knew who he was.

He had killed his sister. It was nothing to him. He had broken their strongest convention, their strongest belief, their strongest attachment, and it was nothing. They had nothing for him now. He could understand them now. He could finally see it all clearly, now that he knew himself, he could see others, know others, without that inner confusion plaguing him. He could watch it all unfold and know why they did what they did.

He knew better than to smile. He knew their games now and could play them. He could play the part. He could use them for his own ends. He was finally free. He breathed it in deeply. It felt as though the world had reached out and embraced him and he felt nothing but love for all things, for everything. He felt joy within the flowing life of Daygo.

******

They dug a hole and placed her within it. There was suspicion everywhere, and still nowhere. How could any one of them have done this? People whom they knew intimately. The people had grown sick. The gathering was over. There was nothing for them to do but leave and return home, with guilty, sad, sympathetic looks at the mother and the father and the brother of the deceased.

******

When they returned home, there was a massing of the tribe around the chief’s hut.

“What is to be done..?”

“A daughter has been killed.”

“What would you have me do?”

“We must find who did this!”

“How should we do this?” The chief addressed the whole tribe. “How should we? To what happened in the gathering. Did anyone here see anything that night to report?”

A few glanced at Niisa, but no-one said anything.

“We went through this at the gathering,” continued the chief. “No one heard anything, no one saw anything. How can we act on this? I am open to suggestions.”

Wikesa looked at Niisa, and his gaze lingered a while. Mirembe followed his look.

Dikeledi, his chin almost touching his throat, turned his head towards them. “Do not look at my son,” he said quietly. Wikesa glanced at him as though in shock, then turned his head quickly away.

“What about you, Niisa?” someone dared to ask. “Did you … see anything? Or hear? Or s …? There must be something.”

“He has answered that question,” Dikeledi said hoarsely.

Niisa looked at the crowd of suspicious faces as they turned in his direction, suspicion that bordered on accusation. “I only saw my sister,” he said flatly.

“Did you do it?” spurted Racca. A quick flurry of words, driven, Niisa guessed, by the fear that he might not have the courage to say them.

“My son did not kill Chiko!” cried Dikeledi, his voice cracking and breaking, but still he managed to get the words out.

There were many heads suddenly turned to the ground, there was much shuffling and mutterings and apologetic gestures shyly made. A few glanced furiously at Racca, even though Niisa felt sure he asked the question they were all thinking. Some started to return to their huts.

The chief waved his hands. “Let us talk of this another time,” he said desolately. “Let us go to our beds.”

******

“You,” she pointed. “You.” Her voice was hoarse with recrimination.

Niisa just watched her. He had felt the accusation building for days. It would not do to tell the truth. There was no benefit. His father came forward. He looked at Niisa sadly and slowly.

“Fumnaya,” he said softly.

“No!” she roared at him, and pointed a loose finger at Niisa. “It was him!” Many of the village stood looking at them now, shuffling uncomfortably. Some started to look away. Others looked in shock at Niisa. “He—”

Dikeledi took her pointing hand softly in his. “It was not him,” his voice broke. Fumnaya crumpled into him, sobbing. His father let out a long sigh layered with pain. His right arm wrapped gently around the back of his wife’s neck and shoulder, his left hand still held her right softly within its palm; it hung attached to him, but somehow it seemed a useless thing.

The villagers shuffled away to leave the family alone in its grief. Those eyes that had looked at him with shock and surprise dropped to the ground out of something like guilt. It was just the crazy grief of a mother. Niisa was still safe amongst them, though some remained frowning.

******

She watched him inside the hut now, when they were supposed to be sleeping. Sometimes he watched her back. Sometimes she turned away in disgust. The priest could not come soon enough. The villagers were all growing suspicious of him. He even caught his own father staring at him sometimes, though he never said anything, though he tried to make Fumnaya forgive, to disbelieve what it was that she was leaning towards believing.

One day he wept in front of Niisa. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.” Over and over. “I don’t know why … I know you could never have done … you loved your sister. We all did.”

One day his mother looked at him and collapsed weeping. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled between sobs, turning into the wall of the hut and clutching herself. The next day there was suspicion in her eyes again. She seemed mad, crazed by grief. She did not believe or trust any of her thoughts. The next day she accused him again.

******

He continued as part of the hunt. They did not know what to do with him. When he first appeared they had looked at one another, none volunteering to be his teacher, his guide, until his uncle Nuru stepped forward.

“You will come with me,” he said, firmly placing a hand on his shoulder. He looked a challenge back at everyone who shuffled their feet and looked away, though there were one or two that met his gaze. “Come with me every day from now on.”

His father missed a week’s hunt, but then he returned to it, trying vainly to make some case for normality, to make some light of small things, that left those nearby forcing guilty grins onto their faces.

As the weeks passed by, the village returned to some form of normality, yet suspicion of Niisa seemed to grow. Eventually, his uncle made the suggestion that he should withdraw from the hunt.

“Perhaps some time to grieve … is what is right for you.” Niisa looked him in the eye, but he knew that any further distance between them would only further their suspicion, and the priest had not yet arrived.

“No,” he said firmly. “I want to hunt.”

His uncle opened his mouth but then nodded resignation. “Of course.”

Still, there were fewer smiles, less laughter, less happiness amongst them.

******

Time on his own was no longer hard to achieve. No longer did people come looking for him. However, when he did wake in the morning, he found himself waiting outside the hut for Chiko to follow him out, to touch his hand and signal the start of a routine that he had known all his life. He missed that routine, but what he had learned was more valuable. He had to relearn how to stretch and open himself up without Chiko’s aid. He saw it as a new skill that he could hone.

But he also saw something of what grief was; it was missing, lacking, what had been known and familiar, those things that brought joy. But life was movement, it forever changed. To grieve for change was ludicrous, change was all that they were, and yet all humans he had ever met did so.

His mother carried on gathering in the forest, though she came back with small amounts. She did not rise early in the mornings, she did not lay out food for them to eat. On those first two mornings, he left early to forage his own breakfast. But his father put a hand on him as he tried to leave the third morning. He shook his head silently and filled two bowls with what his mother had collected the day before. They sat at the front of their hut eating it in silence, as they had done since. Of all of them, only his father never shunned his company. There were fewer words between them, fewer attempts at humour from him, but sometimes he placed a hand on his shoulder when there was no need.

******

One day, as Niisa sat in the forest, he overheard Abioye and Kaapo, two young men of the tribe, both only recently married in the past five gatherings. They seemed to be walking aimlessly, as though, like him, they were only in the forest to escape the confines of the village. Where Niisa sat, he was invisible to them, so they continued their conversation as though he were not there.

“His sister? How could he have done it? It must have been … must have been some stranger,” said Abioye.

“Who? What stranger? Who’s a stranger? Have you ever seen one?”

“But, Kaapo, it’s his sister. They used to stretch together every morning. They were as close as anyone, as strange as he is.”

“Who is more likely?”

“That doesn’t mean …”

“What does it mean? Has he even denied it yet? Has anyone actually even asked him?”

“He just gives that … dead stare.”

Niisa might as well have heard them shiver in revulsion.

******

Nearly two months after Chiko’s death, he sat dissecting a squirrel, its squeals muffled by the weedgrass binding and filling its mouth. A small girl from the tribe burst through the bush and stopped in front of him. Her eyes went wide as she saw the struggling squirrel in his hands. She froze. Niisa looked her in the eye. He was consumed with calm.

“You will be next if you tell anyone.” She started to cry in front of him. “Don’t ever tell.” She turned and ran back towards the village. Niisa picked up the squirrel and took it further into the forest.

******

Two months after Chiko had been killed, the priest came to the village. One of the Walolang de Kgotia. He had seen one three times before in his memory, though the earliest was very hazy. The man arrived, as had the others, wearing a black leather coat that hung from his shoulders all the way to just above his ankles. He was of average height, his hair was black. He had a curved piece of wood hanging from a hole in the skin between his nostrils and similar U-shaped wooden ear piercings hanging from his empty earlobes.