The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (16 page)

"I forgive you for not taking out the trash — listen!" Ear turned his face to the sky. "The bus!"

The bus purred to a stop and dropped onto the landing pad. Instantly, Ear and Eye tore the door open and dragged Arm inside.

"Don't shoot! I don't carry money!" shouted the driver.

"We're detectives!" yelled Eye, slamming the door. "Get out of here if you value your life!" The driver took off at once as the She Elephant lunged out of the
vlei.
She shook her fist at them.

"We aren't thieves. See, here are our identity cards from the police," Eye said as Ear tried to make Arm comfortable. Arm's mind had cleared somewhat now that the emotions of the
vlei
people faded into the distance.

"I've read about detectives in books." The driver studied the card, with interest. "I didn't know they still existed. Listen, this is my last run. Can I take you to Parirenyatwa Hospital?"

"Yes, please! Tell me, have you seen any lost children today?" asked Ear.

"I swapped routes with another driver. He didn't mention children, but he said the She Elephant was after him. I assumed he meant an old girlfriend."

"That was the woman who shook her fist at you when we took off."

"You don't say! There's no accounting for taste."

The bus landed at Parirenyatwa Hospital, and paramedics raced out to care for Arm. "You again!" cried one of them, and Ear and Eye recognized the man who had treated them before. "I don't mean to nag, but couldn't you people stay home and watch holovision some nights?" He strapped Arm onto a stretcher and wheeled him off to the emergency ward. Ear and Eye waved at the bus as it flew away.

Sixteen

It was night when Chipo fetched Tendai to come and eat. "You looked so comfortable, I let you sleep," she said. Tendai followed her as she waddled ahead of him on the trail. She seemed extremely young to be pregnant, but he wasn't good at judging women's ages. They came to the village, where several fires now bloomed.

Rita was dressed in a bark sarong and couldn't stop grinning. "Isn't it wonderful? We're free! And we're
clean."

"Not without work," remarked Myanda, who was kneeling on a grass mat beside a pot of bubbling
rapoko.

"You should have heard Kuda yell when she scrubbed him," said Rita. Kuda sat next to several other boys of similar age. He glared resentfully at Myanda.

"He won't attract the vultures now," said the big woman, stirring the
rapoko
vigorously. "Oh!" She almost dropped the wooden spoon. "What's that around your neck?"

Tendai felt his chest. "That's an
ndoro
I found in a mine." Chipo and several other women gathered around him. Their stares made him uneasy.

"It's
old"
said one woman.

"Real shell. Not like the pottery one our Spirit Medium wears," said another. One of them timidly put out her hand but drew back before she could touch it.

"Is he going to
stay?"
the first woman asked.

"I don't know. I was going to feed him with the boys, but I suppose I'd better seat him with the men. He'll have his own bowl," Myanda said.

Tendai felt a little insulted. He knew the reason he would not eat from the communal bowl was because he might come from a family of witches. Modern people didn't believe in them. But since the Resthaven people did and, after all, knew nothing of his background, he forgave them.

He was led to the
dare,
the men's meeting place, which was surrounded by a sketchy fence. Myanda bowed and withdrew. Tendai looked around at the solemn villagers. They all sat on low stools, and they were all older than he. Some were ancient. They waited to be greeted. Tendai suddenly felt he was in over his head. What did you say to elders three hundred years ago? Their rules of etiquette were strict and inflexible.
 
That
much he remembered.

The silence grew. Tendai broke out in a sweat, although the evening was cool. He touched the
ndoro
and imagined the Mellower standing in his place. The Mellower had — many times — described the exact way a stranger entered a village. Tendai took a deep breath, bent forward and clapped his hands in the masculine way. That is, his palms were flat and held vertically above the ground, not cupped and horizontal to it, after the manner of women. This was done softly, to alert the men to his presence. "Please excuse me, grandfathers. May I be allowed to clap hands?"

No one forbade him, so he clapped again, loudly, four or five times and greeted each man politely. Since he didn't know their totems, he wasn't able to do it perfectly. They seemed to accept this, because they addressed him in turn. They, too, clapped in greeting. They indicated that he should sit on the ground, as was correct for a mere boy.

Tendai sat with his knees flexed, almost in a lotus position, with his hands on his ankles. This, he remembered, was a position of humility. He couldn't remember whether it was the posture of a son-in-law approaching his father-in-law or a servant his master or just anybody approaching a chief. Again, no one corrected him, but no one smiled either. Tendai felt sweat break out again.

He didn't know what to do next, so he stared down at his ankles and waited. "It would be good to know how we may greet this stranger," said an old man with a stern face. "It would be a mark of politeness to know his family."

Then Tendai understood that they wanted to know his totems, the
mutupo
of his father and
chidao
of his mother. This was a custom that had almost entirely died out in modern Harare. It was rather like the English custom of shaking hands: the original use was to find out whether your visitor was armed. The purpose of knowing totems was to work out a relationship, if possible.

He ceremoniously announced Father's
mutupo
— the lion — and Mother's
chidao
— the heart.

"Our
mutupo
is also the lion," said the old man with slightly more friendliness.

"And my third wife is of the heart clan," said another man.

Third wife? thought Tendai.

The men went back to conversing among themselves. Eventually they let Tendai know their names. The old man was called Garikayi, and most of the others were his younger brothers. They didn't reveal too much about their totems, because such information could be used by witches. Slowly, tediously, the conversation wound on.

Most of it involved cattle. Tendai didn't know how much you
could
say about such boring animals until the men got going. Then he learned that each creature had a personality. They had bad habits, silly cravings and just about every weakness a person might have. Since he didn't know the cattle personally, Tendai's head began to nod.

He jolted awake when the water was brought. The women arrived with pots that they set before the men. Rita appeared, her face wet with tears. She slammed a pot down in front of Tendai, causing several of the men to raise their eyebrows. Everyone washed hands as the women went back to fetch dinner.

Each wife came in with a communal bowl, knelt and presented it to her husband. The women retired immediately. Tendai noted that both Myanda and Chipo presented bowls to Garikayi. Then Rita came in. She knelt and practically flung two small bowls —
sadza
and relish — at his feet. "Thank you," whispered Tendai. He noticed the men did not thank their wives.

"Don't expect me to do this when we get home," Rita whispered back. She disappeared before he could say more.

The men solemnly clapped their hands and said
pamusoro,
"Excuse me," as was polite when preparing to dine.

They ate from the communal bowls, going methodically from one to the next — except for Tendai, who was expected to keep separate. No one spoke now. They attended to the serious business of eating. Tendai saw that while each large bowl contained
sadza,
not all the relishes were the same. Most were a mix of tomatoes, onions and chilies, like the relish Rita had brought him, but one was composed of toasted termites, another of small dried fish, and a third was a platter of fried mice. Tendai was just as happy not to be included in the communal dinner.

The men didn't seem that fond of fried mice either. They left half of them on the platter.

At the end of the meal, everyone washed hands again. A troop of boys arrived to carry off the bowls. After a few moments, the boys returned and greeted their elders before sitting on the ground. A few older women entered the
dare
to listen, and Chipo squeezed herself in by the boys. Garikayi told them to bring her a stool. Tendai could see he was very proud of her pregnancy.

A mutter of anticipation went around the gathering. A few men lit clay pipes with hot coals and puffed out a rank smoke. Garikayi cleared his throat. "What is the small pot that feeds the whole family?" he asked a child of about five.

"The cook fire, honored grandfather," replied the boy.

"Who is the toddler who topples even the chief?" Garikayi inquired of a youth about Tendai's age.

"Sleep, O
sekuru,"
he answered.

Around the fire went the riddles until each child had answered. They were traditional, and Tendai had heard most of them. When his turn came, Garikayi asked, "My mother's house has no door. What am I?"

"An egg," answered Tendai promptly. The men nodded, and he knew he had passed a test.

Then the elders asked each child to recite a proverb. The old sayings had a purpose in village life, but they were completely meaningless in modern Harare. Tendai had trouble remembering them.

"Don't touch the back of your head while walking, or someone in your family will die," said a boy.

"A boy who peeks into the cooking pot will beat his wife when he grows up."

"If you squat on a path, you'll get boils on your backside." Tendai saw a kind of logic to this one: it was the adults' way of keeping the little children from using a public walkway as a toilet.

"If you sing while eating, you'll get mumps," said a child who looked as though he might sing a lot when his mother wanted quiet.

"If you eat while lying down, you'll grow two navels." Weird, definitely weird, thought Tendai. Then they came to him.

"If a black cat crosses your path, you'll have bad luck," hazarded Tendai.

"Never heard that one," said a man.

"I've never seen a black cat. Are you sure that's a Shona proverb?" said another. Garikayi pointed to the next boy, and Tendai knew he had failed that test, whatever it was.

Why should I care? he thought. I'm going home tomorrow. But he found himself wanting to please them.

Garikayi started a chant that turned into a story. It was clear everyone knew it, but the people settled themselves down happily just as Kuda did when the Mellower recited
Peter Rabbit
for the twentieth time.

Garikayi said:
Once there was a man.

The audience responded:
Go on.

Garikayi:
That man was a king.

Audience:
Go on.

Garikayi:
He had a daughter.

Audience:
Go on.

Garikayi:
As beautiful as the sun.

Audience:
Go on.

The story continued in this way, half music, half poetry, as Garikayi told them of a king who placed his daughter on a platform over a big nest of bees in a tree. Anyone who wanted to marry her had to climb over the bees' nest. All the young men got stung so badly, they fell to the ground. At this point, the audience's response changed to: "Oh! Oh! The bees sting! Oh, my mother!"

Tendai thought it was a pleasant way to tell a story. It involved everyone and made them part of the unfolding adventure. In fact, as Tendai joined in with the responses, clapped his hands and swayed with the others, he felt a wonderful sense of belonging. These were his people. He was part of them. It was like being held in many, many arms.