The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (11 page)

"Good boy," she purred. "Come to Granny." Trashman sat by the rocking chair and let her rumple his hair. "Good boy. Honest boy," she crooned.
"You
don't pick pockets.
You
don't sell whiskey to eat out people's brains. You're my sweet, innocent child." Trashman smiled and let her pet him as though he were a big dog.

Knife sullenly peeled potatoes while Fist watched the scene uneasily. Suddenly Knife hurled his knife —
thokf
— into the back of Granny's chair. Tendai shouted. Rita screamed. But the weapon was well aimed and merely lodged in the wood. Knife stalked off, trembling with rage, with Fist anxiously following behind.

Granny calmly patted Trashman's hair.
"You
don't try to kill a poor old woman whose only crime is decency.
You
don't drag her off to live in a moral sewer."

"Moral sewage, that's us," said the She Elephant, stuffing a bag with chicken feathers. "I'm surprised you don't choke on all the food us sewer rats give you." Granny glared at her and continued to praise Trashman. Tendai turned away in disgust.

And yet it was impossible to dislike Trashman. He accepted affection as easily as a kitten accepts its mother's licks — and forgot it as quickly. At mealtimes he stood by the cooking pots and rubbed his stomach. The She Elephant fed him. He followed the
vlei
people as they worked. They, who were normally reclusive, welcomed him. In the evenings, they started up a soccer game with crude wooden goalposts and a flabby ball. Trashman watched with delight. He slapped his hands on his knees when someone scored a goal. Tendai realized the whole point of the game was to amuse Trashman.

Knife, in spite of his jealousy, brought extra treats for him. Fist smeared honey on Trashman's fingers and stuck a chicken feather to them. Trashman spent many happy hours gluing the feather first to one hand, then the other. It was awful to watch but somehow endearing.

The young man greeted Tendai, Rita and Kuda enthusiastically every time he saw them, but each time was like the first. He simply had no memory of the other meetings.

The most amazing thing, though, was how he and Kuda talked. Trashman babbled in his strange mix of almost-words, and the little boy translated: "He says the ground is cold" or "He says the
sadza
tastes good." It was impossible to tell if Kuda was making it up. It drove Rita wild. In the evenings, man and boy watched the soccer match with equal delight. Tendai could have sworn they were commenting on the game. But they might only have been chirping at each other like the birds that nested on the
vlei.

"Where did he come from?" Tendai asked one evening, as he watched the She Elephant dump dirty plates into the pot of boiling water. She never used soap. The metal plates bumped around in the pot, and grease and bits of food floated off. After a while she pulled them out with tongs to let them steam dry on a table.

"Who cares?" she snapped. "One day he showed up, stayed awhile and pushed off. He wanders through every few months."

"Where does he go?"

"I don't know and I don't care. Stop yapping. You're giving me a headache."

Tendai knew the She Elephant had a headache because she had tried out a new batch
of kachasu
that afternoon. He left her and wandered through the darkening camp, dragging the heavy block of cement behind him. Rita was no longer shackled, but Fist hadn't forgiven Tendai for trying to escape. Some nights he could hardly bear to be chained up. He wanted to be free to run and run and run — it didn't matter where, only to have the feeling of freedom again.

He looked for company. Rita and Granny were gloating together. Granny was planning her birthday luncheon in the city. "You wait," she told Rita. "Knife will take me to a bar and feed me pork rinds. He doesn't know decent places exist."

"Shocking," said Rita.

Kuda and Trashman watched the soccer match. Tendai wondered how they could see anything. The
vlei
people melted into the shadows, and all he could detect were their melancholy cries and the squelch of their feet.

He slowly climbed a hill and looked out over the
vlei.
Far away, he saw lights. He didn't know what suburb it was: his map had gone with the Scout knife. The knife gave him a real pang. It was the one thing that connected him to Father. He could remember Father's hand holding it out long ago. He forced his memory to move beyond the hand to the arm: it was clad in olive drab, army cloth. The arm was attached to a chest decorated with many medals, and above floated a general's cap. But between . . . ?

Tendai put his face in his hands and wept silently above the camp where no one could see him.

Eleven

The trail was cold. It had ended with the Blue Monkey, which the police were unable to find. Three children had walked out one morning and simply vanished. They might never have existed, except for the pictures Arm held in his long fingers. He traced a line of spilled Coke on a table in Mr. Thirsty's. A fly crept up to drink.

"Shall I catch it?" said Eye. He amused himself by trapping flies under a glass. He had ten at the moment. The trick was to get the next one in without releasing the others.

"Oh, let them go," said Arm wearily. Eye upended the glass, and the ten flies zapped out to circle in the center of the room.

Someone put a coin in the boom box. "Oh, no!" cried Ear as a heavy rhythm began to vibrate the floor. He clasped his hands over his muffs. Behind the bar Mr. Thirsty, a skinny man with a large Adam's apple, polished a glass. It was eleven in the morning, but business was already brisk. Soon Ear, Eye and Arm would have to leave. They didn't drink alcohol and were known to approve of law and order. Mr. Thirsty said they lowered the tone of the place.

"Fine detectives we turned out to be!" Arm said. "What are we doing in here? We're supposed to be hunting those children."

"You're the one who gets hunches," said Ear sullenly.

"I wasn't the one who tangled with the Blue Monkey."

"You scared him off with your big mouth."

"Stop it! It doesn't do any good to fight." Eye blinked in the dim light. He automatically checked the inhabitants of the room, a habit that had saved the detectives from more than one barroom brawl. In a corner booth, an old woman yammered endlessly about how disgusting everything was. A pair of
tsotsis,
street hoodlums, listened politely. Eye nudged Ear, who shifted his muffs to listen over the boom box.

"I don't know why I let you take me out," said the old woman. "I might have known we'd wind up here. You could have taken me to an art gallery, but no. We have to wallow in this pigsty. I suppose this is where you sell your brain poison."

"Would you like something to eat, Granny?" said the smaller of the two
tsotsis.

"Oh, sure. Take me to a beer hall for lunch. Some birthday party this is! Look at these people. Steeped in sin. Brains the size of walnuts."

"I can get you
caldo verde.
Real Portuguese soup," said the smaller
tsotsi.

"What do you know about real anything, Knife? A bowl of toxic waste is more likely. Well, go ahead. You devote your life to shortening mine, but why should I care? I'm better off dead."

"Would you go, Fist?" said Knife.

"It's nice to see a family outing," remarked Ear after he repeated what he had heard. The other sniggered. Presently, the big
tsotsi
returned with a carton and a spoon. By now the boom box had finished. A man staggered out of a booth to add more money, and Arm tripped him with his long leg. The man lay on the floor, complaining feebly. All the detectives could hear the conversation now.

"It's greasy," said Granny. "You call that soup? I've seen better things dug out of the
vlei.
" But she ate greedily, smacking her lips over the
caldo verde.
Arm could smell hot cabbage and garlic.

Suddenly, Granny flung the spoon against a wall. "Filth!" she screamed. "I might have known!
There's a fly in this soup!"

"One of yours," murmured Arm to Eye.

"You put it there! Don't deny it! You thought, Let's take Granny out to lunch. Let's play a trick on her. Oh, you worthless hooligans! Even the She Elephant isn't this bad!"

The detectives rose at once. This time Arm didn't speak. He ran for the public holophone. The man he tripped earlier grabbed his ankle. Ear sprang for the door, but Fist was already out of his chair. He shoved Ear against a table and gestured wildly to Knife and Granny. They scrambled out of the booth.

Eye tackled Knife, but Granny banged him over the head with her handbag. "Leave my grandson alone, you bully!" she shrieked. Eye lost his grip, and Knife wriggled free. Granny hit Eye one last time before she was dragged away. He staggered against the bar, where Mr. Thirsty was calmly polishing glasses.

The
tsotsis
had reached the door. Fist slung Granny over his shoulder, but Knife turned abruptly and — quick as a mamba — hurled his knife at Eye. The detective was leaning over the bar with his back exposed. It happened so fast, no one even had time to yell. The knife sped straight for the man's heart — and clanged into a brass tray held out by Mr. Thirsty. Eye slumped to the floor.

"General Matsika!" cried Arm, who had finally reached the phone. "Cordon off the Cow's Guts! We found the She Elephant!" At the word
Matsika,
the beer hall emptied out. Panic spread in all directions. As fast as the police reacted, the crooks reacted even faster. In no time, the place was a ghost town with only a few scrawny dogs riffling through garbage and crows watching from the rooftops.

"You really are bad for business," remarked Mr. Thirsty as he went back to polishing.

"Thanks — thanks for saving his life," stammered Ear as he checked Eye for wounds.

"It was the least I could do. You paid your bill last month," said Mr. Thirsty.

The knife had gone through the brass tray. The tip went out the other side and lodged in Eye's shirt, but beyond that was only a shallow cut. Eye, however, being supersensitive, had passed out. Ear laid him on the floor, and Arm wiped his face with a wet towel provided by the bartender.

"Do you know the people who did this?" Arm asked.

"Of course. Knife and Fist provide me with
kachasu.
I never saw the old woman before, though," said Mr. Thirsty.

”Have you heard of the She Elephant?"

”Naturally. She brews the stuff."

Arm gritted his teeth with exasperation. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You never asked." Mr. Thirsty lined up the sparkling glasses on a shelf and arranged the brass trays behind them. He stepped back to admire the effect. "I don't usually get a chance to see everything tidy like this. It gives the place a touch of class, don't you think?"

"Where does the She Elephant live?" "Sorry. The dealers don't give me their addresses. These won't be back either, which is a pity. The She Elephant made excellent
kachasu,
although the latest batch was a little rough."

By now, a paramedic had arrived. He came warily into the beer hall but relaxed when he saw it was nearly empty. "You!" he called cheerfully. "How's that ear?" Ear extended his to show that the Blue Monkey's bite had healed. "A mere scratch," the paramedic announced after he examined Eye. "I'll slap a bandage on it, and he'll be ready to party in no time. You guys go in for rough stuff, don't you?" He looked around at the overturned chairs and spilled beer.

"Please hurry," said Arm. Something was happening outside. His extrasense fluttered with anxiety. The police might not be able to see the dwellers in the Cow's Guts, but Arm could feel them. Someone had just arrived who sent a current of dismay through the concealed hoodlums. "Matsika," he whispered. Mr. Thirsty stopped wiping a table, and the paramedic spilled the disinfectant he was applying to Eye's back.

General Matsika stood in the doorway. With the light behind him, Arm thought, he looked like a uniform with a hat floating over it. The face was lost in the gloom. The detective was almost knocked over by the force of the man's personality. This was power. This was the energy that directed the armies of the law in Harare. This was the image that haunted the guilty dreams of the wicked. The paramedic stared at the door with a face gone pale. The bottle of disinfectant made a dark puddle on the floor. Mr. Thirsty's Adam's apple bobbed up and down. It would have been funny if they hadn't been so frightened.