Chanda's Secrets (19 page)

I get to the library before the bell and try to concentrate. I can't. All I can think is: Why is everything such a struggle? Why do I fight with Mrs. Tafa? Maybe it's good that Iris and Soly are getting treats I can't afford. And it's good they get to see so much of Mr. Tafa. Maybe I'm just jealous. Maybe I'm just selfish. Maybe I'm the problem.

The whole morning is like that: My body's in school, but my mind is somewhere else. At lunch, Mr. Selalame sits behind his desk marking while I write the test. Or try to. I stare at the questions like an idiot. My mind is a blank. I write a couple of words, and scribble them out. I fill in the holes in the a's, o's, d's, and p's.

It's no use. My eyes fill. I pull myself to my feet.

Mr. Selalame looks up from his work. “What's the matter?”

“Everything!” I head to the door, bumping into desks.

“Chanda, wait. Talk to me.”

I want to! I want to tell him about Mama, Esther, Mrs. Tafa, Iris—how I'm so scared I can't breathe, and I don't know what to do. But all I can say is, “I let you down. I promised to do my work and I can't. I can't do anything.”

Before Mr. Selalame can stop me, I'm out the door.

When I get home, Soly's in the front yard. He's blowing bits of chicken down off his hands, watching them float in the air.

“Did you have your soup?” I ask.

He nods.

“And Iris?”

He shakes his head.

I go inside. Esther's at the table. “Have you seen Iris?”

“No,” she says. “I think she's at Mrs. Tafa's.”

I know I should check, but I can't face Mrs. Tafa. Not to mention Iris with a mouth full of figs. I curl up on my mattress and cover my head with a pillow.

Next thing I know, I hear screaming and crying, a banging at the door. I leap to my feet as Mrs. Tafa barges into the house. She's shaking hysterically. “Chanda, come quick,” she cries. “There's been an accident at the junkyard.”

There's a huge crowd by the time we arrive. Clusters of neighbors and strangers bunch near the road between the ambulance and the police cars. Some crane their necks for a better look at the action at the rear of the property. Others huddle amongst themselves. I hear bits of things like, “It should never have happened,” “Such a tragedy,” and “So young, so young.”

Mrs. Tafa and I stumble through piles of old tires, paint cans, scraps of barbed wire. The crowd gets thicker the closer we get to the abandoned well. “Out of the way!” Mrs. Tafa yells. “Family coming through.” She elbows ahead with one arm while pulling me behind with the other.

Police are keeping people back. They've cordoned the area around the well, stringing rope to a couple of upturned wagons and the rusted hulk of an old car. “Chanda Kabelo, sister of the little girl,” Mrs. Tafa says. A policeman lets us under the rope and takes us aside.

“All we know is what we've got from Ezekiel Sibanda and Lena Gambe. You know them?”

I nod. Lena and Ezekiel go to school with Iris. I see Ezekiel close by with his parents. His papa's holding him. His mama's wailing on the ground.

“They're pretty shaken up,” the cop continues. “Each time they tell what happened it's a little different. But this is how we've pieced it together.” He clears his throat. I brace myself and listen.

It seems that Ezekiel, Lena, and Iris didn't stay at school this morning. Mrs. Ndori was sick. Again. As soon as she took the attendance, she lay down in a corner. Ezekiel, Lena, and Iris took off. This has been happening a lot, the last month.

The three of them came to the junkyard, where they met Ezekiel's little brother Paulo, the one who wears juice cartons for shoes. Ezekiel had sneaked some shake-shake from the family shebeen. Pretty soon they were all drunk.

Iris tottered to the well. She balanced over the lip, calling, “Hello, down there.” When the others wanted to know what she was doing, she said her baby sister Sara lived at the bottom. Ezekiel and Lena didn't believe her, but little Paulo did. He said he wanted to see her.

Ezekiel found an old bucket on a chain. Paulo got in. Ezekiel, Lena, and Iris started to lower him down the well. Except the chain wasn't long enough to reach the bottom. They tried to pull him back up, but they didn't have the strength. They called for help. Nobody heard.

Lena panicked and let go. The extra weight was too much for Iris and Ezekiel. The chain slipped. The bucket banged against the stone walls. Paulo fell out. He screamed till he hit the bottom with a thud. The kids called to him, but there was no answer.

Iris said it was all her fault, she was going to climb down
and bring him back up. Ezekiel said she was drunk and stupid and she'd just get herself killed. He and Lena ran off for a grownup. When they returned with the neighborhood, Iris had disappeared.

I see the empty cartons of shake-shake on the ground. I run to the well. No one could survive a drop like that. I don't care. I call down: “Iris? Iris?”

I'm sobbing as Mrs. Tafa starts to pull me away. And then I hear a sound. A whimpering, like in my dream. “Chanda?... Chanda?” But the voice isn't coming from down the well-hole. It's coming from inside an oil bin a stone's throw away. The bin is on its side. Garbage bags spill from its mouth. I watch as the bags are pushed away—as a little body crawls out of its hiding place.

Iris!

Mrs. Tafa kneels down to scoop her up, but Iris runs past her and into my arms. “Chanda, Chanda. I'm sorry. I'll never be bad again. Please don't hate me. Please. I'm so scared.”

I hold her tight. “It's okay,” I say. “I love you. It's okay.”

A fire truck roars up to the junkyard. Three firemen break through the crowd. Their leader rappels down the inside of the well. The other two aim flashlights down to help him see.

There's a pause. Then the fireman calls out: “I've got him. It's a miracle. He's unconscious. But he's alive!”

The crowd cheers as Paulo is raised to the surface. Still, miracles don't just happen. There's a reason Paulo didn't die. Something cushioned his fall. That something is why the fireman throws up. It's why the police tell everyone to move farther away. It's why the firemen return to the well-hole and rappel down again. This time, all three of them.

What they bring back to the light is a nightmare. Something
bent and twisted. Dried out of shape. Draped in rotting cloth. At first, people don't know what it is. But I do.

I'd recognize Jonah's striped bandanna anywhere.

J
ONAH'S BODY IS TAKEN TO THE CITY MORGUE.

Iris is fine, except for a little rawness where the chain slid through her hands. After she's checked over, Mrs. Tafa and I get her back home. The whole way, Mrs. Tafa sings hymns of joy, babbles about miracles, and rants that the city of Bonang should fence up all its junkyards. Apparently the two of us are talking again. Lucky me.

I put Iris to bed to sleep off the shake-shake. Then while Esther watches over her and Soly, I go to see Mrs. Tafa. She's already on her lawn chair soothing her nerves with a lemonade.

“I need to call Mama,” I say.

“What for?”

“To let her know about Jonah. She'll want to make the arrangements.”

Mrs. Tafa sucks the last drops of lemonade up her straw. “That man is no concern of hers. The sonofabitch left, remember? Good riddance, may he rest in peace, or you'd be up to your ears in expenses.” I'm about to argue, but Mrs. Tafa doesn't want to fight. She waves me toward the house. “You know where it is.”

I thank her, phone Tiro, and tell the general dealer my step-papa's passed. “Can you get my mama to call home right away?”

“Yeah.”

Heading home, I ask Mrs. Tafa to holler as soon as there's a ring: “I'll be outside working in the garden.”

I till the earth for fresh vegetable rows. I water and weed. Before I know it, it's suppertime. And Mama hasn't called. It doesn't make sense. Jonah is dead. She'd have called if she could. What's wrong? Before I can find out, Auntie Ruth drives up with her boyfriend. He stays in the Corvette listening to the radio while she greets me at the end of the bean rows.

“I'm sorry about your brother,” I say.

“Jonah. Yes. Thank you. That's why I'm here. Is your mama around?”

“She's visiting relatives in Tiro.”

“Oh.” She searches my eyes. “She's well, I hope?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“Good.” A pause. “Let her know I've claimed the body.”

A weight lifts from my heart. “Thank you.”

Auntie Ruth's eyes fill. “Jonah did terrible things at the end. But he wasn't a bad man. He just made mistakes, that's all. He didn't mean any harm. He loved your mama.”

“Yes. I guess.” It doesn't seem right to argue.

“I'm sorry about the wagon. I'm sorry I abandoned him. I'm sorry for everything.” Her boyfriend honks the horn. “I have to go. The laying-over is tomorrow. The burial: the day after, seven o'clock, the new cemetery, Phase 6. I didn't want for things to be rushed. It's just, Mr. Bateman gave us a discount.”

“That's all right, I'll let Mama know.”

“It's not all right. I'm so ashamed. A coffin's been rented for the laying-over, but they're going to bury Jonah in a feedsack.”

Her boyfriend honks the horn again.

“I heard you,” Auntie Ruth yells. She turns back. “After what he did at our place, the others wanted to leave him at the morgue. I refused. No matter what, I wasn't going to let my
baby brother be tossed in the pauper pit. But this, this isn't much better.” Her knees give way. I catch her.

“Auntie Ruth, I'll get the money for a coffin. I'll find a way. Don't worry.”

“God bless you. God bless you.”

Her boyfriend rests his arm on the horn.

“All the best to your mama,” she says, scrambling backwards to the Corvette. “I hope she can come. There were good times. I hope people remember the good times.” She's into the car. Before she can close the door, it tears off in a cloud of dust.

Mrs. Tafa lets me phone Tiro about the funeral arrangements.

“It's me again,” I say to the general dealer. “Chanda Kabelo?”

“Yeah?”

“About my last message, did you get it to Mama?”

“Yeah.”

“What did she say?”

“Dunno. Left it with your auntie.”

My heart sinks. “Auntie Lizbet?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, here's a new message. This time, please give it to Mama personally. Tell her that Auntie Ruth has made the arrangements. Jonah's laying-over's tomorrow night, with the burial right after. She'll have to take the morning bus home or she'll miss everything. Did you get that?”

“Yeah.”

“Please, tell her right away?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I hang up. Mrs. Tafa's been pretending to dust the shrine to
Emmanuel on her side table. “Don't get your hopes up,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“Your mama won't be coming.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

“Well, you're wrong. Mama will be here. If you don't know that, you don't know anything.”

Next morning early, I bike to Bateman's to get Jonah a burial coffin. Despite my promise to Auntie Ruth, there's nothing I can afford. Mr. Bateman takes pity. He shows me a pine box that looks like a packing crate. Says he'll sell it to me at half price on account of the bottom boards are warped. “But with the body overtop, no one will know the difference.” He agrees to let me pay in instalments: “Your family honors its debts.”

Back home, I wait with Iris and Soly for the truck from Tiro. It drives by, but Mama isn't on it. This was her only chance to get here on time. She'll miss Jonah's funeral. Where is she? Why isn't she here? A terrible thought. Maybe she didn't get the message. Maybe I should have called and called until the general dealer got her on the line. Maybe, like always, it's all my fault.

Mrs. Tafa's in her yard. Normally she'd cock her head with a cheery, “What did I tell you?” Today, though, not a single mean word. Why is she being nice? I should be happy. Instead I feel sick to my stomach.

A
FTER SUPPER,
I
PACK A CHANGE OF CLOTHES
in a knapsack and get ready to leave for the laying-over; Esther will babysit
overnight while I'm away. The sun's down; the air is cooling off. I'm pulling on a light jacket when Mrs. Tafa waltzes up to the door. “I thought you might like a ride,” she says. “Your Auntie Ruth's is pretty far to be biking at night.”

I can't believe my ears. After all the awful things Mrs. Tafa's said about Jonah, she's going to his laying-over? She sees the wonder in my eyes. “Funerals are for the living,” she says. “Your Auntie Ruth's a nice woman. She'll appreciate a crowd.”

On the way over, Mrs. Tafa tells tales from various laying-overs, some funny, some sad. She remembers Sara's, and laughs at how I got Jonah's sisters to chase down his brothers when they ran off for shake-shakes with Mary. When I don't laugh back, she turns on the radio to the Bible station. A preacher says: “The Lord never gives us more than we can bear.” I think of Mama. I think of Esther. I want to smash his face in.

Another twenty minutes and we arrive at Auntie Ruth's. It's in a section like mine: mud huts, two-room prefabs, and cement block homes jumbled up together. Because the funeral's on the cheap, there's no tent for the overnighters. Instead, Auntie Ruth has had her brothers run a tarp along the roof on the right side of her house. One end stretches across to the top of the outhouse, the other end to the top of the shed. It's secured by cement blocks.

A few people drift around, though not any I recognize. They must be friends of Auntie Ruth's. She runs over and introduces Mrs. Tafa and me. “You remember when I babysat Jonah's little ones a few months back?” she tells folks. “Well, this is their big sister, Chanda, and a close friend of the family, Rose Tafa.”